Trophy Roundup: Molinari Cruises In The National, Park Takes The LPGA, U.S. Senior Open Goes To Toms, Noren Wins The French Open

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What an impressive win by Francesco Molinari to take the Quicken Loans National by eight over Ryan Armour. He was joined by tournament host Tiger Woods to hoist one of the best trophies in golf, and possibly the last one to be given out. Dan Kilbridge on the 35-year-old's win and the first on the PGA Tour by an Italian born player since Tony Penna. 

Someone at the LPGA Tour must be low on Titleist's, with a double mention to our friends in Fairhaven upon Sung Hyun Park winning the KPMG LPGA Championship in a playoff over Soyeon Ryu.

Beth Ann Nichols with the Golfweek game story on changes the 24-year-old made this week to help improve her putting and win a major. 

David Toms held off a strong contingent of pursuers to win his first U.S. Senior Open, as this AP game story explains.

Alex Noren will have plenty of good vibes for the this fall's Ryder Cup after winning the HNA French Open at Le Golf Nationale where the matches will be played.

Alistair Tait explains how the Swede came from seven back to win his 10th European Tour title.

The happiest man in France 🏆😁🤳🏼 #HNAOpenDeFrance #RolexSeries

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The Final Numbers Are In: Faster And Better Play) In Shot Clock Masters!

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I didn't see much coverage of the final Shot Clock Masters numbers, so here they are from the European Tour.

Note the scoring improvement...

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European Tour Chief Keith Pelley talked about the response of players, social media and referees:

Stop This Clinical Study Now And Save Critical Time! The Promising Shot Clock Masters Early Results

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We’ve all heard of those drug studies proving so effective that clinical trials are stopped midway and the most dire cases are allowed to receive the new, revolutionary remedy. 

Pro golf has been on a slow play sick bed for too long.  But after just one round of the Austrian Open/aka Shot Clock Masters, the results speak volumes: as much as 55 minutes faster than the typical European Tour three-ball, rounds 19 minutes faster than the allotted time and no apparent decline in the quality of play. 

The European Tour employed 24 rules officials—the biggest logistical impediment to making shot clocks permanent—who did not hand out a single violation in round one.

Players, as Dylan Dethier notes for Golf.com, are giving positive reviews both on-site or via social media. 

Best of all, while watching there appears to be no sense of gimmickry or a compromise in quality. Just a better flow and a reminder of faster days. 

Time Is Of The Essence: Shot Clock Masters Preview And Primer

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The European Tour's Austrian Open is the "shot clock Masters" and it could not come at a better time for golf, as players bog down for reasons both legit (backups due to reachable par-5s) and not so legit (they take forever and don't play ready golf). 

Here are the five things you must know about this event according to the European Tour.

Essentially you need to know this: 50 seconds to hit a shot, 40 if you are the second or third in a group to play. You have two timeouts to call in case you need extra time.  Otherwise, penalty strokes will be flying.

MorningRead.com's Adam Schupak talked to Keith Pelley about the origin of this idea and to some players who are for the Slow Play Masters, and some against it.

So, Pelley canvassed his players with a simple two-question survey. First question: Do you think slow play is a problem on the European Tour?

"If you answered ‘no,’ the survey was over," Pelley said. "But if you answered ‘yes,’ you got one more question."

Do you want the European Tour to act seriously on curbing this challenge?

Within two days, 70 percent of the membership had responded in favor of taking action.

"We need to try and modernize our game," Pelley said. "The millennials have an attention span of 12 seconds. The Gen Z have an attention span of eight seconds. We're living in a society that is completely different, and I think every game and every sport and every business is looking to modernize themselves, and if you don't, then you run the risk of falling behind."

Matt Adams and I discussed on this week's Alternate Shot:

Don't Try This At Home Files: Pieters Snaps Club Around (His) Neck

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Actually, don't snap a club around anyone's neck, kids. 

