Did Shibuno Pull Off The Women's Major Championship Equivalent To Ouimet At Brookline?

It may not be mentioned with Ouimet’s shocker at Brookline, Jack’s comeback in 86 or Tiger’s two most triumphant Masters wins in 1997 and 2019, but as far as golf tournaments I’ve watched Hinako Shibuno’s win at the 2019 British Women’s Open will rank with the wackiest, most improbable and most inexplicable.

She’s also just the second Japanese player to win one of golf’s major championships.

I’m going to step out of the way now and let some crack pro writers who were there explain what happened, but just remember, Shibuno had never competed outside of Japan. At 20, I’m not thinking she’s multiple buddies trips to the heathland or linksland, so to say she was a tad green would not be rude.

Anyway, it was a joy to watch, a real bummer for two LPGA stalwarts in Lizette Salas and Morgan Pressel, and a true heartbreaker for Jin Young Ko looking to win a third major and second in two weeks. Yes, this was zany!

Beth Ann Nichols for Golfweek.

British fans were captivated by the speedy player with the double-jointed arms and a sweet tooth who never stopped smiling. They rose to their feet and roared when she drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to slip past American Lizette Salas by a single stroke on a day of riveting golf. It was a fairy-tale finish for the ages by a player nicknamed the “Smiling Cinderella” by Japanese media.

And then there was the day she did it, prompting this simple question from Randall Mell at GolfChannel.com:

Has anybody ever made it look more fun playing the back nine on the Sunday of a major while tied for the lead?

Ron Sirak for LPGA.com:

This sensational Sunday had more subplots than a Charles Dickens novel. All six of the players in the final three twosomes had a chance to win.

The last hole birdie, though it doesn’t really capture the quality of the play by all down the stretch and the amazing stories of Salas, Pressel and Ko that added to the insanity of the whole thing.

And her remarks after…

View this post on Instagram

Hear what our Champ had to say after her incredible win 🗣🏆 . . . . #aigwbo #woburn #golf

A post shared by AIG Women’s British Open (@aigwomensbritishopen) on Aug 4, 2019 at 1:05pm PDT

The Top 125 Chase And Hovland Add Intrigue To Wyndham Sunday

While many across America—frankly, the world—will undoubtedly be looking to see if Paul Casey and Webb Simpson can crack the Wyndham Rewards top ten, Sunday’s final round of the Wyndham Championship is the last event a player can assure himself top 125 status and a tour “card” for next year (well, this September).

While the 126 and beyond crowd still has the Korn Ferry Tour playoffs and partial status, etc.., as Beau Hossler noted in a heartfelt tweet after missing this week’s cut, the 125 number has real meaning.

Lost my tour card today. Two things: I’m lucky to be where I’m at, with the support of a great team and family. And success is going to taste much sweeter after this setback.

— Beau Hossler (@beauhossler) August 2, 2019

The 125 number also retains a certain romantic and historic significance given that there is a life-altering quality to the drama that playing for playoff money has yet to capture. Plus, getting in that 125 class is the difference between possibly playing the Northern Trust and playoff events and not battling for career relevance. Andrew Landry, Austin Cook and Shawn Stefani’s names stand out for Sunday at Sedgefield.

Here is the best way to follow the 125 chase here, with several projected to move in and several more potentially bumped according to the PGA Tour’s live tracker.

Speaking of the Wyndham Rewards, much hyped and a total non-story this week, The Forecaddie says there is an easy adjustment that could make the money meaningful in more ways than one.

But for most fans of pro golf, the emergence of Morikawa, Wolff and Viktor Hovland over the last couple of months can be capped off Sunday with Hovland finishing in a two way tie for second or better to secure his card, reports Helen Ross for PGATour.com.

Your tee times and TV coverage windows here, with Golf Channel starting at 1 pm ET and CBS taking over at 3 pm.

Golf And Gambling Hecklers: “It’s something that probably needs to be addressed, but I don’t know how you address it"

In light of Ian Poulter’s latest heckling incident last week, Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com revisits a topic many of us have not been able to wrap heads around: how does golf intend to deal with sports gambling interference.

No sport can so easily be disrupted by a simple sound, with gambling outcomes potentially impacted as legalization spreads in the U.S.

Many will point to the lack of a high-profile incident in the UK with legal gambling, but several factors in the U.S. seem to make it more likely an issue: the coarsening of the culture, the ability of a huge audience to live-bet via mobile phones, and the PGA Tour’s “live under par” culture promoted to make golf tournaments louder and more interactive.

