Weekend Wrap - Proof of Life Edition

Hope everyone had a good weekend.  We have some other issues to get to, time permitting, but for once  the actual golf is of interest.  Kind of an off-message week for the Face Plant Tour™.

That Magic Wand - With the Oscars as the off-field event, I was able to see all of yesterday's final round, and it's been quite some time since I've been that impressed with a round of golf.  Recency bias is a thing and we'll see folks calling him unbeatable, and we'll poke our usual fun at them for that bit of levity.  But it's also true that, if Scottie Scheffler can putt, he's going to be a force out there.

To wit:

Shockingly, it had been 51 weeks since Scottie Scheffler last won a golf tournament.

In the time since Scheffler triumphed at the Players Championship, the World No. 1 racked up boatloads of top-10s, brought dozens of courses to their knees with his ball striking and dazzled

with his touch around the greens.

But he just couldn’t get his putts to fall.

Scheffler came to Bay Hill, armed with a new, mallet-style putter, and while he didn’t get the results he wanted in a first-round 70, he caught fire on the weekend. He one-putted his first two greens Sunday to cap a career-long streak of nine consecutive one-putts and made every putt inside 15 feet.

He was in cruise control as he fired a final-round 66 Sunday to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational by five strokes over Wyndham Clark. It’s the largest margin of victory at the event since 2012 and it’s Scheffler’s second career victory at “Arnie’s Place” after he won there in 2022 in the lead-up to his Masters title that year.

First and foremost, he must be awfully relieved....  At every level of his development he was a perfectly adequate putter, but the last year has been ugly for sure.  Obviously he's unlikely to putt quite this well going forward, but that five-stroke win indicates he's got some wiggle room.

The only asterisk (see what I did there?) comes from the fact that he only had to beat sixty-eight other guys.... so, borderline exhibition match.  Hopefully we'll see him putt that well in an actual competition soon.

My primary takeaway from the weekend, however, casts a far more unfavorable light on our Tour and it's rules enforcement, because WTF!

Did Wyndham Clark's ball "move" here?

I'm not even sure of anything anymore.

"He needed to be a bit more careful." - Luke Donald pic.twitter.com/OgGYE6AxEF

— Jack Hirsh (@JR_HIRSHey) March 9, 2024

We'll dive deep into the long grass here, but don't these guys understand what a God-awful look this is?  They spend all week telling us what a challenging venue Bay Hill is, in part because of its punishing rough.  How significant is the rough if they're allowed to move it out of the way?

Here's what they tell us matters:

Did Clark break a rule? Observers wondered that. To note, rule 8.1b (4) states that players are allowed to, “ground the club lightly right in front of or right behind the ball,” with “ground the club lightly” meaning, “allowing the weight of the club to be supported by the grass, soil, sand or other material on or above the ground surface.” Also, the rules of golf define “move” this way: “When a ball at rest has left its original spot and come to rest on any other spot, and this can be seen by the naked eye (whether or not anyone actually sees it do so). This applies whether the ball has gone up, down or horizontally in any direction away from its original spot. If the ball only wobbles (sometimes referred to as oscillating) and stays on or returns to its original spot, the ball has not moved.”

I'm not a rules official, but I do know my Orwell:

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Nothing to see here, kids.  The Party has instructed us that these guys are all gentlemen and would call a penalty on themselves if appropriate.  But gee, was this guy a gentleman as well:

Am I the only one tired of this crap?

First, and all of the major golf sites have similar accountings of this incident, all citing that same rule that a guy can ground his club without penalty, and focused on whether the ball "moved."  And all try to divert our gaze elsewhere....

The first thing you probably noticed is that the description of "grounding" doesn't remotely capture what we see Clark doing. The weight of the club isn't "supported" by the rough... Clark is aggressively pushing the club into the rough, which moves the grass.  Perhaps Mark Dusbabek is correct and the ball doesn't move, though I'm far less convinced that he is.  But is that the only metric on which we can measure this?

Of course not, because improving one's lie is also a violation of the rules, but note the aggressive disinterest in that rule (and their disinterest in whether grass was moved).  I know what I want toss and I suspect that you'll have the same question, what did the lie look like before Clark got his ball, and was it the same lie after he pounded down the grass.

Funny story, that's a side-by-side that no one wants to show.  Because it sure looks to me like we saw a whole lot more white after he was done giving the rough a nip and tuck.  

