Weekend Wrap

It's Open Week, so we'll be flooding the zone with coverage.... But first, form the south side of the Firth of Fort....

Dateline: North Berwick - If you want to sound like you've been there before, the "w" is silent.... The week in East Lothian seems to this observer to have been a modest success.  Certainly a strong field, though the leaderboard seemed more diverse and inclusive than folks might have preferred.

Though, as these things end to work out in our game, those that slammed their trunks and headed to The Kingdom of Fife might be worth your consideration for the coming week.  But little doubt who the hottest player on the planet is:

It has been a pretty good week for Xander Schauffele.

On Tuesday, the 28-year-old captured the JP McManus Pro-Am in Ireland. Come Sunday, it was his

turn to hoist yet another trophy.

Schauffele played brilliantly on the back nine at The Renaissance Club to capture the 2022 Genesis Scottish Open at 7-under 273. He shot an even-par 70 during the final round to top Kurt Kitayama by one shot and J.H. Kim by two for his seventh career PGA Tour title.

“Not going to put makeup on the pig here… it was a very average day,” Schauffele said after the final round. “Probably my worst this week. (My caddie) Austin (Kaiser) kept me calm. Yesterday I told you, as boring as it is, you really can’t get ahead of yourself in links golf. I was ahead, I was behind, I was ahead, I was behind. Just kept my head down.”

Very similar to his Sunday in Hartford, for whatever that might be worth...

The Tour Confidential panel gave their takes on the co-sanctioning bit, which certainly seemed to result in a strong field:

4. The Scottish Open, won by Xander Schauffele, was the first co-sanctioned event between the PGA and DP World tours, with players from both sides also filling out the field at the Barbasol Championship, in Kentucky. Are you a fan of these co-sanctioned events, and are we likely to see more of this collaborative approach as LIV Golf continues to attract more players?

Colgan: If co-sanctioned events lead to a more consistent PGA Tour presence in the UK and Ireland, I’m ALL for it. It’s ridiculous to me that the Tour travels to TPC Deere Run every year, while courses like Muirfield, Carnoustie and Portrush go unseen for years on end. It’s time to bring links golf back to the Tour.

Ummm, when you say "Bring back links golf on Tour", I have to ask, when was it ever on Tour?   

Zak: These co-sanctioned events are going to be vital to both tours. They should co-sanction the Irish Open next. And the BMW PGA Championship after that. If the alliance is as strong as Monahan and Pelley say it is, that would help prove it.

Dethier: Co-sanctioned events are inherently valuable in and of themselves. But if they can attract strong fields in interesting locales? I’m all the way in. Elevating the Scottish Open as a pre-Open links test was absolutely perfect. Only critique: I’d love to see it travel to some great linksy tests.

Sens: Agreed. Co-sanctioning matters if it gets as many of the top players as possible together in one place. And I do think we’ll see more. It wasn’t talked about much explicitly this week, but the subtext in a lot of the conversation (14 of the world top 15 are here!) made it all feel like alliance-building against an outside attack. There will be more.

these guys seem not to understand much about golf or the tours' schedules, because the biggest surprise of the recent enhancement of the Special Relationship was the absence of additional co-sponsored events.  The reason for that is simple, there are no logical events above and beyond the Scottish...

Even the Irish Open doesn't really work, for them or for Jay Monahan.  He's already moved the Deere a week earlier to release the guys for the Scottish.  And the Irish have apparently foresworn the links for their Open, as apparently players don't want to expose themselves to links weather for three consecutive weeks.  

The place on the calendar when they could play the Co-sanction game would be the Fall, but that's now under review in order to appease his high-rollers.  Jay certainly needs to keep the Euros in the fold, but co-sanctioning isn't a freebie, he can't exactly expect a sponsor to pay full pop while he's sending his A-listers to Europe.

No, the Scottish is a one-off, it works because of The Open and the guys' desire to get on links turf a week early.

Dateline: St Andrews - Just a tease today, as I'm on the clock already.  First, did you hear about todays' celebration of those 150 years?

A star-studded field of Champion Golfers, women’s Major Champions, male and female amateur champions, and golfers with disability champions compete over the 1st, 2nd, 17th and 18th holes of the famous Old Course in celebration of the historic playing of golf’s original Championship.

25 Champion Golfers are set to take part, including the likes of Tom Watson, Gary Player and Sir Nick Faldo, while last year’s winner Collin Morikawa is set to hit the first shot at 3.02pm.

