Another Boring Golf Tournament

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Old 08-26-2018, 05:28 PM
retiredguy123 retiredguy123 is online now
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Default Another Boring Golf Tournament

Just watched The Northern Trust tournament in the FedEx playoffs. The leader had a 4 stroke lead in the final few holes, but faced no real course challenges, so he could just coast to a safe victory. No water, or other hazards on the final holes, wide fairways, huge greens, and shallow sand traps. In my opinion, the PGA should require the golf courses to be more challenging to the players, and more interesting for the spectators. It seems as though the golfers don't even care if their ball goes into a sand trap, because it is almost an automatic par. Just my opinion.
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Old 08-26-2018, 05:35 PM
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Just watched The Northern Trust tournament in the FedEx playoffs. The leader had a 4 stroke lead in the final few holes, but faced no real course challenges, so he could just coast to a safe victory. No water, or other hazards on the final holes, wide fairways, huge greens, and shallow sand traps. In my opinion, the PGA should require the golf courses to be more challenging to the players, and more interesting for the spectators. It seems as though the golfers don't even care if their ball goes into a sand trap, because it is almost an automatic par. Just my opinion.
I liked the Fedex Cup playoffs the first couple of years when they played the first round in New Jersey on the course you could see the Statue of Liberty in the background. The greens had Brooks Koepka stymied today, otherwise he would of challenged.

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Old 08-26-2018, 08:46 PM
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There's always one of these.
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Old 08-27-2018, 08:08 PM
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There's always one of these.
And probably more than 300 other channels that he could have switched to. I enjoyed watching the "mad scientist" play his way into the Ryder cup.
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Old 08-28-2018, 09:00 AM
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A tournament with everybody else playing for second place is about as boring as it gets. The only excitement this past weekend was seeing guys trying to get into the top 100 to advance. Playing for second isn't nearly as exciting.
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Old 08-28-2018, 09:49 AM
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There are several things to address here. First of all, the excitement when a player has a four stroke lead going into the final round is the question of whether he can maintain that lead or will he collapse. It's more about mental and emotional pressure than anything else. In this case, DeChambeau played well and many of those chasing him did not. Keegan Bradley folded almost immediately. Had DeChambeau folded like that it might have been more exciting.

The golf course stood up pretty well. The rough seemed as though it was pretty penal. The problem I have with professional golf today is that the ball just goes too far. Although the rough was difficult, it's a lot easier when you're hitting wedges out of it. The biggest problem that these players have today is stopping the ball from the rough. The guys that hit it the longest don't care if they hit it in the rough because they'd rather be hitting a gap wedge from the rough than a six iron from the fairway. I understand that the players have higher swing speeds and that they are bigger and stronger than in the past, but to me, that's just another reason for reducing the length that the ball goes for The PGA Tour, Web.Com Tour and the all of the other high-level tours. There should be a ball for all of us normal human beings and then a tour spec ball for the tour players.

The problem is that we're running out of real estate. In many cases, great courses simply cannot be made any longer. There is no room. This has caused the importance of accuracy to be negated.

I recall seeing Hogan and Nicklaus and other great playing long par fours with a driver and three iron. Today, if a player is hitting more than seven iron second shot into a hole, he's either laid way back, hit a terrible tee shot or is playing a par five. So not only is driving accuracy no longer important, but the length of the holes is no longer important. One of the most famous shots in golf history was Hogan's one iron to the eighteenth green of Merion in the 1950 US Open. He hit it forty feet to seal the deal. In 2013 that hole was lengthened to 528 yards and most players still hit less than 1 iron. The longest players on tour were hitting six and even some seven irons. The winner, Justin Rose, hit a four iron.

As far as bunkers being automatic pars, that's simply not true. The best sand save percentage on the PGA Tour is 66% and the average of the top 150 players is about 50%. It may seem like they get it up and down from bunkers all the time, but we have to remember, most of the players that we see on television are the ones who are playing the best that week. We usually don't see players that don't make the cut or are finishing in 70th place. Those guys are not getting up and down like the leaders are. Besides, automatic pars are not great scores for these guys. The PGA Tour is about making birdies. Hitting into a bunker or missing a green lowers the chances of making birdie significantly and that is a very big deal.

It may seem like some of these courses are easy but if you haven't played them you don't understand. This course looked boring on television. Most parkland type courses do unless they have a lot of tall fescue, extremely penal fairway bunkers or other severe hazards. But I saw several balls out of bounds and several lost balls as well. Dustin Johnson made two triples and a double. Look at what happened to Beau Hostler on the first hole on Sunday. Jordan Speith lost a ball in the rough. Keegan Bradley shot 78. Had DeChambeau done any of that, it certainly would have been a more interesting event. But you can't say that the course presented no challenges.

