PGA Tour: Beside the Seaside: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).That's where we are this week, for the second week running after Mayakoba's beachside beauty - which is no way to describe winner Pat Perez. Quite the return from injury for Perez, long regarded as one of the Tour's premier "ball strikers" - if he was anywhere close as good between the ears as he is with his irons, he'd win five times a year, said Johnny Miller, or words to that effect anyway. Almost a shame he won as his combustible self-destruction act is quite something to behold.
And he's the third Mayakoba winner in a row to break a victory drought following Charley Hoffman and Graeme McDowell.

2).We travel this week to the Golden Isles of Georgia and the two courses that make up the venue for the RSM (formerly McGladrey) Classic. 18 holes each at the Plantation Course and Seaside Course, then 36 weekend holes at Seaside - a Harry Colt design originally, and a beautiful setting which will be graced by equally beautiful weather. These "Isles" are popular destinations for Tour players to live and practice, led by Davis Love and joined by Kuchar, Zach Johnson and several others.

3).A lot has happened in the past ten days. Obviously.
We all know the Ugly (not to say vulgar, racist, misogynistic, isolationist) which evolved into the Bad (very bad, tremendously bad), and was roundly welcomed by Pros from all US Tours and broadcast booths.
But there's been some good as well, in the world of Golf at least.

4).With impeccable timing, the Rolex Series for the European Tour was introduced, with the promise of at least one more tournament (France?) to be added to the seven already announced. Not sure we know all the details yet, and the ramifications for PGA Tour members (including South Africans) have yet to be established, but this can't be anything other than terrific news for the E.T.

5).Don't know whether this is good or what, but the reformatting of the Zurich Classic in New Orleans next April seems to beg more questions than it answers, not least any rationale surrounding owgr points (it seems none will be awarded) and how they're going to fill the field. And at a venue, New Orleans, that often experiences an untimely monsoon season to coincide with the tournament, how are they going to manage 160 golfers playing four-balls on the Friday?

6).Meanwhile, the LPGA seems interested in acquiring the Ladies European Tour and using it as feeder for its own Tour. Not sure how that will go down.

7).More positive news for European Seniors is that its new "Head" man, Dave McLaren, is laying out plans to increase the number of tournaments and raise prize money, hopefully within a couple of years. Don't expect Europe's Seniors to reach the kind of wealth that Bernhard Langer has achieved on the Champions Tour (almost $21M and counting), but anything to achieve stability would be welcomed. Meanwhile, the likes of Barry Lane and Van der Velde are competing here in Champions Tour Q-School (both leading in their respective venues after Round 1), hoping to join the likes of Langer, Montgomerie, Mechanic, Broadhurst, Woosie, Lyle and, when he feels fit to compete, Olazabal.

8).This time last year, Graeme McDowell travelled to the Seaside with a Mayakoba win under his belt and proceeded to finish third. Strange, then, that's he's not in this week's field, especially disappointing after three superb rounds last week. Luke Donald will be playing, trying to emerge from the wreckage of his career - a couple of runner-up finishes last year but nothing to suggest he'll be back at the top anytime soon. But these courses might suit him.

9).It's a sad commentary on the state of Australian Golf that last year's Aussie Open Champ, Matt Jones, is playing the RSM/McGladrey rather than defending his title. Admittedly he needs all the starts he can get after mysteriously taking last season just easy enough that he narrowly lost his card, but really . . . . . . . .

10).No PGA Tour action next week, even though Thanksgiving has been postponed in most US homes for four years. There IS a World Cup in Australia, plus Champions Tour and web.com Q-Schools in the next three weeks, but the Ballwasher is pretty clogged up with fallen leaves and season-ending debris, so only sporadic musings until January. Merry Christmas!

GPB... I would thank you to  put a sock in your apparent  belief that anyone who doesn't agree with you must be "rationalizing" while you make the same kind of counterpoints with your arguments and think you're not. My opinion just happen to differ from yours on this. That's all...  no sense discussing this further. The end.

Wow, That's RICH.

The pride of Pontypridd is going nicely in Champo Q-School this morning - this field should be chicken-feed for the man who brought down his fellow Phil at The Belfry.

kwinigolfer wrote:The pride of Ponypridd is going nicely in Champo Q-School this morning - this field should be chicken-feed for the man who brought down his fellow Phil at The Belfry.

In English please.... Merican English that is....

