Weekend Wrap

Your humble blogger is safely back in Western HQ, where they had 60" of snow in my absence....  Not that I'm counting, or anything.

A Rose By Any Other Name - From Golf.com's invaluable 30-second guide:

World No. 1 Justin Rose had a stranglehold on the Farmers Insurance Open through 54 holes, but he had some big-time players chasing him on Sunday in Adam Scott, Jon

Rahm, Rory McIlroy and more. Here’s what you missed on Sunday at the Farmers at Torrey Pines. 

Who won: Justin Rose (three-under 69, 21 under overall) 

How it happened: Rose opened the day with a three-shot lead over Scott and led Rahm by four, but his Sunday playing partners did little to threaten him early. Rose was even on the front, but so was Scott, and Rahm played the front side in one under, making Rose’s lead three at the turn. A birdie on 10 pushed Rose’s lead to four, and he won by two despite Scott birdieing the last four holes. Scott shot 68 and was alone in second place. 

Why it matters: It’s Rose’s 10th victory on the PGA Tour (to go with his 12 European tour wins), making him the winningest pro from England since 1945. 

Best fill-in caddie performance: Rose’s regular looper, Mark Fulcher, had heart surgery on Jan. 17, and Rose has used Gareth Lord in his absence until Fulcher can return. So far, so good. Rose and Lord, who used to caddie for Henrik Stenson, tied for 34th at the Desert Classic last weekend before winning this week. Fulcher, of course, was watching the win unfold.

I just hope that Gareth was aware that the going rate for fill-in caddies is $5,000, and that's only if you get the "W".  

The biggest winner was likely Honma, with an early return on their investment... Rose is an interesting case in the present moment, a superior ball-striker that has finally found a means to putt well enough to win consistently.  The remaining knock is just the one major, with 2013 seemingly long enough ago to have been in the persimmon era.

But the side stories might have been more interesting....  First, of course, the return of the Striped One, as covered by the Tour Confidential panel:

2. Tiger Woods saved his best for last at the Farmers, birdieing five of the final eight holes to shoot 67 on Sunday and tie for 20th. What should golf fans take away from Woods’s 2019 debut?

Zak: It was an impressive start to the season for a 43-year-old man. I kind of expected him to need some warm-up to really get going before playing well. But nope, not with Tiger. He played really well, even at a course where he’s expected to. Golf fans should expect him to be hitting the ground running and rightfully aiming to contend at every event.

Impressive, Sean?  I so hate to quibble (kidding, guys), but I'd stipulate to solid....  He was, after all, on the wrong side of the golf course the entire weekend, though he did seem to improve each day.

This exchange is amusing, though I suspect John Wood will be hearing from the Tour:

Wood: That Tiger is healthy, and he has a good understanding of what his body can do and will set his schedule accordingly. I wouldn’t expect him to chase any points lists. The rest of his career will be focused on four weeks a year. But I’m excited to see how healthy he looked and how much he seemed to be enjoying it.

Dethier: I am offended on behalf of the Tour at J. Wood’s suggestion that Tiger isn’t chasing FedEx Cup points (although deep down he surely has Presidents Cup points on the brain), but the solid showing reminded us that last year wasn’t a mirage. This felt like an engine rev and then a natural continuation.

But there was a far bigger controversy swirling around our Tiger....  After all, it's Sunday and, like Patrick at Augusta, what's up with the pink?

For twenty long years Tiger has been giving up nothing to the press, which he continued after Sunday's round:

Q: Big debate on TV this morning about whether that’s pink or red or orange. 

Tiger Woods: Yeah. 

Q. Do you have an answer? 

Woods: Yep.

Yep, there's that new Tiger we've heard so much about....

 This, of course, is why God had to invent Notah Begay, the Tiger whisperer:

Gotta be a Pulitzer in there for him, no?

Of course, everything takes a back seat to the hug heard 'round the world:

Justin Rose might be in the lead at the Farmers Insurance Open through three rounds, but that wasn’t the storyline that caught golf fans’ attention at Torrey Pines. Instead, it was

the reconciliation of the Jordan Spieth–Patrick Reedbromance on the first tee on Saturday. 

Paired up together for the third round, the two greeted each other warmly with a big hug and praised each other afterward. It was a moment that many golf fans had been waiting for.

“I laughed. I think he did, too,” Spieth said. “It was more kind of sarcasm towards [the media]. That was kind of, just, we knew the cameras were on and we knew people were interested in that, so I just thought it would be kind of funny.”

Sarcastic, eh?

Despite their moment of forgiveness on Saturday, Reed said that the Ryder Cup has not come up between the two when they have chatted.

“Literally when we got off the plane it was old news and we all moved on from there, so not really,” Reed said. “I mean, it’s really nothing. Jordan and I, we’ve moved on. We’re now just out here trying to play some good golf and trying to feed off of each other as well as just trying to go out and shoot low numbers.”

If you guys say so....  

Bryson In Full -  This is becoming rather a routine occurrence:

Bryson DeChambeau didn’t just win his first European Tour event – he ran away with it. The world No. 5 practically lapped the field to win the $3.25 million Omega Dubai Desert Classic. 

The 25-year-old returned a closing 8-under-par 64 to set a tournament record. His 24-under 264 total for a seven-shot win bettered by one the 72-hole record Haotong Li set last year. 

England’s Matt Wallace finished second on his own on 17 under. Spaniards Sergio Garcia and Alvaro Quiros, and Englishmen Ian Poulter and Paul Waring shared third place on 16 under. 

Dubai wasn’t just DeChambeau’s first European Tour victory, but his maiden international win to go with five on the PGA Tour.

He's winning a lot, and doing by a TD and PAT is really impressive.....

Of course he's still Bryson, terminally weird and all.  He had this after a second-round 66:

The 66 left DeChambeau happy and frustrated. More importantly, he’s in a terrific

position to win alongside 24 other players within four shots of the lead. 

“Still shooting six under, I was happy about that,” DeChambeau said. “Unfortunately, didn’t have the right sensations and proprioception over shots. I just felt uncomfortable unfortunately and was not ball-striking at my best. But hey, I mean shoot, I’m not complaining one bit.”

Don't you just hate when that happens?

Shack is there for us, with this from Wikipedia:

Proprioception (/ˌproʊprioʊˈsɛpʃən, -priə-/[1][2] PROH-pree-o-SEP-shən), is the sense of the relative position of one's own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.[3] It is sometimes described as the "sixth sense".[4]

 Glad we cleared that up.... 

As with Torrey, the more interesting stories are sidebars to the event itself, though perhaps of greater long-term import.

