"You need to come up with something else"

AP's Larry Lage follows Rocco Mediate around Warwick Hills and shares some fun anecdotes about his return to the tour following the U.S. Open showdown with Tiger.

Mediate's approach from 115 yards at No. 6 sailed to the right and landed in rough thick enough it almost hid the ball, an errant shot just 46 fans standing along the ropes saw at the sparsely attended event.

Instead of cursing at himself, Mediate conversed with fans and joked about how many of them say "That's a gimme,'' any time a ball is remotely close to the cup.

"You need to come up with something else,'' Mediate joked.

Memorial Overnights

The Tiger effect, vol. 34,501, courtesy of Thomas Bonk:

Perry had a nice Sunday in Dublin, Ohio, but CBS didn't. The network's overnight ratings for the Memorial were down 31% from last year's 2.6 (when K.J. Choi won and Woods was playing) to a 1.8.

"What was that all about?"

Thanks to Jay Busbee at Yahoo for noticing a post at The Golf Watch about J.B. Holmes taking a rain check on shaking Jack's hand following his final round 77.

I knew I shouldn't have deleted the telecast before watching it!

Memorial Photo Caption Fun, Vol. 1

What's being said in this image courtesy of golf.com's final round image gallery?

 

"Jack (Nicklaus) is the only one who wants this rough, believe me."

Paul Daugherty talks to Steve Flesch about the setup at the Memorial and says the PGA Tour would not set the course up this way if they were in control.

"I'm not a fan of chipping it out every time you miss a fairway," Flesch said. "Or if you hit it in a fairway bunker, chunking it out."

According to Flesch, it wasn't the PGA Tour's decision to make Muirfield Village's 7,366 yards play like an episode of "Man Vs. Wild."

No player came to town this week saying, "Please groove the bunkers and make the rough tall enough to hide rhinos."

Who, then?

"It's a four-letter word, and he runs this place," Flesch said.

Yeow.

"Jack (Nicklaus) is the only one who wants this rough, believe me. This is like going to Bay Hill. It's Arnie (Palmer's) setup" there, said Flesch. "I don't want to cross a line, but ..." Flesch paused here, then continued. What the heck. "It's their tournament, their golf course. Jack can do whatever the hell he wants."

At the beginning of today's telecast, Jack and Jim Nantz had an exchange about the setup where Jack said he was just setting it up the same as always and that the combination of the weather and tour requirements had it this way.

Meanwhile you'll want to check out Doug Ferguson's piece on D.J. Trahan's wild battles with the wretched 18th.

"I think that's a pretty crappy hole," Trahan said while stalking away from the course after shooting a 6-over 78 in Saturday's third round. "But nobody wants to hear that, right? Everybody wants to hear that it's a great hole. But I don't think it is. I think it's unfair and it's ridiculous."

Perry Skipping U.S. Open Qualifier To Prep For Stanford St. Paul Championship

...and he's a Ryder Cup hopeful, reports Steve Elling.

Update on 2008-06-01 02:04 by Geoff

Alex Miceli gets Perry to explain his thinking...if you can call it that.

“I don’t do 36 holes ever,” said Perry, citing one reason not to play the U.S. Open qualifier. “I will never do that again. It just wears me out. I’m not physically capable of being – it ruins too many weeks. It ruins my next week and it ruins trying to prepare that week for the tournament. It takes too much out of me.”

Perry made the decision months ago, which is the reason he has played six consecutive weeks and plans to play next week at Memphis, before taking a week off.

“I’ve only played (Torrey Pines) three times in my career so that kind of answers that question. I don’t like it,” Perry said. “Never have.”

Perry missed the cut in 1988 at Torrey Pines and withdrew in 1997. He finished tied for 67th earlier this season.

“I play good at Hartford the week after and at the Buick (Open),” Perry said about his plans after the U.S. Open. “I won Buick and I had chances to win at Hartford. Those are two great courses for me too. So that's kind of how I strategized the whole situation. As much as I would love to play in a U.S. Open, if it would have been anywhere else I would have been after it.”

"All they have to do is change out the pins, replace the rakes and take away press parking."

Dave Shedloski reports that the Memorial is like a major. I guess that means wedge out rough, boring golf and long rounds. Oh, and I forgot, rain in the forecast.

Doug Ferguson tells us that Joe Ogilvie is so inspired by the fun setup that he feels everyone should just park their jets in Ohio and stick around.

The U.S. Open starts in two weeks in San Diego, but Joe Ogilvie came up with an environmentally friendly plan. He suggested the second major be contested at Muirfield, so players wouldn't have to travel as far in their private jets.

"You'd save millions of pounds of carbon dioxide in the air, and golf would be a green sport again," Ogilvie said after a 75. "All they have to do is change out the pins, replace the rakes and take away press parking."

