Thursday Threads

A very slow news day in our golf bubble, so I hope you're not the kind to blame the messenger...

Bubble, Expanding - Brian Wacker informs that the Tour has expanded the number of folks that can attend their events:

While the PGA Tour has said that it will not allow fans at its tournaments for the remainder of the current season and in its opening event of the 2020-21 campaign, Golf Digest has learned that the organization will start allowing more people on-site,

beginning with next week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis.

In an email sent to players on Wednesday evening and obtained by Golf Digest, the tour said that tournaments and title sponsors will be allowed to have up to 50 guests per day Thursday through Sunday and that spouses and significant others would also be allowed on-site during competition days.

Guests of sponsors and spouses/significant others will not be subject to testing for COVID-19 but will be required to undergo a temperature check and fill out a questionnaire each day upon arrival. There will also be limitations on where they can go once on the grounds.

“These programs will be applied on a tournament-by-tournament basis, in accordance with state and local guidelines in place and at the discretion of the tournament,” the tour’s chief of operations, Tyler Dennis, said in the email.

And just like that the unemployment rolls skyrocket as a result of hundreds of "Tour Wives" suddenly being out of work...

No doubt the guys have been digging their Wednesdays since the restart, but the good times are officially over:

There will also be honorary observers—16 two-person groups per day—and what the tour is calling virtual player engagement, which will replace traditional Wednesday pro-ams, which have been canceled for the remainder of the season. Up to 30 players would be required to participate in duties such as a 30- to 45-minute Q&A, while 10 players would be available for similar activities on Tuesday or Wednesday of tournament week.

All told, these programs would add up to roughly 500 or more bodies on site any given week in addition to the already approximately 1,100 currently at tournaments between players, caddies, volunteers, media and officials.

First, to state the obvious, any player critical of those fifty sponsor invites should be rewarded with a one-month suspension, or perhaps a remedial economics class....

As for the WAGs, seems like a missed handicapping opportunity.   In contemplating the restart, there were all sorts of pieces speculating about which players might benefit the most.  So, those who have the benefit of being inside those ropes, which players might benefit from or, more interestingly, which players might be negatively affected by having their spouse hovering nearby?

For those that have followed this story here, you'll be shocked to know that our Shack has some typically prudent thoughts on this subject:

Now, call me crazy, but the PGA Tour is back. It’s working.

Would now be a good time to remind Geoff that, intermediately upon receiving the news that Nick Watney tested positive, he was screaming that the Tour needed to shut down?  Not only does Watney continue to fog up mirrors in violation of the narrative, but so do the rest of the guys.

Even with fields too absurdly big that in weeks like this one at the 3M, where you half expect to see a Mexican Mini Tour great like Club Pro Guy turning up, the PGA Tour is functioning. (For those counting at home, it’s a 197 from a record 803 strength-of-field drop this week).

Yes, there have been the inevitable hiccups, new rules on the fly, tweaks to COVID-19 guidelines and other madness that comes with a pandemic. But CBS and Golf Channel ratings keep getting better by the week at a time of year they always go down, and in spite of having no fan energy. 

Increasingly, without locker rooms or droplet spewing contact to probably doom the return, along with Sanford providing on-site testing separate of local labs prioritizing sports leagues in other markets, PGA Tour golf is looking like one sport that can keep going pretty safely despite the ongoing pandemic. 

So let’s see if we can screw that up!

Let me see if I understand the playbook.  First, let out a primal scream and tell us that we're all gonna die.  Second, ignore your prior prediction and jump on the bandwagon, while predicting that the next initiative will kill everyone.  Third, rinse and repeat until prediction comes true...

To me this the obvious next step is to expand the bubble, and Geoff is obviously free to argue either that it's too soon or that it's being done in an unsafe manner.  Of course, he doesn't make actual arguments, he just throws things against the wall:

Understandably, sponsors want to know what they are getting for their money (though some reports say they are having to fork out less right now). And WAG’s want to travel again.

But is this addition of people who are not getting tested really worth the risk?

Geoff, you've actually not even made the case that there's a risk involved.  And you prior histrionics haven't panned out, so I'm guessing that the planet will continue to turn on its axis and the sun will continue to rise in the East....

The Euro Beat -  We've not checked in on our friends across the pond in some time, and they're gearing up to get back to work:

It is the first leg of a new six-event UK Swing, with the tour moving on to Forest of

Arden, Hanbury Manor, Celtic Manor for a double-header and The Belfry over the coming few weeks.

Considering two of those are past Ryder Cup venues, it is a cracking restart for the circuit, even though all the events are being played behind closed doors due to current restrictions

Under normal circumstances, each and every one of those tournaments would have attracted brilliant crowds, but it is perfectly understandable why fans will have to make do with TV coverage for the time being.

True that, though enthusiasm might be limited by the fact that they're two dreadful Ryder Cup venues...  This is the more important bit:

The tour has spent £2 million plus in developing a health strategy for the rest of the year, and I have every faith that it will be a proper “bubble” compared to what the PGA Tour, at the start at least, had for its return last month. 

Dr Andrew Murray, the circuit’s chief medical officer, has been one of Keith Pelley’s key advisors as he plotted these careful first steps and the Aberdonian will be ensuring that everything is carried out exactly how it needs to be at the moment. 

“Although golf is back, as Keith Pelley has said, these will not – and should not – feel like normal golf tournaments,” said Murray. “It’s good that we are all back to work in a familiar environment, but things will be completely different with all the measures that we will be putting in place as part of our health strategy.”

Good to see them getting back to it, though the timing seems unfortunate given a WGC and the PGA Championship scheduled for back-to-back weeks in their former colonies...

I've been a bit surprised by the absence of certain Euro stalwarts in the U.S., the only game in town up until now, but I'm liking the cut of this guy's jib:

Some self-quarantines are better than others. 

Englishman Tommy Fleetwood spent 14 days in the Hamptons on the East End of Long

Is it any wonder that he's smiling?

