PGA Tour: The Greenbrier and Rough (Jim) Justice: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).Truly the Dog Days of the PGA Tour's Summer: No tournaments of great US import between the US Open and the PGA Championship in August (sorry Bridgestone). Fields are often mediocre and, regardless of the excellence of individual events (The Travelers, John Deere for instance are great community tournaments), the top players play sparingly and the International players play internationally (OK, in Europe).
Add to that the dismal fact that some areas of the North-East have experienced the equivalent of London's or Edinburgh's annual average rainfall in the past seven weeks and it's a minor miracle not more time is lost to suspensions of play.

2).Last week Bill Haas played superbly over the weekend, one senseless triple-bogey excepted, to win his fifth Tour event, the fourth consecutive year he's won, matching Phil, Dustin and Rosey Justin. Well done, Bill, and congratulations on the Presidents Cup Team place he has apparently earned.
(And Stewart Cink scored his first Top Five finish since Turnberry four years ago.)
The PGA Tour's contract for the AT&T National at Congressional expires in 2014 and the destiny of the event must be in some doubt. Nothing wrong with Congressional, a fine course, but the mid-summer's date is not conducive to securing the top field a great venue would seem to deserve. Watch this space.

3).Which brings us to "The Greenbrier Classic", a visit to one of America's finest traditional "resorts" in those Blue Ridge Mountains that John Denver warbled about, Almost Heaven and all that. (PS: He was right.)
The "Old White Course" is a century old classic, a CB McDonald / Seth Raynor design from the Golden Age of course architecture, brought up to date a couple of years ago, and will play to a unique 34-36 par of 70.

4).But what strange bedfellows resort owner Jim Justice (no relation to the Bermondsey-born crooner of days gone by) and the PGA Tour make.
By all accounts Jim Justice increased his wealth by half a billion dollars last year, plenty to pay appearance fees last year to Tiger and Phil (both of whom handsomely rewarded such largesse by sleepwalking through Thursday and Friday to a missed cut). And Phil is here again, together with Bubba, presumably more than satisfied with p1ssing off his French Open hosts a couple of years ago and probably also raking in a sizeable fee.
Wonder if they will get paid?

The article linked herein gives a glimpse of the sort of gazillionaire Jim Justice really is:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/16/jim-justice-coal_n_3450541.html

5).The great John Prine wrote about Appalachian coal country in his classic "Paradise", one verse being up Mr.Justice's street:
"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

Can't help but feel Mr.Justice (even his accounts payable department couldn't make that name up) is on the same type of ego trip as the Turning Stone founder Ray Halbritter a few years ago.
That all ended in tears and doubtless this will too. But not before CBS preen at their sycophantic worst this weekend.

6).The Greenbrier Classic nevertheless serves a useful purpose as the Tour's rank and file have just half a dozen events remaining at which to secure their 2014 Tour card. There is a handsome purse of $6.3M and some biggish names are still struggling to grab a spot in The Barclays, synonymous with a job next year. After Greenbrier, these guys will only have John Deere, Sandersons Farms/Open Championship, Canadian Open, Reno/Bridgestone, Greensboro.

7).Among those vulnerable chasing the presumed safety line of 350 points (which now looks slightly low):
345 pts so far: Gary Woodland
341: Charlie Wi
339: Colsaerts
326: Baddeley
290: Cauley
287: Peter Hanson
285: Ricky Barnes
246: Appleby (winner here in 2010 with that final round 59)
215: Greg Owen
212: Karlsson
200: Immelman
200: Ross Fisher
199: Andres Romero
183: O'Hair
179: Ishikawa

8).A field of very mixed quality in Almost Heavenly West Virginia, with Phil and Bubba, Webb Simpson and Bill Haas, Peter Hanson and Louis Oosthuizen; Russell Knox started the week as first alternate, but has now seen "sponsors exemptions" leap-frogging him in to the field. I'd say this week is wide open; perhaps Brian Davis can follow last week's top tenner by getting even closer to Briny Baird as the leading non-winning career money earner? My half crowns each way though will be on boring Bob Estes and the old ski-instructor Charlie Wi.

9).Kenny Perry beat a strong field in last week's Constellation Senior Players Championship (at another fine Seth Raynor design, Fox Chapel), including Colin Montgomerie who earned his first Senior Top Ten finish and $64K. That will help fund his hectic travel schedule of these few weeks: June 24th GB to Pittsburgh, then to Scotland for Local Final Qualifying for Muirfield, back for the US Senior Open in Nebraska, then presumably broadcasting at Muirfield, before carting his clubs to Birkdale and then back to Minnesota for a Champions Tour tee-time.

