Don't fret if you have other plans, I shan't keep you long.
We're settled in for the long haul in Pittenweem, although the Saturday arrival is slightly awkward, in that the local bakery (and much else) is closed on Sunday. You'll immediately grasp the issue, to wit, that we have to somehow drag ourselves through that first round of golf without the benefit of a sausage roll. Oh, the inhumanity!
I should backfill and note that we continued our tradition of dining at The Dory Bistro on arrival day, the perfect spot to welcome ourselves home.
Just a lovely, small and intimate cafe on the Pittenweem harbor. The food is quite wonderful, and it didn't hurt our evening that two of the waitresses remembered us. We'll be there a couple more times (at least), and we imposed on one of said waitresses to request one of their window tables for a week from Wednesday, when we'll be there with Elsie and John. No guarantees, but....
We drew quite the wonderful first day back at Crail, coolish as we started but warming to +/- 70 degrees, which actually feels quite balmy here.
Madam was away nicely, and her husband was sufficiently accommodating to spot her the first two holes.
One of the curious aspects of the Overseas Membership experience is that we're not typically paired up with other players, though today was different. A fellow overseas member needed a time on the Balcomie, and we were happy to be combined and have additional company.
The member was a 60-ish wealth manager from the New York area, who brought his 25-year old daughter on this trip with him (he's also a member at Royal Dornoch, which triggered a wee bit of jealousy). The daughter doesn't play that much golf, but is quite athletic and generates impressive clubhead speed. hearing her father suggest that she play a 190-yard shot while holding an iron was not the typical experience....
I like this photo of Theresa on the fifth tee, as it shows the awkwardness of the hole for the ladies:
It'll be hard to make out, but the pin is visible way out to the right, but the ladies have only a narrow corridor on the left in which to fit their tee balls, and it features a dramatic left-to-right slope that seemingly will kick all balls into the North Sea (they let the grass grow a bit to soften the landing, presumably for that reason).
This photo from the seventh tee captures the traffic pattern on Nos. 5 and 6, but not that landing area off the 5th tee (I'll try to get one next time on the Balcomie):
Madam has exhibited little interest in wielding the camera, but did deign to take this of me on the 14th tee:
We played the back tees, the Tiger tees as it were, which stretches the Balcomie to a massive 5,867 yards (Par-69), including obstructing vision of the green here. I had a somewhat typical day on the Balcomie, where I played the hard holes quite well and gave away many strokes on the seemingly easy short Par-4's.
This is the better view:
If you squint, you can make out hearty souls swimming in the North Sea.
Here's a closer look at the crazies:
This is the 15th green. You can make out the wind turbines, which seem to breed like rabbits over the winter:
As noted, I had a bit of a day, with an especially good and unusual finish. The routing is quite weird, from those back tees there are back-to-back Par-5's (Nos. 11 and 12) followed by back-to-back Par-3's (Nos. 13 and 14), none of which are easy (OK, No. 11 from the back tees is manageable, ironically easier than it is as a Par-4 from the forward men's tees). I don't bore you with too much of my own play, but I played those final six holes in one-under, which I'll not do again anytime soon.
I'm here with quite a bit of new equipment, irons and wedges most notably, but also a new 3-wood. I wasn't using my old one off the turf, so thought about maybe a 5-wood (thinking of the especially tight lies here). Instead, I was put in a high-launch 3-wood, which at 16.5 degrees sounds an awful lot like a 4-wood. It's not like I bought it for just this reason, but I did have the 13th and 18th holes at Balcomie in mind, and it was perfect for both. At least it was yesterday..... I know, my mileage may (will) vary.
We finished our day with the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Final on the Beeb, as well as more pedestrian pursuits:
The weather is changing, as you'll see from our evening stroll:
We've got higher winds and rain a certainty, just the timing of the latter is in doubt. Doesn't look like we're likely to get our full round in, and those mid-teens winds will make the Craighead a bear. At least that might get us off the course before we reach the dreaded Par-3 13th, that's the one where I struggle to keep my tee shot out of the Firth of Forth.
I'm smelling a Tessie comeback, though I probably shouldn't refer to my bride as a mudder. More later.
I've been as lazy a blogger on this side of the Atlantic as at home. We've covered some ground since las we spoke, so let's see what might be of interest.
Elsie and John had arranged a rich full day for us on Friday. First, golf at historic Tain Golf Club, which I just discovered was originally names St. Duthus Golf Club, named for the patron saint of Tain. They lured Old Tom Morris there in 1890, where he was able to fit fifteen holes into their available land, with many of those original holes maintained largely as Tom left them. Tom no doubt was more interested in the fishing in the Dornoch Firth, but likely pointed to where tees and greens should be sited.
