PGA Tour - The Valspar

As per Kwini and Ned's requests, enjoy.

No Valspar Notes this week, except to say, and not in a non-u way:

~Innisbrook Resort's Copperhead course is a tough Par-71 with 4 x Par-5's and 5 x Par-3's. Plenty of elevation changes and some terrific holes.

~Decent field with Dustin Johnson confirming he's including Valspar on his schedule as his "one additional" event.

~Plenty of European interest, even after Fleetwood, Laird & Noren opted out. This lot will tee it up in addition to the usual suspects:
Rafa C-B, Casey, Donald (hopefully free from injury), Hatton, Garcia, Rahm, Knox, Stenson, McDowell, Willett.

~Presidents Cup Capt Ernie Els has completed his roster of Vice Captains further to his appointment of Geoff Ogilvy earlier. Choi, Immelman & Weir added.

~And an interesting snippet from Els that I don't think I'd heard before: He apparently received a Special Invitation to last year's Masters, which he declined. His rationale was that, however much he likes Augusta National, it doesn't seem to care much for him and not much point in prolonging the agony.

~Should be fine weather for Valspar action, pretty much always an exciting climax.

Will this be the week for Adam Hadwin?

Navy

Could also have added the somewhat bizarre story about Koepka losing the better part of two stone and 10 - 15 yards of his driving distance. Not clear why he would want to lost so much weight. Or any distance.

He had just won the event so it would be in his interests to big it up but I though Rory made some interersting comments to the bbc Cut podcast about the players.  When asked how big a win The Players was he said that because it had a full field it was a definitely a harder tournament to win than a WGC and possibly harder than the Masters.

We often have the Sof debate on here and it seems Rory is also thinking about what field depth means for a tournament.


From last weeks thread it might be useful to repost the link GPB put up to an article discussing whether the OWGR points are distributed properly.

GPB wrote:Maybe OWGR's anti-PGATour bias is getting some legs

https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/column-pga-tour-study-shows-disparity-ranking-points-222256724.html

I'm not altogether au fait with the OWGR stuff, but who determines (or determined) that each tournament would have a points minimum? Because that seems to be the issue.

kwinigolfer wrote:Navy

Could also have added the somewhat bizarre story about Koepka losing the better part of two stone and 10 - 15 yards of his driving distance. Not clear why he would want to lost so much weight. Or any distance.

Yep. Odd that. Maybe he's got Crohn's or something.

I'm never wrong wrote:I'm not altogether au fait with the OWGR stuff, but who determines (or determined) that each tournament would have a points minimum? Because that seems to be the issue.

Wouldn't want to yap on about other Tours, but the minimum for the European Tour has become outdated - the Kenya event especially egregious in that regard.
Don't know how often those minimums get updated, but obviously not often enough.
Weird thing is though, that any inflated non-American owgr status inflates the PGA Tour "strength of field" as well, with some PGA Tour events "subsidised" by international golfers who earned their points on less competitive Tours - the complainers can't have it both ways, they've got to come up with something better. Which so far they haven't.

No doubt the tournament minimums need tweaked but to properly take account of field strength they need to make sure the rankings of 100-300 are valued in the sof calculation.

McLaren wrote:No doubt the tournament minimums need tweaked but to properly take account of field strength they need to make sure the rankings of 100-300 are valued in the sof calculation.

Mac,
101 to 200 is "valued" I think.

Yeh but don't they all just contribute 1 point. Would need to look it up.

But go further. The 201st player should be distinguished from the 500th.

Rory announced he is playing the Canadian Open.

Is that his new event for the season?

Its daft that the OWGR only counts the Top 200 players in their SoF calculation.

Suppose GPB got a sponsors invite into the Valspar this week. According to the OWGR SoF formulas, the value that GPB brings to the field EQUALS the total that Schniederjans, Sabbatini, Stroud, Langley, GMAC, Saunders, Haas, Castro and about 50 other players COMBINED.

I think Farmers Insurance (San Diego) qualified as a new event for Rory. Maui also might have counted.

GPB,
But don't they add to the SOF via "home tour" or has that criteria been disbanded?

Apart from a few phoney minimums, and limited field credits, I reckon they have the owgr's about right; many of those pros bleating away either don't understand the rankings or, in some cases (pretty rich for Koepka to be complaining, for instance), have benefitted directly from the current system.


