PGA Tour: WGC:MatchPlay & Dominican: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Bay Hill saw another wonderful tournament to add to a string of them on Tour this year. Great to see a glimpse of the Rory we used to take for granted, and amazing that he's already chalked up 14 PGA Tour wins. He has a pretty good success rate, too. Of those Pros under the age of 50 who have 8 or more wins on Tour, Rory's hit rate is 2nd only to Tiger:

2).Top Ten:
Woods earned the "W" at a rate of 23.7% of the tournaments he's played.
Rory: 10.3
Spieth: 8.2
Thomas: 7.8
Dustin: 7.5
Phil: 7.4
Day: 5.1
Scott: 4.5
Ernie: 4.2
Bubba: 3.6

3).There were a number of notable caddie/player divorces last season and it's perhaps noteworthy that Day, Mickelson and McIlroy have now all won since dispensing with Swatton, Bones and JP. Not sure if that's significant or not!

4).Tiger Woods is back as a force on the PGA Tour. I'd say he's been extremely impressive, great work by him and his surgeon, though interesting that the recent Golf Digest piece about Tiger's chances at Augusta included one or two aspersions cast by "insiders" about fact or fiction regarding his medical history.
Who knows, but I'd expect that the Woods we saw in Florida would be a serious contender whenever he teed it up. Plus, just as Cantlay and Rahm did last year, Tont will continue to rocket up the world golf rankings even without a win. Consistently good finishes will bring him into the Top 50 (and the "Bridgestone" for instance) by virtue of his low "divisor", and he'll likely stay there unless his form deteriorates sharply.

5).I can't warm to DeChambeau. Dread the idea of following him and Tyrrell Hatton in any tournament, too many amateur dramatics, plus he's so bl00dy slow - he and Stenson told to get a shift on during both weekend rounds at Bay Hill.

6).As mused on Sunday, don't think Stenson does well playing with someone who plays even slower than him - not sure who he was with, but he was paired with someone who was getting bad times at Bay Hill one of the years that Every won, and H started to get out of rhythm that year just as he clearly did on Sunday. And he hasn't done well playing with Spieth either.
Regardless, Henrik's record at Bay Hill is remarkable: The past six years he's finished T8, T5, 2nd, T3, cut, 4th.

7).It seems as if we're coming to the end of the foreplay of the Tour season - we've seen almost all of the Top 15 strut their stuff in the run up to The Masters, with only Spieth & Rickie and the injured Hideki & Koepka not really showing much form. But I'm always interested in the next level down and several golfers (who would be under the bookies' radar) below the top level had decent weeks at Bay Hill; Charley Hoffman (could fancy him to make another of his runs at Augusta), Chris Kirk and Ryan Moore will be worth keeping an eye on, and Kevin Chappell is quietly having a fine spell of form: Only out of the Top 31 once (missed cut) so far, and could see him winning again soon.

8).Let's hope there'll be new dates for both March WGC's when the revised Tour calendar is published later this year. As it is we're stuck with a diminished field for the MatchPlay, whether because of players' schedules or the format is difficult to say. As it is, we've lost Round 1 of the MatchPlay which I, for one, thought was one of the more compelling days of the season's golf.
The only two in this year's field who have qualified for (EDIT:) both of the last 16's in Austin are Johnsons, Dustin & Zach. No idea for likely contenders, but hope Casey & Rahm have good weeks.

9).There's the opportunity for a trip to the Caribbean for those outside the owgr Top 70, as the "opposite Field" event takes the Tour to the Dominican Republic, and the Corales Championship, formerly a web.com venue. There's a decent turn-out for about the Top 120 players, but many of the remaining dozen places are filled by guys ("veteran players" admittedly) who can't make it on the Champions Tour to the exclusion of some Tour nearly men who had a poor year in 2017. Arguments pro and con, I know, but I don't like it!
But Chris Wood is in the house, plus Zanotti, Grillo, Paul Dunne and McDowell. Kinda surprised more ET members didn't wangle invites.
One of the Tour's "bright young things" who came out of the US College system with accolades (plus 2 x Walker Cup appearances) and sponsor exemptions lavished upon him is playing, Patrick Rodgers. He ranked T3 in weekend play at Bay Hill, behind Rory (-13) and Rosey (-10) and tied with O'Hair at -7. (Woods was -6 for perspective.) Still only 25, I can see him breaking through this season. Grillo for me though, this week anyway.

