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McDowell and his handling of a no-kilt wind

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:34:00 GMT

The conditions were more conducive to sailing or kiting than golf, unless a golfer hails from Northern Ireland and cut his teeth on the seaside links of Royal Portrush, learning to work its trademark winds.

The RBC Heritage provided Graeme McDowell with a touch of home on Sunday -- winds gusting upwards of 40 miles per hour and consistently blowing in the 20s at Harbour Town Golf Links, hard by Calibogue Sound in Hilton Head, S.C.

Photo by Getty Images

McDowell accordingly equaled the low round of the day, his one of just three 69s, sending him to a playoff with Webb Simpson that he won with a par on the first extra hole for his first official victory in the States since he won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2010.

Better than any wind gauge was how CBS' David Feherty chose to describe the wind. "One of the traditions here at the Heritage are the gentlemen who wear the kilts," he said. "It's not a great day to wear a kilt. The spectators might need therapy for months."

Provided they weren't blinded by the sight, they saw the kind of golf atypical for the PGA Tour, a winning score that doesn't reach double digits under par. It helped reinforce the benefit of Harbour Town's place on the PGA Tour schedule, a challenging but popular course that attracts a decent field and usually delivers an entertaining show that assists in alleviating the Masters hangover.

It helps as well that RBC stepped in as the title sponsor last year to save a tournament on the brink of folding. RBC, which also is the title sponsor of the Canadian Open, has a strong international field of players on its endorsement team, assuring representative fields in its tournaments.

McDowell is among them, as are Ernie Els, Brandt Snedeker, Luke Donald, Matt Kuchar, Hunter Mahan and Jim Furyk, all of whom played. On Tuesday during an RBC function, McDowell learned from Furyk the key to playing the Heritage: "Just hang around and hang around," he said. "You're never out of this tournament."

McDowell, who had played the Heritage only once before, was especially effective at hanging around on Sunday, notwithstanding the havoc created by the wind. He played without a bogey until missing the green on the final hole and failing to save par, providing an opening for Simpson.

Two former U.S. Open champions in contention made for a good show that was ratcheted up a notch by the windy conditions. "It's a hard game," CBS' Gary McCord said. "This wind just kind of makes it really hard. But these guys are paid well. They get everything for free. They're having a ball playing golf. Let's watch 'em struggle."

Most of them did; McDowell was the only player among the top five to have fewer than three bogeys on his card (and hence, we submit, the pronunciation of the body of water by which the Heritage is played -- cal-a-bogey).

It was a testament to McDowell's ability to play in the wind, even the kind that strongly encourages leaving the kilts at home.

Follow @JohnStrege

Golf's Biggest Breakups

Alex Myers and Sam Weinman — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Breaking up is hard to do, even in golf. From husbands and wives to players and caddies to players and putters, we rank the highest-profile splits in golf.

Cigar holder of choice for golf's 'world's most interesting man'

John Strege — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:41:00 GMT

(Getty Images)By John StregeThose watching the PGA Championship on TNT on Sunday morning might have seen a close-up of a cigar in some sort of golf ball cigar holder staked in the ground. When the...

Media: The best way to get Tiger's autograph?

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 22:55:00 GMT

(Getty Images)

By John Strege

Follow @JohnStrege

One of the few highlights of Saturday's washed-out telecast of the third round of the PGA Championship was CBS' David Feherty's response to Tiger Two Gloves.

Twice on the par-4 fourth hole on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Woods hit spectators with shots (the photo above shows him after one of those shots) and gave each of his victims a signed glove. When he nearly hit a third person at the seventh hole, Feherty said this:

"He's signing more autographs on the course than he does off," Feherty said.

Tiger no doubt would not have appreciated the remark, but surely viewers did.

McIlroy treed

Another high spot was coverage of the search party looking for Rory McIlroy's ball on the third hole. CBS eventually put a slow-motion replay of the ball in flight.

"It hit the tree, that little dead limb," CBS' Gary McCord said, referring to a dead tree in the middle of the third fairway. "Where'd it go after that?"

"That tree's so rotten it may have embedded," Feherty said.

They finally were able to ascertain that it stuck in a hollow atop a branch of the tree, about eight feet off the ground.

"Somebody tell them," McCord said.

Someone eventually did and McIlroy reached up and retrieved it.

"I've never seen that," Feherty said.

"I haven't," McCord said.

They have now.

How to weather the storm

If you're a viewer, you reach for the remote. Here's how CBS filled the time:

-- A recap of the day's play

-- An interview with Kerry Haigh, managing director of tournaments for the PGA of America.

-- A Tiger swing analysis from Peter Kostis, using the Konica Minolta Bizhub Swing Vision Camera.

-- PGA Championship anniversaries.

-- Final-round coverage of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine (Y.E. Yang beating Woods).

Where's the video?

Jim Nantz told this story at the top of the telecast on Saturday: "I'll tell you how intimidating this course is. We had these microphones that are on the tee areas. This morning on the 17th tee, an alligator popped out of the marsh and ate the microphone."

