PGA Tour: Memorial Days: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Extraordinary display from Jordan Spieth last weekend; I thought Paul Daniels was dead? The sort of rounds, on Sunday especially, that makes one dream a 54 is possible after all. But he must know that he has to improve his long game to contend at this summer's Majors.

2).Colonial CC looked really good last week and hosted an exciting championship, at least until Spieth waved his magic wand.
And so we'll venture from Texas this week to Ohio, from tournaments honouring Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, to the iconic Muirfield Village and Jack Nicklaus's gift to the golfing world. Muirfield Village ALWAYS looks good! Like Fort Worth, the Columbus, Oho, area has had plenty of rain during the past month and should be looking its immaculate best.

3).Another golf course is in the news all of a sudden with this morning's news from a certain presidential candidate that the WGC event recently hosted by Drumpf National Doral is leaving Doral, possibly for Mexico City. Given the primary (no pun intended) source, this could well be a premature extrapolation, but it seemed to be endorsed by Tim Rosaforte on the Golf Channel. Rosaforte also made a point of saying that fings ain't what they used to be when the Tour's visit to Doral was more of a community affair, a bit of a social occasion, with the clear inference that Drumpf's impact with higher prices and more of a corporate feel has rather spoiled the party.
There's bound to be more of this in the coming days, but nothing yet on pgatour.com.

4).If it's true, and apparently the latest is that it IS true!, does the Tour's departure from Doral portend the PGA and R&A making similar decisions on Drumpf-owned properties? It seems, for instance, that the R&A is hedging its bets with the destiny of the 2020/2021 Open Championships.

5).The Senior PGA was held this past week in Michigan (at yet another Nicklaus course) and what was the biggest surprise? That Mediate won it or that neither Langer nor Montgomerie did??
Which got me to thinking; perhaps it would still be a bit one-sided (an "exhibition"?) to stage a senior Ryder Cup, but the balance of power wouldn't be as lop-sided as it would have been just a few years ago.
Possible European Team: Langer, Jimenez, Montgomerie, Parnevik, Broadhurst, Lane, Chapman, Olazabal (if fit), plus the options of Wesselingh, Gilford, Forsbrand, Woosnam, Lyle, Remesy, M-A Martin, etc, etc. Just a thought!

6).There are only 12 tournaments remaining for PGA Tour members to retain their membership for next year, fewer for those golfers not playing the US Open or PGA Championship. Martin Laird (131st), Greg Owen (138th), Jamie Donaldson (139th) and Ian Poulter are all outside the top 130 in FedEx points now, and none are exempt for 2016/2017.

7).Others in similarly dire straits include: de Jonge, MacKenzie, Hoffmann, Cameron Smith and Thomas Aiken. And Brendon Todd (what's happened to him? Well inside the Top 30 in most short-game stats, bottom of the charts with driver and irons.) None exactly swinging like sultans. (Or maybe they are.)

8).Muirfield Village will look a picture, weather permitting, on Thursday; Nicklaus likes to tinker with his masterpiece rather like the Masters Committee likes to tweak Augusta National. In particular, holes 16, 17 & 18 have all been modified/redesigned the past few years. There's bound to be a surprise somewhere.
Regardless, enjoy four super Par-5's, one of my favourite shortish, if usually not driveable, Par-4's (the 14th), and Augusta look-alike Par-3 12th.
Not a fan of hole #13 but otherwise I love the design - typical Nicklaus: wide fairways (Ryan Moore only missed two out of the 54 a few years ago), with each hole design getting more exacting the closer you get to the pin.

9).Jason Day lives nearby and is a Member but has a shockingly poor record here. That never stopped him at The Players though. And Kyle Reifers is also a local who grew up caddying here. Otherwise there's not much of a homefield advantage - the strongest horse-for-the-course, apart from Woods, would have been Justin Rose but he's withdrawn.

10).Hogan loved Colonial (and Riviera), Palmer loved Oakmont and his Bay Hill, and Nicklaus has his legacy at Muirfield Village.
All of a sudden you're a power (OK, some of you already are) with unlimited wealth and influence in the world of Golf.
You can put your name on any course in the world and play the 606v2 Invitational there.
Where would you choose?

Poulter a VC.

Good decision I'd say. Hope the final VC is Karlsson (if he wants it) or Levet.

Fitzpatrick was impressive wasn't he?
Looking increasingly secure as an automatic qualifier for Europe's RC Team. Andy Sullivan in the final slot and his play has not exactly been RC class recently. Vic Dubuisson, Westwood and Kjeldsen arguably the three knocking on the door.

The automatic qualifiers for the US Team look like Spieth, DJ and perm the next six from nine contenders, Watson, Sneds, Fowler, Phil, Reed, Zach, Kooch, Koepka, Holmes - only $800K separate them, then there's a $500K gap to #12, Harley Choffman.
Biggest move in the past few weeks has been made by Kuchar - arguably should've and could've won Memorial and on a strong run of results: 3rd at The Players, then 3rd, 6th and 4th since. But that's the end of a traditionally strong run of tournaments for him . . . . .

McLaren wrote:Poulter a VC.  

The 5th must be Westwood then, as Sergio will qualify or get picked, otherwise DC wouldn't wait. If Westwood for some reason starts playing well, then I agree Levet could be in the mix as well. Jimenez seems left out in the cold?

Perhaps M-A J has opted out; after all he and DC were basically in competition. Also, that could be a lucrative time of the year for Miguel on the Champions Tour.

Luke 7 holes away from a US Open spot - wonder whether he'd be better off taking the week off?

