When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Sam Harrop took to the piano after Tony Finau’s second PGA Tour win. This time, Harrop’s channeling some REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling to seranade Finau.
Harrop said when he originally released "When Will Tony Finau Win Again", Tony “requested a remix when his next win came.” Wasting no time and on point again…
Bryson DeChambeau announced he’s been invited to participate in the event formerly known as “World Long Drive” the week after this year’s Ryder Cup.
You have to admire the willingness to take a shot, though sadly it comes after Golf Channel attempted to sell the property before mothballing it last year.
Perhaps Bryson’s presence will create a new TV or streaming opportunity?
The current rightsholders explain the new approach to “Long Drive” and while it will not be a “world” event this year, they are forging ahead.
The Golf Gods giveth and taketh, depending on your perspective: Team USA locks in Tony Finau after his big Northern Trust win over a great leaderboard, while Patrick Reed is hospitalized with pneumonia, all but ruling out his Ryder Cup return.
If you weren’t up on the Reed news, here is Cameron Morfit’s story with a statement from Reed letting us know his ankle is better. So he’s got that but pneumonia is serious business.
Todd Lewis was first to report the news of Reed’s illness and hospitalization since Friday, August 20th.
My Quadrilateral wrap of the 2021 AIG Women’s Open from Carnoustie.
Mother Nature did not deliver but the course still produced an interesting finish and worthy champion in Anna Nordqvist.
Granted, it was hard to tell from a listless NBC broadcast interrupted at all the wrong moments by breaks (where have we heard that before?). That plus other elements from Sunday’s final round are noted in the latest installment.
Forget a navy blazer with captain’s wings, Boeing went with a bomber’s jacket cut for a very large-sized man. Rod Pampling pulled it off despite the sizeable cut.
Points for the concept, maybe not so many for the execution. Unless Rod wants to turn it into a leather lounge chair to commemorate his first PGA Tour Champions win:
Would be swell if such serious language was used in addressing green reading books, distance, slow play or low-budget productions.
But, we have massive bonus money to be handed out and it’s the Big Apple (well close enough)! Maybe this gives the New York Times to notice the end of a long PGA Tour run?
From GolfChannel.com’s Rex Hoggard:
Update to @TheNTGolf plan. Looks like a Tuesday finish might be possible. pic.twitter.com/6qdNnoVGBI
— Rex Hoggard (@RexHoggardGC) August 23, 2021
With Hurricane Henri postponing the final-final round of The Northern Trust’s to Monday, I figured the New York papers would have the lowdown. Or, at least, use Sunday editions to say sayonara to 54 years of PGA Tour events in the area (a streak dating to 1967 ended when last year’s Norther Trust was played in Boston).
Perhaps with the PGA Tour in town they’d look back at the best of the Westchester Classic/American Express Westchester Classic/Manufacturers Hanover Westchester Classic/Buick Classic/Barclays Classic/The Barclays/The Northern Trust?
I know the papers aren’t what they used to be, but in New York they’re still doing better than most. They’re still seen and read. They matter, still.
The Times has not found The Northern Trust fit to print or to even cover online despite sitting just across the Hudson. “The Paper of Record” is not documenting this playoff event so far.
To round out my Saturday night fun, I mapped the journey over to Liberty National (above) in case they’d like to send a writer over for Monday’s “playoff” finale where there are massive Ryder Cup ramifications.
Same with the Daily News. No story online despite a 60 by Cam Smith under relentless PGA Tour Playoff pressure.
Not even an AP story with a mullet-referencing headline? Nope.
The Wall Street Journal is also in the region, has a readership that likes golf, and hasn’t had a golf tournament story posted since The Open last month.
But at least there’s the Post and longtime writer Mark Cannizzaro there to cover the event and Smith’s third round course record.
If you can make it here you can make it anywhere. But what if you can’t make it in New York?
Nice spot by Golf.com’s Josh Berhow to catch this sensational quote from Jordan Spieth on Wednesday’s Pat McAfee Show to plug the new FanDuel partnership. While the Ponte Vedra Police are probably wondering if they should charge his fine account, most golf fans will love Spieth for his Ryder Cup passion.
“I’d rather play better at the Ryder Cup than in the Tour Championship,” he said. “… We never get team sports, so to be able to have team sports — when you win a championship in team sports you get your parade, right? For us, that’s the Sunday afternoon after winning a Ryder Cup on U.S. soil, where everyone sticks around and you get to kind of party with everybody. That’s our parade. That’s what we look forward to.”
