PGA Tour: The Cadillac Ranch and Puerto Rico: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Last week's Ballwasher Notes: "Rory? Tiger? Top Twenty? Maybe."

Yes, well, Rory would be knackered from the MatchPlay, just playing "Honda" as a fill-in to fit in his 15 events.
And Tiger only entered because PGA National was only a two bob return bus ride from his mansion in Jupiter.
Europeans resident in Europe have a tough time on Bermuda.
Woods is less favoured by par-70 courses than par-72's.

They showed in no uncertain fashion why they're there, and I'm here.
Can't imagine I've ever been happier to have been proved wrong.

2).Fabulous week by Rory - he and Tiger attracted bumper crowds and a TV audience 78% up on last year. What looked as if it could have become a walk in the park for Rory became more complicated Roar by Roar. He had told the media why he was a more consistent player, why he was better able to withstand pressure: he'd learned how to eliminate the horror shot and was more consistent on the greens. That was exactly the recipe on Sunday and he certainly put it to the test. And passed with flying colours.

3).And what about Tiger? With his career best final round of 62?? I'd often cited Tiger's 200+ yards iron from a bunker over water to a shallow Glen Abbey green in 2000 as the best shot I'd ever seen him hit under pressure. Interesting that he compared his 72nd hole iron at PGA National to that. Bitter pill perhaps that it didn't reward him with the "w" that he snatched from Grant Waite in Canada. Difficult to believe he won't be back for more though at Doral this week, a course one would imagine would suit him better than PGA National.

4).Lots of other items worth noting:
~Lee Westwood's final round 63. (Totally eclipsed twenty minutes later.)
~The performances of the stars in the field, the owgr cream of McIlroy, Westwood, Schwartzel, McDowell, Bradley, Woods and Rose rising to the top.
~Anthony Kim leading the field in birdies yet finishing 42nd.
~A number of fading stars making the weekend: Overton (18th), Appleby (21st), Els (21st), Stenson (21st), Love (21st), etc, etc. Would be good to see each of them return to their best.
~Coming out party for Harris English. Disappointing Sunday for him, but he'll be back.

5).Tiger had a poor week with the press, unwittingly giving Hank Haney publicity by behaving churlishly towards Miceli when asked innocuous questions at his press conference, and then being somewhat less than effusive about Rory's success, both in anticipation and in the aftermath.
In reflecting on this in the light of the expectations being heaped on McIlroy, that frosty barrier between Woods and his public could quite easily be the firewall that protects him and sustains his playing excellence. How will Rory deal with such the expectations, the voyeurism into his private life?
Maybe Tiger had the answer all along.
But it was refreshing to see him signing autographs while he waited for his bus on Sunday evening.

6).And so down the Florida Turnpike, to Miami and Dick Wilson's Doral Blue Monster design, though Mr.Wilson would likely not recognize his work now. It's gone through tweaks and redesigns every few years since the 80's, and now it's under new ownership as Donald Trump has snapped up the resort for a cool $150M. To quote GolfWorld: A "total, complete renovation" will commence in a year's time, following the 2013 "Cadillac", when highly regarded architect Gil Hanse is due to get his hands on it. The course will be lengthened to 7,600 yds, "remaking all the greens and building six or seven new holes," though the famous 18th is expected to be left unchanged.

7).If that doesn't Trump this week's entertainment, the "opposite field" Puerto Rico Open will be played at Trump International Golf Club. Poor field but $630K to the winner and we'll keep track of the European interest.

8).Sorry to see the news from Augusta National this afternoon that Ishikawa, not playing well enough to qualify so far, will receive his second invitation to April's Masters. "Ishikawa will help increase interest in Japan and throughout Asia," said Billy Payne.
Yes, quite, and such corporate expediency offers fodder for those critics who complain annually that The Masters does not deserve to be labelled a Major.
Don't necessarily agree with that, but there are many golfers from other countries who are far more deserving than Ryo, let alone those who have given far more to the game.

9).Good to see Paul Casey back for this week's WGC "Cadillac Championship" and, at the time of writing, all 74 qualifiers are expected to play, sniffles, pneumonia and new baby permitting. No comment on the chances of McIlroy or Woods.

10).Personal note to end with as the designer of my favourite golf course died last month. Geoffrey Cornish was born in Winnipeg 97 years ago and learnt architecture from Canada's great Stanley Thompson. Cornish not only designed dozens of courses, primarily in Eastern Canada and the North-Eastern States of the US, but co-wrote with Ron Whitten "The Golf Course", one of the seminal works on gca.
As Whitten's remembrance puts it, Cornish "was a great golf course architect because he was more interested in spreading the game than in making a name for himself". Not good for the Doak Scale perhaps, but millions of golfers within 500 miles of this keyboard have reason to be grateful to Geoffrey Cornish.

