Tuesday Tastings - Microblogging Edition

Just a few quick bits for you today.  Consider it a three-course tasting menu, assuming that is that I come up with three bits....

Just Shoot Me Now - The Tour Confidential panel that we blog each morning can be a curious thing.  This was one of those weeks when there wasn't a single reference to the week's PGA Tour event, something one assumes leads to angry phone calls from Ponte Vedra Beach.  But how does one explain this being their lede Q&A?

Patrick Reed won LIV Golf Dallas, which comes just a few days after he acknowledged he might have to win or play well at the Open Championship in order to be considered for the

U.S. Ryder Cup team. With limited starts that offer World Ranking points, if Reed is picked it means captain Keegan Bradley would likely have to pass up several players ahead of him in the standings. While there’s still lots of golf left to be played before the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, should Captain America get more serious consideration to join the U.S. squad?

Jessica Marksbury: I love that Reed has so much love for the Ryder Cup, but if Ryder Cup eligibility is a priority for him, joining LIV was probably not the best move. It’s not impossible to make the team, but you definitely have to make your case for a pick by performing in the majors, as Bryson has done. Or, you could go on a can’t-ignore-me win binge like Joaquin Niemann, who isn’t even eligible for the Ryder Cup. Coalescing with the team is another factor, a gray area for sure, but something Keegan will have to consider with every captain’s pick. With all that said, winning the Open Championship would go a long way for Reed, but barring that outcome, my guess is he will likely still be on the outside looking in in September.

Gee, Jess, that love fore the Ryder Cup didn't exactly stop him from cashing and trashing, did it?   The former referring to his LIV check and the latter to his behavior and use of a certain UseGoilfFactsNow Twitter account in Paris.  Yeah, but he loves the Ryder Cup!  That's a good one, Jess!

Josh Sens: Another reasonable question is whether Reed still deserves the nickname “Captain America.” In his last appearance in the event, he lost twice in three matches and — more notably — wasn’t exactly Mr. Team Unity either. He has played well in several of his recent major appearances. But as Jess says, he hasn’t been Bryson-level dominant. At this point, the fact that he plays with a ton of fire isn’t an especially persuasive argument. There are plenty of other guys who would kill to be on the team; who don’t have the same baggage; and who would be every bit as likely to earn as many or more points.

Josh Berhow: The Americans are the betting favorites right now but a big reason for that is because it’s a home game. On paper though, you could argue the Europeans have the better core right now. So is that a potential reason to use a pick on Reed if he’s on the bubble? Or reason to not get cute? I think it’s unlikely it becomes a legitimate conversation in the future because he’ll need a really strong performance at The Open (he’ll likely have to win) to get selected. But it’s important to remember that chemistry matters. Reed didn’t exactly help the team bond back in Paris.

Thought experiment kids.: Let's assume Keegan  makes the team and hands the captaincy back to Tiger, whose dance card seems to be free of any negotiating sessions with Yasir.  Is Captain Tiger likely to look back on his pairing with Patrick in Parts and think, "This is a guy I need at Bethpage"?  

Or will his memories be of a guy that sold the rest of the team down the river when things turned South?  There was one bit that never got much press that I always assumed would rankle the Striped One.  After the two of them both played poorly in a match, Patrick told a reporter that Tiger had apologized to him for his play.  I don't take for granted that anything PReed says is true but, if it was, how do we think Tiger would have liked Patrick sharing that private conversation?

Scenes From The Class Struggle - At the top of the food chain on Tour, life is pretty damn sweet.  But for the rest of the traveling circus, it's an unbelievable grind, so I love this bit from Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column about the ultimate winner's Sunday in Detroit:

But on Sunday Aldrich Potgieter overcame something far more relatable: the early Airbnb checkout time.

Anybody who’s ever gone anywhere on a weekend trip knows this struggle. You’ve got a late flight but time to kill, or you’re playing Sunday morning golf but have nowhere to change post-round, or you’re scrambling after a big Saturday night to somehow clean up your mess and rouse your most useless buddy before the cleaners arrive. (Looking at you, Matt.) Or, in this case, you’re leading a PGA Tour event by two shots, but it’s midsummer, so you don’t tee off until mid-afternoon.

