Weekend Wrap

A great weekend of golf, both the playing and the viewing kind.  Shall we cut right to the chase?

Redemption Song - There was that one hinky moment on a two-footer, but the young man is making us forget Fort Worth:

In duel for the (young) ages, Collin Morikawa beats Justin Thomas in scintillating playoff

Now 27, Thomas seems like one of the grand old men of our game.... 

DUBLIN, Ohio — Golf is perhaps the ultimate game of inches. Centimeters, really. Had Collin Morikawa’s two-foot putt on the 18th green at Muirfield Village hit the rim of the

cup just a fraction farther left, it would have spun out, and Justin Thomas would be holding the trophy, and the stories would all be about Morikawa’s inability to make putts when it matters.

And if Thomas’ tee shot on the third playoff hole had rested a few inches right or left of where it did behind a tree, he would have had a clear shot to the green, and those two might still be playing.

Yet Morikawa’s ball lipped in, and Thomas’ ball was stymied, and Morikawa is your Workday Charity Open champion.

“The hole was very kind to me,” Morikawa said. Perhaps it owed him one after Colonial, where he lipped out a three-footer on the first playoff hole to lose the Charles Schwab Challenge just four weeks ago.

No need for thought bubbles to know what he was thinking.  Those short misses stay with us for a while...

You'll hear this little factoid pretty much everywhere:

With the victory, Morikawa now has more PGA Tour wins (two) than missed cuts (one), joining that Tiger Woods fellow as the only two to secure win No. 2 before missed cut No. 2.

Of course, any comparisons with Tiger will flatter the subject.  So, Colin, we'll check back with you when you're making a run at this Tiger scat:

Tiger won 43 times before his 2nd missed cut as a pro.

Sick.

Quite obviously the signature moment was that first playoff hole, as Dylan Dethier recounts:

The duo headed back to the 18th tee for the first playoff hole, where they each found trouble. Morikawa’s tee shot ended up in the fairway bunker, while Thomas’ sailed wide right into the rough. Both found the green, but hardly with close birdie tries — Thomas was just over 50 feet away and Morikawa about half that distance, at 24 feet. 

With Rickie Fowler and a couple dozen volunteers and media members looking on, Thomas poured in his birdie prayer, punctuating the putt with a guttural scream that pierced the quiet air. 

All Morikawa needed to do to extend the event was find the bottom of the cup on a touchy downhiller.

Though Dylan is a good enough player himself to know that a downhiller isn't a problem if it's a must-make.  Just a great back-and-forth between two guys we expect to see a lot of in the near future.

JT will feel he let this one get away....perhaps that's a bit charitable:

“Everything was a positive. I shot 19 under par on a pretty tough golf course. But the fact

of the matter is I just completely gave it up, so that’s just going to hurt for a while,” said Thomas, who was seeking his 13th Tour title. He said he had no idea how long it would take to get over the painful loss. “I hope about three or four days because I’ve got to start another tournament on Thursday. I’m playing great. I have a great chance to win another golf tournament next week at a course that I obviously enjoy and I’m playing well. 

“I just can’t beat myself up, although it’s going to be pretty hard not to, at least the rest of this afternoon. But there’s a whole lot of nothing I can do about it right now. I just need to execute better when I get in that situation in the future.”

No shortage of chances, but that "guttural scream" was that of a man thinking he had put it away...  Of course, it was the two bogeys in the last three holes that cost him the title.  

The Tour Confidential panel had this, after the two Tiger questions required by statute:

3. Collin Morikawa stared down world No. 5 Justin Thomas in a sudden-death playoff at the Workday Charity Open. Morikawa, 23, who started his Tour career with 22 consecutive made-cuts (a mark topped only by Tiger Woods), now has two wins and two runner-up finishes in just 23 career starts. What has been the key to

Morikawa’s consistency? 

Zak: That he’s the best damn ball-striker we’ve seen reach the Tour since … Tiger? Perhaps that’s a bit much, but you can find stats to back it up. It’s no surprise that he and JT found themselves in playoff. Morikawa isn’t quite as long but much of his game resembles Thomas’. Both will have long, long careers because they just hit a ton of greens.

Dethier: Morikawa hit four or five truly spectacular golf shots from over 200 yards on Sunday. Two near-aces. A kick-in eagle. A driver to 15 feet. He’s an absolute sniper and it was really fun to see him get rewarded, despite almost missing from 18 inches just to get into that playoff.

Yes, though CBS took its sweet time informing us of anything that happened before the came on-air.  

Sens: You hit it as close as he does over and over, you’re going to be in the mix. A lot. Dead-eye ball-striking aside, he also has a calm about him. At the first event back in Texas, he hit some glitches throughout the week but each time was able to right himself and keep himself in the mix. The putter betrayed him, ultimately. But clearly he’s got something special going on between his ears as well. 

Bamberger: Great fundamentals. Cool manner. Seems to have no distractions in his life. He’s about the golf. We’ve seen it before most recently with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. He follows in that tradition.

He does seem like a flatliner, which is a good thing in his chosen line of work.

Dylan Dethier is doing his letter-grade thing as well:

Justin Thomas Collin Morikawa down the stretch: A+ 

After Justin Thomas holed his ridiculous eagle putt at No. 15 to get three shots clear of the field, this golf tournament was over. Over! Thomas had played his previous eight holes in seven under par — Surely one of golf’s best closers wasn’t going to look back now. 

But Morikawa hung tough. He made par at 16 to Thomas’ bogey, birdied 17 to Thomas’ par and (barely) wiggled in a two-footer for par at 18 while Thomas made another bogey. Three tough golf holes and a series of delicate shots executed all in a row under pressure to close out a 66 — and, after another searing iron shot on the third playoff hole, the biggest win of his young career.

He seemed to stay patient in the very late stages, a very useful skill out there.  

And this on JT''s three rounds in one:

The Justin Thomas rollercoaster: B- 

Thomas’ day was distinctly tougher to evaluate. Let’s start with the good stuff: Through

seven holes on Sunday, he was three shots back of the lead and scuffling big time. Eight holes later he had a three-shot lead after playing an absolutely spectacular stretch in seven-under including that eagle at 15. Add in the fact that he made a 50-footer on the first playoff hole and you’ve got a pretty good day, right? 

