Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Tuesday Trifles - Open Hangover Edition

A few of the 2nd day Open stories have done the job American bloggers won't do:

What a week. That was some fun, wasn’t it? Despite the fact that, after Cam Smith raised his newest pint glass on Sunday, major season is over, and the thought that the 262 days to the start of the next one are as uncertain as a St. Andrews weather forecast, the past seven days at the Open Championship felt almost like … a golf hug, right? Watching it wherever you did, you were … warm and cozy. Like going home.

I wanted that number for yesterday's post, but was too damn lazy to calculate it myself.  Even better?  We're already down to 261, so it's going quickly, no?

Tiger Scat - I left it on the cutting room floor yesterday, but the Official Rhetorical Question of Unplayable Lies is, as it's always been, wither Tiger?  That TC panel had these thoughts:

3. The biggest story ahead of Sunday came from a player who didn’t make the weekend. Tiger Woods shot rounds of 78 and 75 and missed the cut, though he was clear that he would play again — and no, he did not wave goodbye atop the Swilcan Bridge. Lots to consider here. Woods struggled, but his surgically repaired right leg looked better. He also wouldn’t commit to any event after this week, so when we see him next is unclear. Our question is this, and it’s direct: After what you saw this week, and this year, does he contend ever again?

Berhow: I think he’ll make more cuts but don’t see him contending much. It’s always going to be a double-edged sword for him. He’ll play less to keep his body healthy, but less reps will mean
more rust when it comes to tournament golf. He could have a chance to be competitive at the Masters for a handful of more years because his course knowledge is so superior there. As for Friday, that send-off was pretty surreal. Probably the most memorable moment I’ve seen in person on a golf course in my life.

Zak: It would be foolish to say he’ll never contend again, so I won’t. He swears he’s getting stronger and things are getting better, but he also swears that we’ve got no idea what he’s putting his body through. He definitely cares a lot and way too much to struggle this much. So I think he’ll contend in a major next year. Maybe two!

Melton: I’m not very bullish on Tiger’s chances to contend again. His health just won’t allow it. I’d love to be proven wrong, though.

Dethier: The most encouraging thing I saw this week was how much better Woods seemed to be walking early in his rounds on Thursday and Friday. The most discouraging was hearing Woods describe just how brutal it is to prep for a tournament round. That’s clearly not a mountain he wants to climb more than a handful of times per year. He looked rusty more than he looked injured. I don’t know where that nets out.

Colgan: I can’t sit here and tell you that Tiger Woods won’t ever contend at the Masters again. But I think we’ve reached the point in his career when that development will be a surprise, and not the expectation.

The Tiger dead-enders are an interesting breed, as Sean Zak somehow talks himself into Tiger contending at two of the biggies next year, though failing to identify which two of the four would allow him to use a buggy.

It's a silly Q&A, as no one outside his inner circle (and probably most within it) can possibly anticipate whether the 261 days will allow for further healing and strength gains.   But 2023 certainly doesn't offer venues that will excite the Tiger-mad, with perhaps the one a full 364 days away looking the most tempting (though that will be over-stated, as we're unlikely to replicate those 2006 conditions).

The Day Two stories obviously touch on Tiger, beginning with this cute bit from Nick Piastowski:

19. Speaking of the Swilcan, let’s talk Tiger. What a moment on Friday, and you’ve no doubt seen and read about it already, so we’ll look ahead. (Though if you haven’t, our Dylan Dethier captured the scene well here.)

Here’s what we know, according to him: He’s not retiring, he’s not sure when he’s playing again, he’s not sure if he’ll again be able to play St. Andrews again. Though son Charlie may push him out for a round.

“I’m sure my son will probably want me to come back here and play,” he said Friday. “I was fortunate enough to have gotten an honorary membership to the R&A. I have my locker here right when you walk into the left here. That’s pretty neat. And because of that, I’m able to get a tee time. (Woods laughed.) So that could happen.”

Boy, can you get Charlie permission to play the back plates, like Cam Young's father did?  Oh, and could you snare Employee No. 2 and I a time in about three weeks?

