Category: 19th Hole

Lynch: As Greg Norman’s clown show continues, his Saudi bosses can’t be laughing

The Saudi project is piloted by a man with more hot air than the Hindenburg, and seems destined for the same fate.

It’s performance review season in corporate America, when employees are either congratulated on jobs well done or held to account for shortcomings. If Greg Norman were disposed toward self-reflection (stay with me), he might feel relief that his Saudi-backed outfit isn’t held to such conventional standards on performance, or for that matter on commercial viability, ROI or morality.

Norman was announced as the CEO of LIV Golf in October and has beclowned himself with his every public utterance since, cementing a reputation that will encompass not only his inability to finish big tournaments but his ineptitude in starting them too. What was promised as a seismic shake-up of global golf is looking more like a bonanza for washed-up also-rans. Consider what Norman has presided over since the Saudi ambitions in golf came into focus and all you’ll find is backtracking.

Those 12-18 events they touted? Not happening.

The league format? Same.

An elite team concept? Nope.

The best golfers in world? Let’s hear it for Robert Garrigus.

A fresh, engaging product for fans? See above.

More: First PGA Tour player seeks permission to play Saudi tournament

What’s left is eight lucrative tournaments that will showcase aging veterans who can no longer compete where it matters, career journeymen whose own caddies might struggle to identify them in a line-up, and amateurs, whose inclusion was presented as a “grow the game” gesture rather than the act of desperation it is. (Next stop: PGA Tour Champions!) In short, Norman is serving a fetid platter of horseshit and claiming it’s boeuf bourguignon.

The only entertainment guaranteed in this venture is an overdue comeuppance for the Great White Pilot Fish, whose tenure began with an interview in which he marveled at the sight of women dining in Saudi restaurants sans burkas. Later, he addressed the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “What happened to Khashoggi was reprehensible. There’s not a person on this planet who would not agree with me,” he said, perhaps forgetting that the Crown Prince who ordered Khashoggi’s dismemberment by bonesaw—the same man who pays Norman—might not agree with him. That he followed this declaration with “But…” is damning enough without it being necessary to recount the chicken-hearted prevarications he duly offered.

Norman has also shown the familiar maladroit touch with Augusta National that defined his playing career there. “We respect the Masters and we thought we’d let it go off before our announcements,” he said last week.

“…we thought we’d let it go off…”

Oh, to have been Fred Ridley’s watchful manservant when he read that over his morning coffee.

Norman’s latest performance pratfall is peddling a claim that he could make a swansong appearance at the 150th Open Championship in St. Andrews in July, not as a ceremonial figure but as a competitor. There’s a better chance we’ll see Old Tom Morris tee it up for old time’s sake.

The R&A exempts past champions into the Open until age 60. Norman is 67, hasn’t competed in a major in 13 years, or in any serious tournament in a decade. He reportedly admitted that he won’t enter qualifying but will instead ask for a special invitation, which is at least in keeping with his current belief that “elite” fields are filled with antiquated has-beens. The R&A’s response carried the faint whiff of a spokesperson irked at having had to interrupt their weekend to slap down the narcissistic delusion of a serial social media flasher: “The entry terms and conditions for The Open stipulate that a champion must be aged 60 or under or have won the championship in the previous 10 years to be exempt from qualifying. That remains the case for the 150th Open and we have no plans for any additional exemptions.”

Norman’s disregard for established rules and norms might endear him to his employers, but even the Saudis must now be weary of their water carrier’s unquenchable thirst for publicity, his intemperate and ill-considered public comments, his lack of peripheral vision, his unpopularity in the locker room and his stupefying ability to snatch defeat when victory seemed not only possible but likely. Norman’s temperament was often a liability on the closing stretch of majors, but his bosses will know that it’s an encumbrance even before they can get a ball in the air.

Petulance underpins Norman’s St. Andrews fantasy. Golf’s governing bodies are closing ranks against his Saudi “sportswashing” effort—and behind the PGA and DP World tours— in a manner that is subtle but unmistakable. The R&A previously awarded a spot in the Open to the Asian Tour’s leading money winner but ceased doing so when the Saudis recently bought into that circuit. Augusta National invites all former major champions to the Masters as a courtesy, but somehow lost Norman’s address in 2022. Players being courted by the Saudis will have noticed this chill wind, and only those who know they can’t factor in tournaments that matter will shrug it off.

Despite all the bluster and promises of riches, the Saudis must finally understand their project is piloted by a man more inflated with hot air than the Hindenburg, and seems destined for the same fate, even as he artlessly tries to coax gullible passengers aboard. Someone with a larger-than-life bust of himself in his garden is obviously immune to embarrassment. The people who entrusted him with their billion-dollar business, not so much.

