3-PUTT LUNCH: SHO, ANA Inspiration--MASTERS prep: different strokes--Lost Augusta National drawings?--Pros on eggshells at ANGC--Captain Sorenstam
03/31/2016: 12:10 p.m. ET
By Ben Alberstadt (@BenAlberstadt; [email protected])
Good Thursday afternoon. Players who play poorly at the Shell Houston Open rarely play well at the Masters, or so they say. Thus, if you’re expecting a Spieth, D. Johnson, Fowler, Stenson, etc. win next week, you’ll want to pay keen attention to their play at the Golf Club of Houston. And another tidbit, according to GolfWRX statistician, Rich Hunt the most important statistical indicators of success at the Masters: Apex height (i.e. hitting the ball high), driving distance, and play from 175-225 yards.
DIFFERENT PATHS to Masters prep...Steve DiMeglio, USA Today: “Players preparing for next week’s Masters follow varying blueprints. While some prefer rest and gathering reconnaissance in Georgia heading into the first major of the season, others opt to keep their competitive fire on edge by playing in the Shell Houston Open. It doesn’t hurt that the Golf Club of Houston has similar characteristics to that of Augusta National.”
--‘“It’s about playing. Guys come and play,” said Charl Schwartzel, who is playing the Shell Houston Open for the sixth time in seven years. “They want to practice their competitiveness. You want to fine-tune that. You’re not looking to find some sort of game. It’s too late to find a game now….“I feel like I can get good practice out of being in contention, hit some good shots under pressure, the good putts, that’s the stuff I’m looking for. That helps with mental preparation. That’s what I’m going to be doing.”
QUOTABLE: JORDAN SPIETH: “I need to do a little bit more than just trimming the fat. Last year my consistency was there. We had just won and finished runner up, coming in here, you know, off of better finishes than I am this year. I feel like -- I feel like I would be a better player if I were in contention next week than I was last year, and even this week, having the success from last year and also the failures. We had both last year.”
--“Just those experiences I think make me an overall better mental player under tough conditions or nerve-racking conditions. And so I think this week, yeah, it is trimming the fat. Everything is there. I was working with Cameron Monday and Tuesday. Everything is exactly where it was last year. It's right where we want it to be going into the Masters. It's just a matter now of hitting nerve-racking shots and putts before that week, which means I got to get myself into contention this week.”
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Great Links Magazine piece on lost/alternate Alister Mackenzie Augusta National drawings...James A. Frank, Links: “The drawings are the only renderings of individual holes at Augusta that MacKenzie ever produced (a fact he acknowledged in the same letter). Incredibly, they have sat in a vault in England for the last 80-plus years….Why are these drawings—which LINKS is showing to the public for the first time—important? Besides being the only individual hole sketches by the architect, they bear the signatures of both MacKenzie and Jones, and are dated October 7, 1931, which, according to contemporary reports, was one day after the two men began laying out the course. So the design was fresh in their minds. Also, each sketch has its own significance, and together they add to the storied history of one of golf’s most famous venues.”
Patrick Reed consistent, but unable to return to winner’s circle lately...Will Gray, Golf Channel: “Reed finished T-9 last week at the WGC-Dell Match Play, his sixth top-10 finish in 10 starts this season. He leads the PGA Tour in top-10 finishes, and has at least two more than everyone except Ryan Moore, who has five….For Reed, though, the ultimate motivation comes from winning. He racked up four victories in his first three seasons on Tour, but now has gone 34 starts since his most recent win at the 2015 Hyundai Tournament of Champions. It’s a relative drought that he hopes to end this week at the Shell Houston Open….“It’s always nice to lead in the top-10 category, but I’m out here to play for the W, not to finish second or eighth or 10th,” Reed said. “Anytime I tee it up, like all of us, we’re trying to get a W. It’s close.”’
