PGA Tour: The Run Up to US Open Begins: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).With the The Players Championship out of the way, the focus of the PGA Tour switches from the Masters/Players part of the schedule to the traditional four tournaments which precede the US Open:
HP Byron Nelson Championship this week (Dallas)
Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial (Fort Worth)
The Memorial Tournament (Columbus)
FedEx St.Jude Classic (Memphis)

2).Most of the top Europeans will have headed home, to Spain or towards Wentworth, some of them returning to play Memorial, the rest waiting until Memphis or going straight to North Carolina and the US Open at Pinehurst.
But the happiest man golfing in Dallas this week will be Martin Kaymer who has chosen to stay on after his majestic 68-hole performance (and four holes of glitches and guts after the obligatory weather delay) last week - judging by tweeted responses from his Tour colleagues, Kaymer's win was a most popular victory. Will he be knackered after a fine performance at Quail Hollow and finer effort at the TPC, or will he improve on last year's 5th place finish at the "Nelson"?

3).There were tournament records set last week, for the lowest cumulative scores respectively on the front nine and back nine:
-13 on the front: Not surprisingly by Kaymer.
-17 on the back, more surprisingly, by McIlroy.

4).And Jim Furyk recorded his 27th runner-up finish on Tour. According to pgatour.com, Furyk is T4 on the list of second-place finishes among active Tour Pros:
30: LoveIII
29: Woods
29: Mickelson
27: Singh
'Course, some of these have more wins than Furyk's 16. It also goes to show that not all runner-up finishes are created equal as he pretty much came thru' on the rails, both at Quail Hollow (the previous week behind JB Holmes) and at The Players. And he was superb in defeat to Dufner at Oak Hill last August.
Unlike his miserable 72nd hole capitulation at Bridgestone a couple of years ago when his hapless, careless double-bogey presented victory to Keegan Bradley.
It may be easy to poke fun at Furyk but he's the sort of stand-up guy that is the heart and soul of the PGA Tour. He'll be back for more at two of his favourite stops, Colonial and Memorial. Wouldn't bet against him at either.

5).And Furyk was the only member of the Medinah US Ryder Cup Team in the Top dozen (Stricker was 13th!).
In contrast, all Europeans qualified made the cut, and SIX finished in the Top Ten.
Furyk is now 5th in Tom Watson's qualifying list and is just a few decent finishes away from a ticket to Gleneagles. With Woods still on injured reserve, and Phil trying to find a cylinder to fire on, perhaps Watson will welcome Furyk's experience, albeit much of it of the losing variety.

6).Talking of Ryder Cup, how's about a shout for those Europeans on the PGA Tour who have either graduated to the PGA Tour direct from University or the US mini-tours, or transferred their allegiances before ascending to Ryder Cup status?
Some of these guys, as Brian Davis reminded us last week, have made themselves a handsome living; career earnings to date:
$20.4M: Pettersson
$15.1M: Jacobson
$12.4M: Davis (now 2nd most money won by a non-winner, behind only Briny Baird)
$11.2M: Laird
$  7.9M: Cejka
$  7.9M: Chopra
$  6.2M: Johnson
$  5.8M: Owen
$  5.5M: Blixt
A mighty fine living I would have thought, but how many of these would have fared better in Europe?

7).The field for this week's Byron Nelson is stronger than we've seen since Lord Byron died, partly perhaps because of one or two "Internationals" teeing it up (e.g. Hanson, Ishikawa, Kaymer, Schwartzel), but perhaps also partly stimulated by high-ranking Americans ambitious to play at Gleneagles but struggling so far this year: Dufner, for instance, Snedeker, Bradley, English etc?

8).It's just about time Dufner woke up for the season, and I'd expect him to play well this week and next. Texas residents Ryan Palmer and JJ Henry are others who punch above their weight in the Dallas Metroplex, Martin Flores is another local guy and I've a hunch that Morgan Hoffmann might be ready to break through.
And we know Brian Davis can go on a streak of spring form; now that he got the taste last week, perhaps he can carry some momentum for a few weeks.

9).The Champions Tour is back in action this week, at the "Regions Tradition" at Shoal Creek in Alabama for the first of two weeks' worth of so-called Majors. Montgomerie's been playing much better this year and one would think the four-round format would suit him. Langer is there, of course, plus Messrs Chapman, Forsbrand, Lyle and Woosie.

