Today In Golf Crazy

I don't know, perhaps we'll stumble over some pockets of sanity, but from my keyboard it looks like golf has embraced the big crazy... Of course, there's lots of that going around, so perhaps they just want to fit in.

The Norman Conquests - Greg Norman's last flirtation with golf relevancy would have been in 1996, so he seems the perfect man for the job.  And, just as the rest of us are awakening to the threat of Chinese hegemony, The Shark has aligned himself with an even more popular backer:

At an extremely select media briefing in New York in the coming days, the Saudis will break with anything that has come before and expand – albeit to hand-picked outlets, of course – on their plans for the professional game’s ultimate disruption plan. Industry insiders believe Greg Norman will be confirmed as the public face of a series – possibly involving a dream of 10 events on the Asian Tour – as obvious, direct competition to the European and PGA Tours. Saudi Golf and the Asian Tour are already in alliance for the Saudi International in February. Norman is understood to have been busy on behalf of the Saudis in the corporate world.

In a post-carbon world, the Saudis are has beens, so the pairing with Norman seems a match made in heaven....

The excerpt above is from The Guardian, so you'll be shocked to learn that they may not have gotten each particular quite right.  For instance, this Sports Illustrated account says the selective briefing has already taken place:

• The new tour was detailed in a private session with "golf media members" Oct. 27 in New York. No organizer or attendee has confirmed, officially, who was there. Golfweek said it was not invited.
• The information given to those media members was embargoed; they agreed to not report on it until next week.

So, back to the fact-intolerant Guardian, who perhaps fills in a detail of why DJ and others are so unrelenting about supporting Saudi golf:

Some players have already signed on for multiple appearances in the Saudi International, as was once the domain of the European Tour. It remains improbable that Dustin Johnson and others will be prevented from being released by the European or PGA Tours for the 2022 staging of that event, despite calendar clashes with other tournaments. Yet the European and PGA Tours have shown no willingness whatsoever to engage with a Saudi breakaway. This makes the issue of multiple releases for any extended series highly problematic. It may also prove a legal minefield.

Improbable?  Both the PGA and European Tours have announced that no waivers will be granted for play in the Saudi event, though the calendar is quite the McGuffin.  It might have more to do with the Saudis trying to put those tours out of business, as opposed to a scheduling conflict with another event.  Just spitballin' here...

But the Guardian has taken time out from its core function of supporting Communists and terrorists, to pen this ode to the Saudi's championing the rights of man:

Saudi Golf has always believed golfers are independent traders and can play wherever they choose.

Does that include women golfers?  Driving their own carts?  Playing with men who might not be family members?  But this seems counter-factual:

Quite rightly, neither the PGA nor European Tour will publicly address the issue of releases for now. If they do so, it both acknowledges a legitimate threat that may not seriously exist and gives the Saudis a position to challenge.

Both tours have issued clear statements that releases will not be granted.  Publicly.

That SI piece had some further details and/or speculation:

• Greg Norman will be announced as the commissioner of the league. Norman proposed a breakaway World Golf Tour in the 1990s that drew the ire of the PGA Tour and led to the World Golf Championships.

What exactly does the Shark bring to the table?  For him it's another bite of the apple, but he's a laughingstock of the game.  From his need to show off his naked torso to the pimped-out golf cart that was going to put the USGA out of business, he's the Joe Biden of golf.  So I guess it makes perfect sense that we'll let him run golf, though we should wait until the dementia kicks in fully.

And just a reminder of the players being targeted:

• In May, Morning Read's Alex Miceli reported that the Saudi backers were willing to spend a billion dollars to bankroll the league and that Phil Mickelson was offered $100 million to join the new tour. Other high-profile players, including Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler, were offered $30 million to $50 million each to defect. How this new proposal affects those financial numbers is unknown.

To which Jay Monahan responded, you can have Phil, Rose, Henrik, Scott and Rickie, and I'm open to offers on Brooksie.  Seriously, it's a good thing that their proposed events will not have a cut, because those players don't make many these days.

It's all quite silly and unlikely to ever get traction, but the involvement of Norman is blogging alchemy.  It takes a tiresome story and spins it into comedy gold...

Reed My Lips - What?  You thought a aggregation of golf crazy wouldn't have a significant contribution from PReed?   Hey, does the Pope s**t in the woods?

I have zero interest in covering it, but our hero is the highest-ranking player in the Bermuda field this week and apparently mad eagle out of the water, which admittedly is quite the thing.  Just not my thing right now.

Geoff and Joel Beall have the goods, and we'll begin with the latter's history, beginning with that faux-embedded ball at Torrey Pines.:

The curious Twitter activity of Patrick Reed

I'll spare you the granular details, opting instead for this brief summary of the account:

The parallels were noteworthy due to year-long speculation that the “useGolfFACTS” account is affiliated with Reed, his family or team. A look into the account’s replies show heavy activity in defense of Reed from various allegations throughout his career. However, the account has done more than defend Reed, making numerous critical and disparaging remarks toward Reed’s fellow competitors and the PGA Tour.

The really curious bit happened at Zero Dark Thirty earlier in the week, when this Twitter account channeled its inner Abraham Zapruder:

The latest curious activity occurred Tuesday evening when the "useGolfFACTS" handle shared a theory that live TV might've altered the footage of Reed's infamous bunker incident at the 2019 Hero World Challenge. The account replied to an Eddie Pepperell tweet from January, claiming that an expert in forensic videography spent 180 hours studying the footage. The conclusion, according to the account, is that the Golf Channel broadcast "digitally altered" the images to "publicly smear" the nine-time PGA Tour winner.

Well, we are coming up on the two-year anniversary:

 Yowzer!  Let me guess, was the Trilateral Commission involved?

And we're apparently reviving and defending the man against every allegation since his college days:

The obvious question is why now, and neither Shack nor Joel speculate on that.  

But 180 hours of video analysis?  Two years after the fact?  But that bit above about disparaging the Tour and other players?  Here's some details on that:

In addition, the “useGolfFACTS” handle has routinely knocked other players, including Justin Thomas. Among the complaints is that Thomas didn’t deserve to be on the cover of the PGA

Tour’s 2K21 video game, that Thomas “is a taker,” and that Thomas shouldn’t get his $2 million Wyndham Rewards bonus because he didn’t play in the Wyndham Championship. There was also a shot at Thomas’ temperament. “His bad attitude and actions were on full display and it was disrespectful to Niemann-his playing partner,” the account asserted on Jan. 4, 2020.

Xander Schauffele was another of the account’s targets. Also on Jan. 4, 2020, under a Golf Channel headline on Schauffele’s odds to repeat at the 2020 TOC, the “useGolfFACTS” handle replied, “Someone should check his new driver to make sure it is conforming,” alluding to Schauffele’s driver failing R&A compliance at the 2019 Open Championship. The account also alleged Schauffele patted down the rough at the 2020 TOC, attaching a video of Schauffele making practice swings.

Which might be an issue if we had a Commissioner worried about anything more than increasing his gambling vig:

Why does this matter? In addition to ensuring some awkward tournament pairings, proof of Reed's direct involvement with a Twitter account that disparages the tour and other players would appear to be in breach of a section of the player code of conduct that addresses such public criticism. A PGA Tour spokesperson told Golf Digest the tour has no comment on the matter. As of writing, Golf Digest has not received a response for comment from Thomas or Schauffele.

But the most curious bit comes in a denial found in the penultimate 'graph:

But to those who believe Reed’s tweet on Saturday is the smoking gun, Reed’s attorneys say that’s not necessarily the case. In response to a Golf Digest email about Reed’s Saturday night Tweet and his connection with “useGolfFACTS,” Reed’s lawyer, Phillip B. Costa, replied “Please be advised that the person who manages Patrick Reed’s Twitter and Instagram accounts does not run the @ use GolfFACTS account.” As of writing, a direct message to the “useGolfFACTS” account from Golf Digest has not been returned.

Isn't that the most curious of non-denial denials?   

Wouldn't you think that the best strategy for the PGA Tour would be to push Patrick into the arms of the Saudis.... Really, doesn't that solve all of Jay's problems in one clever move?