My latest: Web.com pro’s crazy Sunday to get into field in Brazil...see it on GolfWRX
HARIG: Top 3 golfers in the world taking different approaches ahead of Masters: “Day plans to arrive in Augusta on Thursday and play practice rounds through the weekend; No. 2 Jordan Spieth is playing the Shell Houston Open. And No. 3 Rory McIlroy is at his home in Florida, and won't arrive at Augusta until Sunday night.”
Jordan Spieth inspired a Byron Nelson documentary?...Golf.com: “It was a note from Spieth to Byron Nelson's widow, Peggy, that said "I'm trying to live my life like my role model Byron Nelson" that helped inspire Drew Allen to make a documentary about Lord Byron..."When Peggy told me that story I realized the importance of Byron's influence," Allen said in a press release "I just sat and thought about how far reaching his impact was, even after he was gone, and I want to make sure that future generations will also be inspired by his life."’
WGHOF raising minimum age requirement...Golf.com: “The World Golf Hall of Fame announced on Wednesday that it's raising the minimum age requirement for admittance from 40 to 50. According to the release, candidates must be 50 when the calendar year starts to be selected that year. There is an exception, however, if the player is at least five years removed from being an active participant on Tour.
--"As players continue to elevate their fitness levels and continue to play at a high level for a longer period of time, moving the age requirement to 50 ensures that we are able to celebrate their careers at the proper time," said Jack Peter, the president of the World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum.”
SCORE GOLF’s RICK YOUNG’s take on Finchem’s pending departure...SCORE: ““The length of the contract is just a placeholder in terms of giving me a little more time to do some of the projects I’m engaged in now,” Finchem told on-site media at Austin CC Sunday. “I want to bring those forward so I wouldn’t anticipate I’m going to stay that long.”
--“It’s also reasonable to assume that the commissioner will remain in his capacity until after golf returns to the Olympic Games this August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The PGA Tour’s support, as part of the International Golf Federation, to reinstate golf to the games was integral in the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to restore golf as an Olympic sport for the first time in 112 years. Finchem clearly had a prominent role in that.”
--“None of this makes him a ‘lame duck’ commissioner. Quite the opposite, actually. If you look at the 68-year–old’s track record of success as a businessman and as the head of one of the world’s most powerful sports brands this is about leaving on his terms. It’s about executing a succession plan, about a smooth transition of power to his handpicked successor Jay Monahan, and about firming up any potential relationship or business deal requiring his personal attention. Forget about legacy. Finchem cemented that years ago.”
Golf Digest’s Undercover Tour Pro: The pros walk on eggshells at the Masters...GD: “Augusta National is a beautiful place, but, boy, there are some different rules. And you really don’t want to get caught breaking one. If you can keep your name out of the conversation until Sunday, then go out with a bang of birdies and somehow wind up with a green jacket, well, that’s a good way to do it.”
--“Not that I spend that much time considering my decorum. We’re all professionals. We play golf for a living and know how to conduct ourselves in and around a clubhouse. It’s not like we’re out drinking and smoking all year and then clean it up for a week. Still, there are ways we mess up.
--“My first Masters, I went a couple weeks early to see the course. My regular caddie was allowed to walk along as a local caddie took us around. After, we played the Par-3 Course. It was near dusk, and at one of the far tees I said to my caddie, my longtime friend and fellow golf lunatic, “Here, hit one.”....The local caddie took the wedge from my hand: “If he hits that ball, I lose my job.” Whoa, I thought, that’s excessive. But I believed him.
--“Obviously, the big thing is the phone. You use it only in the locker room. Every week on the PGA Tour, I conduct full-length phone conversations on the range, so that’s different. Even if you’re waiting on a tee during a practice round, don’t sneak the phone out for a quick text. I’ve seen guys do this, but it’s not worth the potential aggravation.”
