PGA Championship Friday

Just a few quick notes, then I'll let you get on with your weekend.

On The Leader - The opening entry on Rory's To-Do list was "Fix Thursday", but now has one of those blue check marks:

McIlroy shot a 5-under 65 to take the clubhouse lead in the second major championship of the year, and he held it by day's end. Combined with his 64 in the final round of the Masters, he's now taken

129 strokes in the last two major rounds, an impossible number given the difficulty of both courses. His 64 at Augusta National in April was the best round of the day by three, and this 65 on Thursday was the best of the day by one over Will Zalatoris and Tom Hoge.

There has been much consternation -- both internally and externally -- over how McIlroy has started major championships in recent years. Since his last major win at the 2014 PGA Championship, he has constantly found himself playing from behind and needing miracle rounds in the low 60s on the weekend to have a chance of winning any of the four most important events.

Since the start of 2015, McIlroy has a 103-stroke differential between his first round and the final three rounds at majors. That's a problem because playing catch up against the Dustin Johnsons, Jordan Spieths and Collin Morikawas in the world demands perfection, and major championship golf is almost always combatting perfection.

More importantly, he seems to have caught the better side of the draw, though it didn't seem to help those rabbits with whom he was paired.  This was the benefit he banked yesterday, along with a foreshadowing (incidentally, 2/3 of the way through Phil I can report that Shipnuck makes good use of that last word) of today:

The afternoon wave averaged just over a stroke higher. They face a grim Friday morning forecast. (More below.)

It's not that Rory doesn't have some good golf left in him, the question is whether he can summon it when he wants it the most.  Of course, the Thursday he's really pointing towards is in April 2023, though perhaps it's a bit early for that.

On That Weather Forecast - No bueno:

Further details via Shack:

According to the on-site forecast: “Strong winds are likely Friday morning 15-25 G 45 mph before gradually decreasing to 15-20 G 25-30 mph for the afternoon. Scattered showers and thunderstorms will develop towards evening as a cold front approaches from the north. Storms could be severe Friday night with large hail, strong winds and heavy rainfall. Showers and isolated t-storms will linger through the day Saturday as the front slowly moves to the south. Temperatures will be cooling into the 60s through the day as well. After a chilly start Sunday morning, temperatures should warm to near 70 degrees under partly cloudy skies.”

Rory is just no damn good in any kind of breeze, though it does look like he'll avoid the worst of it.  Should the rain soften the course for the weekend, that would help the Ulsterman as well.

On The Big Cat -  I wasn't especially optimistic on this subject:

There was hope, optimism, encouraging pre-tournament talk of more strength, more endurance,

more stamina. And then there is the brutal reality.

At the end of a sweat-soaked day at Southern Hills, Tiger Woods flailed another tee shot into the trees and was so dispirited that he couldn’t even muster any outward expression of disgust. No club slam. No expletive. He simply hobbled off the tee, returned his 2-iron to caddie Joe LaCava with nary a glance, and rested on his golf bag to avoid putting any weight on his reconstructed right leg. Internally, he was likely screaming in agony. Outwardly, he didn’t so much as grimace.

Southern Hills might not have the undulating terrain of Augusta National, but it’s not dead-flat Oklahoma farmland either. The capper to Woods’ laborious 4-over 74 Thursday was a straight-uphill 400-yarder, then a series of descending stairs to the scoring and interview area, then the same set of stairs back toward the player parking lot. Typically tight-lipped about his health, Woods limped through each of his post-round stops and didn’t bother to conceal his discomfort.

Mostly hope, which I've been reliably informed is not a strategy...

I find it hard to wish him three more days of this.  Unless the body seems looser today, hard to see what he's accomplishing.

On Those Show Ponies - Great players, bad scores....Lots of big names struggled yesterday, including:

Jon Rahm - +3

Adam Scott - +7

Patrick Cantlay - +6

Brooks Koepka - +5

Dustin Johnson - +3

Collin Morikawa - +2

Jordan Spieth - +2

Hideki Matsuyama - +2

In theory, +3 is within the cut line, though with today's forecast I'll not belabor that issue.  

On Those Bunkers - This to me was the most notable aspect of the day's play, one we had fortunately previewed yesterday.  It turns out that these guys suck from bunkers, said with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  But it was revelation how their bunker sand affected these elite players, as per Shack:

The Southern Hills bunkers induced some ugly recovery shots Thursday even after many players had made equipment admustments. They are presented by Russ Myers’ crew in the sustainable Melbourne raking style where the floor is maintained daily and the face compacted. Tiger Woods was one of those to struggle.

“The sand is a lot faster than I thought it would be,” he said after going 2 for 6 in sand saves.

“Kind of been that way all week, especially if you get up in the areas where it's not raked. I had a couple of those balls where it was in those areas. It's like, is there a lot of sand here, is there not, how should I play it, and when you dig in with your feet you're not in those areas where it's raked. I feel like sometimes the sand -- I'm guessing, and I guessed wrong.”

Has anyone ever heard of a bunker being called fast or slow?  Obviously they weren't able to put their usual amount of spin on the ball, but sounds like we'll be Stimping bunkers form now on.

