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GolfWRX Morning 9: More pairings speculation | Mickelson: Tiger’s never swung better | No love for Jacklin?

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1. Pairings speculation, redux
A tweet from the PGA Tour…
“Today’s practice pairings:
Reed, Spieth, JT, Woods
DeChambeau, Mickelson, Simpson, Watson
Finau, Fowler, DJ, Koepka
Casey, Hatton, Olesen, Stenson
Fleetwood, Molinari, Noren, Poulter
Garcia, McIlroy, Rahm, Rose”
Golfweek’s Kevin Casey offered this
  • “A lot has been made (obviously) of who Tiger Woods’ partner will be. Interesting that Patrick Reed has been in his foursome both days. Yes, Jordan Spieth/Reed has been a killer pairing, but it seems more and more possible that duo could be split up.”
  • “Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau have also been paired together both days. A Woods/DeChambeau pairing has been much discussed, but Mickelson and DeChambeau do have similar analytical styles.”
  • “On the European side, Tommy Fleetwood and Ian Poulter were in the same pairing both days. That all-English duo could be formidable if the thinking went that way…You’d believe, too, that captain Thomas Bjorn will look to pair 28-year-old rookie Thorbjorn Olesen with a grizzled Ryder Cup vet. To wit, Paul Casey has been in both practice pairings with Olesen.”
2. Bjorn was once critical of the strategy he eventually employed in his captain’s picks?
Our Stuart Bell makes some interesting points…”And for that reason, Thomas Bjorn did not need to load the team with experience, something that Darren Clarke got badly wrong last time out. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to point the finger at the out-of-form veterans Westwood and Kaymer-had they come to the fore it would have been seen as a stroke of genius. But they didn’t and were shown to be just that: out-of-form veterans.”
  • “So in that regard, it’s very surprising that Bjorn has gone the same way. Particularly given his own comments on Ian Woosnam’s team in the 2006 edition, when Clarke and Lee Westwood were selected.”
  • “I haven’t heard a word off him for half a year, and I’ve spoken to several players who are on the team, and have been for a long time, and they haven’t either. What sort of captaincy is that? I have lost all respect for him.”
  • “My relationship with him is completely dead and will remain so. This will be the first time I don’t even watch the Ryder Cup on television, and you don’t know how sad that is, given how much I care for that tournament I desperately want the 12 players to be a success, but I want them to do it in spite of the captain.”
  • “If the decision was based on competitive results, then I could go along with it. But it seems there’s other reasons. He’s based his decision on results which happened five years ago.”
  • “Parallels are certainly evident with his own selections of Paul Casey, and more so Sergio Garcia-deemed lucky by many to selected by the captain. Henrik Stenson caused a little concern with his injury; it’s contributed to his lack of points, and he’d have almost certainly qualified on merit if fit.”

Full piece

3. Tiger-Phil pairing? Probably not
Captain Furyk threw cold water on the idea.
“I guess nothing’s out of the realm. They did play some golf yesterday. I think they both mentioned it would be a lot better pairing than it was in the past. You know, I won’t ever say it wouldn’t happen, but it’s probably not too likely.”
4. Mickelson: Tiger is swinging the club as well as he ever has

Mickelson…”It was evident last week when he won, to see the response and the way the people responded to him and the way that people responded to the game, and the excitement level, the energy that he brings. You know, he’s been playing some remarkable golf.”

