Thursday Threads - Electrolyte Pumping Edition

OK, I'm slowly getting back to normal, including this thing they call solid food.  Good stuff for sure...

Let's get the strange dings at The Wyndham out of the way, shall we?

Don't Be That Guy - First, to state the obvious, I saw none of it.  It's the Wyndham, for God's sake, and I'll need to get paid more if you expect me to watch that....  But, while I won't cover Max Greyserman's epic collapse (if I have it right, at one point he went eagle-quad), I will cover his rather poignant reaction to it (via Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column):

NOT-WINNERS

Some 8s are handled better than others.

How do you respond to massive, shocking failure? To taking a four-shot lead on the back nine of the final round of a PGA Tour event and immediately making quadruple bogey to kick it away? Max Greyserman could have moped, raged or made excuses. Instead he took it on the chin — and kept his chin up, too.

“Played really well today, obviously had a couple blunders but came back with a birdie on the par-5 after that quad,” he told CBS’s Amanda Balionis. “Just gonna take away that I hung in there, that I’m playing good golf … I mean, it’s golf. Stuff happens. I’ll go pet my dog after this, I’ll hang out with my wife, fly tomorrow to Memphis and right back to work just like I did after the 3M.”

Greyserman’s 3M reference is a reminder that he’d finished runner up in his last start, too. Not bad for a rookie.

“I don’t know,” he concluded with a grin. “It kinda feels like my own 2006 Phil Mickelson moment. So hopefully that equals good things to come [for me] like it did for him.”

I like it and it makes me want to root for him in the future.  I don't know your own personal experience, but there aren't too many of these guys that I can still say that about...

Now, the Kooch bit, which was really odd.  Here's Dylan's framing of it, which seems to leave out one important bit:

ONE BIG QUESTION

What on earth was Matt Kuchar doing?

It was a moment so strange, mysterious, so meaningless and so deliciously golf that it immediately caught the attention of the entire sport. Matt Kuchar, comfortably outside contention, mathematically eliminated from golf’s postseason and stuck in the left rough on the 72nd hole at the Wyndham Championship, decided that he and he alone would keep the tournament going for another day. Just before sunset on Sunday Kuchar marked his ball while the rest of his group played on. The golf world responded with a mix of incredulity, amusement, bemusement, criticism, [limited] defense and more.

 But how did he find himself in the left rough, Dylan?  

The lone golfer to not finish Sunday at the 2024 Wyndham Championship, Kuchar was in a tie for 12th when he hurriedly teed off on the 18th hole. Minutes later, he informed a rules official he

was done for the day, electing not to complete the round in the growing darkness. Everyone else did, including tournament winner Aaron Rai, playing in the group ahead.

Tour rules official Orlando Pope explained that rather than blow the horn to suspend play due to darkness, all three players in Kuchar’s group were given the option to finish Monday but only Kuchar opted to do so, reversing course after driving left into trouble.

That's what's so puzzling about it, so eerily reminiscent of Rory at Valhalla in 2014, when in his rush to hit his drive on the 72nd hole he almost found the water....

If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that these guys aren't what they seem to be.  And this man, specifically, has an item on his C.V. where he showed us a darker side (think Mexico, if you're not catching the reference), though his explanation makes me think he might have been trying to help the young man:

After taking relief, hitting his approach just short of the green, lipping out his birdie chip and finishing out for par, Kuchar explained himself. He said he thought Greyserman would probably wait for the morning, given he was just a shot back to begin the hole.

“I’m figuring no way Max is going to finish out with a chance to win a tournament. I thought Max for sure had a shot to win and I thought no way in this situation do you hit this shot; you come back in the morning 100 percent of the time,” he said. “So I said, well, Max will stop, I’ll stop, kind of make it easy on him. And for me, coming back in the morning, like, I never would have taken [the relief that he was able to take] last night, I never would have thought to ask. I knew I was in a terrible situation, I was praying to make bogey from where I was. To walk away with par, nearly birdie, is a huge bonus.

“Again, it stinks to — nobody wants to be that guy that’s showing up today, one person, one hole. Not even one hole, half a hole to putt.

“So apologies to the tournament, to everybody that had to come out. I know it stinks, I know the ramifications, I know it stinks. Certainly I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”

It seems possible, no?  Especially since the alternative explanations make little sense, but wasn't the time for that discussion (one of the Golf Channel folks confirmed that Kooch said something along those lines to Max, although he'd need to be circumspect under the rules) before the tee shot?

The Am - One of the great events in golf is ongoing this week, and I sure ain't speaking of anything happening in Memphis.  But, like all match-play events, the best parts tend to be earlier in the week:

Match play is set to begin Wednesday at the 2024 U.S. Amateur, but first, a playoff.

Stroke play concludes Tuesday at Hazeltine National Golf Club and co-host Chaska Town Course, but come Wednesday morning, there will be a 14-for-11 playoff to determine who gets the final spots for match play, with the Round of 64 to follow.

Perhaps the story of the tournament so far is 39-year-old Jimmy Ellis, the mid-am medalist who fired a 61 on Tuesday at Chaska Town Course to win medalist honors by three shots. He’ll be the top seed for match play but will have to wait to find out who he will face.

Clanton is safely through the Round of 64, but this guy isn't:

Tiger (yes, really) knocking off World No. 2 among highlights from 2024 U.S. Amateur Round of 64

Well, it depends upon your definition of "really":

Tiger (Christensen) topples Gordon Sargent

There’s another Tiger in the field this week hoping to add his name to USGA lore, but his last name is Christensen.

The rising senior at Arizona topped World No. 2 Gordon Sargent 4 and 3 on Wednesday in perhaps the upset of the day. While Christensen is ranked 51st in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, he feels like one of the best amateurs in the world, and he played like it in the Round of 64.

