Thursday Threads - Post-NCAA Letdown Edition

Hope you caught some of it, as the NCAAs just rock.  And I'll admit that, perhaps somewhat inappropriately, I enjoy the ladies more than the men.

Northwestern Passage - team match play has not been especially kind to the loaded Stanford Cardinals, it's great viewing:

Northwestern shocks Stanford, earns first title in school history at NCAA Women's Championship

Enter Northwestern. The Wildcats won one tournament this year, lost by 29 strokes to Stanford at NCAAs and finished nine shots behind the Cardinal at the NCAA Norman Regional two weeks ago.

But none of that matters in match play, and Northwestern is leaving Carlsbad with its first national title.

Northwestern claimed the NCAA Women’s Championship on Wednesday, topping Stanford 3-2 in the match-play final on a sunny afternoon north of San Diego. It’s one of the biggest upsets in the history of NCAAs, with the Wildcats preventing Stanford from winning its second consecutive championship and third in four years. A relentless team that took full advantage of the reset match play provides, and the Wildcats are headed back to campus with extra hardware.

Freshman Dianna Lee, who went to high school about 25 miles from Omni La Costa, buried a 5 footer for par on the 18th to beat Andrea Revuelta and give Northwestern the distinction of arguably the biggest upset in women’s college golf history.

I don't actually think anything is an upset in match play, given its unpredictability.  As good as the Stanford ladies are, each of the five matches was basically a coin flip.

It's just a great event and, given the unseasonable weather, I watched the final match in front of a roaring fire.

PGA Championship Detritus - Shack, as you might recall, had only a short list of winners from the PGA Championship, so you'll have intuited that the next too lists will be lengthier.  First, the cut-makers:

LIV Golfers. Curtis Strange repeatedly referred to you as the El-Eye-Vee Tour during ESPN’s broadcasts. It could be worse! Eight of 16 LIV players playing on invites or past champion status made the cut. Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau contended while Joaquin Niemann recorded his first top 15 in a major to earn a return trip. All in all, a decent week if you ignore that Patrick Reed’s invite to the Ryder Cup bonding dinner got lost in the mail. But why does it still feel like a bunch of recent stars have lost their mojo playing 54 holes over C-list courses?

We seem to be setting the bar especially low..... But more substantively, who cares?  And that's more than just petulance, as I find myself not missing any of these guys.

Here he maybe goes a bit far:

Americans. Of the top 16, where there was a 10-way tie for eighth, ten Americans made the

bunch group highlighted by the top four finishers. But a good week for the red-white-and-blue cannot mask the dim prospects for this September’s Ryder Cup. Captain Keegan Bradley joined the T8 group last week to rise to 17th in points. In any other year, he’d be a prime candidate for a Captain’s pick given his match play record and familiarity with Bethpage. Billy Horschel was another veteran option until hip surgery took him out for months. So beyond Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Harris English seeming like the only consistent Americans right now, Thomas then went and missed the PGA cut. At least Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa seem close to having some big weeks. But with only two more majors to go, it’s looking like the Americans may be the underdogs on home soil.

I agree that the U.S. team isn't setting up on an optimal arc, but underdogs?  C'mon, not for a home game....not even close.

Geoff, were you watching the ame event as the rest of us?

Rory. There were two ways PGA week could go. He’d either maintain his Masters momentum and contend. Or come in still recovering from his April triumph firing on most cylinders. We got our answer. McIlroy’s refusal to speak after any round was an odd flex. However, the legit online rage over of his media slighting ignores that, (A) he’s more than generous with his time most weeks, (B) generally makes up for weeks when he’s not spoken (see the 2024 U.S. Open), and, (C) had to have been fuming over his Taylormade driver’s non-conforming test. Such a proximity to illegality should have been flagged by TaylorMade before a major week. The word of his and others’ failing is something for the organizations to sort through and for the golf world to ask why such info is a secret. McIlroy may be trying to delay commenting until after Taylormade is sold. Otherwise, saying just about anything prickly about his driver situation could cause problems or even jeopardize a deal for a company where selling drivers is the primary focus.

The really weird flex is Geoff defending Rory.   Whatever the rules, Rory tells us that he's all about growing the game, except when he's butthurt over something.  And, it needs to be said, he's always butthurt over something....  So, another guy I'm rapidly losing interest in.

 At best the least bad option:

Move To May. The PGA of America can always counter another year of dicey weather with, “yeah, but remember August?” Fair enough. Surprisingly light Thursday/Friday crowds offered another reminder that people have jobs, kids are in school, and the air of late summertime fun has been lost with the move to May. Spring weather is clearly overrated based on the May PGAs to date.

 It's a better date in a lot of locales, just not necessarily the places the PGA is going....

But of course the final list, the Point-Missers, is where the fun is to be found:

Annual Tour Event Hosts As Major Sites. Quail Hollow’s ubiquitous presence seemed bound to have a dulling effect on the 2025 PGA. It did! A more-than-suitable venue in checking the various financial boxes would have seen more enthusiasm if not for its WachFargoist Championship hosting role since 2003. Unlike West Coast venues Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines where players see radically different playing conditions from Tour events in winter and a major in the summer. They also have distracting views that Uptown Charlotte can’t match. Riviera will face similar antipathy hosting too many events in the coming years but in a market that likes pro golf in much smaller doses. Quail Hollow should either go all in on majors or focus on continuing to build its Tour stop into one of the biggest non-majors of the year. Hoping to have it both ways serves no party well.

It's pretty simple.  You would think that majors would only be taken to good Tour venues, but you would be misinformed.

Par 3s. Quail Hollow presents the dreariest set of one-shotters in all of major championship golf. Only the downhill, over-water 17th is remotely memorable and a child could have sketched that one out. But it did offer moments of risk and reward while the others just stink. The lack of a super short par-3 doesn’t help given the eagerness to play from distances no upright mortal enjoys playing (or watching). At least Kerry Haigh tried to vary yardages a bit. But the actual holes are notable only for mundane bunkering, weird greens for the yardages, or any sign that they were remodeled in daylight by people who like golf. The cruddy fourth is as forgettable as they come. The sixth features a short par 3 green played from 250 yards. The 13th blends extreme blandness with notes of goofiness. It takes a certain kind of talent to produce such a terrible set of one-shotters, particularly given the money spent modifying the place.

I'm blogging Geoff's work on the fly, so I'm guessing the next two entries will be Par 4s and Par5s.... Because they're all pretty dreadful.

The funniest bit to me was hearing an announcer refer to one of the one-shotters as "One of the most famous Par-3s in the world".  I don't even know which one was being discussed, but it's bat-guano crazy.

Wannamaker Follies. Einstein must have been thinking of the PGA of America when issuing his insanity-defining proclamation about “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The Wannamaker Trophy is large and heavy (as several packaged vignettes told us last week). Its unfastened top went flying when Scottie Scheffler admirably wanted to lift the giant jug with a jolt of unexpected emotion. As a result, 2025 joins 2014 and 2020 in the PGA of America Hall of Shame. Has the organization not heard of tape? Velcro? Glue? Twist Ties? Rubber bands? Just deal with it, PGA. Before someone loses an eye.

It is beyond weird that they don't secure the top.  But this is hardly the first time we've noticed that they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer....

TaylorMade. The top two players in the game had their drivers ruled non-conforming on the eve of a major. It’s an undeniable stain on the company as it’s reportedly up for sale.

More of a feature than a bug, I'm guessing.

That'll be it for today, kiddies.  Have a great weekend and I'll catch you next week (not sure when, given the holiday).