Well, sort of. When you’re holding a lead, it’s important to start fast and slam the door at the finish. Thomas bogeyed two of his first three holes and he bogeyed two of his final three holes in regulation. He missed a nine-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole. He bogeyed the third playoff hole. In all, he lost a lead and lost the tournament despite playing some ridiculously impressive golf. For one of the best players in the world, that’s B-minus-ish material.

Getting it to the clubhouse remains the hardest aspect of our game.  

There's much of interest from Dylan on Viktor Hovland and other aspects of the week as well, though we'll just sample this:

Tournament setup: C+ 

Look, it was good. The golf course is fantastic, arguably the best regular Tour stop (that title likely belongs to either Muirfield Village or Riviera). One mini-gripe would be that this was supposed to be the week things started to get tougher — but the leaders finished at 19-under (and Thomas reached 21-under down the stretch). Still, that’s largely weather-dependent and comes from a need to protect the golf course for next week; I get that. 

My realer gripe comes from a lack of variety thrown into the golf course’s setup. Pushing the tee forward at No. 14 was a fantastic wrinkle, but I’d have loved to see a few more changes tossed into the proceedings so it felt a bit less like Memorial Lite.

I thought Shack had the answer last week, which was to swap the nines.  At the very least, all those critical late round (and playoff) shots would have occurred on different holes than next week's event.

This did seem to work well, which only makes one wonder why it hasn't been tried during the Memorial:

No. 14 from the up-tees: A 

Tournament organizers made one really good call, which was to play the 14th hole from a forward tee that gave players a tantalizing decision to go for it or lay up. 

The hole’s cleverness was perfectly illustrated by the tournament’s final group. Viktor Hovland, needing a spark, went for the green with driver, pushed it just a touch, found the water and effectively ended his chances. Justin Thomas laid up with a mid-iron, wedged it close and made his birdie putt. And Collin Morikawa pulled off the hero shot with driver, holding his tee shot on the green some 14 feet away for another birdie. Better yet, you can see the scatter plot of tee shots on No. 14 Sunday and see that it’s a pretty even split between players who laid back and went for the green. That suggests a cool balance.

The only disappointment with No. 14 was that we didn’t quite get to see it in a playoff. Had Thomas’ final par putt found the bottom of the cup instead of just the lip, he and Morikawa would have had some decisions to make.

Our golf leadership isn't very imaginative.  We all understand why they play No. 18 in playoffs, often more than the once.  Faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play interesting holes without the temporal concerns of the crowd, they start the playoff with two additional loops on No. 18.... Sheesh!

I'm just hoping it wasn't for this guy:

The Rickie Fowler behind-18-green appearance: A 

Look, this just made me laugh, simple as that. I think it’s genuinely cool that Rickie Fowler comes to the 18th green to watch his friends finish out; it shows that he likes to watch golf and he’s there to support his buddies, both things to aspire to. But seeing him recording something on his phone, holding a Coke, still dressed in orange — it all just felt very Rickie.

I agree that that it's a nice practice, for which Rickie deserves much credit.   But you know what's seemingly becoming less and less Rickie?  Rickie actually being on-site on Sunday.

And why even bring up this guy?

The Jordan Spieth Comeback Tour: D 

T10, T68, T54, MC. Jordan Spieth’s four starts since the restart do not ultimately inspire confidence in his return to greatness. We’ll continue to watch all-too-closely in hopes of some sort of reversal.

It's getting harder and harder to watch.  I thought folks were way too excited about his play at Colonial, though I'm sad if that hot take proves correct.

I Saw It On TV - Or not, as it it so happens...  But what is to be done under the circumstances that presented yesterday?  The threat of bad late-day weather caused tee times to be moved up to zero dark thirty:

The original plan was for Golf Channel to show live golf from 1-3 p.m. ET with CBS picking it up from there and having the 3-6 p.m. ET window.

Golf Channel and the NBC Sports Gold app did have live golf for two hours on Sunday from 9 to 11 a.m. ET, but that was it. That’s when frustration set in for golf fans with no more live golf on TV right now.

Chances are, whatever city you live in, you’re stuck with an infomercial on your local CBS affiliate and repeats of regular programming on Golf Channel. 

But there are a couple options to stream it on your computer or your phone. 

CBS has the live coverage available on cbsports.com. Typically, you’d need an account on CBS All Access to watch the live stream but CBS is making live golf available today without that. 

You can also watch the Workday on a live stream on the CBS sports app.

Lots of unhappy folks in the golf world... Golf Channel was compelled to respond, though it's hard to see where they can be blamed;

Golf Channel/NBC Sports Executive Producer Molly Solomon took to Twitter to explain her company’s side, as Golf Channel continued to provide updates and analysis (but not live broadcast coverage) via Golf Central before switching to other programming, including a Feherty interview with Thomas. 

“Feel compelled to explain TV rights to all those rabid golf fans,” she wrote. “Golf Channel has rights to the weekend lead-in coverage which is comprised of 2 hours before network coverage begins.

“Golf Channel was live from 9-11 AM and CBS is currently streaming live coverage on multiple sites. They will have tape-delayed coverage at 3 PM. Golf Channel doesn’t have rights to current window. Hence, Golf Central keeping you updated.”

Rabid golf fans?  Oxymoron much?

It seems folks were upset with GC for not covering that portion of the event for which they don't own the rights.  Among those who were upset was our Shack, who convened an emergency podcast:

However, it was a bit of a broadcasting placement debacle compounded by the pandemic and opportunity golf has to gain new fans. I was hardly alone in this assessment. (To be clear, CBS’s crews are doing amazing work in the midst of pandemic constraints.) 

So, here’s a short Shack Show rant about Sunday’s weirdo tease of early live golf hinting at a fantastic young gun showdown in early Golf Channel coverage, only to be interrupted by beancounters, clashing corporate interests and those ironclad contracts that forget about the viewer.

I've heard of and had a few emergency nines, but an emergency podcast is a new one.

Geoff feels strongly about this, though I do think he's a little naive about his sense of what the viewer wants.  I think there are many different types of viewers, which makes satisfying them all quite difficult.

