PGATour Running Commentary - Aug 2020

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GPB

Either that or the players are just really good.

I am pretty woke, but I actually didn't think he deserved to be dropped. I figured it was a pretty horrendous thing to say but he seemed to realize straight away and apologised profusely. And it seemed like he really was sorry and knew it was wrong. He didn't try and make any justification for his actions, which many facing cancelation do, and for that reason I thought he deserved a second chance.

There was no protected fight between him and the media to needed to get the apology out of him and therefore the brand damage was minimal.

Although I think shotrock has more insight into how a sponsor might feel about this and I do accept that a business angle exists that should have seen him go.

Also I am sympathetic to the idea that the F word is almost as bad as the N word and if RL thought this way then his demise was guaranteed from the moment the word left his mouth.

Also did anyone see the RL statement about letting him go? What patronizing rubbish.




"Our hope is that Mr. Thomas does the hard and necessary work in order to partner with us again.........."


Yeh like he is going to ditch the Nike contract coming his way to work with those ass holes again.

GPB wrote:It might be sponsorship suicide but if I were JT, I would ask the CEO of Ralph Lauren about their decisions to have factories in countries that have laws against homosexuality, such as Egypt, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Or ask them about their use (or lack of) of black or other non white models over the years?

navyblueshorts wrote:

beninho wrote:I'm slightly surprised why the morally correct is being deemed as a bad thing. Very strange.

It's not a problem in, and of, itself. The problem comes from the vocal and righteous indignation of people who're in no way perfect themselves.

Fortunately I'm not one, but if I was, say, an OWGR top 50 player, I wouldn't want some stupid spying microphone anywhere near me and I would make that very clear. Not because I think I'm racist/homophobic/sexist/whatever, but I could easily imagine saying something inappropriate in a heated moment, which is then used to metaphorically beat me with.

I think we're in agreement that Thomas said something that he shouldn't have. Moving on...

Yep I don’t disagree with any of that. When all is said and done Thomas was a plank, yes we are all prone to the odd expletive outburst, us mere mortals however are not mic’d up to a global TV audience when we do it tho and I get that point.
One of the unfortunate consequences will probably be that players will, if given the choice, shy away from being mic’d up (which is a shame)

Having said that I would STILL stand by my initial reaction that the likes of Ralph Lauren are in NO position to be a moral authority on anything. Wanting star quality to promote their brand is fine, however when there’s a hiccup, and they take the high moral ground then they also accept that by adopting such a position they should also understand that some people will look closer at them. I did and it doesnt take much digging to find that they’re not quite as squeaky clean as they’re telling their image masters to tell us that they are.

The wider frustration here is that it’s a perfect illustration of how the left have lost their way in modern society....Global corporation that exploits child labour to boost profits withdraws sponsorship from golfer who uttered a naughty word to himself  on telly. I can quite clearly see what the biggest issue is in that scenario, unfortunately I do believe I’m in a significant minority.

I am no fashion guru, but I have always thought Justin Thomas RL clothes have fit him terribly, especially his trousers.

Maybe JT feels more comfortable in baggy trousers, but as skinny as JT is, the loose fit looks horrible on him

beninho wrote:I'm slightly surprised why the morally correct is being deemed as a bad thing. Very strange.

Not sure dropping JT and releasing such a pathetic statement was the "morally correct" thing to do. JT uttered a disgraceful word and as I detailed earlier he responded as well as could be expected. He essentially swore at himself, albeit picking pretty much the worst word he could.

Eddie Pepperell tweeted that an apology is not enough any more.

The thing i find funny on the whole JT incident, is that generally the majority I've seen who, think he was in the wrong, are basically at that. Think he's in the wrong, made a stupid mistake, probably deserves a fine, case closed. The people who think he's done nothing wrong seem to want to argue that any thinking he did wrong was "cancelling" him or being woke. Its crazy. There seems to be more fake outrage over peoples views on him more then by people who thought he was in the wrong.