Old Tom made his way to Crail the following year to lay out their original nine holes, so we are very much on the Old Tom Morris Trail this trip, hoping to add one more course with which Tom was associated before leaving. For anyone keeping a scorecard at home, we are currently 0-1 in Old Course Daily Ballot attempts.
The defining feature of Friday at Tain was the heat. I'm not sure if it ever actually hit 30C (86F), but it got toasty out there. One odd feature of Scotland is that any given surface temperature feels warmer here, and this was so hot that Employee No.2 ended up with heat rashes on her legs.
And they're off:
The golf itself was a pretty ragged affair, at least for three of us. My favorite part of the day is watching Elsie and John tote up the Stableford scoring, in this case in a perfect spot sitting outside the clubhouse:
Really quite the nice spot:
Just a lovely spot in the shade in which to enjoy a toastie and not over-interpret one's play, because the scorecard contained joy for only one of us:
Elsie won the day, and not by a small margin at that. For those only marginally familiar with Stableford scoring, 36 points means that one shot one's handicap. Thus, Elsie is deep into sandbagging territory (Elsie, we kid), and the rest of us need remedial tutoring. Oh well, we're just getting started here....
This was a portent of things to come:
Hard to discern, but off in the distance on the other side of the Dornoch Firth the Glenmorangie warehouses are visible.
Perhaps one more portent from Tain:
All Spring and early Summer we've been hearing how wet it's been, though the last 2-3 weeks have apparently dried out. I call your attention to the earth tones in the photos above, hoping it's an accurate harbinger of firm and fast conditions in Fife.
The Glenmorangie tour was good fun, although they strangely would not allow photography inside their buildings, so I shan't bore you with photos of stills and mashers.
That modern glass structure is their "Lighthouse", purpose built for their mad scientist that develops their new concoction, whit an over-sized still contained within. In front is a giraffe, which they've adopted as their cause because their traditional stills are 5.1 meters tall, which so happens to be the height of the average male giraffe.
Good fun, although those partaking in the tasting (Theresa and John) didn't seem over the moon about the two selections available. The prior evening John played a series of spots (presumably from a social media campaign) for Glenmorangie featuring Harrison Ford, the first of which I'll embed below:
We found them quite amusing, riffing on everything from Ford's reputation for being curmudgeonly to the pronunciation of the brand's name. There are a total of twelve, and you can find them easily enough on YouTube if you enjoy. I'll just say that we found them...well, Nice!
In catch-up mode, a few photos from Coul House Thursday evening:
Good to see that the receptionist has back-up. This was the light as we drove home from dinner:
You'll be quite sick of my evening light photos from Pittenweem soon enough....
Dinner Friday was another wonderful BBQ, including two puddings:
Not just Banofee Pie for your humble blogger, but Sticky Toffee Pudding for Employee No. 2. Somewhere in our travels we caught our first hay bales:
You'll see more of these for sure.
Saturday morning John ferried us to Inverness to pick up our rental car and we made the three-hour drive to the Kingdom of Fife. Fighting the heat, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive in Pittenweem in the midst of a Haar:
"Haar" (also spelled harr, hare, harl, har, and hoar) refers to a cold, sea fog, particularly common on the east coast of Scotland and sometimes northern England. It's formed when warm air passes over the cold North Sea. The term is also used to describe the wind that carries this fog. Additionally, "Haar" is the name of a restaurant in St Andrews, Scotland.
The reason it was a pleasant surprise is that it was cool, no more than 17C (62F), although it had been much hotter and the house needed a thorough airing out:
In the middle of the frame are three dormer windows in an orange roof above the white buildings on the water, the two on the right being our bedroom. But where is the tidal pool?
By the time we went for dinner, the Haar had mostly lifted, although it was visible out on the Firth:
They are right across the Firth from us, although I write this at 7:30 a.m. we seem pretty clear.
The tidal pool was back where it belonged by the time of our after-dinner stroll:
And perhaps you'll be up for one quick photo of Pittenweem in that evening light I go on about
We're off to the Balcomie later this morning. Madam indicates that I'll be going down, and certainly the results from Tain provide no reason to doubt her assessment.
I am pleased to confirm that we have arrived safely into Elsie and John's welcoming embrace, and have a day under our belt in the beautiful (at least for the time being) Scottish Highlands. It was nip and tuck there due to a three-hour delay on the tarmac at JFK, but they got us airborne after only a single citation of the four-hour rule.