10).One hometown boy at the "Byron Nelson" is Jordan Spieth.
How well he played last week. Nothing not to like about Spieth, apart from the relentless hype surrounding him. There's plenty of nit-picking in the US Golf Media about him not closing out a tournament, perhaps not being long enough, yada yada yada. They're probably just p1ssed off he was beaten by a European.
HE'S A GREAT PLAYER! GET OVER IT!!
Clearly his putter went cold on Sunday but he did pretty much everything right until the end and he'll go on to win more than his fair share of big events. Great prospect and, so far anyway, doing it his way.
Long may that last.

I still think he will play Hoylake.

His OWGR avg will be around 6.40 going into Hoylake. That should put him about 7th, 8th or 9th in the OWGR at that time.

About 6.05 going into week of B-Stone. That could put him out of the top 10.

Someone on twitter - can't remember who - said that Tiger's presser was less revealing than a nun's habit - make me chuckle anyway

Hope he plays Gleneagles. Better chance of euro victory..

I think he will make the Open, a bit bizarre how he hasn't totally ruled himself out of the US Open yet tbh....maybe he still harbours a small hope of playing in it?

Well, He has won it on one leg before, so I think he's still hoping.

27 events into 2014 season and #125 on the FE list has 266 points. So right at 10 points/event gets you exempt gets a player exempt into the next season.

13 events left before Barclays (including Reno/Tahoe) so a player is going to need 400 (at the very least) to make the top 125 and into the playoffs.

A lot of work left for some notable players.

pedro wrote:Well, He has won it on one leg before, so I think he's still hoping.

No, he had 2 legs. Has anyone ever won a tourney with no back?

GPB,
Yup, exactly 2/3 of the way thru the season - 400 points seems to be the target, perhaps partly depending on the extent to which some marginal golfers keep on fighting (i.e. adding tournaments) for their card.
On the other hand, some top players could play more in the quest for top-level FedEx points, or Ryder Cup points, and cause the number to be lower. 400 looks good right now tho'.

Interesting story about Paul Casey in the John Hawkins column this week at Golf Channel.

Tells about the time Casey shot the low round in a tournament sponsored by Omega and got a watch. And it was presented by Cindy Crawford. And then he had the watch appraised and the jeweler asked where in the heck he got it because the model was not for sale yet.

I took the world ranking from the 1st week in 2014 and had a look at how many wins the top 50 from that week have had this year. I looked at pga tour events, WGC's and majors.

So far the top 50 from the 1st week in 2014 have only managed 8 wins in total.

Zach Johnson (ranked 7 at the time) and has 1 2014 win
Kuchar (8) 1
Day (11) 1
Gerry Watson (28) 2
Kaymer (41) 1
Jimmy Walker (47) 2


So the start if the years top 10 have managed the grand total of 2 wins

And that extends to 3 wins if you stretch it to the top 20.

So only six players from the start of year top 50 have won so far this season.


Is this particularly low?

McLaren wrote:
So only six players from the start of year top 50 have won so far this season.


Is this particularly low?

Last year through the Nelson, only 7 different players from the top 50 (as of 12/31/2012) had won.


DJohnson (Hyundai ToC)
Woods (4x) (Farmers, Cadillac, Bay Hill, Players)
Mickelson (Phoenix)
Snedeker (Pebble Beach)
Kuchar (Match Play)
Scott (Masters
GMac (Hilton Head)

Only Rose, Haas, Dufner, and ZJohnson were added to this list through the Tour Championship.

Woods, Kuchar, Mickelson, Sneds, and Scott added 1 tournament apiece to their win total.

incontinentia wrote:

pedro wrote:Well, He has won it on one leg before, so I think he's still hoping.

No, he had 2 legs. Has anyone ever won a tourney with no back?

Plenty of golfers without spine though....

pedro wrote:Well, He has won it on one leg before, so I think he's still hoping.

One leg     

I think he meant "hopping"   

GPB,
Thanks for the tip about Casey and his watch. Can't stand John Hawkins so usually avoid him, but his stories about Casey & Weir are good'uns.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/john-hawkins/hawks-nest-vets-resurface-contend-byron-nelson/

(I'm still not sure why he thinks the Madeira situation is different from Ax's man in San Diego, or Bert Yancey's demise?)

Davie wrote:I think he meant "hopping"   

Brilliant!!