I assume he is talking about Philip Price, who must have gone low in Champo tour Q school.

Sorry robo, I missed out a "t".
Welsh, not English, Merican or otherwise. Think Jamie Donaldson started life there too. And my Mum!

A nice 66 from Phillip Price boyo, right in contention for a card now. He quickly ran out of enthusiasm the year he had a regular PGA Tour membership so wonder what will change in his 50's?

The rest of the European candidates are really struggling, though McGinley's +6 after 11 holes is six strokes better than Round 1. What a waste of time.

Mel Reid off to a nice start in LPGA Q-school. She's -3, two shots back, but leads her half of the field that played on the harder of the two courses.

Wonder if this is the first time Mel Reid has tried LPGA Q-School?

Busman's holiday in South Africa for the golfer previously known as Heath Slocum - wonder what package he got for two tournaments in SA?
No cut made on the PGA Tour for 15 months and only Past Champion status remaining for the 2009 Barclays winner.
We followed his group at Hartford and he hit the worst shots I'd ever seen from a pro - looked like he'd eaten a few too many donuts since he was last competitive; can't understand why he gets in to a tournament on the European Tour.

Kwini, I believe Mel was planning an attempt to get on the LPGA Tour a few years ago, but then her mom was killed in a car accident in Germany while on the way to see Mel play a tournament. It pretty well devastated Mel, not only personally as one would expect, but her game as well. So all those plans were put on hold. It took a few years, but good to see her back to playing reasonably well again, hope she makes it. .

Tell ya what though, I haven't seen a lot of her on TV, but from the interviews and such I have seen, she's a spunky little gal.... good sense of humor, but can be disarmingly direct sometimes, certainly not afraid to speak her mind, nor one apt to give canned answers. I like that in her.

Kwini, re Slocum:
The exemption category called 'depraved hasbeen who ran out of cash' (previously occupied by John Daly) is now vacant.

It looks as if Phillip Price is the only European with a chance of making it thru Champions Tour Q-School.
Price is T2, a shot or two clear of the likely cut-off line. Anything under par on Friday should work.

Remaining Euros will have to shoot 63 or better; in McGinley's case something in the mid-40's should do the trick.

6 non-Americans and 12 Americans in the HWC.  And in Round 1, its either an all-American pairing or a non-American Pairing.  Very odd.

Hideki is playing with Oosty
Knox is playing with Emiliano
Rose is playing with Henrik

A couple of tweets between Daniel Berger and Gary Player

Spoiler:

Jack is playing Next week, though

Couple of Europeans in line for the consolation prize.

PGATour Champions Article wrote:Under the new eligibility regulations for PGA TOUR Champions in 2017, the top five finishers at Q-School will earn fully-exempt status, while Nos. 6 through 30 (and ties) will be granted associate membership on Tour, and will have access to event qualifying while bypassing pre-qualifying. Should there be a tie for the fifth and final fully-exempt card, a sudden-death playoff will ensue.

But that's a consolation prize scarcely worth having. Better to play well on their own Tour and in the Majors they get into as a result.

Amazed that Barry Lane has never earned a Champo Tour card - too late now.

I wonder if they keep those cosy HWC tee-times for Friday? If they send the back-markers out first, Rose will be playing with Woods, both coming off the disabled list.

I'm sure they re-pair in these super limited field for Round 2

Tiger's projected Monday Ranking goes well inside the Top 700.  

Yup, Rose and Woods open the batting for Round 2. Imagine TV coverage may start earlier also.

Don't expect too much of Rose, but expect to see sycophantic slo-mo montages of 9C scratching his crappy beard or dropping his club.

Mel Reid in great shape (as we knew) to secure her LPGA Tour card. TLead with a Japanese lady three shots clear of the field.

Davie wrote:BetVictor are offering 40/1 on Tiger - same as ZJ and JB

Anyone for JB? His irons looked pretty sharp today..

super_realist wrote:Any Woods captaincy would only be for purely commercial gain. No right minded person could put someone so divisive, so devoid of spontaneous thought and such an individualist in charge of something requiring to work as a team. It would be like putting a Priest in charge of the kindergarten.

Hey Super.... thought you might get a kick outta this... http://sports.yahoo.com/news/zach-johnson-got-the-ryder-cup-team-make-tiger-great-again-shirts-152007748.html

All you need to do is see what they are drinking, not to mention that plank has his hat on back to front.

Justin Rose WD from HWC.

