PGA Tour: SONY Hackers Detained in Hawaii: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).That's right, but no Interview and, in Hawaii this week, no North Koreans either - half a dozen-ish South Korean golfers and a few Japanese, including the up and coming Hiroshi enough to make your Iwata. We'll have a sprinkling of Europeans about which more later.

2).It sounds gratuitous to mention Tiger Woods so early in the season, but Patrick Reed's Kapalua win yesterday, at the Hyundai TOC, was eerily reminiscent of Tiger's win at Pebble Beach when he had to make a bunch of birdies in the final four holes, and simplified matters by holing a second shot for eagle. Matt Gogel was the unwitting victim fifteen or so years ago and he's now a commentator.
Don't expect the same fate to befall Jimmy Walker yet awhile, but finding himself stuck in neutral when all about were making birdies, or eagle, must have been a disheartening experience. Reed is now the only non-Holywood golfer under 30 with four Tour wins.

3).Last week we had a bit of a teaser about Touring Pros with the most "made cuts". (Of those under 50, the leaders were Mayfair, Estes, Furyk, Mickelson and Leonard.)
Alright for journeymen you might say, but who makes the most of those cuts? You know who the prolific winners are, but who is consistently in the Top Ten? And, although he's barely in the Top 20 in cuts made, Tiger leads in Top Ten performance with 185 in 294 cuts made. No-one else with at least 100 "cuts made" approaches that hit rate, with Phil the next best:
Woods: 185 Top Tens in 294 "cuts: 63%
Mickelson: 173 Top Tens in 424 "cuts": 41%
This just in: Woods's record before his recent decline was pretty bl00dy good.

4).Tour players (under 50) with 90+ Top Tens are:
185: Woods
173: Mickelson
172: Furyk
125: Els
109: Toms
103: Stricker
99:  Leonard
91:  Cink
91:  Estes
Top European is Sergio with 86 Top Tens, same as Jerry Kelly.

5).Europeans making the most of their paydays include:
86: Garcia
73: Donald
59: Rose
55: Parnevik - he'll be turning the big 5 0 in a few weeks.
52: Harrington
49: Pettersson
I thought it was interesting anyway.

6).Going back to Woods for a moment, the US media is wetting itself over his return to action in Phoenix, and the PGA Tour seems to be responding by adding restrictions to the behaviour of competitors in the 16th hole ampitheatre. Caddie races have already been banned and it now seems as if the practice of throwing goodies in to the grandstands is also about to be prohibited. No golfballs, no gloves, no footballs, no shirts; you name it, don't throw it.
Presumably no boulder rolling, gun toting or tangerine tossing either.

7).A few "Internationals" played well at Kapalua, and an early snapshot of the Top Ten Presidents Cup qualifying points leaders looks like this:
Scott, Day, Matsuyama, Schwartzel (despite last week's collapse), Jaidee, Oosthuizen, Leishman, Senden, Oda, Clark. (DeLaet is 11th and Els is 12th man.)
You know US Captain Jay Haas is quaking in his boots at having to face that lot.

8).This season sees the introduction of Donaldson, Dubuisson and Molinari F to the PGA Tour and Franny makes his debut at this week's Sony Open. His first target is to reach the Top 125 in FedEx points (or official money), but he starts tied for last, with 211 golfers ahead of him. He doesn't have a power game and will be at a serious disadvantage at certain courses, so let's hope he takes more care with his playing schedule than some of his continent-mates. Tee-to-green he is a strong version of Luke Donald, on and around the green he's a pale imitation of Lukey who, coincidentally, makes an early reappearance this week alongside Molinari.
You'd think Waialae Country Club would suit Molinari down to the ground and it's no exaggeration to say that he needs good results straight out of the traps. Partly to get ahead of the required FedEx pace and better plan his tournaments, and partly to return to the owgr Top 50 and earn entry to the Majors and WGC's that he's no longer exempt for. Hope he's successful, even money in my book.

9).There's a decent field at the Sony, with Day, Kuchar, Matsuyama and Zach Johnson (fancy him this week), and these early season events are deeper than in past years.
Luke Donald has played here 7 times, made 5 cuts with 5 Top 25's, including one runner up finish; right up the street of the stereotypical Luke Donald, but who knows what type of St.Luke we'll see in 2015?
Casey, Brian Davis and Russell Knox are here, plus Cejka, Pettersson and Lingmerth.
Tim Clark, Chuckie Howell and Ryan Palmer are among the old lags with super records here, while young 'uns Henley and Kirk did well at Kapalua and have "previous" at Waialae.