Dan Rappaport's version offers this long musing on that cloudy future:

4: On the Tiger front … so, now what? Woods actually looked better physically at the Open than he did at either Augusta National or Southern Hills. The limp was less pronounced, and he was not at all far behind Matt Fitzpatrick or Max Homa off the tee. Which, of course, makes sense—the Old Course is dead flat, and he had another two months to strengthen his leg. But his game was powerfully rusty. He looked great in practice, striped it on the range, then couldn’t seem to get the ball into the hole once the scorecard was in his back pocket. The issue is that he simply cannot play enough events to develop competitive sharpness. When he came back from his back fusion, he spoke of being pain-free. He is never, ever pain-free anymore. He played 19 events in 2018 and five more in 2019 before his Masters victory. He’d proven himself a winner on the PGA Tour and a consistent contender in majors before finally cross the line. Even Woods cannot expect to turn up a few times a year, at the hardest courses, against the best fields, and snap back into championship-level form.

But he also doesn’t even seem to be considering playing more. After his 75 on Friday, he said he had zero events planned, that all he wanted to do this year was play in these three majors. He was then asked if he might try to play more events next year with an eye toward tightening his game before the majors.

“I understand all that. I understand being more battle hardened, but it's hard just to walk and play 18 holes,” Woods said. “People have no idea what I have to go through and the hours of the work on the body, pre and post, each and every single day to do what I just did. That's what people don't understand. They don't see. And then you think about playing more events on top of that, it's hard enough just to do what I did.”

There is a distinct possibility, perhaps even probability, that this is the new normal for Woods—majors, and majors only. We simply don’t know if it’s even possible for his leg to get strong enough to sustain playing, say, 10 events a year, and we do know that he’d never in a million years ask for a cart. We know better than to count him out, but you do wonder how he would feel if he’s nowhere near contention in the majors next year. He’s said countless times that he does not have any interest in being a ceremonial golfer, but he’s also addicted to competition and seems his happiest inside the ropes, trading barbs with the boys. His future is a giant question mark.

Tiger has been pretty clear on this at least since last December's Hero World Challenge, so glad you caught up, Dan.  But, more importantly, was there anything we saw over the weekend at Augusta, Tulsa or St. Andrews ( I know he was back in Jupiter, which kind of makes my point) that leads one to think he can physically play more golf?

I know he'll tell us that he'll never become a ceremonial golfer, as Jack did before him.  But he was pretty much a ceremonial golfer in 2022, and perhaps that's not such a bad thing after all.  Though I think it's passing strange that, when asked what his schedule will be going forward, that he didn't commit to the Father-Son with Charlie.  How's the kid taking it?

And a gracious exit, no?

Wither Rory -  Nick debates the chicken or the egg:

2. Did Cam Smith win it? Or did Rory McIlroy lose it? You’re maybe wondering this today.

For the pros, and though it’s seemingly cliche, the St. Andrews plan is patience. You wait till thing are right — the lie, the number, the wind, the feel — and you pounce. Smith had enough of those chances and shot a 64. McIlroy didn’t and signed for a 70. On Saturday, it was reverse; Smith finished with a 73; McIlroy a 66.

McIlroy could have maybore aggressive, though remember, he was popping drivers to set himself up. Smith found momentum, and McIlroy didn’t. Have them play today, the result could likely be different.

Nick, can I interest you in an ampersand?  The obvious answer is that both happened simultaneously, but it was a funny leaderboard that Rory faces Sunday morning.  There was somebody arguing that -19 had always won Opens, and that he should therefore play conservatively and, as long as he took care of business on the two Par-5's, that should work.  But patience at this venue, with no wind and softened a bit on Sunday, seemed a risky strategy, though it was unclear whether Hovland or the Two Cams would be the threat, I just had the sense that -19 might not be enough...

5. Poor Rory. What else is there to say? The thought, though, is this: He’s tinkered before, and you should pay attention to whether he does it again.

He shouldn’t.

His game has two outsized shortcomings, so I would postulate that some tinkering might be in order there... Of course, he might also consider an actual professional caddie, but the failure of his putting and wedge play isn't a movie we haven't seen before.