Dylan Dethier was aligned with Geoff as well:

Live TV coverage: F 

I’m not talking about the announcers or the broadcast — this is purely a comment on the fact that the most exciting finish of the golf restart was only broadcast live through streaming on cbssports.com. 

Look, I’m not here to pretend I understand all the finer points of broadcast contracts (and I certainly understand that Golf Channel couldn’t continue to broadcast the golf, as Molly Solomon explained). I’m really not here to point fingers at all. I’m just here to say that it felt weird and unsatisfying that golf’s best product wasn’t available to the masses in real time and required going to cbssports.com, watching ads, dealing with buffering and everything that goes along with a streaming product.

Watching ads?  That has your panties in a twist?  Because aired live it wouldn't be ad-supported?

As noted above, the needs of the viewer are far more complicated than Geoff or Dylan acknowledges.  I would imagine that most of the target audience for golf were themselves on the golf course Sunday morning, so I assume we're talking of a small cross-section of a niche viewership.  Is streaming really an unsuitable vehicle for these "rabid" fans?  

Perhaps the most logical thing would be to throw the coverage onto Golf Channel, which one assumes would be happy for the eyeballs.  But CBS has paid handsomely for those rights, and I presume they'd worry about fewer eyeballs in that 3:00-6:00 window if it were available earlier in the day.  I would imagine that NBC, under common ownership with GC, would be more accommodating here, whereas CBS might expect compensation.

As for me, I'm often picking it up later on tape, so my priority is to maintain the stated broadcast window, to ensure that the event is taped under my DVRs standing orders.  

As the kids are wont to say, developing....

Yeah, We Knew - The Tour has confirmed that which we had already figured out on our own:

DUBLIN, Ohio – Multiple sources have confirmed that the PGA Tour plans to play the remainder of this season’s events without fans or pro-ams. 

Next week’s Memorial had been scheduled to be the first event since the COVID-19 pandemic halted play in March to be played with fans, although the plan called for a limited footprint of about 8,000 fans per day. Last week the Tour reversed course and announced the event will be played without fans.

According to various sources, on Monday the Tour, in collaboration with individual tournaments, will extend that plan to play without fans at the season’s remaining nine events, including the three FedExCup playoff stops.

The TC panel had this take on it as well:

5. According to a Golf Channel report, the PGA Tour will announce that it will play without fans through the Tour Championship in early September due to the continuing coronavirus pandemic. Do you expect we’ll see galleries any event in 2020?

Zak: [Necessary qualifier: no one knows] Nope! And why should we? I sense the majors being in the fall will drum up solid fields for otherwise listless events. Do we need fans there or can we just continue as we’ve done this far, which has been plenty great? Let the other sports like football figure out that Rubik’s Cube of letting patrons into the grounds. 

Dethier: Augusta National may already have developed a vaccine for the sole purpose of welcoming fans through the gates in November. I could imagine them having some fans for the Masters, and maybe some small crowds metered out at the Sanderson Farms, say. I’d guess more than one tournament with fans and fewer than five. 

Sens: The Masters, possibly. But nowhere else.

Bamberger: The Masters, with members only and their families.

I'd have to watch to know if Dylan is correct about the Sanderson Farms, and I'm thinking why start now?

The Masters perhaps, because of the late date and the fact that they don't care what anyone thinks.  

I think the biggest surprise is how much I've enjoyed actually seeing the golf courses...  as well as the absence of grandstanding.  But no one should have any illusions, the business model will break down pretty quickly without those Wednesday Pro-Ams, so the players should enjoy their brief respite from that obligation.

Wither Tiger - He's back, as the Confidentialistas contemplate:

1. Tiger Woods is playing in this week’s Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village, his first start since the Genesis Invitational in February, where he struggled on the weekend, finishing 68th. (In his only other 2020 start, at Torrey Pines, Woods

finished T-9.) Woods has won five times at Muirfield but not since 2012. What are realistic expectations for him this week? 

Sean Zak: I wouldn’t expect him to come out and play super tight golf against a bunch of dudes who have been doing it for weeks, but then I wouldn’t expect him to MC at Muirfield. So T25!

Dylan Dethier: That’s a particularly safe pick. I’ll push the envelope slightly further — I think he has an up-and-down week capped off by a nice Sunday to crack the top 10. I’m going with T8. 

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?  If he's healthy, he's still pretty good at the golf thing, but we shouldn't be surprised to see rust.  But this will undoubtedly be the only time we see him before Harding Park.

These guys, though, just can't help themselves:

Josh Sens: Tiger wins. Well, probably not. But, like Dylan, I expect a top 10, with winning well within the bounds of “realistic.” 

Michael Bamberger: No. 83, coming at ya. See you, Sam.

So you're saying there's a chance?

So, why hasn't he teed it up before this?  Because he didn't have to... though, I'm pretty sure this guy was kidding:

Justin Thomas teases Tiger: 'He's scared to come out and play against all of us'

Problem solved.  He saw your play down the stretch yesterday, and figured he had nothing about which to be concerned.

Golf In The Kingdom - John de Coupland writes of his day at Royal Dornoch, making your humble blogger feel the acute sting of our cancelled trip.  My bitterness aside, the ancestral home of our game kept their citizens off the links for far too long, so we shall enjoy the fact that they are returning to some base level of normalcy in the last few weeks.

Dornoch itself was open only to members and their guests, but fortunately John's elder son Ross (who you might remember came up to play with us at Lundin Links last summer) has joined and hosted his Dad.  John first noted the deserted feel of the club:

Good luck finding a space in this upper parking lot in normal times... Typically you'd have several cars idling as they wait for someone to leave.

And this of the first tee area looks like a ghost town:

Typically you'd have a crowd four deep milling about.

Perhaps more interestingly (for those that are bored by photos of parking lots), John also provides this of the new 7th hole:

John considers it an improvement on the old 7th, which wasn't one of the better holes on the course.  Of course, being one of the weaker holes on this particular track isn't exactly a stinging rebuke...

Summer of 2021, I'm thinking...

I'll release you to the obligations of your day, and hope to see you tomorrow.  There's far too much golf planned for later in the week, so I'm unsure of my keyboard schedule.

Late Week Letdowns

The weekend beckons, though we might be under a few inches of water by the time it arrives...