On Twitter

Luke Donald, after rounds of 74, 76 and 74: "Pete Dye 3, Luke Donald 0"

Quotable

"We're going to hunker down here in the 18th tower. It is grounded. They say it is. We're going to find out." -- Nantz when the weather delay that was to include lightning began

Media: 'I hear Tiger is ballin'

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 23:49:00 GMT

By John Strege
Follow @JohnStrege

Tiger Woods' climb up the leaderboard in the second round of the PGA Championship surely boosted TNT's ratings on Friday, but its viewers did not include one prominent person: Tiger's niece, Cheyenne Woods.

"I hear Tiger is ballin," she wrote on Twitter. "I'd be watching if I had cable smh. Twitter has been my only source for updates."

SMH, for the uninitiated, stands for "Shaking My Head." Those of us who wonder why Tiger's niece, now a professional golfer who shares an agent, Mark Steinberg, with her uncle, does not have cable were also shaking our heads. So be it. Her Twitter followers kept her updated.

Still, she missed watching Tiger's front-nine putting clinic that brought to mind his glory days and helped him secure a share of the 36-hole lead. Woods had one of the few decent scoring rounds on a difficult day in which there were more rounds in the 90s than the 60s (two to one), a one-under par 71.

Early on, Peter Kostis on TNT indicated in this exchange with Bill Macatee that Woods might make a move on the field, given the windy conditions:

"Tiger said he really was hoping for windy conditions," Macatee said. "So what are you looking for from Tiger the rest of the day?"

"Anybody that's hoping for windy conditions, that's code for, 'I'm hitting pretty solidly. And I like the way my short game is working,'" Kostis said. "Without that, you really can't play this game. You have to be able to control your golf ball and the number one thing of controlling it is to hit it solid."

Woods hit it well enough on Friday, but his putting was responsible for his leading.

Rory and the wind

Rory McIlroy's aversion to wind was cited by Gary McCord on Friday after McIlroy missed the green at the par-3 fifth hole by a wide margin.

"The only thing I worry about Rory is he tells everybody he doesn't like to play in the wind," McCord said. "If you're a world-class player you don't want anybody to know that you really don't like that, because they see wind like this they're going to go, he's going to go bye-bye."

McCord was referring to McIlory's comments at the British Open at Royal St. George's in 2011.

"There's no point in changing your game for one week a year," McIlroy said then. "That's the Open. You either deal with the weather or just wait for a year when it's nice. I'm looking forward to getting back to America and some nice conditions. I'd rather play when it's 80 degrees and sunny and not much wind."

McIlroy shot a 75 in the second round.

The complaint department

Dan Jenkins of Golf Digest has cited this as the best lead ever written on a golf story, from Leonard Crawley of the Daily Telegraph in London: "Despite the abominable handling of the press luggage at the Zurich airport, the Swiss Open managed to get off to a rather decent start yesterday."

We bring this up because of the numerous media complaints, many via Twitter, about long bus rides from Charleston to the Ocean Course. To wit:

-- Steve DiMeglio of USA Today: "Things you can do on shuttle bus ride to Kiawah: Build Rome; read War and Peace three times; run two marathons"

-- Art Spander: "Usain Bolt could have run to Jamaica in the 1 hr 45 mins it took press bus to go from Charleston to Kiawah Island"

An LPGA operative, Mike Scanlan, weighed in (while boasting that the media receives clubhouse valet parking at the LPGA's Kraft Nabisco Championship): "Golf writers covering the PGA Championship putting on a clinic complaining about logistics. Can't overestimate the power of on-site parking."

It's all about us, of course.

Say what?

On Thursday Ian Baker-Finch called the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island "a bucket-list course." On Friday, he said, "I hope we come back here again soon. I think it's tremendous."

Jenkins might have been the voice of reason on this: "Let me make something clear. Great, photogenic course, but you can't have a major with only one road in and out for 30,000 people," he wrote on Twitter.

On Twitter

Paul Azinger: "If a players wearing white pants and white belt combo, they are one garment away from selling ice cream."

Media: 'Ppl watch Phil to see what...he is gonna do next!'

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 22:58:00 GMT

By John Strege
Follow @JohnStrege

Ian Baker-Finch called the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., "a bucket-list course," though he should have provided a caveat: Only if the conditions are as benign as they were for the first round of the PGA Championship on Thursday.

"I could blow in the anemometers and get more than what's blowing out here," Billy Kratzert said on the TNT telecast.

The weather failed to cooperate, at least according to those of us who would prefer seeing it played under more penal conditions, particularly in a major championship. A sunny day with negligible wind might have made for a hum-drum afternoon of viewing were it not for Phil Mickelson's remarkable Houdini act.

Phil, as he is wont to do, put the thrill into the telecast, somehow salvaging a round of 73 despite spending much of the day in places where hope goes to die. He hit only four fairways and seven greens.