Anyway, I hate these Hawaii golf courses, way to late for me to catch any of it.

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2021/01/17/justin-thomas-slur-ralph-lauren-sponsorship-eamon-lynch/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Good article.

Nice win by Kevin Na.

and now for something a little different

We don't talk about Ladies golf very often here, let alone talk about a developmental ldies tour....but this one is different



CHEYENNE WOODS (Tiger's niece) won a Cactus Tour Event this week.

https://www.thecactustour.com/2021results/event02/StrokeCompleted.html

She did something that I have never seen before in Professional tournament,.

She had the lowest score in each of the three rounds.,

furthermore, she had the three lowest rounds of the tournament

Total Dominance to win by 16 shots,.

That said, I don't recognize any of the other players.

I'm never wrong wrote:Eddie Pepperell tweeted that an apology is not enough any more.

I'm sure a public flogging would work. Or, perhaps, a spell in some PGA-approved stocks at the next event? Shut up Eddie.

GPB wrote:Nice win by Kevin Na.

Indeed. How's Na thought of by the US golfing press/his peers now? Wasn't so long ago they were basically ripping him apart for a psychological issue re. his time over shots etc.

GPB wrote:and now for something a little different

We don't talk about Ladies golf very often here, let alone talk about a developmental ldies tour....but this one is different



CHEYENNE WOODS (Tiger's niece) won a Cactus Tour Event this week.

https://www.thecactustour.com/2021results/event02/StrokeCompleted.html

She did something that I have never seen before in Professional tournament,.

She had the lowest score in each of the three rounds.,

furthermore, she had the three lowest rounds of the tournament

Total Dominance to win by 16 shots,.

That said, I don't recognize any of the other players.

Sounds pretty impressive. Can only beat what's in front of you and that sounds more like a thrashing, than a beating. Let's hope her career is allowed to reach its natural apogee and isn't derailed by absurd hyperbole/poor advice a la Michelle Wie.

navyblueshorts wrote:
Indeed. How's Na thought of by the US golfing press/his peers now? Wasn't so long ago they were basically ripping him apart for a psychological issue re. his time over shots etc.

Read somewhere that one golfer said he has changed a lot. This was in relation to the slow play change of emphasis to the player rather than the group.

navyblueshorts wrote:

GPB wrote:Nice win by Kevin Na.

Indeed. How's Na thought of by the US golfing press/his peers now? Wasn't so long ago they were basically ripping him apart for a psychological issue re. his time over shots etc.

GPB wrote:and now for something a little different

We don't talk about Ladies golf very often here, let alone talk about a developmental ldies tour....but this one is different



CHEYENNE WOODS (Tiger's niece) won a Cactus Tour Event this week.

https://www.thecactustour.com/2021results/event02/StrokeCompleted.html

She did something that I have never seen before in Professional tournament,.

She had the lowest score in each of the three rounds.,

furthermore, she had the three lowest rounds of the tournament

Total Dominance to win by 16 shots,.

That said, I don't recognize any of the other players.

Sounds pretty impressive. Can only beat what's in front of you and that sounds more like a thrashing, than a beating. Let's hope her career is allowed to reach its natural apogee and isn't derailed by absurd hyperbole/poor advice a la Michelle Wie.

Her career has been interesting up to now.  She was a really good amateur and then played on the lpga for a few years , winning one event I think.  But more recently seemed to miss the cut every time I saw her.  She handled the whole "tigers niece" topic really well in interviews.   Don't know why she's back playing on the developmental tour, unless it's the only place she can find to play competitively right now.

NBS: Cheyenne Woods is 30 yrs old. In women's golf, that is relatively old. She had a good amateur and college career. No one ever thought she was going to be a world class professional golfer.

She won an LET event in Australia and got an LPGA card.

I thought she had got into some media work, maybe with GolfTV or similar. At one time there was some speculation that her uncle would set her in a cushy job in the TWF.

