Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Tuesday Trifles

We might need to dig a little deeper today for content but, worry not, that's why I have a gazillion browser tabs still open, some from the late 1970's.

Phil Does Phootball - As near as I can tell, Phil's twenty minute appearing on last night's Manningcast went well, although Shack seems to be casting (pun intended) an odd dissenting vote.  But first, these raves from Twitter (not that I know the individuals involved):

And:

Phil showing well in a talk format strikes me as the ultimate dog-bites-man story, especially in a limited time frame.  If Phil were to have an issue, it would to this observer likely be over the long haul, where boredom or the need to constantly talk might encourage him to go beyond his carefully curated talking points.

Nick Piastowski of Golf.com stayed up late and offers up five high points, first admitting what we all instinctively knew:

“I’ve seen a lot of videos of you throwing the football and honestly it looks pretty good,” Eli Manning said. “What I see is No. 1, it comes out good. Kind of two questions. In the video, you’re wearing your glove because a lot of times you’re on the golf course. Do you always wear the glove?

And No. 2, you throw right-handed. What’s the deal with that? That kind of shocked me a little bit.”

“Yeah, so I like to wear a glove so I’m ready for all weather conditions,” Mickelson said. “I like a quick release. But here’s the thing — I am soft. I don’t like getting hit, I don’t like getting tackled, and I don’t like the viciousness of football. I can admit it — I don’t want nothing to do with the hits that you guys are taking. I’ve never been in a game that’s so vicious as the NFL or something like that. So golf is right up my alley.”

Given that he's been likened to the Pillsbury Doughboy (not to mention Employee No. 2's theory that he's had breast reduction surgery), his being soft doesn't come as a shock.  

Peyton did drop this bombshell:

“I don’t know if you know this, but in Indianapolis, before I said Omaha, we actually had your name into our offense,” Peyton Manning said. “We had a snap count called Tiger. And a snap count called Phil. It’s really irrelevant which one was on one and which one was on two — you were in the Colts offense. How does that make you feel?”

Gee, which do we think might have been Number One?  Quite the head-scratcher...

This is the bit that most are highlighting, and it's not a bad putdown:

If there's divided opinion on his performance, this will be the crux of it.  Nick's colleague Dylan Dethier sees it this way:

Whereas Geoff heard something completely different (note my wording):

I made the case not long ago that Phil Mickelson was a no-brainer for a golf version of the ManningCast, but after Monday’s appearance during the Rams-49ers game I’m not so sure.

Maybe he had not watched previous versions or maybe it was a little too much Coffee for Wellness instead of Black Magic cab, but instead of letting the Mannings ask him questions and drop a humblebrag for the PGA Championship behind him, Mickelson became an odd mix of Mike Wallace in his prime with the new hire by the district attorney looking to impress. The ManningCast’s first Spanish Inquisition!

Football fans loved it and he dropped a fun line about the apparent ManningCast curse, but to golf fans it sounded like a Prevent Offense. Was Phil worried Peyton might ask about how he lost out on the Schwab Cup race?

Well, I've been reliably informed that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition (ironically, the bride and I just finished the Monty Python documentary on Netflix).

Phil has been blessed with the gift of gab, so we can't be surprised that football fans liked him.  If there's an issue with him in a golf broadcast booth, it's a long-term issue of how he'll deal with the mind-numbing day-to-day boredom of it all.  But for a short sprint, it's hard to think of anyone short of Charles Barkley that might be better.

A Trainer Primer - yesterday we had a curious bit in which the Golf.com Tour Confidential panel was asked an odd question about Martin Trainer's hot streak at last week's Houston event, curious mostly because of his weekend fade (to be clear, he didn't collapse).  One point I had intended to throw in was that Golf.com and Trainer are not strangers, because Trainer allowed Dylan Dethier to caddie for him in Tampa, memorialized by Dylan here. 

What may be interesting to you is that, at the time of Dylan's looping gig, Trainer was riding high, having won in Puerto Rico in early 2019.  But even then he seemed to be a certain kind of player, as noted by Dylan:

He still can’t believe it. He already had his flights booked to play the PGA Tour Latinoamerica that spring; suddenly he had Web.com tour status secured for two years. His newfound cred didn’t translate to immediate success — not by any stretch: T61-MC-MC-MC-MC-MC-T81-MC-MC-T53-MC-T9-MC-MC. But then … he won again. The pair of W’s meant that by the end of the year, he went straight to the big Tour. He has only one top 25 since his debut last fall: another win, three weeks ago at the Puerto Rico Open. Thus far, Trainer has been golf’s Ricky Bobby: first or far from it.