The Dublin Doubleheader, Part I - I din't see any of it, but those distraught at the end of this young man's made cut streak can take heart:

DUBLIN, Ohio – Collin Morikawa had the perfect remedy to get over missing the first cut of his professional career. 

Make six birdies and an eagle in your next round. 

The emerging youngster out of Cal, who won the 2019 Barracuda Championship in just his sixth start as a pro, showed no ill effects from missing the cut in the Travelers Championship two weeks ago that ended his streak at 22. With a bounce back 7-under-par 65, he took up residence atop the leaderboard after Thursday’s sweltering first round of the Workday Charity Open. 

Playing Muirfield Village Golf Club for the first time – “I fell in love with the course right away,” he said – Morikawa quickly put his first missed cut in the rearview with an eagle on the fifth from inside four feet and then six birdies in his next 11 holes. His lone blemish came on the last when he missed the green.

Making a bunch of cuts in a row is more statistical oddity than crowning achievement, though it's equally true that the absence of a Saturday tee time makes it hard to win.

Those conversions led to a 1-stroke lead over Adam Hadwin. Two back at 67 were Zach Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Aaron Wise and Nick Taylor. Justin Thomas and Patrick Reed were in a group at 68. 

With his usually stout iron play – he hit 14 of 18 greens in regulation in the first round – and his consistent accuracy off the tee – he hit 12 of 14 fairways in regulation – Jack Nicklaus’s revered layout at Muirfield Village seems an ideal fit for Morikawa for this week’s Workday and next week’s Memorial. 

“It’s a beautiful track,” he said. “It’s a very tough course obviously, but you just have to map your way around it. You’ve got to be really smart. If you’re not in the fairway, you’ve got to make sure you play smart. So I was playing smart but I felt good with my irons, so I was able to attack some pins when they were accessible, so we’ll see how everything plays out tomorrow.”

Is it tough?  This week?  It's been shortened and the greens slowed (stimping a mere 11 this week), so I'm not all that sure.  Though the absence of any 63's or 64's at least differs from that which we've seen since the restart.

It seems this group didn't get the memo to Live Under Par™:

COVID positive group finishes above par at Workday Charity Open

I'm sure I'll be the only guy to use that bit, no?

The three teed off starting on the back nine Thursday at 9:13 a.m., a tee time that hadn’t been on the schedule. All three finished above par on a hot, steamy day, with Frittelli and McCarthy posting 1-over-par 73s and Watney struggling to a 77 in a round that included three double-bogeys.

That's about it for their golf, as the remainder of the piece addresses the revised protocols and the basis on which the three were allowed to play.

But we often trot out headers along the lines of "Don't Know Much About History" , disturbing often in describing the folks who administer our game.  But my new favorite player just has to be Dylan Frittelli, whose major claim to notoriety has always been being Jordan Spieth's teammate on that Texas national championship team.  See is you enjoy what he does here:

Frittelli said he drove straight from his housing to the golf course – with his golf shoes on – and went straight from his car to the practice ground. 

“I stretched at home. I ate breakfast in my hotel room and then straight to the parking lot and felt like Walter Hagen, just walked straight on to the driving range,” he said with a smile.

 A Tour player that knows golf history?  I'm gonna need a moment to collect myself...  I just didn't see that coming.

The reference is to the class issues that permeate so much of golf history.  While the U.S. reflected such class divides, Ground Zero was the United Kingdom, where the professionals were treated in such a way to reinforce the notion that they would never belong, as per this from Hagen's World Golf Hall of Fame page:

When he won the 1922 British Open at Royal St. George’s, Hagen’s reaction to professionals not being allowed in the clubhouse was to hire an Austro-Daimler limousine, park it directly in front of the clubhouse and change his clothes and take his meals in the car.

Well played, Dylan.  How many of the golf writers to whom he was speaking do we think got the reference?

Have we reached Peak Phil?  If you're looking for the elusive synechdoche of all that's wrong with modern golf, as well as our Phil, you could do far worse than this:

Phil Mickelson was stunned. He deeply exhaled, the air puffing out his cheeks. Mickelson had hit his tee shot in the water on the par-3 16th hole at Muirfield Village

Golf Club, missed his bogey putt short and left and was walking toward finishing up his five. It would put him 4-over over his past five holes. It would put further down the leaderboard, all the more frustrating after he had shot a 4-under front nine during Thursday’s first round of the Workday Charity Open.

On his next swing, Mickelson was stunning.

He unleashed his drive on 17. His face this time showed no expression as he watched the ball sail while walking four steps forward to pick up his tee. It came to rest 394 yards away, tied for the fifth-longest drive the five-time major champion has hit on the PGA Tour since 2002, which is as far back as the Tour has recorded drives online. Even at 50, Mickelson can take our breath away.

Phil makes an ugly double, but all's good because he hits a bomb off the next tee...  Sheesh!  Want to know what he made off that bomb?  A par...  That makes up for the double, right?

Phil has developed a late-career obsession with those aforementioned bombs, though he might want to focus a little more on the numbers that go on his card.

Of course we're all a little obsessed with distance, and I did enjoy Justin Thomas' walkback of prior comments:

Thomas said he was next to DeChambeau on the range at the Travelers Championship

last month. 

“It honestly was frustrating because he’s hitting it 350 in the air and you could put a blanket over about half of them,” he said. “That’s what’s unbelievable. People don’t understand how hard it is to hit it that straight at that high speed. It’s really, really hard to hit a ball straight at 110 miles an hour swing speed, let alone 130 miles an hour swing speed and to do it consistently. Obviously he had some foul balls at a place like last week where it looked like he could hit it anywhere, but for the most part he’s driving it on a string really far. Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

That is the point that many are missing.  He's carrying it 350, and mostly hitting it where he wants to.  A little intimidating for sure....

But this was my favorite bit:

“It’s obviously working for him,” said Justin Thomas on Wednesday at the Workday Charity Open. “I went from kind of being a little skeptical about it to maybe saying some things to realizing he was beating me every week and I should probably shut up and just start playing better for myself.”

On the contrary, JT, you keep talking... It's actually Bryson that needs to shut up.

