Weekend Wrap - Lightning Round Edition

OK, I'm not going to keep you long, but boy do I have a story for you...

At about 3:30-4:00 Thursday afternoon predicted thunderstorms arrived.  The bride and I were cleaning up after an event at the club, when a bolt of lightning struck with a volume that I'm guessing equates to the Nagasaki explosion, immediately taking down our power and everything else.  The direct strike was on the utility pole across the street, which we were later told was aflame.

Power was restored at about 10:00, though Internet and Tv took another couple of days, including a tech visit from Optimum.  But what became clear only Friday morning was that many of our electronic devices got fried, including two TVs (one quite pricey), my computer monitor and all four cable boxes.  My desktop PC might well have survived, it does show a light when I turn it on, but I haven't gotten to testing it yet because of the absence of a functioning monitor.

We have Internet and TV back, although the later only in a couple of rooms using old TVs.  I have my AV guy coming this afternoon, and much to do before he gets here.  So, while I'll wrap the weekend, I'll do so in a cursory manner.  Given that it's August, will anyone even notice?

Cam, Finally - It took a while and it wasn't exactly a Major (or even major in any sense), but still:

Cameron Young’s dominant Wyndham Championship win had everyone asking 1 question

What took so long?  First some blather that exactly no one will believe:

“I’ve been waiting for it for a while,” Young told CBS’ Amanda Balionis after the win. “I never thought I’d really be that emotional about it. But it’s the end of my fourth season. I’ve had my chances, never quite like this, and I wasn’t going to let it get away from me today.”

“It’s not like a burden that I hadn’t won, it’s just something that I hadn’t done and I’d like to,” Young said. “At times it hurts to have played some really good golf and not had that happen, but in all those cases, there were really no times that I had it in my hands and lost. So it’s different I think than having a burden. It wasn’t really like that. It was more just, you know, when is it going to be my time here, because it just felt like a lot of those tournaments weren’t.

“Not a burden in the traditional sense. Today was a different situation than I’ve ever been in. You know, it was our goal today to come out and see how many I could win by if I stuck to our plan.”

Too big a lead against too weak a field, but shall we get back to that burning question?

Young’s plan delivered a rout in Greensboro that was an example of how the man from Scarborough, New York, can overpower a course when he’s firing on all cylinders. The combination of Young’s dominant display, his skillset and his history in the state of New York had everyone turning their attention from a Wyndham Championship win to another event looming in the distance.

What about the Ryder Cup?

With the win in Greensboro, Young, who won the New York State Open at Bethpage Black in 2017, joins a crowded list of fringe candidates for Team USA, including the likes of Jordan Spieth, Sam Burns and captain Keegan Bradley.

And were those guys even in the field?  I'm too lazy to bother checking, but this win doesn't change my own opinion of Cam, which is of a talented player, but one very mistake-prone and not exactly the best putter out there.  I haven't looked at updated standings, but he remains to this observer, at best, in the mix.

Shall we see what the Tour Confidential panel thinks?  Again, that was rhetorical....

Cameron Young cruised at the Wyndham Championship, winning by six to claim the first PGA Tour victory of his career. Before Sunday, Young’s seven career runner-up finishes were the most by any winless player on Tour since 1983. In 2023, Young was ninth in the Ryder Cup standings yet still wasn’t picked. Was this win enough to secure a spot for 2025?

Schrock: The win was good enough to actually get him in the conversation. He has the length and now has a consistent enough putter to be a weapon at Bethpage, a course where he won the New York State Open. But winning the Wyndham isn’t going to be what puts him on the team. If he makes it, it just means Keegan Bradley was already leaning that way due to his skillset and the New York connection. The way I see it, there are three spots for: Young, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Mav McNealy, Ben Griffin, Brian Harman, and Bradley. I can see the argument for taking Young, but winning in Greensboro shouldn’t be the determining factor.

Sens: Statistically, you could probably argue this either way. This win moves him to 16th in the Ryder Cup standings. But if I were captain, I’d pick him, in part because he has putted so well all year and makes birdies in bunches, which is great for match play. He’s also a New Yorker (who won the state open at Bethpage Black). Give the home crowd even more reason to get riled up.

