Thursday Themes - Keegan Acceptance Edition

We're hitting all seven stages of grief, although the Negotiating phase went especially poorly.

Acceptance - I'm quite OK with it, as a week of Tiger's non-answers might have been more than I could take.  I am glad for sure that Seth Waugh vetoed any retreads, so let's dive in to the day-two (or is it three?) takes:

5 lingering questions about Keegan Bradley, Tiger Woods and the U.S. Ryder Cup captain selection

Only five?

But, really, this is the one that seems most curious:

Tiger Woods appears to have passed on the job. Missed opportunity or blessing in disguise for the PGA of America?

Appears?  Not only is he too busy to perform the gig, but he's apparently also too busy to give them an answer.... 

Tiger has the job whenever he wants it. I don't think it makes much of a difference to the PGA of America, either good or bad. Maybe he'll do it in Ireland in 2027, or at Hazeltine after that. Tiger

Woods or not, a Bethpage Ryder Cup is going to be epic—and maybe a little messy. —LKD

Tiger is a different cat as we all know. But just like everyone else he is unlikely to be 100 percent effective in a job he is even a little bit reluctant to take on. If you’re not fully on board, you have no business getting involved in something like the Ryder Cup. That’s a recipe for coming second in a two-way battle. So yes, if he harbors any doubts at all, Tiger saying “no” is the right thing for him, the right thing for the American team and the right thing for the beleaguered (at least in Ryder Cup terms) PGA of America. —JH

I tend to think of it as a good thing for all parties. But let's concentrate on Tiger here. He had nothing to gain by taking the captaincy at Bethpage. If the U.S. wins, so what? In this age of strong home-course advantage, the U.S. is supposed to win. But if the U.S. loses—and don't think that can't happen—then where does he go from there? Where does the PGA of America go from there? No, so much better if he is the hero in 2027 who finally leads the U.S. to its first win in Europe since 1993. Nice career walk-off. —DS

I think it's entirely appropriate that Dave Shedloski focused exclusively on Tiger, because he has that in common with Tiger himself.  Leaders do what their organizations require, not what's convenient.

How far behind do you think Bradley really is being named only 14 months ahead of the competition?

Surely provoked by Tiger’s prevarications, the timing of this appointment is clearly a nonsense. The Europeans wasted no time in re-appointing Luke Donald, who did such a great job last time round. In Italy, Donald was surrounded by a group of assistant captains who covered a broad spectrum of talents. They all made sense, and they all had been given time to grow into their varying roles. Everything worked perfectly because the assistants knew exactly why they were in place and what they were there to do. With only 14 months to go, Bradley is just barely visible in Donald’s rearview mirror in so many ways. By any measure Bradley is at a huge disadvantage. —JH

Well, he's been to Bethpage for the 2019 PGA Championship, so that helps. He has John Wood as the new Chief of Most of The Little Things. But he has played in only two Ryder Cups and has never been involved from the captaincy and organizational end. Thin résumé. Yeah, he's behind. He's going to need good help. A lot of it. —DS

He's probably pretty behind, largely because the U.S. needs a few tablespoons of reinvention after its Roman debacle. But strangely, I don't think it actually matters much to Keegan. He'll go all in, and maybe even forge a new model for the U.S. team along the way. —LKD

Behind with what?  Those tablespoons of reinvention have been BS since 2014....  Maybe Tom Watson 
was right, it is about twelve players. I know, crazy talk.

At the risk of being wrong come September 2025, does this turn out to be a good pick or a bad one?

I'm going with irrelevant, because this has always been a Cup the U.S. will win.

Bradley as Ryder Cup captain clearly has the potential for disaster. At first (and second and third) glance, his appointment looks like little more than a panic measure. Let’s face it, with Tiger declining to lead and Phil Mickelson’s long-ago departure to LIV, there wasn’t an obvious name in the frame. But Bradley does have the advantage of playing at home in front of New York fans who will do more than any other group of spectators ever has to distract the opposition. 2025 will almost certainly be the ugliest Ryder Cup in history, an aspect of the proceedings that will distract from any of the many shortcomings the American skipper may own. A small consolation indeed. —JH

I've had a bad feeling about this Ryder Cup for the Americans since the European payback in Rome. A lot of things can happen between now and when the teams are finalized to change my mind. That's not to say I think Europe will win. It's going to be a tough crowd, which actually could cut both ways. My thinking is that the 2025 Ryder Cup could well be the closest since 2012, which Europe won in the so-called "Miracle at Medinah." I believe anyone other than Tiger was going to be a bad pick. But he left the PGA no choice. —DS

It'll be a good one. Keegan, if nothing else, will care. There's a pretty high downside to captaining at Bethpage—a place where the U.S. team is undoubtedly expected to win—but Keegan, if nothing else, will light a fire. —LKD

Let me posit a radical thought, to wit, that they're better off without Tiger.  The man almost performed the miracle of losing a President's Cup, and doesn't want to be there.  To me the tell is John Huggan's answer, in which he recites the caution flags but still can't see a Euro win.

Though the guys do lay a good marker that, if the U.S. plays poorly, that crowd will turn on them in a, what's the phrase, a New York minute.

Do we think Eamon wrote his own header here?

Lynch: Keegan Bradley is a good choice as Ryder Cup captain. His team will determine if he’s good for the U.S. — or for Europe

A little evasive for the opinionated Ulsterman, but I do like his take on the Task Force:

Recent U.S. Ryder Cup skippers have been more transactional than transformational. The task

force created after Tom Watson’s bruising tenure in 2014 accomplished two goals: it relieved PGA of America executives of responsibility for selecting a captain while still keeping checks coming to the right address, and it delegated control of the team to a core group of players who were then recycled biennially through the captaincy and vice-captaincies. Noble chaps all, but a perception took root that the room where it happens didn’t seat many folks.

The captains chosen since ’14 fit the mold that cast generations of their predecessors — men well stricken in years who are either on or nearing the Champions Tour glue factory in terms of their competitive relevance. More recently, captains have also been made men in the task-force mafia. Bradley is 38 years old, ranked in the world’s top 20, and assuredly not part of the coffee klatch that denied him a captain’s pick last year, despite a playing record better than any of the half-dozen who were chosen to suit up in Rome. Of the rationales that will be offered in support of Bradley — passion, college-era proximity to the venue at Bethpage Black, generational change — none is more welcome than this: his appointment takes a sledgehammer to the task force buddy culture that has hogtied Team USA for 10 years, during which captains began to sound like concierges and act like the job was to just keep players comfortable.

 Pods, Eamon!  Don't forget the damn pods!

Right on cue, one of his players informs us of what's important in a captain:

Xander Schauffele on Keegan Bradley being named U.S. Ryder Cup captain:

"I feel like Keegan would understand sort of when we need to get up, when we need to practice, and when you need to do this and hopefully dodge anything you don't have to do and maybe that will help us."

— Brentley Romine (@BrentleyGC) July 9, 2024

How about hats, Xander?  The coming Patrick/Xander cage match with Captain Keegan could be good fun as well...

We shouldn't need this warning:

We can’t say if Bradley will be a good leader since he has no applicable résumé to judge. He hasn’t ever been a vice captain nor has he voiced a vision, mainly because he wasn’t asked to. The first conversation he had with the PGA of America about the captaincy was when he was called and told it was his — a fact that will be cited as a dereliction by PGA officials if his time in the role goes poorly. Nor can we assume he’ll struggle, but the trait most often cited in his defense — passionate patriotism — isn’t enough. Just ask Lanny Wadkins or Tom Lehman or Curtis Strange or Hal Sutton or Corey Pavin or Davis Love III or Jim Furyk or Zach Johnson.

