PGA Tour: All the Presidents (Cup) Men: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Only exhibitions on this week's schedule so let's look back at an event that has also been charitably described as an exhibition - with the odds heavily weighted towards the organizer.
Ah yes, the Presidents Cup!
The USA comfortably beat the International Team at Muirfield Village in 2013, but the members of each Team have "enjoyed" contrasting fortunes since then.

2).Team USA only have 3 x 2014 PGA Tour wins between them, one (Zach Johnson) in a limited field Tournament of Champions, another (Kuchar) by holing a 72nd hole bunker shot and Hunter Mahan's back-from-oblivion Barclays win. What have you done for me lately Messrs Bradley, Dufner, Haas, Mickelson, Simpson (altho' he did have a nice 2013 win in Las Vegas), Snedeker, Spieth (but what a final round master class he produced last Sunday in Sydney), Stricker, Woods?
Wonder how the Gleneagles US Ryder Cuppers will fare? Good starts by Bubba and Spieth, that's for sure.

3).The Internationals haven't done much better but Day and Scott had good wins on two Tours, Kings Charl & Louis did the business in South Africa, while Matsuyama proved that a second trip to Muirfield Village, for the Memorial, was the charm. For him at least. Whilst the biggest surprise might have been Angel Cabrera's win at The Greenbrier. Steady regression though from the De's Jonge & Laet, Els, Grace and Sterne, while Leishman flattered only to deceive.
Sterne, incidentally, is tied bottom of the PGA Tour's web.com Tour graduate reshuffle and will struggle to get in to many Tour fields, plus has lost his Top 50 status. The early favourite among tourists to lose his PGA Tour card.

4).The leaders for each Team for 2015, in South Korea, are:
*USA:
Watson, Walker, Kirk, Furyk, Moore, Kuchar, ZJohnson, Spieth, Horschel, Simpson + 2 x Capatain's Choices. (Still not quite sure how these points are accumulated . . . . )

*International:
Scott, Day, Matsuyama, Schwartzel, Jaidee, Leishman, Senden, DeLaet, Oda, Oosthuizen + 2.

5).web.com Q-School Finals kick off next week and European Tour members are voting with their passports, American David Lipsky being the most notable exception. Rikard Karlberg will be there, mini-Tour veteran Seamus Power from Ireland and Stefan Jaeger too, but no other Europeans that I can spot. Lots of Aussies but the days of European Tour golfers coming over for Q-School seem to be over for now. Not surprisingly.


PS: Let's hope we never lose a Tour Golfer in the freakish circumstances that Cricket lost Phillip Hughes. But, if we do, I wonder if a colleague will provide quite the quality of eulogy delivered today by Michael Clarke? What a moving tribute. Wish we had a Cricket Bat emoticon.

Probably been hunting crocodiles . . . . . . . Good for him, busman's holiday.

Rubbish from Westwood today, six over par even with an eagle. Hate it when players so obviously go thru the motions, but that's exactly the flaw in rewarding these exhibitions with owgr points. He doesn't care - why should he be rewarded? ('Course, perhaps he won't but I've a feeling he'll make a point or two.)

Thoughts on Exhibitions....

I guess these days I have a lot harder time determining what is an exhibition and what isn't... and I find the criticisms and hand wringing about the World Challenge getting OWGR points... well... funny.

I don't recall anybody having an issue when the NedBank with it's 12 players started getting OWGR points back in 2006.

Or even further back I don't recall anybody having a problem when the 16 player Volvo (then HSBC) Match play started getting points back in 2004.

No... near as I can recall, virtually nobody had a problem with the OWGR giving points to these "ultra-small" events until 2008 when it was announced the World Challenge would start getting them, but it didn't really come to a head until 2009 with Tiger and his fire hydrant... and the talk of how much his missing the World Challenge might affect the events OWGR value... The "righteous indignation" over these events getting points (mostly aimed at the World Challenge) has been growing ever since.

And to test the above paragraph... I went back to Kwini's Oct 14 thread covering the week of Las Vegas and the Volvo Match Play.... over 200 posts in that thread, but not a PEEP from anyone about the cheap OWGR points the 16 players in that event were earning.  Granted... that one is official but somebody's gonna have to do some mighty fine dancing to convince me the field in the Volvo (official or not) deserves OWGR points and the WC doesn't.

And I'd make EXACTLY the same case for the Nedbank last year and this.  Excuse me, but despite it's "officialness" the addition of 18 journeymen to it's field doesn't make it any better or any more "worthy" than the WC.

