2019 PGA Tour

Thanks.

Anyway, as interesting as the two semifinals have been, there should be more golf on the course today. Everyone who loses in the Round of 16 should play an additional consolation match on Sunday to determine who finishes T9 or T13, and everyone who loses in the Quarterfinals should also play on Sunday to determine who finishes T5 or T7 (all with important OWGR points at play). That would give you six additional matches to put on the course: put three of the R16 loser matches on course in the morning, and the most attractive of the R16 loser matches along with the QF loser matches in the afternoon, so that there are five matches in play during each session. Who would complain about that?
 

johnmd20

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No action in this thread because of the popularity of players involved but also because match play is pretty brutal at the end.

It's two guys, and the consolation match, which is useless, except that it doubles the amount of shots they can show. Ultimately, it's pretty boring.
 

TFP

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These last matches feel like they’re always bad golf because guys are just out of gas in their 7th match in 5 days. Lotta pars winning holes out here.
 

TFP

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What a putt by Kisner. Very happy for him, great win.

Both guys in the last match clear $1 million too.
 

Zomp

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Glad to see Kisner win. I’ve lost all respect for Kuchar since the caddy story and to be honest I don’t think he was 100% truthful yesterday either. But Kisner seems like a bunch of guys I grew up with playing golf. Loves his beer, likes hanging out with his buddies. Wouldn’t mind seeing him on a Ryder cup team.
 

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Glad to see Kisner win. I’ve lost all respect for Kuchar since the caddy story and to be honest I don’t think he was 100% truthful yesterday either. But Kisner seems like a bunch of guys I grew up with playing golf. Loves his beer, likes hanging out with his buddies. Wouldn’t mind seeing him on a Ryder cup team.
Would have loved him on the 2018 Ryder Cup Team. Straight hitter, great putter, unflappable, gets along with everyone. Would have been perfect at Le Golf Nacional.

He just seems like a regular dude who happens to be really really good at golf.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Glad to see Kisner win. I’ve lost all respect for Kuchar since the caddy story and to be honest I don’t think he was 100% truthful yesterday either. But Kisner seems like a bunch of guys I grew up with playing golf. Loves his beer, likes hanging out with his buddies. Wouldn’t mind seeing him on a Ryder cup team.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think he was lying about yesterday? It’s not his fault Sergio is a hot head and tried to back slap in his tap in.
As to the caddie thing, I get people thinking he should have thrown him more without getting beat up about it, but I also understand his stance that they had an agreement. I’m not willing to go as far as ‘lost all respect’ but to each their own.
 
Yeah, I think Kuchar made a mistake in Mexico that has had a massive, out-of-proportion effect on his reputation relative to what should have happened. Add the Sergio thing the other day, and he really risks becoming a heel in the sport in a way which...well, I don't think "unfair" is the right word, but "unfortunate" probably is.
No action in this thread because of the popularity of players involved but also because match play is pretty brutal at the end.

It's two guys, and the consolation match, which is useless, except that it doubles the amount of shots they can show. Ultimately, it's pretty boring.
FWIW, in looking at the Saturday results, my above proposal would have led to these matches being played yesterday:

SUNDAY MORNING:
Kisner v Molinari (SF)
Kuchar v Bjerregaard (SF)
Stenson v McIlroy (R16 losers)
Hatton v Grace (R16 losers)
Leishman v Li (R16 losers)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON:
Kisner v Kuchar (Final)
Molinari v Bjerregaard (3rd/4th)
Woods v Garcia (QF losers)
Oosthuizen v Na (QF losers)
Rose v Casey (R16 losers)

Or feel free to flip Stenson/McIlroy and Rose/Casey if you think the former is more exciting/marketable than the latter. Every Sunday golf telecast features tens if not hundreds of shots by players who have no chance to win the tournament, and who are playing to improve their final finish and gain ranking points (etc.); why can't we do that with matchplay? I agree with @gtg807y that the players probably wouldn't be super-keen on it, but for the R16 losers it just means you've played a single match on each of five days instead of four in a normal week, and for the QF losers it's one more match after getting the Sunday morning off. And you don't think NBC would have loved to have Woods v Garcia on the docket yesterday?
 

