Olympia Fields Not The Elysian Fields for the Golf Pros This Week

 Well, what do you know.  I doubt the 70 Tour players remaining in the FedExCup Playoffs petitioned officials to toughen up the North Course at Olympia Fields country club, for this weekend’s BMW championship.  Nevertheless, the scores which were absurdly low in last week’s Northern Trust have gone from the ridiculous to the sublime during the first three days of the BMW Championship (for those that prefer that professional golfers strain to tame a golf course, like the rest of us.)   

To refresh our collective memories, Dustin Johnson won last week’s first leg of the FedExCup Playoffs in the Northern Trust tournament by posting a score of 30 under par, pitch and putt course numbers. This week at the BMW Championship only three players posted a round under par in the first round, and after three rounds only two players, the aforementioned Dustin Johnson and one Hideki Matsuyama are under par, and only one shot under par at that.

I observed last week that the pros rampaging under par at the Northern Trust would experience a rude awakening when they got to the U.S. Open and the narrow fairways of the West Course at Winged Foot. It appears that I jumped to conclusions.

Just for the record, according to PGA Tour records, the last players to finish a non-major tour event with an even par or worse score was Billy Mayfair in the 1995 Tour Championship at even par, and Greg Norman at the 1990 Memorial Tournament at even par. The last golfer to win a non-major tour event with a score over par in a non-major PGA tour event was Bruce Lietzke at the 1981 Byron Nelson Golf Classic.  It’s not likely the BMW winner will finish level with par or below, but the lower scores are a welcome respite from the absurd scores from the prior week.

 

AMDG

© R. E. Kelly 2012-2020

So Is the FedExCup

 The FedExCup is now in the midst of its 14th season, and like the scores at the Northern Trust,  it also is a joke.  Golf fans now have a sufficient sample size to discern that the FedExCup, despite its prestigious spelling, is simply a money grab for golf professionals and a marketing strategy for FedEx.  The so-called playoff format is a true gimmick, and the cockamamie FedExCup Starting Strokes system, if you can understand it, is ludicrous.  No matter how much money you throw at it (albeit $60 million total in bonus money in this years’ FedExCup Playoffs, with the FedExCup champion taking home a cool $15 million, is nothing to sneeze at) the Fedex Cup Playoffs will never come close to rivalling in importance golf’s four major championships, and the FedExCup itself will pale in comparison to the Claret Jug or any of the trophies for winning a major championship, no matter what the prize money (and no matter the trophy is designed and designed and crafted by Tiffany & Co.) This is especially true if the golf courses utilized for the Fedex Cup Playoffs resemble pitch-and-putt layouts in terms of scoring.  Perhaps the FedExCup participants should just putt the ball into the clown’s nose on the final hole to win the sterling silver FedExCup trophy.

Tiffany's Finest

I quiver with anticipation for the comeuppance the professional golfers are going to experience when they hit the links at Winged Foot for the U.S. Open in three weeks.  Ooh boy, will that be something to behold.

AMDG

Copyright R.E. Kelly 2012-2020

30-Under is Ridiculous

 Dustin Johnson posted a winning score of 30-under par 254 strokes to win the Northern Trust tournament, the second leg of the Fedex Cup playoffs, at TPC Boston last week.  After recording  an opening round of 4-under 67, Golf.com reported that Johnson went 26-under in the final three rounds, shoot an 11-under 60 in the second round, 7-under 64 in the third round and a 8-under 63 in the final round for a 30-under total, an 11-shot victory and his 22nd career win. 

Johnson’s total tied for the second-best score over 72 holes in relation to par since 1950, when records began. In 2003, Ernie Els finished 31-under at the Mercedes Championships, and in 2016, Jordan Spieth finished 30-under at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. 

