PGA Tour: Waste Management: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).No silly, not media coverage of last night's state of the (dis)union, but some chat about last week in San Diego and this week's "Waste Management Phoenix Open".

2).First things first so, no, not you Tiger. Watching as much of Thursday's play as possible, who'd've thought the creaking figure resembling Jason Day would finish the week, let alone win the tournament?
Astonishing transformation as he became much more like the Number One of two years ago than the disaffected crock we saw last year. Didn't hear anything about Colin Swatton in commentary or interviews but I wonder if replacing Swatton also helped? He DID make a point of saying he was having fun with his best mate on the bag.
Clearly his fitness going forward will be a week-to-week thing, day-to-day perhaps, and he acknowledged that by saying he's having to moderate (the violence of?) his swing to accommodate the reality of his back.

3).Well done also to Alex Noren. I won't be second-guessing his approach in Monday's play-off; Keegan Bradley had shown that it was possible to hold the green close to the pin and Noren felt the softer morning conditions made going for it a decent bet. Another plus is that, after looking a bit uptight around the turn, he seemed to lighten up when his short miss on #12 and bogey on #14 caused him to lose the lead - he played the first five play-off holes beautifully and hopefully takes plenty of confidence with him as the schedule moves forward.
Alex moves to 34th in the season-long FedEx Points table . . . . . . .  

4).At 166th is Tiger Woods. I'd give him a B+ on his play last week. And, given that he only hit 17 of 56 (30-ish%) fairways, perhaps he wasn't far off earning an A-something. He didn't make any putt longer than four feet in Round 1, though that improved as the week moved on, and his chipping and bunker play were pretty darned good.
Now he gets a fortnight off to see how his body responds and, hopefully for him, adjust his radar. Not sure that Riviera will be as forgiving off the tee as the Torrey Pines courses were but on the plus side for him he won't need to use driver so often. Best guess on his dates ahead suggest Honda, Bay Hill and, possibly, Innisbrook before his holy grail with the Hooties in April, but nothing has been confirmed.  

5).One thing we can be sure of is that Woods won't be playing thirty tournaments a year anytime soon/ever.
In light of Brian Harman saying he hadn't appreciated that he had played more PGA Tournaments in the past few years than anyone, and perhaps he needed to tone it down a bit, I thought it would be interesting to look at the busiest players from the Top 300 in the World Ranking. (Harman not in this week's Phoenix field.)
Looking at the past 24 months, the "Iron Men" were Scott Hend, Euro-wannabe Dylan Frittelli and Asia-based Younghan Song, all with 68 events played.
Danny Lee and Jbe Kruger both teed it up 66 times.

6).Of those who competed most frequently on the PGA Tour, Lee led the way:
66 events: Danny Lee
65: Patrick Reed - and that's an average of 31 per year over the past five years. All of which hasn't done him any good at all - from a high of 7th in late 2016, he's slipped to 24th. And he has 2 x "Cups" in addition; time to spend some time at home, Patrick.
65: SiWoo Kim - but this scarcely counts given that he's withdrawn from so many tournaments and averages 11 missed cuts a year.
63: Harry Varner
63: Sung Kang
62: Luke List
60: Harman etc. And Rafa CB (and Matt Fitzpatrick) have 59 plus a Ryder Cup. Too many I would think given the time they must spend in the air.

7).It's a bit tricky to determine how busy the best players are as so many have been injured these past couple of years, but not many play less often than 48 weeks in two years, not many more than 52. The busier golfers from the 20 top-ranked apart from Harman are Fleetwood and Kuchar, both with 56.

8).And so to Phoenix and the TPC Scottsdale. It's not too early for some "notables" to start to become anxious about their Masters invitations. Only tournament winners and owgr Top 50 residents can now qualify so we'll be keeping an eye on those on the precipice of qualifying - or not. I reckon Khodaira at 35th is safe. Others close include:
47th: Frittelli
57th: Poulter - playing in Phoenix
58th: Cameron Smith
59th: Uihlein
60th: Alex Levy
Haas, Keegan Bradley, HowellIII, Lowry, Snedeker, Westwood are all further adrift.

