PGA Tour: Not Only The Ryder Cup, But Also Some Other "Stuff": Notes from the Ballwasher

1).No, it wasn't Pete or Dud, but 1969 US Ryder Cupper Dave Hill who said of Hazeltine National GC that "they ruined a good farm when they built this golf course". That was at the 1970 US Open, won in runaway fashion by Tony Jacklin, serendipitous this week in that Jacklin, in my eyes at least, is the man who harnessed the brilliance and passion of Seve and turned the Ryder Cup into the event it is today. Exhibition to some, best event in golf/sport to others (Ok, me).

2).Robert Trent Jones and others have improved Hazeltine since those days and hopefully it'll reveal itself as a great match play course this weekend. It has a "rich" history in that Rich Beem and Richie Ramsay have won Championships there, but hasn't been seen by the average golf fan since YE Yang upended the Tiger Woods bandwagon at the 2009 PGA. Ramsay beat the late Webb Simpson and Rickie Fowler on his way to US Amateur success in 2006 where Dustin Johnson also played, reaching Round 2.

3).The pros who have previous here include these from the Top 25 in the two PGA Championships:
2009:
T3: McIlroy, Westwood
T6: Kaymer, Stenson
T10: Dustin, Zach

2002:
T10: Garcia
T23: Rose

4).No point in repeating headlines from the last few weeks of media frenzy, but looking at the 2014 matches from Gleneagles, one is reminded that Rickie Fowler & Jimmy Walker were the only Americans to play all four team matches, and they didn't win any of 'em. Don't think we'll see a repeat of that.

5).The Upper MidWest has been drenched these past few weeks, the Minneapolis area has copped well over 6 inches of rain, and the Minnesota River is under a flood watch. Hopefully the course has dried out a little and the forecast for the weekend is superb, in an autumnal sort of way. Highs should reach 70 and there's no significant chance of rain or strong wind. Can't easily forecast fog though.

6).Great to see Rory bringing home the FedEx Gravy Train, and he jumps into second place, behind Tiger, in all-time FedEx bonus earnings, less than $10M behind VC Woods.
And well done to Paul Casey who has really thrived these Play-Offs - Paul will be practicing for next year's Iditarod sled Race in remotest Alaska this week in an effort to completely ignore Ryder Cup action.
(A shame as Casey's match vs Mahan in the 2008 defeat was one of the most resilient efforts I've ever seen in the RC. Neck and neck the whole way when Mahan holed an outrageous putt on the 17th, only for St.Paul to birdie the 18th and temporarily give Europe a glimmer of hope following Sergio's thrashing from the "sideways" Kim. Faldo never missed a chance to admire Hunner's putting in commentaries thereafter!)

7).After all the hoopla about LoveIII's Horschel pick of Ryan Moore, Arnie messed up all the scripts and Moore became just a fine print footnote. Solid choice of Moore and hopefully he'll play well. Not sure leaving the last pick till the last minute is the way to go, however.

8).web.com Finals update: Aussie young gun Cameron Smith, old lags Will MacKenzie, Pampling and Alker all joined Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in earning their 16/17 PGA Tour cards last week - the web.com Tour Championship will be played next week in the Jacksonville area.

9).The PGA Tour takes next week off and then starts the new season in Napa Valley's Silverado resort, followed by:
Oct 20 - 23: CIMB in Malaysia
Oct 27 - 30: WGC - HSBC and (opposite field) Sandersons Farms
Nov 3 - 6: Las Vegas
Nov 10 - 13: Mayakoba
Nov 17 - 20: RSM (aka McGladrey)

10).I wrote in these notes two years ago that a new generation of European Team leaders needed to emerge and highlighted Justin Rose, who proceeded to improve his outstanding RC record. Hopefully Rose, Stenson and Wood are fully fit, Sergio enjoyed his hibernation and Kaymer can start winning matches after being so-close-but-so-far-away these past few months. But if Rory can play as he did last weekend, he might be the man to lead Europe to victory.
It'll be tough though, and this European Team, more than ever, needs to get off to a strong start.
Close match in prospect, but hope it's a great weekend of golf.
Ooh, and one more thing: Eeuurope!

Good write up kwini. If you don't get many responses it will purely be down to RC attention.