Lukey has to return Tuesday a.m for a 6-man play-off - five qualify, the unlucky loser becomes an alternate. Summerhays & Rodgers also involved.

Well, That's settled then.
Luke Donald qualifies for Oakmont - can his withdrawal from "Memphis" be far behind?
Danny Summerhays is the odd man out but becomes "first alternate" with the high probability that he'll get in via the alternate route.

princedrac is projecting Memphis to yield just 30 owgr points to the winner. That's low for a PGA Tour event, very low.

Kwini, does the PGA Tour subsidise any events like the ET does with Wentworth ?

Kwini
I think some golf journalist on twitter said Donald would withdraw from this week if he qualified this morning! So it won't be long until he withdraws!

Inw,
Do you mean via the owgr system?

It's not the Tours directly that subsidise the points harvest for the event, it's the owgr system and, yes, there would be a minimum number of points awarded to the winner of each full-field tournament, but it's seldom invoked for PGA Tournaments. According to this (scroll down a bit!), both the E.T. and PGA Tour have a minimum of 24 pt spoils to the victor:

http://www.owgr.com/about

sirb,
It's forecast to be mid-90's HOT this week in Memphis, so only a desperate man, or masochist, would play this week AND Oakmont. Not sure which categories DJ & Phil fall into!
Imagine there'll be quite a few w/d's this morning and they'll be dredging the bottom of the pool for competitors to fill the places of the departed.

INW

The Players championship has a 80 point minimum regardless of who turns up. I don't think it has ever failed to reach this minimum, which the BMW PGA has consistently failed to do.

Both the PGAT and EuroT have a 24 point minimum for regular events. Again, not sure if the PGAT ever needs to use this.

Kwini and Mac - thanks for that. Explains it perfectly to me.
(Not that I understand it totally, but I can see the answer I wanted!!!)

Daniel Berger ‏@DanielBerger59 16h16 hours ago
Oakmont's rough is like rough on steroids. You can't advance it 10 yards sometimes #parsaregood

A tweet from Daniel Berger last night haha!

im surprised at the lack of coverage on the Phil Mickelson's insider trading case. is there some kind of injuction on it?

hend

Don't know if you have seen them but the USGA has a video series of Oakmont flyovers. Looks really tough, especially the par 3's.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUSGA/videos

CLICK HERE for a news report on the case. Phil was treated as a "relief defendant" - receiving property illegally but not directly accused of wrongdoing. The article says Phil paid up and that appears to be the end of it....?

Mac - "Tough" is putting it kindly IMO! One of the few (only?) courses they need to slow down the green speeds for the National Open. Not a course I would want to play every week and I don't understand the carte blanche tree removal (seems a growing fad in these United States), but should prove to be a wonderful test for the professionals.

Shotrock,
Are you going to the Cricket Club this week?
And: What fielding position will you be preferring??
(Place looks lovely; big fortnight for PA. Plus a golf advisor piece on Bedford Springs - have you played there?)

Ha! Not going to "Philly Cricket" (as it's known in these parts, and not to be confused with "The Cricket Club", which is Merion Cricket Club), but it's a fine place! Playing Pine Valley this weekend, so I'll be preparing for that every spare moment.

Never played Bedford Springs ... perhaps someday.

golfchannel.com reporting that Erik Compton missed a two INCH putt yesterday on his way to missing out on a Play-Off by one stroke.
TWO INCHES! I'd have made that. Not surprising he's had heart trouble.

As it pertains to the wholesale removal of trees at Oakmont ...

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/golf/2015/09/22/More-trees-removed-but-otherwise-not-too-many-changes-at-Oakmont-for-2016-U-S-Open/stories/201509220066

Perhaps they'll change the name to Fescuemont? Hope they don't do that deforestation at Oak Hill . . . . . .

Alternates have now started to withdraw @ Memphis, dear oh dear!

EDIT: With Cejka now awol too, the winner will earn just 28 owgr points, the lowest I can recall for quite a while. Although this year's John Deere might run it close.

No Woods in the US Open or (his?) Quicken Loans shindig.
Wherever will he tee it up next?

A nice pgatour.com Q&A with Jim Furyk, plus some interesting perspectives on Oakmont:

http://www.pgatour.com/long-form/2016/06/07/jim-furyk-us-open-oakmont.html

Whether he'll be battle-hardened fit to contend next week is questionable, but you know he won't give up.

Always think Furyk comes across as one of the more "regular guys" on Tour, pretty down to earth person.

I quite like Furyk. Horrible swing but the "sod mechanics let's make what I've got work" attitude is great. Does come across as very down to earth in that piece.

Had a look at some of the Oakmont hole flyovers and in conjunction with the Furyk article I've concluded that I don't think I like Oakmont. Needlessly too tough IMO. But, that said, I do quite enjoy watching the best in the world struggle from time to time!

Kwin - I give it a 50% chance Tiger never tees it up again in a professional tournament. But, who knows ...

Whoever wins the National Open will need precision putting (which could be said for just about every US Open). Oakmont, unlike Bethpage, is not a course you overpower.

Who doesn't like a bit of Thitiphun? Although I'm more of a leg man myself.

Couldn't find the list posted of US Open alternates so this thread is as good as any.  Final spots dished out by the USGA to:
Zach Edmondson
Tony Finau
Kevin Foley
William McGirt (by virtue of his win at the Memorial putting him inside the top 60 in the OWGR)
Daniel Summerhays (must have been the unlucky guy in the playoff that Luke Donald was in)
Mike Van Sickle