PGA Tour: Deutsche Bank Championship - The End?: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).The FedEx Play-Offs take us 200 miles to the North-East this week as the circus wends its way from Lon Gisland towards the Bawston/Providence area and the TPC Boston. It looks as if they're getting some much-needed rain this morning but most of Massachusetts has been very dry this summer and the course is likely to play relatively short compared to "brawny" Bethpage. Birdies will fly.

2).Deutsche Bank is at the end of its sponsorship but the destiny of this event, Round 2 of the FedEx Play-Offs, is uncertain. It looks like it's Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, from Deutsche Bank, but uncertain whether it's Goodbye or just Au Revoir from the Boston area - Thank you Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller.

3).Without being a nail-biting thriller, Round 1, The Barclays, was nevertheless intriguing - Patrick Reed and Rickie Fowler had so much on the line and Reed played magnificently to finally break Fowler. And Rickie's stone face at the end spoke volumes, as if he just couldn't quite figure out what had hit him, where it had all gone wrong.
When the shell-shock subsided, he found that at least he'd passed Kuchar into 11th place in the Ryder Cup placings, but now he'll have to rely on good play, goodwill and popularity to punch his ticket to Hazeltine.

4)."See you in Minneapolis" said Rickie to Reed at the end, and no doubt he will.
So: Who will join him? The rest of the nearly men had pretty lousy weeks, with Bubba placing highest at T13, JB Holmes T41 and Kuchar T64.
LoveIII has given himself another ten days to make his first three Captain's selections, then hedges his final bet for a further fortnight.

5).With the Top 8 having qualified automatically, Love's choices may be determined by results the next three weeks, rewarding golfers (Fowler, Kuchar, Watson) who went to Rio, trying some new blood or all three. But, apart from the Rio trio, experience is thin on the ground with only Holmes, Furyk and Dufner among the rest of the Top 27 having previous. So, RC records of the contenders are:
Watson: 3 wins, 8 losses.
Holmes: 2 wins, 0 losses, one half - and on a winning team, too.
Fowler:  0 wins, 3 losses, 5 halves
Kuchar:  4 wins, 5 losses, 2 halves (Kuchar earns a lot of US media attention as their top "ping pong" player, but if table tennis was a criteria we'd find a way for Freddie Jac to qualify for every Ryder Cup for the rest of his career.)
Furyk:  10 wins, 20 losses, 4 halves
Dufner:  3 wins, 1 loss

Stands to reason, then, that popular opinion seems to suggest Holmes will be the odd man out, whilst Dufner is scarcely being considered.
If either miss out, and I'd choose Holmes, I'd expect Love to pick Justin Thomas whose "potential" he's been trumpeting all year - I'm still something of a doubting Thomas as far as Justin goes, for now anyway, but he's hailed as the best young golfer not called Spieth, with whom he seems best mates, so who knows?

6).The European selection of Pieters and Knox seems to have been dealt with ad nauseum; one thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Knox played at least the first half of The Barclays while "battling bad congestion", and not just because he was playing behind Matsuyama. Best combination of the next few weeks would be Knox FedEx success and good play at Hazeltine from Kaymer, Pieters and Westwood.

7).Is past form at Hazeltine going to influence LoveIII?
Maybe not, he's unlikely to choose Rich Beem after all, and doubt if DC considered Richie Ramsay. But I wonder if DC was influenced at all by:
2009: PGA Championship:
T3: Westwood (and McIlroy)
T6: Kaymer (with Kjeldsen and Stenson)

8).Ireland's Seamus Power played well for 63 holes in Rio and now he's secured a PGA Tour card for 2016/17, via the web.com Top 25. The four tournaments comprising the web.com Finals kick off next week and it'll be interesting to see which "Internationals" will be contesting them.

9).Elsewhere, Bernhard Langer won his fourth event of the Champions Tour season, his 29th career win, tying him with Trevino for second all-time behind Hale Irwin's 45th. "He'll never catch Hale", says the reliably jingoistic Lanny Wadkins; maybe not, but Irwin also played many more tournaments per year, so Bernhard's hit-rate is very impressive.

10).Fowler's 15-under par won last year's Deutsche Bank, by one stroke from Stenson and some guy called Mahan tied for fourth - what a difference a year makes for Hunner, a Ryder Cupper just two years ago.

The tournament record score is 22-under par, three times, most recently by Stenson, and scoring is sure to be red hot again this week with a parched course, a little rain today, and good conditions thru the weekend. Just one fly in the TPC ointment might be a tropical weather system zipping up the coast and due to arrive on Monday. If that approaches shore, Monday could be very wet, possibly windy, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, a dozen or more Ryder Cup wannabes will be looking to impress Captain Love. Whose phone is jammed due to the torrent of text messages from Webb Simpson pleading his case for a place on Davis's Team.