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Masters: Every hole ranked from easiest to hardest at Augusta National

Which are the hardest holes at Augusta National? Data provided by Masters.com has the answers.

It’s no surprise the four par 5s are the easiest holes in the Masters each year at Augusta National in Georgia. Modern tour pros build their games to dismantle the longest holes on any course, relative to par. Nos. 2, 8, 13 and 15 at Augusta National offer plenty of such scoring chances, and none of these par 5s has played over par for a Masters week since 1998.

But which are the hardest holes at Augusta National? Thanks to data provided by Masters.com, it’s clear that the three-hole stretch right after the turn is the most difficult downhill march on the golf course.

Also provided in that data is the fact that most holes are playing more under par in recent years. Four holes – Nos. 2, 4, 9 and 16 – had their lowest scoring averages ever in 2020. That’s in stark contrast to the 1950s, a decade in which 10 of the holes played to their most difficult scoring average. The tournament in 1956 – won by Jackie Burke Jr. at 1-over 289 – was particularly brutal, with five of the holes setting records for highest average score.

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Check out each hole below, listed in order of easiest to hardest.

Lynch: PGA Tour protecting its players shouldn’t mean babysitting Bryson DeChambeau

The PGA Tour isn’t helping Bryson with its new vow to boot spectators.

Jay Monahan earns around $4 million a year, which easily qualifies him as America’s most well-compensated babysitter. Yet it might barely exceed the hourly minimum wage given all of the extra work the PGA Tour commissioner just created for himself.

On Tuesday, Monahan pointedly reiterated the Tour’s long-standing policy of booting unruly fans from tournaments.

“By coming to a PGA Tour event, you’re expected to contribute to a welcoming and safe environment by refraining from and reporting any unsafe, disruptive, or harassing behavior,” he said. “Comments or gestures that undermine the inclusive and welcoming nature of the game will not be tolerated, nor will any harassment of players, caddies, volunteers, officials, staff, or other spectators.”

Monahan’s injunction against harassing caddies, volunteers or officials could have been aimed at several guys in the locker room, but his words were intended for the other side of the ropes, and—no matter how often he insisted otherwise—specifically at the gallery following one player. That was clear when the commissioner was asked if the word “Brooksie” might trigger a spectator’s ejection.

“Yes, and the reason I say yes is the barometer that we are all using is the word ‘respect,’ and to me, when you hear ‘Brooksie’ yelled or you hear any expression yelled, the question is, is that respectful or disrespectful?” Monahan replied. “That has been going on for an extended period of time. To me, at this point, it’s disrespectful, and that’s kind of behavior that we’re not going to tolerate going forward.”

The gloomy reality of sport is that some folks get their jollies bawling at competitors, offering about as much entertainment to fellow spectators as a shrieking, incontinent drunk might in a crowded subway train. Bryson DeChambeau has been tailed by a herd of such imbeciles since the Memorial Tournament in June, at which he had several fans ejected for the crime of calling him “Brooksie.”

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Brooksie—as in Koepka, his antagonist in a juvenile feud that makes one long for the gravitas of Paris Hilton’s spat with Lindsay Lohan—duly offered beer to fans whose day was cut short. Encouraged by free suds and emboldened by their target’s infantile overreaction, the hecklers have shadowed DeChambeau ever since, and it is evidently having a detrimental impact on his well-being. As loathsome as the trolls are, is calling one player by another’s name really cause to evict?

Legally, yes. Jodi Balsam, a professor of sports law at Brooklyn Law School, says legal authority to regulate conduct originates in the terms of the ticket. Balsam herself once authored such terms for the National Football League.

“The League and its teams have almost complete discretion to define what is acceptable and unacceptable conduct, and it is entirely within their discretion to revoke that ticket,” she said.

Armed with similar terms, the PGA Tour has similar discretion to decide what is grounds for ejection. That includes heckling, signage or even wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Brooksie slogans.

As a matter of law, Monahan’s threatened action is defensible. As a matter of enforcement, however, it risks becoming preposterous. How easily, and with how much certainty, can security identify and remove one heckler in a crowd of hundreds? How many spectators is the Tour willing to see ejected on a given day? How many fans will intentionally be tossed to expose the inherent flaws in this approach? And what happens when DeChambeau and Koepka inevitably play together? Must Koepka supporters remain mute for fear of a Pinkerton grabbing them by the collar? The line between fan and troll is blurred beyond reasonable enforcement there.

Policing language is a perilous task, particularly at a sporting event crowded with people to whom one is happily selling beer by the bucketload.

