K.J. KO’s David Toms on Isle of Terror

SUNDAY’S DUEL AT THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP was going to turn out well. And it wasn’t. Let me explain.

I like David Toms. I’m a sucker for the quasi old guy who has been down and now has the chance to win a big one like The Players Championship. NBC had me all set up with the father-son story. Sappy, yes. I loved it. You got me, Dan Hicks. I would nod my head in approval if Toms won.

But I’m also a huge K.J. Choi fan. I like everything about him. I like the way he carries himself. I like how he turns up and grinds it out on tough golf courses. And I like the way he respects the game, the fans and his fellow players.

So, the Toms-Choi duel was going to turn out well for me. I was going to cheer either guy as he hoisted the enormous crystal trophy. But there was also the downside of watching one of them lose. I knew it would be worse if Toms lost—and that’s what happened.

The 17th at TPC Sawgrass is such a contrived golf hole. A short iron over water to an island green. Is it a wedge? Is it a little 9 iron? What’s the wind doing? Why did I wear white pants? Say what you will about Pete Dye’s signature hole, it’s always dramatic.

As we saw in the sudden-death playoff, it’s not over once your golf ball safely reaches the Isle of Terror. The green is as slippery as bacon grease. Choi eased his long birdie putt to within about two feet of the hole. Going for the win, Toms slid his putt three feet by. Knock it in, David. You’ve got this. Oh, man! NBC shows family. Son buries face in mom’s shoulder. K.J. taps in for the win. Sigh.

Turning back to regulation play, I’m not in the layup at 16 camp, like Johnny Miller and so many others. Toms had that shot in his bag. This wasn’t crazy Phil trying to thread the ball through a keyhole or carry it 350. Toms had about 240 yards to the green and could bail out left like so many others had. He just made a bad swing. Chalk it up to the pressure of the moment. A bad shot, not bad shot selection.

Toms went on to play the 18th like a champ. That birdie out of a sand divot was as clutch as you’ll ever see. Then that yanked three-footer. All you can do is shake your head and go get a hug from the family.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

My Happy Ignorance of Delayed Honda Coverage

ON SUNDAY AT 4 P.M. Eastern Time I tuned in to final-round coverage of the Honda Classic. This is pretty typical for me. I’m a lot like the guy who tunes in to the final quarter of an NBA game. I’m most interested in the back nine on Sunday, especially from 14 or so to the clubhouse. Besides, most weekends I’m just not able to invest long hours in front of the tube (unless it’s the Masters or U.S. Open or British Open or Ryder Cup). If I could devote that much time to golf viewing, then my daughters would already be at college and I’d be pondering my Medicare prescription plan.

I read this morning that some people were miffed about the tape-delayed coverage of the final round. As Mostly Harmless pointed out, this has been the case for most of the last decade at Palm Beach Gardens. The sun sets at around 6:30 p.m. in early March in Florida. Tournament organizers want to make sure the event concludes on Sunday. NBC has other obligations and wants to stick to the normal 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. time slot.

It had no impact on this armchair golfer. I wasn’t online so I didn’t know ahead of time that Rory Sabbatini held off Y.E. Yang to win his sixth PGA Tour title. I try to unplug on Sunday, a digital day of rest.

I was totally ignorant as the gentler, kinder “Sabo” survived the Bear Trap and his orange friend, Yang, to claim a one-stroke victory. I thought I was watching live television when Rory tearfully told Dottie Pepper how much he looked forward to Maui in January. (I, too, would shed crocodile tears if I could go to Hawaii in the dead of winter.)

I watched the Jackfest (Jack Nicklaus in the booth with Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks). That was nothing new. Johnny and Jack are like my golf uncles. I feel like I’ve heard every one of their stories many times. (Which must mean I’m really old.) It’s like a golf family reunion with Uncle Johnny and Uncle Jack.

Those shirts threw me, though. Johnny and Dan were wearing polo shirts adorned with Golf Channel logos. I know about the new partnership between NBC and Golf Channel. And I’ve seen the “Golf Channel on NBC” tagline. But I guess I still don’t get it. Not entirely. I certainly didn’t expect to see Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks wearing blue Golf Channel shirts.

Maybe I need to re-read that Golf Channel press release.

−The Armchair Golfer

Brandel Chamblee No Longer ‘Gutless Lamb’

JOHNNY MILLER ISN’T THE ONLY golf talking head who has strong opinions. Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee is known to espouse his views on a range of golf topics, including the new swing and swing coach of Tiger Woods.

Chamblee recently sat for an interview with Golf Magazine’s Connell Barrett. In his opening, Barrett called Brandel the most underrated commentator in golf. Interview topics included Tiger (of course), golf’s next great player, and whether the Golf Channel analyst would consider joining a major network. (He’s been courted.)

