Tuesday, September 5, 2023

(Long) Weekend Wrap - "W" As In "Walker" Edition

 Two big stories, so we'll not allow a late start to deter us....

The Walker Cup - It was so grand, yet will have drawn only the tiniest of audiences.

To Golf Channel's credit, they gave us a generous TV window of six hours (6 1/2 on Sunday).  The downside was that, due to those pesky time zones, they showed no live foursomes play, only taped highlights.  A pity given how fascinating that format can be.

The star of the show was the Old Course, which was seen under bluebird skies both days.  The Old Girl is an awkward fit for its Opens these days, featuring six-hour rounds and serious concerns about scores beginning with "5's" should the wind be down.  But the series of short Par-4's, risk-reward shots and those massive yet subtle greens make this perhaps the most interesting match-play course I could conceive.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — It all turned out all right in the end. For the USA that is. But only just. Although armed with what appeared to be a vastly superior side (if the World Amateur Golf
Rankings are to be believed) it wasn’t until Georgian David Ford won the 26th of the 26 games (one was still to be decided) and took his side over the 13½-point winning threshold that the American side eventually clinched victory on Sunday in the 49th Walker Cup match on the Old Course at St Andrews.

Until then, doubt of varying degrees permeated what turned into the visitor’s 39th victory (against nine losses and one halved match) in golf’s long-running biennial contest, one that stretches back exactly a century. At the conclusion of each of the first three series of matches over the last two days, it was the Great Britain & Ireland side who led. But by the close, that had changed, the final score 14½ -11½ to the visitors, who have now won the trophy four times in succession.

While it is forever invidious to single out individuals within a team contest, much credit for his side’s success must go to the world’s No. 1 amateur, Gordon Sargent.

Although only two of his teammates failed to score even one point, the Vanderbilt junior was the only player on either side to emerge from this hard-fought contest with an unbeaten record, winning all four of his matches. Every one of the other 19 participants lost at least once.

Competitive, yet inevitable, is how I would characterize it. An Under-manned GB&I team put up quite the fight on Day One, and most of the Sunday matches went deep into the golf course, great for us since those last three holes are about as strategic as golf gets.  That said, the U.S. took seven of ten points in Sunday singles ten of fourteen from both sessions that day, and that's a clear beatdown.

Two items of note to this observer, the first being a wacky "good-good" from that top-ranked amateur:

Gordon Sargent, a Vanderbilt University junior and the No. 1-ranker player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking was locked in a Sunday singles duel with John Gough from the Great Britain and Ireland team. The U.S. team started the final day down three points but closed the gap to just one after winning the morning foursomes session 3-1.

But by the time the pair arrived at the 16th green, the match was tied.

With Sargent about four feet away for par, Gough gave his mid-range birdie putt an aggressive rap, but missed it low and watched as it rolled just outside of Sargent’s mark. That’s when things started to get interesting.

From the vantage point of the TV camera, it looked like Gough was still away, but Sargent walked in behind him anyway, presumably to make an estimate as to whether he was away or not.

Gough had marked his ball and was stepping back to get a read on his par putt when Sargent looked at him and pointed at their two putts. The NBC/Sky Sports mics did not pick up who said what, but both players immediately picked up their marks and headed to the 17th tee in an apparent “good, good” agreement.

It was a pretty stunning moment, and the commentary crew was all over it.... Of course, that crew included Brad Faxon, whose next missed 4-footer will be his first.

Gordon Sargent's explanation doesn't exactly ring true:

“We were just having a friendly match,” Sargent said. “And there was no point in — we felt like we both were gonna make it so we were kinda like let’s just take it to 17 and hopefully put on a show for the fans.”

Just a friendly, eh?  Especially when the other guy has the more accurate description:

“He was a little closer than me,” Gough said later. “We both had disgusting left-to-righters and said, ‘On to the next tee,’ and he agreed, so we went.”

The breaks in those Old Course greens are so subtle and hard to read, that it no doubt leads the world in missed short putts, but whatev....

