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’m not sure there is much to analyze in the dreadful golf ratings last weekend given the confluence of MLB playoffs, NBA finals, college football and NFL.
Showbuzzdaily.com has the 2020 Shriner’s and KPMG LPGA numbers, with golf easily the lowest on their list of weekly sports ratings.
Aronimink has produced an elite leaderboard topped by some of the LPGA’s finest, but there is a Cinderella lurking four back in Bianca Pagdanganan. The world No. 712 is making just her sixth career LPGA start and has never finished better than T28 in an LPGA event. She’s using power to differentiate herself at the Ross-classic where leaders will be teeing off early.
Mercer Baggs at GolfChannel.com with Pagdanganan’s story.
“I got back to the car [on Thursday], and my dad picked me up, and he basically just told me – he just looked at me and said, ‘Welcome to the majors.’ I was like, ‘Thanks, Dad, it's a great welcome,’” Pagdanganan said.
“My dad knows my game pretty well. He's with me in like every tournament, so he basically just told me, 'You've just got to stop thinking,' which I agree, because I do play better when I don't think. I'm not the most mechanical, technical person, I'm all about feel, so that's all he told me: 'You've just got to trust your swing – look at your target and just get it there.'
"That's basically what I've been doing the past two rounds, and it's been working really well.”
Recent LPGA majors have been filled with upsets and surprises, from this event last year, which was won by world No. 114 Hannah Green, to this year’s Women’s Open, which was won by No. 304 Sophia Popov.
Plenty of perspectives from Michael Bamberger at the KPMG Women’s PGA where he chats with a nice range of players about chasing distance.
Check it out here at Golf.com. And this:
The rejuvenated Lydia Ko is No. 54 on the LPGA driving distance list, with a 256-yard average. She’s 5-5 in extra-long spikes. She shot a first-round 68 here in this grand women’s major, run by the PGA of America.
This has been said 999,999 times and here comes the millionth: women’s professional golf is, by far, a better example for nearly any of us — man, woman or child; 105-shooter or 68-shooter — who are looking for swing models. Lewis noted on Thursday that she plays in pro-ams every week with men who it the same distance that she does, yet she’s a plus-five and her gentlemen playing partners will typically break 90 only when Jupiter aligns with Mars.
With this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Sophia Popov returns to a major from her non-LPGA membership exile and Bill Fields files a New York Times profile of the surprise Women’s Open champion.
A teaser:
Six months ago, Popov, was competing on the Cactus Tour, an Arizona-based circuit for fledgling women’s golf pros. Prior, she had competed on the Symetra Tour, the developmental arm, after having lost exempt status on the LPGA Tour, but it and most of the world’s other major golf tours were on hiatus because of Covid-19. Employing safeguards like cup liners and individual riding carts, the Cactus Tour played on.
Beyond getting in reps, Popov rediscovered her winning touch, claiming her first professional trophy at a tournament in mid-April and then taking two of the tour’s next five events. “It was important because I hadn’t won in six years, since I was a senior in college,” said Popov, who played at Southern California. By the time the larger tours resumed this summer, Popov had a dozen Cactus Tour events under her belt and renewed confidence.
“There is a craft to playing and winning no matter the stage,” said Rashell, who has worked with Popov since the spring of 2019. “You have to beat the players that are around you down the stretch. You have to get used to how that feels. There is pressure regardless of where you’re playing.”
For the first two rounds at Royal Troon, the field battled severe weather conditions — the wind was so strong Popov had to use a 4-iron from 126 yards on her approach to No. 1 the first day — that tested strategy and resolve.
She goes on to also discuss, among other things, the sight of her $650,000 winners check in her bank account.
A few folks old enough might remember that majors and Tour events did not always put leaders together or out last, so the rescheduled Women’s PGA Championship plan should not be a big deal. Nonetheless it will be odd to see leaders sandwiched in certain tee time slots Sunday to accommodate TV, which has NASCAR to get to.
From Beth Ann Nichols’ Golfweek story quoting Kerry Haigh:
NBC will air the championship on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. ET and on Sunday from Noon to 2 p.m., ahead of NASCAR. To make that work, the leaders won’t be teeing off last on Sunday. And if play from Friday pushes to Saturday morning, the same will hold true for the third round as well.