Kwini, we haven't really discussed it on here much but Fowlers 54 hole lead to conversion ratio is pretty bad. It's great that he has given himself quite a few chances to win but you have to think it will start to play on his mind if it doesn't already?


GPB mentioned on last weeks thread that the PGAT has the cash to bail events out for a while, unless they want the play off's shortened to 3 events wouldn't baling out the boston event be a good use of this money? Would look pretty bad if a play off event just fell off the calendar.

Mac,
I'm sure Finchem won't leave the Boston situation hanging very much longer - even if they do reduce the Play-Offs to three tournaments, which was being kicked about a few months ago. And I can't see that they'd leave the Boston/Providence market without a tournament.


Rickie won from the 54-hole lead in Abu Dhabi, against a stronger leaderboard than Bethpage - credit to Reed rather than dis Fowler, tho that's a big loss, Phoenix too.

Its been announced that EMC will be taking over sponsorship of the Boston Playoff event.

Those that been crying WOLF can rest easy now.

Apparently there was a USA Ryder Cup outing at Gillette Stadium last night.

Mickelson won the Closest to the pin contest, and hit Right handed. And he sure did crow about it!

Hermine is a tropical Storm (Hurricane) in the Gulf of Mexico and is headed through North Florida and paralleling the East Coast.

its western path projections touch Boston sometime late this weekend.

Ah, You did read my 10th note, good job.

PS: Thanks for the EMC news - my golfchannel.com access is still very funky.

Very moving blog from Jarrod Lyle:

http://www.jarrodlylegolf.com/the-end

Only was lucky enough to follow Jarrod Lyle for a few holes, but he had everyone in stitches, fellow competitors, gallery and marshalls alike.
Good luck to him, and good health.

Kwini, moving, but it sounds like he is making a move that will give him a pretty good quality of life. Can't blame him for not wanting to be on the wrong side of the pacific to his kids.


Interesting that he feels the standard of play on the PGAT his become significantly better in the last 2.5 years since his illness.

Yup, hope things work out OK for him; not sure what he has to do to secure status on the Aussie Tour but the number of events there seems to be increasing. At last.
Interesting that the guy who really looked out for him, mentor and inspiration, was Robert Allenby, even dating back to years before he made it as a pro.

Cejka has joined Na (and Willett) as a withdrawal from the Deutsche Bank - that's Cejka's (and Willett's) farewell from the FedEx Play-Offs.

Went to practice day at DB yesterday.  It was a lot of fun and free entry -- just had to pay $20 for parking.  There were plenty of friendly volunteers around but not many players and not many spectators.  We saw Patrick Reed hitting the ball really well and Tyrone Van Wotsit looking very shaky around the greens (you could hear his caddy repeatedly telling him not to decelerate).

  There weren't many kids around but most players made time for them.  K.J.  ( who almost aced the 16th) signed a program for one guy and then bent down to sign something for the guy's daughter who was standing next to him.  She didn't have anything for him to sign, so he beckoned to her and led her over to his golf bag.  Gave her a signed glove and golf ball.   Danny Lee made a point of crouching down to get on the same level as some kids and had a lengthy conversation with them.  Bill Haas did the same thing. 

My brother-in-law overheard an interesting story.  One pro was describing to another pro how he had been playing a practice round at the Jack Nicklaus tournament with Ernie Els.  Ernie saw Jack walking nearby,  summoned him over, and really blasted him about the bunkers  (special rakes producing furrows to make life trickier). Ernie told Jack that if he didn't cut it out then he would never play that event again and would tell everyone the reason why. Pro was amazed that anyone would talk to Jack that way. But as the other pro pointed out "Well he is 2 feet taller than Jack".  

Same brother-in-law was given a sleeve of "used only once" golf balls by Scott Piercy's caddy.  Scott had hit a few balls off the tee and one of them went flying into the rough.  Brother walked over, picked it up and was going to throw it to the caddy.  Caddy came up and said "thanks , you didn't have to do that-- in fact have these,  it's your lucky day" 


Went into the merchandise tent for a bit of air conditioning and discovered they had a rack where everything was 75 pct off.  Possibly this was leftover DB stuff from prior years and they figured this was their best chance of off-loading it ?  If the event moves away from the area, there will be a lot of very disappointed local volunteers -- everyone we spoke to had been volunteering there for years and loved it.

