Lift, clean and place in place at Crooked Stick

    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Proper golf at Crooked Stick Golf Club will have to wait for Friday. Today’s first round of the BMW Championship – or 109th Western Open for old-timers – is being played as “preferred lies,” to use the PGA Tour’s term.
    Others call it lift, clean and place.
    Still others call it lift, clean and cheat. Vijay Singh, maybe.
    The decision by Tour staff came about because of Wednesday’s downpour, which softened a course already made soft by weekend rains. Apparently, the embedded ball rule commonly employed in golf wasn’t enough to create a festival of birdies, so the Tour went the extra step to allowing the players to put the ball in their hand.
    The rule was last invoked in the Western / BMW for the first round at Bellerive in 2008, after more severe downpours pushed the opening round back to Friday. It was also used in the first two rounds at Cog Hill in 2007.
    In the early going, the low numbers aren’t too low. As of 12:58 p.m. ET, six players are tied at 3-under-par: Jimmy Walker, Kyle Stanley, Bo Van Pelt, Jim Furyk, Graham DeLeat and five-time champion Tiger Woods.
    The grouping of Woods, Nick Watney and Rory McIlroy has attracted many in the large gallery, which may have numbered 20,000 by their 11:48 a.m. tee time. It didn’t hurt that Phil Mickelson, Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner were the threesome immediately in front of them.
    Updates as warranted, with a complete report at the end of the day.
    – Tim Cronin

The cash parade reaches Indianapolis

    Wednesday, September 5, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Ind.

    Sometime late on Sunday afternoon, the winner of the BMW Championship – the 109th Western Open computed the old-fashioned way – will collect a check worth $1.44 million dollars.
    It took 69 playings, from the days of Willie Smith’s hickory shafts to the era of Nicklaus, Palmer and Casper – big Billy took four Westerns in a nine-year span – before this venerable championship had awarded that much money to the entire field. Now, score lowest, and you’ve do so in one fell swoop, and essentially never have to work again, not that these guys at the top of golf’s iceberg actually work.
    Take Tiger Woods, for instance. He’s off his all-universe form, and has been since his knee surgery following the 2008 U.S. Open, the subsequent personal travail, and the in-progress swing changes of Sean Foley. But his third-place finish in the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday brought him $544,000, and pushed his career winnings over $100 million. That’s a one with eight zeroes to the left of the decimal point.
    It’s also about a tenth of what he’s earned when endorsements, European Tour appearance fees, and wise investing have brought him. While much of that money went into ex-wife Elin’s pocket, and Uncle Sam has claimed his share, the tag day for Woods has been canceled.
    Even he knows he’s the beneficiary of excellent timing to go with excellent play.
    “It just means I’ve come along at the right time,” Woods said Wednesday at Crooked Stick Golf Club, after an impending thunderstorm stopped pro-am play at the course in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis. “Yes, I’ve won a lot, but Sam Snead won more tournaments than I did.”
    And, Woods might have added, earned less than $700,000 during his career.
    Put it this way. Phil Mickelson, who has outplayed Woods the last few years, is on the cusp of hitting $67 million in career earnings. That’s astounding, and that he is miles behind Woods is equally astounding.
    The money will only go up as television’s largess continues to pour into PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach., Fla., where commissioner Tim Finchem and his minions somehow figure out a way to entice sponsors to shell out more and more, year after year. If Rory McIlroy holds to form for the next 20 years, he could haul in $150 million on the U.S. tour alone.
    BMW, for instance, is the title sponsor of the week’s fandango. They pay into the purse, they donate a large sum to the Evans Scholars Foundation, which the week helps support, they buy a large chunk of commercial time on NBC and Golf Channel that goes beyond this week’s play, and they supply courtesy cars to the field for the week.
    That comes to around $9 million. No other sport, not even auto racing or tennis, the other two major vagabond competitions that travel the world, asks as much of its sponsors. Somehow, the PGA Tour has convinced CEOs and marketing directors that hanging out at a golf course where the stars may or may not appear – as independent contractors, they are beholden to no one – is the best way to market their products.
    It must move cars off the showroom floor, for BMW renewed its original contract, and just last week, Deutsche Bank did the same.
    All the math leads to this. The four-tournament series known as the FedEx Cup has a combined purse of $32 million on offer, plus another $35 million in money for the Cup itself.
    That’s $67 million for a month of play. The tag day for everyone in the playoffs has been canceled.
    At this stratospheric level, only winning matters, for the money is already in the bank. That makes those who are aggressive on a course they’ve barely seen and never played in competition the favorites for the week. The names already at the top of the money and points lists should continue to percolate to the top. That’s especially true given the dousing the Pete Dye-designed course took Wednesday, one more downpour on top of big rains Sunday and Monday.
    (There had been a drought in the Indianapolis area – the mayor only on Wednesday morning lifted a ban on watering lawns that had been in effect since June – but it was destined to end. If you need rain, just schedule a Western Golf Association championship.)
    “The big key this week is hitting the ball in the fairway and hitting it a good distance out there,” McIlroy said after coming off a course already soggy from the previous deluges.
    “It does help to be on the long side with it being this soft,” Woods agreed. “But you’ve got to hit it in the fairway. You can attack a lot of these flags.”
    Justin Rose, who lofted the J.K. Wadley Trophy above his head at Cog Hill last year, is the defending champion on a course he saw only from the clubhouse window a couple of months ago.
    “The real competitor is the golf course,” Rose said. “We have to learn this Crooked Stick golf course. It’s about keeping the ball in play. The rough is pretty thick.”
    – Tim Cronin

Bo knows Crooked Stick, sort of

    Wednesday, September 5, 2012

    Writing from Carmel, Ind.