Today, the magazine published follow-up questions from readers and Chamblee’s answers. A Canadian man asked how and when Chamblee’s transformation into an “opinionated, forceful personality” came about.

At the 2007 Masters, Brandel answered.

“I came off a show and thought, you gutless lamb, take a stand. The next day I did, and it felt more like me. More like when I'm home, in the kitchen with friends, laughing, arguing and yelling. That is what TV should be like.”

A woman asked if Chamblee thought Johnny Miller should apologize for his comment about Phil Mickelson’s chipping during the Ryder Cup. (If Phil couldn’t chip, he’d be selling used cars in San Diego.) The woman said she liked Johnny but thought he went over the line.

Brandel?

“I have to say that I applaud the effort made by Johnny to think of another way of saying how good Phil is around the greens. ...You can quote a statistic, you can describe the action, or you can exaggerate to make a point. ...TV is entertainment, after all, and like him or not Johnny is entertaining.”

Chamblee went on to say that Phil knows this and wouldn’t have hard feelings, “although he probably rolled his eyes.”

I think a lot of people roll their eyes at Johnny’s comments. Some turn down the sound. Occasionally, I cringe, but for the most part I get a kick out of Johnny’s unfiltered and sometimes goofball commentary. Chamblee is more polished and not far behind when it comes to having strong opinions.

−The Armchair Golfer

The Genius of Johnny Miller

HATE HIM OR LOVE HIM, Johnny Miller is a lightening rod in the television tower and was an immensely talented player who could match shots with the best players of his generation, including Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino.

In The Genius of Johnny, Jaime Diaz profiles Miller for Golf Digest (December issue). Here’s an interesting tidbit that I didn’t know (or had forgotten). John Miller was told by his agent, Ed Barner, to go by “Johnny” to promote his image. But he grew up being called “John” and signs his name without adding the “ny.”

I remember Johnny as a player who literally knocked down the flagsticks in the mid 1970s at PGA Tour stops such as Tucson, Phoenix and Palm Springs. Sometimes faulty, my memory served me well. Diaz reports that Johnny “… did crazy-good things, like hitting the flag 10 times with iron shots while winning at Tucson.”

My favorite player was Jack Nicklaus, but Johnny Miller was the best iron player I ever saw. From January 1974 to January 1975, Miller won 10 times in a career that produced 25 PGA Tour victories, two of them majors, the 1973 U.S. Open and 1976 British Open. Johnny slumped after the mid 1970s blitz and has said he lost his desire to excel on tour as he and wife Linda raised six children.

Here’s what a couple of Johnny’s peers told Diaz.

Lanny Wadkins: “Johnny was the best I ever saw at hitting pure golf shots. I was very fortunate to play with a lot of the true greats: Jack and Trevino and Tiger, sure, but also Snead, Hogan and Nelson, who might have been past it, but not so you couldn’t see what they could do. But I can’t imagine that anyone in history has ever consistently hit the ball as solid and as close to the pin as Johnny did.”

Lee Trevino: “Johnny’s advantage was damn-near perfect mechanics. He had that extremely weak grip like Hogan, and he would set it going back and then just release it as hard as he could with total confidence. He didn’t have to re-route it or hold onto it or practice like hell, like most of the rest of us. Maybe because he grooved it so young, he was basically on automatic, where hitting the ball hard and straight and solid was actually easy. He got to a very rare place.”

Among others things, Johnny says one of his regrets is not winning the Masters, where he finished second three times. Wherever you stand on Johnny, Diaz’s profile is a worthwhile read. You’ll probably learn something you didn’t know about him.

−The Armchair Golfer

Bill Pennington: 9 Ways to Putt

ARE YOU AN EXPERIMENTAL player? When you’ve struggled with your putting, have you tried a different technique or switched putters?

I’ve always been a decent-to-good putter who has never made a drastic change in terms of technique or equipment. The only thing I’ve tried on the below list was left hand low at a time when I was twitchy on the short ones. I can’t say it helped much. I only made the change for a round or two before abandoning it.

A friend of mine who was an accomplished collegiate golfer went to the long putter in his mid 30s and never looked back. I’ve tried one on the practice green just for kicks and felt like I was swinging a heavy broom.

I’m always surprised when I see a veteran tour player doing something new. I think, “Wow, what’s that guy doing using the claw grip? He used to be so good.”

Shaky 47-year-old Johnny Miller putted with his eyes closed at times when he won his last PGA Tour event at Pebble Beach in 1994. That sounds odd, but then I read that people with the yips have rapid eye movements, which interferes with brain/muscle control. That would be a good reason to take the eyes out of the equation, especially on knee-knockers.