  • “This is the best I think I’ve ever seen him swing the club, even going back to 2000, when I thought he was at his best. He’s striking it so solidly that nobody was surprised that has played with him that he won, and I think that now that that first win is out of the way, I think he’s going to start rattling off some more.”
5. The perils of pairing with Tiger
It’s never easy…Cameron Morfit looks at Woods’ past Ryder Cup pairings–and some rotten results.
  • “Tiger Woods and Mark Calcavecchia were never supposed to play in Foursomes (alternate-shot) at the 2002 Ryder Cup at The Belfry. Birdie-machine Calcavecchia seemed more appropriate for Four-ball play, but two things led to the Tiger-Calcavecchia pairing. First of all, they were friends, having played practice rounds together, and “Calc” wouldn’t be intimidated by Woods’ aura. And secondly, there was something Calcavecchia knew that U.S. Captain Curtis Strange didn’t, or at least didn’t seem to take into account: Playing with Ken Green and Payne Stewart, Calcavecchia had gone 4-0 in previous Ryder Cup Foursomes.”
  • “I actually had to talk Curtis into it,” Calcavecchia said recently. “I brought it to his attention. I said, ‘Let me play with Tiger, I’ll get you a win.’…”I would have thought, teeing off, that there was no way we could lose.”
  • “Woods has had 12 partners in Foursomes and Four-ball play, going 4-8-1 and 5-8-0 respectively, for an un-Tiger-like 9-16-1 record in the matches that make up the first two days (and 16 of 28 points) of the competition.”
6. Rich Hunt on the Ryder Cup
GolfWRX Featured Writer and statistician to PGA Tour pros Rich Hunt joined the TG2 podcast to discuss a variety of subjects, including the upcoming action at Le Golf National.
  • A few takes…”For alternate shot…I would keep Webb Simpson away from the four-ball format. And it’s very important for captains to get all 12 players playing on day one…the teams that get all 12 players playing on day one do the best…somebody like Rickie Fowler would be a really good pairing for Webb Simpson. Rickie’s been…very accurate off the tee. Webb Simpson’s biggest weakness is shots from the rough. He needs a partner who can find a lot of fairways so that they can capitalize on Webb’s play on the approach shots.”
  • “I also like…Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods together, and also Tiger and Bryson DeChambeau as well. They pair up really well. When Tiger’s driver is a little bit off…Bryson is really good out of the rough this year. Conversely, Bryson has been one the best drivers on Tour, and then you’ve got Tiger’s iron play. So it’s a really good match.”

More from Rich, including the full pod

7. Bubba blue glove
Bubba Watson, in what was apparently not a coordinated marketing stunt for his glove sponsor, did his Ryder Cup press conference yesterday with a blue golf glove on his hand.
  • Golfweek’s Kevin Casey...”Watson responded by noting that American players like to challenge each other to do silly things during team events, so …  “I said I’ve got to wear my glove the whole interviews. So I’m doing it.”
  • “Got to have something to do. Golf gets boring after awhile. A lot like Justin (Thomas) said, a long year, we’re all pretty tired….”(It’s) just being dumb with the team. It’s like there’s a certain guy, I’m not going to say who, had to say certain words in their interviews. Who knows if they said ’em.”
  • “So that sort of makes sense, in an odd way. That is until, per Golf Digest, you factor in Jordan Spieth’s responses when he was asked about Watson’s glove as part of some team joke….”I don’t even know anything about it,” Spieth said. “He just was in the locker room and said, ‘I think I’m going to wear my glove in media.’ Is there something else?”
8. Stats of note
Golf Channel’s Justin Ray looks at a few key numbers…”Since 2006, the Americans have been outscored by a combined 15 points in the three Ryder Cups contested in Europe. Each side’s star players are the chief reason why. In those three Ryder Cups (2006, 2010 and 2014), European players ranked in the top-ten in the World Ranking have a combined match record of 25-8-9, good for 0.70 points per match. The Americans in the top-ten are 14-27-5 (0.36 points per match) in that same span. Contrast that to 2016 at Hazeltine, where the American top-ten players (9-6-2) outplayed their European counterparts (5-8-0).”
And this on the quality of the squads…”The 2018 Ryder Cup features each of the top-ten in the World Ranking for the first time (the Ranking began in 1986). The average World Ranking of the two teams is 15.1 – the best in this event’s history. The U.S. team is especially stout, with a roster featuring an average World Ranking of 11.2 – best of any team in the event’s history. Eleven of the top-17 players in the world are on the American side, and the lowest-ranked player, Mickelson (25), is the most experienced player in U.S. Ryder Cup history.”
9. Why doesn’t Jacklin get credit?
John Huggan thinks we’d be right to remember Tony Jacklin more in remembering the history of the Ryder Cup.
“Not without justification, Seve Ballesteros has been credited with having more than a little influence in the resurrection of the Ryder Cup. Before 1979, when the continental Europeans became eligible to compete for the Old World side, Great Britain & Ireland’s increasingly futile efforts had reduced the biennial clash to little more than a gentile garden party. Yes, everyone had a jolly nice time. But the Americans always won. Invariably comfortably. That all changed in 1983 at PGA National in Florida when Seve-significantly backed-up by the likes of Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle-made the matches consistently competitive for the first time. Motivated by an agonizing single-point loss that year, Europe didn’t finish second again in the Ryder Cup until 1991.”
“But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The start of the transformation from 1981 at Walton Heath-when Seve did not play because of an on-going appearance money dispute with the European Tour-and two years later in Palm Beach Gardens was not actually initiated by the endlessly charismatic Spaniard. That honor must go to another man controversially omitted from the playing on the ’81 squad. Step forward Tony Jacklin. Without the presence and influence of the former British Open and U.S. Open champion, there might not have been a Seve and, in turn, the Ryder Cup as we know it today.”

