A strange weekend of weather.... Saturday featured a Scottish-like soft rain, good training I though for our forthcoming trip, until a friend reminded me it would like be 20-25 degrees coder there. Sunday we got our first hot and humid day, which took its toll.
I'll not dwell on that trip, though departure is two weeks from today. But that's not important today....
The Legend of Baltus Roll - There's no crying in golf, except for Lexi, but there's always been murder around our game:
Baltus Roll farmed the land on which the club now sits, in the shadow of the Baltusrol (First) mountain, which is really just a big hill. His family had immigrated to the United States and hadmaintained the farm with oxen over the years, leading some in the area to believe the Roll family was wealthy. Convinced of this, two men, identified as Peter B. Davis and Lycidias Baldwin, went to Roll's home on the Baltusrol mountain on Feb. 22, 1831, to try to get him to share the location of his fortune. Roll, 62 at the time, was tied up by the criminals and beaten after refusing to cooperate. His wife escaped, but when she returned with help, the men had left and Roll was dead in an icy pool of water.“We were awaken [sic] at about midnight by a loud pounding on the door, and then the door burst open and two men came in and dragged my husband out of bed, punched and beat him, and took him out of the house," Roll's wife testified at the time. "They seemed to ignore me, but I could see the face of the larger man - a full face with large whiskers and light blue eyes. I watched them tie my husband and choke him and throw him on the ground, and not knowing what to do, I hid myself in the woods and wandered about until daylight. Then I went for help to a neighbor's house."No one was ever convicted of the crime. Baldwin went to a tavern in Morristown and apparently overdosed on a narcotic. Davis was tried but not convicted because a number of pieces of circumstantial evidence were declared inadmissible. Davis eventually went to prison on a forgery charge and died in Trenton State Prison.
One can see why the Saudis feel such a kinship with our ancient game, though 1830's bonesaw technology was far more primitive.
The ladies held one of their fourteen majors (we kid because we love) at Baltusrol's iconic Lower Course, a week that demonstrated everything good about the LPGA, but also highlighted its ongoing challenges.
While attention was duly focused one one 20-year old, another grabbed the hardware:
All week at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship players spoke about patience. Waiting foropportunities, not forcing them. Ruoning Yin, however, was testing the limits of that mindset at Baltusrol Golf Club. She had gone 71 holes seemingly without a putt of significance dropping. Then, on her 72nd hole, when she watched her ball topple over the front edge of the cup, she raised her fist and let out a sigh of relief.It was all worth the wait.With a 10-footer for birdie on the par-5 home hole of the famed Lower Course, the 20-year-old from China closed out a final-round 67 to post an eight-under 276 total, one stroke clear of 2021 U.S. Women’s Open champion Yuka Saso. In turn, Yin had claimed her second career LPGA title and her first major championship victory, joining Shanshan Feng (2012 Wegmans LPGA Championship).
The course had played tough for the ladies all week, though Sunday got a bit schizo as per this:
Just after 4 p.m. local time, the KPMG leaderboard was more crowded than a New York City subway at rush hour.Eleven players were within two shots of the lead. Baltusrol, normally nasty, had been softened by a band of thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon and was ripe for scoring. Birdie roars echoed from all corners of the property. Volunteers manning the old-school manual scoreboards could hardly keep up. With back-to-back par-5s to finish, fans assumed more fireworks would be in store as the final few groups finished their rounds.But what actually happened was quite the opposite. With a major title in the balance, the birdie well dried up.
At least two 64's in those a little ahead off the leaders, though that last group was heading in the wrong direction. Made it a challenge to have any sense of what score might be required, although Carlotta Ciganda guessed the correct number after finishing off her 64.
The problem for the ladies is blindingly obvious. This young lady played her heart out, that final birdie after having missed the fairway was nails. Problem is that nobody knows her in the slightest, nor do they/we (don't panic, those aren't my pronouns) know the other contenders..... I really didn't know Ruoning Yin, but Xiyu Lin (ironically, Yin's landlord), Jenny Shin or Ayaka Furue much better.