She is a beautiful young lady and seems to have a great personality.

I'm never wrong wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:
Indeed. How's Na thought of by the US golfing press/his peers now? Wasn't so long ago they were basically ripping him apart for a psychological issue re. his time over shots etc.

Read somewhere that one golfer said he has changed a lot. This was in relation to the slow play change of emphasis to the player rather than the group.

Could be. What I saw of him before whatever change has taken place looked like a mental issue over pulling the trigger etc; he didn't look like he was deliberately taking unnecessary time a la DeChambeau, for example. Despite that, he was getting panned and the Mickey taken out of him. Thought it was pretty sh!tty of those doing the panning to be honest .

GPB wrote:NBS: Cheyenne Woods is 30 yrs old.  In women's golf, that is relatively old.  She had a good amateur and college career.  No one ever thought she was going to be a world class professional golfer.

She won an LET event in Australia and got an LPGA card.

I thought she had got into some media work, maybe with GolfTV or similar.  At one time there was some speculation that her uncle would set her in a cushy job in the TWF.

She is a beautiful young lady and seems to have a great personality.

Ta for the info. Shows how up on the pro game (ladies or gents) I am .

Fully agree Navy.

Na was struggling and it was pretty evident he just could not fix it as easily as many critics thought he should be able to. Many thought he was mentally weak and ridiculed as such.

Glad it's behind him and I just saw a snippet where he was playing with Tiger and Tiger imitated Na's "quick putt walk-in" ... all in jest and Na was very amused by it.

Shotrock wrote:Fully agree Navy.

Na was struggling and it was pretty evident he just could not fix it as easily as many critics thought he should be able to. Many thought he was mentally weak and ridiculed as such.

Glad it's behind him and I just saw a snippet where he was playing with Tiger and Tiger imitated Na's "quick putt walk-in" ... all in jest and Na was very amused by it.

Yeah. Glad it's behind him too as he can clearly play. Wonder if the way he was treated was a reflection of how he looks/his name? Mac would be proud of me .

McLaren wrote:I am pretty woke, but I actually didn't think he deserved to be dropped. I figured it was a pretty horrendous thing to say but he seemed to realize straight away and apologised profusely. And it seemed like he really was sorry and knew it was wrong. He didn't try and make any justification for his actions, which many facing cancelation do, and for that reason I thought he deserved a second chance.

There was no protected fight between him and the media to needed to get the apology out of him and therefore the brand damage was minimal.

Although I think shotrock has more insight into how a sponsor might feel about this and I do accept that a business angle exists that should have seen him go.

Also I am sympathetic to the idea that the F word is almost as bad as the N word and if RL thought this way then his demise was guaranteed from the moment the word left his mouth.

Also did anyone see the RL statement about letting him go? What patronizing rubbish.




"Our hope is that Mr. Thomas does the hard and necessary work in order to partner with us again.........."


Yeh like he is going to ditch the Nike contract coming his way to work with those ass holes again.

This is the most nauseating statement I’ve ever read. I regularly buy RL stuff but I seriously consider dropping them now - their undies in partucular (pun intended).

beninho wrote:I'm slightly surprised why the morally correct is being deemed as a bad thing. Very strange.

Because we’re humans. This is the Spanish inquisition revisited.

navyblueshorts wrote:
Yeah. Glad it's behind him too as he can clearly play. Wonder if the way he was treated was a reflection of how he looks/his name? Mac would be proud of me ;).

I wouldn't be surprised.

I never understood the hate towards Na, and he was never that slow from what I could tell. Players like Keegan Bradley, Kuchar, Stenson, Spieth, Scott, Simpson, Day etc were all way slower than Na.

I have also read a couple an seen a couple of interviews with him and he seemed like a decent bloke.

Paddy Reed in did he cheat, shock.

beninho wrote:Paddy Reed in did he cheat, shock.