Now the Shark Shootout, Wendy's 3 Tour Challenge and PGA of A Grand Slam of Golf are exhibitions...  but IMO the Volvo Match Play, Nedbank and  WC ceased to be exhibitions the day they started offering REAL OWGR points, that could be the difference in players earning their way into REAL Majors and REAL WGC's.  

Bottom line:  I absolutely, positively understand the debate on should they or shouldn't ultra-small field events get OWGR points.  I myself think that at BEST they get way too many points, and at the very LEAST there should be OWGR % modifiers reducing points in increments as they drop below 60 players.... all events, including the Tournament of Champions & Tour Championships...

But still..... since there was an apparent universal LACK of concern among the posters on this board about small field events getting OWGR points 1-1/2 months ago... but every year with this event they "curiously appear"... excuse me if I "read into that" some disingenuousness as to the REAL not so thinly veiled nature of the objections now.

kwinigolfer wrote:Rubbish from Westwood today, six over par even with an eagle. Hate it when players so obviously go thru the motions, but that's exactly the flaw in rewarding these exhibitions with owgr points. He doesn't care - why should he be rewarded? ('Course, perhaps he won't but I've a feeling he'll make a point or two.)

Just like a playing T-Ball when you are 6 yrs old.  Everyone gets a participation trophy (in terms of OWGR points) for playing the Nedbank.  T24 should net him about 2.0 points.

robo,
There will always be differences of opinion on such events, but think this column anyway has been fairly consistent on the subject. It doesn't go back as far as 2006, but limited field events always invite criticism except, in my case anyway, the TOC's & Tour Championships for which there is established criteria, no invites, no who-knows-who, no ambassadors, no nothing!
I know the Volvo MatchPlay has attracted plenty of criticism in the past.

Rewarding workers for failure in other walks of life would be seen as ridiculous, and no reason why Pro Golf should be an exception.

kwinigolfer wrote:robo,
There will always be differences of opinion on such events, but think this column anyway has been fairly consistent on the subject. It doesn't go back as far as 2006, but limited field events always invite criticism except, in my case anyway, the TOC's & Tour Championships for which there is established criteria, no invites, no who-knows-who, no ambassadors, no nothing!
I know the Volvo MatchPlay has attracted plenty of criticism in the past.

Rewarding workers for failure in other walks of life would be seen as ridiculous, and no reason why Pro Golf should be an exception.

Actually on these "ultra" short field events, we're probably not as far apart as you think. I view them in entirely different manner than I do WGC's. Quite frankly, other than the entertainment value, I could care less if they even exist. Give 'em half points, only 1/2 the field points, no points, add a cut... I could care less. My suggestion of "% stepped" point reductions as fields go below 60 have been an attempt at finding "middle ground" and perhaps some consensus... but as so often is the case, there seems to be little room for middle ground in golf debates.

And with apologies of not "noticing" the strong negative feelings about the Volvo small field in the past... all I can say is when there was a perfect opportunity for ANYBODY to express same 6 weeks ago... I find it "funny" nobody seemed compelled to do so, despite the Volvo dropping from 24 to 16 players. And excuse me if when Mikko Ilonen won the Volvo, in the 250+ comments between your thread and GPB's OWGR thread it was congrats all around to Mikko including discussions of how much he moved up in the OWGR... with ZERO... absolutely ZERO comment on the nature of a 16 man field awarding him such lofty OWGR riches (even though there was mention of the "adjusted" R2D allocation for the event). And there was ZERO conversation about how one of the last place finishers like Franny might benefit by his "free points" (which he might). But this week with the same circumstances... you'd think somebody shat on Harry Vardon's grave.

And by the way... I don't give the ToC's or Tour Championship's the "pass" you do. NO reason they couldn't be expanded to at least 60 players. The Dubai final is 60 players... why not the PGAT's? And for the TOC same deal... maybe it's time they expand their field to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers... kinda like the LPGA's Founders Cup does... because quite frankly... I think that field would benefit FAR greater with the likes of Rickie Fowler (with his 4 top-5 major finishes) this coming January than it does by some winner of the "Shaving Foam Alternate Event Open".