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Just out of curiosity, what do you think he was lying about yesterday? It’s not his fault Sergio is a hot head and tried to back slap in his tap in.
As to the caddie thing, I get people thinking he should have thrown him more without getting beat up about it, but I also understand his stance that they had an agreement. I’m not willing to go as far as ‘lost all respect’ but to each their own.
Yeah, I think Kuchar made a mistake in Mexico that has had a massive, out-of-proportion effect on his reputation relative to what should have happened.
I'm going to disagree pretty strongly with the idea that the reaction here is out-of-proportion.

This wasn't a "mistake." This was Kuchar getting caught taking advantage of a local caddie specifically because he assumed the caddie had no power to do anything about it. We know this to be true because, after the story broke months later, Kuchar defended his action by saying, "For a guy who makes $200 a day, $5,000 is a really big week." He then added, "I certainly don't lose any sleep over this."

If character is how we act when no one is looking, what does it say about Kuchar that he thought it perfectly acceptable to grossly underpay a man when he knew that if he had simply given him the customary amount for winning a tournament, it would have changed his life?

Kuchar will wear this like a scarlet letter because it is just that he do so.

Add the Sergio thing the other day, and he really risks becoming a heel in the sport in a way which...well, I don't think "unfair" is the right word, but "unfortunate" probably is.
What happened with Sergio is on Sergio. Other than Bones Mackay, everyone is crushing Sergio for his stupidity and petulance.
 

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re: The Sergio and Kuchar thing. Let me explain.

I played a lot of competitive golf as a kid. I won my state's Junior Amateur, I played in countless high school and college matches, and for a bit tried my hand at playing in the senior amateur events in RI before I decided I just wasn't good enough.

All of the big amateur events, a few high school tournaments, and one college tournament were all Match Play. Growing up, all everyone ever said before Match Play tournaments was "Remember, the putt isn't good unless he says it is. Don't assume." I had a situation in a Junior tournament where a kid 4 putted to halve the hole, but instead of finishing it out he went to pick up his ball. Before he did I yelled "Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on! Its good." Because I knew if I didn't say anything he would have lost the hole.

Am I saying Kuchar should have done that? Absolutely not. The mistake is on Sergio 100%

Here's what I have a problem with. Kuchar's explanation.

""And as I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one," said Kuchar. "And I saw him off the green, I said, 'Sergio, I didn't say anything, I'm not sure how this works out.' I didn't want that to be an issue. So I asked [an official], I said, 'Listen, I don't know how to handle this, but I didn't concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt.'

That's bullshit. He knows he won the hole. I don't for one second think he didn't know what that meant.

So then Sergio says this:

"quite simple," said Garcia. "I screwed it up, it's as simple as that. Obviously I missed my putt and I kind of tapped it with the back of my putter before he said anything. Yeah, it's a loss of hole. I understand that. The only issue that it was, was that Kooch was like, 'I didn't see it good, but I don't want to take the hole. I don't want to do this like this.'

"So I was like, 'Okay, it's fine, what do you want to do?' Because there are many options that you can do if you don't want to take the hole, even though I've already lost that hole. But obviously he didn't like any of the options that were there. It's fine. At the end of the day, I'm the one that made the mistake."

So if I'm Sergio, and Kuchar comes up to me apologizing and saying he didn't want to win a hole like that, I'd say exactly what he did. If Good Guy Kuch was really feeling guilty, Sergio tried to give him an out. Okay then, concede the next hole and we're even. But Kuch didn't want to do that. Because he knew what he was doing.

Again, Sergio is wrong. But Kuch, in my mind, had two options. As they are walking off the hole tell the official he conceded the putt and walk away like nothing happened, or just tell Sergio "Hey man, unlucky but I never gave that to you" and move on. Don't try to be all "Oh gee, oh I don't want to win like that...golly I just don't know what to do."

After the Caddy thing, which wasn't taken out of proportion considering he could have given him half of what his normal caddy made and looked like a hero, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
 

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Yeah, Kuchar is having an awful year. His actions are disingenuous and he should be considered a heel. He's definitely the new Bubba.
 
This wasn't a "mistake." This was Kuchar getting caught taking advantage of a local caddie specifically because he assumed the caddie had no power to do anything about it. We know this to be true because, after the story broke months later, Kuchar defended his action by saying, "For a guy who makes $200 a day, $5,000 is a really big week." He then added, "I certainly don't lose any sleep over this."

If character is how we act when no one is looking, what does it say about Kuchar that he thought it perfectly acceptable to grossly underpay a man when he knew that if he had simply given him the customary amount for winning a tournament, it would have changed his life?