Spoiler alert - he did

I used to be a fan of Reed. Now the Hero World challenge incident and this have put me right off him.

I like Reed, as a pantomime villain kind of person. Golfers are generally so bland, its good to have someone who isn't. But, he really doesn't help himself.

https://thefriedegg.com/woking-golf-club-4th/

This is an interesting article on course design and bunkers.

beninho wrote:I like Reed, as a pantomime villain kind of person. Golfers are generally so bland, its good to have someone who isn't. But, he really doesn't help himself.

Tend to agree, all sports need someone to root against and Reed definitely provides that. Not such a huge fan of his wife's burner account on twitter though

My two biggest issues are

1. what kind of standard exists where both Patrick Reed and Brad Fabel (the Rules official at the scene) think that ball was embedded? it obviously could not be embedded after it bounced no higher than 3 ft in thick cabbage. The Jaded and sinister explanation is Reed pressed the ball down so that it would embed.

Knowing what we know now, how could Reed inspect the lie of his ball and conclude that the ball was embedded, through 3-4" high rough after it had bounced

2. CBS's failure to replay Reed's 2nd shot when he started to take relief. Jim Nantz had just introduced Ken Tackett as their "Rules Official in the Booth". Literally, just introduced him. I watched the 2nd shot and I thought I remember it taking a bounce. I rewound the DVR and I confirmed that it had bounced, And I don't have the high Tech equipment that CBS has.

Why wasn't there someone....anyone in CBS production complex, paying enough attention to the telecast to remember that Reed's 2nd shot had bounced. It only happened 5 minutes prior. This is a huge failure on the CBS new producer.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

beninho wrote:Paddy Reed in did he cheat, shock.

Spoiler alert - he did

In your opinion, not the opinion of the Rules official who was there.

Just been watching Sky coverage. Rory had a similar incident in his round, but no social media frenzy.

A walk in the park on the way in for Mr. Reed. I've played TP once and it was pretty amazing, but with rough nowhere near how these guys play it. That said, I found the clubhouse even more amazing.A wonderful example of Craftsman architecture. Worth visiting if in the area.

If we are kind and say that Reed could not have known that his ball bounced and that just like a regular player he shouldn't have to seek out video replays to confirm, were his actions still acceptable.

I don't think they were. In the footage it is clear that he moves the ball before anyone else can confirm where it lay or what imprint, if any, it was sitting in. If you pulled this stunt in a club comp there would be questions asked never mind on the PGAT.  In Rory's case he confirmed that he got Sabbatini to ok that his ball was imbedded and in an interview Xander said he would wait until a rules official had confirmed whether the ball was indeed imbedded.

Reeds is presumably fine rules wise because of the eventual involvement of the rules official but you have to wonder if all rules officials would be ok with what happened. As far as the rules go I think it is fine to just take the players word for it but when that word is Reed's what is it really worth? Which comes to GBP's point about how Reed (who knows if he really thought it was imbedded) or more importantly the rules official knew the ball was imbedded?

McLaren wrote:If we are kind and say that Reed could not have known that his ball bounced and that just like a regular player he shouldn't have to seek out video replays to confirm, were his actions still acceptable.

I don't think they were. In the footage it is clear that he moves the ball before anyone else can confirm where it lay or what imprint, if any, it was sitting in. If you pulled this stunt in a club comp there would be questions asked never mind on the PGAT.  In Rory's case he confirmed that he got Sabbatini to ok that his ball was imbedded and in an interview Xander said he would wait until a rules official had confirmed whether the ball was indeed imbedded.

Reeds is presumably fine rules wise because of the eventual involvement of the rules official but you have to wonder if all rules officials would be ok with what happened. As far as the rules go I think it is fine to just take the players word for it but when that word is Reed's what is it really worth? Which comes to GBP's point about how Reed (who knows if he really thought it was imbedded) or more importantly the rules official knew the ball was imbedded?

