PGA Tour: Jack Nicklaus's Memorial Tournament: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).The Tour finally makes its overdue trek north from the South and the West to Columbus, Ohio, and Muirfield Village, Jack Nicklaus's gift to his hometown and site of the Memorial Tournament, quite possibly the best "regular season" (sort of) event on Tour.
We leave behind a sodden Texas which has suffered the monsoons that India has reportedly been missing. Kudos to the Tour for getting out of Fort Worth and Dallas on time. Extraordinary really.

2).Sunday's emphatic win at the Byron Nelson by Steven Bowditch, the Aussie golfing savant, was as out of the blue as any win so far this year - or at least since Harrington's Honda breakthrough. If Bowditch looks like an extra from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, well perhaps there's good reason given what he's been through. I've linked this 2009 article before, but it's well worth reading again:
http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/2009-04/gw20090427_moriarty

3).Sunday's win brings Bowditch to the fringes of the automatic qualifying places for Nick Price's Presidents Cup Team. Given the form, or lack of it, of some of his rivals, you'd think Bowditch might well be on the plane to South Korea.

4).Good results in Texas also elevated Chris Kirk and Charley Hoffman into US qualifying places; Spieth and Walker are certainties for the US Team, but the rest of the spots on Jay Haas's squad are up for grabs, Bubba and Kirk leading the pack.

5).Very happy to see a glimpse of a return to form by Jason Dufner who finished T8 in Dallas. Duf's PGA Championship win at Oak Hill, less than two years ago, was a brilliant performance but have you seen his putting stroke on short putts, even then? 180th in putting on Tour and a small improvement on the greens could see him back in contention before much longer.

6).This week sees the Collegiate Men's Golf Championships. This competition is for top individual in stroke-play, followed by Team match-play. The individual winner was Bryson DeChambeau who reportedly has all his irons built to the same length, from 3-iron down thru his wedges. Never heard of that before. Have you?
Ireland's Paul Dunne, Belgium's Thomas Detry and Austria's Matthias Schwab all finished in the top dozen.

7).Fantastic to see Royal County Down, the Irish Open and four days of sell-outs. Very popular win from Soren Kjeldsen if the twittersphere is any guide.
Ernie Els came away rating RCD in his personal top three links courses and, lucky him, he gets to travel next to one of his favourite Tour stops, at Muirfield Village.

8).Muirfield Village is consistently ranked in the top 20 of US Courses and is familiar to us viewers, not just because of the Memorial Tournament but also its unique status having staged all three major professional "Cups": Ryder, Solheim and Presidents. Nicklaus is always tinkering with his design, and this year we'll see a facelift to the 18th, not just the new back tee, but also a tweaking of the complex of fairway bunkering which frames the right side of the fairway. Looking forward to seeing it.
I would suggest that Muirfield Village is about as well balanced a course as you can find: Longish with wide fairways and very Nicklaus-like as each hole gets more difficult the closer to the green you get. Strong par-5's, though only the Augusta-like 12th really stands out among the Par-3's. Woods has won here plenty of times but Furyk, Choi and Pettersson have been champions too.

9).Jack might have expected more leading Europeans to show up this week; Henrik Stenson is understandably playing in Sweden and Rory takes a breather, but no Garcia, Westwood, Poulter, Casey, Donald, Kaymer, McDowell, etc, etc.
Justin Rose won his first PGA Tournament here in 2010 so he's playing, and most leading Americans have turned up also. Andy Sullivan and Tommy Fleetwood  are both on board - a big week for Sullivan as he's right on the precipice of US Open qualification.

10).And Nick Faldo will be here, not just in the CBS TV booth, but also as an honoree in the Ring of Honour - sounds corny but a nicely done celebration of great figures in the history of Golf. Among modern-era honorees are Henry Cotton, Tony Jacklin, Seve, Joe Carr, Annika and Michael Bonallack. A richly deserved tribute for Sir Nick; no doubt we'll be hearing a lot about it come the weekend . . . . . . . !

