PGA Tour: Another 59, in San Diego? Nah!: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).The 59-shooters are going for an unlikely hat-trick this week, at the "Farmers Insurance Open", at Torrey Pines 36-hole facility outside San Diego. 3 courses on the schedule last week in the Desert, but only two at the Farmers, with golfers playing one round each at the North and South courses, then reverting to Torrey Pines South for Rounds 3 and 4. (Wonder if one year they might play 3 rounds on the "North"?)

2).In the past, the North Course has yielded the lower scores but Tom Weiskopf has been at work in a re-do of the course, switched "nines", got rid of 60 "diseased" trees and in the process opened up more ocean views, filled in some bunkers, changed others, and re-worked the green complexes. Early reports from pros who took an early peek are largely complimentary. Of course, no design is fully acceptable until Phil Mickelson, who bid to do the redesign himself, offers his seal of approval.

3).Whatever . . . . but it's unlikely the achievements of Justin Thomas and Adam Hadwin will be replicated this week, despite the appearance of wounded warriors such as Jason Day, Phil, and Tiger Woods. Day and Woods play Rounds 1 & 2 with Dustin Johnson, a grouping (or, Tourspeak, a pairing #alternativeEnglish) that raycastle has dubbed TaylorMade - in Tour heaven? The crowds will be there in their millions #alternativefacts.

4).Whoever's playing with whom, the weather should be sunny, mild (60's) and sometimes quite breezy. The Desert dodged the Pineapple Express but San Diego received a year's worth of ran (over two inches) and greens may be softer than usual, if the moisture hasn't been SubAir'ed out of them. A modestly hilly course with soft fairways, however, could make it a tougher than usual walk for recuperating invalids. viz Woods.

5).One "competitor" who may not be at his best is Padraig Harrington: "9 weeks without playing a single hole of golf. Not sure if I'd be a good bet this week." But, ever the contrarian, that could well be when Padraig is at his best.
Shane Lowry is a course specialist, in a modest sort of way with Top 15 finishes in his only two trips so far.
And Seamus Power is at it again, following a T21 last week. That brings his season's earnings to $175K, which could easily have been so much better if it hadn't been for dreadful final rounds in two previous tournaments. Regardless, he's chalked up 98 all-important FedEx points, lies 84th in the season ranking and has further advanced his "reshuffle" status.

6).We're reaching the 25% mark of "regular" season events. The Top 125 in FedEx points retain their cards, but not all GB&I Tour Members are anywhere close to the pace necessary to reach that position, some examples including:
Lowry: 140th . . . . playing this week.
McDowell: 146th . . . . in Qatar.
Donald: 174th . . . . . on holiday. Why? He's played well here in the past, arguably should have won a few years ago.
Willett: 213th
Harrington: T223rd . . . . . See above.
(All above have exemptions or exemption-options)
Poulter: 111th . . . .  in Qatar (actually Dubai next week, thanks GPB, but the story's still the same), will probably be on his way out of the Top 125 when he next tees it up in the US. Playing with fire by the looks of things.
Johnston: 189th . . . . Back after calling in sick last week; his form this week may be an indicator for his year's prospects.

7).Regardless of their work this season, Donald and Harrington will have the option, if necessary, of taking a Career earnings exemption, one if you're in the Top 50 all-time career money winners, two if your earnings are in the Top 25 all-time. This is a benefit for those of the highest quality and longest "service", and is currently being utilized by Tour members Cink (Top 25), Ogilvy, Pettersson and Van Pelt.
Europeans in the Top 50 career earners are:
8th: Garcia: $44.0M
14th: Rose: $37.4M
17th: Donald: $34.9M
18th: McIlroy: $34.5M
37th: Stenson: $25.3M
39th: Harrington: $24.5M
47th: Pettersson: $22.5M

8).Other current Tour members who've been around awhile:
71st: Casey: $18.6M
77th: Poulter: $18.1M
80th: Jacobson: $18.0M
103rd: McDowell: $14.8M . . . . and he'll be surprised to learn who's hot on his tail:
112th: Martin Laird: $14.4M

9).Laird, like Lowry, has decent history at the "Farmers" with Top 10 finishes the past two years. Others in this week's field who have excellent course records, beyond the bleeding obvious, include English, HowellIII, Leishman, Walker and last year's winner Sneeedeker.