I am sure Woods wouldn't mind seeing Hazeltine returned to farmland. Don't suppose he thought the likes of Yang and Beem would pit him down the stretch when he mapped out his career.

kwinigolfer wrote: Ramsay beat the late Webb Simpson and Rickie Fowler on his way to US Amateur success in 2006 where Dustin Johnson also played, reaching Round 2.

Passed away, or just late on the tee?
Good write up Kwini

Edit: when I put the phrase for "Late" in French, the system changed it to "Special"

Excellent OP Kwini!

Really tough to call the outcome. On paper, the US are stronger but golf's a funny old game.

Cracking wee story here....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/37514437

Tattie Scones RRN wrote:Excellent OP Kwini!

Really tough to call the outcome. On paper, the US are stronger but golf's a funny old game.

Cracking wee story here....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/37514437

yeah it's pretty cool. a lot of baba booey afterwards.
there's a video of it here
http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/must-watch-fan-makes-putt-wins-100-rose/

Yup, nice little story about Justin Rose - perhaps DC has been taking a leaf out of Langer's captaincy book and told his Team to engage with the natives? Good idea.

Inw,
The whole Webb Simpson nonsense at the last RC was so nauseating, it seems a missed opportunity not to give him some sort of descriptor, especially as he's so slow and a shadow of his former self without his anchorage.

Confirmation that Andrew Johnston will not be playing in the web.com Tour Championship, and Gregory Bourdy will also be missing. A bit of a half-hearted attempt by Bourdy, with appropriate outcome.

Meanwhile web.com Q-School is underway, but can't find results yet on pgatour.com. Don't expect any ET Members to be competing, but you never know.

Don't know where to find that Kwini, but the tour eligibility for next season has been published and shows who is taking money exemptions. You might have seen this already. Click Here

Yup, Thanks Inw; we're getting tweets about Q-School but can't find the scores! Exasperating when the web lets you down. Not supposed to happen.

Westwood owes us nothing, he's been a legend over the years. Cloughie will be on his shoulder tomorrow. No panic.

Guess Kaymer decided to not rejoin the PGATour for the 2016-17 season.

I agree B_t_b, but very disappointing nonetheless. Hope Cloughie gets the job done tomorrow.

GPB,
Thought Kaymer played pretty well this week from tee to green but, as the US always tell us, the Ryder Cup is usually won on the greens. He needs to ratchet his game up a level for the rest of this year and next.

The rookies have been amazing. Pieters, a star is born..

A surprising twee from Willett, you would think he wouldn't want that incident mentioned again?

Danny Willett @Danny_Willett wrote:Danny Willett ‏@Danny_Willett 53m53 minutes ago Bloomington, MN
Very strange week here at the Ryder cup.. Tried my best but played poorly.. Unfortunately some american fans showed that @P_J_Willett was..

Danny Willet @Danny_Willett wrote:.. In fact correct.. Nothing to blame my bad play on.. But still shows that sometimes fans don't know when to call it a day.. Shame really!!

Also Rose seems to have been quite serious in his critisism of the course set up. I have to admit I thought it was a bit too easy looking. If you didn't stop to think about it then you may have been caught up in the hoopla of shots peppering the pin but the greens were soft and the flags wide open. Good to get the attention of the casual fan but true golf fans will have felt like it was a little artificial. A bit like making the goal posts wider to appease US soccer fans.

Rather plays out the facts though Mac doesn't it? If American fans weren't like PJ had said, then Willett wouldn't have noticed that some were actually like that.

Well done to America though, a bit of a pasting for the Europeans and something that the competition needed.

Excellent stuff from Pieters and Bello. Two top 10 players in the making.

Pretty comprehensive score but looking at it there were 4 1 up victories in the singles, essentially that boiled down to half a dozen putts. Fair play to the Americans they really did hole some incredible putting yardage whilst the likes of McIlroy, Rose, Wood, Westwood just missed a 6 footer too many. Westwoods last 2 holes on Saturday didn't help either. Anyway it's done, it was the correct result and should rejuvenate the Yanks for future contests.

I remember thinking at Medina that (for 2 days at least) the American were tram lining putts in from all over the place. It was the same all 3 days this week. Does the home team have access to the pin positions before the practice rounds??(serious question)

Impossible to imagine at this stage the complexion of the 2016 teams. RCB & Pieters really rose to the occasion, you'd like to think they'll be around next time but look at Colesearts & Dubisson for example, they had decent debuts but didn't make it this time round. Still think the qualification system hurt us a bit with Casey & Knox not being available. Given the American strength in depth we DO need to look at making sure our best 12 have the opportunity to qualify. That judgement shouldn't be clouded by the fact that most of us don't like Casey.