And another area we agree... there SHOULD be established criteria to these events with no free passes... but it appears to me they do... pretty darn good criteria too if you ask me, at least for some of them. WC = 4 major champions... top-11 available off the OWGR in order... 2 sponsors but MUST be inside top-50... then fill the field off the OWGR in order. This year the two invites went to the next two in line on the OWGR that were available at the time of the selections (Stricker was #25 then). And there's established criteria for the Nedbank too, just pretty "wimpy" criteria in some regards. And I think the criteria is spelled out for the Match Play as well... pretty good criteria too... it's just that most the top players who ARE invited... aren't interested and decline participation.

And last thing... like I said... I don't care if you want to cut off money or points to bottom feeders in these "ultra-smalls", but I don't buy that players who finish poorly are being rewarded for failure.... IMO it's a minimum reward for qualifying to get into them in the first place. Go look at how Tennis works at the ATP top level... every player in the field gets both money and points. Then we look at every other professional team sport on the planet... all the participants get paid near as I can tell. But sure.... I can easily agree that in these golf events, in a lot of cases the bottom feeders get way too many points or money...

And last... I was very pleased to see Lawrie's new match play come in at 64 players. I know the OWGR had signaled they were going to "keep an eye" on these short field events... and I just wonder if maybe this event was originally proposed at less players... and perhaps the OWGR suggested they bump the field.... I dunno... just wondering out loud.

Nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree!

Unfortunately Henrik Stenson became the technicolored poster child for rewarding failure when he played that one hole w/Ben Crane a few years ago - even denied a fellow Pro the chance to be rewarded for "failure"!

The entry criteria for the WC was changed to qualify for owgr eligibility - the NEDBank looks especially wimpy because the field is almost twice the size.

Anyway, for as long as we have "rankings" there will always be differences of opinion - so let's talk about Florida State vis-a-vis Alabama! One #1 and beaten, one #4, with the second strongest strength of schedule (anecdotedly from ESPN) and unbeaten, albeit with criminals liberally sprinkled thru'out their team!

kwinigolfer wrote:

Anyway, for as long as we have "rankings" there will always be differences of opinion - so let's talk about Florida State vis-a-vis Alabama!

OK... is it match play or stroke play....

Both!

I would like to see PGAT Tour Championship expand to 40 players (or 60).  I have said so several times before.  But no one outside the Top 30 should be able to win the FE Cup.

The ToC should expand to two years and invite winners of the Big Asian Events.  That would get it to a potentially 50-60 player field.


I think what also should be considered that the TC and the ToC were around before OWGR had an impact on invites.  They were not designed to exploit the SoF OWGR rating system.  It was just happenstance that they did.  Technically the roots of Nedbank predate the importance of the OWGR.


The WC, WGCs, Volvo and RtD formats were designed post OWGR.  And the formats exploit the OWGR rating system.


Robo:  As far as your "Middle Ground", but what needs to happen is the a total re build of the SoF rating system that accounts for all the players in the field, just not the top 200.  

And tournaments that are just exhibitions and unofficial just need to be not counted.  No points and....no divisor.  John Daly gets no points for his Turkey win this week.  The 100k guaranteed payday should be more than enough to induce players to win.  (If they are that good, they don't need to eat a the Soup Kitchen).

I have said many times that the WGCs are over-rated.  To clarify,  the Full field events are UNDER-RATED because as many as 70-100 players are not contributing to the SoF.  The SoF formulas are flawed when one-armed GPB adds as much value to as 3 time Major Champion Paddy Harrington and 3 time Major Champ Vijay Singh.  Added together!!

But the next level of saying that full field events are under-rated means that WGC's are over-rated.

The Tennis models got so broken with the World events that it is hard to keep track.  And Typically only 32 players are in a one week long tournament.

monty junior wrote:His swing looks much better, no more of that horrible short steep crap Foley was "teaching him".

Oh Christ; another one it seems. This is the "short steep crap" that won how many events in 2013?

The fact that WGCs, Majors, Tour flagships etc. are awarded certain (minimum) OWGR points is a political decision. You could also argue that The Masters is overrated. Etc.

But I agree that ALL players in the field should contribute to the SoF just as events with less than x players should be capped.

And robo, nobody here bothers to start an ET thread (like kwini starts a weekly PGAT thread). If that was the case maybe you would find more people objecting to Volvo free points, early Christmas at Sun City, etc.

But with that being said, the WC is the premier OWGR sanctioned exhibition event of the year. Hence it's fair enough it gets the most stick.

Kcuf a duck, Spieth putting on quite the exhibition! . . . . . . .

Well said, pedro. Though it doesn't mean that all the "political decisions" are wrong . . . .