    Bo Van Pelt is the local boy who is making good.
    A native of nearby Richmond, Ind., who now lives in Tulsa, Okla., Van Pelt is likely the only man in the field of 70 BMW Championship players who was at Crooked Stick Golf Club during the 1991 PGA Championship.
    Watching. As a spectator, complete with ticket hanging around his neck.
    “I played here one time growing up, and I was here in ’91 and watched as a spectator,” Van Pelt said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t say I have any local advantage. I’ll get some home cooking at my sister’s house, so that’s about it.”
    Not only did nobody in the field play in the 1991 PGA, nobody in the field was on the PGA Tour yet.
    Vijay Singh had played in a handful of British Opens by then, but he was still on the Asian and European circuits. Phil Mickelson was still an amateur, so had played in the Masters and U.S. Open – and won the Phoenix Open in 1991 – but wasn’t yet a pro, so wasn’t at Crooked Stick when John Daly, the most famous ninth alternate in the history of golf, came up from Arkansas the night before and ended up holding the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy after Bruce Lietzke and the other contenders failed to charge on Sunday.
    To show how fast time passes, Rory McIlroy, the world’s top-ranked player, was still in diapers. He was born in May of 1989, though let the record show he smacked a drive 40 yards, only about 280 yards behind big-hitting Daly, at age 2.

    It’s Rory’s world

    It’s good to be the king.
    It’s even better to be the king and 23, as the aforementioned Rory McIlroy is.
    A year after winning the U.S. Open by eight strokes in his first major after throwing away the Masters Tournament, in the middle of a blossoming romance with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, McIlroy silenced his critics and collected even more fans by winning the PGA Championship by eight strokes.
    The only other player since World War I to win more than one major by eight or more: Tiger Woods, who has done so in the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA. (The only guys before were Yound Tom Morris and J.H. Taylor, twice each in the British Open.)
    How good is that?
    And how does he get into such an amazing zone?
    “When that does happen, you have to realize it’s happening and just get out of your own way and just completely play one shot at a time,” McIlroy said. “Obviously you’re hitting the ball well, you’re just trying to hit it in the fairway, hit it on the green, hole the putt, go to the next hole, do it all over again. That’s what you’re trying to do.”
    Tiger Woods calls it plodding along. It’s a little more than that.
    “When you’re on like that, it’s obviously a great feeling,” McIlroy said. “It’s very difficult to play like that all the time, and that’s why the great players, they learn to win when they’re not playing their best.
    “That’s something that I still feel I’m learning to do. I think I sort of did that a little bit last week. I struggled to close out the tournament (the Deutsche Bank Championship near Boston), but had a couple of crucial up-and-downs on the way in. That’s what the great players do. They find a way.”
    Unless they’re injured. McIlroy’s great good friend Wozniacki, who has been nursing a wonky right knee, was knocked out of the U.S. Open in the first round by Irini-Camelia Begu.

    Around Crooked Stick

    The par 72 course tops out at 7,497 yards, but is expected to play closer to 7,350 in each of the four rounds, once tees and pin positions are juggled around. It would have listed even longer had Pete Dye, the founding architect who has a home off the 18th fairway, gotten his way and added even more back tees to his 40-plus-year pet project. ... Play in Wednesday’s pro-am was held up for nearly two hours starting at 11:31 a.m. because of a thunderstorm that drenched the course, with the morning rounds ended where they were stopped – Tiger Woods’ group, first off, played 15 1/2 holes – and the afternoon groups limited to nine holes beginning at 1:15 p.m.. This year’s tab for playing in the pro-am, which helps fund the Evans Scholars Foundation: $8,000. It had a full field of 156 amateurs, bringing in $1.248 million for the caddies-to-college program.
    – Tim Cronin

Weeks: Open berth "great reward for Armstrong"

    Writing from Chicago
    Wednesday, July 4, 2012

    In his years as a teaching professional, Kevin Weeks has tutored many fine players, including several notables on the PGA and LPGA tours.
    Of Ashley Armstrong’s berth in the 67th United States Women’s Open, Weeks says, “Nobody has worked harder nor deserves it more. This is a great reward for her.”
    Weeks was at Blackwolf Run, where the Women’s Open begins Thursday morning, earlier in the week to help tune the Flossmoor standout’s game. The veteran teacher at Cog Hill said one thing she hasn’t been thinking about is making the cut.
    “You don’t think about cuts,” Weeks said. “You just play as good as you can play. She will play as good as she can play. You play and you see where you stack up.”
    After the Open, Weeks and Armstrong will meet at Cog Hill, where Weeks will pose this question to her: “Where do you want to get better?”
    Armstrong, an eager learner and tenacious competitor, will no doubt have a long list, no matter how she fares at Blackwolf Run. She tees off on the 10th hole Thursday at 2:31 p.m.
    – Tim Cronin