And chasing FedExCup points, is what he also meant to say.
Few things are more demeaning to the “rule of law” than judges who long to be comedians in otherwise serious matters.
While Hank Haney v. the PGA Tour is hardly the most important matter ever sent before a judge, it’s still embarrassing to read Judge Rodolfo Ruiz use his dismissal to audition some Borscht Belty material. And as any golfer will know, the attempted use of golf cliches and lingo better be good or else you look like a stooge.
From Bob Harig’s ESPN story quoting the decision.
"As the Court remarked at the outset of this matter, the allegations teed up in this case -- like a well-hit drive on the golf course -- [have] avoided pleading hazards . . . remained in bounds, and left Plaintiffs with an opportunity to take their next shot," U.S. District Court Judge Rodolfo Ruiz wrote in his ruling. "However, Plaintiffs' next shot has not fared as well as their opening drive. In an effort to reach the green and get this matter to trial, Plaintiffs' approach has found the water. And the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for mulligans. ... Plaintiffs' round has come to an end."
Someone has way too much time on his hands. Or a clerk unable to say, “you know Judge, you kind of sound like a jackass here.”
As Rex Hoggard notes in his GolfChannel.com story, Commissioner Jay Monahan responded aggressively to Haney’s flippant comments about a Korean golfer likely winning the U.S. Women’s Open. In a 2019 email (oh Jay…), he wrote, “This man needs to lose his job. Please let me know what I can do to assist you to ensure this happens.”
When deposed in the Haney case discovery, Monahan and lieutenant Laura Neal displayed a staggering lack of familiarity with anything related to the LPGA Tour.
None of this dissuaded the judge from ruling in Haney’s favor or appearing to take the matter seriously. From Harig’s story:
"Rule 9 of the USGA Rules of Golf states a key principle of the game: 'play the ball as it lies,'" Ruiz wrote in the ruling. "In other words, absent a few exceptions, players cannot improve their position by simply moving the golf ball. Here, under Rule 56, the Court must similarly take the evidence as it lies in the record. And that evidence makes clear that Plaintiffs are unable to establish the necessary elements of their claims."
Oy vey.
On a serious note for fans, SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio was prone to uncomfortable bouts of rear-end smooching, inane conversation and an overall Radio Sawgrass vibe before this. Now…
While the golf industry is enjoying a renaissance, Bradley Klein asks “at what cost to superintendents?”
Besides the strains of the pandemic and other issues with the labor market, he points out several factors of concern for all in maintenance and at golf courses. Including this:
Retention of labor at a golf course has always been an issue. It is perennially difficult to find folks who are willing and able to show up at 5:30 a.m. on weekends. Most crews are now on flexed schedules allowing alternate weekends or weekend days off, for example. But the telltale signs of inexperience are there. I recall, for example, one example of a superintendent who has to scout the greens each morning and repair damaged cups from sloppy cup cutting.
Courses have all had to increase their wage rates to retain labor in the face of stringent challenges from ancillary job sectors like landscape, building construction and home repair. And at the skilled level, the shortage is evident in the difficulty superintendents have had in recruiting qualified technicians and assistants. The ranks of the country’s university level golf agronomy programs are depleted. Golf is a great game but, increasingly, it is not being perceived as a great career.
You don’t normally hear players mentioning how much fun it was to investigate a possible sponsorship. But the hard sell mode only reinforces what seems like inevitable issues at some point with golf and gambling. At least players like Spieth express some trepidation in endorsing a gambling outfit.
From Steve DiMeglio’s Golfweek story:
“In my rookie year, this wouldn’t have been something that would have been on the radar given where sports gaming was back then,” Spieth said in a phone call with Golfweek. “But look at where it has gone the last couple of years. It was pretty exciting to look into it.
“Golf has a unique space to get into (gaming) to help bring more eyeballs into the sport, bring (other) sports fans into being golf fans, and with FanDuel being the biggest and doing the best job at responsible gambling, it made a lot of sense.”
The story also notes how Commissioner Jay Monahan played a role in convincing Spieth to take FanDuel’s money.
Spieth said Monahan convinced him golf could not refuse to welcome gaming considering its steady growth throughout the sports world. Spieth said the Tour’s movement into gaming “gave us the confidence as individual players to want to search out and look for opportunities in this space.”
