PGA Tour: Time to Take a Break: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).Just a few more rounds beside the seaside on Georgia's Golden Isles this week and the pros can take a seven-week break, eight if they're not Tournament Champions, even longer for those who don't fancy various West Coast events. Most will rest, practice, review the year just gone by with their "team" and plan for the year ahead.
Some will be so exhausted from the exertions of the past season that they'll be globe-trotting for recuperative guaranteed appearance and/or prize money at exotic locations around the world.

2).I really enjoy watching the Mayakoba action, the course seems to improve every year and the field ain't bad either. Patton Kizzire has a southerner's good ole boy, laconic air about him, but no-one really put pressure on him last weekend and he was a deserving winner.
Like his in-form southern compadre, Chesson Hadley, Kizzire could use getting a move on though. No anti-American sentiment here, but both have bizarre names and tortoise-like pace of play, more Henrik or Bernhard, Ken or Nick, than Rickie Fowler, for instance, who looked beyond irritated as he was grouped in the final threesome and seemed to have to wait on every shot.

3).A landmark stat from last week as Alex Cejka followed up his play-off defeat in Las Vegas with a T9 in Mexico and so earned consecutive top ten finishes for the first time in 359 career Tour starts. And, so doing, launches himself to the top of the all-important reshuffle ranking.

4).Mildly promising performances at Mayakoba for Knox and McDowell, each playing a course where they've had success before. Knox earned just his second Top Ten finish all year, while McDowell looked much more confident to my untrained eye, despite a T34 result. Both play again this week, where each has played well in the past. Luke Donald also makes an appearance, just down the coast from his happy hunting ground of Hilton Head Island.

5).Congratulations to Shotrock and his fellow members @ Aronimink in Philadelphia on securing the 2020 LPGA Championship and 2027 PGA Championship. Justin Rose has won twice in Philly but imagine he'll be relaxing his way towards Grayson Murray's irrelevant age by 2027. Mixed thoughts about this Aronimink announcement though, good for them in securing more major championships, but you'd imagine it rather shuts out the Philadelphia market from further PGA Tour events.

6).Presumably the 2027 PGA will be contested in May; the story seemed to be that one reason the PGA was moving to May was to bring the Championship to more southern courses - not so far, although it WILL be at Kiawah in 2020.

7).The finale of the Champions Tour season was rather anticlimactic, with the tournament, and Charles Schwab Cup winner being Kevin Sutherland. Somewhat of a curiosity is that this is the first official stroke-play win of Sutherland's career, though he did lose three PGA Tour play-offs. His solitary Tour win was at the WGC-MatchPlay in 2002 - he shot the first 59 on the Champions Tour, in 2014, on course for a 58 but bogeyed his final hole at Enjoie.
Bernhard Langer will merely have to be content with his seven wins, and $3M in prizemoney, bringing his Champions Tour career earnings to $24.6M - somewhat better than my pension plan and he's still going strong at the age of 60.

8).princedrac noted that this week's RSM Classic only offers 30 owgr points to the winner. Sea Island, Georgia, looks one of the most beautiful areas the PGA Tour visits; there'll be birdies galore but no doubt even more stunning TV images of the area's wildlife.
Those who live in the area have a good record on the 2 x courses (Seaside & Plantation) on Sea Island, including Bill Haas, Webb Simpson, Horschel, Kirk and Kisner among the locals who have won or runnered up and imagine we'll see more of the same this week. Snedeker is back from a 4+ month absence, and Kuchar is also in a field that looks stronger than its official rating. Scott Brown and Charlie Howell are others in form and hopefully Brown can break my dreadful recent trot of form in the crucially important one-and-done game I have fun with.

We'll follow web.com and Champions Tour Q-Schools (Peter Baker, Jamie Kingston & M-A Martin competing in first stage), but this ballwasher has pretty much dried up for the year.
Happy Thanksgiving for next week for all those celebrating in Missouri, Houston, Philadelphia, Cape Cod, Pennsylvania, etc, etc. Stuff the turkey.

