PGA Tour: Stroke Play Resumed at the "Honda": Notes from the Ballwasher

1).Congratulations to Jason Day for his Match Play win, a squeaker in the end against the unsung Victor Dubuisson who had TV commentators busily researching wikipedia and pronunciation notes - the 2014 version of Louis Ooshtuizen in that respect.
No surprise here that Day broke through in a Match Play tournament, especially after his excellent Presidents Cup performance last autumn, an altogether brand new Day compared to his floundering debut in Melbourne.

2).But what does it mean? Will he kick on from here and become a force in the biggest events, or just a pretender to Major crowns? We'll get a glimpse of the new Day dawning at Augusta, but I'm still not convinced he's at, say, the Adam Scott level, not yet anyway.

3).And congrats to Victor Dubuisson as well. Whether his miracle shots on the 19th and 20th holes were sublime or flukey, there was no doubt he richly deserved to be in the Final and has probably sealed his Ryder Cup debut.
The European qualifying table looks a little stronger now:
Dubuisson, Bjorn, Poulter, Stenson, Garcia, McIlroy, Donaldson, Rose and Luiten. I'd say McDowell will also be there but Donald, Kaymer and Westwood, to name but three, once again departed meekly from Dove Mountain and McGinley may have to discard one or more of these stalwarts unless their form does an abrupt u-turn soon.

4).There were no significant changes to the US Ryder Cup Team qualifying positions and Watson must be hoping to see some form in Florida from the likes of Bradley, Kuchar, Mahan, Snedeker and Woods among others. Only Bradley and Woods will add to their points this week and you'd expect Bradley at least to play well on a course where he's had good results in the past.
As for Woods, who knows? "A tiger's waiting to be tamed": By the Bear Trap at PGA National??!!

5).This is the time of year when Americans typically start to lose their dominance on Tour.
The season-opening Tournament of Champions has been won by Americans only four times in the past ten years, but the other six of the old traditional "West Coast Swing" has been monopolized by Tiger, Phil and the rest, with the six tournaments having been won by American golfers 54 (out of a possible 60) times. (58 out of a possible 70 altogether.)

***Of those seven events including the TOC, Europeans have won precisely once in the past ten years - by whom??***
Whilst "Team USA" has won all ten San Diego and Pebble Beach events.

6).The balance of power changes significantly starting with the Match Play, with Americans only winning 37 of a possible 70 for the seven tournaments Match Play thru Houston, and British golfers have won at least once at each in the past five years, with Harrington, Donald and McIlroy all having tasted victory at the "Honda".

7).Just to continue the theme, I believe I'm correct in saying that Europeans have won all the tournaments that have been in place for ten years or more except Hawaii, Pebble Beach (tho' McDowell of course won the US Open there), John Deere and Reno/Tahoe, all but LA (Faldo, 1997) and New Orleans (Westwood, 1998) in the past fifteen years.

8).PGA National is one tough grind, even for the World's best, and many of the best will be in action this week with only Day and Rose missing from the owgr Top 9 at "The Honda Classic". (Kudos to Honda, the longest running title sponsor of a PGA Tour event.)
Many Europeans will be enjoying a busman's holiday with unexpected guests including Bjorn, Casey, Donaldson, Gallacher, Gonzo, Hanson, Kaymer, Manassero and Olesen, plus European Tour stars Koepka and Uihlein(!!).
PGA National is traditionally one of the toughest Par-70's on Tour and, if the wind blows, it'll be a real Bear (pun intended, given Nicklaus's re-do a few years ago). The TV cameras will focus on holes #15 (par-3), #16 (par-4) and #17 (par-3) with all approach shots played over water. Certainly not the sort of golf I like to play and, on my only visit, I didn't enjoy the torture one little bit.

9).Being a PGA Champion is not necessarily easy on the old ticker as news comes that Shaun Micheel (remember him?) has undergone a procedure to clear a blockage - right "coronary artery blocked 99%". Micheel has had a host of medical issues and good health to him. All of which follows Hal Sutton's "mild" heart attack whilst playing on the Champo Tour.

10).When Tony Hateley (one of the better headers of a football in the past 50-odd years) died recently, the old Tommy Docherty quip resurfaced about Hateley being such an awful passer of the ball that:
"He's so bad with the ball at his feet that his passes should be addressed 'To whom it may concern'".

