PGA Tour: Ten Names from PGA, Greensboro: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).Brooks Koepka: Dominant. What a summer! And: Who cares about Tour events if you win Majors? Mind you, his British caddie might have made all the difference.

2).Tiger Woods: Terrific week, almost Tiger-like. Though, if he thrives on a steady diet of, for instance, three-under-par over nine holes whilst hitting exactly zero fairways, is that a recipe for future success?
(Thought Bellerive stood up OK considering the soft conditions, but can't understand why the fairways were as accommodating as they were, especially with fairway bunkers that usually offered much better lies than the rough, or the trees.)

3).Adam Scott: Where did that come from? It can't all have been inspired by the memory of Jarrod Lyle. And that Langer/McCarron/Scott putting technique still looks like he's taking the p1ss. Interesting that he had two putters in the bag on Sunday . . . . .
It seems an age ago, but Adam beat Brooksy 3&2 in last year's Presidents Cup.
Also: Who was caddying for him?

4).Jim Furyk: Over to you Skipper: I reckon he'll go with 9, 10, 11 on the current qualification list, with one man tba. I'd think that BDeC will get the nod, but Furyk must know that carries some risk. Does he want to waste Woods as his potential partner?
And he'll probably want new blood. Though Kuchar has won at Ridgewood (Northern Trust) before . . . . . . Zach & Kooch to be VC's I reckon.
Kisner is said to be very popular among the pros - and was by Phil's side, successfully, during last year's Pres Cup. It could be that Furyk compiles his own 2- or 3-tournament qualification ranking. Whichever way he goes, I'm not a fan of not making all four choices together.

5).Sergio Garcia: Awful summer of golf for anyone who considers themselves an RC candidate. He now needs at least a Top 12 finish in Greensboro to qualify for the Play-Offs - if he fails, at a place where he won just a few years ago, would he rule himself out of consideration? Perhaps he should.

6).Henrik Stenson: Almost as dire as Sergio. Pretty much a nonentity since Shinnecock. Is he fit? Defending Champion at Greensboro this week.

7).Shane Lowry: Terrific PGA but now needs about a Top Ten @ Greensboro to reach the Play-Offs and keep his card. Hadn't realised until the following day that he bogeyed #16 on Sunday after a ruling snafu. As he told the Irish Times:
"I think the referee didn't have the balls to make a decision there. If you put Paramor or any of the good referees out there, he would have given me full relief. But he wasn't giving me full relief, he was telling me to drop it in a tree basically."
Playing partner Justin Thomas proceeded to play out of turn, for which you can't blame him, but it must have added to the pressure on Lowry and he played from the original lie.
Thomas said: "It had nothing to do with Shane. The officials were having a hard time coming up with a ruling. They were kind of looking at each other and saying, 'Well, what do we do?'"
Sometimes you just got to think: What would Poults or Woods do? And they'd have stood their ground and demanded a decision from the tournament referee. Perhaps Shane should have done too.
Anyway, that's not good enough by the PGA. Lowry bogeyed #16 and then #17 (which he might well have done anyway, who knows?) and dropped seven places, and a ton of FedEx Points.

7).Rafa C-B: Why is he playing Greensboro? Presumably to bolster his RC World Points standing, but Bjorn should pick him regardless.

8).Matt Fitzpatrick: Playing Greensboro, but surely his RC chances are toast? A shame but fringe RC contenders need to prove they belong on the Team and Matt hasn't done that.

9).Seamus Power: Needs something like a Top 30 result this week to keep his card. No-one to blame but Seamus if he doesn't make it.

10).Bill Haas: Hasn't been the same since his ill-advised trip in a Beverly Hills Ferrari. Only 2 x Top 35 results since and only a Top Four finish this week gets him to the Northern Trust.
McDowell will also miss out unless he can conjure up a Top Five and he'd lose his card. He seems somewhat ambivalent about that, and doesn't seem to have committed whether he'd contest the web.com Finals - but it's going to be tough for him to resurrect his Tour career, if he should ever care about that.