10).Last, and possibly least, Ryder Cup Captain Tom Watson has chosen his old mucker Andy North to be his first Vice-Captain for Gleneagles. I thoroughly enjoy Andy North's broadcasting and common-sense commentary on the game. But, good lord, that's two guys in their sixties. You'd think they'd want some relative youth to balance Old Tom's "maturity", but nooooo! Perhaps Bob Murphy will be his next Vice-Captain?

PS: Happy Fourth to all (any?) American readers.

May your flags be American (not likely) and your beers Sam Adams Summer Ale.
Cheers,

Interesting Kwini, thanks. Monty won't be on duty at Muirfield as that's the one tournament good old Aunty keeps Rupert's hands off.

Smithers,
I've a horrible feeling he'll turn up on the US TV coverage, who seem to lap up hearing how good he used to be, after years of snarking when Feherty and Miller would take the p1ss out of him..

According to a Telegraph Sport story today on Monty's interesting scheduling choices, he'll be attending Murifield "in a corporate capacity". Presumably a euphemism for getting smashed in various sponsors' tents.

I don't have the book to hand to check this out, but I remember a chapter in bills bryson's walk in the woods where he visits a town in which the side of a mountain has been cleared of its tree's by a coal mining company. I am pretty sure it was in the blue ridge mountains, and when he tried to get a closer look at it he ended up in a bit of a verbal tussle with some security guards, one in which he came out better of course. Anyway, I wonder if the operation was part of this Jim Justice's empire.

kwinigolfer wrote:PS: Happy Fourth to all (any?) American readers.

May your flags be American (not likely) and your beers Sam Adams Summer Ale.
Cheers,

Leaving for the states today Kwini. 4th of July in San Diego!!      

You might want to keep your views on religion to yourself for a while. Otherwise the majority of pints you consume will be alone and out of public. Sad but true.

Dont want to drink with crazy Bible bashers anyway mac

super_,
Have a great time; always use McLaren's name when making speculative reservations that you might not keep.

Rain in the area as the first groups get underway, but conditions should be pretty good for scoring. There'll be the risk of thundershowers thru the weekend, but hopefully not the monsoons we've suffered further north.

This is Brendon deJonge country - went to College close by and still lives in Charlotte (relatively close). If he's ever to make a breakthrough on Tour you'd imagine it might be a place like this.

Snowman for Daly on his second hole.
Is it he that never learns?
Or the sponsors who never learn??

In fairness his money list finish last year gives him some degree of exemption, and this isn't the strongest of fields... robo may be able to fill us in on whether he's on an invite or playing by rights this week?

You'd think this is a very important tournament for Peter Hanson.
Clearly nowhere near his best over the past six months he's struggling to match the pace necessary to earn his 2014 "card".

But he's overcome two early bogeys to reach two under par - a top five finish this week would take care of his status for next year and relax in the big tournaments to come.

Brian Davis also playing well, but some of the forty-somethings who were given sponsors' invites in preference to Russell Knox are really struggling.

Ned,
Yes, Daly in this field on merit ahead of Knox (and Slocum who's even more unlucky not to be playing having been bumped out of the field), so in this case my "sponsor" comment was misplaced. Not every week though.

Quite like the top of the LB now... two guys in Wagner and 2Gloves that are fun to watch, plus a 3rd (Webb) which I don't really like, but picked him in the FT...

Surely, Wagner on his way to a 59..???!!!

I could also have added that Wagnier is also a relative home boy, same VA Tech / Charlotte pedigree as Fatty deJonge (different paths of course).

66 and 67 respectively for Hanson and Davis . . . . .

Kenny Perry and Davis Love the leading golfers of the afternoon wave - combined age about 102.
Tom Watson and Vijay Deep Antler need to get a move on.

Wagner looks so much less of a Johnson without that stupid 'tache.

Super - hope you have a good time in the states!

I see Matthew Richardson (2005 Walker Cup - beat both Nicholas Thompson and JB Holes 5&4 in singles - made the 2010 US Open cut, and fleeting cameos on the PGA and Nationwide Tours) is playing the Canadian Tour - David Skinns and Fergal Rafferty too.

John Daly (along with Jason Gore) got a sponsor exemption as "member not otherwise exempt".    

