Monday, April 25, 2022

Weekend Wrap

Belated apologies for the lack of warning about removing the blogging ball-and-chain on Friday.  In a warmth-challenged Spring, it was simply too nice a day to miss....

Schaufflay In Full - Big deal, they were supposed to win, no?  Form always holds in our game, or so I've been reliably informed:

It all started with a 59, and it all ended with a record-setting victory. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele each nabbed their first wins of 2022 Sunday, teaming up at the Zurich Classic to shoot 29 under, better than any pair in the young history of the team event.

The American Ryder Cup duo used a Sunday 72 in alternate shot to polish off a wire-to-wire finish at TPC Louisiana, but it was hardly the most impressive round of their week. The real fire from Team Cant-elle (or is it Schauff-lay?) came on Thursday and Saturday, during the best ball portions of the competition.

On Thursday, they grabbed hold of the tournament with the aforementioned 59, a tournament record that even they couldn’t get excited about. “We played really well, made a lot of putts today on a day that was a little tricky with the wind and didn’t birdie a lot of the same holes. When you do that in this format, that’s really the key.”

Pretty sure that Schaufflay is the accepted portmanteau here, as the other alternative sounds like a mushroom.  But while best-ball scores are crazy low, their 59-60 is a little hard to ignore...

I do prefer this year's format, when they played alternate shot in the final round, although the winners took most of the drama out of the proceedings.  Still, it wasn't much of an event before they settled on the team concept, so at least there's a reason for avid golf fans to tune in.

For instance, this doesn't happen in best-ball:

Kevin Kisner and Scott Brown, best buddies from Aiken, South Carolina, are playing in this
week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Their best finish at this event came back in 2017 when Kisner chipped in on 18 to force a playoff. They would go on to lose to Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith.

Today, the Aiken boys ran into quite the problem at the par-3 9th at TPC Louisiana. It started when Brown found the water off the tee. After taking a drop, Kisner also found the water. Then, after another drop, Brown chunked a wedge into the water again.

Not great.

Kisner would find the green with his second attempt and leave Brown with a 13-foot putt for an 8 which he made to save the team from having to write three times the par on their scorecard.

Good times.  

But am I the only curmudgeon that has a wee issue with how this was adjudicated?

Two shots back of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele with three holes to play at the Zurich
Classic of New Orleans, the team of Sam Burns and Billy Horschel decided to get aggressive on the drivable par-4 16th at TPC Louisiana. The reward of trying to convert a potential eagle putt was worth the risk of possibly hitting it into the water guarding the front and left side of the green on the 299-yard hole.

When Burns tugged his drive into said water, it created another decision of sorts: Where exactly did the ball cross into the penalty area?

The TV angle was inconclusive, but here are the dispositive provisions:

As you can hear, Horschel did not see precisely where the ball landed but felt that the ball likely hit outside the red line because he believed that he would not otherwise have been able to see the ball bounce from the tee box given the elevation difference from the teeing area. Day said he didn’t see the ball splash but didn’t pay attention to where the ball crossed.

So he's guessing what his angle might have been from well over 250 yards away?  Sounds legit to me...

“The ball was six inches into the water,” Burns interjected. “If it lands close to the edge, it's going to kick pretty hard in, but if it lands higher up it's going to kind of …”

So you're saying the science is settled?  

They had no idea where the ball landed, and in such circumstances I'd been led to believe that the assumption must be made that it landed in the hazard....which is exactly what happened to Harold Varner the prior week.

 So, earlier in the week Billy had this bit:

I certainly don't hate you, Billy, but not loving you either at the present moment.

Anchors Away -  I'll use this week's Tour Confidential Q&A's to cover a few stories that got left on the cutting room floor, though the most interesting aspect of this week's edition is the absence of a single question about the Zurich.  Combined with some seemingly flattering coverage of the Saudi efforts, one wonders if there's some friction between Golf Magazine and the Mothership.

First up, that Pebble announcement:

1. The USGA announced Pebble Beach as its third U.S Open anchor site, joining Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakmont Country Club. Pebble Beach Golf Links also received six more U.S.
Opens (three men’s, three women’s) and now has eight scheduled over the next 26 years. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer, said there’s more “exciting things to come down the road.” Two questions: if there’s a fourth anchor site, what should it be? And what are your thoughts on the anchor-venue system now that future Open schedules are starting to take shape?

Dylan Dethier: I think /this is generally a good thing. There’s obviously a tradeoff here — one awesome thing about the major championships (non-Masters division) is the way they showcase the country’s best courses — but locking in a reliable set of top-tier courses will help fans get to know them better and appreciate them more. Pebble, Oakmont and Pinehurst each also provide distinctly different tests. They look different, feel different, play different. The fourth site? Chambers Bay, of course! (I’d love to see more of the country represented, too, if possible. And I welcome further discussion about whether Oakmont is in the Northeast or the Midwest.) 

