PGA Tour: The Play-Offs Begin: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Here we go with the lyrically named "The Northern Trust" tournament, formerly known as "The Barclays". And we have a brand new venue, for the PGA Tour anyway, to go with a new sponsor as the boys will be playing at Glen Oaks Club on the western (New York City) end of Long Island.
Craig Currier, one time Superintendent at Bethpage, and Cedar Lake native, led a renovation a few years ago of the 1924 Joe Finger design. It's a Par-70, 7,300+ yard course which would probably be called "broad shouldered" if it was in the Chicago area, featuring 7 x Par-4's of 450 yards or more, a 625 yd Par-5, and two x 235 yd Par-3's, among other things. In other words, one shouldn't expect Luke Donald to contend.

2).The next venues for the "New York" Round 1 of the Play-Offs will be:
2018: Ridgewood, New Jersey
2019: Liberty National, NJ
2020: Plainfield, NJ
2021: Bethpage, NY
etc.

3).After last year's win, Rory moved to second place in the all-time FedEx bonus pool beneficiaries. The leaders are $M:
25.3M: Woods
15.5:   McIlroy
15.2:   Furyk
!3.5:    Stenson
12.1:   Snedeker
11.5:   Spieth
11.33: Haas
11.27: Singh
10.5:   Horschel
Followed by non-winners Stricker (8.6),  Mickelson (8.2), Dustin (7.6), Kuchar (6.2), Donald (5.4).

4).There was a compelling finish to last week's Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, with Henrik Stenson scoring a win for the 40-somethings and an equally rare W for the Europeans.
There was plenty of movement in and out of the Top 125 where Seamus Power missed the 54-hole cut and now needs to return to web.com Finals, along with Zac Blair (who played the most events on Tour this season), Hearn and Summerhays (who must rue the squandered strokes at the end of Memorial Sunday all the way past the bank). The lucky lads who chose to reserve their best until last were Sabbatini (doesn't every Tour need a Sabbatini?, not that he's getting better looking with age), Varner, Henry and Flores.
Lowry missed out again but at least he has a Tour card for the coming season, and $32K of bonus pool money. Get your scheduling sorted out, Shane; you're too good to be scratching around outside the Top 125, but not quite good enough to play a minimum-ish number of events and think you can turn it on at will. These guys are good. Remember?

5).Outside of Stenson's effort last week, the most impressive performance came from Schneiderjans, hitting low bullets and getting away with good fortune with Spieth-like equanimity. Could fancy him in the Play Offs.

That's it. Round 2 will be next week, the Dell Technologies Championship at TPC Boston, followed after a week's rest by the Beemer in Chicagoland, then the Tour Championship at East Lake.

Clinic by J.Spieth; hopefully DJ will come out and make a fight of it on Sunday, but can't see anyone else getting that close.

Course is playing much shorter than its yardage, drives running 50 yards on wide fairways which are running 11 1/2 on the stimp.

GPB wrote:Just heard from Robo on another blog.  He is OK. Hurricane went south of Houston and he is North of Houston.

Glad to hear it, hopefully the change of direction won't impact him too much

Sparse crowds on Long Island this week.

Surprised to Lucas Glover "gut it out" to finish his round and potentially finish the tournament on Sunday. I don't think he would have done that if it were the Safeway Open.

It could be an indicator how far along the FEDEX playoff have become for the PGATour players. It was ridiculed and derided as a gimmick 10 years ago.

Do you really think the $10M jackpot was ridiculed by the players?

Lucas Glover gives the best interviews . . . . . . .

No, but there was a lot of media who didn't buy in. and a lot of bloggers.

Julian Suri in the final pair in Denmark; how long before he's contending in FedEx Play-Offs?
Great to see young Americans playing the Challenge & European Tours.

Meanwhile, Paul Casey has his umpteenth chance to morph from contender to champion - 63 x Top Tens since his only PGA Tour win, and about $15M in the bank. Quite apart from a few ET wins.

And: A win today would lift Spieth into the Top 20 "career money leaders", overtaking Charlie Howell and Justin Leonard. By the end of the Play Offs he's likely to go past Stewart Cink and possibly Luke Donald also.

EDIT: And a win for DJ would squeak him past Sergio & Adam Scott into 6th place in career earnings, only Woods, Phil, Vijay, Furyk & Els ahead of them. Time flies . . . . . .

GPB - Totally agree. The FED EX cup has been an enormous success, but was dismissed by many an armchair critic as a gimmick. Some simply don't understand the wheels of business.

Meanwhile, GO Jordan.

