PGA Tour: Double-Header: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Two PGA Tournaments this week.
Riding in first class are the WGC-HSBC Champions competitors, 78 of la creme de la creme, or gold tops at least.
Then there are the economy class runners and riders travelling to Jackson, Mississippi, for the Sanderson Farms Championship.
I'm much more interested in the latter, may even be able to watch it without setting my alarm clock.

2).Last week Justin Thomas may (not sure really) have set a PGA Tour record by winning a second event without yet getting a W in the USA. I'm sure the media obsessed with the early 20-something generation (yup, they're back at it in next month's Golf Digest) will be thrilled, but Thomas has yet to convince the Ballwasher that he's the real deal. Regardless, it's doubtful that any first-time double has been watched by fewer US viewers.

3).But wait, the Tour thinks this type of event is just the business, so much so that we'll be going for the treble next year with an event in South Korea. Back-to-back-to-back with CIMB & HSBC.
There were stories earlier in the year of initiatives by the Tour to reduce the "All Exempt" Tour from 125 to something lower, perhaps 100. It sounds as if the players nixed that, but perhaps this is the next best/worst thing.
I would think a strong rank-and-file on Tour is a big positive, but this sends messages in the exact opposite direction - if you're a Top 50 US-based pro you have to play really, really badly, or at least be unlucky with injuries, to lose your card; you could play at least nine no-cut tournaments, come last in every one, and bank about $386K plus the Korean money-for-nothing. Amazing.

4).Russell Knox enjoyed his breakthrough to the winners' enclosure at last year's HSBC and established himself as a proven winner by adding August's Travelers Championship to his record. Plenty of Europeans in this week's field, many of them in pretty good form. Hatton, Rafa, Casey, Kaymer, Wiesberger, Noren - a win for any of them would scarcely be a surprise.

5).We've morphed from a lengthy Indian Summer here in the North Country to winter without the pleasure of autumn to ease the transition. Killington is open and others will follow if this lot carries on; 20% chance of rain forecast by the Weather Channel here this morning - the idiots didn't mention the 100% chance of snow. (Why can't the US get a decent weather forecasting system? Answers to/in the New York Times.)
But none of that will be on the Tournament Director's mind in Mississippi where the autumn continues warm and dry, with not much wind. In other words perfect for golf, and there's a decent turn-out for the "opposite field" event.

6).Poulter brought home a T17 from CIMB and 48 FedEx points so well on pace to satisfy the requirements of his Medical "extension". He's teeing it up Thursday & Friday with Chris Kirk who is my idea of a contender this week - Russell Henley, Badds and Kizzire are among others who look good to me.

7).The PGA Tour seems to have redesigned parts of its website over the past few weeks and the good news is that graphics are even better than before.
Bad news is that navigation is tortuous, and seemingly incomplete - designed to do one's head in. Or at least use google. Is that a good idea, Tim?
Wouldn't it be great if their website designers actually followed golf?

8).Let's have some Senior moments as the Champions Tour season concludes with three "Play-Off" tournaments.
72 golfers have qualified for Round 1 (71 expected to actually play), which is contested over three rounds at California's Sherwood Country Club. For many years this was the site of Greg Norman's Shark Shoot Out, then subsequently for Tiger's "World" Challenge (and site of absolutely brilliant golf by some guy called Harrington when he won in 2002. Whatever happened to him?).

Don't know what the course is like to play, but it's surely one of the more photogenic courses around, with plenty of risk/reward and three Par-5's in the final seven holes.
The 54 money-list leaders after this week travel cross-country to Virginia for Round 2, after which the leading 36 backtrack across country to Arizona for the finale.
As for the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup, the numbers are adjusted for the Final to ensure that it's not a foregone conclusion that Bernhard Langer will win.

9).Ian Woosnam starts in 50th place but the good news for Woosie is that his election to the World Golf Hall Of Fame entitles him to a place in all "regular season" Champions Tour events. Sandy Lyle's already comfortably seated on the same gravy train and I think this is utterly ludicrous, guys who only sporadically played on the PGA Tour (altho' Sandy did have a card for about ten years) queue-jumping Tour regulars.