“Waking up this morning was kind of difficult. I had to book out of my AirBnB at 10 o’clock,” Potgieter said. He dutifully followed those directions, perhaps storing up good karma in the process, but because he didn’t want to be at the course until noon, the 20-year-old South African did what plenty of us might do to while away a couple hours: he stopped at a coffee shop — and overdid it. “That got me a little shaky,” he said later with a laugh. “No, it was okay. I kind of struggled to eat a little bit, the nerves kicked in when I got here kind of sitting at player dining, but I think that’s just kind of normal and kind of have to get through that.”

Those late tee times are the underappreciated extra pressure on leaders.  But I'm guessing that more Sunday's have been ruined by free coffee refills than we'll ever know....

Point - Counterpoint - I didn't see much of the women's event held at the PGA of America's new edifice complex in Frisco, but we have a split verdict.  Josh Schrock thinks it was grand:

Broken putters, ‘impossible’ pins? Why PGA Frisco passed its ‘major’ test

Though this seems an odd lede:

Maja Stark’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship fate had long been decided when the reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion showed she had had enough of the Gil Hanse design.

Nearing the end of her six-over final round, Stark walked off the par-4 15th green, raised her putter over her head and smashed it against her golf bag, sending the putterhead bounding into the rough. Without breaking stride, Stark grabbed the head and flipped it backward to her caddie, not even bothering to look. She putted with a wedge for the last three holes and finished in a tie for 47th.

What a perfect way to end a week that tried, frustrated and battered the LPGA’s best.

Obviously she's no Robert Streb..... is there anyone that actually gets that reference?  Anyone?  Bueller? 

Not just the Maja:

If the 2023 Senior PGA Championship was Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco’s major championship dress rehearsal, this past week was its true debut, which saw Minjee Lee win her third major title in impressive fashion. But despite her impressive victory, parts of Lee’s week were overshadowed by griping from players and broadcasters about course setup and fairness.

KPMG ambassador Stacey Lewis told Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols that the course wasn’t set up fairly and insinuated the goal should be to make the players look good. Sophia Popov missed the cut, taking to social media to say the course made players look “silly.” World No. 1 Nelly Korda was one of several players to describe some hole locations as almost “impossible” to get close to. On Saturday, as winds gusted over 30 mph, multiple players described the test as “brutal” and “crazy.”

By the time Lee had lifted the trophy and the Texas dust was settling, the weeklong scoring average was 75.6, the highest of any LPGA major since the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open.

It was fast and firm, and the gusting winds demanded that players control their ball flight, hit the proper yardages and trajectories, and take their medicine when they didn’t.

Here's Josh's rousing coda:

All in all, Hanse’s major championship creation was a brutal examination that demanded discipline, control and focus. If you lacked any of the three, you were punished and fell down the leaderboard. It allowed Lee, who put on a sterling display of golf during Saturday’s blustery conditions, to take off from the pack.

Major weeks are supposed to be draining. The questions asked are meant to exact a price. That’s what makes winning them so rewarding.

PGA Frisco will have things to clean up before the 2027 PGA Championship. The six-hour rounds that plagued the ladies were a problem. It’s a long, strenuous walk for spectators that will be easier in May than in the June heat. The course itself is not particularly pleasing for viewers watching at home. Some of that can be addressed, some of it can’t.

But if a major championship venue has one job, it’s to clearly identify and reward the player who best handles the exacting test in front of them. With Lee hoisting the trophy, three shots clear of second place, PGA Frisco did that. It was, by definition, major championship fair.

The easiest thing in the world is to make a golf course play hard.   Shockingly, Geoff take the opposite view:

PGA Should Hit Pause On Frisco Events

The PGA of America ought to postpone scheduled future events at its new HQ until the course, surrounding development and fan experience improves.

Fan experience?  Not a top-ten concern for sure.  But I'm sure Geoff will be knid.  Right?

Proposed rule: any development-driven project must complete all of its new home construction along fairways before getting awarded a major. Then players won’t have to battle construction dust or noise with history on the line.

While we’re at it, how about no majors at new housing developments?

After last weekend’s hellish KMPG Women’s PGA Championship was beamed around the world, it feels like PGA National all over again. The south Florida home of the disastrous 1987 PGA seemed destined to never host anything again after inflicting high heat, half-alive greens, and another Fazio redesign misfire on the game. But no six-hour rounds in West Palm back then! Nor were there airborne particles causing players to cover their eyes during a gust.

A West Palm facility also hosted the 1971 PGA Championship in February and the area has other things going for it: no planes on approach to DFW, and no hum of bugs sounding like a rattlesnake convention.

Airborne particles?  What's the big deal, just take one more club....