The Hits Keep Coming - Lots of bad news on the college front, including this most recent news from Hanover, NH:

The changes, which will eliminate five varsity athletic teams and a number of staff positions, will give Dartmouth more flexibility in admissions, reducing the number of recruited athletes in incoming classes by 10%. The move also contributes to the steps Dartmouth is taking to address budget challenges, including a projected $150 million financial deficit brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The teams to be eliminated, effective immediately, are men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's golf, and men's lightweight rowing, dropping to 30 the number of varsity teams. A total of about 110 student-athletes participate on these five teams.

And the carnage doesn't end there:

In addition, Dartmouth is permanently closing the Hanover Country Club—which is owned by Dartmouth and operated at the College-owned golf course—after years of the club's running in the red, with deficits expected to swell to $1 million a year.

H/T Shack for this lively and engaging piece on the golf course:

“Our group of guys affectionately refers to HCC as ‘the freak show,’ ” says Scott Peters, a former club champion who grew up playing HCC with his brother Mike, while his

father, Seaver Peters ’54, was Dartmouth’s athletic director. “There are walkers, joggers, the cross-country team, sledding in winter—there’s always something walking or running past you on the golf course. I’ve been there so long I don’t even notice it anymore. That’s part of the charm of a college course.”

 Of course, there's this:

Students have long enjoyed other course activities that give “twosome” a new meaning. Miller wrote about them in his memoir: “Of all Dartmouth big weekends, Green Key was the sweetest. You could go picnicking, hiking or swimming.…Best of all, it was warm enough to get laid on the golf course.”

If it's the golfers getting laid, that's truly a man bites dog story.  The whole piece is worth your time...not only is a ski jump involved, but Hillary Clinton attempts to tell amusing stories...  I know, just when you think you've seen everything...

We've discussed Yale, but Josh Sens does a deeper dive on that abused icon:

No one would dispute that Yale Golf Course, a Golden Age collaboration by the celebrated architects Seth Raynor and Charles Blair Macdonald — with nods to St. Andrews and North Berwick — is a gem. 

But many now feel that it’s a badly tarnished one. 

After closing at the end of the 2019 season, the vaunted New Haven, Conn., layout, which sits about four miles west of the Yale campus, has yet to reopen. In early March, its longtime superintendent moved on to another job. Less than two weeks later, the pandemic hit, and the university itself shut down, shifting all of its classes online. With the campus closed and other university facilities darkened, the school was compelled to cut back on course maintenance, reducing its grounds crew to two workers per day for a total of four hours. That skeleton staff kept to the scaled-back schedule for the next three months. Though the staff has now been beefed up to pre-pandemic numbers, there’s no hiding the ill effects.

Recent photos, snapped by members of the semi-private course and shared with GOLF.com, along with other images circulating on social media, show large swaths of burnt out and barren turf. Spotty, unkempt tees give way to forlorn greens and fairways, and bunkers sprouting pygmy forests of weeds.

Josh does touch on the unfortunate but widely known fact that maintenance has long been an issue here:

This is not the first time conditions at Yale have been called out. But the impact of the

Yale's iconic Biarritz green.

pandemic appears to have pushed matters to a breaking point. Those who have been around the course for decades say that the design has never looked so undernourished.

In an email to GOLF.com, Yale athletic department spokesman Mike Gambardella dismissed the notion that the school was uncommitted to caring for the course. To the contrary, he said, the athletic department has been working on a plan to “bring the course back to its glory.” That plan had been working, Gambardella said, with the course “better maintained last year than previous years.”

Covid-19, he said, threw a wrench in the works. 

“Due to university limitations, our ground crew was short staffed for a couple of months but as of last week we are back to fully staffed,” Gambardella said, adding that all decisions have been made with “the safety and well-being of our employees at the forefront.”

Forgive me if "Working on a plan" doesn't inspire confidence....  But I'm prepared to give up gems like this as long as all twelves Vice Chancellors of Diversity and Inclusion aren't affected.

On a related note is this Gary Van Sickle item:

Whistling past the golf graveyards

In which he takes a tour of abandoned golf courses....  Such pieces are always sad, as each example is logically the place where so many people learned the game.  That said, not only will some golf courses inevitably dies over the years, but some actually deserve to die.  I'm not trying to be a downer, but lots of bad golf courses were built, and we further know that way too many golf course were built as part of real estate plays,  It's just that the two golf courses discussed above have unique histories, and one is of obvious architectural merit. 

If You Build It... - When in doubt, it's never a bad idea to consult this guy:

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” - George Orwell

Which is a public service at the moment in which the mob has come for Orwell.... Yanno, guys, he meant it as a cautionary tale, not so much as a how-to guide.

The reference is to this bit of shocking news from the Tour:

WGC-FedEx St. Jude will alter exemptions in order to increase field size

The guys don't want to play in Memphis in the dog days of summer?  Really, who coulda seen that one coming?

Last year’s World Golf Championship in Memphis, which was awkwardly scheduled the week after The Open Championship in Northern Ireland, included just 63 players and the event had just 71 players in 2018. 

The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational will be played at TPC Southwind July 30-Aug.2.

Which is awkwardly scheduled the week before the PGA in San Francisco...  I get that FedEx gets what they want, but how are they liking it so far?

When you can't get the guys to show up for big-money, small field, no cut events, perhaps a reassessment is indicated?

Old Timey Stuff -  Who doesn't love vintage golf photography?  The USGA has acquired a great collection, of which we'll share a few:

As the primary steward for preserving and celebrating the history of the game, the USGA has expanded its extensive golf photography holdings with the recent acquisition of the Howard Schickler Photography Collection, the world’s most significant private collection of original early golf photography. 

The collection contains more than 1,000 high-quality, historically and artistically important golf images from the 19th and early 20th century. Many photographs feature top American and British golfers, both men and women, from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. The collection was amassed over decades by collector Howard Schickler, sourced from the collections of some of the game’s most influential figures, including the personal collections of Old Tom Morris and F.G. Tait, the Auchterlonie and the Foulis families, the estate of Billy Burke and the collections of Ed Dudley and Bernard Darwin.

Some great ones for sure.  I've previously shared photos of the St. Andrews cemetery with you, but how great is this:

Old Tom Morris walking towards young Tom's grave site in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1895.

A large gallery watches a match between Chick Evans and Francis Ouimet at the 1919 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club.

