Weekend Wrap

It's one of those fake but accurate headers....  At most, we'll deal with the weekend's action in passing...

Car Talk - Kevin Na fans might be a bit disappointed at the lack of respect paid, but I saw less than five minutes of it.  I needed a week off from televised golf, not least to have a clear head for the men's NCAA's.

This seems to be the most important takeaway from the weekend:

FORT WORTH, Texas – The worst car that veteran caddie Kenny Harms ever owned was a green 1973 Chevy Camaro. He paid $200 for it and soon nicknamed it the Putty Box because that’s the material he kept using to fix the rust. 

Kevin, shouldn't you be in the passenger seat?

On Sunday, Harms became the owner of another car built in 1973. This one’s considerably more valuable … and certainly more significant, as it comes courtesy of his man Kevin Na, who romped to a four-shot victory at the Charles Schwab Challenge. 

Among the perks for winning at Colonial are a plaid jacket, the Texas-sized Leonard trophy, a permanent spot on the Wall of Champions and a hefty check. This year, another perk was added – a 1973 blue Dodge Challenger to commemorate the year the Charles Schwab company was founded. 

It’s a unique prize, one that Na remembers hearing about months ago. Harms was equally aware of it too, and during a recent promotional piece on the car for the Caddie Network, he had a message for Na: “You wouldn’t really look so great in this but I will. I should I get the car if you win.” 

Then on Tuesday during the practice round, they spotted the Challenger sitting just off the 10th fairway.

This local boy had a disappointing Sunday, though as regards happy talk he's still a +10:

Spieth missed three cuts and never finished better than T35 in his first eight starts of the season, but he’s finished in the top 30 in five of his last six starts. That includes his T3 at

the PGA Championship last week. He’s back at it again for the Memorial Tournament next week. 

“I think I made progress this week, and I know exactly what I need to work on before I start on Thursday next week in my swing to make it even better,” he said. “I have kind of been moving between a couple different swings through this week, and the one I had today is the right move. I’ve just got to get some repetitions in with it to fine-tune it. It was the best I drove the ball for sure. It’s just the shots I missed were because I overdid what I was trying to do. I didn’t trust I was doing it right. So when I look back it’s just frustrating to be a few over on the round when I feel like I was actually swinging the club pretty well.”

Gotta admit, too much of a good thing is a new one...  Kinda like the porridge being too hot or too cold.

Playing Wolf -  Did you catch any of the men's NCAA's last night?  It's good stuff, that only gets better the next two days....  Not sure anyone can hang with Oklahoma State these days, due partially to this kid and his rather odd swing:

Oklahoma State’s Matthew Wolff finished the season the same way he started: as a champion. 

The Cowboy sophomore, who set a program record earlier this season with five wins, added a sixth victory to his glowing record at the 2019 NCAA Div. I Men’s Golf Championship, winning the individual national title at 10-under par. Wolff is Oklahoma State’s ninth individual champion, and first since Jonathan Moore in 2006. 

“These are the best amateurs in the world and to come out on top is really something special,” said Wolff. “Most other college events you only get five or six really good teams. This has all the best players and teams so this means a lot.”

They're the top seed in team match play as well, so don't tune in if you have an aversion to orange.

We had an afternoon event at our club, so I didn't get to my TV until it was pretty much over.  But fortunately we were treated to some bonus golf:

It couldn’t have happened any other way. 

After winning a five-player playoff against Clemson, the SMU men’s golf team – the 30th seed out of 30 teams at the 2019 NCAA Men’s Div. I Golf Championship – placed in the top eight to qualify for match play. 

“We were the 30th seed here, and to make it to match play without a little number by our name, it’s just meant to be,” said SMU head coach Jason Enloe. “It wouldn’t have been fitting if it wasn’t hard. It’s been a hard year for everybody.”

Oh, sure it could have....In fact, when this happened it seemed inevitable that it would end in tears:

I'm glad the kid won't live the rest of his life with that memory, but their prize for prevailing is a date with the men in orange....which I've been reliably informed is the new black.

Give it a watch today, as team match play rocks.

CC of Charleston, A Preview - The men will be at Jack's Joint, and there's nothing wrong with that venue or event.  But I've long believed that the lesser tours, no disrespect intended, could do themselves a world of good to play at more interesting venues, and the USGA seems to have taken this advice to heart:

In the case of the Country Club of Charleston, it comes as no surprise that one of America’s most preservation-minded cities has as its namesake a golf course that in the last few decades has become increasingly conscientious about honoring its architectural roots. 

A byproduct of that commitment to preservation means the club will become the first Seth Raynor-designed golf course to host a U.S. Golf Association Open championship, with the playing of the 74th U.S. Women’s Open beginning May 30. 

“It’s wonderful that the American public will finally get to see all these holes – that are national treasures – in a national championship-caliber setting,” said Kyle Franz, the designer charged with leading the club’s latest restoration. 

Organized in 1900, the club relocated to a tract of land on James Island with a commanding view of the Charleston peninsula in South Carolina and its historic harbor by the early 1920s. Open, gently rolling land defined by few trees and Low Country marshes encouraged ocean breezes to dictate constantly shifting conditions.

Apparently Raynor got the gig for all the wrong reasons, though it worked out just fine:

Thanks to a recommendation from the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, the club selected the less expensive (and more readily available) Seth Raynor over Donald Ross in 1923 to design the course.

Almost a home game for Ross, so qite the upset....

Thanks to ongoing communication between Boatwright and Charlton deSaussure Jr., his historian counterpart at Yeamans Hall Club, another Charleston-area Raynor design from the mid-1920s, a treasure trove of archival materials emerged in 2015 from the National Park Service and the Frederick Law Olmsted Archive in Brookline, Mass. 

The greatest catch of all was a full course plan from 1923, drawn by the Olmsteds using Raynor’s original plans and approved by Raynor. Having restored much of the course to the 1938 aerial in 2006, the club decided to go a step further and build or reconstruct numerous fairway bunkers from Raynor’s original plan under the guidance of Franz beginning in 2016. 