Morikawa will be quickly followed by 2017 Champion Golfer Jordan Spieth in Group 2, who will tee off with fellow Champion Golfers Mark Calcavecchia and Ian Baker-Finch, as well as Juan Postigo Arce – who sits in third spot on the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability.

There is an Irish flavour to Group 4, which sees Champion Golfers Darren Clarke and Shane Lowry play alongside 1986 Women’s British Open champion Dame Laura Davies and Jack Bigham, who won R&A Boys’ Amateur Championship last August.

Group 5 will attract plenty of attention, with the two oldest players in the field – 86-year-olds Gary Player and Sir Bob Charles – teeing off, alongside fellow Champion Golfer Sandy Lyle and paragolfer Monique Kalkman.

Five-time Champion Golfer Tom Watson is out at 4.31pm and will play alongside Stewart Cink, who so memorably beat him in a play-off at Turnberry in 2009, while four St Andrews Champion Golfers – Sir Nick Faldo, Zach Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and John Daly - are out 4.43pm.

Finishing with a flourish, the last group sees Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Georgia Hall and Lee Trevino tee off.

They've checked quite a few boxes there, though just in case you missed one rather minor exclusion, the R&A has made clear that it was no mere oversight:

In response to enquiries regarding The R&A Celebration of Champions field and the Champions’ Dinner, we can confirm that we contacted Greg Norman to advise him that we decided not to invite him to attend on this occasion. The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the Championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow Greg will be able to attend again in future.

Yowzer, our elites very rarely speak so clearly, though the use of Shark's first name strikes me as oddly familiar....

Shockingly, Eamon Lynch has thoughts:

It’s a sign of how far Greg Norman has traveled on the low road to perdition that the major

championships he once elevated with his presence have come to believe that even exhibitions and dinners can only benefit from his absence.

That sentiment was apparent in April when Augusta National didn’t send Norman an invitation to attend the Masters, which it customarily extends to all living (non-imprisoned) major winners. Now the R&A has declined to invite the Great White Pilot Fish to the Celebration of Champions exhibition in St. Andrews on Monday or to Tuesday’s champions dinner (not a consideration back in Georgia). Augusta National and the R&A are not organizations prone to discourtesies. They don’t do oversights, or at least not accidentally.

Obviously no one wants him around, but this could easily feel petty to outsiders....has the feel of the R&A punching down.

But is Eamon's case actually compelling?  If only...

The “it all” to which Norman obliquely refers is relevant. While he’d like to peddle a narrative that the R&A is being picayune and ignoring his past accomplishments, what the governing body is actually doing is acknowledging his present activities. And those activities don’t involve the promotion or growth of golf but rather its wholesale whoring for the purposes of Saudi sportswashing, a difference that might not be as obvious to Norman as it is to folks who don’t conflate the good of the game with their personal enrichment and score-settling.

OK, but is it the responsibility of golf's governing bodies to adjudicate such moral ourages?

Despite Norman’s insinuation, this isn’t a case of the R&A reflexively choosing sides with the PGA and DP World tours in a commercial dispute with his Saudi-funded LIV Golf. The decision was selfish, sure, but it was made purely in the interests of the R&A, the Open and its ancillary events, not in the interests of Jay Monahan or Keith Pelley.

Really?  Give Eamon a full read and see what you think for your ownself, but I'm having trouble seeing where the USGA and R&A have much business saving Jay Monahan and Keith Pelley's feedlots.

 Mike Bamberger, now at The Fire Pit Collective, also has thoughts, noting quite the contadiction:

It would have been awkward, maybe, to have Norman at the dinner in St. Andrews, alongside Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. But he had the right to be there. So why are Mickelson and Oosthuizen, former champions and LIV defectors, still on the invitation list? They, unlike Norman, are not the face of this upstart tour.

Excuse me, Mike, but Phil is actually the face of this upstart Tour, and far more significant to its fortunes than The Shark could ever be.

 Mike goes further than Eamon and has this view of the future:

But the bigger picture is this: The leaderships of the R&A, the USGA, the PGA of America and the European and American tours, plus Augusta National, are ultimately joined at the hip. In the end, they speak as one. They have stood as one on every major issue golf has ever faced, from the size of the ball to nondiscrimination standards for clubs that want to host events. (Though it must be noted that Augusta National was granted plenty of time to finally admit women members.) If the R&A is already saying it will have nothing to do with Norman as a person and LIV as a golfing enterprise, the other bodies will say the same.

Does that mean the major events will find a way to keep LIV players out of their fields? Yes, by way of World Golf Ranking points. (LIV events, at 54 holes, will ultimately not qualify for points, is my guess.)