The Hard Work of Saving Golf - Your humble blogger clings to an important delusion, to wit, that golf is better because it doesn't resemble other sports.  Yet a couple of commentators seem quite convinced that our road to salvation (or is it survival?) lies in copying other sports....

The most recent of these is from Sean Zak:

Can the PGA Tour gain popularity by following Formula 1’s footsteps?

This oughta be good...Sean riffs off this:

What I found were The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Sports…

— ✏️Jacob Feldman (@JacobFeldman4) October 26, 2021

As you may have heard, Jay is trying to copy that Netflix model, though I don't much like his chances.  So, what should golf do?

2. Make events BIGGER

This one feels less important, but the Tour is certainly thinking about everything it can do to draw fans to events. After a year with limited or zero spectators, that’s millions of dollars in ticket revenue that disappeared. Can the Tour double down and have concerts at every event? Concerts every night of the tournament? There are probably many events to make this a reality. But the concerts definitely exist at a number of events already. Does that mesh well with this sport? Does that even matter?

OK, that superficially sounds like good advice, though there's a slight problem in that Jay doesn't own the actually big events and his and Nurse Ratched's track record of creating bigness needs a rework.

If I were writing a parody, I would use this, what Alan Shipnuck called Jay Monahan's Katrina:

— Adam Stanley (@adam_stanley) March 10, 2020

I'm still waiting for the media to share a death count...

What's most depressing is that I'd settle for a Commish that actually loved the game, as wasn't going off chasing new shiny objects all the time.

Shack has his own savior complex:

I have a general rule of thumb when it comes to big ticket matters in golf: the sport is at least five

years behind most trends and societal shifts. Make that a decade if something slightly “edgy” is involved. You know, something like people expressing opinions or using the screen for informative stats.

So it would be foolish to expect CBS or NBC executives to sit down this fall with the major golf organizations and say, hey, this ManningCast thing ESPN has been doing is just the kind of thing we should do with all these alternate feeds. You know, instead of another Featured Group channel with analysis by C-listers looking to curry favor.

Of course, Geoff does note this one little problem:

I realize the Mannings are special talents. They’re self-deprecating humor and brotherly bond adds a dimension generally lacking in sports. Adopting this format would not come as easily to a lot of athletes.

So, the anti-Faldos?  Seriously, has anyone ever used self-deprecating in the same sentence as Faldo?  Come to think of it, the same goes for "humor".... 

Although, Geoff does get my attention here:

The Manning’s play golf. Maybe we should see if they are available for a golf version during the PGA Championship? The MNF ManningCast is on ESPN and the Worldwide Leader has streaming rights to the PGA Championship’s alternate feeds. Maybe the Manning brothers would volunteer to jumpstart the concept during the weekend rounds? They could single-handidly speed up golf’s (inevitable) languid approach to the next big concept. The one viewers will be demanding sooner rather than on golf’s maybe later timetable.

Really, any CBS event will do....

Fixing golf broadcasts should be a high priority for the Commish, but Geoff explains he has higher priorities:

The ManningCast is problematic for traditional football broadcasts and maybe all sports sticking to their normal formats. Because after you’ve watched the Mannings, the usual play-by-play/analyst combo feels terribly dated. The Mannings have highlighted how much most sports broadcasting analysis consists of time-killing, fluff and avoidance of humor. (Scientists have proven provocative humor leads to thinking!)

Why have that “content” when we can discuss how the FanPointsDuelBet pregame odds were -172 on a quarterback throwing a touchdown pass?

That's why both efforts seem so hollow.  Sean and Geoff are looking for su to be saved, whereas all we really need is a leadership focused on the actual golf, as opposed to placating their FanDuel masters... Am I the last guy that turns the broadcast on to see the golf?

Good NIL - I'm saddened by the changes to the amateur world, as I don't expect it'll be a good look or work out as intended.  But this is one monetization I can get behind:

Debbie Blount, the 63-year-old sophomore, earns NIL deal with Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux

Have a few years of eligibility and some game left in the tank? There’s name, image and likeness money to be made.

Just ask 63-year-old Debbie Blount, the nearly-senior-citizen sophomore member of the Reinhardt University women’s golf team. Blount joined the team as a freshman walk-on and has since received a partial scholarship and her first NIL deal with Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux as their “Walk-On of the Week.” The program aims to highlight the underdogs in sports and support collegiate walk-on athletes across the country.

Maybe I need to reconsider....

That's it for today's crazy.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you Monday. 

Midweek Musings - Washout Edition

Looks like our regular Wednesday game has been moved to Thursday in light of the Biblical rains...  So, let's go deep, shall we?

The Times, They Are A-Changin' - We may have jumped the gun in reacting to NCAA rule changes that affect college golfers, for today we have the USGA/R&A announcement of their similar loosening of constraints:

The Rules of Amateur Status will read differently come Jan. 1, 2022. And yet for the large majority of everyday amateur golfers, little will be different, save for the fact that prize limits have been bumped $250 and may, under certain circumstances, be payable in cash.

Officials with the USGA and R&A unveiled Tuesday the finished product of their four-year modernization initiative that redefines what amateurs can/can’t do to better reflect the modern game and make the rules easier to understand and apply. Most notably, amateurs now will be allowed to receive money to cover expenses with no restrictions or prohibitions. Additionally, amateurs will be able to make money off their name, image and likeness.

Short term, the biggest beneficiaries of the relaxed rules are elite nationally and internationally ranked players—those whose golf prowess would allow them to be compensated for endorsing, promoting and advertising products and services. Since all previous prohibitions will be lifted, there will be no ambiguity as to what is or is not permissible. The era of Lucy Li being “warned” about appearing in an Apple Watch ad jeopardizing her amateur status are over.

Kudos for the Lucy Li call-out, an incident your humble blogger had almost forgotten.  The fun stuff there was that Li (or her people) knew exactly how to game the system.  They filmed a variety of normal life scenes f Lucy and her iWatch and, wouldn't you know it, just made a game-time decision to use the golf-themed scenes in the final product.

More importantly, the USGA saw this violation of their clear rules, including the deliberate and rather transparent subterfuge, and couldn't be bothered enforcing the rules that every other amateur seemed to play by.  And you wonder at the source of Phil's contempt for the organization?  is there anything the USGA can't do if they have me agreeing with Phil?

Now, is anyone buying this?

Long term, the hope is that the changes will allow up-and-coming golfers previously hindered from developing their true potential because of the monetary issues associated with traveling and playing in tournaments to continue to pursue the game without the burden of certain financial worries.

“Playing tournaments and traveling is expensive. Breaking down the barriers for both getting access to promotion and advertising will provide the ability to raise funds and handle the expense side of things,” said Craig Winter, USGA Senior Director, Rules of Golf and Amateur Status. “So, if you look 10 years down the road, we believe these changes will set the stage for, ultimately, our U.S. Amateurs, regional events, possibly some international competitions outside the United States, to look more inclusive because those younger players at the local level will be able to get support, will be able to move on to the regional level and so on. That’s the biggest change for what people are going to see. [But] that’s going to take some time.”

Ummm, it seems to me that the folks in Far Hills Liberty Corner need to get out more....They seem to believe that young, financially-challenged players will use the proceeds of their monetization of the value of their NIL to fund the cost of competition, whereas those NIL's are, at that point, worth, ummm, well, nil.  So sure, perhaps someone will fund the trip to a golf tournament, but isn't the likely scenario that the kids wil;l be forced to sell the future value of their NILs....  Sounds a little predatory, no?

But, and I know you're asking, is there anything the kids can't do?  Yeah, there's one biggie that sticks out like a sore thumb, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize whose feedlot is being protected:

There will remain some prohibitions in the rules: Amateurs cannot accept compensation for giving instruction (with some notable exceptions), be employed as a club or driving-range professional or hold membership in an association of professional golfers. They can’t play in golf competitions as professionals and are allowed to accept a prize up to a certain nominal limit.

They can become double-agents for the Chinese, they can act in porn movies and they can presumably invade the Capitol, but they cannot be compensated for using their skills to help another golfer.  For those keeping score at home, we'll just call that the Seth Waugh Appeasement.  

