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

First topic message reminder :

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.

Rory won the Deutsche Bank and BMW (at Crooked Stick) four years ago. (Course, he won a lot more that year too.)
Repeat please.

Just out of interest what does the 2nd place do to Casey's owgr?

JAS.... updated rankings are out... Casey to #22... http://www.owgr.com/ranking

The five highest ranked Euros are on their Ryder Cup Team (Rory, Stenson, Rose, Willett, Sergio)

The next three highest ranked Euros (Knox, Casey, Noren) are not on the team.

robo/gpb

Thanks for rankings update. You can see how the media will cover a European loss already.

The two highest Americans are on their Ryder Cup Team (Johnson and Spieth.
Then Watson who is not.
Then Reed who is.
Then Fowler who is not.
Then Phil and Walker who are.
Followed by Kuchar who is not.

What's your point Mac?
Or is this just another Shell game??

kwinigolfer wrote:
Furyk and Stricker both out of the Top 70 as things stand, and I can't see Love choosing a golfer who doesn't at least play at Crooked Stick.

Furyk always plays crooked stick..

kwinigolfer wrote:The two highest Americans are on their Ryder Cup Team (Johnson and Spieth.
Then Watson who is not.
Then Reed who is.
Then Fowler who is not.
Then Phil and Walker who are.
Followed by Kuchar who is not.

What's your point Mac?
Or is this just another Shell game??

It was GPB who made that post.

Last time I checked, our team has not been finalized. But I haven't checked since last Friday. Maybe DL-III made some picks that I don't know about?

GPB,
It was a response to Mac's media coverage snark.

Bottom line is that DL3 didn't become any wiser - at least on who to pick.

However I think Ryan Moore looks like somebody who keeps sneaking in under the radar, especially since other contenders like Furyk, Kuchar and Bubba don't defend their case very well. He also seems like a likeable guy and could do well in a foursome.

Kwini, I just meant that I think the media will take the lazy option and blame the absence of high ranked Europeans should team Europe loose. Can you not imagine the flawed "selection process causes defeat" type articles?

No, I can't.
What's flawed about the selection process?
Everyone knows the rules, plenty of time to ensure your schedule/fitness conforms to them, b0ll0cks to every hard luck story that ensues - tho' I'd love to have Knox and Noren on the team.

And: This just in, The Media is always lazy, there and here.

Great stuff from the Irishman! Go Rory!

Patrick Reed's sister rants about her brother on Facebook

Patrick Reed's Sister Facebook post:

Great stuff from the Great Briton!! Who actually beat a man of recent Irish heritage . . . . . who was gung ho to represent GB in the Olympics but really wants to be in USA. What A Crazy World We're Livin' In. Thanks to the great Joe Brown.
Go Rory!!

Robo:

Re-opening some old blogging discussion between us, it looks like the PAC has been asked to review the Top 125 exemption. Obviously it has little traction

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/rex-hoggard/cut-line-ryder-cup-talk-dominates-boston

This illustrates how the PLAYERS run the PGATour, and not Tim Finchem (or any commissioner). IMO, insiders of the Tour (but not the Players themselves) realize that there are too many PGATour cards given out. The Players have an obvious conflict of interest

Saw Top five's sisters comments on twitter the other day. All pretty odd really, his parents clearly helped him become a top golfer and no doubt made several sacrifices. Wonder why he has cultured a feud between his own and his wifes family?


Kwini

Not sure why you seem so peeved bout my suggestion that someone might print a story mentioning the absence of some top ranked Euro's?

"What's flawed about the selection process?" Maybe there is a misunderstanding but I am saying a hack will write a story claiming a flaw in the process should Europe loose. And I can't believe that you can't imagine it being mentioned that 6,7 and 8 in the Euro OWGR list are missing should it go wrong for DC. You really think that will not appear in any post match analysis?

I get what you're saying Mac, no doubt some negative, bitchy journalist will come up with that flawed hypothesis. Easily countered by everybody knew the selection process. The only thing I would say could potentially be improved is the cut off date...why not wait until Eastlake or maybe the week before?

Mac,
A year ago, Knox was not a European Tour member and Noren had spent most of the year on injured reserve. Then Casey withdrew his ET membership.
Given those facts, who would you have picked, and why, even if you picked now with a week's worth of hindsight?

You'll never satisfy everyone. Even if, as JAS suggests, you procrastinate for another three weeks.
(I imagine the ET Captain, whoever it might be, likes to monitor where his Team is playing - in the US you know darn well where they're going to be at this time of year, but for the ET it's not that simple.)

Kwini, wires seem crossed here.

You have totally missed what I was saying. I was just predicting what people might say if the Europeans loose and not giving my own opinion.