This is where the golf world sucks.  Golf Channel had a generous coverage window on Wednesday, before the Tours kick off on Thursday, but we're limited to two hours (6-8 p.n.) today.

Wither Golf - There was a flurry of activity a couple of months back, but now radio silence seems to be dominating.  For those focused on tea leaves, there's this:

With no further updates on negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public

Investment Fund, the tour released its 2025 schedule of FedEx Cup regular-season and playoff events Wednesday with only a few minor changes to its lineup of 39 tournaments.

Featured for a second year is a regular season highlighted by the four majors and eight signature events that offer increased purses and FedEx Cup points. But in 2025, the signature events also guarantee fields with a minimum of 72 players. The tour did not release prize money for any of its events.

 And, whatya know, a Jay sighting:

Meeting with members of the media on the eve of the opening round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan provided an update Wednesday on the ongoing

negotiations with LIV Golf and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Essentially, there isn’t an update.

Monahan preferred to focus on the success of the revamped PGA Tour schedule featuring its series of limited-field signature event and to trumpet the creation of PGA Tour Enterprises and closing of the $1.5 billion investment deal with Strategic Sports Group in late January . The tour released its 2025 FedEx Cup schedule earlier in the day indicating that a deal that would include the LIV Golf League wasn’t imminent—at least not in time to integrate into its scheduling model.

“They're very complicated discussions,” said Monahan, who met personally with PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, in New York during the week of the Memorial Tournament in June. “There are a lot of elements to them, but when you have the level of interaction, when you've got … you're continuing to meet and move forward and discuss and debate, you can't be anything other than hopeful. And as it relates to times and timeframes and where we are, I just say that we're in a good place with the conversations, and that's the most important thing.”

To paraphrase, blah, blah and more blah.  But are they complicated or, yanno, nonexisatent?

Perhaps indicative of the slow nature of the negotiations, Rory McIlroy, a member of the tour’s transaction subcommittee, said he hasn’t participated in any conference calls related to PIF negotiations since June.

But Tiger can't captain the Ryder Cup team because of his extensive time commitments...  remember the old rule of thumb, that you knw they're lying because their lips are moving.

But you're probably asking yourselves, how are things going at LIV?  Shockingly, they haven't been providing viewership numbers since, checking notes, forever, so is it possible that the CW hasn't delivered a massive audience?

After two short years and a few too many bleak ratings reports, LIV Golf and the CW are preparing to change the channel.

That’s the latest according to LIV star Phil Mickelson, who let slip during a press conference

previewing the league’s championship in Chicago that the league has its sights set in a new broadcast direction for 2025 and beyond.

“Well, television and viewership for sports, especially golf, is changing. So the old-school media and way that we’ve done it, which is be on a network and so forth, is not the way of the future. It’s going to be more digital, more streaming,” Mickelson said on Wednesday, speaking about the league’s current agreement with network TV partner the CW. “Our new partner, because our new partner, whoever that is after this year, I think is going to be more focused and centric there because of the opportunities that will open up. But I am not part of those television contracts.”

Sources at LIV confirmed the league is “exploring partnership opportunities” with current and new broadcast partners in the U.S. and abroad, as it has done in each of the last several offseasons.

Mickelson, though, indicated the league could look to move away from linear TV rights altogether. That would be, to put it lightly, a radical shift in the modern sports media economy.

Yeah, that's the ticket, the reason nobody watches is what's happening with linear television....As Ian Faith put it, Phil's appeal is just getting more selective.

The Tour Confidential panel did have some thought son this knotty problem:

4. LIV Golf tees off at The Greenbrier this week for its regular-season finale (with just its individual and team championships remaining), and in a recent press conference, Phil Mickelson went into detail about LIV Golf’s new broadcast direction for 2025 and beyond, which could include new partners and more streaming options. After a couple of years of low ratings and one streaming partner abruptly shuttering, is finding a reliable, far-reaching partner LIV’s No. 1 goal this offseason? Or is a deal with the PGA Tour or something like signing more stars more important for LIV?

Barath: So far streaming for LIV has been a bust, but on the other hand one of its biggest stars also happens to have one of the biggest golf YouTube channels, so I feel that if they wanted, LIV could once again lean back into YouTube as a broadcast partner. It’s not a major TV network, but the reality of live golf on TV is changing, and the younger audience is looking for other options.

Melton: Finding a reliable TV partner has to be their biggest priority. They can sign as much talent as they want, but if no one is watching, it doesn’t matter. If LIV wants to be taken seriously, their leaders have got to figure out a way to get eyeballs on their tournaments.

Dethier: I’m curious what that TV deal would look like, who’s in the running and what the level of interest is from nontraditional broadcast partners. Unless unreleased streaming and app numbers are big-time, LIV’s viewership is still negligible. So I’d say LIV’s biggest priority is making a deal. LIV Golf needs the PGA Tour’s legitimacy. The PGA Tour needs some of LIV’s star power. The fans want it. But the way Mickelson is talking, LIV will be around the rest of his golfing life so yeah, there’s certainly no guarantee anything will happen. (Hoping to report out a story on this in the coming weeks.)

Dylan, if those numbers were meaningful, I think they might shared them.... If there's one common thread among those who have turned on a LIV broadcast, it's the word "Unwatchable", so maybe the problem isn't with linear TV?  Except, of course, to remind of how few people watch televised golf of any kind, so one might want to think in terms of creating a compensation structure consistent with the revenue stream... Nah, that's crazy talk.

There's little doubt that LIV has damaged the PGA Tour.  But LIV has created nothing that's viable or sustainable, absent being 100% funder by PIF.  So, good luck, Yasir!

Exit Question:

Glory's Cost: Will money ruin the chase for golf greatness?

