Tuesday Typos

Just a few bits, mostly to close out those pesky browser tabs....

Slow Play, A Deep Dive -  Two of the major golf websites have thumbsuckers on this ever popular subject, with Golf.com asking us for our thoughts.  Though it doesn't take them long to get to the funky:

From the practical to the funky, 20 ways to fix slow play — according to you

Though it quickly devolves into stuff that's off the table:

Only the player should read the putt

Wrote one reader: “Stop letting the caddie read every putt! Should be up to the player, with minimal input from the caddie. Reading the putt should be the responsibility of the player.”

Limit caddie conversations

Jordan Spieth may struggle with this one. Wrote one reader: “Limit caddie visits per shot to one, and for 15 seconds.”

Use carts

They’re allowed on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, so … Wrote one reader: “If people wanna see the game move faster — let the players use carts. A lot of time is lost by players conserving energy by walking at a stroll pace.”

Shockingly, that last suggestion came from E. Woods of Jupiter Island, FL.  

And this one comes from R. McIlroy, also of Jupiter Island, FL:

Limit the field sizes

LIV Golf, with 48 players, is on board already. Wrote one reader: “Smaller field. More time between tee times.”

Do I have good news for you!  That is, if you show up again....

Golf Digest convenes a roundtable discussion of their golf writers, beginning with this existential query:

Slow play has been an issue forever. So are recent bouts just a coincidence or sign of a bigger problem?

The problem is metastasizing. Look at the number of early season PGA Tour events in which Thursday and Friday rounds could not be completed even though there were no weather delays. That never happened 10-15 years ago. Everyone has become a tortoise. —Dave Shedloski

It's very hard to know how "bad" the issue has gotten lately. If you believe Patrick Cantlay, the data shows the total time for an average round is staying about the same. Then again, somewhat anecdotally, you see all these stats about how the tour can't get through two rounds of play in two days. In fact, it feels like a lot of this debate is lacking hard numbers, and we're relying mostly on fan experience, like the misery of watching someone stand over a four-foot putt for a full minute, or the sense of slowness on Sunday at Augusta. I do wonder if there's an element of fan culture that demands a more brisk pace, due to shorter attention spans or whatever, and you can see this reflected in things like baseball's new pitch clock or the serve clock in tennis. —Shane Ryan

Remember the 2019 Northern Trust and the slow-play complaints about Bryson DeChambeau, which ultimately led to the Brooks-Bryson feud? Ah, simpler times. The problem—and make no mistake, it is a problem—may not be any worse now than it was then, but it’s certainly not gotten any better. However, I do think other sports embracing ways to speed up their games while golf has stayed pat has amplified the optics of slow play, which is why the complaints may be sounding louder in volume than in the past. —Joel Beall

Like you, I'm just happy those two kids seem to have patched things up.... But, as you read yesterday, my enduring image of slow play is JB Holmes in the 18th fairway at Torrey Pines, allowing the green to clear before his lay-up into the rough.  Because, I think we can all agree, you can't be too safe out there.

Unlike their competitor, Golf Digest gest personal, and we wouldn't have it any other way:

Patrick Cantlay is bearing the brunt of the slow-play criticism. Is it warranted?

Yes, it's warranted. And yes, the reaction is also a little over-the-top. Though in some ways that goes with the territory. Cantlay is far from the only slower-than-average player on tour, but he's also one of golf's very best players. Top players get more air time and thus more scrutiny. Top players get into contention more, which tends to make them go slower. It's all combined to make him a kind of symbol for a very real issue in golf, which isn't fair to Cantlay. He's an example of a product of the system, not the cause of it. —Luke Kerr-Dineen

At least he didn't label him a victim.... 