Tiger plays by himself.

GPB wrote:Justin Rose WD from HWC.

Tiger plays by himself.

So if he finishes, that guarantees Tiger Top-10 OWGR ranking or something now?  

robopz wrote:That's all... no sense discussing this further. The end.

Well well well.

It looks like you cannot let things go....here and elsewhere.

And you want to stop the blog wars....THATS PRETTY RICH

Phillip Price is going crazy, four holes played, four 3's and four under par.
Par in and he's earned a Champions Tour card.

GPB,
Well done to PPI and GGIII. Do all the top five & ties get full cards?

kwinigolfer wrote:GPB,
Well done to PPI and GGIII. Do all the top five & ties get full cards?

From the post above:

Should there be a tie for the fifth and final fully-exempt card, a sudden-death playoff will ensue.

GGIII lost the 3 players for 2 spots Playoff

That left the three players at 9-under to compete for the final two cards. Fran Quinn, who birdied the final hole of regulation to get into the three-man playoff, earned the fourth card when he birdied the first extra hole. Quinn’s best finish of 2016 was a T4 showing at the American Family Insurance Championship, and he finished 57th on the money list.

On the second extra hole, Skip Kendall hit his approach from a hazard to six feet, which led to birdie and the fifth and final card. Kendall played in four PGA TOUR Champions events in 2016, with his best finish being a tie for 17th at the Principal Charity Classic.

Gibby Gilbert III was the odd man out in the three-for-two playoff, one year after he finished seventh at Q-School. He is one of the players who finished sixth through 30th (1-under-par) and earned associate membership, which gives players access to event qualifying while bypassing pre-qualifying.

http://www.pgatour.com/champions/news/2016/12/02/phillip-price-scott-parel-co-medalists-q-school.html

Looks like his priority is no different than the rest of the Associate Members.

Mel Reid slips back to T4 after a third round 75 at LPGA Q-school.

Olafia Kristinsdottir from Iceland is solo third after three rounds. She played College golf at Wake Forest

Iceland!!

I remember that an Icelander played in the Wyndham event a few years back

Birgir Hafhorsson is the only ranked Male Icelander, at 987 in the rankings.  He played the Challenge Tour this past season.

Very pleased for PP I but I hope that GG3 gets into plenty of tournaments.
Interesting that all the top 5 come from the Northern US or even further North . . . . . . . .

PS: Hafthorsson has tried PGA Tour Q-School several times.

Hideki and Henrik may not finish before Dark.

About 15 minutes out of position already and they just finished the 6th hole.

GPB wrote:Hideki and Henrik may not finish before Dark.

I hope not - but isn't it a bit racist nickname for Tiger?

Thomas Pieters continues to be ranked #50 in the OWGR and I think the only threat to his Masters invite is Thongchai Jaidee and Scott Hend, playing in the Hong Kong Open next week.

This should be the Top 12 tomorrow, and I don't think anything can happen in the last three weeks to change the order at year end.

Jason Day 11.60
Rory McIlroy 10.38
Dustin Johnson 10.03
Henrik Stenson 9.11
Jordan Spieth 8.61
Hideki Matsuyama 7.72
Adam Scott 6.70
Patrick Reed 5.66
Alex Noren 5.52
Bubba Watson 5.42
Rickie Fowler 5.29
Danny Willett 5.23

So is Pieters confident of getting in another route if he is passed this week? Otherwise why not tee it up to make sure?

Mac,
He has the first 3 months of 2017 to secure his Top 50 place, and invitation.

I know but wouldn't you be keen to get your spot locked in as soon as possible? I would about poor early season form or injury.

If he's injured or playing badly, it's all a bit moot, surely? First priority is to earn a place in the WGC-Mexico Championships.

So no exemption into Majors or WGCs for being in the RC?

Pedro

I hope not given the invitational and small field nature of the RC.

I agree with Mac here ... every other year tinpot exhibition tournament with an extremely limited field and with golfers that conceivably could be chosen (based on no merit) and play a scant 10 holes the entire event.

Also agree, you can't possibly give someone a berth for playing in the RC, as it excludes half the worlds golfers.
Would you give someone a place for playing in the Presidents Cup or Seve Trophy? No way.

On the other hand though, Billy Payne likes to dish out invites on the basis of ethnicity, so who knows?

Ryder Cup is also a matchplay event, so not sure how you could give someone an invite for playing in a different version of the game.