Exhibition or No exhibition this is top class from Spieth!

Pressure getting to Paddy?  +3 after 7 holes and now 2 shots behind.

One shot behind and lightning strikes.

Thunderbolts and lightning, Very very frightening for Galileo - and Padraig.

Resurrection weekend?

First Daly in Turkey... then Paddy in Asia... even 42 Y/O K Miyamoto in Japan... now Luke maybe?

Good for St.Padraig; perhaps that win affords him an exemption on the Asia Tour?

Luke can't win making 6's on Par-5's; who does he think he is, Westwood?, Harrington??

Lowry looks like he's doing just enough to be on Billy Payne's Christmas Card list.

kwinigolfer wrote:Kcuf a duck, Spieth putting on quite the exhibition! . . . . . . .

Well said, pedro. Though it doesn't mean that all the "political decisions" are wrong . . . .

Certainly an exhibition from Spieth! Whatever he's doing now, he needs to bottle it for future use.

kwinigolfer wrote:Lowry looks like he's doing just enough to be on Billy Payne's Christmas Card list.

Yep, Shane has can start making reservations for Augusta.  Good for him!  Willett gets to #56 and he is playing Alfred Dunhill Championship which means he could crash the top 50.  Oosty and Charl are there too and it should be rated OWGR 19.

============

Pretty good field in Thailand next week including Bubba, Sergio, Martin, Doobie(?), Westy, Oda, Fleetwood, Weisberger, Iwata, Lahiri.

Thais Aphibarnrat, Jaidee, Marksaeng and Wiratchant are there too.

Darren Clarke and TianLang Guan among the invites.

=========

The Asian Tour season finale is played the following the week, which includes Lahiri so if he can close the year out, he can crash the top 50.  (which is really tight

Good win at the SAF exhibition for Danny Willett.

Like Jordan Spieth, a golfer with bags of promise but, unlike Spieth, way overdue to turn it in to week in, week out, consistency.

Disappointment for Luke Donald but at least the 63 showed some promise that we haven't seen for six months.

EuroTour player Emiliano Grillo  has a 6 shot lead in the Latino America Tour event in his home countries Argentine Open.  

Shocking that Angel Cabrera missed the cut by 5 shots!

Mark McCumber's son Tyler is in 2nd place.

I like Grillo, think he's going to be a top player - had him as my one-and-done at Puerto Rico last year. Bet he wins on the European Tour next/this season.

Got to give Grillo some credit for playing the Argentine Open.  I didn't see Andres Romero in the field.

Cabrera and Eduardo Romero and Ricardo Gonzeles along with Fabian Gomez.

As I said a couple weeks ago, I think players have an obligation to support their home countries National Open.


I remember a Spieth interview from earlier in the year and he talked about competing with Grillo as a Junior.  Odd that they both have bid leads going into round 4.

I see Gunner Wiebe, Rick Cochran iii, Angel Cabrera Jr in the the field too, along with Tyler McCumber

One or two rounds does not a tournament make, as Lukey found out again. Interesting course though.

Looks like Speith will have to throw up all over himself to lose today. (Tiger, however, beat him to that.)

Confidence is a wonderful thing.

You say Speith, I say Spieth. What does Mac say?? Potatoe?

Better to say he's opening up a can "whup ass" on the rest of this invitational field.

Keegs going with the legit putter and not suffering at the moment. Wonder if Scott, Simpson, Clark or others will start transitioning this year?

GPB wrote:Got to give Grillo some credit for playing the Argentine Open.  I didn't see Andres Romero in the field.

Cabrera and Eduardo Romero and Ricardo Gonzeles along with Fabian Gomez.

As I said a couple weeks ago, I think players have an obligation to support their home countries National Open.


I remember a Spieth interview from earlier in the year and he talked about competing with Grillo as a Junior.  Odd that they both have bid leads going into round 4.

I see Gunner Wiebe, Rick Cochran iii, Angel Cabrera Jr in the the field too, along with Tyler McCumber

Read that as Cucumber first time.

Exhibition event? For sure Spieth is putting up some exhibition!

Woods 26 shots back....

Perhaps no one closer than 10 to young Jordan at day's end. Legit competitor to Rory? Loooong way to go for that.

I remember hearing a radio interview with speiths parents during the RC. seems like he comes from a decent family, they talked about his disabled I think, sister. He comes across well also. I don't like when players are hyped to early and he has a touch of that. Could be the next best thing but long way to go.