On one hand, Cantlay probably doesn't deserve the current level of opprobrium. And the fact that he does heavily reflects the fact that he's so good—if he wasn't in position at Augusta and Hilton Head to be on TV so often on the weekend, nobody would realize how slow he was playing. On the other hand, he is extremely slow, it's no fun to watch, and I think it's more frustration than cruelty driving the criticism. Also, I don't buy the "it's not his fault, it's the system's fault" argument. Sure, he's doing what is allowed under the rules, but just like a Big Ten college basketball coach encouraging his team to play an ugly, physical game that results in final scores in the 40s and 50s, being "within the rules" doesn't excuse someone from contributing to the aesthetic diminishment of his sport. And part of encouraging change, for better or worse, means calling out individual performances. Cantlay has to wear this one. —SR 

Someone has to be the poster child. Cantlay is as good a candidate as anyone. Sunday's final group brought into sharp relief how slow Cantlay can play paired with Jordan Spieth, who isn't fast but is faster than Cantlay, and Matt Fitzpatrick whose process should be part of an instructional video for junior golfers. Fitz, the U.S. Open champion, knows how to pull the trigger with little or no delay when it's his turn, and his victory at Harbour Town proves that a deliberate method isn't needed to win. —DS

Cantlay is as painfully slow as a kidney stone, and that he’s not apologetic about his pace doesn’t help. But this is also selective outrage; Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were slow, and Jordan Spieth is no road runner. If fans like the player in question, there’s a bit of latitude allowed, and unfortunately for Cantlay, he’s not in that echelon of popularity to receive such leniency. —JB

I nominate "Not in that level of popularity" as our Euphemism of the Day, though I still default back to terrific penis.

Both items touched on this as a possibility:

Major League Baseball introduced a shot clock this season to speed up play. Should the PGA Tour consider a similar implementation?

The DP World Tour tried this at a tournament in 2018 and it was considered a unqualified success. Why was it just a one-off experiment? By the way, technically, a shot clock already exists. It's just not something the public sees, and but there is little penalty for violating it. The real question is, should a shot clock with hard and fast policing and penalties be instituted? Easy answer is yes. But, of course, this is a complicated issue. —DS

I'm skeptical of the shot clock in golf because I can't wrap my head around when the clock would literally start. Every pre-shot routine is slightly different, and there's a teeing-order in golf that isn't there in baseball. Plus there's the whole walking-between-shots issue, and the fact that some players have bad holes, which will naturally slow things up. The pitch clock works in baseball, but golf will need to find its own unique solution. —LKD

Pitchers are adjusting to the pitch clock, and baseball is more fun to watch. Tennis players adjusted to the serve clock, and now if a match takes five hours, it's because it's an epic fight, not because Djokovic is taking a minute between serves. In short, yes, assessing serious penalties and implementing a shot clock so it's not some vague subjective judgment is the way to fix this. That said, at a time when the tour is catering to its stars because they fear LIV defections, good luck getting them to implement something that potentially annoys those stars! —SR

As Dave notes, a shot clock is currently the law of the land, with each players timed on each shot.  Of course, no players has been assessed penalty shots so apparently the issue of slow play has been solved and we have peace in our time.

Absence And It's Effects On Hearts -  I'd been reliably informed that fondness would be on offer, yet that certain Ulsterman is still taking incoming.  In his Monday Finish column, Dylan Dethier has this short take on the matter:

Rory McIlroy skipped the RBC after a surprising missed cut at the Masters, possibly forgoing $3 million and inviting plenty of scrutiny in the process. I’m not particularly interested in passing judgment on McIlroy’s decision until we hear from him, but his absence was strange in the context of the last year. He’s the one who popularized the Tom Brady metaphor, where he knew if he turned on the Tampa Bay Bucs game, Brady would be playing. And McIlroy is media-savvy enough to know that he’d get crushed from some corners for no-showing Hilton Head. The fact that he did so anyway suggests he really didn’t feel like he could play.

Wow, might have been a little early with that euphemism award....

What does "Really didn't feel like he could play" even mean?  Jon Rahm played 30 holes on Sunday, was required by tradition to stay at Augusta for dinner and yet still hauled his sorry butt to Hilton head....

I don't actually think these guys should be required to show anywhere, but Rory was of course at the table when this was put in place, so he's kind of forced to own it.  But what is it Dylan needs to hear from Rory?  I'm kind of thinking we know what Rory is curled up on the floor in the fetal position...