First, Haotong Li and his caddie might want to find themselves a rules seminar:

Haotong Li became the first high-profile player to run afoul of the new rule that bans a caddie from assisting in lining up a shot. 

The defending champion at the Dubai Desert Classic, Li was in position for another high finish when officials determined that Li’s caddie stood on a direct line behind his ball when he took his stance on the 18th green. The two-shot penalty turned his birdie into a bogey, his 71 became a 73, and he dropped from a tie for third into joint 12th – the difference of about $100,000. 

It’s one of the major changes in the new rules, which went into effect Jan. 1.

Again Shack is there for us with the wording of the new rule:

New Rule: Under Rule 10.2b(4):

The previous prohibition is extended so that, once the player begins taking a stance for the stroke, and until the stroke is made, the player’s caddie must not deliberately stand on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason.

There is no penalty if the caddie accidentally stands on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball, rather than in trying to help in lining up.

I'm not sure what I think here, because in watching the real-time video it seems so trivial.  Shack makes a spirited defense of the ruling and I recommend you watch the Morning Drive video embedded.  The Tour Confidential guys, however, capture many of my thoughts about intent:

Wood: This was PATHETIC. This was an overzealous rules official overstepping their bounds when they saw even the smallest opportunity to enforce one of the new rules. The caddie was in the final stages of reading the putt for his player, taking one last look and conveying what he saw to Haotong. They were conversing. Haotong hadn’t grounded his putter behind the ball. To the side, yes, but it’s more than a stretch to interpret his movement as addressing his ball. And why does intent matter for some rules but not for others? It boggles the mind that someone using a long putter can anchor it against their chest and make a stroke as long as they didn’t intend to anchor it, but in this case, intent is irrelevant. I know a caddie’s motions, and he wasn’t doing anything close to lining him up.

We can all find common ground to conclude that Euro Tour majordomo Keith Pelley's reaction  was a bit over the top, as Geoff covers in the linked post above.  he goes so far as to suggest that Pelley is trying to distract from his current PR issues related to this week's event.  Not to worry, we'll get to that one in a sec.

I've been saying from the start that intent is an awfully slippery slope, but that second paragraph above seems to imply just such a standard.  Back to you, Shack.

What Is To Be Done? - There might be more fireworks on the Euro Tour this week than on the American, no small matter when the PGA is at the Wasted....  But Mr. Pelley picked a really bad week to quit smoking:

Last spring European Tour CEO Keith Pelley announced a three-year partnership with Saudi Arabia that would bring golf to the Middle Eastern country. "We are very excited

to be taking the first steps toward bringing professional golf to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the first time and I must thank His Royal Majesty, Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for his vision in making this happen," Pelley said in March. Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Paul Casey were highlighted as early commits; Pelley would name drop Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka in the ensuing months as participants.

But the tournament has been complicated by matters that have transpired since. Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who lived in Virginia and was a critic of the Saudi government, was brutally assassinated—intelligence officials believe his body was drained of blood, cut in parts and dissolved in acid—at the country's ministry in Istanbul in October. After initially denying its role in Khashoggi's killing, Saudi Arabia has taken responsibility for his execution, with the Saudi attorney general announcing the murder was premeditated. Turkish officials and the United States intelligence community have asserted with "high confidence" that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing. 

Khashoggi's murder has put other Saudi Arabia human-rights issues into light, putting the European Tour, Pelley and players in a precarious position.

I absolutely love this story, though it's a difficult one to address.  And I do feel a bit for the players involved, as I'm not completely sure how I feel about the matter.  But there's so much nonsense and misinformation involved, that we cant' help but have some fun with it....

First, this from the man in the blue glasses was pretty lame:

European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley said he had no second thoughts about bringing a tour event to Saudi Arabia.

The European Tour has held events in the Middle East since 1989, and there are now six tournaments on the Arabian Peninsula, but never have they attracted so much attention.

“Our main focus is on the safety and security of our players and staff,” Pelley said 

Sunday on “Morning Drive”. “Like many global companies who operate in the region, we monitored the situation. … Having looked at that – and having done our due diligence in terms of the safety and security – we’re obviously moving forward and looking forward to this new chapter on the European Tour.” 

Pelley added that the event is an extension of the tour’s “Middle East strategy.”

Folks are outraged that the Euro Tour would hold an event in a brutal and oppressive country such as the Kingdom whereas, as noted above, the tour has been holding events in Middle Eastern countries for decades.  Are those regimes less oppressive and brutal?  

Shippy had this supporting point in the TC linked above:

Shipnuck: It’s interesting this one event is getting so much attention when a full quarter of the Euro tour schedule is played in authoritarian countries, including some of the biggest purses of the year. If the tour suddenly developed a conscience it would be in danger of going out of business.

But Pelley's assurance that no golfers will be chopped up and removed in garbage bags doesn't seem especially responsive to folks' concerns....  

The other aspect that continues to amuse me is the nature of Kashoggi himself, who is typically referred to as a Washington Post reporter. and critic of the Saudi regime  This is willful ignorance worthy of the Post itself, has Kashoggi has long been a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In other words, he opposed MBS and the Saudi's because his heart belongs to a different brutal political faction.  More recently, it became apparent that Kashoggi was an agent of the Qatari government....

Of course that doesn't justify his brutal murder, but this was very much an intramural skirmish.....

The players obviously don't know what to do...  One of our favorite pinatas had this:

Most players are interested in little else. "I'm probably not the most educated man in the world to sit down and have a discussion about politics," Ian Poulter told BBC Sport. 

"I tend to err on the other side and try not to go too deep into that because my IQ is not great. 

"Obviously, we all know what's going on around the world, but when I see the tour trying to make good and give us opportunities then I think it is a good thing."

See how we build bridges here....  We've already found common ground on Ian's IQ not being so great.

Remember recently we were giving Eddie Pepperell props fro his Twitter game?  More common ground is to be found in the revoking that credit:

Thud!

I'm going to leave you here and we'll pick things up tomorrow. 

Back In The Saddle

Man, I missed you guys....  Shall we pick up the thread?

Torrey, Torrey, Torrey - Golf.com has a helpful piece on everything I missed from Round 1:

Tiger’s round was up and down 

Currently the world’s 13th-ranked player, Woods had expectations running high — especially at a tournament where he’s thrived in the past. (Woods has eight career wins at Torrey Pines). 

But Round 1 was pretty meh for the Big Cat, whose five birdies were mitigated by three bogeys. He finished at two under on the day, currently T51 and eight shots shy of Jon Rahm’s lead.

It was on the South Course, so it's not a horrible day....  

Speaking of Rahm… 

After battling the flu and rallying to finish 6th at last week’s Desert Classic in La Quinta, Jon Rahm proved he has plenty of firepower left in the tank with an impressive first-round score of 62 on Thursday. That’s 10 under par! 

