PGA Tour: Welcome to the BIG Time Shane!: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

Possibly entering a Wi-Fi-Shy territory for a few days so let's kick the PGA Tour Notes off with a few ideas just to get a thread up and running:



1).Wonderful golf from Shane Lowry, even if he did have to out-luck Bubba Watson on the 18th. Love Lowry's swing and love his short game. The first Irishman to win a WGC and can there be any real doubt that he's capable of emulating Padraig Harrington and winning a Major or three?
As it is, he collects, among other things, a 3-year PGA Tour exemption; now for the hard part, planning a schedule and figuring out what he wants of the next three years, not what everyone else wants of him.
And Lowry's win should allow Martin Laird to enter the PGA as first "alternate".

2).Lee Westwood was among a handful of golfers who finally earned a place in the FedEx Play-Offs, alongside Lowry apparently. (EDIT! Apparently GPB's Golf Channel link suggests this is erroneous and he still requires high finishes at the PGA and/or Greensboro - doubt Shane will be too bothered about that.)
Donaldson was one of a handful of Bridgestone golfers who missed an opportunity to join them. Disappointing finish from Justin Rose - lots of focus from the CBS crew on Justin's putting, striking the short putts on the heel and pulling them. May not have cost him the tournament but almost certainly cost him second place.

3).JJ Henry won the Barracuda Championship in a very exciting finish with eagle on the second play-off hole - not often that golfers lose after birdieing both play-off holes, but that's what Kyle Reifers did, after eagling three of his final six holes. Wonder if that's a Tour first?
One talking point next time the Rules Committee get together will be Andres Romero's decision, with a nod from Tour Officials, to tee off on his last four holes of Round 3 with a putter and pick up claiming a maximum double bogey Stableford score of -3, having earlier damaged his right hand by planting a right cross firmly into the 15th tee sign. The hand swelled up like Rory's ankle and he withdrew after his round, but should that have been allowed?

4).This week's PGA Championship will be at Whistling Straits, about an hour north of Milwaukee overlooking Lake Michigan, for the 3rd time in 12 years. Apart from the actual Championship, the week will go a long way towards finalising Presidents Cup teams and determining the last few qualifiers for the FedEx Play-Offs. Next week's action at Greensboro will represent the final event of the regular season, do or die for famous names and journeymen alike.
Meanwhile, reports suggest that Dustin's bunker has been replaced with spectator seating so he'll get a free drop next time instead of a devastating penalty.

5).Although Vijay and Martin Kaymer won the two previous PGA's played here, and Dustin, Rory and Bubba were narrowly defeated last time, other top five positions have been filled by some of the Tour's shorter hitters: Justin Leonard, DiMarco, Zach Johnson, Chris Riley and Elkington. These players "go again" after earning top 20 placings in 2004 and 2010:
2004: Singh, Els, Mickelson, Scott, Clarke, Toms.
2010: Kaymer, Watson, McIlroy, Dustin & Zach, Dufner, Villegas, Day, Kuchar, Mickelson, Casey, Schwartzel, Gallacher, Els, Watney.

Both previous trips to Whistling Straits have ended in play-offs. The next time Europe's best golfers get to see the course will be in 2020. Not sure who'll win this week ( for Stenson), but have no doubt that the 2020 winners will be Europe's Ryder Cup Team!

Not sure if it was playing with Rory or being on the clock, or both, but I thought (as much as you can tell on tv) that Spieth seemed a bit fazed by it all. Didn't seem to have his usual composed confident manner

raycastleunited wrote:Obviously you were watching a different Rory.

I thought he did well, if he'd gone off in the morning I reckon he would have been a couple of shots better off. Majestic driving, sometimes knocking it 50 yards past Spieth and ZJ.

I was watching the Rory that 3 putted, had to hit out of the water, hack out sideways, missed several greens short and duffed a chip to finish the day. I appreciate he was playing in higher winds with harder greens and that his back nine was pretty stable but I just thought he seemed a little flaky at times.

