When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
I penned this for Golfweek on the subtle changes to the revamped rules as we approach the first high-profile match play event, the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin.
Most of the changes involve changes in terminology, perhaps to the chagrin of traditionalists.
With Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson playing golf at the highest level imaginable heading into the Masters, expect the focus this week to turn to Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth.
Woods has not played in the WGC Dell Match Play since its move to Austin and as Dan Kilbridge notes for Golfweek, seems due to take things up a notch in his Masters prep.
The Golf.com gang debates whether this is good prep for Woods and Alan Shipnuck wonders if the new format guaranteeing three matches will dull Woods’ senses.
I think Tiger would have more adrenaline for the old win-or-go-home format. For him this is all about getting reps ahead of the Masters — actually winning matches will be a bonus.
For Spieth the UT grad returning the friendly confines of Austin, the struggles are on the course, not on the range, as he explains to Steve DiMeglio for Golfweek.
The lowdown on this week’s field where Rickie Fowler and Adam Scott are the two star players passing:
Star-studded field finalized for 2019 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play
64 of the top 66 players in the Official World Golf Rankings are committed to play at Austin Country Club
AUSTIN, Texas – Sixty-four of the top 66 players from the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) have officially committed to the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, which will take place March 27-31 at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas. The tournament will feature the game’s biggest stars from around the globe in a rare match-play format.
World No. 1 Dustin Johnson, 2018 FedExCup champion Justin Rose, reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year Brooks Koepka, THE PLAYERS Championship 2019 winner Rory McIlroy, 80-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods and former Texas Longhorn Jordan Spieth are among the notables heading to Austin. Woods, a three-time winner of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, is making his first start in the event since 2013.
The field includes players representing 17 different countries from across the globe. Final seeds for the 64-player field will be determined on Monday, March 25 when the week’s Official World Golf Rankings are released.
Rank Player Country
1 Dustin Johnson USA
2 Justin Rose ENG
3 Brooks Koepka USA
4 Rory McIlroy NIR
5 Justin Thomas USA
6 Bryson DeChambeau USA
7 Francesco Molinari ITA
9 Xander Schauffele USA
10 Jon Rahm ESP
11 Tommy Fleetwood ENG
12 Jason Day AUS
13 Tiger Woods USA
14 Tony Finau USA
15 Paul Casey ENG
16 Patrick Reed USA
17 Bubba Watson USA
18 Marc Leishman AUS
19 Patrick Cantlay USA
20 Webb Simpson USA
21 Phil Mickelson USA
22 Matt Kuchar USA
23 Gary Woodland USA
24 Hideki Matsuyama JPN
25 Cameron Smith AUS
26 Sergio Garcia ESP
27 Louis Oosthuizen RSA
28 Alex Noren SWE
30 Jordan Spieth USA
31 Rafa Cabrera Bello ESP
32 Ian Poulter ENG
33 Keegan Bradley USA
34 Matthew Fitzpatrick ENG
35 Matt Wallace ENG
36 Eddie Pepperell ENG
37 Tyrrell Hatton ENG
38 Haotong Li CHI
39 Henrik Stenson SWE
40 Billy Horschel USA
41 Kiradech Aphibarnrat THA
42 Branden Grace RSA
43 Kyle Stanley USA
44 Charles Howell III USA
45 J.B. Holmes USA
46 Brandt Snedeker USA
47 Shane Lowry IRE
48 Justin Harding RSA
49 Thorbjorn Olesen DEN
50 Kevin Kisner USA
51 Byeong Hun An KOR
52 Lucas Bjerregaard DEN
53 Andrew Putnam USA
54 Emiliano Grillo ARG
55 Si Woo Kim USA
56 Chez Reavie USA
57 Jim Furyk USA
58 Keith Mitchell USA
59 Abraham Ancer MEX
60 Kevin Na USA
61 Tom Lewis ENG
62 Kevin Na USA
63 Aaron Wise USA
64 Lee Westwood ENG
65 Satoshi Kodaira JPN
66 Luke List USA
The bracket will be unveiled live on Golf Channel Monday, March 25 from 4-5 p.m. CT.
Andrew Both of Reuters talks to the USGA’s Thomas Pagel gives us an update on the broken club rule that inspired Justin Thomas’s Honda Classic outrage at 2019’s new rules. The spat spilled onto Twitter.
The new rule allows players to continue using a damaged club, even bending it back into shape if possible, but not to replace it during a round.
"You can just add that one to the list of rules that don't make any sense," Thomas told reporters.
"If you break or bend the club in play, I don't see where the harm is in replacing it."