One report on Garcia's No.3 -
"He hit his tee shot into the water on the 438-yard hole, with a pond down the entire right side. He dropped into the rough, and from about 240 yards, tried three times to clear the water, failing with each shot.
He finally went over the green with his ninth shot, chipped onto the green to 35 feet and two-putted for a 12.
Not his day!

GT350 wrote:One report on Garcia's No.3 -
"He hit his tee shot into the water on the 438-yard hole, with a pond down the entire right side. He dropped into the rough, and from about 240 yards, tried three times to clear the water, failing with each shot.
He finally went over the green with his ninth shot, chipped onto the green to 35 feet and two-putted for a 12.
Not his day!

Thanks GPB. Oops almost Tin Cup for Sergio.

Wow at Sergio. Amazing to think hes only 3 over today with a 12 on his card!

GT350 wrote:One report on Garcia's No.3 -
"He hit his tee shot into the water on the 438-yard hole, with a pond down the entire right side. He dropped into the rough, and from about 240 yards, tried three times to clear the water, failing with each shot.
He finally went over the green with his ninth shot, chipped onto the green to 35 feet and two-putted for a 12.
Not his day!

Just animated Sergio's Tin Cup moment.

Unfortunately it was not really close to Tin Cup. He was not close to "terra firma" on shots #3, #5, #7, missing the green wide right, by what looked to be 50 to 60 yds.

A personal anecdote, I was playing my stroke play club championship, and playing some of the best golf of my life. I had shot 69 in a practice round, and 4 under on the last 10 holes.

I was cruising on day 1. -4 through 13 holes. Hit 14 in regulation and then 3-putted. Still feeling pretty good when I got to the tee on #15. Long par 5 downhill with OB right and left. Drive down the right side, take a horrendous bounce and ends up OB, about 6".

2nd drive right long and down the middle. Laying 3.

Got about 280 down hill to the green. Snaphook a 3-wood, OB once again. Was not even close.

Shocked, but have enough peace of mind to take 5 iron to hit next shot.

Hit a nice shot to middle of fairway, 110 yds away from green. Laying 7

Balls finds a big divot. Skull shot #8 over the green (kind of like Bubba did on #16 yesterday). OB once again.

Drop, hit a wedge to 12 ft, and 3 putt. for a nice big fat 12.

Now I am shell shocked, it takes me about 5 minutes to figure out my score. My playing partners go over the hole about 5 times to confirm.

I go from -4 to +4 in two holes and really only missed one shot. Fortunately I play 16,17,18 in -1 and limp to a 75.

Shot 76 the next day (with a 9 on 15) and end 5th in the Club championship, 6 shots behind the winner. I was 5 over for the Club Championship and 11 over on one hole.

At least based on this picture it looks that his initial tee-shot didn't miss the dry land by much...

Spoiler:

waht a game of rugby- time for golf- come on rose

rock taking out the course today- gonna help his rankings out and his pocket

England best France and Garcia takes a 12....a good day.

Sergio only 2 over for the day with a 12 on the card. Crazy.

Yeah, it looked like on shots 3,5 and 7 he was going for the tee boxes on the right as opposed to the green. Good recovery for the rest of the round barring that one bogey.

Horrible shirt he is wearing today, just seen on TGC a whole bunch of players wearing that crap.

Jinxed him for 18, he must have brought his water wings with him today.

Anyone see Rock's thin on 8? Nearly skipped it over the water and up the bank!

lol calssic moment with casey and his caddy!!

on the 15th casey promises caddie the prize car if he gets a hole in one- casey gets hole in one, caddie goes wild, steward informs them there is no prize for hole in one, caddie's gutted , casey laughs at him

Paul Casey- buy your caddie a car!!

The look on the caddie's face was great when he got told. Especially after all the celebrations.

it was a picture lol

Wrong start (double bogey) for Dougherty today, now 2 shots behind lead. Stenson just one behind the leader in Puerto Rico.

I decided not to say anything about Franny's round until he finished. 7-under for today, great to see him playing well again...

If Rose wins would it be the best strokeplay win by an Englishman since Faldo's last major ?
Think I'm right in saying it would be the first win against a field with all the worlds best in attendance.