10).Which brings us to last year's champ Jimmy Walker. He ratified his Frys win here and went on to squeak home at Pebble Beach and contended on an almost weekly basis. Not least at the Ryder Cup. Interesting Q&A with him in Feb's Golf Digest where he praised Zach Johnson as being the ideal teammate and spoke well of Reed, Spieth and one-trickie Rickie.
I've never seen Walker play but he seems a multifaceted personality, relatively late to success, with his feet on the ground and, one would think, destined for another good year, or five.
He's gaining professional respect as an astrophotograher; sure he doesn't aspire to be an astrophysicist, a la Brian May, but an interesting choice of (very serious and expensive) hobby nevertheless.

great title kwini! and article

Cheers kwini..
Pick one:
http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/golfbeer-launches-three-brands-craft-beer-after-freddie-jacobson-keegan-bradley-and-graeme-mcdowell

Cheers chaps. There are some really good local breweries here in Vermont so I'll go with Keegan's choice.


And, talking about choice, I see that Paul Casey has relinquished his European Tour membership in order to better concentrate on the PGA Tour. How can that make sense given his rehabilitation in Ireland and Holland these past two seasons? Bet he changes his mind if he enjoys significant success before Ryder Cup points start to be accrued.
Never completely sure Casey has his head screwed on completely straight.

Great article Kwini, and love the title!

But are you being a little disingenuous linking Tiger's return to Phoenix with a clampdown on more raucous behaviour? As if Tiger is only returning on the condition that they "ban the fun". I would expect they are more worried about litigation: a caddy falling and injuring himself, or a spectator suffering from whiplash after a ball is tossed into the crowd.

pedro wrote:Cheers kwini..
Pick one:
http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/golfbeer-launches-three-brands-craft-beer-after-freddie-jacobson-keegan-bradley-and-graeme-mcdowell

I take it McDowellbrau is a smooth, full-bodied lager?

9C said of his return to action. "It's going to be fun"
Eh? When has 9C ever had fun on a golf course? I've seen people going to the gallows more cheerful.

ray,
Disingenuous? I don't think so, considering his "security" issues there in the past - wouldn't be at all surprised if "his people" have put in some conditions for 16th hole behaviour. Obviously speculating, but makes sense.

kwinigolfer wrote:Cheers chaps. There are some really good local breweries here in Vermont so I'll go with Keegan's choice.

Beware. Maybe that's what makes him spit all the time.

pedro wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Cheers chaps. There are some really good local breweries here in Vermont so I'll go with Keegan's choice.

Beware. Maybe that's what makes him spit all the time.

And the wonky vision

Good beer here, but perhaps Keegs has too much of it? Might explain the one-step-forward-two-steps-back-one-step-forward foreplay routine too?

incontinentia wrote:

pedro wrote:Cheers kwini.. :guinness:
Pick one:
http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/golfbeer-launches-three-brands-craft-beer-after-freddie-jacobson-keegan-bradley-and-graeme-mcdowell

I take it McDowellbrau is a smooth, full-bodied lager?

I would probably go for the IPA.

But more to the point, why is keegan dressed like a 12 year old?

Very surprised that Paul Casey gave up his EuroT membership.  Guess he didn't want to play that many events since he probably won't play many of the co-sanctioned events.

I suspect that if he gets ranked solidly in the top 50 at year end he will try to get his membership back so he is eligible for the Ryder Cup.

If you had asked me in January of 2005 (10 yrs ago) who would be a stalwart on the Euro RC Team for the next ten years, Poulter or Casey, I would have said Casey...for sure.

I think there is a good chance that he make the Tour Championship this year.

Always thought Casey had a good game, nice steady swing throughout all clubs. Should have had a better career.

Couldn't agree more about Casey. Bizarre.

Very surprised to see Jeff Overton in this week's field after his intemperate performance at a Madison Square Garden shamateur basketball game a few weeks ago. Given his "form" you'd've thought he might have received a hefty suspension - had Sabbatini been led from a sports event by security, he would likely have been deported. Assume Jeff received a fine and told to keep off the booze but how many last chances will he be granted?

EDIT! Speaking of which:
~Dustin Johnson still due back in San Diego.

~The Tour has someone to join him in the pharmaceutical doghouse:
http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/patel-violates-tours-ped-policy-suspended-year/

F(r)at Boy Overton is one of the biggest losers in golf.