Kuchar will wear this like a scarlet letter because it is just that he do so.
Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:
Kuchar said he told Ortiz he would pay him $1,000 if he missed the cut, $2,000 if he made the cut, $3,000 if he had a top-20 and $4,000 if he had a top-10. “The extra $1,000 was, ‘Thank you — it was a great week.’ Those were the terms. He was in agreement with those terms."
If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.

Should Kuchar have negotiated a different deal in the first place and offered more generous terms? I don't really know how these things work when it comes to substitute/local caddies being hired. But I'm guessing Kuchar's offer wasn't really out of line with standard practice on the Tour. And if that's the case, then yes, I think the reaction to the whole kerfuffle is absolutely over the top.
 
As for the Sergio incident, which @Zomp described well above, I think Kuchar was again slow to realize how his reactions would be perceived. He could, and perhaps should, have said to the rules official that he'd conceded the putt even if he technically hadn't. Or he could have taken the out that Sergio offered. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, I imagine that like most other PGA Tour pros, he's been conditioned to always ask for help from a rules official first when in any doubt at all. Once he did that, the scenario that unfolded was always destined to play out that way. Kuchar clearly isn't a PR wizard - he could have scored points by being brave and offering Sergio the out, just as he could have scored points by tearing up the "agreement" with Ortiz and paying full freight immediately after he'd won the tournament in Mexico. But not being quick-witted doesn't make him a bad guy, or at least it shouldn't, if that is indeed all he's really guilty of.
 

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That is Kuchar’s version of events. The
Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:

If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.

Should Kuchar have negotiated a different deal in the first place and offered more generous terms? I don't really know how these things work when it comes to substitute/local caddies being hired. But I'm guessing Kuchar's offer wasn't really out of line with standard practice on the Tour. And if that's the case, then yes, I think the reaction to the whole kerfuffle is absolutely over the top.
That is Kuchar’s version. The caddie’s version is $3K plus an unspecified percentage of Kuchar’s winnings. Normal pro caddies get 10% of the players winnings. The local caddie said he wasn’t expecting that much. It seems that the $3,000 for a week of work is a fair rate for a pro to pay a local caddie. The $1,000 or $2,000 tip, depending on who you believe (it sucks either way) on a $1.3 million pay day from a guy who has over $40 milllion in career earnings just on the PGA Tour alone is really shitty. Then he doubled and tripled down before finally making it right.

As for the spat with Sergio. Sergio was 100% at fault, but Kuch can’t have it both ways. He can’t be the bad guy and nice guy at the same town. Either own it and be the dick, or ignore that the incident happened.
 

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Here's the agreement Kuchar and his Mexican caddie came to before the tournament, according to this article on Golf.com:

If you're saying that Kuchar should have offered his caddie normal PGA Tour rates - even though he was apparently doing little more than carrying the bag for him - and he's a cheapskate for not having done so, I can respect that. But I think you're absolutely not giving him the benefit of the doubt beyond that point: he made a deal, and he thought he had a deal. And when the PR around the issue started to blow up, he and his advisors didn't act very smartly or quickly, but I don't think they reacted maliciously, and I certainly don't think that Kuchar thought at the time that he was pulling a fast one in underpaying him or anything like that.

Should Kuchar have negotiated a different deal in the first place and offered more generous terms? I don't really know how these things work when it comes to substitute/local caddies being hired. But I'm guessing Kuchar's offer wasn't really out of line with standard practice on the Tour. And if that's the case, then yes, I think the reaction to the whole kerfuffle is absolutely over the top.
I'm saying that Kuchar was a dick.

I don't give a shit what his agreement was with the caddie. He won $1.3 million that week, and for him to rationalize a $1,000 tip on top of the negotiated fee means that Kuchar is a cheap bastard. For him to say, months after the fact, that Ortiz should be happy because he's normally making $200 a day reveals him to be an arrogant, elitist asshole in addition to being a cheap bastard.

Want to know how we know that your assumption about "standard practice" is wrong? No touring pros came to Kuchar's defense. None. Zero. Which is why he did a 180 and caved mere days after his disastrous statements to the media.

And again, I cannot get by the fact that Kuchar's rationale - hey, he doesn't normally earn good money, so what's the big deal? - is precisely why he's viewed as such a dick. He's not even a smart asshole. He's just an elitist scumbag.
 