Rahm made two eagles on his opening nine (Nos. 10 and 17) and carded seven birdies, including four in a row on holes 5-8.

Not all that helpful since Jessica Marksbury couldn't be troubled to tell us which course they played....  I'm guessing she wasn't hired for her deep knowledge of our game...

The biggest issue to come out of Torrey is no doubt pizzagate....  What, you haven't heard?  

Talk about a slice problem. During Wednesday’s Farmers Insurance Pro-Am, Tiger Woods headed to a concession tent operated by Dang Brother Pizza in search of a snack. The 80-time Tour winner crossed Torrey Pines’s 13th tee box to get to the tent…and got rejected. 

“They aren’t letting us serve right now,” the attendant, Daniel Johnston, told Woods sheepishly. Woods laughed off the incident, which Brandon Stone of KUSI News captured on video.

OK, now nobody but me seems to find the reason they weren't serving outrageous:

“No comment,” Johnson said later with a smile. Stone reported that the rejection came from bad timing: the health inspector was conducting a status check.

This is mad hatter stuff, a food inspector shutting down a concession during an event.  I know it's The People's Republic of California, but does it ever occur to anyone that there might be too much government for our needs....  

But Shack is ranting on another aspect of this story, that the PGA Tour can't let anyone have a laugh:

As an eyewitness to this adorable little moment in Wednesday’s Farmers Insurance Open pro-am, I can attest that it was 100% comedy and totally innocent.

Here’s what happened: Tiger Woods tees off at the 13th and walks to the forward tee where a local pizza vendor has been commissioned to hand out pies to pro-am participants. The legendary golfer and one of the most famous people on earth is rejected because, it turns out, a health inspection was taking place at that moment and they could not hand out pizza. Tiger doesn’t know this but laughs off the rejection with Joe LaCava and his pro-am partners.

Everyone had a good chuckle at the sight of Woods getting turned away in the same way Roger Federer’s rejection from entering the Australian Open locker room last week went viral.

Brandon Stone of San Diego’s KUSI captured the whole thing and posted it on Twitter. He also wrote about the light moment here and the star-struck lad who loves Tiger but had to say no because of the inspection taking place. Stone’s video of the moment went viral, of course. But Stone also Tweeted the news of the video takedown notice from the PGA Tour.

I thought this nonsense was over with the reign of Nurse Ratched....  All I can say is that the food inspectors and suits in Ponte Vedra Beach all deserve each other....  As for what we deserve, that doesn't seem to be a consideration.

A Good Call - The boys will head to Phoenix next week and the Desert Fox will bid us adieu....  But I do think this is a very good call:

JOHNNY MILLER TO CALL FINAL BROADCAST ON SATURDAY AT WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPEN AFTER NEARLY 30 YEARS AS LEAD GOLF ANALYST

NBC Sports to Celebrate Miller’s Three Decades with the Network through

Special Tributes and Reflections During Live Third Round Broadcast

Not only is there the issue of not stepping on the final round, but there's that little football game to distract everyone.  This actually makes so much sense, it's amazing that they got to the right answer.

Johnny is famous for being opinionated, so this waffling seems inappropriate:

Most golf fans would agree that Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are the two greatest golfers of all-time. But deciding which one is better than the other? Good luck making that call. But don’t feel bad because you’re not alone; even the sport’s biggest names can’t decide either. 

Enter acclaimed golf broadcaster Johnny Miller, who will be retiring from the booth following the Waste Management Phoenix Open next week in Arizona. On a conference call on Wednesday leading up to his final event, Miller was asked about what it would mean in the golf world if Woods were to eclipse Sam Snead’s career PGA Tour victories record of 82, and how that would compare to the Golden Bear’s record number of 18 majors. So, in other words, who would you take: Tiger or Jack? 

Well, even after almost 30 years of color commentating experience, Miller can’t say.

“It’s a close call between those two,” Miller said. “They’re both so consistent. The body of work has been amazing. They’re both right there at the best of all-time.”

Yeah, Johnny, we know it's a close call....Never mind, just enjoy your grandchildren and retirement.

Inside Baseball - Alex Myers goes quasi-serious on us, sitting the entire CBS golf crew around a conference table, which at times is unintentionally insightful.  Here's a sample:

What are some challenges to broadcasting golf that the average fan sitting at home doesn’t realize?

Pepper: Everything. It’s a city that gets put up and broken down every week and relocated. The logistics of it are incredibly thick. If you just think about the towers that

go up however many stories, they have to have an occupancy certificate. So this is so far in advance, but people think you just flick the light switch and it magically happens. There’s miles and miles of cable, and trucks, and it’s a city that moves every time we move. It’s not like you can just plug it in and press play. 

Kostis: There’s also when they watch the show they see this seamless transition of Jim to Nick talking, to throwing it to 16 to this and that, and it’s very soothing. What they fail to realize what’s going on in our ear pieces. An announcer’s first rule is never, ever let what’s going in your ear come out your mouth. Ever. So while it seems like it’s a slow-moving sport, in our world, our lives exist in six-second increments, and we’ve got two people talking to us in our headphones while we’re trying to say something on air. From our perspective, it can be chaotic at times, even if it comes across as anything but.

Pepper: There are no timeouts. There’s a ball in the air all the time, even if we’re not on the air live. So that has to be covered as well.

Really, Dottie, because those 22 minutes per hour of Cialis commercials seem very much like a timeout.

Give it a full read,as it's well worth your time.  Go ahead, I'll wait for you...

Lots of fun stories and good insights....  I mean, who knew that Frank Chirkinian, The Ayatollah, was such a people person?

It's an interesting phenomenon, but perhaps they're all just a little bit too nice?  Excepting Sir Nick, of course.... Because while they seem individually focused on the right stuff, the CBS broadcast has, to my way of thinking, driven off the cliff.  They're so busy with the treacly background stories and talking about last night's dinner, that they show us very little golf...

I'd love to sit them around a conference table and run a tape of their broadcast, with Martin Kaufmann and The Forecaddie critiquing it...

OH, and Jim Nancy-Boy (that's what Employee No. 2 calls him) is very muck looking forward to the Open at Pebble....  Not only because it's a home game, but he's picking this guy to complete the career slam.  Ummm, Jim, care to make it interesting? 

Golf, Not Broken Yet - From the PGA Merchandise Show comes this next savior for our game, its elevator pitch being traditional golf meets TopGolf:

The Golfuture concept encapsulates pieces of traditional and simulation rounds into a

compact adventure. The course is divided into four quadrants: driving, approach, short game, putting, each with targets of varying distance, with the capacity for 120 players to tee off at once. 