This will be a brief post, written Thursday afternoon because of an early departure for golf tomorrow. We seem to have timed things well, as the rainy Spring/Summer has dried out, and the warm weather will only be with us for a couple of days. Though, as I've often had cause to remark, there are few things scarier than a fine Scottish weather forecast.
It's quite the thing for us to be able to start our Scotland trips in Elsie and John's home, the kind of welcome that not quite every busload of traveling golfers receive. Arrival day is typically a BBQ, and the fine weather allowed the grillmeister to show off his skills:
We didn't go hungry for sure. Though I can't quite explain the deterioration in my blogging tradecraft, as I failed to get a photo of the Banofee pie. Trust me, Elsie, I never take them for granted.
Today was an intentionally low-key day, though that could as well be said about the next fifteen as well. We decided to channel our inner Horace Greely and headed towards Ullapool on the West coast, a charming fishing village I'd not been through in many years. I grabbed what I could of the scenery from the front passenger seat:
En route, we made a brief stop at Corrieshalloch Gorge for a fifteen minute walk to their falls. The falls themselves didn't have much water to work with, but a delightful walk through the forest:
Ullapool is a charming fishing village where we had a lovely stroll and nosh:
This evening we will be dining at the delightful Coul House, of which I've blogged in prior years. We've been there for tea after a great hike, but also for dinner last year. I had intended to use the photo from last year of Elsie, John and Theresa in front of the hotel, but can't seem to find it in the moment, so I'll just tease you with this from the hotel's website:
We'll be fine. No need to worry about us....
Off early to Tain for golf tomorrow, then a tour of the Glenmorangie Distillary. I will blog it when I can, just not exactly sure when that will be. Then John will ferry us to Inverness and we'll drive to our beloved Pittenweem, where we will be in residence for the next two weeks.
There are some issues up here in the Highlands that might be of interest to my readers, though I had also intended to blog on that subject last year. I'll leave things there for now, and catch you up our doings as time permits. Though there is a chance that will have to await our arrival in Pittenweem.
It's that time of year again, in which I disappear for more than two weeks and blog from the strange land called Scotland. Specifically, we leave late tomorrow night and head directly to the Highlands for three days with Elsie and John in Strathpeffer.
Since it's the same exact trip we've taken at least the last two years, I've no clue as to that which I'll blog. Up in the Highlands we'll be playing Tain, an Old Tom Morris track, and then touring the Glenmorangie Distillery. Amusing in the sense that your humble blogger cannot abide brown liquor, but Employee No. 2 will be quite happy. There's a statue of Old Tom at the club, and you'll no doubt be seeing a version of this from a few years ago, Elsie and John with our friend Glenn.
We will drive down to Fife on Saturday, and play at Crail that Sunday, awkward in the sense that the local bakery is closed on Sundays, resulting in our first round likely being played without the sustenance provided by our usual sausage rolls. I'm told these are first world problems...
Just a wee bit of blogging today..... I'll be in country for the Open at Royal Portrush, one of my favorite places on the planet, but don't know whether I'll blog the event, or merely the trip. The bride and I watched this the other night, and it's a great preview of Portrush and its architecture. It's not too nerdy in that regard, and includes enough great looks at the dunes and dramatic vistas to be well worth your time:
Deere Me - I did actually switch over after the conclusion of Wimbledon and a certain baseball game, and saw the finish and playoff. Not much joy in Ponte Vedra Beach over the leaderboards the last few weeks, but you won't get name brand golfers at the top if they're, yanno, not in the field. And they're not in the field because they've been paid to play elsewhere, something you might think the John Deere folks might have an issue with.
So, a guy you've never heard of won, amusing because that John Doe won for the second time this year:
He was already among the most shocking winners of the PGA Tour season.
Now he’s definitely the most shocking two-time winner.
Brian Campbell is the shortest hitter on the PGA Tour — he ranks 171st out of 171 players and has the slowest ball speed. He entered the week with just one top-30 finish this season — his win at the Mexico Open. It has been a decade since his Tour debut — and he’s spent most of that decade on the Korn Ferry Tour. He’s battled injury, doubt, more injury, more doubt. His results over the last month have been MC-WD-MC. Nobody saw this win coming because not even Campbell saw it coming.
“I have no words,” Campbell said. “I mean, to be, let alone in a playoff, and to finish it off this way, it’s just been amazing.”