You're on record as biased against Reed. Pretty sure you don't have to ask for an official ruling in any case, so as far as a club comp goes that's a non-comparison really. Carry on w/ your double-standards and non-mention of McIlroy in the same vein...

Navy

As I said, Rory got Sabbatini to confirm that the ball was imbedded. They at least tried to make a collective and correct decision.

And you will also see that I said Reed is probably fine rules wise. But I am surprised you didn't find a player with an untrustworthy reputation moving the ball so quickly a little odd. Reed has to know at this point that he is rightly under a bit more scrutiny than the other players. And that is why you can't compare to the McIlroy situation. In one case you have an untrustworthy player doing things in a dodgy way and in another you have an honest player trying to do it the right way. I think that matters.

Are you telling me that in your club when one of the players with a reputation pulled that stunt there wouldn't be frantic chat about it afterwards? I know there would be in all the clubs I have been a member of.

McLaren wrote:Navy

As I said, Rory got Sabbatini to confirm that the ball was imbedded. They at least tried to make a collective and correct decision.

And you will also see that I said Reed is probably fine rules wise. But I am surprised you didn't find a player with an untrustworthy reputation moving the ball so quickly a little odd. Reed has to know at this point that he is rightly under a bit more scrutiny than the other players. And that is why you can't compare to the McIlroy situation. In one case you have an untrustworthy player doing things in a dodgy way and in another you have an honest player trying to do it the right way. I think that matters.

Are you telling me that in your club when one of the players with a reputation pulled that stunt there wouldn't be frantic chat about it afterwards? I know there would be in all the clubs I have been a member of.

I agree re. his reputation, which is his fault entirely, but I think the mass pile on in this case, when all the facts suggest he did nothing wrong at all here, is pretty poor. Also, the clip I saw of McIlroy didn't have Sabbatini anywhere near looking at the position of McIlroy's ball, but I confess I only saw one clip of that one.

Go Ian. You are entitled.

Play well

https://twitter.com/IWoosnam/status/1356748933922488320

Happy for Ian but always question the privilege of being a competitor until your end of days. The chance of my getting a green jacket and having any say in this equal Ian's chances of winning this Spring. (OK, Ian probably has a better chance, but only slightly.)  If I do get the nod, I'll suggest a 10 year exemption, but will be sure to keep the champion's dinner tradition and always invite all winners to the par 3 contest.

(NOTE: If any of the committee is reading this, I'm a 42R jacket size.)

If Woosnam does intend to play, he better let the Masters committee know, he is shown on the website as not playing.

Re Shotrocks point about playing until the end of your days....there will always be the exception to the rules....in my opinion Lyle keeps playing when he should have given up, yet Langer - 6 months older - continues to make the cut.

(Note to GPB - not saying that they are not entitled, but a sort of self determination should take place. I am aware that they are not preventing another player taken a spot)

I would get rid of the ceremonial tee off never mind having past champions who don't qualify via current performance. Other sports seem able to put on interesting top class events without having winners from 30 years ago compete.

And there's us thinking all this time that you are a traditionalist Mac

Spieth

McLaren wrote:Spieth

Yeah. Who is that Spieth lookalike, and what has he done w/ the original??

Good to see him 'back'. Hopefully, not a fleeting resurgence.

This is unbelievable golf - unbelievable!

It's so weird. When Spieth kept winning majors with east I wasn't a massive fan but after his recent adversity I can't think of a player I would rather see get back to the very top. (Well, other than big cat obviously).

If this was a normal tournament in Phoenix, it would have been so LOUD, especially after Spieth made the BOMB on #16.

Did Covid not make it to Phoenix?

McIlroy shaping up for his usual 'no chance to win but nice 4th round' finish by the look of it...

Please no. Don't let this happen to Spieth.

Can some of the Americans on here explain what is up with there being crowds at the golf and now I see the stadium is packed at the Super Bowl?