“We feel it’s important that everyone watching the telecast will see the leaders,” said Haigh, “see the leaders play all 18 holes, and we think that is important. And although it’s a little different and out of the box, we as partners with the LPGA and KPMG are prepared to make those changes for what we think will be a greater and a better championship for everyone to observe.”
With even less daylight this November and a thrilling NFL match-up to get to, I wonder if the Lords of Augusta might consider something similar to help ensure proper morning golf course preparation? Or split tees? To be continued.
The Guardian’s Ewan Murray reports that Amnesty International is wondering about the oddity of the women’s golf coming to Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this week the Ladies European Tour announced two November events in Saudi Arabia with $1.5m in prize money and called it a “landmark moment”.
From Murray’s story:
“With leading Saudi women’s rights activists currently languishing behind bars, there’s an unmistakable irony to the spectacle of Saudi Arabia throwing open its heavily-watered greens to the world’s leading women golfers like this,” Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, told the Guardian.
“Under the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia has embarked on a major sportswashing drive – attempting to use the glamour and prestige of big-money sporting events as a PR tool to distract from its abysmal human rights record.”
We knew trouble was looming early in the week and to no one’s suprise, the artificial wall replacing the seemingly artificial corporate chalet proved instrumental in Mirim Lee’s first major win. Or, to put it another way, likely cost Nelly Korda the ANA Inspiration.
Lead host/announcer Golf Channel’s Terry Gannon took the strongest stance against the wall—dubbed the Great Wall of Dinah by Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols. And Judy Rankin explained the purpose of the wall to maintain the 18th green tradition which helped for context but didn’t help us grasp how history would view the moment. She later added this on Twitter:
Just one more thought. Today’s players are so talented that they would find a way to deal with an island green. Do not need an assist! Only one persons opinion. Thanks so much to ANA for making golf possible this week! Great Championship! Congrats to Mirim Lee.
— Judy Rankin (@Jrprotalker) September 14, 2020
Alan Shipnuck at Golf.com was on site at the ANA Inspiration and explained the ultimate impact of the wall.
The Covid-induced move of Dinah Shore’s old tournament from April to September brought higher temperatures and a springier strain of Bermuda on the firm greens, meaning that any player who went for it on the watery, do-or-die par-5 18th had a good chance of going long.
But instead of the players’ balls trickling into the water behind the island green, the wall served as a discordant backstop, taking all the risk out of what could have been a thrilling risk-reward hole. (It’s true that in the past there has been a grandstand set about four paces further back than the wall, but with fans barred from the grounds this year there was no reason to have any clutter behind the green.)
Lee was the first to arrive at 18, two shots behind Korda, who was in the process of making an outrageously clutch 10-footer to save par on the 17th hole. After a good tee shot Lee had 215 yards left, leaving her between clubs; 4-iron might not get there but 5-wood would come in too hot. Going with more club was a no-brainer. “Our play was to hit it into the middle of the green, let it run into the blue thing and get a free drop,” said caddie Matt Glczis. “Without that being there we probably have to lay up because none of your long clubs are going to hold the green — it’s too firm.”
While the early fall conditions heightened features, likely making the hole an auto-layup without the feature, that’s still better than this, as noted by Shipnuck:
Carlota Ciganda, Lee’s playing partner, went farther: “Without that wall, no one would go for the green,” she said. “No one.”
I realize the argument is that there is a corporate chalet there in normal years. That’s another topic for another day regarding whether the briefcase crowd needs to be there. Simply: an island green did not play like an island green because a screen was erected. It was an inevitable problem that overshadowed a compelling final round with great skill on display.
Speaking of the skill, here Lee’s trio of chip-ins that helped her force a playoff with Nelly Korda and Brooke Henderson.
Mirim Lee chipped in three times, including for eagle on the 72nd hole, on her way to a playoff victory at the @ANAinspiration 👇 pic.twitter.com/rwUNW1dAbm
— LPGA (@LPGA) September 14, 2020
In golf architecture we have seen Mother Nature’s natural features accepted no matter how annoying. While design elements created by humans are typically met with derision.