While this is likely true, it also could be quite the mess if it goes badly:

For too long, the U.S. Ryder Cup team room has functioned as an echo chamber of comforting blather, and not in the manner of locker rooms in real team sports, where whining, undermining conduct, petulance and apathy are mercilessly rooted out by coaches or managers. The Ryder Cup captaincy can’t be crowdsourced for the purposes of making every player feel heard, seen, included and comfortable, but that’s seemed to be the prized objective since the task force went to work. As Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Whatever happens on Long Island 14 months hence, Bradley’s tenure will make the job easier for those who follow him. For that reason alone, he can already be chalked up as a winning skipper.

There's no downside to blowing up the pretensions of the Task Force, though it would also help if he ended up with a dozen players that actually wanted to be there.  

The Healing - He's back, so brush up on all our therapeutic terminology:

Instead of getting all of McIlroy’s thoughts in the immediate aftermath of another major gone by — something he was swiftly criticized for — we got them all Wednesday morning at the Genesis Scottish Open. And there were a lot of them. McIlroy took the first question on the topic and

rambled for 2 minutes, 28 seconds, one thought flowing into the next, a reminder that this defeat had layers.

“I think the way I’ve described Pinehurst on Sunday was like it was a great day until it wasn’t,” he began. “I did things on that Sunday that I haven’t been able to do in the last couple years. Took control of the golf tournament. Holed putts when I needed to. Well, mostly when I needed to. Made birdies. You know, really got myself in there. And then, look, obviously unfortunate to miss those last two putts, or the putt on 16 and obviously the putt on 18.

“Yeah, it was a tough day. It was a tough few days after that, obviously. But I think as you get further away from it happening, you start to see the positives and you start to see all the good things that you did throughout the week.

“Yeah, there’s learnings in there, too, right. I can vividly remember starting to feel a little uncomfortable waiting for my second putt on 16, and you know, the putt on the last, it was a really tricky putt. And I was very aware of where Bryson was off the tee. I knew I had to hit it really soft. If the one back didn’t matter, I would have hit it firmer.

“But because I was sort of in two minds, I didn’t know whether Bryson [Dechambeau] was going to make a par or not, it was one of those ones where I had to make sure that if the putt didn’t go in, that it wasn’t going 10 feet by, which it very easily could have.

Learnings?  This would make perfect sense if it were used to explain his 2011 Masters meltdown, but shouldn't he know how to manage himself at crunch time by now?

 This debate was relitigated as well:

Rory McIlroy's media blowoff reignites a debate about obligation in the face of frustration

I think this is a nothingburger, especially as Rorty has a rett good track record of taking his lumps with microphones in his face:

He sat for a press conference the day after the PGA Tour made him to be a “sacrificial lamb.” He

sat for questions at Los Angeles Country Club, after finishing second at the ’23 U.S. Open, promising he “would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.” He stood stoic for 13 questions after a gut-wrenching loss at St. Andrews in 2022, only to slink off teary-eyed into the arms of his wife. He did an on-course interview after a crumbling Sunday 80 at the Masters in 2011. It turns out, McIlroy has spoken a helluva lot more than most other tour pros — nearly 50 times in official press scrums this season alone — so in one of the toughest moments of his golfing career, he wanted to get away.

He doesn’t regret it.

“No offense, you guys were the least of my worries at that point,” McIlroy said Wednesday. He chuckled because it was true. Incidentally, McIlroy’s sunken face while watching DeChambeau finish, from within the scoring room at Pinehurst, is an image that says it all anyway.

But on another subject, it ain't just a river in Egypt:

McIlroy didn’t pull any punches coming to his looper’s defense.

“You know, it’s certainly unfair. Hank Haney has never been in that position. Smylie has been in that position once, and I love Smylie, and he was out there with us on 18.

“But just because Harry is not as vocal or loud with his words as other caddies, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t say anything and that he doesn’t do anything. I just wish that, you know, these guys that criticize when things don’t go my way, they never say anything good when things do go my way.

“So where were they when I won Dubai earlier this year or Quail Hollow or the two FedEx Cups that I’ve won with Harry or the two Ryder Cups or whatever? They are never there to say Harry did such a great job when I win, but they are always there to criticize when we don’t win.

Right.  Perhaps Rory is unaware that Dubai and a U.S. Open are not exactly comparable?  What does that tell us?

“At the end of the day, they are not there. They are not the ones hitting the shots and making the decisions. Someone said to me once, you would never — if you would never take advice from these people, you would never take their criticisms, either. Certainly wouldn’t go to Hank Haney for advice. I love Smylie, but I think I know what I’m doing, and so does Harry.”

And yet, the same bad things keep happening at critical moments.  But as long as you know what you're doing and don't care about winning another major...  What's that definition of insanity?

Before I Leave You - They're playing the Scottish this week in East Lothian, which induced some of the boys to enjoy themselves.  Scenes such as this are one of my favorite parts of the week:

The staff bag on the pushcart from Spieth at North Berwick today 🤌🤌🤌 pic.twitter.com/i89WQyTVgZ

— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) July 10, 2024

How com Greller wasn't invited to play?

Have a great weekend and I'll likely see you on Monday. 

Tuesday Trifles - Captain America Edition

As I told you yesterday, it will be Tiger because it simply has to be Tiger.  Unless, yanno, it isn't....

I did go back to review yesterday's Tour Confidential discussion, in which Steve Stricker was the only other candidate submitted.  Oh Yeah, we've heard Couples and Love mentioned as well, but of course Tiger will do it... After all, the new mature Tiger has accepted the mantle of leadership, and will take one for the team.  Unless, yanno, he was planning on washing his hair that weekend.

Just as we all predicted, the U.S. Ryder Cup team will be captained at Bethpage Black by a beloved character who promises to inject some serious energy into the Long Island faithful.

And just as precisely none of us predicted, that captain will not be Tiger Woods.

After months of speculation surrounding Woods’ candidacy for the Ryder Cup slot, Keegan Bradley will instead captain the U.S. side at Bethpage, the U.S. Ryder Cup committee said on Monday, ending a multi-month flirtation with the lead gig from golf’s preeminent superstar. The news is expected to be finalized with an announcement at the NASDAQ in New York at noon on Tuesday.

 

Beloved?   Keegs?  The irony here is that Employee No. 2 and I had just begun watching Season Two of Full Swing, although we haven't yet gotten to the scene where Keegs is informed by Zach Johnson that he won't need his famous suitcase just yet....

Bradley is the quintessential cheap date, of far greater interest is Tiger's hard pass.  Conventional wisdom is that this is a matured Tiger Woods, one that wants to give back and is all about growing the game.  It would be hard to find a stage bigger than a Ryder Cup at Bethpage, so wassup with the Greta Garbo act?

Woods, a 15-time major champ and eight-time Ryder Cup competitor, marks a surprise “no” for Bethpage. Woods had been the open favorite for the lead position for months after the American beatdown in Rome, even going as far as to comment about “discussions” with then-PGA of America commissioner Seth Waugh.

“We’re still talking about it,” he said with a smile at the Masters in April, a point that Waugh reiterated at the PGA Championship in May.

But Woods’ schedule posed an existential issue for the captaincy: After accepting an elevated role as a Player Director on the PGA Tour’s policy board last August, Woods had obligations surrounding a complicated merger agreement with the Tour and Saudi PIF that would preempt his Ryder Cup captaincy work, which is typically a two-year position beginning in the months following the previous cup. The PGA of America held out naming a captain for months in the hopes that an agreement between the two parties would be reached, clearing the runway for Woods to serve as captain, even naming former caddie and NBC Sports analyst John Wood as “team manager” in the hopes of supplementing some of the captain’s workload. But as the calendar flipped to July, no such progress had been made, and Woods was forced to turn down the captaincy, though he could still theoretically compete on the team via captain’s selection or vice-captaincy.

Wood took that ill-defined gig presumably assuming he'd be working for God, whereas he'll be taking orders from Mr. 13.  Hope he's getting well paid.

But, as Geoff notes, there is a meaningful change that's occurred since the above comments:

A-list option Tiger Woods slow-played a decision awaiting PGA of America politics to play out. When his Seminole Pro-Member pal Seth Waugh stepped down June 30th, Tiger lost an ally in the building who would excuse Woods for passing up marketing and partner appearances required of the Captain all while juggling his PGA Tour board duties.