Whereas a few months ago we were boning up on antitrust law, it does seem that the OWGR could be the hill on which LIV dies. 

But, while I readily acknowledge that there has never been a man worse than this one, WTF!

The LIV tour will have two events at Trump courses this year. Next year, when the schedule expands to 14 events, it could be more than two. The PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the R&A have already frozen out Trump. A road to détente, as McIlroy suggests, is already complicated by the LIV-Trump Golf relationship. And complicated is a bit of British understatement.

The statement was neat and tidy. The stormy sea beneath it is rising.

Seriously, it's completely obvious that Trump, spurned by all the major golf organizations, and Norman would find each other.  But what does Trump have to do with the larger issues?  Bloody well nothing, but they just can't help themselves...

In palate cleansing mode, the TC panel turns its gaze to the Auld Grey Toon:

1.The Open Championship, the year’s final major, is here, and there is no shortage of storylines. It’s the event’s 150th anniversary. Tiger is playing. So is Phil. And on and on. What are you most looking forward to playing out across the pond this week?

James Colgan: I think the story of the week is Tiger Woods playing in what could very well be his final Open at St. Andrews as a serious competitor. The Old Course is Tiger’s favorite in the world. It’s flat enough for him to walk without issue. It’s the sort of place in which mental advantages are generally more significant than physical ones. It feels like Tiger’s whole year — and maybe longer — has been building toward this week. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this event for the most significant player in the history of the sport.

Sean Zak: I’m most looking forward to my coworkers arriving! But on a serious note, James is correct. Secondarily, I’ll look forward to Rory McIlroy’s opening 66 Thursday afternoon, followed by a 68 Friday morning.

Dylan Dethier: This is one week where the stakes set themselves. It’s the Open at St. Andrews! That’s the story! But if we’re diving into the details of this tournament itself I’m eager to see how Xander Schauffele, arguably the best golfer without a major, fares coming off a red-hot stretch that includes wins in two consecutive PGA Tour starts.

Josh Sens: In the modern era, golfers who have done well at Augusta have tended to do the same at the Old Course. All of which is to say that it’s prolly not a bad idea to throw a few shekels on the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Cam Smith, Jordan Spieth and, yeah, probably Tiger, and see if recent history repeats.

Not much of interest there.... perhaps they can address more serious issues:

2. Jordan Spieth, in an interview during the Scottish Open, was asked if he thought St. Andrews was “too easy,” to which he replied: “But I think if it’s like it was this morning out

here, it’s just a wedge contest, really.” Spieth added as part of another answer that he didn’t think the major was in any way lessened, and that if the weather kicks up, the thought is moot. Does Spieth have a point: With modern technology, could a St. Andrews Open turn into a chipping contest?

Colgan: Absolutely. If the wind doesn’t blow, we could see a winner at-or-near 20-under. But does that lessen the scope of the event, or the golf course? Of course not. Everyone is competing in the same arena, under the same stakes, for the same prize. Is winning a ‘wedge contest’ any less valuable than winning an iron contest, like we saw at the U.S. Open? I think not.

Zak: It’s sort of what everyone doesn’t want to admit, right? Hopefully it will be windy, and then we can forget about it until the next Open. But if it’s not, we may have to just rip the band-aid off once and for all with a serious discussion of rolling back the ball. The Old Course, as a physical property, doesn’t have much more bend to it.

Dethier: We’re going to see a lot of wedges, for sure. We see quite a few every week! Low scores are all but assured; we’ve seen plenty at the Old Course during Dunhill week in recent years. This week will be a good test of how it stands up under reasonable weather conditions with major-championship preparations. I’m predicting a lot of red numbers, but a firm, fast St. Andrews will still be a delight, even if they go low.

Sens: It’s a bummer what modern equipment in the hands of the best players has done to a lot of classic courses, not just this one. Without some challenging weather, we’re not going to see the kind of demands that make the Open Championship so great when it’s at its best. In that sense, yeah. It can be too easy. But everything is relative. Someone is still going to have to go lower than everyone else, which is hard.

The bigger question is what to hope for, as we might need to see a 61 (or, dare I think it, a 59) to bring folks to their senses....

This is an interesting piece on this subject, even allowing for the fact that it doesn't really deliver on its premise:

Open Championship 2022: How the R&A aims to give the Old Course a fighting chance against modern tour pros

The Old Course is so different than any other links, and this piece mirrors a story I use to illustrate it (I think I think I used it just yesterday).  On the fifth hole, that short Par-5 on the outbound nine that the guys eat up, I hit a great drive and noticed the yardage on a sprinkler head, which are always to the front of the green, and had the following conversation with my caddie:

ME: Am I really going to be hitting a gap wedge for my second on a Par-5?

