PGA Tour: The California Riviera: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Perfect conditions last weekend for the "AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am" but a shame that Sunday's round, by the overnight leaders at least, was more a war of attrition than a swashbuckling exhibition of risk/reward play that Phil Mickelson rewarded us with the last time he contended here.
On that occasion, in 2012, Phil started Round 4 six strokes off the lead and stormed through the first seven holes in five under par and shooting a 64 to win by two. The fact that he was grouped with Tiger (shot 75 for a T15 finish) made Phil's round all the more electrifying and he won his fourth "Crosby".

2).Alas, this was a below par Mickelson; he got off to a poor start and never asserted himself while others, initially Blixt but later Vaughn Taylor, seized the initiative.
Does this diminish Mickelson as a force to be reckoned with going forward? Not at all in my view; don't expect much from him in Florida but he'll surely be highly competitive at Augusta National, at the very least. And the PGA is back at Baltusrol where he won his (EDIT: Second!) Major.

3).In the event, Vaughn Taylor was the man who went out and won at Pebble Beach, clearly a surprise to everyone even though he played well there last year (10th).
For reasons that one can't articulately explain, there are middle-of-the-road (OK, more hard shoulder in Taylor's case) pros who I always take an interest in, and Taylor is one of them, partly due to the easy rhythm of his swing which makes one wonder why he struggles.  

4).Eighteen months ago Taylor had a scare when his fishing skiff capsized and he had to swim ashore battling the fast current from the Savannah River.
He missed earning "conditional status" on this year's Tour by a fraction, literally, of a FedEx point and played at Pebble Beach only as an alternate from his "Past Champion" status. The weekend before he had to w/d, suffering from a stomach virus, from a web.com event in Colombia, spending time in hospital hooked up to an I/V instead. Beware the ailing golfer indeed; all of a sudden he's 13th (very early days obviously) in Ryder Cup qualifying - he played in Ireland ten years ago.
Regardless, don't expect him to be using a carry-bag, as he did last weekend, instead of a Tour bag again anytime soon. Even pros sometimes take whatever steps are deemed necessary to save a buck or two.

5).This is the last weekend to qualify for the WGC-Cadillac Championship, at Doral in a fortnight, via the Top Ten in the Race to Dubai. Top ten so far:
Stenson, Grace, Willett, Charl, C-Bello, Wood, An, Sullivan, Pieters, Holman. With a good pay-day in Malaysia, the Maybank winner and, almost certainly, runner-up will qualify so Pieters and Holman could be bumped.
This Monday's, and the following Monday's owgr Top 50 qualify as do the Top ten in FedEx points as at Feb 29th.

6).The Tour is still undecided as to whether or not to return to Doral.
Meanwhile, Dean & Deluca have been announced as title sponsor of the "Colonial" tournament in Fort Worth.
And Northern Trust are being replaced next year as sponsor of the LA Open by Hyundai.
The musical chairs continue with Northern Trust replacing Barclays as sponsor of the first FedEx Play-Off event, but no announcement has yet been made about who will replace DeutscheBank as sponsor of FedEx Play-Off Round 2.
Speculation increases that the Play-Offs will be reduced from four events to three in light of concerns that the top players are being "overworked" prior to Ryder and President Cup action.

7).Riviera is one of the premier courses in America in general, on the PGA Tour certainly, and this week's field for the final "Northern Trust Open" in Los Angeles reflects the quality of the course and the history of the tournament.
It is the first Tour event to attract a truly international field this year with Messrs McIlroy, Scott, Schwartzel, Garcia, Wiesberger and Sullivan all making their 2016 debuts. Scott (2005 winner), Charl and Sergio (one of a handful who let victory slip through their fingers last year) all have good records here, whilst Casey is another who could've, should've won in 2015 instead of James Hahn.

8).Much will be made of Spieth and McIlroy being in the field together and it's a shame that Jason Day and Fowler are not joining them. Others from Team GB&I include:
Casey, Donald, Harrington, Laird, Owen and Justin Rose. Good finish in his Pebble Beach debut for Rose last week.
But Luke Donald made a complete horlicks of his 71st and 72nd holes, bogey/double bogey, which is just the sort of thing one sees from pros who are struggling; it's not the money that Luke needs, it's the points, owgr (currently 87th) and FedEx (120th), and that's the reason he'll be sitting at home watching the WGC's and Majors on the telly unless he can turn good golf into good results.  