Andy Sullivan now tied for the lead.
Snapshot of four non-Americans filling the top four places. That hasn't happened here since the 1987 Ryder Cup.

Woods is always a nailed on pick in cat c for me. Pretty much guaranteed worst round / last place, and if he's swinging well then top 5.

Action begins this morning at 8.10 a.m., and should be perfect scoring conditions for early starters; calm but with a breeze picking up late morning and into the p.m.. Slight chance of thunderstorms later.

A great chance for Justin Rose to get his second win in two months and his second Memorial title.
But "stuff" on the line for other Europeans too:
Especially Molinari - a solo third would get him very close to wrapping up his "card" for next season, but even if he wins I can't see how that gets him into the Open Championship. Speak to the R&A as to why that makes sense.
Sullivan could get himself Tour STM with a high finish, but can't see why he would want it - bigger goal should be a secure position in the owgr Top Fifty.
And Carl Pettersson hit every fairway yesterday but turned that into an even par round; he could use a high finish today as can't think he'd want to spend his one-time career earnings exemption just yet.

ETW on his way with a drive in the (stop press!) fairway on the first; no reports of any "marker" so it will probably be the most spectated (is that a word?) solo effort in PGA Tour history.
A great chance for him to put Saturday's embarrassment behind him and get outathere.

Sullivan doesn't STM.

The top 10 would get him into Memphis automatically and there is only 6 tournaments left that could offer him a Sponsors invite, and he has only taken 1.

Hartford, Greenbrier, Deere, Canadian, Quicken, Wyndham.  

IIRC, The only real benefit to STM is unlimited sponsors invites and that doesn't apply, so late in the season when he has only accepted one thus far.

The R/A deadline makes sense because of the way they do the other exemptions.  With spots going to players who Top 10 in tournaments who are not otherwise eligible.

They need to reserve spots for these top finishers.

GPB,
Yes, about STM, that's what I meant, but it would put sponsors' exemptions on his radar, which I would think would be nothing more than an unnecessary distraction.

As for the R&A's top finishers qualify nonsense, would much prefer they opened up the owgr exemptions wider/later and added more local qualifiers, maybe restore one in the US - as it is, some of the PGA Tour / Far Eastern qualifiers couldn't really care less.

Sounds like Woods is hitting the ball pretty nicely today.

Six over par for Woods's final six holes, but eleven shots better than Round 3 and sure he'll take something from that, and at least he got to play four rounds and wear red on Sunday.

Next stop Chambers Bay.

Great atmosphere in Malmo - strange to see a Swede and German, plus caddies, walk down 18 joking in English.

Tiger looks good. Just needs a few more reps.

Kwini, what other language should they be joking in? Esperanto?

kwinigolfer wrote:Six over par for Woods's final six holes, but eleven shots better than Round 3 and sure he'll take something from that, and at least he got to play four rounds and wear red on Sunday.

Next stop Chambers Bay.

Great atmosphere in Malmo - strange to see a Swede and German, plus caddies, walk down 18 joking in English.

This absurd superstition of wearing red on a Sunday surely has to end. He intimidates no one these days, especially if he's playing against no one and i'd expect a Challenge Tour player to beat him these days, maybe even Shvehenko or Kafelnikov could beat the hacker.

Languages? I dunno, German, Swedish; can't see too many multi-lingual British or American golfers out there, some cunnilinguists maybe.

Swedish people don't speak German as a rule and German people don't generally speak Swedish.

Where's goldwolf when we need him?
I see his mate Gary Boyd lost a Challenge Tour play-off in Switzerland. In good position to retrieve his E.T. card.

Good day en Paris for the Swiss but what's with Stan The Man's shorts? Straight from Billy Horschel's wardrobe.

Great to see Alex Noren winning after his injury problems....Such a huge talent!

Watched Tiger's post round interview. He still thinks he's "caught between patterns."  
Well, so am I: hook, slice, hook, slice, hook, slice.

Just when you thought his interviews couldn't get any more boring eh?