10).Back to the present and a couple of items in the Tour's fine print:
~It's looking likely that the season-opening Tournament of Champions will be without a title sponsor.
~The LA Open is now called the "Genesis Open" - not clear if this is about a bunch of lads from Charterhouse or a brand of ugly looking imported cars.
~The MatchPlay event will now be the "WGC Dell Technologies Match Play".
~And the former Deutsche Bank Championship, initially renamed the EMC Championship, is now the "Dell Technologies Championship" following Dell's takeover of EMC.
That's it. (And it's tough to find that "fine print" on the mess that is pgatour.com.)

Plenty of double-dippers in for an important final round in Shanghai.

And a shoot-out due Sunday in Mississippi with 20+ golfers within five strokes of the lead.

Greg Owen and Shaymuss Power may not win, but a top ten finish would be big for both, especially Owen who would earn a ticket to Las Vegas as a result. Still fancy Kirk for the W.
(PS: Coverage a bit better today after a dismal start!)

kwinigolfer wrote:Plenty of double-dippers in for an important final round in Shanghai.

And a shoot-out due Sunday in Mississippi with 20+ golfers within five strokes of the lead.

Greg Owen and Shaymuss Power may not win, but a top ten finish would be big for both, especially Owen who would earn a ticket to Las Vegas as a result. Still fancy Kirk for the W.
(PS: Coverage a bit better today after a dismal start!)

Agree... production and announcing seemed to have their $**t together a bit better today.

Didn't see any of it, but what a start to the 16/17 season from Hideki!

Several good European performances but, with very few (Berger, Bill Haas, Fowler) exceptions, Americans largely awol, only those 3 in the Top 15, only 4 (w/Kokrak) in the Top 20.

Good work by quite a few double-dippers, but what a waste from Lowry - kinda get the impression that he'll need a win, or something very close to it, to keep his Tour card this season.

Won't his WGC exemption cover that?

Inw,
It will if he plays enough events before the Play-Offs, he could miss every cut and keep his card. But 14 more events is more than it might seem, especially if he doesn't qualify for the three remaining WGC events. Not dissimilar to Kaymer a couple of years ago.
But I reckon Kaymer was ambivalent about it, Lowry really seems to want to play over here. Trouble is, he's got to work as well as play!

Lowry could be right on the edge of slipping out of the owgr Top 50 after next week . . . . . . . so he needs a parachute.

Helluva dominant win by Hideki... Is that guy on a run or what? In 3 weeks he wins Japan Open, 2nd in the CIMB and now wins the WGC-HSBC. About $2.75 million. NOT bad at all... -)

IMO, Lowry should concentrate playing the US events for the first 8 months of the year.

Playing the EuroT early in the year does NOTHING for his 2018 RC chances as points don't start accruing until September. Secure his spot in the FEX playoffs

His WGC PGAT exemption goes through the 2017-18 season. Not sure if it is a two or three year exemption for the EuroT.

Kwini... see where you're coming from on Lowry. But not sure it's going to be that difficult for him. Last year he played 9 "regular" events on the PGA Tour... so if he's not WGC or Major qualified beyond this week, the Masters and U.S. Open, and assuming he plays the same regular events next year, that would mean he has to pick up only 3 more.

IMO the key for Lowry is he needs to decide to decide if he's serious about being a PGA Tour player or not. IMO he's just not yet the level of player to have the luxury of being assured of qualifying for all 8 of the co-sanctions every year. So to give himself half a chance over here he's gonna need to probably commit to the PGAT first and foremost, and then try to pick up his 5 ET events with maybe the Irish & Scottish Opens, and get the other 3 post FedExCup playoffs. If he gives up his May return to Europe, and with the Irish, Scottish and OPEN playing in successive weeks next year... that makes it a bit easier for him.