Obviously, the ruling bodies' hands were forced in this by the actions of the NCAA, but is the ban on giving instruction any more rational than the previous ban on sponsors and reimbursement of expenses?  Why can't an amateur use the proceeds of instructions to fund his or her travel?  The only reason I can see is to protect PGA club professionals...  Of course, we should be thankful for small favors, because it's pretty rare to see the PGA of America even acknowledge the existence of its dues-paying members, so we've got that going for us.

The harder issue to discern is the relative importance of this move.   I start with the premise that the value of these assets is quite small, based primarily on the TV audience size.  College golf has, in aggregate, sufficient value to warrant Monday-Wednesday coverage on Golf Channel, delivering audience sizes in the mid-six-figures.  That's aggregate value in excess of zero, but the value of each participant would seem to be a rounding error, no?

Shack has a post up for Quadrilateral subscribers, in which he allows us a tease that includes this framing hypothetical:

Congrats Mary! Pistol Pete’s American Diner is so proud of your win in the Greater Boca Raton

Junior Classic, Girls 14-15 division!

So proud, in fact, we’ve taken out this charming digital “classified” ad after you credited your win to our delicious kombucha-based Swamp Burgers (with fresh fruit replacing the fries because we value your dietary needs as you pay your way through junior golf).

See you at the diner Mary and thanks for tagging us on The Snap, The Tok, The Gram and The Meta, as your contract required. Fairways and greens!

Geoff admits to feeling cranky about this, and I tend to agree that it's not a great look.  My distaste is admittedly is tempered by the fact that there's only a limited audience for these assets, though I don't see anyone else worried that the kids will end up selling the future value of their NILs, perhaps without even knowing such terms are buried in legal boilerplate.  And none of the interested parties, the USGA, R&A. NCAA and the various PGAs, seem inclined to even warn the kids about this.

What If We Held a Tourney and No One Came? - We've had no shortage of items covering the dumpster fire that is the PGA Tour's wraparound schedule.  Shack himself has had a series of posts on ratings, the most notable of which had the PGA's round-bellies drawing a higher rating than the main Tour, both of which at times had an audience so small as to not qualify for an actual rating.

The latest of these is just up, indicating that Hideki's ZoZo win was a tree falling in the forest:

The ZOZO moved back to Japan after a one-year stop at Sherwood and without Tiger Woods contending, apparently off all radar screens.

Showbuzzdaily’s weekly roundup included no detectable golf broadcast ratings for Hideki Matsuyama’s ZOZO win, Jin Young Ko’s BMW Ladies Championship win, or Bernhard Langer’s historic Dominion Energy Classic win, all on Golf Channel.

But I’m sure the streaming numbers were yuuuuuge!

Yeah, no one cares, but that's not the least of Jay Monahan's problems.  Have you followed what's going on with this week's event in Bermuda?

Even though the Butterfield Bermuda Championship is offering a two-year exemption to the winner, full FedExCup points, a Masters invite and a week at Port Royal, the event is only going to be played with 127 players instead of the 132 planned.

A whopping 8 of the world top 100 are entered and just 28 from inside the top 200 will be there. An amazing 34 of the players are not in the world top 1000.

Dylan Dethier has been all over this story, although he has kind of buried the lede, which is that this event is struggling despite a significant upgrade in its status:

When an opposite-field event struggles to fill its tournament field, it can dive into the reserves, inviting folks with lesser PGA Tour status by dipping into Nos. 151-200 on the previous year’s FedEx Cup list. That would have included folks like Rafael Campos (No. 151) and Tom Lewis (No. 156). But the Bermuda Championship has (through some dark irony) been upgraded to a “full-field” event each of the past two years, given the cancelation of the WGC-HSBC Champions, so that provision does not apply.

There are some complications related to the location, for sure:

For one thing, Bermuda isn’t the easiest place to get to. The island (technically 181 islands, but the Main Island gets most of our attention) sits some 600 miles off the coast of North Carolina, which is the nearest mainland. Sure, there are plenty of flight options — but if you’re a Tour pro that needs a proper tune-up to get tournament-ready, it might be tricky to get on island and scope Port Royal in time to feel prepped. Travel is especially challenging from Japan, the site of last week’s Zozo Championship. The two islands aren’t exactly in close proximity. And there are come extra complexities flying to Bermuda in particular, like this one: Gay, the defending champion, was among a group of players left behind on Monday as his plane was deemed “too heavy” to take off with everyone aboard.

Bermuda’s Covid-19 policies are also proving a major deterrent for some golfers. To participate in this week’s event, players were required to show proof of vaccination or have undergone a 14-day quarantine period. The PGA Tour does not require its players to be vaccinated and reported that just over 70 percent were vaccinated as of early August. They have not released an update since then, but the requirement makes it extremely unlikely that unvaccinated players would make the trip.

Sure, BUT....  Let me repeat in case the import has been diluted.  They are holding a full-field (as that term is defined this time of year) event with a Masters invite on the line, and they can't fill the field.  Yowzer!

 These will be your featured groups:

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 26, 2021

Wow, that's some serious firepower.... 

Obviously, the wraparound portion of the schedule is a hot mess.  there are some Covid-related complications, but it's pretty clear that there is simply no demand for the product.  I can only hope that one of those players over the 1,000 mark in the OWGR cashes his ticket to Augusta, and then perhaps we can have a serious discussion about  why these events even exist.

You'll ask the obvious question at this juncture, what does it matter if they hold events and no one cares or shows up?  the first answer involves understanding why the PGA Tour plays this time of year... The answer, and it's a bit ugly, is so no one else can.  Got that?

Where might they play?  Well, anyone out there familiar with the news from Australia?  Australia has a long history of holding major events, their Championship season, in December, and U.S. players would make the long journey and participate (most famously, a guy named Nicklaus).  The Australian Open is the most prestigious of these events, but hasn't bene held since 2019 due to Covid.  The great news is that Mike Clayton and Geoff Ogilvy have created a substitute for this year:

Geoff Ogilvy has his eyes on both the men’s and women’s Australian Opens. Not to play, but to

surpass.

The 2006 U.S. Open champion, alongside tournament director and golf course architect Mike Clayton, has created a new professional golf tournament in Melbourne with a unique format that is set to be held at four world-class golf courses. The news was first reported by 10 News First in Melbourne.

The Sandbelt Invitational, Dec. 20-23, 2021, will be played at 2019 Presidents Cup host Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Yarra Yarra and Peninsula Kingwood and will include both men and women, as well as a mix of professionals and amateurs.

“We called a few courses and they were almost unanimously instantaneously, ‘yes, were in.’” said Ogilvy to 10 News.

This is a nice story in many ways, but it also obscures the realty of the U.S. Tour's predatory behavior.  Before we go there, Alistair Tait takes the two Aussies to the woodshed:

Someone needs to have a word with Geoff Ogilvy and Mike Clayton. They’re surely missing the point about what professional golf is all about.

Imagine staging a golf tournament on golf courses picked because they’re great layouts. Haven’t these guys learned anything from a combined 63 years in the professional game?

Don’t they know the quality of the course often has nothing to do with professional golf? Don’t they know it’s all about squeezing every single dollar out of the tournament and to hell with the golf course, especially when owners of said course are willing to pay huge amounts of money to acquire the tournament?

Haven’t they watched the Ryder Cup?

U.S. Open champion (2006) Ogilvy and former European Tour winner Clayton have teamed up to offer a unique event, the Sandbelt Invitational, where the golf courses are the stars. The week before Christmas will see the staging of a tournament for men and women over Australia’s classic sand belt courses – Royal Melbourne, Peninsula Kingswood, Yarra Yarra and Kingston Heath.

Tait is on a role, so let's let him finish his rant:

Methinks Clayton and Ogilvy need to lie down in a darkened room and do a wee bit of reflecting. Showcasing great, classic golf courses and no thought of appearance fees or gate submissions? What. On. Earth? Next thing you know they’ll be saying we should roll back the ball in the professional game to bring long and medium irons back into play rather than driver–wedge golf and 24-under-par winning scores, which is obviously what professional golf is all about. Right? Right?

Slightly off topic, but who doesn't love a good rant?  