Another good tournament from Russell Knox - should be good for a Top 25, almost routine these days.
He's made just about $3M between this season and last.

Fingers crossed here for a good final round, for once, from Molinari.

Justin Rose!
This is not the start we hoped for.

Ooooh Frannie!! Tied for the lead -- and in the water on 16!

Hope Justin wins, otherwise it'll be a Sunday Swedish double.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

What might have been for Frannie, but a real shot in the arm in his quest to keep his card.

Come on Justin!

Swedish double, with a Norwegian topping.

Well done Bjorn Borg. The ice-man prevailed. Rose maybe should feel disappointed he didn't win in regulation, but good stuff all round.

DLove III, de Jonge, Kisner, Noh, Appleby WD from US OPEN sectional qualifier in Columbus.

Bad weather expected tomorrow in Columbus.

Edit: Kisner goes to 57th in the rankings, which should be enough for a 11th hour exemption.

Plus DLIII wasn't sure he could go 36 holes after four rounds this week.
Kisner's OK.
Appleby's only just coming back from surgery.
Who No's?
de Jonge's too fat to go 36 holes, probably fancies a break.

Here is the USGA previews of the Sectionals tomorrow.

http://www.usopen.com/en_US/news/articles/2015-06-04/201506041433448803293.html

I think this Erik Compton story is quite incredible.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/compton-meets-his-heart-donors-aunt/

Makes his remarkable story even remarkabler.

From what I saw Lingmerth looks tiny, he has the smallest legs, he looks like a dwarf.

It worked for Player, Woosnam and Clark.

Tim Clark?

Very enjoyable tournament, JR must have thought he had it in the bag when he holed a monster at the first extra hole, but DL played very well and a well deserved win, nerves in Sweden a clearly made of steel. Potential Ryder Cupper or is he in the Carl Petersson camp regards RC status?

Regards Rose, he did very well to make par on 18 after shanking it out the bunker and hitting someone on the head - I can think of several others who would have fallen to pieces.

Great course both holes visually on TV and the balance between birdie and bogey opportunities.

Woods... crikey 29 shots behind the winning score, that is a long way back and suspect his US Open will not be pretty - hope I am proved wrong.

Spieth .... another great final round but no pressure so could fire at 16 etc.

Only downside of the weekend was Sky could only afford two commentators in the 'booth' the whole time, so had tolerate Mark Roe's butt kissing, but offset again by Wayne Riley's on course input.

Wayne Riley is excellent, I'm liking his snippets more and more these days. Also quite like Rich Beem which is a surprise

Tiger, well! He goes on about getting better but the only records he's setting are negative - worst round ever, first time ever played on his own, first time he's made 6 doubles or worse, etc etc. They keep piling up!

Probably the only time I take enjoyment watching 9C play. Seems his talent is receding alongside his hairline.

Quite a day for the Scandinavians with Pettersen winning as well.

He may never have achieved #1 status as Westwood and Donald have, but Justin Rose is clearly the best and most consistent English professional golfer since Sir Nick. Hope he carries that form into the National Open.

Agree about Rich Beem, MPB, he also wrote some very good articles for the European Tour web-site, basically articulating appreciation for the opportunity/experience to play the European Tour for a couple of years. Think he's also been a very good ambassador for Hazeltine following his PGA win there.

For those of us in the USA, news this morning that, from 2017, NBC will cover the Open Championship. Very good news for those of us like Shotrock et moi who have been blighted with the presence of the ever-unctuous Mike Tirico on local and ESPN TV for almost thirty years.
And perhaps a chance to leave Johnny Miller at home and bring in Paul Azinger and Andy North from the ESPN crew. No sense however in repeating the annual exhumation of Tom Weiskopf.

Agree with you Sr about Justin Rose, but he self-destructed yesterday and he will feel that he let one get away.

As I was signing the guest book at Swinley Forest last month, I saw that Rich Beem registered in that day as well. Never ran into him, but was told he was walking a course he always wanted to visit. Good stuff.

