PGA Tour: The California Coast Swing: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).Albert Hammond, the Pride of Gibraltar, used to warble that "It Never Rains in Southern California", "but girl, don't they warn ya, It pours man, it pours", and seldom does the California coastal swing suggest that Albert might be wrong. This week's "Farmers Insurance Open" at Torrey Pines just north of San Diego may have to deal with some rainy weather before the skies clear, and the temperature drops, for the weekend.
So: This week's entertainment is in San Diego, we trek to the desert for next week's action in Phoenix, then back to the coast for Pebble Beach followed by L.A.'s Riviera before returning to the desert and Tucson's WGC MatchPlay event.

2).This week's event, in particular, has favoured California boys, and not just Woods (7 wins) and Mickelson (3). O'Meara has won here in the past 25 years as have Scott Simpson, Greg Twiggs, Steve Pate (2), Stadler and Watney. Two others, Jacobsen and Crane are from Oregon, just to the north of California. I picked Watney when he won a few years ago and this is just the sort of course he plays well on - and the same types of player will be worth watching over three of the next four weeks.

3).But what about last week, and the "Humana Challenge" in the Palm Springs area? Personally, I find this the least satisfying event to watch during the PGA Tour season and didn't bother until Sunday, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned. In particular, we saw three European "rookies", Sweden's David Lingmerth, Ross Fisher and David Lynn in action and Lingmerth, who must have gained confidence from the previous week's 31st place finish in Hawaii, reached the 3-man play-off. He's now 80% of the way towards retaining his card for the 2013/2014 season.
Fisher birdied three of his final four Saturday holes to barely make the cut, and Lynn missed badly. The next four weeks are crucial for Fish as the first "rookie reshuffle" will be on us as the Tour moves to Florida in a month's time.
He has the game, but does he have the temperament, not to mention the putter?
And does Lynn have the birdies in his bag that will be so essential to success here?
Not confident yet of either.

4).Brian Gay won, of course; he says he's added length to his game, but is still 123rd in driving distance for the year and benefitted from accuracy and his magical short game. Don't bother to look for him to churn out wins; he'll compete on shortish tracks, especially with Bermuda greens, and probably won't even bother to enter the remaining California tournaments. Could contend in Phoenix though.

5).More predictable was Charlie Howell ball-striking his way to the 14th career runner-up of his career, against only two wins. But he doesn't have nine consecutive years with at least one second-place finish, which Phil Mickelson does!
TRIVIA: Who is the other player with a current string of nine years with at least one second-place finish???
(Nicklaus has seventeen years with at least one runner-up finish - one record that Tiger will never break.)
ANSWER: Tim Clark - sussed out by barragan

6).One thing is for sure this week: The golfer entering next Sunday in second place (as Robbie Castro did at "Humana") and shooting even par will certainly not drop 35 places. Castro is an entertaining lad; GolfWorld ran a page-worth of his tweets last autumn - if they'd've been rip-roaringly funny I'd've posted the link. Everything's relative.
Which in this case is an unintended pun to pass on a fact I learned from Karen Crouse's NY Times notes about Castro, namely that, like Keegan Bradley, his aunt is an LPGA Champion and long-time LPGA member, Jenny Lidback, a Peru-born Swede who makes her home in Texas! I didn't know that!

7).Only two+ months to go until cut-off for owgr top 50 qualification for The Masters. The 15 golfers immediately outside the top 50 (and without a Masters exemption) are:
#52: Stenson
53: Ramsay
54: Cabrera-Bello (already in the WGC Cadillac)
56: Jaidee
58: Fraser (in the Cadillac)
59: Lowry
60: Siem (in the Cadillac)
61: Noren
62: Ogilvy
63: Jimenez (sadly injured)
64: Wiesberger
65: A.Hansen
66: C.Howell
68: Cauley
69: Jacobson

8).In this bleak midwinter (here as well as there: -2F at noon as I write) it was only appropriate that David Frost led (almost all the way) in Hawaii in the Champions Tour before being overhauled on the 56th hole by John Cook's birdie.
Say what you like about the Champions Tour but these guys can still play! Frost at least has a hot putter and is currently at 254 holes and counting since his last 3-putt.
And another trivia question, inspired by Lanny Wadkins' appearance in the broadcast booth (where he is as boring as his game was entertaining). Wadkins was losing Ryder Cup Captain in 1995.
TRIVIA: Who is the only member of his Team who wasn't playing last Friday and Saturday?
ANSWER: Peter Jacobsen, deduced by princedracula

9).Despite rain in the forecast, Torrey Pines, North and South Courses, is expected to play hard and fast this week. Colsaerts makes his first appearance as a PGA Tour member; I see pgatour.com lists him as resident in Mauritius which surely makes for a tricky commute? Could be a good event for him though as the Torrey Pines set-up is often felt to favour bombers. Brian Davis is awol which, to be fair, he has been in his two events so far this season anyway, but Fisher, Laird, Lynn and Owen will be on hand.
I'd fancy Dustin Johnson to follow up his fine performance at Kapalua but am not optimistic he has come up for air since being swallowed up by his "baby". Snedeker almost always plays well here, Phil looked good last weekend but may be preoccupied with his taxes, and I have a very luke-warm each-way fancy for Watney and Aussie Marc Leishman, two decent finishes already this year and second here a few years back.