Then we have unnatural objects accepted as part of a tournament setup: grandstands, temporary boundaries and other infrastructure. In recent years, grandstanding has become a thing at recent PGA Tour stops in Austin and Detroit, where players intentionally using unnatural objects to get a good bounce or drop.
And now, the ultimate backstopping at this week’s ANA Inspiration. The reachable par-5 18th, normally backed by a small stand for humans, features a blue tarp wall with sponsors promoted. However without fans, such an option was unnecessary and is not only stopping balls from entering the water long, but getting used as a backboard by those mulling a go at the green in two.
Ryan Lavner reports for GolfChannel.com on the player’s “surprise” at seeing the blue wall.
“I was actually thinking about what 18 would be like without the bleachers, because visually, that is just a protector for most of us,” said Madelene Sagstrom, who shot 67. “I know there’s water behind it, and I don’t think that would visually be a very nice shot to go for in two. I don’t really know the reasoning for the thing, but I’m kind of happy it’s there if I want to go for it in two, to be honest.”
First-round leader Nelly Korda said that fellow competitor Megan Khang threw a ball underneath the structure and it still rolled into the water behind the green.
“Honestly, I wish they didn’t have that wall there, because I think it would play really cool as an island green,” Korda said. “It’s, like, really close to the green this year. Usually the palm trees, you have to play around them or they come into play, but this year it’s very close to the green.”
Maybe it could go bye-bye for the weekend? This is a major, after all.
**Beth Ann Nichols at Golfweek considered the matter, offered several sharp insights from her many years on the ground in Rancho Mirage and this:
The LPGA didn’t want to comment on the wall, except to say that it’s no different than the hospitality structure. Except that it is different in that there aren’t any seats. It’s also worth noting that the lettering on the wall isn’t that big either. The scoreboard, which typically sits off the island, is now adjacent to the wall behind the green.
While it’s hardly a surprise that September in the greater Palm Springs area is dangerously hot, seeing the forecast for this week’s rescheduled ANA Inspiration still elicits the obvious question: why?
Obviously television and other tournament needs somehow left this date to the women for 2020’s second major championship.
Still, the Desert Sun’s Larry Bohannan tackles the very legitimate question: how hot is too hot?
Showbuzzdaily.com
Buoyed by a strong finish spilling into the prime time window, the 2020 BMW championship was up 10% from 2019’s playing, drawing a 2.3 and 3.4 million average viewers on NBC. Jon Rahm defeated Dustin Johnson after both made unbelievable 18th green putts, one in regulation (Johnson) and the latter in the sudden death (Rahm).
The 2020 BMW was played a week later than last year and without NFL preseason competition.
The 2.23 final round rating almost won the sports weekend, falling just short of NASCAR’s Saturday race but easily outdrawing several NBA playoff games on cable.
The 2020 BMW weekend lead-in coverage on Golf Channel was essentially flat from last year (.54/.73 in 2019 vs. .64/.68 in 2020).
Meanwhile, the LPGA Tour remained in a traditional weekend finish slow and attempted to go against the PGA Tour and many other sports. Both weekend rounds of the Walmart NW Arkansas on Golf Channel aired from 5-7 pm ET and failed to land in the top 150 cable shows.
To beat the drum for the 913th time: why try to compete with so many viewing options, particularly when fan-free events should free up Monday or Tuesday finishes?
THIS..IS..RIGHT..ON! We are playing the same great courses that @jacknicklaus @ArnoldPalmer & Peter Thomson won on. I’m excited for our future because technology has ruined these great course for the elite men. All the best for us girls! https://t.co/jELjCz94JR
— Karrie Webb AO (@Karrie_Webb) August 26, 2020
Andy Johnson wins the analogy award for summing the contrast between last weekend’s AIG Women’s Open at Troon and the slugfest at TPC Boston, aka the Northern Trust won by eleven by Dustin Johnson.
During the 2020 Women’s Open, played at a windy, 6,632-yard Royal Troon, we saw just that. Cunning and shotmaking came to the forefront. The competitors’ typical trajectories and spin rates brought slopes on and around the greens into play. Fronting bunkers were intimidating, often prompting players to aim away from a pin if they had a poor angle.
