Thursday Threads - Masters Leftovers Edition

It's getting close to time to move on.... But not just yet.

Augusta In The Rearview Mirror - As we emotionally distance ourselves from Magnolia Lane, we may find time to consider the women's first major of the season, A/K/A The event that the Lords of Augusta destroyed.  But first, some last bits for your consideration, mostly from Shack and Dylan Dethier.

Two independent voices of differing generations that work as a Point-Counterpoint debate.  For Instance, their takes on our Eldrick, first Dylan:

6. Tiger Woods walked 72 holes.

After a terrific performance in the first two rounds to make his record-setting 24th consecutive Masters cut (with five shots to spare!), things took a negative turn on the weekend for Tiger

Woods.

That’s been the story in Woods’ recent major starts. At last year’s Masters he made the cut and then withdrew on Saturday night. At the PGA Championship in 2022 he withdrew on Saturday night, too. And although he gritted his way to a 47th-place finish at the 2022 Masters, he hobbled through the final round using his driver as a walking stick.

So in many ways Woods’ 82-77 weekend didn’t feel like progress. But in terms of his body holding up for four days? It’s at least a step in the right direction. We’ll see whether that trend continues.

OK, but a bit of a low bar, no?  Don't get me wrong, I'm OK if his time has passed, but the Tiger dead-enders can't be sated....

Geoff trisects the world into Winners, Cut-Makers and (Point) Missers, and places the Striped One in that middle category (and, no, I can't explain the parenthesis):

Tiger Woods. A remarkable 24-consecutive cuts made sets the new record after a tremendous performance that required a rapid Thursday-to-Friday turnaround. But 82-77 on the weekend was painful to see. The stiff back and lack of golf conditioning remains an issue even as he appears to walk better, has all of the shots and can out-navigate the kids around a complex course. At least Tiger treated amateur Neil Shipley to a once-in-a-lifetime final round by making the low amateur feel welcomed while making Oakmont feel bad about all of the tree removal. Oh, and the Sunday Red Sun Day Red logo remains weird but good job jettisoning the S.D.R. initials that teed up the haters to hate.

Could someone explain the Oakmont reference?  

In a perfect world, this would be a learning experience for those running our game.  Here we are reveling in Tiger's made cut record and extolling is Friday grind in pursuit thereof, quite the shock when you realize the idiots in charge don't want there to be cuts any longer.... I completely understand that we cannot grow our game if Cantlay has to risk missing a cut.  It's just so maddening that to save golf we have to destroy it, but I'm sure Patrick has the fans' interest at heart.

But, and they both seem loathe to say it out loud, it's hard to retain any hope that the man can be competitive if he has to walk 72 holes.  Don't shoot the messenger....

Shall we see how they come down on the defending champion?

8. The defending champ didn’t like giving up the green jacket.

Jon Rahm is one of golf’s great competitors, so it’s not surprising that he’d be upset by the idea of giving up his green jacket. But as he put the finishing touches on a T45 finish he expressed some regret about not putting the fight to the World No. 1.

“There’s a lot of things that contributed to me not having my best week, and one of them I think was obviously on the greens, which is not easy. Never really had the pace of the greens, and a couple too many three-putts,” he said. Were there positives? Sort of.

“It’s been nice to have some receptions walking up to some tees no matter what my score was and seeing the appreciation. But when you don’t have your best week, it’s hard to have to stay now to put the jacket on somebody else and never really ever have a chance.”

I think they call  that a first-world problem....But I think Geoff came closer to the Spaniard's rage against the machine:

Jon Rahm. He came into the tournament embracing the perks of defending and put together what

sounded like an incredible evening. He earned raves from the past champions—until Ray Floyd had heard enough of Tom Watson and everyone called it a night. Then Rahm turned surly. “It's been nice to have some receptions walking up to some tees no matter what my score was and seeing the appreciation,” he said Sunday after a final round 76. “But when you don't have your best week, it's hard to have to stay now to put the jacket on somebody else and never really ever have a chance.” Coulda been worse Jon! You could have been enlisted to slap Pimento on white bread on the night shift. And while Rahm never looked as miserable as runner-ups forced to sit through cabin ceremonies of yesteryear—a cruel tradition now expired—it wasn’t the most jovial jacket awarding by outgoing champion Rahm. So much for $400 million delivering 24/7 happiness.

Neither mentions those passive-aggressive comments to Spanish media, the bigger issue being that their prize acquisition seems quite miserable with his decision, notwithstanding the $400 million large.

