Midweek Musings - Open Championship Edition

Lots to cover, so buckle up and let's have at it:

Ever wonder about the origins of the town's name?  Mike Tirico (via Shack) have you covered....

Go ahead, blame it on the Vikings.  I had always assumed that only the Russians could be responsible for such a dour place....

What should we expect?  Experienced linksologists know it all begins on the spectrum.... the color spectrum, that is:

Yellow, on its way to brown....  Purge '99 and '07 from your memory banks, this will not in any way resemble those weeks.

The Forecaddie, a/k/a The Man Out Front, expects lots of birdies:

The Forecaddie finally took a stroll around Carnoustie and got a close look at the conditions. As Tiger Woods said Sunday, the fairways are faster than the greens and, for The Man Out Front, the look is hard to like. 

As magnificent as the firm, yellow-beige-dead fairways look in person to lovers of links, the poa annua and fescue greens are too green, too soft and holding shots enough that TMOF can’t envision players trying many long run-up shots. In practice rounds, The players have been attacking hole locations with ease and appear unfazed by the ground firmness. 

Also of note is the rough. The tall stuff is not very tall in most places and pretty harmless. In spots, like the 18th, some denser grasses might complicate matters for the bomb-and-gouge approach. And certainly there will be flyers, but overall The Forecaddie won’t fault players who attack Carnoustie.

Here we pause to contemplate our first major surprise, to wit, the guys are planning on hitting more drivers than assumed from all the Hoylake '06 comparisons.  Brooks Koepka, as an example, could hit as many as nine drivers per round, and he's not alone.  Bomb-and-Gouge on a baked-out links?  We'll see how that works out....

It smells like a wide-open Open, as seconded by Alistair Tait:

According to Rose, anyone can win the 147th Open. 

“The beauty of this golf course is that length isn’t a necessity, which brings the whole field into it,” Rose said. 

Carnoustie is so hard and dry bombers such as Johnson aren’t necessarily going to have an advantage. Anyone who hits fairways this week is a bomber. There’s absolutely no grass or soft areas to stop the forward momentum of tee shots. Johnson and 2007 champion Padraig Harrington hit tee shots into the Barry Burn short of the 18th green in practice rounds – 475 yards off the tee. 

Forget obvious favorites. Sixty-year-old Bernhard Langer is a 500-1 shot. He’s won three Senior Opens in the last eight years. His first came in 2010 at Carnoustie.

“It’s going to favor a patient one for sure because even if you play this golf course aggressively, you’re going to have ups and downs during the week,” Rose said.

OK, but it isn't THAT wide open....   Here's a guy that intends to B&G his way around:

Not everyone seems intimidated though.

“The rough isn’t as thick as I expected,” said Harry Diamond, who caddies for Rory McIlroy. “It’s playable.” 

He expects his man to hit a lot of drivers to take some fairway hazards out of play.

At least one wily veteran of ’99 agrees with Diamond. Back then Duval opened 79-75 and made the cut. He eventually finished T-62. He was 22 over par. He still shakes his head ruefully at the memory, the pain of which hasn’t faded with the years.

As always, consider the source....  That sentiment would be sufficient to take Rory off my list, but of course with childhood friend Harry Diamond on the bag he hasn't sniffed my list of picks.  I don't know the right strategy for the week, I just don't expect our Rors to trip over it until Monday at the earliest.

That Golfweek item has quite the good lede as well:

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — This dour Scottish links, named for the dreary town for which it provides the sole reason to visit, is not an aesthetically handsome course. But Carnoustie has never been about beauty. It’s about brutality, the medieval rack of British Open venues, designed to stretch knights of the golfing realm to breaking point. 

Many competitors snap early in the tournament, others late. Some aren’t even intact when they step onto the first tee Thursday. There may not be a course on the planet that can intimidate the world’s best golfers as readily as Carnoustie. 

Much of that repute owes to the infamous 1999 Open, when superintendent John Philp defended his beloved course in much the same way that a pitbull defends its master: without favor, restraint or regret. But that was almost two decades ago. Is that reputation warranted?

Dour?  Dreary?  I'd have used "grim" as well, but let's not quibble...  It's less than an hour from St. Andrews, but a world apart.

Ryan Herrington likes this guy:

Still, the case can be made that Rose is playing the best golf of his career right now at

age 37. Since the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs last August, the Englishman has had four wins, 17 top-10s in 22 worldwide starts and moved up to No. 3 in the World Ranking. 

For this reason, Rose comes to Carnoustie with an abundance of confidence, if also a little caution. He acknowledges his record in the Open hasn’t been what he hoped: just one additional top-10 (T-6 at St. Andrews in 2015) since his finish in 1998. 

“I don’t believe in superstition or anything like that, but I just feel like my game is in a good spot,” Rose said. “I feel like I’m playing well and creating chances regularly. So, yeah, it’s up to me, really. Not stats or not records. It’s just about me and playing this golf course this week and creating my chance to win.”

Fair enough, but after picking him in both The Masters and U.S. Open, we're through....  Bizarre though, that his only Top-5 in this event was at Birkdale as an amateur.  Burn me once, shame on you....  Of course back in the day I picked Sergio to win 7-8 Opens, and we know how that worked out.

Rose remains unsettled on strategy:

Despite his familiarity with the course, Rose says he has yet to finalize a game plan for how he’ll approach it this week. The unusually firm-and-fast conditions of the course has Rose trying to decide how aggressive he will be off the tee. 

“It’s probably going to be a mixture of [drivers and irons],” Rose said. “Definitely for me it’s going to be knowing when to attack, and I think it’s going to be about good strategy, knowing which pins are your birdie opportunities, which pins to respect. 

“I always start off quite conservative in my game plan, and by the time I get to Sunday, I’ve changed it dramatically through the week as well. So it is always a fluid situation. I think, until you see the forecast on a links course, you can’t really make too much of [it].”

Luke Kerr-Dineen does a deep dive into the finishing hole in an attempt to make this rather insignificant case:

British Open 2018: Breaking down one of the most underrated shots in golf history

Meh!  His point is that Lawrie had a one-shot lead in the playoff, and hit an underrated shot to the green to win his claret jug.  We can stipulate to the fact that the shot didn't get its due, and still not care very much.  It's Paul Lawrie, for God's sake, there's no reason for us to care...

I want to use his work in support of two other points, the first being the misunderstood nature of the finishing hole at Carnoustie.  It's a bear, often called the toughest finishing hope in either Open Championship or major championship golf, a justifiable premise.  But mostly it's justified based upon the meandering Barry Burn, which the player crossed three times on the hole:

The Barry is a factor for sure, but I would argue that it's to OB stakes left that raises the threat level from Red Zone to Soiled Undergarments.  