However, after two major course shutdowns in the previous two decades, the shifting approach to restoration took on a new dimension. This time the club decided on “targeted restoration,” focusing on one small project at a time, building more organically.

Overseen by Brian Silva, an impassioned supporter of the work of the Macdonald/Raynor/Banks troika....

Via Shack, we also have this preview video of the course from the No Laying Up gang.

Fox has the coverage, so you'll have to remind yourselves of FS1's location on your cable guide, though you'd need that in a few weeks anyway.

For fans of the Augusta National Women's Amateur and the Women's NCAA's, you'll no doubt appreciate this pairing:

Good news golf fans, Augusta National stars Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi will make 

their pro debuts competing alongside each other at next week’s U.S. Women’s Open. 

The USGA announced that Kupcho, Fassi and amateur Sierra Brooks will play together in the first two rounds at Country Club of Charleston. 

Fassi comes into the event fresh off an NCAA individual title at home in Arkansas while Kupcho and Wake Forest came up just shy of the team title, falling in tightly-contested championship match to Duke. 

Brooks, a rising senior at Florida, finished runner-up to Fassi at the Blessings Golf Course.

The USGA has taken all sorts of heat for venue decisions for their marquee championship, but have hit quite a few home runs with their other championships (think Chicago Golf Club, The National, Quaker, as well as future Walker Cupa at Seminole and Cypress Point).  

On Language -  The estimable Mike Bamberger takes on the language of golf, and earns bonus points for his Strunk & White reference.  That said, the effort is ultimately unsatisfying, despite some very good bits:

Yes, a par 5. Not a 5 par. Blech. Also grating is three-shotter, two-shotter and one-shotter. And who needs the new penalty area when hazard conveyed it all? As Strunk & White say in Elements of Style, “Be clear.” That doesn’t mean be literal. Golf requires a measure of irony, which is why any body of water, including a gunky Ohio pond on a pitch-shot par 3, may be referred to as a lake. Here are the exceptions that prove the rule: the ocean to the left of 18 at Pebble and the burn crossing the first on the Old Course. Show some respect: Swilcan Burn is not a lake. 

Allow for regional preferences. What the Scots call a bunker, Texans call a trap. The rest of us don’t have to make a long-term commitment to either word. I liked medal play, common now only in the British Isles. Its replacement, stroke play, is less evocative but simpler. I hope its rise doesn’t come at the expense of medalist, even though the awarding of medals at club events is rare these days. (Everybody wants shop credit.) Along those same lines, alternate shot is preferable to foursomes. We’re not trying to scare people away here. For the newly arrived, you’ll know a three-finger cut shot when you see it.

I probably disagree with more than half of his citations, but it's good fun despite, or perhaps because, of that.  I do love his reaction to the B-word:

The first job of language is to share information. With that in mind, avoid barranca, as it raises more questions than it answers. Ditch, happily, does not. And if you want to know about another golfer, don’t ask for his handicap. Try this instead: What can he shoot?

That last bit is spot on as well....  As for this, we'll agree to disagree.

The USGA, in the new-for-’19 rulebook, has cut all references to dormie. Good riddance. I never felt secure about using the word, even after reading up on its French roots. (From dormir, to sleep.) Caddie is also from the French (cadet) and generally is best as a six-letter word, though a movie called Caddieshack would have died on the vine.

I've noted on several occasions that the USGA will have to pry "dormie" from my cold, dead hands.....More importantly, the inherent confusion inherent in the term I find a feature, not a bug.

 But what's missing from Mike's account is that language develops organically over the decades (centuries?), and it's borderline outrageous that the governing bodies think they can snap their fingers and replace hazard with penalty area.  They're turning their back on a sacred heritage of our game, and that they don't see it as something to be preserved speaks very poorly of them.

Also, that they don't see the pleasure to be had in arguing over these terms with guys like Mike Bamberger.  After all, he's gone to the trouble to compile a list of terms to be avoided:

These terms are pretentious and should be avoided: hole location, green complex, signature hole, double cross, overseeding, C.O.R., learning center, practice tee, links-style, second-shot course, Championship Course. Traj. Also: to cover. (“He’s got 210 to cover.”) While we’re at it: Mr. Hogan, Mr. Palmer, etc. If you’re almost 10 and want Big Jack’s autograph, yes, Mr. Nicklaus is fine and appropriate. But if you’re at the bar and talking about Hogan, just say Hogan. I once heard Tiger refer to him as Ben and some graybeards-in-training started clearing their throats. Please. We’re all just human beings on this green earth trying to get a small ball into a distant hole. Sunday at Augusta, Tiger recalled “Arnold” blowing the ’61 tournament, and it was wonderful.

Well, links-style for sure....

Memorial Day -  We'll make our first foray into Sunday Night's Tour Confidential confab, which includes a guest commentator:

1. Tiger Woods came into the PGA Championship as the betting favorite but shot 72-73 to miss the cut. He has a phenomenal track record at this week’s Memorial, including five wins, but should he be the favorite after his performance at Bethpage?

Jack Nicklaus, Memorial host and 18-time major winner: I don’t think Tiger’s performance at Bethpage has anything to do with how he will play this week at Muirfield Village. He was a month removed from the Masters when he came to Bethpage. Tiger

had a natural reaction from winning the Masters and it takes a while to get over it. He hadn’t won a major in almost 11 years, and I am sure that sort of played into what happened at Bethpage. I think you will see a different, ready-to-play Tiger this week at the Memorial Tournament. 

Sean Zak: While I’d like to consider the Bethpage performance to be an outlier for Tiger, in the same way Shinnecock was a year ago, to be the favorite is asking a bit much. Two competitive rounds in the last month and a half. And after a weekend full of #TigerJam hosting duties? I’m a doubter. 

