Sawgrass Scenes

A reasonably fun first day at The Players.  The course seems softer than is optimal, though that's gonna happen when you venture to Florida, even the northern portion thereof, in May.

Island Blues - No. 17 featured the front hole location, which seemed a conundrum to many... here's Shack's take:

The atmosphere around the TPC Sawgrass's 17th hole was electric Thursday, marking a nice departure from recent years when things have felt flat and lightly attended at golf's ultimate Thunderdome. Thank you Tiger. And the weather Gods, who delivered a crisp, comfortable day to open the 2015 Players. 

Folks were astonished that Brooks Koepka hit two balls in the water at 17 but as the PGA Tour's ShotLink folks noted in their round up, the lake got much more action than normal:

I happened to catch the Retief Goosen and Kevin Streelman group playing the hole, and it was quite curious.  Retief selected a nine-iron, which the commentators thought to be way too much club.  He barely took it back, yet was way long and lucky to stay dry along the walking path.  Streelman pulled the same club but, perhaps influenced by Goosen, left it ten yards short of the green on a hole where short is quite bad...

Shack also provides this chart of balls in the water:

Was there a hurricane during the first round in 2007?  That's a ton of ammo sleeping with the fishes...

The NBC/Golf Channel folks came up with a new (at least to me) feature, using ProTracer from behind the green.  And this video shows every tee shot on the hole from the day (link provide because I'm unsure if video will embed properly):

As noted above, long-hitting Brooks Koepka was the only unfortunate soul to lose two balls into the water....Here's how that looks on ShotLink:

The problem with rinsing your ball here, is that the third from the drop area might be a tougher shot than the first.  Just ask Brooks...

We've seen many of the guys get clever with the art work on their wedges... how about this homage from Robert Streb:

I love it, though even these guys can't get there with their sixties...Shack also links to this delightful blog post by former Tour player Phil Blackmar on the karmic aspects of the hole:

As I aimed at the middle of the green, the golf Gods entered my head and convinced me to aim closer to the hole and picture a flight where the ball landed on the slope just left of the hole ‘which would then spin down with another chance for birdie. Thanks for that one golf Gods. Well, there was no way the golf Gods, Karma, NBC or anyone else for that matter, was going to let a bouncer for a heavy metal group who finished 6-10-8 for a 51 the year before win the “5th major”. So, on cue, the shot found the water to the right and I had to settle for a 3rd place finish. And the golf Gods ROARED in delight, clinking wine glasses in toast of their charades.

In retrospect, it would have been my 3rd win in 7 years with a 10 year exemption on tour, a 5 year exemption into the majors, a few million dollars in endorsements etc. It’s really amazing I don’t hardly remember a thing about the week given the circumstance. For 10 years NBC would lead with infamous shots on the 17th, which of course, included mine. Finally, though, enough time passed that I fell from their masochistic grace and the events have drifted into serene forgetfulness. It’s as if nothing happened, except, when I get in my boat to go fishing, I am reminded I would have a bigger boat.

You're not the only one, Phil, but thanks for sharing...

Results - It seems to be an unusually compressed leaderboard, with 26 players within two shots of the lead.  It's a nice mix of legitimate contenders (McIlroy, Horschel, Matsuyama and Day, just top note a few) and obvious pretenders (Overton and Levin, again, just for discussion purposes).

As for the show ponies, Cameron Morfit had this:

Tiger Woods, making his first start since a 17th place finish at the Masters, and sleep-deprived after his recent breakup with girlfriend Lindsey Vonn, hit into the water on 18 and shot 73. Phil Mickelson, also making his first start since the Masters, where he tied for second, also found the water off the tee on 18, also double-bogeyed the hole, and also shot 73. 

“Probably the highest score I could have shot today,” Woods said.

Ummmm...given some of the spots he visited, that seems an especially optimistic take.  In fact, his tee shot on No. 8 was highlight-reel bad, catching a water hazard short-right that I can't ever recall being in play for these guys.

As for the feature group, Adam Schupak had this:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Rory McIlroy bombed his drive 60 yards past Jordan

Spieth on the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. By the end of the first round, the World No. 1 looked miles ahead of the World No. 2 on the leaderboard at The Players Championship. While McIlroy smiled after a 69, Spieth’s thin lips parted in distaste after a 3-over 75. 

“Really tough ball-striking day,” Spieth said Thursday. “Just didn’t quite trust it today until I was already too far behind the 8-ball.” 

This was a chance to see the new world order on display with No. 7-ranked Jason Day, who matched McIlroy’s 69, filling out this must-see threesome. Or as Day, the old guy at 27 put it, “I was third wheel.”

This reminds of the old saw about economists that have correctly predicted five of the last two recessions....  I've been predicting that Jordan would crash and burn from playing too much golf going back to the Masters.  I wasn't wrong, I was just early...

Setting up for a fun week, no?

Thursday Thoughts

Just a few items to cover as we gear up for another intense weekend at the Fifth of Four Majors™:

Fourball Finale - Happy times at Casa Simpson last night as we watched our favorite Mid-Am cruise to victory:

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Amateur Four-Ball drew 128 teams comprised by all

And the winner is...FedEx.

types of combinations: teens, college players, old college roommates and teammates, brothers, fathers and sons, and neighbors. 

In the end, it was a couple of salty, experienced veterans who prevailed, as former Walker Cup teammates Nathan Smith and Todd White rolled to a 7-and-5 triumph Wednesday over North Carolinians Sherrill Britt and Greg Earnhardt to capture this inaugural two-man championship. The margin of victory was the largest of any of the 31 matches played at Olympic Club’s Lake Course this week. 

Smith, a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, looked down at the beautiful shiny silver trophy in front of him, with nary a single name on it, and started to realize that he and White forever will be the first champions in an event that both players believe will be highly successful.