Don't think it was dismissed on this board (or 606), but I'm sure such #alternative facts suits a certain narrative.
Playing on some pretty good courses has certainly enhanced its standing - pity it can't be more geographically diverse, the old Western Open turning up in Philadelphia is beyond bizarre, regardless of how much Philly deserves a PGA Tour event.

Luke Donald moving in the right direction, but he needs a terrific round to add to his $5.5M in FedEx bonuses.

Alternative facts indeed, Kwin ... I DO think it was dismissed by a number of folks on this board.

The Western Open in Philadelphia ... why not? Standing on old tradition and ceremony is hardly the way to grow and change as the professional game grows and changes.

Bizarre that some don't understand the business of business.

I think I dismissed it as a gimmick, and it will always remain as somewhat of a sporting gimmick until the points are adjusted to limit the influence of the final four events. It might be "boring" but if someone wins 5 times before the US open we just have to accept the season might be over.

F1 has had the odd mid to late summer world champion and it is still doing ok.

McLaren wrote:I think I dismissed it as a gimmick, and it will always remain as somewhat of a sporting gimmick until the points are adjusted to limit the influence of the final four events.  It might be "boring" but if someone wins 5 times before the US open we just have to accept the season might be over.  

F1 has had the odd mid to late summer world champion and it is still doing ok.

Is it? People don't seem to be captivated by F1 much these days.

Shotrock wrote:Alternative facts indeed, Kwin ... I DO think it was dismissed by a number of folks on this board.

The Western Open in Philadelphia ... why not? Standing on old tradition and ceremony is hardly the way to grow and change as the professional game grows and changes.

Bizarre that some don't understand the business of business.

Just to repeat: No problem having a Play-Off event in Philadelphia, fine course so they say, and don't patronise over who understands "business".
But can't help thinking that the lack of geographic diversity is short-sighted. The Mid-West, or west of favoured Ohio anyway, gets a JDC which scarcely any top players turn up for, next year and nothing else on Tour. Though the PGA will be in Bellerive. It can't be good policy to relentlessly ignore the great cities of the Mid-West, can it? Or perhaps they "don't understand the business of business"??

It looks like a case of too little, too late for Lukey; he needs to play himself back into form.

I wasn't on this board 10 years ago, but I was on other boards. And bloggers did dismiss the FEX as a gimmick, novelty.

My opinion at the time was I didn't think it was necessary, but I was glad to have more events.

IMO, the first three (in particular the first two) playoff events have moved ahead of WGCs in prestige. Certainly the field of 120 and 100 PGATour players has better SoF than any of the WGCs when considering the biases of the OWGR.

In terms of the GPB SoF formulas, NYC and Boston Tournaments trail only the Players, PGA, Open Championship and ahead of the US Open and Masters and the WGCs. BMW (3rd leg) has an SoF comparable to the WGCs

What you define as "relentlessly ignore", others (who, BTW, have actually built the PGA into what it is), have selected one venue over another for a myriad of reasons. Seems to be working.

Similarly, where's the outcry to get the Open Championship (not just the Sr. version) to the "great" country of Wales? It can't be good policy to ignore that entire country, can it?

As a half-Welshman, it would be great to get The Open to Wales; but don't think anyone would suggest Wales has a great course with sufficient infrastructure (suppose you could say the same about RSG).


Difference of opinion then on Tour locations, just think that allowing some areas a monopoly of events is unwise. Hopefully the USGA and PGA will fill the gaps. It would probably be good business for them to do so.

GPB,
Agree that the Play-Off tournaments are superior to the WGC's, but then the WGC's haven't exactly lived up to the original premise - couldn't really care less about them myself.

I suspect that the Boston tournament is going to look a lot like Minneapolis next year.

Spieth the Redeemer having a fantastic summer.

It seems he has been paying his tithes..

Getting interesting at the top of the LB now. Very interesting battle here.

DJ, You beauty!
No bogeys on the back nine this week, why should he start now!

This is fun

Yeah great stuff here,

Lovin' it - now it's back to Spieth's turn to hole a snake . . . . . .

Wouldn't be surprised if he makes it Kwini, he's lethal from that range...

Great stuff from DJ, thats the way to play a playoff. Fearless, and played to his strengths. Monster drive

Phenomenal 1st playoff hole from DJ.

That was an insane drive from DJ in the playoff! Great to see a battle between DJ and Jordan! More of the same please

DJ didn't get Number One by accident - sense of paralysis by analysis from Spieth when he's in that sort of situation, he takes so fcuking long.
His natural game is sooo much better than his deliberate stuff, putting as well as iron shots.