But since then, it's all gone bad for the man, more of those "far from its", which is actually more interesting since he's willing to share it with us.  Let's let Dylan pick up the thread in his Monday Finish column:

In the summer of 2019 Martin Trainer came to New York City. He’d been planning to play the
Northern Trust Open, the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but slid just far enough in the rankings that he finished the regular season outside the top 125. No playoffs. He’d won the Puerto Rico Open that February but missed 11 consecutive cuts to finish the season — and many times it wasn’t close.

“Oh man, Reno was just the absolute nadir of my career,” he told us on the Drop Zone Podcast that August. “Literally, you guys would have smoked me on Friday at Reno. I was playing so badly, and I was so lost, and it was just hard to handle, because it’s such a helpless feeling…thank goodness it was Stableford, by the way, because I picked up like, five times. I believe they told us not to pick up, because it would be sort of unprofessional — but I think my golf shots were unprofessional, so I think picking up was actually the more professional of the two routes.”

That’s Trainer, right there. Self-effacing. Kinda funny. And struggling on the PGA Tour. That was more than two years ago, and in that time Trainer has played more than 50 professional events without logging so much as a top 25. He has made a handful of cuts but only retained his PGA Tour status because of the two-year exemption that came with that win — which was mercifully extended an extra season because of Covid-19. It was all difficult. Until this week.

Dylan appropriately discloses his relationship, but does so without pulling any punches:

We’ve come far enough that I need to acknowledge my bias here; Trainer is a personal friend and I’ve caddied for him twice on Tour, so take all of this through that lens. For our purposes here that means I’m always aware of his place on the leaderboard, and you can typically find him pretty quickly if you start at the bottom and scroll up from there.

Geez, if you had a friend playing on Tour, would you tell him that you find his name by scrolling up from the bottom of the leaderboard?  More importantly, would that man remain your friend?  For the record, Dylan, whatever method you actually use, the gentler method is to tell Martin that you use the CTRL:F function... it's less judgmental.

He takes us through Martin's week, again not pulling the punches:

When play resumed on Friday, Trainer bogeyed his first hole but then picked up right where he left off, making birdies at 13, 15 and 17 to — pinch yourself — claim a share of the lead.

Maybe the best break of the week was the fact that he had no time to stop and contemplate his position; instead it was off to the 10th tee to begin his second round. Trainer makes more bogeys per round than nearly anyone else on Tour but you’d never have known it here; he backed up his first round with a matching second-round 65. Through two rounds he’d made 11 birdies against a single bogey. At the tournament’s halfway point, he was the solo leader.

I'm sure he loves you reminding folks that he's so bogey-prone, but obviously Dylan likes the man.  And here's the important point: Trainer joined them on their Drop Zone podcast las August to discuss his struggles, then joined them again Sunday evening to discuss his near miss (he had the lead mid-round, but made some late bogeys to squander cash and FedEx Cup points).  But, in so doing (and, to be clear, I'm not a podcast guy and haven't listened), I now like Martin Trainer and will be rooting for him.  So, well played all around...  Still to be determined is whether I will scroll up from the bottom to find his name....  I'm actually hoping that he'll play well enough to render that strategy ineffective.

The struggled these guys endure are far more interesting than the successes, so let's support the guys that will let us inside when it's going poorly.  As a comparison, Shack had this cry in the dark:

Yeah, Geoff, that's a good one.  Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth.....  This is a paywalled item, though he's now leaving more of a tease out there, so we can all read the first couple of 'graphs of his open letter to Tiger:

Dear Tiger,

Staying silent this long with all that’s going on might have been understandable. To a point. But the longer you remain reclusive, the more unnecessary pressure you add whenever you feel like
returning to public life. That’s been your Modus Operandi and in some ways the mysteriousness only makes you that much more intriguing. And for all we know you might turn up at the Hero World Challenge the week of November 29th to December 5th and talk your head off. But that’s unlikely and an eternity in the current golf news cycle.

No one needs a degree to assume you’ve traversed some dark days and nights pondering what happened for some silly “content” shoot. That’s the past and none of our business. The present needs your voice. As in, pronto. Or to put it another way, before the Hero.