Kind of like when I won the inaugural Ridge Cup last year...  well, perhaps not like that at all...But I've got a question for the USGA?  That's an impressive, big honkin' trophy you gave to the lads, but there's one trophy and there's twp of them... seems like they're gonna have to FedEx it back and forth between Pittsburgh and South Carolina.  Couldn't was have popped for two?  The Fox check cleared, no?

Fox seemed even more dreadful yesterday, or maybe I was already tired of them...Shack is in Ponte Vedra Beach where Fox Sports 1 is nowhere to be found (insert your own voluntary leave joke):

I wasn't able to view the USGA-Fox Sports debut as the much beloved Mayo Clinic Courtyard Ponte Vedra is equipped with shower rails, easy oxygen tank access to rooms and drool cups to go with your bedpans. But no FS1 and only Golf Channel in the lobby where the nightly motorscooter races can be quite exciting. 

However, I heard anecdotes from many of you. My collection of notes were capped off by the day two episode where the final was tape-delayed and Fox's signal was lost for a time. 

While this was sure to be a rough start and a lot of people worked hard on the telecast, the beginning to fresh and innovative golf broadcasting appears to have been a struggle.

If you want a sneak peak of the high points, Shack links to video of this Corey Pavin interview that I referenced yesterday, as well as their version of ProTracer following the divot.  And since he was in the isolation cell that is the PVB Marriott, he passes on this feedback he's received from readers:

Regarding the day one telecast, many were shocked that it took nearly one hour and forty minutes to see Holly Sonders, who then was seen very little beyond her first interview.

The Greg Norman-Joe Buck lead team did not inspire either, apparently discussing one player's calves, confusing names and making references to the "long week" (wait until they do 8 hours a day on the U.S. Open weekends).

Nathan Smith, part of the eventual winning and building a legendary amateur golf resume, didn't get much love or backstory told, I'm told.

For all of this, our friends at Nielsen say Fox Sports 1 earned a .058 (67,000 viewer average).Golf Channel's Live From during the same window and discussing the all important Tuesday proceedings at The Players nearly doubled that with a .095 rating.

It's a classic good news/bad news tale... the former being that we'll get expanded coverage, the latter being the nature of said coverage.  

Shack also gives them some grief for showing the final on tape delay after the USGA had tweeted the results, but this Luddite can live with that....and it allowed them to pick up where they left off after they lost the broadcast feed for twenty minutes.  I'd like to hope they'll get better by Chambers Bay, but then again I also haven't given up the dream of playing shortstop for my Yankees.

And who was that androgynous woman in the studio who painfully recounted the technical difficulties?  You might consider losing her, Fox, though I'm glad to know that Lydia Ko's glasses found a good home.

That Is Cricket - We love when the powers that be show an appreciation for historic golf venues, so kudos for this choice:

The 18th at the Wissahickon Course.

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. – The Champions Tour announced today that the Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship, one of five major championships on the Champions Tour schedule, will head to The Philadelphia Cricket Club in 2016 for the first time. Defending champion Bernhard Langer made the announcement during Golf Channel’s Morning Drive show live from THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass this morning.

Shack has this background and praise:

The Senior Players has been to some really stellar places in recent years (Fox Chapel, Baltimore CC) and now it'll be going to Philadelphia Cricket Club in 2016. The club's Wissahickon course, restored by architect Keith Foster with Dan Meersman and his grounds team has long been one of the most-in-need A.W. Tillinghast designs. 

All reviews have been positive, making the PGA Tour's Senior Players grab impressive considering that the PGA of America is thought to be very much a fan of the facility too. Hopefully this will be the beginning of several events at this important and influential early American club.

The PGA of America is staging their club pro championship there later this summer, so we'll get a look at the restoration then.

Ponte-Preview - It's been a pretty quiet week leading into the Players, no?  I mean, when the big story is Jim Furyk putting in sandals....:

So, this must be some new-fangled, sports psychologist idea to keep the player relaxed, right?  errr, not so much:

We asked Jim about it, hoping he'd share some veteran wisdom. He, however, laughed it off. "This is a home game. I'm just hanging out."

As for Tiger, he got into the spirit of things:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Tiger Woods' biggest reaction on Wednesday had

nothing to do with one of his own shots. After hitting to 15 feet on TPC Sawgrass' 17th, he stepped aside and watched as caddie Joe LaCava took a crack at one of golf's most famous holes. 

The ball flight wasn't as pretty or as straight, but Woods' caddie found the back-right portion of the island green. It drew a loud cheer from the crowd and a huge smile and high-five from his boss.

Glad he's having fun out there... But see how you feel about Martin Dempster, who covers the golf beat for The Scotsman, taking our Tiger to the woodshed:

It was bad enough that the American chose the opening day of the event in San Francisco to announce his “busy summer” schedule, an announcement obviously timed to grab the headlines when Woods couldn't do so with a performance due the fact he didn't qualify on this occasion for a tournament he’d won three times.

But to then come out on Sunday with a statement confirming that he’d split up with Lindsey Vonn, the Olympic skier, proved once and for all that Woods is one of those horrible “look-at-me” individuals that can’t seem to swallow the thought of anyone else being in the limelight.

As we feared, it was asking too much for Woods to confirm that he had, in fact, turned over a new leaf. That the smiling Tiger, who was hugging here, there and everywhere on the practice area at Augusta National last month, was the one that we’d be seeing from now on.

 Really?  It no doubt reminds of Tiger's Ponte Vedra statement the Wednesday of the Match Play back in 2010, you know, after the ill-fated fire hydrant.  That I found incredibly inappropriate timing, though I never understood why Commissioner Ratched didn't simply tell Tiger that he'd make the Ponte Vedra Castle Clubhouse available on any Monday.  These announcements seem rather insignificant to me, but perhaps Dempster has better passive-aggressive radar than I...