As a diehard golf fan, I felt how a diehard baseball fan must feel during the postseason. In playoff baseball games, the margins are slim, and the most successful teams manufacture runs in nuanced ways: hit and runs, safety squeezes, pitch-outs. Similarly, the Women’s Open highlighted precise driving, well-struck long irons, varied short-game play, and patience. This is the kind of stuff that tragics love and obsess over. And in golf, despite advances in equipment, the intricacies we crave can still be found in women’s tournaments because the scale of the players’ games fits the scale of the venues.
At the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust, on the other hand, those scales were completely mismatched.
Matt Brown offered a similar look from Down Under (thus, the “Monday morning” references to the final round). He lamented how “boring” the Northern Trust final round was, but appreciated how Bryson DeChambeau has brought the distance discussion to the table. And this:
At the same time the TPC Boston was giving up birdies like they were jellybeans, across the Atlantic, the world's best women's players were having a hell of a time at Royal Troon.
With 65-kilometre-per-hour winds ripping off the Firth of Clyde on Scotland's west coast, this classic 140-year-old links was baring its teeth. The leader after the first two rounds was Swede Dani Holmqvist.
She shot rounds of 70 and 71 to be 1-under, the only player in red figures.
The cut was set at 9-over par. Three golfers had rounds of over 80 in the first two days and still played the weekend.
And it was glorious to watch.
Great to see World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb on board too (above).
Sophia Popov’s rise from almost quitting to Symetra and Cactus Tour player, to Lyme disease sufferer, to caddie a month ago, to Open Champion, is the stuff of history. Maybe only Ben Curtis posted an equally improbable major win in the 2003 Open. (The Golf.com Confidential crew debated this very topic.)
From Beth Ann Nichols at Golfweek:
With no grandstands and fans to wave to as Popov came up the 18th fairway with a three-shot lead, she turned to her caddie, boyfriend Maximilian Mehles, and told him that the calming seaside views reminded her of a scene from Lord of the Rings.
It wasn’t the electric atmosphere that the Symetra Tour player deserved, but Popov knew that her performance this week inspired people more than she’ll ever know.
“I think that’s why I broke down on the 18th hole,” said Popov, “because it’s been something I couldn’t have dreamed of just a week ago, and it’s incredible that golf allows for these things to happen because, you know, I think the difference between two players any given week is never that big … and the hard work they put in is the same.”
In May, Popov won a Cactus Tour event at Troon North, named for Royal Troon and co-designed by Tom Weiskopf, 1973 Open winner at Troon.
Alistair Tait was there and admitted to shedding a few tears over seeing someone go from obscurity to major winner.
More importantly, hopefully this wonderful advert for women’s golf will entice sponsors to dig into their coffers to back the women’s game. Once again, the world’s best women proved they can pen heart felt stories that resonate with golf fans.
I’ve been there, done that, in the royal & ancient game. Yet there I was on Sunday afternoon with tears running down my face as I watched Popov pull off the unlikeliest of victories. I wasn’t alone. Hardened people in the game were also shedding tears. Trish Johnson admitted as much during TV commentary, and she’s a 19-time Ladies European Tour winner who played in eight Solheim Cups.
Now, there is one catch. It’s an issue for the Masters this fall as well: the postponed ANA Inspiration’s field will not include Popov, who could return to southern California where she played college golf at USC. The ANA field was frozen in place and as a non-LPGA member going into this week. Nichols with this commentary for Golfweek:
Because the LPGA’s majors are out of order due to COVID-19, Popov’s five-year exemption won’t start until 2021. An LPGA official explained that since the ANA field was basically filled when the tour had to shut down, they’ve chosen to honor that field. The only exemption adjustment was changing the cutoff for top 20 on the money list.
But because Popov, 28, isn’t an LPGA member (she missed out on her card by a single shot last fall at Q-Series), her $675,000 earnings won’t count as official money.
The victory does put Popov into the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in October. It does not, however, get her into the U.S. Women’s Open in December.