GPB wrote:IMO, Lowry should concentrate playing the US events for the first 8 months of the year..

I pretty much agree, and said close to the same, (but in my usual long-winded way... :-) But I do think he can work in the Irish and Scottish before the OPEN and not hurt himself over here much at all.

It's about the quality of Lowry's starts though, that's why he needs big results. Only 1/3 of last year's starts resulted in Top 25's, cut in 30% of them; he's inclined to go walkabout and that may work if he plays plenty of limited field tournaments, with guaranteed points, but not when he's fighting against 155 others, all hungry (not in the Shane way) for his share of the purse.

California events a big, big deal.

Kwini... well in the end it's always about "quality" of play isn't it?  If his quality of play were there he wouldn't be sweating getting into WGC's and Majors.

But one thing I question big time is the quality of Shane's management (Kieron O'Neill at Dublin's Horizon Sports).  I mean talking about some dumb/dyslexic scheduling decisions.  It's like they didn't understand the concept of the guaranteed points that you talk about. Of all the events to skip last year he misses the Tournament of Champions (huh? Duh... what?)   And then you had the May through the end of season "cluster ***k", all of which resulted in him missing both the FedExCup Playoffs for which he qualified AND the Ryder Cup.

Maybe now he/his management realize that "he's NOT all that", and if he's serious about dual touring, not only would it help if Shane would play better, but they need to plan EVERY facet of his schedule as smartly as possible to give him his best chance of success.

Disagree, though maybe semantics. In my view Lowry seldom grinds out results, if he was a footballer you'd call him a luxury - pays attention when things are going his way, otherwise can't be bothered to track back or run the hard yards.

He can be that sort of player with 24 starts, especially with four WGC gifts, but not with 15 or 17, unless he gets a win or very close to it. He's almost 30, time for him to grow up and take responsibility for his career. Hope he does, but it's got to start in California, otherwise he'll be toast unless he grabs a win.

Lowry is like many players on tour. Pretty good for 3 rounds, but goes missing in one of the 4.

Seems content to just make a decent career out of being a journeyman. If he wanted to be a top player, he'd do something about his physique. No one like him as reached the top and stayed there for any length of time for at least 2 decades, so I wouldn't expect him to, he just suffers too much in tough weather conditions for a fat man like him.

Nothing wrong with just treading water, but until he starts taking all aspects of the game seriously, I'm not going to take him seriously.

Cody Gribble the winner in Mississippi, difficult to say that name and keep a straight face, sure there'd be some imaginative Limericks there. Like Smylie Kaufman I suppose.
But he played great, holed everything and could be a decent player.

Fine finish for Greg Owen who runnered up on his 250th PGA Tour event. That means he'll play in Las Vegas next week, and hopefully earn him a sponsor invitation or two as he'll need 'em.

Texas born & bred product or not... If I said I saw this coming for Cody Gribble I'd be lying my ass off. He'd pretty much made a mess of his Web.com season missing way more cuts than he made (and missed 15 cuts in 26 events so far this year). But he sneaks in with a PGA Tour card with a T5 in the Web.com Finals 3rd event (and maybe benefitted from the final event washout)

And now he gets on the PGAT and it's like he's a different guy. A T8 in his member rookie debut at the Safeway, and now this.

Prior to a month ago... probably the only sign of a PGAT future for this guy was him qualifying for a couple of U.S. Opens (and a decent T21 in 2014 US Open).  Just goes to show... ya never know.

Kwini... Super... You guys know a lot more about Lowry than I... so all I can say is a guy doesn't deserve any more than he puts into it. Too bad if he's not making the effort to take full advantage of his potential.

Phil Mickelson & Ernie Els has never been mistaken for a GQ Models, yet they have carved out pretty good careers.

And plenty of players with optimal BMI numbers who have spurts of really good play they have fallen off.

I don't think there is a much of a correlation between BMI and OWGR numbers.

I'd never heard of Gribble or Smylie until they showed up at Pinehurst. Now both winners.