I'll add this apparent category error from Geoff:

LIV. Seven of 13 representatives made the cut, two managed to tie for T6, but only Bryson DeChambeau genuinely threatened the lead. Unlike last year when two players tied for second and made us question the PGA Tour’s run-up as the ideal Masters prep, cracks are turning into grand canyons after LIVsters Rahm and Phil Mickelson admitted expansion to 72 holes is just a matter of time. Not helping LIV’s street cred: DeChambeau suggested only Doral provided LIV players a big time prep test this year. And LIV dropping its OWGR application was highlighted by Chairman Fred Ridley in rejecting the league’s fantasy of seeing top players receive major exemptions.

How was this week anything but a disaster for LIV?  From chief clown Greg Norman's pathetic trolling from outside the ropes to Bryson's weekend fade, their thirteen top players weren't competitively relevant this week.  They can scream all they want about OWGR points, but this week doesn't make a case for that.

More importantly, the rumors of disaffection keep hitting, including Rahm, Smith and Koepka, among others....And no mater the extent to which Norman stalks Rory, literally, he just keeps saying, "You're not my type".

here's a couple that belong together.  Mid-Sunday, I got a text (you'll know when in the proceedings) that referenced the contenders throwing up on themselves, which isn't really fair (not that fairness and golf belong in the same sentence.  But I agree with Dylan's take on Max Homa:

4. Max Homa got a bad bounce.

I was behind the 12th tee for Max Homa’s tee shot peering over the shoulders of about 6,000 of my new best friends so it was a little tough to tell exactly what had happened when Homa’s ball flew the green other than it didn’t seem good. Once Homa started searching — and then measuring club lengths for a drop — it seemed extra not-good. But it wasn’t until I got back to the media center that I saw a replay of the bounce. What a rotten break! If it flies a yard further it hits the slope and comes back down. If it flies a yard shorter it doesn’t trampoline forward. A little left or right and it dodges that nasty patch of ivy. Brutal!

Turns out Homa felt the same way.

“The honest answer? Is it didn’t feel fair,” he said of the bounce. “I hit a really good golf shot, and it didn’t feel fair. I’ve seen far worse just roll back down the hill. But yeah, the professional answer is these things happen.”

These things do happen. That’s the game. But it’s tough when they happen while you’re in second place at the Masters on the back nine on Sunday, down one shot to the best player in the world. I’m not here to tell you that was the difference — even if you assume the bounce cost Homa two shots, he lost by seven — but it would have stretched the drama just a little longer.

I don't if "bad bounce" is the perfect term, but for Aberg as well it was a small mistake in just the wrong time and place, which to me is the essence of Augusta.  I was actually hoping to hear from Max as to club selection, because I suspect that he tugged it a titch as well....  

Shack had this related note:

Sharp edges. The Quad always supports the installation of graceful surface drainage to add interest over unnatural catch basins to move the heavy stuff into Rae’s Creek. This year we saw a

new swale around the sixth green similar to work at the 11th and 17th or even the since-softened 13th hole work of the 1980s. Naturalists Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones would recoil at the steepness of some of the slopes given how they largely discourage the ground game and force a lob wedge recovery instead of providing options. Rory McIlroy diplomatically described the biggest change he’s seen to the course over his 16 years: “There's a lot of sharpness to the edges of the green compounds that didn't used to be there, which makes it -- the right of the 11th green, which makes it just a little trickier to chip to and just penalizes the misses a little bit more, which ultimately, I think, is a good thing.” But “sharpness” is more Pete Dye than Alister MacKenzie. Steep slopes up to a green take away the skill of hitting a nifty little bump-and-run option adored by the original architects.

That explains much of what I saw during the week, but funny that it happens without any discussion thereof prior to the event.

Earlier this week we noted seemingly strong ratings for the early rounds.  But, upon further review:

Ratings. I wrote too soon. A 20% overnight ratings drop for the final round continues a season-long trend where—who’d a thunk it—entitlement, greed, the power game, heavy turnover, slow play, NBC/Golf Channel’s diminished reach and continued strong recreational numbers appear to have accelerated 2024’s narrative. There are caveats: the Masters streaming experience remains superior to anything in sports and is not accounted for in the ratings. This means many of those golfers playing might have had the telecast playing on their cell phones. CBS averaged just 9.6 million Sunday with a peak of 12.6 million as Scheffler clinched the win. Saturday saw a healthy 8.2 million average viewers. Also, SBJ’s Josh Carpenter notes that Nielsen’s numbers last year saw a bump due to “out-of-home” viewing, suggesting this year did not enjoy a boost from all of the heathens with one eyeball glued to the golf at Easter family brunch.