Jas, Knox was available.

McLaren wrote:Jas, Knox was available.

Yes he was Mac, but he went out of his way to make it very difficult for Clarke to pick him.

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:Jas, Knox was available.

Yes he was Mac, but he went out of his way to make it very difficult for Clarke to pick him.

Did he? I thought he won 2 PGAT events and became the 7th best European in the world?

I would say that made it hard not to pick him.

Jas

Here are the top European OWGR points earners in 2016

Rory McIlroy
Henrick Stenson
Danny Willett
Paul Casey
Sergio Garcia
Rafael Cabrera Bello
Russell Knox
Justin Rose
Alex Noren
Thomas Pieters
Francesco Molinari
Joost Luiten

With the above team would the match have been closer.

(Westwood, Kaymer, Wood, Sulli, Fitz miss out)

if you take the top 9 and then 3 captains picks (taking the same 3 captains picks) So effectively replacing Wood Sulli & Fitz with Casey Knox & Noren, possibly, possibly not, we'll never know will we. Taking nothing away from the awesome putting display of the Yanks though.

McLaren wrote:

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:Jas, Knox was available.

Yes he was Mac, but he went out of his way to make it very difficult for Clarke to pick him.

Did he? I thought he won 2 PGAT events and became the 7th best European in the world?

I would say that made it hard not to pick him.

Not really Mac, he deliberately took off a tournament Clarke had indicated he wanted him to play. Remember the point of a Captains pick is not related to OWGR points or Tournament wins, it allows the Captain to pick a player he thinks will add something to the team, that could be great putting, super long game, short game etc. It's not about putting your medals on the table and saying "there you are, you have to pick me" Clarke opted for experience over yet another rookie. Yes Captain Hindsight may say it didn't come off, but it made sense to pick someone with more experience than someone who isn't really an integral part of the ET, is more Mid Atlantic than Casey or GFat and who no one really knows. He could have been better than Westwood, he could have been worse. The good thing for Europe is there is  great number of players for future teams.

You need to stop thinking in Black and White like an England Manager and think about what could be better for the team as a whole.

Mac,
Is that owgr list as at the selection deadline for DC's team? Doesn't seem likely to be honest.
You love comparing apples and oranges so who knows?

But would certainly agree that the qualifying calendar needs review - currently freebie points in limited field events like the Woods benefit are included. Your implicit notion of starting Jan 1st looks sensible to me, but you've got to have a final cut-off, don't think the last-minute pantomime of the Ryan Moore pick worked particularly well.
Plus, I for one was satisfied with the Captain's picks, just not with selected results.

And let's get our arms around everyone who could possibly be eligible and make sure they're properly signed up.

Kwini

No, it is the latest list. I don't have the time to delve into the archives so it will have to do.

Not trying to compare apples and oranges but will it have changed that much in the last month?

I was just to trying to add a bit of info to help Jas answer "DO need to look at making sure our best 12 have the opportunity to qualify".

Mac, for someone who claims to be intelligent, you have a habit of thinking in one dimension only. Try thinking of OTHER criteria to getting a team together rather than just rankings.

If you only use rankings to measure ability, then England look a good football team. Use your imagination a bit.

Noren, Luiten and Molinari all won since the Team was chosen; doubt they would have been in yr Top 12 before their wins - although surely Noren would have been if he'd've stayed healthy.

Kwini

Didn't know that. Guess someone can delve into the records.

Does anyone really want to see the selection process messed with anyway?

I do! Definitely would start Jan 2018 instead of Sept-ish 2017.

The web.com Tour Championship this week concludes the four-tournament qualifying series for the 2016/2017 PGA Tour season - which begins next week!

Andrew Johnston will be potentially losing a few places in the priorities for getting in to tournaments by playing this week's Dunhill.
KT Kim has abandoned his quest, while Gregory Bourdy and, amazingly, Chris Stroud will also be playing the Dunhill without securing Tour cards.Not sure about Stroud - he's been a decent Tour player for most of the past decade, but will only have conditional status when PGA Tour action resumes. Bizarre.