I know I've said it already, but their assurances that no rules were broken come in a transparent tissue of lies, including citing a definition of grounding that we see him wantonly violating.  I'm far from alone here.  First, Dusbabek himself brings up other areas of concern, only to suddenly lose interest therein:

“I know, Dan, that it looks bad, that maybe he’s trying to improve the area of his intended swing,” Dusbabek said. “It doesn’t look like there’s enough there. It’s just hard to say. A player is allowed to ground his club with the weight of the club against the ground. So, that’s basically what he’s doing right there.

Really, because your description didn't even convince the guy sitting next to you:

Dusbabek was referencing rule 8.1b (4) which states that players are allowed to, “ground the club lightly right in front of or right behind the ball,” with “ground the club lightly” meaning, “allowing the weight of the club to be supported by the grass, soil, sand or other material on or above the ground surface.”

But analyst Brad Faxon challenged that Clark was only using the weight of the club.

“There was definitely pressure pushing down there,” Faxon said. “It certainly wasn’t good-looking.”

Are these the same guys that called the 2020 riots "mostly peaceful"?  

This from Dusbabek I think sums it perfectly:

“I feel his ball didn’t move, and I feel like he did nothing to affect the stroke.”

Without analyzing the lie before and after, we're left with nothing more that your feelings.....  But we all saw it and it's a horrible look for the game and the Tour, but they'd rather hide behind equivocations.

This is a horrible look for the Tour and the governing bodies.  You either want to protect the integrity of the game, or you want to protect your feed lot.  I think we've figured out which need dominates.

Did Someone Mention Feed Lots - Rory, you've really ruined things quite enough already... You might want to consider keeping that pie hole closed:

Rory McIlroy wants more ‘cutthroat’ PGA Tour with fewer competitors

Obviously, the boy is quite confused, because fewer competitors makes golf easier, not more difficult (or, in his terminology, cutthroat).

“No, I mean, I’m all for making it more cutthroat, more competitive,’’ McIlroy said, as covered by Sports Illustrated. “Probably won’t be very popular for saying this but I’m all for less players and less Tour cards, and the best of the best.’’

So, you've gone full Patrick?  Lovely, carve out all the riffraff so more for me...

How's that world working out, Rory?

In nine PGA Tour events in 2024, six of the winners entered the tournament with odds of at least 100-to-1 at the Las Vegas SuperBook.

Chris Kirk kicked things off, winning The Sentry at 200-to-1.

Then, Grayson Murray won the Sony Open as an astounding 400-to-1 shot.

This was followed by Nick Dunlap winning The American Express with 300-to-1 odds.

Matthieu Pavon and Nick Taylor both had 125-to-1 odds when they won the Farmers Insurance Open and the Waste Management Phoenix Open, respectively.

Finally, Austin Eckroat had 100-to-1 odds before he won the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beaches Garden, Fla.

The shortest odds of anyone who has won a PGA Tour event this year was Jake Knapp, who won the Mexico Open at Vidanta Vallarta after entering with 40-to-1 odds.

Which is exactly why they need to be excluded, because they threaten Rory and Patrick's feed lot.... Yanno who's not on that list?  Yeah, Rory and Patrick, so obviously the fields are too big.

Care for some dissenting opinions?  

Lucas Glover doesn’t have to worry about qualifying for the PGA Tour’s Signature Events this season.

But that doesn’t make him a fan of the PGA Tour’s new model.

Speaking with Golfweek at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Glover, a two-time PGA Tour winner last season, laid into the Tour’s series of eight, limited-field, $20 million events.

“I don’t like the idea at all,” he said. “It’s selfish and it’s a money grab.”

“Nothing that has happened in the last two years in golf, in my opinion, that will help the game,” the six-time PGA Tour winner said. “I’ve yet to figure out what’s so bad out here that we had to do all the things we’ve done.

I'm sorry, Lucas, but you're the selfish one.  It's an established fact that we can only grow this game if Patrick gets paid,. and now you want to stand in the way of that.

Eamon Lynch has a couple of pieces that speak to this, beginning here:

While far short of a constitutional crisis for King Jay, quibbles about the cut speak to a broader dilemma with how the signature events are structured and marketed. Tournaments billed as all-

star showcases are an automatic loss in the eyes of many if those all-stars don’t show up, which for the most part they haven’t in 2024. Since individual form is beyond the control of Commissioner Monahan, he might consider the words of business theorist W. Edwards Deming: “Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and processes rather than the employee.”

