PGA Tour: Quickie Loans: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Congrats to Dustin Johnson. Do we agree with Adam Scott's sentiment earlier this year to the effect of, "When Dustin gets his act together, the rest of us are playing for second"?
A very promising start from many Europeans but the weekend unravelled for most of them? Unlike the fortitude shown at Augusta for instance.

2).Was very impressed by Shane Lowry; it seemed everything that went so right for him in the first three rounds, his one-shot penalty notwithstanding, went wrong on Sunday afternoon. Imagine the funereal pace of play might have played its part. But now he's right in the Ryder Cup shake-up, so all the more disappointing he'll be wasting good "points" opportunities at Firestone. Stupid and unfair over-reaction by the European Tour to the dumbfxck WGC rescheduling.

3).Interesting stat: Fowler & Mickelson are the only two golfers in the owgr Top Fifty to miss the cut in each of The Masters, The Players, US Open.
Phil not getting any closer to completing his career Grand Slam.
Rickie not getting any closer to justify media dream of a "Top Four".

4).Lots of comment elsewhere about the USGA, including Charley Hoffman's lament earlier in the week about Amateurs running/ruining a Professional event.
But, in the light of the USGA's self-confessed "bogey" (a golfing euphemism for total effing horlicks?), what do we think of Chris Kirk's tweet about plenty of PGA Tour pros wanting to separate from USGA/R&A rules and apply their own?

5).Some qualifiers for upcoming tournaments confirmed after Oakmont:
Top Four US Open finishers qualify for the 2017 Masters. DJ obviously, but also Furyk, Piercy and Shane.

Top Ten finishers earn a ticket to Erin Hills in 2017, including Sergio, Branden Grace, Na, Summerhays.

And: Qualifiers for to next week's Bridgestone via owgr Top 50 include: Ben An, Rafa C-B, Casey, Chappell, English, Furyk, KT Kim, Kjeldsen, Koepka, Lingmerth, Na, Piercy, Stenson, Sullivan, Westwood, Wiesberger (many of this lot will join Rory and the rest en France, or en elsewhere). Jason Dufner missed out by a fraction of a fraction of a %age point.

Lastly, Open Championship Qualifying includes:
Top four finishers in the "Quickie" not otherwise exempt, provided they're in the top 12.
Anyone after this week not already qualified but currently in the top 20 FedEx points: That could include McGirt, Kaufman and anyone infiltrating following Congressional play.
Top five after this week not already qualified but currently in the top 20 R2D rankings: Currently held by Luiten, Karlberg, Soomin Lee and Beef. Big shame that Bourdy misses out on that criteria, but he's not in this week's Germany field.

6).Low Amateur last week (apart from the USGA's Mike Davis) was Jon Rahm, and he plays this week's Quicken Loans event at Congressional in his first event as a Pro. He already has two Top Tens (Phoenix, Mayakoba) as an amateur and is widely projected as a Top Five player in the making. Hope he's joined the European Tour - get the invites mailed Pelley.

7).Justin Rose missed the Oakmont cut and looked increasingly uncomfortable as his week went on. How bad is his back injury? Does this compromise his schedule for the rest of the season, including Olympic competition? Suffice it to say that he's the defending champion of the alternate-year visit to Congressional for the "Quickie", but is not in the field. I'd be surprised to see him in Brazil regardless of the possible Ziki exit card.

8).The PGA web-site reckons " . . . .  at the conclusion of the US Open, it's a fairly safe bet that the top five players in the standings will have a spot on the roster". Spieth and Dustin are far, far ahead of all others in the qualifying list, but the following six are within a few $hundred K of each other and technically could all be out of the Top Ten depending upon results at Troon. Has Davis Love promised Koepka (3rd), Mickelson (4th) and Zach (5th) spots on his Team, or does the PGA need to return to primary school for second form arithmetic?

9).Patrick Reed slipped out of the automatic qualifiers last week but he's back in action at Congressional this week and one would think he'll play every tournament he needs to in search of automatic qualification.

10).The "Quicken Loans National" at Congressional, outside Washington DC, has taken The Travelers (now in August) slot on the schedule and has a modest field. Fran Molinari is the only European "double-dipper" and let's hope he can take advantage of the absence of so many top players and "limited field".
Greg Owen and Martin Laird are the only British contestants and both need to turn their respective seasons around in a hurry; after this week they only have seven possible tournaments to earn a tee-time in the FedEx Play Offs and a guaranteed card for next year.

As Congressional only sees the pros every other year, and in the absence of most top players, course specialists are hard to find. Kevin Chappell fits the bill as having a good past result and someone who's sure to win eventually, and Stefani's running into form and only lost in a play-off to Rose two years ago.
Thunderstorms are probable on Thursday, but hopefully ALL the attention thereafter will be on the Golf and not the Officials.

Interesting and also pleasing that there's a scientific basis for the gender difference. I had thought it was just a bigger deal for the women's game, and perhaps that they were a bit braver!

The withdrawals have all come from international sides with fewer than 4 representatives. If US players withdraw such that they have 3 players in the top 15 but the next available is outside, do they still get to take 4?

Golf channel is televising it here in North America and they will have experienced commentators.

Unlike all the mainstream sports, there is a golf tournament on TV 50 out of 52 weeks per year. Most weeks there are 3 or 4 events on TV between the PGAT, the EuroT, the LPGA, the Champions Tour and the Web-com Tour.