No doubt those promotional obligations are over-the-top, typically involving players well past their competitive primes.  But, with the Wood appointment and all, it's simply impossible to believe that the parties would let that derail such an obvious choice.

In one sense, though, Woods himself is an odd choice for captain, as he doesn't strike me as especially knowledgeable about the players he'd be considering for captain's picks.  Typically, captains are also playing, frequently paired with those grinding for picks.  Obviously Tiger doesn't play golf any longer, and doesn't hang around or even watch Tour events.

But what do we make of this excuse from Tiger?

Conversely, Woods had asserted he was unsure if he had the time capacity to take on the responsibility.

“We're still working on what that might look like, also whether or not I have the time to do it,” Woods said in May at the PGA Championship. “I'm dedicating so much time to what we're doing with the PGA Tour, I don't want to not fulfill the role of the captaincy if I can't do it.”

Woods was referring to his roles on the boards of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Enterprises, along with his position on the tour's transaction team, all of which have been focused on the tour’s potential deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

“What that all entails and representing Team USA and the commitments to the PGA of America, the players, and the fans and as I said, all of Team USA,” Woods continued. “I need to feel that I can give the amount of time that it deserves.”

Right!  One assumes that a deal will happen, and likely sooner than later.  The match itself is 14 months off, so I'm left to conclude that the man is simply a D88k.

Geoff does note one other possibility:

The intrigue surrounding Woods’ lack of desire to lead the team at Bethpage will continue to center around Waugh’s departure and may linger over Bradley’s captaincy. But Woods is likely interested in the 2027 job thanks to his love of Ireland and close friendship with Adare Manor owner J.P. McManus.

Really?  He prefers a road game?  This is my favorite piece on the shocking news:

Keegan Bradley is an ingenious pick for U.S. Ryder Cup captain ... or a rash act of desperation

Isn't this why we have ampersands?   Here's what I mean about home vs. road games:

The truth is, the Ryder Cup is arguably more of an exhibition than a sporting event, because in sporting events the issue is always in doubt. But golf’s biennial clash between the U.S. and Europe has become woefully predictable: the home side has won eight of the last nine matches and 11 of the last 13 Ryder Cups, with an average winning scoring margin of five points. There’s a decent chance a cardboard cutout of Rich Lerner could captain the U.S. to a win in Long Island next fall.

Isn't Bethpage as close to a sure thing as possible?  Dealing with the desperation angle first, here's the case for Keegan:

This appears to be an act of desperation. In a quote from the press release, PGA of America president John Lindert cited three qualities he valued in Bradley: "Past Ryder Cup experience, strong relationships and unwavering passion for this event." Bradley's past Ryder Cup experience includes two Ryder Cups as a player, the lowest total of any U.S. Ryder Cup captain since Dave Stockton in 1991. "Strong relationships" with his fellow players has been refuted by Bradley himself in a Netflix documentary. And "unwavering passion" is nice, but also meaningless … or at least useless.

So, he played on two losing teams with quite mixed results.  Just a reminder that when Rory almost missed his singles tee time at Medinah, he dusted Keegan pretty easily without the benefit of a warm-up.

And another odd aspect:

One of the great innovations of the modern captaincy was choosing someone just slightly older than the current players—someone in his late 40s or 50s who commanded some authority but who wasn't yet out of touch with the younger generation. Bradley, at 38, pushes a good strategy to its absurd breaking point. He's still playing. He is, by his own reckoning, an outsider. It would be wrong to say that other players didn't respect him, or that he's unpopular, but it is true that he's fully out of the loop. As far as I can tell, he's not an especially great communicator. How on earth is he going to summon the gravitas to lead his peers? (One thought, unbidden, keeps popping into my head: I wonder what Patrick Cantlay thinks of this guy?)

Also, I may have missed the announcement, but last I heard, he's not retiring from competitive golf. Again, he's 38. What if he makes the team? What if, like last time, he has a solid argument for making the team as a captain's pick, and finds himself having to make a tough call … on himself? Worse, how is he going to have the time to take on the duties of the modern captaincy, which is essentially like being a two-year CEO of a major corporation, when he's playing a full schedule?

Will you stop it already?  Just because they whine about how much work is involved doesn't mean we have to actually believe it....  They pick shirts.  Apparently that's too labor intensive for Tiger....

But it's a dark moment for the illustrious Task Force:

To understand why Bradley was picked, you first have to understand the chief failure of what has

been a generally successful and innovative U.S. Ryder Cup task force. Since the group's advent in the wake of the 2014 Gleneagles nightmare, it has struggled to prepare a younger generation for the captaincy. They tried with Zach Johnson, who (charitably) proved unable to meet the standard in Rome, but then the pipeline is dry after him. Look at his vice captains: Davis Love III, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Fred Couples and Stewart Cink. That's three former captains (one of whom, Love took the job twice, and then captained the Presidents Cup in 2022), one guy in Couples who is your classic fun uncle but will never be a captain, and Cink, the man who told me in 2021 that he thought his chance was gone. He was the fifth and final vice captain, and he's the only name whose exclusion vis-a-vis Bethpage raises an eyebrow.

In short, the task force ultimately was run like a board of directors, shuffling leadership between them. They got unlucky, too; Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods were supposed to pick up the baton, but then Phil went to LIV and Tiger clearly turned down the job. (Which may not be the biggest tragedy; he wasn't very good as Presidents Cup captain in Melbourne, nearly booting what looked like a sure thing before his players rescued him in Sunday singles.)

I couldn't disagree more.  You can only declare the Task Force a failure in the context of its objectives, and here the authors seem to naively assume its purpose was to win Ryder Cups, whereas the true purpose was the allow the cool kids to hang together.  It's first action in the aftermath of the 2014 debacle was to give Davis Love a mulligan for his 2012 debacle, so winning seems to be a secondary objective at best.

So we're left to hang our hat on, well, passion:

Sense to be made in the shock of Bradley's selection

The answer can be found in a suitcase that’s remained packed for some time. Keegan Bradley famously said he would never allow himself to open his return luggage from the 2012 Ryder Cup,

not until he was part of a winning team. It was a story Bradley resurfaced last year when he was desperately hoping to make his third U.S. Ryder Cup team (but first since 2014), only for his name not to be called when Zach Johnson announced his captain’s picks. The stigma that U.S. players don’t care about the Ryder Cup is overplayed and not entirely true. In the same breath, it’s clear that, as a group, they don’t carry the impalpable weight of hurt as their European comrades do. If the Americans win, great; if not, there’s a tournament to be played in the upcoming weeks. Bradley was the exception, unwilling to compromise his passion in spite of the pain it caused.

It’s exactly that passion that makes him the best choice to become the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Just not for the reasons you think.

Yet Bradley—or the idea of Bradley, or someone like him—was desperately needed. His attitude and love for the Ryder Cup runs perpendicular to the reported player unrest over money on the American side that surfaced at Marco Simone, to say nothing of the backdrop of greed that has been the undercurrent of golf’s civil war between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. The Ryder Cup is arguably the one time the sport has true communal appeal, where fans come together to back their boys. In Bradley, the fans have an avatar for someone who cares about the Ryder Cup as much as they do.

What Joel Beall is foreshadowing here is a Keegan-Patrick Cantlay cage match, for which I will lay in a supply of popcorn.  As down on it as ai May seem, I like this pick a heck of a lot more than any of the retreads or Stewart Cinks of the world, because at least the captain will want to be there.  But Rory got himself taken to the cleaners by Cantlay, and I don't know that Keegan's passion will prove communicable.

It's not for nothing that many commentators are comparing it to Ted Bishop's statement pick of Tom Watson to captain that 2014 team.  While we understood the need for the statement, we never had any illusions that it would work, especially as weak as that 2014 roster was (Jeff Overton, for God's sake).

