Thursday Themes - Return of the Prodigal Son Edition

I've stiffed you since Monday, yet time is not in abundant supply.... So, who shall we trash?

Back In The Saddle -  Well, there is that prodigal son I mentioned above....  He stiffed the folks in Harbor Town because....well, he had temporarily misplaced his mojo, forgetting that it's always in the last place you look.  But am I the only one that finds his explanation of the Augusta meltdown odd?

“I honestly thought I was going to have the best Masters I ever had,” McIlroy said on Tuesday evening at a private event at Puttery, the indoor modern spin on mini-golf of which he’s an investor.

And yet as golf fans know all too well, the quest for the elusive Green Jacket goes on as McIlroy missed the 36-hole cut.

“It sucked,” McIlroy said. “I shouldn’t be thinking about if I’m going to be having a good week or a bad week. I should only be thinking about that first tee shot on Thursday. That’s getting ahead of myself and feeling really good about my game but having those thoughts of, jeez, I’m going to have the best week I’ve ever had at Augusta isn’t the right mindset going into it. You need to be thinking about staying in the present. I feel like at Augusta I didn’t do a good job of that because of how well I was playing. I was almost too – not overconfident – but maybe got ahead of myself.”

So confidence is now a bad thing?  I saw Rory play at the Masters and, having seen that, it's hard to imagine that he hasn't successfully resolved that issue.... 

More importantly, Puttery?  It deserves to fail just on account of the stupid name.

I'm actually old school, and think the4se guys should be able to play where and when they choose.  But it's pretty rich when the man whose signature is on the schedule opts out, and the explanation is rather lacking:

McIlroy remained coy about why he skipped the RBC Heritage, his second missed designated event. Players are allowed one absence, which he took at the season-opening Sentry Tournament of Champions. The second miss means forfeiting 25 percent of his $12-million Player Impact Program bonus, or $3 million.

“I knew the consequences that could come with missing one of those. It was an easy decision. It was worth that for me to get some other things in place,” McIlroy said. “I had my reasons to not play Hilton Head and I’ve expressed those to Jay. Whether he thinks that’s enough to warrant – again I understood the consequences of that decision before I did it. So whatever happens, happens.”

I'd go with, "Because he could".

An amusing back and forth between Eamon Lynch and Brentley  Romine on this subject:

I assume this is @BrentleyGC’s way of clarifying that I am not dating Rory McIlroy. pic.twitter.com/LtNh1hpubt

— Eamon Lynch (@eamonlynch) May 3, 2023

That didn't format well, but Eamon is saying that Rory doesn't owe anyone an excuse for not playing.  I agree, he owes us an excuse for the hash he's made of the Tour schedule and the coming exclusion of the riff-raff from all future big money events.

Jay did confirm that the $3 million penalty is real and spectacular (bonus points for those picking up on the Seinfeld reference):

UPDATE: Monahan confirmed he would be docked $3 million and called the decision “cut and dry.”

Cut and dry means that there are too many people watching....

But the state of play seems to be this.  We have to limit the fields for the big-money events to hold onto our alpha dogs, but they are rolling around in so much money that they can take a weekend off and forfeit $3 million with a mere shrug.  

Say It Ain't So, Joe - Commence the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, because a certain Big Cat no longer requires his luggage toter:

Joe LaCava is moving on. After 12 years working for Tiger Woods, a good bit of it waiting on the sideline for him to return from various injuries, LaCava has taken a full-time job caddying for Patrick Cantlay.

The two decided to work together last week after Cantlay had parted ways with his long-time caddie Matt Minister following the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. And after LaCava called Woods to explain his decision.

The move also appears to be permanent, pending a good working relationship going forward with Cantlay. LaCava said it is not likely he’d caddie for Woods if he were to return at the Masters next year.

Color me surprised only in the sense that I though LaCava was at a stage that he didn't want to grind through a full schedule.  He does squash predictable rumors about one major:

The move also appears to be permanent, pending a good working relationship going forward with Cantlay. LaCava said it is not likely he’d caddie for Woods if he were to return at the Masters next year.

OK, but he's strangely silent on the far more significant event, the Father-Son.

Obviously this had to happen at some point, but it's not like Tiger projects to be able to play much golf.

Mercifully, in explaining his break-up, our favorite TP at least didn't try to foist it off as a mutual beak-yup (yes, another Seinfeld homage):

On Wednesday ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship, Cantlay explained how he ended up parting ways with his current caddie, Matt Minister, who had worked for him since 2017, and hiring LaCava.

“[Minister and I] accomplished a lot together and I’m really proud of all we accomplished,” Cantlay said. “He’s a great friend of mine and we had a lot of good finishes together and a lot of wins. So I’m incredibly grateful to him, just needed a change.”