Island playing several of American golf’s crown jewels. At Shinnecock Hills, Fleetwood nearly matched the final-round 63 he shot at the 2018 U.S. Open there to finish second to Brooks Koepka, settling for a 64 this time and beating his caddie, Ian Finnis, by nine strokes. 

There were also rounds just to its north where golf’s most famous windmill marks the adjacent National Golf Links of America, one of golf’s timeless classics, as well as Friar’s Head, a modern-day gem that has added to the embarrassment of golfing riches on this spit of land known as the South Fork.

No Maidstone?  Put that on your list for the next pandemic, Tommy.

I must admit that I do like it when Tour players can revel in the joy of the game, a hard thing when it's your office.

Insert Your Own Analogy - This silly story has more than a few layers with which to amuse us.  It concerns the N.J. Open, and all sorts of associated existential dilemmas:

TENAFLY – Tyler Hall has a chance to win another New Jersey Open Championship and one of his challengers was required to withdraw Tuesday due to COVID-19. 

Amateur Mike Muehr will not return for Wednesday's final round after Gov. Phil Murphy

Mike Muehr

on Tuesday added the golfer's home state of Virginia onto a list of 31 states that require a 14-day quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Golfers making the cut to Wednesday's final round will be required to withdraw if in the past two weeks they have visited states added to the list: Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington. 

"A very difficult decision for us to make, but the decision already has been made," Kevin Purcell, executive director of the New Jersey State Golf Association, said late Tuesday afternoon. "The policy was in place, and there's already been people who have withdrawn from the event because they had played in the states that had been on the list at that time."

Ya got that sequence?  The man had played two rounds with no issues.  Just a reminder, we still have no clue whether asymptomatic people can transmit the virus... Sending active virus patients into nursing homes?  That's bold, decisive leadership....  Requiring folks from Alaska to self-quarantine?  Folks, I just don't have the words to describe what that is....

Bones existential query:  Can your state's signature golf championship be called an "Open" when your state is closed?  Discuss among yourselves....

The Ladies - They're gearing up for their return and, unlike the men, they get to play that event in the UK.  I use those odd words because there's always been been confusion as to what to call it...

For the men, it's proper name is the Open Championship, and purists bristle at hearing this event referred to as the British Open.  Yet that's exactly what they called the ladies' championship, until now.

That link is to a Beth Ann Nichols item at MSN that caused a full ten minutes of formatting issues, for reasons I'll never understand. 

The gist of my point is that this event only recently came under the jurisdiction of the R&A, yet they until now felt no need to align it's name with that of their men's championships.  Curious, no?  Where's Martha Burke when we need her?

Sadder still is that, despite this re-branding, no one is willing to write the R&A a big check to make the event go away in 2020.  Truly, the women get no respect...  Of course, your humble blogger is happy to see any links golf this year, as I would want this event to be the only links golf I'm able to watch.

A Distance Grab Bag - A few items that touch on the ungodly distances golf balls travel these days.  First, Golf.com posts this listing of the driving distance leader on the PGA Tour since 1980.  This is a public service, because we typically see such data only from the early aughts, after the gains from the introduction of the sold core ball were banked.

So, shall we start in 1980?

1980: Dan Pohl, 274.3 yards 

We begin our journey in 1980, with Dan Pohl, otherwise known as the “Pohlcat.” Pohl led the tour in driving with a respectable 274.3-yard average and accruing over 51,000 yards driven. Pohl, unfortunately, would not pick up a win on Tour in 1980 — or ’81, when he led the Tour again in driving distance with 280.1 yards. However, the Pohlcat’s place in golf’s distance history can never be questioned.

I remember Pohl, but only vaguely....

 Then came the Daly era:

1998: John Daly, 299.4 

1999: John Daly, 305.6 

2000: John Daly, 301.4

This is obviously just a snapshot, and we'd be far better served focusing on tour averages and the like.  But you go to war with the data you have...

The Pro-V1 hits around 200, and we see a quick spike:

2003: Hank Kuehne, 321.4 

2004: Hank Kuehne, 314.4 

2005: Scott Hend, 318.9 

2006: Bubba Watson, 319.6

All of the analysis from the USGA and R&A up until last year used this as the starting point, obviously channeling their inner Michael Mann.

But here the plot thickens, because take a look at the more recent numbers:

2016: J.B Holmes, 314.5 

2017: Rory McIlroy, 317.2 

2018: Rory McIlroy, 319.7 

2019: Cameron Champ, 317.9

Champ seemed to be blowing it 20 yards past everyone else, yet see driving distance numbers seem to evidence a plateau.  Is that what you think you've been watching out there?  Because I've been seeing something else entirely, and that very much predates Bryson's metamorphosis.

 There's all sorts of ancillary date that support my premise, such as the number of drives more than 300, or even 400, yards.  We know that agronomy has been employed, but my suspicion has long been that the date simply fails to account for the fact that the guys are hitting many fewer drivers.  No surprise there, as many of them can now hit a 3-wood 300 yards or more...

As Lenin first asked, what is to be done?  This guy has a suggestion:

Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Gary McCord are a few notable figures in our game to speak out with their opinions on the matter. Nicklaus has been at it for years calling for the golf ball to get rolled back, and Faldo recently suggested a ban on golf tees. McCord, on the other hand, said that bifurcation would be a legal hassle, and that distance is entertaining.  

Now, four-time major winner Ernie Els (two U.S. Opens and two Open Championships) spoke out on the matter via Twitter.

Our game is in a good place. Equipment improvements and distance are here to stay. Full stop. We need a ‘serious’ premium on accuracy. Golf courses don’t need to be longer. Make the Tour rough knee high, fairways fast and firm which is fair for all players. pic.twitter.com/rwUvJ14vq2

— Ernie Els (@TheBig_Easy) July 18, 2020

Wow, your humble blogger just successfully embedded a tweet.  perhaps some day I'll learn how to center it...