The pga keep zipped on Dustin. .but nail the unknown indian guy.

super_realist wrote:Always thought Casey had a good game, nice steady swing throughout all clubs. Should have had a better career.

I'm sure Casey would have had a better career but for 2 or 3 reasons

Injuring himself too many times dicking around with snowboards
Wasn't it him who alienated himself with many US spectators with some ill advised comments despite being "almost" home grown through the US college system?

And thanks to GPB for reminding us that 2005 was ten years ago

Well, I think he said something along the lines of "nothing better than sticking it to the Yanks", which I think is fair enough. Who doesn't like beating the Yanks?

Seems not to care about being a very top player any more, given he takes risks which have at times backfired, at least once, and when you have PollyAnna as a distraction, you can hardly blame him for not being fully focussed on the golf.

"We properly hate them."
Strangely enough, he now seems quite popular here, at least among the media. Good rehab job by Peter Kostis.

beninho wrote:The pga keep zipped on Dustin. .but nail the unknown indian guy.

They always seem to go after the little guys (plus Vijay). Like when then dq'ed that Japanese or whatever at the Masters when in fact it should've been Tiger.

Re. PED's: think it's just the top of the ice berg. At least a few yrs ago I'm pretty sure it was wide spread on Tour.

Casey had streaks here and there but certainly no world beater. I never thought would be one. Higher expectations on the "Euro" side of the pond it seems.

Got to world number three at one point I think SR, good Ryder Cup and some nice tournament wins as well as some decent major results.

No world beater for sure, but a very good player who probably never reached his true potential. Tour's full of guys like that though, but he's probably the best of that particular bunch, of "should have done betters" when it comes to school reports.

Any idea what players on the pga tour have the best win to top 10 ratio? Id say its an interesting stat because it shows how often players win when in contention. My guess is that reed and Kaymer would lead this made up category. They seem to have some sort of knack for winning when they are in contention.

pedro wrote:
Re. PED's: think it's just the top of the ice berg. At least a few yrs ago I'm pretty sure it was wide spread on Tour.

Interesting - is this something you know or an opinion? And what do you mean by widespread - 10% of players or 50%?

I'd say somewhere inbetween.
I base it on comments made by various people surrounding the sport (Gary Player etc), as well as players and the Tour waffling on the issue when confronted. Plus the reluctance of the Tour to introduce testing. I also recall a few years ago US Tour players threatening to boycott The Open if tests were being performed.
Plus of course the general view on drugs / ped's in other US pro sports.

Kwini...

Raycastleunited - Agree it's unlikely the new regs at WMPO are Tiger related. If that were the case it would be a reiteration of the ban on throwing things OUT of the stands, instead of IN... :-)

Clearly this is more aimed to prevent things like maybe Phil/Paddy induced "Marcia Brady football nose" and bleacher diving.  

However... The Tour's Andy Pazder offered a clarification suggesting players continuing to hand out swag or "flipping' something up to the first row is fine, but not throwing things like a football frisbee".  And again, it was about the libiity, Pazder specifially saying ''A fan in public seating in a mad scramble to get a hat is going to hurt himself, or land on top of another person. I would say to the players, Think about the liability.'' Pazder also said he's talked directly to Bubba and others and didn't get too much pushback.... the handwritten "are you kidding me" on the notice in the Sony locker room suggesting otherwise however.  Oh well, either way, still gonna be a party.

Gained a lot of respect for Paul Casey when after his win at the Shell Houston Open he and his then wife Jocelyn showed back up at the next year's media day and wrote a $100k check to HGA Charities.  I'd seen him around a lot prior to that, but really hadn't met him until the grip and grin sessions at that media day.  From thereafter, if he noticed me, he'd go out of his way if necessary to say hello... so obviously I have nothing but good thoughts on the guy.

Odd thing though... I had noticed it before, but even at that media day he seemed to be a bit of a sad and introspective kind of guy, almost awkward when off on his own a bit... but fun and engaging when chatting it up with folks.  Not sure if that had anything to do with his crumbling marriage to Jocelyn he revealed a short time later or not. Haven't seen much of him since.

robo
Suffice it to say then, that security is being beefed up in Phoenix . . . . . . for whatever reason!

skiddy,
I did a piece a few years ago showing %age wins from Top Three finishes.
Tiger always comes out way ahead, whichever way you slice it; among older school golfers, I think Wayne Levi was the leader of the pack outside the Nicklaus domination.

