There was a lot of post-third round conjecture about Muirfield Village's green speeds and firmness this year, with the Stimpmeter speed of "15" bandied about. I'm not sure if they've reached that any time this week, but with the breezes and meticulous grooming that is possible.
What is interesting, however, is the level at which the green speeds and firmness are now documented. Earlier in the week we were out shooting course videos and ran into Paul Vermeulen of the PGA Tour, who kindly showed us a new device concocted by fellow agronomist Tom Brown to measure firmness.
Tiger said his red-hot putter was undermined by a couple of bad reads but an overall decent ball striking afternoon, even if his Presidents Cup Captain and Hall of Fame geezer Fred Couples beat him in their (requested) head-to-head pairing. By no means is this a setback in his quest to win an amazing 6th Memorial or to get his game ready for Merion (unlike McIlroy's 78 in the benign morning conditions).
"I won't lie to you, I asked to see if I could get paired [with Woods]; it probably might be my last time playing with Tiger," said Couples, who withdrew from last week's Senior PGA Championship because his bad back flared up. "Maybe at Augusta I might get paired with him. If he can be leading after two rounds again, maybe I'll get a shot at him. So I was blessed to play with him. And my goal when I play with him always is to try to hit it solid and stay out of his way. And today was a good one. I did beat him."
The 14 year-old Tianlang Guan missed a short putt on the last to post a still-impressive 72 in the afternoon when unpredictable breezes created headaches for the last few groups. Doug Ferguson's assortment of notes covers Guan's late round and also includes an item on how fast the course is playing, another on Rory and a look at the cell phone task force at work.
McIlroy is in the midst of splitting from his management team and forming his own agency. One can surmise that has been weighing on him, has clogged his mind some. But he says no.
“Once I’m here I’m focused on what I need to do,” McIlroy said. “Right at the moment it’s not happening for me.”
Later on we have videos coming from the course, including the 16th hole spot where Tiger chipped-in from in 2012, a talk with Paul Vermuelen of the PGA Tour about a wild-looking green firmness reader and a visit to the incredible Nicklaus Museum.
Live first round Memorial coverage begins on Golf Channel runs from 2:30-6:30 p.m. with a replay from 7-11 p.m.
This isn't the first time golf has gone way beyond birdies and bogeys.
There was the lawsuit involving Ping and the square grooves in the 1980s. There was Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, leading the breakaway from the PGA of America to start what is now the PGA Tour at the end of the 1960s. Imagine if Woods and Phil Mickelson did something like that today.
''It's not a perfect game,'' Curtis Strange said. ''Some people believe there's no such thing as bad press, but it seems like we're still having growing issues. We're learning how to handle doping issues, although nobody has learned to do that yet. I'm been reading about Lance Armstrong all day.''
And Ferguson also notes...
And it's not anything Finchem can make go away with a wave of his hand. Considering that golf is a niche sport, maybe that's not the worst thing.
Speaking of the racial dust-up from last week, Tiger was asked about it Wednesday and he continues to handle a tricky situation quite well.
"Well, I live it," he said. "It's happened my entire life, and it's happened my entire career. So that doesn't surprise me. It exists all around the world, not just in the sport of golf. It exists everywhere. I know that a lot of people are trying to make a difference and trying to make it more fair for all of us."
When asked about the abundance of outside-the-ropes news in golf this year -- the anchoring ban, Vijay Singh's lawsuit against the PGA Tour, the Garcia flap -- Woods simply said, "Well, I've won four times (on the PGA Tour)."
Alex Miceli with a report on the PAC members meeting at Muirfield Village and joining in by phone. The takeaway? A variety of emotions on anchoring, bifurcation and rules, though he suggested more players were again in favor of the ban for reasons unknown.
According to one participant, some PAC members who were on the fence now seem to be going back to supporting the ban.
Anchoring on its own has unique issues: the potential for limiting high-profile players from competing as they have for years, potential litigation and how the Tour might be perceived if it goes against the anchoring ban.
“We’ve got a process we follow as a Tour, and we're going to let it play out,” said PAC member Bo Van Pelt. “I think that’s what you get with 144 guys. Everybody has a differing opinion.”
With no status and questions about why he turned pro, has won over $900,000 after another top 10 at Colonial.
Spieth's ball-striking stats explain his success. After his latest top-10 at Colonial -- which helped him get into this week's Memorial -- the teenager sat 10th in total driving and ninth in the all-around ranking. Sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open comes June 3 in Dallas, which could mean 288 holes of competitive golf over a three-week period, including last week's British Open qualifier in Big D, in which a T-22 finish failed to earn him a spot in the field at Muirfield.
If Spieth were eligible for FedEx Cup points, he would be ranked in the top 60. His World Ranking is 141st, up from No. 809 at the start of 2013. "My expectations have changed," he said. "Down the stretch [at tournaments] I'm not worried about seventh-place finishes, like I was in Tampa. I can be more aggressive, which may have hurt me this week, but that's part of learning how to win."
From Stephen Hawkins' AP story on Jeff Overton, who was DQ'd for using a putting alignment aid mid-round after an official told him he could putt while a 10th tee backup worked its way out.
Soon after coming off the course, Overton tweeted "3 group back up at the turn. Rules official tells me we can practice chipping and putting. Disqualified for using my practice putting aid!"
Overton immediately followed that with another tweet, "Why do rules officials initiate that conversation to begin with. I wouldn't even have gone up there if I had know that. What a joke!"
Going to a designated practice area is permissible during a round, but use of artificial or instructional devices isn't. The penalty is disqualification.
"If ur gonna inform someone on a rule of something a person can do, make sure u remind them of the small things they can't do," Overton added on (at)JeffOvertonPGA.
How could that darned official not know that Overton uses a putting aid? Why, it's what all the kids do these days!
Or, Jeff could go to Rules School? Or, use your brain to wonder if you should ask before pulling out the aid? Or, I don't know, maybe have a caddy who would wonder if that's a good idea? It's got to be anybody by the players' fault!
The Overton Tweets for posterity:
Tough break today. Looks like I gotta go back and rememorize a couple hundred pages of the usga rules book!
If you didn't know they were grown men who whap a ball around manicured grounds and get paid lavishly to do so, you'd definitely have to wonder what happened on the first date with Sergio and Tiger. Actually we know, it was at Bighorn and it's been all downhill since.
"First of all, I don't have his number. And secondly, I did nothing wrong and don't have anything to say to him. And he wouldn't pick up the phone anyway. But that's OK; I don't need him as a friend. I don't need him in my life to be happy and that's fine. It's as simple as that. Like I have always said, I try to be as truthful as possible," Garcia said. "That's why I think sometimes most of the people love me and some hate me. I understand that but I'm not going to change. That's what makes me who I am and that's what makes me happy. And that's what makes the people I care about happy because they know they can trust me. Tiger doesn't make a difference to my life. And I know that I don't make a difference to his life."
Faldo also predicted that Bae won't be "a flash in the pan." Bae is banking on that as well, aiming as he is to represent South Korea in the Olympics in 2016. Military service is mandatory in South Korea and he has yet to fulfill his obligation, but an Olympic medal or a major championship would exempt him from service.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