Wouldn't be surprised if Rory is adding "Canada" to sub for Hartford and take a month off between Opens.

The Home tour points part of the SoF is still there. Iit does have a pro PGATour bias, (and a pro - EuroTour bias)

But IMO, it is trivial. This week (like most weeks), it makes a ONE Level difference. Valspar is projected at 50, it would be a 48 w/o HT Points.

There were 39 PGA Tournaments in the 2018 calendar year. 7 got no benefit from HT, 21 got one level of benefit, and 11 got two levels of benefits.

LUUUUUUUUUKE

GPB wrote:The Home tour points part of the SoF is still there.  Iit does have a pro PGATour bias, (and a pro - EuroTour bias)

But IMO, it is trivial.  This week (like most weeks),  it makes a ONE Level difference.  Valspar is projected at 50, it would be a 48 w/o HT Points.

There were 39 PGA Tournaments in the 2018 calendar year.  7 got no benefit from HT, 21 got one level of benefit, and 11 got two levels of benefits.

OK, Thanks.

The only counterpoint I would offer is that most non-US Tours don't have the built in bias of high value, limited field, tournaments.
Now, obviously non-Americans benefit from these as well by virtue of high owg ranking, but these are heavily biased towards US players - unless they are properly distributed around the world. And I don't mean Hawaii or the Bahamas.

NedB-H wrote:LUUUUUUUUUKE

Indeed. Wonder where that's coming from and can he make it last?

navyblueshorts wrote:

NedB-H wrote:LUUUUUUUUUKE

Indeed. Wonder where that's coming from and can he make it last?

Hopefully at the very least it's an indication that he's healthy. Good work from Russell Knox also.

I think some of the players caddies have nicknames on their bibs.

kwinigolfer wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

NedB-H wrote:LUUUUUUUUUKE

Indeed. Wonder where that's coming from and can he make it last?

Hopefully at the very least it's an indication that he's healthy. Good work from Russell Knox also.

Yep. Shows how much I know as I didn't know he'd been struggling with a disc injury.

I knew Luke had been crying injury but assumed it was a chicken and egg case of finding something to blame as his form started to decline. Didn’t think he’d ever get back to playing well, fit or not.

Didn't he have a heart issue at one point as well?

McLaren wrote:Didn't he have a heart issue at one point as well?

I think so, Mac. We'll know how complete his overall recovery is when he plays at Hilton Head . . . . . .

Casey on the move as he defends his title.

Amazingly Rizla Johnson got shot of the day yesterday, how anything anyone did could top Journeyman Knox's shot I don't know.

PED's fine, weed not so much.  



Poor Robert Garrigus.

Garrigus has gone up in my estimations, never realised he was so interesting.

Kwini was wondering earlier in the week who would be the customary WDs from the matchplay. Doug Ferguson says that Fowler and Scott are the only players skipping it; they’ve both missed the last two also. Means serial avoiders Rose, Stenson and Mickelson are presumably committed. Joost Luiten and Luke List the beneficiaries at #65 and #66, who both seem to be around the cutoff mark year after year. Kodaira is the next man in if someone else withdraws.

McLaren wrote:PED's fine, weed not so much.  



Poor Robert Garrigus.

Can't imagine this would be a surprise given his history of boasting about his doing doobies during a round in his web.com days. What a berk, no sympathy whatsoever.

And, coincidentally, Valspar was an event he could've/would've/should've won a few years ago. Played in the final group with Kevin Na at his most glacial and started batting it all over the Copperhead course, earning Garrigus the bad times instead of the dawdling Na.


70 players teeing off in a moment, all within 7 strokes of the lead - everyone still with a chance of the "W". Except the idiotic Garrigus.

Presumably Stenson has suspended his dislike of the new match play format.

No doubt his current positioning of his FEX standing (181st & guaranteed points) and has only played 3 PGAT events thus far (4th this week), is part of the reason why he is playing

GPB,
Or it could equally be that Stenson has lost "Houston" from his regular list of Tour stops, played 6 of the past 7 years (with 2 x runner up finishes plus a 6th) and doesn't fancy San Antonio. And it could easily be that's why Phil has signed up too.

No-one setting it alight this morning; there must be more pars at Innisbrook, relative to bogeys or birds, than any other tournament course.

Mickelson has played the Match Play every year since it went to Austin.

kwinigolfer wrote:

No-one setting it alight this morning; there must be more pars at Innisbrook, relative to bogeys or birds, than any other tournament course.