The more serious point is that the expansion of the PGA Tour's schedule to twelve months has sucked all the oxygen out of world golf, and not to our collective benefit, methinks.   We know that monopolies result in calcified industries, so why are we allowing this to happen to the golf world?

Not to be a downer, but it's even worse than that, because the only disruptive forces in the game, the Premiere and Super League folks, have an even worse vision for our game.  Not a healthy or sustainable position, at least to this observer.

Udder Stuff - I'm going to throw some unrelated stuff in this grab-all sub-header, beginning with some bits from this week's Tour Confidential panel.  First, it's getting interesting at the top of the women's game for sure:

2. Jin Young Ko’s attempt to shoot a record 15th-straight round in the 60s fell just short when she shot an opening-round 71 at the BMW Ladies Championship — then she shot rounds of 64, 67 and 64 again and won the event in a playoff. It marks Ko’s fourth win in

seven events, and she is expected to unseat Nelly Korda atop the world rankings. As the golf year enters its final weeks, where does Ko’s surge rank among the hottest runs of 2021?

Zak: It’s the hottest run! I think we can make that claim pretty comfortably, even if Jon Rahm might beg to differ. She added tallies to her victory total. Rahm, technically, added only one.

Sens: Can’t argue with those numbers. Now, how to turn those gaudy figures into TV ratings to match?

Dethier: Haven’t seen a dominant run like this since Zak at the office Golden Tee machine in December 2019. Korda made her run, and now Ko has chased her down. The consistency stands out — she’s relentless!

Bamberger: Absolutely, and please, save your typing, dear readers, if you’re going to accuse of us being “woke” but highlighting the great run by a woman golfer. Nothing in golf this year touches it.

The woke Nazis are the least of your problems, Mike, but wazzup with the idiots writing your questions?   There's no question that JYKs streak tops anything in golf in 2021, because the best player in the men's game, Jon Rahm, won exactly one event all year.  I know, it requires a boatload of asterisks, which is why the question is so profoundly silly.

The real question, one that might interest your readers (though, really, why start now?) is the JYK v. Nellie handicapping.  Who's better?  Who will have the better career?  Wouldn't want to touch anything that interesting... wouldn't be prudent.

Next up, our hero Phil:

3. Phil Mickelson downplayed the importance of accuracy off the tee this week. Ahead of this week’s Dominion Energy Charity Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, Mickelson said the host course would require him “to be a little bit more patient and manage my game a

little bit better,” and a reporter noted that and asked: “Please correct me if I’m wrong, [but] your last win on this tour, you were 81st in driving accuracy, I think. I don’t know if I have that exactly correct, but would you get away with that here this week?” To which Mickelson replied: “So, I look at longest, like I try to hit it the farthest out here, and I was No. 1 in driving distance. That’s the way I look at it. If you want to look at stuff that’s irrelevant, have at it. What I’m looking at is distance. I want to hit it — I want to fly it 305 and try to — because I’m a really good wedge player, so if I get wedges in my hand, I’m going to be tough to beat.” Mickelson would finish the event tied for 49th. Is Mickelson’s distance-obsession wise, worrisome or somewhere in between?

Zak: Not worrisome at all. He’s doing exactly what the modern game asks and allows. It’ll probably pay off on the PGA Tour once every other year. It’ll pay off on the Champions Tour a lot. Phil added he’s just trying to have fun on the senior tour and keep competing. What he’s doing is exactly that.

Sens: Not worrisome for him. But it doesn’t make the game more interesting.

Dethier: It’s an interesting thought experiment and an important analytical question. But Mickelson is still at his best when he’s keeping the ball in play. Simply put, if he could drive it straighter, he would be much better. The death of golf this ain’t.

Bamberger: He’s doing what he’s paid to do: Figure out a way to shoot the lowest 72-hole score he can, or lowest 54-hole score. As far as an approach, it stands to reason. As far as making the game more compelling to watch, I think it doesn’t work, but others would surely disagree.

Again with the silly framing, an issue that's bene debated for centuries without resolution.  

But they all seem immune to irony.  has Phil downplayed the importance of accuracy?  His words might point in that direction, though his career kind of argues the opposite, no?

But, of greater importance, his whining about the USGAs action with regard to club length, specifically his disdain for accuracy and childish taunts, have done a bang-up job of downplaying the importance of Phil.  The irony, she burns.

This one could have bene included in the scheduling section above:

4. In the wake of the best season of his career, world No. 1 Jon Rahm is taking off a month to recharge. “More than my body, it is my mind that can’t take it,” he said. “… If we add it all up, I need to rest.” He added, “This is the first time in my life that I don’t want to see a golf club.” With no real off-season in golf anymore, do you sense the mental grind Rahm describes has become a common problem?

Zak: I think each player hits their own limit. Or rather, they learn their limit. You never really hear Dustin Johnson talking about needing a mental break. Rahm has grinded all year through the

many ups and very public downs. He’s at his limit. I’ll bet he’s learned something in the process. I don’t think it means anything special for anyone else.

Sens: No doubt he’s not alone. It’s a job, and a demanding one. But you’ll forgive me for not shedding any tears.

Dethier: It’s a refrain I’ve heard from many a playing partner. Who hasn’t threatened to give up the game after a rough couple rounds? If Rahm had been asked the next day or even after dinner, he may have answered differently. The grind is part of the deal.

Bamberger: Yes, if you drill deep into the statements and body language of all these elite players, they all say that. It’s a shame. It’s the pressure of modern life, where all focus, in anything, is so extreme.

I certainly don't recommend drawing any huge conclusions from the experience of the one guy, especially given the season-from-hell nature of his year.  But in adding the wraparound portion of the schedule, the Tour creates a dilemma for its members, whereby they allow others to get a leg up if they take the time off.

And on Brandel's folly:

5. Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee and architect Agustín Pizá are planning, as our Josh Sens described it, a course that would double as a home for the finest women golfers in the world, a state-of-the-art facility that would be to the LPGA Tour what TPC Sawgrass is to the PGA Tour. The course, in southern Texas, would be designed specifically with women’s golf in mind, with the goal of playing host to a marquee, Players Championship-type event. What do you make of Chamblee and Pizá’s plan?

Zak: It’s absolutely brilliant in theory. I’m excited to see it in reality. I get the sense we’re still a number of years away. Until then, I’m very optimistic!

Sens: Chamblee’s not wrong in saying it’s long overdue. I’m keen to see what happens in the transition from concept to reality.

Dethier: With the ANA’s move away from Dinah Shore, the LPGA should absolutely be targeting signature venues that it can make distinctly its own. Whether or not Chamblee is the one to do it, he’s definitely onto something — particularly the idea that a course shouldn’t just be built from the tips and then adapted from there.

Bamberger: I was delighted to hear about, it but it’s nothing too surprising. When the elite women amateurs play Augusta National from the so-called members’ tees, it plays perfectly — just as AMac and Bob wanted it to play.

The required snark is directed at Sean, Josh and Dylan, who seem not to understand the world as it is.  the LPGA had a venue with scads of history, and the abandoned it for thirty pieces of silver.  So, by all means, develop more signature venues to abandon in favor of future shiny objects.

But Mike gets the gold, for noting one salient detail.  You know what courses play perfectly for the ladies?  Pretty much every single golden age design.... But I'm sure Brandel's will be better...

Gotta run here.  I'll see you again on Friday.

Weekend Wrap - Tuesday Edition

It's that time of year, when wrapping the weekends action lacks any sense of urgency...

ZoZo Rising - The most notable pat of the ZoZo was the curious question I was asked on Sunday morning.  Playing with good buddy Ed Pavelle, he brings up the event which had already concluded.  Ed informs me that he's aware that Matsuyama had coughed up his lead and was one down after eight holes (or was it with eight to play?) to Brendan Steele (from the accounts, I believe Ed confused Steele with Cameron Tringale, but who among hasn't made that mistake?), then follows this dialog:

ED: Do you know who won the ZoZo?

ME: Yes.

ED: Is it worth watching the finish?

ME: (Knowing Matsuyama won by five) Compared to what? 

I'm a confirmed time-shifter, but that was a bit existential even for my tastes.... I had no idea how to answer the question or whether he ended up watching, but I was clear only on that fact that it wasn't worth watching for ME.  On the other hand, if your alternative was the Giants or Jets...