I think Joe just wrapped up a future GWAA ASAP/Jim Murray Award with that sympathetic nod to the scribbler's traditional parking arrangement at the Open. 

“Mind-boggling fast"

Freak setup week continues, first with Larry Dorman reporting on Muirfield Village's greens reaching speeds that have even the PGA Tour's finest in shock.

“Mind-boggling fast,” Joe Ogilvie said after his round of 69. “Maybe 15 on the Stimpmeter.”

“Probably the fastest greens we have played in a long time,” Sergio García said after a 72.

“The greens are so fast you can’t believe it,” Brett Quigley, in the field as the second alternate, added after his round of 67.

Ogilvie was moved to come up with an unusually creative visual image: “You know how dogs will never step on a glass surface because they know they’ll slip?” he said. “Well, if you unleashed a thousand dogs by the 18th green, none would walk on it. They’d all go around it.”

Thanks to reader Rob for noticing this Stan Awtrey piece on Georgia's play at the NCAA Men's Championships, which, when you throw in a coach named Haack and injuries from rough, reads like somethign out of a Jenkins novel.

Georgia did it with a short-handed strategy — Haack called it "a four-legged team" — made necessary after freshman Harris English experienced his worst day of the season. English had two double bogeys and a quadruple bogey en route to a 10-over 46 on his front nine. He finished with an 86.

"But he can come out and bounce back," Haack said. "Anything can happen."

That's not just Haack-speak, either; English opened with a team-high 74 at the East Regional but rebounded with a 65.

Swafford had a team-best 73, leaving him tied for seventh overall, after making bogeys on the final two holes. But the sophomore birdied the two most difficult holes on the course and nearly holed out for an eagle at No. 18, his ninth hole.

"I just tried to be patient and hit it in the center area," said Swafford, who was wearing a brace on his right ankle, a result of stepping in a rough-disguised hole during Monday's practice round. "I think I can build on it. Eliminate two shots, and I'm under par."

Update on 2008-05-30 15:39 by Geoff

From Rex Hoggard on the Golfweek Tour blog:

Brett Quigley called it “doomsday.” Others had less-than-printable monikers for Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village.

Shaun Micheel was the first victim of greens some players estimate are rolling at 15 on the Stimpmeter. The former PGA champion hit his approach 57 feet past the hole at the par-4 18th. His birdie putt stopped rolling 46 yards down the fairway and Micheel signed for a double bogey-6.

Not long after Micheel’s odyssey, Justin Bolli fired his approach about 50 feet past the hole and raced his first putt to almost the same spot in the fairway. Bolli added to his woes when his chip from 45 yards stopped short of the pin and spun back down the fairway. Bolli finally two-putted for a triple bogey-7.

“It’s ridiculous,” hissed one player as he walked out of the scoring hut. “You turn a great golf course into a piece of (crap) by making the greens too fast.”

Random Mickelson Comments...

A few interesting snippets from Phil Mickelson's pre-Memorial press conference:

Q. What sense did you get about the rough out there? Any different here than in the past years?

PHIL MICKELSON: It's very long and thick. I'm not a big fan of that. I like what we had last week where if you hit it in the rough you have to take some chances. I think the recovery shot's the most exciting shot in golf. And you have a lot of that at Augusta. You have a lot of that here. We had it at Wachovia where they cut the rough down a little bit just off the fairways so you could hit some recovery shots. That's not the case here. It's wedge-out rough. I'm not a big fan of that. But it is what it is.

On Torrey Pines... 

Q. Have you thought or heard about the idea of moving 14 up as a drivable par-4?

PHIL MICKELSON: I've read what you guys have talked about. You actually would know better than I would. They would, nobody would tell me what, hey, hey, come hit up here. That wouldn't happen.

Q. What do you think of that?

PHIL MICKELSON: I looked at it. I think it would be cool. There aren't any fun holes there. They're all just long beasts. And to have a fun hole would be fun. I mean it would be cool. It would mix it up a little bit.

The problem with doing it on 14 is, 13's a reachable par-5, if they play the normal tee and you have two birdie holes back to back. I think in a U.S. Open that's not favored.

And this bodes well for a full playoff run by Phil...

 Q. You mentioned that you were in New jersey yesterday, can you talk about I think you were at Ridgewood. Can you talk about that since it's going to be a TOUR venue?

PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, I played where we're going to play the Barclays the first FedExCup series events and I think it's a wonderful golf course. It's a Tillinghast design which I'm biased to and it had a lot of same looks a Baltusrol and Winged Foot has and I think the players are going to love it. It's one of the premier courses in the land. It's spectacular.

They held the Ryder Cup there in I think '35 and it's, they have converted a few par-5s, they have integrated from the three nines that they have 18 holes there. They have taken two par-5s, turned them into par-4s, and so the course will play long at 73 plus hundred yards, par 71. It's going to play long and difficult.

