2022 PGA Tour

Vegas Sox Fan

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The Dirty Desert
One of my favorite weeks of the year, PGA event on my home course. Weather should be great and I'll be around the course for some part of all four days most likely. Course has been closed for the last 6 months so they could completely remove and replace all the grass. This will be the first golf played on the new turf and I'm curious to see how it looks both on TV and in person. If anyone happens to be in the area give me a shout and I'll get you a ticket and a beer.
 

Lupe Whalewatch

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Pretty misleading article. It says under their new alliance with MENA, world ranking points are subject to ratification by OWGR board. Maybe they get approval, but they haven't yet. Even if they do, the points will be miniscule.
 

cshea

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Yeah, this was never more than a PR stunt or strong arm tactic. LIV could become sanctioned by the PGA Tour today and their tournaments still won't get ranking points any time soon. On a recent NLU pod it was noted that it took 8-9 years for the Hero World Challenge (a PGA Tour sanctioned event) to start giving out ranking points.

LIV's only ranking points argument is they have a few top of the OWGR caliber players. Otherwise, they meet zero of the criteria. They may get ranking points way down the line but it won't be anytime soon. And if they do, I suspect the algorithm will be adjusted and their events will have very minimal points up for grabs anyway.
 
I didn't see it, but I read about it. It reminded me of times when I'd get to 18 saying "ok, if I bogey this hole, I'll break 80". Hit a 3 wood to be safe, keep the ball in play... and snap hook it. As the Musical in the 60's would say--- "Bye Bye Birdie...or Bogey"
It wasn't just the tee shot, either - it was the decision-making and execution after that. I mean, he had to hole a 30-footer to make a triple bogey! (Which tied him with NeSmith for second, as it happens.)
 

Over Guapo Grande

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It wasn't just the tee shot, either - it was the decision-making and execution after that. I mean, he had to hole a 30-footer to make a triple bogey! (Which tied him with NeSmith for second, as it happens.)
Yep … so after that hypothetical snap hooked 3 wood would be my attempted hero shot which ends up behind me and even more tree-jailed . Hypothetically, of course
 

TFP

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It wasn't just the tee shot, either - it was the decision-making and execution after that. I mean, he had to hole a 30-footer to make a triple bogey! (Which tied him with NeSmith for second, as it happens.)
His decision making after the tee shot made total sense if he's trying to win the tournament and doesn't really care about solo 2nd.
 

snowmanny

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Dec 8, 2005
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I’m late to this, but based on what I’ve understood there were many golf professionals who turned down huge dollars from LIV because (at least in part) they believed that doing so would jeopardize their chances to participate in major tournaments.

Did (at least some of) those that went to LIV just have a completely different idea of what was going to happen? And if so, why?
 
His decision making after the tee shot made total sense if he's trying to win the tournament and doesn't really care about solo 2nd.
His second shot - his first attempt to get out of the bush - was a weirdly weak swing given how bad the lie was; that was probably the worst decision of the bunch, for me. Then he took his unplayable lie drop, and the ball seemed to roll into one of the half-holes he'd created in removing rocks from his drop area. I can't believe he could have held the green anywhere near the pin from that lie; I think he'd have had as much chance of holing a wedge for 5 from a good yardage in the fairway (and hoping Kim made bogey himself) as he would have if he'd landed on the green and rolled off the back. Plus that would have given him a much better chance of beating or tying NeSmith for 2nd. It just seemed like he was on tilt by that point.
 
Did (at least some of) those that went to LIV just have a completely different idea of what was going to happen? And if so, why?
Probably a combination of a) they were lied to by their agents and/or Norman and the Saudis themselves, b) they let themself believe everything would work out OK in the end, and/or c) a lot of them are in their mid-to-late 40s - or even older, in Phil's case - and probably figured their days of contending for the majors were pretty much over anyway, so why not take the payday?
 

TFP

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His second shot - his first attempt to get out of the bush - was a weirdly weak swing given how bad the lie was; that was probably the worst decision of the bunch, for me. Then he took his unplayable lie drop, and the ball seemed to roll into one of the half-holes he'd created in removing rocks from his drop area. I can't believe he could have held the green anywhere near the pin from that lie; I think he'd have had as much chance of holing a wedge for 5 from a good yardage in the fairway (and hoping Kim made bogey himself) as he would have if he'd landed on the green and rolled off the back. Plus that would have given him a much better chance of beating or tying NeSmith for 2nd. It just seemed like he was on tilt by that point.
He needed to make par and he knew it. The only way to do so was to pitch it to the fairway and try to get up and down. Obviously it didn't work, but taking the unplayable and getting up and down from the rocks was basically impossible. Then once that didn't work, nothing else really mattered anyway and he kinda didn't care about 2nd or not. It's really an easy and no brainer decision to try to play it out of the bush, he just couldn't get the ball out. Taking the unplayable pretty much concedes the tournament, as his subsequent shot from the rocks ultimately showed. Unless you think counting on Tom Kim making his first bogey of the entire tournament from the middle of the fairway was a likely event.
 

cshea

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Sure, but Kim has a win already and showed stones 3 weeks ago (in front of Cantlay no less) at the PC.

Cantlay had to try and make par to force Kim to make birdie. He had no good option. He figured he had a better chance by trying to punch it through the bush and then getting up and down than taking an unplayable and getting up and down from the rocks. They were both extremely low probability, but he went for the win.
 
He figured he had a better chance by trying to punch it through the bush and then getting up and down than taking an unplayable and getting up and down from the rocks.
I have no quibble with any of this at all. I do have an issue with the way he tried playing the punch through the bush - he kinda babied it rather than playing an aggressive swing at it. (Maybe that's because he was worried about injuring himself?) But whatever.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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Phil, who first said his comments about the Saudis were taken out of context, now says he never did an interview with Shipnuck in the first place

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/34790004/phil-mickelson-says-liv-rise-pga-tour-trending-downward
"I think going forward you have to pick a side.
And he picked this side:
"We know they killed [Washington Post reporter Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay.
Gee, imagine that: someone who claimed the Saudis were murderers and then took a bunch of Saudi money to play exhibition golf, now says he never said it. I wonder how many of his fingers they threatened to break.
 

cshea

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Phil, who first said his comments about the Saudis were taken out of context, now says he never did an interview with Shipnuck in the first place

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/34790004/phil-mickelson-says-liv-rise-pga-tour-trending-downward
I don't think he's changing his story. I think this is semantics and hair-splitting. He doesn't deny he didn't say it, he just said he never did an interview with Shipnuck. His claim from the beginning is that the conversation with Shipnuck was off the record.

The LIV press conferences are bullshit anyways. It's all propaganda. Last week they asked Bryson about OWGR so he could lie through his teeth about meeting all the criteria. This week, they lob this to Phil so he can speak about how awesome the Saudi's have been to him.
 

cshea

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We have a developing situation in Japan at the Zozo. Rickie Fowler has a share of the 36-hole lead. Curious to see where that goes.
 

cshea

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I think we all know where that ends up
Most likely. I was never a huge fan but always enjoy a good comeback story in golf. Nowhere to hide when you start losing your game, especially someone of Fowler’s popularity.

Anyways, he’s got the 54-hole lead. 2-shots ahead of Putnam, 3 on Hovland.
 

TFP

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The Waste Management with all the top players attending, on Super Bowl Weekend, with the Super Bowl in Phoenix, is going to be wild.
 

voidfunkt

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I don't like the 10-hole format for these things at all, but I understand its probably done to keep the time reasonable... still meh.
 

cshea

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The upset of the year comes at the PNC where Charlie looks like the Woods family member in the most pain on the golf course.