So, how did it work out?  

That decision didn’t pan out well for Gough. The 24-year-old Englishman blocked his tee shot at the famous “Road Hole” into the Old Course Hotel and out of bounds. Sargent made an easy bogey from in front of the green and then drove the 18th with a 3-wood for an easy birdie to secure a 1-up victory.

This was the only aspect of the Walker Cup that the Tour Confidential gang considered:

7. There was a bit of controversy during the Sunday singles session at the Walker Cup at St. Andrews when American Gordon Sargent and Great Britain & Ireland’s John Gough went “good, good” on the 16th green to concede each other’s par putt from about four feet. The match, the fourth of 10, was tied at the time, and Sargent won the next hole and eventually the match, 1 up. “We felt like we both were gonna make it so we were kinda like let’s just take it to 17 and hopefully put on a show for the fans,” Sargent said. Gough later added: “We both had disgusting left-to-righters and said, ‘On to the next tee,’ and he agreed, so we went.” The broadcast team was stunned at this move. Do you have an issue with it?

Marksbury: It was definitely a surprising move. Four-footers aren’t ever gimmes in my world! I’ll gladly accept any concession, but I’m not sure I would have given one at that point. It doesn’t sound like there’s any regret on either player’s end, though, so perhaps we’re making something out of nothing.

Sens: Just as no one wants to lose a match by botching a short putt, no one really wants to win that way either. So you can understand the ‘good-good’ impulse. But it’s got to be a lot easier to sit with for Sargent. Gough is in the tougher spot, left to grapple with the ‘what if’s.’

Obviously it blew up for Gough, but I think it was a strategic blunder in the context of that scoreboard at the time.  The tide was swinging red and good-good to me only makes sense if you'll be happy with a halve....I can understand it from Sargent's point of view.... He's the top dog and doesn't want to fire up the GB&Iers by showing he was down to Gough.  The problem from Gough's perspective is that they needed a "W", a half point for a tie wasn't gig to help.

Speaking of "W's", did you catch this silly controversy?

That "W" stands for—wait for it—the WALKER Cup. But apparently, some felt it meant something else. Specifically, that the heavily favored Americans, who boast eight of the top 10 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, were already chocking up another W in the biennial event they've dominated both historically and in recent years.

Players and team captain Mike McCoy were asked a seemingly obvious question about the white letter adorning their caps—and replied with a seemingly obvious answer: 

Although "Silliest controversy ever" is a very competitive category....

But despite that, and the fact that the Americans wore similar caps in honor of President George W. Bush attending in 2013 (as well as in practice sessions in 2015 and 2017), and the fact that the entire event is named after his grandfather, George Herbert WALKER, a former USGA president, some just had to read more into it. Take this piece in The Scotsman with the headline, "Star-studded US team insist 'W' on Walker Cup caps doesn't stand for 'win.' "

Um, you know why they insist that? Because the 'W' doesn't stand for win. It stands for WALKER. And the U.S. has worn different versions of the hat for the past decade.

We've seen athletes create grudges all the time, it's pretty much the plot of every episode of The Last Dance, after all.  Though this one seems to be a media creation...

Both the Walker and Ryder Cups began as the U.S. vs. GB&I, and I very much treasure the historical connotations of that moniker.  That said, this event is suffering a major competitive imbalance, and it seems inevitable that Continental Europe will be added, as happened in the two professional cups.

Europe In Full - Captain Luke filled out his roster, and had some surprised for us.  These were the six automatic qualifiers:

Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Robert MacIntyre, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland

Fitzpatrick moved himself into an automatic slot with his play last weekend, which because of their bifurcated lists might have actually helped Donald.  These were his six captain's pick:

In a 30-minute made-for-TV show on Golf Channel, one week after the American team was finalized, Donald punched the Ryder Cup tickets for Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Hojgaard.