The Pro Olympic Golf propaganda I have heard said it will grow the sport in places like China. Never believed that. Tennis has been in the Olympic for 30 years. The highest ranked mens Chinese player is about 150th.

I just don't buy the propaganda that the Olympics will grow the game by anything that can be easily measured.

Track and Field, Swimming, Gymnastics, etc. those are Olympic Sports. Gold Medals are the Standard for those sports.

Golf has the four majors. Thats its standard.

GPB wrote:30 years ago the IOC would not let the best athletes into the Olympics.

Who was that?

Davie wrote:

GPB wrote:30 years ago the IOC would not let the best athletes into the Olympics.

Who was that?

Professionals. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, etc were not part of the 1988 US Olympic Team.

Davie wrote:

GPB wrote:30 years ago the IOC would not let the best athletes into the Olympics.

Who was that?

Professional athletes were not allowed in the Olympics. It was considered an event for amateurs. That's also one of the reasons (apart from the obvious) why the East bloc athletes could dominate as they did, as an athlete in a communist country by definition could not be considered 'professional'.

Bill Hurley 3 seems to be skipping the Open for his sisters wedding. Not sure I would offer my sister that privilege and I have nothing against her.

McLaren wrote:Bill Hurley 3 seems to be skipping the Open for his sisters wedding.  Not sure I would offer my sister that privilege and I have nothing against her.

He probably doesn't fancy a trip to a miserable cold wet third world country with funny food, to play in an event he has no chance of winning.

Scotlands not always wet!

McLaren wrote:Bill Hurley 3 seems to be skipping the Open for his sisters wedding.  Not sure I would offer my sister that privilege and I have nothing against her.

Considering what happened to his family last summer, I think his putting family first is commendable and the right thing to do.

If Todd Hamilton can become "Champeen" golfer of the year, than surely Billy Hurley could, too.

Hope -- for his sake -- he gets the chance again.

GPB

I think Americans are a bit more sentimental about the whole family thing. Bugger the family if I qualify for the open, whether or not one of them has shot themselves. I would also hope that they would put the coverage on the big screen during the wedding as well.

Hi chaps, chappesses,
Away for five days but great win for Billy Hurley, and I agree w/GPB on this one. Not as if it would be his first Open and hopefully he'll get another chance - if he's good enough he certainly will. Tough not to wish Billy Hurley well, whatever he does.

Super weekend for Francesco Molinari - with the loss of Greenbrier I'd think he is 95%, maybe 100%, of the way to securing his card. Off to Troon as well as it seems The Open is unusually undersubscribed.
Better from Martin Laird too, but he still needs a really good result or two to wrap up his card.

When the prospect of Greenbrier being cancelled first arose, I hadn't realised that Turning Stone was hosting the PGA Club Professional Championship this week; wonder if the Tour asked them to host the Greenbrier event given that the course and infrastructure was already somewhat set up for tournament play.

GPB,
Tks for the Roary update; I'd seen that too, but thought it all the more curious that he'd committed for a European Tour event - that must affect any medical extension that he'd be eligible for. ET site down so can't tell if he's still in the field . . . . . . . .

McLaren wrote:GPB

I think Americans are a bit more sentimental about the whole family thing.  Bugger the family if I qualify for the open, whether or not one of them has shot themselves.  I would also hope that they would put the coverage on the big screen during the wedding as well.

Not too many US weddings and no receptions start in early afternoon.

#five-hour-time-difference

Is it not a bit weird that Hurley's sister scheduled her wedding for a major weekend? Imagine if Novak Djokovic's sister arranged her wedding for theday of the Wimbledon final.

Pretty inconsiderate.

A bit of a reach to compare Hurley's status in golf w/Novak's status in tennis, surely?
Hurley only had conditional status on Tour prior to last weekend, only played the Quickie on a sponsor invitation.

Don't suppose she would have given it a second thought, nor would Lt.Billy.

OK, what about Jo wilfred Tsonga's sister? Or a Leicester player booking their wedding for the day of the FA cup final? Not expected to get there, but you never know.

Apples and peanuts. Hurley was ranked 607th in the owgr's this time last week - more like comparing Ashby De La Zouch than Leicester City.

raycastleunited wrote:OK, what about Jo wilfred Tsonga's sister? Or a Leicester player booking their wedding for the day of the FA cup final? Not expected to get there, but you never know.

An England player booking his wedding for the QF stages of an international football tournament should be pretty safe though...

pedro wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:OK, what about Jo wilfred Tsonga's sister? Or a Leicester player booking their wedding for the day of the FA cup final? Not expected to get there, but you never know.

An England player booking his wedding for the QF stages of an international football tournament should be pretty safe though...

Agreed Pedro that's pretty safe. I'm sure the England referee Clattenberg will now get all the attention for bravely carrying the hopes of the nation.

But I'm sure if you asked a year ago, Wales and Iceland players expected to be free this week.

raycastleunited wrote:

pedro wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:OK, what about Jo wilfred Tsonga's sister? Or a Leicester player booking their wedding for the day of the FA cup final? Not expected to get there, but you never know.

An England player booking his wedding for the QF stages of an international football tournament should be pretty safe though...

Agreed Pedro that's pretty safe. I'm sure the England referee Clattenberg will now get all the attention for bravely carrying the hopes of the nation.

But I'm sure if you asked a year ago, Wales and Iceland players expected to be free this week.

I'm pretty sure Bale has already canceled quite a few appointments at his hair salon.