But I ran some numbers as you asked about Kaymer & Reed:

Woods: 185 Top Tens, 79 wins = 42.7%
Reed: 10 Top Tens, 4 wins = 40%
Kaymer: 15 Top Tens, 3 wins = 20%
Rory: 39 Top Tens, 9 wins = 23.1%
Phil: 173 Top Tens, 42 wins = 24.3%
Charlie Howell: 71 Top Tens, 2 wins = 2.8%

Thing with Reed is that he only makes the Top Ten less than one event out of every seven that he plays, which is a comparatively low %age. But his win rate is impressive.

Kwin - That's some great stuff and, IMO, pretty telling about who can/does close it out when they are close. Tiger's a freak in that regard and I would suggest Reed is in the "chaos of small numbers" category at this point. Impressive -- but I can't imagine he'll be in the Rory/Phil/Kaymer area for long.

I've been in the stands a few times at the 16th hole at the WMO (business entertainment). It's a pricey ticket to get, and a well lubricated crowd to be sure!

Yes, I think it's pretty meaningless until a player has at least half a dozen wins.
Three players who will disappoint millions if they don't improve their "closing" record are:
Day: 37 Top Tens, 2 wins = 5.4%
Fowler: 34 Top Tens, 1 win = 2.9%
Spieth: 17 Top Tens, 1 win = 5.9%


Action in Hawaii starts at 7.00 a.m., Aloha Time. TV coverage won't be on until midnight, Aldershot time.

Surprising news that Phil Mickelson is taking the weeks of Pebble Beach and Riviera off on vacation with his children who will be on school break. But he'll be playing Humana next week, then Phoenix, and then San Diego.

Is it that surprising? My dad used to take all his holidays to coincide with school holidays.

C'mon Mac, Obviously Fat Phil can take tournaments off if he wants, but he's got more downtime than your dad so using the kids school holidays as an excuse for missing tournaments is a bit weak.

When was his last tournament? He's had weeks if not months off.

Not surprising at all that he takes time off when his children are out of school, but certainly surprising that he misses PB and Riviera given his affection for both courses.

I took my children to Pebble Beach during their hols once - missed a couple of rounds at the GC of Newport as a result, so I understand the sacrifice he's making . . . . . .

kwinigolfer wrote:robo
Suffice it to say then, that security is being beefed up in Phoenix . . . . . . for whatever reason!

skiddy,
I did a piece a few years ago showing %age wins from Top Three finishes.
Tiger always comes out way ahead, whichever way you slice it; among older school golfers, I think Wayne Levi was the leader of the pack outside the Nicklaus domination.

But I ran some numbers as you asked about Kaymer & Reed:

Woods: 185 Top Tens, 79 wins = 42.7%
Reed: 10 Top Tens, 4 wins = 40%
Kaymer: 15 Top Tens, 3 wins = 20%
Rory: 39 Top Tens, 9 wins = 23.1%
Phil: 173 Top Tens, 42 wins = 24.3%
Charlie Howell: 71 Top Tens, 2 wins = 2.8%

Thing with Reed is that he only makes the Top Ten less than one event out of every seven that he plays, which is a comparatively low %age. But his win rate is impressive.

Interesting #s Kwini. Don't know what you had Jack at a while back (I missed it) but I just checked him out at 42.75% (118 wins from 276 top 10s across the board on main Tour according to pgatour.com). Doesn't help in the Jack vs. 9C argument really does it? Amazing that they're so similar in this...or maybe not!

Navy

As we know 9c and the bear share a similar amount of time at #1 as well.

Kwin - Kind of great for us working stiffs on EST ... watch some live ET golf in the morning, check out the action in Hawaii at day's end.

Taking the clan to Mexico for Spring Break. Cabo area. I'm more a mojito than margarita man.

Kwini... pretty remarkable "ratio" for Reed so far.  Agree that small numbers can skew things, but it certainly seems that while he really doesn't "have it" all that often, but the weeks he does... he's about as fearless with it as they come these days.  

But Reed said it himself, he needs to start proving his mettle in majors.  So far he's only played in 4 of 'em, so his roughly 1 in 7 ratio of playing well hasn't had a chance to take hold.  But based on his win and T4 in only 4 WGC's...  I got a sneaking feeling it'll be the same deal when he does start getting in contention in majors... he might not win 'em right away, but IMO he's not likely to be one to be backing up once he gets in the mix either.