My second point is to reargue the Van de Velde meltdown, of which you'll see much this week, which is largely misunderstood.  The Frog made a horrible mistake off the tee, in my opinion, in hitting driver.  All that accomplished was to bring the narrowest section of fairway and the burn on both the left and right into play.  I'd have hit an iron to that section of fairway short of the burn, but he got away with that mistake.  If my memory is correct, the ball actual wa son the ealking bridge but ended up playable to the right of the burn.

From there, most of us would have had him play short of the burn, pitch onto the green, and collect his hardware.  He opted for a different strategy, one that is employed by tour pros far more than any of us realize, he hit a two iron deliberately towards the grandstand to the right of the green.  They do this to take advantage of the generous drop they get when impaired by a TIO, and Van de Velde successfully pulled off the shot, easily clearing the dreaded Barry Burn.

Alas, just as the French didn't envision the need for the Maginot Line to protect their border with Belgium, Jean neglected one niggling detail....  His ball struck a handrail, crazily bouncing to the other side of the burn into an unplayable lie.  This has to be one of the all-time worst breaks in the history of our game....  You go out there with many large buckets of balls and never hit a handrail, and even if you did, the odds of that bounce are infinitesimal.....  If the ball bounces into the burn, he likely still wins the Open.

Enough on that, shall we get to Alan's Mailbag?  You know the drill...Alan Shipnuck cracking wise enabled by his Twitter feed.  before we get to the main event, Alan took a side trip en route to Dundee:

I'm especially excited because en route to Carnoustie I'm stopping in Portrush to peep all the preparations for next year's Open. I shall report on what I find. Until then…

Portrush will be a great venue...  I can't wait for hsi report, but also for next year's Open.  Hold that thought.... 

I think guys who played the Scottish Open last week benefit greatly from a week of links style play. Agree/disagree and why..... -@MikeInTheCouv 

For sure it's better preparation than the John Deere. You can never give yourself too much time to acclimate to the bouncy turf and slower greens and omnipresent cross-winds, to say nothing of the jet lag and English breakfasts. I'm honestly still bitter that Jordan Spieth played the Deere in 2015. When it comes to the Grand Slam, history has shown that even the greatest players only get one bite of the apple: Nicklaus, Woods and Palmer each had only one season in which they won the first two legs of the Grand Slam, as Spieth did in 2015. Not arriving until Monday morning of Open week on the Deere charter simply isn't the best preparation, for any player.

There are different ways to prepare, though we can all agree that none are to be found in the Quad Cities.  There is a risk in playing either the Scottish or Irish, if you draw a bad weather week it's easy to lose your will to live.  Jordan has confirmed that mistake by going over early in subsequent years, and it kinda work out for him last year, no?

Winning score? And who finishes second behind Tiger Woods? -Jake (@winfreyjake) 

The average winning score over the last four years has been 16 under and I'd be very surprised if it's not even lower this year, unless the winds howl, which is not in the forecast (and right now rain is expected on Friday, which will take some bite out of the course). Per Tiger, this sets up as a very intriguing test. His weaknesses with the driver were exposed at the Masters and U.S. Open but he can holster it this week, if he is so inclined, though that will put him at a big disadvantage if Rory and other super long hitters do in fact bomb it over most of the bunkers, as has been happening in the early practice rounds. But we haven't seen a firm, fiery test like this since Hoylake, which remains one of Tiger's transcendent performances. His iron play remains the foundation of his game (he's third on Tour in Strokes Gained approach-the-green) and no one is as adroit at thinking their way around a fiery links. But the fact is, Woods is now below average off the tee and middle of the pack on the greens. He needs to have his best week of his comeback with the putter and driver (even if employed infrequently) to even have a chance. That's a big ask.

There's a couple of cross-currents in play here, let me just insert here these comments from Tiger himself:

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Continuing his Refreshingly Honest World Tour, Tiger Woods returns to Carnoustie for a fourth British Open and for the first time, admitted this 

event is his best chance for major championship No. 15. 

“As far as long term, certainly, I would say yes because of the fact that you don’t have to be long to play on a links-style golf course, and look what Tom (Watson) did at Turnberry at 59, I believe he was,” Woods said. “Greg (Norman) was there at Birkdale, I think about 54-ish, somewhere around there. It certainly can be done.” 

Even as Woods sits 28th in PGA Tour driving distance (304.9 yards) following four back surgeries, he suggested distance will eventually be an issue at other majors.

Ironic, in that we've all been shocked at how long he's been hitting it, but he seems prepared for the continuing ravages of Father Time.  I do think hes' right though, and I's add that his ability to play in the wind and use the space between his ears also leads to this being the most likely....  I don't, however, expect that much from him this year, and would also not his career is defined by struggles on slow greens.

Back to Alan:

What percentage of the PGA Tour pros actually like links golf? -David (@davidtfbarry)

Less than you think. These guys are all about precision – they want their nine-iron to fly exactly 158 yards and stop dead, because that's what they're used to and how they usually prepare. The quirky courses and unpredictable bounces wreaks havoc with their golf OCD. Now, almost every pro is too politic to tell reporters that they don't like links golf, because they know they'll be branded as Philistines. But the candor still leaks out in quasi-private settings. To be sure, plenty of guys do love links golf, and it's no accident they tend to be the better players who have the well-rounded games and mental acuity to answer the unusual questions presented by the Open.

It's easy and good fun to dump on them, but who can blame them?  It can be so quirky and I can't imagine how maddening it would be to get stuck on wrong side of the draw....  It's the greatest golf in the world, but it presents challenges with a scorecard in one's pocket.

Is another 62 likely? -Ernie (@efahey81)

If a hard wind doesn't blow, it's very likely. The course is effectively playing about 6,000 yards, the greens are pretty flat and very pure, and the rough is not particularly penal. Nasty weather is the course's only defense. Here's hoping.

No kidding... Add in some rain on Friday to take the heat out of the place, I could see a guy with an early tee time Saturday and nothing to lose threatening that 62.  Do we think that will wake up our governing bodies?   Time for another segue, this time a curious story:

Thirty players, including seven major champions, arrived at the 147th Open and received a letter from the R&A notifying them to bring their respective drivers to the equipment standards office located on Carnoustie’s practice ground by 5 p.m. on Tuesday. 

Keegan Bradley, Brendan Steele and Brooks Koepka all confirmed that their drivers all passed the COR test (coefficient of restitution, or spring-like effect) administered by the R&A.

This was the first time the R&A took measures that were not part of the distance insight project being done in conjunction with the USGA. 

The PGA Tour has been testing club for approximately five years but has not done random testing to this point. The Tour’s rules department works in conjunction with manufacturers and tests clubs from manufacturer fans at tournaments on a voluntary basis. The USGA assists the PGA Tour in this process.

I don't know what to make of this, but here's Shack's take:

Thirty players were greeted with letters from the R&A ordering them to offer up their drivers for a COR test. It's not clear if the tests were random or if the players were specially chosen by their manufacturer affiliation or driving distance average.

Welcome to Scotland!