When people talk about being in control of the ball, I always think that means off the tee and approaches. I'm pretty sure that's what both Dustin and Tiger were referring to in their post round interviews. It's about plotting your way around the course, and taking calculated risks. I thought by and large Rory was impressive in this respect (though not perfect), and the nature of the course means that everyone will get into a bit of trouble at some point.

Chipping and putting are obviously hugely important (just ask Tiger) and for me Rory didn't really shine in these areas yesterday.

Ray, I agree he didn't putt or chip all that well. But I wonder if he will be able to get his approaches a little closer today and take some of the pressure off his putting. I am pretty sure there were a few times yesterday where although he escaped with a par his 1st putt didn't get to tap in range and he needed to hole a decent length of putt for par.

These are the areas I'd expect any player to be rusty after a lay off.

He's exceeded my expectations by being -1.

07:20 in Sheboygan and already the play is under way. A birdie on 10 for Oda and a bogey on the 1st for Grillo.


I don't know how people manage to perform while playing golf before 9.30am, I need a coffee, some food and time to recover from sleeping before I can hit a ball. I once had a really early tee time at TOC (pre 7am maybe?) and nearly put it OB right off the 1st tee.

Early mornings are my favourite times Mac. Got two tee times before 7:30 this weekend. Often the lightest winds at that time, no one in front of you and often no one behind you and the greens are not spike marked and have been cut or swished, bunkers raked.

Similar in aesthetic quality to a late summer evening game.

Always try and play early. It's a lot easier to get the wife to sign off the round if I'm hom by midday.

That's about the most stupid thing out of many stupid things I've seen you post SR.[/quote]



The good news for you is while you will almost certainly post about Tiger another 4,000 times, then complain about all the attention he gets, he is almost certain to not make the cut today.

You don't bitch about the sun coming up at a different time each day ... do you??

Bird for simba, the chicken wing working well already.

Is Lingmerth gonna be the next PGA 1 hit wonder?

Does anyone know if there is a spieth/Rory tracker on twitter similar to the tiger tracker?

AlciG wrote:Is Lingmerth gonna be the next PGA 1 hit wonder?

Not sure, but hopefully DJ won'y chase birdies if a few players pass him before he gets out. It does look as if sub par rounds will be needed to maintain position but no need to attack recklessly.

Shotrock wrote:
That's about the most stupid thing out of many stupid things I've seen you post SR.



The good news for you is while you will almost certainly post about Tiger another 4,000 times, then complain about all the attention he gets, he is almost certain to not make the cut today.

You don't bitch about the sun coming up at a different time each day ... do you??

Course not, he lives in scotchland.

From shot tracker it seems Rory is facing quite a few 3 foot + par putts and no sniff of a birdie.

Par putt lengths so far

inches
4 foot 1
2ft 11
3ft 9
3ft 4

With a shortest birdie putt of 18ft.

Rory still playing ok, that balls up on the 18th hurt his score. But I doubt anyone expected much from him this week. Spieth starting to look good. Lovely looking golf course.

Lingmerd.

....with a bird to undo some of the mess.

I think Rory might just have fixed the balls up on 18. A chip in eagle on 2 takes him back to -2.

Great rounds from Coetzee, Stenson and Iwata!

Stenson needs two birdies for the 62!

63 for Iwata! Incredible round!

Hiroshi iwata? I don't think I've ever heard of him.

Really?

DJ's course management has been shocking today

Iwata finished 2nd to Bubba in the WGC - China event.

Tiger commits to the Wyndham next week, I didn't see him entering it, but good to see him wanting to play more

For all Rory's driving prowess take note of the putting and scrambling stats.

Spoiler:

That is where the 4 shot difference would appear to be.

Spieth is usually deadly within 10 ft

iWata, sounds like the new Apple device.

I don't know anything about Joe Posnanski but this is a fantastic article -

Golf Channel - Opinion: Age of Tiger: Woods has already run out of time http://www.golfchannel.com/news/joe-posnanski/age-tiger-woods-has-already-run-out-time/

Good article. Thx for sharing.

Day ... Speith ... Rose ... your winner will likely be one of those three. Cream rose today.

Kind of hope the wind gets up tomorrow.

