PGA Tour: The Greenbrier and Rough (Jim) Justice: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Truly the Dog Days of the PGA Tour's Summer: No tournaments of great US import between the US Open and the PGA Championship in August (sorry Bridgestone). Fields are often mediocre and, regardless of the excellence of individual events (The Travelers, John Deere for instance are great community tournaments), the top players play sparingly and the International players play internationally (OK, in Europe).
Add to that the dismal fact that some areas of the North-East have experienced the equivalent of London's or Edinburgh's annual average rainfall in the past seven weeks and it's a minor miracle not more time is lost to suspensions of play.

2).Last week Bill Haas played superbly over the weekend, one senseless triple-bogey excepted, to win his fifth Tour event, the fourth consecutive year he's won, matching Phil, Dustin and Rosey Justin. Well done, Bill, and congratulations on the Presidents Cup Team place he has apparently earned.
(And Stewart Cink scored his first Top Five finish since Turnberry four years ago.)
The PGA Tour's contract for the AT&T National at Congressional expires in 2014 and the destiny of the event must be in some doubt. Nothing wrong with Congressional, a fine course, but the mid-summer's date is not conducive to securing the top field a great venue would seem to deserve. Watch this space.

3).Which brings us to "The Greenbrier Classic", a visit to one of America's finest traditional "resorts" in those Blue Ridge Mountains that John Denver warbled about, Almost Heaven and all that. (PS: He was right.)
The "Old White Course" is a century old classic, a CB McDonald / Seth Raynor design from the Golden Age of course architecture, brought up to date a couple of years ago, and will play to a unique 34-36 par of 70.

4).But what strange bedfellows resort owner Jim Justice (no relation to the Bermondsey-born crooner of days gone by) and the PGA Tour make.
By all accounts Jim Justice increased his wealth by half a billion dollars last year, plenty to pay appearance fees last year to Tiger and Phil (both of whom handsomely rewarded such largesse by sleepwalking through Thursday and Friday to a missed cut). And Phil is here again, together with Bubba, presumably more than satisfied with p1ssing off his French Open hosts a couple of years ago and probably also raking in a sizeable fee.
Wonder if they will get paid?

The article linked herein gives a glimpse of the sort of gazillionaire Jim Justice really is:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/16/jim-justice-coal_n_3450541.html

5).The great John Prine wrote about Appalachian coal country in his classic "Paradise", one verse being up Mr.Justice's street:
"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

Can't help but feel Mr.Justice (even his accounts payable department couldn't make that name up) is on the same type of ego trip as the Turning Stone founder Ray Halbritter a few years ago.
That all ended in tears and doubtless this will too. But not before CBS preen at their sycophantic worst this weekend.

6).The Greenbrier Classic nevertheless serves a useful purpose as the Tour's rank and file have just half a dozen events remaining at which to secure their 2014 Tour card. There is a handsome purse of $6.3M and some biggish names are still struggling to grab a spot in The Barclays, synonymous with a job next year. After Greenbrier, these guys will only have John Deere, Sandersons Farms/Open Championship, Canadian Open, Reno/Bridgestone, Greensboro.

7).Among those vulnerable chasing the presumed safety line of 350 points (which now looks slightly low):
345 pts so far: Gary Woodland
341: Charlie Wi
339: Colsaerts
326: Baddeley
290: Cauley
287: Peter Hanson
285: Ricky Barnes
246: Appleby (winner here in 2010 with that final round 59)
215: Greg Owen
212: Karlsson
200: Immelman
200: Ross Fisher
199: Andres Romero
183: O'Hair
179: Ishikawa

8).A field of very mixed quality in Almost Heavenly West Virginia, with Phil and Bubba, Webb Simpson and Bill Haas, Peter Hanson and Louis Oosthuizen; Russell Knox started the week as first alternate, but has now seen "sponsors exemptions" leap-frogging him in to the field. I'd say this week is wide open; perhaps Brian Davis can follow last week's top tenner by getting even closer to Briny Baird as the leading non-winning career money earner? My half crowns each way though will be on boring Bob Estes and the old ski-instructor Charlie Wi.

9).Kenny Perry beat a strong field in last week's Constellation Senior Players Championship (at another fine Seth Raynor design, Fox Chapel), including Colin Montgomerie who earned his first Senior Top Ten finish and $64K. That will help fund his hectic travel schedule of these few weeks: June 24th GB to Pittsburgh, then to Scotland for Local Final Qualifying for Muirfield, back for the US Senior Open in Nebraska, then presumably broadcasting at Muirfield, before carting his clubs to Birkdale and then back to Minnesota for a Champions Tour tee-time.

10).Last, and possibly least, Ryder Cup Captain Tom Watson has chosen his old mucker Andy North to be his first Vice-Captain for Gleneagles. I thoroughly enjoy Andy North's broadcasting and common-sense commentary on the game. But, good lord, that's two guys in their sixties. You'd think they'd want some relative youth to balance Old Tom's "maturity", but nooooo! Perhaps Bob Murphy will be his next Vice-Captain?

The only reason I mentioned it is because he told CBS he thought he was in, and I didn't see how that could be possible.
Not sure what date the owgr alternates are taken as at, but assumed it is the same as when the Top 50 was established? In which case he's got no chance, which you'd've thought CBS might have got right.

Martin Laird who is another 2013 pga tour winner will not be teeing it up at muirfield.

Not having a go at you kwini, just emphasizing there was no reason to think Blixt would qualify for the open given how poor his positions were in the fedex and OWGR up until his win.

I'm 99% sure the alternates will be taken from this week's OWGR, which would confirm Blixt and Laird's spots given the number of spaces still to be filled to make 156. According to Wikipedia, the way it worked last year was "the alternates are allocated when it becomes clear that additional places are available (using the latest World Rankings), except that places allocated after the issue of Week 27 rankings (9 July) use those rankings." Which indicates it'll be this week.

I said last week that I thought there were at least 8 alternate spots available, even if both next week's winners are not already qualified (a big if). Not sure who we need to be watching out for regarding potential injury dropouts - Daly? Hanson?

How does stricker not entering effect who gets in?

Mac,
Imagine more qualifying spots were available?

Some chat about Watney carrying an injury, and Mahan's wife about to give birth. Sure there are other potential no-shows . . . . .

But stricker will have qualified through several categories so which one is given precedent? And therefore the one where someone else gets in after him?