And this from right across the street:

Blogger is going hinky as I add these photos, and you can see the effect on the formatting of the post  That's from the 1911 U.S. Amateur held at Apawamis Country Club.

Click through to see more samples.

I shall release you here to begin your weekend.  Hope to see you Monday.

Thursday Theses

Hope you didn't miss me too badly yesterday.  We've got much to cover, so let's not dilly dally any further...

It's Official - After exhausting all other options, our various golf organizations, those that Shack refers to as The Five Families, have announced that they will do the only logical thing:

In a golf season unlike any before it, one of the few big-time events unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic was the Ryder Cup — until now. 

The PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe announced Wednesday morning that the biennial team event between the U.S. and Europe will be postponed to 2021. The announcement comes after months of speculation that the event would be pushed back by a year. 

This is the first time golf’s premier team event has been postponed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The Ryder Cup was scheduled to be played Sept. 22-27 at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan, Wis., and will now be played Sept. 21-26, 2021. 

Because of the rescheduled Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup, which was originally scheduled for Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2021, at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., will be pushed back until Sept. 19-25, 2022.

OK, guys, but I had that figured out in March.  Though since none of the checks are made out to me, I admittedly have a less compromised take on things.  So, what took them so long?  Well, it's a bit complicated, and we're left to infer much from the limited peeks we get behind the curtain.

Shack has this fun post up about the Kumbaya announcement, though he's a bit vague on his sources and violates blogging protocol with the absence of any links.  But this was Seth Waugh's take from the Zoom announcement involving both affected tours:

SETH WAUGH: Well, thanks, Julius. It's good to be with everybody this morning, this afternoon and be with our great partners Guy and Jay and everyone out there, so thanks

everyone for taking the time. I remember literally my first day on the job was about 21 months ago in Paris at the beginning of the Ryder Cup,and I was sitting in the stands for that incredible moment of the Ryder Cup, that first shot on the first day, and the flags are waving and people are singing,and jets are flying over. It's one of those incredible, iconic moments in sports, and Michael Jordan is kind of right next to us and I was sitting right next to Darrell Crall, who's our chief operating officer, and he could see that look in my eye and he goes, yeah, it's an awesome responsibility, isn't it.And you realize that that's what we have, right. It's a gift from our forebears, this incredible exhibition that brings out so much passion.So to answer your last question first, it was a very tough decision. I think people think this is -- it might be easier than it is, but frankly since the speculation started a couple months ago in the press and elsewhere that Ryder Cup would be postponed, we've kind of done everything we could to make it one of those kind of Dewey-beats-Truman headlines, that we really wanted to play this, and it's not -- when I say that,not because where the rumors came from. That's great; that's what makes the Ryder Cup so special. It's the passion that it arouses, the tribalism, the nationalism. It's news even when it's not news, and that's the beauty of this incredible event. So we tried everything we could to make it happen because it would have been such a special year given what everybody has gone through to have pulled it off.

To think that I had been reliably informed that tribalism is a bad thing... Not to mention that rather strange Dewey-Truman citation.  

But Seth, I'm not sure it's being perceived quite as you think.  Mostly we've seen the major golfing organizations protecting their feed lots, not always the nest look.  You seemed quite willing to compromise all that intensity and, dare I say, tribalism, as long as the cash register would continue to go ka-ching.

Alas, Seth isn't finished, as it's important that we understand how he's suffered for us:

We hired an infectious disease expert to advise us. We've talked to the CDC. We've talked to the Broad Institute, we've talked to Scientists versus COVID, the governor of Wisconsin, the county of Sheboygan, obviously our great partners constantly with the TOUR, Ryder Cup Europe, our hosts, the Kohlers, our broadcast partners at NBC. We called the captains. We called many of the players. We talked to some fans. I even went and spoke to Mark Murphy at the Packers, who obviously had some what we thought would be pretty good local information to see what they were thinking, and his perspective was, you know, we hope to play and we hope to play with fans at some point, maybe start with 25 percent and go from there,and I said, we actually need to build Lambeau Field between now and September. And he kind of paused and he said to me, he goes, boy, that's really complicated. He said, I think you might have the hardest decision to make of anybody I've talked to since this thing started, and I said, well, thanks very much. That's very helpful.

With great power comes great responsibility...Jay Monahan seems equally clueless, I think you'll agree:

So I think this is a really good solution for players. For us, one of the hard conversations that I had was with Trevor Immelman, captain of the international side,recognizing that now it's a year for him, but as we talked and as he said, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were going to these two organizations, you know, they would respond the same way, and that's the beauty of our sport and that's the beauty of the way that we work together, and this is the right decision for the Ryder Cup, therefore it's the right decision for the Presidents Cup, and we're going to be supportive of it.

Pretty rich, given that Jay's refusal to push the Prez Cup to 2023 seemed to be the immovable object through most of those discussions.  And, as Shack notes, he could only have the one "hard conversation", because it's so far out on the event horizon, that no U.S. captain has yet been named.  

But now Jay's putting a smiley-face on it:

“We are confident the move will give us even more runway as we bring the Presidents Cup to Charlotte in 2022.”

Did you actually need runway for that lesser event?  Though there is one venue that perhaps could use extra "runway", as the Euro Tour's Guy Kinnings lets slip (he's the guy you don't recognize in the photo above.  Could be confused for Keith Pelley, though without the signature primary color glass frames):

The announcement is also good for the brand of the Ryder Cup as a whole, as it allows us to plan the match to be played in front of a full house in September'21, creating that wonderful atmosphere that Seth described that he saw in Paris that makes the Ryder Cup the envy of many around the world.It also will allow for a full qualification process for both teams, ensuring the 24 best players will be in action for Europe and for the U.S. in 15 months' time. Indeed the changes to our qualification process have just been announced ahead of the resumption of the European Tour in Austria tomorrow morning.Finally, as regards Ryder Cup Europe, it's great news for our future venues. Although plans in Marco Simone remain firmly on schedule, today's news that the 44th Ryder Cup will now take place in 2023 instead of 2022will give Italy, a country which has an amazing history of staging very special sporting events, extra time toprepare for hosting golf's greatest team event in what will be an extraordinary occasion in Rome in just overthree years' time.

No sooner had they been awarded the event, than they were instructed to update all 18 holes of their golf course.