10).Finally there was a mandatory "Players Meeting" in San Diego yesterday where Mike Davis of the USGA was hauled in to explain the "anchoring ban". Early reports suggest that Tim Clark was the first and strongest speaker in opposition to the proposed new rules. golfchannel.com quotes a traditionally anonymous source as expressing surprise "that most players who use anchored putters didn't say anything".
There are clearly strong feelings about this but will anyone voice them and bring things to a head, or will the anchorers surrender meekly?

5) furyk ?

Hi barra,
Furyk had a shocking 2011 - best finish 6th!

Tim Clarke?!

Well done barra, thought that might take a while, especially given his (almost) lost 2011 season!

kindred spirits...i had 7 runner-up placings last season in club comps without a win

Thanks kwini

5) If Lefty finishes runner up at torrey pines this week, he'll have 10 years in a row with at least one 2nd place..

8) Peter Jacobsen (reserve: Jeff Maggert) ?

Talking of Jacobs... what's happening with Freddy Jac ? Is he due to come out of hibernations soon...?

You guys are good!

Maggert (and Love who missed the cut, hence "Friday and Saturday") played in the desert, the other hapless nine were in Hawaii wondering about what went wrong against Philip Walton and Howard Clark.

Haven't heard much about Freddy but there's a tendancy for his appearances to be intermittent until they reach Florida. The way things are, he's forfeiting the chance of a MatchPlay effort.

Freddy actually needs a decent year - he's not in any of the WGC's or Majors and loses his exemption for winning Hartford.

Jason Day coming out of the woodwork for this week's action. Just four owgr points scored in the past three months and that was courtesy of a 15th (out of 18) place finish at Tiger's Sherwood shenaigans.
In that time he's slumped from a world ranking of 26th to 39th.

Is Day the real thing (one very scratchy career win) or just another spoiled brat with a golf swing to die for?
Not quite the young gun oozing promise from five years ago - a sense of humour at last from the PGA Tour grouping him with Ishikawa this week (tho' as Colsaerts is the 3rd member of the threesome, perhaps PGA Tour doesn't have a sense of humour after all, just a sycophantic pandering - maybe Billy Payne did the tee-times?).

Day used to do well at the majors. So come 2013 Major time, we will see whether Days days are over.

kwinigolfer wrote:You guys are good!

Maggert (and Love who missed the cut, hence "Friday and Saturday") played in the desert, the other hapless nine were in Hawaii wondering about what went wrong against Philip Walton and Howard Clark.

Not quite right, PMick joined Maggert and Love in the desert.

"PMick joined Maggert and Love in the desert."

Erm - that sounds a bit dodgy, hope the word "ensued" isn't missing from the end of that statement...

Thanks for that GPB,
Cold in Montgomery Center this a.m..

Clouds and rain in the area of Torrey Pines as the boys get set to commence Round 1 over two courses:
The North, where red figures should be the order of the day.
The South , where the set up is trickier and the greens quite a bit faster than the undulating North Course surfaces - average scores here likely to be at par or just above.

No sign of any withdrawals yet, but no doubt Gary Christian is ready to get set and go as he is first "alternate". Hope he gets in.

kwinigolfer wrote:No sign of any withdrawals yet, but no doubt Gary Christian is ready to get set and go as he is first "alternate". Hope he gets in.

...well, never say never... Bubba out, Gary in! With that the tournament is on the brink of droping from 50 pts to 48. Not yet, but if there was some other WD that I didn't hear about... We'll confirm later...

EDIT: ...at a closer look, I don't see Gary Christian's name on the LB, so maybe someone else took the spot?

Gary in?

I don't think so; for some reason Billy Mayfair got the nod; no idea why, perhaps Christian wasn't on site?

Meant to post this earlier, but: Watch Ricky Barnes this coming month.

Slightly mixed feelings about Barnes this week. I felt, like you, that he's one to watch this year and backed him last week in my FT, but left him out this week as I was not 'satisfied' with his T16 return...

Certainly an underachiever as far as I'm concerned, to paraphrase your last week's ballwasher theme...