At least they caught his good side in the accompanying photo.....
Nobody saw him coming and, when we get those ratings later this week, we'll find that no one saw him closing as well, literally. But how funny is it for him to be literally, there's that word again, the shortest guy out there?
It does remind me of a certain Masters playoff. After Tiger won his second straight Masters in 2002, they lengthened the course to "Tiger-proof it." They must have done incredibly great work, because in 2003 they were treated to a Mike Weir-Len Mattiace playoff, two guys that would play first from the fairway were they paired with Brian Campbell.
But perhaps I'm denying this great event its due, because these guys really know what grows our game:
No need for players anyone has heard of when you have front-end loaders as tee markers.
One last amusing bit. Flipping through Golf Channel earlier in the week, I found them replaying the final round of the 2015 event. .As the winner left the green, David Feherty thanked him for playing the event, as opposed to going to Scotland to prepare for his attempt at the Calendar Slam. How is that decision looking ten years on? Asking for a friend....
Flotsam and Jetsam - Just to keep things moving I'm going to riff of this week's Tour Confidential panel, which discussed anything and everything that weren't the John Deere. First up, two queries relating to the only important issue in golf, how much does Patrick get paid:
FedEx Cup payouts are changing. Whereas the playoff-capping Tour Championship used to determine players’ hauls from the $100 million overall FedEx Cup prize fund, the Tour will now dole out bonuses based on FedEx Cup points standings after the Wyndham Championship (the regular season’s final event) and also after the BMW Championship, the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event. (The top 10 after the Wyndham will split $20 million, with first place banking $10 million, and the top 30 after the BMW will share about $23 million, with the top-ranked player heading into the Tour Championship pocketing $5 million; the remaining money — about $57 million —will be paid out at the Tour Championship, with the champ winning $10 million.) The Tour’s said the payout were recalculated “to account for the increased volatility of the final event, reward season-long performance and recognize the significance of the FedEx Cup.” Sensible move?
Dylan Dethier: Sensible seems like the right word for it. Sensible, fair, equitable. That doesn’t
necessarily equal exciting, but it at least means there will be an added incentive for players to perform at each stage of the playoffs — and down the stretch in the regular season. We haven’t yet seen high monetary stakes move fan interest in pro golf, so perhaps ditching starting strokes was correctly made top priority.
Josh Schrock: Yeah, it all makes sense. It’s good to reward players for good regular seasons and not leave it all up to chance in the final three playoff events. It’s incredibly difficult to be consistent over an eight-month stretch, so I like that there’s a chunk to reward those who performed best throughout the season and then have the rest of the money go toward playoff performance.
Alan Bastable: For sure. Remember when Jon Rahm got hosed a couple of years ago (monetarily, anyway) after having a monster season but a poor Tour Championship? Didn’t feel right. This system is a check against that kind of thing happening. OK, now that we’ve got the money sorted, can we please incorporate a match-play element in the playoffs?!
Does that rock your world?
Is this maybe progress? My take has been that the insanity of the FedEx Cup is a result of the Tour's refusal to decide between the season-long competition and a high-stakes shootout, so maybe they're reemphasizing the season-long component here. Of course, the only reason to watch East Lake is that some guy will get handed an oversized check with lots of commas, and they're reducing that gaudy payment:
2025: $10 million
2024: $18 million (estimated based on previous years, though the format has changed)
2022: $18 million
2021: $15 million
2020: $15 million
2019: $15 million
2007-2018: $10 million
But perhaps this will free the Tour up to do something more interesting with the event formerly known as the Tour Championship.
Does this rebalancing make the playoffs any more interesting for fans? Or is this really only consequential for players?
Dethier: Touched on this above but I think the good news is that it’s certainly not less interesting for fans. We should have more pros in the mix at the Tour Championship, and it’ll mean something special to get there. Is there room for improvement? I think so; August stops in Memphis and Atlanta have never been my bag. But this should be fun.
Schrock: I think Dylan hit the right note. Fans just don’t really care if Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy make $30 million or $1 million. They want to see consequential golf. Removing the starting strokes and tiering the payouts differently should at least make the Tour Championship easier to follow and add more drama, but this feels more like a way to appease the players. Over the past few years, Scheffler has repeatedly criticized the playoff format by calling it “silly” and noting that you “can’t call it a season-long race if it comes down to one tournament.” This feels like a way to assuage some grumbles from the membership.