Obviously that "needing a change" connotes some level of dissatisfaction with his performance.  As for how this came about, Patrick fills us in:

“I’ve been friend with Fred Couples a long time, he’s been in Newport Beach for a number of years now and we’ve played a lot of golf together, so I’ve heard a number of great things about Joe,” Cantlay said. “You know, when I reached out to Joe, he said it was possible and ended up working out and I’m really happy about it.

“[LaCava’s] just a steady hand on the steering wheel,” he continued. “I know he’s been in every moment a caddie could be in and he’s just a good guy. So I’ve enjoyed the limited time that I’ve spent with him and feel confident that we’ll be a good team out there.”

 So, seemingly a blind date.  But we wish the couple all the best...

Before moving on, we have a new Shipnuck mailbag that features this one odd question about Tiger:

When media members and golf “fans” declare that Tiger Woods *must* retire following every physical setback or less than stellar performance, do you get as needlessly angry as I do? Why do people stink? Should we play Giannis’ postgame presser for all these individuals? #AskAlan@corrado_dan

Dan, do you need a hug? I haven’t seen many folks demanding Tiger retire—it has been more like low-grade anguish as all of us struggle to accept Woods’s golfing mortality. If Tiger wants to try to play more tournaments, the golf world will cheer for him, as always. For Woods, tournament golf was always zero-sum: You win or you have failed. This is the antithesis of Giannis’s riff. Woods’s broken body has recalibrated the golf world’s expectations, and even Tiger’s. If he wants to keep trying to climb the mountain, more power to him.

Yeah, I too haven't seen any demands that Tiger retire, but lots of folks in denial about his ability to compete.  It might, however, be interesting to contemplate the future, which is a bit murkier.  To me, the only basis on which we could object to Tiger continuing to try to play majors is the value of that spot in the field to another player.  That's obviously a judgement call, but there is a line of demarcation, to wit, the expiration of his exemption from winning that 2019 Masters.

This to me is where the past champions exemptions into the other majors becomes dubious, but does not affect the Masters.  So, what this space.

Don't Let The Door Hit You.... - This is certainly interesting, though I'm only partially sure of the logic:

Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Richard Bland have officially resigned from the DP World Tour, according to a news release from the European circuit.

The players “were sanctioned for serious breaches of the Tour’s Conflicting Tournament Regulation committed last June,” according to the release.

The predicate is logically that European arbitration decision that allows for the punishment/suspension of the players, and doing it in lockstep seems to be a unified strategy, I'm just still unclear as to the logic of that startegery.

But this passive-aggressive statement amuses:

“The DP World Tour would like to take this opportunity to thank the four players for the contribution they have made to the Tour and in particular to Sergio, Ian and Lee for the

significant part they have played in Europe’s success in the Ryder Cup over many years.

“Their resignations, however, along with the sanctions imposed upon them, are a consequence of their own choices.

“As we have consistently maintained throughout the past year, the Tour has a responsibility to its entire membership to administer the member regulations which each player signs up to. These regulations are in place to protect the collective interests of all DP World Tour members.”

The old saying is that form is temporary, but class is permanent.  But take a DNA sample from Sergio, and you'll not find even trace elements of latter....

That puts all of LIV's eggs in the OWGR basket, no?  At least to the extent that they care about playing in the majors.  Alan had an interesting series of questions on that subject:

Question – Why should I care about LIV with their no-cut, 54-hole, shotgun start, millions of dollars of guaranteed money traveling circus? All LIV is is a series of high-stakes exhibition “tournaments.” @TimWhitcomb4

This is America—nobody is going to make you care if you don’t want to! But if you are open to counter-arguments, I would suggest that 54 holes vs. 72 isn’t a big deal. An extra round gives the best player more opportunity to separate himself, but 54 holes has a certain urgency and demands three good scores with little room for error. I prefer events to have a cut but even the PGA Tour is moving away from that model at its biggest tournaments, and who does or doesn’t make a cut is almost always immaterial to who wins, which is what matters. Yes, the shotgun feels a little hokey, but it makes for a much better spectating/TV/streaming experience, with all the players on the course at the same time in one compressed window of time. The PGA Tour is already guaranteeing money to its top players this year with the $500,000 stipend and $100 million PIP slush fund, to say nothing of the no-cut Tour Championship and Tournament of Champions. Next year, nine of the 12 elevated events won’t have a cut, which means…more guaranteed money for the players. So the LIV and Tour products are becoming increasingly similar. Also, the Ryder Cup by definition is a goodwill exhibition and we all seem to care about that. In closing, do remember that you don’t have to pick sides—it’s actually possible to watch and enjoy both LIV and the Tour.