As for Lowry, we've never seen a disciplined approach to his PGA Tour aspirations. And I don't think he's the sort of guy who can turn up on any old course and succeed unless he's absolutely wedging & putting lights out - that's just not his game, but it is the game for so many PGA Tour courses. Where shot-making is required he'll play well if he's properly prepared. Which he sometimes doesn't appear to be.
He needs to sit down now and figure out his schedule for the next ten months, don't play just for the sake of playing, as he did last year. Pick your spots and be prepared to play your best.

robo,
Enjoyed the GC's coverage of the Sherwood shindig, they've got their Champions Tour coverage spot on, especially when Watson is directing traffic. Production quality and continuity of PGA Tour events has never been good enough.

GPB wrote:Phil Mickelson & Ernie Els has never been mistaken for a GQ Models, yet they have carved out pretty good careers.

And plenty of players with optimal BMI numbers who have spurts of really good play they have fallen off.

I don't think there is a much of a correlation between BMI and OWGR numbers.

Mickelson is in way better condition than Lowry, whilst Els best days are way in the past. I'm talking about consistency, and no big fat man has stayed in the upper echelons of the game in recent times.

You're right that many players who are in good shape drop off, but at least they are doing what they can to be in optimal condition. Lowry is playing with an albatross around his neck/midriff and is relying solely on his talent. Fine if he just want to rake in a bit of cash, but utterly foolhardy if he wants to be a top player.

Look at the top 20 of the OWGR and the last 5 years of major winners. How many people who look like Lowry are in there? (Reed and perhaps Mickelson) Virtually none. As for Majors, it's only Els, Dufner and Mickelson out of the last 20. Stats say being fat makes you less likely to succeed in the modern game.

Can't think of any situation where being a big, fat, slovenly porker is going to help you in any game especially in golf which is beginning to take itself a bit more seriously.

Talking about fatties. Saw a bit of the champo tour last night. Jeez, Monty has become even fatter. However some of the other guys look in surprisingly good shape.

Super how many "fatties" are in the top 100 or so?

If the number is low then maybe a high proportion of them are doing well in the majors and big events?

I haven't been through it, but golf has changed over the years whereupon fewer and fewer fatties are reaching the very top level.

Strap 3 stones around your waist if you want to see why.

I guess the reason why Lowry did not win the 2016 US Open was because he has a 30 BMI and the reason why Spieth did not win the 2016 Masters was not because he has a 20 FMI

Christ GPB, I'm not saying that, I'm talking about LONGEVITY at the top of the MODERN game. I'm not talking about one-offs. How many times can you miss the point?

Spieth doesn't have a BMI of 20 anyway.

Look at the last 5-6 years, how many fat guys are there at the top of any sport/game? Virtually none.
The game is becoming more and more professional and there are fewer and fewer fat guys around because in the modern day you can't stay at the top on talent alone. You NEED to be at the top of your game to stay there, and that includes optimising everything, and carrying 3 extra stone of lard around your belly can't possibly do anyone any good over the course of their career.

"...I'm talking about LONGEVITY at the top of the MODERN game..."

"...Look at the last 5-6 years, how many fat guys are there at the top of any sport/game? ..."

These two things don't go together!!! SHEEEESH

You are using phenomena to prove a point.

Its like the Global Warming Gestapo saying that every climate anomaly is due to a depleting ozine layer.

More Blizzards than Normal = Global Warming
Less Blizzards than normal = Global Warming
More Hurricanes = Global Warming
Less Hurricanes = Global Warming

If you take in all the data, rather than Cherry Picking some random players I bet you will not find a true statistician to say there is a correlation between weight and longevity in the game.

After all Phil Mickelson has not been out of the Top 30 of the OWGR for over 20 years. Ernie Els won majors in a span of nearly 20 years. Mickelson has never had career related injury (broke his leg snow skiing early in his career). AFAIK, Lee Westwood has never had a golf related injury.