But Shane Ryan has what feels like the definitive piece on the Rory Enigma, and he doesn't pull punches even in the header:

There is no bright side to Rory McIlroy's Open loss, so let's stop kidding ourselves

 Cam Smith might beg to differ, but yeah:

Professional golf is a sport perpetually shrouded in a light mist of romance and nostalgia, and I
consider that a good thing. We're fortunate that the game's history adds meaning to its present, and that the feat of winning a major championship, or a Ryder Cup, or even a PGA Tour event, is deepened by an ongoing historical context that winds backward through decades or even centuries. When the immediacy of extraordinary skill is backed up by the weight of time, you have something special on your hands.

If there's a downside to all this, though, it's that these quasi-mystical elements are also crutches, and we as golf fans are poorly prepared to acknowledge or handle what happened on Sunday at St. Andrews. Our complicated relationship with Rory McIlroy has now spanned eight years, and in that time we've contended with the same pattern on repeat—he fills us with hope, he lets us down. The year 2022 has been a hyper-charged lab experiment of all the ways he can send us into emotional spirals; the late failed charge at Augusta, the early lost lead at Southern Hills, the endless lurking at Brookline, and now the slow Sunday fade at the Old Course. It's driven a few of us mad, myself included—I wrote a break-up letter to Rory after the U.S. Open, for God's sake. Despite the temporary bouts of insanity, though, it wasn't anything unexpected. In fact, it had become downright familiar.

Sounds like some couples therapy might be indicated....

But wait, it gets worse, as Shane ties in the bigger picture:

But let's be honest with ourselves about the Open Championship: this was different. This was a new level of spiritual bulldozing. If you had asked a Rory fan to dream up the worst possible scenario for Sunday, it would be simple: Rory loses, and the winner is a LIV golfer or someone about to go to LIV. The result? Rory lost. Cam Smith won, and as for LIV, you can judge for yourselves based on how he answered a simple question of whether he's going. All I know is, anyone who has used this defensive/vague tactic in the past has been gone (call it the "Koepka playbook"), and though I have no more inside dope than anyone, I'm treating it in my head like he's gone.

Oh, I'm with Shane, he seems as good as gone after the FedEx Cup, and this one will get Jay's attention.

Amusingly, Shane take son that Joel Beall piece that I tweaked yesterday, that one whose header indicated that Rory lost the battle but won the war?

Golf Digest's Joel Beall, in a beautiful piece from Sunday about the magnitude of Rory's presence at St. Andrews, wrote many things I agreed with, and one in particular that I did not. He wrote: "what happened on the final nine holes does not change what happened before them."

Everyone's experience is different, and I'm not saying Joel is wrong, only that my experience was the opposite. From where I sat, the last nine holes absolutely changed everything that happened before, and the cruel truth of Rory's failed individual struggle coupled with the broader forces at play made this particularly hard to bear, and not at all mitigated by the atmospherics of Rory's journey. In short, history and romance and nostalgia can't protect us from Sunday's brutal reality.

And his rousing coda:

The situation at St. Andrews was somehow worse because it involved not just a competitor, but a whole ecosystem. Not only does the triumvirate of history/romance/nostalgia fail to numb the pain, but the best defense mechanism of all, and the only one that worked in the Duke scenario above—"well, it's only sports"—also fails here. This isn't just sports. It's anything and everything about our modern world, and who wins, and who loses, and that could be its own 10,000-word essay so I'll spare you the rest.

There's an old cartoon making the point that no matter how much you fight, "sometimes the dragon wins." On Sunday, the dragon won, and won emphatically. This isn't about Cam Smith, who played marvelously and who, again, seems otherwise likable, and though it is about Rory, it's not exclusively about Rory. It's about bigger forces at play, and those forces being in opposition to everything we'd like to believe about golf. Something this symbolically ugly could only happen at St. Andrews; it's a knife in history's back, and this is where history lives. It's tempting to want to protect ourselves using those reliable fallbacks, but there was no romance in what happened this weekend, no silver lining, no solace. Wishful thinking won't save us. The major offseason starts today, bad news will be coming in droves, and if we don't face the pain head on and recognize it in its purest, most unshakeable form, that romance may be lost for good.

Yeah, it's all pretty much turning to s**t.  

Open Leftovers -  A little free-form riffing on those two linked notebook dumps, beginning with Nick's riff on the distance debate:

14. Let’s talk St. Andrews, the course. The talk ahead of the tournament was whether it was defenseless against modern players, equipment and golf balls; the discussion during the event was St. Andrews’ defense — fast fairways, difficult pins and the usual humps and bumps and breezes of links golf.