Apparently Dylan isn't the only one that needs to hear from Rors, as it seems Eamon Lynch does as well:

Lynch: The tedious carping about Rory McIlroy lacks one crucial perspective — his

So, for those keeping a scorecard at home, I guess Rory is in that level of popularity, that Eamon feels compelled to place a protective shield around him and deride those of us that point out the blindingly obvious to the oblivious.

But what a profoundly bizarre column, which starts with.....and I'm still struggling to see the linkage, that terrific penis:

Time is a pressing subject in professional golf this week, whether it’s a player who takes too

much of it, another who bemoans an excess of it on his hands, or one who uses it to prioritize life outside the game.

Patrick Cantlay has faced sustained criticism for his pace of play in the final round of the Masters, which was charitably described as “brutally slow” by the luckless competitor behind him, Brooks Koepka. It was news but not new. Slow play is a chronic disease on the PGA Tour and Cantlay is a Typhoid Mary whose presence blights the innocent.

Cantlay did mount a reasonable defense: Augusta National’s combination of fast greens and pins cut on slopes make players more ponderous. The prosecution would counter that Cantlay is laggardly regardless of where he’s playing. Others may be graced with a pass in testing conditions, but he has long since exhausted any goodwill.

Because they both affect the time-space continuum?  Sorry, you lost me, Eamon..... and he's got another weird digression for us, a worthy story that I hadn't yet blogged, but also of dubious relevance:

One golfer who might welcome the privilege of dawdling behind Cantlay late in a tournament is Jediah Morgan. He won the Australasian Tour’s order of merit in 2022 and now plays the LIV Golf League. Just not frequently enough, apparently. “There’s obviously quite a bit of time off with the LIV stuff at the moment, which is a little bit frustrating,” he said on the eve of the Saudi-financed circuit’s stop in Australia. “I think a lot of the guys would like to see it grow to 18 events.”

One can’t fault Morgan for wanting to maximize grifting opportunities before the Crown Prince draws his purse strings closed, but the 23-year-old’s eagerness to expand the schedule is at odds with his semi-retired or almost-knackered colleagues who said that LIV’s appeal was being able to spend more time with their families. At least Morgan will have less idle time in the coming weeks with a roster of events that will take him from Adelaide to Singapore to Tulsa.

Again, the relevance eludes me.... But there are goalposts to move, and Eamon has reported for duty:

McIlroy’s WD was announced soon after a disappointing missed cut at the Masters, which fueled criticism that was both speculative and specious, primarily that he’s pouting about his poor performance in Augusta and that he considers himself above honoring the changes to the Tour schedule he helped create. One click-hungry chucklehead even suggested he was embarrassing himself and starting to “reek of hypocrisy.”

Because he took a week off work.

Alert the media, someone said something mean on social media....  But hold the presses, Eamon's espied another shiny object:

Heading the parade of those eager to offer their tuppence was Chubby Chandler, who McIlroy fired as his manager a dozen years ago. He told a British tabloid that his former client is a mere mouthpiece for the PGA Tour, that he screwed up by doing a walk-and-talk interview during the Masters broadcast because Jack and Tiger would never have done it, and that he’s surrounded himself with pliable people on payroll.

Thus died irony. Being lectured by Chandler on wrongdoing, mismanagement and running one’s mouth is akin to being called out for poor dining etiquette by Hannibal Lecter.

Another bit I didn't blog, this one because the Chubster hasn't been relevant since Rory dumped him and he's obviously conflicted as relates to LIV

Eamon has been a welcome voice calling out the hypocrisy of the LIVsters, but he does seem in this column to be protecting Rory from a rather obvious misstep:

So much of the brickbats aimed at McIlroy are a rush to judgment. He will have known that withdrawing from the RBC Heritage would hand a cudgel not only to the LIV bros and bots, but to anyone skeptical of the Tour’s changes. He will have grasped that his decision could mean a significant financial penalty – a slew of breathlessly repetitive articles had his outstanding PIP bonus at $3 million, which is admittedly pocket change for him. Lastly, he will have understood that he’d disappoint a sponsor deeply invested in the Tour, one that underwrites the Canadian Open he has won in its last two stagings.