And signature events rely on a formula designed to artificially engineer outcomes that simply cannot be guaranteed.

That's an odd framing, given that it's the employees that presumably designed the system....  But get a load of the accompanying photo.  I don't know if Eamon himself specified the telegenic Aussie, but it highlights the depravity of the system Jay oversees.  We're gonna make sure that Patrick gets paid, but we'll take care of our friend Adam behind everyone's back..... Could they be more transparently in it for themselves?

This is a valid point, though not perhaps the most important one:

Building tournaments around Goliaths while trying to exclude most of the Davids isn’t indefensible, but it does have consequences, because every little reduction in competitiveness dilutes what makes things compelling for fans. At 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the second round, the practice range on Tour is usually a hive of comings and goings, pure tournament theater. Friday morning at Bay Hill, there were six players preparing for their rounds. Spectators in the stands behind them must have felt like they came for a feast but found a famine. One metric that matters for fans can’t actually be quantified: the vibe. You know it when you feel it, you know when you’re not feeling it. And not many are feeling it this week, in part because of the size of the field.

The field might be nominally stronger in that a greater percentage is made up of the Tour’s best players, but there’s simply less activity around the grounds, less action to follow, less spectacle to absorb. Just less, period. A tee sheet of 69 does no favors for the tournament, for fans or for the PGA Tour. If the old standard for the invitationals on the schedule (120) is thought too many, then why not 100? And if there’s no appetite to spread the purse among that many – which is the real reason for small, lucrative events – then dispense with the customary formula for distributing the prize fund and pay less for mediocre finishes. This ain’t LIV Golf.

Well, Eamon, it actually is LIV Golf.  Patrick was jealous and this is exactly what he wanted, LIV without the moral ramifications....

But what Eamon seems to ignore is that, while the bifurcation of Tour events will create a concentration of top line talent in those events, those are appearances that are taken away from other Tour events.  It's mostly a zero sum game.

But get a load of Eamon's coda:

The Tour’s top stars have spent two years telling us they deserve greater rewards and the sport’s economy has been distorted to grant that request. Surely it’s not too much to ask that they play better, and play better against a few more guys.

Did you not hear Rory's comments, Eamon?  That is very much too big an ask.,... In fact, he wants smaller fields.  

But I did mention a second piece from the Ulsterman, one that reacts to Rory's profundity in quite the amusing fashion?

Lynch: Rory McIlroy wants a more cutthroat PGA Tour. So, um, who’s gonna cut the GOAT's throat?

You see where he's going with this, right?  Though I have to start with a major quibble:

Rory McIlroy was asked Friday whether he has misgivings about there being just 69 players in the field at the API. He does not. “I’m all for making it more cutthroat, more competitive,” he said. “Probably won’t be very popular for saying this, but I’m all for less players and less Tour cards, and the best of the best.”

It’s a defensible argument.

I don't actually think it is defensible, given the nature of our game.  The current generation of PGA Tour promos included the assertion that it's where the best golf is played.  The logic of that is the best events will be the best events, meaning those where the best golf is played.  So, riddle me this, Batman... Do you get better golf from a 69 player field or from a 156 player field?  Not a hard question is it?

In case the dots need connecting, that's exactly my Lucas Glover calls it a selfish money grab....

But shall w elet Eamon have his fun?

But a desire for a more competitively focused and streamlined Tour—a view McIlroy is far from alone in holding among top players—is incompatible with eligibility carve-outs for sentimental favorites. Like Woods. But who is going to cut the GOAT’s throat? Who will tell fans and sponsors that Tiger hasn’t earned a spot?

Don't forget Adam Scott!  They need his vote so he'll always have a tee time....

I'm not over the moon over Eamon's treatment of the trade-offs, mostly because there's no discussion of the bifurcated compensation system in golf, whereby Tiger gets compensated for being Tiger from Nike, as opposed to from Jay.  

Unfortunately, I'm not sure where the time went, as I didn't even get a chance to discuss Anthony Kim, the second half of that header reference.  perhaps we'll get to it tomorrow, but I must leave you here.  I'll try to pick this up tomorrow.