With just three San Diego rounds under his belt, no doubt Tiger feels that way about his driver as he would rank 175th of 175 on Tour in driving accuracy; if he plays like that at PGA National he won't make the cut, but who would bet against him coming out in mid-season form?
After some abysmal CBS TV broadcasts, NBC TV takes over for the next few weeks, Johnny Miller and the rest, and doubtless we'll get a close-up view to see if Tiger's got his act together in time for this week to serve as a useful warm-up for upcoming dates at Doral and Bay Hill.
Let's hope last week's action was reminder enough that other guys play great golf too.

Cheers kwini.
ref your q: Chopra?

Chopra it is.
!!

Among those who failed to qualify (sounds like about 150 golfers for FOUR places, it's tough out there!) were Marcel Siem, Greg Owen, Chopra, Richard S.Johnson and Karlsson. And Bud Cauley - wasn't he the Jordan Spieth of a few years ago who turned in to Jamie Lovemark?

Here is a list of non-major pga tour wins for Europeans (not complete, so please mention if I can add some more);

Garcia 8
Parnevik 5
Donald 5
McIlroy 4
Olazabal 4
Lyle 4
Rose 4
seve 4
Stensen 4
Laird 3
Faldo 3
DC 2
Harrington 2
Westwood 2
Blixt 2
Chopra 2
G-mac 1
woosie 1
Hjertstedt 1

have a HSBC champions, not sure if that fits the bill
Poulter 2 (both WGC's)
Kaymer 1
F. Molinari 1
Howell 1

Just wondering how this ties in with points 5,6 and 7 in Kwini's article?

It just seems like there are no europeans who have ever won regularly on the PGAT.  Non of them would come close to averaging a win per season.  Or in most cases, not even close to a win every couple of seasons.

So despite feeling like european golf has occasionally provided the worlds best players (kaymer, westwood, donald all at #1), Europeans have never mastered the art of winning regularly on the PGAT.  Is this a fair assessment?


Edit: suggestions added. But Pettersson is not european by any measure.

One for Woosie, one for Casey, one for Richard S., one for Bernhard and one for Freddie Jac.
Two for DC, two for Chopra and two for Gabriel.
Four for Henrik and five for Carl Pettersson.
Plus an HSBC for Franny and one for David Howell.

Sure there are more but that's a good point.
But: For the most part the top Europeans play mainly the top events, and seldom play much at either end of the calendar. And most of them spend many of their more formative years playing in Europe.

Unfortunately, I also think many of those who migrate to the PGA Tour later in their career think they're on easy street, become complacent and forget how to win while nevertheless making a fortune.

One guy who I think could have been an exception is the Darren Clarke of a decade ago before fate twisted the knife - we'll never know about that, but he certainly contended often during infrequent appearances and his two WGC's were magnificent wins.

There are 8 Swedes who have won on PGATour, you listed only one, Parnevik

Pettersson 5 
Stenson 4 including a WGC and Players
Blixt 2
Chopra 2
Hjertstedt 1
Jacobson 1
Johnson 1


8 Swedish Golfers as winners, which matches the total of PGATour winners from England since 1970.  (I think)


Jacklin, Faldo, Oosterhuis, Rose, Westwood, Poulter, Donald, Casey.

Thanks for adding to the list guys.

Does anyone know where you can get a list of players wins per season?


It is striking how few regular pga tour wins the top europeans have had.

From those listed we are at about 60 over a 30 year period.

Is anyone else having trouble with the software adding formatting tags to their post?

My previous post tried to put text size formats with random numbers.

Think Gabriel actually enjoyed two wins, the first Swede to win on Tour - but both were in very secondary events, as was Richard S's win. Now a highly respected coach, including to some Tour players.

Mac,
I don't think you can draw too many conclusions about any nation's wins on Tour, at least until the past ten years.
But I DID see that there have been SEVEN! South Africans to finish Masters Champ or runner up in the past dozen or so years!

Kwini,
I say it all the time, but it's very prudent to back Saffa's in the early season swing.

s_r,
And I never disagree!
Even with the Saffers though, they are becoming overdue at producing the next generation after LO, CS and Sterne.
Grace, perhaps, and Aiken clearly has talent, but I don't see the real youngsters coming through. Fritelli and Stone still have big question marks and after that, who knows?