Navy, Mac... pretty incredible the number of parallels in the careers of Jack and Tiger...  maybe not exact matches... but so close in wins, majors, and various percentages of top finishes, etc. But as two of the only three 70+ win PGAT guys out there... maybe not too surprising.

navy,
Not completely sure your Nicklaus numbers bear closer scrutiny, don't know where they would have conjured up 118 wins. Who will become the "first among equals" when their careers are concluded??!!


Shotrock,
We have classic "smoke on the water" on an otherwise beautiful sunny day, some resultant crystals blowing on shore and freezing on every contact immediately lakeside. Treacherous.

Have a look at JAS's thread, as he's recently returned from Cabo . . . . . Think I'm taking the clan to CNY, more a Matts man than mojito or margaritas!

Kwini
Jack is the archetypal god fearing, american dream conquering, right wing, family orientated white man. Need you ask who history will judge more kindly?

Navy

Kwini is on to something in questioning the 118 wins. Wiki has Jack at 73, which is the number often used by the TV networks stats people. Not saying wiki is correct but the commonly quoted number is 73.

Kwin - I do both! And thanks for the head up ... I will check out the JAS thread.

NBS: From the Information that Robo provided me for the OWGR modeling

As a professional (during his winning period from 1962-1986) Nicklaus had 294 Top 10's in 474 events.  71 wins (two of Nicklaus wins were Team events). 62.0 Top 10 Percentage


Though age 38...67 wins, 248 Top 10's, 356 events 69.7 Top 10 percentage.

kwinigolfer wrote:navy,
Not completely sure your Nicklaus numbers bear closer scrutiny, don't know where they would have conjured up 118 wins. Who will become the "first among equals" when their careers are concluded??!!...

I don' know either! It gets bad when one can't even add up. OK, on second effort I get a 25.5% win conversion from top 10 for Jack (73/286) - not even sure that's right anymore and I can't be bothered to go count again! Definitely a very impressive conversion from 9C.

I don't think 9C will get to Jack's Major tally anymore but (and this is some admission for me) by any other metric, Eldrick is out on his own it would seem. Shame he's a bit of a turd of a person but I guess one can't have everything.

McLaren wrote:Kwini
Jack is the archetypal god fearing, american dream conquering, right wing, family orientated white man.  Need you ask who history will judge more kindly?

Navy

Kwini is on to something in questioning the 118 wins.  Wiki has Jack at 73, which is the number often used by the TV networks stats people.  Not saying wiki is correct but the commonly quoted number is 73.

Don't be a dick Mac. You're conveniently ignoring changing societal thinking on race etc in order to have a rant from your, presumably well-worn, soap box. By definition, this will be 'history' quite a way in the future and those deliberating on which of the two was better are likely to be even less influenced by any racist thinking than now.

Re. the numbers I pulled for Jack, I don't know what I was doing tbh! As I said, obviously can't add up.

When Nicklaus retired, he was credited with 70 PGATour wins.   The Open Championship became an official PGAT event in 1995 and sometime in the early 2000's, past Open Championships were grandfathered as Official wins.

Sam Snead's New York Times obituary said he had 81 career wins, but he is now credited with 82 wins.  Snead died in May 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/obituaries/24SNEA.html

Snead's record was 84 wins prior to the late 1980s.  I got old Golf Digests from the 1970's that says he has 84 wins.  But in the late 1980's, Golf Historians determined that his win total was 81 wins.  Robopz has the detail, but here is what I can say:

Using the 84 win starting point, 9 wins were disqualified while 6 other wins were added.

9 wins removed:

1940 ONTARIO OPEN (CANADA) - 
1942 CORDOBA OPEN (ARGENTINA) - 
1952 JULIUS BOROS OPEN - 
1953 TEXAS OPEN - It was on his record erroneously... 
1952 GREENBRIER INVITATIONAL
1953 GREENBRIER INVITATIONAL
1958 GREENBRIER INVITATIONAL
1959 SAM SNEAD FESTIVAL
1961 SAM SNEAD FESTIVAL -

6 wins added:

1937 BING CROSBY PRO-AM
1938 BING CROSBY PRO-AM
1941 BING CROSBY PRO-AM
1950 BING CROSBY PRO-AM -
1952 PALM BEACH ROUND ROBIN
1957 PALM BEACH ROUND ROBIN 

I hope Chris DiMarco was well paid for his trip to Abu Dhabi.  Hate to think he is paying his own expenses to finish near DFL.

Really cannot think of a reason why amateur Ollie Schneiderjans took a week off of school to travel half way around the world to play at Abu Dhabi.

Tianlang Guan didn't travel as far, but his appearance makes little sense too.