Good stuff Plunky,
Are you going to the tournament proper?
Down your way in ten days' time, in Chatham, sans clubs unfortunately.

Sounds like your volunteers are in luck if EMC continues to stage the event in Norton.

Great notes Kwini...

Would be remiss to not point out that while Rickie Fowler has proven mostly hapless in closing out events from the lead, he's not entirely so. In a solid field in Abu Dhabi this year, Fowler led by 2-shots going into the final round, then shot 69 in the the 4th to win, holding off Pieters by 1 and charging McIlroy and Stenson by 2.  

Still 0'fer 4 closing the deal from the 3rd round lead on the PGA Tour though (and that's not even counting the late lead in the final round he coughed up in Phoenix).

robo,
Think that's pretty much what I wrote a few posts ago (11.48 a.m. on my timeline), but perhaps you didn't agree with my point that the Abu Dhabi leaderboard was superior to last week's!


Davis Love's Q&A on pga.com:

http://www.rydercup.com/news-media/usa/ryder-cup-captain-davis-love-iiis-nyc-media-blitz/?pga_cid=newsletter

I love that the narrative is that Europeans win because they "make all the putts". Not at Medinah, though there were some good 'uns on both sides, not anywhere.

Sorry kwini... I missed your mention of Abu Dhabi.  Refresh on the mobile version of the site is kinda strange... easy to skip over posts.

But sure I agree the late leaderboard was superior or Abu Dhabi... the field in generally wasn't.  Not that I believe it matters in Fowler's case though.  Fowler's not getting chased down and losing to someone playing better... he's spitting the bit against both name and not so name players.  Actually kind of baffling to digest after that epic performance at last year's Players not to mention Abu Dhabi.

Strange that the US Ryder Cuppers should go to Gillette Stadium on a day when there's no game.
Despite Rex Hoggard's moronic golfchannel.com post, "US Ryder Cup Team bonds at Patriots Game". They're playing again tonight Rex, don't miss it, but it's in New Joysey.


robo,
I give Rickie the benefit of that doubt, tho' Phoenix was a head-scratcher; sometimes he wants it too much. And his finishes at Sawgrass (back nine AND play-off, where after all he was T1 after 72 holes) and in Scotland were pretty darn good. Not sure what I'm doing supporting Rickie though, that's another head-scratcher.

God speed to Jarrod Lyle.

I like Rickie... anything to break the "sameness" that's so prevalent on the PGA Tour. I can't help but pull for him...

For all the hype and brash clothes, every time I hear Rickie Fowler speak he genuinely seems like a decent and mature guy. I think he'll win a major too

Kwini, we have a spare set of clubs in the garage if you feel like "pulling a sickie" when you're in Chatham !  No more DB for us -- weather forecast plus traffic getting on/off cape over a holiday weekend not favorable.

It's around this time of year I get home from work on a Thursday, turn on the TV and think "where the hell is the golf?"

Check my phone for the scores and go "oh yeah, Labor Day."

This year the Ryder Cup doesn't fall on Glasgow's infamous holiday "the September weekend" (it usually does) so I have had to book the Monday after the RC off work, which I have

Thanks Kwini great article as ever

Thanks Plunky,
Batten down your hatches, looks like that action might be closer to the coast than forecast a day ago; college (not mine of course, never got to fill out an UCCA form - you won't be needing that kwini!) reunion in Chatham, and I'm supposed to be hauling a boot load of VT beer, so I might be missed!

Get that sou'wester out, it looks like a nor'easter coming!

Cheers wire,
But beware Monday:

The forecast for Friday & Saturday is still pretty good, but things could start to get a little breezy at the TPC by Sunday, and Monday is anyone's guess, "100%" chance of rain and potentially strong winds at the moment; but not sure if the European met model (usually more accurate) concurs with that.
Interesting though, as next week is a "short" week, and the Tour caravan has to up sticks to Crooked Stick, in Indiana, so they wouldn't want to lose Monday's play!

FedEx status for Europeans. What they have to do at Deutsche Bank to advance to BMW:
Some are already certain to move on: Knox, Stenson, Garcia, McDowell, McIlroy, Rose

Donald most likely just needs to make the cut, would probably advance regardless.

Casey, Lingmerth: Top 55
Laird: Top 45
Jacobson: Top 25
Cejka, Willett: Out

kwinigolfer wrote:Yup, hope things work out OK for him; not sure what he has to do to secure status on the Aussie Tour but the number of events there seems to be increasing. At last.
Interesting that the guy who really looked out for him, mentor and inspiration, was Robert Allenby, even dating back to years before he made it as a pro.

