PGA Tour: The Life Of Bryans: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).That was The Masters that was.
Not my favourite Masters ever; for a tournament leaderboard to be so full of top players, it was possibly the least likely one of them to come out on top. Patrick Reed had gone through a lousy start to the season, but his form perked up with a second-place finish at the Valspar and came to Augusta with three Top Tens running. But still!
Regardless, congratulations to him, won it fair and fairly square.

2).What of the rest?
Of the contenders, only Fowler, Rahm and Spieth really came to play on Sunday; Stenson, Dustin & Bubba seemed to flirt with the leaderboard without making a proper run and Rory's Sunday has been done to death on this board already,
I fancied Oosthuizen and Rose but both had OK tournaments without contending, while Fleetwood, Thomas, Mickelson and Woods pretty much disappeared.
Gutsy effort from Finau and another excellent tournament from Cameron Smith - not many pros playing better right now than the baby-faced Aussie, just one cut missed in the past six months after a miserable run of form after his Team win in New Orleans. Difficult to believe he won't break through again soon. This week perhaps?  

3).Which brings me to Wes Bryan, playing his first Masters after winning last year at the RBC Heritage 52 weeks ago at Harbour Town. Bryan's play at Augusta was forgettable, especially for a local-ish lad as he missed the cut convincingly.
But Doug Ferguson of the AP wrote an interesting few paragraphs last week telling a story I'd not previously heard.

4).I'll quote excerpts from Ferguson's piece:
"The late Hootie Johnson fiercely defended the lengthening of Augusta National during his term as club chairman. Johnson said the changes were to keep current with the modern game, and he leaned on his own experience.
But he wasn't playing in March 2005 with a PGA Tour player. He was playing with teenagers.
'I had a guest down here in March 2005 - 17 years old. He hit pitching wedges into 17 and 7. A lot had been written that we'd been trying to Tiger-proof our golf course. We weren't worried about Tiger, we were worried about these 17-year-olds.'
The 17-year-old was George Bryan. Also playing that day was his 14-year-old brother, Wesley Bryan."

5).Now you know the Bryan Brothers for their best-selling videos of their trick-shot artistry. George, "He always hit the ball farther than I did", is now on the Latino America Tour, while Wes broke through on the web.com Tour a couple of years ago, earned a "battlefield promotion" to the PGA Tour with three wins, and immediately made his mark before winning at Harbour Town.
Tour life for him hasn't been so successful recently, but I'd never heard the story of his little mark in Masters history before. Hopefully he'll enjoy more success before returning to his trick-shot circus act.

6).We are past the halfway stage of the season now, and chances for double-dippers outside the owgr Top 50 dwindle exponentially.
Graeme McDowell is playing the "RBC Heritage" this week on a course where he's won and might be expected to have a decent week. He needs it.
Ross Fisher's season is in dire straits, a little money for nothing so far this year and only 32 FedEx points - dismal at Augusta and difficult to know why his form has slumped. Golfers just like anyone else I suppose, they can get stale, industrial disease perhaps?
Shane Lowry, in his infinite wisdom, has taken the week off (not actually 100% sure he qualifies for this "Invitational"), and he also has his work cut out for him.

7).And then there's Luke Donald. Amazing to think he's been second here FIVE times, including last year behind the aforesaid Bryan. While Davis Love has won here five times.
Luke is having a shocking year. And here are some clues why:
Driving accuracy: 206th out of 210 (Woods and Mickelson are also in the bottom ten, but at least they're long with their waywardness).
Total Driving (distance + accuracy): 205th
Greens in Regulation: 206th out of 210 (Harrington is 209th)
Scrambling: 125th
Sand Saves (28th) and Putting (25th) are still strengths, but even they are not what they were.
If Luke can't manage a decent week at Harbour Town it's difficult to see where his career goes.

8).The pros will be enjoying what Jason Isbell describes as "The water color sky at Hilton Head" this week, at lovely Harbour Town, home of the RBC Heritage.
Course specialists thrive here, as Luke and DLIII demonstrate. Length is important, but less of a factor than on most courses and guys like Furyk, Snedeker, Harman, Kisner, Kuchar, Simpson all play well here.
There's a decent GB&I representation with Casey, Fish, Fitz, Hatton, Knox, Laird and Poults (had a great chance to win last year) joining Donald & McDowell. Would think this place would suit Fitz - he played well here four years ago, but hasn't made the cut since.

9).Golfers who have close connection to the American south-east tend to thrive these next few weeks, especially those who also fancy Pete Dye courses. I was going to go against that trend and pick Adam Hadwin as my one-and-done but he's withdrawn. Think I'll give Streelman a whirl instead, but with very little conviction.

10).I see the Zurich Classic Team Event at New Orleans will be the first PGA Tour event with "first tee walk up" music. Hope Fleetwood and Paisley pick something north of England, but what would you pick?

super_realist wrote:Well seeing as Spieth choked against McDowell, I should think he probably would be a bit concerned. Thomas hasn't even played a Ryder Cup yet, and DJ's record isn't that special.

I see someone has started giving a negative vote to all of super's posts. Value add

Be_the_ball wrote:    
https://youtu.be/8-j2SRvN0bA

Haha. The Irish and British ones are great.

I think Jon Rahm needs to be given a paternity test

https://twitter.com/jkjones21/status/986233629218168833/photo/1

raycastleunited wrote:

super_realist wrote:Well seeing as Spieth choked against McDowell, I should think he probably would be a bit concerned. Thomas hasn't even played a Ryder Cup yet, and DJ's record isn't that special.

I see someone has started giving a negative vote to all of super's posts. Value add

Either Mac or GPB I would think.

raycastleunited wrote:

super_realist wrote:Well seeing as Spieth choked against McDowell, I should think he probably would be a bit concerned. Thomas hasn't even played a Ryder Cup yet, and DJ's record isn't that special.

I see someone has started giving a negative vote to all of super's posts. Value add

I think it's auto-generated by the system...

On my browser the voting system doesn't show up.

McLaren wrote:On my browser the voting system doesn't show up.

Maybe it's a chinese or north korean browser?

Any notes this week to be posted Thursday.

Looks like a breezy week in San Antonio, could get stormy by Saturday.

One of the weakest fields of the year, but perhaps that makes possible winners stick out a bit more? My one-and-done (partly because other candidates are already off the table) is Jimmy Walker, course winner, local-ish lad, decent form at Augusta.

Can't speak for anyone else but me, but I am not childish enough to make thumbs down posts. (Or call any golfer silly nicknames like 9 Chins, Boredan Spieth)

GPB wrote:Can't  speak for anyone else but me, but I am not childish enough to make thumbs down posts.  (Or call any golfer silly nicknames like 9 Chins, Boredan Spieth)

Yeah, you reserve your childishness for other things.

super_realist wrote:

GPB wrote:Can't  speak for anyone else but me, but I am not childish enough to make thumbs down posts.  (Or call any golfer silly nicknames like 9 Chins, Boredan Spieth)

Yeah, you reserve your childishness for other things.

Cue: the fairy tale book club revolving around the jewish sky zombie?

I was thinking more of his criticism of Hatton and Rahm.

Enough already.

Good to see sergio maturing.

https://twitter.com/SI_Golf/status/987372529521233920