PGA Tour: Jeux Sans Frontieres (et Tigre, Adam, Phil): Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Hanson plays with Dustin, Rory plays with Boo,
Jonas plays with Keegan, Beats him three and two,
Lukey plays Matteo, Sterne plays with Zach,
Poulter beats young Rickie, With eagles on the back.
 
2).Yes, It's a Knockout!
And if looks could kill they probably will.
For Tim Finchem at least, as his contracts with both venue and sponsor expire this year. The unpopular Dove Mountain course and Title Sponsor Accenture will both have to be replaced. No tears for Dove Mountain which has seemingly been rejected by players and fans alike, but perhaps Accenture can be persuaded to continue? If not, why would Volvo not want to step in and take this Championship around the World instead of its European event??
 
3).What a shame that the sponsor has been rejected by Woods, Scott and Mickelson, all playing next week at Honda; Civic duty? Or a Prelude to appearance fees??
Who knows, but this lack of Accord can't help their benefactors as high-end sponsors are right to expect most of golf's marquee names to patronise their events.
Alternatively, if a major reason for not making this a proper World event is that top Americans won't travel, well they're not travelling to Tucson so, frankly my dear, who gives a damn?
 
4).Let's hope a beneficiary in all this will be the old Tucson Open and their Conquistadors who managed a perfectly fine event on Tour, including three years as match play, from WWII to well into the Shock and Awe era. But that's all speculation and one imagines something rather more concrete will be forthcoming soon.
 
5).A fine win at the "Northern Trust Open" by Bubba Watson, with Dustin Johnson (and Princess Paulina) breathing heavily in his wake - As Greg Maddux so rightly said, "Chicks dig the long ball".
Only a few weeks ago Faldo and Bubba were joshing each other (good-naturedly?) in Phoenix about the respective merits of "How" and "How many", as sirnick was criticising Bubba's course management. Nothing to question about a bogeyless weekend of 64-64 however, with some excellent putting when it mattered most. Bubba says this is a year for "Rejoicing", but it could also be a year of redemption as his only sniff last year ended in an unseemly snit with caddie Ted Scott as "Hartford" was lost with one careless swing of the club.
 
6).Another grisly performance by the golfing Internationals with Americans monopolising the top eleven places.  
KJ Choi (playing well this year after a couple of seasons in the doldrums) finished 12th, Sang-Moon Bae 14th, Badds and Senden tied for 18th, and Westwood dawdled home in 20th.
Bae is the most recent Asian winner on Tour and Choi his immediate predecessor - the Tour is full of the eastern promise of young Asians but they haven't delivered so far.
 
7).It's been almost two years since Ernie Els became the last South African - I'm guessing it was Sabbatini at, yes, Honda before that. And Adam Scott is the only Aussie to win a Tour event since Leishman blitzed the Hartford field two years ago.
Having said which, this was a better week for the older Aussies with:
Badds (almost 33) scoring only his 6th Top 20 in 18 months.
Senden (42) with his 3rd Top 20 in a year.
Allenby (42) has been in a 2-year funk ever since throwing away the 2012 Mayakoba Classic (or since Jarrod Lyle's recurrence of leukaemia) with only 2 Top Tens since, both in Memphis. But even he has 3 x Top 30's this year now.
Appleby (42) has been in a funk, Greenbrier 59 and win excepted, since a wonderful 2008 season with only 6 Top 10 finishes in the past 5 1/2 years until a T9 at last month's "Humana".
Geoff Ogilvy (36) seems more in demand for his journalistic bon mots recently so it was good to see him with his second 29th place result of the year.
 
Australia only has Jason Day as a 20-something up-and-comer on Tour these days, a sure sign of the times, but perhaps he can do this week in MatchPlay what he's struggled to do in StrokePlay: WIN!
 
8).And the Europeans are doing no better, at least not since Stenson's tour de force of last season. Henrik looks to have been running on fumes so far this year but perhaps he can rediscover success in the Arizona desert?
One terrific high last year from Rose, minor wins from Blixt, Laird and McDowell, and it's been one long struggle for Europe's best. A few years ago the MatchPlay could be counted on for European dominance but last year's results were pretty dreadful and it's difficult to see where our next win is going to come from.
At least the ever-enigmatic Alex Cejka waved the European flag last week, albeit in Columbia's web.com event. Nevertheless, even Alex will find it difficult now not to earn his 2014/15 Tour Card, tho' he'll doubtless make hard work of it.
 