John Wood: I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and say… maybe? I don’t think Tiger would ever look past this event. It is, after all, Jack’s place, and when you grow up with his accomplishments tacked to your wall, I’m sure it gets his juices flowing. That being said, I would bet everything he is doing right now physically, mentally and emotionally has to do with being as prepared as possible for Pebble Beach in a few weeks.

All-Tiger, All The Time.... I see no reason why we should take this more seriously than he himself will.   As Woodie notes, this about showing up at Pebble with his golf feelz in place...

This next one is even sillier:

2. When designing Muirfield Village, Jack Nicklaus took some cues from Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie’s handiwork at Augusta National. Is it too big a leap to suggest players with a good track record at Augusta should also thrive at Muirfield Village? 

Nicklaus: Muirfield Village is more of a second-shot golf course and a driver’s golf course, as is Augusta National. I tend to prefer those courses from a design standpoint and a playing perspective. I think driving the golf ball should be fun, and it should not be as restrictive off the tee as you might see with some golf courses. I tend to put a premium on the approach shot with many of my designs, and both Muirfield Village and Augusta require precision on the approach. So I guess the two courses probably do have a few similarities. I was told recently that six past winners of the Memorial have also won the Masters, and that those six players have a combined 12 Memorial wins and 16 Masters victories.

Excuse me, but I've been reliably informed that we should no longer use the term "second-shot course"... Seriously, though, have you seen the rough at Muirfield Village?  

Anybody but me find that data he cites kind of curious?  First, the Memorial began in 1976, so six Masters champions in 43 years seem kind of, well, underwhelming.....  And Tiger and Jack alone count for eleven of those Masters wins.  

Mike Bamberger had the perfect response I think:

Bamberger: Both courses favor golfers who are really good at golf. Other courses I would put on that list include Bethpage Black, Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Oak Hill, East Lake, Winged Foot, the Old Course, Royal Melbourne and the Yale course. It is a crime against golf that Muirfield Village has not had a U.S. Open.

Though we'll agree to disagree on that last point.... It's a fine golf course, it's just that we see it in early June every year as it now stands.  It would be the same place two weeks later, so what's the point?

You guys good?  I need to get on with my day.... Oh OK, one more fun one from those TC guys:

6. The R&A is still mulling John Daly’s cart request for the British Open. (The PGA of America’s decision to grant Daly a cart at the PGA Championship was met with mixed reviews.) Should the R&A follow the PGA of America’s lead and grant Daly cart usage at Portrush?

Gee, that's a tough one..... Not!.

Zak: They should follow their own protocols, not the PGA’s. If Daly is able to earn another disability claim to match whatever standards the R&A holds up, then definitely. I just get the sense that the backlash is so considerable that we won’t be asking this question a third time. And I definitely won’t block my colleagues on Twitter for anything they say in this space…

Wood: No. No. No. Phil Mickelson has arthritis (I’ve seen the commercials), so why couldn’t he get one as well? It’s a can of worms the PGA opened by granting Daly a cart. I mean, there’s no risk because he has no chance of being competitive at the PGA or British Open, but if this were to become a precedent, it would be a matter of time until someone who COULD win is granted a cart for a similar reason. 

Sens: No. For all the reasons John lists above. The buggy was bad enough at Bethpage, and that was in a championship in the United States, the country that gave birth to golf cart culture (in that context, you could almost argue that Daly buzzing around in a cart made sense). As a matter of principle (to say nothing of aesthetics), it would look and feel a zillion times worse against a backdrop where carts have no more place than a Formula One car in a foot race.

Though, to be fair, Bethpage Black has never embraced that golf cart culture....  

Dethier: Is there a way I can approve of Casey Martin’s exemption and not Daly’s? I know this is a world less fond of nuance than ever, but I support the idea of someone with a disability and long-standing condition being allowed to play — but not necessarily THIS exemption, the way it has all played out. As unhappy as Daly looked at Bethpage, I wonder if he’s not semi-hoping for a rejection, too.

Gee, Dylan, if you can't distinguish between a debilitating illness and a man that's simply a fat slob, perhaps another line of work would suit you better.  

I actually have a sort-of buggy story about Royal Portrush.  in 2012 we did our Fortnight in Ballyliffin thing, and it wa son that trip that I developed a severe case of shin splints form the rock-hard turf.  Portrush was our final round of the trip to be played with our friend Lowell, and he told me that we wouldn't be able to use a buggy on their hallowed links.  We got me a caddie and I gingerly made it through the day, but if I had to walk, so should Long John.  Or, hopefully, let him avoid the long trip just to mail it in....

See you tomorrow.

Late Week Lamentations

A few items to amuse, and then I'll let you get on with your long weekend. 

The Era of Good Feelings Continues - For that Jordan guy, in any event:

Over the last few months, Jordan Spieth has been preaching "progress," adamant that his game would soon come around. On Thursday at Colonial, where Spieth picked up the

eighth of his 11 career PGA Tour victories in 2016, he saw the latest sign of that progress in the form of a five-under 65, putting him one off the lead. 

"I know my game has been progressing," said Spieth, who finished T-3 at the PGA Championship last week, his best finish of the season. "I've been saying that for the last month or six weeks or so. Results just end up coming when I actually start playing better golf. Simply put, that's just what I've been doing. Been a little bit better off the tee and into the greens and I've been a lot better on and around the greens." 

Spieth was more than "a lot better on the greens" on Thursday. Despite being one of the best putters on tour his entire career, he put together the best putting performance of his career in his opening round, making over 150 feet of putts. If he rolls it half as good as that over the next three rounds, he'll be in good shape. 

"Ultimately I just stay the course and not stress too much about results and let them come to me."

What, me worry?  It would be a severe blow to these pages should Jordan return to 2015-2017 form, as the contrast between his happy talk and actual play has been good, low-impact blogging....  But I'm prepared to make that sacrifice, yanno, to help grow the game.

Here's another take on that great day on the greens:

Doesn't suck.