How LIV Golf pushed the game into a lucrative limbo and drained some of its passion and intensity.

Ummm, don't forget integrity.....

That's behind a paywall, and I'll give you a moment to stop laughing at Golf Digest thinking that anyone would pay to scale said wall.  But the answer to the headline query is simple, it'll only affect those that took the money.

That'll be it for today and, I assume the week.  Enjoy the weekend.

Home Again - Playing Hurt Edition

Employee No. 2 and I are safely home from our wonderful Scotland adventure, though only under the loosest of definitions of safely.  The delay in the resumption of normal blogging is that we've both been ill.  Theresa caught what we first thought was food poisoning, and traveled home during its onset, which is truly no fun.  We came to the conclusion that it wasn't food poisoning when it hit me Sunday morning, though I seem to be recovering at a quicker pace than the bride.

I have some final day photos for a trip notebook dump, but don't have anywhere near the energy for that today.  Just thought I'd cover a couple of golf items, and try to get back into ordinary course of business.

Olympic Fever - If only my immunity to Olympic Fever extended to the gastrointestinal realm, but folks are understandably happy for a certain Kiwi.  Prone as I found myself, I did catch a bit of the final round, the part where Lydia's collar got a bit tight.  Shall we see what folks thought, beginning with the Tour Confidential roundtable?

1. Lydia Ko claimed gold at the women’s Olympic Golf competition, finishing 10 under to beat Esther Henseleit (eight under, silver) and Xiyu Lin (seven under, bronze) at Le Golf National outside of Paris. What did Ko do better than everyone else, and could her Olympic success (a gold, silver and bronze) now be higher up on her resume than her two major titles?

Ryan Barath:: As much as the women’s majors are a very big deal, I think when you consider the time between all three of her Olympic medals, especially the gold she just earned in Paris, I believe when all is said and done in her career, this could be considered her crowning achievement.

Zephyr Melton:: It might not be higher than her major wins, but it very well might equal them. Majors come around five times a year for the ladies — the Olympics only happen once every four years. Securing all three spots on the podium in three Olympic starts its a wildly impressive accomplishment.

Dylan Dethier: She rode a red-hot putter all week, gaining more than eight shots on the rest of the field. Can we call that destiny? As I understand it nobody else in golf history has more than one Olympic medal. Ko has all three of ‘em. That’s incredible. That’s historic. Golf still counts majors more than golds, but in the eyes of the rest of the sporting world those medals are worth far more.

Then obviously the rest of the world has been into the wacky 'shrooms...  I agree this is a feel good win and those three medals over seven years is a notable achievement, but there's one gnawing problem.  The field in Olympic golf is so thin as to render the competition irrelevant.  Lydia plays for a country that guarantees her a spot in the filed, then she only needs to beat a handful of actual top-level players.  Sorry to be a downer, but that's the reality of what Peter Dawson has given us.

And this about the young lady:

2. With the win, the 27-year-old Ko became the 35th player to join the LPGA Hall of Fame and also the youngest to qualify for it under the current criteria. Has her consistency — winning at 15, two majors, 20 LPGA titles — received as much praise as it deserves when so many other young stars haven’t found the same sustained success?

Barath: Within the game I have a very hard time thinking of another LPGA or even PGA Tour

player that is as well-loved and respected as Lydia. Her career has spanned over a decade and a half and in the modern women’s game that’s almost unheard of. Part of what I think has prevented her from reaching the general popularity and recognition as others that have been less successful is that there is no standout part of her game that fans can point to like being overly long off the tee — she’s just a top-to-bottom solid player.

Melton: Lydia’s career seems like one that will be remembered more fondly as time passes. She became a victim of her own success after such a dynamic start to her career, and when she couldn’t maintain that pace it almost seemed like a disappointment. But with her spot in the LPGA HOF locked up and her legacy secure, we’ll look back on her career as one of the greatest of the modern generation.

Dethier: It’s crazy to say because she’s just 27 but Ko’s journey has had several chapters. Early on she got plenty of praise and credit; in down times she received her fair share — maybe more — of criticism and second-guessing. Hall of Fame qualification has loomed over this era and there’s no more dramatic way to get over the line with Olympic gold. The up-and-down ride has made this latest chapter feel that much more satisfying from the outside and, Ko admits, for her, too.

Aren't there a lot of interesting threads in that question and answers?  I think, as noted above, that we learn a lot about these folks by the reactions of their fellow players, and we see them genuinely happy for her success.

But her career arc is interesting, and in many ways more admirable than her popularity.  I think Dylan citing here age is a bit of a red herring, because the women tend to rise earlier but their careers don't have the length of the men, a big part of which is attributable to life intruding.  But she's really a bit of an under-achiever to be honest, that early burst of brilliance leading two a mere two majors (and, to be honest, one was a gift from Ariya and the other was a made-up major), is a bit of a disappointment.  

I always worried about Lydia's longevity because she was such a short hitter, it's hard to compete routinely hitting longer clubs into greens.  But it's her reaction to those down periods that I think will be her legacy, and the work that allowed her to remain competitive for so long.  I don't know that she qualifies as a legend, but I do know that I'm happy for her success, and I'm not a cheap date in that regard.

Now for the inevitable over-reaching conclusions, though bear in mind that there's more from Dylan Derthier coming:

3. With the men’s and women’s Olympic Golf competitions now complete, what was your main takeaway or learning from the events?

Barath: On the women’s side I think the Olympics is now considered bigger than a major, especially considering the global broadcast that brings in so many casual fans. As for Olympic golf on the men’s side, I believe this year has helped to solidify this as a big event for the best men’s players in the world.

Melton: Olympic golf is FUN. Playing for medals makes for a much more exciting finish and watching players rep their countries is a treat. I’m all in on golf in the Olympics.