10A).Garcia and Haas are two of thirteen players to reach the Play-Offs each of the first 12 years they've been around.
Who are the others? (GPB is disqualified from answering this poser!)

Who said Sergio needs a Top 12 finish? Certainly a 12th place would get him to 396 pts and nearly guarantee him a ranking in the Top 125.

But technically he only needs a 25th to pass Van Aswegen. That of course requires Van Aswegen missing the cut and the perfect storm that no other play passes them. Unlikely.

But I think a 18th placing gets Sergio safely inside the Top 125 bubble.

Why wouldn't RCB play Wyndham. I guess he could be twiddling his thumbs or he could try to clinch his spot on the RC team. I think Poulter ought to be playing as well.

As far as Lowry's rules snafu. I don't think relief from a TIO doesn't entitle you to relief from tree. he is entitled to nearest relief, and if that puts him near a tree, that is tough. I think he was SooL.

John Paramor, "good referee". Is that an oxymoron. I always though Paramor was quite capricious with some of his rulings.

I said he needs a Top 12!

Why wouldn't RCB take a break? He's played 6 of the last 7 - he'll be knackered exactly when he needs to be fresh - 'course, he's different breed as well.
And Poults has also played a LOT, four weeks straight, plus been under more scrutiny than would normally befit his finishes.

I didn't see the Lowry thingy, but at least he's entitled to the authoritative decision that Poults and Tiger would have demanded - seems that was lacking. Unfortunately Shane took matters into his own hands, played it where it lay, and is now most definitely SOL.

You'll have to speak to Norrie's boy about "capricious"ness, but at least he's decisive and that was clearly (to JT as well as Shane) lacking.

I think the bigger problem for Lowry, right or wrong as the referees were, is that he clearly allowed it to get to him. Made a decent bogey in the end, but then took 6 on the easiest hole on the course straight after. If he’d birdied that like half the rest of the field did, he’d have been well inside the top ten and on tour next year.

Phil and Zach are my immediate guesses for having a playoff clean sweep. Maybe Sabbatini? Chuck Howell?

Phil, Zach, ChuckIII
Roary:

I can't guess.

kwinigolfer wrote:I said he needs a Top 12!

Why wouldn't RCB take a break? He's played 6 of the last 7 - he'll be knackered exactly when he needs to be fresh - 'course, he's different breed as well.
And Poults has also played a LOT, four weeks straight, plus been under more scrutiny than would normally befit his finishes.

RCB is not a guaranteed pick from Bjorn. In his mind, Sergio and Stenson are definitely above him in the pecking order and so would Poulter if he gets displaced by Olesen this week.

So RCB would be in competition with Casey for the final pick, so why wouldn't he want to try to qualify on merit.

One thing for sure, a player is not going to earn any Ryder Cup points by NOT playing.

Fowler out of the Northern Trust, resting something called an oblique. Wonder if I have one of them that needs resting?

you need to have "abdominals" to have oblique issues.

People with "Flabdominials" seldom have oblique issues.

kwinigolfer wrote:Phil, Zach, ChuckIII
Roary:

Just came across it on the GC. Surprised that ChuckIII is on the list, he seemed to be absent from golf for 5-8 years.
Also a bit surprised that C.Hoffmann and R.Moore are there. Maybe beacuse they're are the only ones who recently went from journeymen to actual contenders.

pedro wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Phil, Zach, ChuckIII
Roary:

Just came across it on the GC. Surprised that ChuckIII is on the list, he seemed to be absent from golf for 5-8 years.
Also a bit surprised that C.Hoffmann and R.Moore are there. Maybe beacuse they're are the only ones who recently went from journeymen to actual contenders.

Yup, I'll let the cats out of the bag:
Rose, Bubba Watson, Mickelson, HowellIII, Zach Johnson, Moore (surely he was a hot-shot amateur and young pro before he become a kinda elite journeyman!), Kuchar, Adam Scott, Sneedeker, Hoffman, Garcia, Bill Haas, Donald.
Hoffman won the third ever FedEx-era event, he's been around a long time!