9).72 owgr points this week to the "WGC-Accenture MatchPlay" Champion, then.
Day has proved himself, in this tournament anyway; perhaps it's because of his good play, maybe because he can be a bit of a pr1ck and perhaps he and Swatton can get on their opponents' nerves? Or a combination of all three.
But he won't care although there's a potentially combustible Round 2 match-up with Billy Horschel.
 
10).Finally, what do people think of the new pgatour.com site with its huge fonts and tortuous navigation? Looks bloody awful to me; adverts bigger than ever and can only imagine their next improvement will be to publish it in braille.
 
On the bright side, the forecast for this week in Arizona is very much on the bright side, temps nudging 80F and apparently no snow in the offing. Hoping for a wonderful week.
In games without frontiers, war without tears.

You're sitting on the fence then on Els and the Dufmeister?
I'd agree with English, Garcia, McDo, Kuchar.
Add Day, Dubuisson, Oosthuizen and Els.

Mac,
We've talked about the course; Wednesday the set-up seemed reasonable, but you could see with some of Thursday's pin positions why the pros feel it can be unfair. Some real brutes where good shots were unreasonably penalised and indifferent efforts "earned" an advantage. Much more so than usual.

I will go Dufner.


Didn't see the coverage on Thursday, so unable o judge the pin placements. I just think the pro's are looking for dead flat greens and any course that challenges them around the greens is going to be unpopular.

McLaren wrote: I just think the pro's are looking for dead flat greens and any course that challenges them around the greens is going to  be unpopular.  

Like Augusta..

Dufner was a bit lucky to pull it off against Matteo. Holed a long chip on 16 I think, and Metteo 3-putted another of the last greens.

The more no-names the US can boast in the RC team, the more I fancy them to win. Remember the US has not won with Tiger on the team since the infamous 1999. Why now?

You are probably right Pedro, Nine Chins and MIckelson are two of the worst players ever in Ryder Cup history.

Any team that has both of them in the team is giving away a huge amount of points to the opposition.

It's true but it's hard to understand.

Bob_the_Job wrote:It's true but it's hard to understand.

Not at all, two single minded ego maniacs who simply don't get team play and can't understand what it means to play for someone else, or share the limelight.

Not that hard to understand, and hilarious none the less.

I guess so although you'd think being single minded and an ego manic is exactly what's needed - the attitude that you're going to go out and smash the guy you're playing against. But the facts bear out what you're saying - Tiger and Phil - 48% and 41% win records respectively.

Woods: 13-17-3
Mickelson: 14-18-6

I would say that, since 2008, Phil has been very much a team player for US Teams, as well as a mentor for many young American players.

But Europe could be playing against Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and it won't make any difference unless some guys find some form.

kwinigolfer wrote:s_r,
Quite!
Just died, a year or so ago. But always seemed to be equal parts concrete and je ne sais quoi!
Europeans have really come up short today, Tricky Vicky just about the only one to exceed expectations. Sweden 3 up yesterday, 3 down today.
Fun watching the two Pennsylvania-staged US Open Champs playing head-to-head.

Try 21 Kwini.   

 
Time flies. Sorry Fred. But Harris English doesn't look much more lively. Helluva golfer though.

That's weird .. I thought it was much more recent too. Then I wondered if I got mixed up with the guy in the subway from Ghost (Vincent Schiavelli) but even he died 8 years ago and that only feels like yesterday!

Shocked by the news about Padraig, good that he has spoke out about the experience and raising awareness about Cancer.

benson,
He doesn't say much really, does he?
At least about the type of skin cancer he has had treated.
I've had three operations for relatively harmless jobs - you don't want them but they're not in any way debilitating either.

Hope he's got the harmless kind and will live healthily ever after - good to publicise it though.
Sabbatini's had surgery, hence the rather large chapeau he favours, and quite a few others.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more, very pasty skinned men spending lots of time outdoors, usually with LOT'S of superfluous skin, seldomly wearing any protection.

"very pasty skinned men usually with LOTS of superfluous skin"; Sounds like you're talking about Montgomerie again.

If the new PGA Tour site was in anyway navigable it might be possible to discover what prize-money Dubuisson needs to apply for Special Tempo Memberhip of the Tour - he's already got $156K in the bank from his earlier efforts. Would think he's about one win, possibly two, plus his appearance fee (OK last-place prize-money) at the WGC-Cadillac away from reaching the threshhold.

super_realist wrote:I'm surprised it doesn't happen more, very pasty skinned men spending lots of time outdoors, usually with LOT'S of superfluous skin, seldomly wearing any protection.