In this case it's a home game at a venue that will uniquely favor the locals, so one assumes they'll get away with it and win.  But Tiger has refused to step up when needed, and I do hope folks are paying attention.  When Tiger was put on the Tour's Board recently, my sense is that people were excited without actually knowing how Tiger would perform in such a role.  My own sense is that he's making the world better for Tiger, but pretty much ruining the game in all other respects.

Welcome to our new reality.  At the beginning of the LIV battles I made one prescient prediction, to wit, that we would end up hating them all.  Pretty good call, eh?  I suppose the saving grace is that I don't yet hate Keegan.  But there's still plenty of time.....

That will have to do for today.  I'll catch you later in the week for sure.

Weekend Wrap - Quad Cities Edition

I did actually watch a bit of the proceedings, haven been driven indoors by that heat and humidity.... That and the Yankees being unwatchable, Ben Rice notwithstanding.

Titanic Thompson - Would that anyone would get that reference, but the kid held on:

Davis Thompson continued his stellar play in recent weeks and rolled to a four-stroke win in the John Deere Classic. The often pouty-looking former Georgia star smiled and even cried after securing his first PGA Tour title and his Open debut at Royal Troon.

“I kind of got going this last month and played well last week,” Thompson said after posting -28 (63-67-62-64). “Just tried to keep it rolling this week; was able to get the win. Qualifying for The Open was just an added incentive into this.”

The 2021 grad had recorded two previous second-place finishes and broke through in his 63rd Tour start. He is the PGA Tour’s ninth first-time winner this season.

Co-runner-up C.T. Pan closed with 64 to earn the second Open spot on offer at the Deere based on his world ranking, denying new PGA Tour member Michael Thorbjornsen and amateur Luke Clanton, who tied at -24. Pan will be making his fourth Open start and searching for his first made cut in the event.

Clanton’s stellar week makes him the first amateur to record PGA Tour back-to-back top 10’s in 66 years. He posted a final round 63. The Florida State sophomore recently made the U.S. Open cut and vied for low amateur, finished T10 last week, and now has a PGA Tour second-place finish to his growing list of impressive credits.

Pouty isn't a bad term for it, though perhaps not quite spot on, as he exudes some kind of off-putting attitude, barely allowing himself a slight upturn of the lips as he reached the 18th green four shots clear.

Geoff also summarizes some other significant finishes:

• Ben Griffin finished T5 just a month after laser eye surgery. He was already exempt to The Open.

• Jordan Spieth shot 63 on Saturday to record a T26 finish as the 2017 Open winner heads to the Scottish Open and Royal Troon.

• Hayden Springer (T7) opened the Deere with a 12-under 59. He made eight birdies and two eagles in his tournament debut to become the 13th different player and 14th sub-60 round on the PGA Tour.

• John Deere & Co. celebrated 25 years of sponsorship, making it the second oldest on the PGA Tour.

They were third when you included Honda, but Oops, isn't that awkward!

Obviously we all expect the ratings to be insignificant, and I'm not saying this event was a home run.  But, and I think it's rather a significant but, the event may have had more actual gravitas than Hartford.  This was a week of anonymous players getting air time, but they were playing to change their professional lives, which is inherently more dramatic than a Tour Alpha Dog adding another $2 million to their net worth.  The Tour's best moments are often in these events, think Nick Dunlap if you're stumped, because of that actual drama.

At this juncture, I'm actually more interested in the second and third tier evets, because you can see the effect of the life-changing opportunities on the players.  They can't always seize the moment, but it's always real.

Udder Stuff - Combine a slow news cycle with a lazy blogger, and you get this kind of "phone-it-in" post, the remainder of which will be non-aerobic blogging.  We'll begin by riffing off the Tour Confidential panel, in which the words "Deere" and "quad Cities" do not appear.

What did they think more important?  Well, the usual, of course:

With the Fourth of July and the red, white and blue on our mind, let’s look ahead to the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. The Americans are still without a captain. Who do you think it will be?

Jessica Marksbury: It has to be Tiger, right? That is the only reason I can think of for such a

lengthy delay. Unless it was supposed to be Tiger and he doesn’t want the job for some reason, and now they’re scrambling.

Josh Berhow: Tiger said at Valhalla they were still working through that conversation and he was deciding if he had the time to fully commit to it… but that was almost two months ago now. As our Sean Zak wrote back in April, they were way behind schedule in naming a captain then (and now even more behind). If the PGA of America is waiting on Tiger to decide, at some point he has to stop holding everyone hostage. I still think Tiger might do it, but if Tiger isn’t the guy, someone like Steve Stricker might be a good fit. He led the U.S. to a big win the last time they were on home soil. Plus, after last year’s disaster, he might be the man to get the Americans back on track.

Ryan Barath: Logic and history shows us that it should have been Phil, but after the last few years that ship completely sailed and I think Tiger is the obvious choice. Now if Mr. Woods continues to cause delays in the process as reported, I think it could default to Stricker as suggested by Josh, which in my opinion would be a real letdown for the event.

Berhow: I don’t know if I’d call it a letdown. Bethpage will already be an awesome home venue, and even if Tiger isn’t a captain he might be an assistant or even a captain’s pick. But if Tiger doesn’t captain this one it’s not like it will never happen — his time just gets pushed back another two (or four?) years.

Think about who we entrusted the Ryder Cup to ten years ago.  Phil showed up at the 2004 event with untested equipment and had trashed two of his captains for causing his poor play, so his qualifications were obviously impeccable.    He was backed on the Task Force by Tiger, who is now demonstrating his own set of priorities.  

It will inevitably be Tiger, because do we think Stricker wants the job as a clear second choice?  But where are the flashing red lights?  This is the guy we've corrupted Tour governance to put in a position to save us, and he's playing hardball here.  Can you see why your humble blogger has come to hate each and every one of these a*******es?

Is he back already?

Rory McIlroy returns this week to defend his title at the Genesis Scottish Open, which will be his first start since his runner-up finish at the U.S. Open and decision to take some time away from the game. How do you think Rory will play at the Scottish and, more importantly, a week later at the final major of the year?

Marksbury: I expect Rory to show up and perform as well as he has been — maybe even win! He’s the defending champ at the Scottish, after all. And his track record at the Open is encouraging, with five top-six finishes since 2016, coupled with his win in 2014. Mentally, though, I suppose it’s hard to tell how long he may need to recover from the U.S. Open. Three weeks of rest went by in a flash. I hope he was able to get the decompression and processing time that he needed.

Berhow: I think he’ll play really well this week and wouldn’t be surprised to see him motivated enough to win. It’s not like he’s been playing poorly — he just missed a pair of crucial short putts late and lost a major. I’m not worried about this week. But the week after? Royal Troon is the last major of the year. If he has any lasting nerves or ends up putting too much pressure on himself, I think it happens then more than it would this week, which seems like a good low-stress spot to return. But I still expect him to play well at The Open. He’s struggled to win majors this last decade, not contend.

Barath: I’ll be blunt — I fully expect Rory to show up in full ass-kicker mode. Do I want him to win? Maybe, but I also would rather see him win The Open, so if he plays well but doesn’t win, I still consider that a very good omen going into the final major of the year.

I'm going way out on a limb with an Open prediction.   He'll play well and be in contention on Sunday, then he'll fly every green on the back nine, and people will bemoan Golf Twitter's harsh treatment of Harry Diamond.

I'm so over Rory.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Phil Mickelson said he doesn’t believe a PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger is “necessary” for the future of pro golf, arguing that what’s happened thus far — PGA Tour Signature Events, player equity and pros (like Bryson DeChambeau) expanding their brands — has already benefited both leagues. “The competition that both tours are providing is elevating both tours,” he said. “So is it necessary that there’s a merger? Probably not. But it would be a good thing if there wasn’t any hostility.” Do you agree with him?

