Bryson Heads To Denver To Ensure His Neurological Threshold Meets His Mechanical Threshold

I just copy and paste, remember. Though I do wonder how this will help get him up-and-down around Royal Melbourne’s greens, or any greens. From Ben Everill’s PGATour.com report on Bryson DeChambeau shutting things down for six weeks to work on his conditioning. Excuse me, muscle activation techniques.

He instead uses muscle activation techniques with Greg Roskoph, an important member of his team.

He will start his program on Monday and will include some intense stints in Denver with Roskoph as well.

“We make sure the neurological threshold is just as high as the mechanical threshold,” DeChambeau said.

“In layman's terms, pretty much whatever muscle potentially you have, how big and the muscle spindles you have, you can recruit every single one of them to their full potential throughout the whole range and training the whole range of motion.”

DeChambeau finished T4 in the Shriner’s Hospital For Children Open as its defending champion.

Na Makes Things Interesting (Surprise!), Sets New Putts-Made Mark

Never dull-Kevin Na triple-bogeyed TPC Summerlin’s 10th hole in bizarre fashion before recovering to force a playoff with Patrick Cantlay.

He sank a 4-footer on the second hole to win the Shriner’s Hospital For Children Open and set a new mark for most feet of putts made since the wondrous ShotLink system has been tracking such things.

From Steve DiMeglio’s Golfweek game story:

Na, who made 202 feet of putts in his second-round 62 and 117 feet of putts in his third-round 61, set the record for most feet of putts made in a 72-hole tournament since the PGA Tour started tracking statistics with ShotLink in 2003. He finished his 72nd hole with 558 feet, 11 inches of putts. That bested the record set by Ben Martin, who made 551 feet, 2 inches of putts in the 2015 Dean and DeLuca Invitational.

Na’s 191 total also set the 54-hole tournament scoring record.

The final round highlights…



Putting For Dough: Na Makes 379 Feet Of Putts In Rounds Of 62-61

Kevin Na holds the lead heading into Sunday’s Shriner’s Hospital For Children Open on the back of an astounding putting performance.

It’s not often you see a player back up a 62 with a 61. From Steve DiMeglio’s Golfweek report:

A day after making 202 feet of putts en route to firing a 9-under-par 62, the Las Vegas resident made 177 feet of putts Saturday on his way to a 61 and the outright lead through 54 holes of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin.

Two other notes from the PGA Tour Communications staff:

• Made 445’ 7’’ of putts through 54 holes; Ben Martin holds the record (in the ShotLink era) for most feet of putts made at a PGA TOUR event through 72 holes with 551’ 2” at the 2015 Charles Schwab Challenge

• Leads the field in Strokes Gained: Putting through 54 holes (11.905)

Former Cal Golfer Opens Rustic Canyon Round With 10 Straight Birdies

As co-architect I should be horrified but any course that rewards such incredible play must be a masterpiece, no?

Anyway, enough about me.

The Forecaddie reports on Brandon Beck’s 10-birdie start at Rustic Canyon in August and suggests that it’s a record given how few documented 10-straight moments have been recorded.

Oh, and he lipped out on the 11th.

Trump Aberdeen Has Racked Up £9.4 Million In Losses Since Opening

The once vaunted Trump International Links near Aberdeen has 77 staffers and last year lost , it’s seventh consecutive year failing to profit, reports The Scotsman’s Martyn McLaughlin.

The Martin Hawtree design, where a second course was recently approved for construction, had been projected to generate as many as 6000 jobs after construction of homes and a second course.

From McLauglin’s report:

The company remains reliant on interest free loans provided by Mr Trump worth £40.6m. The latest filings mean that Mr Trump's resort, which he promised would be the "world's greatest," has now run up cumulative losses of more than £9.4m.

In the previous accounts, covering the 12 months to the end of December 2017, its losses ran to £1.25m, with turnover standing at £2.54m. It employed 84 staff.

The latest accounts, signed off by the Trump Organisation's auditors in Scotland, Johnston Carmichael, cover the 12 months to the end of December 2018. They show the employee headcount has since fallen to 77.

Severity Of Whistling Straits Means Cart Drivers Won't Be Cart Drivers At 2020 Ryder Cup

Barely maneuverable for maintenance vehicles, many have wondered how the fleet of cart driving assistants to the assistant cart driver/vice captains would navigate around the faux-Pete Dye links.

Turns out, they won’t be having to sort the best routes to deliver players bananas and to get WAG’s in position for camera time, reports Martin Dempster for The Scotsman.

Because of the undulating terrain of the spectacular Pete Dye-designed layout on the banks of Lake Michigan, only the two captains, Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington, will be permitted to use four wheels to float between matches as opposed to two legs.