Here are nine ways to putt shown in the video:

1. Lefty.
2. Belly putter. (Fred Couples)
3. Left hand low. (A lot of players)
4. The claw. (Mark O’Meara)
5. Eyes closed. (Johnny Miller)
6. Listen for it to go in.
7. Side saddle. (K.J. Choi)
8. Long putter. (Rocco Mediate)
9. Look at the hole.

How many have you tried? Was it thought out or an act of desperation? As mentioned in the video, whatever technique you use, it’s all about feel and confidence.

−The Armchair Golfer

On Par with Bill Pennington is a video feature of the New York Times.

It Rains Money in Atlanta for Jim Furyk

2010 Tour Championship Recap
Winner: Jim Furyk
Score: 8 under, 272 (67, 65, 70, 70)
Quote: “It’s my second biggest win.”
Fact: Won $11 million with used $39 putter.
Thought: Winning Ryder Cup would cap off best year of Furyk’s career.

I DON’T TALK TO the TV a lot. Certainly not as much as I used to. And usually not with my family around (not that they care). But I was talking to the TV late this afternoon as I tuned in to the final holes of the Tour Championship. I was talking Jim Furyk through those last few holes because I didn’t want to see him blow the tournament and FedEx Cup.

I don’t understand how the the FedEx Cup points work. I let the talking heads and graphics help me keep score. What I did understand was that if Furyk won the tournament, he’d also win the FedEx Cup (and $10 million). The same was true for Luke Donald and Retief Goosen as they played the closing holes.

I decided Furyk is my guy. Nothing against the others, but I’ve always liked Furyk’s grind-it-out style.

So then he bogeys 16. Me: “Um, Jim. C’mon, buddy.” Good drive at 17 and then a weak approach shot. (I thought he hit his second shot fat long before Johnny Miller asked him what happened in the post-round interview. Was it that hard for the TV guys to see?) Another bogey. Me: “JIM!”

Eighteenth tee, long par 3. It’s raining hard, sure. Tough conditions. I get it, TV guys. (Hey, I’ve played in lots of rain and with soaking wet grips, just not for the Gross Domestic Product of a small nation.) Me: “Just get it on the green, Jimmy. C’mon now.”

Bunker.

Some work to do here. Making it interesting, eh Jim? Nothing to say now. I’m just watching. The ball comes out clean, hops, spins and checks two or so feet from the cup. I could make that one. Well, maybe. At least the soaking rain might hide the soiled spot on my pants.

Jim turns his cap around so the rain won’t drip off the bill and taps it in. He later called the putt dummy proof.

It was a nice ending. The guy who missed The Barclays because of a faulty alarm ends up winning it all. And with that used putter he picked up at Joe & Leigh’s in the Boston area, which sounds something like the House of Putters.

“It was like 65 bucks,” Furyk said, “but they sold it to me for $39, I think. I didn’t ask for that, trust me. I didn’t barter.

“It was a used putter. It’s got a nick on the back flange. It’s got a little ding in the top line. I never loft and lied it which is rare for me because I’ve always got my putters on a loft-lie machine at home, and the way the grip is on it, it might be slightly off center but that’s kind of how I like it anyway.”

Next stop for Jim and his $39 putter is Wales for this week’s Ryder Cup.

So, with three wins and the FedEx Cup, Jim Furyk is player of the year, right? I can’t make a stronger case for anyone else.

−The Armchair Golfer

Oakmont Is Cage Fighting in Fashionable Clothing

THE USGA’S COURSE SETUP MAN Mike Davis is “giddy” about course conditions at Oakmont Country Club heading into this week’s U.S. Women’s Open near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Giddy, I tell you.

“I am truly giddy the whole week that I’m here. It’s just so good,” Davis said at USGA.org. “In fact, it’s perfect [and] it’s been that way the last five days we’ve been here.”

This might not be good news for the women who must actually play Oakmont for 72 holes over four days. When the USGA man declares that Oakmont is a firm and fast test for the world’s best female golfers, you just know there’s going to be trouble—and lots of it. Some are predicting scores in the 90s and a cut at 12-over par.

Here’s what I know about Oakmont after watching the boys play it since the late 20th century: It will seriously mess you up. It will blacken your eye and bloody your nose. It will spit in your face and kick you in the groin. It will beat you up, take your lunch money and steal your identity. Oakmont is cage fighting in fashionable clothing.

If you have a bag and 14 sticks, Oakmont doesn’t like you. If you come near it, it will try to destroy you. Oakmont is Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. Oakmont is Alien, The Terminator and Predator.

Oakmont does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, or political beliefs. Man, woman, child—Oakmont doesn’t care. It whips all comers.