 So very curious....

First, Alan prevaricates by telling us that 54 vs. 72 holes isn't a biggie, and then articulates perfectly why it is.  Allowing talent to separate itself is the essence of an athletic competition and the counter to Alan is then, why not just play 18?

Lots of navel gazing on cuts, but not even a passing thought about field size?  Though he's spot on about the Tour moving in that direction, which isn't good for the game but also negates so many of their strongest arguments about LIV.

Do you feel like the OWGR is politicized and refusing to give ranking points to LIV to protect the PGA Tour? #askalan@Tourpro7

Not yet. The OWGR had a set of pre-established criteria, and the governing board is following it to the letter. July will be one year since LIV put in its application. If after that long review period the OWGR is still denying LIV points, it will be a very bad look. I’ve spoken to folks on the governing board and in their mind the primary issue is that LIV doesn’t meet the average field size of 75. But the ranking itself will automatically penalize LIV, based on the revised algorithm—announced in August 2021, before LIV had launched—that favors full fields over smaller one. As for protecting the Tour, the governing board made a huge p.r. blunder by not forcing Tour commissioner Jay Monahan or Euro Tour CEO Keith Pelley or Pelley’s lieutenant Keith Waters to recuse themselves sooner. (They waited until December 2022, after having already participated in two board meetings.) But the fact is, the major championships control the OWGR, representing four of the seven seats on the governing board. (Chairman Peter Dawson does not have a vote.)

Now, after the recusals, Augusta National, the PGA of America, the R & A and the USGA have the only votes on LIV’s future. While they have traditionally been aligned with the old-guard tours, the majors are inherently selfish and want what’s best for their respective tournaments. That means finding a way to get all of the best players there, without squabbles, controversy and potential legal challenges. A more inclusive OWGR is the only thing that makes sense. Anti-LIV folks can get hung up on specific wording in the moldy criteria of the OWGR bylaws, but these are unprecedented times and a little flexibility is the best path forward…especially for the OWGR, which will render itself obsolete if it doesn’t follow its mission to rank all professional golfers.

That's mostly fair, at least on the timing issue and the delayed recusal.

I personally think they probably will get the OWGR recognition, though I don't actually think they should.  I think it'll happen because of lawyers, and also because of that issue that Alan describes above, that the point values for the LIV events will sufficiently (and appropriately) reduced to account for the small and unimpressive fields.

I don't actually think that a tour featuring 48-player fields and 54-hole events is worthy of OWGR points, though the PGA Tour keeps undermining my position.  But how funny is that the LIVsters, with McKinsey on their payroll, never saw this issue coming?  Can you say "incompetent"?  I thought you could...

There is another possibility that no one seems to haver considered.  To wit, that the OWGR folks could render a decision that is neither a clean yes or no, but rather might tell the nice folks in Kingdom what they have yo change to qualify.  To me, 72 holes is pretty sacrosanct, and would eb quite the poke in the eye given, yanno, their investment in roman nhumerals.

Stay tuned, kids.

Alan Scat - We'll fill this out with quick hits from that mailbag:

Would you rather have Tony Finau’s 6 wins or 1 major championship? @ZitiDoggsGolf

The knee-jerk response is one major, but I’d take the six wins. Through the years I’ve written a lot about Shaun Micheel, whose only career victory was the 2003 PGA Championship. He feared, perhaps rightfully, that folks would devalue the one major in the absence of other victories, and felt so much pressure to justify that breakthrough that it robbed the joy from the rest of his career. Six wins is a healthy total that attests to sustained excellence. In Finau’s case, the habit of winning should propel him to success in the majors, in which case he’ll have the best of both worlds.

I don't actually think Alan is correct that the one major is such an obvious answer, as I'd take the six wins as well (with a caveat about which Tour events matter as well).  But, yeah, Big Tone is far from finished...

But we have a candidate for stupidest question of the week:

Do you see the U.S. Open facing backlash from prospective amateurs when they have to deal with LIV golfers in sectional fields that otherwise wouldn’t be there? #askAlan@MColorusso

Nah, U.S. Open qualifying is the ultimate meritocracy. Shoot the scores and you’re in, simple as that, whether you’re a plumber playing scratch or an established touring pro.

It's called an Open for a reason....

I don't actually know all that much about this young man:

#AskAlan What do you make of Akshay Bhatia? The transition has been tougher than many might have imagined, but do you think he may have finally found the highway to relative success on the PGA Tour? @SportASmile

The kid is 21 years old! He has certainly taken an unorthodox approach, but Bhatia has proven he can win on the cut-throat Korn Ferry Tour and has already locked up his 2024 PGA Tour card with some stellar play in the big leagues. He has a tremendous work ethic and palpable talent, so I think Bhatia is going to have a long, productive career.