So far, the PGA Tour has not outlined any plans to confront these situations when the day comes, but as Wacker’s story notes, players are thinking about it. Including the U.S. Open champion:

“I played with [Poulter] in the [FedEx Cup] Playoffs last year, and he’s dealt with it for a long time and he’d had enough,” Gary Woodland said. “Enough is enough. From the fantasy standpoint, it’s huge. I see it on social media. I get blasted all the time from guys betting on me.

“It’s something that probably needs to be addressed, but I don’t know how you address it,” Woodland said. “It’s only going to get bigger and bigger. Social media, you don’t have to look at it [if you’re a player]. Hopefully out here [with spectators], we can police it better.”

Despite The Leaderboard, Final WGC Fed Ex St. Jude Ratings Tumble Hard

The schedule in 2020 will stick the new Minnesota stop in the slot after The Open, so maybe this is an aberration. But given the quality of the leaderboard (Brooks Koepka/Rory McIlroy final pairing), the final ratings for the WGC FedEx St. Jude were not good.

Paulsen from SportsMediaWatch attempted to compare them to both the old WGC Bridgestone (played in August) and the FedEx St. Jude Classic’s ratings (June). And the new WGC FedEx still fell shy of those events.

Last Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour/WGC-St. Jude Invitational averaged a 1.6 rating and 2.31 million viewers on CBS, down 30% in ratings and 33% in viewership from last year (2.3, 3.45M), and down 11% and 13% respectively from 2017 (1.8, 2.66M). The 1.6 rating is the lowest for final round coverage of the event — previously the Bridgestone Invitational — since 2012 (1.3).

Numbers for pre-coverage on Golf Channel were also way down from the event’s ratings in the August/Bridgestone slot.

"Brandie played the game the way it was meant to be played."

It’s been such a joy in recent years for listeners of The Open Radio broadcast also heard on Sirius/XM, in part thanks to Gordon Brand Jr.

The former Ryder Cupper, current senior golfer and broadcaster passed away suddenly at 60.

Alistair Tait remembers the Scot for Golfweek, including this.

Yet while he was one of the most affable and approachable players I dealt with during my career, he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Brandie wasn’t afraid to speak his mind when something was amiss, like the Spanish tournament when he took a popular local pro to task for being, shall we say, a little lax with the rules. Said player was disqualified after Brand reported him, and local galleries booed the Scot for the final two rounds as a result.

“Was it worth it?” I once asked him.

“Absolutely,” he said. “You’ve got to play the game the way it’s meant to be played, otherwise why play?”

Spieth: "There were times that I just went to sleep...knowing that the next day was going to be a struggle on the greens"

Pretty astounding admission from Jordan Spieth after opening the Wyndham with 23 putts en route to 64.

From Will Gray’s GolfChannel.com story on Spieth’s strongsuit returning.

“That’s a pretty massive turnaround, and I needed it,” Spieth said. “I mean, there were times that I just went to sleep not having any idea what was going on with the putter, knowing that the next day was going to be a struggle on the greens no matter what, just that kind of stuff.”

All of the great putters have had lulls, but that’s still amazing to think someone who was that good on the greens reached those depths. The effect on the rest of the game was seen and probably will be for a while as he regains his groove on the greens.

Check out this astounding round one stat from Sean Martin:

Jordan Spieth's 64 today ties his low round of the season.

The shortest putt he missed today was 19 feet, 1 inch.

— Sean Martin (@PGATOURSMartin) August 1, 2019

PGA Tour Expediting TV Rights Deal To Avoid NFL, Believes Golf Needs A Second "Linear Channel"

I got a chance to read the longer version of John Ourand and John Lombardo’s SBD piece on the PGA Tour rights fees and beyond the summarized version I posted about yesterday.

There were several interesting nuggets shared by Rick Anderson, who will head the Tour’s negotiations.

Ourand and Lombardo call the timing “aggressive” given that it could create an awkward situation with existing partners for two full seasons. Or…

If the PGA Tour signs new deals with CBS and NBC, it will be able to add new features two years early. If it moves on from CBS and NBC, the tour believes that it will need those two years to develop a new channel and digital presence.

Another reason for the tour to move early is to take advantage of an overheated media rights market before the NFL comes in and takes over a sizable piece of that market. The NFL’s deals are up in 2021 and 2022, and all indications are that the $5.5 billion of linear TV rights deals that the league collects annually will see a huge increase. 

The NFL is also pushing hard to expand its season deeper into February, which could impact who might be interested in fall or west coast events.

The Tour also seems to believe there is a need for a lot more golf on television, including options to pay for the privilege of seeing every shot from every player if someone chooses to:

Anderson said he is looking for one or, potentially, two linear channels. He pointed to the content it has from the PGA Tour, LPGA, PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry tours as evidence that the tour has enough content to fill two channels.