10).OK, Golfers who haven't won on the European or PGA Tours since their last Major win in the past 40 years:
10 x Multiple winners: North, Trevino, Green, Nicklaus, Strange, Crenshaw, Janzen, O'Meara, Stewart, Spieth.
13 with one win: Grady, Baker Finch, Brooks, Duval, Beem, Micheel, Hamilton, Immelman, Cink, Clarke, Willett, Walker, Koepka.
Grady and IB-F both won in Australia, Duval in Japan and Immelman when relegated to web.com action.
Would think there are a few good candidates for a worse record than Danny Willett, but I'll leave that to you!

The six players that went 0-3-0 this week will not be earning any OWGR points.  

DJ, Berger, Li, Kodaira, Sharma, List

In the old system, all the first round losers would have been T33rd and got approximately 2 OWGR pts.

If Justin Thomas reaches the final, he will be the new #1 OWGR player.

If nothing else, the abolition of free owgr points is a good thing.

Westwood isn’t qualified for Augusta is he? Kaymer still is by virtue of his US Open I think, not that he ever makes the cut.

I agree you get more golf for your money this way GPB, personally I found the immediate drama of straight knockouts outweighed the bonus of extra rounds though. Browsing twitter there seems a fair bit of support on either side... still think there could be room in the calendar for both.

They probably discussed the format with the players. Travelling half way around the world for potentially playing 14 holes was probably not so appealing. (On the other side the free owgr points must have been.)

Maybe they need to reduce field size to 48 (12 groups) and have up to two players advance from each group, eg the best 4 2nds, similar to WC and Euro football qualification (however you define “best”). Fewer matches, but more to play for for all, as nobody would be out of it even after 2 initial losses.

That would also reduce chance of eliminating inform or top players with unlucky draws. As an example I think TV audiences and fans would’ve liked to see both Reed (3-0-0) and Spieth (2-1-0) advance, something I thus beleive should be made a theoretical possibility.

Finally they’d probably also need to drop the possibility of tying a match, ie ensuring you always find a winner - just to avoid 3rd round speculation.

NedB-H wrote:Westwood isn’t qualified for Augusta is he? Kaymer  still is by virtue of his US Open I think, not that he ever makes the cut.

I agree you get more golf for your money this way GPB, personally I found the immediate drama of straight knockouts outweighed the bonus of extra rounds though. Browsing twitter there seems a fair bit of support on either side... still think there could be room in the calendar for both.

One could be at Wentworth, in the autumn . . . . . . . .


Think Casey was a wee bit surprised at being on his way home; he looked pretty confident (smug?) about things last night.

No sign of Fish (whyever not?) Fleetwood or Hatton in Houston, but Rafa, Rosey and Stenson present and correct.
And Harrington, Lowry & Power are in the field.

Good showing by most of the ET members in the Dominican, Power & Dunne close to the lead, Wood and Zanotti make the cut; shame about McDowell.

sirbenson wrote:DJ hit a drive 489 yards! haha! I know it's downhill and downwind but that's crazy!

Didn’t help though, did it? It’s not all about how far you can bomb it!

If Hatton would take out the stick out of his bum, he would walk a little more normally and he might not act like a d0uche-bag

Looks like Cam Smith gets to Augusta; CHIII misses out, unless he wins next week (seems like a with him); and hopefully Poults will join Smith.

Poults into Augusta!!

Impressive from Poulter. 4 out of 4 and not done yet.
Don't know why, but Billy Bunter Barnrat could be a good shout for this.

Didn’t he win the Scottish match play event some time ago?

Yup.

Paul Dunne & Seamus Power continuing to play well in the Caribbean - Chris Wood falling asleep.

I think Poulter would have preferred Kuchar; Kisner won't give him a thing.

Four Americans, 2 x Europeans, 2 x Internationals.

PS: princedrac has just posted that his original projection that Poulter would qualify for Augusta with a last eight finish is in error and that he needs a win this afternoon.
Hope Poults's calculations don't rely on pd's. (As mine did . . . . . . . . )

GPB wrote:If Hatton would take out the stick out of his bum, he would walk a little more normally and he might not act like a d0uche-bag

So you dislike Hatton because of the way he walks?

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:If Hatton would take out the stick out of his bum, he would walk a little more normally and he might not act like a d0uche-bag

So you dislike Hatton because of the way he walks?

Apparently that's a much more mature thing to do than slag off ridiculous names.