This one could have been excerpted above as well: 

Is Talor Gooch the perfect emergence of LIV conundrum? He was developing a nice career on the PGA Tour with one win and now he is winning events on LIV. How do we compare what he’s doing on LIV to a guy of a similar age doing it on the PGA Tour? Max Homa as an example? @EatandSleepGolf

One of LIV’s issues is the randomness of the venues. The muni in Orlando and next week’s unknown country club in Tulsa, Okla., are not useful yardsticks. At least Sentosa was the venue for the Singapore Open from 2005 to ‘2022, and the list of winners includes Angel Cabrera, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott three times. (Runners-up: Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington, Jordan Spieth and Ernie Els twice.) So at least one of Gooch’s recent wins came on a course with provenance. Clearly the strong Masters showing by LIV golfers went a long way toward reminding people of the talent level on that tour, but the golf world as a whole seems disinclined to put much stock in LIV wins. The World Ranking is now useless. So what to do? Data Golf’s player ranking has become my go-to, and this week Homa is 16th and Gooch is 21st, which feels right. Now more than ever the major championships are crucial in assessing how players compare. Homa’s record in the majors is putrid: Since the start of 2020 he has missed the cut in seven of 12 and finished better than 40th only once. Gooch has played eight in that stretch with a bit more success, with two top-20 finishes and only two missed cuts. The upcoming three majors will help us make sense of the Gooch-Homa divide, and much more.

The problem is, why did they go to LIV?  Just listen to the guys that went... Graeme McDowell telling us that its golf without the grind and the elderly Englishmen making clear that they didn't really care if it precluded their presence at the majors.  So, Alan, if they don't care, I'm having trouble understanding both why you care and think we should as well.

This Q is a bit of a hot mess, as is the A necessarily:

Rahm is significantly better than every other player in the world. Unlike Scottie and Rory, his game has no weaknesses. Even in today’s ultra-competitive game, it’s hard to envision him not knocking off a 2017-19 Brooks-like run. With two to his name, over/under on Rahm winning 5.5 major championships? And, at their absolute peak powers, how many current players’ best game beats Finau’s? Over/under 9.5? #AskAlan@opinionsvary328

Predicting golf futures is a tricky business. On Sunday night at Valhalla in 2014, what would have been the o/u on McIlroy’s haul—8? 10? More? Jack Nicklaus said, “I think Rory has an opportunity to win 15 or 20 majors or whatever he wants to do if he wants to keep playing.” I’d take the over on Rahm, but there is a lot of golf and life between him and four more major championship victories.

Best versus best, I’d take the following over Finau: Rahm, McIlroy, Cam Smith, Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson, Koepka, Justin Thomas and Matt Fitzpatrick. In the emeritus division, Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth and Collin Morikawa. That’s 11, but very stout company.

As I've noted before, I had speculated last year about Rahm's ability to separate himself from the chase pack, though that premis in the questions seems a titch premature.  Do I think Rahm has more majors in his future?  Oh yeah, but I'd still be reluctant to put a number on it.  Though I'd be interested to know the odds on who will achieve the career slam first, Rahmbo or Rory?  Bit of a conundrum, given that the Spaniard still needs two, but I like his chances better.

The bit on Tony is arcane, because there aren't many better when his putter and short game behave.  The issue is how often that actually occurs....

This one does tie into the above Q&A:

Why pretend the PGA Championship is a “major,” other than we decided there have to be four of them? #AskAlan P.S. I know why it used to be a major. It used to be match play; it used to be the players’ own championship; it used to have the toughest field. None of those are true anymore. @HenriDeMarsay

Well, every major is a social construct. When Gene Sarazen prevailed at the second Masters, in 1935, it’s not like folks pounded him on the back and said, “Congrats on winning a major, old boy.” That took time and a collective consciousness. The PGA Championship has an incredible history and some spectacular (and, admittedly, a few so-so) venues. It has the most recognizable trophy in the sport, if that counts for anything. In the LIV era, it will have one of the two or three best fields of the year. You may not be fan of the PGA but it is a perfectly acceptable major.

Ummmmm, Alan, the Claret Jug beats the Wannamaker, 6&5.  If only be4cause the top doesn't come off during the presentation ceremony.

Also, Alan, did anyone congratulate Sarazen on completing the career slam?  That may be the more absurd retroactive achievement....

That's it for now.  I'm planning on a light blogging schedule until Oak Hill, so will most likely take a day off tomorrow and catch you for ur typical wrappage on Monday.  Have a great weekend.