Marksbury: Is it necessary? I guess not. Both the Tour and LIV will continue to exist. But I think it’s fair to say that LIV players like Jon Rahm would probably appreciate a meeting of the minds — at the very least to forge a path toward creating more World-Ranking point opportunities for LIV players. And from a fan’s perspective, we certainly want to see more tournaments where all the world’s best players are in one place.

Berhow: He’s right that it helped the PGA Tour add Signature Events and the player equity program (making the rich richer), but it certainly didn’t help the overall product by taking away some key players. Two diluted tours is not the path forward. If they played together something like eight times a year (instead of just the majors) you could argue that’s enough. But seeing the best players in the world play the same tournaments just four times in a calendar year is not what’s best for the sport and its fans.

Barath: To Josh’s point, the best players need to play the best players more often than four times a year, and right now the separation is only harming the PGA Tour and elevating the majors even more. It’s a great thing for the majors but not great for general fan interest, and if the “rich want to get richer” they better get some more eyeballs on regular events.

Except, in case you haven't noticed, those Signature Events sucked big time.  They are well down the road to ruining the Tour, so helpful advice from the guy that triggered the ruin is not something we need to credit.  

After six wins in seven starts, World No. 1 Nelly Korda has missed the cut in her last three events. She should be back in action this week at the Evian Championship, the fourth of five majors, assuming she’s able to play following her recovery from a dog bite that forced her to withdraw from an Aramco Team Series event. Do you see Korda getting back on track in France?

Marksbury: Given the form Nelly displayed earlier this year, I can only believe that the MCs were a total aberration. She has a good run going at Evian, with two top-nine finishes in her last two appearances. I like her chances to contend for major No. 3.

Berhow: I do. I don’t know if I’ll predict that she wins, since winning is hard, but Nelly missing a fourth straight cut seems so unlikely. She had never even missed three in a row until now! I think she’ll contend. Hopefully she’s healthy and can play.

Barath: Making the assumption that any injury was just minor and withdrawing was simply out of precaution, I expect Nelly to contend at the Evian. Every player usually has a few weeks a year where the game decides to leave for what feels like no reason, but at her level I don’t see it lasting the rest of the year.

Quite the odd sequence, for sure, but one wonders whether those major set-ups were tougher.  For sure Evian doesn't tax them, so I'd assume she at least plays the weekend.

Just a couple of other bits before my exit.  I think this is missing the Sharpie:

every golfer’s laundry room pic.twitter.com/Pbs3Qc7lHM

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) July 6, 2024

 And, as we enter Links season, this helpful reminder:

American courses are boring. They don’t make you think… links golf is pure… https://t.co/5NQ0IyEc3E

— Pablo Larrazabal (@plarrazabal) July 6, 2024

It's Twoo!  It's Twoo!  Though it's been a wet summer, so expect greenery the next two weeks.

Have a great week, but stay cool. 

Tuesday Trifles - Legally Bland Edition

 I shan't tax you too much today.  Just a couple of quick hits, then we can all get on with our days.

Monday Finish - With apologies to Dylan Dethier's column, that got crazy, didn't it?  So crazy that I couldn't even stay top the end watching it on tape later in the day:

LIV pro wins second-straight senior major, credits LIV for improved play

OK, though that LIV connection is slightly weird given that this is a round-belly event.... I mean, was Yasir business model to build the most prestigious Senior Tour in golf?  If not, it's hard to see how this is more damning than anything, LIV being where the Ranch House set goes to hone their games.

LIV pro Richard Bland may not be playing four-day tournaments all that often anymore, but that didn’t seem to hurt him in an event that extended to five days.

After weather forced the completion of the last eight holes of the final round at the U.S. Senior Open to Monday, Bland made up a three-stroke deficit to Hiroyuki Fujita in four holes at Newport (R.I.) Country Club. Bland then took the lead for the first time in the championship with a birdie at 15, gave it away on 18 and then prevailed on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff, which was required after Bland and Fujita had tied in a two-hole aggregate playoff.

It’s Bland’s second straight senior major title in what was just his second PGA Tour Champions start. The Englishman, who was a founding member of a LIV Golf team, earned a spot in the Senior PGA Championship, in May, as a former DP World Tour winner and fired a final-round 63 to win at Harbor Shores. While Bland was denied status on the PGA Tour Champions due to his LIV affiliation, his win did earn him an exemption into this week’s U.S. Senior Open.

“Your first two senior tournaments to be majors, and to come out on top is — I was just hoping going into the PGA that I was good enough to contend,” Bland said afterward. “I hadn’t played against these guys.”

Careful, kid, or they'll do to you what they did to Bobby Locke back in the day.

Those scheduling issues won't subside any time soon:

Bland (and, presumably, his LIV employers) will now need to decide whether he will go for a third straight senior major at the Senior Open Championship at Carnoustie or play in LIV Golf’s UK event that same weekend. Bland win at Newport also earned him a spot in the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont.

I'm old enough to remember when golfers followed the sun.  Now, they follow $$$$$$.

But a wild back and forth kind of day:

Bland shot into contention with three birdies in a row to start his final round and added another one before play was halted due to severe storms Sunday afternoon.

He was still down three strokes to Fujita who had been playing steady golf all week before he restarted play Monday with three bogeys in five holes to drop from 16 under to 13 under.

At the same time, Bland pounced with back-to-back birdies on the 14th and 15th holes to take a one-shot lead.

Things got interesting at Newport 18th hole.

Playing a group ahead of Fujita, Bland hit what he thought was a perfect drive on the long uphill par-4, but a strong hurting breeze downed the ball in a cross bunker. He could advance his ball only into the rough and then airmailed the green with his third shot. He did well to make an eight-foot putt for bogey to post 13 under.

Meanwhile, Fujita, one of the shortest drivers in the field, had found the 18th fairway but was more than 235 yards away on the uphill, into-the-wind par-4. The 466-yard finisher at Newport was playing beastly with two-thirds of the field who played it in regulation Monday making bogey.

From an upslope just left of the bunker, Fujita put everything he had into a 5-wood and flew it onto the green, much to the broadcast crew’s amazement. He two-putted for par to force a two-hole aggregate playoff, his birdie-try tracking most of the way before just coming up short.

This I believe was the first use of the USGA's two-hole aggregate playoff (a ridiculous half measure, though that argument is for another time), which went four holes and culminated with this: 

WHAT A SHOT! 😱

Richard Bland's clutch bunker shot en route to victory! pic.twitter.com/G3sbdg6jXJ

— USGA (@USGA) July 1, 2024

Good stuff, though we're left to conclude that the weather determined the outcome because, absent Sunday's suspension of play, one assumes Fujita would have coasted home.

I enjoyed this event greatly, though mostly for a rare peak at Newport Country Club.  Alas, it might be my last....

Detroit Doings - Just a couple of minor leavings, first about that guy that unfortunately three-jacked on No. 18 to finish one shot out of a playoff with Cam Davis.  No question he's been playing well, but this golf writer gives him high marks on the human side as well:

Everything we want from an athlete after a tough loss. Stand up there, answer the questions, show that it sucks. Don’t have to be in a good mood—the angst shows you care, and that’s part of the show that is professional sports. Awesome from a 22 year old. pic.twitter.com/KQNjkPO0Fd

— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) July 1, 2024

So, in other words, he pulled a "Rory" but then, as far as the media is concerned, avoided pulling a "Rory."   Well played, young man, except for the three-jack, of course.

Then there's Cam Young, whose club "modification" we had yesterday, and whose game seemed superficially to be on the rebound, admittedly contradictory data points.  In his Monday Finish column, Dylan Dethier had this:

NOT-WINNERS

Cameron Young, guys.

Sometimes it seems like coming up short helps golfers find another gear their next time out, like when Xander Schauffele finished second at Quail Hollow and then won the PGA Championship the following week.

But with Cameron Young it feels like the burden of not winning has gotten heavier and heavier. The tension has grown thicker. And Sunday looked especially not fun. I mean, who breaks their driver in contention on the back nine on Sunday?! And still, even after the snap-hook on 14 and the snapped driver that followed, he could have made it into a playoff had he done the following:

-Made a four-footer at 16

-Two-putted 17

-Parred 18

Throw in a made seven-footer at 14 and you could pencil in Young as the outright winner. Instead? None of the above. The drought continues. The frustration continues to build.