10).Hudson Swafford would have been on my short list of players to break through for a win, but certainly not last week.
And Mr 59, Adam Hadwin, similarly must be on the very short list of next Canadian to break through. Now that 58 has become the new 59, how low can these guys go?
Aussie Rhein Gibson shot a 55 a few years ago in Oklahoma, Trevor Murphy stroked a 56 in a web.com pro-am, so how close can we be to a 57 on Tour?
Not this week, and probably not this year, but you'd have to think it can't be far away; possibly on a course where a top "ball striker" can manhandle the Par-5's and gets red hot with the putter. Dustin?

Doesn't Padraig not have his card secure for this season having won the Honda Classic? Or has that exemption run it's course?

Yup, OK for this season.
Padraig won the Honda in early 2015, so he was exempt for the rest of that season, then for the 15/16 season and this 16/17 season. That's his 2+ years. So that runs its course to this coming August when he needs to have reached the Top 125.
So my Note 5). above reckons he'll need to get his skates on if he's to continue his exemption into next season.

I don't see Poulter in the Qatar field, but I do see him the Dubai field next week.

Aah,
Knew I'd seen his name and thought it was this week. Thanks.
But what's he playing at?
Does he think he can just turn up at Honda and everything be hunky dory? He should have won there two years ago before a hideous bout of the shankopotomuses in the final round, but is he the same golfer today he was two years ago? Probably not.

DeChambeau's putter & sidesaddle putting technique is being scrutinized and critiqued by the USGA

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2017/1/25/brysons-new-stroke-coming-under-excessive-rules-scrutiny.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

DeChambeau expressed disappointment at the handling of the notification, while the USGA won't comment on what made the club non-conforming.

"...while the USGA won't comment on what made the club non-conforming...."

That's laughable!

Thats why I think the USGA is the Useless & Stupid Golf Association.

kwinigolfer wrote:Yup, OK for this season.
Padraig won the Honda in early 2015, so he was exempt for the rest of that season, then for the 15/16 season and this 16/17 season. That's his 2+ years. So that runs its course to this coming August when he needs to have reached the Top 125.
So my Note 5). above reckons he'll need to get his skates on if he's to continue his exemption into next season.

There are currently 78 players exempt for various past wins, FE Champion, money list leader or life membership.

4 players have life memberships...
Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III & Vijay Singh. (Woods and Phil have 2 years and DL3 has 1 year of winners exemption remaining before possibly needing their life membership. Singh is already using his life membership as his highest category)

10 players have 5 years worth of exemptions (including this year) through 2021.
Spieth, Day, DJ, Walker, McIlroy, Bubba, Adam Scott, Willett, Stenson, Justin Thomas

6 players have 4 years worth of exemptions (through 2020)....
Rose, Fowler, Kuchar, Zach, Knox, Matsuyama

12 players have 3 years worth of exemptions (through 2019)...
Dufner, Horschel, Reed, McGirt, Steele, Gribble, Pampling, Perez, Mackenzie Hughes, Swafford, Kaymer, Sang-Moon Bae (NOTE: Kaymer is exempt through 2019 via his 2014 US Open, but he is currently not using his membership. Bae's 2 years of remaining exemption has been deferred through 2019 due to his military service)

27 players have 2 years worth of exemptions (through 2018)...
Webb Simpson, Lowery, Every, Lingmerth, Snedeker, Schwartzel, Grillo, Kaufman, Kirk, Malnati, McDowell, Kisner, Gomez, Finau, Taylor, Herman, Grace, Hoffman, Stuard, Garcia, Berger, Hurley, Chalmers, Baddeley, Vegas, S.W. Kim, Moore.

19 are in their final season of winner exemption (2017).
Els, Bradley, Haas, Bowdtich, Cejka, Fury, Hahn, Harrington, Henry, Holmes, Koepka, Danny Lee, Mahan, Ben Martin, Merritt, Piercy, Streb, Stricker, Nick Taylor.

Robo:

Re: Sang Moon Bae

This article says that SMB will be exempt through the 2017-18 season, not the 2018-19 season.

Have you got updated info?

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/sangmoon-bae-starts-military-service-eyes-2017-return-to-golf/

GPB wrote:Robo:

Re: Sang Moon Bae

This article says that SMB will be exempt through the 2017-18 season, not the 2018-19 season.

Have you got updated info?

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/sangmoon-bae-starts-military-service-eyes-2017-return-to-golf/

I believe Kyle Porter has it wrong in that article by picking up a Golf Channel quote which I believe is also in error.  There is confusion that this one is handled exactly like a Major Medical when a player has no other exempt status remaining beyond the season in which the "event" occurred.  And in some cases it would have been handled that way.  For instance...  If this would have happened in the middle of a season (like Poulter's medical when he had NO exemption in place beyond the season in which he was injured), then it would have been handled like a medical. But in this case, unlike Poulter, Bae has MORE than just one season of exemption.