Dethier: I’m biased because I’m an Olympics sicko and I’ve always been a massive proponent of golf in the games. But I think what I hadn’t realized until this week is that 72-hole stroke play actually IS the right format for the individual competition. I’d been a proponent of something more creative, but nah — the original way still delivers. I’m still dying for an outside-the-box team competition, but incredible crowds on a wild golf course with talent and storylines in contention? This was awesome.

I agree that the laying for medals is interesting, though I think what's intriguing is the silver and bronze versions thereof.  What I mean is that what makes Olympic golf different, is the value, i.e. the medal, that is assigned to second and third places.  

Dylan's comments are a bit odd, as the general reaction to Olympic golf suffers, in your humble blogger's opinion, fails because it doesn't address the need to make it a credible competition, meaning a deep field.

Dylan spends a lot of time on the Olympics in his Monday Finish column, which amusingly is framed by a non-golfer's travails:

After watching roughly 230 hours of Summer Olympics coverage these last two weeks, there’s one athlete I can’t stop thinking about: sprinter Akani Simbine.

Simbine is from South Africa and he runs the 100-meter dash, one of the Games’ marquee events. This was hardly his first time at the track; at the 2016 Games he finished fifth in the 100, missing the podium by 0.02 seconds, and when he made it back to the final in Tokyo in 2021 he finished fourth there, 0.04 seconds off the podium. He fell into a depression post-Olympics, he said in one interview, locking himself in his house for a week and ultimately stepping away from the sport for a while. But he worked his way to a positive new mindset, battled his way back into form, qualified for a third Olympics and made his way into the final. Again.

And then, last week, he finished fourth. Again.

This time Simbine’s margin was even more excruciating. Not only had he finished just 0.01 seconds out of the medals; his time of 9.82 was less than four hundredths from gold.

I'll alert the media that sports are cruel.  What?  I see, Dylan is media but apparently didn't get the memo...

So what does this have to do with golf?

For one thing, golfers should feel lucky. Every year we talk about the scarcity of the majors. Golfers’ careers are defined by performances in majors, specifically victories in majors, and because there are only four per year (five, for the LPGA) every chance to win one is incredibly precious. Golf is a game of inches, the difference between winning and losing can be a lip-in vs. a lip-out, you need luck on your side, etc. You’ve heard the cliches. But there’s a world of difference between four four-day majors per year and one 10-second “major” every four years, which is how most of the world views the Olympics 100-meter race.

So while it’s still not yet clear where Olympic Gold fits in golf’s hierarchy, there’s a scarcity to the accomplishment that just doesn’t exist elsewhere in the sport. It might have seemed silly after the 2016 Games to suggest that gold could be bigger than a major, but that’s a far less crazy suggestion now; some athletes would certainly make the trade. It’s certainly more unique: We gave out 31 men’s major championships between the 2016 and 2024 Olympics, after all, but only one gold medal.

That middle 'graph is troubling, because it so misrepresents life as it really exists.  He's correct up to point about the once every four years, although he ignores the annual world championships that exist in most Olympic sports.  But it's that 10 second analogy, along with the lip-outs, that's so misguided.

What Dylan ignores is that the best track athlete in the world will win x percent of his or her competitions, whereas the best golfer in the world will win y percent of the time.  Now, dear reader, solve for x and y....  Of course there are upsets and luck, but x is exponentially higher than y, which makes golf an awkward fit in the Olympics.  Of course, they've increased the best player's chances of winning, by the expedient of excluding so many of the best players in the world, but that renders the underlying competition an exhibition.

But here's where it gets really interesting, though Dylan doesn't seem to understand the implications:

For another thing, golf should feel lucky. Because the game’s tendency towards randomness is where where golf in the Olympics could have gotten weird. Without the assistance of some high-level pharmaceuticals, the 350th-ranked high jumper will never come from nowhere to win Olympic gold, nor will someone running a 10.1-second 100 meters suddenly run 9.7. In many Olympic sports there are upsets but there aren’t usually random flukes. But in golf? The 100th-ranked player wins all the time! So while they would be deserving champions, a gold medalist like Esther Henseleit (No. 54 in the world before her silver this weekend) or Rory Sabbatini (No. 161 before his silver in Tokyo) would feel a bit random as golf’s global representatives for the next four years.

Instead, something special has happened since the sport’s Olympic reintroduction — a golf miracle, if you will. The perfect players have won.

In 2016 the men’s gold medalist was Justin Rose, a respected major champion who’d emphasized the Games’ importance and showed up enthusiastically even as many other top-ranked players bailed. On the women’s side gold went to Inbee Park, a seven-time major champion and the best player of her generation.

In 2021 the golds went to Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda, which proved a sign of things to come; each was already among the best players in the world at the time and each is even better now.

Things got even better this year; Paris and Le Golf National brought out the best from the best. On the men’s side there was World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler rallying to a Sunday 9-under 62 to chase down Jon Rahm and the rest of the field to win by one. And then this weekend there was Lydia Ko, already the only person in history with multiple golfing medals, needing gold to complete her set of three and needing a win to cement her place in the LPGA’s Hall of Fame. A red-hot putter carried her into the lead and an all-around game kept her there; her perfect wedge at the last sealed the deal, she finished with birdie and walked off the course and into history.

But riddle me this Batman.  Why was the 161st ranked player in the world in a 60-player field, when the fifth-ranked American (who would have been in the top ten in the world) excluded?  In a sport whose genetic profile includes what Dylan calls "randomness"?  

I remain open to the concept of Olympic golf, but please wake me when they make it a legitimate completion.  

I had intended to get to Koochgate today, but the fact is that I'm already worn down.  So let's keep that for another day, and we'll catch up later in the week.