The good news is that the Asian talent pool is so deep.... but the bad news is that the Asian talent pool is so damn deep. At least it's a marketing challenge....
Let's see what the nice folks at the Tour Confidential panel thought of it all:
1. Ruoning Yin won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Sunday at Baltusrol,holding off Yuka Saso and a charging Rose Zhang to win the women’s second major of the season. What most impressed you about Yin’s victory, and what were your thoughts on Baltusrol — which caught at least some criticism for its green edges — as a host venue?Sean Zak: Look no further than the way she finished. Methodically working through missing the 18th fairway. Forced to lay up. Then absolutely attacking that back pin on 18 to set up her winning birdie putt. That was how Baltusrol played on Sunday. You had to take what it gave you and pick spots to attack. I think the course held up well as a host venue. It may not be the sexiest place to watch golf, but it’s still a bit of a beast. Tackling it for four straight days is a feat.Josh Sens: Funny game, golf. She rode her ball striking all day, with only the putter holding her back. But when everything was on the line, she had a rare miss with the driver and summoned a clutch putt. That showed a lot of steel. And she did when pretty much everyone else but Saso was stumbling toward the finish. As for the venue, the more we get to see the women at championship venues known for hosting the men, the better. Green edges? Pfft. Baltusrol was a good test, and its unusual back-to-back par 5 close left a lot of doors open to the very end.Dylan Dethier: What impressed me was that we were focused on another 20-year-old on the leaderboard, Rose Zhang, but it was 20-year-old Yin who walked away with the title. I loved her fire down the stretch and the enjoyment she took from coming out on top of a jam-packed leaderboard. It was a great golf week to have two TV screens available, that’s for sure.
Yes, but I had to laugh the couple of times they were pimping the Solheim Cup, ignoring that that otherwise fine team event excludes the deepest well of talent in the game.
That "green edge" issue is something I picked up on, though it's not just the greens, but rather the absence of any step cuts, attributed to Gil Hanse. With greens and fairways crowned, it means balls will inevitably feed down towards the longer rough, the worst of it being when they come to rest against the collar. I've seen this at Quaker Ridge as well, and no doubt it reflects the original design parameters, given that step cuts weren't a thing until the 60's. That said, those balls that come to rest against the collar seem impossible to play and, while none of us want to be a fairness Nazi, i just don't love it, the more so for member play.
We're acutely aware of hw cruel our game is, but this Golf.com piece is gonna leave a mark on one of the LPGA's brightest stars. It involves a Thursday-Friday pairing at this event:
The past, present and future of women’s golf played together. Here’s how it went
See if you think one of these gal's time has passed:
Thompson represents one end of the spectrum, a star with her best days (seemingly) behind her. Although she’s just 28, her mileage inside the ropes rivals just about any other active player’s. She turned pro in 2010 — at 14! — and has been in the spotlight ever since. With 11 wins and a major title, Thompson has put together an excellent career, but as one of the brand names in the women’s game, there’s always been a yearning for more.Golf can be a cruel game, of which Thompson’s career has been a steady reminder. After winning a major at 19, she’s been stuck in neutral trying to do it again. There have been close calls — all ending in heartbreak — but that next major title has never come. This season, a breakthrough doesn’t appear imminent. In four LPGA starts, Thompson has made just one cut; her best finish: T31.Round 2 at the Women’s PGA was more of the same. Dropped clubs were common; so too were bewildered looks after missed putts. Thompson rallied late in the day with a quartet of birdies to sneak inside the cut line, raising her spirits considerably, but she still sits a distant eight shots behind the leaders.
That Friday push to make the cut was impressive and the kind of thing we often see from the game's studs, but she didn't make anything of it over the weekend, finishing T47. More importantly, she hasn't won since the Carter Administration and when she's been near the lead one sees the toll it takes.
