Rory McIlroy – Eamon Lynch

Rory McIlroy had a disappointing major in Tulsa, but time is on his side. Just ask Ray Floyd.

It’s a glib Hallmark sentiment to note that 155 men departed the 104th PGA Championship disappointed and only one didn’t. A handful of the 20 club professionals competing surely had no real expectation of making the cut and were happy to make folks proud at the club back home. Same for a few ex-champions content to enjoy a 36-hole stroll down memory lane. Disappointment is a burden particular to those with expectations, and within that there are tiers.

Dispirited. Dejected. Despondent. Distressed. Whatever box a player checks isn’t necessarily related to his departure time. A man who packs up Friday evening might be deflated, but he’s hardly feeling worse than one who gets into contention and comes up painfully short.

European Tour ‘security’ Around Rory McIlroy A Joke, But No Laughing Matter.

To the extent that we think at all about security issues at golf tournaments, it’s typically in the context of spectators being ejected—justifiably so in instances of unruly behavior, questionably so if it’s because a rabbit-eared player heard a comment he didn’t like.

Security is conspicuous at most PGA Tour events, whether local police departments or companies hired to manage crowds. There’s another layer of security that passes largely unnoticed. High-profile players are assigned a uniformed police officer who does not stray from his side throughout the day. The Tour’s own security personnel also moves between groups.

Compare those protocols to what we witnessed Friday at Scottish Open, when a fan strode onto the 10th tee, snatched a club from Rory McIlroy’s bag, then proceeded to waggle it around for a time as though preparing to hit a shot as McIlroy, Jon Rahm and their caddies stared in disbelief. Eventually an official (one well-stricken in years, based on the video) approached and ushered the trespasser aside. Then two laggardly security officers showed up and frogmarched the man away, making a game attempt at appearing to do a job they had manifestly failed at.

Rory McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond, retrieves a club from the unwelcome visitor.

End Free Passes For Tour Pros, Make Match Play Wednesday’s Worth Watching Again!

Welcome to the only week of the year when the PGA Tour’s ardent free-marketeers develop a sudden appreciation for a safety net from the authorities. Specifically, the free passes issued for the first round of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the day on which so many stars used to be dispatched early.

Now Wednesday’s losers live to fight another day. I blame Hunter Mahan and Victor Dubuisson.

Waiting Out The Unknowns, Hoping For Better Days

Schedules are sacrosanct in golf. Each season rotates around the immovable cornerstones of the calendar — springtime in Augusta, summer amid wintry weather on a British links — and each week is identified not by its dates but by its PGA Tour stop. Valspar last, Match Play this, Valero next. There are schedules within schedules, the roll call of tee times that lines up the action and the broadcast listings that bring it all home.

The abandonment of the Players Championship began (at least) 11 desolate weeks without Tour play, severed our tethers to the schedule, and left both fans and players adrift.

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Rory McIlroy Emerges As The Conscience Of Golf

Most of the 121 men in the field at the Arnold Palmer Invitational are judged by a straightforward metric: a scorecard that documents the ebb and flow of their work day. Global brands — whether a corporation or an individual athlete — are measured against more complex and fluid standards, like the company they keep, the actions they take, the conscience they evidence.

These are not benchmarks against which golf has traditionally fared well. Until Thursday.

In the first round at Bay Hill, Rory McIlroy opened with a round of 66 that amply demonstrated his celebrated skill as a player. What followed established him as a leader.

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Premier Golf League: Big On Promises, Short on Substance

As cris de coeur go, Premier Golf League’s opening salvo sounded less passionate than petulant. The proposed rival circuit to the PGA Tour sent its first tweet on Friday, one that included an audacious appeal to individualism given that it is partly financed by a regime that dismembers free thinkers.

“Nobody owns golf,” the message read. “Golf is owned by everyone who enjoys it, watches it, and thinks about it – in other words, you. #PGL”

As an implicit call to arms against the reign of King Jay of Ponte Vedra, it fell flat. But that idea of ownership – not of the game, but of the players –explains why the League’s CEO, Andrew Gardiner, has finally moved into the open to speak publicly. He was on a salvage operation after Rory McIlroy holed the entire concept below the waterline earlier in the week.

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In A Place Obsessed With Identity, Shane Lowry Is A Champion All Can Relate To

The 148th Open Championship was foreshadowed with ample focus on what divides the people of this island —politics, religion, reactions to Rickie Fowler’s wardrobe — so it was only appropriate that a man who embodies many of the traits that unite them should emerge as Champion Golfer of the Year.

Only his exquisite command of a golf ball distinguishes Shane Lowry from any Irishman you’d get from central casting. He is a dry wit, is fond of a pint, is colorful with his language, is devoted to his family and is a stranger to the gym. He looks like a man more likely to be guarding the Claret Jug than having his name engraved on it, but he’s undeniably a man you’d want to be drinking from it with.

Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 12.47.04 PM — The Champion Golfer of the Year.