Twenty six of the 80, 1/3 of the field that made the cut shot over par. It presented some problems for them.

DeChambeau won because he played the best. Sometimes a guy will just run away from the field. Usually, that's only exciting if it's Tiger Woods or some sort of all time record is going to be broken.

But scaling back the distance by introducing a tour ball would make professional golf a lot more interesting.
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Old 08-28-2018, 10:13 AM
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In the Sports section today they gave an unofficial account of changes coming in 2018. They're eliminating one week, so the first week will alternate year to year between Boston and Liberty National in New Jersey (the course I mention above)

There has been some strange feelings about the finally, Justin Thomas was used as a example from last year. He came in second at the tournament at Atlanta but won the Fedex Cup and $10 Million. He said it felt weird to lose but here's $10 mill. So they're going to be staggered, the leader set at 10- under par and the other 29 will be spaced out behind the leader. It's all still up in the air, but it's going to be something like that.

As far as this past weekend, I did use my remote and watched Bills and Bengals preseason game. My team the Ravens play Buffalo opening day and then play the Bengals 4 days later on a Thursday night. All I can say is, Buffalo should of kept Tyrod Taylor and do what Cleveland is doing, let him start and Baker Mayfield can watch and learn, although Mayfield has looked very good, I've watched Hard Knocks every week so far. Josh Allen the #1 draft pick of the Bills looked awful, he even admitted the game speed was eye opening.

A.J. McCarron the backup in Cincy the last couple of years, the bills picked him up in the off season to be their starter. He hasn't looked very good in preseason and now he is injured, so that really leaves them with Nathan Peterman as the only experienced starter, he was Tyrod's backup last year.
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Old 08-28-2018, 10:25 AM
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I liked the Fedex Cup playoffs the first couple of years when they played the first round in New Jersey on the course you could see the Statue of Liberty in the background. The greens had Brooks Koepka stymied today, otherwise he would of challenged.

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Old 08-28-2018, 11:04 AM
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In the Sports section today they gave an unofficial account of changes coming in 2018. They're eliminating one week, so the first week will alternate year to year between Boston and Liberty National in New Jersey (the course I mention above)

There has been some strange feelings about the finally, Justin Thomas was used as a example from last year. He came in second at the tournament at Atlanta but won the Fedex Cup and $10 Million. He said it felt weird to lose but here's $10 mill. So they're going to be staggered, the leader set at 10- under par and the other 29 will be spaced out behind the leader. It's all still up in the air, but it's going to be something like that.

As far as this past weekend, I did use my remote and watched Bills and Bengals preseason game. My team the Ravens play Buffalo opening day and then play the Bengals 4 days later on a Thursday night. All I can say is, Buffalo should of kept Tyrod Taylor and do what Cleveland is doing, let him start and Baker Mayfield can watch and learn, although Mayfield has looked very good, I've watched Hard Knocks every week so far. Josh Allen the #1 draft pick of the Bills looked awful, he even admitted the game speed was eye opening.

A.J. McCarron the backup in Cincy the last couple of years, the bills picked him up in the off season to be their starter. He hasn't looked very good in preseason and now he is injured, so that really leaves them with Nathan Peterman as the only experienced starter, he was Tyrod's backup last year.
I don't like any of those proposed changes. The Fed Ex Cup is supposed to be a season-long race. The idea that the winner of the Tour Championship should automatically be given the cup is ridiculous. The idea of giving the Fed Ex Cup leader a big advantage in the Tour Championship in order to make that happen is a terrible idea. I'm disappointed that they won't be going to Boston every year. As Boston native, I was very excited to have a PGA event back in my hometown after the Tour screwed Pleasant Valley over. If I'm not mistaken, Boston has consistently had some of the biggest galleries on the tour outside of majors.

I think more events in the playoffs would be better than fewer and more players should be cut at each event.

This actually brings up another way to add more interest to these tournaments when the leaders have a big lead. Watching the changes in Fed Ex Cup points was very interesting this past weekend as well as speculating on Ryder Cup picks. A lot of players played themselves out of the playoffs and some player played themselves in. When a player goes from 125th to 40th in Fed Ex Cup points, he should be able to have a good chance to win the cup is he makes it to the Tour Championship. If they give the point leader a big lead in the Tour Championship, what would be the point in improving your position each week?
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Old 08-28-2018, 11:23 AM
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I don't like any of those proposed changes. The Fed Ex Cup is supposed to be a season-long race. The idea that the winner of the Tour Championship should automatically be given the cup is ridiculous...
I have serious doubts about this too, Doc. I never had a problem with separate winners of the Tour Championship and the Cup.

I’ll keep an open mind for one season, since it appears to be a done deal. But I don’t know...
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