Pagel disputes the new rule does not make sense.
"That rule used to be so complicated (determining) when a club was damaged, unfit," Pagel told Reuters in an interview.
"We said let's simplify it. You can start with up to 14 (clubs) and if one becomes damaged you’re not able to replace it.
"Justin and I have connected. I thought it was very positive conversation. I want to keep the nature of it private."
Michael Bamberger was also afforded phone time with Pagel for a Golf.com item on the new rules and notes this following Webb Simpson’s unfortunate freak Players penalty, prompting Pagel to remind why intent cannot drive the rules.
Pagel expressed sympathy for Simpson’s bad luck and then dutifully explained why the rulebook gives a player a one-shot penalty if you’re off the green and no penalty if you’re on it. The latter, the so-called Dustin Johnson Rule of 2016, allows for that fact that you might have already had your hand on a ball on the green, that greens are more closely mown, and that a random outside agency – most notably wind – can move a ball on a green more readily.
“As much as possible, the rulebook tries to keep the question of ‘intent’ out of the discussion, because intention is hard to define,” Pagel said.
One person, for instance, could claim an exemption from a penalty because of intention while another, in those same circumstances, might not. That’s not a level playing field.
Gary Van Sickle at MorningRead.com explains how the Valspar Championship managed decent star power despite a tough post-Players date, with 37 top 100 players, including Dustin Johnson.
Johnson played only 20 tournaments in the 2017-18 season. So, he owed the PGA Tour an appearance at an event that he doesn’t regularly play. Johnson chose the Valspar Championship.
“I had a few to pick one, and this fit the best in my schedule,” Johnson said. “Of the courses I had to choose from, I like this [Copperhead Course] the best, if you’re playing well. The golf course is tough, but I feel like my game is in good form, so it’s a good course for me.”
Johnson nearly avoided the Valspar on a technicality. When he won in Mexico, it was the 20th victory of his career. Twenty is the threshold to become a PGA Tour life member, and the strength-of-field rule doesn’t apply to life members, or to players 45 or older.
The timing coincided nicely with Valspar announcing a sponsorship extension through 2025. Included is a better date next year.
Current top ranked junior Akshay Bhatia is playing this week’s Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour. And despite a sponsor’s invite and his lack of experience in PGA Tour events, is setting lofty goals.
From Rodney Page’s Tampa Bay Times report:
“It’s another tournament to me,” said Bhatia, who received a sponsor’s exemption. “I’m not here to just show up and make the cut. I’m here to win.”
He also reiterated—with a little humor—his desire to turn pro instead of playing college golf.
“I’ve never liked school,” Bhatia said. “I’ve never been very smart. I have the worst attention span when it comes to it. I love being outside, playing golf and competing. So my dad just said, ‘Ya know what, let’s not go to college.’ I said ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ I’m in eighth grade, of course I’m going to say no to school.”
With only some conference title games and the NCAA Selection Show, the Players stood a good chance of matching last year’s stout ratings when Tiger Woods was in contention at the 2018 Players.
Didn’t happen.
According to Sports Media Watch with a full weekend sports numbers wrap up, the rating reverted to pre-Tiger for from a 4.2 to a 3.3, with Saturday’s 2.4 down 8%.
The 2019 Players finale was a doozy, with the finishing holes magically weeding out a fascinating mix of characters, as Steve DiMeglio notes in his Golfweek game story.
McIlroy explained his Saturday range session that ironed out issues with his driving, explains GolfChannel.com’s Will Gray.
For the aficionados of more rough to offset distance advances, this was not a poster child week. McIlroy was 2nd in strokes gained driving even as he was T49 in accuracy, hitting just 33 of 56 fairways.
His putting stats were also a tad misleading, as McIlroy was 45th in Strokes Gained putting, yet was T3 in putts per green in regulation. He hit 58 of 72 greens.
McIlroy gave several post round interviews, though none was as compelling as his Live From appearance. Here is all 15 minutes of it if you missed the show:
12th hole scatter chart in 2019
And that’s not a good thing.
Astoundingly, no double bogey was made the entire tournament. While that is definitely not a barometer for architectural merit, the lack of a big number suggests that the cooks, wait staff, busboys, hostesses and even valet parkers in Ponte Vedra have overcooked architect Steve Wenzloff’s effort to inject life into the back nine.
As I explain here for Golfweek, the fine line between drama and just playing as a long par-3 can be remedied with a simple grass tweak and better mixing up of tees. Please pass along to the locker room attendants at TPC Sawgrass, they may get a say too. Actually, they have a much more informed view than most.