Maybe super, if it was all about him and his sycophantic view of the world, it probably was him. Just the sort of bloke you'd (OK, I'd) want to pick a bar fight with. Stupid really because he's usually on with Lee Dixon and/or Le Saux and they're both excellent.

And for those who prefer their football to be in small humerous doses there's always "Men in Blazers" with Roger and Davo.  Particularly enjoyable after a beer or two.  
Super, I think we need to see a picture of you to see how you compare with Rio Ferdinand.   Rio's got an interesting face but I wouldnt call him ugly.  You must be quite the Adonis !

SetupDeterminesTheMotion wrote:How about big Carl ?

Carl Pettersson

Setup,
Is this your entry for European with most tournaments played on the PGA Tour?

Spot on!

The list of most Tour appearances by Europeans since 1980 would look something like this:
425: Pettersson
393: Parnevik
359: Cejka
351: Brian Davis
330: Donald
323: Garcia
317: Langer
307: Jacobson
306: Rose

Yes indeed, kwini

Will we ever see him again since banning of the broom handle...?.

Carl's career is on very thin ice isn't it?
His 2016/17 stats were beyond abysmal right thru the bag - ironically, his "strokes gained putting" placing of 65th was about his best stat of the year, though whether his putting would suffer if in contention, or in his case contention to make the cut, one will never know!


(Incidentally, including a couple of late 70's events, Faldo also has 306 starts.)

kwinigolfer wrote:Carl's career is on very thin ice isn't it?

That can't be a good thing for Carl.

SetupDeterminesTheMotion wrote:Yes indeed, kwini

Will we ever see him again since banning of the broom handle...?.

The broom handle isn't banned. People keep making this mistake.

"Heat exhaustion" in Indonesia for Sneeedeker - whatever next?

Anyway, that's his 31/12 owgr Top 50 Masters exemption down the drain - hope it's more ambiant weather for him in California, where he's enjoyed so much success in his career.

Now there's a player who's never fulfilled his potential Kwini.

super_realist wrote:Now there's a player who's never fulfilled his potential Kwini.

Who Snedeker? IMO he's overachieved any expectation I ever had for him. I would have guessed at max a potential long journeyman type career... but more Maggert like with 3-4 wins. 8 wins so far for Sneds.. if he gets two more that puts him roughly top-100 ever on the PGA Tour. Pretty salty.

Don't really agree with either!!

From the time he burst on to the Tour, in San Diego?, to his first injury he was pretty much a win-per-year guy; since then, every time he seems to be back towards his best he's injured, usually something to do with this rib problem of his which must be quite constraining.

He's never going to be the longest player but probably up with Henley & Spieth among the Tour's best putters. Plus he plays quickly and is fun to follow!

I think super has a fair point that he hasn't really trained on, but I reckon that's injuries more than anything else. Strange retirement today though and it'll be interesting to see whether there's more to it than the "heat-related" we see in the reports. You know he'll want to play Waialae, Torrey Pines & Pebble so we'll have to wait and see.

robopz wrote:

super_realist wrote:Now there's a player who's never fulfilled his potential Kwini.

Who Snedeker?  IMO he's overachieved any expectation I ever had for him. I would have guessed at max a potential long journeyman type career... but more Maggert like with 3-4 wins.  8 wins so far for Sneds.. if he gets two more that puts him roughly top-100 ever on the PGA Tour.  Pretty salty.

Always liked him and his attitude though. Thought he might push on and challenge in majors more though.

super_realist wrote:Always liked him and his attitude though. Thought he might push on and challenge in majors more though.

Agree with you on the attitude part.... and I've always like him as well.

kwinigolfer wrote:From the time he burst on to the Tour, in San Diego?, to his first injury he was pretty much a win-per-year guy; since then, every time he seems to be back towards his best he's injured, usually something to do with this rib problem of his which must be quite constraining.