Popov’s last post pre-tournament social media post documented her first (and ONLY practice round!) look at the Postage Stamp:
Your highlights options come in either a sixty second version or a much longer edition:
0-60 with Toyo Tires
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) August 23, 2020
The Champion @SophiaCPopov round 4 highlights in 60 seconds! #AIGWO #WorldClass pic.twitter.com/CoIinN1H03
Popov’s emotional post-round acceptance speech in front of Troon’s clubhouse.
An emotional interview from @sophiacpopov after her incredible triumph!
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) August 23, 2020
What a performance from Sophia. She is now a major champion!#AIGWO #WorldClass pic.twitter.com/13e9NbnW5p
Rich Lerner reflected on Popov’s win in the world of amazing sports upsets.
Social media continues to bicker over Lexi Thompson’s clearance for what would have been an clear breach under the old Rules of Golf, but as Alistair Tait notes here, things seem to be murkier now with the R&A not penalizing Thompson.
The key issue: the R&A was ok with Thompson moving something behind her ball because it appeared to move back to its original position. The rule as 13-2 would not allow such a grey area, as Tait writes:
Whether the lie returned exactly to its original conditions is clearly a moot point. What isn’t moot is that Thompson made no effort to restore the original lie. The inference here is that Mother Nature decided to interfere by restoring the original condition, therefore there was no breach.
I can’t find the clause in either of my rule books that says if you improve your lie but the ball returns naturally to its original condition then you’re off the hook. You might struggle to find it, too.
Thompson, who was penalised four shots after replacing her ball incorrectly at the 17th hole during the third round of the 2017 ANA inspiration, is extremely lucky not to have been penalised on this occasion. She would have been penalised under the old Rules of Golf. There was no grey area surrounding old Rule 13-2, which dealt with this situation.
There are plenty of grey areas surrounding our rules now. Maybe too many.
Let’s forget the obvious issues with playing it as it lies and spell it out for commissioners and governing bodies of the world intoxicated by playing prowess over rules sanctity these days. A common reaction to Thompson’s actions went something like this: if she did that in my group, at my club or in the Yucatan National Thursday night league play, she’d be penalized.
The idea that the golfing public has higher standards these days should be troubling for Commissioners and governing bodies who want to coddle players instead of dishing out penalties. And for the corporations overpaying to sponsor events because the competitors are seen as more righteous than other athletes, when will this perception of pro golfers living above the rules cause them consternation?
Not enforcing the rules, including the biggest and most important of them all, could end up becoming very costly for the pro game.
A question I’ve seen asked a fair amount with this week’s AIG Women’s Open and two men’s majors to go: why didn’t they reschedule The Open for the fall?
Given that events are proceeding without horrible travel restrictions and other constraints, it’s a fair question. But the R&A had pandemic insurance and there was this, in Ewan Murray’s Guardian story quoting Chief Executive Martin Slumbers suggests the R&A only recently saw an opportunity to play this week at Royal Troon:
“But if I’m really honest, it was probably only a month or so ago that we were really comfortable that we could get this away. It has been an enormous effort by an enormous number of people, and our thanks go to not just our partners but the government both in Westminster and Scotland who have been tireless in helping us try and make a statement of putting this championship on.”
As the AIG Women’s Open Championship kicks off at historic Royal Troon, one of England’s great hopes admitted she is not fan of links golf.
Ewan Murray reports for The Guardian from Troon on Charley Hull’s forthright assessment of links golf:
The prospect of Charley Hull ending her wait for a major title this weekend at Royal Troon has diminished after the 24-year-old admitted her indifference towards links golf. Hull risked offending those immersed in the ancient form of the sport by admitting she will visualise holes at the famous Ayrshire venue lined with trees during the Women’s Open when it begins on Thursday.
“I’m not the biggest fan of links golf,” said Hull. “I like playing with my friends and stuff as a bit of fun but I find it hard to score around sometimes. I like parkland golf courses and American-style.”
“I just try to picture the fairways being tree-lined because I like really, really tight golf courses. I like to feel like tunnel vision, where this is kind of open and flat and it’s hard to pick your lines because it’s hard to pick out the fairways sometimes. So you’ve just got to be really focused.”
Well then, we’ll be looking elsewhere with our investment strategies this week.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