There's two obvious reactions to Ernie's comments, the first is to look for any evidence of bias, though this wouldn't be where I'd first search:

As Chamblee hinted, it’s possible that Els’ take is somewhat biased since he’s had such success on courses with long rough and firm fairways, as evidenced by his two U.S. Open victories. Surely, Els was also exaggerating about “knee high” rough length, but we understand his point.

We've debated knee-high Open rough for decades, though I really do think folks have forgotten how dreadfully boring such golf can be.  But Ernie is proposing this for the Quad Cities Open, which is about as crazy a suggestion as I've heard recently....  It seems, to put it mildly, guaranteed to harsh the mellow on Tour.  I dare you to Live Under Par™ while hacking out of knee-deep spinach, in those few instances when you actually find your ball by stepping on it.

It also needs reminding that Ernie is spot on about #firmandfast, but simply ignores the fact that there inevitably precious few opportunities for such conditions.  Heck, most of our British Opens Open Championships are on softer conditions than we'd like.

But if you're of a mind to question Ernie's motivation, this would be the reason to do so:

Lastly we have a rant from Shack, about this item.  here's the excerpt that Geoff chose:

Henrik Stenson, the 2013 FedExCup champ and six-time winner on the PGA TOUR, noted in the July-August 2020 issue of Golf magazine that “the ball speeds off of MAVRIK are really high, and I noticed that almost immediately when I first tried it. If I hit it dead center or if I miss the sweet spot, I still know that I’m going to get the speed and distance I’m looking for.” 

Having that confidence that a non-center strike can still be an effective shot is a huge advantage for any players, particularly those at the top level. And particularly on fairway woods, which can often be a pesky club to figure out – and a club that many weekend amateurs try to avoid as much as possible.

I'm sorry, but isn't a good result on an off-center hit more important for civilians than Tour players?  Asking for a friend...

Geoff also includes this tweet:

“Took me only three swings to know it was the right driver for me.” https://t.co/wbCXT2S6We

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 22, 2020

Geoff handles the lay-up appropriately, reminding us of the X-man's driver being tossed last year at Portrush for violating equipment standards.

Unlike Geoff, I always expect to find gambling in Casablanca, so I'm less disillusioned than he.  Equipment manufacturers will always sell based on improved performance, so I expect these pitches.  Geoff does as well, but his better argument is about the venue.

This appears on the PGATour.com website without a Sponsored Content warning label, and that's pretty laughable.  The Tour is effectively promoting advertising copy and disguising it as, dare I say, journalism, without informing the reader that money has changed hands.  That's pretty low rent for sure, though it's hard for me to imagine a reader sufficiently naive not to immediately grasp that fact.

My mind has turned to breaky, so I'll just leave you with this enticing image:

Clubhouse Eats: At Omni Orlando’s David’s Club, bacon has a starring role

Bacon is a star...in fact, it's the Tiger Woods of food, so I consider that type-casting...

However, that beer gives me pause....  and this is ground over which we've previously trod.  I take you back to 2012, before the creation of Unplayable Lies, to our fortnight in Ballyliffin, which was my maiden blogging effort.  

From this post:

On the subject of breakfast, we've mostly been eating in a healthy fashion, yogurt, toast, bananas, and multi-bran cereal. Prior trips have featured the ubiquitous Irish or Scottish breakfasts, an LDL-athon of eggs, bacon, sausage and toast. Though one night early in our stay we ventured ten miles north to the Rust Nail restaurant, only to find that they don't serve food during the week. We then changed course to a restaurant in Carndonough, pronounced something like Car-in-DONna, though in our early days we assumed it would be Car-don-Ach, which unable to remember morphed into Kreplach. As you can readily see, we spare no effort to endear ourselves to the local populace.

In any event, this restaurant featured an all-day breakfast, and I was able to satisfy my irish breakfast Jones. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering a beer. Lest the reader harbor any doubts, beer and salty breakfast meats do NOT go together at all. I mention this so others shouldn't suffer.

You're all on notice. 

Minimalist Midweek Musings

Just a few notes for today, before my regular Wednesday game...

No Club Left Behind - Behind the golf ball, that is.  Shack with a letter from the Commissioner that is long overdo:

Dear Greatest Athletes In All Of Sport, 

It’s been an incredible run since the Return To Golf (© pending) started and I want to thank you for your continued use of a mask when getting Chipotle take-out. Amazing first step. Don’t hesitate to extend that face covering stuff in hotel lobbies or if you have not taken up the special NetJets offer we’ve highlighted (CODE: FLYINGCOMMERCIALSUCKS). 

Meanwhile, our positivity rates are as low as the scores you’ve been shooting. Yes, that’s an unfortunate segue to the point of this email you will not read. 

This is about the mashing. The pulping, the grinding, the grating, the smashing, the crushing, the squashing, the scrunching and the general pulverizing of grass behind your ball. As you may know by now, last week’s amazing Memorial Presented By Nationwide champion Jon Rahm (500 more FedExCup points) placed his club behind his ball and it moved ever so slightly. He meant nothing by it. However, under a very strict application of the rules, our staff assessed Jon a two-stroke penalty. 

I highlight this because Jon is not alone in this habit of getting in there and really testing out that grass behind the ball. While I certainly understand the desire to get your money’s worth, I’d like to tell you a story. See, way back in 1744, guys not nearly as athletic as you, played a lot of golf at this trench-filled place call Leith Links. It was no TPC. The course was in Edinburgh, which you probably drove by when flying in for the The Open. Anyway, those rulemaking mid-18th century non-jocks came up with the original rules of golf. There was a line about playing the ball “where it lies.” Long, boring story short (for the agents possibly still reading this), that language evolved quickly into kind of this, like, big, big rule of golf that shaped all others. Miraculously, the whole play it as it lies creed was a thing for a solid 250 years, with hiccups along the way. 

Anything you can do to not test the ground, press down, shard, grind, levigate, triturate or in general, look like you are improving your lie, would be appreciated. Especially when you’re in a featured group on PGA Tour Live or on one of our network partner broadcasts.

