Only the albatross was missing

    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Until Thursday, Crooked Stick Golf Club was known as a difficult course.
    Now, it’s known nationwide as a pushover. Soft as a fresh Twinkie. A miniature layout, lacking only a windmill.
    Where’s Pete Dye and a backhoe when you need him?
    Here are the totals from the carnage known as the first round of the BMW Championship, which resembles the 109th Western Open in name only: Four players, including world No. 1 Rory McIlroy and U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, are at 8-under-par 64, tying the course record set by 1991 Western Open champion Russ Cochran and Loren Roberts in the 2009 U.S. Senior Open.
    Tiger Woods and 49-year-old Vijay Singh are joint fifth at 7-under 65, with Woods in quest of a record sixth Western / BMW title. Luke Donald, Ryan Moore and Palmer – that’s Ryan, not Arnold – stand seventh at 6-under 66. Half the world is at 5-under 67, including defending champion Justin Rose and Zach Johnson, last seen winning the John Deere Classic.
    Is Crooked Stick the Indiana translation for TPC Deere Run?
    The day’s scoring average was a record in relation to par: 69.471, precisely 2.529 strokes under par, and by far a new standard in that regard. (The old mark was 1.862 strokes under par, in the final round at Cog Hill in 2007.)
    As Tom Carnegie used to say over the PA system at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway: “It’s a new track record!” And some Crooked Stick members might be saying it was time for a new track.
    Think the PGA Tour’s lift, clean and place rule doesn’t make a difference? The pros could put their hand on the ball when it was in the fairway on Thursday, and they took advantage. That probably lowered the scoring average by a stroke. The soft conditions that prompted the ruling – almost 2.5 inches of rain since last weekend – had already made the greens receptive to shots with even the least amount of spin on them.
    Thus, lawn darts replaced golf on Thursday at Crooked Stick, where John Daly once won a PGA Championship with a 72-hole score of 12-under-par 276.
    At this pace, the leaders will be 12-under by the time they make the turn Friday morning – and most play will be in the morning, as severe weather is forecast for the late afternoon. Tee times have been adjusted.
    There’s another reason for the low scores, one that smarty pants critics might overlook. The players are phenomenally good. The combination of pure skill, strategic smarts, magical ball and club technology and course conditioning – don’t forget that Crooked Stick’s greens are perfect – adds up to low, low, low numbers.
    Take McIlroy, for instance. Possessed of a silky swing and superior smarts, McIlroy hit 11 of 14 fairways, 15 greens and needed only 26 putts to negotiate a course that measured 7,408 yards and still had more trouble lurking than most layouts.
    “I felt like my iron play was some of the best it’s been all year, basically my whole life,” McIlroy said. “I was giving myself a lot of opportunities to attack the pins from the fairways.”
    And he did, hole after hole. McIlroy’s only miscue was a bogey on the par-4 13th. He’d opened with a birdie on the par-4 10th after hitting his tee shot right of sideways, bounced back from the bogey with a birdie on the 14th, eagled the 15th, birdied the 18th and first, birdied the par-5 fifth, then finished with birdied on the eighth and par-5 ninth. That’s your basic 32-32–64.
    All this came less than 72 hours after McIlroy won the Deutsche Bank Classic in Norton, Mass., evidence that his focus is as phenomenal as the rest of his game.
    “I didn’t really have any time to celebrate or anything like that,” said McIlroy, who didn’t even see all 18 holes in Wednesday’s rain-shortened pro-am. “Just get myself focused and ready for this.”
    And that, among other things, impressed Woods, who came up a stroke short of his young rival, but was gushing in his compliments.
    “I scored well, but he was playing,” Woods said. “This is the next generation of guys coming out. He hits it great, putts it great, and on top of that, he’s just a really nice kid.
    “The game of golf is in great hands with him, and he’s here to stay.”
    The other 64s, posted by Bo Van Pelt and Graham DeLeat, were all but lost in the shuffle. But Van Pelt destroyed the front nine with a 5-under 31, was first to 7-under, and DeLeat, a Canadian who missed the cut last week, finished with a flourish with an eagle 3 on the par-5 ninth, rolling in a 38-foot putt from in front of the green. Ah, the magic of the long putter.
    “I bought it in a golf store in Boise a few weeks back,” DeLeat said.
    Boise?
    “It still had the price tag on it.”
    But of course.
    Simpson, the all-but-forgotten National Open champion, was 4-under through 13 holes, then birdied the next four to charge to the front. And even as McIlroy played with Woods, Simpson played with Van Pelt. Clearly, there were some good vibrations at the Stick.
    “I was watching Bo make everything on the front nine,” Simpson said. “I hadn’t made a lot of putts lately, but once they started going in, it was a good feeling.”
    As was, in Simpson’s mind, the use of lift, clean and place. He said his drives picked up mud upon landing, “More than I’ve ever seen. If we didn’t play lift, clean and place, I would probably have shot 80. It would have been impossible. Half the ball was covered on every hole.”
    Simpson said he expects the rule to be in effect again on Friday. The forecast, then, is not only for thunderstorms late, but low scores early.
    – Tim Cronin

