PGA Tour: Viking Classic: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).Exciting climax to last week's John Deere Classic with Steve Stricker producing a flash of brilliance with his six-iron from a bunkered lie precariously below his feet, flushed over water to a spot in the fringe about 22 feet from the 18th hole. Putt holed and Stricker wins by one from Kyle Stanley. So Stricker becomes the first PGA Tour three-peater not named Woods since Stuart Appleby dominated Kapalua from 2004 to 2006.

2).Stricker's shot into 18 from a bunker over water followed by a holed putt was as memorable to me as Woods's six-iron from a fairway bunker across Glen Abbey's water resulting in eagle and a one-shot 2000 Canadian Open win over Grant Waite.

3).Kyle Stanley's challenge reminds one of the quality of players competing in the 2007 Walker Cup. McIlroy was first of the group to win a Major, but Dustin Johnson has four wins, Rhys Davies, Horsey and Parry have already won in Europe, and Fowler, Lovemark, Webb Simpson and Stanley have already finished runner-up on the PGA Tour. I'm betting Chris Kirk (still a ROTY outsider) will be the next to contend.

4).Utterly ridiculous scheduling by the PGA Tour this week, sending touring pros wishing to play the "opposite field" event, to the Viking Classic in Mississippi. Heat indexes will reach at least 100 degrees throught the event, and this small traditional "community" tournament, has an almost unbelievably poor field at a time when fringe touring pros would normally be chafing at the bit to play in late season quest of FedEx Play-off places or to earn valuable dollars in the race to reach the top 125th/150th places on the moneylist and job security for next year.
God (OK, Tim Finchem) only knows why this event was shifted from the Fall Series, but just reward is the appearance of Jesper Parnevik's caddie now up to 5th alternate. "Viking" manufacture superb grills but suffice to say their excellent product will be redundant this week, the pros grilling bacon for their butties on golf carts. The only European competing, Richard S.Johnson, tweeted that he used a dozen water bottles during his practice round, perhaps seven too few!

5).The same PGA Tour maroons have next week's tournament in British Columbia so Luke Donald and the rest will be crossing eight time zones (their choice/sponsor's demand, I know) to compete in the Candian Open. Lukey, incidentally, will likely be playing seven weeks out of nine through early September; I wonder if he'll roll the dice and skip a FedEx Play-Off tournament?

6).Others are in even more of a pickle and this broken record suggests Paul Casey is likely to fall two or three events short of the PGA Tour minimum, with Goosen and Oosthuizen, possibly even Garcia and Poulter also likely to struggle to get enough tournaments in unless they achieve some very high finishes before the Play-Offs.
Not difficult to understand the ambivalence of Kaymer, McIlroy and Westwood towards the PGA Tour given these circumstances.

7).Career planners advising on opportunities in golf might cast an eye over PGA Tour salaries. No silly, not the players who we all enjoy watching, but the ivory tower crew led by Timmy Commish. Flinchem "earned" $5.1M in 2009 according to Golf Digest, with their next five highest earners also taking more than a million in pay. Plus of course a mega pension plan.

8).Top nine finishers in the 2003 Open Championship: Curtis, Bjorn, Singh, Love, Woods, Brian Davis, Freddie Jacobson, Faldo, Kenny Perry. Garcia and Goosen leading a crowd tied for 10th.

9).No idea if there'll be anyone left standing in Mississippi on Sunday afternoon, but one interesting participant in the Viking Classic is local-ish lad Michael Thompson. This "rookie" struggled through his first five months but has finished 4th, 38th and 12th these past three weeks.

10).You wouldn't think there'd be a Nationwide event this week but strange things happen at Tour HQ and the geniuses have scheduled a tournament in Cincinnati featuring plenty of guys who would elevate the quaity of the Viking Classic field. GB&I's representation includes Christian, Knox, Owen and Richardson. Time for each of these boys to start climbing up the moneylist if they're to harbour realistic hopes of making the 2012 PGA Tour.

But FedEx is the Tour's gotcha.

Presumably Casey and Louis, just to name two, figured their schedule based upon reaching at least the Play-Off event number 3 - unless they have super results in Canada, Firestone and the PGA they won't even reach Play-Off Round 1, and will thus be short of events.
That's what Rory and Lee (and presumably Kaymer) objected to, budgetting to play 15 or 16, but then finding they're locked into a solid six events in eight weeks spell when they'd rather have some time off or play in Europe.

The fedex may be the gotcha but without the major winners it is distinctly second rate. If it were me I would let in the likes of major champions no matter how many events they have played, as long as they have enough points of course.