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
Ron Balicki reports that the UCLA men made it a SoCal sweep in the NCAA team competition, all topped off by Kevin Chappell's individual title. Alistair Tait isn't too wild about the Curtis Cup pace.
Put Carol Semple Thompson in charge of golf. The game would get a lot quicker if she was chief executive of the royal & ancient game.
The U.S. Curtis Cup captain was as fed up with the turgid pace of play for the afternoon four-balls as most in the crowd of 5,800.
The last match on the course, the contest that pitted Alison Walshe and Stacy Lewis against Liz Bennett and Florentyna Parker, took five hours and 22 minutes to complete.
By the time the match got to the 18th, the only one of the three four-ball contests to go the distance, most of the crowd had gone home. Semple Thompson might have high-tailed it out of the Auld Grey Toon too if not for her responsibilities as U.S. captain.
“I thought the pace of play was horrible,” Thompson said.
Beth Ann Baldry reports on the U.S. taking the lead in the matches, as does John Huggan, who has issues with the pacing and manners displayed.
One other noticeable feature of the first two days – quite apart from the disgracefully slow pace of play – has been an apparent inability to count, with players on both sides equally culpable. On day one, the Scottish duo of Watson and Michelle Thomson lay five to six feet from the cup on the Road Hole. Their opponents, Stacy Lewis and Alison Walshe, were four feet away after three shots. Clearly, a concession was the obvious course of action for the young Scots. Not a bit of it. Only after Watson had missed did they belatedly abandon a cause the equivalent of that faced by the Light Brigade.
A similar thing happened yesterday at the 9th hole. After three-putting from not very far away for a bogey, Watson and Thomson asked Lewis to putt from three feet when the Americans had two for the hole. And, just to show that the arithmetically challenged can be found on both sides of the Atlantic, Booth managed to lag her putt stiff from no more than four feet on the 16th green when she and partner Breanne Loucks had two to win their foursomes match against Kimberly Kim and Jennie Lee.
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."
...and he's a Ryder Cup hopeful, reports Steve Elling.
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.”
You have to give them marks for consistency, because for the third year in a row many of Europe's finest entered the U.S. Open qualifying at Walton Heath only to pull up lame (but still not costing the rest spots).
Mark Garrod reports:
More than 20 European Tour players have now pulled out of Monday's 36-hole US Open qualifier at Walton Heath.
It is the route used by New Zealander Michael Campbell when he won his first major title three years ago, but since the introduction of the event that season it has always suffered from a large number of withdrawals.
Among those who have decided to skip the chance to compete in the second major of the year are Darren Clarke, former Open champion Paul Lawrie, recent Irish Open and Spanish Open winners Richard Finch and Peter Lawrie and Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell, currently 10th in the Ryder Cup race.
Clarke made his decision two weeks ago, saying: "My schedule is firmly based around Europe and my goal is to make the Ryder Cup team."
He and others feel that a trip out to California if they made it through the qualifier was not going to benefit them in the coming weeks.
Just over a week ago a total of 76 players were listed for the qualifier, but that is now down to 50 and organisers could well be asking golfers in America who just failed at local qualifying level if they fancy filling the gaps in Surrey.
Four more WD's and they can tie 2006's count. And here was the mild threat issued after last year's antics. You can see it really worked.
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.
That's what Ryan Herrington says about UCLA's Kevin Chappell's 68 during third round play at the NCAA's, where he opened up a four shot lead while his Bruins vaulted to first place, just ahead of USC and Clemson.
Sean Martin profiled Chappell earlier this year and it's worth reading if you don't know Chappell's story.
Obviously John Daly wasn't part of the study that Bloomberg's Carey Sargent reports on (thanks to reader Jim):
The death rate for golfers is 40 percent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, a study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports found.Wait, but they hit fewer shots, which means less walking, no?
This equates to a five-year increase in life expectancy, scientists led by Anders Ahlbom and Bahman Farahmand at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm said. Golfers with a low handicap -- a measure of a player's ability -- are the best protected, they said.
"A round of golf means being outside for 4 or 5 hours, walking at a fast pace for 6 to 7 kilometers (3.7 to 4.4 miles), something which is known to be good for health,'' Ahlbom said in an e-mailed statement. ``People play golf into old age, and there are also positive social and psychological aspects to the game that can be of help.''
These guys obviously don't play the game if they think there are positive psychological aspects.
Thanks to reader Steve for locating this absolute must Father's Day gift: the Uroclub, which promises to help you relieve yourself...of the worry of find a place to relieve yourself. For only $49.95.The privacy shield hooks to the sides of the pants or belt and adds stability. This allows freedom of the hands to manipulate the club and zipper.