9).It's a strong field in Phoenix where Hideki Matsuyama is going for a hat-trick of wins. Rahm, Spieth, Thomas, Fowler, Noren and Molinari are all in the field. And so is JB Holmes, coming off his unwanted 4 minutes, 10 seconds of fame, probably more than he earned for his two wins in Phoenix.
Hopefully the PGA Tour will have spent some time figuring out how they prevent such dawdling again. Holmes is by no means the only offender and is nowhere near as slow as a few years ago.
In 2012 Paramor stepped in and penalised Ross Fisher a stroke after the 14th hole at Celtic Manor when he was one stroke off the lead, but he and his threesome had been warned a few times by then - so what to do if someone downs tools without having been warned?
Interesting that the first tweet I saw on the subject was from Luke Donald - not sure how close he and JB are but I spent a thoroughly miserable few hours following the two of them (and Branden Grace) once and didn't notice the two of them sharing a single word.

10).Rickie Fowler, Ryan Palmer and Bubba have all runnered up here twice but I don't have a clue who might win this week - James Hahn my one-and-done, as he's been in decent nick recently and, if anyone can relish the 16th hole hoopla, he can!

NB: In the "you can't make this up" column, and apropos my first note, I see a train full of Republican Congressmen has just hit a garbage truck - a tragedy with a bin-man killed. Hope the truck wasn't driven by an illegal immigrant, it'll set immigration "diplomacy" back a generation.

I'm surprised Poulter isn't trying a bit harder to raise his rankings.

Missed the cut by one in Abu Dhabi, T6 in Dubai - what do you recommend Poults does different?

Maybe he's due a week off, just thought he'd be taking the opportunity to get a bit more golf in, as he tends to be at his best at either end of the season.

You may see him taking his week off next week - no sign of him in the Pebble Beach field and he seldom plays Riviera; no Top 50's there in three trips. Time to polish the Ferraris.

Perhaps I should have noted that Trevor Immelman earned his first owgr points since June 2014, in Dubai - up 666 places to 1,263rd - Tigeresque.

And: Retief Goosen played well in San Diego, T12. Retief turns 49 on Saturday.

Plus: Everyone's favourite Saffer, Roary Sabbatini, finished T20 - I bet he's not finished yet, probably keep going just to p1ss people off. Not me, I kinda like him.

But: Where's Tim Clark?

Weather should be fab for Phoenix today and thru'out the tournament.

I see Jon Rahm blames his lousy weekend in San Diego on the realization that he would become world #1 with a win. That can't happen this week so no excuses Jonny!

Will likely be World #1 by age 23 ... Yes, young Jon better get used to managing big expectations. Quickly becoming the best player without a major, but I would not bet against him bagging said major in 2018.

Give him a chance SR, he's only been on tour for the blink of an eye and has only played in 6.
Took Black Hole Johnson an eternity to win.

I'm the last guy you need to ask to give him a chance. The tapeworm media, however, has been fully awakened and will now never go away (or at least until they get another more interesting storyline) ... simply comes with the territory.

I don't think we'll have to wait very long, looks like he's going to be pretty dominant as a player.

Rahm off to another nice start, just one of Trickie Rickie's early lead.

Wonder who you'd bet on to make the next Major breakthrough?
Rahm or Hideki for me - don't think I'd put a lot of many on anyone else to break through this year, unless Branden Grace can buck his ideas up. Kuchar perhaps?
Would be nice to see Tommy Fleetwood get in contention more though.

Maybe Fowler could Kwini? Although I get the feeling there's something of a plateau to his game right now. Quite the three round player at present, just not got the extra gear. If the stars aligned and a few players had a poor tournament I could potentially see Fatprick Reed winning one too.

I sincerely it's not someone like Charley Hoffman or William McGirt.

I'm thinking there are quite a few Major winners who are in their 20's or early 30's that will win a few more, plus one or two older pros who might be able to grab another one - Charl & Louis for instance, Adam Scott, Sergio & Stenson, perhaps Kaymer. Interested to see if any of the young Englishmen have the right stuff.

Meanwhile, scoring seems better this afternoon in Phoenix; even Shane two under after nine holes, despite a double bogey.