There are legitimate reasons for fans to be removed from tournaments, like endangering the welfare of others, intoxicated belligerence, or attempting to distract players while executing a shot—the latter surely to become an issue as legal gambling grows in golf. These are all reasonable and necessary matters to enforce. But the PGA Tour cannot be in the business of protecting someone’s hurt feelings, and that is the reality it is stumbling toward. Thus so many Tour players openly mocked the idea after Monahan spoke. Like flight attendants, they know its simply unworkable to legislate decent behavior.

There’s no evidence that DeChambeau sought the Tour’s intervention on this matter, and even less reason to believe he will benefit from it. If anything, it might make things worse for him, at least until the cretins finally exhaust their admittedly deep reservoir of witless inanities. It’s easy to understand why Monahan felt the need to threaten consequences. The needling gets under DeChambeau’s skin, and he has shown himself woefully ill-equipped to handle it.

But for all the noble intent behind Monahan’s shift, the onus remains largely on DeChambeau. It would be nice if Koepka asked fans to button it, but that also assumes the hecklers are fans of Brooks rather than just haters of Bryson. DeChambeau needs to develop a thicker skin, an ability to tune out the noise. In that respect, he’s not alone among Tour players. At the 2020 Players Championship, a fan was thrown out for asking a passing Patrick Reed to sign his shovel, a droll reference to Reed’s bunker misadventures in the Bahamas a few months prior. That fan faced greater sanction for his words than Reed did for his actions.

There’s reason to believe that Monahan’s comments today aren’t solely about protecting the image and product of the PGA Tour at the expense of engaging fans. The commissioner hinted that DeChambeau is not in a good place: “He’s working through some things and he’s going to have my and our support as he continues to do so.”

Whatever the underlying issues, DeChambeau can’t seem to help himself in emotionally tough circumstances, his reactions often further inflaming situations. With this vow to boot spectators, the Tour isn’t helping him either. The solution lies not in threatening a few dozen hollering fools, but in helping one man learn to dismiss them for what they are.

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Eamon Lynch: Golf is now a guinea pig, and its health is imperative

The PGA Tour is back and columnist Eamon Lynch says any COVID-19 setbacks could have catastrophic consequences throughout the sports world.

Much as we like to focus on personalities, the PGA Tour is really all about numbers posted: hole scores, round totals, cash earned, FedEx Cup points awarded, charitable dollars raised, eyeballs watching. All of those figures matter at this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, but they carry considerably less import as the Tour resumes action amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Note: amid, not after, since cases are spiking across the country, not least in Texas.)

Instead, the number that matters most to the Tour at Colonial Country Club is zero.

Zero positive tests among players and caddies.

Zero drama.

If the Schwab Challenge were to be the most boring, uneventful 72 holes of his tenure as Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan would heave a sigh of relief.

The typical barometers of a good week on Tour — exciting finishes, superstar winners, scoring records — simply don’t matter as much. The yardstick being used in the coming days is much more daunting. Golf is a guinea pig for the greater sports world, and a misstep or health issue will have ramifications far beyond the Tour’s carefully-constructed resumption.

Fans will of course notice everything that is amiss at this most unusual of tournaments.

Rather than presiding from his traditional 18th hole tower, CBS’s Jim Nantz will plow a lonely furrow in front of a monitor in a remote building at Colonial. His sidekick in the booth, Nick Faldo, will chime in from a studio 1,100 miles away in Orlando.

The course will seem naked, stripped of the grandstands from which crafty players have long been accustomed to expect a fortuitous bounce or generous relief.

There will be no spectators, the very lifeblood of sport drained from the proceedings until at least the Memorial Tournament in July. (That’s not entirely bad, since it provides a respite from the smattering of meatheads whose hollering plagues too many telecasts).

The last time golf’s best player hit balls in such eerie silence in Fort Worth was when Hogan was practicing 15 minutes away at Shady Oaks.

World No. 1 Rory McIlroy heads the best field Colonial has ever hosted. The top five players in the world ranking are all here, and 16 of the top 20. There are 148 men in the field, 101 of whom have won on Tour, the kind of wheat-to-chaff ratio seldom seen outside the Seminole Pro-Member.

It’s almost enough to make one overlook those competitors who might have been better served watching from home.

Like Keith Clearwater, who won here two years before McIlroy was born. Now 60 years old, Clearwater still takes his spot each year as an ex-champion grandfathered into the field. He has made only seven Tour starts outside this event in the last 15 years. The last time he made a cut in any Tour event was 19 years ago, in 2001.

He’s not even the oldest guy in the field. Tom Lehman, 61, is here on the same senior pass 25 years after his victory. So too is Olin Browne, also 61 and the ’99 champ. And David Frost, the ’97 winner, who is just 10 days younger than Clearwater. All of them are younger than Bernhard Langer, who turns 63 this summer. He’s here alongside Scott McCarron (54) and Steve Stricker (53) as sponsor’s invites.

