PGA Tour: The "Byron Nelson": Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).Jason Day's dominance of last week's Players Championship has been described as Tiger-like. It certainly looked that way as he signed for a clear lead on Saturday morning and never really looked like getting overtaken the rest of the way. Seven wins in the past ten months, though, and that's a helluva pace. Woods had 9 wins in a year once, as did Vijay Singh, and 8 wins twice, so Day has a long way to go, but his play since last year's vertigo at Chambers Bay has been different class from his closest pursuers.

2).Jason Day may not think so, but for the Tour's rank-and-file, we are coming up to the 2/3 point of the "regular" season, less than three months to qualify for FedEx Play-Off competition and earn cards for 2016/17.
All the more important, then, that double-dipping pros take advantage of every opportunity to pile up the appropriate currency, whether FedEx points, owgr points or real "cash money".
Good job by Francesco Molinari last week at Sawgrass as 7th place brought with it a jump from 133rd to 106th in FedEx Cup points.
But not good for Ian Poulter who slumped to a ten-over-par weekend and remains marooned outside the all important Top 125, in 137th position. He's played well in the Dallas area in the past and needs to do so again, otherwise he'll be going to cities he never imagined in a desperate effort to secure his card for another year.

3).Kevins win occasionally on Tour, Streelman and Stadler among them, but Kevin Chappell's starting to look like this season's Kevin Kisner as he piles up his 3rd runner up finish of the year.
Chappell's always looked like a potential winner if he could just play as well mentally as he usually does physically. He started the year in 105th place and is up to #33 so he's certain to play the big tournaments of the summer, but will he do a Kisner and finally break through?

4).The US Ryder Cup qualifying table has kept a status quo since we left California and the best Americans stopped winning tournaments. But Chappell has now reached 10th place, just ahead of Charley Hoffman. Matt Kuchar enjoyed his best finish for 15 months at Sawgrass and is up to 14th; not sure whether that is better news for DLIII or DC?.

5).Brian Davis has earned good finishes at the Byron Nelson in the past but he's not playing this week, presumably injured. Haven't heard any news so perhaps he'll apply for a medical exemption of some sort, perhaps on the PGA Tour but maybe the web.com Tour. Either way, he's on the edge of losing his Tour status, the only tenuous fingerhold on Tour likely to be "veteran status" courtesy of his 211 career cuts made.

6).The Byron Nelson field has steadily improved in quality since the Tour dissed it following Lord Byron's death ten-ish years ago. Another decent, if not deep, field and if Grumpy's fantasy game visited Dallas instead of Dublin I'd go with this lot:
A).Dustin, Kuchar, Sergio
B).Wilcox, Bradley, Palmer (but hope Poulter and Dufner start to pull their fingers out)
C).Curran, Henry, Appleby

7).Haven't seen anything on this Board about the death of Christy O'Connor.
O'Connor was, so far as I am aware, the last survivor of European golf in the 50's when I started to become aware of it as a sport - the names of O'Connor and Harry Bradshaw were as much a part of my sports awareness as Matthews and Mortenson, Statham and Trueman, along with Bernard Hunt, Weetman, Eric Brown, Dai Rees and a clown named Alliss (sorry Peter).
I'm sure there will be heartfelt tributes this week at the K Club. Rightly so.

Snap,
He looked exactly the same 35 yrs ago . . . . . god only knows what he puts on his hair.

Sergio needs to hit some nice crisp irons - that was a really poor miss to set up the bogey. Needs to take advantage of #11.

Kwini, I assuming it may not be the original! Just makes me chuckle when we get some CBS coverage. We have Denis Pugh on Sky who is also 60/61 ! Safely assume it is his own hair what is left of it!

You mean someone else has the Peter Kostis look? Hope Pugh is as insightful as Kostis.

Sergio back in gear.

Pugh and David Howell are alright, Pugh does well explaining the swing mechanics when CBS have a break.

If Sergio could avoid the water he would have a great chance, need Koepka to make a few mistakes.

Decent finish from Sergio, a couple of mistakes from BK, play-off.
Would think #18 might suit Sergio more than Brooksie . . . . . .

Rory wins, Sergio wins, and Bernhard takes a 3-shot lead into the final three holes of the "senior major". Ryder Cup Team shaping up nicely.

Langer with some God-bothering in the post round interview.

Perhaps his god was on his side, with five birds in his final seven holes . . . . .

Darren Clarke must be thrilled with the weekend, Willett, Rors, Fitz & Sullivan, plus Stenson, Rose, Rafa, Sergio, a.n.other (sorry, can't be bothered with the arithmetic, Thunderbear perhaps?), plus three others. Sweet!

On to Fort Worth.

Koepka nudges Patrick Reed out of the top 8 of the US Ryder Cup Standings.

Kuchar moves into the Top 10.

Currently Top eight are:  Spieth, Dustin, Bubba, Sneds, Rickie, Phil, Zach, Brooks

Next Four should be Reed, Kuchar, Holmes, Hoffman

Agree GPB,
An all to brief cameo in the Top Ten for Kevin Chappell. Tough crowd. #12 is the only Tour winner since California. Imagine Zach will start to bounce back up next week . . . . . .

US RC team looking good for Europe. Plenty of chokers.

Stupid statement from Brooks Koepka following his runner-up finish in Dallas, as quoted on the Golf Channel:
"I can bring my C-game and still compete," he said when asked what he learned from Sunday's loss.

Considering that's his best result on Tour since his win in Phoenix last February, it makes one wonder whether he remembers what his A and B games look like. Fortunately Sergio brought his D game . . . . . . . .