Good to see he's mellowing with age.

From round four of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

First, the Sky Sports version...

Lerner with the nice pun on Golf Channel's coverage...

Lahinch! 2019 Irish Open Headed To The Historic Links

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The race to secure the most exotic venues for European Tour events continues, as Lahinch was announced as the 2019 Irish Open site by host that year's host, Paul McGinley. Crossing fairways, a blind par-3, Old Tom, MacKenzie and goats, what's not to love?

Simon Lewis's Irish Examiner reports quotes Lahinch general manager Paddy Keane saying that McGinley was instrumental in the course landing the Irish Open.

“Paul’s introduction to Lahinch was caddying for his father (Mick) in the South of Ireland, he broke 80 for the first time on the Castle Course here. Then he came and played himself in the South and won it in 1991. That got him his place in the Walker Cup and that ultimately gave him the opportunity to turn pro.”

It was a return visit to Lahinch last year that Keane believes put the Old Course, whose architects since 1894 have included Old Tom Morris, Alister MacKenzie, and Martin Hawtree, firmly in McGinley’s thoughts when he was asked to consider possible host venues for the Irish Open.

“He came back for our 125th-anniversary celebrations last year when we hosted a day for our past South of Ireland champions."

Jason Scott Deegan with the GolfAdvisor wrap up on all you need to know regarding a popular golf trip destination.

Ran Morrissett's GolflClubAtlas.com review from 2003.

It takes a while to get going but the wait is worth it to see the aerial flyovers in this 125th anniversary video.

Kinnings Named European Tour Deputy CEO And Ryder Cup Director

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Replacing the retiring and superb Richard Hill, the European Tour has named longtime IMG agent Guy Kinnings their Deputy CEO and Ryder Cup Director.

Kinnings was a candidate for the Chief Executive job race ultimately won by Keith Pelley, making the appointment a tad eye-opening. As Golfweek's Alistair Tait notes, this positions Kinnings to be the next European Tour head.

Kinnings’ appointment should provide a seamless future for the Tour when Pelley moves on. The Canadian hasn’t averaged long in his previous roles with Rogers Media, Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium and the Toronto Argonauts. Pelley was challenged at two board meetings last year about his long-term future with the tour, amid concerns his tenure was going to be shorter rather than longer.

Trying To Find A Positive In The Mostly Loathsome GolfSixes...

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On the golf desperation scale from 1 to Live Under Par, the second UK playing of GolfSixes registered a solid 8.  

There was the entrance smoke.

The mascot playing becoming a human bouncey house as key final day development.

The children on the tee feeling suspiciously like they’d been coached to generate excitement.

The overall agony of having the telecast playing with volume of any kind. 

Et. cetera.

Year two of this innovation all added up to a well-intentioned but at-times embarrassing effort to reach new audiences. 

As with most of these attempts to show the advertisers that golf has shed the dreaded rich old demographic for the one that either can’t or won’t pay for anything, GolfSixes empties the bucket of "fun" ideas. The ”greensomes” team format seeks to replicate Twenty20 from cricket and make golf cool, fun and watchable. In other words, it’s another well-intentioned effort to speed up a game that has become a slog, with telecasts that can’t do much about the pace and often all-day sensibility of our sport.

But the combination of unheard-ofs, the excess of forcing elements for the sake of doing something different and the gratuitous attempt to have kids hit shots to let the precious little ones know they are part of the proceedings, added up to some of the worst professional golf “product” imaginable. 

Simply unveiling the event's fresh format would have been enough innovation. But it’s all the other nonsense added on that announces to the world: golf is not comfortable enough in its skin. Oh, and the sport has not done much about the swollen scale of the sport so this is how we remedy that issue. 

The latter problem is not European Tour Chief Keith Pelley’s fault. He and the team are trying their best to liven things up.  They are just trying too hard.