And then look at the some of the FIT players that don't fit your hypothesis. Anthony Kim had a career ending injury in his 20s. Tiger Woods may have had a career ending injury. Jason Day could catch syphillis in a Convent. Rory has had back issues. Ian Poulter was just out with an arthritic foot. Ryo Ishikawa was out for 6 months with a back injury

Patrick Cantlay was thought to be a can't miss prospect when he was in college. He was Thin and Fit. He hasn't played in years.

Sure there are examples the other way. Kevin Stadler.

There is just no correlation if you look at the entire DATA SET instead of cherry picking data to support your anti-Fattest agenda

You have to look at the weighted average.





In the mean time I’ll get my coat.  

For effs sake.

In the old days, more of the golfers were fat bums. ergo, it was more likely a fat player was due to win , as they were competing on talent alone.

Now, conditioning is part of being top of the game and fewer fat players have LONG careers at the top.

If you don't think it matters if you are fat or not, please strap three stones round your midriff and play in 90f heat.

golf is becoming MORE professional, and it's increasingly unlikely that fat players will feature as having long, successful careers at the top.

You don't even have your global warming analogy correct. Christ.

You haven't even thought how worse the injuries of Poulter, Day, Mcilroy etc would be if they were fat knackers.

Look at the OWGR, look at major winners. It's not cherry picking to say that fewer fat people are featuring high up and winning majors.

As for Kevin Stadler, yeah, he's a superstar isn't he?

I think Day and Woods injuries can be traced directly to conditioning and working out.

I think there is a definite correlation to Villegas's obsession to fitness to his flailing golf ranking.

See, I can cherry pick data too!

What about listing all players who have been in the owgr for, say, a total of min. 5 or 8 years, since 2000, and correlate it with their BMI (weight/height is listed on the bio page). Surely in some cases, like Phil, it's like Elvis, so there's a young Phil and an old Phil, but each version has been in the owgr top 100 long enough for that to not matter. For those with time and moderate Excel skills it can be done pretty fast. Then we can close the discussion once and for all. Maybe.

Do you think Bios include an accurate weight?

Confirmation that Greg Owen's second place finish in Mississippi earned him a spot in the Las Vegas field.

Other Europeans in the field, some just a tad overweight(!) include:
Blixt
Gonzo
Laird
Lingmerth
McDowell
Molinari
Pettersson
Power
Rahm

Supersize me!

Perhaps to attract players spooked by the security situation in Turkey, the PGA Tour has found itself with 12 too many golfers for their Las Vegas tournament this week!

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/clerical-error-results-supersized-vegas-field

Pretty funny in a silly sort of way.

kwinigolfer wrote:Supersize me!

Perhaps to attract players spooked by the security situation in Turkey, the PGA Tour has found itself with 12 too many golfers for their Las Vegas tournament this week!

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/clerical-error-results-supersized-vegas-field

Pretty funny in a silly sort of way.

I blame the new commissioner.

Finchem got blamed for a lot trivial stuff so it is only fair for Monahan to get blamed.

kwinigolfer wrote:Supersize me!

Perhaps to attract players spooked by the security situation in Turkey, the PGA Tour has found itself with 12 too many golfers for their Las Vegas tournament this week!

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/clerical-error-results-supersized-vegas-field

Pretty funny in a silly sort of way.

Interesting.... even the Players Manual lists the field at 144.  Not the kind of mistake I'd expect from those guys.... LOL.... Oh well, good for the extra 12.  As it stands now the 3 top-10's from last week (Owen, Schauffele, & Iwata) have pushed only 1 guy who was on Friday's "in list" out of the field (Jonathan Randolf). I guess there must have been two other WD's as Gribble's change of status from Sponsor Exemption to winners category doesn't affect anything.  As of now there are 17 entered Webbies on the outside looking in. Would have been 29 without this mistake.

Mayakoba will be 132 players, so some webbies will probably miss there as well (last year it was 3)... but all should get in the RSM as with the 2 courses last year that event went 16 players deep in the Beyond 150th on the FEC Points list category (or 27 spots AFTER all the webbies)...