Didn't watch that, but looks like a comprehensive runaway. Extraordinary really.

Wonder what is schedule next year will be - 'course, he won't be qualified for the Tournament of Champions.

Kratzert said Spieth was taking 6 weeks off, which means he should be back for the week of Humana (or Qatar).

In 2014, he played Maui, Sony, Farmers to open the year.  Entirely possible that he starts at Hope, Phoenix, Torrey, Pebble.

pedro wrote:You say Speith, I say Spieth. What does Mac say?? :whistle: Potatoe?

I would say that I am glad to see kwini acknowledges that a 10 shot win over that field - even in its diminished number - or any other in the pro game is an extraordinary performance.

IMO, if the HWC was a full field event, Spieth would not have won by 10 shots.  One of those 125 other players would have also lit it up, and possibly won.

PS, meant to put a smiley on that last post.

GPB - I agree, Speith would have walked to victory this week if Nicklaus and watson circa 1977 had been transported to this moment in a worm hole.

Mac:  One sure way to ensure a winner from the top 40 is to only invite players from the Top 40.

There is a reason why no lower rank players win WGC events.  Because there are only a few that get invited.

But full field events gets lower ranked players as winners all the time.  Darren Clarke, YE Yang, Lucas Glover, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel, Rich Beem, Michael Campbell, Angel Cabrera.

GPB

I get what you are saying, but the only point I wanted to make was that it would have been seriously unlikely that with even the biggest field and best players anyone would have matched Jordan.


Somewhere in the fall out between kwini and myself I will have made the point that I am happy to watch limited field events on the odd occasion as long as the provide entertainment. Not every week obviously, but the tiger event is a nice filler after the season proper is over for a while and the F1 has just stopped for another year.

GPB wrote:I would like to see PGAT Tour Championship expand to 40 players (or 60).  I have said so several times before.  But no one outside the Top 30 should be able to win the FE Cup.

The ToC should expand to two years and invite winners of the Big Asian Events.  That would get it to a potentially 50-60 player field.


I think what also should be considered that the TC and the ToC were around before OWGR had an impact on invites.  They were not designed to exploit the SoF OWGR rating system.  It was just happenstance that they did.  Technically the roots of Nedbank predate the importance of the OWGR.


The WC, WGCs, Volvo and RtD formats were designed post OWGR.  And the formats exploit the OWGR rating system.


Robo:  As far as your "Middle Ground", but what needs to happen is the a total re build of the SoF rating system that accounts for all the players in the field, just not the top 200.  

And tournaments that are just exhibitions and unofficial just need to be not counted.  No points and....no divisor.  John Daly gets no points for his Turkey win this week.  The 100k guaranteed payday should be more than enough to induce players to win.  (If they are that good, they don't need to eat a the Soup Kitchen).

I have said many times that the WGCs are over-rated.  To clarify,  the Full field events are UNDER-RATED because as many as 70-100 players are not contributing to the SoF.  The SoF formulas are flawed when one-armed GPB adds as much value to as 3 time Major Champion Paddy Harrington and 3 time Major Champ Vijay Singh.  Added together!!

But the next level of saying that full field events are under-rated means that WGC's are over-rated.

The Tennis models got so broken with the World events that it is hard to keep track.  And Typically only 32 players are in a one week long tournament.

I really appreciate this post and would like to spend some time talking about it... but if you don't mind... I'm going to make my response later in your OWGR thread...  cuz it might be worthy of further discussion as this thread scrolls down and we don't have a lot "other" to talk about.  Also, since OWGR bores most people... probably best to keep it there..... But it might be tomorrow before I can get back to it.

Mac:  Yes it is likely that Spieth would have won, however you added that it was by 10 shots.

McLaren wrote:I would say that I am glad to see kwini acknowledges that a 10 shot win over that field 

I don't think Spieth would have won by 10 shots had it been a full field event.  And that is exactly what my reply was about.

GPB wrote:I don't think Spieth would have won by 10 shots had it been a full field event.  And that is exactly what my reply was about.

I agree... likely would have only won by 8 or 9.... :-)

GPB wrote:Mac:  One sure way to ensure a winner from the top 40 is to only invite players from the Top 40.

There is a reason why no lower rank players win WGC events.  Because there are only a few that get invited.

But full field events gets lower ranked players as winners all the time.  Darren Clarke, YE Yang, Lucas Glover, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel, Rich Beem, Michael Campbell, Angel Cabrera.