Great how these independent contractors work with the Tour on a not-very independent basis.
We’ve had the road wars, the rabbit wars, World Wars and now the R&A one-upping the USGA’s record U.S. Women’s Open purse of $5.5 million.
For Immediate Release, and do note how the R&A never mentions the surpassing of the U.S. Women’s Open…
THE 2021 AIG WOMEN’S OPEN SETS A NEW BENCHMARK FOR WOMEN’S GOLF WITH RECORD PRIZE FUND
18 August 2021, Carnoustie, Scotland: The AIG Women’s Open has set a new benchmark for prize money in women’s golf with the announcement that the prize fund for this year’s championship will increase by $1.3 million to $5.8 million with the winner earning $870,000.
With the support of title sponsor AIG, the largest prize fund in women’s major championship golf will increase by a further $1 million to no less than $6.8 million in 2022. This will more than double the prize fund from 2018 before AIG’s partnership with The R&A commenced.
The AIG Women’s Open takes place from 19-22 August at Carnoustie and will be played in 2022 at Muirfield, another of Scotland’s world-renowned links courses.
Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, “We are absolutely committed to elevating the AIG Women’s Open and enhancing its status as one of golf’s premier championships. With our partners at AIG, we are taking action to make change happen and sending out a strong signal that more needs to be done by everyone involved to grow women’s golf. It needs greater investment and support from golf bodies, sponsors, the media and fans to help us grow the game’s commercial success and generate the income and revenues necessary to make prize fund growth viable and sustainable.
“We have set a new benchmark for prize money in women’s major championship golf this week and, thanks to AIG, will build on it still further next year. We hope this will inspire other events to follow our lead and help us to take a collective leap forward for the women’s game.”
Peter Zaffino, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIG, said, “AIG is proud to be the title sponsor of the AIG Women’s Open, which is one of the most prestigious and celebrated golf championships in the world. We are committed to serving as allies to women in golf, in business and in the communities where we live and work. Striving for pay equity and highlighting the achievements of successful women are critical components to this commitment and part of AIG’s core values. We are very pleased with today’s announcement as it represents an important step forward in raising the profile of women’s golf and the status of the AIG Women’s Open. We thank The R&A for their excellent partnership and I am confident that together we will continue to lead the way in achieving meaningful progress.”
In 2019, in AIG’s first year as title sponsor of the championship the prize fund was increased by $1.25 million to $4.5 million, an increase of almost 40% on the previous year.
Matt Cooper previews the AIG Women’s Open and its return to Carnoustie after ten years.
This time around, it seems the players should expect a much tougher test.
Five years before that, Carnoustie made its debut on the Women’s Open rota and once again the tee boxes were in the wrong place. The final hole, as we all know, is a brute, with the Barry Burn threatening both the drive and the approach. Those too fearful of the water risk dragging the ball into rough on the left (or, worse, out of bounds), taking the green out of the equation for the second shot.
It’s unquestionably one of the toughest examinations in world golf and yet the field didn’t face it. The tee was moved up, the drive became straightforward, and the burn was more or less irrelevant for both the first and second bunt.
It was a little like plotting a route for the Tour de France that ignored both the Alps and the Pyrenees, instead just faffing about on the flat.
Lydia Ko already confirmed, reports The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster.
“Seventeen is a beast. Eighteen is also a beast,” declared the two-time major winner, expressing a view, of course, shared by most people, even though Paul Lawrie birdied both of them in the play-off in his 1999 Open win.
Winged Foot welcomed back 2020 U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and he gave a clinic to what could easily be misconstrued as an annual gathering of the Young Spalding Smails Society.
But he brought a sensible message of speed training and recovery talk to the kids, reports Golf.com’s Luke Kerr-Dineen.
“Take two days out of the week, and on those days for an hour swing with as much effort as you can,” DeChambeau said. By simply swinging with maximum effort, DeChambeau says, you’ll be building your golf muscles and breaking the neurological barriers that prevent you from maximizing your potential.
And after that, take your time to relax, he says. Allow your muscles to recover, work on increasing your flexibility and get your body ready for its next session.
“Recovery is key,” DeChambeau says. “Those 48 hours after speed training, are so important. Giving your muscles time to recover, and your nervous system to rest is so important, and not something I thought about when I started [speed training].”
And kids, whatever you do, don’t bet away the trust fund, ok?
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