Alistair Tait of Golfweek did find one positive in all of this: the quarterfinal appearances by the teams of Charley Hull and Georgia Hall and Mel Reid and Carlota Ciganda may inch closer to a legitimate format that combines men’s and women’s combined team play in a professional event.

That’s the kind of novelty GolfSixes should focus on going forward. If it goes forward. 

Pepperell: Should Golf Change With The Times?

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Recent tournament winner Eddie Pepperell's latest blog entry rightfully questions whether golf (and his European Tour) should be adapting to a changing (and unhealthy) society by trying to shorten, speed-up and coolify the golf experience.

As always, I urge you to read the entire piece for context and to understand his premise, but I think it's well worth you time.  But a sampling:

All of these things I believe have huge potential in dealing with chronic illnesses, whether that be physical or mental. I would imagine golf as a form of healing from depression could be enormous due to what I’ve outlined above. Plus, why change a sport to simply ‘conform’ to what we believe society ‘wants.’ Conformity is boring, each sport is different in its nature and we should celebrate that, not the opposite.

When it comes to the changes we can make as professional golfers to ensure the viewing experience is better, I do believe like many others that there are things that can be done. We should be making an example of players taking way too long to hit simple shots. We shouldn’t be advocating pre shot routines where you close your eyes, breathe slowly and pretend to be a Power Ranger. Golf can be played faster at tournament level, as well as club level. But it can never be played in 2 hours. And I don’t want golf to change itself in such a way to make that possible. I think it would ultimately be a bad move for the game and risk dilution, the same way Cricket has done.

Chief Executive Keith Pelley will not be calling on Pepperell to helm any of his cutting edge initiatives anytime soon.

We may currently have an ‘image problem’ in golf, but we don’t need to add schizophrenia to that. 40 second shot clocks may reduce a round of golf to 4 hours from 4 hours 30 minutes in a 3-Ball, but that’s still 4 hours, and in my opinion that’s not enough of a change to direct attention away from our sport being ‘too slow.’

Dubai Duties Free: Rory Spreads Host Role To Other Irishmen

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There was a point you'd have to figure a player in their prime like Rory McIlroy would tire of the duties involved in hosting a professional tournament.

Thankfully for the Rory-rejuvenated Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, the host will be handing duties off to a rota of Irishmen. In some cases this could be problematic, but given the charisma of Paul McGinley, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell, the event should keep the momentum going. McIlroy's Foundation will still be the Irish Open's charitable beneficiary.

Brian Keogh reports for the Independent on what the move means for Rory's career thinking and includes this from 2019 host McGinley.

"He has certainly helped regain the momentum of the Irish Open and he has done his bit. He wants to remain involved going forward but the Irish Open was a weight of responsibility.

"Even though he has won it, he has missed the cut for four of the last five years. So while his commitment to playing will remain, it is a question of handing over responsibility and we are happy to take on the mantle.

"We owe Rory a lot for where the Irish Open has come from and where it is going. So it is only right that we take responsibility off Rory's shoulders and let him do what he does best."

One last request this year Rory before you hand things off: put that call into Tiger! He needs some links golf under his belt!

The Perth Super 6 Returns, Format Intrigues And...

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I still feel like this something curious about this second year event. Perhaps the (lack of) ease in explaining to a regular fan how it works?  Though really this is a just a normal golf tournament until a Sunday shootout via match play, with byes given to the stroke play leaders.