I opined last week that I was skeptical about taking Aberg, but that was before he won last weekend's event.  Hoigaard seems mostly famous for being out there with his twin brother, but I'm not the only one surprised:

Biggest surprise among the captain’s picks?

Nicolai Hojgaard. He’s deserving, with three finishes of T-6 or better in his last six starts. And there was a real possibility Ludvig Aberg’s European Masters win would have cannibalized Hojgaard’s chances, in that there was theoretically room on the Euro roster for one upstart but not two. Give Donald credit; it’s a fun and “sexy” decision, but above all else it’s a decision that’s brazen. —Joel Beall

If only because I couldn't imagine this guy being left at home:

Biggest snub?

Adrian Meronk, obviously. What looked like a very complicated European picture clarified over the last couple weeks, to the point there were really only 13 players Luke Donald could have
taken. Meronk was No. 13, and I don't think he deserved to be. For all the talk of an "old boys club" on the U.S. side, I can't think of a better way to describe the selection of Shane Lowry, who doesn't have either the recent form or the Ryder Cup pedigree (1-2 in his lone appearance) to make him an obvious pick over Meronk, who won three times this season—including at the host course!!!—and was better than Lowry in the second half of the summer. —Shane Ryan

Meronk is the player with the biggest, most legitimate gripe. He currently sits third on the Race to Dubai, and is the Australian Open, Irish Open and Italian Open champion. And the last of those titles was won on the Marco Simone course that will host the Ryder Cup later this month. Then there is Meronk’s style of play. The man makes birdies for fun. By way of recent example, he made 20, plus one eagle, in the European Masters that concluded just yesterday. And his overall form this year has been excellent. Other than his victories, he has four other top-10s and three more finishes between 10th and 20th. Based on Donald’s repeated public assertions that he would select “in-form” players, the Englishman has let down Meronk. —J.H.

Just don't see how they could resist having the first Polish golfer ever in the Ryder Cup.  Plus, he seems to like the golf course, although that brings back traumatic memories of Curtis Strange being selected because he had once won a U.S. open at a Ryder Cup venue, and we all remember how that played out...

That Other Cup - I won't be at the keyboard again until Friday, it seems, so I'll just throw up a few other easy bits.  First as relates to the ladies:

5. Before the Ryder Cup gets underway, we’ll head to Spain for the Solheim Cup, where the U.S. will try to beat Europe for the first time since 2017. Stacy Lewis finalized her team with three captain’s picks on Monday, although one of her most well-known players, auto-qualifier Lexi Thompson, has struggled lately. She’s missed eight of 10 cuts this year, has yet to record a top-30 finish and is in danger of losing full playing privileges for next year. What’s going on with Lexi? And how important will Thompson finding her form be for Team USA to end the Solheim Cup losing skid?

Zak: Lexi’s long game isn’t nearly as good as it once was, so she’s lost a bit of an advantage she
once had. But all players go through valleys, and we only tend to pay the most attention to the best players. So she’s going through one. Is that concerning for the Solheim Cup? Absolutely. Does she have to play more than two or three matches? Not at all. You can hide people in poor form during these events. So if that’s the case, it’ll be up to Capt. Lewis.

Sens: The stats show long-game struggles. What the numbers don’t measure are confidence levels, which don’t seem nearly what they once were. But how many times have we seen fiery competitors find their form for these team matches? It could happen with Thompson at this year’s Solheim Cup. And if not, Captain Lewis adjusts accordingly. Of course, it would help the U.S. cause for Thompson to play well. But all is not lost if she doesn’t.

Marksbury: Lexi is such a star, it lifts the entire women’s game when she’s playing well. I’m so glad we’ll still get to see her suited up in the stars and stripes in Spain. She’s a fierce competitor, and like Justin Thomas, I’m hopeful that the pomp and circumstance of the proceedings might coax her into better form. But the U.S. team is also deep! Lilia Vu, Nelly Korda, Meghan Kang, Angel Yin, Rose Zhang, to name a few. I feel good about the team’s prospects even if Lexi remains in a bit of a rut.

