So, how do we do this blogging thing? Most definitely not like riding a bicycle....
But shall we start with some actual golf?
Hartford Heartbreak - Playing the role of Mito Pereira, Sahith Theegala had his first tour win in his sights, until it all unraveled in a fairway bunker. Though this might be a candidate for worst game story ever:
Xander Schauffele delivered the knockout punch when it mattered.His lob wedge from 105 yards to 3 feet at the final hole clinched his sixth career PGA Tour title and first individual stroke-play victory since the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions.“It feels really good,” he said of converting his first 54-hole lead into victory. “Everyone talks about how hard it is and I only had the Olympics to sort of fall back on having a lead and kind of closing it. I’ve never done it on the PGA Tour.”Schauffele made the short birdie putt at the last to close in 2-under 68 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut for a 72-hole total of 19-under 261 and a two-stroke victory over Sahith Theegala and J.T. Poston at the Travelers Championship.
Because apparently it mattered that the margin of victory was two instead of one?
Even Shack, a fellow Pepperdine Wave, hasn't much to say about Theegala's heartbreak, just this:
Theegala doubled the 72nd hole after trying a fairway bunker shot very close to the lip. The lip won. He finished T2. Almost as impressive was 20-year-old amateur Michael Thorbjornsen finishing solo-fourth in a noble effort to become the first amateur to win since Phil Mickelson at the 1991 Northern Telecom.
To paraphrase Bobby Fuller, I Fought The Lip and The Lip Won..... (though, technically, that was originally a Crickets tune). But credit the young man for going for it, and that lip-out was quite heartbreaking.
Still Lexi After All These Years - Employee No. 2 and I actually watched the Hartford finish, then I started the recording of the ladies from Congressional. Early on the back nine Lexi had a two-stroke lead with In Gee Chun still struggling, when the bride and I had this conversation:
Employee No. 2 - Do we want to watch the rest of this?
Your Humble Blogger - Well, train wrecks can be fun
Employee No. 2 - But everyone knows that she'll cough it up.
YHB - Maybe everyone except the announcers...
We did not watch it, but YHB was greeted by this header this morning:
The legend of Lexi is that growing up competing against her two brothers made her a steely competitor. The reality is something else entirely. Bet Ann Nichols had this:
In the shadow of the nation’s capital, the LPGA’s most tortured American star suffered heartbreakonce more. Lexi Thompson hadn’t won on the LPGA in her last 50 starts, and it looked like she might finally collect her second major at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship as the women competed at historic Congressional Country Club for the first time.But once again, Thompson’s short game couldn’t withstand the pressure. She squandered a two-stroke lead with three to play and, after signing autographs, was too emotional to meet with the media and took off for the parking lot.
With the issue being that which it has always been:
But the ghosts of short misses that have haunted her in pressure-packed moments came to visit on the back nine. A two-foot par putt on the 14th hole that never had a chance was the most egregious.
She leaves other women smiling, so credit to her for that. And the signing of autographs in the face of disappointment is a touch of class....
Just one last bit before we move on. Congressional has always been another Medinah to this observer, a worthy major venue according to conventional wisdom. Yet, every time we revisit it, they've changed everything. So, if it's so obviously worthy, why do you keep bringing in the earth movers?
This time they went another direction and brought in Gil Hanse, so I think they can now stick with what Gil wrought. It looked great from what I saw, and that Shack fellow agreed:
The PGA of America quietly moved Congressional from its previously announced 2031 PGA Championship date to 2030.Thanks to some GolfCourseGurus images posted from the pre-renovation version of the course, we get an idea how radical the redo was. Just like we’ve seen in recent sweeping redos focused on reclaiming character at places like Inverness (Green) and Southern Hills (Hanse), Congo went from clunky looking stuff built in a hurry to timeless design touches that should only get better with age and super Pete Wendt’s care. They went from Gap to Tom Ford, Domino’s to Gino’s East, and cassette to Dolby Atmos. May the Golf Gods never let Rees Jones on a classic course again.
At that link he's got some before-and-after photos that make our point quite effectively, this being the Par-3 13th.
Add some interesting contours to the bunkers, use some longer fescue for contrast and it's immediately a far more interesting look and feel.
Of course the bigger issue is why Rees is allowed to touch any golf course.... the delicious irony being that he's the house architect at your humble blogger's club. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Bye-Bye - Before we get to our LIVisection, can you guess what golf story in the last ten days brought joy and comfort to your humble blogger? I've been walking on air since the news broke, but we'll just briefly survey the Tour Confidential reaction:
5. Longtime lead analyst Nick Faldo announced his intention to retire from the CBS Golf booth upon the completion of the PGA Tour season in August, ending a 16-year run with the network. How would you sum up Faldo’s time in the role, and what do you think about the decision to replace him with Trevor Immelman?