Interesting tweet from Brandel Chamblee, about PGA National being a little cavalier with the bogeys:
Only Augusta National, Merion, Muirfield and Oak Hill played harder than PGA National last year.
 
 
Haven't seen anyone remotely connected with the PGA or PGA Tour criticising Elkington yet - as his Twitter handle is @elkpga you'd think someone, sooner rather than later, will have a word.
Fortunately haven't seen any endorsements either. Not yet anyway.

EDIT!!!!
Ah ha! The Tour must have been reading as this just appeared on pgatour.com:

http://www.pgatour.com/news/2014/02/25/pga-tour-elkington-comment.html

I would say that doesn't begin to go far enough - doesn't even say that this qualifies as "conduct unbecoming a professional" or that these tweets are "clearly inappropriate or offensive".
Not good enough; the Tour needs to take a clear position on this and make some of Elk's fellow bigots think twice before tweeting such intolerant comment.

His comment didn't even make sense, do gay people wear handbags? maybe he was having a pop at the transvestite community

Much ado about nothing. It's a possibly stupid thing to say but it's clearly a throwaway line .. I don't think it's particularly homophobic .. and nowhere near as bad as his previous transgressions

If fairness to Elk on this one, i think his explanation takes the heat out of this. the "handbag throw" comment makes nio sense to me, but if he was trying to say that the coverage of this was ott, then that's fair comment.

The thing is guys, he's got previous and lots of it, as Sobel correctly documents.
He comes across as an ignorant, mean-spirited man, and that's being generous.
And, as he's using "pga" as part of his handle, then the PGA and/or PGA Tour should distance themselves from his comments which they haven't properly done.

The fact that coverage is so way ott doesn't excuse his comments, his explanation being a belated afterthought.

He's certainly living in a glass house as a repulsively fat and grotesquely ugly man.

Has the coverage been ott though. It hasn't here but may have in USA. Elkington does seem like an idiot. Though even my woolly liberal views don't think it's that homophobic a comment. It is homophobic though...the guys gay...all gays are like women..women have handbags..all gays also should have handbags...I would assume the college footballer is a lot bigger then elk, wonder how he would feel being beaten up by a gay with a handbag!

Hadn't realised that Tim Clark was back from his latest injury problem - good to see him back, hopefully fully recovered.

And King Louis Oosthuizen, of the same parish, is out, resting that back of his. Brian Gay also out for unknown reasons and Scott Piercy too - he's in Emergency Ward 10 for surgery after tearing a tendon in an arm. Out for 3-4 months.

And: Woods inferring he might change his normal schedule leading up to The Masters - his schedule would normally look like this:
Honda
Doral
Off week (Tampa)
Bay Hill
Off (San Antonio)
Off (Houston)
Masters

Imagine Tournament Directors in Houston and San Antonio are drooling and on full alert.

Rob Bolton explains Special Temporary Membership here:

http://www.pgatour.com/fantasy-insider/2014/02/26/the-honda-classic.html

Don't want to drag kwini's thread into the mire, but Elks comment was clearly homophobic given the attitude and sentiment behind it. Not sure how anyone can argue otherwise.


Kwini

Is tiger not just as likely to drop an event than add one, given his aversion to playing?

Although at this stage all he could drop would be bay hill, so I guess he can only add one.

Tim Clarke was eating beef with luke Donald according to a twitter pic. Always surprising what pros hang out together if they dont have god to bond over.

See Note 9). above:

And after all this, Shaun Micheel is planning to play in next week's web.com event. IN CHILE!!!!!!!!
"My doctors are not really wild about me going this far." No sh1t.

Apparently he's more worried about his golfing career than his health. What a Wally. Let's hope he gets a second opinion on that.

Is 99% blocked coronary artery worse than toothache?

Honda will have 7 of the top 10 (tiger, adam, phil, rory, garcia, stensen, zach), Is it likely another event (not Major or WGC) will attract 70% of the worlds top 10?

GBP

So there are two STM systems?

At anytime in the 13/14 season gain more imaginary fedex points than the guy who finished 150th last year. This allows you unlimited starts this year (13/14), but not the play offs, and you still have to finish within the 125 mark (based on ghost points) to get a card for 14/15 season.

Plus a way to get a card next season

Accumulate more imaginary fedex points than the player finishing 125th at the end of the 13/14 season (this season). Gives you a card for 14/15


Or have I misinterpreted it?