"I've seen a lot of really good illusionists," Gary McCord said after one of Mickelson's magical saves. "This is the best illusionist I've seen for a while now."

Said Peter Kostis, when Mickelson saved par from an impossibly difficult lie on the 17th hole: "He's got so much talent and so much imagination in the short-game area. I don't know that anybody can play the repertoire of shots he has."

Tour pro Parker McLachlin summed it up best via Twitter: "People watch Tiger because of the incredible things he can do with the ball... Ppl watch Phil to see what the hell he is gonna do next!"

Repair your ball mark...if you can find it

McCord had this observation about the Ocean Course's greens, which along with its fairways feature paspalum grass:

"What do you notice about that green, looking at that green? You don't see one ball mark. Even when you're out there you never see a ball mark on this grass. Get up close you're not going to see a ball mark."

Say what?

Jim Nantz: "The Ocean Course, Kiawah Island, South Carolina, a short drive from Charleston."

Golf Digest's Dan Jenkins apparently would disagree. Jenkins noted on Twitter the time it took to get to the golf course from the hotel in Charleston: "Roger Warren, ex-PGA president, he's the man who brought us here. Thanks for the hour and 40-minute bus ride this morning, Roger."

Put the phone down

TNT attempted to stop viewers from reaching for the phone to report infractions that aren't. First it was Kostis explaining the Ocean Course's sandy areas that aren't bunkers.

"Now those of you at home do not call in," he said. "There are no bunkers here this week. You need to know the rules. It's just play through the green. Players may make practice swings. They can ground their club lightly and just play it as if it were grass, only it's sand."

Later on, Billy Kratzert made the same point after explaining the sandy areas. "Do not pick up the phone and call in. It's not an infraction," he said.

The most interesting man in the world

McCord on Miguel Angel Jimenez: "I look at him and I think, 'wine, Ferraris, cigars.' That's it."

PGA.com: Pro and con

The pro: Viewers with internet access had the opportunity to watch Tiger Woods' entire round on its Marquee Group feature.

The con: Predict It. This little device kept intruding across the top of the screen on the internet telecast with innocuous poll questions, such as this one: "Will Tiger Woods save par on hole 4?"

Why does this warrant a poll, especially when we'll know the answer in a matter of moments?

On Twitter

Charlie Rymer of the Golf Channel: "@PGA_JohnDaly Nice playing knucklehead!"

Blogger and Golf World contributor Geoff Shackelford: "Nothing boosts the momentum of a telecast like 5 minutes with the current #PGA President. I'm going to lie down now."

Woods reverts to bad habits on a trying afternoon

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:32:00 GMT

(Tiger Woods kicks his club in frustration. Photo: Getty Images)

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Now even Tiger's body language is unprintable. He walked with the reluctant gait of a man who'd finished his last meal with the warden. He hid his face in his cap. He dropped a 9-iron that had failed him, and then, to punish it, he kicked it. Only five days ago, Tiger Woods was the old Tiger Woods. Today, he was just old.

Or do you have another way to explain it? The most consistent ball-striker of our era now suffers moments when he has no idea which way or how far the thing will go. He's 36 years old now with body parts that have been hard at work since that Mike Douglas Show 34 years ago. Knees go. Tendons fray. Healing happens, yes it does, but it happens in weeks, not days, in years, not months.

Trending: Sergio Garcia and the 10 worst PGA Tour scores ever carded

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:43:00 GMT

(Getty Images)

No matter how much you may like to see the pros hack it up once in a while, every golfer out there couldn't help but feel sorry for Sergio Garcia after he carded a 12 on the par-4 third hole Sunday at the WGC Cadillac Championship. We've all been there--minus the part about doing it in front of a world-televised audience--so we can all relate to the feelings of dejection Sergio must have experienced knowing his day was over after only three holes. (And only two after an opening-hole eagle!)

Garcia can take solace in knowing he's not alone. In fact, he barely scrapes the surface of the worst holes ever carded (in relation to par) in the history of the PGA tour. Though, sadly for El Nino, he does make it into the top 10. To be fair, he's tied with a few 8-over par performances by John Daly, but considering Daly is already the proud owner of three of the top-10 slots, I thought I'd cut him some slack. And we can all take solace in knowing if there was an 11th spot, it would belong to Arnold Palmer (a 12 on the par-5 18th at the L.A. Open).

The 10 Worst Single-Hole Scores Ever Carded On The PGA Tour

10. Sergio Garcia, 12 on the par-4 third at Doral.

How to launch it like Bubba

Roger Schiffman — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 01:49:00 GMT

On the CBS telecast, Peter Kostis and Gary McCord isloated the magic move that all the really long hitters have in common--they maximize their leverage against the ground by straightening the lead leg just before...

Reader: How to make Face-On Putting even better

Bob Carney — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:49:00 GMT

Gary McCord's story on Face-On putting--used by the great Sam Snead, but by few players these days--generated several letters, but only this one from Hawaii had some instruction of its own. McCord's story was part...