PGA Tour / US Open: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).First in driving distance.
First in putts per green in regulation.
Fifth in total putts.
Eighth in greens in regulation.
That's the trick Harrison Frazar pulled last week; if he can do it again he'll win the US Open. He has serious power, more than enough for Congressional, but one would expect his short game to desert him in the end.

2).These wins have hidden bennies: Apart from sponsorship bonuses and, in this case, a 2 1/2 year Tour exemption, Frazar also qualifies for Bridgestone, the PGA Championship, Kapalua and Augusta; and probably the HSBC Champions. And to think a few months ago he wrote an SI article about packing the pro game up after 13 winless years and $9M in prizemoney.

3).Roary Sabbatini's just had two weeks off, presumably at His Majesty Tim Finchem's pleasure. Now he gets to return to the scene of Bencranegate, where in 2005 he left pedestrian Ben to his own devices and desires on the 17th green while he played the 18th without him. Expect Roary to have another fortnight's holiday, win this week or lose.

4).Who's got form here? Only four players in the field have won at Congressional, all before Rees Jones redid (read lengthened) the Blue Course: Ernie Els (1997), Sergio Garcia (2005), KJ Choi (2007) and Anthony Kim (2008). Apart from Sergio, other Europeans who have decent records at Congressional include:
Freddie Jacobson, 2nd in the 2008 AT&T; Justin Rose with a couple of top thirty AT&T finishes; Luke Donald with a 13th place in 2005; and, of course, Alex Cejka with a 9th place finish in 2008.

5).Oops, last but by no means least, a certain Lee Westwood who finished T19th (with T.Woods) at the 1997 US Open here. Others from Team GB&I who made the 1997 cut were five Ryder Cuppers, Monty, DC, Sirfaldo, Coltart and Broadhurst.
AND: The son of a moustachioed itinerant goalscorer who plied his trade for, among other more distinguished teams: Bradford Park Avenue, Southport and Stockport. Now: No Googling allowed, who was the son of a strikerman who finished 24th that year????

6).Others who have at least two top tens in the five events competitors could have played include:
Furyk, with 2 x 3rds, a 5th, and a 7th.
Allenby, with a 3rd and a 6th.
Mahan, 2nd and 6th.
Snedeker, 5th and 8th.
Els and Kim, (both languishing in abysmal form).

7).Apart from the aged Fred Funk, there is no PGA Tour winner who could be described as a local. But: Mike Fluff Cowen is a member at Congressional, and a fine golfer in his own right. That may explain Furyk's terrific record here, but Jimmy's been out of sorts this year and it's difficult to believe Fluff can help him to the winners' enclosure.

8).Been having a look at Paddy Power's prices, and my five European value bets, paying each way down to 6th, are:
11/1 Westwood
60/1 Garcia
66/1 Karlsson
70/1 Rose
200/1 Noren.
My three to beat the field would be Choi, Mahan, Westwood, not necessarily in that order! Sure Donald and Stricker are among those in superb form (and Stricker also has a good record here) but this course will be unrelenting to shorter hitters unless they hit at least 75% of the fairways; it's not just the long irons into greens, it's the strength to get out of jail.

9).Before we know it, we'll be talking about Royal St.George's and the R&A mini-money-list is now led by, yup, Harrison Frazar, followed by Goydos, Jobe, CHIII and Holmes.

10).Lastly, the Nationwiders are hard at it in Kansas, Christian and Owen hopefully putting four good rounds together and Russell Knox rediscovering his form of a few weeks ago.

i honestly can't see a spectacular collapse happening again. there will be occasions when he loses a lead, when someone is just more in the zone than he is but his psychological approach has changed.

he held a similar lead at the masters and went to pieces. if he hadn't made psychological changes to how he handled the various factors surrounding a situation like that, he'd have been all over the place on sunday again.

but something has changed. sure he was striking the ball beautifully and "in the zone" but as the pressure ramped up, he rode the wave this time.

for sportsmen and women, that is something that the best learn and the nearly best struggle with. it's something i'd love to see andy murray learn for example. once learnt, it's like a little place you go to when the situation arises. it's something you need to work on to develop and the greatest proponents of it, we can all name - nicklaus, woods, federer, nadal, et al.

but i genuinely think he's found it and he's a lucky bleeder if he has!

there are so many more factors to a successful 4 rounds as we all know to a greater or lesser extent but "slowing it all down" so you're the one in control, is probably the greatest skill of all after being able to belt the little white ball so sublimely!