Apparently Allenby had a few too many.

https://twitter.com/jamiiegaiil/status/958834139788017664

Where's Erica Roe when you need her?
Nothing quite so pneumatic in Phoenix, not inside the ropes anyway.

Surprised no-one went really low yesterday. Weather should be terrific again Friday, but imagine the course will continue to firm up.

Nice to see Martin Laird get it going at last, more please. Lowry & Poults both need good tournaments, but can build on under-par efforts Thursday. They need to.

The issue for Shane as nearly everyone on here has pointed out is that the season is 1/4 of the way through and all he has is one MC. He isn't a better than average PGAT player yet he is trying to beat the fedex field while playing fewer events than most. How will it ever work?

Mac,
He either needs a win or to somehow scramble his way into the owgr Top 50 - almost impossible to work otherwise.
On the other hand, does he care? Willett obviously didn't, Kaymer didn't a year or two ago, and others have decided that the States is not for them. Shane may just see this as a three-year experiment . . . . . . . . and nothing wrong with that.

(PS: I'd say that he IS a "better than average PGAT player", but can't prove it in half the tournaments available to him.)

He can do what he likes, so nothing really wrong with it but if you were to advise him what was best for his career would you propose his current schedule and would you ask if he wished to play in the RC?


Further to the above it isn't as if there is no opportunity cost to having a half assed attempt at the PGAT. Have any of the players like Shane, Willett, Colsearts etc that just didn't care about the PGAT experiment increase in world ranking, get more ET wins, improve RC qualification etc?

Mac,
Don't think it's possible, or advisable(!) to try to imagine what individuals' circumstances might be.
I DO know that I packed in the best job I could ever expect to get because I was away from my young family more than was anything approaching healthy. So it happens. Career and wealth ain't everything.
All you can say about Lowry for instance is that if he wants a long-running PGA Tour career, this isn't the way to go about it.

kwinigolfer wrote:Mac,
Don't think it's possible, or advisable(!) to try to imagine what individuals' circumstances might be.
I DO know that I packed in the best job I could ever expect to get because I was away from my young family more than was anything approaching healthy. So it happens. Career and wealth ain't everything.
All you can say about Lowry for instance is that if he wants a long-running PGA Tour career, this isn't the way to go about it.

Lowry doesn't want a long career (or life) anywhere. If he did, he would act like a professional and not a fat waster like he is currently doing.

Here's someone who's making the most of his chance:
Alex Noren to -4 after 10 holes, second best round on the course early in Round 2. Franny & Lowry also inside the cut-line as things currently stand.

kwini

As armchair critics we rarely know what is actually going on with players but isn't the fact we post on this site an admission that we at least like to chat and speculate about what is going on?

You wrote an article recently about how surprising it might be to some people and players that we are already so far into the season, would you not at least give an opinion on whether or not Shane has left it too late to get going?

And as I said above you don't get a free shot at half arsing the PGAT, your ET performance will suffer. Given this would you in general advise that players should break from successful ET careers just to add a limited number of PGAT events?

Mac,
Remember, Lowry received a 3-year exemption for winning the Bridgestone. Why not give it a whirl?
And, if you had actually read that piece about the season already being 25% done, you'd have seen that I pointed out he hadn't yet played an event. Does anyone have to spell out exactly what the repercussions might be?

It's certainly not for me to say that only making a couple of million last year was a success or failure - certainly a lot more than I've earned recently, perhaps not you?

I'd say he's playing with house money - why not roll the dice one last time? Not conventional, but nor is a 20-stone Golf Pro.

Surprised to see that Hideki has withdrawn. Anyone know why? EDIT: Left wrist injury apparently. Too bad.

Two bogeys in a row for Lowry and now he's putting his weekend at jeopardy.

Noren's -4 disappearing fast ... but Jordan playing the cut line like Tiger. He may not make the weekend.

Watching the golf now. US commentator just said he saw something unusual in a PGA tour player making a moderately complicated drop without the presence of a rules official. (Emiliano Grilli at the 16th). Unfortunately he fluffed his shot and might double bogey.