To fill the field, this event got about 1/2 way through Category 29 (member 126-150 from prior year money list).  Daly is playing out of Cat 29 and W/O the SE would have been 5 spots below the cutoff within category 29.  By straight priority... Slocum, Knox, Villegas and O'Hern would have gotten in ahead of Daly

But of the members who got sponsors exemptions... Daly was the highest priority.   Gore, DiMarco and Janzen were all coming out of Cat's 31 or below (past champions and reorder of 32-36).   SE's Pat Carter, Michael Kim and Mark Silvers are non members.  Silvers got in for winning Big Break Greenbriar.

robo,
I see that's what I get from reading the Players Exempt List in the same left-to-right that they now use for alternates.
Woody Austin in at the last minute also - sure Slocum feels great about all that, but it's always difficult to know from here who does all the behind-the-scenes stuff w/sponsors that rightly get rewarded.

Message to all on the brink - if in doubt, play better.

Scoring looks even better today than Thursday; Phil sounded extremely frustrated last night, but unforced errors were really what did him in.

Very open tournament as it looks right now, and quite possibly a -2 cut.

Missed cut again for Mickelson and, sadly, also for Karlsson who will probably lead the event in pars made.
Both can look at total horlickses made of par fives, Robbie with a 7 on #12, Phil that ghastly eight on #17.

Perhaps the cut will stay at -1 after all.

John Daly withdraws; now, there's a surprise! Pathetic really.

Another missed cut from Ishikawa - reckon he should take a breather . . . . .

kwinigolfer wrote:robo,
I see that's what I get from reading the Players Exempt List in the same left-to-right that they now use for alternates.
Woody Austin in at the last minute also - sure Slocum feels great about all that, but it's always difficult to know from here who does all the behind-the-scenes stuff w/sponsors that rightly get rewarded.

Thing about Daly that nobody seems to understand is he's always been one to do above and beyond what any sponsor would ask of him Mon-Wed.  But then comes Thursday and all bets are off... but he draws.... don't ask me why... but he does.

As far as the Greenbriar... Daly probably has a lifetime exemption if he wants it.  He and Justice are buds and was GB's first big name to accept a sponsor exemption back in 2010.   Daly even has a running challenge to J.J. to donate $100 to charity for every pound Justice loses in his well chronicled battle of the bulge.    And Daly's WD today... no matter.  If I had to bet, J.D.'s probably up in J.J.'s box right now hobnobbing with whomever Justice wants him to....

Says everything you want to know about "whomever Justice wants him to" hobnob with, I suppose.

More shades of Halbritter who was said to be pretty ambivalent that Daly spent all night at the Turning Stone tables before w/d'ing early on his Turning Stone course.
And we know how that all ended.

Well... say what you want... but people like J.D.... and not just the "crackers" either... I don't get it, but there's something about him that draws people to him.

JD is exactly why sponsor's exemptions work and are not likely to go away. Guaranteed draw and fulfills the early week entertainment requirements. He's got an "Everyman" sort of appeal.

robo,
He's a pretty tragic figure, with bags of (and I hesitate to use the phrase!) god-given talent.
He plays quickly, plays with the swagger that people like and most neutrals want to see him succeed.
But most neutrals also bang their head against the wall when we see him behaving like this and being patronised by millionaires who should know better than feed his disease.
Hope he makes it to the Champo Tour but wouldn't bet on it.

A new wrinkle to the Daily Daly is that now he's suggesting he's going in for elbow (no-one laugh) surgery which means spots at Muirfield and Oak Hill might just have opened up.

Looks like a big cut, Saturday MDF's likely.

kwinigolfer wrote:robo,
He's a pretty tragic figure, with bags of (and I hesitate to use the phrase!) god-given talent.
He plays quickly, plays with the swagger that people like and most neutrals want to see him succeed.
But most neutrals also bang their head against the wall when we see him behaving like this and being patronised by millionaires who should know better than feed his disease.

True all dat... but then again... humans play golf too. My guess is golf probably has fewer stories of, if not wasted, certainly underutilized talent than most other sports. And if nothing else... a story like Daly remains interesting... interesting enough that even people who don't care for him... care enough to pay attention to what he's doing and comment on it... And its not just here... it's every golf discussion board I run across... :-)

It might have been expected that John Daly might have been plying his trade at the John Deere next week, but presumably he'll be doing his drinking in a hospital ward instead. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

But there's a pretty decent field signed up and highlights include:
Keegan Bradley
Zach Johnson
Stricker
Watney
CHIII
Hanson
KJ Choi
Kyle Stanley
Ryan Moore
King Louis
Pettersson
Points
Streelman
Weekley
plus Christian, Davis, Karlsson, Knox, Norlander, Owen, Parnevik,
and an attractive back-up card.
Not sure whether this means some of those qualified for Muirfield are staying home or perhaps the charter will be fuller than usual. But kudos to the John Deere tournament for attracting such a good field.

Daly has Elbow Problems?