EDIT: Bobby Wyatt who would not have otherwise made the field got Gribble's vacated "Webbie SE" exemption..

GPB wrote:I blame the new commissioner. Finchem got blamed for a lot trivial stuff so it is only far for Monahan to get blamed.

NOPE... everyone still gets to blame Finchem for now.... Monahan isn't officially at the helm yet.... :-)

On the FAT debate... I certainly agree that golfers are becoming more and more athletic, but not sure BMI has a lot to do with potential PGAT success... at least up to a point. Yeah... I'd definitely see guys like Smallrus and Tim Herron being at a competitive disadvantage because of their weight.

But not sure guys like Lowry & Reed would be any better if they were "svelte" as I'm doubting their "extra weight" is to such an extreme it affects their clubhead speed or stamina. Shane actually looks to me like he has dropped the weight I would have considered "excess", and some people just have the body type, they're NEVER gonna take and keep the weight off. Carl Pettersson is one who lost the weight and he says that's what screwed up his game. And when he put the weight back on... his game actually did "somewhat" recover (albeit not to prior levels). Dufner's case seems similar, but then his weight loss might have been more due to other issues as opposed to some sudden fitness burn. But again... I don't think either of those guys are at an excessive weight to prevent either from being very successful on Tour. IMO their issue is they don't have the level of talent as the most successful players on Tour.

Dufner's fine. Don't think he's ever come up short because of lack of stamina.

But he doesn't try to play the sort of schedule Lowry wants to either - but I reckon his weight is symptomatic of lack of self-discipline which shows up in lack of consistency and his seeming inability to carve out a schedule that suits his career rather than just what/where he fancies.

kwinigolfer wrote:Dufner's fine. Don't think he's ever come up short because of lack of stamina.

But he doesn't try to play the sort of schedule Lowry wants to either - but I reckon his weight is symptomatic of lack of self-discipline which shows up in lack of consistency and his seeming inability to carve out a schedule that suits his career rather than just what/where he fancies.

You could be right, but I'm not sure I agree. First, Shane's never played more than 28, and he doesn't need to play any more than that now trying to dual Tour. IMO a solid 20-22 events on the PGAT would be an aggressive schedule... and then add 5 or 6 for the ET.

But on the weight deal, I'm just not sold Shane's not doing a lot more than we think just to get to level of weight he is. He looks like the body type that if he really let it go and sat around eating donuts all day, he could be 300 pounds in no time.

Look at this photo from the 2015 WGC Bridgestone win... http://i2.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article6228982.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Shane-Lowry.jpg or this one from this past summers U.S. Open: http://media.golfdigest.com/photos/576741bee81dd5dc6abddfbf/master/pass/71-us-open-r4-sunday-shane-lowry-on-18.jpg. Yeah... he's got some spare tire going... but then look at this one from the 2009 Irish Open: http://i2.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article3710287.ece/ALTERNATES/s1023/Shane-Lowry-wins-the-Irish-Open.jpg Looks to me like he's in BETTER shape now than he was then.... if he weren't he be at least as big as back then, probably even bigger.

Now there may be other things going on I'm not aware of or you might be aware of a lot more than I.... but IMO when it comes to weight you just can't look at a guy like that and conclude he's some slovenly type with no self control or not working to try to stay at a reasonable playing weight. Some guys are just cursed with that kind of body type.

By the hyperbolic posts from some, it sounds like Shane is morbidly obese, which clearly he is not.

Yes his BMI is higher than the average golfer but it is not an outlier (3 Std Deviation outside the pro golfer mean).

I don't understand why bloggers obsess are Fattest-Phobes.  There are fit players who seem to be constantly on the disabled list (ie Jason Day) and Tiger himself has had several knee surgeries and three back surgeries.

Phil Mickelson has never had a golf related injury, and I don't think Ernie Els has ever been on the disabled list. IIRC, Patrick Reed nor Lowry has ever been on a medical leave of absence.  Nicklaus was never fit and trim and he played in 146 consecutive Major Championships.  King of fitness Gary Player never played more than 50 in a row.