There are two ways of looking at this.

The sunny side up take would believe this is just part of normal monitoring and amidst some rumblings that this year's distance increase could be fueled by hot drivers. 

The cynical take says this is the act of a desperate governing body looking for something to blame this year's increases on, instead of simply anticipating that a combination of technology, athleticism, fitting and a generation of players reared on modern clubs have passed the testing procedures by. AKA, anything not to do something about the Joint Statement of Principles.

 OK, let's not harsh the mellow any more than is necessary.....  Back to Alan:

Which non-rota links courses most deserves to host an Open Championship? I acknowledge logistics, access, accommodation and other unfortunate factors limit the field but setting those aside... which course should welcome the Champion Golfer of the Year? -Ian (@DizzyG1964) 

It has to be Royal Dornoch, given the course's grandeur, history and the stern test it presents. It has a special feel and some truly epic holes. The raised, crowned greens – which local boy Donald Ross would export to Pinehurst – make Dornoch unlike any other championship course in the linksland. It's high time it gets the ultimate championship, remote location be damned.

I love Dornoch as much as the next guy, but find little value in these types of discussions.  So much of Dornoch's charms lie in its remote location and small-town vibe, why even speak of ruining that.

There's more:

Is our guy IJP just a poor misunderstood soul. -@fakePOULTER 

To some degree, yes. But how many other players are compelling marshals to fire off persnickety letters to tournament directors?! There's no doubt that Poults has become a magnet for yahoo fan behavior and it's unfortunate he has to deal with that. But at some point you have to ask, why does all the bad juju swirl around this one player?

Hey, I'm still wondering why that dark cloud follows Robert Allenby everywhere.....

Do you think Tom Watson's near-win in ‘09 at age 59 would have been the greatest accomplishment in golf history? -@JoeGunter 

How about sports history? This is the one week each year when we get to rue what might have been. But I've come to believe it's better that Watson didn't win. He's such a crusty character, I think the tragic hero role suits him better.

He certainly took it well, reminding all at his post-loss presser that nobody had died.

Golf was meant to be played firm and fast like at the Open Championship. Is there any way to have golfers in the U.S. embrace this? #BrownIsOk -@RonVyse 

I believe that this century water is going to be what oil was in the last century: a precious resource over which wars are waged. As the global population continues to explode, lush, emerald-colored golf courses are going to become more rare, so I think golfers everywhere are going to have to learn to love burnt-out conditions. I mean, who doesn't enjoy getting an extra 20 yards of roll off the tee? But one problem in this discussion is Augusta National. It has become the paragon of golf in this country and brainwashes viewers into thinking that's what a course is supposed to look like. The USGA is trying to fight back – Pinehurst, Chambers Bay, Erin Hills and Shinnecock were all varying shades of brown. This Open Championship is going to be so much fun to watch I think it will help further nudge folks in the right direction.

One thing I was quickly taught out in Utah, is that in the West everything already is about water.....  This is too big a topic for today, but American courses are already learning how to use less water, but within limits.  We're constrained by heat and the resulting grasses used, so I'll have to continue to trundle to GB&I to satisfy my links Jones.

More tomorrow, I think, but I really must start the packing thing....  

Tuesday Tastings

An abbreviated version thereof, as Bobby D. and your humble blogger are getting in one last round before my departure Thursday.

Open Stuff - The Monday of Open week has it's own tradition, namely this:

That guy ceding possession would have us believe that all is well in Jordan-world:

"But my game feels good. I needed a break. I was kind of dragging along, cut-line golf for a while, and playing a pretty heavy schedule, and I needed to kind of get away from the game, which I did. 

"An Open Championship requires a lot of feel and imagination, and I think that's what I need. I'd gotten very technical, very into making everything perfect, instead of playing the way I normally play. So this week you don't know how far the ball is necessarily going to go off the tee. You need to play the spots, and then you have to use your imagination from there. Hold the ball. Ride the wind." 

Play the bounces. Pack a ski cap. Find your ball. Mark your ball. Avoid the bunkers. Take your medicine. Sharpen your tees. Accept bad bounces. Slug those uphill putts. Chart the port-a-johns. Also the leaderboards. Count your clubs. And your blessings. Jordan Spieth is wrapping up his reign as the champion golfer of the year, unless he's not. Either way, you think he's worried?

He may well not be worried, but others are on his behalf.

John Feinstein has an open....err, excuse me, Open love letter to the Open.  As you might have heard, it's the oldest of golf's championships:

I like to remind people that the first Masters was played in 1934—a mere SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS after the first Open Championship.

And this from a guy that adapted to the Open quite well:

The best description I ever heard of why the Open Championship is unlike any other came from Tom Watson, unofficially an honorary Scot after winning the championship five times and coming within inches of a sixth win nine years ago at the age of 59. 

Tommy Armour from his 1931 title.

“Golf in Great Britain is like baseball in the States,” he once said to me. “Even if you don’t play baseball, you grow up understanding it. You can tell the difference between a routine play and a great play. You know when you’ve seen something special. 

“That’s the way golf is in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Even if you don’t play it regularly as an adult, you understand it. The fans there go to tournaments to watch golf—not sit in a corporate tent and tell people they saw some star go past. They come to watch golf. They appreciate golf. They know that sometimes a shot that ends up 30 feet from the hole is a lot more impressive than a shot that ends up 10 feet. 

“As a player, you feel it; you feel their understanding of the game and their ability to understand how hard the game really is to play.”

John, I think it is pretty much official by now...Heck, they were even nice to him at Gleneagles in 2014.

 But this is just plain wrong:

Links courses need to be protected by the weather. That’s why the Scots say, ‘if it’s nae wind and nae rain, it’s nae golf.’ 

There will be nae tricking up of the golf courses. If the weather’s benign this week at Carnoustie, the winning score will be something close to the seven-under par that Harrington and Sergio Garcia shot to play off in 2007. If there’s rain and wind, it will likely be closer to the six-over that Paul Lawrie, Justin Leonard and Jean Van de Velde played off at after Van de Velde’s infamous Sunday 18th hole triple-bogey.

has John already sent Inspector Dawson's "treatment" down the memory hole....  I suggest he check out the whirlpool bunkers he added to the second hole on the Old Course... and about that stoppage for wind in 2015?

Quibbles aside, his larger point is true enough, the R&A does seem more hands-off in allowing the scoring to be determined by weather conditions....

This guy is getting some love as a pick to win the event, but folks are ill-served if they over-interpret  a certain data point:

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland—Just nine months ago Tommy Fleetwood took arguably the

toughest track in the Open Championship rota and made it look ordinary, shooting a course-record 63 at Carnoustie during his second round at the European Tour’s annual Dunhill Links Championship. 