What, on Earth, does that have to do with it? Unless, of course, you're suggesting they play topless or something...
Also, how do you know there's no protection involved?

I've noticed a few of them recently clearly wearing protection - Jordan Speith yesterday for instance had it fairly caked on. I assume the rest are using something which absorbs more completely into the skin and is not that noticeable.

NBS: "usually with LOT'S of superfluous skin" - I think he's implying some of them are quite fat, and so have a greater skin surface area.. have you seen the forearms on Baby Stads?

Some US web-sites are reporting that Tour players PAC members are anticipating that any re-do of the WGC Match Play will include 36 holes of stroke play with 16 or 32 making the cut and proceeding to match play.

Clearly PAC members are miffed that international golfers they've never heard of with names they can't spell are beating their favourites in Round 1 and sending them packing.

Sincerely hope the International Federations tell the Tour PAC to bog off and keep it just the way it is.

Interesting ... and I hope for just the opposite Kwin.

IMO, this would be FAR better if we had 36 holes of stroke play, so players earn their way to the "Sweet 16" based upon play that tournament at that course.

Ha! The US loves its underdogs.
But it loves its favourites more!
(Should be a cracker Duke vs Cuse this weekend. Orange look out of gas to me.)

Agree. Look for Duke to get revenge ... but should be a barn burner.

Suggest you avoid the risk of generalization when my meager opinions are made known Kwin! I'm an outlier after all!

I think that the idea of strokeplay then matchplay is a bit ridiculous. Its a matchplay tournament and is one of only a few through the year. Tennis players seem to deal with it pretty well. In fact its more surprising/impressive that the same 4 players make it to the sharp end of most tournaments.

Maybe there should be some sort of way of having everyone having two days at least but I think it should try and retain the straight knock out thing so maybe a 2 tier cup. (We have this in our club knock out and its affectionately known as the Loser Cup.)

Honest question.....is there any other country more obsessed with tv ratings than the States? Most other countries will put on sport and not care who's playing who, they'll still watch, and they don't seem to care re ratings.....

Two - Hard to have a "field" Tennis tournament that's not match play. Round robin of 64 players I suppose, but that would be a heck of a long event.

A two tier cup would at least have given Luke Donald the opportunity to play more than 15 this weekend.

Dave - Ratings are the only reason the US commercial networks exist and prosper. Capitalism in motion. But with 400+ TV channels and online streaming, one would think I could get more curling events to watch .... but noooooo ...

 
Ah, It's Luke Donald's fault . . . . . as usual!
 
Thing is, they want to pimp themselves to attract the lady of loose morals that is Tiger and will try to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

twoeightnine wrote:I think that the idea of strokeplay then matchplay is a bit ridiculous. Its a matchplay tournament and is one of only a few through the year.  

Do you know what the format is for the Amateur Championship?

or the US Amateur?

or just about any Amateur tournament?

The US Amateur has 312 entrants that play two round of stroke play to trim down to 64 players for the match play.

The Amateur Champion started with 288 players.

I hear you Shotrock, I could watch curling all day haha!

Kwin -- Fair to say you could replace "Luke" with "Timmy"!

USA is obsessed with "brackets" .. but I believe there is a type of bracket where they have "double elimination" or some such term .. first round losers go into a second bracket and then if they prosper in there they can be fed back into the main event?

I'm quite happy with the current format but wouldn't something like this help the ratings fanatics?

Brilliant golf from Fowler good to see!!

kwinigolfer wrote:
If the new PGA Tour site was in anyway navigable it might be possible to discover what prize-money Dubuisson needs to apply for Special Tempo Memberhip of the Tour - he's already got $156K in the bank from his earlier efforts. Would think he's about one win, possibly two, plus his appearance fee (OK last-place prize-money) at the WGC-Cadillac away from reaching the threshhold.

Kwini, IIRC, it is not money that gets STM now, it is phantom FEDEX points.

The guarantee FE points is a pittance compared to the guaranteed money.

Here is the Phantom Fedex standings for Non Members.

http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.02398.html

IMO, doing it by Phantom Fedex Points is a better system because a T60 in a WGC event is worth 4x the money as compared to a T60 to regular PGATournament

But a T60 in a WGC event is worth the same amount of FE points  (11 points) as a regular PGATournament.

Rickie!!

You know the TV execs are happy about this.

Shotrock wrote:Rickie!!

You know the TV execs are happy about this.

I think CBS would be pleased with a Speith <=> Fowler Finale.