Loose Ends

It's a slow mid-week lull, so we'll discuss a couple of quick items and we'll have you on your way...

Fourball Fun - Sometimes change is for the good, though in the form of unintended consequences....such may prove to be the case with the USGA's television contract with Fox.  I'll get to their actual coverage in a bit, but my point here is that we're being treated to extensive coverage of the new USGA Fourball event mostly because Fox's fledgling sports network has little other content to compete with golf.

The creation of the fourball was a great move, showing us great amateurs playing the go-to format for club players everywhere... my only quibble was that I never understood why the Public Links had to die to birth this event...  But I digress...

In any event, I turn it on last evening and am treated to the sight of old friend Nathan Smith in the quarter-finals:

SAN FRANCISCO – With the winds picking up, the temperatures dipping and the

Nathan Smith hitting, with partner Todd White

greens at Olympic Club’s Lake Course starting to firm up on the second day of match play at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, it was a perfect time for experienced competitors to step up. 

And so they did.

And that of course includes good old reliable Nathan, who played quite well:

Also advancing to Wednesday were savvy veterans Nathan Smith and Todd White, two Walker Cup competitors who took down the last remaining pair of brothers in the field, Jason and Ryan Higton (of Fresno, Calif.), 3 and 2. Smith, 36, a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, and White, 47, will play the youngest remaining tandem, high schoolers Sam Burns and Austin Connelly, both 18, who captured a 2-and-1 victory over Ping engineers Matt Simone and Corey Bacon.

We met Nathan when he was paired in U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying with friend-of-the-blog and A-1 caddie client Kent St. Charles (d/b/a Kunta Kente).  Nathan could not have been more gracious, especially as he wasn't playing especially well.

As for the coverage, the Fox crew seemed quite amateurish to my eye.  Most of the criticism I've read of their prior appearances has focused on Joe Buck, whose booming voice struck me as ill suited to the game.  He and Norman seem to be struggling to find a cadence for their commentary, and when they veered into attempted humor it was quite forced.

The other announcers are mostly an inoffensive lot greatly in need of seasoning.... probably the funniest moment to me was an awkward interview conducted by Corey Pavin where the optimal positioning of the microphone eluded him.  As for whiz-bang technological advances, there were none.... ProTracer was about the only use of technology I saw, and that's old hat by now.  Not sure what they might have cooked up for Chambers Bay, but they're not tipping their hand...

In any event, they need far more experience, individually and as a team, than they can possibly acquire between now and mid-June.  

The Results Are In - We had the headline yesterday about Rickie and Poults heading to sudden death for the title of most overrated player, now we have the full results.  Seems like we should give equal time to the most underrated player:

Me: 11%Bill Haas (above): 11%

Bubba Watson: 8%

Jordan Spieth: 8%

Charles Howell III: 5%

Graham DeLaet: 5%

Zach Johnson: 5%

Justin Thomas: 5%

Other: 42%

Wow!  We've got a gut (Bill Haas) that's never so much as graced the leaderboard at a major as well as one (Chuckie Three-Sticks) that's been out there since the Carter administration while winning two minor events, none in recent memory.

But this from the Champions Tour players is just madness:

A 10-footer to save your life, and you can't putt it—who do you want to putt it?

Rory McIlroy: 41%

Jordan Spieth: 26%

Adam Scott: 17%

Bernhard Langer: 9%

Steve Stricker: 7%

Guys, Adam Scott is one of the worst putters on the planet, and you'll note that I didn't limit myself to the professional game.   

And from the ladies, this little surprise:

Who will win more majors moving forward: Lydia Ko or Lexi Thompson?

Lydia: 86%

Lexi: 14%

The margin is the surprise here, given that Lydia has yet to contend in one and Lexi has one in the bag already.  On the other hand, have you seen Lexi putt?  

Tuesday Threads

You know it's a special time on the golf calendar when Shack uses this Dan Jenkins chestnut as his quote of the day:

Ponte Vedra is definitely the leader in the clubhouse for security gates. The security gates are in place to protect the homeowners from muny golfers and help pizza deliverymen find the right neighborhoods, which all look alike but have different names--Quail Joint, Smuggler's Grape, Gator Cover, North Ditch, etc... DAN JENKINS as Bobby Joe Grooves

Getting Our (Bobby Joe) Groove On -  It's Players week for better or worse, and there's much of both on offer.  We're all a little punch drunk after the marathon match play. so this is about all we have as far as actual news:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (May 4, 2015) – As the world’s best players descend

upon Ponte Vedra Beach this week in a quest for the coveted PLAYERS Championship title, they’ll have one less obstacle to navigate on the Stadium Course. In the fall, the overhanging Live Oak to the right of the No. 6 tee box, which impacted tee shots over the years, was removed due to decay and safety concerns. Instead of avoiding the tree, players and TPC Sawgrass visitors can now enjoy it, as the oak was handcrafted into two benches, an “artifact” display and 180 commemorative pieces.

here's an old photo I had hanging around: 

It was one of those that shouldn't affect your tee ball, and yet the player can't take his eyes off it...'Tis a shame, but Circle of Life and all that...

The Tour released pairings yesterday as well, and this group going off No. 10 on Thursday might grab an eyeball or two:

8:39 AM: Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day

Why not?  As I was channel-hopping last night, I grabbed some of the Golf Channel chattering from The Players, and was a little shocked at the extent to which their panel (Lerner, Chamblee, Nobilo and Duval) were aggressively pimping the event as already a major Major.   Ummmm, if by that you mean the Fifth of Four Majors™, then you have my vote... Now I know that Golf Channel has to toe the party line to some extent, and Duval specifically would be forced to recuse himself in any other context, but sheesh!