If that was his C game what the hell did he bring to the playoff. Looked more like an audition for the Define Hacker thread...

Troon: Confirmation of additional (owgr top 50) additions to the Open Championship field:
Cabrera-Bello, Chappell, Horschel, Grillo, Justin Thomas, Knox, Lingmerth, Ryan Moore

US Open: Too many to mention qualify via owgr Top 60, but include Europeans:
Rafa, Sergio, Donaldson, Fitzpatrick, Kjeldsen, Knox, Lingmerth, Sullivan, Westwood, Wiesberger, Chris Wood.

I'm not sure yet who has dropped out at Colonial, but great to see that "alternate" Stewart Cink has got himself a tee-time. He put his season on hiatus a couple of months ago as his wife was treated for breast cancer. Assume his return to action signifies promising news.

Wonder if Cink still looks like a pint of Guiness when he takes his hat off Kwini

GPB wrote:Koepka nudges Patrick Reed out of the top 8 of the US Ryder Cup Standings.

Kuchar moves into the Top 10.

Currently Top eight are:  Spieth, Dustin, Bubba, Sneds, Rickie, Phil, Zach, Brooks

Next Four should be Reed, Kuchar, Holmes, Hoffman

I have to admit that team looks stronger than Europe. I think the younger players like Fowler and Reed have more hunger for the Ryder Cup and will be much more "up for it". Obviously there are still weak links in the team like Bubba.

On paper it looks stronger. It almost always does. But apart from Fowler and Reed the team is full of potential chokers.

Maybe they can have Trump as motivational speaker?

That Guinness look is absurd - he seems a decent enough bloke though. Amazing that, apart from his back-door Major win, all his other five wins were achieved the week following a Major.

Rickie Fowler may not be a "potential choker" but that doesn't explain why he doesn't have a win in two RC's.
I like the core of the European Team better but some of them need to start finding some form - no better than the Americans in that respect, though Rory & Sergio (and Willett this week) made a good start.

Could be the least inspiring Ryder Cup since Faldo's captaincy. Not much to get excited about on either side. No one really blowing the world away and no "wild cards" likely to scare anyone.

On current form, I think there's only 2 players in the world who have an "intimidation factor" stepping on to the 1st tee in a match play situation: Jay Day and Rory.

Obviously things could change over the summer (eg if Spieth regains some form), but otherwise the Ryder Cup will feature many individual matches where there is no clear favourite. Which I think will be very interesting.

Super

What is so dull about watching Spieth, Fowler, DJ and Rory, Willett and Rose, all top 10 players going for it?

I don't buy into the Ryder cup hype but if you want to watch a lot of top 10 guys compete against each other it looks set to provide that.

It's just a bit flat this year Mac, don't you think?

America desperately need to win in order to renew interest in the competition but their team doesn't look much better than the one that got tanked last time out and with yet another deadbeat Captain in charge of their team, can you see it changing?

How can you tell, the teams aren't decided and it hasn't started yet. Maybe you are moving towards my position that it is an over hyped exhibition that has become a tiresome distraction int he golfing calendar.

At least Willett doesn't need to use its services as a crutch to make up for a disappointing career like so many of the past European team did.

I'm talking about the players who are currently in position. Fowler and DJ haven't exactly shone. Spieth bottled it last time out. Mickelson is as big a Ryder Cup loser as your demi god 9C and Watson is just as bad.

I still love the Ryder Cup, unlike you, but it's not looking like being one that garners much interest this time.

at the moment the bookies have it 60:40 in USA's favour which seems about right to me.

Whatever one thinks about the Ryder Cup, surely early-season hype for it is one of the casualties of the relentless schedule. Top players are pacing themselves, avoiding events they may otherwise play just to give themselves a breather prior to July & August.

At least Willett, McIlroy & Garcia have wins, which is more than DLIII can say about his crew, over the past three months anyway.
That might change this week though as Zach Johnson & Kuchar must be among the favourites at Colonial.

Super, it is odd to hear you talk about the Ryder cup as something that you "love", I think the only other things you have commented positively on are your Rocketballz 3 wood and Neoliberalism.


hend

Given the last 20 years it is a slight mystery that the bookies have the americans as favorites.

It's just a turn of phrase Mac, I don't "love" the Ryder Cup, but it's one of my favourite sporting events should the right things be in order for it.

When have I ever said I love Neoliberalism?

Maybe I meant neocon? You are like a wee Douglas Murray.

What?
He speaks a great deal of sense on some issues.

If Tiger is named as a VC who is going to put the squirrel on his shoulder?

Willett also "monitoring" zika situation.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/willett-joins-mcilroy-monitoring-zika-outbreak/?cid=twitter-gc-a-willett-joins-mcilroy-monitoring-zika-outbreak-052416


Seems unlikely Brazil will gain any control over the transmission of the virus in the next couple of months so why don't these guys just pull out now?

I guess that would depend on whether girl-friends/wives may be (or are looking to become) pregnant in the near future. Hence the watch and wait...

McLaren wrote:If Tiger is named as a VC who is going to put the squirrel on his shoulder?

What do you mean, "IF"?  

He already is a VC, named six months ago, along with Furyk, Stricker

http://www.rydercup.com/usa/news/tiger-woods-jim-furyk-steve-stricker-named-ryder-cup-vice-captains

Apparently Padraig Harrington will be named as a European VC Wednesday.
I wonder if he'll be a success in the captaincy business? Or is he too tied up in his own game, Faldoesque, to be much of a collaborator with teammates.