Has been taking improper drops?

ZINNNNNNNNNNGGGGG!

Reports of Nick Watney carrying an injury, but he's playing on at The Greenbrier.
But next week?
Or the week after??

A lousy year so far from Watney, perhaps on and off the course if Butch Harmon's "personal problems" tweet is anything to go by.

Hmmm, or is there a swoosh curse at work there...

McIlroy, Watney, Stanley and Noh, all going visibly down the hill this year...

If that's the case, should we read anything in to the reports that Tiger has just signed a contract extension with the Swooshes?

Much better now for Watney though, six under during an 8-hole stretch.

Johnson, Jimmy, Jonas, Jones or Jordan?

Let's hope it's Jonas. He seems a pretty cool guy, and he's certainly the only European interest in tomorrow's entertainment.

But you could make a case for all of them:
Johnson Wagnier: The local boy.
Jimmy Walker: So consistent. Also looking to wrap up a place at Muirfield.
Jonas: Such a delightful entourage.
Matt Jones: Sweet swinging Aussie.
Jordan Spieth: The poor man's Matteo.

Then there's Roary Sabbatini not far behind and hopefully he'll at least finish high enough (top five?) to secure a place in the Barclays.

"...Jonas: Such a delightful entourage..."

Yes, I am hoping to catch a glimpse of the Blixt Sisters.

An hour before "Go time" at The Greenbrier and then there's the strong possibility of the obligatory thunderstorms to roll in about noon-time. Massive amounts of rain to the West but it may well stay there - fingers crossed.

And fingers crossed too for Jonas Blixt who's endured a pretty crummy season so far (exploits in Sweden excepted).

Another decent cheque in store for Brian Davis but Greg Owen really needs a good finish today as he's hundreds of FedEx points adrift of qualifying for the Play-Offs/2013/2014 card as things stand.

Gary Christian MDF'd.

Meanwhile, in Oh Canada, Matt Richardson lies 21st, with Alan McLean a couple of shots further back. Not sure about Richardson, seems to have the talent but seems to be missing the necessary ingredients to kick on from promising results. Another chance today.

Pretty much beyond the point at which the leaders can be expected to complete their rounds, even if a restart is announced immediately.

Scoring more difficult so far today and no-one making a run at Johnson and/or Jimmy.

Good start for Greg Owen however, two under par for his first 13 holes and a decent stride towards job security if he can just somehow squeeze another bird or two as he finishes up.

Reports that play is to resume at 5.00 p.m.
But without Peter Hanson who has withdrawn - can't imagine he'll be at the John Deere either.
Doubt for Muirfield?
And doubt for keeping his PGA Tour card unless he can rediscover fitness and form.

Confirmation that Sterne, Rumford, Ilonen, Bjorn and Warren are added to The Open field.

And "They're Off", again. If no further interruption, expect about 15 holes to be completed.
Straight to commercials. Only CBS (well, NBC would doubtless have done the same thing).

Johnson Wagner must be one of the streakiest golfers out there

sirbenson wrote:Johnson Wagner must be one of the streakiest golfers out there

Current streak is 7 MC/WD's leading up to this week. Almost GMac'esque.

Looks like they'll finish, they're racing around!

Blixt's to lose.

Wowzer,
Didn't expect they'd get that done, just goes to show they can skate when it suits them. Just over 3 1/2 hours for the final twosome.

Hearty congrats to Jonas Blixt, into the Bridgestone and next year's Masters but, alas, not the ticket to Muirfield which he'd apparently expected.

Sometime Jim Nantz and Faldo need to do some homework on guys not called Tiger and Fred, clearly had no idea about Jonas Blixt, who he is or what he'd done. Regardless, a "spohomore slump" retrieved by a second and now a first. Seems a really nice bloke, hope he keeps on winning.

A nice tournament in the end on a lovely course.

Confirmation that the exemptions via the FedEx route to Muirfield will be:
Horschel
Henley
Weekley
Walker
English

kwinigolfer wrote:Wowzer,
Hearty congrats to Jonas Blixt, into the Bridgestone and next year's Masters but, alas, not the ticket to Muirfield which he'd apparently expected.

As far as I can tell the only regular pga tour event that guarantees the winner access to the Open is the John Deer.

The criteria seem to reflect form over a longer period (like the OWGR) so there is no reason to assume he should have qualified given his fedex, owgr and earlier season form were not that great.

If he wanted a one shot go at open qualification the qualifying events were there to be entered. Or if he did enter he clearly missed his chance.

Blixt will be the highest alternate I assume and will get in as there are a number of available spots. PD will know who are in, ask him