9).Good news: Bernhard Langer won his 26th Champions Tour tournament this past week, ranking him 3rd in career Champo Tour wins. To put his achievement in perspective, no-one else born 1950 or later has more than Jay Haas's 17 wins.

10).Bad news: Have you seen Langer's putting style?
He uses a long putter which he holds out from his chest, but any gap is almost imperceptible and certainly can't see how anyone, playing competitor or official, can judge whether he's "anchoring" or not. I've never agreed with eliminating "anchoring", but rules is rules and Langer seems to be ensuring no-one can tell whether his stroke is within the rules or not. It looks for all the world as if he's taking the p1ss, two Germanic fingers in the direction of Golf Officialdom while he laughs all the way to the bank.

Kwini

I clearly posted that questioning whether or not it was true. Hardly a fairy story. It would just have been a peculiarity if true.

I am actually more concerned about the Tiger injury news, it has already been reported that he was going to miss out on a comeback in line with the usual guidelines for that sort of surgery. It would seem he isn't just a few weeks behind schedule be still pretty much incapacitated.

No idea about Woods, would consider any reports speculative - Feherty just on NBC and he suggested no-one "really knows". Obviously an exaggeration but . . . . . It seems his health is not the same as when his blood-doping doctor was on call. I'd be surprised if he was back on Tour this year.

You could easily have dispelled that nonsense about the Honda qualie just as easily as I did . . . . . . .

Hard to be definitive about Tiger's condition by commenting on the re-tweet of a tweet of someone reporting something they had been "told" by a 3rd party.

Kwini

I pop in a out of here quickly in between working. I don't always have time to delve into the OWGR press releases or the like.

The quick and accurate responses to questions/posts on here is a valuable tool of which you are a major part. Do not see it as a negative.

I am fearful of posting this now but here goes.

Anyone got any thoughts on the LGU and R&A merger?

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2016/2/22/the-ladies-golf-union-and-the-ra-to-merge.html

I see that Lahiri and Thomas Aiken are playing so that raises the bar somewhat, but nowhere near the quality in Perth.
Here's the scoring:

https://sflpga.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/sflpga16/event/sflpga1623/contest/1/leaderboard.htm

Interesting that Robert Karlsson (could be the College Karlsson) and Peter Hanson are playing.

Regardless, Bob makes a good point!

kwinigolfer wrote:Mac,
Whoever GolfBetting12 is, they're full of sh1t.
Just had a butcher's at the qualie field and can't see anyone from the owgr top 200 (tho' there may possibly be one or two).

According to the E.T. website, the Perth field still includes:
Oosthuizen, Fraser, Dubie, Olesen, plus, I would guess, at least a dozen more from the Top 200.

You post fairy tales sometimes - a bit like Republican candidates for President.

I can see that happening at a fourth-tier event but not this week. Your opportunity to denigrate the ET will have to wait.

Lighten Up Francis

Edit:

BTW, Robo is reporting that Lahiri got into Honda after the reshuffle and won't need to qualify.

And there are probably more PGATour wins in the qualifier than EuroTour wins in the Perth Tournament

Mark Calcavecchia
Jesper Parnevik
Robert Garrigus
Jhonny Vegas
Daniel Chopra
Tommy Gainey
Heath Slocum
Richard S Johnson
Robert Gamez
Eric Axley

They have about 30 wins between them

Speculative? Yes. Any other golf news worth reading today? Seems not.

http://www.golfwrx.com/356598/report-tiger-woods-back-injury-has-worsened-painful-to-sit/

For what its worth... statement from Steinberg concerning Tiger...

“The tweets that appeared this weekend about Tiger’s health are ridiculous and absolutely false. It’s reprehensible that every few months someone makes something up and it’s treated like a real story. Tiger continues to work on his rehabilitation and we will have an accurate update at the appropriate time.”

GPB,
My mental arithmetic suggests the number of European Tour wins in Perth is about 70, the PGA Tour wins in the Honda qualie about 40, a few more than you reckoned.
Not far out then.

Admittedly my knowledge of European Tour wins is not as a good as PGATour, but I would never guessed ~70 wins from this weeks entries.

There are some big multiples that add up quickly:
King Louis: 7
Alvaro: 6
Hoey: 5
Ilonen: 5
Rumford: 5
Bourdy: 4
Leaney: 4
Senior: 4
Singh: 4
Manassero: 4
Fraser: 3
Havret: 3
Olesen: 3
O'Malley: 3
Gallacher: 3
Green: 3
Maybe more, plus several doubles and even more singles, but that's about 60 right there, admittedly some nearly as ancient as Calcavecchia's wins.