It is my assertion that people (not me but others) have quite a lazy analysis to hand if the European loose. It seems obvious to me that in the case of a European defeat someone (again to be super clear, not me) will write an article pointing out that highly ranked Europeans missed qualification.

Can you really not imagine a Chamblee or whoever spouting something along those lines come the time?

"Then Casey withdrew his ET membership"

Apologies if this has been discussed before but it was always something I wanted to ask knowledgable golf people like yourselves; do you think the 2010 Ryder Cup snub had any bearing on Casey's decision to withdraw his ET membership?

wire,
Very possibly. Casey had been a stalwart for the three previous Cups, never let anyone down that I'm aware of. I don't agree with him, unfortunately he was the odd man out.


Mac,
Perhaps that's why I never watch such discussions. I have my own opinion, read what I can when I can, try to ignore the punditry.
And: Whatever would any of them say about the European Team that I might respect.
Even in yesterday's commentary, the narrative was all about Rory not having won in the US, nothing about the brilliant shot-making over the last few holes in Ireland, or his win in Dubai. They were pretty good results! Who cares if they weren't on US soil?

Chamblee and the rest would do well to focus on why their favourites are going for four in a row.

McLaren wrote:robo/gpb

Thanks for rankings update.  You can see how the media will cover a European loss already.

Not really Mac, no. It depends if Europe lose (of course) and who plays the bad matches. Maybe the so-called 'best' players will stink it up and the lower ranked players do well. Maybe U.S.A. will simply play out of their skins, across the board. Whose fault then eh?
Why don't you wait and see what happens?

And ruin a couple of weeks pointless speculation and name calling?

In fairness if we all waited to see what happens and didn't indulge in weeks of speculation (and indeed post match analysis) this board would be fairly redundant

Mustputt

Yeah, not sure why I am taking so much flak for some pretty harmless speculation. Isn't that what a lot of sports chat is about?

Maybe my first post was a little short and not clear enough, but I was just trying to point out that I thought the fact a few higher ranked Euro's are missing would be used by "experts" post RC as a reason for a (at this stage hypothetical) Euro defeat. Doesn't mean it is the correct analysis just that I think some pundits will pick up on it.

Really did think that was a pretty benign idea that wouldn't attract the usual hostilities towards me.

Happens all the time Mac. Bit like England football, always blaming someone for them being gash at the game. Never their fault.

I think Europe will probably lose, but I don't think it's something you could attribute to any one thing. There's dozens of reasons that Europe could lose this, and to target any one thing, would just demonstrate how little the media know about golf.

Sorry Mac, I just couldn't understand for the life of me why anyone outside his employer and family could give a flying sh1t what Chamblee says he thinks, especially if that "anyone" is not even in the USA.

If Europe loses it will be because Poulter was not on the team.

McLaren wrote:...Maybe my first post was a little short and not clear enough, but I was just trying to point out that I thought the fact a few higher ranked Euro's are missing would be used by "experts" post RC as a reason for a (at this stage hypothetical) Euro defeat.  Doesn't mean it is the correct analysis just that I think some pundits will pick up on it...

True. I'm sure you're right, but then that's just lazy and scheiss journalism. No-one's hostile...yet .

In defence of Mac we still seem to talk about Horschel and how he could've made a / the difference last time.

But agree with kwini, who would you have in stead? You could argue for Knox, possibly Noren. The case for Casey is a bit hypothetic.
And who would you take out? Sully maybe the only one, after Fitz and Wood doing well last week.

So you're essentially havng a team where 10-11 of 12 are ideal. Not bad huh?

I think "Europe" wins this again.

Glad, however, Casey's not playing.

GPB... Top-125 Exempt... It's not going anywhere. Last thing players are going to do is give up job security and reduce playing spots for existing members. And some still don't seem to get it's the players themselves ultimately in control of any decision

Reed Family squabbles - Family issues are rarely as cut and dried as they may seem to those on the outside... Like it's our business anyway. NOT!

- - -

Kwini - Mac - Euro Ryder Cup Selection - Doesn't matter... like usual... Team USA will get itself so wound up over the Ryder Cup, not enough of them will keep their cool down the stretch on Sunday to win it back. So it'll be "Ole' Ole' Ole' Olaaaay..." all over again. And I'll want to puke over that fricking chant as much as ever...

robopz wrote:GPB... Top-125 Exempt... It's not going anywhere. Last thing players are going to do is give up job security and reduce playing spots for existing members. And some still don't seem to get it's the players themselves ultimately in control of any decision

Reed Family squabbles - Family issues are rarely as cut and dried as they may seem to those on the outside... Like it's our business anyway. NOT!

Robo:

Re Top 125, that is why I said it had "little traction".

Re: Reed Family. Reed's sister put it out there, not me.

Any word on a what happens to the PGAofA PotY if there is a tie in the points?