GOLF CHANNEL posts fourth straight quarter of viewership growth...Press release: “Golf Channel continues to build upon its momentum with four consecutive quarters posting year-over-year growth. Golf Channel’s first quarter in 2016 was up +15% vs. 2015 for viewership, building upon last year’s increasing growth in second quarter of +3%, third quarter of +8%, and fourth quarter of +13%. For 24-hour Total Day (6AM-6AM), 110,000 average viewers per minute were tuned into Golf Channel in the first quarter, representing the 15% year-over-year increase, as well as a 19% increase with people 25-54 (31,000), according to data released by The Nielsen Company...NBC’s PGA TOUR coverage is off to a strong start in 2016 with average viewership +32% and people 25-54 +31%. Through 12 broadcasts, NBC is averaging 2.64 million average viewers and 657,000 people 25-54.*”
Jason Bohn, after heart attack, thankful for “mulligan”...great stuff from Golfweek’s Jeff Babineau: “And there’s little sense to the harsh reality that a 42-year-old husband and father of two boys, who walks 30-plus miles per week and seems to be in sound physical condition, would putt out at a PGA Tour event on a Friday and be thankful not to survive the cut, but simply to survive. That’s how perilously close Bohn brushed with death, and it’s amazing he’s here after his major heart attack during the Honda Classic. He had no idea he was having one.”
--“Jason is lucky,” said his manager, IMG’s Justin Richmond. “Lucky to be alive. He’s rejuvenated. He sees this as a blessing in disguise.” One day, hopefully another 42 years or so from now, Bohn will rock on a porch and wonder why an onsite physician at PGA National was so insistent that he get into an ambulance – and he listened. Bohn wanted to go to his room to shower. He thought he’d drive himself to the hospital. That could have cost him his life, just the way sustaining the attack on the course might have.”
ANNIKA SORENSTAM named 2017 Solheim Cup captain...Ryan Ballengee, Devil Ball Sports: “The 10-time major winner was announced Wednesday as the 2017 captain for the matches to be held at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in Iowa…."I cannot tell you how excited I am," Sorenstam said at the site of this week's ANA Inspiration, the first of five LPGA majors on the calendar. "I had hoped and I had dreamed that this opportunity would come along. If I look back in my career, the Solheim Cup has always been an important part of it. We play as individuals for 99 percent of the time, but when we do get together it's just something special."...Sorenstam will take on returning American captain Juli Inkster, whose charges came back from a four-point deficit in the final session to regain the Solheim Cup.”
LYDIA KO looking at season’s first major as “just another event”....AP: “World number one Lydia Ko said she was looking forward to a less stressful major at this week's ANA Inspiration after securing her maiden major title at last year's Evian Championship…."I'm just going to look at it as any other four-day event and just have fun out there and hopefully play some good golf," Ko told reporters ahead of Thursday's opening round of the first major women's championship of 2016.”
SORENSTAM’s “Letter to My Daughter” on the Players Tribune: “It might be hard to believe — you’ve seen Mama’s trophies and awards, and see all the people we get to meet and speak to now — but I was shy too. When I was little, not much older than you are now, I almost let those trophies slip away.”
--“All because I was too scared to find my own voice...I didn’t like to raise my hand in school to answer questions in case I was wrong. I always thought my classmates would turn around and laugh at me. And it was the same thing on the golf course. Coming down the stretch, if I thought I was about to win, I would miss on purpose — an extra putt, or a chip and two-putt, or something — so that I would only finish second or third and wouldn’t have to address the crowd and give a victory speech. That way I would still get a trophy, but wouldn’t have to speak to the crowd.”
FYI: Defending champ, J.B. Holmes is out of the Shell Houston Open with a shoulder injury...likewise (and likely of less interest), BRONSON BURGOON is a WD as well
PER GEOFF SHACKELFORD...Lee Westwood is gunning for the 2020 Ryder Cup captaincy
The MASTERS apparel scripting has started to roll in...FOWLER...MCILROY (this can’t be real, unless these photos are in black & white)...SPIETH...GARCIA, DAY, D. JOHNSON...
Finally, per Golf Digest, 78% of golfers would move a wedding or child’s birthday celebration to play in the Masters
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