It was even worse than that, as they were falling all over themselves to declare the event The Truest Test of Golf™, because... well, their rationale kind of eludes me here.  Something to do with having an equal number of shots demanding r-to-l and l-to-r shot shapes.  Thing is, that's a pretty simple calculation when you're carving a golf course out of a swamp, and when every hole is a double-dogleg, that trick kind of loses its luster.

I went to Sawgrass a few years back fully intending to hate it, and was quite pleasantly surprised.  Not only does it have some great shots in unexpected places, the second on the Par-5 second as a for instance, but it plays surprisingly well for the retail golfer (and features the most effective set of hybrid tees known to man).  But it's completely contrived, and its signature moment is more a test of brute visual intimidation than golf skill.

It works quite well for what it is, and we should just enjoy that.... like the 16th at Phoenix is enjoyable for what it is, but we'd recoil in horror if others tried to copy it.  The island green is a ton of fun, but it's the Tour equivalent of a windmill... 

It's An Honor Just To Be Nominated - I thought we had survived award season, but like Rick Blaine I was misinformed.... Two of our heroes are candidates for the Zurich Insurance "No Love" commercials:

In an anonymous poll conducted by Sports Illustrated, PGA Tour pros voted Rickie Fowler and Ian Poulter as the most overrated players in golf with both receiving 24 percent of the vote.

Full poll results
Rickie Fowler: 24%
Ian Poulter: 24%
Bubba Watson: 12%
Hunter Mahan: 8%
Other: 32%

Where to start?  For some reason Keegan typically gets a pass on this, which I don't get at all... and you'd only include Poults to the extent you thought he was any good to begin with....and that implies that you've not watched any golf since September 2012.

But Bubba?  There's a guy fighting such a severe case of ADD that I didn't think he could get through four rounds of golf without his head exploding, yet he's won two Masters.  To this observer, he's about the biggest over-achiever ever.

Don't Hold Your Breath - Bill Fields has an item on the LPGA's dream of an invite to you-know-where:

Some believe Augusta National should now be the site of a tournament for another segment of golfers by including women. LPGA player Paula Creamer spoke up after the Masters, invoking a "grow the game" argument. "I'd like to know truthfully why we wouldn't be able to have a tournament there," she said. "Definitely women's golf deserves something like that." 

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan was more diplomatic while admitting he has urged Augusta National officials multiple times about the prospect of a women's event there. "It's a fun dream," Whan told espnW.com's Michael Collins. "Could it become a reality some day? Some day. But by no means do we feel anybody owes us anything. At the same time, if it ever came to fruition, it'd be great."

Fields explains why this will never happen and, SPOILER ALERT, it's the azaleas.... But I'm going a different direction, it would be far more boring than they realize.   The ladies added an event in Ocala, FL this winter, one with "Tribute" holes, including one of the Augusta 13th.  It was dreadfully boring, as it played as a full three-shotter.  It just doesn't translate to the ladies' game, and just better to not go there.

Fighters Are Human Too - We waited far too long for last week's big fight, and we can honestly admit that by the time they went at each other both pugilists were long past their prime.  Fortunately it was on Golf Channel and you didn't have to shell out $100 for the boring spectacle.... What, you thought this was a Mayweather-Pacquiao item?  Nah, I'm talking Bradlye-Jiminez here, a real fight with none of those sissy padded gloves... In any event, it turns out that Miggy is a lover, not a fighter.

He takes the loss of the Ryder Cup captaincy and missing the cut at The Masters with admirable stoicism, but then he's got a fallback plan:

"You understand me, right? O.K. then. The Ryder Cup is decided by the players' clubs, not the captain's English." 

He spoke these words last month in the shadow of the Augusta National clubhouse, having just shot a second-round 73 to miss the cut at the Masters. It was a stinging disappointment, given that Jiménez tied for fourth last year—his ninth career top 10 in a major—but he was typically upbeat. 

"My score is s---, but I did not play s---. It happens. But my game feels good, I feel good about the rest of this season. The game will come. It always does."

Beneath the famous oak tree at Augusta National he fell into the warm embrace of his sons and his wife and hugs from a dozen well-wishers. Before leaving the grounds Jiménez offered a parting thought: 

"I am here with the sun shining, I'm surrounded by friends and family, tonight I will eat good food, drink good wine, smoke a good cigar and make love to my beautiful wife. It's a good life, no?"

I'm guessing that question is rhetorical...

Riffing off the Friday cage match, Brandel Chamblee offers a selective history of golf pugilism here.  He has a featured role in one of the vignettes, including this promising lede:

I once played with a pro who had a bit of a reputation as a brawler, was rumored to be a black belt in karate and to have killed a man in a bar fight. Word was, he was as crazy as a peach-orchard boar. He and I were in a twosome, and he was on his way to an 80-plus performance. Our sole gallery member was his girlfriend, who seemed sympathetic to his bad golf, at least until his wife showed up and then her disposition seemed, well … less sympathetic.

I hate when that happens... 

This Week In Brand Extensions - I almost let this item pass because the degree of difficulty is so low:

Just think, even with that Rickie Fowler shirt, Nike driver, and TPC tee time, there's still more you can do to be like your favorite PGA Tour star. For instance, have you given enough thought to how you smell?

Yes, recognizing that a golfer's passion should extend to all five senses, the tour is coming out with its own fragrance, PGA Tour Pro Sport. It is, according to a release, the tour's first ever signature cologne, and is "inspired by the competitive, innovation, and swift nature of the game."

If they sign Lumpy as the celebrity endorser, put me down for a case...

A Pro's Pro - If you subscribe to the theory that to teaching professionals we're all annuities, you'll love this Pravda profile of Mario Calmi:

“Hey, I’m Italian — we know how to use bricks and tomatoes,” said Mr. Calmi, who

keeps a narrow garden along the side of the range to grow his tomatoes, supported with stakes made of — what else — broken golf club shafts. 