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The Open May Be The Only Thing Northern Ireland Can Agree On

When Darren Clarke steps to the tee at Royal Portrush at 6:35 a.m. Thursday morning and gets the 148th Open Championship underway, he will become the first Northern Irishman to fire a shot here and have it universally welcomed.

That observation may be trite, but whistling past the graveyard is a common personality trait among those of us who grew up in Northern Ireland during what we euphemistically called ‘the Troubles.’ And Thursday will be just the latest in a series of days that once seemed so improbable as to be barely worth the dream.

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Open Return to Portrush Will See Tales Of Redemption Trump Reality

Golf nourishes itself with low-hanging narratives, those saccharine, feel-good tales about lives redeemed or neighborhoods rejuvenated thanks to the royal and ancient game. Stories of golf as a power for good often hold a seed of truth that eventually reaps an acre of corn. Eighty-seven days from now, folks who peddle this kind of claptrap will have a field day as the 148th Open Championship kicks off at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.

The parables are so predictable that they write themselves long before a single shot is struck.

Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 12.06.04 PM — Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland.

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Slow Play Epidemic The Tour Has No Desire To Cure

It’s doubtful Cicero had the PGA Tour’s pace of play policy in mind when he wrote “The more laws, the less justice,” but his pithy philosophy is no less applicable. The Tour’s code runs four pages and is a masterclass in authoring rules designed to be unenforceable.

Consider the particulars. Players are permitted 40-50 seconds to play their shots depending on the order of play in a group, but exceeding that limit doesn’t incur a bad time. For a group to be officially considered out of position they not only have to exceed the allotted time to play a shot but also reach a hole that is open and free of play. Only then does a group go on the clock. The punishment for that bad time is, well, nothing. A second bad time earns a one-stroke penalty, the third gets two. A DQ only comes at four. The fines levied are so meager as to be meaningless.

The most imbecilic mind on Tour would struggle to parse the policy but not to manipulate it.

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My Year in Golf

Two golfers I met this year remain lodged in my memory as 2018 sees itself out, but you won’t find their names in an accounting of FedEx Cup points or on Ryder Cup team rosters.

I met Mark Hensby for dinner in Scottsdale last February. He was four months into a well-documented suspension from the PGA Tour that left him feeling frustrated, angry and anxious to resume his career. In July, I sat beneath the R&A Clubhouse in St. Andrews with Vicente Fernandez, who had traveled from his home in Buenos Aires and successfully qualified for the British Senior Open at the age of 72. He was charming in his old-school manners, thankful for one last shot at golf’s most iconic venue.

They could not be more opposite in disposition, Hensby and Fernandez, but golf has a way of acting like connective tissue to link otherwise wildly disparate people and places. Hensby and Fernandez were two guys who just wanted to play golf.

unknown-1-e1545608402201 — Brandel Chamblee, on our visit to the Tom Morrises Old and Young in the wee small hours.

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What Rory Owes the European Tour: Zero

When Rory McIlroy recently answered a routine question about his schedule for 2019, it was treated as golf’s equivalent of Brexit – a shocking and foolhardy distancing from Europe.

“I am starting my year off in the States and that will be the big focus of mine up until the end of August, and then we will assess from there,” he said. “I want to play against the strongest fields week-in and week-out, and for the most part of the season that is in America. If I want to continue to contend in the majors and to continue my journey back towards the top of the game, then that’s what I want to do.”

McIlroy was speaking at the European Tour’s season-ending event in Dubai and knew he would draw incoming fire for his candor.

“Everyone has to look out for themselves,” he said. “And next year, I’m looking out for me.”

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Tiger Vs. Phil: A Rivalry Only in Vegas

Only in the city that promoted Mayweather-McGregor as a fair fight and Liberace as a sex symbol could Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson be considered rivals. “The Match” is fresh evidence that Las Vegas can distort any reality just long enough to separate a rube from his billfold.

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Ryder Cup Drug Tests Fuel Rumor Mill

The Ryder Cup had its share of weekend thrills for fans, but for players the drama began much earlier. Tuesday evening, to be exact. And not at Le Golf National but seven miles away at the Trianon Palace hotel, which was home to both the U.S. and European teams. That’s when officials from the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) arrived unannounced to conduct random drug tests.

The players had reason to be surprised. It was the first time drug tests were administered at a Ryder Cup. That it happened in Paris should be less surprising. The French take their anti-doping laws seriously. That’s why Lance Armstrong now owns as many Tour de France victories as Jack Nicklaus.

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Social Media Trolls Now Just Cost of Doing Business on Tour

After a sinus infection forced Billy Horschel to withdraw halfway through the first round of the Dell Technologies Championship, it didn’t take long for the pains in a different orifice to surface.

“Seriously? You walk off the course like a spoiled (expletive) and rather than apologize you blame it on a sinus infection? ‘Billy Ho’ just took on a whole new meaning,” offered one Tweeter.

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