ps legendkillar, just seen your post. i do think it's about mental strength (see above ). what most impressed me about the first 2 rounds that i saw was the way he played the holes with the really tough pins. he didn't go for them. he played the percentage and gave himself tap-in par after tap-in par. but when he saw the opportunity, he took it and time and again was rewarded.

now, he was playing some of his best golf, probably ever, so that certainly helped but he wasn't greedy. i think jack's somehow got through to him in a way that resonates very clearly. it was the combination of, at times, a near-perfect golf swing and a measured approach to achieving the end goal.

so when it comes to a course which doesn't suit his game, he'll probably go at it a bit differently now. he's 22 but would have appeared to have unlocked a maturity in his course mgmt which was previously not there.

Great insights Graeme.

I would just add another thought. Bob Rotella preaches that when you play well, you should tell yourself that this is how good you can be most of the time. When you're a 30+ yr. grizzled veteran who's never won a major or built a commanding lead, it's nearly imposible to take on the mentality that you are now a world beater. Things regress to the mean, as will most golf games.

It's not as difficult for a 22 year old to embrace that thinking -- now Rory (and Tiger or Jack before him). He's that good.

graeme you make some good points.

I think take last years Open when he had that storming first round, followed by that 80 I think it was by where he attacked the course, and got burnt by it

At the Masters, he wasn't greedy, It was just that bad shot on 9 which he never recovered and instead of playing conservative around amen corner, attacked and the putter deserted him.

What impressed me the most about him was that he took the opportunities when they presented themselves. Plus his putting was brilliant. 1 3 putt all tournament is more than respectable.

I'd be surprised if he has a total collapse like Augusta again. I think he's learnt to control his game a bit better than that. But that's some way short of being a Tiger-esque closer out of tournaments. He's never been particularly good at getting over the line: the first time he contended in a pro event, in Switzerland, he gifted it to a journeyman, and he only just crawled over the line when he finally won in Dubai. He was ok this week, because his lead was never seriously threatened from Saturday onwards, but I don't think we'll see him surging away from the field on Sunday afternoon week after week: he's always been nervy when he's in the mix down the final stretch, and that won't change. Not that it's a big problem, the vast majority of players start to struggle under Sunday-afternoon pressure. Ernie and Phil have both never entirely mastered it, and they have 7 majors between them. In fact, apart from Tiger - and he's not where he used to be - the only current golfer who seems nerveless when he's in contention is Kaymer. And his form isn't good enough to get in contention in the first place, at the moment.



Anyway, the world moves on... I see this week's field in Germany includes Sergio. The paper today was suggesting that his best hope of getting into RStG is via the European version of the money list, which he shot up after Congressional. Not sure about that, but worth watching.
And the fields are out for the more convention route of Local Qualifying, after yesterday's first stage. Light on big names in the main, but there's a few about: Littlestone has Olazabal, and two Ryder Cuppers in Haeggman and Peter Baker. Michael Campbell is at Prince's, playing with Hennie Otto, and Cinque Ports has Siem and Lara as well as Gonzo Castano, playing for the first time since Qatar. And not much on show at Rye, Sandelin, Wakefield and Phillip Archer the biggest names.

Ned,
Appreciate the update on Local Qualifying.
Help me on two of those:
~Peter Baker: Haven't seen him in a European Tour field all season. Is he semi-retired?
~And; i've seen a lot about Gonzo's absence without really understanding what's up. Is he OK? Always concern expressed by the commentatos who feed the European Tour coverage to the Golf Channel in the US that he spreads himself too thin. If he's had an enforced break, you'd imagine it might be a blessing in disguise if they're right.

Hi Kwini

Re Baker: I think he's still plugging away, just hasn't done anything for a long time. Spent last year on Tour after getting promoted off the Challenge Tour again, but only made a handful of cuts all year. Seems to have taken the winter off, but played in a couple of CT events last month without hanging around for the weekend.

Re Gonzo: I've no idea really; to be honest I hadn't noticed he'd gone, then spotted him in the field for qualifying and realised he'd been MIA for a long time. No idea what the problem is, but this article reckons his caddie isn't expecting him back all year, so God knows what he's doing lining up to play next week. Would be surprised if it was schedule-based, he never seemed to pushing himself harder than other steady regulars at his sort of level, Edfors, Dredge, guys like that. Only thing that ever seemed to hold him back was his putting. Hope he's back to his best soon anyway.

Ned,
Thanks.

The Gonzo "spreading himself too thin" was in reference to his off-the-course businesses/interests, what with tournament promotion etc.