Watching the news - 25 inches of rain in Houston, 25 inches to come. Hope robo's OK.

I'd agree Kwini, I think he started getting his own way...no way should hit the water on 6 with a huge lead! For me he did overanalyse the round

DJ's course management to me is where he hs improved...everyone always goes on about his improved wedg play

Robo is blogging on another board, I left him a message to give an update over here.

this is pretty telling

https://twitter.com/BrendanPorath/status/901930453426466816

News from Jarrod Lyle that is cancer is back in remission.

Hey guys... quick check in.    ummmm... Houston weather SUCKS...  I'm north of Houston proper (away from the worst of it) and even we're already over 20 inches of rain in two days... with 2-3 more days to go.  Flooding is getting really bad, even starting to get more widespread in my area. Personally, my home is high and dry and will remain so... very little to no wind damage in Greater Houston, except for the relatively small tornadoes popping up all over... But mostly it's all about the rain and every river, creek and bayou going out of its banks... power may remain intermittent for us, but that's probably the worst I'll get unless one of those little mini-twisters comes my way.  

Bottom line... Not bad for me personally...  thankful for that.  But really, really concerned for so many of my fellow Texans and Houstonites who are having a really tough go with the flooding... Hoping for the best over the next few days... maybe we'll catch a break... doesn't sound like we're gonna get one... but we could use one.  

How about that DJ... huh?   I'm a Spieth fan, but good on DJ, he earned it.

All the best Robo. Fingers crossed for you.

robo!

Don't think Spieth lost the tournament as much as DJ won it. Ok he put it in the drink on 6, but his putting was insane throughout the week, incl. the one on 17.

This past weekend, as well as Tour golf which was just about the best duel of the season (some way to go before it reaches the level of Phil's efforts with Stenson & Garcia last year), 25 x web.com golfers earned Tour cards for 2017/2018, including former winners Chesson Finger Snap Hadley and Ted "The Wizard" Potter. Also Germany's Stephan Jaeger, several past Tour members and the usual variety of just-out-of-college hot shots.
25 more cards to be dished out in a month's time following the four-event WTF series which gets underway in Ohio this Thursday.

Final field for the Dell Play-Off tournament has been published and there seem to be three absentees: Piercy and Snedeker as expected, and no sign of JB Holmes which is a surprise. Haven't seen anything about his health or fitness, but there look to be 97 runners and he's missing.

And now Stenson's done a runner, "resting". Makes no sense, especially as he's won and runnered up at TPC Boston and there's no event next week.

Top 100 down to 96 in a hurry. What do these guys think this is? US Open tennis??

Be careful out there Robo, there are now sharks swimming on the motorways of Houston tx.

Surprise Surprise Surprise.

Now that Stenson is assured of playing his minimum number events on the PGATour, he WDs from the tournament this week.

DJ was looking even more of a stoner last night. He really doesn't look very well. Can't argue with his golf though.

super_realist wrote:DJ was looking even more of a stoner last night. He really doesn't look very well. Can't argue with his golf though.

Paulina must be wearing him out.
Let's face it, who would you rather be playing in the Bahamas with: Paulina or any or all of Justin Thomas/Rickie/Smylie?

Two players from mainland China were among the Webbies that earned PGATour Cards.

One of them Xinjun Zhang, was suspended (6 months) from the PGATour China developmental tour for signing incorrect scorecards.

[quote="GPB"]Sparse crowds on Long Island this week.

A piece on this from Doug Ferguson today, contrasting crowds at Glen Oaks with those at Plainfield, Ridgewood & Bethpage. Sounds like they made it pretty difficult for the average Joe Blow punter to get there, plus no taxi service permitted.
No return to Glen Oaks currently scheduled.


Stenson has played 6 of the past 7 weeks - not a great excuse but, if he's having problems with his knee again, perhaps understandable. Two weeks off now. Hope he doesn't lose his form.

Kwini, you got a link to that Doug F article?  I haven't been able to find one.

{Edit: Never mind, I found it}

After his top 10 in Denmark, John Daly is ranked #1126 in the OWGR.  Five spots worse than Tiger Woods.

A reminder that Tournament #1 of the WTF action starts Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. 25 PGA Tour cards go to the top 25 golfers not otherwise qualified. Europeans include:
Greg Owen
Seamus Power
Stephan Jaeger
Matthew Southgate
David Skinns
Gonzo
Norlander
Jimmy Gunn
Cejka
Brian Davis
Sepp Straka

Yeah in the post round interview DJ really looked like he was back on weed. Can't imagine he would be that stupid but who knows.Maybe it's for medical reasons?