The required read du jour is from John Huggan:

What the Ryder Cup postponement means for the European Tour's financial health

 John doesn't pull many punches:

Forget the bragging rights. Forget the satisfaction that comes with victory at nine of the last 12 Ryder Cups over the big, bad Americans and their economically superior circuit.

Those relatively fleeting baubles belong to the European players. But for the European Tour—on which the vast majority of those men started their professional careers—things are more serious, more life-changing. For the Wentworth, England-based organization, the biennial contest between Old and New Worlds isn’t merely about pride. It’s about money. Lots of money. Survival money.

Wednesday’s postponement of the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits to 2021, combined with the shift of Europe’s next “home game” to 2023, impacts greatly on that stark fact. A 12-month delay to the seven- and eight-figure windfalls the European Tour receives in the years of the event—and needs to continue in anything like its familiar form—has potentially severe implications. Especially in an economic environment that is so uncertain.

The tour’s focus on finance has long been obvious, ever since the matches became truly competitive almost four decades ago. The lead example: Once played over quality courses like Muirfield, Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham and Walton Heath, the choice of Ryder Cup venues in Europe since 1985 has been decided solely by hard cash.

The Belfry. Valderrama. The K Club. Celtic Manor. The PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles. Le Golf National. All have hosted the biggest event in golf outside of the majors over the past 35 years. And all because of money. When it comes to Ryder Cups in Europe, the highest bidder always wins, no matter what happens between tees and greens.

Not that the U.S. venues are much better...

The Euro Tour is in a world of hurt, but John is the first to detail the underlying economics:

That cyclical nature of the tour’s finances is illustrated by the accounts of Ryder Cup Europe LLP—60 percent of which is owned by the European Tour. The 2018 matches in France helped generate an operating profit of £25 million for the partnership. Operating earnings in the previous three years totaled just £7.2 million. And this was merely the continuation of an established trend. In 2010, when the Ryder Cup was played in Wales, the European Tour made more than £14 million in pre-tax profit. A year later, it lost more than £2.2 million. Indeed, the tour ran at a loss in each of the non-Ryder Cup years from 2011-’18.

As I've noted, the trade-off seemed always to be between a lesser event this year, vs. a full-frontal Ryder Cup in 2021.  As John further notes, this would have hit the two sides differently based upon the pre-existing arrangements for how the money is whacked up:

“There is a formula in place,” says a source familiar with the inner workings of the overall strategy. “In terms of broadcast and media rights, the Americans this year will

have had world rights excluding Europe. So the European Tour’s main income for this year would have been the television rights within Europe. All the costs of staging will have been born by the PGA of America, who would have retained all income from tickets and merchandising. The reverse is true in Europe.”

As much as they didn’t want it to happen, a 12-month postponement of this year’s contest is something Pelley and his team had been preparing for.

“The financial implications aren’t anything like as bad as some would like to think,” says a source with close knowledge of the tour. “There is so much guaranteed income from the Ryder Cup. If the tour can’t secure finance against that, they’re not doing a very good job. The Sky [Sports TV] money will be guaranteed. The gate money will be guaranteed. So they’ll borrow against it early. It’s a problem, but not a big problem. It’s a problem for the accounts department as opposed to a problem for Pelley.”

It always seemed an easy decision to me, and for a number of reasons.  Better to defer and preserve the unique aura of the event, rather than potentially diminishing it through holding a watered-down version of it this year.

Wither the R&A -  A unique opportunity to catch up on all things royal and/or ancient, especially as we're on the subject of European golf cashing big checks.  

I kind of wonder how things look to Mr. Slumbers and his team these days.  On the one hand, the other three major championships are moving forward, albeit increasingly likely without spectators on site (seems a done deal for the first two, though Augusta in November might yet still surprise), so they've taken themselves out of the golf discussion for 2020.  On the other hand, that sweet business interruption claim check cleared?  Oh, who am I kidding, that check with many commas cleared, and everything else is just background noise...

Concerned that we might forget about them, they've announced this that I think we can all agree is far better than an Open Championship (H/T Mark W.):

THE R&A TO MARK ‘OPEN WEEK’ WITH CELEBRATORY BROADCAST OF ‘THE OPEN FOR THE AGES’ 

6 July 2020, St Andrews, Scotland: The R&A is inviting golf fans around the world to take part in a very special celebration of golf’s original championship following the cancellation of The Open this year. 

‘The Open for The Ages’ will bring together many of golf’s greatest champions for the

first time to compete against each other over the Old Course at St Andrews in a compelling and innovative three-hour broadcast production.

This exclusive edition of The Open features 50 years of archive footage expertly edited and woven together with modern graphics and new commentary to imagine a Championship contested by the legends of the sport including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Sir Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy. 

‘The Open for The Ages’ will culminate in a final round programme that will air on Sunday 19 July when it will be broadcast globally to fans around the world on TV, TheOpen.com and The Open’s social media channels. The broadcast is being supported by HSBC and NTT DATA, both Patrons of The Open. 

Anticipation and excitement for the final round programme will build up from Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 July when coverage of the first three rounds of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be provided by in-play clips, live leaderboards and end of play highlights across The Open’s social media channels. 

The winner of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be determined by a fan vote, which has registered more than 10,000 responses, and a data model developed in partnership with NTT DATA that utilises player career statistics alongside the input by fans to calculate the Champion.

Sure, they can hold our attention over four days with a...compilation of film clips?  Good luck with that, gents.  Can we arrange for some of the famous Russian bots to hack this election?  How about Ben Curtis as your winner?

On a related note, I found this news curious...  See if you react in a similar fashion:

The Women's British Open at Royal Troon, Scotland, is set to be played behind closed doors from Aug. 20-23, the R&A announced on Tuesday. 

2019 champion Hinako Shibuno.

The tournament will be the first women's major to return after the coronavirus pandemic halted play in April, providing the "necessary approvals" are secured.

"The AIG Women's British Open is important to the success of women's professional golf," Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said. "We have been working closely with our title sponsor AIG, Visit Scotland, Royal Troon and our key advisors to find a way for the Championship to be played safely this year. 

"We believe that playing the AIG Women's British Open is a significant step for players whose playing opportunities have been severely impacted this year. As they compete to be the 2020 champion in historic circumstances, these athletes will continue to inspire golfers and sports fans around the world, who will be closely following events from Royal Troon on TV and social media."

