PGA Tour: Ten Names from PGA, Greensboro: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Brooks Koepka: Dominant. What a summer! And: Who cares about Tour events if you win Majors? Mind you, his British caddie might have made all the difference.

2).Tiger Woods: Terrific week, almost Tiger-like. Though, if he thrives on a steady diet of, for instance, three-under-par over nine holes whilst hitting exactly zero fairways, is that a recipe for future success?
(Thought Bellerive stood up OK considering the soft conditions, but can't understand why the fairways were as accommodating as they were, especially with fairway bunkers that usually offered much better lies than the rough, or the trees.)

3).Adam Scott: Where did that come from? It can't all have been inspired by the memory of Jarrod Lyle. And that Langer/McCarron/Scott putting technique still looks like he's taking the p1ss. Interesting that he had two putters in the bag on Sunday . . . . .
It seems an age ago, but Adam beat Brooksy 3&2 in last year's Presidents Cup.
Also: Who was caddying for him?

4).Jim Furyk: Over to you Skipper: I reckon he'll go with 9, 10, 11 on the current qualification list, with one man tba. I'd think that BDeC will get the nod, but Furyk must know that carries some risk. Does he want to waste Woods as his potential partner?
And he'll probably want new blood. Though Kuchar has won at Ridgewood (Northern Trust) before . . . . . . Zach & Kooch to be VC's I reckon.
Kisner is said to be very popular among the pros - and was by Phil's side, successfully, during last year's Pres Cup. It could be that Furyk compiles his own 2- or 3-tournament qualification ranking. Whichever way he goes, I'm not a fan of not making all four choices together.

5).Sergio Garcia: Awful summer of golf for anyone who considers themselves an RC candidate. He now needs at least a Top 12 finish in Greensboro to qualify for the Play-Offs - if he fails, at a place where he won just a few years ago, would he rule himself out of consideration? Perhaps he should.

6).Henrik Stenson: Almost as dire as Sergio. Pretty much a nonentity since Shinnecock. Is he fit? Defending Champion at Greensboro this week.

7).Shane Lowry: Terrific PGA but now needs about a Top Ten @ Greensboro to reach the Play-Offs and keep his card. Hadn't realised until the following day that he bogeyed #16 on Sunday after a ruling snafu. As he told the Irish Times:
"I think the referee didn't have the balls to make a decision there. If you put Paramor or any of the good referees out there, he would have given me full relief. But he wasn't giving me full relief, he was telling me to drop it in a tree basically."
Playing partner Justin Thomas proceeded to play out of turn, for which you can't blame him, but it must have added to the pressure on Lowry and he played from the original lie.
Thomas said: "It had nothing to do with Shane. The officials were having a hard time coming up with a ruling. They were kind of looking at each other and saying, 'Well, what do we do?'"
Sometimes you just got to think: What would Poults or Woods do? And they'd have stood their ground and demanded a decision from the tournament referee. Perhaps Shane should have done too.
Anyway, that's not good enough by the PGA. Lowry bogeyed #16 and then #17 (which he might well have done anyway, who knows?) and dropped seven places, and a ton of FedEx Points.

7).Rafa C-B: Why is he playing Greensboro? Presumably to bolster his RC World Points standing, but Bjorn should pick him regardless.

8).Matt Fitzpatrick: Playing Greensboro, but surely his RC chances are toast? A shame but fringe RC contenders need to prove they belong on the Team and Matt hasn't done that.

9).Seamus Power: Needs something like a Top 30 result this week to keep his card. No-one to blame but Seamus if he doesn't make it.

10).Bill Haas: Hasn't been the same since his ill-advised trip in a Beverly Hills Ferrari. Only 2 x Top 35 results since and only a Top Four finish this week gets him to the Northern Trust.
McDowell will also miss out unless he can conjure up a Top Five and he'd lose his card. He seems somewhat ambivalent about that, and doesn't seem to have committed whether he'd contest the web.com Finals - but it's going to be tough for him to resurrect his Tour career, if he should ever care about that.

10A).Garcia and Haas are two of thirteen players to reach the Play-Offs each of the first 12 years they've been around.
Who are the others? (GPB is disqualified from answering this poser!)

Haha true Wire!

Norway's Viktor Hovland won the US Amateur.

Drumpf always said he wanted all his immigrants to be Norwegian . . . . . . . .

In Paris the fairways will probably be narrow. At the moment that’s one of the few things that speak in favour of Garcia and Stenson, apart from their experience. But still, not many others knocking on the door.

It is likely that at least four, potentially five, of the European qualifiers will be rookies which will have a huge bearing on the captain’s picks.

If this doesn’t change I expect the four picks to come from the following six – Poulter, Sergio, Rafa, Stenson, Casey, and Pieters – unless a non-qualifier does something crazy in the final two events like a win and at least a top 3 in the other and even then, I suspect they would have to have been in the mix prior to these final events.

Of the six above Poulter is a stick-on. As for the others I am not sure, and Pedro makes a good point about the narrow fairways, but I have an inclination that Rafa will get one.