As much of a di** Robert Allenby can be... the way he supported Lyle all along in his career, but especially when he took ill, shouldn't be overlooked. In times of need any of us would be lucky to have a friend like Allenby has been to Jarrod.

Luke Donald and his brother/former caddie Christian is an interesting one. I remember how hard it was on Luke to sack his brother, supposedly harder on him than Christian. PO'd the brother's family to no end as well.  

Christian was quickly picked up by Paul Casey after being sacked by Luke (even though they only worked together for a short while). And in a interesting turn of events... Luke went to John McLaren after firing his brother, and after 6 years on Donald's bag, it was the other way around as McLaren unexpectedly sacked Luke late last year.

After working for Casey, Christian moved on to Martin Kaymer, again for a short while, and is currently with Brendan Steele. And in another twist... Luke Donald's current caddie is Steele's former caddie, Mick Doran

In yet another twist... Donald and Steele were grouped with Ricky Barnes in the final threesome in the 4th round of the Valero Texas Open earlier this year. I don't know if the caddie dynamic had anything to do with it... but both Steel and Donald played poorly in the final round and ended up 5-shots back of Charley Hoffman T13.

I hope they all practice safe caddying, it's like a 70's swingers club!

!!
Casey & Donald were paired together last Sunday too!
Hadn't realised where Christian had gone after Casey . . . . . . and Kaymer has Casey's old caddie, Craig Connelly. (Casey has a hard time hanging onto Caddies, doesn't he?!)


Nice piece at Oakmont time:

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2016/tournamentid=2016046/news/newsid=298503.html

I'm assuming it was Mick Doran on Luke's bag at the Travelers - we thought he used to work for Molinari but probably not then - regardless, Luke and caddie often seemed on different pages, was v.pleasantly surprised to see his excellent form at Greensboro (altho' stats suggest there was some smoke and mirrors involved there).

(Rickie Barnes seems a good guy, enjoy following him.)

Barnes is an enigma to me. I've often been wrong playing the "expectations game" with players..... but I was way wrong on Ricky. I expected a lot more than just a "hang around" career outta that guy.

Ricky's got lousy-final-round disease when he gets into contention, still can be fun to follow though; others seem to enjoy playing with him.

See Rory is spending time w/Stenson's putting coach, Phil Kenyon. I suppose that's a good thing . . . . . . ?

kwinigolfer wrote:See Rory is spending time w/Stenson's putting coach, Phil Kenyon.  I suppose that's a good thing . . . :roll:  . . . ?

Can't hurt unless the glacial pre shot routine is a fundamental part of Kenyon's teachings.

Good news after 9 holes from Rory:
He has a positive "strokes gained putting".

Bad news after 9 holes from Rory:
His longest putt holed was a 14-footer - apparently for a triple-bogey SEVEN.

Casey trying to show DC what he's missing.

Stricker making a case for RC selection?

He has a lot of people to leapfrog, Mac, including some who also played well today, Ryan Moore to start with. Plus Chappell, Furyk, Holmes etc. Hoffman the only one who really shot himself in the foot.

At least 70 out of the 97 golfers make the cut, but Knox, Laird, McDool have their work cut out for them.

Entries to the first tournament in the wtf series who do not already have some kind of Tour card for 16/17 include:

~Tour veterans: Appleby, Byrd, de Jonge, Brian Gay, Matt Jones, Willie Mac, McNeill, Jeff Overton, Points, Romero, Sabbatini, Stallings, Chris Stroud, Michael Thompson, Trahan, Camilo, Mark Wilson

~Europeans: Cappelen, Greg Eason, Gonzo, Jimmy Gunn, Jaeger, Beef Johnston (blimey, hadn't realised he was looking west), Norlander, Greg Owen

~Other Notables: Thomas Aiken, DeChambeau, Aphibarnrat, Erik Compton, Iwata, KT Kim, Carlos Ortiz, John Peterson, Cameron Smith.

Good spot on Beef playing the WTF. I would loved to have seen him stick to Europe for a season or two more at least.

IIRC K.T. Kim was entered in the first WTF tourney last year. and was a no show.

He is playing in Japan this weekend and in contention.

Also noticed South African Dawie van der Walt on the list as well.  Until recently I knew little about him other than he'd gone to Lamar University  (in Beaumont, Texas on the TX/LA border) and won a few ET-SUN co-sanctions. But generally had a bad impression of him from his negative comments aimed at a Mike Weir's WD at the Heritige.  