 

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. WILLIAM J RIEGER

    Sep 27, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    Re: Huggan’s article on Jacklin: “Before 1979, when the continental Europeans became eligible to compete for the Old World side, Great Britain & Ireland’s increasingly futile efforts had reduced the biennial clash to little more than a gentile garden party.”

    I didn’t know the Ryder Cup was restricted !

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Morning 9: Wyndham Clark on back injury | DiMarco’s bold Champions Tour take | Houston Open photos

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By Ben Alberstadt with Gianni Magliocco.

For comments: [email protected]

Good Thursday morning, golf fans, as day one of the Houston Open gets underway.

1. Wyndham Clark hurts back…still hopes to play

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach…”Reigning U.S. Open winner Wyndham Clark injured his back while working out at home Monday, but he hopes to play in this week’s Texas Children’s Houston Open, which starts Thursday at Memorial Park Golf Course.”

  • “Clark, the fourth-ranked golfer in the world, said he was lifting weights and “got caught in an awkward spot doing a lift and [his] back went.”
  • “It’s not something that happens regularly, but it happened and you live and you learn,” Clark said. “I’m trending in the right direction. I’m hitting it or feeling stronger and more mobile every day. I’m going to give it my best effort tomorrow and hopefully I can play and compete. If not, I’ve got to get ready for tournaments to come after this.”
Full piece.

2. DiMarco’s bold Champions Tour take

Our Matt Vincenzi…”While speaking on the Subpar podcast, former PGA Tour winner and current PGA Tour Champions player Chris DiMarco said he hopes LIV buys the Champions Tour.”

  • “We’re kind of hoping that LIV buys the Champions Tour,” he said.
  • “Let’s play for a little real money out here. I mean this is kind of a joke when we’re getting $2 million. There were like seven guys last week from TPC (Sawgrass, at the $25 million PLAYERS Championship) that made more money than our purses.”
Full piece.

3. Charley Hull’s course management problem?

Our Matt Vincenzi…”Charley Hull came just short of her third LPGA Tour victory over the weekend at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship when she played her last two holes at 3 over to slip all the way to 10th on the leaderboard.”

  • “After the round, Hull was blasted by Sky Sports commentator and former LPGA Tour player Trish Johnson for her lack of golf course management.”
  • “While speaking on the Sky Sports Golf podcast, Johnson spoke harshly of Hull.”
  • “I’m probably her harshest critic, because I know how good she is. She doesn’t win anywhere near enough for her talent, and she doesn’t get involved enough, in all honestly.
  • “The thing with Charley is that you’re never going to change her. I read something the other day that said how much she loves the game and it’s her love of the game [that costs her]. She’s never going to change and she’s just going to go for every pin.
  • “In theory that’s great, but it won’t win you golf tournaments, it just won’t because she’s not that much better than anybody else.
Full piece.