IMO, there is little chance that Pieters is on Bjorn's short list for picks.

Edit: Unless Rory tell Thomas that he wants Pieters as a partner.

Question: The European points list continues up to the Made in Denmark tournament. Does the World points list finish at the same time i.e after the Dell Technologies tournament?

I'm never wrong wrote:Question: The European points list continues up to the Made in Denmark tournament. Does the World points list finish at the same time i.e after the Dell Technologies tournament?

https://www.rydercup.com/news-media/europe/how-european-and-american-teams-are-picked-ryder-cup

The link above does not make it clear, but I think the World Points portion of the rankings ends this week with the Northern Trust on the PGATour and Sunday Sept 2nd for the Made in Denmark

Dell Technologies tournament ends on a Monday, Sept 3rd , while the Made in Denmark ends on Sunday Sept 2nd.

Bjorn is making his picks on Wednesday the 5th.

I'd go Rafa, Sergio, Stenson and Poulter.

ben,
Confirmation just now that Stenson is taking this week off, so at least he'll be well rested.
So: That's 120 now scheduled to come under starting orders at the Ridgewood racetrack, in the Northern Trust Handicap. 125 qualifiers, less Rickie & Rory, Patrick Rodgers (off to a wedding, not sure if it's his), Bud Cauley nursing injuries and Stenson.

beninho wrote:I'd go Rafa, Sergio, Stenson and Poulter.

I also think this is what we’ll see.

Tough to leave out #15 in the world (Casey). And it’s not like he’s in terrible form.
But he hardly bothers to play regular ET events and I don’t think that goes down well with TB. Dunno why he played in Germany tho, maybe he was told so by TB.
And then there’s the gel’ing thing, where he’d be bit of a gamble.

Pieters will play the Czech Open. If he wins and plays well in DK (or vice versa) he could be a dark horse.

PD just tweeted at me saying the Dell Technologies will not count towards Euro RC Rankings.

In the Northern Trust Open

RCB needs a Solo 19th or better to pass Olesen
IJP needs a Solo 18th or better to pass Olesen
PC needs a solo 16th or better to pass Olesen
RK needs a solo 4th or better to pass Olesen

In the Czech Masters, Eddie Pepperell needs to win to pass Olesen.

So if the perfect storm happens this week, Olesen could fall from 8th to 13th this week.

Olesen, Fitzpatrick, and Pepperell are playing Made in Denmark next week. A Solo 9th or better from Olesen would make the World Points nearly irrelevant, unless one of the other contenders win the Northern Trust next week.

Hmmm. Just did some more looking and ET website says 3rd September. http://www.europeantour.com/rydercup/points/index.html

I'm never wrong wrote:Hmmm. Just did some more looking and ET website says 3rd September. http://www.europeantour.com/rydercup/points/index.html

IMO, the wording is vague, but I remember from past years where the Boston Tournament does not count towards the World Points Rankings.

Yes, a vague wording. But I think GPB is right.

kwinigolfer wrote:European Tour players competing in next week's web.com Tour finals, the entree for Tour cards include Dylan Frittelli, Chris Paisley and Julian Suri.

Boo Weekley too!

And John Peterson.

GPB wrote:IMO, there is little chance that Pieters is on Bjorn's short list for picks.

Edit:  Unless Rory tell Thomas that he wants Pieters as a partner.

Yes you're probably right GPB but I just thought that after his exploits last time, that he is showing a little bit of form, and that he is almost local and no Frenchmen is anywhere near the team he may have a chance. But yes he would be the most surprising out of the six I mentioned.

beninho wrote:I'd go Rafa, Sergio, Stenson and Poulter.

Given the top 8 already contains several rookies, this is the obvious choice.

I'm hoping Olesen keeps his place, he looks like a good match player and I think he could have a great impact on the team, like Pieters last time.

Hatton is a question mark for me. He acts like a tool, but if he channels it the right way he could become Europe's Patrick Reed.

Not that past match play results should mean everything (Tiger...) but Olesen already has a World Cup and a Golf Sixes title. So he’s no stranger to it. He also seems like a player that keeps his cool and doesn’t choke.

I saw Olesen at the golf sixes both this year and last year and he looked really into the whole team element of the competition. He was really engaged with his partner and obviously relished playing for his country.

I think Olesen would be good, his last year has been steady, and in lots of formats, whilst it is good for the team to have lots of nationalities and not just English and a couple of Spaniards and Italians.

I like Olesen. I really think he deserves a spot even if he loses out on auto qualification. I'd like Pieters but just don't see it this time. No probs with casey missing out.

I’ve just surprised myself by looking at the recent history of captains’ picks and discovering that the last captain not to pick a rookie was Faldo in the infamous 08. Eddie Molinari, Colsaerts, Stephen Gallacher and Pieters all beneficiaries of picks as rookies since then.

I think the performance of Pieters and RCB, when contrasted with Westwood and Kaymer’s form last time out, will be in TB’s mind. Form players could be to the fore; Stenson and Garcia might be concerned still.