I thought he had the potential to be a regular qualifier for the big events, but therein lies the problem.  All the better players get bunched up in the big events these days and it becomes a "numbers game". Only so many wins to go around and he's about 20-30th down my list of the guys who I think should be winning them.

And to be clear... this is NO disrespect. By the numbers the average win rate should be 2/3 to 3/4 of 1%.... he's running about a 3% win rate since turning pro... that's pretty darn salty.

Sneds is a horses-for-courses man for me - chances of contending increase exponentially at seaside Cal and the south-east (excl Florida).

I always thought super hated him because his eyes were too close together ... or something ...

Oh and he gets injured to much which in super's world is criminal as how could anyone playing an old man's game get injured .. unless his eyes were too close together

16-18 players WD’ing after R1 in Indonesia. How hot is it?

I suspect a few of those Wds were players that were going to miss the cut and didn't want to come out on Saturday to play a couple of holes, only to miss the cut.

#Home-for-the-Holidays

Davie wrote:I always thought super hated him because his eyes were too close together ... or something ...

Oh and he gets injured to much which in super's world is criminal as how could anyone playing an old man's game get injured .. unless his eyes were too close together

Not as close as Jamie Donaldson!

His eyes are very close together though, surprised he has depth perception.

Kiradech's run of fine form was rewarded with an owgr Top 50 Masters qualification earlier Sunday, with Miyazato claiming the 50th and final spot.
More great golf from Justin Rose but his history has shown a run of fantastic golf is often followed by a fallow spell as he gets his body and mind back together again. Hope he gets rested up and back in form for Augusta as no-one is playing better golf right now.

And I think his eyes are quite normally spaced.

as of this morning, Barnrat was registered to play a tournament this week in Thailand.

PD says if he finishes worse than 10th, he would lose his Top 50 ranking.

GPB wrote:as of this morning, Barnrat was registered to play a tournament this week in Thailand.

PD says if he finishes worse than 10th, he would lose his Top 50 ranking.

WD

Barnrat is still listed in the field.

http://asiandevelopmenttour.com/tournaments/627/entries/

Sergio has a BIG FAN....with lofty goals for 2018

Sergio's Fanboy:

It’s Tigers handwriting..

Been hearing Zac Blair’s name pop up a bit recently as a all round good bloke on tour, hadn’t really paid it any attention. But this is a great read:
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/my-shot-zac-blair/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Ned,
He also writes interesting critiques of golf course architecture. A golf nut. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Nice find Ned

Really enjoyed that read Ned, thanks.

A nice endorsement of princedrac from the AP's Doug Ferguson on the Golf Channel on the subject of the Barnrat:

http://www.golfchannel.com/article/doug-ferguson/notes-money-bonus-jt-jack-wants-19th-major

Funny old announcement from the PGA Tour about this season's Puerto Rico event:

https://www.pgatour.com/company/2017/12/21/puerto-rico-open-comeback-2018-hurricane-maria.html


So, not an official tournament, just a "special" event; bad news for the Tour's rank and file, but hardly surprising given the devastation in Puerto Rico earlier this autumn (and Drumpf's government basically letting them stew). EDIT: "Stew" being an unfortunate choice of words given the lack of water & power in many parts of the island.

This'll make the new tournament in the Dominican Republic even more important for the Tour's journeymen.

kwinigolfer wrote:Our local lad (rapidly approaching middle-age now) in with a 76 - 61 at web.com Q-School. How d'you do that??!! Fingers crossed for the weekend.
Gonzo shot 67 today, so on track to gain web.com status as well as his ET gig.

This is an article about him which goes to show that, for every Jordan Spieth, there's a number of mini-tour "pros" struggling to make a living.

https://www.pgatour.com/webcom/tour-insider/2017/12/13/trevor-murphy-real-estate-final-stage-q-school.html




Hope things work out for him this time.

And then there were four . . . . . . .

ex-coaches for Eldrick.
Chris Como bites the dust, following Harmon, Haney and Foley. Tiger will coach himself this year although he's not ruling out the possibility of going into Perkins for some consultancy.