I don't think Fedex would be pleased to see Oosty and his UPS logo in the finals.

Bloomin heck...how many "get out of jail free" cards has McDowell got?? Thats 3 in 3 days

GPB - True, but they could have paid for a patch for Oosty! Them's the breaks.

Heart says Els, head says Speith.

Shotrock wrote:GPB - True, but they could have paid for a patch for Oosty! Them's the breaks.

Heart says Els, head says Speith.

Finchem might tell CBS, NBC and GC to get themselves a pixelator.

twoeightnine wrote:I think that the idea of strokeplay then matchplay is a bit ridiculous. Its a matchplay tournament and is one of only a few through the year.  Tennis players seem to deal with it pretty well.  In fact its more surprising/impressive that the same 4 players make it to the sharp end of most tournaments.

Don't know that much about Tennis, but one thing is abundantly clear... the talent difference between a 1 and 64 seeds is FAR greater than in golf... In tennis RARE is the occasion you see all your top seeds gone going into the quarters or even semi's... thus TV and the fans are happy. In fact has there been a case where none of the top-4 seeds advanced into the round of 16 or the quarters in a tennis major? But it's not uncommon at all in golf.

(and by the way... I'm asking on the tennis thing cuz I dunno... but from the little I do pay attention... sure seems like you get 1 vs 2 overall seeds ... or 2 vs 3 kind of matchups all the time... where you RARELY see that happen in golf Granted, some lower seed might come through and win in the end... but there always seems to be a lot of the top seeds there as well... right? wrong?)

GPB wrote:I don't think Fedex would be pleased to see Oosty and his UPS logo in the finals.

Reminds me of Westy winning in Memphis with that big UPS logo on his shirt...   

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/12/article-1293884-0A05F2B5000005DC-503_306x423.jpg

(Technically the event was "Presented by Smith & Nephew" that year... but still Memphis and FedEx was still a strong secondary sponsor... )

Davie wrote:I'm quite happy with the current format but wouldn't something like this help the ratings fanatics?

From a golfer standpoint, I very much prefer the current format as well. But the reality is it's not about ratings fanatics... its about value to the sponsor.. Not enough value = no sponsor, and no sponsor = no event. Sure, hobnobbing with key clients and and such is a big part of it to most the sponsors, but the TV exposure is critical to most if not all of them as well. If sponsors are gonna shell out for this kind of sponsorship ticket (reportedly about $14-16 million for a WGC) they sure as heck want the best return on their investment they can get. More better players around for the weekend = more eyeballs... and more eyeballs on the telecast = better ROI.

Two of my largest clients are big "shirt" sponsors on the PGA tour. (One an auto insurer, one a life/health insurer) ... and, while not cheap, placement is not as expensive as I thought it might be. Save for Tiger, Phil, Rory and a few others, it's a heck of a crap shoot that your player will get any significant "TV" time. (And they sure don't buy the shirt space for the gallery ... since one billboard in any major or mid-market will deliver lots more eyeballs for lots less cash.)

Fowler to finish this off? I would be surprised if his wristy swing held up ... but I sure didn't think he would get this far either.

I don't think Fowler has it in him SR, Journeyman career so far.

Battle of the crappy (but effective) swings with Furyk.

Hope old man Ernie rolls the young lad.

super_realist wrote:I don't think Fowler has it in him SR, Journeyman career so far.
.

He's in the semi!!!

Day putting on a matchplay clinic all week, should be the first of many wins this year imo!

http://www.worldgolfchampionships.com/accenture-match-play-championship/leaderboard.html

WGC website showing final as Els v Fowler.    

So glad that Day saw off Fowler.

Day for a Major this year.

2nd place guarantees "Dewbie" Special Temporary Membership Status.

He can now accept unlimited Sponsors Invites.

If Dewbie beats Jason Day, he can become a bonafide PGATour member with all of its perks including the FedEx playoffs.

IIRC, he has to win today to get into the Honda Classic, he is not in the field as of yet.  If he wins, and chooses to play Honda, he will displace a WEB-Commer.

Tres Bien Monsieur Dubuisson.

and also, welcome to the 2014 Euro Ryder Cup Team.

He is going to be either ranked 15th or 22nd in the OWGR.  If he wins, he will be the 5th highest ranked European, behind Stenson, Rose, Rory, Sergio.  Ahead of GMac, IJP, and Luke.

Dubuisson with a win will go to 15 in the rankings I read.....amazing rise considering he was outside the top 100 barely four months ago!