It’s not an ideal situation due to the important roles of the vice-captains,

…down Martin, down…

but buggies are not allowed at all during normal play and, in some respects, it will feel refreshing being at a big golf event for once next September and not actually get the impression you could be on the M8 due to the volume of carts buzzing about the place.

Don’t worry, they’ll find a few extras for PGA board members and past presidents, no matter how their driving history.

Koepka Details Stem Cell Treatment, Clever Rationalization For Losing Player Of The Year Vote

Steve DiMeglio reporting from the Shriner’s on World No. 1 Brooks Koepka’s return to PGA Tour action and specifically, treatment on his knee.

And this regarding his bizarre loss to Rory McIlroy in a player of the year vote by his peers, despite being only the fourth player in history to finish top 4 in all four majors.

“I don’t play for awards,” he said. “I just play to win, win trophies, win tournaments. It would’ve been great, but I think everybody in this room knows. I mean, LeBron has only won four MVPs and I’m pretty sure he’s been the best player for more than just four years.”

Will Golf Learn? Baseball Chases Long Ball All The Way To Lowest Attendance In Sixteen Years

The parallel’s between baseball’s pursuit of speed and home runs is oddly similar to the warped notion that golf fans mostly want to see long drives (with ratings down, that case is getting tougher to make).

Baseball and golf’s launch-angle focus has introduced safety issues in baseball, longer games and a less interesting version of the sport to watch. Similar parallels can be seen in golf. And yet…

Craig Calcaterra reports that in a record year for home runs, baseball saw its lowest attendance in sixteen years. While his focus on the price of attending games is no doubt part of the problem, the thirst to see home runs has not been enough to offset the economics. Sound familiar?

European Tour Rolls Out 2020 Schedule, Rolex Series Holds Steady

Depending on how you view things, the European Tour’s bloated schedule mostly held steady and did not lose any Rolex Series events. But as Alistair Tait notes for Golfweek, holding steady misses Chief Executive Keith Pelley’s stated goal for more of the big-purse events.

The eight tournaments – the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, the BMW PGA Championship, Italian Open Turkish Airlines Open, Nedbank Golf Challenge and DP World Tour Championship – mirror this year’s Rolex Series at similar times of the year.

Pelley had hoped to have reached double figures by this point in his tenure. “Our goal is eight or nine in 2017 with a goal of 10 by 2018,” Pelley said when he launched the series in November 2016. While he did not reach that target last year or this season, there was hope he would hit 10 next year.

The WGC event in Memphis now moves to July—oh joy!—meaning the Irish Open moves back to late May at a venue to be determined. This ends a noteworthy one-year attempt at a two-week links golf lead in to The Open.

The full schedule can be viewed here.

"Kinks" Still Getting Worked Out In The PGA Tour Driver Testing

Nick Menta files a lengthy piece from Las Vegas where this summer’s driver test consternation continues: the testing is flawed and privacy has not been protected.

So, as Menta reports, the PGA Tour and USGA testers are still working through elements as the manufacturers believe the testing is targeting clubs differently, depending on make.

From Menta’s report:

A second player expressed similar concern to GolfChannel.com, wondering why the USGA was testing parts of the face that would make for poor contact and thus a poorer result, regardless of Characteristic Time.

“That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Thompson said, “because, as golfers, we’re trying to hit the center of the clubface. So why not test the center of the clubface?

“So I think that was a big issue with a lot of the manufacturers, because they weren’t told that going into this year of testing. … They were told how it was going to be done, and the manufacturer’s testing is done to replicate what the USGA is going to do. And I was under the impression that last week [the test] was not done the way they said it was going to be done.”

Of course, if they just made the ball a little bigger and the driver head a little smaller for professionals, no one would care about Characteristic Time.

A Year Out, Looks Like Captain Stricker Is Feeling More Pressure Than Captain Harrington

The 2020 Ryder Cup captain’s kicked off the year-long countdown to what will be highly anticipated matches with a joint press conference. At rainy Whistling Straits, where lousy weather kept things largely indoors and will be a factor next year, it was clear who is a bit more assured where things stand: Captain Padraig Harrington, current holders of the Ryder Cup.

As Eamon Lynch notes for Golfweek, Captain Steve Stricker still sounded a bit tied to the “task force” and it’s (sometimes) successful, (sometimes) clubby ways.

Mickelson was also on that task force. So too was Woods. The last three U.S. captains have been drawn from that small circle, and the decisions they have made — particularly Furyk’s decision to pick Mickelson — creates a perception of an old boys’ network looking after its own. Are the captain’s decisions being crowdsourced? And is the captain compromised as a result?

Stricker didn’t do much to dispel that notion in his comments Tuesday.