Ordinarily, it would be a confidence-boosting moment for the 27-year-old Englishman as he returns to the Scottish links to play in this week’s Open, particularly, too, after shooting a closing 63 in the U.S. Open at another tricky course, Shinnecock Hills, last month. Except the Carnoustie that Fleetwood—and the rest of the Open field—will see this week is far different from anything they’ve previous faced. Dry conditions over the last five weeks have created a firmer-and-faster course than anything seen in October at the Dunhill, or during the last two Opens played at Carnoustie in 1999 and 2007.

On the flip side, I expect he'll still own that record on Monday.

Lastly, does the UK not have laws governing elder abuse?

It's been a bit of an off year for Aussie Adam Scott, who has recorded only one top ten finish on the PGA Tour thus far this season, but the 2013 Masters champion has had

several close calls at the British Open over the years, and pulling a veteran caddie out of retirement for the week may be just the boost his game needs. 

According to the Australian Associated Press, Scott has tapped legendary Swedish caddie Fanny Sunesson to carry his bag at Carnoustie, having recently parted with former bagman David Clark.

He's making an old woman carry his luggage?  I though he was raised better than that....

Tiger Scat -  The man finally comments on the silly-money match with Phil:

"We are still working on it," Woods said. "It's not there yet, but certainly we are working on it and trying to make it happen."

Kind of passive, no?  Is it me or does he sound wishy-washy?

As to Patrick Reed's suggestion that they play for their own money:

"Well, of course that's what he would like to see," Woods said, smiling. "I would like to see him put up that money."

"It's a ridiculous amount of money," he said. "No matter how much money you have, this amount will take both of us out of our comfort zone."

They're really milking that "comfort zone" talking point, but how tight will the collars actually be?  I have little doubt that they'll want to win just for the bragging rights, but the money seems the least of it...

Alex Myers has a useful lists of Tiger prop bets:

Tiger Woods makes cut

Yes -350

No +250 

Tiger Woods wins

Yes +2400

No -2900 

Tiger Woods finishes top 5

Yes +600

No -900

Tiger Woods finishes top 10

Yes +270

No -400 

Tiger Woods finishes top 20

Yes +140

No -170 

Tiger Woods finishing position

Over 25.5 (-115)

Under 25.5 (-115) 

Tiger Woods lowest round

Over 69.5 (-110)

Under 69.5 (-120) 

Tiger Woods highest round

Over 75.5 (-110)

Under 75.5 (-120) 

Tiger Woods highest score on any hole

Over 7 (-110)

Under 7 (-120)

Tiger Woods total double bogeys or worse

Over 3 (-110)

Under 3 (-120) 

Tiger Woods within 5 strokes of lead during final round

Yes +225

No -300

 Three double bogeys?  He's got that in his bag, at least assuming he'll play all four days....

Hogan, Reimagined? - John Barton has an odd item in Golf Digest about the Hogan mystique, though he never actually gets around to the reimagining promised in the header.  It's a fairly good primer on the life and times of Hogan, including this bit about Carnoustie:

Carnoustie 

The Scots invented the word dour perhaps to describe some of its sleepy seaside towns like Carnoustie, whose granite-gray high street is visited by howling North Sea winds and other brutal meteorological conditions for which, again, only Scottish words will do: dreich, snell, drookit, fret. Carnoustie was the kind of place young men couldn’t wait to leave: for a night out in Dundee, a job down south in London perhaps, or maybe even a new life in America. When the PGA of America was founded, in 1916, nearly half of the 82 pros were Scottish emigrés from these parts.

It does seem as if Scottish and Yiddish were separated at birth, no?  But this is the grimmest of the Open venues, but quite perfect for Hogan's one appearance.

And this about that amazing week in 1953:

However, in July 1953, with the nation still on its knees from World War II—meat was still being rationed—an American visitor came to town. He was no ordinary tourist. Ben Hogan was making his first and only appearance in the Open Championship. That spring, he had won the Masters by five strokes and then the U.S. Open by six. His arrival in Carnoustie was a visitation, an apparition akin to Captain Cook landing on the shores of Hawaii two centuries before (but with a happier outcome). He was elegant, stylish, cool. There were tales of expensive cashmere long johns. 

"He was a total mystery,” says Peter Alliss, who finished the week tied ninth. “He was from another planet. We were all in awe of him. He had an aura.” 

Carnoustie is easily the toughest of the British Open courses: long, unrelenting, unforgiving. Dour. The perfect choice for Hogan. Over four rounds, with little fuss or fanfare, he skillfully took the links apart. When he chipped in for a birdie on the fifth hole in the last round, en route to a 68 and a four-stroke win, he didn’t even smile. The Scots took to Hogan because he was understated, muted, polite. The quiet American.

I've long thought that the Scots saw a bit of themselves in Hogan.  But I'm always reminded of Hogan's kindness to Jack Fleck, in whom he no doubt saw a kindred spirit.  

That he could go over only the once and win remains quite an achievement, testimony to his greatness.  The rest is really mere pop psychology....

I Blame Greg Norman - Alarmingly, he's not the only Aussie with a penchant for public displays.  I recommend that anyone planning to eat soon skip this item....or perhaps, ever:

Has Greg Norman started a movement? 

Just two weeks after the Australian golf star bared it all for ESPN's Body Issue, an Australian nudist couple, Bruce Jensen and Julie Jarvie, hosted the first Wandering Bears Nude Golf Day at Humpty Doo Golf Club, according to Northern Territory News. 

Jensen, who owns the nearby Brujul Nude Retreat, is a regular player at Humpty Doo, and realized that the relatively quiet setting would allow him to make a public course go fully-privates.

But this being Oz, they've got the white sock thing going:

Can you even buy no-show socks there?  Are there any nudists under the age of 70?

Weekend Wrap

And what a weekend it was...  Your humble correspondent will soon have his name engraved on the prestigious Roy Benjamin Cup, though I was disappointed that I can't take it home and abuse it for the next year.  But that's probably not what you came here to read about....

There Is Nothing Like a Dame - It wasn't exactly competitive, but little doubt that the best player won:

WHEATON, Ill. (AP) — Laura Davies immediately recognized the significance of having her name inscribed on the first U.S. Senior Women's Open trophy. 

It might be a long time before anyone secures the title as emphatically as Davies did.

Davies went virtually unchallenged in Sunday's final round of the inaugural USGA championship for women 50 and older, claiming the title by 10 strokes over Juli Inkster. 

"It's great seeing this (trophy) paraded down for the very first time and I get my name on it first, you know?" Davies said. "This championship will be played for many years and there will only be one first winner — obviously a proud moment for me to win that."

The appeal for me was the venue, as most of these gals hadn't played competitively in quite some time.  

The weekly Tour Confidential panel surprisingly had a moment for this event, after their deeper dive into all things Carnoustie:

5. Laura Davies cruised in the inaugural U.S. Senior Women's Open, finishing 16 under and beating runner-up Juli Inkster (four under) by 10. Only two other players finished under par, and everyone outside of the top 20 was 12 over or worse. The average score for the week was 79. Davies's domination and the parity of scores begs the question, does the USGA have a problem on its hands when it comes to this tournament? Are there only a handful of players who can actually win it?