So here's the deal... Bae got his win in the 2014 Fry's (2014-15 season) which in effect gave him a 3 year exemption (the balance of the 2014-15 season + 2 more. That would have made him exempt through this season (2016-17).  He left after the Tour Championship in 2015 with 2 full years of exemption remaining. So assuming he serves his full 21 months and returns at the end of this season (21 months would go beyond the Wyndham), he would still have 2 FULL years of exemption remaining... that takes him through 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.

Also... There is this language from the PGA Tour's Sang Moon Bae player profile page and media guide: Shortly after the 2015 Presidents Cup, reported for a two-year mandatory military obligation in South Korea. Upon his return to the PGA TOUR, will be eligible for a “mandatory obligation” exemption under the major medical and family crisis exemption, giving him two years of exempt status from his win at the 2014 Frys.com Open.  See: http://www.pgatour.com/players/player.28259.sangmoon-bae.html/profile

 But I'll be happy to double check with my source and verify for sure on this one...

GPB wrote:DeChambeau's putter & sidesaddle putting technique is being scrutinized and critiqued by the USGA

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2017/1/25/brysons-new-stroke-coming-under-excessive-rules-scrutiny.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

DeChambeau expressed disappointment at the handling of the notification, while the USGA won't comment on what made the club non-conforming.

"...while the USGA won't comment on what made the club non-conforming...."

That's laughable!  

Thats why I think the USGA is the Useless & Stupid Golf Association.

Well, maybe they don't want to throw the equipment manufacturer under the bus.

Pretty weird that Langer has been caught up in a Trump telling an untrue anecdote about voter fraud.


It is also a little weird that we are still in January and 25% of the regular season is over, not sure even some of the pro's have worked out just how much of the season takes place before what would be considered the traditional golfing year has begun. I certainly don't watch much golf between the end of the play offs and the start of the desert swing in Europe and the run up to the first WGC's and majors of the year.

Robo: Personally I was thinking that SMB should have got two years after he "enlisted". But everything I read at the time said he would be exempt through the 2017-18 season. (There were other articles besides Porter's article).

IMO, he should be exempt through the 2018-19 season.

SMB is one of my favorite Koreans, apparently quite the linguist as he speaks English nearly fluently, unlike many of the Korean golfers (men and women). He also speaks Japanese very well, as he picked it up when he played the Japanese Tour.

Speaking of speaking English, I was shocked to see Webbie Ze-Cheng "Marty" Dou speak English very well. I was not expecting that. He was clearly the best player on the PGATour China last summer with 4 wins.

Hope robo and GPB enter Grumpy's fanto league . . . . . . hope plenty of others do too, where y'all bin?


Mac,
I knida agree with your gist, this feels like the start of the REAL PGA Tour season, better players, network TV (like it or loathe it), and the start of a succession of fine courses with Pebble/Spyglass and Riviera coming up. Then a diminished Florida "swing". Unpresidential this time; wish Doral could return to its former self, regardless of its architectural blandness it just felt like the start of the run-up to Augusta..

Robo: What does a PGATour lifetime exemptions actually mean to a player.

It does mean that they have to meet minimum performance standards. Like within 3? strokes of the tournament average

I know that it doesn't get them into the Majors, the WGC's, the Players, and Playoffs.

Does a Lifetime exemption get them into the Invitationals? (Bay Hill, HiltonHead, Colonial, Memorial, QL). Or is just regular events and opposite field events.

Good stuff Kwini, another article "taylormade" for the golf fans on this forum.

I like the concept of these multi-course events. Spreads the field out across a larger area so probably more spectator friendly. I assume it's possible to walk between North and South courses to keep up with the action?

Other than the Dunhill Links I can't think of any other ET events played on more than one course. But the Dunhill courses are all separate venues so need 3 times the infrastructure, what you need is a single venue where the "second" course is in no way inferior but perfectly suitable for championship golf in its own right.

Makes a lot of sense early or late in the year when daylight is an issue. It would be great for the British Masters to do this in October. There are some fantastic venues in England that could fit the bill: Woburn, Sunningdale, Walton Heath, The London club off the top of my head.

Raycastle

They could easily host an event over all the holes in Gullane which would basically be one site. They have Gullane, Muirfield, Renaissance and Archerfield to make 3 courses out of.

Kwini: Re: Fantasy. I am already playing more games than I can remember to enter.

ray,
I think that's a great idea; Memo to Justin Rose perhaps?

Confirmation that Jimmy Gunn's earnings for this web.com season so far ($67.3K) would have placed him 72nd on last year's list and eligible for WTF action. Good start to the season. Off to Bogota in a couple of weeks.