Well... turns out he married a local girl and lives in a nearby planned community of Kingwood. He showed up at a Special Olympics Kid's golf thing put on by our PGA Section this summer. He could NOT have been more engaging, witty, and totally at ease enjoying himself and working with those kids. I only met him to shake hands, but he had a smile as "wide as Texas". and and by the way... HUGE guy... HUGE hands... not quite, but almost Phil Blackmar-ish.

I still think the Weir comments were crass, but this also goes to show you can't entirely judge people from one incident either.

somewhat surprised that Tyrrel Hatton decided to not play WTF.

robo, Is Big Phil a good guy? I really enjoy his on-course commentating. Azinger always reckons he's the Tour's best fisherman!


GPB,
Thanks for the KTK reminder. Also surprised about Hatton . . . . had to look twice to make sure he wasn't there, but another year to get entrenched in the Top 50 (if he's good enough) might be a good idea.

Not sure about Beef coming over here, imagine he might have Lowry-esque issues w/scheduling and the weekly Tour grind, but good luck to him, already with a nice Arby's endorsement so they'll keep him in sarnies.

Kwini... Phil Blackmar is top drawer one of the nicest and more unpretentious guys you'd ever meet. And surprisingly quick wit.

Hatton not playing the WTF surprises me far less than Beef deciding to play.  Unless a player is otherwise "Americanized", or doesn't have ET status, coming over to play outta the Webbie category doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I guess the thing Beef has going is even if he gets low Webbie priority, he'd likely get a lot of SE's. Not sure Hatton would. But still, not being pretty much guaranteed exempt into all the co-sanctions makes Beef's task in dual touring a tough one should he gain status.

EDIT: fixed typo on Blackmar... %$#@ spell check... :-)

These 15 players finished from 125-200th on the FEX list and exempt for 2016-17 season. With higher priority than the WTF players.

129 Nick Taylor Exempt via victory in 2014-15
130 Steve Marino Exempt via top 125 on money list
133 Morgan Hoffmann Exempt via top 125 on money list
135 Bud Cauley Exempt via top 125 on money list
136 Chad Collins Exempt via top 125 on money list
139 Padraig Harrington Exempt via victory in 2014-15
141 Retief Goosen Exempt via top 125 on money list
142 Greg Chalmers Exempt via victory in 2015-16
153 Ken Duke Exempt via top 125 on money list
163 Ernie Els Exempt via 2012 Open Championship victory
179 Steven Bowditch Exempt via victory in 2014-15
183 Hunter Mahan Exempt via multiple TOUR victories in 2010, 2012 and The Barclays win in 2014
185 J.J. Henry Exempt via victory in 2014-15
188 Davis Love III Exempt; lifetime member on TOUR
200 Matt Every Exempt via victory in 2014-15


Add another 5-10 players who will have some sort of medical exemption and/or lifetime exemption, there are going to be a total 200 exempt players on Tour.

Players like:

Poulter
Watney
Ishikawa (won last week in Japan, in contention again this week)
Clark
Perez
Van Pelt???
Stadler???
Brian Gay
Bob Estes

In addition, these 2015-16 Webbies should also have Medical extensions (John Peterson, Michael Putnam, and SJ Park).

Not to mention some dude named Tiger Woods.

robo,
Cheers.

Should be a pristine day at TPC Boston, but that could start to unravel Sunday and Hermine's travels up the coast still a bit of a tba for Monday.


GPB,
Great stuff on the Tour guys; imagine Estes will play Champo, but still haven't heard anything about Timmy or BVP.

Omitted these players that can have tour cards next season

Rafa Cabrera Bello
Byeong An
Martin Kaymer
Jon Rahm

Good list GPB.... illustrates why taking top-125 money away makes sense. This still seems like more than normal for next year though

Guess I spoke too soon... I happened to copy the priority list at the start of the year and I came up with 211 exempt this season including major medicals but not WTF medicals .

Also.... as of now there are 19 players with working winners exemptions that run out next season.

Thanks Robo, 6 players got exemptions via the money list.

Hard to believe Ken Duke at 152nd in FEX got in via money list (118th). Finishing T3 in the High dollar Players will do that. Strangely, IIRC, a T3 in the Players will not get him into next years Players!

Including Woods, it looks like 145 players have Tour Card with higher priority than the Webbies. And that doesn't include any of the Medicals.

Rory's holing some putts, on the move. All good!

Lukey going in the opposite direction. Very bad.

Unless the wind kicks up.... I think the EVENS and Luke are gonna miss the cut

Nah, Luke will be OK, by the skin of his teeth; the even-pars have only lost one position on the leaderboard today - so far.

But Russell Henley looks like he'll get a month off; he's got too much game for that to sit well with him.