Which only makes me think that I need to pen an open letter to Geoff:

Dear Geoff:

He doesn't give a s**t what you or any of us think.  Golf fans are merely an annoyance to the man, a gauntlet that needs to be run to get from the 6th green to the 7th tee.

I could go in that vein, but you'll have gotten the gist.  he might show up at the Hero because he has a sponsor to placate, but not because he cares what we think or, most laughably, because he wants to hear from us.   Honestly, I can only compare those pining for words from Tiger to battered spouses that keep going back despite the continued abuse.  seriously, if he wanted to show even greater contempt for his fans, what more could he do?

So, this observer is now a big Martin Trainer fan...

Seth's Edifice Complex, An Update - The Frisco Kid's vanity project is making great progress, as per this local account:

PGA executives Nov. 9 showcased their future workspace under construction at 1916 PGA
Parkway. The four-story building itself is mostly complete as workers build fixtures on the inside of the building. The completion of the headquarters is scheduled for around the third quarter of next year.

The headquarters is part of a 660-acre, $520 million mixed-use campus that will feature two championships, 18-hole golf courses, a short course and a putting green called “The Dance Floor.” surrounding golf-themed restaurants and retail stores are scheduled to be completed by spring 2023.

Some out of the nearly 300 PGA employees will work within the Frisco headquarters, Chief People Officer Sandy Cross said. Cross said not all employees will be located in Frisco as PGA has facilities in south Florida and New York City.

When is Seth moving to Frisco?  That would be never....  With memberships at Seminole, Shinnecock and Deepdale, those New York and  south Florida offices aren't going anywhere.

The second question one might ask is, "What does this do for Seth's 29,000 members?"  i got nothing for you there, kids.

There's some laugh-out-loud silliness to be found, not least this bit:

Terry said his team jokes about how there are no scenic oceans around the future headquarters but offered what he believes is a worthy substitute.

“Golf is our ocean,” he said. “The hotel, the clubhouse, this building, all the glass and everything just takes advantage of our ocean view.”

Good luck with that....though seems even more delusional:

The Professional Golfers Association of America has its sights set on individuals who have never putted a golf ball as work continues on its future headquarters in north Frisco.

Development around the future PGA headquarters is designed to inspire residents and tourists who come to enjoy a beer or ice cream to pick up a club and maybe work their way up to the public golf courses.

“It's a place that's inviting to nongolfers, as well as challenging the greatest players in the world with our major championships,” said Jimmy Terry, senior director of PGA Golf Properties. “It's just a place that you can come out and never hit a golf shot on the golf course and have a hell of a time.”

Their first course has already been awarded every major event controlled by the organization, sight unseen.  Geoff breaks news with this, as apparently they have grand ambitions for that second eighteen:

The PGA also posted a short video showing the two courses looking close to ready, with Beau Welling’s expected to possibly the AT&T Byron Nelson eventually, while Gil Hanse’s design is scheduled for multiple PGA’s (2027, 2034), the KPMG Women’s PGA (2025, 2031), the Senior PGA (2023) and a Ryder Cup (TBD).

 So, it's be perfect for that guy that's never putted a golf ball?  

Jay has his new Pleasure Dome in Ponte Vedra Beach, so one can see where Seth felt the need to catch up.  Those 29,000 members must be looking at the $520 million price tag and calculating in their heads how much of their dues were used to satisfy Seth's edifice complex.

Alan, Asked - There's an installment of Alan's mailbag that's I've ignored for far too long, so bear with me as I avail myself of some anaerobic blogging:

Young Hov deserves better than another easily ignorable win in the heart of football season. Which major does he win in 2022? @Daniel_Malone

Given the quality of his ballstriking, you have to figure Viktor Holland will be a perennial contender at the U.S. Open. And because the 2022 PGA Championship is at a traditional Open venue, Southern Hills, he should factor there too. I’m desperate for him to win a big one just so we can hear the Norwegian announcers utterly lose their minds.

Forget the actual question and Alan's answer, what's with this "deserves" caca?  Nobody deserves anything.... If you want it, go grab it.  Secondly, Vicktor Holland?  Egads, Alan, it's not a good look when Auto-correct spills into your work product.

Hovland's a talents and a really likeable kid, so I could easily see him snatching a major if the putter behaves.  But there's 114 guys you could say the same about and four majors, so do the math.  And, while I like Viktor, I kind of hope Martin Trainer grabs one first...