So, Luke will not keep his streak running, and Sergio & Billy Haas have their work cut out for them.

Barring a win this week, Harrington is going to have use Top 50 money list exemption in 2018-19, or he is going to lose it. He is 47th in the rankings, and should be passed by Thomas in the playoffs. a Good week by Perez will mean he falls another spot.

Its unlikely that he will be passed by any other player during the playoff, (but it could happen)

Bill Haas is 33rd in lifetime earnings, but if he keeps conditional status, I don't think he use a lifetime exemption.

Agree with both: Think Padraig took this year as a "flier", in case he played well enough to recapture his card. Answer obviously is NO! But this is his 16th Tour event, plus a few others he could have played, so not a bad choice.

Good scoring this morning, and good to see Snedeker playing well again.
All GB, I & E players I'm interested in at -1!

Players that have a chance to pass Harrington and how much they are behind Harrington

386,000 Justin Thomas
386,000 Pat Perez
1,111,000 Sean O'Hair
1,506,000 Patrick Reed
1,749,000 J.B. Holmes
1,918,000 Ryan Palmer
1,986,000 Ian Poulter
2,023,000 Marc Leishman
3,390,000 Hideki Matsuyama

Sneds needs to birdie his last hole for a 59 . . . . . . .

20 foot putt for a FIFTY NINE:
MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

Started with a bogey and holed for an eagle on a par four from 176 yards. Good going.

I didn't see any of the action yesterday and only went to check the scores this morning so completely missed the 59.

Absolutely brilliant from Sneds

Twice a Ryder Cupper in the past do you think a run of form could see him get into contention for this year?

Snedeker is good enough, but is he hard enough? Always liked him, but also thought he had a bit of a soft centre, bit like Simpson & Watson really, and usually Fowler, though Rickie was good at Hazeltine.

Will Sneds follow up a great round with a good one? I have Ryan Moore as my one-and-done this week and both he and Sneedeker have won Greensboro in the past.
Of more immediate importance is for Lowry & Power to make the cut, and both have their work cut out for them, Seamus needing a low 60-something or it's almost certainly the wtf's for him, deja vu.

Looking at the European Ryder Cup standings, I see that Olesen has a chance to overtake Fleetwood on the European Points rankings. he is about 171000 pts behind, Two T2nd will be enough to pass, Solo third will get within 45K or so.

If he does pass Fleetwood, the 8 qualifiers are almost assured as Fleetwood still qualifies, but on the OWGR side and Noren would be the 8th and final qualifier and he has a huge lead over Poulter, Casey and RCB. (Hatton still qualifies on the European list)

As the European tour changes currency like I change my socks, I am not sure if the "European Points" unit of measure is Euros, or Dollars.

I try not to wear socks.

Scoring today overall not as sporty as Round One, but that doesn't help Seamus Power who now has an agonizing two-day wait on the FedEx bubble - looks to me as if he'll fall just short, but hope I'm wrong.
Nice work from Stenson - long may that continue.

GPB wrote:Looking at the European Ryder Cup standings, I see that Olesen has a chance to overtake Fleetwood on the European Points rankings.  he is about 171000 pts behind, Two T2nd will be enough to pass, Solo third will get within 45K or so.

If he does pass Fleetwood, the 8 qualifiers  are almost assured as Fleetwood still qualifies, but on the OWGR side and Noren would be the 8th and final qualifier and he has a huge lead over Poulter, Casey and RCB.  (Hatton still qualifies on the European list)

As the European tour changes currency like I change my socks, I am not sure if the "European Points" unit of measure is Euros, or Dollars.

Why would it be dollars?

Adam Fitz in the US Amateur Q-Finals, playing Mike Hammer's grandson Cole.
Wonder if a Fitz double would be a US Amateur first? Meanwhile, Matt has work to do to make the Greensboro cut.

Why would it be dollars?

Looking at the EuroTour schedule, many of the events, and all of the premium higher purse events are listed in dollars.