Knowing all of that, McIlroy chose to remain at home. To a reasonable observer, that doesn’t suggest he’s sulking about the Masters or exhibiting a lack of commitment to the new schedule. It means that there’s simply something more important in his life right now, and that something wasn’t going to be addressed by competing in Hilton Head.

Of course some of the commentary is needlessly personal and over-the-top, but I don't particularly care why he took a powder this week.  It wasn't a show of strength, but it effectively points out the insanity of the Tour's 2023 schedule, but the best reason for holding our fire is that the 2024 schedule at least scales back the number of designated events to a far more manageable eight.

Obviously Rory's game has left him for the moment, and he showed shockingly little fight at Augusta.  As a thought experiment, compare Tiger's fight to make the cut with Rory's capitulation (didn't Shipnuck use that word?), also factoring in that Rory was on the good side of the draw.  

If we're going to be angry with Rory, though, we've a far better target at hand.  Perhaps his doldrums explain why he refuses to play the big-money events against more than 69 of his peer group?

The Euro Beat - Lost in the shuffle of the Masters was that arbitration decision upholding the Euro Tour's rights to enforce its own rules.  John Huggan takes a couple of dives into the implications thereof:

It’s been a good week for golf’s establishment bodies. Following Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley’s all-but-explicit support for the USGA and R&A’s distance proposals, the DP World Tour has emerged victorious from its legal battle with LIV Golf.

In a decision officially revealed on Thursday that “delighted” chief executive Keith Pelley, Sports Resolution UK upheld the old world circuit’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it. Furthermore, appeals brought by those members who played in LIV’s inaugural event last June without a proper release—12, including Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood—in the wake of their suspension (and £100,000 fines) from last year’s Scottish Open have been dismissed.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the panel found that membership of a tour or tours comes with obligations.

“Individual players have to accept some limitation on their freedoms inherent in tour membership, should they choose [if qualified] to join one or more,” the report stated. “Indeed, none of the Appellants suggested that he had given up his independence by signing up to onerous [albeit remunerative] obligations to LIV, to play in a full season of LIV events, and it is clear that membership of the PGA Tour carries serious limitations on the freedom of a player. The freedom claimed was in effect one of choosing with which set of restraints to comply.”

Whatever rights you might think the players should have, it would be impossible to maintain a tour without such protections.  As Rory so eloquently told us, sponsors need to know who is going to show up.

LIV's court game is in about as good a lace as Rory's golf game, as they've taken it on the chin in all cases.  here's their rebuttal:

"We disagree with the procedural opinion from the Dp World Tour’s arbitral body, which failed to address in reasonable substance what competitive forces must be upheld," said Matthew Schwartz, an attorney with Gibson Dunn, counsel representing LIV Golf. "By punishing players for playing golf, the DPWT is seeking to unreasonably control players and it is the sort and fans that suffer. There are no winners. This is a sacred week in the global sports calendar and the on-course competition is what matters. LIV remains focused on its decades-long vision to enhance the game and is looking forward to its upcoming tournament in Australia in front of 70,000 fans."

When you have the facts on your side, pound the facts.  When you have the law on your side, pound the law.  When you have neither, pound the table....

 Of course, this was John's header:

What's next after the DP World Tour wins arbitration case over LIV Golf? The future is still unclear

Call me old school, but I'm thinking if you're asking that question in the header, that you might have a thought or two on the subject.  But it's all apparently TBD.

John's second dive is equally curious:

LIV Golf's U.K. arbitration loss leaves questions for Europe's Ryder Cup team prospects

Seems to me just the opposite, that the questions have now been answered and we can get on with things.