Average Reds

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As for the Sergio incident, which @Zomp described well above, I think Kuchar was again slow to realize how his reactions would be perceived. He could, and perhaps should, have said to the rules official that he'd conceded the putt even if he technically hadn't. Or he could have taken the out that Sergio offered. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, I imagine that like most other PGA Tour pros, he's been conditioned to always ask for help from a rules official first when in any doubt at all. Once he did that, the scenario that unfolded was always destined to play out that way. Kuchar clearly isn't a PR wizard - he could have scored points by being brave and offering Sergio the out, just as he could have scored points by tearing up the "agreement" with Ortiz and paying full freight immediately after he'd won the tournament in Mexico. But not being quick-witted doesn't make him a bad guy, or at least it shouldn't, if that is indeed all he's really guilty of.
I'm not inclined to give Kuchar the benefit of the doubt.

In match play, the player has total control and can override the match referee. If Kuchar really meant to concede that putt, it was easily within his power to do so. All he has to do is inform the match referee that, yes, that putt was good and they go to the next tee. This notion that he's somehow "conditioned" to be passive and lean on the rules official is laughable, because that's not how match play works.

I'm not killing him for it becasue Sergio is a petulant asshole who deserves his fate. And if Garcia wants to assume that a putt is given, he leaves himself open to losing the hole. But let's not pretend that Kuchar is some innocent half-wit.

He used the rules to his advantage, as is his right. And he put Garcia on tilt for three holes afterwards, so who am I to say he was wrong? He really should just own it.
 
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TFP

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Maybe if Kuchar just acted correctly in the first place, he wouldn't need to worry about the PR fallout of his actions?
 

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re: The Sergio and Kuchar thing. Let me explain.

I played a lot of competitive golf as a kid. I won my state's Junior Amateur, I played in countless high school and college matches, and for a bit tried my hand at playing in the senior amateur events in RI before I decided I just wasn't good enough.

All of the big amateur events, a few high school tournaments, and one college tournament were all Match Play. Growing up, all everyone ever said before Match Play tournaments was "Remember, the putt isn't good unless he says it is. Don't assume." I had a situation in a Junior tournament where a kid 4 putted to halve the hole, but instead of finishing it out he went to pick up his ball. Before he did I yelled "Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on! Its good." Because I knew if I didn't say anything he would have lost the hole.

Am I saying Kuchar should have done that? Absolutely not. The mistake is on Sergio 100%

Here's what I have a problem with. Kuchar's explanation.

""And as I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one," said Kuchar. "And I saw him off the green, I said, 'Sergio, I didn't say anything, I'm not sure how this works out.' I didn't want that to be an issue. So I asked [an official], I said, 'Listen, I don't know how to handle this, but I didn't concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt.'

That's bullshit. He knows he won the hole. I don't for one second think he didn't know what that meant.

So then Sergio says this:

"quite simple," said Garcia. "I screwed it up, it's as simple as that. Obviously I missed my putt and I kind of tapped it with the back of my putter before he said anything. Yeah, it's a loss of hole. I understand that. The only issue that it was, was that Kooch was like, 'I didn't see it good, but I don't want to take the hole. I don't want to do this like this.'

"So I was like, 'Okay, it's fine, what do you want to do?' Because there are many options that you can do if you don't want to take the hole, even though I've already lost that hole. But obviously he didn't like any of the options that were there. It's fine. At the end of the day, I'm the one that made the mistake."

So if I'm Sergio, and Kuchar comes up to me apologizing and saying he didn't want to win a hole like that, I'd say exactly what he did. If Good Guy Kuch was really feeling guilty, Sergio tried to give him an out. Okay then, concede the next hole and we're even. But Kuch didn't want to do that. Because he knew what he was doing.

Again, Sergio is wrong. But Kuch, in my mind, had two options. As they are walking off the hole tell the official he conceded the putt and walk away like nothing happened, or just tell Sergio "Hey man, unlucky but I never gave that to you" and move on. Don't try to be all "Oh gee, oh I don't want to win like that...golly I just don't know what to do."

After the Caddy thing, which wasn't taken out of proportion considering he could have given him half of what his normal caddy made and looked like a hero, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
This is 100% spot on. We've all been there where we accidentally pick up a 6 inch putt assuming it's good (hell I've done it twice in a tournament). Kuch is a disingenuous dick.
 