Armstrong braces for Blackwolf's bite

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, July 2, 2012

    Ashley Armstrong knows what she’s in for.
    “Blackwolf Run is insanely hard but awesome,” Armstrong said Monday from Kohler, Wis., where she’s preparing for the 67th United States Women’s Open at the posh course attached to the even more posh American Club.
    “Like my caddie says, this course has the highest winning score for all the U.S. Women’s Opens.”
    To get technical, the 6-over-par 290 scored by Se Ri Pak and Jenny Chuasiriporn in 1998 to force a playoff – Pak won it on the 20th hole of a playoff the following day, scoring 2-over 73 for the regulation 18 – matched the highest winning score in a Women’s Open since 1977. In other words, since about 16 years before Armstrong was born.
    Armstrong, whose talent on the course manifested itself when she was in grade school, has blossomed in the last 12 months. Winning in her final appearance on the AJGA circuit, and then capturing the Women’s Western Junior at Flossmoor Country Club, her home course, was the ideal grand finale to her junior career. Since then, she’s picked up the individual Big East Conference title, plus a first-team conference berth, plus rookie – freshman, that is – of the year in her first go-round for Notre Dame.
    Thursday at 2:31 p.m., she’ll stand on the opening tee of the biggest women’s golf tournament in the world, the most major of the women’s major championship, hear her name announced, and, ideally, take a deep breath.
    “That’s when it’s finally going to kick in,” Armstrong said. “There will be some spectators today, but there will be a lot of them on Thursday. Garrett (Chaussard, a Cog Hill teaching pro who will caddie for her) says the biggest adjustment this week will be from Wednesday to Thursday. He said, ‘Everybody will be looking at you.’ ”
    Armstrong has dealt with eyes on her in competition before, notably at three straight Class AA tournaments, when she and next-door neighbor Michelle Mayer, now at Illinois, were leading Homewood-Flossmoor to a team title and a pair of runner-up berths. And she felt their gaze in the Women’s Western Junior last year, when, 2 down with three holes to play, she forged a tie at the last and scored the victory on the second extra hole with a passel of Flossmoor members rooting her on.
    Pressure? Armstrong’s been there, done that. Even waiting to find out if she moved up from alternate status to a berth in the field – she found out Sunday on the putting green when a USGA official gave her the word – was dealt with matter-of-factly.
    “I didn’t want to get too excited about it, because I didn’t want to be too dejected if I didn’t make it,” Armstrong said.
    What she hasn’t dealt with is a course this long. The United States Golf Association can set Blackwolf Run up as long as 6,954 yards. Four par-4s are over 400 yards. The seventh hole is a 590-yard par 5, while the 16th is 602 yards, a mammoth distance for the women. Armstrong, a mighty mite but not the world’s longest hitter, played from every back tee in Monday’s practice round to see what the grind would be like.
    “There are some par 4s I’ll play as par 5s and try to make ‘birdie,’ ” Armstrong said. “My strategy is to not make big mistakes. There are gonna be bogeys out there. It’s pretty crazy long. I’ll take it one shot at a time and see what happens.”
    The unstated goal is to make the cut, to advance to the final 36 holes. Only the low 60 players and ties from the field of 156 advance to the weekend. In 1998, the cut was 8-over-par 150, but Blackwolf Run’s Championship Course – the original 18 crafted by Pete Dye – played close to 500 yards shorter. This time? Who knows?
    Armstrong believes her first year of college play has steeled her for what’s to come.
    “The biggest thing college golf has done for me is help my confidence,” Armstrong said. “I realized I was not exactly the biggest hitter on the range. So I’ll be hitting hybrids and woods into the greens. And there are some mean pins out there.”
    The best part of her game is her approach game, and putting. Growing up at Flossmoor may give her an advantage, for superintendent Tom Lively can really speed Flossmoor's greens up.
    “Flossmoor is very, very fast,” Armstrong said.
    Parents Dean and Carolyn are busting their buttons with pride, of course.
    “By now, they’re more excited than I am,” Armstrong said.
    But this cool customer is also just a bit wide-eyed about the whole thing.
    “Today we picked up my Lexus, the courtesy car for the week,” Armstrong said. “Today I signed autographs for little kids. It’s all so cool.”
    Things heat up at the previously-noted time of 2:31 p.m. Thursday, the penultimate tee time of the day. Armstrong, the only Illinoisian in the field, will be playing with Cydney Clanton of Concord, N.C. and fellow amateur Shannon Aubert of Champions Gate, Fla.
    – Tim Cronin