I would also point out that we’ll have a lot of rough at upcoming events, particularly with a PGA Championship and U.S. Open on the schedule. And of course The Playoffs© highlighting the season of championships. So talk to your teams about how to test out the ground and improve your feel for a shot by setting the club down NEXT to your ball instead of behind it where you might be seen improving your lie. Or in Jon’s causing the ball to move. Besides saving you penalty strokes and FedExCup points, this will make my next USGA/R&A rules meeting much more enjoyable.

Yours in the Return To Golf,

The Commissioner

Play it as it lies was a thing, at least until Patrick Reed...  What troubles me is that I doubt Jay Monahan even realizes how bad this looks, but it has the potential to undermine everything we think we know about these guys.

For those not taking notes, I'll embed this PReed Master Class in this dark art:

There's only one reason for your club to touch the grass behind your ball and, per our Bryson, it'll damage your brand.  

Like backstopping, this will continue to be a joke, until a significant event turns on such an improved lie...

The Road Forward - A gaggle of disparate stories about decisions to come.  We'll work in time sequence, first as relates to the PGA Championship:

Family members, agents and managers will not be permitted at Harding Park, but up to two coaches as well as a physical trainer and an interpreter (if necessary) will be allowed, subject to COVID-19 testing. No one will be allowed onto the grounds prior to getting a negative result, and all of the testing will be done away from Harding Park, starting on Aug. 2.

Steiny hardest hit.  

This is in contrast to the PGA Tour, which has allowed certain players testing positive to remain in the field, though often playing as a single.  It all seems well considered, unless and until the wrong guy tests positive...

The PGA Tour seemed to this observer very slow to realize that with a November Masters, guys might not want to make this trek:

There is also the issue of the three events that had been scheduled to be played in Asia in October: the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges in South Korea, the Zozo Championship in Japan

and the WGC-HSBC Champions in China. According to sources at the tour, it is virtually certain that none of those events will be played in Asia, although the first two are likely to be moved to sites in the United States.

Given the restrictions in international travel, few players were going to risk traveling to or from Asia in October. “It isn’t just about getting there, it’s the possibility of being quarantined and being stuck there for a period of time,” one source said. “With the way the pandemic has been trending here, the chances that we could make the events happen even if players were willing to go isn’t great right now.”

As for this, it's about what we expect, though it's not typically said out loud:

Zozo’s defending champion is Tiger Woods. The tournament is scheduled for three weeks out from the Masters and, if it is played in the U.S., the chances of Woods playing are much greater. “They might just call Tiger and say, ‘Tell us where you want to play,’ and go there,” one player said. “As long as he enters, they’ll be happy.”

And he'll be happy to confirm with them the Friday before the event begins.  Think I'm being snarky about the Great Tiger?

There was that fire hydrant as well...

And this:

The event in China almost certainly won’t be played for a number of reasons. China has announced it is canceling all sporting events for the rest of the year except for trials leading to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. And HSBC wouldn’t want to play the event anywhere without its defending champion, Rory McIlroy. It was highly unlikely that McIlroy would chance taking a trip to China two weeks before the rescheduled Masters in November. Even if the HSBC were to be moved to the United States, it’s unclear whether McIlroy or other big names would enter that close to the Masters, which now comes near the end of what will be an active summer and fall for most players.

Well, China.  The boys will typically go anywhere for a big payday, but China?  Now?

Bob Harig has this curious piece on the Masters in which he lays out the range of alternative scenarios under which the event might be played:

 That suggests that everything remains open to possibility, from a tournament with a full

array of spectators (seemingly more unlikely now) to limited fans to none at all or even cancellation -- although the latter would seem extreme, given the relatively successful return to golf through six weeks on the PGA Tour. Not to mention, the PGA Championship is going ahead without spectators, and the U.S. Open is still hoping to have a very limited number of spectators.

Still, when the announcement was made, Augusta National bought itself the most time. The club was clearly banking on seven months being enough of a cushion to curb the pandemic and allow for some sort of return to normalcy.

The Masters is still four months off, so it's a bit early to be agonizing over it.  Nor is there an organization better prepared to absorb a revenue shortfall. Just ask Martha Burke.

Wither Brooksie - No good news here, though let's circle back and cover this poke from Brooksie:

Your humble blogger has some egg on his face, as it's been deemed the Tweet of the Century and I didn't even get the reference.  Eamon Lynch explains:

That’s when he posted a meme widely interpreted as a steroids-themed needling of Bryson DeChambeau, whose bulked-up physique and huge drives have drawn more

gasps and raised eyebrows than a streaker in church. 

Koepka’s tweet did not mention DeChambeau, but it didn’t have to. Readers decided who it was aimed at. There were those who relished the prospect of conflict between two stars in a sport that is often too vanilla. Others thought it dangerously close to a direct accusation of illegal drug use, including European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington, who labeled the tweet “unfair.” At the very least, it was a coy poke in the ribs from a guy who enjoys edgy, jocular jabs at people he doesn’t much care for.

As we know, Bryson has been taking a run at 200 m.p.h. ball speed, but have you ever considered how stiff his driver shaft must be?   And yet he can do this to it:

The two guys seem destined to go head-to-head... Or they would, except that one of them isn't right:

“I just need to play good. I’ve played so bad lately,” he said. Koepka typically has this

way of simplifying things. It’s been an underwhelming restart to the season for Koepka. He finished T32 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, 7th at the RBC Heritage, withdrew from the Travelers after his caddie tested positive for the coronavirus, missed the cut at the Workday Charity Open and finished T62 at the Memorial, shooting 80 in challenging conditions on Sunday. 

Koepka has slipped to No. 6 in the world; still, he enters this week’s event as the second favorite behind Dustin Johnson and didn’t sound like he’d lost any faith in his game. 

“I’m just trying to find things. Every week I feel like the results aren’t there, but it’s getting better and better. My good shots are good, but I’ve just got to bring that bottom level up. I’ve hit some real costly shots. I seem to miss it short-sided every time and that’s been kind of the downfall of why I haven’t played well.”

