PGA Tour: No Longer the "Fifth Major"?: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).What a week! We learned the importance of being Ernst, the legacy of Linda Watson's driver, and saw a weekend when the Island 17th green at TPC was truly an island.

2).Ernst first, and a salutary reminder that a golfer making his PGA Tour debut, as Derek Ernst did, with a 6-under-par round of 65 at last year's Fry's.com event, is well worth watching. He came straight through the final old-style Q-School which is yet another example that not all golfers who earn their PGA Tour cards via Q-School are ill-equipped to handle the rigours of the Tour.

3).And Fred Couples of course is another who turned pro on a whim, borrowed enough money to enter a mini-Tour event, cashed a cheque for $1,800.00 and hot-footed it to Q-School where he earned his card. The rest is history and a deserved place in the World Golf Hall Of Fame where he told the story of lifting Tom Watson's wife's driver from Watson's garage and using it during his early Tour career.
A characteristic "aw shucks" speech from Freddie on Monday night as he was inducted into the WGHOF; interesting the stories told about how much Lee Trevino meant to his career and very emotional as he left the stage sobbing uncontrollably.

4).Apart from Derek Ernst, Quail Hollow also saw a return to form for Robert Karlsson and Ross Fisher, both of whom earned "higher spots" in the "rookie" money list as the second reshuffle was announced.
Life on Tour is fickle though and both Fish and Karlsson get this week off and will probably be on the shelf for all but a couple of the next six weeks as we enter the season of invitationals, Players and US Open. The top ten free pass for the next full-field event will get them in to the Byron Nelson which they'd get into anyway. Then, unless they receive an invitation, they'll miss Colonial and the Memorial, play Memphis (scene of Karlsson play-off losses in 2010 and 2011) hopefully and only get a trip to Merion if they qualify. No-one said this would be easy.
And kudos to David Lynn, not just for his terrific performance last week but a great "rookie" season. He says he won't be back in the States until the PGA Championship but hopefully common sense will persuade him to take his place at Merion and play the Bridgestone (assuming he stays in the Top 50).

5).After noting last week that Justin Rose led the field in greens in regulation at New Orleans, Rory McIlroy led the stat at Quail Hollow, only to finish close to the bottom of the all-important "strokes gained putting" stat.
But Rory now leads the "All Around" ranking of PGA Tour players and the leaders are quite reflective of the season so far - in order:
McIlroy, Woods, Rose, Sneds, Horschel, Henley, Stads, Hoffman, Walker, Jason Day, Kirk.

6).Ernie Els continued his globe-trotting with a successful-ish trip to Indonesia, hardly the ideal preparation for a Players tournament where he has seldom contended. But perhaps he nails the status of The Players in the minds of most international players when he blogs the Championship "is about as big as it gets (on the PGA Tour) outside of a major or WGC event".

7).The magic sponge has apparently worked wonders on almost a dozen players who opted out of last week's Wells Fargo event, and Dustin Johnson (hope security is up to snuff for him), Crane, Goosen, Jacobson and Poulter, to name a few, will return to action at Pete Dye's most famous course, if not his best. And Vijay returns after bolting from Charlotte at the last minute to consult his lawyers.

8).I like 17/18th's of the course, but consider the 17th to be among the very worst holes in Championship golf. But, of course, it's the one everyone writes about so I will too, with a few stat's from pgatour.com:
~11% of tee shots on #17 find the drink.
~Robert Allenby has played #17 36 times since last taking a bath. Rollins (30) and Singh (29) also have impressive runs since splashdown.
~Of those playing this week, Bob Estes and Baddeley have hit eight balls in to the water over the past ten years, Mickelson has drowned 7. (Boring Bob Tway has nine but thankfully he's on the Champions Tour now.)
~Paul Azinger is the only player in the history of the Players to birdie #17 in all four rounds (in 1987).
~The Most Interesting Man in the World has the last hole-in-one here, in 2002

9).Americans dominate the list of winners at "TPC" but, since Sandy Lyle broke through 26 years ago, "Internationals" have more than held their own with victories from Elkington (2), Price, Norman, Perks, Scott, Ames, Garcia, Stenson, Clark and KJ Choi. Europeans have contended regularly, with runners up finishes from Faldo, Langer (2), newly minted WGHOF'er Montgomerie, Harrington (2), Donald, Poulter and Martin Laird. Brian Davis has played well here, Westwood should arguably have beaten Clark in 2010, and McDowell led until going completely haywire in 2012, while Jacobson, Kaymer and Pettersson have finished well without really contending. Sergio is leading money-winner here and I'd expect he, Stenson, Donald (3 top 6's these past 8 years), Poulter, McDowell and Westwood all to enjoy good weeks.

10).I really can't find good value among the Americans and would think a half-crown each way investment on long shots would give far better value than the media favourites. My ten bob will go on Chris Stroud and David Toms.
This is a compelling tournament to watch on a course that rewards precision and penalises mistakes more than most. The weather should mostly be fine (chance of Sunday showers, and moderate breezes the only flies in the ointment) after last weekend's deluge which saw much of the course submerged.
Power is a virtue only if you hit the ball straight, but decent ball-striking and a magical short game will be rewarded. Think an in-form Snedeker. But Snedeker is not in great form and perhaps another International streak will begin!