...on an unrelated note, what's up with Nicholas Thompson? 6th last week and at the top again this week? Where is this coming from...?

Nicholas Thompson is a birdie machine, but terrible course management.
He's playing the North Course, as are 12 of the leading 16.

princedracula wrote:...on an unrelated note, what's up with Nicholas Thompson? 6th last week and at the top again this week? Where is this coming from...?

Maybe he was sick of his little Sister beating him. And started to practice again.

Fine start by Fisher, but Woods separating himself from most of his competitors on the more difficult South Course. Swinging so well that the Emirs in Ab Dhabi must be wondering why he didn't bother to make an effort last week.
(Equal opportunity slagging can apply equally to McIlroy, but at least he had the excuse, albeit feeble, that he was playing new sticks - although why only he knows.)

Promising opening also for Mike Weir - can he sustain it this week or will he triple bogey his 36th hole to miss the cut again?

Scratchy finish from Woods, two bogeys in his final four holes and overtaken on the run in by David Lynn who cards a very nice 67.

KJ Choi back from oblivion to lead the South Course wave at -7, tied with Snedeker.

I can think of 200 million reasons why Rory switched.

or a 100 Million (or whatever the flavor of the day is)

Money, Money, Money.
But if it jeopardises the quality of his game is it worth the difference between Nike and the bundle of other sponsors?
Let's hope he won't regret it.

Some lovely golf by TW, and I certainly look for him to be in the mix come Sunday.

I enjoy these two course setups, and we'll know lots more after full field plays both courses.

GPB wrote:I can think of 200 million reasons why Rory switched.

or a 100 Million (or whatever the flavor of the day is)

Caroline just been spotted with a huge diamond on her finger. (Btw, she also crashed out of the Aussie Open).

Another dreary morning in San Diego with a little rain overnight, nothing significant.

The South Course probably played about as easy as it's going to on Thursday, Kostis seemed to think that those playing South yesterday, North today, might have an advantage, especially if the wind picks up.

So, what does the South leaderboard look like:

T1 overall: KJ Choi: 65
T3: Teater: 66
T11: Ridings: 67
T11: Hicks: 67
T20: Marino: 68
T20: Letzig: 68
T20: English: 68
T20: Woods: 68
T20: Guthrie: 68

So: Just nine of the South Course players in the top 35 and things should even up this afternoon.


Expect the cut to be at about _1 or _2, which means Fisher and Lynn should be in good shape, and Laird will be OK if he just complies an average score on the "North". Greg Owen in a spot of bother however, and will likely need a 68 on the "North" to play the weekend.

North Course played a full 2.8 strokes easier than the South Layout. Tiger in a good position, now he has to take advantage of it.

Do they actually keep the same pin positions on Thu and Fri? Would be fair that way...

Good to see KJ come back so strong after virtually disappearing for quite a while...

I think so, pd. Sure they do, in fact.

A decent finish from KJ will kick some unsuspecting fellow out of the Top 50!

Strange bedfellows at the bottom of the leaderboard: Rickie Fowler - clearly doesn't like playing with Woods following his Memorial nightmare! - and Ogilvy, who doesn't much seem to like playing, period.

Prince - Kwin beat me to it. Yes, indeed.

I think Rickie will be riding moto-cross this weekend.

Cheers, gents... makes perfect sense.

Looks like it'll be a rainy morning in the Golden State, up to 1/2 inch of rain forecast and that should take some of the "fire" Tiger was talking about out of the courses. Not much wind, receptive greens, all you have to do is drive it in the fairway-ish and birdies will fly.
Let's see!

I am happy to see KJ Choi (or Goldfinger's Henchman: Odd Job) playing well again.

Looking at the Round 1 Leaderboard, about 30 of the top 35 at Torrey Pines are not ranked inside the top 64 and many (if not most) of them would not get inside the top 64 even with a win this week at Torrey.

Followed KJ a couple years ago at the AT&T tournament (when in contention). Emotionless and machine-like (I mean that in the highest regard). Didn't blink until he found some very, very heavy rough and carded a double. As he approached the next tee shot you couldn't tell if he just eagled or doubled the previous hole. To me, it showed what a game of "miss-management" golf can be at the highest level. All these guy are good, some just are good with a bit more regularity.

I like KJ's eyes/look/face when following a ball in fight and in general when he's concentrated with something. One of the top 'images' in golf for me and one of the most instantly recognizable...

Spoiler:

My favourite shot of KJ was when he was standing to the right of the 18th fairway at the 2010 Transitions when Furyk was leading.
KJ was watching as Furyk played his approach to the final hole and produced a Simpson-like shank, almost singeing KJ's eyebrows. He didn't flinch, except to move his head back ever so slightly, and raise those inscrutable eyebrows an inch! Classic KJ.