She'll probably end up on the U.S. Solheim team regardless, but that tells us more about the state of American women's professional golf. But if it came down to a choice between Lexi and Rose for the last captain's pick, that shouldn't be a hard decision, no?
Traveling Blues - I didn't watch even a minute of it, though you can't help but appreciate this guy's return from the dead:
When Keegan Bradley first came out on the PGA Tour, his mind didn’t immediately jump to playing in golf’s biggest tournaments like the majors or Players Championship.He thought about getting to play in the Travelers Championship, the closest thing the Woodstock, Vt., native had to a hometown Tour event.Beginning the day with a one-shot lead, Bradley birdied three of the first six holes to pull away from and open up a six-shot advantage. Despite an up-and-down back nine, Bradley recovered and closed out the Travelers by three shots, with a 23-under total.“This is for all the kids that grew up in New England. Got to sit through the winters and watch other people play golf,” Bradley said. “I just am so proud to win this tournament.”It’s Bradley’s sixth-career PGA Tour title and second already this season after he was victorious at the Zozo Championship in Japan last October. The only other time Bradley won twice in a season was his rookie year when he captured the PGA Championship and HP Byron Nelson Championship.
Whatever you might think about the anchored putting ban, and I remain glad for its banishment, there's little doubt of how unfair it was to those that had made their way in the game with their putters lodged against their torsos. Bradley has long been a premiere striker of the balls, so glad to see him find another way to make it work.
The TC panel gives a thought to Ryder Cup implications:
2. Keegan Bradley shot a final-round 68 to win a low-scoring Travelers Championship on Sunday. With two wins already this season, what’s been the key to Bradley’s resurgence this year and will be in Rome for the Ryder Cup?Zak: There’s an oft-mentioned recipe to success on the PGA Tour: be one of the best ball-strikers and stay patient for the week when your putter gets hot. Well, Keegan is one of the best ball-strikers on the planet and, yes, his putter got hot. Bradley finished first in Strokes Gained: Approach and first in Strokes Gained: Putting. That’ll do it basically every single week. It’s exactly why he’s playing his way onto the Ryder Cup team at the moment.Sens: Bradley answered this question for us by bowing repeatedly to his putter. He made everything, except for that rough patch down the stretch. I hope he’s on the team for the emotional fire he brings. But the potential roster is so deep— Bradley is one of a large handful of guys who could swap in or out and the team wouldn’t be losing or gaining enough for anyone to complainDethier: I sure hope so. The Ryder Cup is at its best when its rosters are composed of golfers who desperately want to be there, and Bradley certainly fits that description. But with Clark booking his ticket to Rome at last week’s U.S. Open and Bradley making a strong case this week, the selection process just got a whole lot spicier.
Might be time for a look at those Ryder Cup rosters, as recent events have certainly changed to outlook there. Bradley and Clark, for sure, but also the PGA-LIV rapprochement bringing Koepka, DJ and maybe others into the mix. I'll pencil that in for later this week...
We've barely touched on the status of the proposed ball roll-back, but ponder these thoughts from Mr. McIlroy:
Following his final round, Rory McIlroy was asked if the course is now too gettable for today’s players, and he replied in the affirmative.“I don't particularly like when a tournament is like this. Unfortunately, technology has passed thiscourse by, right?” McIlroy said after a Sunday 64, good enough for a T-7 finish. “It sort of has made it obsolete, especially as soft as it has been with a little bit of rain that we had. So, again, like the conversations going back to, you know, limiting the golf ball and stuff like that, when we come to courses like this they just don't present the challenge that they used to.”McIlroy’s stance is not necessarily a surprise; he has made similar remarks regarding easy set-ups on the DP World Tour in Europe. Moreover, McIlroy has been one of the few players to be in favor of the golf ball rollback proposed by the USGA and R&A.Whatever rollback may come, however, won’t be instituted for years. With that in mind, McIlroy was asked what else courses can do to toughen their set-ups in the short run. He responded by saying it’s not a matter of simply growing out the rough.“That bunches everyone together,” McIlroy explained. “The blueprint is something like LACC where you have wide targets, but if you miss it's penal. This isn't that sort of golf course. It's not that sort of layout. It doesn't have the land to do that. So, you know, unfortunately when you get soft conditions like this and you've got the best players in the world, this is what's going to happen.”