Sean Zak: Shinnecock is the obvious choice here. Or just New York at large, bouncing between Shinny and Winged Foot. Much as I might be talking out both sides of my mouth here (see below question), I think it’s fine that the biggest Open championship in American golf goes to the very best, classical courses of American golf.

Josh Berhow: It’s fun to explore new courses and great for those states/communities, but we are programmed to like things that are familiar to us. The three anchor sites are all great and different kinds of tests, but I really like the idea of having these trusty options in our back pocket while spending some years exploring elsewhere, like what we did with an Erin Hills or Chambers Bay, for example. But this is a smart move. And, as Sean said, Shinnecock Hills or Winged Foot seem like the obvious next options if a fourth anchor course is added.

Luke Kerr-Dineen: Something in the northeast, because few things in golf are better than a rowdy New York crowd on a major championship Sunday. Shinnecock — an obviously good candidate — has been thrown around already, so how about Bethpage Black?

Before we get to the serious bits, wouldn't you have thought that some editor would help Luke avoid beclowning himself?  Obviously Bethpage got the "It's not you, it's me" speech from the USGA, and is now solidly in the PGA of America rota (Luke, you might have heard talk about a Ryder Cup there).

Obviously the Open will return to Pebble, exactly no one has argued otherwise.  But this idea of awarding U.S. Opens in 2049 seems at best fanciful, an overreaction one assumes to the Erin Hills/Chambers Bay pushback.  To assume you'd understand the requirements that far into the future is just hubris, but they allegedly know that they're doing....

As for a fourth anchor, Shinny and The Foot are the obvious choices, though if Merion and The Country Club are still in the rota, that's a pretty meaningful East Coast bias.  Especially since Oakmont is at the very least Eastern, if not Northeastern.

The follow-up, though, misses the boat by a wide margin:

2. Our Sean Zak wrote that with the U.S. Open’s new anchor system, some important/worthy courses and areas of the U.S. will be left out. That’s why, he says, returning to these under-visited areas could become the PGA Championship’s calling card. Agree? Is there a move or thought-process for the PGA here?

Dethier: Oh, I jumped the gun a bit with my previous answer. Yes! The PGA Championship should live on the cutting edge. You go where the U.S. Open won’t. That means new courses. It means different courses. It means showcasing styles of play and regions of the country traditionally underrepresented by the professional game. Take me to Wild Horse in Nebraska, PGA of America!

Zak: I totally agree with the column discussed above, 100 percent. Really, I just love the idea of players showing up to a course they don’t know that well and trying to see if their golf will be better than anyone else’s. That’s what took place all over this country in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Berhow: For sure. The Masters has Augusta. The Open has quirky links golf. The U.S. Open, we are now seeing, has some of America’s most iconic, classic courses. I’m not sure what the PGA of America’s niche should be, or if there should even be one, but it’s the perfect opportunity to think outside the box and throw some wild cards out there.

Kerr-Dineen: This could be a blessing in disguise for the PGA Championship, for all the reasons mentioned above. Of course, let’s not forget that PGA Championship venues are booked through 2034, so it’ll take a while for the PGA Championship’s newfound identity to take hold.

Do any of these guys actually follow golf?

Luke makes a good point about the schedule being full, but ignores that elephant in the corner....  Where are they going between now and 2034?  Well, let's see, Southern Hills, Oak Hill, Olympic, Baltusrol, Olympic and Congressional.  What do these venues have in common?  Yup, all U.S. Open hand-me-down sites.  So, good luck with that live on the edge argument...

The only exceptions to the above are their new digs in Frisco, talk about classic venues, and Aronimink, which is exactly the kind of place they should go to, but will nly do so on rare occasions.

Today in Gratuitous Saudi Bashing - Leading with the TC gang:

3. First reported by Golfweek, pro Robert Garrigus confirmed he requested a release from the PGA Tour to play in the first LIV Golf International Series event, which is June 9-11 in London. He’s the first player to be publicly named, but Garrigus, 44, who is outside the top 1,000 in the world ranking, isn’t much of a household name. Still, will this news make it easier for other interested pros to join, or will it have little impact on potential players on the fence?

Dethier: Does this make it easier? No, not really. It hardly caused a stir even within golf’s mini media ecosystem. What it did, though, is bring this thing one step closer to becoming real. The moment pros like Garrigus actually tee it up with unthinkable sums of money on the line is the moment PGA Tour pros are going to think harder about the entire system. What happens then will give us the clearest idea yet of what’s next.