The Load Out Begins

 The party is over..... but what a party it's been.

Yesterday was the final day of golf, a seemingly fine day with one small challenge contained therein, forecast winds of 24 m.p.h., with gusts into the 30's.  And we find ourselves on the Craighead, the far more difficult of the two courses, one featuring tiny little greens.  

We've been passing this church every trip to Crail, so caught this from the moving vehicle:

Those massive windows were, disappointingly, not stained glass, but loved the graveyard and quite the piece of property.  One could see it repurposed as a links clubhouse, no?  

How windy was it?  You make the call, but make sure your audio is on:

It appears that Blogger will not allow me access to the most basic of iPhone videos, so I'm pretty exasperated.  What you're missing is long fescue whipping in the wind, but the whole point of taking the video was for you to hear it....

The opening tee shot is quite difficult, and when my ball fortuitously ended up here, I thought maybe we'd have ourselves a day.  Alas, I was misinformed.

You may not be able to make it out, but it found grass after trundling through two bunkers.

The golf wasn't actually half-bad when one considers the degree of difficulty, not least that which was in front of us.  As we drove into the Crail carpark, we saw the bus in the auxiliary carpark, as well a minyan on the first tee, meaning that the visitors were ahead of us.  It turned out to be four groups that, despite having forecaddies, played at a pace akin to....well, who am I kidding, there was no pace to their play.  But to make up for it, they were loud enough to be heard in St. Andrews....

Amusingly, they were also bloody idiots and not shy about exhibiting that trait.  Several time we saw one or the other walking back to retrieve clubs left behind, at least until they got the idea of using the caddie for that purpose.  We had quite the scene on No. 6, while we were playing up the Par-5 and the players were on the 7th tee, their caddie was walking back towards and past us, then we saw him circling a patch of long fescue searching in vain for something.  I just hope they were generous with the caddie, because it's hard to forecaddie well when you're on a wild goose chase behind the group that's behind your players.

If I had any lingering illusions about the day, they didn't survive contact with the twelfth hole.  On that short Par-4, my 3-hybrid tee shot drew around the corner perfectly, leaving me a mere 36 yards to the front of the green.  It's the firmest green on the course, and I nudged a wedge that landed just short of the green, trickling on and feeding to the pin.... Or at least it would have, had it not instead alit on John's ball, kicking hard right and into the greenside bunker.  

You'll note the absence of pictures, the camera remaining safely out of the wind all day.  Obviously a taxing day for all, though the some commendable golf was played.  Both ladies made par at the tricky 2nd which, while impressive, is a bit early to peak.  I may have cured my case of Triskaidekaphobia, hitting a controlled 8-iron that settled on the fringe at the front left of the green.   I just have to remember to underclub, would someone remind me of that in mid-July 2025?

We had blown past the four-hour mark and, while playing No. 15, John indicated that he had lost his will to live.  My own had been lost at No. 12, so no worries there, mate.  No 15 is a long Par-5, the second shot of which plays over Dane's Dyke, the ancient stone wall that Gil Hanse incorporated into the routing (though this side of the wall is sodded, and balls will run over).  I had push my drive dangerously close to a gorse bush, and couldn't advance my second more than 25 yards or so.  Finding myself some 246 yards from the front of the green, unable to see the green and not caring a whole lot for those in front, I crushed a three wood that I ultimately found in the middle of the green.  Having decided at that point to walk in, I just picked it up in the knowledge that there was no reason to ruin the feel of that shot with the inevitable 3-jack.

Our day wound down here:

That's Seafood Ristorante, one of a series of restaurant recommendations helpfully provided by friend-of-the-blog Mark W.  It's located just past the R&A clubhouse and the British Golf Museum, in an area known as The Scores.  The building is a bit modern, but hard to quibble with the location:

And you'll not find four people that were happier with their meals, so a proper rousing coda to our time with our friends.  And that list of restaurants will be transferred from my 2024 Scotland file to the 2025 version thereof.

Elsie and John are packing up as I type, and will depart for home, stopping on their way to pick up grandson Sebastian.  We will get ourselves sorted and we head for the airport tomorrow.

This will conclude Scotland blogging for 2024.  Regular blogging will resume at a yet-to-be-determined date, but thanks to all for reading along with us.

Lazy Day - Auld Grey Toon Edition

This won't keep you long.... After three straight days of play, Theresa and I couldn't have answered the bell.  And John was certainly happy to bask in the glow of his win on the Balcomie...

When we finally summoned the energy to leave our rented home, we took a lovely walk around St. Andrews.  It's a tiny place, essentially three major streets, with all sorts of alleyways and wynds weaving throughout.  While settlement there dates to the mesolithic (Middle Stone Ages), it's peak influence was a bit later:

St Andrews, in particular the large cathedral built in 1160, was the most important centre of pilgrimage in medieval Scotland and one of the most important in Europe. Pilgrims from all over

Scotland came in large numbers hoping to be blessed, and in many cases to be cured, at the shrine of Saint Andrew. The presence of the pilgrims brought about increased trade and development.[25] Recognised as the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, the town now had vast economic and political influence within Europe as a cosmopolitan town.[26] The Scottish Parliament met in the town in 1304, when King Edward I, in his capacity as overlord of Scotland, came to be received by Bishop William de Lamberton.[27] As many as 130 landowners turned up to witness the event ranging from Sir John of Cambo to Sir William Murray of Fort.[28]

In 1559, the town fell into decay after the violent Scottish Reformation and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms losing the status of ecclesiastical capital of Scotland.[29] Even the University of St Andrews was considering relocating to Perth around 1697 and 1698.[26] Under the authorisation of the bishop of St Andrews, the town was made a burgh of barony in 1614. Royal Burgh was then granted as a charter by King James VI in 1620.[30][31] In the 18th century, the town was still in decline, but despite this the town was becoming known for having links 'well known to golfers'.[26] By the 19th century, the town began to expand beyond the original medieval boundaries with streets of new houses and town villas being built.[26] Today, St Andrews is served by education, golf and the tourist and conference industry.[26]

Wikipedia indicates a population of 16,800 souls (though that's a 2011 estimate), making it the fourth largest in Fife....Just a tiny speck, with outside influence due to the Uni and the golf.