Joel Beall tells us all we need to know about the leader:

If you're wondering why a player of prodigious talent like Tony Finau has a lone PGA

Tour win to his record (at an alternate event, no less), a glance at his short-game statistics should deliver the answer. Though few are better off the tee than Big Tone, the 29-year-old has ranked outside the top 100 in strokes gained/putting in four of the last five seasons. 

It was a deficiency that was also on display last week at the PGA Championship. Out of the 82 players who made the weekend at Bethpage Black, Finau ranked 79th in sg/putting with a -4.741 figure (yes, that's a negative 4.741).

So, is there any reason to think that this is anything more than a good day on the greens for the pride of Salt lake City?  Maybe...

So what spurred the success on the greens? According to Finau, a switch to his putting grip. 

"I haven't been putting great I feel like, and standing over the ball the most important thing is, Do you feel like you're going to make the putt or not?," Finau said after his round. "Outside of everything else, Do you believe you can make the putt? So for me, I needed to switch something." 

Finau went to the "claw" style, a grip he had messed with earlier in his career. Clearly the move was prudent, currently ranking sixth in sg/putting on the day.

The usual caveats about sample size aside, we saw Justin Rose elevate his game with this very same move and, perhaps, Phil as well.  A guy like Tony only has to turn himself into an average putter, so stay tuned.

Given our focus on the dark art of putting, Shack had an especially appropriate quote as his header today:

Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They’re two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. BEN HOGAN

On a related subject, I had been reliably informed not to mess with Texas, though it appears that Jay Monahan did not get that memo.  But mess with Texas they did in the new schedule...  The Houston event now sleeps with the fishes, and the Fort Worth double-header is now split up by the May PGA Championship. 

For these events to survive, they'll need to up their games and find ways to induce players to rack up some frequent flyer miles.  This event has a new, deep-pocketed sponsor in Charles Schwab, who seems to get the marketing thing quite well:

Charles Schwab has been challenging the status quo in the financial services industry on behalf of investors since 1973. Now, as the title sponsor of the Charles Schwab

Challenge — a PGA TOUR event that has challenged the world’s top shot-makers for 73 years — the company is celebrating that “challenger spirit” by unveiling a one-of-a-kind prize for the champion of this year’s event: a restored 1973 Dodge Challenger. 

The car — a restomod “Schwab Challenger” that mixes a vintage body with modern comfort, performance and reliability — is covered in custom Glacier Blue paint, with one-off Schwab badging. It also features touches of Colonial’s trademark Scottish royal tartan on the seats, serving as a tribute to the awarding of a tartan plaid jacket to the event’s champions and top committee chairs.

Restomod?  Never mind, but good to see them injecting some fun into the proceedings....

A Cautionary Tale -  I readily admit that I've reached the "Get off my lawn" stage of life, so keep that in mind for this item.  But am I the only one that has severe misgivings about the PGA Tour's open-mouth kiss of legalized gambling? 

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan understands what’s at stake for golf with the

legalization of sports gambling. 

Speaking at the Sports Business Awards Wednesday night, Monahan implied the Tour is working on new gambling developments that will be announced by the end of the year.

“We’ve spent a lot of time over the last two and a half years clearly understanding all of our options and getting ourselves in a position where we can participate,” Monahan said. “Participate with the right partners, and participate in a way that we think resonates with fans. Without getting in front of it, I think you can expect to hear developments from us in the second half of this year.”

Their hand has been forced by that recent Supreme Court decision, but I find the Tour's pursuit of the vig quite unseemly. 

Legalized sorts betting has been rolling out more slowly than expected, and I disagree with this as well:

Few sports are in better position to capitalize on legalized betting from a viewership standpoint. There’s an endless amount of matchups and prop bets with as many as 125 players teeing it up each week, opening the door for split screen broadcasts and the potential to change the way golf is consumed with an a la carte broadcast experience.

Yes, you could bet on whether a Tour rabbit will hit the green from 233 yards out on a Par-5 at The Quad Cities Open, although why you would do that escapes me.  But that guy that needs action in the afternoon in a sports book in Walla Walla, WA might be betting the rent money, and why should our gentlemen's game be taking a cut of his action?

Monahan is continually trying to get ahead of the issue to ensure the Tour is in position to maximize the benefits. 

“There’s so many different points of entry, from operators to daily fantasy to just games within broadcasts that are non-betting games, just to the way you orient yourself understanding the way people are consuming information,” Monahan said.

It puts the Tour in bed with unseemly elements, the Billy Walters of this world, and making money off gamblers' addiction seems like a bad look.

Mikey Likes It - Mike Bamberger is a grizzled veteran of golf writing, whose work I've enjoyed over the years (most notably this book).  Mike does an occasional column on the seven best things in golf, and this week's installment is a bit of a puzzler.

For instance, this ode to Retief Goosen:

6. Perfection

Speaking of Hall of Famers: Retief Goosen, who turned 50 in February, is playing this week in his first Senior PGA, and next week he is getting inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, along with Jan Stephenson, Billy Payne, Dennis Walters and Peggy Kirk

Bell. Goosen, on the range hitting balls in shorts, stopped traffic. Literally, other players, walking by, stopped now and again to watch him make just a single swing. It is just about perfect. I don’t know what his short game is like, but in terms of his length and the quality of his strike, he looks like an elite Tour player. 

Of the Hall of Famers going in this year, the only one with a better swing is Walters, a trick-shot artist paralyzed from the waist down who plays out of swiveling chair attached to a cart. “I’ve seen video of it,” Goosen said. “It’s an amazing swing but the most amazing thing is how he has taken his disability, that cart accident that cut short his playing career, and turned it into a different kind of career.” 

It’s a particularly interesting class, the fivesome going in this year.

The case for the South African as an HoFer is along the lines of, "Well, since we let Freddie and Monty in....", which leaves me cold.  A nice player, for sure, but we've been grading on a curve for years now....