Not Sir Mumbles? But how do actual golf writers view the man?
Zak: Faldo was a consistent voice, which is worth something. And he wasn’t too afraid to share an opinion. But in my opinion, he didn’t offer enough Tour-level nuance, and rarely seemed able to explain nitty gritty details in a well-packaged way. It felt like Nantz carried him along at times toward the end of his run. As for Immelman, he feels like a sufficient replacement for now, but I’m not totally wowed by the move. Perhaps I just have high standards! It’s a tough gig.
Consistent voice? That's the best you can say about the guy? Don't even know what it means....but get ready for quite the passive-aggressive slam:
Bastable: I’d agree that he was consistently in the booth, but his analysis was markedly inconsistent. Occasionally he’d drop some nuggets of knowledge or insight that only a six-time major winner could deliver, but too often he struggled to articulate his points and relied too much on his gut versus what the statistics actually told us. Agree with Sean on Immelman. He’s likable and has a nice rapport with players and has already proven to be a capable analyst, but I’m not sure golf fans will race to the TV on Sunday afternoons to hear his takes. Remember when Phil Mickelson seemed primed for the job? Feels like a long time ago.
Even I'll concede that he was consistently in the booth, which I think we can all agree is a deliciously low bar.... and, yet, one he consistently struggled to get over. The man simply couldn't convert thoughts into words, which both guys get.
But hang on, because the snark level is about to ratchet up:
Dethier: There was an exchange at the end of the third round at Torrey Pines this January that summed it up for me:
Nick Faldo: “What do they call it, a sneak score, isn’t it, when the quarterback gets across the line?”Jim Nantz: “The quarterback sneak, that would be, dear boy.”Faldo: “Oh, I got it the wrong way — the English way. Ah, the quarterback sneak. So I’m predicting we’re going to have a ‘golfer sneak’ tomorrow. Somebody we’re not sure of is going to get across the line.”Nantz: “What a call that is. You sound like quite the football expert, my friend.”Faldo: “I want to be a ‘narrow’ receiver, then I wouldn’t have to run as far. You be a wide receiver, I’ll be narrow.”
That’s your Rorschach test for Faldo — your love-or-hate reaction to that signoff says it all. He was fun, goofy, made you shake your head. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Was he anyone's cup of tea? I defy any golf fan to give me one instance where Sir Mumbles added to your understanding of that which you were watching. And that doesn't even touch on his lack of understand of his role as evidenced by his spoiler on Rory's bunker shot, which he excused becausehe was excited.... Or the crap he simply made up.
Sens: Faldo could be witty. He could also be rambling and digressive, failing to answer questions that were lobbed at him. In that way, I found him frustrating more often than not. Someone who knows more about the inside workings of the network than I do once told me that he grated on Nantz, who, in particular, really didn’t like having to call him ‘Sir.’ The quirky exchange Dylan cites wasn’t the only time Nantz called Faldo ‘dear boy.’ He also did it when Mickelson, during a guest appearance in the tower at the PGA Championship at Harding Park, made a PG-13 joke that Faldo didn’t get. “Leave that to your imagination, dear boy,” Nantz told Faldo. Maybe I’m reading into it, but that ‘dear boy’ British-ism always struck me as Nantz’s polite way of mocking his partner in the booth. Immelman? Jury’s out for me. I’ll wait and see. But if I were running a network today and looking to hire a full-time commentator, I’d try to land Justin Leonard.
I always wondered about that relationship, given that Faldo sucked up air time without adding any insights or humor. Immelman seems inoffensive to me, almost interchangeable with Justin Leonard. But at least when he opens his mouth, actual words emerge.
the good news is that we only have to get through the FedEx Cup, and your humble blogger will be away for most of that. Better yet, the one event that matters, that little tourney in The Kingdom of Fife, is on NBC.
LIV Long and Prosper - So, anything happen while we were away?