That sound you hear is Brooks whistling past the graveyard....

“I don’t see it being an issue. I have my trainer coming in, he’s helped work on it quite a bit over the past eight months and I think it will be just fine,” Koepka said. “It’s not an excuse for why I’ve been playing bad, I can promise you that.”

If you say so.  Though how that squares with this remains one of life's mysteries:

The knee simply isn’t progressing, Brooks Koepka is the first to admit, at least from a clinical standpoint. An MRI last week, before the start of play at the Memorial, revealed

this unfortunate diagnosis on his left knee, and it’s something the Jupiter, Florida, resident has known for weeks.

“I’ll be honest with you, Sunday was the best my knee’s felt in a really

long time. I worked with my physio, Marc Wahl, quite a bit over the week. I don’t know. It was the first course we played where it’s actually been hilly. Going downhill, it bugged me a little bit, uphill’s fine, and that was the hilliest golf course we played,” he said. “But it feels a lot better. Just walking downhill’s a pain. It’s where that patellar extends and just try to adjust going down hills.

He just isn't right, and it's hard to think he'll be a factor until that knee resolves itself...

Did someone mention Bryson?  I'm in exit strategy mode, and I'll just leave you with this Eamon Lynch consideration of the man:

Bryson DeChambeau drawing fan hostility, but can he help himself?

 I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question...

Every sport needs a Tom Brady, an Alex Rodriguez, a Kevin Garnett—athletes whose

accomplishments win the admiration of some but whose acts and attitudes earn the loathing of many. 

Hate figures supply one of the main arteries in sports fandom, permitting us to really savor those moments when karma kicks them in the teeth. It’s not a noble sentiment worthy of the Olympic Creed, but disasters inflicted on antagonists bring almost as much joy as the triumphs of heroes. 

Social media has fueled the rip current of hatred in sport (and society), as folks once limited to braying from the bleachers have found both a wider platform and a community of the like-minded. The objects of their derision share one trait, of course: all excel in their sport. Bench-warmers don’t vex anyone. But in a pandemic when most other sports are mothballed, it’s increasingly apparent how uneasily golf co-exists with this new reality. 

The PGA Tour resolutely refuses to lean into the idea of villains being good for fan engagement.

Isn't that what Live Under Par™?

It's Eamon Lynch so give it a read.  Have a great day and we'll catch up again tomorrow.

Weekend Wrap

A hot, steamy weekend for most of us.  Were I not relegated to a cart by virtue of the increasingly annoying shin splint, the heat and humidity would have necessitated it...

Muirfield Mishegoss - Wow, a great week of challenging golf ends on a bizarre note.  Before we segue to the penalty, let's give the man his due:

DUBLIN, Ohio – Jon Rahm was cruising to an authoritative victory in the Memorial on Sunday – and the world’s top ranking for the first time – when he ran into turbulence shortly after storms arrived and delayed play.

After a 50-minute stoppage, Rahm returned to the ninth hole at Muirfield Village Golf Club with an 8-shot lead. But a bogey on 10, a double-bogey on 11 and another bogey on 14, coupled with a birdie by Ryan Palmer on the 12th, cut Rahm’s lead to three shots. 

Then matters got dicey when Rahm chipped in from behind the 16th green for birdie to up his advantage to four. But as he soled his club right before the chip, the ball moved and didn’t return to its original spot before Rahm hit his shot. 

Rahm was later penalized two shots for the infraction.

It's a plotline we see often, as players struggle after staking themselves to a big lead.  But by the time of the penalty on No. 16 he had effectively put away the field, so that became an afterthought.  Or something.

And to be fair, he was playing beautifully until the weather hit:

Jon Rahm hung on, and that’s all that matters

First, we should point out just how good Rahm’s front nine on Sunday was. Coming off a Saturday 68 that he called “one of the rounds of my life,” he backed it up with a front-nine 34 that all but closed the door on everyone. Yes, he quickly gave a few back on 10 and 11, and seemed to begin running a little hot, as he tends to do. But he managed to play the final seven holes in even par (before the two-shot penalty). He hung on, which was all he needed to do to ascend to the World No. 1 ranking, which he absolutely deserves.

That 34 under the windy, firm conditions that resented was really exceptional, but then he had fifty minutes for dark thoughts to enter his mind... I'll get to that last bit below, but Rahm handled the challenging conditions better than anyone else, and is a worthy champion.

Still, about that penalty....

The shot in question was his second from the rough just off the green at the par-3 16th. As Rahm was at address, the ball moved slightly. Rahm then holed the shot, but slow-motion replays showed the label on the ball moving slightly. 

“I didn’t see it,” Rahm said. “You know, I promised open honestly and I’m a loyal person and I don’t want to win by cheating. … The ball did move. It’s as simple as that.” 

Rahm was first asked about the potential of a penalty during his post-round interview with CBS prior to reaching the scoring area. Slugger White, PGA TOUR Vice President of Rules & Competition, then showed the replay to Rahm and the penalty was assessed prior to signing his scorecard.

I have no doubt that Rahm had no idea the ball moved, though he'll not evade responsibility quite that easily.  But before we get to that issue, can we not all agree that having Amanda Balionis break the news to him is sub-optimal?  

I have a simple question for Jay Monahan, the PGA our and its players... What is up with the clubhead on the turf/grass behind the ball before playing the shot?  I know that to a man you'll tell me that you're not trying to improve your lies... the CBS crew played along and attested to the fact that the lie had not been improved, but can someone please explain this to me:

This is a hard image to find...  Everyone has the video and everyone has seen the ball move, but no one wants to talk about the clubhead on the grass behind the ball.  It's self-evidently pushing grass down and improving the path to the ball, but none dare call it what it is.

This is not the last mention of the practice we'll have today, nor I suspect in the future.  We talk often of the integrity of the players and, as critical as I can be at times, I do believe that most of them are straight shooters.  But somehow we have to head this off, or we'll have no way of knowing when great shots from bad lies are legitimate.