For the arugula he grows, Mr. Calmi has bottles of olive oil stashed on shelves in his teaching shed next to golf equipment, and a bottle of balsamic vinegar in his golf cart. 

“It’s an Italian thing, we do food,” said Mr. Calmi, lighting his charcoal barbecue, another daily ritual, to grill some cheeseburgers. Then he made cappuccinos in the shed, to have with the fresh cannoli he brings daily.

But if he can deliver on this, it's about more than the food:

Mr. Calmi charges $100 an hour, or $60 for 30 minutes, which includes a video swing analysis he emails to students immediately after the lesson for further study. 

“A lot of my students don’t come back, which is good,” Mr. Calmi said.

“Golf pros are like chiropractors. They want you to keep coming back. But I tell my students, ‘I’m going to teach you so good, you don’t have to come back.’ ”

For some reason I'm hungry... 

A Wei Silly Social Media Story

This is a bit of an inside-baseball story, but one I find interesting (though, of course, your mileage may vary).  The PGA Tour has long had an awkward relationship with social media ( and the public at large), and frequently seem clueless as to how to promote their very own business.  As just one example, last year Henrik Stenson shanked a shot and was laughing about it on Twitter withing an hour of the end of his round.  Commissioner Ratched, a humorless soul, went the other direction and forced YouTube to take down the video... Can't have the public able to relate to the players, can we?  Wouldn't be prudent...

The heroine of today's tale is Stephanie Wei, proprietress of the eponymous Wei Under Par golf blog.  We last featured Stephanie when the Patrick Reed college stories broke a couple of months ago... we're always glad to have an excuse to link to her, as she's a purty young thing and running her picture can't hurt in locking down that lucrative Maggot demographic.

Here's the background per Alan Shipnuck:

Turns out the most interesting action at the Match Play Championship took place off the course. 

At first blush, Stephanie Wei versus the PGA Tour wasn’t much of a tussle. On Monday, Wei, the auteur of the popular golf blog "Wei Under Par," posted video clips of golden boy Jordan’s Spieth’s practice round on Periscope, a Twitter-owned social media app that captures and streams live video. On Thursday, the Tour yanked Wei’s credential for the rest of the 2015 season, citing multiple violations of its media regulations which prohibit accredited reporters from sharing video images of players taken at tournament venues.

Just a minute there, cowboy... the most interesting action of the week, hands down, was the Keegan Bradley- Miguel Angel Jiminez cage match.  But I digress....

Wei, 32, is one of the youngest reporters on the golf beat. A former college golfer, she left a job in the financial world to start her blog and has earned an audience with idiosyncratic posts about life on tour and her life on the road. Her social media followers—more than 40,000 across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram—have come to expect nearly constant updates, many of them accompanied by video. She recently began experimenting with Periscope, which allows individual “broadcasters” to send live video feeds to their followers and only lives within the app for 24 hours.

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, the average golf writer has been dead for three years... Now I'm far from the perfect messenger to promote the wonders of social media, fitting solidly into that mortise demo, but how often do we hear that to grow our game we need to appeal yo the, wait for it, Millennials?  Well, Commish, that age group isn't on the couch watching CBS....

So what was Wei's crime against humanity?

On Monday at Harding Park, Wei hoofed it for Spieth’s practice round – indicative of her hustle – and was privy to some amusing trash talking and other hijinks. Wei felt that as a live streaming service Periscope was a different technology than traditional video, which gave her just enough wiggle room to post the clips. (Votaw strenuously disagrees, obviously.) Beyond that, Wei recognized Spieth is the hottest commodity in golf this minute and there is an insatiable appetite for anything he says or does. 

“There’s no golf on TV on Monday, and here was Jordan in a fun, unique setting,” Wei says. “All I was really thinking about was giving fans what they want to see.”

But Steph, you're stealing viewers from that eighth replay of Big Break - Bayonne...   Nobody disputes that the tournament is the intellectual property of the Tour, but aren't they in the business of , you know, promoting the event.  Here's Shipnuck's conclusion:

Even if Wei broke the Tour’s rules, the real issue is whether those rules make sense anymore. The Tour operates under a very traditional model in which it feels it owns the content (the tournaments and whatever the players do during them) and various rights-holders (Golf Channel, the networks) pay handsomely to borrow that content. But the sports media environment has changed at the speed of light, and fans now demand to be entertained in new and different ways, with video clips the coin of the realm. They expect this at all hours, not just on the limited, rigid broadcast schedules of various television networks. 

Golf Channel was never going to televise Spieth’s practice round, but the Tour would rather have it go unseen than allow snippets of it to be distributed by a reporter who doesn’t pay millions of dollars in rights fees. Says Votaw,”Who owns those rights? We do, not you. If you want access to those rights, you have to pay for it. When [Wei] posts unauthorized videos, she’s stealing. I don’t understand how you can’t get that through your head.” He makes the case that the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball protect their rights-holders in similarly aggressive ways.

That's exactly the attitude that lead me to dub Ty's boss Nurse Ratched...  It's a straw man argument that effectively demolishes an argument made by exatly no one.  Wei and all sentient humans understand that Golf Channel and NBC paid handsomely for the rights to the tournament, and that posting pirated video of the Spieth-Westwood match is verboten.  But this is a practice round...

Stephanie's own account can be found here, but see if this sounds at all interesting:

Fast forward to this past Monday at TPC Harding Park. I was with a fellow media

member and we stopped on the putting green to talk to Matt Jones. We watched him finish practice putting before heading to the first hole. My colleague was walking with him as he asked him questions. I started to take a picture of the first hole and then remembered Periscope and how I’d also been seeing reporters that cover other sports using it recently. (I’d seen another member of the golf media use Meerkat, an app similar to Periscope, to broadcast a press conference recently, as well.) 