EDIT: There are also probably 30-odd European Tour wins at the Honda Qualie . . . . . . . . !!

robopz wrote:For what its worth...  statement from Steinberg concerning Tiger...

“The tweets that appeared this weekend about Tiger’s health are ridiculous and absolutely false. It’s reprehensible that every few months someone makes something up and it’s treated like a real story. Tiger continues to work on his rehabilitation and we will have an accurate update at the appropriate time.”

Even Davis Love III feltt the urge to state that "Tiger is making progress". Now why does DL3 care? Like because Tiger might still qualify for the Ryder Cup?

Pedro

If the rumors are true Tiger isn't even in a fit enough state to sit in a buggy as a VC.

In case anyone was wondering what the fuss is about regarding Bernhard Langer's putting stroke, here's Golf Digest's take on it:

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-rosaforte-report-bernhard-langers-new-putting-stroke-has-people-talking?mbid=nl_022216_daily_hitlist&CNDID=25665405&spMailingID=8573610&spUserID=MTA4NzI3MDIzMjU0S0&spJobID=862203298&spReportId=ODYyMjAzMjk4S0

kwinigolfer wrote:In case anyone was wondering what the fuss is about regarding Bernhard Langer's putting stroke, here's Golf Digest's take on it:

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-rosaforte-report-bernhard-langers-new-putting-stroke-has-people-talking?mbid=nl_022216_daily_hitlist&CNDID=25665405&spMailingID=8573610&spUserID=MTA4NzI3MDIzMjU0S0&spJobID=862203298&spReportId=ODYyMjAzMjk4S0

I hope is conscience is clear, as one day he will face the judgement of God.

and God's stroke won't be anchored..

Todays Tiger gossip suggests he is actually making progress.

Love and Begay 3 say he is getting better.

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/tiger-woods-confidantes-say-player-is-actually-progressing?mbid=social_twitter

A couple of years ago hend0 posted a video of a lecture that Padraig Harrington had give. Fascinating it was.

Here's more, an up-to-date version summarised by pgatour.com:

http://www.pgatour.com/long-form/2016/02/23/padraig-harrington-honda-fear.html

It still doesn't explain why he wore mis-matching golf shoes last week . . . . .

Great insight from Padraig as per usual, not the first time he has mentioned the lack of fear being a contributing factor to his results being poorer.

He has played decently this year just hasn't put it all together and the last rounds of the last two tournaments have been very poor.

Todays Tiger Gossip

He can stand, and had dinner with Tony Finau.

‏@tonyfinaugolf wrote:
Dinner with @TigerWoods and Team Nike at Tigers restaurant. A night I'll never forget. #GOAT #nikegolf #honored

PS: Is that his man sausage you can see or a crease in his trousers?

McLaren wrote:

PS: Is that his man sausage you can see or a crease in his trousers?

it's Finaus hand searching for Tigers wallet.

McLaren wrote:Todays Tiger Gossip

He can stand, and had dinner with Tony Finau.

‏@tonyfinaugolf wrote:
Dinner with @TigerWoods and Team Nike at Tigers restaurant. A night I'll never forget. #GOAT #nikegolf #honored

PS: Is that his man sausage you can see or a crease in his trousers?

Maybe he's got a tent pole up the back of his top.

Nike ->

Who is Tony Finau?

https://twitter.com/TigerWoods/status/702492113188032512

Well that shuts Robert Lusetich and the secret tour pro up!

he plays golf

MontysMerkin wrote:he plays golf

unlike Tiger Woods

sirbenson wrote:https://twitter.com/TigerWoods/status/702492113188032512

Well that shuts Robert Lusetich and the secret tour pro up!

At least he was forced to provide a statement of sorts on how his rehab is going. It would be nice for his fans if he could at least confirm whether he plans to tee it up at all this season.

super_realist wrote:Who is Tony Finau?

One of the longest hitters on tour and much talked up by the US commentators as a future great thing... so a Dustin Johnson then.

Edit: Actually according to the PGA Tour website, he's the longest on tour.

Never heard of him.

Don't worry, I'm sure there are other golfers you don't know too, don't beat yourself up about it.

More on Tony Finau:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/ryan-lavner/family-sacrifices-fuel-finau/