Zak: Um, hell no. The problem with this tournament was that it was broadcast for a total of four hours this week. There is absolutely no problem with the generic truth that they hosted a national championship about 40 years after they first should have. They should be applauded, regardless of what Davies or the rest of the field shot.

Yup.  Limiting coverage to the weekend denied us any look at the front nine of Chicago Golf Club, which of course was the point (reducing their costs of covering an event whose audience would be....err....let's go with limited).

Passov: The inaugural Senior Women's Open reminded me a lot of the inaugural Senior Men's Open, in 1980, which was limited to players 55 and over. Roberto DeVicenzo won with one over, but there weren't a lot of folks who played well or came close — partly because many of them had played little competitive golf in years, especially on the caliber of test that Winged Foot (East) presented. Give this new event some time and you'll see much more competition and competitive scores.

On the one hand, that comparison is quite apt.  On the other, I don't see things as optimistically as Joe.  The USGA quickly reduced the eligibility age to 50 to allow the 51-year old Arnold Palmer to play, but the ladies don't have an Arnie....  

It would be nice to think that in future years the ladies would show up more battle-tested, but where are they gonna play?

Did you see the tees Laura used when hitting driver?  Tricked ya, she pounds the turf and tees it up thoroughly old school.... Before they had actual cups, they used to grad a handful of sand from the hole and perch their gutta percha on that....  

He's Got The Stones for It -  Sorry, kids, but we'll all have to learn a new name:

GULLANE, Scotland (AP) — Brandon Stone sank to his haunches and dropped his putter in despair after narrowly missing out on becoming the first player to shoot a round 

of 59 on the European Tour. 

It wasn't all bad for the South African golfer, though. 

Stone's 10-under 60 secured a four-shot victory at the Scottish Open on Sunday, earning him a third professional title of his career — the first outside his native country — and the bonus prize of a qualifying spot in next week's British Open just up the east coast at Carnoustie. 

He also left the Gullane links with a slight sense of regret.  

Stone's approach to the 18th green skipped on and came to rest about 8 feet from the hole. His caddy hadn't let him look at a scoreboard all day, so it was only as Stone walked toward the green that he was informed he had a birdie putt for a 59.

In light of some of the courses they play, it's quite shocking that no one has broken through sixty on the Euro Tour.  But Stone does seem to be the sort of golf nerd we'll like:

Q. And you have a wedding present now of Hickory Golf Clubs. Is that correct?

BRANDON STONE: I do indeed. I don't think it's going to last until the wedding, though, if I'm brutally honest. I think I'm going to get home; I just had a Southwest green put in my house and probably picked up the purist putter I've ever seen in my entire life. It's probably got about 12 degrees of loft on it, 29 inches, but it just sits so flush. So I'm going to be on that. My fiancée was under no illusions that when she bought them for me that they wouldn't be boxed and wrapped up until the wedding. But hey, what are you going to do? 

Q. How did that come about? What prompted that?

BRANDON STONE: Just drove past the store, if I'm brutally honest. I mean my fiancée is always giving me a little bit of sticks in that she can't buy someone who has everything something. So when we drove past the Hickory store on Monday afternoon, I said, that would be quite cool. So she was like, perfect. So we went and popped in there yesterday afternoon, and obviously I went to college at the University of Texas, and there was just this beautiful set of burnt orange, untreated leather-gripped Hickories, and I was like, bang, go, 400 pounds later, smiling. Been chipping in the garden at the house all week. I think that might have been helping me because that wedge has got zero bounce on it, so the moment you get a little bit of bounce you feel like you can conquer the world.

It was a hickory-infused week at Gullane...  They had a closest to the pin contest early in the week:

Hickory shafts, gutta percha golf balls.... and ProTracer?  Worlds colliding, but good fun.

That Patrick Reed offering got expensive for the Masters champion:

But it was more than scoring that drew the Masters champion to venture just a block away from Gullane Golf Club’s 18th green and plunk down significant pounds on two sets of playable hickories, one for his own fun and another for brother-in-law Kessler

Karain.

“I’d never hit hickory clubs before or an old golf ball like that,” said Reed, who has experimented with hitting persimmons until cracking a few with modern golf balls. “I finally found a spot that actually had them, so I got a set and I’m excited to take them home.” 

The spot in question is Boris Lietzow’s resurrected Jack White shop specializing in restored, playable hickories and no shortage of insights from the 46-year-old who handles all of the restoring and repairing himself. 

Lietzow’s passion for White’s clubs from the early 20th century is well known in the growing world of hickory golf where he serves Chief Executive of the World Hickory Open. While the White legacy of clubmaking in Gullane is a focus –White was a club supplier to Bobby Jones — Lietzow is also one of the world’s foremost experts on the industry of club making that once dominated this region.

I know where I'm going next time I'm in East Lothian, which is long overdue.

 And this:

Boris Lietzow at work.

Lastly, it's hard to know what to make of this story involving Ian Poulter:

A Gullane man named Quintin Jardine, who volunteered at this week's European Tour event, penned a post on his personal blog panning Poulter's behavior and sharing a letter

he wrote to the tournament director. Titled "Ian Poulter is an arsehole," Jardine claims the tour pro verbally "abused" and displayed "aggression" at him after he informed Poulter his tee shot on the first hole had disappeared into a bush. 

Jardine also says Poulter was upset that Jardine didn't walk into the bush because if he stepped on the ball as a marshal, Poulter would be entitled to a free drop. Whereas if Poulter stepped on his ball, he'd be penalized. Here's how Jardine ended his letter:

My first inclination was to do no more that slaughter Mr Poulter on my blog and Facebook page, but now I feel that I have a duty on behalf of all the other volunteers to bring the incident to the Tour’s attention," Jardine wrote. "I’m not asking for him to be fined, because I don’t see the point of that. However I would like him to be reminded that even though most of the world knows you’re an arsehole, there’s no need to go proving it to the rest. I will take his apology as read, but if he wants to make it in person, I’m not hard to find in Gullane.

Let's see... do I take an unknown marshal's word over an established Tour player's?  But the best part is that the Tour player defends himself by noting that it's been years since he's beaten his wife:

Yeah, that's the ticket....

The Deere - I respect my readers so, that I'll not even pretend to care....  You're on your own with this one.

Open Week - I have some bad news for you, that we'll get to in a bit....  But first, let's talk about the week that is upon us.  In watching the golf from Gullane, we were treated to some aerial views of Carnoustie, and the theme for the week is Earth tones....  By all accounts it's a s baked out as we've seen an Open in a while.