The McIlroy-Woods best-ball score: 59

    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Too bad Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy weren’t paired in a best-ball match on Thursday.
    How good would a cool 59 have looked on the scoreboard?
    Woods and McIlroy combined for 16 birdies and an eagle in the first round at Crooked Stick Golf Club. McIlroy tied the course record with an 8-under-par 64. Woods fired a 65. (Nick Watney, the third man in the group, had to feel like he was in the B Flight. He scored 70 and is tied for 41st, in the back half of the 70-man field.)
    It was the show of shows, the top-ranked player of the moment and the best player of the young century throwing birdies around like they were going out of style, and right from the start, when each birdied their first hole, the par 4 10th. The only holes neither player scored under par on were the 12th, third, fourth, sixth and seventh. It must have been the heat down the stretch.
    “We just want to go out there and play the best we can, that’s my mindset,” McIlroy said. “I’m not going out with the intention of beating Tiger, I’m just there to try and shoot the best number possible.”
    What’s unusual to longtime Woods watchers is how chatty he is with McIlroy as they stroll down fairways. Woods spoke to next to nobody beyond saying, “Good shot,” for years and years. Now, here’s the new kid on the block, less programmed and more naturally talented than Woods was at 23, and Woods is chatting him up like Bob Hope did with Bing Crosby on the Road to Birdieland. And it’s not gamesmanship.
    McIlroy and Woods joust verbally, but only in fun. It’s clear there’s not only mutual respect, but something of admiration, McIlroy for what Woods has accomplished on the course, Woods for what McIlroy has done and will do down the line.
    “You watch him swing the club, watch him putt and play, he doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses,” Woods said. “You can see in the next decade or so, as he really matures and understands some of the nuances of the game, he’s only going to get better, and that’s kind of fun to see.”
    The two are 13 years apart, Woods 36 and McIlroy 23. Speaking of generational rivals, Jack Nicklaus was 10 years younger than Arnold Palmer, and 10 years older than Tom Watson. Woods knows his time as the man to beat is drawing to a close, and that McIlroy may assume that role.
    “As Jack said numerous times, it was nice to be part of the cross-generational conversations with Gary (Player) and Arnold, a little bit of (Ben) Hogan maybe,” Woods said. “He was part of it with Watson and (Tom) Weiskopf and (Lee) Trevino and all those guys.
    “This is my 17th year old here. The guys I battled head-to-head are early 40s if not late 40s, like Vijay (Singh, 49) is. This is the next generation of guys.”
    One guy, the guy from Holywood, Northern Ireland, was 7 when he watched Woods win his first Masters. McIlroy seems to have adapted to playing with him.
    “Chevron was the first time I got to play with him, and I was a little nervous,” McIlroy said. “I still held my own; shot a couple under. I’ve always enjoyed playing with Tiger, and every time we’re paired up we seem to have a good time.”
    Thursday was better than good. It was sublime.