PGA Tour stop or Cocoon cast reunion?

None are taking a spot in the field from anyone else, to be fair. This is an invitational event, and a sponsor may do as it pleases with invitations. It’s entirely fair if Schwab wishes to invite winners of the Cup it generously finances on the senior circuit (Langer and McCarron in this instance). All of the aforementioned have earned the right to tee it up, though continuing to exercise that right might warrant reflection. If nothing else, we should at least commend this higher-risk demographic for heading back to work in a pandemic.

Everyone understands what will constitute a best-case scenario by the time we reach Sunday night in Fort Worth, and also the worst. A positive test among players, caddies or officials — all of whom traveled there, increasing their potential exposure — would fuel skeptics who think the Tour is taking unnecessary risks and rushing its resumption. No amount of testing or safety protocols will change those minds. And even a drama-free outing in Texas just shifts that onus to next week’s RBC Heritage in South Carolina, and beyond to Connecticut and Michigan.

In that respect, PGA Tour players — whether Rory McIlroy or Keith Clearwater — really are now just like the rest of us, reckoning with a macabre new reality that means having to assume a certain amount of health risk just to go about the humdrum tasks of our workdays. Having assumed that risk, everything else is up to fate. And not even Jay Monahan has sway over that.

19th hole: For the starved, a Match that’s lacking in substance will have to make do

This time the Match will pit Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady to benefit coronavirus relief.

The only item on a menu is always in high demand, so it’s a sign of our times that even a picky gourmand will greedily consume another manufactured McNuggets offering that sees Tiger and Phil impersonate actual rivals for those of us willing to trade nourishment for entertainment.

“The Match: Champions for Charity” will pit Woods and Peyton Manning against Mickelson and Tom Brady to benefit coronavirus relief. The civic-minded charitable component was a late add to a plan that was being pitched to sponsors long before Mickelson teased it on social media last month, and which originally had the foursome facing off at Muirfield Village on Tuesday of the Memorial Tournament, finishing under lights in prime time.

Covid-19 scuppered the Memorial and the Match, leaving both searching for a place amid the pandemic. The main event has been moved to mid-July, the sideshow will take place in Florida sometime next month. There’ll be other made-for-TV golf events too, and we’ll tune in because it’s all we have while waiting to see if the PGA Tour’s restart — aggressively scheduled for June 11 — actually happens closer to Memorial Day or Labor Day.

Celebrity golf is what makes Saturday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am indisputably the worst day of the year for TV viewers, a ceaseless parade of C-tier stars and A-list corporate executives enjoying a level of obsequious brownnosing seldom seen outside the Oval Office. But to a starving man, even rancid meat can appear appetizing. So it says a great deal about what we’re missing that so many of us can look forward to watching four brand marketers (average age: 44) contrive to josh their way around a Florida swamp with no fans in attendance.

That catalog of exactly what we’re missing these days runs deep. Start with the simple pleasure of playing a round, a joy obscured for me long ago under a cloud of swing woes but now ached-for like a lost love. Add the fundamental companionship and fresh air the game and its environs provide. The once-commonplace thrill of watching elite golfers compete for trophies that matter, on broadcasts the technical aspects of which are dissected in real time by armchair producers on social media who could do everything better themselves. The geeky diversion of parsing public jabs by Brooks Koepka instead of reading about the porn star ‘stache he’s sporting in quarantine. Hell, some of us would even welcome a resumption of golf’s exhausting distance debate if only it replaced social distancing.

As nameless, numberless days pass in lockdown, it’s inevitable our focus will turn to golf fantasies, to curated checklists of what we’ll do and where we’ll go when normalcy — or whatever passes for such — is restored. Like many goals that are conceived in challenging times, much of what populates our wish lists probably won’t happen, or at least not anytime soon. There will be lots to do — finances to rebuild, jobs to find, lives to mourn — before we have the luxury of space for dreamy indulgences. Such lists are more about channeling positivity than practicalities, a shard of light to cling to in the gloom.

In the words of Seamus Heaney that are etched on the poet’s tombstone in an Irish graveyard, “Walk on air against your better judgement.”

The day will eventually come when we can again feast on the simple contentments we have long taken for granted. Until such times, we’ll subsist on whatever fare is available. Even a Tiger-Phil McNugget.

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19th hole: World Golf Hall of Fame has its blind spots, but Tim Finchem isn’t one of them

Golf’s Hall has deserved much of the criticism it has received, but inducting Finchem acknowledges his considerable impact on the game.