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:If Hatton would take out the stick out of his bum, he would walk a little more normally and he might not act like a d0uche-bag

So you dislike Hatton because of the way he walks?

I dislike him because he is a uptight d0uche bag.

The walking thing.....you might say that I am illustrating the absurd (slagging names, etc) with more absurdity.

Think barnrat won the paul lawrie matchplay before and the perth six matchplay this year. Good at matchplay, clearly. He is a chunker, but im sure no one has noticed or bothered mentioning it, because, who really cares?

Looks like Poulter is going to miss The Masters by 3 hundredths of a ranking point. He'll just have to buy another Ferrari instead.

Poulter should get an invite. If Sharma can surely poults deserves it.

Jt looks good for world number 1, and probably a pretty fair position.

beninho wrote:Poulter should get an invite. If Sharma can surely poults deserves it.

Sharma is at least leading the RtD and has won two tournaments in the last 5 months. Poulter has not won a tournament in the last 5.5 years.

Kisner had fried poultry for lunch.

Poulter won’t get an invite. He’s white.

GPB wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:If Hatton would take out the stick out of his bum, he would walk a little more normally and he might not act like a d0uche-bag

So you dislike Hatton because of the way he walks?

I dislike him because he is a uptight d0uche bag.

The walking thing.....you might say that I am illustrating the absurd (slagging names, etc) with more absurdity.

...and he's a d0uche bag because?

petulance.

Re: Poulter missing the Masters invite by 0.03 points.

Earlier this week, I opined about players/media/Fans never complain about "meaningless" golf when someone starts the 4th round, in T60th place and 16 shots behind the leader.

IMO, that round of golf is just as meaningless as the five matches between 0-2 players yesterday. But if Poulter had earned 1.5 pts more at Bay Hill and Phoenix when he finished T41 and T52, he would be in the Masters. Probably a difference of 3 shots total in both tournaments.

(Nearly) every shot counts

Is History repeating itself?

In Feb 2011, Reigning PGA Champion Martin Kaymer needed to get to the finals of the Match Play to become the #1 golfer in the OWGR..

Guess who Martin Kaymer beat in the semi-finals to get to the finals. Answer: Bubba Watson

Reigning PGA Champion Justin Thomas has to beat Bubba Watson tomorrow in the semi-finals to get to the #1 OWGR ranking

FWIW, Kaymer beat Bubba but lost to Luke Donald in the finals.

You've been reading the drac report.

A big week for Poulter, regardless of the Masters disappointment. Bigger picture is that he's starting to catch up to where he needs to be to keep his card - Augusta, where he has a good record, will have to wait. Ironic that he could very well be in the owgr Top 50 next week.

Methinks there needs to be something more transparent than drac's calculations to let the players know authoritatively where they stand in such circumstances.

kwinigolfer wrote:Methinks there needs to be something more transparent than drac's calculations to let the players know authoritatively where they stand in such circumstances.

Cast your mind back to Ian Poulters last brush with WGC and the OWGR. A perfect storm of results happened and it looked like Poulter wouldn't qualify for the China WGC. This would mean he wouldn't be able to complete his tournament requirements for the ET. So he had to get into the Hong Kong tournament. Cue Rich Beem giving way. As it turned out, Poulter got into the WGC due to withdrawals. in this report it says that Poulter is an avid watcher of the rankings.........so I wonder if he actually knew...

Someone ought to let Poulter know that top level sport is all about being in the moment. He shouldn't have even been thinking about Augusta this week, he certainly shouldn't be looking at texts from anyone 10 minutes before a match. How he can even vaguely have the temerity to suggest it had the slightest bearing on a result where he had his backside handed to him is ludicrous.

GPB wrote:petulance....

Specifically? I've heard odds and ends like this before. I'm actually curious to know what it's about. What petulance? Where?

Inw, Digs,
Completely agree - but when they're playing for so many "currencies", I would think the focus can become blurred.
Kinda tough in this event because there are so many sideshows going on.
But Poults knows better, he should get ready for Houston . . . . . . .

Hatton is absolutely a “douchebag”. Only have to watch a round of his or an interview with him. Good golfer, complete tool.

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:petulance....

Specifically? I've heard odds and ends like this before. I'm actually curious to know what it's about. What petulance? Where?