Anyway, in support of fresh formats, I give you the European Tour's FAQ page and infographic to explain the event start Wednesday evening on Golf Channel:

Q: What’s the bottom line?
A: - 156 players start for three rounds of strokeplay
- A standard cut to the leading 65 pros (and ties) will be made after 36 holes
- A further cut after 54 will reduce the field to 24 players for a final day of match play action
- If there are any ties for 24th position, a sudden-death play-off on the 18th will determine the qualifiers
- Sunday will bring five rounds of six-hole match play battles – Super 6
- The top eight players after 54 holes will receive a bye into the second match play round
- Any ties for the top eight will be decided by a score count back based on the last 18, 9, 6, 3 and 1 holes
- In Super 6, any results not determined after six holes of match play will be decided by playing a shootout hole
- The shootout hole is a purpose-built par three using the 18th green, but played from a new tee box positioned around 90 yards from the green on the right of the 18th fairway.
- Only one man will be left standing

 

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PGA Tour Going Against The (Sports) Grain On Pace Of Play

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The European Tour introduces a shot clock tournament this year in response to a growing sense the pro game takes too long. And while we have not seen the slow play "personal war" predicted by Chief Executive Keith Pelley when he took the job in 2015, the European Tour continues to suggest that it sees where the world is headed: toward shorter, tighter windows for sporting events.

Major League Baseball is working desperately to shorten games. Bold proposals will be floated at the upcoming owners meetings, even to the point of experimenting with radical plans for extra innings. This comes after the first wave of pace initiatives did not go far enough.

The NBA has already limited timeouts at the end of games and cut TV timeouts. The end of a game moves better.

The NFL attempted to address fan concerns about their long games but only made a half-hearted attempt at picking up the pace. At least they tried.

Even professional tennis is experimenting with a much faster product for the "NextGen".

The PGA Tour avoids enforcing its pace of play rules and, as we saw at Sunday's 6-hour Farmers Insurance Open that was tainted by J.B. Holmes, this is a tour rallying around a player who openly defied (paying) fans, his playing partners and common sense. He knew he could not be penalized so why rush?

We could blame the PGA Tour's slow-play apathy to now-retired Commissioner Tim Finchem's disdain for penalty strokes and his obsession with vanity optics (such as players taking off their caps to shake hands). Those concerns of the Commissioner's office about a player's brand taking hit made enforcement impossible for the tour's referees, who also face pressures in moving fields around from faster greens and distance-driven log-jams on half-par holes.

There was hope new Commissioner Jay Monahan would follow the progressive lead of colleagues like Adam Silver (NBA) or Rob Manfred (MLB) and realize that younger fans are far more interested in action sports that take less of their time. But forget the kids. Who can watch a sport that takes over five hours and featuring players who have no regard for anyone else but themselves? Imagine paying $55 to watch a guy not play ready golf and playing only when he absolutely feels ready.

By signaling this week he sympathized with the supposed plight of Holmes, Monahan confirmed he will not use the power of the Commissionership to speed up play. All Monahan had to do was suggest that with high winds and pressure, it was a tough spot but the fans were right to believe this was a less-than-ideal look for the sport, particularly at a time millions of non-golf fans had tuned in for the Grammy's.

Instead, Monahan made it hard to believe his tour is interested in gaining new fans or in addressing the concerns of longtime fans that some of today's players are just too slow to watch. The Holmes incident captured on camera what paying fans all-too-often see during a PGA Tour event: a player taking much longer than their allotted 40 seconds.

Meanwhile, the European Tour is forging ahead with pace-related initiatives on multiple fronts designed to draw in new fans and intrigue those bored with the sport. While some of the measures are extreme and a middle ground with the PGA Tour position is the ideal, at least the European Tour is building off of the prevailing view after golf's 2016 return to the Olympic Games: the professional sport is woefully ill-equipped to compete in the global sports marketplace at its current pace, scale and preferred format. The pro game will fade into irrelevance if it does not adapt in a world that loves sport more than ever, just in smaller doses.

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Video: Chief Executive Pelley On State Of The European Tour

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Nothing groundbreaking is revealed in this sitdown with Golf Channel's Todd Lewis, but after watching it I think you have to give European Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley credit for doing a lot to re-position the European Tour.

Now, some of the ideas might be excessive and the Rolex Series' long-term ramifications unclear, but he has people talking about the tour and viewing it as a true rival to the PGA Tour.