Wait, he's sponsored by Barclay's and it's the Barc...ignore me, just typing out loud. 

Rough Harvest Updates

Good crops this year in the midwest it seems. 

AP's Rusty Miller has the lowdown on Muirfield Village's fresh crop, which Jack Nicklaus says is the same as last year but which players say is more brutal than ever. Wait, let me run to set my TiVo, you know how I love to watch guys chop out.

Meanwhile Ryan Herrington reports that Purdue’s "magnificently maniacal" Kampen Course, which I thought was supposed to be this super environmentally sensitive organic laboratory is spruiced up with a 3 1/2 inch first cut of rough, followed by a 5 inch layer for this week's NCAA Men's Championship. 

"That's what number twos in the world do"

If you didn't see Phil Mickelson's dramatic birdie to win at Colonial, well, there's good news CBS has posted it online you need to wait until someone posts it on YouTube because the CBS Sports recap mysteriously does not show it. Instead, there's 2 minutes of Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo talking about how miraculous it was. Oh joy! (And they won't let anyone embed the video on blogs...good call suits, you're so savvy!).

But you can see this stellar shot (left) of his birdie putt by Marc Feldman courtesy of golf.com.

Mark Lamport-Stokes wrote about the final day heroics for Reuters. 

Clark, seeking his first PGA Tour title, birdied two of the last three holes to secure his sixth runner-up spot on the world's most lucrative circuit.

"I'm as surprised as anybody I was able to make a three from over there," Mickelson, 37, told reporters of his remarkable shot through and over trees at the last. "I was just lucky.

"It wasn't like it was an easy shot, but it just came off perfectly. It was one of my more memorable ones."

Known for his creative and often bold on-course strategy, Mickelson ranked his wedge approach as "probably top five" among the best shots of his career.

There was this interesting quote from the runner-up, Rod Pampling:

"That's what number twos in the world do," Pampling said. "Those guys make those kinds of shots. I thought I was in great position. I am obviously disheartened."

Mickelson joins Hogan and Snead as the only winners at Colonial and Riviera in the same year (the telecast mentioned Billy Casper but he won at Brookside GC, not Riviera). 

Tiger Not On Memorial Field List

Somehow I don't think that's an oversight.

Deere Rents Mavs Jet

Steve Elling reports on the latest John Deere Classic tournament perk, a chartered jet to the Open Championship (invitation not included). It's the same jet bringing the lugs back for the Canadian Open. These Guy Have It Good!

Anyway, in an attempt to build the field strength, tournament officials have taken the Deere by the horns and chartered a jet plane for a Sunday-night redeye flight to Manchester, promising to ferry for free the players and their families to the British in time to practice on Monday morning. Tournaments have been in an all-out arms race to out-hustle one another with gifts, spa treatments, free food and the like, but this is a novel idea that just might boost one of the weaker fields of the regular season.

From the sounds of it, the jet seems downright posh. Clair Peterson, the Deere tournament director, said they have lined up a 100-seat 767 that will be parked at the Quad Cities Airport, warmed up and ready. All the seats are first class, he said, and it should arrive by 8 a.m. in England.

"It's a big deal," Peterson said. "Obviously our date and our location have made it difficult for players to get to the British Open. We had eight players last year that played here and made the trip over. Our expectation is that we'll at least double that this year.

And... 

The jet has frequently been used by Mark Cuban's NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, and is going to run more than $300,000, a Deere tournament official said. Rather than choosing to dump the money into the purse, where it wouldn't have attracted much attention from the players, they figured the jet service would make a splash.

The Final Round Of The Players Took...

...how long? I've been told by a few people it was 4 hours, 40 minutes. The last pairing teed off at 2:30 according to PGATour.com and Paul Goydos missed his par putt on 18 at 7:10. 

But to confirm, I thought this pretty relevant statistic would be mentioned in a game story. I've searched them here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. No luck. Plenty of mentions of 40 m.p.h. winds, but no mention of an equally important stat noting that the grueling round took an hour longer than a normal PGA Tour twosomes round.

Isn't that kind of important to know, particularly with all of the recent slow play talk?

Tiger Ratings Impact, Vol. 391

Thomas Bonk, in his online Los Angeles Times column:

If there was any doubt about how much Woods influences ratings, check out the weekend's overnight ratings from the Wachovia on CBS.

Saturday's overnight metered market rating was a 1.4 -- down 42% from the 2.4 rating in 2007 when Woods was in contention. And Sunday's overnight metered market rating was a 1.8 -- down 53% from the 3.8 last year when Woods wound up winning.

Woods is out of action because of knee surgery. In the meantime, CBS is crossing its fingers that he returns in three weeks at the Memorial, which is on the network's broadcast schedule.