BTW, how amazing is all of this data from ShotLink for the cooks to ponder? An impressive 76% of the field took a go at the green, with 23% successfully hitting the green. It was just a couple of years ago that players and caddies were declaring how no one would bother to go for it, much less keep their ball on the green.
Adam Hayes tried, he really, really tried to talk Jon Rahm out of a 220-yard hooking 8-iron from the 11th hole fairway bunker.
It was a pretty startling moment in the 2019 Players final round picked up by NBC’s Emmy-winning audio team and would have to rank with the all-time great player-caddy discussions that will hopefully not haunt Rahm. Yet it’s tough to look at the circumstances, read Rahm’s post-round remarks in this Will Gray GolfChannel.com story, and easily visualize how Rahm’s substandard thinking will hurt his ability to win big events.
Kudos to the PGA Tour too for posting:
A pivotal moment @THEPLAYERSChamp.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 18, 2019
This conversation between Jon Rahm and his caddie.
He was leading at the time. pic.twitter.com/hWQGNwcu9Z
The winner of two majors last year admitted at The Players he is out of sorts after intensifying training and implementing diet restrictions, losing 22 pounds and with it, distance.
From Ryan Lavner’s GolfChannel.com report:
“When you go from 212 pounds to 190, there’s not as much weight going forward through the ball,” he said. “I don’t have as much feel. I just feel out of sorts.”
Koepka says the sacrifice has been worth it, that it’s “only four months of my career.”
In the ShotLink era, Jonny Vegas’s absurd putt from the 17th hole’s lower front shelf to the back right location, helping him move to -14 in the 2019 Players, is easily the longest putter ever made there since stats have been kept (2003, Tiger’s better than most putt was in 2001).
Nice use of ShotLink by ShotLink and great reaction from Vegas…
The back 9 on Sunday. 💪🎆
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 17, 2019
Fireworks @THEPLAYERSChamp. pic.twitter.com/8VySH6gfFy
Just two back at the time, Tiger Woods made quadruple bogey at the par-3 17th and likely killed his chances of winning the 2019 Players.
Golf is hard.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 15, 2019
Tiger Woods puts two in the water on No. 17. 💦 pic.twitter.com/xEqCMx04Z0
ESPN’s Bob Harig on the first-ever two-water-ball day for Woods at 17 and the impact it made on Woods’ chances.
"Both shots I'm just trying to hit the ball into the slope [on the green] and just walk away with a 20-, 25-footer and move on about my business," Woods said after shooting 71 to finish at 141, 3 under par. "The second one I hit too flat and too hot. But the first one from the regular tee and was a good shot, it just flew a little bit too far."
But as the Live From crew noted last night, the yellow penalty area marking means there was an opportunity to possibly drop on the manicured walkway. The wording of the new rule also gives the player room to drop where a stance might be possible. Brandel Chamblee has since Tweeted suggesting his take was confirmed by a rules official.
The first big flagstick rejection of a putt has taken place, and as I write for Golfweek, Jim Furyk’s reaction suggests that players won’t be backing down off the dramatic change in how they do their (putting) business.
Lucky or unlucky? 🤔😅 pic.twitter.com/uKChSlP4Kj
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 15, 2019
NBC, CBS and Fox will have reps in the Players second round booth as Paul Azinger, Nick Faldo and Mike Tirico get the band back together from their old ABC golf days.
The Forecaddie explains how this happened and what made this trio such an entertaining broadcast team.
The three got together Wednesday night on Vantage Point for a roundtable chat, with Gary Koch joining in.
Let’s face it, cautious golf at The Players can be a bit of a snooze, and while I’m all for firm and fast most of the time, the design here lends itself better to aerial golf, encouraging aggressive play and penalizing the overzealous. With the March date’s different winds and softer ground, it seems like we will see more drivers, more risk taking and a little more fun to the proceedings.
My story for Golfweek on this and the possible dent this may put in the hopes of plodders.
Plus, Brooks Koepka added this today:
I think you're definitely going to have to have a few more drivers in hand. Going back to your question, I think it was, I hit driver, 6-iron into 7 yesterday. And I've hit 3-iron and 9-iron off that hole. So you can't hit 5- and 4-iron out of this rough and you can't play it the way you used to. You've got to be more aggressive. With it being soft it kind of widens the fairways a little bit, the ball isn't going to roll as much, so I think it definitely plays into the longer hitters' hands and you can definitely have driver out quite a bit more.
As a side note, as much as I love the chance for recoveries from the rough, this pine straw right on the 16th fairway edge looks even better…
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