Tough to cover all that ground, but hopefully the Tour Confidential Q&A will allow us to hit the high points. First, The Empire Strikes Back:
1. The PGA Tour is fighting back against LIV Golf, as the Tour announced what amounts to be a $54 million purse increase spread across eight of its biggest events, including upping the Players Championship purse to $25 million and several others to $20 million. There’s also a new lucrative international series of up to three events for the top 50 players. What’s your biggest takeaway from Jay Monahan’s several announcements and, more importantly, will it be enough to keep PGA Tour talent happy?Sean Zak: I think it will keep most of them happy! My biggest takeaway is that it will at least feel more obvious for non-diehard golf fans when they should tune in. Super Bowl is over? Okay, great. The next week on the PGA Tour is a mega-purse invitational. And there are a handful of others where we know the best players should be playing. Predictability and reliability in the schedule for the folks who will be watching that Netflix doc is going to be a good thing.Alan Bastable: My biggest takeaway is that the “arms race,” to use Monahan’s parlance, is officially on. It’s all a bit off-putting but what’s the Tour gonna do — it had to act, and quickly. The return to a calendar-year season is welcome, but more WGC-style big-purse events don’t do much for me as a fan. Just feels like more of the same. The Premier Golf League’s proposal was far more compelling: sponsored teams, splashy events at new venues, promotion and relegation. It all felt fresh and different, two things the Tour has never done well. Also worth noting how quickly the Tour drummed up these funds. If you’re a player, you might be asking yourself, where was this cash 5-10 years ago?
That's a lazy comment at best. It would be nice if a so-called journalist would actually do a deep dive into Tour finances, but Jay obviously was fortunate to have this happen as his new rights contracts were kicking in. How the increase purses and PIP Program factor into the increased cash flow is something I'd like to know more about, but the existence of fresh money is no secret.
Dylan Dethier: Differentiating the A-list events was a step in the right direction. The next steps include making sure those events feel properly elevated, which is something money can only help buy. Different players want different things — some pros want financial guarantees for the Ryder Cup, some want to be able to accept more appearance fees, some want guaranteed income for being on Tour. To compete with LIV, though, the Tour will have to focus on ensuring its product is the best and then getting its top stars paid. Thus far the acceleration of the arms race is only going to ensure that both sides stay around for a while. Pace yourselves, LIV-news readers.
This to me starts down an interesting path, one the Tour has a checkered history of accommodating. The problem with elevating those events, though, is that it will be at the expense of all their other events. How ill you keep those sponsors happy, when you've incentivized the A-list players to play in the "elevated" events?
Josh Sens: Arms race is a good term for it, because it’s not a natural reflection of the marketplace — no matter how much faux populist cheering we might hear from the sidelines about healthy ‘competition’ and poor put-upon golfers finally getting the higher pay they deserve. Monahan said it himself: The Tour can’t keep up with Saudi spending. That’s because it’s an artificial market. Like Alan, I’m glad to see the Tour do away with the wrap-around season, and I understand the bump in purses. I’m sure it will help slow the defections somewhat. But do the schedule changes speak to a demand in the market? Are fans really crying out for another lucrative series of international events? They sound like a snooze to me.
More to the point, the defectors have s**t where they used to eat, inevitably damaging that economic ecosystem. This will obviously play out over an extended period of time, but we should expect sponsors to protect their interests. Those sponsoring these elevated events have apparently decided to further invest for the time being, but I suspect they're not excited about their options right now.
For the record, after hearing his Brookline BS, I called this defection:
2. One week after he grew annoyed with reporters’ questions about LIV Golf, Brooks Koepka has joined the breakaway circuit — the official announcement came during Monahan’s press conference — and will play in its next event beginning on Thursday. How surprised are you that Koepka decided to leave? And why would he?Bastable: Surprised? Not at all. From the early days of LIV, Koepka felt like an obvious candidate to jump ship. He’s not a PGA Tour rah-rah legacy guy, and never has been. He’s all about the majors, which helps explain why he’s already won four of them. Why would he leave? LOL. That beeping you hear is his Brink’s truck backing up. LIV better hope he can stay healthy.Zak: I was pretty surprised, if only because Brooks Koepka doesn’t normally like being told what to say. He thrives in bluntness. But there’s been nothing smooth about the press conferences LIV players have faced, and players have been media trained to answer in certain ways. Koepka could still just tell us the truth — that it’s mostly a money-grab with a lighter schedule — but he hasn’t really been super forthcoming lately.Dethier: I’m with Zak. The fact he left wasn’t necessarily surprising, but the fact that he left now, after ensuring people behind the scenes that he was committed to the Tour? There’s a story there. I think Koepka is keenly aware that his body may not be in major championship shape forever, so he’s eager to play fewer events and happy to collect maximum money while he can, too.Sens: From a bird’s eye, this would seem to be everything Koepka always wanted, provided he can keep playing in the majors. A lighter schedule, more money. But I agree with Dylan that there’s probably a deeper story. Koepka has always been such an openly prideful competitor, calling himself an athlete more than a golfer. Sure, the truckloads of money are tempting beyond what we can imagine. But is it also a tacit admission by Koepka that he no longer feels he can keep up?