Of greater concern may ultimately be a venue seemingly more favorable to the Europeans than normal. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jim Owczarski focused on the fairly revealing presser remarks. At least, by year-out standards.

“Here at Whistling Straits, this is a much more natural golf course,” Harrington said. “I'm interested to see down the road what Steve has in store but doesn't look like you can do a lot with this golf course. As much as it was obviously designed and built there, it looks like it's just in a natural setting all its life and it's going to present its way. Even the weather could be very changeable the week of the Ryder Cup next year.

“So in many ways, this is a golf course that is just going to test the players on its own merits.”

Even Stricker, whose presence will bring an even more passionate home-state fan base to an already charged atmosphere, couldn’t help but hope the weather in about a year is a tad bit different for his team.

“Yeah, it concerns us, when we look out, and I don't know if you brought this weather today or what, but hopefully we have nice, sunny 75-degree days next year at this time,” Stricker said looking out to the lake. “But yeah, you know, when you look out here, it has the feel of -- does it not, over there in Ireland…”

“It looks like an Irish day out there, yeah,” Harrington interjected with a smile.

On Golf Central, Isenhour and I were in agreement: Captain Stricker has delicate matters to resolve in the all-important course setup department:

Nicklaus Outlines (In Great Detail) His Final (?) Overhaul Of Muirfield Village

This is a long one but certainly no shortage of meat on this bone!

For Immediate Release…

Muirfield Village Golf Club set to undergo course renovations for 2020 and 2021 

Dublin, Ohio – Muirfield Village Golf Club, home of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, officially announced today a two-phase course renovation project that will be overseen by the Club’s founder and course designer, Jack Nicklaus. The renovations will take place over the next two years and will include three new teeing grounds, rebuilt greens and bunkers, and a redesigned fifth hole.   

Phase One will begin this fall and include new back teeing grounds for the par-3 8th hole, par-5 11th and par-5 15th, as well as new rough area for the par-5 5th hole.

A new rough area?

The work will be completed by this May and used during the 2020 Memorial Tournament, June 1-7. Each new tee box will add yardage to its respective hole, with No. 8 increasing by 25 yards, No. 11 by 15 yards and No. 15 by 30 yards. The changes will increase the total course yardage from the tips to 7,462 yards. Nicklaus’ ground-breaking and innovative design—done originally with input from the late Desmond Muirhead and officially dedicated on May 27, 1974—first played at 6,978 yards.

Well, little more than input, but let’s not get lost in a credit battle when the real eye-opener is the nearly 500-yard increase. And that Nicklaus is adding more might suggest he’s either not confident in distance regulation, or feels even with some rule changes some day that the yardage is needed.

To begin Phase Two of the renovation, Muirfield Village Golf Club will close the course July 6, 2020, at which time all 18 greens will be rebuilt, including new sub-surface heating and cooling equipment. Bunkers will be re-built, tees leveled, and the irrigation system upgraded.

As fairways are regrassed, Nicklaus said he will create new fairway widths, but keep them “fairly generous off the tee,” which has been a trait at Muirfield Village.

All greens will be laser-scanned prior to the beginning of Phase Two in order to retain the general slopes of the original design, with any modifications taking place in the field by Nicklaus. “Once we decided to redo the greens, I realized I wanted to make some minor changes to the contours,” Nicklaus said.

Once a tinkerer, always a tinkerer!

Phase Two will also include a redesign of Hole No. 5. The new layout will include an expanded landing area and convert Muirfield Village’s first par 5 on the outward nine to a par 4 during Tournament play, making the layout a par 71 for the 2021 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. “It’s the easiest hole on the golf course,” Nicklaus said. “They play a 3-wood or iron off the tee not to reach the creek, and then play a 5- or 6-iron into the green. I just want to create more landing area on the tee shot, so that quite often they will play driver off the tee, and then play 5 or 6 iron into the green as a true par 4.”

Sad, but true.

“This will probably be my last bite at the apple,” Nicklaus said. “I’ve done little tweaks on the golf course throughout the years, and some significant changes, like the par-3 16th. This time, we are going through the golf course, A to Z, and making sure we do everything at one time.”

One thought, just, you know, off the top of my head: maybe a little work on that new 16th too? Just saying…

“My director of grounds operations, Chad Mark, is a good man, and he helped talk me into it. He said Jack, ‘Once we’re in there, let’s just do this thing right!’ Once we decided to redo the greens, improve the irrigation system, redo bunkers and regrass fairways, the collective group—one that included Chad, General Manager Nicholas LaRocca, Head Professional Larry Dornisch and Memorial Tournament Executive Director Dan Sullivan—basically said, ‘Jack, if you are going back in there and do all this work, and the course is going to be down, you don’t want to go back to the membership and redo it again five years later for irrigation or three years later for bunkers. Let’s get the whole thing done!’ So that’s what we are doing.”