But while I agree that this year's class is interesting, it's also quite embarrassing...   Don't get me wrong, Billy Payne, Peggy Kirk Bell and Dennis Walters are all very interesting folks who are deserving of recognition for their contributions to our game.  I don't know if full enshrinement is the answer, though, because the concept of Dennis Walters' bust next to Hogan and Jones seems a bit off, but that's a rather minor quibble.

Obviously missing from this year's class is any supreme golfing talent, which I naively thought was the objective of the Hall.   As for Stephenson, surely you jest?  The woman's signature moment in golf was sitting butt-naked in a tub of golf balls....

Hey, at least they weren't Top-Flites....That would have been uncomfortable.

Mike also had this ode to Oak Hill:

4. Memories

Oak Hill is where Jason Dufner won the 2013 PGA Championship. Shaun Micheel won the PGA 10 years before that. Jack Nicklaus won the 1980 PGA at Oak Hill. Cary

Middlecoff, Lee Trevino and Curtis Strange won U.S. Opens on it. It’s easy to get Oak Hill and Oakmont and Oakland Hills confused, but not if you know the courses. Oak Hill is one of the best in the world because it can be a great and enjoyable golf experience for any level of player, and it can be as demanding a course as any in the world. It’s simple, really—and beautiful. It was neat to see Micheel on the course, late Wednesday afternoon, just the golfer and his caddie. You can imagine where his thoughts might roam. It was neat to see Kerry Haigh of the PGA of America, standing on a tee for a solid 10 minutes, just looking, thinking about different scenarios and possibilities. Rory McIlroy described Haigh last week as the best course-setup person in the game. He obviously loves his work, and is happy to be in the background. 

3. Clubhouse treasure

The Oak Hill clubhouse has a bowling alley. Also, Claude Harmon’s 1948 Masters jacket! One of Claude’s sons, Craig, was the longtime head pro at Oak Hill. Who knows how much Augusta National would like to have that wooly coat, with a couple moth holes in it, back? But that’s not happening. Talk about a treasure.

It's a great club for sure, though also a reminder of the squandered economic fortunes of upstate New York.  But also a reminder that the PGA will return here in May 2023, and Mike might want to pack his long johns for that one.

Speaking of Long John, behold the effortless segue, he's doing his thing in Rochester this week:

John Daly gets party started in Rochester for Senior PGA at Oak Hill

It's Rochester, so I can only hope that they're partying like it's 1899...

Have you ever asked yourself, "What could be worse than John Daly tooling around walking-only Bethpage Black in a golf cart?"  Of course you have, and we have an answer, John Daly tooling around an historic golf club....in shorts:

Haven't we suffered enough?

As for this, Just.Say. No.

R&A still mulling John Daly’s cart request for British Open

 Please.

Copying My Signature Move - Alex Myers is a young gun that writes a weekly feature for Golf Digest called The Grind.  It'll seem familiar to you, because he basically steals others' work and adds a snarky comment or two.  I know, but I didn't protect my intellectual property....

In any event, this week's installment has it's moments... Like this one:

Seriously, this is the best explanation for Brooks hopping on the back-nine bogey train on Sunday. Through the first two rounds, Koepka’s handicap differential was an absurd plus-13.5. You can’t give that many shots if you want to win the net division of the Seminole member-guest.

Heh.  Gotta admit, that's pretty good...  Though Alex, if you're gonna be a grown up golf writer, you need to know that Seminole's event is a Member-Pro.  A very different animal indeed....

This was good as well:

Harold Varner III lost a ball after yanking a shot from the high rough on Sunday, and Koepka did that thing where he pretended to look for his opponent’s ball.

Damn you, Alex, there goes another of my signature moves...

Don't Know Much About History - Shack posts this video about C.B. Macdonald's epic Lido Golf Club, that aired during the CBS coverage of the PGA:

It's arguably the most famous lost golf course ever.  Interestingly, Mike Keiser's original idea for the golf course that became Old Macdonald (in which he made Tom Doak bring Jim Urbina back into the fold) was to recreate The Lido....  That idea was discarded as impractical... we can only hope that it's not fully discarded in Keiser's mind.

Also via Shack comes news of a two-parter on Golf Channel on Mr. Hogan:

Hogan: Monday-Tuesday, June 17-18, 9 p.m. ET 

Hogan (trailer), a two-part biopic on 64-time PGA TOUR winner Ben Hogan chronicles one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history, reflecting on the Texan’s indelible impact on professional golf in spite of a near-fatal automobile accident that put the prime years of his career in serious jeopardy. Coming from humble beginnings, the film examines Hogan’s incredible journey to becoming one of the greatest golfers of all-time, serving as the inspiration for the 1951 motion picture “Follow the Sun”. Being presented with limited commercial interruption by Charles Schwab, Hogan’s two parts – Monday night’s “Perseverance” and Tuesday night’s “Perfection” – will be narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Kyle Chandler, and be produced for GOLF Films by 13-time Emmy Award winner Israel DeHerrera.

Trailer can be found here.

I shall release you here, and hope to see you back early next week.  Enjoy your holiday weekend.

Thursday Threads

Slim pickings in the golf world this morning, so I shan't keep you long....

The Dukes of Hazard Penalty Area - Just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?  I do hope you caught some of it, as comely coeds playing team match play rocks:

For the seventh time in program history, Duke is the 2019 NCAA Div. I Women’s Golf National Champion after defeating Wake Forest 3-2 in an all-ACC final match at Blessings Golf Club. 

“I couldn’t feel more proud than I do right now,” said Duke head coach Dan Brooks. “We’ve had a tough team all year long and they were tough this week.” 

The finals came down to the third pairing of the day between Duke sophomore Miranda Wang and and Wake Forest freshman Letizia Bagnoli. Bagnoli put her second shot from the fairway left into the water with a fairway wood, putting Duke in prime position to clinch the title. 