Brooksie's little hissy fit at the Open was a tell, but could these guys be lazier? Ironically, the one bit they get right is the bit about his injury history, ironic because it puts him in the same position as his BFF Bryson.
But the more significant comment from Brooks is this from March 2020:
Koepka, 29, told the Associated Press (h/t Sky Sports): "I am out of the PGL. I'm going with the PGA Tour. I have a hard time believing golf should be about just 48 players."
Unless, yanno, they meet my price.
This is the latest on defctions:
Matthew Wolff, Carlos Ortiz Are the Next PGA Tour Winners Leaving for LIV Golf https://t.co/qspHQMZX8q via @si_golf
— Bob Harig (@BobHarig) June 27, 2022
Matthew Wolff seems a perfect fit, having lost both his game and his mind. So, what to expect in Portland?
3. The second LIV Golf event begins Thursday at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon with several new faces — Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed among them — teeing off. Now with a better field, will the second iteration draw more interest than the first, or has the initial curiosity waned?Bastable: The new wrinkle in event two, beyond the beefed-up field, is the location: first Stateside LIV event. For that reason alone, I think there will be continued curiosity, especially from American fans. Presumably LIV officials drew many learnings from the debut event, so I’ll be interested to see how different this second event looks. The difficult-to-decipher leaderboard needs work, and they also need to figure out how to make the team element more compelling/followable for fans. The team monikers are meaningless. Really, the squads should carry their captains’ names.Zak: Koepka and DeChambeau are interesting adds, for sure. I’m definitely more intrigued. But I think people will once again not care about the second round, will probably watch some of the first round, and will care about who contends over the final few holes. Other than that, they’ll be enjoying their 4th of July weekend.Dethier: I’ll be there early in the week just to see how it looks and feels and what the players have to say. One thing I’m curious about — does Brooks vs. Bryson ramp back up? Or are they brothers in arms now?Sens: Most often, I find myself nodding in agreement with Dylan, but I couldn’t have less interest in whether Brooks and Bryson rekindle their ‘rivalry’ or not. I’ll tune back in for that 15 years from now when they square off for the WWE championship. Since London, the story has expanded beyond the golf world and has gained more mainstream attention, to the point where many of my non-golf friends have been wanting to chat about it. That this next one is in the Portland area adds a bit of potential friction. Will we see anything in the way of serious protests? But I don’t think things are really going to heat up again until the end of July, when LIV shows up at Trump’s place in Bedminster. Talk about tabloid fodder.
OK, I agree that the confluence of Saudi blood money and Trump could be interesting, although things aren't exactly quiet in Portland these days. Though I'm sure the community will roll out the red carper for the progressive Wahabis....or not.
I found these stories interesting. First, the kid that said no:
Pierceson Coody, grandson of Masters champion Charles Coody, prepared for his third Korn Ferry start as a professional this week the same way he had prepared for the first two: byspending 8 to 10 hours a day playing and practicing at the host site, in this case Falmouth (Maine) Country Club; bunking in a budget hotel; and dining at humble local establishments. (His culinary highlight in Falmouth: a lobster roll, which he devoured while overlooking the harbor.)Call it no-frills mini-tour living, with one significant subplot: Coody recently passed on a golden opportunity to leave it all behind.About a month ago, Coody, who was then wrapping up his senior year at the University of Texas, turned down what he and his father Kyle described as a “multi-million-dollar” offer from the Saudi-financed LIV Golf Series. The deal would have made Pierceson, who earned $31,125 in his first two KFT starts, an instant millionaire, with a chance to get even richer in LIV’s huge-purse, no-cut events.But Coody, 22, who earned his Korn Ferry membership by finishing first in the 2022 PGA University Series, said that while signing with LIV would have given him financial security, it also would have taken something away: his lifelong dream of playing on the PGA Tour.“I might be sitting on my couch with millions in my bank account watching my friends play on the PGA Tour, and that would have been devastating,” Coody said.
Oklahoma State standout Eugenio Chacarra is turning professional and joining LIV Golf,GolfChannel.com has confirmed.The news was first reported by the Spanish newspaper, Marca, which spoke to Chacarra, the second-ranked amateur in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and a two-time reigning first-team All-American. Chacarra signed a three-year deal with the Saudi-backed league and will make his pro debut next week at LIV’s event in Portland, Oregon.“My position is that of a player who is not a member of the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour, and I have not earned money while I have been an amateur, so I can play in this league without problems,” Chacarra told Marca (translated from Spanish). “This contract gives me peace of mind and ensures the future of my family. I had already achieved everything as an amateur, and now I will be able to gain experience as a professional.”