Bastable: Yes, yes and yes, Dr. Schrock! Tough look when the best player on the planet doesn’t endorse the system. And yeah…I can’t fathom a more boring topic for fans than how hundreds of millions of dollars of prize money are being reallocated. When you start moving decimal points around — $2.5 million vs. $25 million vs. $250 million — it’s easy to lose interest quickly. But the Tour hasn’t seemed to grasp that reality in the LIV era. Way too much talk about purses and bonuses and not enough about fan benefits and engagement.
Shockingly there's little in it for actual fans, so out of character for the Tour to ignore them. They're now serving up 72 holes of stroke play with a 30-player field on a dreadfully boring and featureless golf course with only couch cushion loose change to be awarded. I agree, Dylan, should be fun.... at least for the thirty guys.
Nothing happening here, it seems:
In an interview with GOLF.com last week, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil was asked whether he feels LIV needs a deal with the PGA Tour. “The platforms that we have between what the PGA Tour is doing and what LIV is doing are very different,” O’Neil said. “The audiences are very different. We have a global platform, and we love this notion of taking this game to the world. I would say that almost everyone I’ve met in golf wants to do what’s best for the sport, and we’re all so early in this journey. We’re all going to figure out what’s best over time.” How do you interpret that response?
Dethier: I’d take it to mean that O’Neil is seeking coexistence with the PGA Tour rather than a straight-up merger. Negotiations have gone silent these last few months, but O’Neil and Brian Rolapp (on the Tour side) are outsiders to the sport and newcomers to this rivalry; perhaps they’ll be more inclined to work together as a result.
Schrock: It seems like another sign that the merger talks are iced over and might be DOA at this point. The reported schedule for LIV next season shows them taking even more of a global approach, with only five U.S.-based tournaments. It seems that O’Neil is tacitly acknowledging that the two tours are going their separate ways and no longer focused on coming together.
Bastable: Right, Josh. Also, the longer this limbo period has gone, feels like maybe the tours have come to realize they don’t need one another after all. Job 1 for O’Neil should be locking up Bryson for another decade, whatever the cost. Job 2: Reignite convos with the Official World Golf Ranking, if that isn’t already happening. LIV players’ inability to collect rankings points still is arguably the most problematic element of the league when it comes to attracting new talent. Securing points for LIVers would be a boon.
It's fascinating in an unexpected way, no?
From the PGA's perspective, they present as not needing a deal since they've refinanced themselves to the tune of $1.5 billion large. Which is fine and defensible I suppose, as long as the burn rate isn't an issue. I've seen a reference that they're still sitting on all that cash, though it's hard for me to believe they're not burning though it with the dramatically-increased purses.
But I am quite puzzled as to Yasir's end-game. They've built nothing sustainable, at least nothing outside the jurisdiction of Adelaide, Australia. The interesting thing to see is that their player contracts are going to begin expiring, and we can only speculate as to how they'll handle that. They still need to put 48 or more guys on a golf course at each event, so they'll need to resign more than just the one guy mentioned.
There's also the issue of what becomes of the guys they choose not to resign, te presumption being that they become golf orphans. Stay tuned.
Brief Open stuff, including what sounds like the Mother of all Monday qualifying:
Beginning at the 2026 Open Championship, the R&A will hold a winner-take-all final qualifier — the “Last Chance Qualifier” — at the Open site (which is Royal Birkdale next year) on the Monday before the championship. The R&A said the event, which will be comprised of up to 12 players, was the byproduct of a survey that revealed fans want more live golf and opportunities to engage with the Open. Let’s take this exercise a step further: The golf powers have granted you permission to make one change or enhancement to any major. What’s your tweak?
Dethier: The PGA Championship goes back to August — and it goes international. But first, it goes to Chambers Bay…
Schrock: Let’s turn back the clock and make it so everyone except the defending champion has to qualify for one of the majors. Since the PGA Championship is still searching for an identity, I nominate it as the qualifying major. Next year, Scottie Scheffler is in, and everyone else has to earn their way into the fourth major.
Bastable: I’d love to see the U.S. Junior Amateur champ get an invite to both the Masters and U.S. Open. Maybe that’d have a been a crazy thought a generation ago, but the gap between the youngs and the olds has never been narrower. The kids could hang.
The R&A actually did better than the writers' fever dreams, as qualifying at the actual Open site is a great spectacle. As for the juniors, they grow up too quickly as it is, Alan.
Speaking of the Open, this year’s edition, which is bound for Royal Portrush, is only two weeks away. Who’s your early pick?
Dethier: Tommy Fleetwood jumps out, though I suspect he’ll be a popular choice. I’m saddened the final major is on our doorstep, but it should be a terrific addition.