Mark has already developed a detailed timeline for the project and is excited about the work ahead.

Hopefully he consulted Chief Leatherlips.

“Working closely with Mr. Nicklaus, and with support from Nicklaus Design Associate Chris Cochran and our team at Muirfield Village, we envision the fairway bunkers and irrigation getting started after the 2020 Memorial and jumping into greens as soon as we can in July,” Mark said. “Once greens are completed in late August, and fairways and approaches are re-seeded to bentgrass, we will then finish the bunkering and push juvenile turfgrass toward maturity. Work in spring 2021 will include punch-work items with irrigation, compacting bunker sand, mending sod seams, and plugging any thin turf.”

Quick turnaround to the 2021 Memorial…

“We are very excited to carry out the vision of Mr. Nicklaus, and I think the end result will only further elevate an already spectacular golf course!”

Nicklaus emphasized that while many of the enhancements will make Muirfield Village Golf Club a better tournament venue, the renovation is also being done with the membership always front of mind.

“From what I have heard thus far, the membership is really excited about bringing the golf course back to state of the art, which they felt it was a few years ago,” Nicklaus said. “I want to make sure I do the best I can for the membership and for the Memorial Tournament. I’m putting in as many forward member tees as I can at Muirfield Village and The Bear’s Club. I will put in some forward tees at Muirfield Village while I am doing this. I have to make the golf course playable for its membership.” 

But….

“But my belief is that tournament golf should be a test to find out who is the best golfer that week. Far too many tournaments have eliminated the rough and firmness of greens, and that is just not my idea of what the game of golf should be. So I am going to stick with my old-fashioned beliefs about how the game of golf should be played and the way golf courses should be set up. How the USGA’s Joe Dey used to set up courses is how I learned and how I thought golf should be played. It’s the guy who drives the ball the straightest; the guy who plays the best iron game; the guy who is best around the greens and is sometimes challenged when he doesn’t play a good shot to the green; and the guy who putts well. The whole gamut of all shots is what the game of golf is all about. The game should challenge every facet of every club in the bag.”

Read into that however you like, but it sure sounds like the Golden Bear is tired of waiting around for governing body action on distance and defending skill.

Three-Year Suspension For A Bird Flip After Phone Goes Off Mid-Swing?!

Ryan Lavner reports for GolfChannel.com on one of the more extreme suspensions in sports history after Bio Kim flipped off a ringer-on gallery member.

The incident took place on the Korean PGA’s DGB Financial Group Volvik Daegu Gyeongbuk Open—aka the DGBFGVDGO—where Kim heard a cell phone camera and slammed his club into the ground. The club slamming was, frankly, more bothersome in a golf context given the course destruction.

He went on to win the tournament but lose his plea for forgiveness, reports Lavner:

Apparently that mea culpa wasn’t enough to avoid a suspension, as the Korean Tour cracked down by unanimously voting to ban Kim for three years and fine him the U.S. equivalent of $8,350. After the emergency tour meeting Tuesday, news-wire photos showed Kim kneeling in front of a row of television cameras.

In a statement, the tour said: “Kim Bi-o damaged the dignity of a golfer with etiquette violation and inappropriate behavior.”

I poked around a bit and have yet to find an explanation for why the bird-flip is so offensive in Korean culture, but did learn this about the arm wave, just in case you are headed to South Korea.

Don't hail a cab or wave someone over to you with your palm facing up in South Korea. That's how Koreans summon their dogs. The proper way to wave is to move your hand up and down vertically with your palm facing down.

Avoid Using In: South Korea.

There you go.

But back to Bio Kim. Here is the video:

Tripp Isenhour and I discussed this bizarro story on today’s Golf Central:

Brooks: "I have an athlete’s mentality, a true athlete, and if that rubs people the wrong way, tough."

The world No. 1 returns to action this week in Las Vegas, and Brooks Koepka is profiled by Golfweek’s Steve DiMeglio.

He’s still brutally honest, though I’m not entirely clear what being a true athlete means…

“I’m not going to be someone else just to be more popular,” Koepka said. “I’m not your typical golfer, definitely not a golf nerd. I have an athlete’s mentality, a true athlete, and if that rubs people the wrong way, tough.

“I’m just going to say what I feel, I’m going to be honest and I’m not going to hold back. That’s who I am.”

Analyzing The Distance Debate's Latest Fuel To The Distance Debate

With the latest news on failed driver tests and Rory McIlroy’s follow-up remarks shedding a bit more light on what he was really getting at, I penned a short column for Golfweek on what this means for the Distance Insights study.