Which is the first wrinkle in Golfuture: a golfer does not play 18 holes in the traditional sense. Far from it. In the first quadrant, a player will hit all their drives on every par 4 and 5 before moving to the approach area. Meaning you will hit your second drive of the day, but your second shot on the scorecard will come later. 

As for where those drives head, a computer screen will direct you to a target on the range to hit your drive for each specific hole. Each ball's distance and location is saved, transmitted to the approach area to be displayed for the player when they reach that quadrant. Within 10 minutes, a player's tee shots for the round are completed.

I have no objections to an improved version of simulator golf, and this does obviously address many of the obvious limitations.  And there's this obvious incentive:

While time is the major pitch to players, it's only a piece to potential buyers and investors. 

The range-like format boasts low maintenance and operating costs. It's a small footprint: the property takes up just 15 to 25 acres. For context, according to the Golf Course Superintendent Association of America, the average golf course uses 150 to 200 acres. This makes it ideal not just for urban areas, but for existing ranges that want a makeover or courses looking to add a different component to its portfolio.

And this is music to my ears:

The Korpachs don't view Golfuture as a substitute for traditional golf, and the altered flow may leave something to be desired for certain golfers. Conversely, they have constructed one of the few tangible responses to golf's litany of worries. Moreover, it's more than just a glorified driving range, and its set-up should serve as a conduit to beginners and non-golfers.

It's not golf....  I know that seems a rather obvious point, but one worth reinforcing.  

And by the way, perhaps golf isn't going the way of the dinosaurs?

According to the 2019 report, the golf equipment business grew by 4.1 percent in 2018

compared to 2017, reaching $8.41 billion. While that number is a significant boost over2017’s down numbers, it remains behind the research firms’ first numbers from 2014. Those showed a total equipment sales decline of 3.5 percent compared to 2014’s $8.72 billion.

The U.S. market was up by 5.4 percent over 2017 and was among the fastest growing golf economies, trailing only Germany, which was up nearly 6 percent year over year.

The study showed the top five golf markets in the world all grew in 2018, compared to 2017. In addition to the U.S.’s growth, Japan (+5.1 percent), Korea (4.3 percent) and the United Kingdom (+4.5 percent) had some of the largest improvements versus last year.

Of course there were some bad years in there, but over the longer term it's a much more stable picture than folks admit.  Equipment sales can be highly cyclical, affected by perceptions of technological improvements, so I prefer to watch sales numbers for consumables, such as golf balls.  But it's not a death spiral, merely a niche sport.

And, to be fair, even the above-referenced extinction of the dinosaurs is widely misunderstood, as Gary Larson clarifies:

Stat So? - Shane Ryan sorts through the ocean of data from the ShotLink era to cherry pick some statistical anomalies, although he calls them unsung statistical feats.  I know, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, but when you end up with a list that includes Johnson Waggoner, Chucky Three-Sticks and the like, a more modest header seems appropriate.

Don't get me wrong, I love the ShotLink data and the insights resulting therefrom, it's just that perspective is required.  For instance, this is quite the feat:

3. The Norman Three-Putt Gauntlet 

Sue me: Another pre-ShotLink stat. Going back to 1992, Greg Norman is the only PGA

Tour golfer to make it through an entire season three-putting on less than 1 percent of his holes. It happened in 1994, when he three-putted 11 times in 1,134 total holes, just dipping under that 1 percent mark at .97 (one more three putt, and he’d have missed it). It’s an astonishing figure, and only Rick Fehr (1996) has given him a real scare since—Fehr finished with one three-putt too many that year, ending at 1.05 percent. This, to me, is the closest thing golf statistics has to an unbreakable record.

And yet, my mind inevitably resurfaces a repressed memory of Norman three-putting at Inverness and handing a PGA to Paul Azinger.   

There is some good stuff there, a couple of Tiger sightings and Jason Day's unbelievable work with the flatstick.

A Game For Gentlemen - The PGA Tour is taking some heat for allowing this guy into last week's Pro-Am:

The narrative thrust of The Act of Killing is that few of the hatchet men involved in the

CIA-backed massacre of between 500,000 and 3,000,000 Indonesians ever faced consequences for the killings, and many of them don’t even harbor remorse. Their nonchalant openness about the murderers is what makes the documentary so chilling. Pancasila, which played a major role in the genocide 50 years ago, is still very much active and very much for hire for any, say, European conglomerate that wants to break up a nascent union by force.

Most recently, Soerjosoemarno was one of the amateur partners for PGA Tour pros Jim Herman and Rod Pampling at this year’s Desert Classic (he shot a 201 over three rounds.) Soerjosoemarno is especially fond of playing in the Coachella Valley, where the PGA has held a January event for 60 years.

The way I figure it, with Billy Walters in the slammer, they had an open slot to fill....And no need to respond to inquiries:

Deadspin reached out yesterday to two Desert Classic representatives about Soerjosoemarno’s long-running involvement with the tournament, and whether or not they knew he admitted to participating in the 1965-66 genocide. They did not reply. Deadspin also asked three PGA Tour reps if they would allow Soerjosoemarno to participate in future events, and whether or not they condemned the Indonesian massacres of 1965-66. They did not respond either.

To be fair, they were awfully busy taking down highly sensitive videos and otherwise Living Under Par™.

Gonna leave you there, kids...  Have a great weekend.  I should warn you that Monday is a travel day, so we might not wrap the weekend until Tuesday.

.

Friday Frisson

I'll save the tragic news for the bottom of this post, so let's dive into the good stuff...

El Tucan Weighs In - Allegedly, that is...  The original source of the story offers this clarification:

OK, I'm pretty sure there are way more than 75 people talking about this, but that's not important now....

At the risk of plagiarizing Shack, and why start worrying about that at this late date, Kooch is vindicated for his truthful reaction:

“It’s wasn’t 10 percent. It wasn’t $3,000.”

As Geoff notes, this is actually far more damning for Kooch, assuming of course that Gillis got it right on his second try:

Of course, $5000 could be viewed as a worse story because that is certainly more than the agreed-upon fee for a week involving a last-minute pickup. But it’s still painfully

The couple in happier times.

little as a fee plus-win-bonus amount.

Because as far as win bonuses go, it’s below the minimum, especially when you had not won in years.

Let’s just say if you’re a waiter and Matt Kuchar is in your section, don’t count a little extra something for the, you know, the effort. Or total consciousness.

I'm the first to tell you that we shouldn't think we know these guys, yet paradoxically there's a part of me that is just refusing to accept that our Kooch could be so miserly.  I also have reservations about the source, but....  For your first win in four years?  Shame on you, Matt*.