Here’s the thought: Were you thinking that on Sunday afternoon? Whether the tech is dialed back or not — and it probably will be — the golf was fun, to players and viewers. The scores were low, but this wasn’t exactly point, click and shoot golf.

Let’s move on.

If only we could....

I have a question that I forgot to ask in yesterday's post.  Was anyone but Tiger in Hell Bunker this week?  I know we had fast turf and low winds, in fact they seemed to play the inward nine downwind much of the time, but I don't even remember Hell Bunker being cited as a factor by commentators all week.  

Nick is right, I think, that the R&A got through the week pretty well, though it seems like they used some aggressive pin locations, including that back-left one on No. 17.  Had it been a wetter summer in Scotland, it remains scary to contemplate how low these guys might go.

I'm glad Nick dealt with this issue, but equally glad he included Shane Lowry's thoughts:

24. St. Andrews also slowed play down during the first two rounds — some rounds were six hours plus — and Dethier summed up the reason well when he tweeted: “The ball’s going crazy far so players have to wait for greens to clear from 350+, but then balls end up in fescue, bunkers etc. Long game requires waiting, short game requires time. Drivable 4s, reachable 5s, overlapping holes all make it worse.”

25. Then there are Shane Lowry’s feelings on the matter.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to deal with days like today,” he said Thursday. “If you’re standing there trying to make excuses for your bad day for being too long on the course, well, don’t come here and play because it’s the Open at St. Andrews, and it’s going to take six hours to play a round around here, and that’s just the way it is. I know how to deal with that.”

For those who haven't been there it's hard to explain how narrow the whole playing field is.  Combined with those reachable Par-4's and especially the double greens, they are forever stepping aside and allowing other groups to play (the issue obviously being crowd reactions to shots).  The chorography for recreational play is its own interesting subject, but that works adequately well, especially when grizzled Old Course caddies are directing traffic.  But this will only be a bigger issue when they return in 2030 (a guess that they'll revert to every five years).

Who knew Danny Willet was so eloquent on the joys of linksology:

29. A few more quotes. Here’s Danny Willettt, on why he enjoys St. Andrews so much:

“A bit of history. I think it’s just good fun. You can just cleverly golf your ball around this place. You can hit certain shots that you wouldn’t ordinarily hit. You’re trying to use the wind to soften the flight. You’re playing your round of golf a lot. You’re not just standing there hitting the same shot time and time again. You see a lot of different approaches down different holes. Guys hitting anything from 4-irons to drivers, depends on what they see, what shot shape they hit. And so I think it lends itself to real nice shot-making and nice visualization.

“You can run it up to certain flags like 17. Some guys trying to spin it and hold it softly against the wind. There’s just lots of things you can do. I think notoriously if you look back at the Opens around this place, they’re very, very good winners. Real good ball-strikers, good flight. People can fly the ball really well. It’s just a nice shotmaker’s golf course.”

He might have added that you come back the next day when the wind has inevitably shifted or changed intensity, and therefore playing a completely different golf course.

This guy gets it as well:

Back over to Dan's item that hits on this similar theme: 

5: This brought the close of an enchanting fortnight in Scotland, one in which we saw PGA Tour players, often (fairly) caricatured as golfing robots, morph into golf nerds like the rest of us. Max Homa couldn’t get enough, sneaking out for a twilight 18 at North Berwick after making the cut at the Scottish Open. On Wednesday evening of Open week, a few other media types came through with a last-minute invite to play Elie Golf House Club, an impossibly charming layout about 25 minutes due south of St. Andrews. Andy Johnson, founder of The Fried Egg, described it as one of those rounds that fills up the tank. Spot-on. After watching the pros devise a plan of action for picking apart the Old Course, we were all itching for a crack at a links ourselves, and we got one. We teed off around 7 p.m. local time and finished, just barely, in near-darkness. We shared a cab ride back and told jokes, debated our favorite holes and marveled at the experience we’d just shared. In what other sport is there such a direct link between the best players in the world and the amateurs? This was like a bunch of football journalists, adrenaline pumping after covering a Super Bowl practice, running Oklahoma drills. Or a couple basketball journalists, after watching a particularly fiery Final Four, getting in some pickup at the Y. Maybe that happens, but I don’t think so. Our connection to this game runs so deep because we play this game. Here’s to hoping that never changes.