Early days but it sound fairly tough in La Jolla with only 20% dipping under par on the South and around 30% on the North. Whereabouts does TPS rank on the PGAT difficulty list??

JAS,
Have you played TPS? Would think it's one of the harder Par-72's but only guessing.


Quite the front nine for Shane:
3 bogeys straight out of the stalls, followed by 5 birds in 6 holes.

TaylorMade group collectively +3 after 4 holes.

Yes Kwini, around Xmas 2006, got paired with a couple of members had just got my 1st official club handicap of 12, the members said walking down the 1st... enjoy but you're not going to break 90!! Yep they were right..91, I wasn't off the tips, think the tees I was off were about 6800 (they're about 7400 this week??). I thought it was bloody brutal and a severe test, would love to play it again now though. Some great holes especially the 3rd but the 4th 13th, 14th & 18th live long in the memory, for the wrong reasons so does the 16th green...1st green I ever 4putted

Deshampoo certainly seems to have put the putter thing behind him. I mean the ban and not another new stance.



Tiger well of the pace but at least he hasn't totally embarrassed himself. Probably going to struggle to make the cut. Currently t71 and unlikely to move much higher as he racks up more holes and the fatigue of tournament golf kicks in.

Holy crap, it is now getting a little embarrassing for Tiger.

Poor guy. Should have joined the seals.

GPB wrote:Robo: Personally I was thinking that SMB should have got two years after he "enlisted".  But everything I read at the time said he would be exempt through the 2017-18 season.  (There were other articles besides Porter's article).

IMO, he should be exempt through the 2018-19 season.

SMB is one of my favorite Koreans, apparently quite the linguist as he speaks English nearly fluently, unlike many of the Korean golfers (men and women).  He also speaks Japanese very well, as he picked it up when he played the Japanese Tour.

Speaking of speaking English, I was shocked to see Webbie Ze-Cheng "Marty" Dou speak English very well.  I was not expecting that.  He was clearly the best player on the PGATour China last summer with 4 wins.

GPB... following up on Sangmoon Bae... GC and Porter were RIGHT, well at least mostly because it might not even be a full season he gets... Bae's returen will work exactly as a major medical... so based on past averages of the top-125 it will probably be 26 events for Bae when he comes back...

GPB wrote:Robo:  What does a PGATour lifetime exemptions actually mean to a player.

It does mean that they have to meet minimum performance standards.  Like within 3? strokes of the tournament average

I know that it doesn't get them into the Majors, the WGC's, the Players, and Playoffs.

Does a Lifetime exemption get them into the Invitationals?  (Bay Hill, HiltonHead, Colonial, Memorial, QL).  Or is just regular events and opposite field events.

GPB... Life Member Status... you are correct life member status doesn't help with most the big tournaments... majors , WGC's, Players, Tournament of Champions and obviously playoffs. Otherwise it's good for "most" everything else with the following exceptions.

CIMB - goes to standard priority list to "fill the field" if necessary, but very unlikely it would get to Life Members. (as will the new Korea event)

As for the invitationals... (YES = Life Members IN)

YES - CareerBuilder
YES - AT&T Pebble Beach
YES - Bay Hill
YES - Heritage
NO - Colonial
NO - Memorial
NO - Quicken Loans

What does everyone make of the Woods return?
None of the group played well, never seemed to be much buzz or momentum.
He played some super shots in his first 11 holes (didn't see the last three), so that's a big positive, plus his putting was decent.
I just reckon this was set up for Woods to fail, his choice of venue (and probably grouping) of course. But when he started to lose his driver/3-wood on the back he looked totally lost and his course management didn't seem to match his condition. Fatigue? Who knows, but not sure that jetting off on TWA to Dubai is the best therapy for whatever ails him.

Don't know what to make of TWs round Kwini... Other than it was disappointing.  But I'm not going to judge much  after this round... He probably only gets tomorrow at Torrey, then a couple of extra days off to work on things before playing 3 of the next 4 weeks.  After that, I think we'll have a lot better picture of where this is going.

And actually I believe Dubai is a good move. It should be a lot more low key at a venue more forgiving to errant drives,  What he probably doesn't need right now is a WMPO kind of circus.... Or the glacial pace of the Pebble Pro-Am.

Robo

This montages of all Tiger's shots yesterday might help you make your mind up on where he is at.

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/824846549570105347

It was ugly. He actually needed a pretty good short game to keep the score in the 70's. The headline might be drives to the right but irons going nowhere near the pin from good lies should be the real worry.