I opened the app and showed the first hole, and then Matt teeing off and walking down the fairway. I was telling him about the app while I was streaming. Comments started popping up on the bottom of the screen with questions for him, which I relayed and he answered. I remember seeing people saying things like, “This is exactly what Periscope was invented for…” — people seemed to really like the content and coverage, and I was getting all very positive feedback.

You see hw dangerous this could be....if this madness isn't kept under control, folks might find golf....interesting?

Now I think that Alan ventures into much grayer area here, perhaps muddying the waters:

The comparison fails in one crucial way: when a baseball or basketball of football game is televised viewers get to see every second of the action, always. Golf tournaments feature up to 156 players with tee times spread across five or six or seven hours on four separate days, on a playing field of 150 or so acres. Only a tiny fraction of the action is ever shown on television. Reporters on the scene can fill in some of the gaps with their words, but the ability to post short videos—and offer play-by-play on social media, also verboten by Tour rules—would be a boon to otherwise disenfranchised fans. Votaw is unmoved. “A media credential is a privilege, not a right,” he says. “You’re invited by us, and the role of the reporter is to cover the sport in a manner consistent with the media regulations you agree to.” He went on to question my impartiality in reporting on this matter.

See, that's a bridge too far... at least for now.  Rights are sold on an exclusive basis, so in making a bunch of old white men (and aren't they always the villains) comfortable with social media, better to focus on a practice round as in the present instance.

Shack is also chafing under these rules:

Longtime readers know I've obeyed this and will continue to as I sign a regulation form for the privilege of a media credential and broadcast partners are paying a premium that makes tournaments tick. However, many, many times it has pained me not to do some short videos early in a tournament week talking up something of note for architecture buffs or handicappers. But the rules are the rules. 

Conflicting news this week suggests that as with the tour's policy of not commenting on pending litigation or drug policy violations--except when the situation warrants--the PGA Tour desperately needs to sit down with their broadcast partners to sort out their social media video strategy.

Like the Wei story, that GC or NBC/CBS would object to Shack posting short videos for architectural geeks is just mindbogglingly counter-productive.   In the real world, when a policy yields an obviously misguided result, that policy is typically reevaluated... In Ponte Vedra Beach, we are instead treated to a "My Way or the Highway" lecture from Ty Votaw.  Wonder why we're not growing the game?

Weekend Wrap - Match Play Edition

Order is restored as World No. 1 Rory McIlroy prevails in the Bataan Death March WGC Cadillac Match Play Championship.... As much as I love match play, the problems with the format can be readily grasped with a quick glance at the right-hand side of the bracket, where the Danny Willet-Gary Woodland semi-final shockingly failed to bring Western civilization to a halt.  Go figure...

Shane Ryan frames it as the Once and Future King reclaiming his throne:

The coronation was quick and brutal -- the minute Jordan Spieth slipped his arms into the 

green jacket, the loyal foot soldiers of the young king began erasing the memory of all those who had once worn the crown. The old monuments were toppled, the enemy castles were burned, and the dissidents were banished into the wilderness. Those who remained quickly learned to speak the language of the conqueror.

Meanwhile, in exile, one particular golfer must have felt a bit perplexed. He had notched a top-five finish at Augusta, and a few months earlier, at age 25, he had won his fourth career major while grabbing the top spot in the world rankings — a spot he still held. If golf needed a new king, or the next Tiger, he seemed to have a strong claim. Instead, Rory McIlroy was on the outs, crushed by the Spieth coup d'etat, and would now have to resort to guerrilla warfare, miles from the throne.

OK, that's plenty. Time to dial down the rhetoric -- you get the point, and the whole ramble was probably unfair to the 21-year-old Masters champ. Jordan Spieth's win was remarkable, and the similarities to Tiger's '97 win were uncanny, and the hyperbole that followed wasn't his fault. In fact, he took every opportunity to admit that he wasn't yet on Rory's level. You can't blame him if nobody seemed to get the message. 

"The next generation is here!" bellowed Jim Nantz that Sunday, and if you were waiting for a CBS underling to scurry to his side and whisper that its members already arrived, you'd wait in vain. The narrative had been established: Jordan was the only show in town.

I went a bit long on that excerpt because Shane gets the joke... In a sport in which players struggle to retain their form on the walk from the range to the first tee, the anointment of Jordan Spieth as our Lord and Savior has gotten a tad comical at times.  He's no doubt a great young player who will fill many highlight reels in the years to come, but that McIlroy kid has some game as well...

And he showed quite a bit of grit this week, no?  He didn't exactly have his best stuff, he found himself down to some very strong players (Horschel, Casey and Furyk, and I might be missing one or two).  And the Gods of PGA Tour scheduling stuck it to him pretty badly with that Casey quarter-final.... nothing like a 4:30 wake-up call to hit the range at 5:30, to finish off a stubborn (albeit under-the-weather) opponent, for the pleasure of gutting out another two matches...  

As loyal readers of this site are well aware, the PGA Tour exists for the sole purpose of providing lay-ups to your humble correspondent.  While we recently moped about potentially moving on from our favorite Shakespearean reference, there was Jim Furyk walking off the fifteenth green one-up against the best player on the planet.  Surely our hero had him just where he wanted him...  If I were writing the script I would have Rory downing a Five Hour Energy Drink at that critical juncture, before throwing up a tasty birdie-birdie-eagle finish.  Alas, Poor Furyk, I knew him, Horatio, you'll find him in the consolation match.