Naturally the Majors and WGCs are listed in dollars, but so are ALL of the Rolex Series events, even the ones in England, Italy, France, Scotland, Ireland and Turkey.

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/tournament/index.html

Other currency units are British Pound, South African Rand, Chinese Yuan, and Aussie Dollars.

kwinigolfer wrote:Adam Fitz in the US Amateur Q-Finals, playing Mike Hammer's grandson Cole.
Wonder if a Fitz double would be a US Amateur first? Meanwhile, Matt has work to do to make the Greensboro cut.

Pssst it is Alex Fitz

As far as I can tell, no close relatives have ever won the US Amateur.

AFAIK, The only close relatives to win a "Major" championship since WWII are the Hebert brothers winning the PGA. Lionel in 1957 (Match Play) and Jay in 1960 (Stroke play)

The Kuehnes were close GPB, if it wasn't for that pesky flash in the pan guy, what was his name

Hank was pretty close to Venus Williams as well, wasn't he?

kwinigolfer wrote:Hank was pretty close to Venus Williams as well, wasn't he?

One of several notable Tennis/Golf relationships

Sergio/Hingis
Shark/Evert
Rory/Woz

GPB,
I see your relative buddies the Gibsters are both playing at Enjoie this week . . . . . . . .


Petr Korda / Nelly / Jessica

I thought Gibby II was pretty old when I played with him 30+ years ago, so he has to be really old now. Googling, he is 77.

I was thinking about tennis/golf partnerships as in a partnership where they do the dance with no pants.

Wonder whatever happened to the Lendl daughters. I believe Ivan had three highly ranked daughters in Junior Golf.

Still remember Lendl skipped Wimbledon, claiming he was allergic to grass, and later photographed on a golf course that week.

They can drink as many brewskis as they like this evening because Padraig, Seamus & Shane are outathere.
McDool lives to play another day.

Nice 65's from Sergio & Stenson - a sign of things to come? It had better be!

GPB wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Hank was pretty close to Venus Williams as well, wasn't he?

One of several notable Tennis/Golf relationships

Sergio/Hingis
Shark/Evert
Rory/Woz

Adam Scott / Ana Ivanovic

All the women have one thing in common: Former world #1.

Alex Fitz is beaten, but Norway's Viktor Hovland lives to fight another day - in the semi's.

Matty Fitz off to a good start (-4 after 6 holes) this morning.

It looks as if the three certain no-shows for the Northern Trust so far are:
McIlroy, Fowler, Patrick Rodgers.

kwinigolfer wrote:Matty Fitz off to a good start (-4 after 6 holes) this morning.

It looks as if the three certain no-shows for the Northern Trust so far are:
McIlroy, Fowler, Patrick Rodgers.

Bud Cauley is listed in the NT field. He hasn't played since he went for a Joy Ride in Ohio.

Looks like Matty Fitz is throwing some shade at the R/A.

Was Alex close to making the Walker Cup Team last year.

https://twitter.com/MattFitz94/status/1030629469067898880

John Oda off to a good start once again; don't know much about Oda but he smells like a promising player.

Nice rounds from Fitz & Rafa today but even better needed tomorrow. The Laird also playing well but McDowell must now be wondering if he'll join Lowry at the wtf's - a really poor season for McDool.

Darren Clarke turned 50 this week - now he's making his Champions Tour debut next week, in the Boeing Classic in Washington.

Greensboro golf done for the day - resumption of play scheduled for 8.00 a.m. Sunday. Given the very iffy forecast, can't imagine why it wouldn't be earlier.

ICYMI, Kevin Stadler played the webbie tour event this week. Missed the cut by one shot and broke his club in a fit of anger and club head struck a spectator

https://twitter.com/BobHarig/status/1030922388395962369

Could have been worse, GPB; I see a bloke in Plymouth, Mass, got his finger bitten off this week, in a barney between two foursomes.


It's going to be a long day in Greensboro, starting 8.00 a.m.. Very iffy forecast and there could easily be a Monday finish.

Olesen finishes solo 4th in Sweden, he has taken over the 8th and final spot in the World Ranking points.