For everything that has been denied golf fans in this period of quarantine —access to courses for many, the Masters for all, freedom from Peloton updates for an unlucky few — one thing remains soothingly constant among the social media commentariat: begrudgery.

That much was evident with the news that former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem will join Tiger Woods and Marion Hollins in the next class to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. The announcement was greeted with griping that was as predictable as it is tedious, an exercise in collective eye-rolling intended to suggest not only that Finchem is undeserving but that his inclusion dilutes the Hall’s credibility.

That argument is familiar and has been leveled against more deserving targets who got a call to the Hall, like George H.W. Bush, Bing Crosby or Bob Hope. But there’s no sound basis for raising it against Finchem.

There is a sentiment that says lockers in St. Augustine ought to be earned for exploits on the field of play, and the only field of play that matters is a golf course. Not a boardroom or a factory or a production trailer or a media center. It’s an absolutist position that would disqualify plenty of current Hall of Famers.

Like C.B. Macdonald or Pete Dye, who only designed those fields of play,
Like Karsten Solheim, who innovated the instruments used on those fields.
Like Dan Jenkins or Herb Graffis, whose only mastery was of a typewriter on the sidelines.

The reality is that most sports halls of fame are intended to acknowledge not just quantifiable achievement but immeasurable impact. Charlie Sifford wasn’t inducted for his two PGA Tour victories but for what his presence, courage and determination symbolized in golf’s ugliest era. Frank Chirkinian wasn’t given a locker to store his Emmy awards, but because the legendary CBS producer’s influence far exceeded that of most players he put on living room TVs.

It’s why the football and tennis Halls have “contributor” categories to enshrine non-players, and it’s why the golf Hall is welcoming Finchem, just as it did his predecessor Deane Beman, Augusta National’s Billy Payne and the European Tour’s Ken Schofield before him.

This is hardly to say Finchem is beyond criticism. He forged a colorless culture at Tour HQ and enforced a level of secrecy around disciplinary proceedings and drug testing that would have been envied in Pyongyang. But it can’t be argued that he didn’t leave the Tour in a considerably better place than he found it.

When he took over as commissioner in 1994, total prize money on Tour was $56.4 million. Toss in the Champions and then-Web.com Tours and the fund was just over $90 million. This season the Tour’s prize money is nearing $400 million, before bonuses at least until COVID-19 upended things. He created the oft-maligned World Golf Championship events, which if nothing else helped temper Greg Norman’s plans for world domination, and the FedEx Cup playoff system 13 years ago.

It’s a popular though specious suggestion that Finchem owes his success to coat-tailing on Tiger Woods. Sure, he was dealt a strong hand, but he played it well for what was demanded of him. If subsisting on crumbs from Tiger’s table was sufficient to earn a spot in the Hall, then Mark Steinberg would have his own wing.

Arguing over Hall of Fame inductees is a staple of most every sport, moreso during a quarantine when we’re happy for any meat to chew on, no matter how lacking in nutrition it is. And golf’s Hall has richly deserved much of the criticism it has received over the years. The last class inducted Peggy Kirk Bell. The famed teacher was eminently worthy, but she was deserving of the honor when she was alive. She lived for 95 years, but the Hall only saw fit to induct her three years after her death. That kind of standard can’t be encouraging to others who deserve a spot and have been thus far denied, like Tom Weiskopf or Butch Harmon.

There are obvious shortcomings surrounding golf’s Hall of Fame. There are those who deserve the honor who have been overlooked and those who’ve been given a spot they didn’t merit. But whatever his failings, Tim Finchem doesn’t belong on either list.

 

While quarantined, revisiting the quaint and the quirky of Open Championships gone by

Who could forget Guy McQuitty, a professional who qualified at Turnberry in ’86 then shot 95-87, a stout 42-over par for 36 holes?

In a week when we couldn’t make our way down a padlocked Magnolia Lane, homebound golf fans had to settle instead for memory lane.

Our guides were familiar broadcast voices, many of them — Pat Summerall, Ken Venturi — long stilled. Golf Channel re-aired the 1986 Masters, the Rosetta Stone of major championships that revealed the Sunday strengths of Jack Nicklaus and the comparative frailties even among Hall of Famers in the generation that followed him. Jack was winning too over on CBS, which gave us the epic ’75 Masters, in which he helped Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller add to what would ultimately be a combined seven silver salvers. More recent Masters tournaments were also dusted off: ’04, when Phil Mickelson broke his duck and Ernie Els’ heart, and ’19, when an approaching storm moved up tee times and saw Tiger Woods secure his fifth green jacket by Sunday lunchtime (his first jacket was pretty much sealed by Sunday lunchtime too, but that’s another story).