From the WGC Mexico Thread  (all from page 2)

"...Hatton catching a lot of grief from the NBC crew regarding his temperament"  (Per Kwini)

"....I was just about to post - can we all agree that Hatton for all his excellent golf, and Ryder Cup potential, is a bit of a prick...."  

-Ned B and confirmed by RayCastleUnited

https://www.606v2.com/t67263p50-pga-tour-wgc-mexico-championship-notes-from-the-ballwasher

kwini also mentioned it in the context of Jacobsen's usual sanctimonious anti-European b0ll0cks.


I wonder if Johnny Miller is in good health?
He missed 2 or 3 NBC events and he's definitely not on top of his game this week, repeating himself several times, clearly not up to date with some of the lesser-known pros. Not sharp at all. Wonder if he'll turn up in Houston?

kwinigolfer wrote:kwini also mentioned it in the context of Jacobsen's usual sanctimonious anti-European b0ll0cks.


I wonder if Johnny Miller is in good health?
He missed 2 or 3 NBC events and he's definitely not on top of his game this week, repeating himself several times, clearly not up to date with some of the lesser-known pros. Not sharp at all. Wonder if he'll turn up in Houston?

I will take your comments about Jacobsen being anti-European as part of your anti-American bias.

If there was an American player on this board that was acting the way Hatton was acting in Mexico, this board would have been all over him like White on Rice

Not sure why Miller was not in Mexico, but Gary Koch usually has the lead analyst role in his hometown Tampa. I never thought Miller was anything special (I like Faldo better) so I have noticed him being less sharp.

Kis and Noren both had 4 birdies in a row it seems. Noren bogeyed the first, thats all between them.

Impressive from Bubba - must certainly be among the favourites for Augusta in this form/focus. Taking a year's "competitive" sabbatical did him the world of good.

Dunne & Power T 3 halfway thru Round 4 in the Caribbean . . . . . . . .

Not Alex's best stroke.
Can't imagine either he or Thomas fancy another match - #pointless.

NedB-H wrote:Hatton is absolutely a “douchebag”. Only have to watch a round of his or an interview with him. Good golfer, complete tool.

Ah! Excellent. Such evidence. I asked why so thanks for explaining...ah, you didn't.

GPB wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:petulance....

Specifically? I've heard odds and ends like this before. I'm actually curious to know what it's about. What petulance? Where?

From the WGC Mexico Thread  (all from page 2)

"...Hatton catching a lot of grief from the NBC crew regarding his temperament"  (Per Kwini)

"....I was just about to post - can we all agree that Hatton for all his excellent golf, and Ryder Cup potential, is a bit of a prick...."  

-Ned B and confirmed by RayCastleUnited

https://www.606v2.com/t67263p50-pga-tour-wgc-mexico-championship-notes-from-the-ballwasher

Seriously??? This is offered as evidence?? I asked why. I expected a bit more by way of explanation, instead of unsubstantiated statements from an old thread here.

What, exactly, is he supposed to have done? Gobbed in a hole? Claimed to have putted like a spaz? Dropped serial F-bombs? Thrown his putter at his caddie? Cheated?

Not sure about Hatton but it sure looked like Noren was putting like a spaz. He was closest to pin on 15 of 19 holes and missed 5-6 putts inside 9-10 ft.

kwinigolfer wrote:Impressive from Bubba - must certainly be among the favourites for Augusta in this form/focus. Taking a year's "competitive" sabbatical did him the world of good.

I hope not, the bubbling, blubbering, bible bashing,  blithering, bogtrotting bampot from Baghdad has to be one of the biggest C's in the game. Not voted the biggest a-nus on tour for nothing.

I'd say golf is better when Bubba's around . . . . . . .

Disappointing finish for Paul Dunne in the Dominican, but very likely to finish in the Top Ten - and that would earn him a spot in Houston next week I believe. Wonder whether he would take it?

Bubba for sure adds some colour to the game, both due to his persona and due to his game. Imagine if all players were clones of Kisner.

Bubba brings something different to the party. It's hard to get remotely interested in players like Noren or Kisner, excellent as they are, there are another 50 at least who play the same sort of game in a similar way. Nobody plays the game quite like Bubba, when he's on he's very, very good.

Not denying he's different, but he's impossible to like.

I don't buy his "never had a lesson in my life" claim though.

I’m sure you’d like to ‘give him a lesson’..

He makes Monty's moaning look rational.

I don't buy the Seve legend that he learnt his game on a beach, not when all his family were golfers. It makes for  a good story though.