* - If true.  I guess this is one of those awkward asterisks of which Jordan spoke.

We also have some follow-ups for you.  The original item above hit on my travel day, and today Shack has this linkage:

Poor Matt Kuchar.

Just when you think the story of your substandard payment to your Tour-event winning

stand-in caddie was about to disappear from headlines, the good folks at the Masters, R&A and USGA had the gall to announce Mayakoba’s El Camaleon GC as the site of the 2020 Latin America Amateur. 

This is the same course where Kuchar won. The news dispelled one mythological view on why Kuchar might have severely underpaid El Tucan after winning last fall’s Mayakoba Classic: because the area is so dangerous that any looper getting a proper 10%-of-$1.3 million-check would be in imminent danger, as would his family.

Apparently, the Five Families don’t agree.

Excuse me, Geoff, that should be alleged substandard payment..... It's an amateur event, so the loopers' expectations should accordingly be lowered.

As a further aside, this event is being played this week at Casa de Campo.  Here's the TV schedule:

Since we didn't get much of a review from Employee No. 2, here's a video of the track:

Back to our Kooch, with this from Alan Shipnuck's mailbag feature:

As a journalist, do you accept, “That isn’t a story” as the final answer on the Kuchar thing? -@zzort8 

Of course not. It’s not the perogative of the athlete — or politician or any other newsworthy figure — to tell a reporter when and how to do his job. If I had been at the Sony I would have pushed Kuchar hard for all of the specifics. The problem with this particular controversy is that the sourcing was and remains shaky: a couple of tweets by a fringe professional golfer who didn’t specify exactly where the information came from quickly led to others passing on various innuendo and stuff they had “heard” through the years, and in the space of a couple of hours Kuchar was tried and convicted in abstentia on Twitter. Of course, he didn’t help himself by offering a non-denial denial when finally confronted by reporters. I hope Tucan will emerge and tell the world exactly what he was paid so we can render a verdict on the fairness of this electronic mob justice and give closure to the grad students who are surely now writing theses on this oddly compelling situation.

More amusingly, that in abstentia trial happened while Kooch was on the golf course...   As to whether Gillis' follow-up meets Shippy's standards of proof, I guess we'll have to await next week's mailbag, though there is this follow-up:

#AskAlan What would you pay an amateur caddie if you won a PGA event? -Paul @GolfFoodAddict 

So this Kuchar-Tucan controversy took on a life of its own. Over the weekend I texted Kooch and called a couple of different spots in Mexico trying to reach the principals but didn’t hear back from either the player or his allegedly aggrieved caddie. In the absence of hard information about this particular situation, I went another route, speaking with four PGA Tour regulars who have each won multiple tournaments. I granted them anonymity so they would speak candidly. All four said that they would not pay 10% of a winner’s check to a fill-in caddie; one of the players said that currently he only pays his full-time caddie 8% of a victory. All four Tour vets echoed a point that Brandel Chamblee tried to make on Twitter: players pay out so much on a victory – $130K or more for four days of work – partly to make whole their regular caddies for all of the missed cuts when they don’t earn a dime. The reasoning follows that since a fill-in caddie hasn’t endured all the suffering they don’t deserve the bloated spoils, either. So what’s a fair number in the Kuchar-Tucan scenario? The players I spoke to offered these bonus numbers: $10K, $25K, $40K and 5%, which would work out to $65K. But we waded into murkier waters when three of the four players mentioned the low cost of living in Mexico, seemingly as an excuse to be stingier. So does that mean they’d pay an American temporary caddie who lives in the U.S. more money for a victory? One of the players – who is top 100 all-time in Tour earnings – let out a hard little laugh and said,”Let’s not get carried away, okay?”

It was never going to be 10%, that was a silly concept...  My top-of-the-head number was $50,000, though I'm not offended by $25,000....  As for $5,000, if true, I'm offended.

Favorite Story of the Day - I am suddenly loving the new rules....  Why, because of the players' reactions.... specifically, this Euro specimen who goes by Gonzo:

Here's the backstory:

Fernandez-Castano opened with an even-par 72 in Abu Dhabi. His shot at Dyson referenced a 2013 incident at the BMW Masters in Shanghai. Dyson, the tournament co-leader, was caught on video using his ball to press down a spike mark on the green in direct line of his short par putt. After reviewing the footage, he was disqualified from the event, which Fernandez-Castano went on to win. 

Later, Dyson attended a hearing at which he was found guilty of a “serious breach” of the tour’s code of behavior. He was fined $49,000 and suspended for two months, though the suspension was deferred for an 18-month probationary period. Dyson released a statement denying that he was deliberately attempting to break the rules. In subsequent interviews, he called the fallout from the incident “the worst moment of my career.”

Hmmmmm, I think we can all agree that that's not a great look for our game, but at least Simon is taking the high road:

But Dyson didn’t take kindly to the slight. “He hasn’t got the f—– balls!!! Sad little man,” he wrote in a tweet that was later deleted. He followed up with several more, though he insisted he wasn’t going to get further involved.

I don't think a single instance of cheating should result in a player being permanently hounded from  polite society, but typically that presumes the offense was committed at a young age and the party shows genuine contrition.  Dyson would have been 35 at the time of the incident, and as for contrition?  Well, that seems in short supply...

Good times for sure.

Scenes From La Quinta - Golf Magazine seems to know that I was on an airplane yesterday:

Here’s what you missed from Round 1 of the Desert Classic

OK, so what did I miss?

1. Phil Mickelson went on a birdie barrage

Though he started the day with a tweet alluding to his rust, Mickelson looked as sharp as ever on Thursday, carding 10 birdies and one eagle en route to a perfectly clean scorecard totaling 60 — one shot shy of the coveted 59. Still, it was the lowest round of his career, and he currently leads his closest competitor, Adam Long, by three shots.

Obviously there's no such thing as a bad 60, though there is this context from Ryan Lavners' game story:

Mickelson again played down his chances in his 2019 debut, but it clicked so well at La Quinta Country Club – the easiest of the three courses in the rotation at the Desert

Classic – that he gave himself a chance to break 60 for the first time in his Tour career. He went out in 30. Then he birdied Nos. 10, 11, 13 and 14. Then came the birdie on 16, and all of a sudden, he realized that he needed to birdie each of the last two holes to finally shoot golf’s magic number. On 17, he tried to hook a sand wedge into a tight pin and left himself 18 feet. He missed low, but still finished with a flourish: With a chance to card the third 60 in his career, he spun a wedge to 10 feet and buried the putt.