MAC 

Since 100% of the top 20 players in the OWGR are members of the PGAT, I imagine at least two of the playoff events will get 70%+ of the top 10. 

All four of them did last season, IIRC.

=======

And I don't see what is confusing about STM.

A player can get STM when he earns more than 150th place from the prior year.

If he earns more points than the guy in 125th place of the current year, he gets a Tour Card, no Q-school required.

He can accept unlimited Sponsors invites, but it doesn't get them into any tournaments unless they get in via Sponsors Invites, Top 10 of a prior tournament or Monday 4-spot qualifying.


They will be eligible to enter Web-Com Finals if they don't earn enough phantom points to earn a Tour Card.

Great write up as ever Kwini.. I searched in vain for hidden song titles though. I think Rory could do well this week - just a feeling.. or maybe more than a feeling..as long as he can stay calm and cool the engines.

As for Elk.. tw@t. Although, why do we keep adding "phobic" to terms. As far as I'm concerned phobia is an irrational and uncontrollable aversion, not somebody taking a dislike to something or some group.

Very true Bob, how come you can be Islamophobic but AntiSemitic?

Why not Jewphobic?

Cheers Bob, Just a heavily disguised Coldplay line . . . . . .

They'll be off at 6.45 a.m., this morning, also this morning GMT - just.

I don't like hunting - am I Elkphobic?

D'oh! I didn't clock that one.

!!
Thought I could slip that one in without being accused of being Tiger-phobic.

kwinigolfer wrote:Cheers Bob, Just a heavily disguised Coldplay line . . . . . ....

Ah. That doesn't count then!

!!
Is it just my low-powered PC or is the new pgatour.com too clever for its own good - lots of info there, especially useful if refresh and navigational tools were to work promptly.
Looks like they forgot to beta-test it. Very clumsy.

Sergio to win this.

Anyone's guess but I've chosen Keegan Bradley for my one-and-done.
Still not sure why, especially given his dismal recent results.
Chris Stroud for outsider.

Rickie Fowler for the win.

incontinentia wrote:Rickie Fowler for the win.

nah, he's a hacker.

He has all the shots super and you know it.

Journeyman

"Marquee" group (Mickelson, McDowell) again for Fowler - not sure what he's done to deserve it.

PGA National showing its teeth, nothing better than -2 after 2 1/2 hrs.

Fowler - like Sergio - sure has all the shots. Not really good finishers, are they? But Rickie outplayed ol' Sergio last week, although Sergio's predictible mental lapse showed itself in a very different form with a conceded 18 foot putt.  

I'm pretty sure I know what Fowler's done to deserve that spot ... he sells tickets!

If I had to pick a winner this week, I'll reallllly go out on a limb: McIlroy (providing his dental work is up to snuff)

Shotrock wrote:Fowler - like Sergio - sure has all the shots. Not really good finishers, are they? But Rickie outplayed ol' Sergio last week, although Sergio's predictible mental lapse showed itself in a very different form with a conceded 18 foot putt.  

I'm pretty sure I know what Fowler's done to deserve that spot ... he sells tickets!

Cant for the life of me understand the criticism Sergio has got from some sections of the media and individuals since he made that concession.

PUMA paid the PGA Tour more like!
 
Fowler's still in his cot, but nice to see the Fishers playing well in South Africa.
 
And: David Lynn sighting at the Honda.

Sand,
Me neither but Sr holds Sergio in contempt so consider the source in this case.

Sand - Magnanimous gesture, that's for sure. But totally unnecessary. Still, his PR team must be pleased!

Nor can I, he believed he took too long to take a drop so conceded the putt. Good form if you ask me.

C'mon Kwin ... I think you're being hard on me!

After all, I don't discount you as a source even though you "discounted" any American win on US soil in a WGC event.

  

Right, Sergio doesn't need my advocacy, that's for sure.
But would say that Rickie Fowler is great to follow on the course, he definitely GETS IT! (Wouldn't agree he "has all the shots though".)

Early eagle for Harrington!
And a snowman for Brian Davis on a course where's enjoyed some success.

Fine recovery from Zach Johnson:
Quadruple bogey 8 on his second hole - 10 holes later he's minus one.

9C not exactly lighting it up.

Good show from Luke so far.

Is Tommy Gainey good for golf?