By extension, wondered many, what does confirmation of the DP World Tour’s right to make its own rules mean for the 44th playing of the Ryder Cup in Italy later this year? Will the tour’s soon-to-be decided punishment plan make it all but impossible for European LIV players such as Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Sergio Garcia, Sam Horsfield, Richard Bland, Laurie Canter, Thomas Pieters, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Henrik Stenson and Bernd Wiesberger to qualify? Will their only route into the 12-man side be via the six captain’s invitations available to European skipper Luke Donald?

Yes and no.  yes, that's their only chance but no, it ain't gonna happen.... As they would have well known, unless of course they believed a certain shirtless Australian...

But, to this observer, the funniest bit is that list of names.  because, with the possible exception of Paul Casey (the key word being "possible"), is there anyone on that list that can actually help you win a Ryder Cup?

But the delusions seems deeply ingrained:

“It will be more difficult for them [LIV players] depending on what other sanctions that we impose on them to qualify for the Ryder Cup,” says DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley, noting that his team will be spending the next few weeks accessing exactly what those are. “More importantly, the commitments they have to play in events that are against DP World Tour qualifying events will also make it more difficult for them to qualify.”

Indeed, that is the reality, even as Pelley was noticeably careful to avoid absolutes in his response. Besides, with the certain exception of Pieters—definitely one of Europe’s 12 best golfers—and the possible exception of Wiesberger (a member of the 2021 European team at Whistling Straits) none of the other 10 LIV mercenaries were likely to feature even in more normal times.

“To be honest, the Ryder Cup won’t really be part of the DP World Tour’s dealings with the LIV players,” said Irishman Paul McGinley, three times a Ryder Cup player and a winning captain at Gleneagles in 2014. “Not this year. It’s really too late. Relationships between those who went to LIV and tour loyalists are not going to mend in three or four months. Which is not to say that, technically at least, Luke won’t be allowed to make any decision he wants. He won’t be forced to pick someone or not pick someone. But I also know that, if he did blend LIV players into the team or as part of his back-room squad, a new dynamic would be created, one that would be very difficult to manage. Luke has enough on his hands with the strength of the American team and the changing of our old guard to one largely new, without trying to manage relationships within the camp.”

I guess Pelley hasn't actually removed them as members of his tour, though you'd think that might be the next step.  But this is pretty, what's that word, delusional:

“Nothing will be ruled out, of course,” continued the four-time DP World Tour winner. “If, say, Martin Kaymer was to win two major championships this year, he would have to be considered. Unlike, say, Ian Poulter or Lee Westwood, he hasn’t created a lot of anti-tour noise. He’s a nice guy. If anyone could be blended in, assuming he was also playing unbelievably well, it is him. So, of course, Luke will keep his options open.”

So Keith is keeping a Santa list, and Martin is on  the nice list but Sergio is on the naughty one?  Yeah, I don't think Jay is going to play under this scenario....

Because they gave Luke six picks, the qualification lists are mostly a done deal, it's Jon, Rory, Viktor, Shane, yada, yada, yada:

The action will be limited to those captain's picks, and the chances of him picking a LIVster, even a nice one, approximate the chances of Zach Johnson picking your humble blogger.

The Week Ahead - Dylan Dethier highlights two events of interest in the comin week, first the fallout from Augusta National destroying the Dinah:

1. Major Szn

After a half-century in the Coachella Valley, this week’s Chevron (formerly the Dinah Shore and the ANA) begins a new era in Houston at Carlton Woods. The good news? According to the tournament director it’ll still be safe for the winner to make the jump into the pond adjacent No. 18.

Remind me, what happens when a tree falls in the forest?  I'm guessing that, having been forced by ANGC to sever their ties to actual history, that this will lay quite the huge egg.  

3. LIV Down Undah

LIV Golf’s trek to Australia promises a proper party. This is expected to be a big week for LIV’s in-person experience, having sold plenty of tickets to a golf-starved region that seems ready to get rowdy. How will that translate to TV viewers and international buzz? We’ll see how it goes down this weekend.

They've promised to bring the heat, now they have to actually deliver.... perhaps they'll get TV viewers, but it's hard to conceive that they'll get many here in the U.S.

The Wednesday Game™ takes precedence tomorrow, but I'll see you later in the week.