The retro weekend broadcasts — in addition to the Masters YouTube channel, which contains every final round dating back to 1968 — were a welcome fix for quarantined golf junkies who are otherwise denied until November by the COVID-19 crisis. But for me, two streams diverged in a locked down New York City apartment, and I took the one less clicked upon, at least in April. I opted for the only major tournament we know for certain won’t be played this year.

The Open Championship website has every official film since 1970 — Jack won that year too, of course — and it’s a delightful reservoir of the quaint and the quirky. In my quarantine viewing I elected to skip more recent Opens that remain reasonably fresh in the mind, despite the ample wine intake necessary to stomach small town British food those weeks. It’s earlier Opens, those from the ’70s and ’80s, that offer beguiling glimpses of a time when even major golf was less corporate, and pleasant reminders of players long forgotten because they’re either dead or just not brand-building on InstaGrift.

Like “Mr. Lu,” who lost by a shot to Lee Trevino at Royal Birkdale in ’71. Lu Liang-Huan is a mere footnote today, but he was good enough to win titles across four decades. Or Brian Barnes. The 1975 Open film opens with the late legend arriving on the beach at Carnoustie via hovercraft that ferried him across the Firth of Tay from St. Andrews (a reminder that the complete absence of hotels in Carnoustie was still preferable to the monstrosity now sitting behind the 18th green). Or Jack Newton.

He was one of two talented 25-year-olds who made an 18-hole playoff that week at Carnoustie. Tom Watson won, the first of eight majors. Newton also finished second to Seve Ballesteros in the 1980 Masters, but he’s little-remembered now, his career having been cut short at age 33 when on a rainy night he walked into a plane propeller on the runway at the Sydney airport.

Ballesteros, who would have turned 63 last week, features in so many of the old Open films, as though they were poignant home movie reminders of his brilliance. The summer of ’76, when at age 19 he chased Miller around Birkdale for four days before finishing second; the ‘car park champion’ at Lytham in ’79; the conquering matador at St. Andrews in ’84; the sublime fifth and final major back at Lytham in ’88.

Seve’s are moments not easily forgotten, but the Open films are rife with many curios that have been. Maurice Flitcroft, the unemployed crane operator who gatecrashed a qualifier in ’76 and shot 121. Guy McQuitty, a professional who qualified at Turnberry in ’86 then shot 95-87, a stout 42-over par for 36 holes. He won honorable mention in the official film for not living up to his name and hailing a cab after day one.

Greg Norman of Australia celebrates after winning the title during the final round of the 1986 British Open Golf Championship held on July 20, 1986 at Turnberry, in Ayrshire, Scotland. (Photo by Simon Bruty/Getty Images)

That same Turnberry Open saw an utterly imperious Greg Norman at the height of his powers, quite unlike the luckless figure we see so often in Masters movies. He shot what might be the finest round ever played on Friday that week, three-putting the last for a 63 in weather so foul one wouldn’t even send Brandel Chamblee outdoors in it. That was back when players routinely hit 2- and 3-irons into 450-yard holes, and fairway woods into the par-5s at Augusta National. A bygone era indeed.

That library of old Opens will get many more visits before we finally enjoy the 149th edition 15 months from now. So too will that Masters channel on YouTube, sustenance for another seven months. Sitting at home over the last week, we didn’t get to see if Tiger could defend, if Rory could complete the career grand slam, if Gary Player would boast about outdriving 80-year-old Nicklaus in the ceremonial tee shot. But we will in November, pandemic-permitting.

Until we see another major, we make do with memories. What should have been Masters week was marked by what golf has lost in 2020. But it was also an apt time to revisit everything, and everyone, that shaped and sustained it in the years thus far.

 

Rory McIlroy follows Tiger’s strategy at Bay Hill, jumps to front early

McIlroy opened with a 66 to take a one-stroke lead over a little-known supporting cast of young challengers at Bay Hill.

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ORLANDO — It was a tale of kings and cobblers in Thursday’s first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

In the early going at Bay Hill, Rory McIlroy positioned himself on the leaderboard just as he has in the world rankings — with everyone else in his rearview mirror. The Northern Irishman opened with a 66 to take a one-stroke lead over a little-known supporting cast of young challengers.

After a sluggish start that included a water ball bogey and a missed short birdie putt, the world No. 1 steadied himself to produce a masterclass on a course where he claimed the title two years ago. “When I was 1-over par I looked at the board and Sam Burns was already like 6-under,” McIlroy said. “So I was like, geez, I got to do something here. I got to get going.”