The entire club is made of a non-porous material. Therefore, caring and cleaning is effortless!
The UroClub™ is intended to eliminate anxiety and any feeling of uneasiness on the course. It can be emptied at the nearest restroom or later on, when the golfer returns home.
Capacity: Over half a liter, twice the volume commonly urinated.
I asked Normoyle to explain Darwin's continued appeal. "I think it lies in his influence," he replied. "What Herb [Wind] said at the end of his profile in The New Yorker was that he thought Darwin knew more about golf than just about anyone, that he was able to get to the soul of the game that golfers experienced, to identify things that people will take for granted about the game. Peter Ryde [Darwin's successor on The Times] said Darwin's thoughts were held to the glare of daily journalism because he wrote for 50 years and he had to come up with a topic other than how to make three-foot putts. I think Darwin's appeal was a little of both.
"To me Darwin was to journalism what Arnold Palmer was to golf on television," Normoyle continued. "He was the right person in the right place at the right time. In The Times and in Country Life he had educated, interested and sophisticated readers who were willing to take the time to read a Darwin essay. They would understand the cultural references and literary allusions to Sam Weller and Pickwick and Holmes.....and if you knew all these things and you saw them applied to a game of golf then you had a connection to that game that you never had before.
"I think the internet would have been good for him. On the internet you are not confined by space and if he wanted to be indulgent then he could be. If he wanted to create a following of people who wanted long, florid essays full of wit and reverence, he could find the space.
"Darwin would hate modern golf because it is all professional. He would deal with the pseudo amateurs of today who are just training ground professionals. I think he would still enjoy the Walker Cup. I think he would be appalled by the standard of golf at the University matches, including my own. I don't think he saw himself as a writer. I think he saw himself as a member of the golf fraternity who happened to write about golf for a living. He was not an ink-stained wretch. He took a great deal of pride in not understanding the ongoings of Fleet Street and the workings of Printing House Square [where The Times was printed]. But were he around today then I think he would take comfort in the fact that in the world of golf there are still places where fireplaces are welcome and where tea is on the menu."
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."
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.”
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?On Torrey Pines...
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.
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.
Golf Digest's Matt Ginella, apparently not aware that mini-tour pros live on a tight budget, kicks off his interview of Tadd Fujikawa with a grand question...
Where are you now?
In a hotel room on Sea Island in Georgia.
Are you staying at the Lodge or the Cloister?
Oh, no--I wish. [Laughs.] I'm staying at a Quality Inn place.
In the mean time, golf’s powers may want to convince the game’s rank and file of the benefits of golf in the Olympics.
“Golf may already have enough big events with the PGA Tour and the majors and the European Tour and the Ryder Cup,” Stewart Cink said. “I’m just not sold.”
The Tour season begins and ends with the majors, despite the best efforts of FedEx or Finchem. Toss in the Ryder Cup, which hasn’t smiled on the New World side for a generation, and Presidents Cup, which hasn’t smiled on the rest of Atlas over a similar news cycle, and you have a dance card on the busy side of hectic.
“We play over 36 events a year. How many times do you see ice skating, figure skating, speed skating, track and field on TV in a year?” Jason Gore asked. “We get a chance to show our stuff every week.”
The timing of the games would probably be the biggest hurdle faced by Olympic organizers considering this year’s games get underway on the heels of the year’s final major and just before the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.
“If it was in China or some place right in the middle of the season, I’m not sure I’d go play in it,” Cink said.
Golf’s Olympic trump card is Tiger Woods, perhaps the most marketable athlete of his generation. But in 2016 Woods will be 40 years old, maybe four or five Grand Slam keepsakes past Jack Nicklaus on the all-time list and, by all current accounts, working on his fifth swing change and 10 more majors. However, nowhere on the bedroom wall in the childhood home in Cypress, Calif., did Woods hang Greg Louganis’ gold medal totals.
“If you spend a lot of time and resources getting golf into the Olympics and suddenly one or two players don’t play . . . I don’t know. There are a lot of really big tournaments already. Would the Olympics become a major right away?” Cink asked.
Gaining a spot in the Olympic Games is seen by many as the best way to grow the game. But at what cost?
Google “Olympics” and “Rogge” and the search engine spits out pages of the kind of bad press golf has so successfully avoided.
That's the day one scoring average at the men's NCAA's.
This who midwest values hard-is-good thing is really getting old. Ron Balicki reports here for Golfweek and Ryan Herrington here for Golf World where he notes that the USC-UCLA battle at the top is repeating what happened in the women's final and is making southern California the epicenter of college golf.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
