PGA Tour: WGC:MatchPlay (sort of): Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).First, let's talk about Justin Rose's latest win, and a fine win it was, not to mention a sponsor's dream for "Zurich" as they sponsor the New Orleans tournament and employ Rose as an "ambassador", among others. After a patchy, to say the least, start to his year, Rose has now won on Tour for the 6th consecutive year; no-one has a longer current streak. Time for another Major.

2).Rose also nudges into 3rd place in terms of most post-war wins by Europeans in the United States. Current list:
8 wins: Garcia, McIlroy
7: Rose
6: Ballesteros, Faldo, Olazabal
5: Donald, Lyle, Parnevik, Pettersson

3).Imagine it was a late-night arrival at SFO for those MatchPlay competitors who played all four rounds in New Orleans, especially for Rose who presumably had winner's obligations following his win. Others included Bradley, Day, Horschel, DJohnson, Leishman and Wiesberger. Wonder if Westwood and others commuting from the Far East beat them in?

4).Streaks ending:
~Stricker finally missed a cut after a run of 36 consecutive cuts made. Kuchar now leads with 22.
~Freddie Jacobson's run of consecutive holes on Tour without a 3-putt was finally snapped at 542, by some way the best in the ShotLink era.

5).There are reports that the PGA Of America have chosen Kiawah Island as the venue for the 2021 PGA Championship. The logistics of getting spectators in and out of Kiawah in 2012 was apparently horrendous (not so bad at the War on the Shore though), so that has to be sorted. Perhaps they'll be using drones by then?

6).Difficult to think of a drone and golf without automatically imagining the ghastly, ghostly apparition of Donald Trump, host of the 2022 PGA Championship in New Jersey. Trump is busy tweeting racially combustible headlines about the situation this week in Baltimore. Isn't it just about time the USGA, PGA Of America and PGA Tour, all of whom are in bed at various of Trump's venues, stood up to the egotistical blowhard and told him racist twitterage is unacceptable and take their tournaments away from him?

7).Hopefully they'll also kick Steve Elkington off the Champions Tour again for his twittering commentary on the Bruce Jenner revelations.

8).And so to the MatchPlay, sponsored for one year only by Cadillac. They'll be playing at Harding Park, San Francisco, the venue of many pro events including the:
*2005 WGC:American Express Championship where Woods beat birthday (49 today!) boy Daly in a play-off - arguably the beginning of the end of Daly as a competitive force.
Those in the field who qualified for this week's MatchPlay include:
T3: Garcia, Stenson
T6: McDowell
T11: Donald
T15: Furyk
T18: Schwartzel, Clark, Poulter
T29: Mickelson, Scott
Plus: Jimenez, Zach Johnson, Westwood, Jaidee

*2009 Presidents Cup where Zach Johnson, Mickelson, Furyk and Mahan played for the USA, Scott and Clark for The Internationals.

9).No doubt the International Golfing Federations (known by the acronym Finchem) had little choice on this week's date, but let's just say it's a shame that it will undoubtedly reduce the buzz for The Players, and have the collateral damage of reducing the quality of the New Orleans and Charlotte fields. No opposite field event this year either, so the better among the Tour's rank and file will have the week off, those journeymen qualifying for neither the MatchPlay nor Players will sit down for a fortnight.
Dell sponsors next year's action, in Austin, Texas, with a late March date.  

10).Monday's "random draw" for the MatchPlay was a made for TV affair, no-one other than Golf Channel personnel in evidence, and it looked almost as if it was pre-recorded then edited to make it look live. Whatever.
It's ironic that the capitalist PGA Tour felt the need to change from a straight knock-out competition to the more socialist round-robin foreplay that we'll be enduring Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Whatever.
The Golf Channel certainly nailed their colours to the self-interest mast in their "Monday Scramble":
"Our only hope is that we don't get Joost Luiten vs Tommy Fleetwood in the finals and have to go back to the drawing board."
Whatever. Sure they meant Gary Woodland & Harris English. Berks.

sirbenson wrote:And they have the balls to win a major, something Garcia, Poulter, Casey, Donald will never have.

Poulter, Casey and Donald have never really been in contention...

I'm pretty sure Donald has been in contention more than once

sirbenson wrote:

super_realist wrote:So what, so do Dufner, Simpson, Johnson, Hamilton and Curtis, but it doesn't make them great players or better than the players you mentioned.

Wie, alongside Fowler are clearly two of the most over-rated players ever to pick up a club.

Dufner, Simpson, Johnson and Curtis are class players....3 of those 4 were in the top 10 at some point in their careers, if memory serves me.  Three of them have been on more than more than one American team.

Dufner, Simpson, Johnson are all great golfers and Curtis on his day was one of the best putters you'll see.

I don't know too much about Curtis, but Dufner is certainly not a "great" golfer, nor is Simpson. They have both had a very narrow purple period in their careers, but are already in decline. To call them great would be like saying Hal Sutton or Michael Campbell are greats.

Zach Johnson, whilst not prolific, at least has some semblance of longevityand career consistency but getting on a Ryder Cup team, especially an American Ryder Cup team is no mark of notoriety or career greatness. look at the likes of JJ Henry, Boo Weekley, Cink, Overton, Kenny Perry, Chad Campbell and Vaughan Taylor, hardly a stellar list of greats.

Davie wrote:I'm pretty sure Donald has been in contention more than once

Really? When has he been in with a serious chance/in the lead on a Major Sunday?

navy

2006 pga champs. Donald was tied for the lead with Tiger going into the final round.

Wasn't he also in the mix at the Masters in 2011?

McLaren wrote:navy

2006 pga champs.  Donald was tied for the lead with Tiger going into the final round.

:shrug: OK. Hardly Earth-shattering though.

Davie wrote:Wasn't he also in the mix at the Masters in 2011?

Not really. Played well without ever really threatening to win