Bob Harig watched Tiger play an abbreviated practice round, and these bits are getting a lot of press:

"I have missed not playing The Open in a while because this is our oldest tournament," Woods said. "And then coming here to Carnoustie, it is special. This is my fourth time

playing it as a tournament. From my first time coming here as an amateur to being back now, it's just amazing how this course doesn't change. It is right in front of you. It's hard. It's probably the most difficult one we play in the whole rotation." 

The course is already rife with examples of players finding the ball going extraordinary distances, whether it be due to the wind or the firm and fast conditions. For example, Woods hit a 7-iron off the No. 4 tee to position himself short of bunkers; it went 215 yards. His normal distance with that club is 180. 

"Right now the fairways are faster than the greens," he said. "I am sure they will probably speed the greens up a touch, but I'm sure this will be one of those weeks where the fairways are a little quicker than the greens."

 That TC panel took this on, though the question seems a bit on the obvious side:

1. The conditions of Carnoustie have become one of the early storylines of the British Open, as it's among the many Scottish courses affected by an usually warm summer. "Carnoustie is baked out but greens are pure," tweeted Brandt Snedeker, who isn't in the top 100 in driving distance, yet hit a 427-yard drive during a practice round. "Never seen an Open this firm." Does this mean bombers will have a huge advantage, or does it mean they'll have less of an edge since, due to space, they might not be able to hit the big stick everywhere?

Sean Zak: It means the ball is going to run, run, run for everyone. Players will have to be dialed in to where they're landing approach shots, and whoever putts best when they get there will win. In other words, this is a different type of golf, and the best golfer will win, regardless of how far they drive it.

Joe Passov: Winds look average for the week and coming from the "normal" direction for this time of year, so the baked fairways will definitely not favor the big hitters. Simply too many nasty bunkers for the ball to chase into and that's the one place you can't go. Conservative plays and course management will rule this week.

Everyone and their cousin are comparing this to Hoylake '06, when Tiger famously hit one driver the entire week.  Makes it wide open, with the possibility of  devolving into a putting contest.

This guy might not hit even that many drivers:

Self-awareness has not been Phil Mickelson’s strong suit of late, but The Forecaddie had

to chuckle at Lefty’s repeated references to having a big advantage when he doesn’t have to hit driver. 

Even though Mickelson’s driving has been better in 2018 — it couldn’t get much worse — do not expect Mickelson to carry the big stick at Carnoustie. 

“I’m either going to carry a driver or that hot 3-wood, but there’s only two or three holes — there’s actually only two holes I plan on using it, both par 5s,” he told The Man Out Front after his Carnoustie scouting trip. 

Mickelson’s plans to lean heavily on “a low 1-iron” he used at the Scottish Open to take advantage of links conditions. 

“I would say that when it’s windy, it really is an advantage for me because drivers are not necessary,” he said in one of many references to the confidence he gets from relying on his knock-down stingers.

The last time I remember Phil playing with no driver was Torrey Pines in '08, and he couldn't find a fairway without a compass (the reader may insert his or her own DeChambeau joke here).   Phil being Phil, I would think these conditions call for at least two drivers.

Back to the TC gang for their thoughts on Tiger:

Zak: Stinger, fairway. Stinger, fairway. Stinger, fairway. He's a ridiculous ball-striker and if he putts like an average guy, he'll be in the mix. Just keep those damn tee balls near the ground.

Passov: Tiger knows how to play the kind of golf called for this week better than anyone — just witness, as Mr. Sens referenced, his play at Hoylake in 2006. Virtually all the trouble at Carnoustie is getting to the greens, not on them. I think Tiger will enjoy success on these greens and will contend.

Yes, but I'd like him more if the wind was howling.  With modest winds it ain't exactly rocket science as to how to get around a hot links course, as they've all seen the Hoylake video.  I'm thinking he'll need to have a good putting week, and all season long he's been flummoxed by slower greens..... 

And the winner is....  Here are their picks:

Zak: Branden Grace wins one for South Africa at 12 under. 

Bamberger: Brandt Snedeker. Four under. 

Ritter: Jon Rahm gets Europe on the board and further boosts the Ryder Cup intrigue, 10 under. 

Sens: Dustin Justin. Eight under. 

Passov: Tommy Fleetwood, final-round 63, for an 11-under total, 273.

Branden Grace seems like so three years ago.... I must admit, the Rahm pick seems awfully curious when the driver is his biggest weapon.  

For those enamored of train wrecks, Josh Sens has your worst Open collapses of all time.  Of course that French guy figures prominently, though I actually think this one was the more significant:

ADAM SCOTT

Year: 2012

Venue: Royal Lytham

Great Scott? More like a sub-par Aussie, who had a four-shot lead with four to play but went on to make four bogeys in four different fashions. Let us count the ways: The first resulted from an errant approach into a green-side bunker; the second from a three-putt; the third from a six-iron into the fescue; the fourth from a 3-wood into a fairway bunker. Meanwhile, up ahead, Ernie Els was banking birdies. On the 18th hole, Scott faced a 7-footer to force a playoff, but his putt strayed left. His body sagged. "Wow!" Scott mouthed. You can say that again.

First and foremost, he was the far better player than Van de Velde, and it was a slow-motion train wreck.  Also, we get to dump on Stevie, who allowed Scott to hit 3-wood off the final tee.  If you know Lytham, it's befuddling, since all it accomplished was to bring the bunkers into play.  It's a tee shot where either driver to carry the bunkers or iron to stay short is defensible, but 3-wood is what you hit if you want to avoid the playoff, on the losing side.

Joel Beall digs deeper, ironically in a story about a different Argentine, for this more significant collapse:

There is a golf course in Argentina’s Mendoza province, tucked away in the countryside’s vineyards and olive orchards, that boasts a replica of Carnoustie’s 17th hole. The Scottish salvo resides in South America thanks to José Jurado, although it’s unlikely he would see it as such. Known as the “Godfather of Argentinean Golf,” Jurado was leading the 1931 Open Championship before his drive found the Barry Burn on the 17th. He doubled the hole and bogeyed the 18th, losing the title to Tommy Armour by a stroke. “Jurado, a dazed man, went through the crowd and into the room reserved for the players behind the first tee,” The Scotsman reported, “and broke down completely and cried like a child.” Juardo would refer to that Open as "painful" and "my nightmare."

Hey, I cry like a child every time I make a double...

Today in Agenda Journalism - The press isn't even pretending anymore, as this lengthy item on Trump Turnberry makes ever so clear:

This is the first edition of a weekly column in which I hope to expose, explore, and analyze the financial activity of our President and his associates—including his family,

his political appointees, and business partners—and make the case for greater transparency. We know, of course, that the Trump Organization has worked with some truly questionable business associates, that it has run afoul of anti-money-laundering laws, and that its most high-profile business expansion—a line of three- and four-star hotels—has all but collapsed. But, for all the coverage of Trump’s finances, there is so much we just don’t know. And Trump Turnberry offers a tantalizing and maddeningly incomplete glimpse into the ways in which our President makes and spends money.