That's still a boatload of folks watching our silly game, but if you can't retain your audience at the Masters.....It's going to be a long, dismal year.

I agree with Geoff here, though for unexplained reasons this in included with the Cut-Makers:

Tinkerers, blamers-of-team-members, wannabe future captains of industry (with the initials P.C.), and current selectors of the next Ryder Cup captain. Rough week for the PGA Tour’s irreplaceable assets who’ve devoted too much time to board meetings and firing members of their “teams” in bids to avoid introspection. A bunch of guys should double down on what they’re not as good at these days: playing golf. Hopefully the rough week for the PGA Tour’s well-compensated but under-delivering stars humbled them into submission and will let grown-ups sort out the current mess.

It's been the story of the entire PGA Tour season.  We are reliably informed that professional golf is entirely about a handful of players, then said handful are conspicuously absent from leaderboards.  It may be that the product is the game, not Patrick, or is that just crazy talk?

Given Geoff's misclassification of that Perfect Penis, who is deserving of his contempt?  I agree this was quite the odd story:

Zach Johnson. The vulgar salutation to Amen Corner patrons applauding his triple bogey tap-in was unbecoming of a former champion. Funny, but unbecoming. And sure, there might have been

a few lubricated jeers mixed in with stock golf claps that are not ideal but no reason to tell patrons to F off. One dubious-sounding Reddit post claims the 2007 champion was heckled when arriving at the tee, but the one-liners cited sounded identical to February’s Scottsdale heckling that prompted his meltdown there (Johnson also gave a new spin on that episode last week). Unfortunately for Zach, the incredibly nice and golf-knowledgable people who attend the Masters, (A) would like to return year so they never heckle, (B) are generous in applauding anything short of someone falling on their face, and (C) Amen Corner patrons sit far away from the 12th green and often lose track of how many shots a player has taken if they are at all distracted by action on the 11th green or the 5 p.m. Crow’s Nest sales cutoff. Par putts at 12 sometimes get the same applause as a birdie putt. It’s the dynamic of the Corner. Still, Johnson put himself in position for quote of the year when, after the incident, he offered this beauty. “If I've said anything, which I'm not going to deny, especially if it's on camera, one, I apologize, and two, it was fully directed towards myself entirely because I can't hear anything behind me. Does that make sense?” Oh it does. Especially since it was on camera.

This gave drives us to madness, but his competitive prime is long behind him and he's supposed to an elder statesman of some sort, so the absence of class is noticeable...

I had heard about his histrionics, but not about the Sergio homage:

Tyrrell Hatton. Spitting on the greens? This isn’t a LIV stop. A T9 means you’ll be back but not before hearing from the Chairman’s office. Let us know what he says and be thankful Clifford Roberts is no longer around.

Did he use the "nothing but net" defense?  Amusingly, most of Hatton's vitriol was directed at on e certain hole, and Geoff seems to agree (on the substance, not the expectoration):

15th hole. Before the tournament we focused on the front nine’s increasingly defensive nature. But with this year’s extreme winds, the two back nine par 5s played much tougher than normal.

The setup crew kept the greens playable through Friday’s winds without calling in the hoses. That’s a tribute to the prep crews knowing the course, the weather and the data. But the 15th was all just a bit much. Even with more sunlight hitting the fairway after some selective right side pine pruning, the tee shot remains too difficult given a combination of narrowness, right-to-left fairway tilt and the left side’s fortified forest. The green complex has also grown too severe. The closer cut this year accentuated the pond’s influence and led to a lot of double bogeys. Throw in the crazy winds, extreme green speeds and pros hitting never-had-a-chance wedge shots and the hole was more of a survival test than risk/reward fun. Final stats: 5.007 average, 1 eagle, 37 birdies, 14 doubles and two others.

A couple last bits from Dylan.  I am not now nor have I ever been a gearhead, but this is probably of greater significance that we can appreciate:

5. Bryson DeChambeau’s irons story is insane.

Arguably the wildest storyline of the week. Let’s keep this very basic. As I understand it, for all of modern golfing history the faces on irons have been flat. Until this week.