For what it's worth, Shack had a similar take:

Here is shot and a closer look at the ball move. As I discuss on this week’s Shack Show, the practice of so aggressively grounding the club was apparently all week at Muirfield Village and it nearly cost the winner the outright victory he’s enjoying.

 Shall we cover other subjects of interest from the week?  First, this take on the venue and conditions:

Was Jack Nicklaus sending a message this week?

This seems to be a theory among many of Golf Twitter’s most-trusted voices: That the Golden Bear cranked up the pain-meter at Muirfield Village this week to counteract the way tournament golf is tilting these days. The question is, does Jack have that much say in the setup, which is handled by the PGA Tour? One would think he has a little given it’s his golf course. It certainly seemed that way, what with how Muirfield Village played like the U.S. Opens of old this week. And by U.S. Opens of old, we mean the ones where the course went all the way to, or just over, the proverbial edge.

I think I speak for many when I say I enjoyed it, especially after the barrage of birdie fests over the previous few weeks since the PGA Tour resumed play. Carnage is often entertaining, except when it borderline unfair carnage (see: Shinnecock (twice), Merion, Oakmont, etc.). Then you wonder if it’s really testing the best players or does it become a clown show? It was still more the former than the latter this week in Ohio, although seeing Phil Mickelson use a putter from the fairway 78 yards from the hole hints that things got close.

Considering Nicklaus’ comments earlier the week on a ball roll back, however, you do have to wonder if the Golden Bear was making a point, too. Is letting the rough grow knee deep, narrowing the fairways, hoping the wind blows like crazy and making the greens more slippery than a freshly zamboni’d hockey rink the only way to make it tough on these guys now? Sure starting to feel that way.

Sort of, but it way overstates the case.

To me, as much as Jack's architecture career has left me cold, his approach to setting up the golf course for this event has always made sense.  His intention has always been to present a #firmandfast test of golf, though weather conditions often frustrate those efforts.  This event has long been notorious for its bad weather, and when that happens Jack accepts that the guys will shoot the lights out.

This year they got lucky, with almost no rain during tournament week.  Coupled with just enough wind, that challenged the guys to an extent that we haven't seen recently, and provided quite a contrast with play the prior week.  Contributing as well (I suspect) was the fact that they are tearing up the greens as we speak, in fact CBS caught them tearing up a front-nine green while play was ongoing on the back nine...  Much easier for them to burn the greens out when they have no need to make them playable for the members the following week.

To me the takeaway is that the only defense against the elite players are such firm and fast conditions, the problem being that we don't and won't get such conditions very often.  The traveling circus that is the Tour necessarily drops anchor where it always has, and we can identify spots where we might see the guys challenged, but it's hit or miss from year to year.  We should enjoy it when it presents, but it's more the exception than the rule.

I do think that Muirfield Village is mostly a fair test under such conditions, with the exception of that 16th hole.  At times the best players in the world were unable to hold the green, so they can't rip u that hole quickly enough for this observer.

As you heard ad nauseum, Mr. Rahm is now the No. 1 ranked player in the world, which just leaves me bemused.  Here's our first visit with the Tour Confidential panel:

1. Jon Rahm blew away the field at the Memorial, winning by three shots (five shots before he was assessed a two-stroke penalty after his round). The victory, his fourth on the PGA Tour, paired with sixth internationally, elevated the 25-year-old Spaniard to No. 1 in the world. Does Rahm have the staying power to hold down the top spot for an extended run?

Sean Zak: Undoubtedly! Look at that penultimate sentence: “25-year-old Spaniard to No. 1 in the world.” Aka, he’s been elite from Day 1 and he’ll play all over the world, beating up on both tours. Even if he holds it only for a little this first time, I’d expect him to have a 20-week run at some point in his career.

Josh Sens: Nice use of “penultimate,” Sean. No doubt he’s got the skills. Gotta figure his staying power up top will have a lot to do with how well he balances that knife’s edge between intensity and hot-headedness. There were a couple of moments on the back nine Sunday when he lost his cool. But he righted himself. Maybe working with that sports shrink we heard about during the broadcast is paying off.

Michael Bamberger: I’d be surprised. I don’t think golf is that important to him. Also, when a swing is that short and fast there’s a lot that can go wrong. A longer, slower swing is actually easier to correct and have long-term consistency with.

Dylan Dethier: What’s funny about Rahm is that his golf game is generally so relentless; he’s somewhat like Justin Thomas in that sense – he just keeps coming at you. The mental game is the last piece to click, and that has to do with letting off some steam without blowing a gasket. On a hard golf course, or an easy golf course, he’s a good bet. I think he holds his spot and plays well at the PGA, too, to pick up some big points.

This isn't quite up there with Lee Westwood or Luke Donald topping the OWGR, though it's of the same genre.  At least in the Spaniard's case he's a young, rising talent that might well claim that top spot legitimately in the near future, but this is quite self-evidently too early.  he has all of four PGA Tour wins, the most significant of which came yesterday:

His record in the majors?  Nothing special:

Best player in the world?  The guy he displaced has won four majors and a Players Championship, though it's staggering to think how long ago the former were (August 2014 being the most recent, that PGA at Valhalla).  What the OWGR formula is telling us is that there is no clear-cut No. 1 player in the world, but rather a deep bench of contenders.

Wither Tiger?

2. Tiger Woods made his return to the PGA Tour, playing his first tournament since mid-February due to ailment and the Tour’s three-month coronavirus hiatus. (Woods barely made the cut and shot 71-76-71-76 to tie for 40th.) What, if anything, can we read into Tiger’s shaky performance?

Zak: That he’s kinda sorta where he left off: Back tightness comes and goes. The right swing on the right day, and he can make a number of birdies, but any looseness off the tee is going to make it a grind for him. Also, the rough isn’t his friend, so good luck at Harding Park and Winged Foot.