Wind up forecast is for a fine, sunny day, with winds getting up. 2-hour forecast of blustrousness:
9.00 a.m.: 9 mph
11.00: 12 mph
1.00 p.m.: 13 mph
3.00: 15 mph
5.00: 14 mph
7.00: 10 mph

In the unlikely event the forecasters actually have it right, the middle-of-the-day tee-times might have the worst (least perfect) of it. Regardless, Jason Day's horlicks at 15 and bad luck at 16 certainly brought more players into the mix.

Interesting comments about the course - not my cup of coffee at all, pretty much out of the Chambers Bay moonscape school of architecture, and equally carp for the marauding "patrons" who'll be at the 2020 RC.

MustPuttBetter wrote:I don't know anything about Joe Posnanski but this is a fantastic article -

Golf Channel - Opinion: Age of Tiger: Woods has already run out of time http://www.golfchannel.com/news/joe-posnanski/age-tiger-woods-has-already-run-out-time/

Interesting article, but I think there are very few that think Woods could get back to his old dominant self, does that mean he won't win another major imho no. Few believed he could get back to No.1 and he did. After all, arthritic Phil still competes, Jiminez is still around, Harrington popped up at The Open, if Woods can remain healthy and cops on and goes to a real swing coach he can win more, and that could include majors. He still has time.

Amazing stat on GolfWorld's Twitter summary:
In the 22 tournament rounds this year where Spieth and Woods have both been in competition, Spieth leads Woods by 123 strokes, 5 1/2 shots per round.

If an American wins today, it will be the first time since 1982 that US Golfers have won all four Majors.

kwinigolfer wrote:Amazing stat on GolfWorld's Twitter summary:
In the 22 tournament rounds this year where Spieth and Woods have both been in competition, Spieth leads Woods by 123 strokes, 5 1/2 shots per round.

If an American wins today, it will be the first time since 1982 that US Golfers have won all four Majors.

I would never have guessed that re US golfers, amazing.
In fairness to Woods, he's been pants this year as he's coming back from back surgery and rebuilding his swing. .. I would like them to do a similar comparison to Woods' 2013 stats v's Spieths 2015 stats, maybe a little fairer. ..

What an incredible third round.

Who does everyone have winning tonight?

sirbenson wrote:What an incredible third round.

Who does everyone have winning tonight?

Heart says Day, head says Spieth.
I'd love to see Day win it, he's been there or there abouts in majors for a good while now so I think he deserves one..

I don't think Grace can do it, too much of a bottler...

Grace a bottler, what makes you say that? I can only remember the US Open where he has failed to close out when he has a great chance and to be fair that was his first time in contention coming down the stretch of a major!

I think Spieth gets it done today, it wouldn't surprise me if DJ made a charge up the leaderboard and got within a shot or two!

Between Day and Spieth I would think - perhaps Day's length might give him the edge.
But heart wants a Kaymer/Rose shhot-out!

Kaymer needs to move up further to get into the playoffs, he has had such a bizarre year. Since he lost the lead at the start of the year he has barely done anything for a player of his ability!

sirbenson wrote:Grace a bottler, what makes you say that? I can only remember the US Open where he has failed to close out when he has a great chance and to be fair that was his first time in contention coming down the stretch of a major!

I thought you might get it Sirb, Brendan Grace Bottler, no?

I'll get my coat!

I think Days time has come.

Great start from Ryan Moore....Would like to see some wind to test the players!

Nothing more than 15 mph in the forecast sirb. But without it it's just target golf on steroids, pot luck where errant drives end up.

Five under after five holes from Ryan Moore - that's what one of the pretenders needs to do if they want to become a contender.

I read there could be stronger gusts though!?

Is it just me who thinks that having 20 club pros is a bit too much?

sirb,
me too . Only one (barely) made the cut. I wonder what the norm is?

sirbenson wrote:Is it just me who thinks that having 20 club pros is a bit too much? 

Jeez, you 606V2 guys complain about the Masters being limited to the top 50 players

The PGA invites 100 of the top 100 and gets 120 of the top 150 players and there are still complaints about the players that fill out the field.

I have no problem whatsoever with 20/156 players being Club pros.  Membership has its privileges.