Colgan: It shouldn’t be. Young has top-five in the world game when it’s all there, and it WAS all there at the Wyndham, but winning one of the weakest events on Tour by field strength shouldn’t be a Ryder Cup roster-changer.

I think these are reasonable takes, and I agree that Cam wasn't in said conversation before this win, so it at least might get him fitted for the swag.  The NY/State Open stuff seems profoundly silly, I suspect Keegs himself would fire up the crowd a whole bunch more than the kid from Westchester.

It might be worth circling back to Schrock's assessment of that gaggle fighting over the last three spots.  Not saying I agree, but I'm pretty sure that Cam isn't in my top three of those names listed, especially when you consider there's no way Cantlay isn't being picked, and could we extend that to Burns, Bradley and Harman?  You see the issues...

I didn't watch a second of it, but am I wrong to think that no one else did as well?

There was a lot to track on Sunday at the Wyndham, with players moving into or barely missing the top 70 (and advancing to the playoffs). Which player’s triumph (or close call) stood out to you most?

Schrock: Davis Thompson three-putting the 18th hole to drop out of the top 70 and finish at 71 was brutal. Gary Woodland also slipped from projected 70th entering the day to 72 with a tough final round. Two gut punches late in the day at Sedgefield.

Sens: Schrock took the words out of my keyboard with the Thompson three-putt. Painful.

Colgan: Mark Hubbard will get the headlines, but I’m impressed by Ben Griffin, who did not NEED to be in the field, but who wound up moving one slot higher in the FedEx Cup standings with a T11. I’ll be interested to see how that helps him over the coming weeks.

Excuse me, but didn't Griffin need to be there for the same reason as Cam?  I just don't think anything that happens to David Thompson (or even Gary Woodland, at this point) is actually exciting, so they can hype it all they want, but I suspect Nielsen will struggle to discern a viewership.

Porthcawling - The more significant event was the ladies playing the final golf major of the year, at a wonderful linksy venue.  Despite your fatigue, this was only the ladies' fifth major of the year, though it can sometimes seem that they occur on a weekly basis.  Geoff has some thoughts:

You’d never know it by her determined gait, repeating swing, and unflappable demeanor: Miyu Yamashita worked overtime to win the second 2025 major by a Japanese woman.

Sunday at the sensational Royal Porthcawl saw more wind than the AIG Women’s Open field had

seen all week, but nothing close to what forecasters said had the potential to derail Yamashita’s prospects. She had fought all parts of her game during Saturday’s 74 and faced several challenges to the lead. But a final-day 70 turned out to be good enough for a two-stroke win over Charley Hull and countrywoman Minami Katsuto.

“To win such a historic tournament in front of all these amazing fans is such an incredible feeling,” Yamashita said. “To have my family around me to have so much support from everyone here is just amazing. To be part of such a moment in history is something very, very special.”

After only missing five fairways in the first two rounds, Yamashita started spraying the ball during Saturday’s third round. Then her normally trusty putter disappeared to produce a whopping 34 putts. But late evening range session with her father and coach—on her 24th birthday!—did the trick. In Sunday’s tougher conditions, Yamashita hit nine fairways, 14 greens and totaled 30 putts to post the 11-under-par, 277 winning total.

This was her first major win in just 14 previous tries, with her best previous work being a T2 and T6 in the KPMG Women’s PGA.

Yamashita looked unflustered even when she briefly lost solo possession of the lead after playing partner A Lim Kim birdied the second and tied the final pairing at nine-under.

Yamashita responded with three birdies in her next seven holes.

Given our AV issues, I only got to see a couple of hours of the final round, in which Royal Porthcawl looked far more linksy than Crail had firsthand.

To some extent this just highlights the struggle of the ladies game, a great event but a leaderboard with mostly unfamiliar names.  Charlie Hull inserted herself on Sunday, so at least we've heard of her, not that she's actually won anything important.