Note that he ledes with "expose", regardless of how maddeningly incomplete his knowledge is.  I guess they're following the Queen's rules, Sentence first, trial later.

Now the piece is rife with statements such as this:

We know so little about the internal finances of the Trump Organization’s activities elsewhere that it is hard to understand where all of the money spent on Turnberry came from.

A lesser man might be deterred by that lack of knowledge, but we're not so lucky here.

And we have  yet another candidate to worst appeal to authority:

In congressional testimony, Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Christopher Steele to report out the document that became known as the Steele dossier, wondered aloud if the money really was Trump’s. If so, why would he have spent it in this location and not elsewhere? (A recent report by R&A, the world’s leading golf organization, shows that there is far more opportunity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—where golf is growing quickly—than in Scotland, the country most oversupplied with courses, clubs, and resorts.)

In English, idle musings from the guy that financed the discredited dossier, do tell....  As for that bit about golf being overbuilt in Scotland, perhaps...  But it could be viewed as a trophy property in the Open Rota, and those aren't to be found in Bangladesh.

But wait for it, you know there have to be Russians under the bed:

Instead, Trump turned to a new source of other people’s money. He did a series of deals in Toronto, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Azerbaijan, and Georgia with businesspeople from the former Soviet Union who were unlikely to pass any sort of rigorous due-diligence review by pension funds and other institutional investors. (Just this week, the Financial Times published a remarkably deep dive into the questionable financing of Trump’s Toronto property.) He also made deals in India, Indonesia, and Vancouver, Canada, with figures who have been convicted or investigated for criminal wrongdoing and abuse of political power.

A pox on all these folks...  I can believe anything about Trump, I just can't believe anything these people tell me.  I grew up with David Remnick, who is a smart guy in a certain sense, but this is just agenda journalism.  Stick to poetry and cartoons, Davis.

That Bad News -  Scotland and Ireland are having a hot dry summer, with course achieving peak linksyness.  Naturally, your humble correspondent is headed to..... France.  Where they'll be full of themselves over the World Cup, though it's not a people that are known to Lord it over Yanks....  I kid.

Worst of all, we leave Thursday night, meaning you'll have to get through the Open Championship mostly without me.  More importantly, I don't like my chances of seeing much of The Open, as we'll be drinking way too much wine in the Loire Valley those days.

At this juncture, I am undecided as to whether I'll tote the laptop and try to blog the trip.  After the Loire, we'll be on a barge meandering the River Saône, and they've not promised more than 3G Internet to us.  Even that might not be available,at some moorings, so it may not be worth the lugging.  I'll be here through the week and try to let you know whether to check i during our journey.

Your Friday Frisson

They're in short sleeves in Gullane, and torching the place.  

Dispatches From Wheaton, IL - With Fox unable or unwilling to break into their weekday lineup, the ladies are playing in a bubble:

WHEATON, Ill. – Laura Davies’ 10-foot eagle putt on the last hole at Chicago Golf Club did not ease the pain of England’s World Cup loss. Hoisting the trophy at the inaugural

U.S. Senior Women’s Open, however, would surely do the trick. Davies’ 2-under 71 puts her one back of Elaine Crosby, a 60-year-old from Michigan who played on the LPGA from 1985 to 2000. 

Trish Johnson, winner of the inaugural Senior LPGA Championship, joins Davies and Liselotte Neumann at 2 under. Helen Alfredsson (1 under) rounds out the fivesome who broke par on Day 1. 

“You stand on the tee and you think, right, you can take this place apart,” said Davies, “but you know that’s not actually going to happen because the tees are generous … they let you get that, and then your second shot has to be in the right quadrant of the green because they’re big, square-ish greens.” 

Putting mired what could’ve been a low round for the World Golf Hall of Famer. She three-putted once from 4 feet and again from 10 feet.

From tee-to-green, she's very much Dame Laura....  On the short grass, alas, more of a commoner....

Also in the field is Golf Channel analyst Kay Cockerill, whose day started with this:

Golf Channel reporter Kay Cockerill overcame a serious case of the nerves to card a 1-over 74 in her first tournament (outside of a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier) since 1997. 

While Cockerill tried to get down some breakfast, she watched a six-minute video from Golf Channel co-workers – from engineers to commentators to producers – wishing her luck. 

“I was literally going back and forth between laughing and crying,” she said. 

Cockerill’s hands were shaking early, but a birdie on her second hole (No. 11) helped to settle her down.

Big deal, I go back and forth between laughing and crying on most Par-4's....

This lady may have lost her wedge, but the sense of humor seems intact:

JoAnne Carner, who striped the first tee shot at 7 a.m. to get the championship underway, shot her age – 79 – on the strength of a back-nine 1-under 36. Carner hadn’t walked 18 holes since 2004. When a USGA official asked if she planned to catch some action later in the day, Carner smiled and said “That’s the funniest.”

It's just good to see these ladies again.... 

You might also enjoy this aerial view of Chicago Golf Club.  It's a stunningly flat property, not especially suited to our game.  

Dispatches from Gullane Hill -  Luke List is leading, but the entire field is seemingly under par:

Luke List is a player known for possessing plenty of firepower, and he showed it

Thursday. 

The 33-year-old made nine birdies in the opening round of the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open to fire a 7-under 63 and take a one-shot lead over five players. 

List got it going early with four straight birdies from Nos. 3-6, and four more birdies from Nos. 11-15 solidified his lead score of 63. This is only the seventh career European Tour start for List, who has a best showing of T-36 in those events.

A second straight week of Chamber of Commerce weather, that's gotta be a first.  

As I've been typing, I've been treated to the show of Patrick Reed taking three to extricate himself from a greenside bunker.... I'm sure he's oh so glad he came over a week early....

The Scottish press got first crack at the smartest guy in golf, who seems to be dealing with some actual contrition:

Phil Mickelson has had nearly a month to reflect on the rules incident heard 'round the world at the U.S. Open, when he hit a moving ball on the 13th green at Shinnecock, and

he feels remorse for the intense backlash he received not only for the act itself, but also his cavalier attitude about it afterward. 

"I’ve had a rough month," he told the media after firing a first-round 70 in the Scottish Open. "I haven’t been my best. So I’m working at trying to fix that. I made a big mistake [at the US Open] and I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. There’s not much I can do about it now other than just try to act a little better. The backlash is my own fault."

"Not only was I not great on the course – I was not great after the round, either," Mickelson continued. "So it was just not a great day, and it was my birthday. So I tend to do dumb stuff on my birthday, too."

So Phil, what's your take-away from this?  I know, who am I kidding.

Dispatches From Quad Cities - First question: Is Wheatcroft the leader or one of the Quad Cities?

This is about the only newsworthy bit:

Bryson DeChambeau's John Deere title defense ended after only 15 holes on Thursday,

when he was forced to withdraw with a shoulder injury. 