“When you start talking about capturing every player and every shot, the digital platform is where that would come to light,” he said. “We know that our opportunity extends beyond the current business model of cable and a linear channel. We can build a real digital platform that has content that people will pay for and in a different way than any other sport can do.”

I’m thinking you could call it PGA Tour Live. Just a thought!

It will be fascinating to see how many streaming services believe they can sell subscriptions with golf as part of their package. It’s hard to see HBO Max and ESPN+ feeling that adding golf will be that final piece getting someone to pay $20 a month.

In sizing up the bidders, SBD’s assessments beyond the expected interest of CBS, NBC and Golf Channel featured surprising notes, presumably shared with them by Anderson:

Discovery

Discovery signed a 12-year, $2 billion deal for the PGA Tour’s international rights. It paid $30 million to $35 million for Golf Digest this spring. But Discovery has not showed interest in the tour’s U.S. rights.

What happened to Netflix for golf on our phones? Oh right, when you’ve got to cover the CEO’s absurd compensation package, it’s hard to start a new channel.

ESPN

Much of ESPN’s interest revolves around its streaming service ESPN+. But new President Jimmy Pitaro has expressed interest in the PGA Tour’s linear rights, too.

Don’t count out ABC, where golf’s demographic actually would watch in numbers that sponsors care about.

Fox

Sources say Fox is not interested in a big PGA Tour package, but the tour hopes it will want tournaments around the U.S. Open to help streamline its production and sales processes around the sport.

The new U.S. Women’s Open date rules out the Memorial going to Fox two weeks out from the men’s U.S. Open, meaning an RBC Canadian or Rocket Mortgage could be in their future?

WarnerMedia

WarnerMedia has showed a lot of interest. Last week, AT&T’s Randall Stephenson said he is in the market for live sports rights for the company’s planned direct-to-consumer streaming service HBO Max. PGA Tour rights would fit that bill.

And since he gets to have a say as part of the PGA Tour Policy Board, you have to like his chances.

Links! Porthcawl Joins Troon As Next Two Women's British Open Venues

The early voting says you want links courses only to secure the Women’s British Open’s identity going forward and while I’d like to say the R&A heard you, this one obviously had been in the works for some time: Royal Porthcawl will host the 2021 edition. And Golfweek’s Alistair Tait says this should be a precursor to finally bringing The Open to Wales.

For Immediate Release:

ROYAL PORTHCAWL CONFIRMED AS VENUE 

FOR 2021 AIG WOMEN’S BRITISH OPEN

31 July 2019, Woburn Golf Club, England: Royal Porthcawl was announced today as the venue for the 2021 AIG Women’s British Open, following on from Royal Troon, which makes its debut on the Championship roster in 2020. 

Royal Porthcawl is renowned to be as challenging a course and as hospitable a club as you will find and has held many amateur and professional tournaments on its famous links. In 2014 the Club hosted the first ever Major in Wales, The Senior Open, which returned again for the 2017 edition won by Bernhard Langer. 

Among others, the Club has hosted The Amateur Championship, The Walker Cup, The Curtis Cup, The European Team Championship, The Men’s Home Internationals, The Vagliano Trophy, The Women’s Amateur Championship, The Dunlop Masters, The Penfold, The Ladies European Tour and The Coral Classic.

As South Wales’s first 18 hole golf course, Royal Porthcawl was awarded the privilege of the prefix ‘Royal’ in 1909, only the second course in Wales and one of only 66 clubs around the world to have that distinction.

Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, Executive Director – Championships at The R&A, said: “We are very much looking forward to taking the AIG Women’s British Open to Royal Porthcawl for the first time in 2021.  We have a very exciting couple of years ahead with the Championship also making its debut at Royal Troon in 2020. Both courses will present outstanding tests for the world’s best women’s golfers.”

Speaking on behalf of the Welsh Government, Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism, Lord Elis-Thomas, said: “We are delighted with today’s news and look forward to the honour of welcoming the AIG Women’s British Open Golf to Wales in 2021. Wales has built its reputation as an outstanding destination for major international events and the AIG Women’s British Open event will help to maintain this momentum and highlights our commitment to bringing world class women’s sport to Wales. We are committing funding to work with the R&A, Wales Golf and clubs and schools across Wales to use the event and the Curtis Cup in Conwy in June next year to inspire more women and girls to take part in golf.  Having these two great events in successive years at two fantastic venues like Conwy and Royal Porthcawl is a great boost for golf in Wales in general and women’s golf in particular.” 