He's unfortunately mixed two points together here, the second of which is the less remarkable.  Obviously golf differs from the vast majority of other sports in that everyone watching it also plays the game, typically with some passion involved.  Amusingly, MLB has been running a series of ads in which they encourage their viewers to go "Play Ball!", though I'm unclear as to how that's even possible.

But the more important point is that, despite it being their job, it's so great when professionals show a continued love of and reverence for our game.  It can be quite the grind, but this can only basically happen in the old world...

Are you in the market for a can of worms?  I've been mulling this since at least Thursday:

8: The way the Old Course played this week, springy and bouncy and brown, brought an interesting word to mind: luck. What role does luck have in this game? In a tournament that, by its very nature, should identify the best golfer of the week?

Opinions varied. Widely. On the whole, old-timey writers (and players) believe luck has always been baked into the fabric of this sport. It’s not supposed to be fair. Take Tiger Woods’ first hole
of the tournament, for example. He flushed a long iron exactly where he was looking, and it finished in a fresh and sandy divot. Is that … is that good? Should that happen? In this case, I lean on the side of yes: this is a sport that’s played outside. Luck of the draw with tee times and conditions have always factored into determining who wins (LIV Golf changing this slightly). If it was all supposed to be perfectly fair, why don’t we just give each player a piece of astroturf to carry around and hit off of? Why not just have competitions inside a simulator?

But not all luck is the same—there is luck of the draw and rub of the green, and then there’s having to hit and simply hope for the best. According to U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, there was way too much of that going on this week.

“I'm not really a fan,” Fitzpatrick said of the course and the setup this week after his Saturday round. “It's difficult to … I just feel like sometimes … I've heard it on commentary all week. You can hit good shots and get bad bounces. And you can hit bad shots and get good bounces. Like I say, I felt, for the first seven holes, I didn't really miss a shot. I'm walking off seventh green and I'm plus 1. It's tough to take. It's tough to stay patient. I hit the green on 12, and I just got no putt. It's tucked on top of a hill, and I hit what I thought was a good putt and it comes to 12 feet. There's a lot of stuff like that that's been done, obviously, to protect it from going lower, I guess … 16, for me, is an example of a hole where I've just tried to make par all week, just bang it into the long rough, wedge it up on the green, and get out with a par."

Anecdotally, it did seem like most birdies this week were made by guys hitting it up by the green in one-less than regulation—so, on their drive on a par 4, or in two on a par 5—hoping their ball ended up in a good spot and getting up and down. There were so many driver-putters this week, and wedge/short-iron play was borderline irrelevant. When asked the two most important parts of your game you need firing to have success out here, Kevin Kisner didn’t have to think twice: Driving and lag putting. That’s different from the other major-championship tests we’ve seen in recent years, where iron play is critical. As far as identifying the best players, it’s hard to argue with the quality of the leaderboard, and the unpredictable nature of the Old Course produced some highly entertaining viewing, but Fitzpatrick has a point. Justin Thomas, however, saw things differently. Like, direct opposite:

“The good part about this week is with the little amount of wind is they’ve been able to set some challenging pins," Thomas said. And when the greens are rolling a 9 or a 10, you can do that. It’s not unfair, it’s just difficult. I thought the R&A did an unbelievable job setting up the course this week. ”

The lesson here: in any context, you’re never going to please 156 golfers.

Forgive the absurdly long excerpt, as well as the greater sin of not using this as a counter-point to Nick's relief that the winning score was "only -20".   They drew a week with barely any wind, offset to an extent by the firmness of the turf, but those pins were very severe in cases, and the game here seems to have devolved, though I'd consider it more of a troika, driver-wedge-putter.

In general, professional golf requires mid-irons pretty much only on Par-3's these days, and long irons have gone extinct.  This is perhaps an under-appreciated as aspect of the Old Course, which only has the two Par-3's.  Amusingly, the R&A has always refused to do that which the USGA has patented, convert two member Par-4's to one-shotters.  Not that par does or even should actually mean anything, but it's easy enough to change Cam's winning score to -12, though it's also an admission of failure.