Viktor repeating at Mexico brings up an interesting question. How much more difficult is it to repeat on the PGA Tour (first since 2019 to do it) than simply win. And does this show Tiger’s greatness in that he was a repeat champion 23 times (h/t Jason Sobel for the stat)? #AskAlan@jameswoldbdc

I would think it’s easier to defend than win on different courses in consecutive seasons simply because if a player has prevailed at a given tournament the course clearly suits his game and there are the accrued good vibes upon returning as champion. The fact that it happens so rarely is a testament to how hard it is to win on the PGA Tour.

OK, math remains hard....  Tiger has won 82 times while playing the same ten events per season... there had to be an inordinate number of repeats just because of the math.  well, that and the fact that he was pretty damn good...

I noticed this as well:

Alan, why has there been zero online shot tracker for the last few PGA Tour events? Awful trying to track online and seems like if the Tour wants to emphasize these fall events, least they can do is make it user friendly for us fans to follow online? @KeithKhorton

ShotLink requires an obscene amount of cutting-edge machinery and an army of trained volunteers, so the Tour has never made the commitment to export the technology to events outside the U.S. It’s a shame because, as-is, a significant number of tournaments are not reflected in the season-long stats. With sports betting infiltrating the game, the stats and real-time play-by-play becomes that much more important. The Tour knows this and hopefully will repurpose some of the betting industry’s filthy lucre to bring us ShotLink at every event.

There just so weird about all these things.  What I remember is that they wouldn't consider restarting the season after the pandemic without all the ShotLink volunteers, yet they'll hold events out of country without it.   it's just hard to understand their thought process.

This will be some inside baseball for Bandon Dunes fans:

Updated personal ranking of Bandon courses from most to least favorite? @mcooney1

5. Old Mac, 4. Sheep, 3. Pac, 1. (tie) Trails and Bandon

I’ve always said Bandon Dunes is my favorite course on the property—it’s a rollicking rollercoaster ride with so many great holes and memorable shots. But Trails hit me really hard this time around. So many of the holes are like their own amphitheater; the setting is majestic. But then you have the wondrous shared experiences like 7 green-8 tee-11 tee, or walking off 13 tee and watching the hole of the par-3 12th play out. Anyway, I love Trails and BD so much it’s increasingly hard for me to pick one over the other. But…

I've only played Trails the once and must confess to being unduly swayed by the absence of ocean views.  I do need to give it another chance, the problem is that I want to play all five courses multiple times, so I'll need to be there for a month. 

You get 10 rounds at any combination of Bandon courses, how do you allocate those 10 rounds? #askalan@BAIllini98

• 1 round at Old Mac. I love the opening and closing holes and need to learn to appreciate more the flattish stretch in the middle.

• 2 at Sheep Ranch. It’s ridiculously fun, but the terrain is not quite as interesting as at the other courses.

• 2 at Pacific Dunes. An incredible test with so many jaw-dropping holes.

• 2 at Trails. I could happily play here every day for the rest of my life.

• 3 at Bandon Dunes. Could very well be the most fun golf course in America.

I'm a Macdonald geek so I feel the need to spend more time on Old Mac amid the template holes.  Funny that he enjoys that opening stretch but doesn't mention No. 18, the Punchbowl.  I found it very weird and artificial looking, yet an absolute hoot to play.

I’m tired of second-guessing my Bandon route. It’s Eugene (and rental car or transport bus) or bust for life, right?@paulkoehorst

Yeah, North Bend/Coos Bay airport is dead to me now. On this most recent trip we were on our descent to the runway when the pilot pulled up because of deteriorating visibility. We then flew all the way back to SFO! And then caught the next flight to Eugene, which turned into a 15-hour travel day. I could have gotten to Cruden Bay faster! Seems like there are always issues with North Bend so, yes, Eugene is the play, although Portland might make more sense from the East Coast or other faraway ports. But from Northern California I think I’m just going to drive from now on. If everything goes well, it’s eight hours door-to-door flying into Eugene. I can do the drive in 10 hours, and that allows me to leave on my own schedule and not deal with airport security, hopping on and off shuttles and the specter of lost golf clubs.

Both times we've gone in via Eugene, which is a 2 1/2 hour drive.  Too many flights diverted  from Coos Bay and that's just no way to start a trip.  It does mean that on the way home you'll be spending a night in Eugene.

I shall release you here.  my week gets a bit complicate from here, but I will find time to blog for sure.

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