PGA Tour: California's Riviera: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).What a pleasure it was to watch golf at Pebble Beach again last week, even better with the volume down. And an equal pleasure in store this week with the on-fire Jimmy Walker returning to his favourite course on Tour, the George Thomas masterpiece, Riviera CC.
 
2).George Thomas was born in Philadelphia and observed, and worked with, a veritable who's who of early 20th century architects including Crump (Pine Valley), Wilson & Flynn (Merion), Tillinghast, Ross etc..
Thomas made his mark in California, the Los Angeles area in particular, and designed, or at least collaborated on, Los Angeles CC (North) site of the 2017 Walker Cup, Bel Air CC, Ojai CC and, further north, the Stanford University course. Almost as notable as his design work was his seminal work on course design, Golf Architecture in America, described by Cornish and Whitten as "one of the finest in the literature of golf". (Copies available from "McLaren".)
 
3).Jimmy Walker has been around for ages, played his first Tour events in 2001 and enjoyed success on the Nationwide Tour (Player of the Year in 2004) in the following years, earning his Tour card for 2005. He promptly got injured, lost his card after the 2006 season, back to the Nationwide and finally back in the "show" in 2008 when he earned $282K.
Successive earnings of: $662K, $937K, $1.3M, $1.6M and $2.1M last year hardly prepared for his explosion in form but Butch Harmon, his coach since early 2012, was telling anyone who would listen that, if Walker won once, he'd win several times.
 
4).For once St.Butch was right; not only that, but Walker thrives in California where, according to pgatour.com, he's won 45% of his career prize-money. $2M in his Fry's and Pebble wins contributes to that but Walker has finished 4th, 4th and 16th the past three years in L.A. so who knows about this week? The bubble will burst, they (almost) all do, but until then he's the Henrik Stenson of the past four months!
 
5)He's almost a cast-iron certainty for Gleneagles and it becomes clearer by the week that one or two of the staples of the past couple of US Ryder/Presidents Cup Teams (Snedeker and Bradley are well adrift for instance, tho' it's certainly early days) will be sitting at home this year - or in the case of Stricker his hunting camp.
PS: What do you make of Watson going for age and aged for his two Vice Captains so far: North and Floyd?
 
6).Riviera also marks the 1/3 point of the pre-Play-Off PGA Tour, 2/3 of the season for our European favourites to secure their cards for 2014/2015. Golfers with no safety net exemption who are currently out with the washing include:
Lynn, Colsaerts, Westwood, Hanson, Olesen and Gonzo. Most will make it, some won't, so watch this space as the season unfolds.
 
7).There is increasing speculation that the "World" Golf Champs MatchPlay will be moved to San Francisco's Harding Park for 2015.
The quality of the golf course would certainly be a step up from Arizona's "Dove Mountain", but what about the weather? I've lived in San Francisco during February and it can be cool and wet. I can't see this being a long-term solution unless the dates are moved.
Plus of course the players might balk at the California taxes (apparently!).
 
8).There is a strong field for Rivera's "Northern Trust (LA) Open" and a competitive International presence with most of the best South Africans in town, and Colsaerts, Dubuisson, Gonzo, Harrington, Luiten, Molinari, Olesen, Poulter, Rose and Westwood among the more irregular Europeans. Plus Clarke, Davis, Jacobson, Knox, Lynn and Pettersson.
 
9).With only Blixt, Scott and Stenson (none of them in this week's field) having broken "America's" monopoly since Rose's triumph at Merion, one imagines there'll be another American winner this week.
I'm riding the Mahan horse thru' the MatchPlay; but there are several that have form here, led naturally by Jimmy Walker and last week's runner-up, Dustin Johnson. Cameron Tringale and Kevin Chappell are among Californians that will win eventually and a half-crown each way on both will pay off one day!
 
10).The web.com Tour begins its 25th season in Bogota, Columbia. Plenty of Tour "veterans" on hand and a smattering of Europeans but don't think there is anyone from Britain or Ireland.
The Champions Tour is in Naples, Florida. No sign yet of The Mechanic, but Langer and Montgomerie are in the field and so is Roger Chapman.
But Rivera's where the real action is this week and early forecasts are good. Looking forward to seeing a classic golf course under sunny skies!

Interesting news from Augusta that the Eisenhower Tree, to the left of the 17th fairway, has been taken down.
Billy Payne blames an ice storm, but rumours abound that Tiger Woods was seen playing a practice round with 13 clubs and a chainsaw.
 
Following Bubba's thought that 2014 is a year for "rejoicing", the US Ryder Cup top nine are now:
Walker, Dustin, Mickelson, English, Dufner, Zach, Bubba, Simpson and Moore.
 
Walker just about a stone-cold cert to make the team, Dustin probably needs another podium finish.
 
Allred's tournament was incredible, on 59-watch for part of Friday as he was -9 after 14 holes. You'd expect him to fade but he smiled all the way to the finish, almost serene. He'd played 57 prior PGA Tour events without one Top 10 finish to show for it. And he just more than doubled his career earnings!

Forecast for the MatchPlay is apparently good, temps in the 70's and dry.
No snow days.

Could be funny seeing them play golf with orange balls.

Don't think it ever gets cold enough to make your balls go orange. I may be wrong.

MontysMerkin wrote:Don't think it ever gets cold enough to make your balls go orange. I may be wrong.

Simon Dyson could be a candidate... (if playing).

I wonder who the favourite is this week to "Pull a Stenson" and walk off injured after one hole?
Boo Weekley might be the choice as he hasn't teed it up since w/d'ing with a knee injury early in the "Humana" a month ago.
He's playing Rory and that could be a very friendly draw for Rors; sterner test in Round 2 tho', especially if English Harris beats Westwood.

Hardly going out on a limb here ... but I look for Rory to go mighty deep into this tournament. Snow? Hey, why not.

Rory earlier walked out with tooth ache. This time I hope he won't suffer from frost bite.