We started by walking to the cathedral ruins, which was shockingly close to our rental house:

In prior years I've ranted about those metal barricades, which don't seem to do much and ruin the ambiance of the ancient ruins.  But homage must be paid:

And to the forgotten man, Allan Robertson:

We then headed down to the East Sands, the less famous St. Andrews beach:

We did a drive by of a house there that could be under consideration for 2025:

It would be lovely down by the water (it's the white building), although spending the full period in Pittenweem has also been discussed.

Then a lovely walk along The Scores towards the castle ruins:

And ultimately the more famous West Sands, the Chariots of Fire beach:

And, most importantly, a pint and some nibbles at the Dunvegan:

I love that the photos of owners Jack and Sheena are so voluminous, that they need to be adhered to the ceiling to have enough space.  What you really want at the Dunvegan (at least on such a fine day) is one of their precious few outdoor table, but that wasn't in the cards.

We're to play the Craighead today, with a deteriorating weather forecast, featuring some bodacious winds.  Should we make it that far, Vegas has established the over/under for Scott's lost balls on No. 13 at 3.5.  You should seriously think about that over bet...

More later, but we are officially in winddown mode.

Back To Balcomie

I've always called the Balcomie the Old Course's Mini-Me, so fun to play it right after the old girl.  Of course, everything regresses to the mean, which can be downright mean.  Though it took a bit before my own regression kicked in, but when it did it had a bite to it.

The first amusing bit is that the first time I turned on my camera, it powered up but immediately shut down, displaying a message that said, "Battery Exhausted."  Big deal, I thought, who isn't by this point in the trip....

After finishing late on the Old on Saturday, Sunday was a day we could have let go for golf, if not for a fairly bad Monday weather forecast.  So we ventured out, Theresa actually leaving her book in the car, lest I choose to soldier on solo.

I'll just post some images I grabbed on my phone, first the bride rolling her rock on the second green:

And this to complement a photo from last week:

The green behind Theresa is the seventh.  I had posted a photo of her playing from the top of the hill, but the camera obscured the downhill aspect.  This isn't all that much better, but you can get the sense of it, plus it also shows the berm that can get in one's way.

And the obligatory phot of the green on Hell's Hole:

The cows must be lying down, and we all know what that means...

And this first effort to photograph one of the ladies playing their second on the diabolic 13th.  We've covered that hole in prior years, but there's really no way for the ladies to play it (it's a great but brutal one-shotter for the men).

My strong play from the prior day continued, at least until it didn't.  The high point was playing Nos. 7-9 in -3, courtesy of a chip-in eagle on the ninth off a drive maybe 15 yards short of the green.  The amusing bit, though, was that when my pact with the devil lapse, it was abrupt and severe, finding myself suddenly unable to put the clubface on the ball.

Of far great import, Elsie and John arrived late afternoon, and we fired up the BBQ.  Of course, we're still in Scotland, so a soft rain started, the good news being that I finally got a payoff for lugging my waterproofs to Scotland (as if anyone has ever complained about not needing their rain gear);

We had my fave, but Elsie thoughtfully also made a sticky toffee pudding for Theresa:

John, in reading the blog, had noticed the absence of references to matches, and had assumed that meant that Employee No. 2 was having her way with me.  On the contrary, we just hadn't felt competitive.  We started one match, but the first four holes went in one direction (don't assume which), and we both quickly lost interest.  But the trash talk began over dinner Sunday, as John has a particular affinity for the Balcomie, where he has played quite well in the past.

But stop me if you've heard this one before, it so ensued (a little inside joke there, because "ensue" was the Wordl of the day, and we compare Wordl results with Elsie) that a Scottish weather forecast was faulty.  As we arose Monday, we faced a peak rain probability of 30% in the 11:00 hourly block, which meant we were a resounding go.

Given the intensity of the smack, I imposed on one of the gents in the group behind us to take a photo of the fourball while we were still on speaking terms.

I caught this of Theresa trundling down the first fairway with her trolley, which ties to that photo of the thirteenth above.  To her right is the wall of fescue that the tee shot needs to carry on No. 13, which shows in the course guide as a 139 yard carry (I think it's more like 115-120, but is substantially higher than the two dimensional camera lens can convey), and you'll not find many balls in that long hay.

It was a day of strong play all around, this being Johns approach to the second:

As you might have discerned, that camera was fully functional after its day off.  Inexplicable that it wouldn't have been charged, for the simple reason that it had been left connected overnight after off-loading all the Old Course photos.

I had been struggling to capture the golf ball leaving the clubface earlier in the trip, but I seem to have it working with John at least (this is his tee shot on the Par-3 third):

The great thing about the Balcomie is that even the throwaway photos are eye candy:

And how about this far better shot of Theresa playing up to the thirteenth green.  Typically they are so blind on the shot that I go up top first and give her the line.

With John and I already on the green on the 14th, Theresa put hers well inside us:

Not a bad spot, eh?  Not so shabby on the green as well:

As you can tell from the selection of photos, we had a day of variable skies, some heavy cloud cover giving way to sunshine (I even put my sunglasses on a couple of times), all the more enjoyable for that dire weather forecast.  The golf was actually quite good, with the ladies perhaps taking a bit too long to get it going.