Apparently the local hero went on quite the heater:

In one of the best closing kicks you’ll see, Matsuyama would overcome the deficit, shoot a back-nine 32 and win by five. And do it all at home. Outside of (perhaps) his Masters victory in April, the Zozo win goes down as unquestionably his most special, as it’s his first on the PGA Tour in Japan.

The Tour Confidential panel had this take:

1. Hideki Matsuyama rallied from a one-shot deficit with eight holes to go win the Zozo Championship by five shots. The event was played in Matsuyama’s home country of Japan, and on the Golf Channel broadcast, Pat Perez described the atmosphere as if fans had seen Elvis. Between this victory and Matsuyama’s winning week at the Masters, what did you learn about his game in 2021 that you didn’t know a year ago?

Sean Zak: Gee, I don’t know. He’s still a very poor putter by Tour standards. Perhaps we’ve learned that he can still ball-strike his way to a victory when the moment is grand? There’s pretty

much nothing more mind-bending than the back nine at Augusta, but he didn’t show it. I think we’ve learned what he’s learned: that his caddie, Shota Hiyafuji, is a great teammate.

Josh Sens: A big sports bettor who parses the stats much more closely than I do tells me that Hideki’s putting improves by leaps and bounds when the greens are bentgrass. But that’s deeper in the weeds than anything I’ve got on my own. The perfectionist streak in him is what struck me. Especially at the Olympics. I recall one shot in particular, an approach on the back side, when Hideki did that one-handed finish and slumped his shoulders. The ball ended up about 10 feet from the flag, pin high. I texted a Japanese reporter friend saying, “Hideki doesn’t look happy with that result.” My friend texted back: “Never.”

Dylan Dethier: I’ve learned just how much there still is to learn. In August of 2017, Matsuyama revealed at a press conference that his wife had given birth more than a month earlier. This was exciting news, and noteworthy for at least one surprising reason: Nobody knew he was married. Why? “No one really asked,” he said. Hideki and Shota occasionally reveal little nuggets of off-course fun on social media; what I’ve learned this year is that this team seems to goof off plenty and have a blast together. But even that serves as a reminder that Matsuyama likes his private life kept private.

Michael Bamberger: This is not a statement about his game, but about his status. In Japan and across large swaths of Europe, he’s as big as Jumbo (Ozaki) was at the height of his powers, and then some. Bigger, really, than all the Ozaki brothers put together. Huge.

If the most interesting thing about the guy is that he gest treated like Elvis, then he's not all that interesting, is he?  Or at least he keeps it from view, another shared experience with Tiger.

This is no more than a local story of passing interest, as happy as we might be for the man and his countrymen.  I'd feel a whole lot better about the adoration if that Masters win had been a stronger statement, whereas I think it historically ranks with Fuzzy's .  Dave Shedloski way overinterprets with this homage:

Here are 9 hometown wins that rival Hideki Matsuyama's triumph in Japan

Trust me, it's a sorry lot:

Steve Stricker leads Team USA to record Ryder Cup romp in his native Wisconsin

Yep, just last month, a teary-eyed Stricker—a happy Stricker is always a teary-eyed one—captained the American team to a dominating win over Europe at Whistling Straits, and when he wasn’t letting the emotion of the moment wash over him, he was accepting all the applause and cheers from his fellow cheese heads with genuine gratitude. There was a lot of pressure on the Madison product, ratcheted up by having to wait an extra year, but saying it was worth it is an understatement.

Ummm, Dave, you're aware that Strick didn't actually play?

But at least that was an event of some magnitude.  This is tree in the forest stuff:

J.J. Henry becomes first Connecticut native to capture the Travelers Championship

A third-generation golf standout from Fairfield, Conn., Henry broke through for his first PGA Tour title in 2006 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell when it was called the Buick Championship. Henry had first played in the event on a sponsor exemption as an amateur in 1998 with his father Ronald on the bag. The emotional win propelled Henry to his only Ryder Cup appearance.

J.J. Henry moves the needles as well as ever, so we at least have that going for us.  But we all knew that this is the ultimate home game in golf history:

Francis Ouimet puts American golf on the map

This list isn’t worth squat without the ultimate hometown, home course, homer victory. Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur, is responsible for what historians call “the great awakening in American golf,” with his playoff victory in the 1913 U.S. Open over British giants Harry Vardon and Ted Ray at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. Ouimet lived next door to the Country Club and had caddied there, so he knew the layout well. Still, he was a massive underdog. The home crowd hoisted him on their shoulders when he beat the favored Brits in the 18-hole playoff, he made headlines across the country, and all of America rejoiced in the triumph.

The list still isn't worth squat, but who else has won a major with a ten-year-old caddie?

The Winther of Our Discontent -  What's the hardest thing about notching your first win?  Well, I imagine it's different for each guy, though this one had quite the unique twist:

Just when a door was about to open, the bathroom one shut.

“I thought, jeez not today,” Jeff Winther said.

Of all the days. Over the years, the likable 33-year-old from Denmark had been only on the doorstep. Over 30 top-20s split over the European Tour and the lower-tier Challenge Tour. A handful of thirds on both Tours. A high of second, at the 2016 Tshwane Open on the big tour. No wins. No leads after 54 holes on the European Tour, either. Until, finally, Saturday night, where he sandwiched a second-round 71 with two 62s and led by two at the Mallorca Golf Open.

 You get where this is going:

“After breakfast, I went to have a shower and my wife came in to use the bathroom as well,” he said. “The door closed, and there’s no lock, but we locked ourselves in. There’s no lock on the door, but the handle didn’t work.

“Our little girl, Nora, 6 years old, had to go and find guys at reception to break down the door. We were in there for 45 minutes, I think. I thought, not Sunday, you’re leading the freaking event. Might not get there for your tee time. What a morning.

“I think it probably settled the nerves because I thought I might miss my tee time and thought I might not get out. The kids are in the living room, 6 and 2 years old, what can you do?”

Funny story....

Golf In The Kingdom, Perhaps -  The man can certainly hold a grudge, we have to give him that.  The Premiere Golf League stuff remains in the wings Stage Left, though there are now two competing groups involved.  The Saudi effort has been rocked back onto their heels by Jay Monahan's refusal to approve of PGA Tour players appearing in that Saudi event, though there's news on that front.

The unknown to me Brad Clifton has an Op-Ed up indicating that they have found the perfect candidate to lead this effort:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Recent media speculation suggesting that global golf icon Greg Norman has been tapped up to

lead a new worldwide professional golf platform is gaining serious traction.

Reports of record sums of money being offered to the world’s best players in an F1-like model that would feature a combined team and individual competition might not be exactly how he envisioned his own ‘world tour’ concept a quarter of a century ago but, then again, maybe it is. One thing that is certain is the global outreach for such a platform will be equally as significant, if not more.

If the latest Norman rumours are indeed true, it’s the best news golf has received in a long time.

Has there been a more influential innovator in the world of golf over the past 40 years? It’s why ‘The Shark’ is the perfect person to help modernise the game at a time when the PGA Tour hasn’t exactly ticked all the boxes in its efforts to deliver a compelling product and give global golf and sport fans what they really want – the world’s best players competing against each other on a regular basis outside of the Majors and, crucially, outside of the United States.

That "if at first" bit seems out of place, given that the Saudis are making their first attempt at this by stealing the concept of the UK-based Raines Group, but whatever.

But the Shark as "influential innovator" comes as a bit of a surprise... your case for that would be what, exactly?  This is as close a she gest to supporting that rather bold assessment:

There is no doubt that golf needs a shake-up, and competition and different ways of showcasing the game’s top talents will only improve the sport for all parties.

I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy many encounters with Norman over the years – and the odd disagreement. But, just like when he ruled roost as a player, you can’t help but take in his every word and stride. Of all the pearls of wisdom he has dropped over the journey, one thing stands tall. I once asked him what truly made him a winner. He didn’t hesitate with his reply: “Competition makes the world a better place for everything and all. I could never have been number one without it.”

And so perhaps, as the Shark comes full circle, a little bit of competition is just what today’s professional game needs. 