Grizzled Old Course Caddie: Not bloody likely as today's pin is 79 yards on.

Naturally, I was amused by this:

“In the last couple of Opens we have had a pin position on the fifth green that is ’85 yards on,’ ” he says with a smile. “That substantially increases the length of the hole. But it’s quite a thing to see on a hole position sheet, ‘85 on’ and, say, ‘23 from the right.’ But that is the joy of the Old Course. On another day we could have the pin only 20 yards on at the fifth, past the false front. To have the ability to vary the way the hole plays to that extent is great for us.

Moving the pin left or right at the fifth, says Moir, can have a similar influence. “Last time at the Open, we used a pin position I’m not aware has been seen before. We put the pin way left behind the bunkers which most people would see as being in play on the 13th. But that’s only a good position when the hole plays into the wind and is a three-shot hole. Downwind, everyone plays to the middle of the green and putts across. There isn’t a lot of interest or variety in that. So we need the right conditions to use certain pin positions. As much as I might want to use a certain pin position, I need the discipline to not use it when conditions are not right.”

 OK, but with a wedge in their hands, we'll see no shortage of 3's, unless she's blowing...

The controversy among purists is the use of long rough, which many feels is a crime against nature.  here's on the 16th, which used to be one of the great driving challenges in golf:

One area where the R&A might be open to criticism is the seemingly increasing amount of long

grass on a course that was never supposed to have any. Former head greenskeeper Eddie Adams, now employed by the DP World Tour, once said that ideally and with the exception of the first and 18th, where the Swilcan Burn crosses the fairways, players should be able to putt their way round. Those days are gone, perhaps most noticeably (or egregiously, depending on one’s point of view) at the 16th and 17th holes.

Where once the cluster of bunkers known as the “Principal’s Nose” occupied a spot close to the middle of the 16th fairway, they now sit only a few yards from the left rough. It is fair to speculate that most players will lay-up short of the bunkers and play to the green from there. Attempting to drive through the narrow gap between the legendary hazard and the out-of-bounds fence to the right remains an option. But it is hard to imagine many taking on such a high-risk play.

And, perhaps more importantly, to the left on No. 17:

A similar debate is easy to have when the subject is the rough left at the Road Hole. Some would like to see that long grass eliminated, the theory being that if a player wants to hit his tee shot way left he should be allowed to do so, with the understanding that the further left one goes, the worse the angle into the iconic green becomes.

Even then, of course, the world’s best players are still going to be tempted by the “hero shot” that could lead to birdie … or double bogey … or worse. That potential contrast in scenarios, so the argument goes, has to be more interesting and exciting than watching players bunt balls forward from long grass, pitching onto the putting surface and making a 4 or a 5 every time.

“If we had no rough left of the 17th, it would get pretty chaotic,” Moir says. “From an agronomic point of view, we can’t decide to take the rough away with three weeks to go. That’s how the course has played ever since I can remember. We don’t want hack-out rough. We still want people to be able to hit the shot Seve Ballesteros so memorably hit onto the green en route to winning the Open in 1984. Or at least try to.”

As Shack reports from on-site, they actually have some of these areas roped off, but he makes the larger point here as well:

This approach won’t be confused with leaving rabbits and sheep to manage roughs as in Old Tom Morris’s day, but the grasses just off key landing areas continue to be roped off. It's a strange

sight to see harvested rough where there was once fairway. Or, at least, once something akin to short grass now 2-4 inches to penalize drives.

Some of this is to keep the public from trampling the areas down when the course is in park mode. Especially since the public was seen picnicking Saturday before the course fully opened to Sunday practice round play.

Even with irrigating and the protective rope, the areas are not absurdly penal.

At the Road hole—as documented many times ad nauseum over the years by many—the left side tall stuff only stops a low-running drive from reaching an even worse position for the second shot.

It becomes a traffic issue, especially the first two days.  But far more interesting to let those bail out drives left keep running, resulting in a horrible angle to the severely-angled green.

I'm going to have to run, I'll just leave you with one of Geoff's late-day photos.  As you'll know, from low-Earth orbit the course is flat as pancake.   And yet, you'll have exactly eighteen level lies:

Is that great or what?

Gonna be an epic week, and I'll be back with more tomorrow for sure.