Sens: Agreed. Luckily, another thing that hasn’t changed is his ability to grind. Conditions were brutal, his back was bugging him, and he still closed Friday with just enough to make the weekend.

Bamberger: Tiger Woods is the kindest, greatest and most determined golf champion I have had the privilege to watch in this millennium. His play was outstanding. He is a golf god. Except for a few balky shots and a sometimes balky body.

Dethier: Hah, big “except” there, Michael! I think it was a good showing, definitely not a great showing, and Woods displayed both his otherworldly shotmaking and the power of Father Time. I think he’s got Augusta National circled on the calendar, as he should.

Kindest?  Abraham Ancer would beg to differ....

In terms of his golf, this was Geoff's header after that Thursday 71:

Woods Looks Solid In Return After Five Month Break

But then Friday he could barely take the club back.... 

Worst of all, at least to this observer, was his post-round interview Sunday, when he was asked by Amanda Balionis when we would see him next.  You know he's not playing until Harding Park and I know he's not playing until Harding Park, but he just played dumb...  The act is getting awfully old and tiresome, and it might be nice if he could occasionally level with us...

In terms of handicapping this year's majors, this might actually be the more significant factor:

Brooks Koepka’s game is not where he wants it. Since his three-win campaign last

season, the 30-year-old just hasn’t been himself. He’s recorded just one top 10 during this abbreviated season — a solo seventh at the RBC Heritage — and he’s missed as many cuts (three) this year as he did during the previous two seasons combined. 

Lots of these struggles can be directly linked to a nagging knee injury that has plagued him for the past 16 months. Koepka had a procedure done on the knee shortly after last year’s Tour Championship and revealed that he’d been playing through pain for the better part of the year. He reinjured the same knee in Korea last October and was sidelined until 2020. But even when he return 

“It was a lot worse than we let on,” Koepka said at the time. “I’m nowhere near 100%; I don’t know if my knee will ever be 100%. It’s one of those things where I’m just trying every day.”

I thought he looked much better at Colonial and Harbor Town, but since the WD from Hartford he has quite obviously not been right.

As an aside, today is a sad day here, as we were originally scheduled to fly to Scotland tonight.  Maybe Phil was just trying to make me feel better, or perhaps he agrees with my assessment of that 16th hole, but he presented this very Scotland image yesterday:

A 78-yard putt is very Scottish, but admittedly it looks nothing like the auld sod.  Here's the deal:

Phil Mickelson hit a bomb with his driver.

He hit one with his putter, too.

On the 447-yard, par-4 13th hole at Muirfield Village Golf Club, Mickelson mashed a 364-yard drive. It carried 298 yards. It rolled another 66.

The ball kept rolling.

Muirfield was playing fast Sunday during the fourth round of the Memorial. Fast fairways. Fast greens. To at least Mickelson, it was hard to see where one stopped and the other began.

From 78 yards out, or 234 feet out, Mickelson pulled out the putter. A wedge wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t stick. A putter might work. It might just stop.

Perhaps stranger still was how he played that 16th hole:

On the 173-yard, par-3 16th, Mickelson purposely laid up short of the green, then putted from 43 yards off, or 129 feet. Over the previous three rounds, Mickelson went par-double bogey-double-bogey on the hole. He wanted a 4 on Sunday.

He got it. His putt got within 15 feet. He two-putted from there. Or three-putted the hole.

“So yeah, 16 is a hard hole,” Mickelson said. “I played it eight days. I’m 10-over. So I improved my score .2 today by playing for a 4, and I’ve made four or five doubles on the hole, and it just is a hard golf hole for me. Obviously you can’t go left in the water, and when I go right, usually it’s a hotter shot – like I pull it or it draws and it’s always on the downslope of the bunker, and I just can’t stop it oftentimes on the green.

“So I just laid up to where I have an angle to putt it up the green, so I took a 5 out of play and I was trying to make a 3 and had a 12-footer for it.”

I suspect he agrees with me about this hole...  God knows what he might have done had this been an USGA event...

And for what it's worth, the bigger issue with Phil's putting would likely be this.

That Tiger header above is far from the only one that didn't age well.  There was this after 36 holes:

Memorial Weekend: Will Finau's "Inspired By Bryson" Approach Work?

As I understand the math, he walked off the 11th green on Saturday four shots clear of Rahm, yet finished ten strokes behind the winner.  Yowser, these guys are good, except when they're not...

Now we get to the 'roid rage portion of our programming, in which we wonder when Bryson's head might explode on national TV.  Everyone has I'm sure heard of his ten on No.15 on Friday, but for anyone living in a bubble there's this summary:

Here’s how it went down, shot by shot.

1. Tee shot 279 yards left into a water hazard.
2. Penalty stroke.
3. Attempting to reach the green, he hit a fairway wood out of bounds, on the wrong side of a boundary fence down the right side of the hole.
4. Penalty stroke.
5. Attempting to reach the green again, he hit a fairway wood out of bounds in the same vicinity as the previous shot.
6. Penalty stroke.
7. Attempting to reach the green a third time, he hit a fairway wood well right near the previously noted fence. It bounced off the cart path multiple times and settled just short of a water hazard.
8. Pitch onto green, leaving him 29 feet from the hole.
9. Lag putt to three feet.
10. In the hole.

The drama was all the more compelling because, before DeChambeau hit his eighth shot he asked for a ruling when he discovered that his first OB shot left his ball directly under the fence. He believed it might be in play, and when the first rules official told him it was out, he asked for a second ruling. The second official arrived, and DeChambeau said he wanted to "hop the fence and hit it from the other side." The official delivered the same bad news.

Total time to play the hole: 24 minutes.

 Shack is not amused, and it's hard to disagree as he lays out the multi-count indictment.  He links to Jay Rigdon at Awful Announcing, and we'll let Jay describe his interaction with the rules officials:

DeChambeau struggled to a 73 yesterday at the Memorial despite gaining an absurd number of strokes off the tee relative to the field. Today wasn’t going much better in tough conditions, but Bryson was still very much in contention to make the cut when he stepped onto the tee at the par 5 15th hole. After hooking his drive into a hazard, Bryson dropped and attempted to go for the green anyway, powering his shot out of bounds.