I'm just gonna let Geoff rant:

The PGA of America first revealed its headquarters move to Frisco, Texas in 2018. The city of Frisco provided the farmland and other portions of the property. In return the PGA of America awarded 24 championships and a move of its 50-plus year headquarters from Florida. Among the committed events: two Senior PGA Championships (2023, 2029), two KPMG Women’s PGA Championships (2025, 2031), and two PGA Championships (2027, 2034).

There is also an understanding that a future Ryder Cup (or two) will come to the land Mother Nature left off her to-do list. All of this before a shot had been struck on a Gil Hanse design (East) that’s accompanied by a Beau Welling layout (West), a par 3 course, putting course, and Omni Hotel.

Sweeping declarations were made about how the place would change the game.

See if you can connect the dots here:

Recent analysis of the PGA of America’s finances by Money in Sport suggests the net book value of PGA of America’s fixed assets increased from $5.1 million in March 2020 to $55.5 million in March 2022 indicating a total capital expenditure of $50 million around the time of the move to the new headquarters in Frisco TX. This, despite a November, 2023 reports reiterating to anxious PGA of America members that Omni was covering costs and the organization in the midst of layoffs would not be putting money into the facility.

Fields Ranch East next welcomed the 2024 PGA Professional Championship and played tougher. Ben Polland won with a two-under-par total and banked $60,000, making it one of the few events in golf to see its purse decline. Pollard’s winning check was $15,000 less than the winner received from 2006-2015.

Just add that to the list of ways in which the organization treats its actual members.

Then there was last weekend. A lightly-attended, uncomfortable-to-watch, KPMG Women’s PGA Championship embarrassed one of golf’s most generous and forward-looking sponsors. Next up, the 2027 PGA Championship is scheduled to start in 694 days.

Unless the PGA of America can waive a wand to mature the course and complete surrounding construction, the 2027 PGA needs to be played somewhere else. Going forward at Frisco in less than two years risk massive damage to the reputation of one of golf’s four major championships.

The PGA of America can justify the move by pointing to Kiawah Island’s prematurely-opened Ocean Course for the 1991 Ryder Cup. Despite the wild finish and what it meant for the recent rise of the cup, the Ocean Course took a reputation hit. Time, renovations, and agronomic changes have led to Pete Dye’s South Carolina course becoming the PGA Championship’s best venue since the move to May.

Fields Ranch East is not yet looking or playing like a mature course capable of hosting majors. Three years in and the PGA of America setup team is still getting accustomed to its quirks. Many issues need to be addressed based on last week’s most rational-sounding player observations.

Well, I totally get that the PGA of America would want to get in on the PGA Tour's treatment of sponsors.... 

Geoff has a To-Do list in an attempt to be helpful:

Settle on a routing. The KPMG Women’s PGA switched the original 9th and 18th holes switched. This led to long walks from the 8th and 17th greens. For the 2027 PGA Championship, the daily play nines will be flipped thanks to better hospitality space according to Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols. Nothing warms the major championship heart like a third re-routing in the name of corporate chalet space.

Tweak the new 18th hole. The original par-5 18th has few fans and the new finishing hole appears to need massaging as well. A centerline bunker had players insisting a successful tee shot over the sand would run toward into the hazard (even if ShotLink says otherwise and all but one birdie was made from the fairway). Most players bailed out right where the rough was light and they could avoid the fairway bunker or running through the landing area. Men playing the 2027 PGA seem likely take a similar bomb-and-gouge route regardless of the existing trees. The addition of a new back tee or an obstacle to discourage avoiding the fairway might be options, as might a repositioning of the bunker.

Flatten the primary tournament tees. The fairway-style tee strips are much easier to maintain than box-shaped tees and provide setup flexibility that was taken advantage of during the Women’s PGA. The non-box approach should be an inspiration given the massive reduction in labor and costs. But the seniors and women noted a struggle to find a flat spot for teeing off. This exchange with Steve Flesch came after the third round of the Senior PGA:

Q. What do you think of the golf course and the test?

STEVE FLESCH: It's pretty good. I don't get the tees, but that's another, I mean, I'm sure you've heard that.

Q. It's a common refrain.

STEVE FLESCH: Game's hard enough. At least give us a flat spot. Especially to tee a driver up on, right?

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln....

The spoiled brats actually expect a flat teeing ground?  What a cock-up, though the rest of Geoff's rant is behind a paywall.

That will be all for today's brief visit.  Just a heads up that we are one week from departure for Scotland.  There will be blogging, though I'm unclear on the schedule.