Makes perfect sense...  Geoff adds some helpful context to the context, though, with this from George Peper's 1986 book on the Golf Course of the PGA Tour:

At 6911 yards, La Quinta is the longest of the five Hope courses, and with lakes bordering seven of its fairways this tropical layout can be as difficult as it is beautiful.

The other rota courses: Indian Wells CC, Bermuda Dunes, Tamarisk and El Dorado. I swear doesn’t seem like that long ago!

That last bit is Geoff himself, though I can't seem to find Geoff's age via Google.  How old could he have been in 1986?

Now it wasn't all peaches and cream in the desert:

4. Not everyone had a great day 

While the Desert Classic has a history of low scoring, not everyone experienced red numbers. Plenty of players had a tough time on Thursday, most notably Jason Dufner, who suffered five bogeys and three doubles en route to a seven-over-par 79. There’s always tomorrow, Duf!

Dude Wipes hardest hit.

 A Tribute - The story of Celia BarquÍn Arozamena's murder retains its ability to shock, but to celebrate the young woman I highly recommend this Alan Shipnuck profile:

For all of Celia Barquín Arozamena’s spectacular accomplishments — a 3.38 GPA as a civil engineering major at Iowa State, the Big 12 Player of the Year award in 2018 — the 

most special thing about her was the way she made people feel. Nearly every day Celia set aside time from her crammed schedule to handwrite notes to those in need, whether it was a teammate who had missed a big putt or a friend who had whiffed a big test. She would stash the letters in their textbooks or backpacks, and these pick-me-ups were so treasured there are dorm rooms across Iowa State papered with her tidy script. Celia’s heartfelt testimonials at St. Thomas Aquinas church, in downtown Ames, Iowa, often moved fellow believers to tears. She was a nurturer who loved to cook for friends, her go-to dish a Spanish omelet with a recipe imported from her homeland. 

Among the Cyclonitas—Celia’s nickname for her Cyclone teammates at Iowa State, where she first enrolled in the fall of 2014—there is a favorite video of her showily flipping an omelet in the pan, only to splash oil on the stove and ignite a fireball. Displaying the composure of a champion, she slowly tiptoes backward while somehow saving the omelet. Gathered recently on a leather sofa in their lux training facility, the Cyclonitas watch the video yet again, and a couple of them laugh so hard they have to wipe away tears. 

“I have never known anyone who gave so much of themself to so many people,” says the team’s coach, Christie Martens, sitting among them. “It wasn’t just the kind gestures she always did but also the energy she put out into the world.”

What a loss!

More Shippy -  You didn't think we were done milking that mailbag, did you?  First, on that annoying kid:

Has another multiple major winner ever become more unlikable faster than Jordan Spieth? -@DavelLuceyJr 

Brooks? (Cough, cough.) It never fails to interest me how much interest there is in Spieth. He is certainly polarizing, but that’s a good thing – far better to have the golf populace love and hate you in equal measure than to arouse no feelings at all. I can certainly understand why fans are put-off by Jordan’s on-course demeanor, which can come across as whiny and sullen. But I love the fire he has inside and he can be an engaging interview – guarded, yes, but also very smart and analytical. I don’t think he’s unlikeable but can certainly understand where you’re coming from.

I'd like to nominate Vijay, though there's a body of thought that he was never likable to begin with....I'm gonna do something for the very first time, channel my inner Barrack Obama and declare Jordan "likable enough."

The yips have been known to derail careers. Is Jordan Spieth in trouble? #AskAlan -Clay (@FlintHaven) 

One so-so week in Hawaii is not much of a sample size. But I agree that Spieth’s putting will be a big focus of this season…which is not going to help his putting. It’s such a black art, and so mental, that having to dissect his yips or non-yips after every round is going to weigh heavily on Spieth.

 It already is....

How much are you looking forward to listening to Padraig over the next 18+ months ruminate on the psychology which underpins a Ryder Cup captain’s role?-@CianOCallaghan 

Immensely! He always been one of my favorite interviews. I’ll never forget the first time I encountered his beautiful mind, at, strangely, the 2000 Portugal Masters. He was brought into the press tent as one of the leaders and a random Portuguese reporter asked Paddy about a short putt he had missed on the back nine, noting that he seemed to take more time standing over the ball. Harrington gave a brief answer to the insightful question but after the presser he buttonholed the scribe and asked him questions for at least 10 minutes about what he had observed and any other impressions he had of Harrington’s game. It was fascinating theater. And of course in the two decades that have followed Padraig continues to plumb the depths of his psyche like no other golfer. His deep reflections about the exquisite torture of Ryder Cup pressure (and everything else) will be quite a treat in the coming months.

Agreed, though it'll all be on him, because Strick is mostly a blank slate.

Do you expect Augusta National to allow the pin to be left in while players are putting on the greens? Or will we have golf’s equivalent of a Constitutional Crisis between ANGC and the USGA? #AskAlan -@Michael_Feiler 

At this moment, the USGA has not allowed for a local rule regarding the pin situation. That could change, or Augusta could go outside the Rules of Golf and simply issue their own decree, which would be somewhat hokey but, hey, those good ol’ boys have long done whatever they please. But newish chairman Fred Ridley is a traditionalist who spent years as part of the USGA firmament and no doubt he doesn’t want his second tournament at the helm to be overshadowed by yet another rules kerfuffle. All this said, I think the pins will be in at the Masters, which could be a big help on some of those frighteningly fast downhill putts.

According to this, Alan nailed it.  Though I didn't realize that Alan was such a civil liberties freak

To speed play for non-tournament amateur rounds, all groups should agree on the 1st tee that, unless the wind is blowing them sideways, no flagsticks will be removed that day. No questioning everyone on every green. It’s staying in. Period. Thoughts? -Matt (@M_Sand09) 

What is this, North Korea? Our founding fathers (this includes Mike Davis) have granted us certain liberties, and this includes not having some jabroni tell me what to do with the flagstick on the first tee. Now, I agree that a little communication is necessary at times, but imposing your putt-related values on the entire group is going to create a lot of friction, to say nothing of the the coefficent of restitution.

 I'm interested to see how this will play out as well....

Were the USGA and R&A both drunk when they came up with the idea to drop from knee height? The disparity between, say, Mark Leishman and Brian Harman should be taken into consideration. -@DavidBEvan911 

But didn’t that same disparity exist at shoulder height, too? I agree it’s an awkward rule but I don’t think the difference between being 5’6” and 6’3” is a big deal when it comes to taking a drop.

Based upon my day at The Honourable Company, it's safe to assume that the R&A gang has been into the Kümmel, though it makes their judgement even worse if you assume that they were sober.  They just seem blissfully ignorant of the real world....