Schrock: How did we already get to the final major of the year? The long winter is upon us. I feel like Tommy Fleetwood will play well but I’m going to take Jon Rahm. He’s a terrific Open player and we’re due for an injection of spice back into the PGA Tour-LIV feud.
Bastable: Heart says Rory, head says Russ, as in Henley. A winner this year (at Bay Hill and nearly at Travelers), has been on a heater the last few weeks and finished 5th at the Open a year ago. Not a flashy pick but he’s primed for a big week.
Ummm, Dylan, after that finish at Hartford, I'm guessing that Tommy Lad won't actually be that popular a pick. In case you haven't noticed, he doesn't actually ever win.
I don't have any sense of who will win, but I'm pretty sure it will be a great week.
That's it from me for now. Next we meet I'll be on the other side of the Atlantic. Have a great week.
Just a few quick bits for you today. Consider it a three-course tasting menu, assuming that is that I come up with three bits....
Just Shoot Me Now - The Tour Confidential panel that we blog each morning can be a curious thing. This was one of those weeks when there wasn't a single reference to the week's PGA Tour event, something one assumes leads to angry phone calls from Ponte Vedra Beach. But how does one explain this being their lede Q&A?
Patrick Reed won LIV Golf Dallas, which comes just a few days after he acknowledged he might have to win or play well at the Open Championship in order to be considered for the
U.S. Ryder Cup team. With limited starts that offer World Ranking points, if Reed is picked it means captain Keegan Bradley would likely have to pass up several players ahead of him in the standings. While there’s still lots of golf left to be played before the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, should Captain America get more serious consideration to join the U.S. squad?
Jessica Marksbury: I love that Reed has so much love for the Ryder Cup, but if Ryder Cup eligibility is a priority for him, joining LIV was probably not the best move. It’s not impossible to make the team, but you definitely have to make your case for a pick by performing in the majors, as Bryson has done. Or, you could go on a can’t-ignore-me win binge like Joaquin Niemann, who isn’t even eligible for the Ryder Cup. Coalescing with the team is another factor, a gray area for sure, but something Keegan will have to consider with every captain’s pick. With all that said, winning the Open Championship would go a long way for Reed, but barring that outcome, my guess is he will likely still be on the outside looking in in September.
Gee, Jess, that love fore the Ryder Cup didn't exactly stop him from cashing and trashing, did it? The former referring to his LIV check and the latter to his behavior and use of a certain UseGoilfFactsNow Twitter account in Paris. Yeah, but he loves the Ryder Cup! That's a good one, Jess!
Josh Sens: Another reasonable question is whether Reed still deserves the nickname “Captain America.” In his last appearance in the event, he lost twice in three matches and — more notably — wasn’t exactly Mr. Team Unity either. He has played well in several of his recent major appearances. But as Jess says, he hasn’t been Bryson-level dominant. At this point, the fact that he plays with a ton of fire isn’t an especially persuasive argument. There are plenty of other guys who would kill to be on the team; who don’t have the same baggage; and who would be every bit as likely to earn as many or more points.
Josh Berhow: The Americans are the betting favorites right now but a big reason for that is because it’s a home game. On paper though, you could argue the Europeans have the better core right now. So is that a potential reason to use a pick on Reed if he’s on the bubble? Or reason to not get cute? I think it’s unlikely it becomes a legitimate conversation in the future because he’ll need a really strong performance at The Open (he’ll likely have to win) to get selected. But it’s important to remember that chemistry matters. Reed didn’t exactly help the team bond back in Paris.
Thought experiment kids.: Let's assume Keegan makes the team and hands the captaincy back to Tiger, whose dance card seems to be free of any negotiating sessions with Yasir. Is Captain Tiger likely to look back on his pairing with Patrick in Parts and think, "This is a guy I need at Bethpage"?
Or will his memories be of a guy that sold the rest of the team down the river when things turned South? There was one bit that never got much press that I always assumed would rankle the Striped One. After the two of them both played poorly in a match, Patrick told a reporter that Tiger had apologized to him for his play. I don't take for granted that anything PReed says is true but, if it was, how do we think Tiger would have liked Patrick sharing that private conversation?
Scenes From The Class Struggle - At the top of the food chain on Tour, life is pretty damn sweet. But for the rest of the traveling circus, it's an unbelievable grind, so I love this bit from Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column about the ultimate winner's Sunday in Detroit:
But on Sunday Aldrich Potgieter overcame something far more relatable: the early Airbnb checkout time.