Lowry on the precipice now, uncomfortable feeling for him I should think.
And Spieth will need a miracle to stick around. Wonder whether this event is his cup of tea - or Dr.Pepper. Wouldn't be surprised to see him follow Shotrock's "Tiger" example further and abandon this particular ship.
As it is owgr #3 and #5 are out.

What is a moderately complicated drop?

Davie wrote:What is a moderately complicated drop?

Commentators words. Believe it was one where the place to drop was just not a club length away

kwinigolfer wrote:Mac,
Remember, Lowry received a 3-year exemption for winning the Bridgestone. Why not give it a whirl?  
And, if you had actually read that piece about the season already being 25% done, you'd have seen that I pointed out he hadn't yet played an event. Does anyone have to spell out exactly what the repercussions might be?

It's certainly not for me to say that only making a couple of million last year was a success or failure - certainly a lot more than I've earned recently, perhaps not you?

I'd say he's playing with house money - why not roll the dice one last time? Not conventional, but nor is a 20-stone Golf Pro.

I know he received the free 3 years but if playing on the PGAT the way he has been affects his overall career progression, which I think it has, then it might still not be the wisest decision. It is also easy to say he earned a lot of money but whatever he does it will earn him a lot, don't you think a better OWGR would be more crucial to him achieving goals that will allow him to look back on his career and feel he fulfilled his potential?

Yup, it certainly hasn't worked out well, but not sure he's a PhD candidate either. And clearly his manager/agent isn't either.

It looks as if scoring this afternoon is trickier than it was this morning. Which means the Thursday afternoon/Friday morning crew had the luck of the draw.

McLaren wrote:Apparently Allenby had a few too many.

https://twitter.com/jamiiegaiil/status/958834139788017664

Class act. One of the better streaker performances lately.

Can't compare with our Erica, surely?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUny5i4544

Not "lately" though.

On a less aesthetically pleasing note, happy to see Lowry give himself a chance for a good weekend, decent from Poults and The Laird is on the fringes of contention at a place he should arguably have won at a couple of years ago.

Tourists at Pebble Beach include:
Casey
Rafa
Dunners
Grace
Padraig
McDool
Rory
Shane
even Adam Scott.

Pouter shank on 16th.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BetsuuUge10/

He's had quite a lot in his career, good getting away with a 4 though.

TRIVIA:

Apart from T.Woods, who are the only three golfers to win the same tournament three years running on the PGA Tour - from 1978 onwards only?


Hideki's withdrawal cost him the chance of being the fourth with a hat-trick.

Did Ernie win three in a row at the ToC? Maybe Vijay at one of the midsummer events? Stricker at the John Deere? Good question.

Not Ernie, and not Vijay.

But you don't know (well, maybe you do!) how close you might be!!

Stricker is one, at the John Deere, Sorry didn't realise he was in there.

Two to go . . . . . . . .

I’m sure someone did it at the ToC.... Sergio? Scott? DLIII?

NedB-H wrote:I’m sure someone did it at the ToC.... Sergio? Scott? DLIII?

Keep trying! The culprit may be playing next week's web.com event, in South America!

And then there's a HOF'er who arguably should have won four in a row - I saw him lose the Play-Off which denied him.

I cheated and looked up the Kapalua one. Would have taken me a while to get that!

Indicative of what a rarity the hat-trick actually is, considering the plethora of course specialists.

has there been anything the UK Press about the Possibility of Frittelli being eligible on the Euro Ryder Cup team?

I have googled haven't found anything.

The only thing I heard was on the GC telecast of the Dubai tournament.

If you grandfathered his points, he would be definitely in contention to make the team.  And that i before this weeks results where he is the 54 hole co-leader in Malaysia.

Justin Thomas!

6 birdies on the trot to start Thomas's round - not bad.
SNAP!

I don’t care much for the 16th and I care even less for Scottsdale as a full 18, but this has been fantastic entertainment today. As happens when you have a logjammed leaderboard and no one able to pull away for more than a hole or two. Booze or no booze.

Shotrock wrote:Justin Thomas!

A bit of a meltdown there.

Didn't watch any action today, went to a college basketball game instead, but the leaderboard is almost upside down from when I left.

Nice round from Noren, and a nice recovery from The Laird. Good from Poults, but must do better Sunday!