OMG, we've rendered TPC River Highlands an anachronism... I mean, many of us have been worried more about places like the Old Course, but we'll take the warning wherever we get it.
The solution might e to make it play firmer and faster, but you can't trely on that in the Northeast in June. On to Detroit (yawn).
LIV Scat - Kind of a substance-free interregnum, though a couple of interesting bits. First, beginning with Jimmy Dunne's comments, the push is on to convince us that the good guys have our back:
How the new PGA Tour-Saudi PIF deal ensures Tour will maintain control
This is their premise:
As for the allocation of power in the proposed new golf world, various safeguards have been put in place to protect and maintain the Tour’s control, regardless of additional investment from PIF, according to a source in possession of the agreement. Within the agreement, the partnership is defined as a “commercial relationship,” wherein the PIF makes a sizable cash investment to grow the new company and bring its own assets to the table. That’s what LIV Golf and its subsidiaries are considered here: PIF-owned assets.One of the first questions Watson included in his open letter is about the investment and what power it will promise the PIF. As it happens, that is one of the major stipulations repeated throughout the agreement. The agreement states that the Tour will maintain controlling voting interest at all times and the PIF will hold a non-controlling voting interest.
Voting interest is dictated by board representation, which means the Tour will be expected to maintain a majority representation on the board. At the moment, only four figures have been appointed to it: Al-Rumayyan, Monahan and the two independent directors from the Tour Policy board, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne.
Well, that certainly speaks authoritatively to matters and resolves any and all of my outstanding concerns.... yanno, as long as I ignore reality.
And here's further reassurances:
Those four figures were all heavily involved in the initial agreement and will make up the initial executive committee of the NewCo board, with other additions to the board requiring approval from both the PIF and the Tour. It is unclear how many board members there will be but it is expected that the DP World Tour will be represented. According to the source, it is spelled out within the agreement that increased investment from the PIF — in addition to its first right of refusal on outside investment — will not give it a controlling voting interest. In other words, the PIF cannot buy greater control of the Tour. Future operations of NewCo will be dictated by the board, with recommendation from Monahan.
Wow, these guys have thought of everything..... although, for some reason, they bring Orwell to mind:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”― George Orwell, 1984
So, why don't I believe them? Yeah, their lips moving was a dead giveaway.... But perhaps the bigger question is what they themselves really believe.
To me, it's blindingly obvious the course this will take. Oh, I'm sure there will be all kinds of language for Jay and his acolytes to cite, and I'm pretty sure the Saudis will agree to any of it right now. The problem is that reality is a harsh mistress....
Jay and his cabal are deliberately organizing the Tour's ecosystem at a level unsupportable by the economics of professional golf, ostensibly because the guys won't play for what he can offer them. They will willingly agreeing to become dhimmis:
dhimmis or dhimmi also zimmis or zimmi
: a person living in a region overrun by Muslim conquest who was accorded a protected status and allowed to retain his or her original faith
Understand that to which they are agreeing.... They will make themselves dependent upon Saudi cash, and there will quite obviously be no other available source of such financing, because there's no return on investment possible. But we are to believe that the Saudi's are so overjoyed just to be allowed at the table, that they won't ask for anything for their billions of dollars.... Because Jay and company are so anxious to tell us what a great deal they negotiated, that they hope we won't realize that it's all subject to renegotiation.
Eamon Lynch has a provocative piece up, one that mentions the unmentionable:
Do tell...