Here is a picture of FAT JACK enjoying a smorgasbord of raw oytsers

Spoiler:

kwinigolfer wrote:Dufner's fine. Don't think he's ever come up short because of lack of stamina.

For sure not when he was married to Amanda...

GPB... I don't get a sense of "morbidly" obese with Shane either. From my observations he's just one of those guys with a body type he's always gonna struggle with his weight. But I see nothing about his body size that prevents him from being a good/great golfer.

Not sure Nicklaus is a good example though... Jack trimmed down quite a bit from about the mid-60's through say 1980... He talked about dropping the extra weight in his book and how it helped him. and here's a Pinterest page with a bunch of Jack Photos over the years... and one can clearly see how he trimmed down from the early days. Now after 40 he put the gut on... but it just wasn't there during his prime. https://www.pinterest.com/seowster/jack-nicklaus/

But that said... I don't think the comparisons of Shane and Jack are necessarily apt anyway... IMO Shane is a much larger natural body type than Jack ever was. Probably more along the lines of a Billy Casper

Loads of apples, loads of oranges . . . . . . . .

I think the difference is where people play these days compared to back "in the good old days"

For example, some of the South African, Middle East, Australian tours are played in heat which makes the likes of Shane melt.

robopz wrote:On the FAT debate... I certainly agree that golfers are becoming more and more athletic, but not sure BMI has a lot to do with potential PGAT success... at least up to a point. Yeah... I'd definitely see guys like Smallrus and Tim Herron being at a competitive disadvantage because of their weight.  

But not sure guys like Lowry & Reed would be any better if they were "svelte" as I'm doubting their "extra weight" is to such an extreme it affects their clubhead speed or stamina.  Shane actually looks to me like he has dropped the weight I would have considered "excess", and some people just have the body type, they're NEVER gonna take and keep the weight off. Carl Pettersson is one who lost the weight and he says that's what screwed up his game.  And when he put the weight back on... his game actually did "somewhat" recover (albeit not to prior levels).  Dufner's case seems similar, but then his weight loss might have been more due to other issues as opposed to some sudden fitness burn.   But again... I don't think either of those guys are at an excessive weight to prevent either from being very successful on Tour. IMO their issue is they don't have the level of talent as the most successful players on Tour.

Why not try and play four rounds in four days in July Texas heat, with three extra stone (42lbs) wrapped around your waist Robo (not in a buggy), then tell me that your game doesn't suffer. It's the effect it has on tiredness, more than your physical ability to swing a club.

Professional "sport" is about percentages, and if your fat body causes you to be even 1% more tired than someone in better shape and better suited to endure tough conditions, then you are going to be at a competitive disadvantage as it will have a knock on effect in your game. That's the point i'm making. Nothing to do with swing or anything like that.

In the scale used by the NHS (the UK's universal healthcare provider, for the yanks on here) a BMI of >25 is considered overweight, >30 is obese and >40 is severely obese.


Taking shane's PGAT and EU tour bio's his BMI is;

From PGAT (185cm and 98kg) his BMI is 28.6 and would be considered overweight.

Or

From EU Tour (183cm and 102kg) his BMI is 30.4 and he would classify as obese.

16 stone?

If you read the NHS site on obesity the associated issues are not really conducive to performing a sport to an elite level. The mental side of the game possibly being effected more than the physical.

NHS wrote:

Obesity can cause a number of further problems, including difficulties with daily activities and serious health conditions.

Day-to-day problems related to obesity include:

breathlessness

increased sweating

snoring

difficulty doing physical activity

often feeling very tired

joint and back pain

low confidence and self-esteem

feeling isolated

The psychological problems associated with being obese can also affect your relationships with family and friends, and may lead to depression.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Obesity/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Are you dyslexic Mac?

What?

You seem to have real difficulty with homonyms.
Affected/Effected
Your/you're
too/to etc.