Dylan's got the key bit, that he was still in the hunt when he went off on his driver.  They're human for sure, but that's not always a positive.

Reality Bites -  I got there before Dylan, but always happy to have company:

ONE BIG QUESTION

Where will Spieth’s season go next?

Jordan Spieth is reporting to this week’s John Deere Classic for the first time since 2015 — but he’s not even one of the top favorites. Spieth enters having finished T29 or worse in nine consecutive starts. He’s at risk of falling outside the PGA Tour’s coveted top 50 and he’s just 24th in U.S. Presidents Cup standings. But could there be some Spieth magic lurking in the Quad Cities?

The irony, she burns!  This blog dates to 2014, but Jordan and the Deere were heavily blogged in 2015.  Spieth had won the Masters and U.S. Open, creating calendar year Grand Slam discussions.  Notwithstanding that the Open was at the Old Course, where local knowledge is elusive, Jordan decided the best prep the week before the Open would be in the Quad Cities.  Predictably, he finished a shot out of the playoff, and I assume is still on Zach Johnson's Christmas card list.

He went in 2015 out of misguided loyalty for the sponsor's exemption that led to his first win, but hasn't been bothered to go back since?  Just bizarre, but now this:

John Deere Classic odds 2024: The cold hard facts against Jordan Spieth

This is a tout sheet, so pay it no mind, but folks are noticing Jordan's desultory play.  And I also liked this bit that shows the life of a Non-Signature Event sponsor:

It has been a wild Monday on the odds board for the John Deere Classic. When the field of 156 players was posted on Friday, there was one name we all didn’t expect: Patrick Cantlay. Odds dropped on Monday morning with Cantlay as the betting favorite, despite Cantlay never competing in the John Deere during his 13-year professional career.

Just a few hours into odds being available Monday morning, Cantlay withdrew. It was a race to bet on the rest of the field whose original odds on Monday showed some significant value. Losing the betting favorite always cuts the remainder of the field from an odds perspective.

I'm sorry, but Patrick doesn't do Quad Cities.....  But no doubt tickets were sold based upon Cantlay's name, although the appeal eludes me.

Darbon Dating - Lots of turmoil at the top of our game, Geoff with the latest from St. Andrews:

Mark Darbon has been appointed Chief Executive of The R&A and Secretary of The Royal and

Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

The 45-year-old CEO of Premiership Rugby’s Northampton Saints will take over for the retiring Martin Slumbers in November.

Darbon’s other past roles in sports business suggests a broad range of experience outweighing a noticeable lack of golf world ties. He has held senior roles with the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, Olympic Park Operations, and staging of large-scale events for two American-based firms. Most recently Darbon oversaw a sports organization that captured its first title since 2014.

“We were greatly impressed with Mark’s knowledge and experience of the global sport industry and his ability to develop successful teams and deliver fantastic events,” said Niall Farquharson, Chairman of The R&A. “We believe he will be an excellent leader for The R&A and The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and will play a key role in helping us to achieve our goal of ensuring a prosperous and sustainable future for golf.”

 Mostly I just hate to have to part with all those Golden Slumbers headers....

Geoff adds a list of pending issues for the organization:

• Pressures real and imagined to keep pace with worldwide purse growth as the R&A sees benefits for golf after increasing investment in research and development causes.

• Expiring media contracts in 2027 and 2028 with NBC and Sky Sports.

• Official World Golf Ranking politics as part of the R&A’s board seat.

• Managing the impact and ramifications of Saudi Arabia’s golf investment.

• Working with the USGA on 2028’s initial implementation of new distance testing rules in the face of hostile and often inconsistent stances from the PGA Tour, PGA of America and manufacturer industrial complex.

• Protecting The Open’s stature and continuing fan experience improvements while balancing affordability and access for a broad range of fans.

• Continuing the AIG Women’s Open momentum as the season’s final major.

• Maintaining the revenues necessary to fund successful outreach efforts that could include taking over failing or closed courses.

No shortage of fluff in there, but can he help the bride and me with our Daily Ballot entries?  

That'll be it for today.  Catch y'all later in the week.

Weekend Wrap - Motown Edition

This will not be the wrappage I anticipated, because my weekend golf viewing was exclusively of the iconic Newport Country Club.  The good news is that we have more golf to watch today.

Motown Mayhem - As noted, I didn't see a lick of it, but apparently Akshay does a spot-on Rory impression:

Davis, the 2021 Rocket Mortgage Classic champion, shot 2-under 70 Sunday at Detroit Golf Club to get in the clubhouse at 18-under 270, and that was good enough for the title when Akshay Bhatia took three putts from 32 feet to make bogey at the last.

“I wouldn’t wish what happened to Akshay on anyone, but I’ve done a lot of grinding to get myself out of a hole,” he said. “It’s pretty good.”

Davis, 29, hadn’t recorded a single top-10 finish this season, and conceded he didn’t see a week like this coming to get him “out of the doldrums.” Since May, in his last six starts, Davis was a cumulative 32-over par, and had missed the cut at the PGA Championship and U.S. Open.

“I saw a little bit of a spark last week” said Davis, who finished T-48 at the Travelers Championship, his best result in his last six starts, “but nothing to show this coming, so this is crazy.”

Ironically, the Aussie is no better than the third most famous Cameron in golf, although his two wins are, checking notes, two better than one of those above him on that list (a buried segue for those keeping score at home).

I don't know, but perhaps we should be buying some hypnotherapy futures?

Question 5: Should we talk about hypnotherapists?

Cam Davis truly seemed to be at his wit's end, and more than a little down in the dumps, after a series of mediocre finishes on Tour and two missed cuts at the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. Now here he is a couple weeks later winning on Tour, and the first person he credited was his hypnotherapist, named Grace. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but we were on this trend a decade ago, and Davis' experience is just another indication of the various ways golfers are honing their mental games in 2024.

"I honestly haven't been in a very good place mentally at all for the last six months or so," Davis said Sunday night. I felt like all the opportunities have been slipping out of my hands as the year progresses without playing very good golf. I had a great week at the Masters and it feels like since then it all had just left me. I felt like a change of direction was definitely needed, something that I was actually going to stick to because I'm definitely someone that will start doing something and if it doesn't feel like it's helping straight away, it's very easy to drop it. Sticking with the work that I'm doing with Grace has made a very big impact very quickly. I felt a lot better last week even though the score didn't show it, and to have it turn into this this week is hard to believe really because I was not in a good place two or three weeks ago."

You can bet the hypnotist trend is only going to continue after Davis' success...whoever Grace is, we expect her phone may be ringing more than usual in the next couple weeks.

My trainer wants me to keep a stash of his business cards in my golf bag so that every time I crush a drive I can hand a few out...  Maybe Cam should do the same for Grace?

Not much to be found about that Bhattia 3-jack, but the Tour Confidential panel had thoughts about the young man:

1. Cam Davis won the Rocket Mortgage Classic for his second PGA Tour win of his career after Akshay Bhatia three-putted the 72nd hole for bogey. The bogey robbed Bhatia of a playoff and a chance to win for the third time of his career, which only five players have done on the PGA Tour before turning 23 in the last 40 years (Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Tom Kim). Bhatia doesn’t turn 23 until Jan. 31, 2025. Do you think he joins this list? And, despite the loss, is he the game’s youngest rising talent?

Nick Dimengo: Crushing ending for Bhatia, who’s one of the brightest stars in the game — at a point when the sport really needs one. However, it’s tough to envision him joining that list quite yet. He’s been

on fire lately, so maybe he’ll prove me wrong and perform like this moving forward, but it’s going to take a major to really get my attention. As for young guns, I still have Aberg and even Cameron Young ahead of him in terms of “next up.”