Royal Porthcawl Club Captain, Rhys James, added: “We are thrilled that the AIG Women’s British Open will be coming to Royal Porthcawl in 2021. Hosting our first women’s Major is a tremendous honour for the Club and we cannot wait to welcome the world’s best golfers to Wales. Being here at Woburn this week and seeing the impressive scale and quality of the Championship makes us look forward to it all the more and to seeing how these fantastic players handle all the challenges our course in two years’ time.”

The Women’s British Open was founded by the LGU in 1976 and has been staged in conjunction with IMG, the world’s largest sports marketing company, since 1984. The event has been co-sanctioned by the LPGA and LET since 1994 and gained Major status in 2001. The Championship is now owned by The R&A.

European Tour Originals: New Guinness Record For Fastest Hole Played!

Given all the slow play talk of late, here’s some much needed therapy and another gem from the European Tour Originals team, this time as Thomas Detry, Sean Crocker, Guido Migliozzi and Paul Dunne all take a shot at the 1:33 record. The fine print:

The rules of the attempt dictated that the par five tenth hole had to play a minimum of 500 yards with each player required to finish the hole carrying the same number of clubs they started with.

After some highly respectable – and often dramatic – attempts, it was 26 year old Detry who succeeded in breaking the standing record, going from tee to green in just one minute 29.62 seconds.

Enjoy:

U.S. Girls' Junior Finalists Got Over Four Hours To Play 18 Holes...

Jillian Bourdage lost to Lei Ye in the U.S. Girls’ Junior and a few days later, he deliberate pace was noted on Twitter.

The pre-shot routine for a very short putt is painful and frankly, bizarre given that it’s not gamesmanship:

friend just sent me this from the US Girls Junior... Trickle down effects of slow play on a 3 foot comebacker pic.twitter.com/trYC2vZZIo

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) July 30, 2019

The criticism has been flowing, though I’d say from a general skimming of remarks, much of it is directed at adults for not better policing young players.

Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols warned that it’s a dangerous precedent to pin slow play issues on a young player and I would not disagree.

Particularly after reading this generous pace of play allowance in a match where the course is only available to two players:

A few things to consider about the Girls’ Junior finale that make this the perfect storm for slow-play critics:

1. It was a commercial-free broadcast

2. This was the only match on the course

There’s no cutting away during the boring stuff. Plus, the players were never warned about being out of position. Officials checked the time after each hole of the match.

The first 18 holes took 4 hours and 4 minutes. Officials allowed 4 hours and 12 minutes for the second 18, and they beat that mark.

Four hours and 12 minutes for two players on a wide open course after an almost identical time par in the morning?

That’s only 16 minutes faster than the average AJGA round…with a full field on the golf course and threesomes.

Sergio's Star Power Protecting Him From A Much-Needed Suspension For On Course Antics?

That’s what Golfweek’s Alistair Tait alleges of the kid-glove treatment for the pouting, golf course vandalizing Spaniard and possible future Ryder Cup captain following his latest pitiful on-course display.

Truth is, he can do almost anything he wants and not get a two-week ban. No way the European or PGA Tours are going to take serious action, especially the European Tour. The Euro circuit won’t want to alienate one of its biggest stars.

If true, that’s an amazing statement about where we are in the game: stars can behave badly before our eyes because they are star.

Then again, in February he vandalized greens mid-tournament and only got disqualified, so after that boondoggle, it’s no small wonder he continues to get a pass from the European Tour and PGA Tour for bad behavior.

Poll: Should The Women's British Open Be Contested Only On Links Courses?

That was the case I made today on Golf Central’s Alternate Shot while Matt Adams said there are plenty of great options in the UK to not limit the event going forward.

In 2020, the women’s major played this week will be run by the R&A entirely after merging with the Ladies’ Golf Union.

Here is our debate:

So…

Should they be open to some heathland and inland courses or only play links? Results will be here.

Should The Women's British Open only take place on a links?

Yes

No

pollcode.com free polls

Readers Questioning Clubs That Start Over The Speed Limit, But Within Testing Tolerance

Callaway CEO Chip Brewer issued a lengthy statement to explaining the Xander Schauffele non-conforming driver situation at the 2019 Open.

Brewer’s admission that the company handed their player a driver over the 239 CT limit but within the tolerance limit did not sit well with some observers.

Reader Chris writes:

Geoff, I am staggered at this statement:

“We know Xander’s driver was conforming when he received it. Probably in the range of 245 – 250 CT. At the Open we tested it at 255 CT, still conforming but close to the limit. The R&A tested it at 258, one over the limit.

The limit is 239, with a tolerance of 18 presumably for exactly the sort of circumstances Brewer describes in the statement. To hand a player a club they know to be beyond the limit is extraordinary negligence!