This to me is the most interesting bit, though the more enjoyable Shark-trashing will follow.  They're telling us it's all about the competition, and the solution for that is to not have a competition, or at least to have a tightly controlled one.  The fundamental nature of golf is that the best players win only 5% of the time, which maddens many.  The solution is to ensure that Tiger and Phil go head-to-head (Insert your won top-tier players), which I call made-for-TV spectacles, and those typically suck.  

So, back to Shark as innovator?  Shack does the heavy lifting, linking back to his own 2017 post in which the very same Topless Shark last played his innovator Bingo card:

“In the middle second quarter of next year, I’ll invite you guys down to my office,” he said. “We will tell you exactly how we’re going to break this cast iron that’s been wrapped around golf for so long. We’re going to shatter it. The institutions (USGA, R&A, PGA of America, PGA Tour) will eventually buy into it because they will have to buy into it. They won’t have a choice.”

What, you don't remember how he broke that cast iron wrapped around golf?  That turned out to be, and I do hope you're sitting down, a golf cart with speakers....  So, sure Greg, go ahead and save our game yet again.

On a related note, this whole Saudi thing could get even more interesting:

Eight PGA Tour players—including world No. 2 Dustin Johnson—are seeking permission to compete at the Saudi International tournament, Golfweek has learned. The Tour previously said that it would deny waivers for its members to take part in the controversial event.

Tour players need to obtain a release to compete on other circuits. A Tour spokesperson confirmed to Golfweek that a decision on waiver applications is not required until 30 days before a tournament starts. The Saudi International is scheduled for February 3-6 at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in King Abdullah Economic City, meaning players might not learn if they will be permitted to play until Tuesday, January 4.

Golfweek has obtained a current list of players who have already applied for a release to compete in Saudi Arabia in February. It includes Johnson, the defending champion who also won the title in 2019, and 2020 winner Graeme McDowell. The others are: Abraham Ancer, Lee Westwood, Tommy Fleetwood, Henrik Stenson, Kevin Na and Jason Kokrak, who is sponsored by Golf Saudi. PGA Tour policy requires players seeking releases to specify the event they wish to play and not just a week on the calendar.

Stay tuned, as Jay's troops, or at least some of them, appear unhappy to not be able to cash Saudi checks.  For a bit there some of the players were criticized for taking the dirty money, though I haven't seen any criticism (or Tour reaction to) of Kokrak for his sponsorship deal.  Jay just obviously wants these folks to go after someone else's feedlot, but who knew independent contractors could be so, well, independent?

I shall leave you here.  The good news is that we're supposed to get so much rain that the Wednesday game is in doubt... So, perhaps we'll reconvene then.

Your Friday Frisson

We've got a series of stories that we could go deep on, so we'll just start banging away at the keyboard and see where it all goes...After devoting a couple of minutes to those results from Japan.

On Hideki - The local favorite's defining feature as a golfer is his post-contact reactions and their low correlation to actual results.  Often it's just a one-handed feature, but the guys seems to hate every one of his shots, even the good ones.  Amusingly, that apparently crosses over to his pressers:

Zozo Championship: Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama says his game is currently a 1 out of 10 but proceeds to shoot 64

Hometown hero Hideki Matsuyama didn’t disappoint his faithful as the PGA Tour returned to his native Japan for the Zozo Championship.

Matsuyama, who solidified his rock-star status at home by winning the Masters in April, surprised even himself with his flawless play in the opening round. He birdied two of his first three holes and fired a bogey-free 6-under 64 at Accordia Golf Narashino, located just east of Tokyo. That score was good enough to tie Chile’s Joaquin Niemann for the second-best score of the day and leave both players one stroke off the lead. On the eve of the tournament, Matsuyama downplayed his chances for success.

“If my game scored 10 out of 10 at the Masters, now I would say it scores less than 1,” he said. “I will be struggling this week but I am here in Japan so I am motivated to be in contention.”

It's his signature move, which at least is preferable to the Brooks/Tiger strategy of manufacturing grievances to use as motivation.   Perhaps he does that as well, but has the good sense not to share it with us.

Perhaps the biggest news from the ZoZo, where few top names made the arduous trek, is the announcing crew, which is weak even by the lowered standards of the subsistence level Golf Channel:

Golf Channel’s booth is a little light this week with the Zozo in Japan — George Savaricas is the announcer and Dom Boulet and Alison Whitaker are the analysts — and Savaricas teased on Twitter that players would be pitching in over the four rounds. First up, after his even-par 70, was Fowler, and his first live hole was the 17th.

Likely the names of those two analysts isn't ringing any bells, since their golf and announcing careers occurred mostly in Asia and Europe.  The most notable aspect of Boulet's history was his representation of Hong Kong in international events, a wistful reminder that change isn't always for the better.  How many years until we say the same about Taiwanese players?

Since it's obviously not the A-Team, Golf Channel has come up with a gimmick:

— George Savaricas (@GeorgeSavaricas) October 20, 2021

Nota  bad gimmick, though there are precious few name-brands in the field, though you'd have to expect that the X-man would be on the list for sure.  Amongst the subjects Rickie touched on, is that tendency of the Local Hero we noted above:

On Matsuyama’s penchant for overexaggerating bad shots.

“Hideki and I have played a lot together. We’ve had some good battles. And he is one of the premier ball-strikers out here. It is impressive what he thinks is a little off and hits a pretty darn good shot. A lot of times you’re watching the ball and then you see him kind of one-hand finish and you’re like that doesn’t really match — you know, it’s 15 feet right. He has just such high expectations and always shooting for perfection.”

He's about to become a father, which he touches on as well.  The second round is complete with Hideki in the lead, so the locals will be over the moon.  Not much else to tell, as this one isn't for American audiences.

On Rory - We have a new Ask Alan mailbag feature to riff off of, and he leads with a couple related to the dominant player in the world (at least for the prior five days):

Do you believe Rory is Rory again? @ESPN_SwingCoach

One problem with this formulation: Who is Rory? Is he the cold-blooded killer who blew away the

field at major championships and out-alpha’d Phil at Valhalla? Is he the philosopher king who just wants to read self-help books and downplay the importance of winning? The player who was overwhelmed by the moment at Royal Portrush in 2019 and at Whistling Straits last month? The young maestro who joins Tiger, Jack, Arnie, Lord Byron and Tom Watson as the only players to win 20 tournaments including four majors before turning 33? The guy who shoots 76 seemingly every Masters Thursday or the one who shoots 61 to win at Quail Hollow? Turns out McIlroy is all of these things, which is what makes him so compelling and maddening. McIlroy is a very old 32. He has spent the last few years trying to figure out what he wants out of life and his career. Maybe the clarity that came between the Ryder and CJ Cups will change everything for him. Maybe it’s just another little diversion. I don’t think even Rory has a clue what the future holds for him. I do know this: We’ll all be riveted as he tries to figure it out.

I think Alan did a pretty reasonable job there with the Yin and Yang of our philosopher king.  Though he cites Valhalla, he misses the kill shot of reminding folks that that was eight years ago (at least counting back from 2022, the soonest that Rory could add to his major total.

But I think this is the more interesting bit on the topic:

What of Rory’s quote of “If I play my best I’m the best in the world.” Surely a sustained run of victories and big ones is needed to justify it? @pth1974

Objectively, yes. Jon Rahm is the best player in the world right now. When all of the top talents are at their peak, Dustin Johnson’s best is the best. Rory certainly needs to get it done at another major championship before he reenters the conversation. But I have zero confidence in his declaration. That’s exactly the kind of swagger Rory needs to reclaim if he is going to be a dominant force again.

Both the questioner and Alan approach nit from a results-based perspective, and there's nothing wrong with that. 

My answer is a simple, "Hell No!"  Rory's wedge game and putting are demonstrably below the standards of his peers, so it seems objectively clear to me that Rory cannot be the best player in the world as he frames that argument.  More importantly, what is he doing to cure those deficiencies?  Mostly talking about being the best player in the world, so that seems like a plan, no?

On Amateurs - The times, they are a changing... not necessarily for the better, though that may depend upon your perspective.