Bagnoli’s fourth shot after taking the penalty came up short of a greenside bunker, but her fifth was great, coming to rest inside four feet. Just off the green with her second shot, Wang’s pitch to 30 feet set up a two-putt par to win. The first missed and the second was conceded, giving the Blue Devils the win.

With five matches and no halves ties, they all end 3-2 for somebody, typically leaving the outcome in the hands of youngsters with years to wait before their first legal cocktail

Equally poignant are the grizzled veterans taking their one last shot before the lonely grind of the professional game.  This time we had Jennifer Kupcho, the best player in the women's amateur ranks, who couldn't summon the magic this time.  But also this girl, whose nerdy charms Employee No. 2 dug:

Duke’s Virginia Elena Carta entered on top, and now she leaves on top. 

Learn from Lydia:  Stick with the specs.

Three years ago as a freshman, Carta dominated at the NCAA Championship in Eugene, Ore., winning the individual national championship by eight strokes thanks to four consecutive stroke-play rounds in the 60’s. 

As a senior, the native of Udine, Italy, capped off her college career in Hollywood fashion with a team title. 

In a wild final match at Arkansas’ Blessings Golf Club that featured three pairings (including Carta’s) in need of playoff holes to decide the winner, the Blue Devils beat Wake Forest in an all-ACC final Wednesday 3-2.

Quite the bookends to her college career...  Hopefully the decisions of the Kupchos. Fassis and Cartas, combined with the option afforded by the LPGA to defer Q-School status, will lead to more of the girls remaining for the full four years.  This is the most fun they'll ever have, and these friendships tend to last a lifetime.  The grind of the professional tour will be there later, no need to rush things.

The men kick off at the same venue over the weekend, with Golf Channel picking up the coverage Monday.  Though, and let's just keep this among ourselves, I don't find the men as compelling as the ladies....  Why that might be will just have to remain one of life's enduring mysteries....

Bethpage Leftovers - Josh Berhow espouse the majority opinion as relates to Black 2024:

But fans, regardless of which side they cheer for, will have little to applaud about if the Black Course sets up similar to how it did last week. The hack-it-out rough and brutally long par-4s are a match-play fan’s nightmare. Match play, and the Ryder Cup, should be about risk, reward and shot-making — not winning demoralizing par-4s with a par. 

Poor Harold: Now the poster child for degree of difficulty.

(Bethpage, in fact, only has two par-5s.) And of course a venue doesn’t need water hazards to be great, but Le Golf National and its splashy finish — bad pun intended — was great theatre as hopes were dashed in a blink of an eye. 

But this shouldn’t be breaking news. The PGA of America has years to identify its Black Course setup. Players are expecting a tamed version, too. 

“Typically in match play you want scoring opportunities, so I don’t think it will be a good idea to set it up like it is here, which I don’t think they would,” said Webb Simpson. “I think they’ll have light rough. I think it needs to be a little shorter for a Ryder Cup, maybe take No. 7 back to a par 5.” 

Graeme McDowell, who was an assistant captain for Europe in 2018, agreed. Although he also campaigns for more neutral setups. 

“They won’t set it up like this,” McDowell said. “This will not be the ’24 Ryder Cup setup — I can guarantee you that. This looks more like Paris National than Hazeltine. It will be more of a Barclays setup for ’24. It will be less rough, it will just be bombs way.”

For a different perspective, we make our initial foray into Alan Shipnuck's weekly mailbag:

Rory mentioned yesterday that he’d like to see a few more birdies at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage – do they simply move the tees up to achieve this? Easier pin locations? #AskAlan -@JWilliams263 

Either or both of those setup changes would help scoring, but the point of the Ryder Cup is win the damn trophy, not make birdies. The tricky setup in Paris was so successful in reducing the Americans’ power advantage that future European courses are sure to be presented in a way that maximizes home-field advantage. But Le National did not work simply because of the thick rough and narrow fairways; it was more about the watery, target-golf layout. On many of the holes the Americans were forced to lay-up to the same spot as the Euros, who turned out to be far more efficient from 150 yards in. There was simply no space for the Yanks to swing away — it was all risk and no reward. The gnarly rough at Le National suggests that American setups should be wide open, to let the big hitters attack. But look at the leaderboard at Bethpage: penal rough on a really, really long course actually favors the U.S. bomb-and-gougers if they can still hit driver. The likes of DJ and Koepka and Gary Woodland find enough fairways to have a huge advantage, and if they miss they’re still much farther down the fairway so they can muscle their approach shots onto the green using shorter clubs. So it’s very likely that Bethpage in 2024 will feature a similar setup to this PGA.

I know Rory would like to see more birdies, since about 2014 now.  Joking aside, I really wasn't sure whether Rors was expressing his preference, or taking a guess at what Cap'n. Phil will have in mind.

I think it's pretty obvious that the rough will be cut lower, and the greens kept receptive.  Though, given the pre-event rains, I'm not clear that they'll be any softer than we saw last week.

All the same, it seems.... well, awkward.  The course was designed to be a brute, and to dumb it down seems silly.  There's only one reason that the PGA of America got wood at the thought of bringing the Ryder Cup to Bethpage, that being to torment Sergio....  Admittedly an objective we can all get behind.

Captain America - Chill, guys, it's not a Patrick Reed item....  though, does anyone know whether Patrick is still playing professional golf?  We kid because we love.

I've made many jokes about the water supply to Far Hills Liberty Corner, where increasingly one gets a whiff of desperation in the air (I know, I'm having analogy commitment issues).  Seriously, these guys don't seem to understand their job:

The USGA is teaming up with an unusual partner in an effort to spread the reach of its game. Some might even call the effort “super.” 

The USGA on Tuesday announced its partnership with Marvel to create a Junior Golf Guide, hoping to engage and educate junior golfers on the values of the sport. This collaborative product will take the form of printed and digital comic books featuring Marvel Superheroes in golf settings. The first comics will be available in June, and posters will be made available on Sunday at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in three weeks. 