We've blogged the competitive differences between a Stableford and match play over the years.  While strongly preferring the latter, I can't deny that for mixed groups (and it gets pretty mixed on the Balcomie, given that the ladies play a Par 72 golf course, whereas John and I were on the yellows, Par 67) and widely varying handicaps, the Stableford solves all the inherent problems.  John and Elsie just instinctively know how to score a Stableford, so we let them handle the paperwork, though amusingly there were many corrections as they went hole-by-hole in the bar overlooking the North Sea.  Given the large number of irregularities, perhaps a forensic accountant was required, but I'll not protest the protest the results in the interest of U.S. - Scottish relations.

Fact is that I played well, though I certainly could have gotten more assistance from the flat stick (greens were quite shaggy and all four of use were leaving them short).  I drove the fifteenth green, one of the short Par-4's, and after my two-putt birdie John and I were likely tied.  Amusingly, I thought that was my second birdie of the day, but that situation in the scoring tent revealed that the 11th hole is actually a Par-4 from the yellow tees (it's a fiver from the longer whites), so no joy for your humble blogger.  And while I didn't hit a poor shot over those last three challenging holes, I also didn't convert any of those fine shots into actual pars.

I really knew it was tough climb when I heard John score four points on a hole, probably by making a natural par on a hole where he got two strokes.  By way of comparison, my only four-pointer this trip likely was the chip-in eagle noted above.  I ended the day with 36 points, a magic number in Stablefordistan, indicating that you've shot your handicap exactly, something we don't do too often (it used to be 25% of the time, but it's likely even less with the latest changes to the handicap system). 

But John got me by two, which is strong play indeed.  He was in virtually every hole, failing to score (meaning he made a net double or worse) only on the twelfth hole, where he lost a ball in the identical spot where I lost my Old Course ball the previous day.  He matched my bogeys on those final holes, and scored appropriately better, which was the margin of victory.

We had a low key dinner at our house, which features this lovely dining area (this photo is actually from Saturday night):

Amusingly, a soft rain started as we were winding the meal down, but it was so warm that no one wanted to go indoors.  So we just moved our chairs under the eave:

Tuesday is a much-needed day off from golf, in which we'll walk through the Auld Grey Toon, pay our respects to Old and Young Tom, and otherwise amuse ourselves on what promises to be a fine day.  

A Day On The Old

And by a day, I really mean a DAY!.  In which your humble blogger will need to summon all his faculties to remain...., well, humble.

Interestingly, after an interclub match a few weeks back, I met a South African just back from Scotland, who was just back from a Grand Tour type of trip to Scotland.  After the usual "Wheredja play?", he offered the quite typical reaction that they were all great except for the cow pasture in St. Andrews.  It's hard to respond while keeping the party polite, because any defense of the old girl tends to sound like you're accusing them of not being astute enough to appreciate it.  I usually try to answer along the lines that, since the days of Bobby Jones, Americans have instinctively derided it initially, only to come around to revere it, as Jones did.

Underneath my tough-guy exterior, I'm a bit of a softie, and this always has my eyes tearing up:

1958

Bobby Jones returned to St Andrews in 1958, not to compete this time, but to receive a rare and grand honour: Freeman of the Town.

With the honour, Jones joined Benjamin Franklin as the only Americans to be bestowed with the honour at the time.

When leaving the ceremony in Younger Hall, Jones was serenaded with the tune of ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’ a famous Scots poem by Carolina Oliphant.

Like my South African acquaintance, it took time for the old girl's charms to win him over:

1921

They say that first impressions are everything. Not so for Bobby Jones of St Andrews, and not so for St Andrews of Bobby Jones.

What began in 1921 was a short, high spirited meeting of future friends. On Jones’ first playing of the course, he became entrapped by Hill bunker (not to be confused with Hell bunker) on the 11th hole. Like so many others before, and since, Jones’ futile attempts at escape resulted in him giving up. Pulling the ball from the bunker with his hand, and thus disqualifying himself from the Open altogether. Jones would play on, continuing to battle the old links for the remaining rounds, but firmly declared his dislike for the course.

The feeling was mutual. The quote ‘Master Bobby is just a boy, an ordinary boy at that’ summed up the feelings of St Andreans at the time.

The rancour wouldn’t last forever.

I also noted in that conversation that the Old is Tiger's favorite course in the world, but these conversations are more about revisiting our own opinions, hard to do when one is unsuccessful on the ballot for years at a time.  The obvious question is whether the Old Course is an engaging museum like Prestwick, or can it still be relevant, and for whom.

No one can deny that the history is a huge art of the appeal, for here is Theresa on the first tee, just as we saw Jones above:

To digress, the Women's Open Championship is on the Old Course on August 21-25, so we saw much of the buildout, grandstands blocking the views from Hamilton Hall and the like.  

We also had to work around some GUR's, spots where balls collect and leave divot fields, twice requiring awkward drops for me.  What you'll hear about the Old Course is that it's flat, uninteresting terrain, yanno, better suited to those cows.  But, if it's so dreadfully flat, why do we experience only eighteen flat lies in a round?

As always, I need to remind of the flattening effect of the camera lens, but you'll experience the widest array of humps, hollows, hillocks and other h-words I can't summon in the moment.  That of course affects the playing of the shot, but perhaps even more the result after the ball lands.  

That photo will also serve nicely as follow up to our left vs. right discussion.  To the right of Theresa are massive gorse bushes, which is why Mark W. advised to keep it left off the tee.  The other aspect that makes the Old unlike anything else are those seven double greens, massive in scale.  How big are they?

The greens on the Old Course are huge, seven of them are double greens with the 5th and 13th green measuring well over 37846 square feet (3515 m2). This green is over 90 metres long and 39 metres wide taking two men close to two hours to mow with pedestrian machines.