UnbeLIVable - Admittedly, I though Jay had the troops under control, but it's about to get really ugly.  There was this:

Former Masters champion Sergio Garcia said he intends to quit the DP World Tour after joining the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series, adding that he no longer feels loved on his home European circuit.

Garcia, who resigned his PGA membership to play in the LIV series, will be ineligible for future Ryder Cups if he quits the DP World Tour.

"I am quite clear about what I am going to do with the European circuit. Probably leave it," Garcia told Spanish reporters after the Open on Sunday. "I want to play where I feel loved, and right now in the European Tour I am not feeling loved.

Got a pro tip for you, Sergio.  If you want to be loved, be loveable.  Shockingly, spitting in the hole, temper tantrums in bunkers and damaging greens in a hissy fit are not loveable acts.  I know, just trust me on that.

But is he "unloved"?  Or is he just a delicate flower?

Garcia's former European Ryder Cup captain, Thomas Bjorn, has been an outspoken critic of LIV Golf and the players who have jumped ship to the breakaway circuit bankrolled by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

Critics say the new series amounts to blatant sportswashing by a nation trying to improve its reputation in light of its history of human rights abuses.

"When Thomas Bjorn -- former Ryder Cup captain -- came to the BMW Championship and told us: 'We don't love any of you and all players say so.' ... I already have an age and had enough suffering to be enduring nonsense like that," Garcia said. "That's not pretty. I have given more than half my life to the European Tour and I wanted to continue playing it, but I am not going to be where they don't want me.

"It is very sad to receive such treatment for a personal and professional decision. ... I feel sorry for the Ryder Cup, my resignation is not official, but I'm going to make it effective. I have what I have and I am very happy with it, and I want to enjoy it to the fullest. I will play less; I will be more at home."

I think we can all agree that Sergio being at home is win-win.

I had picked up on these rumors a week or so ago, though neglected to blog it:

14: Speaking of the saga … the golf world came together for four days in Scotland, but we were reminded of the schism while fans were still trying to leave the property. That’s when Cameron Smith was asked about the speculation of him making the jump and … didn’t deny it. Minutes later, Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir reported that Henrik Stenson would join LIV imminently and be stripped of his Ryder Cup captaincy. This whole ordeal is a headache, and even if major weeks may provide some respite, the battle’s not going to stop any time soon.

Not sure where that Cam decision fits in with the Prez Cup, but I don't think people have really woken up to the extent to which the Ryder Cup is on life support.  And that the death blow will come from the European side, those that made their reputations in that very event.  yeah, the irony, she burns.

While we've all focused on the critical role that the OWGR's will play, we now have the R&A on record as opposed, but Nick asks a very good question:

11. The world ranking decision will be interesting. But I’m very interested to know what Augusta National says.

First, they're not going to say anything anytime soon, the question is what they're prepared to do.  I'm reminded of all those observers who thought they distance debate would be resolved by ANGC introducing a tournament ball.  Your humble blogger always found that little more than a hope, and I've been reliably informed that hope is not a strategy.

But aren't we being similarly naïve if we think this mess will be resolved by Fred Ridley disinviting Phil and DJ?  It's rather a big ask no?  I get that there might be a half measure that includes Fred using his board seat to vote against awarding OWGR points to LIV-hole events, but I'd suggest and aggressive Plan B to back that up.

Dan hit on this issue as well, naming the affected players:

13: If I’m a LIV golfer, I’d be phoning whoever I can as often as I can to get updates on the Official World Golf Ranking conundrum. As Woods alluded to in his press conference, there is a distinct possibility that, at least in the short term, non-major winners who play the LIV series will not be able to get into majors if the circuit doesn’t offer World Ranking points soon. Guys in that position include Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Paul Casey, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Kevin Na, to name a few. Those guys being warm-blooded human beings with a pulse, this had to have been one of, if not the, best week of their year, and the prospect of not participating in these seminal events would toss me into an existential crisis.

It seems to me that folks are overestimating the importance, however.  Confronted with this quite obvious uncertainty (combined with forgoing their Ryder Cup victory laps), they jumped anyway.  You can fool yourself into thinking that forgoing majors will bring them back, but isn't the more logical conclusion that they wanted to cash the check, even if it means they won't see Magnolia Lane again?  