Much less mad axeman. Much more wounded war vet.

Great stuff as ever Kwini! I hadn't realised that Harrington was just back from a 9 week break without swinging a club before I rushed in my entries for 1GG's fantasy League

I haven't seen a single shot of this so far, hoping to get some viewing time this evening.

His swing looks very different to a few weeks ago in the Bahamas. I'm no swing guru, but last time out he was rotating around his body more, swing path from the inside resulting in a draw with the driver especially. Yesterday his shoulders were so open.

ray

It looks like he is swiping across the ball at impact resulting in horrible slappy cuts. Gruesome .

. . . . . . whilst Faldo blames his "all arms" swing for a couple of smother-hooks. Hitting just four fairways won't get it done.

robo,
Agree about Phoenix & Pebble and perhaps Dubai will be better for him, especially if he gets an extra two days to acclimate and rest.
Even in yesterday's disappointment there were enough good shots, but he just doesn't look golf-ready to me, and especially for these courses. He probably needs a 67 today to make the cut, not beyond him that's for sure.

Scoring averages Thursday:
North Course: 70.76
South Course: 73.61

Very similar to 2016, just a fraction lower on each.

No reports of Phil slagging off Weiskopf's North Course redesign, so that counts as a from him.

If Tiger was too inside to out last time and right left and is too much the other way this time, does it not (perhaps) point to an element of tuning, searching for the middle ground.

If the above comments on this thread are right (working backwards on a hole) his putting was OK and short game was saving him from the 80's, that bodes relatively well. Poor iron approaches are potentially ruinous and are probably a focus then his long game (which ever was the weaker link).

Still not good enough, but possibly some progress. Although probably bad enough to put a smile on some faces!

McLaren wrote:ray

It looks like he is swiping across the ball at impact resulting in horrible slappy cuts.  Gruesome .

He's definitely not hitting a draw with that action. He's maybe trying to hit it left-to-right and over-cooking it, he's got into some really bad habits with that sort of swing and can't get out of it (yet?) on the course or he's got more back issues than people know and he simply has to bail out left giving him a cut.

kwinigolfer wrote: . . . . . . whilst Faldo blames his "all arms" swing for a couple of smother-hooks. Hitting just four fairways won't get it done....

It's clearly not "all arms", despite what Faldo claims, but there seems to be too much of his upper body/arms leading the swing rather than following the lower body.

Roller_Coaster wrote:If Tiger was too inside to out last time and right left and is too much the other way this time, does it not (perhaps) point to an element of tuning, searching for the middle ground....

Maybe, but I don't recall him being too much inside-to-out pretty much ever.

One thing about Woods' swing - he at least looked like he wasn't trying to hit the skin off it anymore to me. That would be a good thing if wasn't for the fact his radar was still so off target!

Navy

you can cast your eye over it here; https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/824846549570105347

Perhaps yesterday's round from Tiger was part of an advertising stunt by TaylorMade?
Before: That 76 was using Nike clubs.
After: His first decent round with TaylorMade sticks.

It looks to be a tough, windy day at the Farmers' office, cut-line already moved from -1 to even; so Woods likely may "just" need a 68.

kwini

I thought the TM irons that Tiger will use are yet to be manufactured? I think he is getting a custom set made for him. Some might say a tailor made set.

Looks like Tiger will play 2 days, not 4. Peter Kostis said it best (and I paraphrase) "the scores will work themselves out if he stays healthy". That's a big "if" ... but I agree with it. He seems to have the desire to play and win again.

In the meantime, Justin look excellent.

Wonder how long it will be before we see Tiger in a red shirt in a cut event?

Hunner Mahan sighting on the leaderboard. Previous here and I'd love to see him get back to his best.

I'm never wrong wrote:Wonder how long it will be before we see Tiger in a red shirt in a cut event?

Depends if he starts wearing them on a Thursday or not.

Bizarre result from the marquee group. Top two players and Tiger missing the cut?!?! Really surprised at DJ, that course is made for him.

I wonder when DJ rolled in to town? It must have been relatively late that he wheels upped from Abu Dhabi; can't imagine flying across 15 time zones and going straight into tournament golf.
TW gets an extra two days; he did better this week than I expected on relatively unforgiving courses. Strange that he referred to LaCava having been away as well - did they have a few misclubs or what??!!

Must be even money that the cut-line lets in the +1's; which might be a lucky break for Shane after his triple bogey.

Im flicking back and forth, (in the interests of matrimonial harmony) and did see Shane one under the cut line and thought, aw jeez precarious. He's usually decent round this track, if he sneaks in, he'll do ok.