US Open "Sectional" Qualifying today at sites across the US.
Wholesale withdrawals for various reasons, but David Lingmerth was off at his appointed tee-time of 7.20 a.m.

Just randomly looked up one Sectional qualifying tournament.
At the Old Oaks and Century CC's, there is Lee Janzen - one of 71 players trying for 4 spots.
Must be hard for a two time winner not to be exempted. Looks like the exemption only goes back for 10 years for winners.

Luke is off to a slow start in his sectional.  +2 after 5 holes.

28 W/Ds in the Columbus Sectional most of them PGATour players according to a Dave Shedloski tweet.

+3 after 7 for Lukey. And with 70 players for 4 spots, he's going to need to get into red and soon.

Inw,
No compassion at the USGA! They stiffed Janzen when their "Open" returned to Olympic Club where he won in 1998; always liked Janzen for some inexplicable reason, not sure he'll ever get credit for his achievements when he was in his prime.


Love the Tiger-worshipping drivel from the Golf Channel". Today's headline:
" . . . . while big names like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy struggle . . . . "
Yes, well, once upon a time, just 2 wins in 5 starts might have meant Tiger was "struggling", now it's just mindless association with the best player in golf. Imagine the USGA will group McIlroy with Spieth next week . . . . . .

Well, Rory is struggling at the moment ... but not Tiger-like struggling!

All background chatter to fill the news tapeworm, however.

Don't believe Rory is struggling for one minute.
He doesn't much care for Wentworth, even though he's won there, and doesn't like high winds. Not sure that he'll care much for Chambers Bay but don't read too much into it if he foozles there as well.
He's played well at St.Andrews, gave a clinic at Bridgestone last year, and T3'd at Whistling Straits a few years ago. Judge him after those events which there are indications that he really cares about.
One thing about Rory - he'll never be like Tiger, and will play certain tournaments out of loyalty/obligation rather than the compulsion to win.

The quality of the field at this week's Tour stop in Memphis will be mixed, to say the least.

The line-up so far includes a few leading Europeans who might not otherwise be expected to be here, including Casey, Donald, Donaldson, Harrington and McDowell. Surprised no Europe-based golfers are using this as a Chambers Bay warm-up.

Going into the Masters, I hear all sorts of angst about past champions in the Championship.

Now I am reading that the USGA "stiffed" two time US Open champ Lee Janzen when the US Open returned to Olympic.

I guess Goosen should be expecting an exemption to the 2018 US Open at Shinnec*ck.

A one-off sentimental gesture for a two-time winner who's still active? Why not?
I'm not against past champs getting tickets to Augusta either, just the fact there's no point in including proven uncompetitive 55+-year olds who haven't made a cut there in a dog's age, if Augusta insist on a field of 100 at max.

Still active?  OK

Competitive?  Not Really.

I am sure if Janzen was lingering in the top 100 of the OWGR rankings, he would have been considered.

But in 2012, He was ranked in the 600s when he might have got a exemption.

Not sure I agree it was Rose's to win all the way. After he blew the lead on the first 9 he was clearly catching up (was 2 or 3 behind at the turn I think) and lucky to stay alive. In fact DL had a good chance to close out on 18 in regulation (he missed his only putt for the week inside 10 ft) just as JR was lucky to save par after his shank in the playoff.

pedro,
Even allowing for a little bad luck with holes 3 and 4, plus fan interference on 14, Rose butchered 7 (including a 3-putt from 23ft) and 16 (basically the same thing). Put unnecessary pressure on himself, kept others in the game. He'll be very disappointed with himself I would think.

Luke Donald playing better now; in the qualifying positions with a two-shot margin as things stand. Keep it up Luuuuke.
EDIT: Dropped shot, margin gone! If he should stumble here, he has another chance in Memphis this weekend, top three finish should do the trick, but who would bank on that?

And it looks like the overlooked Lee Janzen came to play.

Must be pretty intimidating for the hopefuls to be competing against a former world #1!

Kwin - Notice that New Hartford is represented?