He did get going, making five birdies and an eagle, the latter courtesy of a 260-yard 3-iron from a fairway bunker to 24 feet that impressed even his caddie, Harry Diamond. “Harry said that’s the best shot I’ve hit all year, so, you know, high praise from him,” McIlroy said with a laugh.

His 66 is McIlroy’s best-ever opening round at the API, where he hasn’t finished worse than T-6 in three years, and equals his best first day score of the season in relation to par at 6 under. It owed in no small part to his overpowering the long holes. “If you can play the par-5s well, you can play the rest of the course pretty conservatively and pick your spots,” he said, pointing out that Tiger Woods used such a strategy in his eight wins at Bay Hill.

“Just sort of trying to follow that plan because it worked pretty well for him,” he added.

The pack chasing McIlroy is comprised of players big on potential but mostly light on trophies. Burns, a 23-year-old in his second full season on the PGA Tour, stumbled late and finished in a group at 4 under that includes Brendon Todd, a two-time winner on Tour this season, and England’s Tyrrell Hatton, who is known more for his histrionics on the course than his heroics.

McIlroy’s closest pursuers as the afternoon wore on were Scottie Scheffler, Talor Gooch, and Matt Every, whose only two Tour wins came at the API. Gooch went 5-under par on a four-hole stretch in his 67. “The hole looked like it was about the size of a basketball goal. It’s nice whenever that happens,” he joked. “On a tough course like this, once it’s over you just try to hold on for dear life after that.”

Other heavyweights didn’t fare so well. World No. 3 Brooks Koepka, making his way back from a knee injury, hit just five fairways on his way to a 72. “I’m trying to figure it out,” he said afterward. Asked what exactly he was trying to figure out, he replied, “How to play golf.”

Someone else trying to figure out how to play is a man who won on the PGA Tour three weeks ago. Adam Scott was near the bottom of the leaderboard after a 77, illustrating anew how fickle a game it is. Among those playing later in the day, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau were both struggling early in their rounds.

As those players went to work, McIlroy went to Disney with his wife, Erica. He returns for a 12:44 p.m. tee time Friday in his bid to capture magic for a second time in three years at Arnie’s kingdom. He’s hoping Sunday evening brings that familiar warm and fuzzy feeling, literally and figuratively, as the winner receives an iconic red cardigan. “It was special. It was warm. Alpaca isn’t as comfortable as you think,” he said. “You could have given me a neon cardigan and I would have worn it all the way home.”

 

19th hole: Tiger Woods likely won’t be going for gold, but fans don’t care about that

It’s more important that Tiger be ready for the four majors, even if it means fans at Bay Hill and Tokyo are disappointed.

The announcements came 24 hours apart, and while differing in gravity both served to illustrate the narrowing focus of legends in their waning years.

On Thursday, 38-year-old Roger Federer revealed he’d had knee surgery and would be out until the summer grass court season. A day later, his old Gillette commercials co-star, 44-year-old Tiger Woods, said he’s skipping this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational owing to a rusty back. Both decisions were made with an eye on the prizes that matter most: Wimbledon for Federer, the Masters for Woods.

While Federer will miss one major — the annual Rafa Nadal coronation formerly known as the French Open — Woods won’t, but the paring of his schedule bodes ill for an event that could use the energy injection he provides: Olympic golf. The top 15 in the world ranking qualify for the Games in Tokyo. Woods is currently No. 10, but a maximum of four golfers are allowed from each nation and there are five Americans ahead of him, raising the specter that he’ll be out in the cold in the race for gold.

This of course assumes the Games proceed unfettered by the fallout from coronavirus, which is far from certain. I asked the vice president of the International Golf Federation, Ty Votaw, about fears the Olympics might be cancelled. “As far as the IGF is concerned, we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure successful men’s and women’s golf competitions in the 2020 Tokyo Games,” came his commendably upbeat and characteristically tenebrous reply.

The Games won’t need Woods to be successful, but Olympic golf would undeniably benefit from his presence. If nothing else, Woods competing would go some way to erasing the air of apathy that attended golf’s return in Rio four summers ago, when many players stayed home, ostensibly for fear of the Zika virus. But even Woods can’t alter the reality of where gold for golf ranks.

An Olympic gold medal ought to be the pinnacle of achievement in a sport, and in most it is. But in golf, as in tennis, that gold might rank (at best) fifth among the prizes competitors most want to own, lower if you consider the Players Championship and FedEx Cup. Brooks Koepka admitted as much last month. ”To me, the four majors are definitely more important, and the FedEx Cup, too, is a goal of mine,” he said. “We’ll see where everything else falls.”

Olympic athletes don’t usually say offhandedly that they’ll see where the Games fall in the list of priorities. But then, Olympians wait four years for the podium while golfers have four a year.