Zak: The thought of Robert Garrigus cashing in should have all our respective attentions, at least for one tournament. Like Dylan said, the reaction to someone of lesser ilk raking in enough money to live fat and happy for a year will raise some eyebrows and cultivate some opinions. For that reason alone — all other details aside — it’ll be interesting. I think I’m more interested to see who will be playing in the fourth event than the first.

Berhow: It isn’t about to twist the arms of some of the world top 10 into playing, but it’s the latest domino to drop and it counts for something. I agree with Dylan that it makes it seem more real. We’ve been hearing for months that names are going to be announced soon, and while we still don’t have that, we have one real human who is looking to tee it up. That first tournament field might be really… interesting. But I’m still looking forward to seeing what it shakes out to be.

Kerr-Dineen: It’ll have a small and incremental effect on making it easier for other pros in the future, which is the entire point. This league is going to pick off players, slowly and surely, bit by bit. Each year it’ll get slightly higher-ranked ones until the exercise becomes normalized along the way. Garrigus isn’t a household name, but he doesn’t need to be. He just needs to serve as the first step in the process.

Hard to understand the logic of this question at this juncture, since Garrigus is quite obviously a stalking horse.  These naïfs seem to assume that Garrigus will show up and play as a single for that $25 million large,  which ain't about to happen.

We're waiting for at least two balls to drop, perhaps three as I think about it.  First, the Tour's reaction to the Garrigus waiver request, and simultaneously to see who else applies for such a waiver.  The third ball is obviously Phil....  

From here they segue to that 30-30:

4. ESPN’s latest 30 for 30 doc “Shark,” debuted last week, and it featured Greg Norman’s rollercoaster career and, specifically, heartbreaking Masters loss in 1996. Did the doc teach you anything you didn’t know about Norman, or instead remind you of something you might have forgotten?

Dethier: It taught me that Norman called CBS in the early morning hours of Masters Sunday in ‘96. Think about that. Think about Scheffler spending his Sunday morning on the phone with CBS this year. What a way to focus your energies! I was intrigued with Norman’s stated ability to come to peace with his near-misses. And wow, were there a lot of them.

Zak: It kinda should teach us that timing is everything. The timing of this doc, coming out after the Masters and not before. The timing of a doc on Norman at all, as he tries to maintain a level of relevancy in the game. It’s all a bit fishy to me, but I might just be wearing a tin-foil hat.

Berhow: I learned that the pain of a near-miss while at the doorstep of one of your biggest career aspirations never really goes away, which was evident watching Norman watch himself down the stretch. Could see it all in his eyes.

Kerr-Dineen: The doc cast a fascinating light on Greg Norman’s outlook on his own career. Good, bad or lucky, Norman resigned a lot of things to fate. When he was meant to win, he won. When he wasn’t, he didn’t. It’s unusual to hear a top player talk like this. The Tiger Woods’ or Jack Nicklaus’ of the world often talked of making their own fate through sheer force of will. Norman was a talent of a different ilk, and that laissez faire attitude is ultimately what allowed collapses like the 1996 Masters to happen.

I have exactly zero interest in anything related to Norman, though that's the first I've heard about a call to CBS.  I might need to watch it just to suss out what that was about...

But Norman can be quite delusional about his role in the golf ecosystem.  A while back we had him beating his bared chest and telling us that he would have beaten Tiger like he beat everyone else, having apparently forgotten his inability to handle Larry Mize, Robert Gamez and Bob Tway.

Witness the self-delusion in this minor little story:

Greg Norman has never seen a publicity stunt that didn’t catch his eye. Still, in many ways his latest was among the most outrageous. Late last week Norman, 67, spoke with News Corp. in
Australia about making a comeback to competitive golf after a 13-year absence, with an interest in participating in the Open Championship when it returns to the Old Course in July.

“I think I can still get in,” Norman said. “It’s the 150th. I’m a past Open champion. I love St. Andrews. If there’s a moment in time that I would consider going back and teeing off one last time, maybe this is it. I’m filling out my entry form now, I think I’m going. I think I can still get in.”

Never mind that Norman, twice a winner of the claret jug, hasn’t played in the event since 2009 at Turnberry. And that he’s not currently exempt into the 2022 field, given past champions maintain eligibility in the championship only up to their 60th birthday.

Sure, Greg.  I mean, how can they even consider holding an Open without you?

Not surprisingly, the R&A quickly had a response for Norman, albeit never using his name directly. A spokesman released the following statement over the weekend:

“The entry terms and conditions for The Open stipulate that a champion must be aged 60 or under or have won the championship in the previous 10 years to be exempt from qualifying. That remains the case for The 150th Open, and we have no plans for any additional exemptions.”