DeChambeau received treatment on his right shoulder and then spoke with Golf Channel's Chantel McCabe. 

"They said there was some instability in the joint," DeChambeau said. "On 2, I hit the shot out of the rough on the right, and I just didn't feel right after that. I probably overloaded the muscle, my [deltoid], and that's something I gotta work on in the future, to get a little stronger so that stuff doesn't happen." 

"I've just got to take care of my body a little better," DeChambeau concluded.

As for his Open Championship prospects, DeChambeau is unsure at this point.

Will the condition become known as "Protractor Shoulder"?

Dispatches From The Soon-To-Be Loneliest Man in Golf -  Earlier this week, Alan Shipnuck was sharing some of the relationship he's developed with Tour professionals, both male and female.  Ironically, that's followed by this item, which its hard to imagine will help him score interviews looking forward:

The wimpification of golf: From pally Tour pros to foolproof equipment, today's game has gone soft

Here's the premise:

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but golf is going soft. Quite literally, as my plush FootJoy socks now come emblazoned with an L and an R, lest I can't figure it out on my own. The evidence is elsewhere in my golfing life: hybrids instead of long-irons; a laser

to gauge yardages so I no longer have to schlep to a sprinkler head; balls that fly forever but refuse to be scuffed, no matter how thin I catch my 9-iron; performance fabrics to spare me my own sweat. An 18-hole slog from the tips was the old standard, carrying my bag every step of the way. Now even the ruling bodies are encouraging me to tee it forward and just play nine.

As with many things in golf, the pro game sets the tone. It has even infected the caddies, who now get valet parking at some tournaments, for Pete's sake! Green reading was once a dark art, but every answer can now be found in those infernal yardage books, which have as many pages as a Tolstoy novel and are read at a similar pace. Having a good head of hair used to be a job requirement, but these days Tour caddies are paid to wear logoed caps. Even so, the most famous looper of recent times, Jim "Bones" Mackay, put down the bag in favor of an even cushier TV gig. Maybe he got tired of the pronoun "we"; Tour players now reflexively use it to talk about their "team." It sounds inclusive but really it's a shirking of the rugged individualism that made golf great. Wedidn't slice a drive off a hospitality tent on the 72nd hole to lose the U.S. Open...you did, pal.

Gee, who is he referencing with that last bit?   Must have been the birthday boy....

But he does name actual names, which is where it gets fun:

Given how soft players have become, it's surprising that Charmin isn't the official sponsor of the PGA Tour. At this year's Wells Fargo Championship, Bob Estes withdrew due to allergies. I like Estes and don't want to minimize his suffering, but Ray Floyd would've cut off his nose with a 1-iron before W/D'ing due to the sniffles. Similarly, do you think Ben F'ing Hogan would've worn shorts during practice rounds? Hubert Green won the 1977 U.S. Open playing through a death threat, and Jack Nicklaus spent years being heckled as Fat Jack by Arnie's Army, but now every noisy fan is in danger of getting tossed by a touchy-feely Tour pro. They are even bigger snowflakes on Twitter: Billy Horschel and Ian Poulter each has more blocks than Patrick Ewing.

Billy Ho and Poults?  Any body more, you know, popular?

Warriors from the days of yore were masters of gamesmanship who often played in stony silence. Now, the players vacation together and post cutesy photos about it on social media. Nick Faldo won the Claret Jug three times but refused to take so much as one drink out of it, so deep was his reverence. There isn't an important trophy Rickie Fowler hasn't imbibed from, even if none of them are his. The chumminess plays out between the ropes: there is currently an epidemic on Tour of "backstopping," whereby players don't mark their ball on the green if it's in a spot that might help slow down a competitor's ensuing, misplayed shot. I'm stymied by the very thought of it.

Alan, you might want to pull out that flak jacket for your next pressroom appearance....

Dispatches From Carnoustie -  Via Shack, remembrances of Hogan's win there in 1953:

Including a cameo from Bobby Locke. 

This, narrated by Jim Huber, is good as well:

You'll no doubt tire of hearing about Hogan and the 6th hole, but it's a daunting tee shot.  More importantly, Hogan wasn't physically able to make that trip more than the once, but he made the most of it.

But what to make of this curious piece at Golf Digest?

The Problem with Hogan 

Revisiting the Hogan mystique and what it means to be a man.

Say what?  I'm not one that thinks professional athletes have much to teach us about life, but I do like bad pop psychology.

Golf prides itself on its life lessons. The game comes with a set of rules, a tribe and

village elders. From role models like Hogan, boys can learn to be men (something many aren't learning at home: one in three American kids, like the teenage Hogan, don't live with their dad). They learn that the game is hard, and rewards are few. Good bounces can come disguised as bad bounces, and vice versa. Play the ball as it lies. No one saw you inadvertently break a rule? Call a penalty on yourself. Take dead aim. Don't complain; don't explain. Got a problem? Fix it. "Dig it out of the dirt." 

Yet Hogan was famously taciturn and cold. He eschewed small talk or, more accurately, talk. He hated giving interviews. He could stop a young autograph hunter in his tracks with an icy stare. As a kid, Hogan hovered like a disapproving eminence grise over my fledgling attempts to become a grown-up. He seemed like every hard-ass teacher I'd ever had at school, every disapproving ex-military British golf-club secretary who ever upbraided me and my friends for some absurdly petty transgression, every unnamed Victorian ancestor who peered unsmilingly out from old photograph albums. I read in one of Jack Nicklaus' autobiographies that he liked Hogan because he wasn't effusive, and in Nicklaus' view, effusiveness was bad. My ensuing monosyllabic attempt to be uneffusive was short-lived.

The author seems surprised that, having lived a hardscrabble life and possibly witnessed his father's suicide, Hogan might be  a tad taciturn....  Shocking, I know.

Perhaps Jack liked Hogan because he was authentic....  Read it if you must, but it seems to me to be profoundly silly.

Lastly, Alex Myers with a well-argued piece on a certain player's prospects:

Tiger Woods' winless drought in major championships has officially passed the decade mark, something unfathomable even five years ago when Woods resumed the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking during his most recent PGA Tour Player of the Year

campaign. Now 42 and having spent much of the time between that epic playoff victory at the 2008 U.S. Openbattling injuries, there's a distinct possibility Woods will finish his career with the 14 major titles he claimed by 32. But based on the golf he's displayed during his latest comeback, Tiger certainly has the potential to win another major (That's an actual major and not some big-money, made-for-TV match against Phil Mickelson). And his best chances to accomplish this will come at the Open Championship. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Tiger’s love of links golf: Every year golfers at the Open Championship wax poetic about their love of links golf. For many, it’s simply lip service, but not for Tiger, who genuinely enjoys the different challenges presented at golf's oldest major.

On the one hand, I always liked his chances best here and at Shinny....  But, given his struggles to finish off rounds on Thursday, a major seems to be a big ask.

That'll have to do for now... See you Monday.