Lastly, many of us have noted that demographics and personality profile of the LIVsters, with "Good riddance" being the operative reaction to news of Sergio, PReed and Poulter's defection.   But they've been in the market for a name-brand talking head, and they seem to have landed one that can match their player roster for tree rings and personality disorders:

Rumors have been flying about which golfers would be the latest to defect from the PGA Tour to
the breakaway LIV Golf Invitational Series, now that the fourth and final men’s major of the year is in the books.

But it appears that the latest name to make the jump for the series that is still without a TV partner is not a player but a popular broadcaster. According to a report in the New York Post, longtime NBC Sports and Golf Channel analyst and TV host David Feherty is making the move.

The report says that NBC has declined comment. Feherty, 63, was a part of the 20-person on-air crew at the Old Course at St. Andrews for the 150th Open Championship last week.

Personally, I'm shocked that Jerry Folz hasn't moved the needle, though you've no doubt heard the Charles Barkley rumors as well.   My guess is that NBC feels they've dodged a bullet, and I'm not even sure that I care all that much, since I expect to be watching way less golf in the future.  Just another way that LIV is growing the game...

See if you like this for an exit strategy.  This was Tiger in his presser dishing on LIV:

“What is the incentive to practice and earn it in the dirt?’’ Woods said.

As a brief aside, I thought Martin Slumbers did well to note that his disagreement with LIV is tied to their break with the meritocratic nature of our game, not that I think many focused on his specific arguments.

Here's Paul McGinley's take on LIV's franchise player:

‘I don’t see the body of work going in’: Analyst questions Dustin Johnson preparation

Whether that explains DJ's desultory weekend remains an open (and Open) issue, but they went there so they wouldn't have to grind.  They seem to have missed a key point, at least to this observer, which is that, to paraphrase the Scots, nae grind, nae heartbreak, nae golf. 

A Palate Cleanser - We depart two weeks from today, and I spent most of the last weekend begging the gods for daily ballot luck.  St. Andrews, in case you've been nodding off, is a special place in our game, and Josh Berhow has just one of many factoids that lead to that inevitable conclusion:

Do tell:


My understanding is that that's where they stuck the second tee....

But there's no shortage of history:

Right of the 1st green, not far from the 2nd tee, sits a massive expanse that rolls wildly up and down with rollicking humps and swales. This week spectators walk over it. Open buggies park on
it. Other weeks? It’s the St. Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club, also known as The Himalayas — believed to be the first-ever mini golf course.

According to club history, in the 1860s, few acceptable recreational activities existed for women, but there were many who summered in St. Andrews with their families. So in 1867, Old Tom Morris laid out a putting course. Over 150 years later it’s still there, open to the public and an uber-popular concept copied throughout the world.

It all goes back to Old Tom, unless of course it predates him.  The place is magical, now about that daily ballot....

Do you know about Sundays on the Old Course?  It's public land and it's the public's on Sunday, including once those Open festivities have left town:

What a place!

Friend of the blog Bobby D. asked me a question over the weekend that he's asked before, "Did you see todays' N.Y. Times?  The answer was "no" and will pretty much always be "no", though I am very happy that he tipped me off to this prototypical Pravda item, the premise of which is that we're all going to die.  While the premise of the article leaves me....well, cold, it did include this wonderful photo:

Golfers on the Crail Golfing Society course, 12 miles south of St. Andrews. Crail is under similar enviromental threat, having experienced coastal erosion after a damaging storm in 2021.

That's the fourteenth tee box of the Balcomie Links (Crail Golfing Society actually has two courses) looking out to the North Sea, but notice how brown it is.  All of our recent trips have included disappointingly soft conditions, but your humble blogger's hopes are rising that we'll see it firmer this year.  There is some rain in the forecast between now and then, but there's always rain in the forecast there.

Lastly, a fellow traveler:

Well, Scott, on or about August 6th it goes from being your ultimate happy place to being our ultimate happy place.  You don't mind sharing, do you?   But, fiery, you say?  You wouldn't tease a fellow, would you?

That's a wrap for today, kids.  see you down the road...
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