4. Sahith’s interesting idea

Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”Which brings Theegala to his big idea: “There’s got to be something, like a fan challenge or – I think it would be awesome to see a scratch handicap go out and play like the Monday after a tournament, keep the same conditions and see what they would shoot just to put it into perspective how hard a PGA Tour golf course is.”

  • “Theegala loves the thought so much that he’d even come out and watch.”
  • “Shoot, I’d commentate on it,” Theegala added before continuing, “I have a pet peeve, sometimes when I watch golf on TV, a great example is hole 8 at Valspar last week. It’s a 230-yard par 3, the green’s 12 yards wide and someone will hit the middle of the green and, you know, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, really smart shot there.’ I’m like, ‘Well, no, he’s absolutely laced this 4-iron in the middle of the green, that’s right where he’s looking and to hit a 4-iron that straight is really, really hard.’ … Even like chipping, a lot of the stuff just looks flat on TV, but then when you get over the chip, like, oh, great, I have to land it over a mound on a downslope down grain?”
Full piece.

5. Top am Rachel Heck not going pro

Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”As Rachel Heck nears the end of her college golf career, she has decided that the LPGA isn’t for her.’

  • “Heck, the 22-year-old Stanford senior who won an NCAA individual title as a freshman and has climbed as high as second in the world amateur rankings, penned a first-person essay for No Laying Up in which she explained her reasoning for remaining amateur after graduation this summer and starting an internship not in professional golf but rather private equity. Heck, a political science major, also will be pinned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.”

Read her piece on No Laying Up: https://nolayingup.com/blog/why-im-remaining-an-amateur

Full piece.

6. DJ’s new LIV signing

Golf Monthly’s Elliott Heath…”Dustin Johnson‘s LIV Golf team 4Aces GC has announced former TravisMathew CEO Chris Rosaasen as the side’s new General Manager.”

  • “Rosaasen, who is a long-time friend of Johnson, is also the founder of the team’s apparel sponsor Extracurricular and has been CEO of the Omniverse Group for the past four years.
  • “He joins with more than 20 years of “brand-building, marketing, and business leadership” according to LIV Golf, which says his “record of innovation in the golf industry will strengthen and accelerate the growth of the 4Aces GC brand.”
Full piece.

7. Photos from the Houston Open

  • Check out all of our photos from this week’s event!
Full piece.
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Four books for a springtime review

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One thing that never changes over time: snowy evenings give purpose to reading (is it the other way around?) It has been a snowy 2024 in western New York, and I’ve had ample time to tuck into an easy chair with a blanket, coffee, and a book. You’re in luck, because despite the title of this piece, I’ll share five books and their worth with you.

There is great breadth of subject matter from one to five. Golf is as complicated as life, which means that the cover of the book isn’t worth judging. The contents begin the tale, but there is so much more to each topic presented within. If you’re like me, your library grows each year. Despite the value of the virtual, the paper-printed word connects us to the past of golf and humanity. Here’s hoping that you’ll add one or more of these titles to your collection.

        

Rainmaker

Hughes Norton interviewed with Mark McCormack for 20 minutes (30 if you count the missed exit at Logan International) while driving the founder of IMG from Harvard to the airport. The lesson of taking advantage of each moment, of every dollar, because you might not get another opportunity, is the most valuable one that life offers. I say to you, be certain to read this book, because another opportunity to bend the ear of Hughes Norton may not come our way.

Hughes Norton was with Tiger Woods for waaayyy fewer years than you might guess, but they were the critical ones. Be warned: not all of the revelations in this tome are for the faint of heart. Some, in fact, will break your heart. Golf was a sleepy hamlet in the 1990s, until the 16-lane interstate called Eldrick “Tiger” Woods came into town. Everything changed, which meant that everything would change again and again, into eternity. Once the ball starts rolling, it’s impossible to stop.