Anybody who’s ever gone anywhere on a weekend trip knows this struggle. You’ve got a late flight but time to kill, or you’re playing Sunday morning golf but have nowhere to change post-round, or you’re scrambling after a big Saturday night to somehow clean up your mess and rouse your most useless buddy before the cleaners arrive. (Looking at you, Matt.) Or, in this case, you’re leading a PGA Tour event by two shots, but it’s midsummer, so you don’t tee off until mid-afternoon.
“Waking up this morning was kind of difficult. I had to book out of my AirBnB at 10 o’clock,” Potgieter said. He dutifully followed those directions, perhaps storing up good karma in the process, but because he didn’t want to be at the course until noon, the 20-year-old South African did what plenty of us might do to while away a couple hours: he stopped at a coffee shop — and overdid it. “That got me a little shaky,” he said later with a laugh. “No, it was okay. I kind of struggled to eat a little bit, the nerves kicked in when I got here kind of sitting at player dining, but I think that’s just kind of normal and kind of have to get through that.”
Those late tee times are the underappreciated extra pressure on leaders. But I'm guessing that more Sunday's have been ruined by free coffee refills than we'll ever know....
Point - Counterpoint - I didn't see much of the women's event held at the PGA of America's new edifice complex in Frisco, but we have a split verdict. Josh Schrock thinks it was grand:
Maja Stark’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship fate had long been decided when the reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion showed she had had enough of the Gil Hanse design.
Nearing the end of her six-over final round, Stark walked off the par-4 15th green, raised her putter over her head and smashed it against her golf bag, sending the putterhead bounding into the rough. Without breaking stride, Stark grabbed the head and flipped it backward to her caddie, not even bothering to look. She putted with a wedge for the last three holes and finished in a tie for 47th.
What a perfect way to end a week that tried, frustrated and battered the LPGA’s best.
Obviously she's no Robert Streb..... is there anyone that actually gets that reference? Anyone? Bueller?
Not just the Maja:
If the 2023 Senior PGA Championship was Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco’s major championship dress rehearsal, this past week was its true debut, which saw Minjee Lee win her third major title in impressive fashion. But despite her impressive victory, parts of Lee’s week were overshadowed by griping from players and broadcasters about course setup and fairness.
KPMG ambassador Stacey Lewis told Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols that the course wasn’t set up fairly and insinuated the goal should be to make the players look good. Sophia Popov missed the cut, taking to social media to say the course made players look “silly.” World No. 1 Nelly Korda was one of several players to describe some hole locations as almost “impossible” to get close to. On Saturday, as winds gusted over 30 mph, multiple players described the test as “brutal” and “crazy.”
By the time Lee had lifted the trophy and the Texas dust was settling, the weeklong scoring average was 75.6, the highest of any LPGA major since the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open.
It was fast and firm, and the gusting winds demanded that players control their ball flight, hit the proper yardages and trajectories, and take their medicine when they didn’t.
Here's Josh's rousing coda:
All in all, Hanse’s major championship creation was a brutal examination that demanded discipline, control and focus. If you lacked any of the three, you were punished and fell down the leaderboard. It allowed Lee, who put on a sterling display of golf during Saturday’s blustery conditions, to take off from the pack.
Major weeks are supposed to be draining. The questions asked are meant to exact a price. That’s what makes winning them so rewarding.
PGA Frisco will have things to clean up before the 2027 PGA Championship. The six-hour rounds that plagued the ladies were a problem. It’s a long, strenuous walk for spectators that will be easier in May than in the June heat. The course itself is not particularly pleasing for viewers watching at home. Some of that can be addressed, some of it can’t.
But if a major championship venue has one job, it’s to clearly identify and reward the player who best handles the exacting test in front of them. With Lee hoisting the trophy, three shots clear of second place, PGA Frisco did that. It was, by definition, major championship fair.
The easiest thing in the world is to make a golf course play hard. Shockingly, Geoff take the opposite view:
The PGA of America ought to postpone scheduled future events at its new HQ until the course, surrounding development and fan experience improves.
Fan experience? Not a top-ten concern for sure. But I'm sure Geoff will be knid. Right?
Proposed rule: any development-driven project must complete all of its new home construction along fairways before getting awarded a major. Then players won’t have to battle construction dust or noise with history on the line.
While we’re at it, how about no majors at new housing developments?