So, what did everyone think of the week?  My first reaction is a strange one, but there's just way too much golf.... I'm sorry, but when there's more golf than three of me can consume, it's an issue.  Cameron Morfit does his best to sort through the issues with the format:

From a purely competitive standpoint, that was the tragic flaw of this new format. It’s what allowed Rickie Fowler and Senden to win their respective pools even before dinnertime Thursday, the equivalent of Vijay Singh clinching the 2008 FedEx Cup before the Tour Championship.

With Fowler and Senden having already clinched, the other unlucky players in groups 13 and 3—namely Harris English and Shane Lowry in 13, and Haas and Stenson in 3—had no hope of advancing to this weekend’s knockout rounds despite going 1-1 in their first two matches.

Fowler and Senden, meanwhile, could have skipped out and gone to the movies. (Instead both won again Friday, beating McDowell and Todd, respectively.) “It’s all come out a bit flat,” Stenson said. He was right.

Our PGA Tour heroes are a bit of a pampered lot, but it seems that porridge is always too hot or two cold... Schadenfreude is one of my favorite words, and it is oh so apt here as we got to this point by giving them exactly what they wanted...  For the last few years we've heard that the players absolutely loather the "one-and-done" nature of the event, that they hate flying 6,000 miles to play sixteen holes.

Now we knew going in that the format would lead to some unfair results, but isn't that what match play is all about?  More from Morfit:

Keegan Bradley, Ian Poulter and others retreated into a furious silence as they trudged through their three guaranteed matches of “pool” play Wednesday through Friday. Bradley was slamming car doors after a tense second-round match against Bubba Watson on Thursday, when the two were observed arguing over a ruling on the 12th tee. Then came Friday’s standoff between 28-year-old Bradley and 51-year-old Miguel Angel Jimenez, which didn’t quite reach the depths of Pedro Martinez pushing Don Zimmer to the turf at the 2003 ALCS, but seemed to come close.

First and foremost, I just LOVE the Pedro-Zim reference in a golf post.  But more on point, I think we can all agree that "Furious silence" from Keegan and Poults is a feature, not a bug... Sheesh, how is that any different than playing out the string on a 75-74-MC, something with which you'd think both of those guys are well-acquainted...

Back to Cam:

First, it laid the groundwork for the bizarre scene in which Bradley and Jimenez and Bradley’s caddie, Steve Hale, went all Jerry Springer at one another in front of the world. Bradley was running hot all week, and Friday he finally snapped. Why? Because it’s stressful to play bad; it’s potentially insulting for players who simply don’t have it, like Bradley, Jason Day, Jimmy Walker and others who went 0-2 and then 0-3, to be required to stick around for three days and be exposed in front of the world, even when they can’t win. The greatest golfers on earth don’t like to be embarrassed.

Of course not all of the 0-3s felt that way. Ryan Palmer was in a fine mood as he walked to his courtesy car in the players’ parking lot. He had played well in his first match (losing 4 and 2 to Anirban Lahiri), terribly in his second (falling to Marc Leishman 4 and 3), and well again in his third (losing 2 and 1 to Justin Rose despite being 2 under par through 17 holes).

That would be because he, meaning Palmer, is a professional... I'm actually not someone that is greatly put off by a little anger on the golf course.  You want these guys to show some passion, in fact I'm more critical of the guys that just collect a paycheck and don't seem to care about winning.  But this is your job and there's no job in the world that doesn't have a little frustration thrown in.... if the worst day on your job requires you to play 18 holes staring at those massive Cypress trees and Lake Merced, you're a pretty lucky SOB and it might be nice for you to recognize that fact... 

In news of a player absorbing unfairness and acting like a grown-up, there was this:

If the Tour does nothing else—Jordan Spieth tweeted after his loss on Friday that it could make the first three rounds stroke play and the rest match play, a bit like the U.S. Amateur—it will need to abandon the idea that head-to-head matchups should take the place of a sudden-death playoff.

I appreciate the constructive suggestion, though I'm of mixed minds on it...every other event on the calendar is 72 holes of medal play, so is more of the same really the answer?  I would, however, suggest that if you're going that direction to make it only 36 holes, as it's a long, grueling week that inevitably affects the quality of play on the weekend.

Two other quick notes from the week....Michael Collins had quite the Saturday night as he recounts here:

SAN FRANCISCO -- What was supposed to be one of the greatest fight nights in the history of boxing turned into the most surreal impromptu pizza parties I've ever been a part of Saturday at TPC Harding Park. 

When the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight was just about to start, I was flanked by the world's No. 1 golfer, Rory McIlroy, and broadcasting great Jimmy Roberts. Just then, McIlroy's manager, Sean O'Flaherty, came in the door with roughly eight pizzas he'd run out and bought for the tent. 

Did I mention we were watching the fight on a 19-inch TV in the room where the players hold their news conferences for the WGC-Cadillac Match Play?

Here's the accompanying photo:

It's such a nice story that I'll give him a pass for playing so loose with the concept of "Broadcasting great."

Match Play - Iterations and Permutations

I've had to laugh as folks have opined on the revised format for the event, as until now it's been a clear case of premature opinionation.  The issue has been whether Day 3 would live up to Day 1 of the simple single-elimination business model.  And it just might... Jim McCabe takes us group-by-group the see where matters stand:

SAN FRANCISCO — Head-to-head games between undefeated players. Three-man

playoffs. Marquee names moving on, marquee names going home. With Friday being the last of three days of round-robin play, the WGC-Match Play Championship will be trimmed to 16 players. 

The only thing is, 42 players are still alive for those berths into the Round of 16. So after two days of losing, but not going home, Friday definitely will be time to head to the exits for a line of players.

Jim goes through the groups in numerical fashion, but I'll try to make logical groupings of the groups instead:

 I Love When A Plan Comes Together - In a perfect world, we'll be treated to matches between the class of each group, i.e., two players each 2-0:

GROUP 1: As simple as it gets. Rory McIlroy (2-0) vs. Billy Horschel (2-0). Winner moves on, loser goes home.

