Way overdue, as always. Let’s get caught up on some correspondence. Apologies in advance, this is a long one. Thanks for all of the questions.
Odds Rickie's career ends up like Kuch: Top-10 machine but no majors?
— JJ Gottschalk (@jjgottschalk) August 23, 2017
I maintain that Rickie’s gonna get one. He’s around the top enough to conclude that he’s bound to run into one at some point. Rick has been around for awhile and had quite a few chances, so it may feel like he’s running out of chances to win one way more than the actual reality. He can go 0 for his next 11 majors and still be younger at the 12th than DJ was when he won his first major. He can go 0 for his next 16 majors and still be younger at the 17th than Phil was when he won his first major. While I wouldn’t say he’s on the trajectory of either of those players in terms of career achievements, perspective on age in these things is always important.
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One thing I can’t stand is when a player is winless in majors, it seems like their high finishes in majors get held over their head as a bad thing. Seven top-5 finishes in majors for Rickie before the age of 30 is a good thing. He’s proven over and over that he has the talent to contend in majors, and though many will disagree with this, the line between contending in majors and winning them is actually pretty thin. Patience, my friends.
How good is Alex Noren?? ????
— Steve worley (@FakeSteveWorley) August 23, 2017
He’s very good! That’s never been the issue. I’ll take the bait here.
I feel like I’m at the end of a crooked game of telephone listening to what my take has somehow “become” vs. what I actually said from the start. My whole point was that, to get into the top 10 in the world rankings, you should have had to do at least something on the world stage. Winning five times on the European Tour is absolutely remarkable, and should not be dismissed under any circumstance. The point was that the Official World Golf Rankings way overrate winning events, when it should be measured more as a performance in relation to your peers.
Often times, a 5th place finish on the PGA TOUR is more impressive than a win on the European Tour in the same week given the difference in the strength of field. Noren climbed to the top ten in the world without ever playing a weekend in a major (during the the OWGR measurement time). The beef isn’t and never was with Noren. He’s just the latest subject in a mathematically proven bias in the rankings.
This is not to say that winning events shouldn’t matter. Noren’s wins were not against exceptionally weak fields, but here’s a quick example. He got 64 ranking points for winning the BMW PGA Championship, which had a field strength of 329. This week’s Dell Technologies Championship has a field strength of 728, and the winner will get 74 points, and the runner up will get around 45 points (by my count). The Dell Technologies has one of the strongest fields in golf, and you can beat a boat load of top 50 world players and get less points than beating less than a boat load of top 50 players at the BMW PGA. The system just gives you a lot of credit for winning.
Alex Noren is a fantastic player. That’s never been up for the debate. But he’s not scaring me if I see him on a European Ryder Cup team the way that the other top ranked European players do, and that’s the whole point. He’s a top 10 player in the world in ranking only.
Detail the specifics on the changes at headquarters. Was it an amicable split at KPMG? How many credentials will NLU get next year?
— Colton Davis (@Colton45) August 23, 2017
The split was very amicable. My contract in Amsterdam was up as of June 30, and I gave notice to my office in Chicago back in April that I would not be coming back. Despite my best attempts to separate church and state, a lot of my colleagues in Chicago caught wind of NLU and follow the site relatively closely. It was going to be next to impossible to do both jobs once I returned. They were supportive of the move, and not surprised at all.
In Holland, I managed to keep the site a secret for my entire three years there. It really didn’t matter to them what I did after my contract expired, but they were in complete shock when I told them I wasn’t going back to Chicago. They struggled to understand that I was running a golf website, and seemed to think that I was quitting to play golf professionally. They looked at me like I was an idiot, and while I very well might be, I was pretty proud that I was able to keep the “secret” for basically three years.
With the time available, I’m definitely planning to attend events that make sense logistically. I’ve already been to seven between the PGA and Euro Tour this year, and hopefully will be at several more throughout the fall. The rest of the gang will attend when their schedules allow for it, but the vacation days are dwindling quickly!
Does Phil make the Prez Cup team no matter what? Or do current form guys force Stricker's hand? related: I miss Ryder Cup years…
— Grant Miller (@grantdmiller1) August 23, 2017
I remember being legitimately surprised when it was rumored that he was in contention for a captain’s pick in 2015. He was nowhere near the top 10 in the standings, and had shown almost no signs of life over the course of the season. Then I remember watching him in Korea, and especially after watching his press conferences, and realizing that, of course Phil is on this team. So it’s that line of thinking that makes me think he’s going to be on the team no matter what.
The thing we all (myself included) need to realize is that the points standings mean very little to the players and the brass in charge. Around the time that Ryder Cup selections were being made last year, I was talking to a player about a candidate for the team. I mentioned where this player sat in the standings, and said something about their strokes gained stats for the year. The response I got was something along the lines of “Fuck the stats man, we just need to get the players together that give us the best chance of winning.”
This kinda hit home with me about the differences in the reality between how we view things as fans, and how the guys actually in the arena see it. A couple shots here and there throughout the season doesn’t necessarily mean that player is the best fit for a team event. Phil is a different player in these team events, takes them very, very seriously, and has been a presence in these team rooms for two decades. He’ll be there.
Favorite course you have ever played and why
— Ben Nelson (@bennycnelson) August 23, 2017
I’ve gotten this one enough that my answer is pretty well rehearsed at this point. It’s the Old Course at St. Andrews. And I most definitely would not have said this prior to my return visit this past June.
There’s a quote from Alister MacKenzie’s Spirit of St. Andrews (hat tip from reader Kyle Gans on nailing down the location of this quote) from Bobby Jones, where he said something along the lines of, that if you say you love the Old Course and you’ve played it less than ten times, you’re lying. While I’ve not played it ten times, I can certainly understand the spirit behind this quote because it took until my third time playing the famed links before I really “got it.” It was no doubt aided by the fact that I played it well, but I think I drove the rest of the group nuts by looking around on almost every single hole and just saying out loud, “this is the best.”
It’s challenging off the tee, yet it’s friendly. On most holes, you can bail as far left as you want and still find your ball, probably in an adjacent fairway. But you know that the further left you bail, the worse your angle is into the green. You’re going to be bringing in a series of humps and bumps that you may not have to negotiate from a more daring line off the tee.
The greens are fantastic. Pretty fast for a links course, but very smooth surfaces with subtle contours and highly unusual shapes. Most importantly, they marry the d