The ripple effects of Woods’ increasingly limited schedule extend beyond disappointed fans at Bay Hill and perhaps Tokyo. He said last month that his goal is to play roughly a dozen events a year, which wouldn’t recommend him for the prospective Premier Golf League splinter circuit. The CEO of the League has acknowledged there isn’t much wiggle room for golfers to play fewer than the 18 proposed but non-existent tournaments on the proposed but non-existent tour. And lengthy flights to fulfill such an extensive global schedule won’t much appeal to Woods either, even if he’s not flying in the arse end of a commercial airliner.

Tiger’s decision to skip Bay Hill for the second straight year is not conclusively cause for concern — he missed 2019 with a neck strain but that didn’t hamper him at Augusta National a month later — but nor is it grounds for optimism if he’s too physically compromised to play a flat golf course on which he has won eight times. It’s simply a sign of the new reality we must live with — that Woods’ appearances on the PGA Tour will, like papal audiences, be much sought after and highly anticipated, but sparingly granted.

What remains of Woods’ career, like that of Federer, is now about prioritizing. If he doesn’t qualify for Tokyo, that would in truth be a minor blip for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. His absence from one of golf’s major championships would be much more impactful. So if the feast Woods provides must be rationed, then let golf fans eat and the Games go hungry.

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While protecting the reputation of one, the Tour risks losing respect of many

A number of truths became apparent when it was revealed that Patrick Reed hired a lawyer to silence one of his biggest critics.

By now, PGA Tour executives must feel a gloomy kinship with those anonymous White House officials who regularly insist the President is taking a mature approach on an issue, only to wake to another inflammatory tweet storm from the toilet. For no matter how meticulously the Tour has sought to douse the Patrick Reed conflagration, Reed himself only provides more kindling.

A number of truths became apparent when Golfweek revealed that Reed has engaged a lawyer in an effort to silence Brandel Chamblee, the most prominent critic of his alleged cheating at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas last month.

First: If you’re willing to pay, you can always find an attorney who’ll dispatch a cease and desist letter on your behalf, regardless of how legally flimsy its claims are.

Second: This story owes its continued existence not to clickbait media but to Reed’s tone-deaf arrogance, from his brusque denial of wrongdoing to his taunting shoveling gesture during the Presidents Cup to this half-baked 1-800-LAWYER caper.

Third: Reed either ignores good advice or receives bad advice, and neither scenario recommends his inner circle, a group so small and lightweight it could fit comfortably on a golf cart and still leave room for his Tour bag.

Fourth: Others care more about Reed’s reputation than he seemingly does, specifically the PGA Tour. And that is where the deepest disconnect exists in this sorry episode — not between the Tour and Reed, or between Reed and fans, but between the Tour and a public that believes it has seen the evidence for itself.

The Tour says Reed has been appropriately sanctioned under its guidelines. That’s true. Those guidelines give undue weight to the notion of intent, and without the ability to read Reed’s mind it’s impossible to conclude he intentionally broke the game’s cardinal rule: play it as it lies. As far as the jury convened at Tour HQ is concerned, justice has been served.

The issue the Tour faces is that the wider public is accustomed to an American judicial system designed to reach a fair conclusion from conflicting testimony.

Reed can hold to his version of events. But if a parade of guys who play for a living testify that professionals don’t typically begin practice takeaways right behind the ball in a waste area, and that people who can tell if there’s an extra wrap under the grip of their club certainly know if that club dislodges a scoop of sand (twice), then another jury might reach an altogether more damning verdict about Reed’s intent than the Tour process permits.

The Tour has acted in accordance with its own procedures, but that is not a winning argument in the court of public opinion. Commissioner Jay Monahan is a proud product of Irish-American Boston, so it’s reasonable to assume he knows what can happen to an institution that views its reputation as copper-fastened to that of its members, that prizes internal discipline over public accountability when handling allegations of troubling behavior. All too often, the institution remains tarnished long after the individual wrongdoer has been forgotten.

There are people in golf who for a variety of reasons — some noble, some not so — have sought to ring-fence Reed and rationalize his conduct, to protect him, the game and the PGA Tour from a stigma that is awfully hard to erase even in this land of short memories and second chances. Others who are personally ambivalent about Reed may still be uneasy about leaving him to a social media firing squad that loves nothing more than an incriminating video and an unsympathetic target.

It’s a defense that is fated to fail, not least because the accused is apparently incapable of aiding his own questionable cause. His continuing hubris and foolhardy missteps are forcing his protectors inexorably closer to a reckoning that may already be unavoidable: which is asking themselves if defending the integrity of Patrick Reed is really the hill they’re willing to die on.

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