Josh Sens: My only concern about Bhatia is that, at 6-foot-1, 130 pounds, he might be condemned by building inspectors who deem him structurally unsound and in danger of collapsing in high winds. He could win another by January 1, with chances all the better if pegs it a few more times against lower-wattage fields. He’s an impressive talent. But Aberg is still the alpha among the barely legal crowd.

Dylan Dethier: Oh boy. He could definitely win by January — he’s been knocking on the door! — but if Davis’ Sunday win was a reminder of anything it’s that winning is hard and it doesn’t necessarily happen very often. Always take the under.

That's quite the list, but they're also including some awfully cheap wins for Akshay and Tom Kim, though at his age he still has time to go after the big game.

Akshay did have a post-round quote that succinct and to the point:

Akshay Bhatia: "It sucks, no other way to put it. I mean, just sucks."

There's no shortage of suckage in golf....

But did someone mention Cam Young?

2. Meanwhile, Cameron Young started the day one off the lead but shot 73 — his worst score of the week by six strokes — and tied for 6th. He’s still yet to win on the PGA Tour, and the 27-year-old pro’s seven runner-up finishes since joining the Tour in the 2021-22 season are the most of any player without a win in that span. What’s holding him back?

Dimengo: Young is easily my favorite young talent (see previous), but he’s really missing the “it” factor. Cliche, I know. His short game is the most glaring weakness in his game, but I also think it’s between the ears for him. He’s got to feel that taste of victory before he releases the pressure in his mind — then look out. Remember, it took Phil seven years on Tour to win his first major — and he’s now got six on his resume.

Sens: The short game for sure. The stats back that up. He’s 127th in strokes gained: putting and 118th in strokes gained: around-the-green. That doesn’t get it done very often on Tour, no matter how many lasers you hit from tee to green.

Dethier: This Sunday felt different than other Young close calls. Steam was coming out of his ears. The guy was right in the mix and broke his driver shaft on the 14th tee! Had Young made a four-footer on 16, two-putted on 17 and parred 18 he would have tied Davis at 18 under par. Instead, he finished three shots back. I hope for his sake this ends soon — the pressure looks like it’s understandably worn him down.

Josh has the right answer, at least statistically:

If a player with the above statistical profile were to go medieval on one of his fourteen clubs, wouldn't you think there was a more obvious choice:

 I get the anger, but he was seemingly still in it at that point:

That meant a missing weapon as the leaders came down the stretch at the Rocket Mortgage. While Young managed a par on 14, he likely would have preferred his driver on the last three holes at Detroit Golf Club which are two long par-4s sandwiching a reachable, but into the wind par-5 at 17.

He wound up finished bogey-par-bogey, though the driver was hardly to blame — he missed a four-footer at 16 and three-putted 17 to finish T6, three shots behind Cameron Davis’ winning score.

Young is still seeking his first PGA Tour win after seven runner-up finishes to start his career. That’s the most such finishes without a win on the Tour since 1983.

The funny thing is that I remember Rory using the same subtle move to snap a shaft, though it was long iron for Rors.  But, Cam, being compared to Rory in terms of decision-making down the stretch isn't a compliment, although that gaggle of missed short putts has the feel of deja vu.

Lastly, are you curious as to how America's newest hero fared?  Which hero?  Well, this guy of course:

'Do you know that you’re famous?': Inside a wild 48 hours for the beer-drinking, Golf Galaxy-working Rocket Mortgage Monday qualifier

No issues with him making his Monday morning shift at Golf Galaxy, as he shot 75-75 to miss the cut by nine strokes.  Reality is a bitch!

Newport News - Links season begins July 11th, though we've gotten a wee tease this week with the Senior U.S. Open.  Newport isn't a links, of course, but it can have a linksy feel to it, although it's quite the shame that the USGA landed there in a year where it's so lush.  If you go back to the footage of Tiger's U.S. Amateur there in 1995, you'll see it's delightfully brown and balls kicked p dust as they landed.  

Unfortunately, the broadcast included recurring graphics of an approaching storm, one with vibrant reds, oranges and yellows that spelled trouble:

Goody, more golf to watch later today, assuming I can get Optimum to tape the golf for me (they're a little slow to update the program guide).

Newport is old school to say the least, including an eccentric routing that includes back-to-back Par-3's, not a regular feature of U.S. Opens.  I can't imagine this record ever being broken:

But the odds of what Bensel just did at Newport Country Club Friday morning are a heck of a lot longer than that.

After opening his first U.S. Senior Open with a 75 Thursday, Bensel, a former pro at Winged Foot who now splits time between Purchase, New York’s Century Country Club and the Country Club of Mirasol in West Palm Beach, Florida, started his second round with two pars and a bogey before coming to the first of Newport Country Club’s back-to-back par-3s at the 4th and the 5th.

Bensel played both holes in just two strokes.

That’s right. He made back-to-back aces.

Big deal, it probably happens all the time:

The National Hole-In-One Registry lists odds of making two holes-in-one during the same round at 67 million to one. This has been done three times on the PGA Tour, most recently by Brian Harman in 2015. But making aces on back-to-back holes? While it’s probably happened in recreational golf, happening in a professional tournament is another story, let alone a major championship.

On the golf course yesterday we were musing on the prevalence of back-to-back one-shotters.  One of the guys came up with Quaker Ridge, and your geekish humble blogger was able to add Cypress Point and Pacific Dunes.  Both of those two are crazy routings as Cypress has both b-to-b Par-3's and Par-5's, whereas Pacific Dunes features a back nine with only two Par-4's (you can do the required math).

The funniest bit?  It's truly an Open, and they're serious about that qualification process, at least up to a point.  We all know the qualifiers aren't going to contend, and a spot in the field doesn't mean you're going to love your tee times.  Why do I mention this?  Because, while history was made, it happened too early for Golf Channel/NBC to have their cameras up and running:

The only video of the aces came from the USGA Twitter account, which posted the video of Bensel plucking his ball out of the hole on the wind-swept 5th green at Newport Country Club. Winds were in the 6-12 mph range with gusts up to 18 mph Friday morning, making Bensel’s feat all the more impressive.

One other very odd note.  They showed something that included the ball that Bensel used to make the back-to-back aces, but am I the only one that finds that curious?  That means he made a hole-in-one in the U.S. Senior Open, and kept the ball in play?  Would you?

If you watched the any of the broadcast, you'd have heard of the events of 1895, in which the first U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open were played on successive days, with the Father of American Golf Architecture (I for one think we could elide the word "Architecture"), Charles Blair Macdonald, winning the first Amateur.  That's true enough, though the truth is a tad murkier, as Wikipedia informs:

In 1894, the Newport Country Club and Saint Andrew's Golf Club both held "national championship" tournaments. Macdonald finished second in both, and on both occasions he angrily denounced the manner in which each competition was held, with the result that both tournaments were declared unofficial.[2] That fall, delegates from the Chicago Golf Club (including Macdonald), Saint Andrew's, The Country Club, Newport Country Club, and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club met in New York City to resolve the problem. The result was the formation of the United States Golf Association (USGA), which would administer the official championship. Macdonald was named Vice President of the organization. The first U.S. Amateur was held in 1895 at the Newport Country Club, and this time Macdonald won, beating Charles Sands 12 & 11 in the final (which is still the record winning margin).

It's an amusing moment, at least to this observer.  The USGA's official sanitized history is one thing:

The U.S. Amateur Championship was born in 1895 because of a controversy. In 1894, two clubs - Newport (R.I.) Golf Club and New York's St. Andrew's Golf Club - had conducted invitational tournaments to attract the nation's top amateur players.

Newport's stroke play tournament was won by club member W.G. Lawrence, who triumphed over a field of 20 competitors. The match-play competition at St. Andrews attracted 27 golfers and was won by Laurence Stoddart, of the host club.

Both clubs proclaimed their winners as the national champion. Clearly, golf needed a national governing body to conduct national championships, develop a single set of rules for all golfers to follow, and to promote the best interests of the game. With that, representatives from five clubs founded the USGA on Dec. 22, 1894.