    McDowell’s lament

    Graeme McDowell appeared to have scored 6-under-par 66, but touched a leaf in a bunker on his takeaway swing on the ninth hole, his last of the day, and was slapped with a two-stroke penalty. That gave him a 1-over 6 on the hole and a total of 4-under 68, putting him four strokes behind the leaders entering the second round.
    McDowell, who called the penalty on himself, was not pleased with the rule.
    “It’s a harsh one,” McDowell said. “I know Carl Pettersson was a victim of a similar rule (in the PGA Championship). It’s a horrible rule.”
    The leaf was directly behind McDowell’s ball, which rolled into the bunker. McDowell and his caddie knew the leaf couldn’t be touched, but McDowell, in addressing the ball, still managed to brush it on his takeaway.
    “I didn’t improve my lie, and gained no advantage,” McDowell told a Golf Channel commentator. “It’s a disappointing way to end my round.”

    Around Crooked Stick

    It’s the first four-way tie of the season after one round on the PGA Tour, and the first quadruple tie in a Western since 2006, when eventual winner Trevor Immelman trailed Joe Ogilvie, Lucas Glover, Daniel Chopra and David McKenzie by three strokes. ... Seven players had bogey-free rounds on Thursday, including Webb Simpson and Bo Van Pelt en route to a quarter-share of the lead. Forty players broke 70, and 55 of the 70 starters were under par, a record percentage of 78.6. Only 10 players were over par, a record, surpassing the 22 who failed to match or surpass Dubsdread’s par of 71 in 2007, the first year of the limited playoff field. ... The Western Golf Association doesn’t announce attendance, but if there was one person at Crooked Stick on Thursday, there were 30,000, and a good many of those spectators were badged with weekly tickets, so there’s a week’s revenue in the WGA coffers even if Friday’s anticipated bad weather and early tee times scares some people off.
    – Tim Cronin

Par is not a good score at Crooked Stick

    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Pete Dye, the developer and architect at Crooked Stick Golf Club since 1964, may fire up a bulldozer before Friday’s second round of the BMW Championship begins.
    After all, everyone else is tearing up his course. Why not Pete, too?
    The field of 70 elite players is averaging 69.158 strokes on the par-72 course as of 2:48 p.m. ET, when the first groups out had played 13 holes. The average was as low as 68.963 some 20 minutes earlier.
    Even with “lift, clean and place” in effect, this is phenomenal scoring. The soft greens have also contributed.
    In the 108 previous years of the Western Open, the lowest single-round average was 68.971, at par 70 Bellerive Country Club in 2008. The lowest average in relation to par was 1.862 strokes under the par 71 of Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course in 2007. That mark is going to be blown away.
    The tipoff to all this might have been Jimmy Walker’s 57-foot birdie putt to open the show on the 10th hole, his first. That gave the big crowd a thrill – it may have reached 30,000 by now – and guaranteed a bloody red leader board.
    The leader? It’s Indiana native Bo Van Pelt, 7-under through 12 holes, with Tiger Woods and Graham DeLeat a stroke behind, and most of the rest of the field in hot pursuit.
    The trailer? Bryce Molder is 5-over through 14 holes. He must be playing a different course.
    While the course tips out at about 7,500 yards, it’s been set up at 7,408 yards for the first round. That includes the three-hole stretch of the 500-yard par 4 14th, the 507-yard par-5 15th (which both Rory McIlroy and Zach Johnson eagled) and the 478-yard par-4 16th.
    Meanwhile, the threat of more foul weather in the Indianapolis area on Friday afternoon prompted Tour officials to move second round tee times more than three hours earlier than originally planned. Tee times will run from 8 a.m. to 10:01 a.m., using the first and 10th tees. Golf Channel coverage will be on delay beginning 3 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. CT.
    Saturday’s tee times may be pushed back, depending on how much more rain the course takes. Some 2.25 inches have fallen since last weekend, and Crooked Stick doesn’t drain exceptionally well. It was partially flooded during the 1993 U.S. Women’s Open.
    – Tim Cronin

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