Look, Johnson is a very good golfer. He has now won 22 PGA tour events.  He’s been the Official World Golf Ranking’s number 1-ranked golfer 5 times previously for a total of 92 weeks, and has returned to the top of the rankings for the 6^th time as a result of his victory at the Northern Trust. But he has only won one major.  And the TPC Boston course was a joke. Scott Scheffler shot a 59 in the first round, and Johnson was on his way to a score of 59 or perhaps lower in the second round before easing off the proverbial gas pedal. (Johnson was 11-under par after 11 holes!!).  In a word, the scoring for a supposedly important tournament was a joke.           

                                                                    AMDG

                                                       R.E.Kelly 2012 -2020

 

 

 

 

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP 2020; VIEWS FROM THE COUCH

 

Observations after the first three days of the 2020 PGA championship:

1.  From this fan’s perspective the TPC Harding Park golf course is a bust. Kudos for using a municipal course for the PGA Championship for a second consecutive year.  However, to this observer’s eye it is the most boring layout for a major championship in recent memory. It is wide open and flat, allowing the big hitters (read: DJ, the insufferable Bryson the Mad Scientist, the aptly-named Cameron Champion – maybe PGA Champion after today - and Brooks Koepka) to bomb away, giving them a huge advantage over the distance-challenged rest of the field.  (Of the top 17 golfers on the PGA leaderboard heading into Sunday, the top 3 (DJ, Champion, Scheffler),  4 of the top 6 and 8 of the top 17 (more than half) were in the top 21 in this season’s Driving Distance, according to PGA statistics, with Champion a scant 3 yards average behind the first-place Mad Scientist.

And the fact that there is only one par-five hole on each nine, one of them 605 yards long (!), the other 562 yards in  length, one par-four at 515 yards, and five more par-four holes weighing in at 470 yards or longer, renders the course even more challenging for the shorter hitters (and boring to those of us at home.). If not for a stiff breeze and uneven distribution of rough surrounding the fairways and greens, the scores would closely resemble vastly under-par scores at the typical weekly PGA stop at the West Tumbleweed Open.

2.  The ESPN coverage is unspeakably abominable. I have been watching for three days and I still don't know who the commentators are for ESPN. If I didn't know the voice of Scott Van Pelt and his reference on air to David Duval I would be completely in the dark. And OMG, Andy North, really? Not only does he add nothing to the telecast, but he also  he has been assigned for some strange reason to cover Tiger Woods and his so-called marquee group. Granted, North won the U.S. Open twice, but that was 42 and 35 years ago, respectively when the courses were engineered to favor short, accurate hitters. 

On the other hand, North won only one other tournament on the PGA Tour, and missed the cut in 40% of the majors in which he participated.

And about the aforementioned SVP. I realize that he is, speaking of marquee attractions, the king of ESPN, in terms of longevity and some limited talent in certain situations.  But hosting ESPN’S golf coverage is not one of them.  Granted, the bar established by his predecessor Chris “Boomer” Berman from 1986 to 2014, was set remarkably low.  Nevertheless, SVP’s succession of snarky remarks and inside references to cultural artifacts, n one of which were pertinent to the golf tournament being held in the background, are typical of the smugness exhibited by ESPN personalities over the years from the golden age of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann  to the present day.  But this attitude is completely off-putting in 2020 (and they wonder why ESPN’s ratings are down.) 

Oh, and is there some unwritten rule that ESPN may not hire a commentator who speaks with a British or other, similar foreign accent?  Good grief.  Who knew that golf audiences everywhere  would be pining for the dulcet tones of Jim Nantz, Nick Faldo and the other supremely  professional commentators on the CBS golf coverage.  And if I hear one more reference “Georgia bulldogs” I may scream.

3.  This is stating the obvious but Tiger Woods can't putt worth a lick any more. It is one of the reasons why this blogger predicted that Tiger Woods would not win this event. And most likely will not win another major and may not win another golf event. Anytime a golfer changes putters right before an event it is not a good sign.

                                                           AMDG

                                    Copyright  R.E. Kelly 2012-2020