Data is not easy to mine, but last year,

the players that made the cut at Valspar made pars 66.8% of the time.
As of 1:45 Pm Tampa time, this year the "Make par" percentage is 66.1% (players that made the cut)

Last week at the Players, the entire field made pars 59.8% of the time.

Seems to bear out my perception.


My point about Phil is that he said he would no longer be playing courses he didn't play well, or have good results on.

Not sure that one quarter final result in 3 years qualified, but maybe he likes Austin . . . . . .


Come on Casey . . . .

My guess is that Phil will be ANGC this Monday and Tues.

Austin is a convenient layover on the way home.

A nasty nine on the very excellent Par-4 16th hole has ruined a decent round for Sergio - hope he behaves.

Nothing better than a handful of 3-under-par 68's so far - that must suit Casey & DJ.

1st: Casey
T2: Donald

All very well at 2.45 p.m., what will it look like at 6.00 p.m.?

McDowell making a mess of his Sunday, a move backwards he can ill afford.

Luke Donald can't win on Tour if he keeps missing 3 foot putts.

All to play for, for about a dozen pros.

McDole gets to go again next week in Puerto Rico I see. Paul Dunne and Thomas Detry taking up the customary random European invites.

McDowell missed the DR cut last year, but a smart move to play next week.
And Dunne had a fine tournament, T5.


Very surprised that DJ has played so flat today, but what a win this would be for Casey. Hope he finishes it off.

Time to put money on Fleetwood, Hatton, Stenson, Sergio, Rahm, Olesen, Rose, Poults and Noren for the MatchPlay.

Fantastic second shot on 18 under pressure. That was looking for all the world like a playoff between at -7 between top ten machines who don’t win.

First time since the Florida swing seven years ago that Europeans have won three PGAT events back to back. And yet there haven’t been consecutive European winners once all season so far on their “home” tour.

Yup, (JR, RM, LD), had to check up on Justin!

Casey probably playing the best golf of his career, regardless of his higher owgr position. Not much good last week, but wonderful consistency and some great short game to go with the ball-striking this week.

Will be interested to see which direction Luke goes now.

Casey doesn’t look or play like a 41 year old, you never know with him whether the uber relaxed attitude is real as he hasn’t been the greatest finisher to say the least. This was a very good win under pressure though, he’s certainly playing some great golf.

Agreed Digs, but he has been a good Match Play competitor over the years.

He kept his head while all around . . . . . . . today, good to see. Still a bloke you wouldn't necessarily want to go for a drink with.
Will have a very good week at the Match Play if he keeps playing like this.

NedB-H wrote:McDole gets to go again next week in Puerto Rico I see. Paul Dunne and Thomas Detry taking up the customary random European invites.

I think McDowell should go back to being a fat accountant.

Well done Mr Casey.

Actually got to watch about half an hour of it on Saturday, looks tight, firm with good pin placements on some interesting looking greens. Not a huge surprise that the scores were high and really bunched at the top. Makes it much more interesting than a -24 smash fest.

Nice win by Casey. Really kept his composure.

When he played the BMW at Aronimink this past Fall, my wife had to run to the Villanova University bookstore to get his caddie the socks for that weekend. (Villanova won the Basketball National Championship last year). Imagine he has literally hundreds of pairs at this point.

Shotrock wrote:Nice win by Casey. Really kept his composure.

When he played the BMW at Aronimink this past Fall, my wife had to run to the Villanova University bookstore to get his caddie the socks for that weekend. (Villanova won the Basketball National Championship last year). Imagine he has literally hundreds of pairs at this point.

!! When we followed them at Plainfield, McClaren wore Yankees socks one day, Red Sox the next! Already McClaren's 3rd Valspar win . . . . . .


MatchPlay starting Wednesday, still just Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler scheduled no-shows from those qualified.
And a Thursday start in the DR.
As Ned reported, Detry, Dunners and McDool in the field; others include:
Badds, Brian Davis, Frittelli, David Lipsky, Power, Charl Schwartzel. No Martin Laird, but can't imagine why.

Why can I never have any sympathy for Feherty?

https://www.golfchannel.com/news/david-feherty-reveals-relapse-interview-bryant-gumbel


Very surprised there have been no withdrawals from the Match Play, other than Fowler & Scott who never signed up in the first place.