That's delusional if Norman hadn't been in the news lately....But these aren't normal times:

To think the response would have been anything other than this is a bit of fantasy give Norman’s involvement with LIV Golf Investments and the group’s overt attempt to establish a rival golf league to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. Shortly after LIV Golf Investments unveiled a partnership with the Asian Tour last fall, the R&A announced that it was pulling back its exemption to the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit winner. Similarly, the R&A made no direct reference to Norman or LIV Golf at that time, a spokesman noting: “We review and update our exemptions from time to time and any changes are considered carefully by our championships committee.”

The timing, however, seemed hardly coincidental.

It's also counter-productive, as it will remind of a Norman collapse that doesn't get much attention.  He was paired with Faldo in the final group of the third round of the 1990 Open Championship at the Old Course, with the two four shots clear of the field.   In an eerie preview of the more famous 1996 Masters, Faldo shot 67 and Norman ballooned to an ugly 76, so by all means let's revisit your St. Andrews history, Greg.

We also have an Eamon Lynch pile-on with which to amuse ourselves.  I'm not sure any new ground is covered, but scores are certainly settled:

Norman was announced as the CEO of LIV Golf in October and has beclowned himself with his
every public utterance since, cementing a reputation that will encompass not only his inability to finish big tournaments but his ineptitude in starting them too. What was promised as a seismic shake-up of global golf is looking more like a bonanza for washed-up also-rans. Consider what Norman has presided over since the Saudi ambitions in golf came into focus and all you’ll find is backtracking.

Those 12-18 events they touted? Not happening.

The league format? Same.

An elite team concept? Nope.

The best golfers in world? Let’s hear it for Robert Garrigus.

A fresh, engaging product for fans? See above.

Shouldn't a clown show be more, yanno, amusing?

The only entertainment guaranteed in this venture is an overdue comeuppance for the Great White Pilot Fish, whose tenure began with an interview in which he marveled at the sight of women dining in Saudi restaurants sans burkas. Later, he addressed the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “What happened to Khashoggi was reprehensible. There’s not a person on this planet who would not agree with me,” he said, perhaps forgetting that the Crown Prince who ordered Khashoggi’s dismemberment by bonesaw—the same man who pays Norman—might not agree with him. That he followed this declaration with “But…” is damning enough without it being necessary to recount the chicken-hearted prevarications he duly offered.

Norman has also shown the familiar maladroit touch with Augusta National that defined his playing career there. “We respect the Masters and we thought we’d let it go off before our announcements,” he said last week.

“…we thought we’d let it go off…”

Oh, to have been Fred Ridley’s watchful manservant when he read that over his morning coffee.

Not sure that they reciprocate on the respect thing... In fact, pretty sure they don't:

Augusta National invites all former major champions to the Masters as a courtesy, but somehow lost Norman’s address in 2022.

As long as we're piling on, this is pretty funny, if only for that fact check:

In this matter, I've always viewed Norman as a figurehead.  The Saudi's needed a public face, and the Shark was desperate for continuing relevance in the golf world, and would allow any of those pesky standards to get in the way.

But I feel compelled to add my usual note of perspective here.  Let's remember that as recently as 2021, the Saudi event was a legitimate Euro Tour event, and that all tours hold events in countries as noxious as the Saudis.  Can you say China?  I thought you could...

Hall of Lame - And I don't think we can pin this on Monty, at least not completely:


With a brand-new interchange off Interstate 95 and a location 20 miles south of Jacksonville, one million visitors were projected to pull off and attend the Hall and IMAX Theater, the 400,000 square feet of shops anchored by a 32,000-square-foot golf shop, golf-themed restaurants and two championship courses that would host a PGA Tour Champions event and episodes of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.

LPGA Hall of Fame member Pat Bradley, who attended the first induction when Nick Faldo and Miller joined the exclusive membership, summed up what it meant to have a place where the greats of the game were celebrated: “It’s thrilling to know that long after I’ve left this world, people can gather and see the history of golf in this facility.”

Perhaps if they had contemplated failure, they might have summoned the urgency to make at least slightly interesting.... Because, failing is exactly what it's doing.  But this seems the ticket, no?

Florida Times-Union columnist Gene Frenette hopes if there is a shift, it means moving trucks will simply head south down I-95.

If the WGHOF moves after a quarter-century in St. John’s County, one logical destination could be a place that deserves consideration as the golf capital of the world – Palm Beach County.

Just Jupiter alone is home to five of the world’s top-10 golfers — Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa — as well as four-time major champion Brooks Koepka. Oh, yeah, and Jupiter Island is where the 757th-ranked player in the world, Tiger Woods, has a residence.

Yeah, because Patrick Cantlay's home is such a tourist attraction...Sheesh, hard to see why they're failing.

That's it for now, kids.  I expect that I'll see you all on Wednesday, if not sooner.

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