Dropping again, he did the same thing. And then he almost did it again a third time, though it stayed in bounds. (He also may not have dropped legally, either.)

I tuned in with the ball under the fence, so saw none of how it got there.  Though it did seem that his provisional was awfully close to also going OB, which amused me.  But please continue, Jay:

Bryson then went full Bryson, arguing with a rules official that because his first ball was touching the metal boundary fence (though on the opposite side, in what looked like someone’s yard), that it was actually in bounds. After the first official told him no, he said he didn’t believe him.

PGA Tour Live got even more of that exchange, with Bryson suggesting that being told his ball (which was out of bounds) was out of bounds would amount to a “garbage ruling like usual”:

All credit to Golf Channel for going back for that moment, too, even though it may not be great for Bryson’s brand.

That's a good one, Jay...  Though, as I noted after Detroit, the guy damaging Bryson's brand just happens to be named Bryson, which is quite the coincidence.

But Jay has more, including this bit from the 16th tee:

Obviously this is a big moment, and a player that heated coming off a horrible score is very compelling, especially when it’s a character like DeChambeau. 

After he teed off on 16, though, his caddie immediately rushed over to prevent Golf Channel from filming DeChambeau as he headed up the fairway:

That’s incredible! As with everything he said a few weeks ago, this makes him look so much worse than if viewers were allowed to see him walk with an angry expression on his face for a few seconds, or whatever he was doing. Instead he comes across as spoiled at best. Though the more this happens, the more it’s apparent why Bryson needs networks, rules officials, his caddie, and everyone else to look out for his brand and image: he’s not capable of doing it himself.

At best...  We saw Jon Rahm running very hot yesterday, and it's admittedly not the prettiest picture in the moment.  But it's a natural reaction and we're willing, or at least I am, to cut them some slack given the pressure under which they work.   Here is Geoff's full rant:

While the second conversation with Ken Tackett would never match an Earl Weaver meltdown, DeChambeau’s disrespect and disdain for the official was evident (video on the Rigdon link). Tackett is a pretty stellar official and individual, as profiled here by Karen Crouse.

Then, after teeing off at the 16th, DeChambeau caddie Tim Tucker went out of his way to block a CBS cameraman from recording images of his player as they walked off the tee. (Rigdon has the video here.) 

We all get that golf is infuriating and leads people to do strange things. And the pro sport needs drama at times. DeChambeau is a character and brings much-needed intrigue. But there is one huge problem that has come with his body transformation: he’s openly rude on national television to people who are just doing their job. And in the case of reduced television crews who are working long days in hot weather and in a pandemic, players should be thanking them, not encouraging their caddies to approach them in hostile fashion. 

The Friday incidents came just two weeks after DeChambeau’s ridiculous berating of a CBS cameraman at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. And remember, he subsequently asserted that his brand was not protected.

Now with a second episode under his belt in only two weeks, Team DeChambeau is not doing the PGA Tour any favors. (His increasingly angry ways have, however, done wonders for those campaigning to roll back distance, so there’s that!) 

Fines will not do the trick if a player and caddie so openly feel free to berate or threaten television crews. Time off to think about who pays for the this playing-golf-for-money business might do wonders.

He seems blissfully unaware of what funds this golf ecosystem....  But this is equally Tour-abetted, because any penalties for this behavior will not be publicly disclosed.   

But that's not even what troubles me most.... buried in Shack's account is this little nugget:

Three elements were particularly troubling, starting with Dechambeau’s patting down of rough before and after taking a drop. While this dreadful practice continues to be commonplace way too often, this is just not a good look:

WTF?  Not only did we see Rahm with the same move above, but remember that video of Patrick Reed from the Barclays a few years ago that Peter Kostis reminded us of?  There is no reason to touch the grass with your clubhead, unless your lie is not to your liking.  

Here's the TC gang's take, which I do think misses the point:

3. Bryson DeChambeau blew up during Friday’s second round, taking penalties on three consecutive shots and arguing with two rules officials over one of the penalties before taking a 10 on the par-5 15th at Muirfield Village and missing the cut. DeChambeau’s physicality has been the talk of the Tour over the past month. Does his sometimes fiery demeanor give you any pause about how he might perform in big moments?

Zak: His demeanor is concerning, to the point that I could definitely see him unravel in crunch time, but I’m not going to get too wrapped up in one bad round during one abnormal event. His personality doesn’t lend to listening to others tell him what’s right, like the rules officials did, so it’s not too surprising. But remember, when the cameraman bothered him in Detroit, he turned around and blitzed the field on Sunday.

Sens: For sure, but that’s part of what makes him good theater. For better and worse, he’s been the most compelling player to watch in golf’s return. That he’s emerging as something of a villain in some eyes is all that better. Every good drama needs one. 

Bamberger: Bryson has more energy and brilliance than he knows what to do with! A man with such skills must be given some room to roam, and roam he did! 

Dethier: In the heat of the moment, getting a ruling that effectively torpedos your chances at being a part of a massive tournament would be a lot to deal with. In that way, I think we should cut Bryson some slack. But he should also bear in mind that rules officials are just doing their jobs — nobody is out to get him. It felt relatable and immature, and maybe those two things are the same.

I don't need these guys to be perfect, in fact it's far more interesting when they're not.  But a reminder that after getting in the face of that cameraman in Detroit, he doubled down on his "protect my brand" nonsense all the following week.  I think we all understand what a maddening game we play, and I suspect we've all lost it at one point or another.  But he's less a villain than just a jerk, the irony being that the brand he keeps talking about is now characterized by his abuse of those merely preforming their jobs.  Good work, Bryson.

I'll leave you here but I'm unsure when we'll next chat.  For sure not tomorrow, when I have that rescheduled Governor's Cup match.  I also have golf Wednesday morning, though not quite as early.  Expect me when you see me, and have a good week.