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IMO the dumbest part of the Kuchar caddie issue is he was basically given a chance to fix it and walk away unscathed. Once the news broke he could have said that he had an agreement, upon reflection it wasn’t a “fair” deal under the circumstances, that maybe the customary rate wasn’t appropriate given that he won, and that he felt it was best to rectify that. Pay some money right then and he probably skates. Instead he doubled down when went with the “pretty good week” for a poor caddie with no leverage comment and looks like an asshole. The reputational harm had to have cost him more than what he paid out in the end too.

He’s still not worse than Bubba but he does get a spot in the root against bucket with Bubba, Reed, and Sergio. I have a feeling the politics of lot of the guys on tour would make them dislikeable if known though.
 
I think where I'm ultimately coming from here is that I have pretty low expectations when it comes to the behavior of the average Tour pro. This is not generally a self-aware bunch of guys, and I reckon dozens of them would have behaved in the same way if put into Kuchar's shoes in and after Mexico; that doesn't make it right, but it's why I'm inclined to believe Kuchar's moral compass isn't as out of line with his peers as you're suggesting. As to the suggestion that no other pros came to Kuchar's defense, a) any agent worth his salt would have advised his client to shut up and not jump to Kuchar's defense under the circumstances, lest he risk looking just as out of touch (the response I've gotten here from trying to half-defend Kuchar is indicative enough of that!), and b) how many pros have ever won PGA Tour events with local caddies on their bags, let alone tournaments outside of the US with a caddie like Ortiz on the bag? I highly doubt comparable circumstances exist whereby a player could comment one way or the other on Kuchar's experience from a position of authority.

As to the incident with Sergio, I think the previous caddie incident makes you more likely to look unfavorably upon Kuchar's behavior. If that had been, say, Kisner playing Sergio, and exactly the same incident had occurred, would you automatically be jumping to the conclusion that Kisner is a dick? Maybe, maybe not...but the prior bad act is removing Kuchar's benefit of the doubt more than the act itself, I think. (And AR, do you really not think going to the rules official first - especially in the new 2019 rules environment - is conditioned into many Tour players these days? It's not like Kuchar plays match play more than once or twice a year.)
 
FWIW, there's a good discussion of the Kuchar-Sergio incident on the No Laying Up podcast today (starting just after the 34-minute mark and lasting maybe eight or nine minutes) that I just listened to in the car. They were pretty split on Kuchar's behavior, but one thing most of them were in agreement about was the point about the new rules environment and that Kuchar was probably right to cover his ass and call in an official, given all of the penalties that have been issued already this year. The fact that far too many Tour pros don't know the rules is another topic, of course...
 

Average Reds

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(And AR, do you really not think going to the rules official first - especially in the new 2019 rules environment - is conditioned into many Tour players these days? It's not like Kuchar plays match play more than once or twice a year.)
This is silly. We're not talking about any of the recent rules changes. We're talking about something that is so fundamental to match play that every club player understands it.

Kuchar is a former U.S. Amateur champion. He understands exactly what it means when a player doesn't obtain a concession before picking up his ball or swiping at it with the club and missing the hole.
 

cshea

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The new rules have nothing to do with it. This was an old rule, not something that suddenly changed. Kuchar has played in the match play tournament 10 times, plus 8 combined Ryder and Presidents cups. He’s well versed, and quite good at match play. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Again, Sergio is a jerk for the way he let his temper get the better of him. Kuchar is a jerk because he passive aggressively swiped a hole. Like one of them said on the NLU podcast, if you’re going to be a dick, then be a dick. He’s trying to avoid confrontation and make the rules official be the bad guy.
 

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I would never have guessed that Vijay was #3 in earnings.
And top 4 by a mile. I wouldn't have placed him in the top 10. Adam Scott (who has now been around for a LONG time) is almost 30% behind Vijay, which is bonkers to me. And Vijay won before the purses increased dramatically. I'm impressed with his earnings number.

edit - I just looked it up, Vijay has 34 PGA tour wins. Man alive, that's impressive.
 

TFP

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Does the Fedex Cup bonus count towards career money list earnings though? I've googled for the last 10 mins or so and can't find an answer either way.
 

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I don’t think it does. At least in looking at Vijay’s career, he won it in ‘08 but his earnings for that year is listed as $6.6 million. So he’s really at ~$81 million for Tour earnings.