And that differs from the Open Championship how?  Ah yes, this one we might as well play, because no one will write us a big check to make it go away...

Of course, we can't just implement a testing system, we have to promise that which can't be assured:

As part of COVID-19 safety protocols, the Championship will create a "bio secure zone," and allow a reduced number of people who are essential to the operation, including players, caddies, officials, and staging staff.

To be allowed on-site, a negative COVID-19 test from an authorised testing centre must be returned, and in addition to limited movements between the golf course and the hotel, all players and staff will be subject to further tests and temperature checks "to maintain the integrity of the zone and the health of those within it."

I sleep better at night knowing that the ladies will be bio-secure...  However, I obviously missed a story, because the R&A never previously controlled this event.  Shack has this in his post:

The R&A has confirmed plans to move ahead with the Women’s British Open in Scotland (now under their control but curiously still not subjected to The Open branding).

Seems sexist to not allow it to share in that ubiquitous Open branding... Especially as they're going to a lot of bother to build ladies' loos in their iconic clubhouse...I'm glad the ladies get to play their event, and they'll also play their Scottish Open the week prior.  Here's a happy reaction from one of those that get it:

Stay and go there after the events.  No issue getting tee times...

But how much do I love that she knows Elie and Archerfield (one of the few your humble blogger has not played).

Bryson In Full - I'm a little beat down by it all as well.  The more so as he doubles down on demands that we respect his zone of privacy.  Dylan Dethier has been giving letter grades in all sorts of cases, though the interest here is more his compilation of data:

Insane gains: A+ 

The game has changed. At least, it feels that way. A few facts:

-Per Justin Ray, until this week, the longest average driving distance by a tournament winner was 341.5 by Tiger Woods at the 2005 Open. DeChambeau blew that number out of the water and finished at 350.6 yards.

-DeChambeau is 69-under since the Tour’s restart, 20 shots ahead of nearest competitor Viktor Hovland (-49). 

-Per Lou Stagner, DeChambeau is 6.8% longer off the tee than he was in 2019 (and probably more than that once the data catches up). There’s effectively nobody else who has made a transformation of that magnitude and had this type of success (major equipment advances excluded). 

-Beginning the week, DeChambeau was still at the edge of the first tier for futures odds for major championships. Now? He’s the favorite, or at least darn close, across all major sportsbooks for the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and this fall’s Masters.

That first bit is likely from the two measured holes, so is not comprehensive.  But we're comparing inland golf to links turf (and Old Course turf at that), so it's pretty staggering...But when you're already sending it 300 yards, 6.8% becomes a real number...

One of the points I tried to make earlier in the week was our lack of understanding as to how Bryson's ungodly length will play on certain golf courses.  To me, the revelation has been that tight, tree lined golf courses perhaps no longer can constrain the beasts, because that can simply take it over the trees and cut off doglegs.  But while I was trying to imagine how Bryson might attach Winged Foot, he was happy enough to share his game plan for another venue:

 
So, for example, carrying that bunker on No. 2:

334?  So just a little chip driver?

Drive that third green?

This is one of the trickier greens, even by the standards of ANGC.  I haven't seen much benefit to putting a ball close to the green, most notably with that Sunday left pin location.  But this might actually makes sense for Bryson, because it plays away from his biggest weakness, distance control with his wedges.

As for No. 7, this is likely the hole most affected by the decades of Tiger-proofing.  Take a look:

Folks like Phil hate the changes to this hole.  Always intended to be a drive and pitch birdie opportunity, the added trees have narrowed the landing area in a manner that likely has the Good Doctor spinning in his grave.  The question here seems to be whether Bryson can minimize the choke-point landing area by simply launching it over the encroaching trees?

The downside?  Besides rendering four hundred years of golf course construction obsolete?  It's the Masters, so we'll not have a blimp, shot-tracer and on-course reporters to share Bryson's aggressive lines and the results thereof....  Pity that.

The Year From Hell, A Continuing Series - You just have to feel for those trying to make their way in our game.  If you don't already have PGA Tour status, there just isn't much you can do.  There was this attempt by the big tour to help mitigate the damage:

The professional golfers whose livelihoods have been most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic are those who play at levels below the PGA and Korn Ferry tours. They’ve had nowhere to play, and the PGA Tour has a plan to take some steps to make up for that.

As first reported by Golf Channel, the tour told players this week that, starting in August, it will stage a series of eight tournaments for members of PGA Tour Latinoamerica, Canada’s Mackenzie Tour and PGA Tour China. The schedules for all three circuits for the rest of 2020 were eliminated because of the coronavirus.

The upcoming tournaments will be 54 holes, with 144-player fields and minimum $100,000 purses, with a winner’s share of $16,000. The fields will be comprised of international exempt members, Korn Ferry Tour players, sponsor’s exemptions and top performers from previous events.

Should they be doing more?  Probably, but at least they're doing something...

The only other avenue is to attempt to Monday qualify for either the PGA or Korn Ferry tours.  But, as we've discussed, available spots on the PGA Tour have been reduced from four to two, yet the number of those trying to qualify has undoubtedly increased substantially.

As for Monday qualifying, it's hard.  How hard?

Le Sigh!

Fun With Pairings - This used to be the purview of the USGA, whose Thursday/Friday groups would provide amusement for those with far too much time on their hands.  For years we had a parlor game to identify the USGAs a*****e group when pairings were announced, which was good fun until we all learned that we only had to type CTRL-F: Sabbatini.  Then there was that epic body-shaming group at Pinehurst...  Good times.

The underlying news item is some tweaks to the Tour's testing and related protocols, codifying the Champ rule, which Geoff blogs at length.  But how about this for a pairing?

At this week’s Workday Charity Open, Dylan Frittelli, Denny McCarthy and Nick Watney will follow the symptom-based model, as they have continued to return positive tests but meet the CDC guidelines for Return to Work. The three will play together in rounds one and two.

Nick Watney is still fogging up a mirror?  I guess they're all still self-quarantining, just with each other for those two days.  Here's hoping that the cameramen are dutifully respectful, as we wouldn't want their brands damaged any further.

I'll release you to begin your day, and hopefully see you tomorrow.