It's the last major of the season and that TC panel finally gets around to this event, but....  We know their core business is Tiger sycophancy, so maybe we should be happy this wasn't a Tiger-centric question:

Japan’s Miyu Yamashita outlasted Charley Hull and Minami Katsu to win the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, claiming the first major title of her career. Further down the leaderboard, tied for 36th, was Nelly Korda, who one year ago won seven times in 16 starts. Now, with the LPGA major season complete, she is winless in 13 starts. What gives? And which season was more likely the outlier, last year or this year?

Schrock: I think the answer probably lies in the middle. Both are outliers. Korda is a phenomenal player who got blistering hot last year and ripped off seven wins. She has played good golf this year, but just a tick below her normal level, and has nothing to show for it. It’s a disappointing year for Nelly but it’s more disappointing for women’s golf that needs her, or someone, to carry the LPGA to new heights. Nelly’s year reminded me a lot of the stretch Rory had from the time golf picked up during the pandemic through the middle of 2021 when he finally won at Wells Fargo. The golf has been solid to good but not up to her standards and it appears worse given how good she can be at full flight.

Sens: There’s definitely a sense of some existential struggle. Not long ago, she took time off, citing burnout. As everybody knows, the mental and the physical are so hard to disentangle. Scottie Scheffler made that clear in his now-famous pre-Open Championship press conference, which veered as close to philosophical as a press conference gets. I would guess that Korda would benefit from adopting a Scheffler mindset. Who wouldn’t?

Colgan: I am haunted by a piece of Korda analysis from last April delivered by none other than Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley. I’m paraphrasing, but the thrust was: she’s a great player, but she’s not a transformative star for women’s golf. I don’t think there is some greater disappointment afoot here for Korda, I merely think she’s a great player who might not be a transformative star. The women’s game could badly use one of those.

The ladies should be allowed to celebrate their final major and one might expect a major golf publication to have thoughts on it, but they can only see women's golf in the form of just the one lady.  Kind of demeaning to the girls, no?

Udder Stuff -  I'm just going to riff on the TC panel's lede item, only because of the obvious lameness:

With the FedEx Cup Playoffs finally here, it means there are only three events left to influence the race for Player of the Year between the two obvious front-runners: Rory

McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. McIlroy has won three times, which includes the Players and Masters, the latter completing the career Grand Slam. Scheffler has won four times, highlighted by his PGA and Open Championship major titles. Who should win?

Josh Schrock: Who should win is Scottie. Even Rory admitted at the Open that he won three times while Scheffler wasn’t at full flight due to a hand injury. But winning the Players and the Masters, especially in the fashion he did to win the career Grand Slam, might make the voters give it to Rory.

Josh Sens: The career Grand Slam was an epic achievement for McIlroy, emphasis on career. We are choosing the better season. Scheffler has not only won more often this year. He’s won more majors. Case closed.

James Colgan: Golly, I’d love if we chose POTY by accolades alone, but this is a toughie because of the way the Tour structures its ballots and the two different stretches of dominant play we saw this season. Scottie is clearly the best player in the world, with clearly the best resume, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Rory won it in a “Lifetime Achievement” fashion.

Isn't this question three weeks early?  They seem to imply that nothing that happens in the Playoffs will affect their answers....  Kind of a diss to the Tour, no?

The other point to make is that Rory won his events before Scottie found his form, whereas Scottie won his after Rory had lost his mind.  I certainly know who the better player is...

Then, with this, they admit that they're just wasting our time:

Is there anything that could happen in the playoffs that would flip your decision?

Schrock: Zero. The meaningful golf was wrapped. Apologies to the sponsors and partners.

Sens: No. Unless we are voting on the guy who most increased his net worth.

Colgan: No, but if McIlroy wins the Tour Championship, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tour’s players (aka, the POTY voters) disagreed.

This is shockingly (and I have to believe, unintentionally) honest, as they are admitting out loud that the playoffs aren't meaningful golf.  I mean, of course they're right, I just expect things like that to be said in plain English.

I like the apology to the sponsors, though they probably know how effed they are.....

I'm going to leave you here and dive into my home issues.  I'll probably see you later in the week, but need to focus on other issues right now.  Have a great week.