Sergio needs to win this afternoon to overtake him. RCB needs a Two way T4th or better to overtake him. Fitz needs a solo 2nd, Stenson has to win

If Olesen can finish ~solo 9th or better in Denmark (in two weeks), he will clinch a spot on the team and any of the contenders (Poulter, Casey, RCB, Sergio, Stenson) would have to win the Northern Trust to automatically qualify (displacing Noren).

Barring a miracle round from Fitz today, he basically has no chance of qualifying for the team on merit.

And I can't imagine him being higher on the Wildcard pecking order to get a pick. Sergio, Stenson, Poulter, Casey, and RCB being ahead of him. (assuming Olesen gets the 8th spot)

kwinigolfer wrote:Darren Clarke turned 50 this week - now he's making his Champions Tour debut next week, in the Boeing Classic in Washington.

I'm starting to really enjoy watching the Champions tour these days, there are a few good characters on it now.

A friend of mine who is an on course bookmaker was in Kerry on a Friday night about 15 years ago, he didn't know it at the time but the Irish Open was on that week also. He was in the night club of the hotel at about 2am, he looked over to the dance floor and recognised two blokes dancing away. Took him a second then he realised it was Ian Woosnam and Darren Clarke, they had both made the cut....

Be_the_ball wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Darren Clarke turned 50 this week - now he's making his Champions Tour debut next week, in the Boeing Classic in Washington.

I'm starting to really enjoy watching the Champions tour these days, there are a few good characters on it now.

A friend of mine who is an on course bookmaker was in Kerry on a Friday night about 15 years ago, he didn't know it at the time but the Irish Open was on that week also. He was in the night club of the hotel at about 2am, he looked over to the dance floor and recognised two blokes dancing away. Took him a second then he realised it was Ian Woosnam and Darren Clarke, they had both made the cut....

That was before they discovered the value of church and bible "classes", just imagine what they could have achieved.

Sergio struggling in Round 4 - perhaps he'll be a late entry in the Czech action this week? Nice tournament from his compadre though.

Luck of the Irish. Seamus
And the English. Harris

But Sergio misses out on the Play-Offs, but he did post his best PGA Tour result since March. Can't imagine that Bjorn will be much impressed; not good when his stalwarts are not in form.

An especially sad note from Espana is the failure of Gonzo to finish the web.com season in the Top 75, slipping from 72nd to approx 79th. No chance therefore of recovering his Tour card in the wtf Finals, and destined for web.com Q-School or a one-way return trip to Europe.
Double-dipping is REALLY dodgy when your loyalties are split between Europe and the web.com.

European Tour players competing in next week's web.com Tour finals, the entree for Tour cards include Dylan Frittelli, Chris Paisley and Julian Suri.

GPB wrote:Olesen finishes solo 4th in Sweden, he has taken over the 8th and final spot in the World Ranking points.

Sergio needs to win this afternoon to overtake him.  RCB needs a Two way T4th or better to overtake him.  Fitz needs a solo 2nd, Stenson has to win

If Olesen can finish ~solo 9th or better in Denmark (in two weeks), he will clinch a spot on the team and any of the contenders (Poulter, Casey, RCB, Sergio, Stenson) would have to win the Northern Trust to automatically qualify  (displacing Noren).

Barring a miracle round from Fitz today, he basically has no chance of qualifying for the team on merit.

And I can't imagine him being higher on the Wildcard pecking order to get a pick.  Sergio, Stenson, Poulter, Casey, and RCB being ahead of him.  (assuming Olesen gets the 8th spot)

Very glad that Fitz is looking highly unlikely to feature. Very much a journeyman with no real weapons. Would much rather have Poulter, Noren, Sergio, Stenson, RCB etc.

kwinigolfer wrote:Luck of the Irish. Seamus
And the English. Harris

What do you mean Kwini?!?!? Never in doubt
Undisputed king of the bubble

I feel a bit for DA Points, needing a win and leading at one point yesterday, but in the end left himself too much to do.

At least if he does drop out he can always go back to being a public prosecutor.