I always struggle for photos that convey the feel of them, this is the 2nd/16th:

White flags outbound, red coming home.  This is a characteristic moment, that's my caddie David surveying my birdie putt after I've hit a fine second shot in, but even in the two-dimensional photo you'll see that I have little to no chance on that putt, having to be content with a 7-8 footer after that mound dies its thing.

Combined with the short Par-4's, these double greens make pace of play a nightmare.  Even we amateurs are conscious of the other players and you can imagine what it's like in an Open, where the players worry about crowd reactions from others' play.  it takes 5 1/2 to six hours for them.

How big are these greens?  So big that there are sprinkler heads in the middle:

I said to David and he pointed out a second sprinkler head on the same green.

As noted above, the gods were kind and I showed up in full.  David gave me a line, and damned if I didn't hit it, though there was one curious moment.  I hit a so-so drive on the third, and heard my driver rattle as if I hadn't secured it when screwing the head back on.  I had done a golf bag clean-up that morning, knowing that a caddie would have to deal with the bag, including removing the very tool that I now needed.  David and the other caddies were great, using a dicot tool to screw it back on.  We had it secure, bounced it on the ground and heard that rattle, secured it again and, merciful Lord, it held up.  Obviously I'll need to check it again this morning, but visions of having to use my 3-wood, with whom I am barely on speaking terms, were thankfully not realized.

I made birdie off that drive on No. 3, hitting a seven-iron to six feet.  After a sloppy double at No. 5 (Ginger Beer, an homage to Da Anderson for those in the know), I made back-to-back birdies on Nos. 5 and 6, so now I had to hold things together and get to the clubhouse (well, the carpark, in any event).  

I absorbed the ultimate bad break on the famed No. 11, the Eden Hole (so named for the Eden Estuary behind it, High (In) on the card):

That's Strath bunker fronting the green on the right, a nasty piece of business for sure (I've visited previously).  The pin was right of it, but our play was to the left side of the green, between Hill and Strath bunkers.  I hit as pure a 5-iron as I can hit, but it needed six inches more, as it caught the top left of Strath, transited across the entire top thereof, the dropped out of sight.  The problem was, as David warned before we got there, there was no sand in the bottom of the bunker, so things there didn't end well.  As we watch the ladies in a few weeks, we'll see whether that condition has been remedied.

Let me again digress:

That green stone on the left (that's the 8th and tenth greens), is one of the famous March Stones:

They were in fact the boundary (or march) markers that defined the edges of the land that was purchased in 1821. The markers have a 'G' on the golf course side which was much narrower at the time. Old Tom Morris widened the golf course considerably meaning those markers now lie in the middle of the fairway.

One of the fun bits of the homeward nine is that features of the town, excuse me the Old Grey Too, are used as lines off the tee.  That church steeple most often:

 

Theresa's caddie Stephen took this photo in front of Hell Bunker.  he wanted us to get into the bunker to demonstrate the scale, but my bride wouldn't do that and add more work for the man.  

I had already heard the best words ever from David, "Ach, me lad, Hell Bunker isn't even in play.  It's only 140 yards to clear it."  Actually not sure I've ever cleared it on my second shot previously, a  result of my driving it quite well, but also a bit of an unusual wind I think.  The winds were as advertised (14mph, gusting to 24, though seemed more like a steady low 20's), though mostly crosswinds.  Left-to-right outbound, but the easier right-to-left on the difficult finish.

I had great fun holding my round together,  but it wasn't always pretty.  I recovered from my typical mid-round walkabout out at the Loop, playing 12-16 in one over.  Nos. 16 is a great hole, in particular one of the most difficult drives on the golf course.  Don't know if you can make out the three spectators on the right, but they were the line David gave me (and I told them that as we walked past);

Are you sure, I asked, because Jack once said that only fools and amateurs play right of the Principal's Nose bunkers.  "Which am I?", I asked the caddies, and answered "Both" before they had a chance.  I blew it past the (golfer's) right nostril, though this young man we played with hit it so far by me that he used putter for his second, though not an easy second shot nonetheless.

I had all sorts of adventures on the famed Road Hole, wasting a perfect drive over the second "O":

Second consecutive time that I've wasted a good drive, laying the sod over my second into the heavy stuff, out of which my third ended here:

Sorry, David, don't blame yourself.

So, everyone remembers this famous shot, but no one remembers how he got there.  His ball was right where mine finished, and he skulled it across the green in trying to pitch it softly onto it.

David really wanted me to putt it, but I couldn't resist the temptation to try the impossible shot, and hit a great pitch to the back of the green. off that rock hard lie, getting it to thirty feet is a great shot, and curling the thirty-footer into the cup at three o'clock should confirm for you that it was my day indeed.

I've been struggling mightily with my wedges, and I skulled a wedge into the deep hay behind the final green  Finished the day by landing a soft pitch right at David's spot on the fringe to kick-in range, which the (thinned out) crowd loved.

Theresa did her usual performance art on the obligatory Swilican Bridge photo op:

While I've been a bit wrapped up in my own game, Theresa got off to a slow start, but then started hitting the ball quite nicely, and putted especially well.  Actually, the entire group played well, keeping the four caddies content.

Here's one of the Himalayas, the putting course run by the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club:

I'm completely out of time, so I'll a bit curt in my wrap-up.  It was a magical day for all four players in our group, it's simply that kind of place.  Playing well certainly helps, but the answer to my framing question above is a resounding "Hell, yes!", it's still a great test of golf.  As for Opens, I still think the Old Course will test them, though there's no denying that if the wind isn't blowing, they will go quite low.  I do think the first sub-60 score in a major would most likely come here on a windless day with soft greens, but I still want to see the best players in the world on this very golf course, where they've been playing since at least 1400.

Off to the Balcomie.