If you complain, whine, or cry about it, Oakmont gets stronger. If you talk to yourself, toss your club in disgust, or berate your caddie, Oakmont gets stronger. When—not if—when you make bogeys, double bogeys and “others,” Oakmont gets stronger.

Oakmont is permanently in a surly mood, and has been dating back to 1973 (if not longer). That’s when golden boy Johnny Miller slipped by Oakmont without so much as a tear in his plaid slacks or a scuff on his red, white and blue patent leather golf shoes. Johnny walked away with a 63 and the U.S. Open trophy, and he’s been reminding people about it for the last 37 years. Oakmont has been taking it out on golfers just as long.

Godspeed, ladies.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: StonehouseGolf/Flickr)

Opening Media Conference and More Chi Chi Rodriguez

(Photo courtesy of Rob Hayashida of Golf Views)

ARMCHAIR GOLF is in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, for the Puerto Rico Open.

IT HAS BEEN TOO many years since my high school Spanish, so I cannot share many of the particulars of Tuesday’s opening media conference at the Puerto Rico Open because it was conducted mostly in the native language. There was a parade of speakers who made brief comments to open the tournament, including Chi Chi Rodriguez, defending champion Michael Bradley, a PGA Tour representative and various Puerto Rican dignitaries and tourism officials.

But I definitely got the gist of their remarks. All those associated with staging the Puerto Rico Open and showcasing the island as a friendly tourist and golf destination are absolutely thrilled to be on the PGA Tour schedule. Smiles and gratitude require no translation. Hosting the Puerto Rico Open is a huge deal, sort of like a Super Bowl for the island, and something I would not grasp if not on the scene.

Chi Chi and the Shot

Although I didn’t have anything set up, I was hoping to meet Chi Chi and talk to him for a few minutes. I got my chance when Steve Ellis, a writer on assignment for The Golfer, pulled Rodriguez aside for an interview. I asked Steve if I could tag along and the three of us walked outside and stood in the warm sun.

Chi Chi, 74, looked immaculate in a striped white shirt, royal blue slacks and his signature Panama hat. He slipped on a leather jacket and stood in the 80-degree heat as cool as a Polar bear. Steve was incredulous, commenting to me a few times later, “How can he be wearing that jacket?”

The interview began with Chi Chi describing the best shot of his career, a 6-iron from the rough on the 72nd hole of the 1991 U.S. Senior Open that set up a tap-in birdie. It tied him with Jack Nicklaus and forced an 18-hole playoff that he lost to the Golden Bear the following day. The career shot at Oakland Hills came back to me as Chi Chi described it. He had 185 yards and needed to hit a low hook, curving the ball about 50 yards. The ball landed on the right-hand side of the green (or apron) and spun 90 degrees left, rolling across the green until it stopped about a foot from the hole. Steve told me that, up in the booth, Johnny Miller called it the greatest shot he’d ever witnessed.

Not sure about that, but let’s just say it was a stunning golf shot at a tense moment in a major championship. (I wish I could share a video clip, but my search for one was unsuccessful.)

Steve asked, “How did you do it? How did you hit that shot?”

“I did it in my mind,” Chi Chi said. In other words, he visualized the shot and then stepped up and swatted the thing out of the rough. He was not particularly surprised by the result, except, perhaps, that the ball finished so close to the hole. Chi Chi was a shotmaker of the highest order who curved the ball left or right, hit it low or lower, and deftly spun the ball out of a variety of grasses and lies. It was the way golf was played in the days that preceded the power era.

To emphasize his mind control ability, Chi Chi also claimed that he could change traffic signals from red to green. Steve and I chuckled, but Chi Chi barely cracked a smile. Maybe so.

I asked Chi Chi what he remembered about his first PGA Tour victory at the 1963 Denver Open. The tournament was played at the Denver Country Club, and Chi Chi had a two-shot lead as he teed his ball on the final hole and unleashed a 300-yard-plus drive in the mile-high Colorado air.

Chi Chi laughed as he recalled that his playing partner Dave Hill said he was stupid for hitting a driver on the last hole with a slim lead. You should hit an iron, Hill told Rodriguez. Chi Chi shrugged it off, saying he knew he could fit his ball in the fairway. That kind of confidence in his abilities led to seven more wins on the PGA Tour.

Notes

Tuesday was a full day. Following are more of the day’s activities.

• Special breakfast that included a presentation on the Gran Melia Golf Resort Puerto Rico, followed by a guided tour of the property.

• Afternoon outing at Rio Mar Country Club, including lunch, time with the head pro, Rafael (a great guy), practice range time and golf until rain forced us from the course.

–The Armchair Golfer

Related:
Chi Chi Rodriguez: Puerto Rico’s Golf Ambassador