One more on the rules:

Played my first round of the year. New rules were entirely insignificant except… three minutes is not a very long time to look for a ball. Rather brutal, honestly. Playing a course with actual rough and no forecaddies – this feels almost unfair to amateurs. Thoughts? -@CHFounder 

Hard disagree. If you can’t find it in three minutes it’s either a really crappy shot or you’re massively unlucky. Either way, take your medicine and stop holding up the group behind you. I hate stomping around looking for wayward golf balls. It’s particularly dispiriting when it’s not your ball and you have to pretend to care about a playing partner. I’m all for shortening this torture.

I can see both sides of this, though the penalty is so severe that the additional two minutes seems warranted....  But so few will actually take the walk of shame back to the tee, that it's much ado about nothing.

 I do like this query:

Since its inception, you can pick any year to tee it up in the Clambake. What year do you choose? Anything other than 1956 is clearly the wrong answer. -@MichaelGraham 

Yes, it would have been fun to cruise down 17 Mile Drive and spectate at The Match back in ‘56. But the Hogan win in ’49 would’ve been tasty to witness, or how about 1972, when Jack beat Johnny in a playoff. But as for teeing it up myself, I’d take pretty much any year before 1990, when Cypress Point was still part of the rota and social media didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have to suffer any online hazing.

Seems to this observer that Cypress Point for Poppy Hills is right up there with Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi...  Sorry Wally, it was the first bad trade to come to mind.

We finish with some amusingly silly bits:

If you had no other choice, would you rather name your son “Injected Twist Face” or “Epic Flash”??? -BJ (@PowerFader769) 

Dude, I live on the California coast. My kids already go to school with boys named Ocean, Diesel, Skye, Briggadoon and various other exotica. I think Epic Flash Shipnuck sounds kinda dope! 

The Santa Ana and Kona winds are at the same party. Drinks are flowing, some intemperate remarks are made, things escalate and before you know it, they’re throwing. Who do you like, straight-up? -@Lou_TireWorld 

I’ll take Indio, because everything breaks toward his fists.

OK, so now there's no avoiding the bad news, which is that you'll be on your own for a bit.  The bride and I are schedule to make a quick surgical strike to Florida next week, a trip on which I will not be lugging the laptop (which is, at the present moment, relaxing in Utah).  I would expect that the next time I'll be at the keyboard to be a week from today, although with the weather forecast there's also a risk that we'll never leave Westchester County.  So do check in, but it may be a while before we speak again.

Midweek Musings

We have some actual fresh snow today....  Only three inches, but beggars and all that.  Tomorrow is a travel day, so I'd best get to it....

Pods "R" Us - Eamon Lynch has a fun piece chock full of juicy quotes on the relative merits of the U.S. vs. Euro Ryder Cup selection process.  He starts with some background:

The criteria for selecting U.S. Ryder Cup captains often has seemed to magnify qualities that are barely relevant to the task, emphasizing personal achievements of an individual over personality attributes that might galvanize a team. 

Twenty-eight men have led America into competition since Walter Hagen commanded the first team in Massachusetts in 1927. Every single one of those 28 captains won a major championship during his career. A winning record as a Ryder Cup player once mattered too, but that was when points were easier to come by for Americans. It’s not so important these days since the U.S. record over the last three decades has impoverished the résumés of most candidates for the captaincy. 

Yet Ryder Cup history suggests that teams rally around leaders, not legends. Europe learned that by necessity. Lacking many major winners from whom to choose (while still passing over Sandy Lyle and Paul Lawrie), it has had five Cup-winning captains since 1995 who never claimed a major title. But when led by its greatest-ever major winner, Nick Faldo, the old continent was spanked.

Now I do think there's less here than meets the eye, but there's fun to be had as well.  It's not like the Euro legends don't get their shots, Seve, Ollie, Monty and the aforementioned Sir Nick have all atken the helm.  As for overlooking Paul Lawrie, what were you guys thinking?

“We base our decisions on what the players who will be playing want, not on a circle of friendship,” he said dryly. 

But the European veteran insisted that captains aren’t the issue. 

“The problem is that many of their leaders don’t deliver on the course with points,” he said. “As a whole they weren’t prepared for the exam in France, or the dynamic of playing away and the course set up. They became complacent with their success in ’16 and the Presidents Cups.” 

He’s right, to a point. The captain doesn’t hit a shot, but he decides who does and who gets on the plane. Furyk reserved a seat to Paris for Mickelson, his task force buddy who was out of form and played poorly. Like his two immediate predecessors, Stricker will be crowdsourced into the captaincy from a select group of pals and invariably will face the same questions about whether his decisions are based on merit or loyalty, on sense or sentiment.

Yes, the triumphalism after 2016 was pretty insufferable...  But, as the wise man said, it all comes down to twelve players....

Waugh Is Me -  New PGA of America majordomo gave Adam Schupak a lengthy mind dump, and Shack is thinking he might have stepped in it.....Might have?  Egads, it's pretty silly....

Shack saves this for last, but I'm making an editorial decision to lead with it, because I can't even conceive of how it sounds to the 29,000 members:

AS: What is your current roster of golf memberships? 

SW: Seminole, Lost Tree and Old Marsh down here. I guess I'm a member at PGA National, too. Then there's Old Town in Winston-Salem [N.C., where his son played college golf, at Wake Forest]. I voluntarily gave up Pine Valley and Garden City because of the single-sex thing. I didn't think that would be fair to the clubs or the association if that came out. Deepdale, Westhampton, Quogue [Field Club], National [Golf Links], Shinnecock, Cypress Point and San Francisco Golf Club, Boston Golf Club, Lahinch in Ireland and Royal Aberdeen in Scotland. Too many.

Now, as Geoff astutely pints out, there are many senior folks in the golf world that have not given up their memberships at single-sex clubs, so there could well be feedback loop on this.

That said, I simply can't imagine the struggling assistant professional at the local muni feels that this man, with his 114 memberships at exclusive clubs, has his best interests at heart.

So, what does Seth have to say about his stewardship of the organization.  Well, he's all about big ideas and grand initiatives.  Perhaps one of you can explain this to me?

I think the PGA is in a unique position to be that United Nations of golf, if you will,

the Switzerland of golf. We're for the game at every level. We just want everyone to play and like and have as much impact as we can. Being that objective observer on things and uniter around the game and sort of thinking at the end of the day we just need to cook the biggest turkey so we can all eat the most meat, right, and that's what we're about rather than, do we get the breast or the thigh or the leg? That's certainly how I'm approaching it.

Can we agree that anyone whose ambitions are to replicate the United Nations should be banished from polite society?   Is there a more despicable organization in the world?  As for the turkey, you'll have to pry the leg from my cold, dead fingers....Sheesh!