As a bonus, these two have history dating back to the 2007 Walker Cup:

Friday’s marquee matchup will feature McIlroy and Horschel, who have a bit of history together, having butted heads at the 2007 Walker Cup. Horschel beat McIlroy, then McIlroy beat Horschel twice, but the bigger takeaway was Horschel struck McIlroy as a little overly brash. 

“Fortunately, he’s mellowed considerably since then,” McIlroy said with a laugh before the tournament began earlier this week.

As for the Sneds-Duf consolation match, I'm dying to know who walks away with Miss Congeniality.

GROUP 2: Another head-to-head, 2-0 vs. 2-0 game that will decide who moves on. Jordan Spieth, 21, will play a gentleman who is exactly twice his age, Lee Westwood.

GROUP 4: Another breeze. Bubba Watson (2-0) will play Louis Oosthuizen (2-0), with the winner advancing to the next round.

GROUP 11: The third- and fourth-seeded players in the group — Webb Simpson and Gary Woodland — are both 2-0 and will play, with the winner advancing to the Round of 16.

One quarter of the groups played out in perfect fashion, and while Webb-Woodland isn't going to drive ratings, the other three are pretty appealing matches (including a mulligan for the 2012 Masters playoff).

It's Over Before It's Over -  This is pretty much the worst-case scenario, where neither of the matches in a group are relevant.  Fortunately there are only two such, including:

Group 3 - John Senden
Group 13 - Rickie Fowler

I'm sure you all had Senden in your brackets.

This Gets A Little Complicated -  The most common status is a group with one player at 2-0, but that player still needs to win to ensure a Saturday tee-time.  In some cases this player needs to win, in others he can still make it through depending upon the outcome of the other match.  These include:

GROUP 6: Marc Leishman
GROUP 7: Charley Hoffman
GROUP 8: Charl Schwartzel
GROUP 9: Paul Casey
GROUP 12: Brooks Koepka
GROUP 14: Hunter Mahan
GROUP 15: Danny Willett (who now answers to Unheralded Englishman)
GROUP 16: Hideki Matsuyama

For instance, one of the best matches today is Hunter Mahan v. Kooch, because it matters not that the latter lost to Ben Martin's ace, because it's Single Elimination, Baby!

Things That Make My Brain Hurt: Those that are keeping score will quickly note that we've omitted tow groups.  Stick with me here...

GROUP 5: OK, here come the most scenarios, because all four players — Jim Furyk, Martin Kaymer, Thongchai Jaidee, and George Coetzee — are alive at 1-1. Friday’s matches will showcase Furyk vs. Kaymer and Jaidee vs. Coetzee, so here goes: 

If Furyk and Jaidee win, Jaidee advances because he beat Furyk.
If Kaymer and Jaidee win, Kaymer moves on because he beat Jaidee.
If Furyk and Coetzee win, Furyk goes based on his win over Coetzee.
If Kaymer and Coetzee win, Coetzee gets the nod, thanks to his win over Kaymer.

Got that?

GROUP 10: When Tommy Fleetwood went extra holes to rally past Jamie Donaldson, another scenario was created in which all four players are alive. Friday, Sergio Garcia will play Donaldson and Fleetwood will take on Bernd Wiesberger, all of them 1-1. So here we go again: 

If Garcia and Wiesberger win, it will be Wiesberger who advances because he beat Garcia.
If Garcia and Fleetwood prevail, it will be Garcia who moves on because he beat Fleetwood.
If Donaldson and Wiesberger win, Donaldson gets to move on.
If Donaldson and Fleetwood win, the spot in the Round of 16 goes to Fleetwood.

 My only wish is that we get at least one three-man playoff.  Yanno, just because...

Stephen Hennessy provides a list of five things we learned on Day 2, including:

3. Being in the finals last year means nothing.

Neither Jason Day and Victor Dubuisson -- who faced off in the memorable WGC-Match Play championship last year -- are in good shape. Day and Dubuisson are both headed home after Friday, despite their match-play pedigrees. Tree-lined TPC Harding Park differs from last year's venue -- the desert Dove Mountain GC -- so maybe it's not too surprising. But you'd think Day would at least make the weekend.

We also learned that Keegan Bradley is way overrated....upon further review, perhaps that really is more of a preexisting condition.

Cliff Schrock performs a valuable service in reminding us that everything old is new again:

Round robins, both stroke-play and match-play varieties, were a familiar format during the first few decades of the PGA Tour, albeit usually with a smaller field than 64. It wasn't until around 1960 that they were eventually phased out by the predominant four-round, stroke-play tournament. Yet the tour's all-time winningest player, Sam Snead, has round-robin wins among his 82 career titles, including five at the Palm Beach Round Robin (also Goodall Round Robin), named after the clothing company. 

 Snead won the Palm Beach RR four times in the 1950s, including the one pictured here, the 1954 event held May 12-16 at Meadow Brook Club in Westbury, N.Y. The invitation event had 16 elite golfers -- presumably the tour's best 16 at the time -- play five rounds in groups of four. One round was played on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and two rounds on Friday. You accumulated or lost points depending on how you fared in stroke differential against the other players in your group. Snead shot 67-72-68-66-65 and had a plus 62 to easily win over runner-up Bob Toski, who had plus 26.

Dave Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize winning sports writer from the Times told us last year that the first golf event he covered was the Palm Beach Round Robin, though it was held at Wykagyl at that time.

Lastly, it turns out that the lads are getting a tad cranky... Now it's admittedly a hard-knock life when you're in the top 64 players in the world, private jet travel and Escalade courtesy cars losing their luster after repetition.  If I sound a tad less than sensitive on this subject, it's because the guys were cranky with the old "one and done" format as well...