The field recovered at a 44% rate in round one. The 2022 PGA Tour average is 49.6%. And it should be noted: there were no buried lies seen during the full day of coverage.

I'm shocked at all three of those numbers, notwithstanding that Shack only gives two.  I'm staggered that the guys only get up-and-in half the time normally, and I don't hardly remember anyone doing it yesterday.  But only a 5% differential?  I watched almost the entire broadcast and I would have guessed the delta would have been closer to 20-25%.

Bunker sand is its own are form: 

The sand is a “Tour Signature Blend” from Fairmont Minerals in Chardonnay, Ohio. In the recent restoration project, the sand was harvested from the old bunkers and re-used in recent work to present a more natural hue.

“As impressive as they are week in and week out from Tour bunkers, they’ve been equally unimpressive today,” ESPN’s David Duval said during the broadcast.

Andy North, working as an on-course reporter, said the bunkers are “beautifully maintained” and that the players “just have to judge the firmness, they’re awfully simple to play out of.”

Justin Thomas did not agree.

“I'm sure you've seen from watching the coverage, it's really difficult to get spin, basically impossible,” Thomas said. “Some of those bunkers shots that are generally pretty easy or guaranteed up-and-downs definitely is not the case this

week.”

After a wild and weird 71, Scottie Scheffler did say the coarseness is different but not a huge obstacle to overcome.

“Bunkers aren't supposed to be that easy to play out of.”

JT sure seems a tad whiny there, though to his credit that 67 he posted in the afternoon might have been the round of the day.  

On That Existential Threat -  There's trouble in paradise, but who could have seen this coming?  Yes, thank you for noticing, but it's what I do.  Not a perfect record, but I've nailed the big things pretty well.  While conventional wisdom is that LIV will be around for the foreseeable future, after all they've "planned" events through 2024, I've been saying that it's over for weeks now.  Not that their death throes won't affect the game.

So, while you haven't heard Phil's name much, Eamon Lynch has this summary of the Shark's Thursday:

Lynch: Thursday was a good day for golf, and another lousy one for Greg Norman

Bad luck just seems to follow that guy around....

Eamon uses those two supergroups as his framing device, getting off some hich-octane snark:

Too often lately golf has seemed less a sport than a business, with every precinct of the professional game consumed by news, gossip, threats and intrigue about rival leagues and red lines. Thursday at Southern Hills promised a welcome return to the good ol’ days, when the game’s reference dictionary entries for ‘B’ included birdies and bogeys, but not bonesaws: a major championship, a sublime venue, a blockbuster group, a wealth of storylines—in short, golf as it used to be. That promise was delivered upon, and even the brief intrusion of the aforementioned corporate chicanery was positive.

But here's the heart of the matter:

Even at much less than full power, Woods remains the biggest draw in the game. For 25 years, his presence has enhanced tournaments as surely as his absence has diminished others. The absence

of those who confer credibility was a theme elsewhere Thursday, as Sports Business Journal reported that Sean Bratches has moved on to pastures that are, if not greener, then at least less bloodstained.

A name not widely known among golf fans, Bratches was hired six months ago as the chief commercial officer for LIV Golf, the outfit being fronted by Greg Norman and backed by the Saudi Arabian regime. He earned an impressive reputation over three decades with ESPN and F1, and among the washed-up and laid-off who populate the LIV Golf org chart, Bratches alone added business respectability to what is not a respectable business.

Hmmmm, rats, ships....

While I understand the temptation the riches on offer have to the players, especially those in the twilight of their careers, their reactions have also puzzled me.  They seem to take for granted that the events under discussion will actually take place, and they seem to assume they live in a world of no consequences.

So, did someone mention consequences?

That grotesque moment illustrated the ethical gymnastics required to equivocate on behalf of murderers and human rights abusers, and Bratches tendered his resignation almost immediately. His departure leaves the Saudi effort to hijack professional golf in the hands of apparatchiks and a narcissist who isn’t renowned for his ability to close. His was but one domino to fall. By Thursday afternoon, Sports Illustrated reported that UPS has terminated its lengthy relationship with Lee Westwood, who has become a poster child for the LIV Golf tournaments. Sources tell Golfweek that UPS has also dropped another ambassador, Louis Oosthuizen, who was thought to be leaning toward the Saudi series too.

It seems unlikely UPS will be acting alone. Other corporations will surely follow suit and drop players who accept the squalid embrace of LIV Golf. In the crass corporate calculus, it’s apparently one thing to enjoy Saudi revenue as a company, quite another to watch your paid spokespersons peddling false equivalencies as part of a naked sportswashing endeavor. Companies who affiliate with LIV Golf players know their guys will surely face the same questions as Norman, and understand there is no good answer to them.

I have no issue with the heat brought to bear on the Saudis and Norman, though I do see a trap here.  Their vision for the game really quite dreadful, and I'd prefer if that were discussed as frequently as the Kashoggi killing.   

But that's enough on those odious chaps for now.  Have a great weekend and we'll wrap the PGA on Monday.