And Scott on Twitter also noted this issue with an analogy:

@CallawayGolf deserve everything they cop over this. The limit is 238 no? So why send one out at 245-250? Pelicans at best. Cheating maybe. Like complaining u were fined for speeding at 108 in a 100 zone with 10% tolerance. YOU WERE SPEEDING AND U GOT CAUGHT!

— Scott Hayes (@sthayes74) July 31, 2019

It’s hard not to wonder if both Schauffele in revealing his positive test and Brewer in admitting the company handed a driver to their player over the limit, brought all of the scrutiny on themselves. Particularly given the likelihood of “CT Creep” as outlined by Brewer in his statement.

The CEO’s statement could also backfire given the shots at the governing bodies about their testing suggesting some sort of possible tampering or illegitimacy (“Part of the issue is the testing location, a tent on the back of the range, where folks not directly involved in the specific testing can walk in-and-out too freely.”). That alone could invite more scrutiny, more required disclosure and more headaches for the manufacturers. This is trending toward ERC 2.0 by challenging the competence and very generous procedures of the enforcers.

As I noted just after The Open, all of these parties would have been wiser to admit their mistake and expressed gratitude at the lack of serious punishment. Because now it sure seems like they’ve kept this situation alive and festering, perhaps even warranting more scrutiny, more consideration and maybe tighter testing.

Given that the governing bodies have wrapped up their distance study and may take action this fall, this situation could help them make a case that the equipment rules need tightening and more public disclosure of those who fail tests. That would be an amazing turn of events.

Callaway Studying "CT Creep" In Drivers, CEO Issues Lengthy Defense Of Failed Driver Test

CT creep…is that…wait, there are no good, clean, family website jokes with that one.

I asked for a statement from Callaway last week to help clear up what was likely a slight change in Xander Schauffele’s non-conforming driver tested at The Open. Despite that, I was not one of the lucky ones to get CEO Chip Brewer’s lengthy statement, but my Golfweek colleague David Dusek did and prints it all.

As expected, it was a very minor issue turned into a drama by Schauffele who (A) blabbed publicly about a failed test that was otherwise unknown to press, and (B) should be traveling with a good back-up in case his gamer contracted, uh, CT creep.

The key excerpt from Brewer’s statement:

If anybody deserves blame or criticism for the driver test failure at the Open Championship, it’s us. We provide Xander his equipment. But in all fairness, I’m not sure we did anything wrong. We do everything in our power to design equipment that performs at the limit of USGA / R&A rules but does not exceed it. As long as I am in charge, we will never knowingly produce non-conforming equipment or condone its use, especially in tournament play.

“We test our drivers hundreds of times throughout the manufacturing process to make sure they are conforming. For tour product, we have a tour certification process that tests 100 percent of these products again at our facility prior to sending anything out to a player. We have also installed CT testing equipment on our primary tour trailers so we are now able to test in the field on both new and ‘played in’ parts, where high swing speed players could experience what we term CT ‘creep,’ and a driver that originally conformed could become, through play, non-conforming or deemed damaged into a non-conforming state. We are also doing fundamental research on managing or preventing ‘creep’ but more on that later.

“We know Xander’s driver was conforming when he received it. Probably in the range of 245 – 250 CT. At the Open we tested it at 255 CT, still conforming but close to the limit. The R&A tested it at 258, one over the limit. This sort of testing variation is going to happen. Because the R&A tested it over the limit, the driver was taken out of play and we replaced it with one that tested well within the limits. All before the event began and conforming with the rules of golf and intent of all the testing (both ours and the R&A’s).

Evian Nightmare Continues: Lexi Leaves Passport In Her Golf Bag And All Hell Breaks Loose

As if the disaster that is the Evian-as-a-major hasn’t been embarrassing enough for the LPGA’s Commissioner. After all, Mike Whan forced the event into a new date to avoid September’s regular rains (so it rained) and the fifth major—designated so by him—was played last week as a precursor to this week’s Women’s British Open.

Nothing screams quality like back-to-back majors.

And it’s not like this is the first time for the Evian as a major…debacle.

Slow play issues went viral and course conditioning gripes plagued the event again, but mercifully this substandard product was seen in the wee hours on Golf Channel or CNBC, where the event had to go because the schedule had long been set with the Senior Open, WGC FedEx and Barracuda.

And now, this.

I could try to describe the scenario explained by Randall Mell at GolfChannel.com, but I’ll trust you to hit the link and find out how Lexi Thompson’s missing passport caused forty players to not have their clubs at the Women’s British on Monday.

Drive on!