Back in August, you might recall that I jumped on the Rachel Heck bandwagon as the Women's U.S. Amateur came to my back yard.  Those of you that took that prediction seriously are guilty of forgetting that I retain my position as the '62 Mets of fantasy golf, though that's not important now.  It's just jarring to see notices such as this:

— excel sports (@excelsm) October 18, 2021

Just to clarify, NIL relates to Name, Image and Likeness, which college athletes now can exploit, although color me skeptical about the extent of the value.   What makes this interesting is that her biggest competition for such riches might just be her new teammate, who has been on quite the heater:

It’s been 19 years since Lorena Ochoa had what many consider the most dominant single season

in women’s college golf history. An Arizona Wildcat sophomore in 2001-02, Ochoa won her first seven tournaments starts before finishing second at Pac-10 Championship in April. She won the NCAA Regional for an eighth victory, then finished T-2 at the NCAA Championship. Less than 12 hours after nationals, she turned pro, having competed against in her two-year stint in Tucson 1,880 golfers and beated all but 15 of them.

How much of that history Rose Zhang is aware of is unknown, but the 18-year-old Stanford freshman is likely to learn more of it in the coming week as she embarks on one of the more anticipated college debuts in recent memory—and starts to follow the legend of Ochoa.

On Sunday at the Stanford Invitational, Zhang finished her third college start for the Cardinal with her third victory. She made just two bogeys over 54 holes en route to shooting a school-record-tying 16-under 197 at the Stanford Golf Club. In nine college rounds, the Irvine, Calif., native has shot par or better eight times, is a collective 23 under par and has an impressive stroke average of 69.11.

She's the No. 1 ranked amateur player in the world, so none of this comes as a complete surprise.  But it is quite the run, and there seems little doubt which is the team to beat come May and the NCAA's.

It just so happens that Dr. Shipnuck answers a question on this young lady, and does so by analogizing interestingly:

What can one say about Rose Zhang that hasn’t already been said? Three college tourneys, three Ws. I know it’s still early, but would you hazard a comparison? @caia437

Lydia Ko. Zhang (above) has the same silky touch and imagination and gift for scoring. She seems to radiate the same joy and retain the same humility even with her success. That Zhang is having a college experience and expanding her mind and circle of friends at a great university gives me hope that she can avoid the existential crisis that slowed Ko.

I'm not convinced that that alleged "existential crisis" was the issue with Lydia, as I still maintain that it all went bad when she ditched the eyeglasses.  Joking aside, I actually think Ko's fall from form was attributable in some degree to her lack of length, though there no question that she's fired more swing coaches and caddies than the entire Korn Ferry Tour.

I'm not a fan of college athletes cashing in, especially the more so since the cash is limited to men's football and basketball, which have historically subsidized the balance of school's athletic programs.  I'm far from convinced that this new status quo is sustainable, but that's something we can sit back and watch develop.

However, we also think that the college experience is good for these kids, mostly because of how the players talk of those years after the fact.  So your humble blogger may not love the attempts to cash in from prepubescent teens, but if that keeps Rose and Rachel at Stanford, perhaps I'll have to make my peace with it.

On Brandel - Yesterday we had quite the fun poke at Chamblee from Eamon Lynch, one I wouldn't presume to better.  But the timing is good, because Brandel is hawking a vanity project that's chock full of his usual brand of BS:

Picture a course that would double as a home for the finest women golfers in the world, a state-of-the-art facility that would be to the LPGA Tour what TPC Sawgrass is to the PGA Tour.

Like Sawgrass, it would be open to the public for a high-end fee. It would also host a marquee annual event, a Players Championship, of sorts, that would showcase the talents of top female players in ways never seen before, because, for the first time, every inch of the grounds would be designed specifically with their games in mind.

Hard to argue with, right?  Pull up an easy chair and watch me argue...

But did you catch that bit about a Women's Players Championship?  Like most of what comes out of Brandel's mouth, it sounds pretty good, at least up until the moment you start to think about it.  Why does the Players Championship exist?  Because the PGA Tour doesn't own any of the men's majors, whereas the LPGA effectively controls all women's majors except the Women's U.S. Open.  So sure, a Women's Players Championship would be cool, if only because I could call it the sixth of five...

But look at the whopper he's telling:

For the better part of a decade, in print, on air and in the Twittersphere, Chamblee has been vocal on the issue, calling out what he regards as problematic designs and setups for women.

In nearly every respect — hole length, fairway width, rough height, bunker depth, and on — he believes the venues are poorly suited to their purpose. Far from bringing out the best in women’s games, they often place women at a disadvantage.

As far back as 2012, Chamblee put a fine point on this perspective in a GOLF Magazine column that compared scoring averages on the LPGA and PGA tours; season after season, he wrote, with a litany of stats as backup, those scores were higher for the women. In Chamblee’s view, the discrepancy had nothing to do with ability (the women were every bit as skilled as their male counterparts; they just weren’t as strong) and everything to do with the courses they were playing.

Ya got that?  They're every bit as skilled... Who ya gonna believe, Brandel or your lyin' eyes?

Brandel, here are the 100 meter results from Tokyo:

Men's: Winner: Lamont Marcell Jacobs - 9.80 seconds

Women's: Winner: Elaine Thompson-Herah - 10.61 seconds

Brandel, I assume you'll assert that they're equally skilled?  Should we match them up and see who wins?

Now, who wants to tell Brandel that he's not helping himself with this example:

As a recent illustration of this theme, Chamblee points to the 2021 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, not an LPGA event but still an elite competition. On the 18th hole of the final day, two of the top three finishers, Karen Fredgaard and eventual winner Tsubasa Kajitani, found the first fairway bunker on the left off the tee. Fredgaard caught the lip on her approach and failed to reach the green, while Kajitani didn’t even try to get on in regulation. She laid up.

Contrast that with an iconic moment from the Masters.

“Most of us have little trouble conjuring the memory of Sandy Lyle flipping a 7-iron from that same bunker to 10 feet and making birdie to win the green jacket,” Chamblee says. “Is that because Sandy Lyle is more skilled than the best women players in the world? No. It’s because he’s stronger and can get the ball up higher and faster with a more lofted club.”

Hitting the ball high is a golf skill, Brandel, regardless of what you may think.  But pointing out that the wolrds best women amateur players in 2021 didn't have the skills of a top professional man in 1988 seems rather an admission against interest.

He may have a point here, but barely:

Distance alone, though, is not the only issue. The crux of the problem, Chamblee says, is that courses are designed for men from the start, with after-thought adjustments to accommodate women. Pushing the tees forward is a standard tactic. But, Chamblee says, that’s not a real solution. If anything, it sets off a negative chain reaction, creating layouts with awkward landing areas, odd angles into greens, hazards placed in spots that dim strategic options. You get the gist.

Maybe.  I should note that Chamblee repeats something we had a while back, an argument from Beth Ann Nichols that LPGA courses are set up needlessly difficult, and that the events would be more entertaining if the set-ups allowed for lower scoring.  

What I find laugh-out-loud funny is the concept that a special, purpose-built field of play is needed for the women's game.  At random I chose this years KPMG-LPGA event, for which the Olympic Club was set up at 6,486 yards.  Do you know what course would be perfect for the ladies.  Every single one built during the Golden Age of U.S. architecture.

As just one example, I Googled Merion and got this info:

While the scorecard yardage was 6,694 in 1950, it was in reality more like the 6,544 yards on the 1971 U.S. Open scorecard, the product of more accurate measuring. Even in 1950 that made Merion one of the shortest championship courses of its era.

Of course Merion has committed unnatural acts to extend the course to 7,000+ yards, but do we think there's anything wrong with the 6,500 yard course as originally designed and still played by its members?   

I know he's in high volume sales mode, but turn off your BS detectors...

On Mental Health - I'm more sympathetic on this subject than you might expect, though this header is way overwrought:

Pro golf is approaching its own mental health reckoning

There's a couple of journalistic sleights-of-hand that bear exposing.  While leading with Matthew Wolff, Daniel Rappaport then builds his case using poster children Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, who have precious little to do with our game and have become to me entirely tiresome examples.  Osaka especially, because at the 2019 U.S. Open she went out of her way to becomes a social justice warrior, then later decided she preferred to be Great Garbo.... 