I also wouldn't expect Matsuyama to get an invite to any Winners Event for winning such a rubbish event as the Hero "Challenge"

A lot of Tiger Sycophants are spinning his performance this week as something positive. They are almost effusively gushing about how he can play so well and make 24 birdies (lead the field).

Tiger was -10 on the front nine, +6 on the back. That tells me he is getting worn out. That's not rust, it is lack of endurance or his back is tightening. I don't think he can blame that on a 15 month playoff.

His one good round was played as a "one-some". The endurance issue was minimized as he played in less than 3 hours.

I can't imagine that there are too many Tour courses that would be an easier walk than the Albany course which might have a 10-15 ft elevation change.

What's Tiger going to do when he has to play 5+ hour rounds, in threesomes on hilly courses.

He beat two players (three if you include Justin Rose). IMO, he would not have had the 2nd round and would have missed the cut badly had this been a full field PGAT event.

???? wrote:It's not how good your good shots are, it's how good your bad shots are

Tiger's bad shots were pretty bad

Gpb

Your analysis is probably spot on but how well do players who have been out for 1.5 years usually score on their return?

If he hasn't made a cut by the masters then us Tiger fanboys can panic.

Mac, he said he wouldn't return until he was ready, he famously withdrew from previous tournaments because his form was an embarrassment. He clearly thought his game was up to it now, or why else come back?

Sounds like he has Shane Lowry type Middle East fitness. Throwing in that many double bogeys is something I expect from Sandy Lyle at this current age, not someone with 9C's history in the game.

Whilst his reasoning that he is underweight and needs bulking up is simply hilarious.
I can imagine him getting back to some sort of level, but it seems unlikely that he'll ever get back to the top. Funny that he says his main strength is his "mind" which apart from seeming empty, is also responsible for his appalling decision making on the course. Seems deluded to me, or he's just saying it because it's the obvious thing to say, and symptomatic of him not being bright enough to say anything interesting.

McLaren wrote:Gpb

Your analysis is probably spot on but how well do players who have been out for 1.5 years usually score on their return?

If he hasn't made a cut by the masters then us Tiger fanboys can panic.

not 1.3 years, but Pat Perez just came back after 8 months for a shoulder injury, finished in the Top half of the field in his first start, top 10 in his 2nd start and won his third start

Robopz:

Gary Shackleford thinks that a big reason why players show up at the HWC is because of the rankings. So it looks like they are concerned with minimal points.

http://www.golfchannel.com/media/problems-rankings-after-small-field-events/

Don't fully agree with Part 1 of that. The fields were pretty good before owgr points were awarded. $1M is still a $1M.
But, if the points were somehow discounted, players would still be charged a full event for their divisor.
I can see perhaps the top dozen getting points; just the top 5 as GS suggested looks a non-starter, players penalized for showing up.

Kwini: With reward, there should be some risk.

I think it should be half the field and that is better than any of the full field majors.

And I agree, they got plenty of World Class Players for a 100K+ payday before 2009.

IMO, the best case scenario is just not count the event at all in the OWGR, no points, no event. If they are truly World Class Elite Golfers, they don't need the subsidies

2nd best is a special limited field schedule down to the Top 9 (or 10)

1st ...46.0...46.0
2nd...27.6...18.4
3rd...18.4....9.2
4th...13.8...7.5
5th...11.0...6
6th....9.2....4.6
7th... 8.3...3.8
8th...7.4....3.0
9th...6.9...2.2

There is a high reward with a very real risk of getting shut out.

GPB wrote:

McLaren wrote:Gpb

Your analysis is probably spot on but how well do players who have been out for 1.5 years usually score on their return?

If he hasn't made a cut by the masters then us Tiger fanboys can panic.

not 1.3 years, but Pat Perez just came back after 8 months for a shoulder injury, finished in the Top half of the field in his first start, top 10 in his 2nd start and won his third start

As far as I remember Pot Head Johnson had a 6 month break and rose from 20ish to top 5ish shortly after his comeback. And he was probably playing cold turkey the first couple of months.

McLaren wrote:Pedro

I hope not given the invitational and small field nature of the RC.

RC team members are exempt into the PGA. That was however revised so now you also have to be within the owgr top 100 as well, defacto making the exemption criteria a bit irrelevant. But it still stands.

Also, RC team members get a cat 10 membership of the ET. That should pretty much get them into most regular ET tournaments.