After last weekend’s hellish KMPG Women’s PGA Championship was beamed around the world, it feels like PGA National all over again. The south Florida home of the disastrous 1987 PGA seemed destined to never host anything again after inflicting high heat, half-alive greens, and another Fazio redesign misfire on the game. But no six-hour rounds in West Palm back then! Nor were there airborne particles causing players to cover their eyes during a gust.
A West Palm facility also hosted the 1971 PGA Championship in February and the area has other things going for it: no planes on approach to DFW, and no hum of bugs sounding like a rattlesnake convention.
Airborne particles? What's the big deal, just take one more club....
I'm just gonna let Geoff rant:
The PGA of America first revealed its headquarters move to Frisco, Texas in 2018. The city of Frisco provided the farmland and other portions of the property. In return the PGA of America awarded 24 championships and a move of its 50-plus year headquarters from Florida. Among the committed events: two Senior PGA Championships (2023, 2029), two KPMG Women’s PGA Championships (2025, 2031), and two PGA Championships (2027, 2034).
There is also an understanding that a future Ryder Cup (or two) will come to the land Mother Nature left off her to-do list. All of this before a shot had been struck on a Gil Hanse design (East) that’s accompanied by a Beau Welling layout (West), a par 3 course, putting course, and Omni Hotel.
Fields Ranch East next welcomed the 2024 PGA Professional Championship and played tougher. Ben Polland won with a two-under-par total and banked $60,000, making it one of the few events in golf to see its purse decline. Pollard’s winning check was $15,000 less than the winner received from 2006-2015.
Just add that to the list of ways in which the organization treats its actual members.
Then there was last weekend. A lightly-attended, uncomfortable-to-watch, KPMG Women’s PGA Championship embarrassed one of golf’s most generous and forward-looking sponsors. Next up, the 2027 PGA Championship is scheduled to start in 694 days.
Unless the PGA of America can waive a wand to mature the course and complete surrounding construction, the 2027 PGA needs to be played somewhere else. Going forward at Frisco in less than two years risk massive damage to the reputation of one of golf’s four major championships.
The PGA of America can justify the move by pointing to Kiawah Island’s prematurely-opened Ocean Course for the 1991 Ryder Cup. Despite the wild finish and what it meant for the recent rise of the cup, the Ocean Course took a reputation hit. Time, renovations, and agronomic changes have led to Pete Dye’s South Carolina course becoming the PGA Championship’s best venue since the move to May.
Fields Ranch East is not yet looking or playing like a mature course capable of hosting majors. Three years in and the PGA of America setup team is still getting accustomed to its quirks. Many issues need to be addressed based on last week’s most rational-sounding player observations.
Well, I totally get that the PGA of America would want to get in on the PGA Tour's treatment of sponsors....
Geoff has a To-Do list in an attempt to be helpful:
Settle on a routing. The KPMG Women’s PGA switched the original 9th and 18th holes switched. This led to long walks from the 8th and 17th greens. For the 2027 PGA Championship, the daily play nines will be flipped thanks to better hospitality space according to Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols. Nothing warms the major championship heart like a third re-routing in the name of corporate chalet space.
Tweak the new 18th hole. The original par-5 18th has few fans and the new finishing hole appears to need massaging as well. A centerline bunker had players insisting a successful tee shot over the sand would run toward into the hazard (even if ShotLink says otherwise and all but one birdie was made from the fairway). Most players bailed out right where the rough was light and they could avoid the fairway bunker or running through the landing area. Men playing the 2027 PGA seem likely take a similar bomb-and-gouge route regardless of the existing trees. The addition of a new back tee or an obstacle to discourage avoiding the fairway might be options, as might a repositioning of the bunker.
Flatten the primary tournament tees. The fairway-style tee strips are much easier to maintain than box-shaped tees and provide setup flexibility that was taken advantage of during the Women’s PGA. The non-box approach should be an inspiration given the massive reduction in labor and costs. But the seniors and women noted a struggle to find a flat spot for teeing off. This exchange with Steve Flesch came after the third round of the Senior PGA:
Q. What do you think of the golf course and the test?
STEVE FLESCH: It's pretty good. I don't get the tees, but that's another, I mean, I'm sure you've heard that.
Q. It's a common refrain.
STEVE FLESCH: Game's hard enough. At least give us a flat spot. Especially to tee a driver up on, right?
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln....
The spoiled brats actually expect a flat teeing ground? What a cock-up, though the rest of Geoff's rant is behind a paywall.
That will be all for today's brief visit. Just a heads up that we are one week from departure for Scotland. There will be blogging, though I'm unclear on the schedule.