My favorite aspect of this book is its candor. Hughes Norton is well into his time on Planet Earth. He has no reason to hold back, and he doesn’t. My least favorite aspect is that George Peper got the call to co-author the book (and I didn’t.) Seriously, there is no LFA for me, so this is the best that I could do.

Decision: Buy It!

The Golf Courses of Seth Raynor

Michael Wolf, James Sitar, and Jon Cavalier, in abject partnership, collaborated to produce a handsome volume on the work of gone-too-soon, engineer-turned-golf course architect. Seth Raynor was pulled into the game by Charles Blair MacDonald, the crusty godfather of American golf. Raynor played little golf across the 51 years of his life. His reason? He did not wish to corrupt his designs with the demands and failings of his own game.

Jon Cavalier began his photography career as a contributor to the Golf Club Atlas discussion group. I met him there in a virtual way (we still have yet to shake hands) and have exchanged numerous emails over the years. Despite the demands of his day job, Cavalier has blossomed into the most traveled and prolific course photographer alive today. His photography, both hand-held and drone, makes the pages pop. Michael Wolf invited me and two friends to play his home course, despite having never met any of us in person. His words, melded to those of James Sitar, are the glue that connect Cavalier’s photos.

My favorite aspect of the books is the access it gives to the private-club world of Raynor. Fewer than five of his courses are resort or public access, and knowing people on the inside is not available to all. My suggestion? Write a letter/email and see if a club will let you play. Can’t hurt to try! My one complaint about the book is its horizontal nature. Golf is wide, but I like a little vertical in my photos. It’s not much of a complaint, given the glorious contents within the covers.

Decision: Buy It!!

Big Green Book from The Golfer’s Journal

Beginning with its (over)size, and continuing through the entire contents, there is no descriptor that defines the genre of the Big Green Book. It is photography, essay, layout, poetry, graphics, and stream of consciousness. It harnesses the creative power of a lengthy masthead of today’s finest golf contributors. Quotes from Harvey Penick, verse from Billy Collins, and prose from John Updike partner with images pure and altered, to immerse you in the diverse golf spaces that define this planet.

One of my favorite aspects is the spaces between the words and photos. Have your friends and others write a few notes to you in those blank areas, to personalize your volume even more. One aspect that needs improvement: the lack of female voices. I suspect that will be remedied in future volumes.

Decision: Buy It!!!

Troublemaker and The Unplayable Lie

Books that allege discrimination and mistreatment check two boxes: potentially-salacious reads and debate over whose perspective is accurate. In the end, the presentation of salacious revelation rarely meets the expectation, and the debate over fault is seldom resolved. Lisa Cornwell spent years as a competitive junior and college golfer, before joining The Golf Channel as a reporter and program host.

Despite the dream assignments, there were clouds that covered the sun. Cornwell documents episodes of favoritism and descrimination against her, prior to her departure from The Golf Channel in 2021. Her work echoes the production of the late Marcia Chambers, who wrote for Golf Digest in the 1980s and 1990s. Chambers took issue with many of the potential and real legal issues surrounding golf and its policies of access/no access. Her research culminated in The Unplayable Lie, the first work of its kind to address issues confronted by all genders and ethnicities, and immediately predated the professional debut of Tiger Woods in 1997.

My favorite aspects of the two works, are the courage and conviction that it took to write them, and believe in them. My least favorite aspects are the consistent bias that many groups continue to face. Without awareness, there is no action. Without action, there is no change.

Decision: Buy Them!!!!

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Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open

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GolfWRX is on site in the Lone Star State this week for the Texas Children’s Houston Open.

General galleries from the putting green and range, WITBs — including Thorbjorn Olesen and Zac Blair — and several pull-out albums await.

As always, we’ll continue to update as more photos flow in. Check out links to all our photos from Houston below.

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.

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