I would agree that if WGC's were "full field", occasionally lower ranked players would win them... Going back to the 60 majors played since 2000... 9 of them or 15% (maybe as little as 8 or 13%) were won by players that would NOT have been eligible for WGC's at the time they won that major. So sure, I could agree that about 1 out of 7 or 8 times... a WGC winner COULD be somebody else. But does that diminish them to the point they're no more important than a "regular event". i think not... because as discussed before, SOF is not the sole determining factor to what makes events important or prestigious... if it were, we would be applying the exact same arguments dissing the WGCs to the Masters.

I would also point out that some of the "outlier" major winners you mention above (Beem and Yang specifically) weren't quite as "outlier" as we might think because they would have been eligible for at least some of the WGC's with criteria other than top-50 OWGR at the time they won their major...

Robo:  Corollary: there is a reason why a highly ranked player has never won Puerto Rico, Reno, Viking, etc.

You can't win what you don't play.


I also pretty sure that certain player would not have made the cut if it were a full field event.  (Using the 10-12 shot rule)

Mac and I haven't fallen out . . . . . !

I think Phil was the last player to win a Tour event by TEN strokes, eight years ago. Remarkable performance against at least a few motivated participants, whichever way one looks at it. Two weeks running.

Lefty won the BellSouth by 13 shots in 2006.  The week before he won the 2006 Masters.

GPB wrote:Robo:  Corollary: there is a reason why a highly ranked player has never won Puerto Rico, Reno, Viking, etc.

You can't win what you don't play.


I also pretty sure that certain player would not have made the cut if it were a full field event.  (Using the 10-12 shot rule)

I don't think your corollary works or is relevant, and here's why... In the Players, U.S. Open and British... there are MORE players in each event that wouldn't be eligible for WGC's than would be eligible for WGC's... yet in the 45 of those events played since 2000... only 5 or 6 (11-13%) of them were won by players that wouldn't have been eligible for WGC at the time.

Bottom line... you can expand a WGC to a full field... but based on the above and past data I've provided... those additional players are just NOT going to win as often as many people seem to think. Likely somewhere between 11-15% of the time. If that's the cost of have WGC's that the top players will actually participate in... then I have ZERO problem with it.

And not sure I understand your last sentence... but if you''re talking about the WC and inferring TW wouldn't have made the cut if the WC were a full field event... feel free to make it the point. To which I would respond... Gee, ya think?

In the US Open and Open Champ, there are about 40-50 (or more) players who are qualifiers and not necessarily PGATour Members where I think 150 of the best 175 golfers hang out. despite what the OWGR says (subsidies etc).

FWIW, I do not care with what you have a problem with or don't have a problem with.  You obviously disagree with me and I am cool with that, why do you try to make your points passive aggressively (Hennie-like) at other boards.  Why can't you just let it go?

McLaren wrote:PS, meant to put a smiley on that last post.  

GPB - I agree, Speith would have walked to victory this week if Nicklaus and watson circa 1977 had been transported to this moment in a worm hole.

Mac. I do wonder about you sometimes. You're saying Spieth would have walked it this week even vs. Nicklaus and Watson straight off their 'Duel in the Sun'?? Seriously?? Spieth may well have beaten them but I don't think you're quite with it - have a lie down. Watson and Nicklaus played on an Open course with all that means in terms of its setup. I don't think Isleworth is quite in the same class do you?

GPB wrote:FWIW, I do not care with what you have a problem with or don't have a problem with.  You obviously disagree with me and I am cool with that, why do you try to make your points passive aggressively (Hennie-like) at other boards.  Why can't you just let it go?

Why am I supposed to be the one to let it go? Once again... I'm not the one who introduced WGC's into this thread... YOU WERE. Go back and look and you'll see In my initial post on this topic I went to great pains to SEPARATE the discussion of these "ultra-small" events from other limited field events like WGC's, because I was trying to not mix the two. Kwini, I and others were doing just that. Then YOU started chiming in introducing the same WGC arguments as before... and because I responded you seem to think I'm the one incapable of letting it go... HUH?

Bottom line: I've said it before... I am not the one continually introducing the WGC topic on this forum... it's a few others but mainly YOU. If you want me to let it go... how about YOU stop bringing it up in the first place. But if you choose not to, fine with me, that's your choice... just don't expect your opinions to go unchallenged.

Careful lads, keep the safety catch on, don't want any friendly fire situations here.