Speaking of turkey, here's the bone he throws to the membership:

There's a natural cynicism of the members about HQ. There's this feeling that we get to drive our courtesy cars and we're sitting down there in Florida and all this money is rolling in and, What's in it for me? I've got three kids going off to school, and my lesson book is going down, and I don't have any health care and whatever. They're right.

We have to figure that out if we want this to work. We have an army of 29,000 people who are the best army in the game to make it better. We need to figure out how to make their lives better and incent them to do the things to make that all happen. The selfish thing is, if we figure it out, we'll have a more passionate group to get it done for us. That's what I'm hoping, and that's why I'm here.

I'm sure the membership will be happy with that....  In the interim, the valet has your courtesy car ready....

 Shack highlights the apparent hypocrisy in the treatment of Paul Levy's DUI vs. Ted Bishop's alleged misogyny, which is fair and Seth's responses will underwhelm.  But let's remember that Ted's real sin was to have chose Tom Watson as captain....  And just a reminder, the organization that runs our Ryder Cup effort wants to be Switzerland.  God help us all....

Golf is Dying, Volume LCVII - NPD Group, a market research firm, with some alarming news:

Golf sales in the mass/sporting goods retail space generated $2.6 billion and grew by 8 percent in the 12 months ending November 2018, after facing declines the year prior, according to The NPD Group.

"The macro environment for golf has been in a turbulent state, fueled by Golfsmith's bankruptcy, major brands cutting back on their golf business, and courses closing. But today, we're starting to see normalization in the market as those deep holes are now being filled," said Matt Powell, vice president and senior industry advisor, Sports, The NPD Group. "Major sports retailers are now investing in golf to pick up some of the business, and brands are also placing emphasis on the category to spur innovation."

All golf product categories grew in the last 12 months. Comprising around 50 percent of total market sales, golf clubs grew by +7 percent. Sales increases were also seen across balls (+6 percent), gloves (+7 percent), accessories (+21 percent), and training aids (+13 percent).

I just don't know what to say, as I'd been reliably informed that we're all gonna die.  

More Euro Trash - Care for a little more from that anonymous poll of Euro Tour pros?  Shack had this one:

WHICH AMERICAN PLAYER MOST IRRITATES YOU? 

Bryson DeChambeau: 16%

Bubba Watson: 11%

Several tied (including Mickelson): 5%

Declined to answer: 68% 

HOT TAKES

“Any of them that act like babies.”

“Wait, I can only pick one?”

As for babies, there are twelve I can think of off the top of my hat....  Of course, Bryson did throw that hissy fit during the summer at a Euro Tour event, though at least he showed up.

FUNNIEST EURO TOUR PLAYER? 

Henrik Stenson: 23%

Jamie Donaldson: 16%

Haotong Li, Andy Sullivan, Eddie Pepperell: 10%

Others/unsure: 51% 

HOT TAKES

“Eddie Pepperell’s Twitter game is tough to beat.”

“Pepperell speaks a special language.”

Unfamiliar with Eddie's game?

Definitely the latter.....

THE WHOLE “MOLIWOOD” THING… 

Timeless: 56%

Time to give it a rest: 44% 

HOT TAKES

“It’s a great bromance.”

“I prefer Fleet-Moli.”

“It’s brilliant.”

“The lifespan should be as long as they keep winning.”

They'll always have Paris....

These seem candid:

WOULD YOU RATHER WIN ONE MAJOR OR 10 EURO TOUR WINS? 

One major: 97%

10 Euro titles: 3% 

WHICH MAJOR TITLE DO YOU MOST COVET? 

The Masters: 59%

PGA Championship: 0%

U.S. Open: 3%

British Open: 38%

HOT TAKES 

“The British is the best.”

“I already know what I’d serve at the Champions dinner…but I’ll never tell.”

“The U.S. Open is the truest test of golf.”

Who are those 3%?  

I don't think these will make the Yanks feel any better about Paris:

TRUE OR FALSE: THE EUROPEAN RYDER CUP TEAM USUALLY WINS BECAUSE IT HAS BETTER PLAYERS THAN THE U.S. 

True: 8%

False: 92% 

TRUE OR FALSE: THE EUROPEAN RYDER CUP TEAM USUALLY WINS BECAUSE IT HAS BETTER TEAM CHEMISTRY THAN THE U.S. 

True: 92%

False: 8% 

TRUE OR FALSE: THE EUROPEAN RYDER CUP TEAM USUALLY WINS BECAUSE IT HAS BETTER CAPTAINS/LEADERS/PREPARATION THAN THE U.S. 

True: 50%

False: 50% 

TRUE OR FALSE: AMERICAN PLAYERS DON’T CARE AS MUCH ABOUT THE RYDER CUP AS THE EUROPEANS 

True: 56%

False: 44% 

IF EUROPE’S RYDER CUP HOPES CAME DOWN TO AN EIGHT-FOOT PUTT, WHO WOULD YOU WANT TAKING THE PUTT? 

Ian Poulter: 39%

Alex Noren: 18%

Justin Rose: 11% 

HOT TAKES

“Not Rory.”

Hysterical.  I'm doing to know who had the "not Rory" quip, though the answer might well be all of them.

DESCRIBE PATRICK REED IN ONE WORD. 

Arrogant: 20%

Misunderstood: 12%

Interesting/Confident: 8% 

Also receiving votes:

Complicated, annoying, Patrick, passionate, selfish, different, self-centered, divisive, tough, fiery

 You want him?  He is, after all, an actual Euro Tour member....

WILL RORY WIN ANOTHER MAJOR? 

Yes: 97%

No: 3% 

HOT TAKES 

“If he gets out of his own way.”

“I wish I could caddie for him at Augusta.”

I wish anyone but childhood friend Harry Diamond was on his bag, though at Augusta I'd like to see Jeff Knox loop for him.

And finally:

WHICH CURRENT EURO PLAYER WOULD MAKE THE BEST COMMENTATOR? 

Matthew Southgate: 17%

Nicolas Colsaerts: 17%

Alvaro Quiros: 8% 

Also receiving votes: Andy Sullivan, Edoardo Molinari, Jamie Donaldson, Padraig Harrington, Robert Rock, Luke Donald, Lee Slattery 

HOT TAKES 

“Lee has the most pleasant voice. He’d make any shot sound nice.”

“Some players think they are the smartest person in the locker room; Edoardo is that guy.”

“Padraig would be brilliant if you could get him to stop playing.”

Hmmm....no love for Eddie Pepperill?  

Travel day tomorrow, as I warned above.  There's more bad news about my blogging schedule on the horizon, but that can keep for the moment.