It’s impossible to not empathize some with Jay Monahan, who stepped away as PGA Tour commissioner last week to address an undisclosed medical situation. After all, who among us didn’t feel stricken upon hearing that Chesson Hadley expects to be rewarded for his loyalty in not leaving for LIV? That declaration proves how myopic entitlement has spread from the Tour’s penthouse all the way to its basement.Monahan’s predicament is unenviable, even without the attending health issues. He’s been cast as the face of a rapprochement with the Saudi Arabian government, an ill-defined but ignominious deal that promises a future in which the Tour will have to rationalize its proximity to regime atrocities. When he announced the agreement on June 6, Monahan knew he’d be widely pilloried, including by his own blindsided members and by the families of 9/11 victims, who were left feeling like useful props in a commercial dispute. The fallout, he would have calculated, could be career-ending.
In case you missed it, the great Chesson Hadley think he's due a king's ransom for his loyalty to the PGA Tour, which is a pretty good proxy for the depth of the entitlement rot.
Although to me Eamon is using a very passive formulation, because it was Jay that created that unsustainable model that forced capitulation, despite repeated assurance that Tour finances were good for several years.
But I thought the coup happened in Delaware, if not earlier, but Eamon has more on that:
Issues with the membership run deeper than the practicalities of selling the product. Several prominent players didn’t fire a shot in defense of their Tour over the last three years but insteadheld it to ransom by threatening to bolt for LIV unless their demands were met. Those demands resulted in a compensation model that is, by Monahan’s admission, unsustainable without outside investment. In short, PGA Tour players offered an example of what happens when a professional sport consumes itself with naked greed. And it isn’t over yet.Patrick Cantlay, who carries himself with the assurance of a man convinced he’d be a partner at Goldman Sachs if he wasn’t merely sporting its logo on his cap, has been trying to rally players against the deal with the Saudis, and against members of the Tour’s policy board who architected or support it. It hardly needs to be stated that his objections aren’t based on the morality of dealing with human rights abusers. Existing PGA Tour incentives won’t much benefit Cantlay. He won’t get rich from the Player Impact Program that bonuses stars on fan engagement since the only needle he moves is the gas gauge on his car. So the logic of Cantlay’s coup d’etat is that if LIV disappears as a threat — a likely occurrence under the deal — then players like him have no options, no leverage over the Tour, and no prospects for the lucrative payday to which they feel entitled.Multiple sources say Cantlay has romanced LIV for some time, including while being a sitting member of the Tour’s policy board, all while maintaining a gymnast’s balance as a fence-sitter in public.
He is our terrific penis, after all....
But it's a weird argument to think that they could simply blow up the negotiated deal and still have the leverage of the LIV threat.... Pretty sure that's off the table, though the aggressive self-interest is all the rage.
This is true enough, although it seems that Eamon elides the split among the elite players and the great unwashed masses:
The policy board meets Tuesday afternoon in Detroit, and it could turn fractious if Cantlay’s coup ambitions move into the open. Thus far, his gripes have gained little traction among players for three reasons: firstly, Cantlay’s interests are not aligned with those of the broader membership, who have maximized any benefit they’ll see from a market competitor in bigger purses; secondly, his fellow players are upset about process, not policy (it’s not taking Saudi money, it’s not being in the loop on the decision); thirdly, no details have been draped upon the framework agreement that was announced, so there’s nothing specific which players might find unpalatable.
I think that's exactly why it was rolled out in this fashion....
But Eamon goes where no one else has gone:
It’s unclear whether Monahan will return to the PGA Tour. It would be understandable if he opted out. Because what is the appeal of a job that’s been reduced to scavenging in order to meet the grotesquely inflated price tags his players put on their charisma? A value that a rational market has shown no sign of supporting.
This is what the absence of eldership looks like. I first noticed this with Jay back at that 2020 Players Championship, where his leadership team simply couldn't make a decision. He created something he couldn't sustain, and now will be eating crow sandwiches for the immediate future. If he bailed at this juncture he'd be a Hall of Fame crapweasel, but I for one wouldn't miss him.
That prediction last year that we'll end up hating each and every one of these guys is looking pretty good, I just never dreamed that Chesson Hadley would be the poster child.
That's it for today, but we'll have more as the week progresses.
No comments:
Post a Comment