So, if it were your son, which path would you recommend? I don't condemn the young man for taking the money, and it is important to note that he at least hasn't violated any contracts or turned his back on an organization from which he profited. Yet, it seems to me obvious that the grind of a young golfer making his way on tour is a key ingredient for future success, so I know which player I'd bet on.
Beware the over-interpretation of early returns, but this story put a smile on your humble blogger's face:
So, you're saying that there is a God?
The harder question, one the TC panel doesn't even hint at, is a battlefield assessment of who's winning. Certainly the field this week is enhanced with all sorts of names of guys that have done things in this game. Though each come with all sorts of baggage, so my own opinion is that they're still far short of credibility.
Mike Bamberger has an interesting piece up, though the header is more than a little curious:
As the PGA Tour throws more cash at the players in a desperate attempt to thwart the Saudis,the timeless appeal of pro golf is being destroyed
Golf has a timeless appeal. Professional golf? Man, that's quite the stretch, Mike.
But he's got this killer anecdote (via John Feinstein), that sums up this mess perfectly:
John Feinstein wrote this the other day in The Washington Post:“[Rory] McIlroy and Garcia are good friends; they were in each other’s weddings. But when Garcia told McIlroy the reason to join the LIV Tour was `so we can finally get paid what we deserve,’ McIlroy laughed out loud. `Sergio,’ he said, `We’re golfers. We don’t deserve to be paid anything.’”
Who runs the OWGR?The OWGR operates out of the DP World Tour offices in London and is run by a governing board consisting of many of the founding tours and major championships. That means that among the board members are Jay Monahan (PGA Tour), Mike Whan (USGA), Seth Waugh (PGA of America), International Federation of PGA Tours official Keith Waters, Martin Slumbers (R&A), Keith Pelley (DP World Tour) and Buzzy Johnson (Augusta National). It is chaired by Peter Dawson, former chief executive of the R&A. In other words, stakeholders in the status quo are in control here.
And you'd think there would be sufficient grounds to exclude the LIV events, first this eponymous shortcoming:
It is believed that the OWGR would have trouble weighing results in LIV Golf’s 54-hole format that features a shotgun start. That alone could be reason enough to not include the series in the OWGR.
Yeah, and this as well:
Another could be its limited field of 48 players
Could be, except that the Tour has taken way to many shortcuts for its own cenvernience:
though PGA Tour events with fewer players—like the Tour Championship and the Sentry Tournament of Champions—award World Ranking points. Limited-field tournaments are approved by the governing board on an individual basis. Then there’s the all-invitational aspect of the LIV series. Critics of the current OWGR argue that players invited to an exclusive series of events are automatically rewarded with ranking points, which skews the system.
But how do you address this field size issue (which to me should be the primary logic of excluding the LIV exhibitions) without noticing that elephant in the corner? To wit, that Nurse Ratched and Kubla Jay were perfectly happy to award OWGR points to an 18-man field at Albany... I mean, 48 is way larger than 18, so good luck with that argument, Jay. At least Tiger has so far stayed bought, but stay tuned...
I raised an issue yesterday at lunch that I'd like to throw out here with the benefit of further thought. What triggers it is the expectation of further LIV press conferences, which I think you'll agree have been....well, painful.
So, lets talk sportswashing for a second, shall we? I've always been a skeptic on this, though I'm cynical on most things as well, including the value of golf sponsorships. The logic seems to be that a country lie Saudi Arabia holds a golf tournament or Formula One race, and that conveys some measure of legitimacy. I have trouble seeing all that much value in said legitimacy, but I can see that it makes them look lie other normal countries at least superficially.
But are the Saudis getting value for their $2 billion? I'm having trouble seeing it, but perhaps it looks different to others. I see a few things that can't be helpful, including the criticism of the Saudi regime form players such as Rory. More specifically, this venture has given new life to the Kashoggi murder, which continues to be cited at virtually every press conference.
At a more subtle level, every player that has signed on has looked diminished in front of the press as they duck the easily anticipated questions about the Saudis. Is MBS watching? because he paid Phil nine figures to represent him, and got a sullen, evasive advocate who looked like he sold his soul to the devil. Maybe I just don't understand how this sportswashing is supposed to work, but it's a lot of money for lifeless golf tournaments and self-centered egotists. What am I missing?
Let's leave things there and we should have an interesting week for sure.
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