Kwini

I agree that starting in January would make more sense but then the race to Dubai finals series wouldn't count towards getting on the RC team.

I know, thought of that, but does that really matter? Perhaps just include the Championship? Regardless, this way has arguably caused players to be qualified on what they did twelve months ago - is that what is really wanted?

Kwini

Again I pretty much agree with you but one loss since 2008 suggests the selection process works ok. Although that is no reason to be complacent, especially if the mercans have upped their game.

Maybe the Euro tour need to come up with a points degradation formula similar to the OWGR system. That way points earned a year ago are not as valuable as those earned in the summer before the RC.

Mac, Ryder Cup selection points only begin the year before the actual event anyway, are you asking for the few months prior to the event to count more? Players can go on and off form on a weekly basis. Plus knowing you have made the team early is part of the preparation.

I bet if you looked back at recent years then the likes of Donald, Poulter, Garcia, and Westwood would have missed out and then where would you be?

There is nothing wrong with the current process other than perhaps improving the method by which players are eligible to play to ensure you can include the likes of Casey.

Europe got comprehensively outplayed by America, although I do think Clarke wasn't brave enough with his pairings and should have ensured everyone got at least 3 games. He was a bit Faldo/James like in his Captaincy.

Roll on Paris.

G

super_realist wrote:.

Europe got comprehensively outplayed by America

Watched the highlights again last night and that is bullshite

Sorry, if you lose 17-11, yes, you've been outgunned.

I don't think you can count the last few points really as it was all over. The other matches were all decided by some huge putts going in and westwood, so to say comprehensively outplayed is overstating it a tad, do you not think? I would say a lot closer than the score would indicate.

Westwood, Willett, Sullivan and to a certain extent Rose, were effectively outplayed.

Only Stenson, Garcia, Bello, McIlroy and Pieters emerged with any sort of credit.

Sullivan, Fitzpatrick, Wood, Westwood, Rose, Willett and Kaymer ranged from average to very poor.

Maybe it's better to say they were outplayed, rather than comprehensively outplayed.

super_realist wrote:Westwood, Willett, Sullivan and to a certain extent Rose, were effectively outplayed.

Only Stenson, Garcia, Bello, McIlroy and  Pieters emerged with any sort of credit.

Sullivan, Fitzpatrick, Wood, Westwood, Rose, Willett and Kaymer ranged from average to very poor.

Maybe it's better to say they were outplayed, rather than comprehensively outplayed.

Not entirely sure you can say Wood was "average to very poor". He was the stronger half in his foursomes and took DJ (OWGR #2 and in form) all the way in the singles. Sullivan hardly had a chance to be one nor the other either.

Maybe a little harsh on Wood, but 6 players simply didn't perform, and you've got no chance of getting a result with that.

You can maybe have a close game if two players don't play well, but 6 is catastrophic.

There's a strong chance that the Americans will be outplayed this week as the web.com Tour Championship is scheduled for the Jacksonville area. Hurricane Matthew will be rolling up the coast, or just off it, by Thursday and the JAX forecast for Friday is pretty dire.
If there's something more damaging that heavy rainfall and strong winds they could struggle to get the tournament done this week. And then the qualifiers are expected to be on their bikes to Napa Valley for season kick-off on Thursday.

Found a back door to Web-com qualifying scores

https://pgatq.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/pgatq16/schedule/index.htm

Yup, Me too GPB.

Interesting that it looks as if England's Tom Lewis originally committed, and that Pablo Martin is making his annual trek.

Lots of Aussies, no Europeans of any distinction.

Most of the close matches in 4somes/4balls went the mercan way. Tiddlers missed by Garcia, Westy and huge putts (that turned out to be decisive) holed by mercans. It could easily have been 8-8 or 8 1/2-7 1/2 going into the singles and it would've made a big difference.

I agree with other posters that we seemed pretty even T2G, but clutch putting made the difference.

So clutch putting was the difference in a 17-11 score. ok. gotcha

Zach Johnson missed a really short putt and Reed/Spieth blew a 4 up lead with 6 holes to play

GPB wrote:So clutch putting was the difference in a 17-11 score.  ok. gotcha

Don't be polemic. It was the difference btw 8-8 and 9 1/2 - 6 1/2. And then the singles would have been a different beast.