I've been a Lexi-skeptic for quite some time, but still a shock that her playing privileges are at risk.   She's quite fragile, so this away game could be quite the test.

The Solheim Cup has been good fun, not that it'll draw any audience, because of the frisson of bad blood between the teams.  Though the marketing slogan, "tune in, because these girls really don't like each other" might be a difficult sell.

Ryder Bits - Just a couple of riffs from that TC panel:

1. The U.S. Ryder Cup team was finalized with captain Zach Johnson selecting his six captain’s picks. While a few of the selections were obvious, there were a couple of mild surprises, including Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler leapfrogging into the top 12 to kick out Cameron Young and Keegan Bradley. What are your thoughts on the six captain’s picks?

Sean Zak: These picks were about comfort for all involved. For Jordan Spieth, who likes playing with Justin Thomas. For Scottie Scheffler, who is best buds with Sam Burns. But mostly they
were about comfort for Zach Johnson. There would be more discomfort had he selected Lucas Glover, a 43-year-old. There would be some discomfort in finding who to pair with Cam Young (though that wouldn’t be too hard). There would be some discomfort in bringing along anyone besides the guys who mesh best with those already on the team. So with that in mind, they were fine picks.

Josh Sens: Agreed. The picks are fine. As easy to defend as they are to criticize. Johnson could have gone any number of ways with equally valid reasoning. It’s been said before and I think it’s true: Ryder Cup captains often get too much blame for losses and too much credit for wins. The blame seems especially intense in the US, where the sense of American exceptionalism makes it hard for a lot of fans to accept the possibility that the US team simply got outplayed by a stronger or more cohesive squad. People think there has to be some other explanation. It almost makes you want to root for the Europeans, as all the hand-wringing and soul-searching and second-guessing in the wake of a US loss is a kind of curious entertainment in itself. And it helps feed the fervid, flag-waving rivalry that this thing has become.

Jessica Marksbury: I agree that all the picks are defensible. And I sympathize with Keegan, especially, knowing how much the Ryder Cup means to him. But Johnson’s decisions illustrate the whole point of having six picks. It’s meant to grant the captain the flexibility of not choosing the next guy down on the points list, deserving though he may be. And that’s exactly what he did. Whether it was a good or a bad call, well, we’ll let you know in a month.

I just hate the cool kids vibe to it.  Of course the team dynamics are a legitimate factor, but I keep revisiting that 2014 presser and thinking that Watson was about right.

Although I do love the circular logic of, was JT picked to give Jordan a safe space, or is it the other way around?

2. Thomas’ struggles over the past couple of months have been well-documented. Is there even more pressure on him now after he received a semi-controversial pick? Or is an event like the Ryder Cup exactly what he needs to start fresh and get out of his slump?

Zak: Absolutely there is more pressure on him now, but he knows that. JT is no chump to pressure. He’ll have had a full month between events, and I gather that’s enough time to take a nice, deep breath and settle back close to his norm of form. I don’t anticipate him to play at his highest level, but even his third gear is really good when paired with Jordan Spieth.

Sens: Definitely more pressure and closer scrutiny. And a good chance Thomas will find a way to rise to the occasion. If he doesn’t, it won’t be because the moment was too big for him. It will be because golf is fickle and cruel, and slumps can be hard to break.

Marksbury: Well said, Josh. The pressure will be immense because if it goes wrong, there will be plenty of told-you-so armchair observers ready to pounce. But I think this could be just the atmosphere and opportunity to jump-start a player like Thomas. I’m reminded of 2018 in Paris when Sergio Garcia needed a captain’s pick to get on the team and went on to win three points. I could see Thomas putting on a similar display.

Can I get back to you on October 2nd?   I don't have a problem with the pick, but it's likely the one that Zach's legacy might turn on.  

I'm much more concerned with how he'll use the team, than with the pick itself.  I just don't think they project as a very good foursomes team.

That's all, Folks!  See you down the road.

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