Poor weekend for Harrington; with his five-year exemptions expiring at season's end, he's now at risk of losing his card - next week's detour to Dallas suddenly quite important! He'll have a one-off "career money exemption", but all the positive thinking in the world has done little to compensate for a season going rapidly downhill.

Jimmy Walker proving he's not just a cut-making machine - isn't it about time he hit the wall? Two home games for him next fortnight though.

Sergio would win at football and tennis! Tigers athletic prowess unproven! I think Sergio will win this golf tournament as well!

I know who'd win a putting competition.

incontinentia wrote:if a physical altercation kicked off between them Tiger would win easily

Not so clear cut... after the beating he got from Elin with that 9-iron... on the other side, Sergio's an expert at swirling and throwing clubs... and can climb up the trees in no time if there's a problem...

Meanwhile, a fine start from Worksop man.

Five Europeans in the top ten, five Americans also.

Johnny Miller has already handed the title to Tiger.

US press not overly unfair to Sergio from my observation. He's a whiney dork.

C'mon Tiger!!!

miller is a douche but le Tigre is looking ominous, no doubt he wants to show el Nino whos boss

Impressive from Lingmerth so far... I still want Tiger to win, but other then him Lingmerth

Yea Lingmerth showing a helluva lot more guts than Sergio anyway, Tiger makes that on 5 and it could turn in to a procession.

Come on Sergio . . . . .

Come on Tiger...

Come on Laird.......

Come on Tigmerth...

Tiger crumbling!

Can The Laird be the one to post a score? Only for Sergio to sneak past him at the finish.

Tigers got to wonder how he's only 1 under, could have birdied the first five holes then a very poor bogey. Laird puting together a great charge..

Ah classic Woods

Yep... he's obviously crumbling

Sawgrass is a great examination of one's game. i'd probably get an F minus

Stenson slowly coming back in to the picture . . . .

Sergio can't win if he doesn't make any putts - just to state the bleedin' obvious.

McGinley will not stop banging on about course management

Tons of golf left, but when your par putt isn't even on the green you won't be moving up the leader board.

Tiger isn't making many putts today

Come on Tiger

Westwood's putting is hard to watch..

I guess we need to see mistakes from Tiger if he's to miss this one. The others don't want to make the birdies necessary.

Sr,
You should be working alongside Jacobsen and Rolfing and Miller. Good Lord.

big miss there, hope he drops correctly

pedro wrote:I guess we need to see mistakes from Tiger if he's to miss this one. The others don't want to make the birdies necessary.

There you have it

thats your fault pedro

Nice try... hopefully he can keep this to just a bogey

Wow.. cant believe he missed that. Would have made that in the good old days

ooops...!

Bad miss by Tiger... Now he's crumbling Kiwi

thats some up and down under the circumstances. Woods/Garcia playoff??!

oh sergio...

oh sergio, sergio...

What a bizarre final round

Apparently the last time Woods won 4 times before June was 2000, and he won the next 4 majors.

He won on his 100th start.
He won on his 200th start.
And this was his 300th start.

Maggert and Garcia must be wondering why they ever had to aim for the pin.

Still need to review that drop on 14 though - perhaps Lingmerth will be the winner after all?

I think Garcia felt he had to go for the pin. Didn't like the outlook of a play-off with Tiger.

Unnecessary risk though pedro, freed Tiger up on the 18th tee by putting two in the drink.

Lots of weird dynamics going on - who wanted to beat whom most?

Tiger's biggest win since the 2008 US Open, he's now won 4 times in what 7 events? incredible.

I was quite sure Sergio would go for the pin. Only because Tiger was ahead of him. Obviously he shouldn't, but I knew he would. And only because he is Sergio.

In his defense: he hardly missed a green all week and did well on the par 3's. Probably that influenced his decision as well.

I feel for him though. Would havebeen great to see him in a playoff with Tiger.

Sergio should make a call to Bob Rotella or someone

monty junior wrote:Tiger's biggest win since the 2008 US Open, he's now won 4 times in what 7 events? incredible.

Yes, Tiger is not the journeyman he was a few years ago...

Good win Tiger!!! Garcia bottling.....The golfing world is normal again!

Kwin - it wasn't Sergio's putting that let him down this Sunday. It was his pea sized brain obviously thinking he had to birdie 17. Four wins on the big tour would be an excellent career for most. Well done Tiger!!

Stupid by both Garcia and Maggert no doubt.

But another bogus ruling for Tiger and if Miller questions it, which to be fair the NBC production team wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, you know it was pretty dodgy.

Stupid by Garcia and Maggert.

Rules violation by Woods and the Tour. Amazing that they had to issue a statement which basically said, "if that's what they agreed on that's OK with us". I'm sure that even the anti-Europe scribes wil have their say with that one! Looking forward to pgatour confidential!!

Interesting that they described Woods's play as prepping for Merion. Wouldn't doubt at all that that was on his mind, in which case it might have won him The Players.
But will it win him Merion?

What was actually "wrong" with his drop? He dropped about 200 from the tee and considering the hard right to left flight, that looked about right to me..