In Bryson DeChambeau’s new iron set (more here), the irons don’t have flat faces; they have the bulge-and-roll profile you’d recognize from your driver. They weren’t approved by the USGA until the beginning of Masters week; DeChambeau’s team literally spent the weekend handcrafting them to pass inspection. And then DeChambeau — who has a poor Masters record — used these 3D-printed irons to shoot a first-round 65 to take the outright lead. He ultimately finished T6, which is significant for his career. But these irons feel like an even bigger story than that. And this week felt like the beginning.

How much of an advantage is that?  I'm still trying to understand how we should view Tiger's 15-shot Margin at Pebble in 2000, given that he was the only guy in the field playing a solid-core ball.  I suspect we'll hear more on this going forward.

I'm amused that Dylan's longest bit is this one that he doesn't know what to say about:

7. Rory McIlroy tried something different.

But maybe not as different as he’d have us think.

Rory McIlroy arrived on Tuesday of the Masters and was the final contestant to register. “I play 25 weeks a year, and there’s no point in doing anything different this week compared to other weeks, I guess,” he said. That was this week’s declared strategy.

The temptation, then, is to say that McIlroy tried not to take this week too seriously, but that’s not

quite right either. He flew to Augusta two weeks before the event for a scouting trip. He flew from Florida to Las Vegas just to get a golf lesson. He added an event, the Valero Texas Open, to play the week before the tournament. And when he arrived at the Masters, he came with a skeleton crew — essentially just his caddie and his agent — got his practice in and skipped the par-3 contest while his family stayed home.

By the time McIlroy wrapped his second round he’d faded to four over par, inside the cut line but fully 10 shots behind Scottie Scheffler, who’d played in his group. Their third was Åberg, who’d wind up second. A ho-hum weekend left McIlroy T22, which is where he’s been spending this season; five of his six PGA Tour finishes in 2024 have been between T19 and T24.

“I guess it’s more the same of what I’ve shown this year. It’s not as if it’s been a down week in comparison to the way I’ve been playing. It’s just a matter of me trying to get my game in a bit better shape going towards the rest of the season,” McIlroy said post-round. He doesn’t feel far off, he added, because “all these disappointing weeks are 20ths, 25ths. They’re not terrible weeks by any stretch, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”

McIlroy was the subject of more headlines away from the Masters than at the Masters; on Monday various sites ran with a report that he was considering an $850 million offer from LIV that spread like wildfire across social media. His manager Sean O’Flaherty ultimately denied the reports to the Irish Independent. “Fake news. Zero truth,” he said.

Vanna, I'd like to buy a clue....  Rory will try anything, except actually addressing the profound weaknesses in his game or hiring a caddie that can actually read greens.  I'll make a bold prediction, to wit, that he'll continue to mumble about how close he is....  I know just call me Nostradamus.

Shall we give the ladies a moment?

Houston, We Have An Opportunity - It's a significantly diminished event, having lost its connective tissue to the early days of women's professional golf.  But there's the one lady that could bail them out:

5 things to know about the Chevron Championship, where Nelly Korda looks to extend her winning streak to five

I just have to note that, not only did the Lords of Augusta poop on the old Dinah and its pre-Masters date but, in making Harbor Town a Signature Event Money Grab, they've been further damaged by the PGA Tour.

Amusingly, Nelly is not one of her five items, but it's all anyone cares about at this juncture.  Yeah, this girl had a day on the big stage, but won't draw any eyes to TV's:

From Augusta to LPGA debut

Florida State’s Lottie Woad sent an email to her professors letting them know that she’d won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and would be headed to an LPGA major.

“I hope you can excuse me,” she wrote.

The Englishwoman, who birdied three out of the last four holes to win at Augusta National, is one of four amateurs in the field at the Chevron, and while she has no set goals for the week, she’s enjoying an up-close view of players she’s long watched on TV. Her putting coach also works with England’s Charley Hull, and they snapped a picture together.

Woad said it was cool how many pros reached out on social media to say they’d watched and offer congrats.

“There is a picture on Instagram of Justin Rose in front of the TV like with me holing the putt,” she said. “He’s definitely one of my idols, so seeing him watching it and supporting me was really cool.”

It's a nice story, but if you think PGA ratings have been dreadful, these will be measure in the dozens...

This would be great, if it weren't golf:

‘Kind of our Caitlin Clark’: Nelly Korda talk of Chevron as she chases history

Is there another player, perhaps besides Lydia, that moves the needle even slightly?

The ladies have to find their own audience, and I very much hate the woke calls for equal purses.  That said, Augusta National went out of their way to damage the women's best professional event, and have never been held to account for that.

That's for today and probably this week.  Enjoy your weekend.