I haven't made it terribly far into my Macdonald biography, but I have made it through 1895.  The first of these "unofficial" events was held at Newport, and Macdonald squandered a first-round lead when he lost his game and failed to break 100.  He incurred a two-stroke penalty for moving his ball away from a stone fence, causing him to lose by one stroke.  At least he lost by a stroke until he threw a hissy fit...

A second event held at St. Andrews was even more embarrassing.  After losing the match-play final (and, amusingly, his opponent was penalized for moving his ball off a wall, which we thought Charlie was against), he contested the result on jurisdictional grounds, to wit, that this one club was not authorized to declare a national champion. 

Macdonald was a great man that did much to promote golf in the U.. in its infancy.  That doesn't mean that he was a nice man or a gracious man....But that does conclude our history lesson.

Confidentially Yours - Just gonna riff on the remaining Tour Confidential Q&A's, then allow us all to get on with our week:

3. PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh announced he’s leaving his post after six years on the job. Much has happened with his organization during his tenure, but what do you think was his most important contribution?

Dimengo: Maybe I’m just a big softy since I’m a new dad, but much respect to Waugh for his belief

and promise as CEO to expand the PGA REACH Foundation, which helps grow the game for younger and diverse players, as well as for those without much access to golf. It’s such an important initiative to introduce a wider audience to the sport, and Waugh led the charge by securing hundreds of millions of dollars to support it.

Sens: Under Waugh’s watch, what springs to mind for me is PGA of America’s move from Florida to impressive new headquarters in Texas, and a long-term TV deal with CBS and ESPN—something that looks better and better all the time, given all the tumult in the game. Maybe both would have happened with another CEO in place, but Waugh’s business acumen couldn’t have hurt.

Dethier: I’m not sure how to assign credit here, so this is probably more correlation than causation — but the PGA Championships have been quite good in recent years. Valhalla wasn’t the test that fans want from major championships but it produced Sunday drama with a high-wattage leaderboard and Oak Hill, Southern Hills and Kiawah did the same in years before. The tournament has established a slightly stronger identity, they’ve stuck to a setup philosophy that keeps players happy and fans have flocked to its photo finishes. Here’s hoping his successor has the same success.

The jury is still out on Frisco, and I find the PGA of America mostly irrelevant these days.  They have little business owning those tow major properties, and little interest in their 31,000 members.

But I have no idea what Nich Dimengo is talking about.  Seth loves to talk about participation numbers, I'm just unclear as to whether he deserves any actual credit.

But shall we talk TIOs?

4. This week’s Italian Open on the DP World Tour — won by Marcel Siem — included a curious placement of hospitality suites just steps behind the 18th green at Adriatic Golf Club. In some cases, a shot into the suites resulted in a free drop nearly onto the green. We’ve seen setups like this influence play before, although rarely have they been this close to the action. What’s your take? Harmless? Despicable? A tournament oversight? A fun fan experience? Something else?

Dimengo: Hey, course management is a thing, right? In this case, maybe the least popular opinion was actually the best golf decision! So, in that vein, I look at it as a fun fan experience. Sure, people are

going to get pissed about it, but they’re probably the ones yelling at young kids for chipping onto their lawn. Let’s bring this to the Open Championship in a couple of weeks (partly joking).

Sens: Terrible. Bad shots should be punished. Obviously, tournaments need infrastructure, so you can’t entirely eliminate the occasional fortunate bounce or drop off the grandstand. But they essentially gave the players a risk-free backstop. It was bad.

Dethier: I like Sens leaning directly into Dimengo’s bait there. Stop chipping onto his lawn! But yeah, it’s bad. There should be punishment around exciting greens. Find a way. In the meantime it’s sort of tough to blame the players for doing what they can to shoot the lowest possible score — this is on the setup team.

The term of art is "Grandstanding", and these guys are good.

Just a minor LIV taste:

5. LIV Golf’s first streaming partner, Caffeine TV, shuttered midway through its first season of their partnership, meaning LIV Golf is without a paid streaming rights partner in the U.S. with six events still remaining in its 2024 schedule. While there are still ways to watch LIV Golf, what does this mean for the league? And how much will it hurt LIV’s quest to reach viewers and expand its footprint?

Dimengo: Golf viewership is down across the board, so this isn’t that shocking, but it is a major blow to the league. In the end, what makes LIV, LIV, are the events. It’s not quite on par with the environment fictionalized in Happy Gilmore, but tournaments are much more relaxed and accessible than many PGA Tour events.

The product is still a new one for golf fans (with the whole team concept and 54-hole idea), so until more people understand it and can experience it for themselves, the league will continue to struggle — which is the biggest impact that losing a streaming partner has.

Sens: I don’t think the question is so much what this means for LIV but what it tells us about the product. LIV can easily afford to strike another streaming deal, but that doesn’t mean people will want to watch it. That’s been LIV’s problem from the start, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Dethier: I don’t think it meant much for LIV when the Caffeine TV deal was announced and I don’t think the streamer’s death means much, either. The streaming numbers they trumpeted around Caffeine were weird and nonsensical and ultimately pretty meaningless. What’s the big picture? Tough to say. LIV’s cable numbers are not good. I would love to hear the app numbers — I get the sense that’s where the league’s diehard fans watch — but I don’t think the release of those numbers is imminent, either.

LIV has shown progress and has rightfully claimed victories for certain successful events, like its well-attended Nashville tournament last week. But from a business perspective, LIV is spending money like crazy, making money at a much lower rate and would still benefit from some sort of alliance with the rest of pro golf.

Given that I had never heard of Caffeine TV, I'm gonna suggest that its demise is the least of LIV's worries.  And we know that those CW ratings have failed to find a discernable audience so, per Ian Faith, their appeal is becoming increasingly selective.

6. Speaking of LIV Golf and its reach, there was a report last week that said there’s early but mutual interest between LIV and Chambers Bay to potentially host a future LIV event. While pros had mixed reviews about Chambers when it hosted the 2015 U.S. Open, it shined on TV and is now a popular public track. Could LIV generate more interest by aligning itself with unique, well-known courses we don’t see on the PGA Tour like Chambers? Or do you think golf fans have already made up their mind if they are interested in LIV and few things (including the aforementioned streaming deal) can change it?

Dimengo: I live in Seattle, so anytime we can get a big-time golf event that features globally recognized players at Chambers, bring it on! LIV would be wise to align with unique courses in golf-crazed areas (which is sort of their strategy already), so expanding that even more could help the brand overall. The league is made up of superstars, and, as long as that doesn’t change (and it becomes a B-level league), I think it has potential to grow.

Sens: Great venues never hurt. But LIV already has plenty of differentiators that set it apart from what we get week in, week out on the PGA Tour. The league will need more than a handful of cool courses to draw the kind of fan interest its organizers are after.

Dethier: Like Dimengo, I live in Seattle and love Chambers Bay. I love it! The Pacific Northwest is underserved as a golfing host and the failure to bring a PGA Tour event here at least semi-regularly feels like an institutional failure. Speaking specifically there are some spectator challenges that come with watching golf at Chambers, so it’ll be interesting to see how they tackle those and how they’d put one of the world’s most aesthetic tournament golf courses on display. Speaking generally I think venues do matter some — I’d rather watch the LIV guys tackle Chambers than Bolingbrook outside of Chicago, for instance — so I’d expect a slight boost. But it won’t solve all the league’s challenges right away.

I watched the Senior Open this week because of the venue, so it matters a lot (not that it solves all the other LIV issues).  But maybe a distinction is in order, there are great venues and there are dramatic venues, and Chambers is most certainly the latter.  Need to see more to decide it's worth architecturally, but I don't hold the weather anomaly of 2015 against the course (not that U.S. Opens should be played on links).

It would be an upgrade for LIV, but won't change any of the facts on the ground.

Have a great week and we'll catch up soon.