The second tic on display is to cite a handful of examples, some of the extremely borderline nature, and extrapolate from those to the larger population.  But without any understanding of how we've become so risk-averse that we can no longer absorb the risks of venturing out each day, much less the rigors of elite athletic competition.

Where Rappaport succeeds is in describing the tough lives os aspiring touring professionals:

“Let’s say a guy is on-site for seven hours,” says Sessinghaus, “and then he does a media thing, they go to their hotel, they see themselves—the reminders are constant that they are a golfer. When everything is viewed through that identity as a performer, then the only filtering that comes back is did I perform well or not? And if I did not, that bleeds into your identity as a person. Not just a golfer. Can I have a poor tournament, and still be happy with myself? That is a huge challenge. It’s so cause and effect. It’s, I’m the one who missed a cut. I didn’t make a check. I played so bad. When you use the word ‘I’ a lot, that becomes your identity.”

Motivational structures become skewed. Parents might dream it, but no child picks up golf with fame and fortune in mind. A kid wants to whack that ball, to improve, to spend time with family. Experts call this intrinsic motivation. Then college scholarships enter the picture. Turning professional. Winning tournaments. Moving up the World Ranking. A private jet. Somewhere along the way, the motivation shifts to extrinsic. Golf morphs from a passion to a means to an end.

“Doing it as a job or for a living—that's when the joy goes out of it and that's when you lose your innocence,” Rory McIlroy said at the Tour Championship. “There's a part of that that goes the further along you get in this professional career.”

I'm sorry, was this supposed to be easy?  Does every young man or woman have an inalienable right bestowed by their creator to be a successful touring professional?

In our increasingly-therapeutic world, we seem able to accept that certain golfers don't have the physical capabilities to succeed at the top levels of the game.  But why can't accept that certain individuals simply aren't cut out for the demands of professional golf, without it being a mental illness?  Bobby Jones famously said, “Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course – the distance between your ears,” isn't this issue what he meant by that?

But an equally appropriate aphorism, one I first heard applied to law firm compensation, is that "That which gets rewarded gets repeated."  Our current therapeutic approach includes accommodating players who fail to perform portions of their obligations, most notably those who now refuse to speak to the hostile press.  Bryson DeChambeau and Naomi Osaka, most notably should call their offices, but in reliving them of their responsibilities we will now encourage more players to do the same.

I have sympathy for the Matt Wolffs and other players cited, and will remind you of a previous discussion in these pages regarding Grayson Murray (who shows up in Rappaport's article).  Murray, as you might recall, is one of those guys that's created nasty incidents at pretty much every stage of his golfing development, which he's now attributing to alcoholism.  The point I made then and which still stands is that he seemed a young man unable to manage the stresses and rigors of elite sports.  There's no shame in that, it simply takes physical and psychological outliers to succeed in that world.  And, this being the important part, perhaps the best thing for such young people is to be guided away from that which they can't handle.

But the other aspect of our game might be to not rush these guys into the lonely world of the professional game, a subject we touched on in the prior post.  This is why I've been so critical of the PGA Tour (and, to a lesser extent, the USGA) for those policies that have hurt the amateur game and incentivized the kids to turn professional earlier.  

Otherwise, golf is hard and wouldn't be worth a damn if it wasn't.  

Cheap Shots - A couple of more bits, some from that Shipnuck mailbag, and then we'll let you start your weekend.  I could just as well have included this above with the lead item:

Did you see anything in Rickie’s play this week that says this can be sustained success, or does it feel like a flash in the pan?@VeryAvgDad

The answer Thursday through Saturday was his smile; he had his old lightness of being. On Sunday, Fowler looked puckered. Totally different visage as the strain began to show. He has been grinding so hard, and under such a big microscope, the Sunday scaries were probably inevitable. But if he can maintain that early-week jauntiness and palpable love of being back in the spotlight for all four rounds, I think another victory is coming.

The early returns aren't great, as Rickie is +1 (T35) after 36 holes at the ZoZo, against a pretty weak field.

This one would have belonged in our final item:

Do you think that on the strange, pressure-filled, perfectionist and contentious road Bryson has put himself on there is any chance of him having some kind of a breakdown or mental health issues in the near future? Or is he just too stubborn and iron-y for that to happen? @Dunk2604

You can’t overpower mental health issues with big biceps or blinding clubhead speed. I’ve definitely shared your concerns about DeChambeau. Brooks Koepka’s bullying and the related hazing from the galleries certainly took a toll on Bryson this year, and the back-nine meltdown on Sunday at the U.S. Open was metaphysical. Not long after that he was snarling at fans. The Ryder Cup could be a game-changer for DeChambeau. It was the first time all season he truly felt the love from the crowd, and he reciprocated with excellent and wildly entertaining golf. If he can avoid saying anything dumb—admittedly, not his strong suit—perhaps there will be a different feeling in the air, which would certainly help Bryson. But he still has a childlike need for attention and validation, and that reveals something deeper and more complicated. The good news is that mental health has never been more of a priority in professional sports, and DeChambeau will have a lot of support and resources if he needs it.

Interesting test case, though the message we might want to emphasize (and the point I didn't make above) is that virtually every world class athlete suffers from mental health issues.  If they were normal, they wouldn't be what they are...

And Alan's take on Phil and the USGA:

Is Phil’s out-spoken-ness against the USGA his last/best way of sticking it to the org? How many times has Mike Whan called him in the last 6 months? #AskAlan @EthanZimman

Phil has been at war with the USGA, off and on, since the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock. That week he played some of the best golf of his life, but his bid to win the elusive Open was stymied by the out-of-control course setup (and, in fairness, Retief Goosen’s steely play). The USGA-inspired renovation of Torrey Pines ruined one of Mickelson’s favorite courses, at least in his mind. He busted his wrist in the absurd Oakmont rough in 2007. He barked at Mike Davis in the middle of the final round at Merion in 2013, not the best use of his mental energy while trying to win the national championship. And of course he perpetuated the ridiculous civil disobedience when there was another setup screwup at Shinnecock in 2018. So, yeah, Mickelson is never going to miss a chance to blast the USGA, especially if it’s taking away one of his favorite toys, the 47.5-inch driver. (Though it’s actually the PGA Tour that would be enacting the local rule, but never mind the nuance.) When Phil’s stridence intersects with his need to be the smartest guy in the room, he’s going to take some extreme positions. Clearly the modern power game is overwhelming golf’s ancient playing fields, and limiting driver length is a no-fuss way to tap the brakes. I don’t see what the big deal is, but unlike Phil, I don’t have a lifetime contract with Callaway.

Phil's been throwing hissy fits since at least 2004.... But the bigger story is how he's been coddled, and therefore the behavior is repeated.  Nurse Ratched and his successor have allowed Phil to socialize with gamblers and criminals, to not satisfy his gambling debts and to conduct himself in a variety of ways that aren't consistent with the alleged values of the game.  As someone once said, that which gets rewarded...

Finish this sentence: The Champions Tour broadcast exists because __________ . I’ll hang up and listen. @robmillertime

Otherwise we wouldn’t know that if your erection lasts for more than four hours you should contact a doctor immediately.

Yeah, it's hard to see the value there beyond Cialis' target demo.

You need to tiebreak an HOF induction: 2 players, each 1 U.S. Open , each brief stint as No. 1, each never really took off into the public awareness sphere. One has a Players Championship, one has an Evian championship — which one gets your nod from on high? #AskAlan @tallboy199

Neither? It’s supposed to be the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good. The impoverished standards of the last decade or two have become a bummer. But the induction ceremony is now a glitzy TV show that demands warm bodies, so every borderline candidate is now guaranteed to get in. I would like the Hall to be more discerning.

And not just golf's version thereof.  Bill James has long been all over the declining standards for the baseball version thereof, it's a similar process.  It's not just the need for that ceremony, but the introduction of a marginal candidate (Can you say Monty? ) thereby lowers the standards for all future classes.

Have yourselves a great weekend.  Unfortunately I will not be with you on Monday, as I will instead be being beaten up y Bethpage Black in conjunction with the Met. Golf Writers.  I might also be getting a little wet, a tradition for our annual visits to Black.  I'll see you on Tuesday for sure.