So no more mad axeman?

kwinigolfer wrote:And then there were four . . . . . . .

ex-coaches for Eldrick.
Chris Como bites the dust, following Harmon, Haney and Foley. Tiger will coach himself this year although he's not ruling out the possibility of going into Perkins for some consultancy.

With his lack of brain power, you can't imagine this is going to go well.

It can hardly get any worse?

Merry Christmas Chaps and Chappesses . . . . . . . . . not to mention peace on earth and severe cases of untreatable clap to all at Mar-A-Lago (except the staff of course).

Christmas Card from Augusta National to Ernie Els:

Marry Christmas Ernie, You're invited to play The Masters Tournament for one last (and we DO mean "last") time in 2018.

(Wonder if Ryo received a similar Xmas pressie?)

Prince Dracula has been tweeting some end of year numbers.

More Europeans in the Top 21 than ever. (11)

But less Euros in the Top 50 (15) and Top 100 (27).

https://twitter.com/VC606/status/945701843996377089

https://twitter.com/VC606/status/945705671739265025

kwinigolfer wrote:Christmas Card from Augusta National to Ernie Els:

Marry Christmas Ernie, You're invited to play The Masters Tournament for one last (and we DO mean "last") time in 2018.

(Wonder if Ryo received a similar Xmas pressie?)

He’s not invited to play but to eat from the buffet.

pedro wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Christmas Card from Augusta National to Ernie Els:

Marry Christmas Ernie, You're invited to play The Masters Tournament for one last (and we DO mean "last") time in 2018.

(Wonder if Ryo received a similar Xmas pressie?)

He’s not invited to play but to eat from the buffet.

It seems as if pedro is spot on. Reports of his invitation to compete in The Masters are premature - but he is invited to snarf $1K and play the Par-3 tournament. EDIT: And EAT.

I don't think Ernie gets to play the Par3. They stopped that practice this year (or maybe in 2016)

Only Past Champs and tooney invitees get to play the Par3 toonament.

I think the invite gets VIP privileges. Special Access to the Clubhouse etc.

Poor Ernie,
Some things are not quite what they seem then.
So does this really just mean Erns gets an "honorarium" of ($1,000?) for turning up and enabling free publicity for the Hooties?

As Nathaniel Rateliff would warble: "Mean what you say and mean what you mean".

Looks like Sergio, Henrik and Rosey are the only eligible players skipping the ToC. Projected to be OWGR-56. (per tweet from DougF to me). DougF is already enjoying Maui.

There is a big poker series in the Bahamas starting on Jan 7 (scheduled 4th of ToC) and Sergio has been one of PokerStars Reps.

I just think DougF reads princedracs tweets.

pedro wrote:I just think DougF reads princedracs tweets.

At least he admits it. And in a quite complimentary way. Most of the rest of the media still don't understand the owgr's, so good for pd as he educates them.

And pd has been tweeting about US dominance, and the fact that Justin Thomas, Spieth and DJ will play a few West Coast events helps to sustain that dominance. The best Europeans need some top results and to play a bit more. And I don't mean poker.

DJ is scheduled to play Abu Dhabi along with Kuchar. Guess Rickie wore out his welcome as he is not in the field.

Not a bad "Strength of Field" likely in Abu Dhabi, with those two, plus Rose, Stenson, Rory, Casey, Fleetwood.

GPB wrote:Looks like Sergio, Henrik and Rosey are the only eligible players skipping the ToC.  Projected to be OWGR-56.  (per tweet from DougF to me).  DougF is already enjoying Maui.

There is a big poker series in the Bahamas starting on Jan 7 (scheduled 4th of ToC) and Sergio has been one of PokerStars Reps.

It looks as if that's the verdict, 34 runners at Kapalua - it's totally beside the point but still another limited field with beaucoup (mid-50's?) owgr points on the PGA Tour.

Surprising news that Snedeker and caddie Scott Vail have split up - one of the Tour's longest-running teams.