“We’re excited for this opportunity to introduce and teach the game of golf to a junior audience in a way that’s completely unique,” said Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA. “Utilizing the power of the Marvel Universe will help us introduce the game to potential new golfers while also giving our existing players a fun new way to learn.”

Shockingly, "super" wasn't the first adjective to pop into your humble blogger's mind....  

Since the time of Mary Queen of Scots, our game has attracted generation after generation of devotes participants.  But rather than trusting the timeless appeal of golf, our current administrators demonstrate their lack of belief that this millennial generation could ever find their way to our overly-complicated sport.  The obvious problem is that changing out the fabric of our game pisses off the rest of us...  and undermines the authority of the USGA when they inevitably cock it up.

So Mike, I'm way past needing a fun  new way to learn.... I want to play that timeless game with quaint, intricate terms such as all-square and hazard.  You'll have to pry "dormie" from my cold, dead hands.....

Can't Suck More Than The Match - Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the TV:

Coming soon: Tiger Woods, the TV show?

Oy.  What do they have in mind, watching him play Call of Duty? 

Interest in Tiger Woods never really waned, though it might have taken a hiatus while he recovered from his spinal-fusion surgery. But now that he's back and is a Masters champion again, it has resumed in full. 

To help supply the demand, author Jeff Benedict, in partnership with Wheelhouse Entertainment, will develop film and television projects based on his intellectual property, the first of them "Tiger Woods," drawing on content from the 2018 New York Times bestseller "Tiger Woods," co-authored with Armen Keteyian. 

“As a rabid sports fan," Wheelhouse CEO Brent Montgomery said in a news release, "I had seen Jeff’s byline and read much of his work, always impressed by his insights and access into some pretty rarified worlds, but when I picked up ‘Tiger Woods’ I saw what a true force Jeff really is – and a compelling way to bring the Tiger Woods story to life as one of the most moving in sports history."

That non-waning interest was in watching the man play golf....  Just a reminder, Lindsey Vonn dumped him mostly because he's a pretty boring guy....  Just sayin'.

The Snooty Roll of Honor - For unexplained reasons, the Golf.com gang posted an item on the eleven most exclusive golf clubs in the world, which largely qualifies as rounding up the usual suspects.  

But this one offers an excuse to dive into my photo archives and exhume one of my favorite signs of all time:

Royal County Down, Newcastle, Northern Ireland 

Northern Ireland’s most socially conscious golf club is awash in doctors, lawyers, judges

and industrialists, mainly from Belfast. There’s no waiting list, not that it matters: few members leave before death and membership is by invitation only. What’s valued is camaraderie, the better to contend in the Hat game, where names are drawn to see who plays with whom. A bit of patience is in order, too, to handle one of the most beautiful, brutal links in the world. It’s not impossible for a visitor to play as a guest, but bring a blazer and be prepared to change clothes and shoes in the car park. As David Feherty once wryly said, if you show up without dandruff on your collar then the club will provide it for you.

That's one of my own photos there, and that spire visible is the Slieve Donard Hotel, quite the place.  In its basement is this helpful sign:

It adhere's strictly to Maslow's Hierarchy, yet never fails to bring a smile to my face.  

Crowd Scenes - Back to Shippy's mailbag, in which he takes on those Bethpage rampaging hordes:

New York crowds…. does something need to be done OR do you just know what you are getting into when you “sign up”? -@aronpricePGA 

This is certainly on everyone’s mind with the Ryder Cup coming to Bethpage in ’24. The crowds last week were often obnoxious and occasionally disruptive, and that was merely for a PGA Championship, a tournament which rarely arouses passions. The Ryder Cup could easily get out of control. A zero-tolerance policy carried out by trained and uniformed Pinkertons in the gallery would be a good start, but that costs a lot of money and has the possibility of leading to a bunch of confrontations and related messiness. A simpler solution is to not sell alcohol at these events. I know that’s a bummer for some folks, but it would lead to a much more pleasant and peaceful experience for everyone on the grounds.

Yes, but the PGA of America is not known for leaving money on the table....  I do love that bit about the PGA not arousing passions, though....  Alan has a gift for understatement.

But, a point I've made further, is that the dynamics of a Ryder Cup are quite different, including the fact that on the first two days there's shockingly little golf to watch.  Picture your common man running to grab a seat on the later holes when the gates open.  he'll wait hours to see his first shot hit, then will have another hours-long gap before the afternoon session.   

And this:

#AskAlan The media seemed to have more issues with the Bethpage galleries than the players. Or am I missing something? -@PopGaryPopovich 

Yes, locker room access. The players were afraid to say anything publicly because they didn’t want the tribal New York fans to turn on them. In private, they were horrified and/or fuming about the fan conduct.

Seems wise.

Shall we see what else Alan has on offer....  It's always entertaining, and it's easy blogging for your humble correspondent.  First, a few on Brooks:

How important has being an equipment free agent been to Koepka? And do you think other players will start following his lead? -@HenryFettes 

There are tons of examples of players who have struggled after signing endorsement deals, most recently McIlroy confiding that he spent all of 2018 fighting a driver he was mandated to play. Brooks has made the correct calculation that you can make an obscene amount of money simply winning the biggest tournaments, so why compromise any bit of performance just for more dollars which he doesn’t really need? Tour players are noted copycats, so you have to assume more of Brooks’s colleagues will unshackle themselves from onerous endorsement deals.

An interesting trend, no?  Molinari as well, I think..... mostly ex-Nike guys, for obvious reasons.  But it's a big number to turn down for Brooks.

I think Koepka’s win was diminished since he didn’t win by at least 8. Agree? -@JoeGunter 

Not in the slightest. A win is a win. However, it was a missed opportunity to justify the Tiger comparisons by extending the lead with airtight play, which was Woods’ Sunday specialty. But Brooks got the victory and that’s all that really matters.

Yes and no...  Diminished is far too strong a word, but an eight stroke win is more impressive than a two-shot win...  and it was a Tiger signature move, so those comparisons are somewhat tamped down.  He'll just have to console himself with his four of eight stretch, which doesn't suck.