That was a brilliant touch out of the bunker for Rose just now. If he can just maintain that feel...

Diggers, I guess the best way to measure it is the most amount of OWGR points gained for an Englishman in one event.

Can prince confirm, or not, if an englishman has ever won 78 points for a win?

Does rose already hold the record after his play off win last season?

bubbas losing it big time!!

sadly your right diggs!

was just double checking the top english to see if they had won a players or a wgc(stroke) and noticed lee westy has had 21 top 10's in wgc's and majors- i am also sure he has had a few in the players an all!!

How rare would this be?

Two players from the same High School could win on the same weekend on the PGATour.

Boo Weekley and Bubba Watson went to the same high school in Florida!

GPB wrote:How rare would this be?

Two players from the same High School could win on the same weekend on the PGATour.

Boo Weekley and Bubba Watson went to the same high school in Florida!

That just may be the 2012 doomsday scenario the Mayan Calendar was referring to.

Did anyone just see Braddley cheat?

His ball was nestled down and he was clearly patting down the grass around the ball when he rested his club at address. You cannot alter the lie of the ball like that as far as I know so does someone fancy phoning in?

lol- it did seem abit what he was doing

Holy shit, tigers out. That cant be good for his season or career!!!

Diggers wrote:If Rose wins would it be the best strokeplay win by an Englishman since Faldo's last major ?

True... The biggest owgr wins by Englishmen since Faldo's 1996 Master remain Luke and Poults' Match Play wins ('only' 76 pts). Still a lot of work left for Rose though...
Just another stat... Since 1996 Tiger Woods has won 31 of these 'major' events (WGC's, Players, Majors). And it gets worse... from a total of 39 WGCs (excl. HSBC) staged so far, he won 16 (41%)...

so wait a minute- woods has w/d- i have bradley as reserve in kwinis thing lol!!

PD yeah woods was unreal- how can it ever be matched!!

If nothing else, Keegan Bradley's out here to play some good golf, plain and simple as that.

Thanks prince.


Tiger strait into his car and off to who knows where, strangely into the dirver seat. Hope it means this is not too serious if he can drive.

I guess in the us it will be an automatic so no need for left leg.

What are we watching on the NBC golf telecast... the O.J. Simpson car chase?!

er lol- why the heck are we watching tiger drive!!

and why is he driving any way

its all bs isnt it- he just had enough- basically he NR'd

Maybe he has just thrown in the towel mysti, I hope so anyway otherwise the masters would be a doubt for him.

Rory!!

aha, suddenly Rory's right back in the mix

Has golf ever seen such excitement? This is like back in the day (2000). It is actually fun to watch golf.

its been one hell of a tourny!!

McLaren wrote:Has golf ever seen such excitement? This is like back in the day (2000). It is actually fun to watch golf.

spot on I'm usually a very casual golf watcher (majors, Ryder Cup and the odd tournament), but over the last month or so I've been watching avidly.

'Out with the old and in with the new' just gets stronger. Tiger and Coco both start out the day -9, one is currently -6 through 12 holes, the other: +3 through 11 holes and withdraws, unable to physically complete the final 7 holes.

nightmare for Bradley at 10, 4 putts and counting, Rose into the lead, Rory one shot off. That's two bogeys for Bradley on successive par 5s.

ach, McIlroy drops a shot at 14, now two shots back. With four holes to go, he needs something a little bit special here now.

George McNeill wins Puerto Rico. Congratz Birdie Birdie Birdie to win by 2 over Ishikawa.

Apparently Ryo has earned enough for "Special Temporary PGAT Membership" according to a tweet from @PGATMedia. Ryo says he is undecided.

I heard a report that Peter Hanson is also looking for "Special Temporary PGAT Membership". 4th place might be enough!

McIlroy with a beautiful birdie at 16, couldn't have played that hole any better, he's one off the lead again.

Rose with a great chance at 14, two very fine shots. With Bubba dropping another shot, he could get a two-shot lead here, which would put him very firmly in the driving seat.

Rose duly makes his birdie, and that could be the moment the tournament is decided.

McIlroy very close with a birdie putt on 16, but it just sneaks past and that could be his race run.

Not sure about that Chelsea, still some tricky conditions out there to cause any one of the top guys a problem.

Apparently an Achilles issue for tiger.

struggling to see Rose being caught from here Mac TBH, he's hitting the ball beautifully.

McLaren wrote:Apparently an Achilles issue for tiger.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Great news. What a crock, getting a golf injury is like getting a darts or carpet bowls injury. What a big poof.