Top man KJC very good record in Augusta I belive and always slips under the bookies radar for each way bets.Could easily drop into a Bond movie.
Goldfinger golf scenes filmed at Stoke Park formerly Stoke Poges GC

CHIII is on a roll! But who's gonna come 1st and 3rd...?

For those struggling out there, this is how it should be done...

Spoiler:

Some of our American friends won't like me saying so, but sometimes US golfers say the sort of thing of which sterotypes are made:

Chas Howell yesterday about his ambitions to return to his hometown of Augusta and play The Masters again:
"You miss the British Open and you turn on the TV at 7 in the morning and you see it raining sideways and you're like, ahh, OK. But you miss The Masters and the azaleas are in bloom - - that's a hard one to miss."

Three things:
Not as if it's not raining sideways at San Diego this morning. (And look who's leading!)
Not that Augusta National doesn't turn into a mudbowl in the event of rain because of the mowing methods - mudballs invariably complained about (but never at The Open).
And lastly, you're a good guy Chuckie, fun to follow and apparently very likeable, but if that's your image of Britain perhaps you'd better stay at home and no-one at The Open will complain.

Berk.

Kwin - Form all the stereotypes anyone wants, it's what people do.

But ... It's a totally justifiable opinion to want to play in your hometown. And the weather is absolutely gentler most Masters than British Opens. They may not complain about mudballs at the Open, but certainly lots of other stuff to complain about (quirky fairways and having to negotiate your way around a hotel on the 17th hole of a famous course, to name a couple).

Now, ol' Chuck certainly played his hand. What do you think the chances are he'll compete effectively at any Open Championship with that attitude? Slim and none is my guess.

Do you really think that's his entire "image of Britain" and not the Open Championship? Give the man credit, they aren't one in the same.

pd,


Sr,
Certainly understand his desire to play The Masters, which is I'm sure is why the subject came up.

But it's just the same as Wimbledon, "Oh, it's raining again".
Whereas, which is the tournament that hasn't had a men's final on a Monday since about 1972, and which one has had its final on a Monday the last four times? But I guarantee no foreign visitor to Flushing says, "Oh, US Open, got to pack my wellies and sou'wester."

I actually DO think his image of Britain is based upon what he perceives as the "British Open" experience, and I imagine most US Golf media and players feel the same, except of course when they go on their own agenda and find, like we find New York for instance, that it's not at all like the TV image. I like the Chuckster as a golfer, but this sort of rubbish just shows he needs to get out more.

PS: SO'H +7 over his last seven holes - perhaps he forgot his brolly? Not good.

Ooops! Just turned around for a minute and now when I look back... guess who's climbed up there at the top?

Et tu CHIII...?
I'd have to say, no disrespect to Augusta, but as soon as you come out of the unnaturally/perfectly manicured fairways of ANGC, it can get quickly pretty dreary and uninspiring out there... But maybe I've missed something...

Kwin - O'Hair in serious trouble, even though he's never been much of an early starter in season. I hope he can turn it around.

Speaking of which, David Lynn might have outrun Tiger yesterday, but you could put a Walmart between their scores today!

Sr,
2nd in Hawaii last year and precious little since; at least, not when Kenny Perry's not around. Is he one of those who's messed around with his equipment (excuse the expression)? I know he's been fickle with coaches and caddies.

PS: Never been to a Walmart so wouldn't know!

Kwin - Steady on the equipment front. But, seems to lack the afterburners some golfers (most notably Rory, Tiger, Sergio ...etc) possess. Hey, it's only January (I'm sure he's muttering)!

(I also will NOT shop at a Walmart ... but it's their awful healthcare policy, which they seem happy to unload on all us taxpayers!)

Tiger being chased by a Fish.....

This is superb from Fish; mental fortitude required for his next nine holes.

Allenby's career going from bad to worse as I see he's withdrawn. What's wrong with that boy? Donny 150tothepin must be apoplectic!

Hard work coming home but first made cut for 18 months for Mike Weir.
Good round for Greg Owen, but challenges ahead for Lynn and Martin Laird.

Super effort by Rickie Fowler today and a very easy looking 65 from Woods.

Only TWO! fairways hit by the ever inscrutable KJ Choi.

Fine round by Fish and he's in good position going in to the weekend.
Laird and Karlsson (and Mickelson) in luck as the cut returned to -1, but a logistical nightmare for PGA Tour staff as they have 87 golfers to squeeze tee-times in for on Saturday.

You'd think they'd want to see the last group out (OK, Tiger) finished by 3.00 p.m. local time. But that's going to make for a very early start and very, very slow going, only assisted slightly by Keegan Bradley flunking the cut.