Yeah, he’s not likable, but we have to give Brooks his due. If he had hit a serviceable tee shot on #12 at Augusta, he would have won three majors in a row and four out of the past five. That’s dominance. How many major wins do you predict for Brooks in his career? -@Steffi_Latina25 

Predicting the future is a fool’s errand. (See Ryder Cup 2018.) If we had asked this question about Rory McIlroy in August 2014 – or Tiger Woods in June 2008 – I’m quite sure all of us would be stunned at how the future has played out. So many things can derail a career, and Brooks got a little taste of that with his wrist injury a couple of years ago. But I liked when he said double digits is his goal for a career haul of major championships. I’d love to see him get there, and certainly Koepka has the game and the head for it. But so much more than that will tell the tale.

I'm guessing that some people like him...  I don't buy the premise, that a dry tee ball on No. 12 would have won him The Masters, not with six holes yet to play.   On that fool's errand, I've staked out a different position, to wit, that Tiger will be the last to ever win double-digit majors....  Of course, I remain the '62 Mets of fantasy golf, so carpe diem.

And on our almost-hero:

#AskAlan How big of a story is it that DJ can hang around the top of a major leaderboard but hasn’t shown enough to close it out? The money is great but Brooks is up 4-1 on him. -@forearmshivers 

It’s poetic that Dustin is returning to Pebble for another U.S. Open, to end a star-crossed decade in the majors which began with his epic meltdown at the 2010 national championship. By finishing second at this year’s Masters and PGA, DJ now has 17 top-10s in the major championships but only one victory. This most recent blown chance was revealing, and I keep going back to the 16th hole on Sunday. 

Johnson had played nearly perfect golf to that point, cutting Koepka’s lead from seven to one lone stroke. The crowd was on his side, and Dustin had a chance for a monumental comeback which would have validated his greatness and dramatically altered his relationship with Brooks, the frenemy who become the player we all expected Johnson to be. A good drive left DJ in the fairway on one of Bethpage’s toughest holes, facing the defining shot of his tournament. No doubt Dustin felt he needed at least one birdie, but ahead of him were a downwind par-3 (#17) and one of the easier par-4s at Bethpage (#18). Brooks was falling apart one hole behind him; the key for Johnson was to avoid making any mistakes that would take the pressure off Koepka. 

The pin on 16 was back-right. Long was dead. Dustin had acres short and left, but after spending a long time trying to read the gusts he attacked the flag with a roping hook. On that line the green was much more shallow. There was no room for error. Alas, Dustin’s ball flew over the green into a nasty patch of rough. With the green sloping away from him, the best he could do was gouge it out to seven feet. Shotlink stats show that pros make it only 50% of the time from that distance, and that’s not with the PGA Championship on the line and all of Bethpage at full throat. Dustin missed, of course, and his bid was blunted. 

Afterward, he expressed surprise that his 5-iron flew the green. Did the wind die? Maybe, but that is always a possibility on a gusty day. Was it too much adrenaline? That happens, too, but he didn’t allow for it by recklessly firing at the flag. Playing short/left would have given DJ room to miss. Quite simply, it was the wrong shot at the wrong time. It’s a subtle thing that led to yet another coulda/woulda/shoulda near-miss.

Gee, you're saying that DJ made a bad decision.  Who coulda seen that coming?

And on another fallen hero:

How encouraged are you by Jordan’s performance at Bethpage? #AskAlan -@_SMisner 

Massively! Bethpage is a big ballpark with relatively flat greens – on paper, it’s not Spieth’s kind of course. But he was in control of his golf ball and poured in plenty of putts, and that formula works pretty much everywhere. Golf is so much more interesting with Spieth on the leaderboard. I hope this is the start of another run because we need a few superstars to step up and challenge Koepka.

Massively?  With an exclamation point?  Of course Alan is the guy that predicted the coming era of U.S. Ryder Cup dominance, and I'm guessing there were exclamation points involved there as well.

It was a pretty good week for Jordan, admittedly, given the standards he's been lowering for two years now.  But I'd want to see more before I'd put a shekel on him.

This one is a fun walk down memory lane:

Ever been a worse final round than Harold Varner excluding Rory at Augusta (2011) of course?! He was playing the round like a 20 handicap hacker. -@boblpartridge 

I’ve seen plenty. Dustin’s 82 at the 2010 U.S. Open was worse. So was Jason Gore’s 84 at Pinehurst in ’05, alongside Retief Goosen’s 81. Nick Watney’s 81 at Whistling Straits in 2010 was brutal. Jeff Maggert making a 7 and an 8 in the final group at the 2003 Masters might be worse. Ernie Els’s 80 at Shinny in ’04 was a shocker from a future Hall of Famer. There are a ton more examples of players losing their games (and their minds) in the crucible of major championship Sundays. I was actually impressed by Varner’s comportment. He’ll learn a lot from that disastrous round and hopefully come back stronger.

Varner is such a good guy that it was hard to watch....   

One last bit on the golf course:

From the difficulty standpoint, there’s little doubting Bethpage is a major-worthy venue. But in many intangible areas, it lags for me. Normally I am locked into majors, but I channel-surfed in ’09 and ’19 alike. Sorry, “tough course and tougher crowd” alone don’t do it. Am I nuts? -DannyLawhon 

Not at all. Bethpage is a brutal but one-dimensional test. The course dictates how every hole must be played: smash a driver, then fly the next shot all the way to the green, and if either swing goes awry hack out of the rough, possibly sideways. There is no room for improvisation or creativity. It identified a very worthy and proficient champion, but I would not call this PGA an artistic triumph.

My only reaction would be to note that we've only seen it play in wet, soft conditions....  But it's hardly a course that asks questions of a strategic nature.  And where it tries, think No. 6, the guys just bombed drivers anyway....

Thanks for stopping by, and perhaps we'll meet again tomorrow.