BlogPGA Championship Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

A couple of important elements have come up in just a weeks time.  It’s what is happening to Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day and Jason Dufner.  Let’s take it one at a time:

Tiger

As I write this on Monday morning, everything is up in the air for Tiger.  With Tiger hurting something in his lower back on a shot at the second hole on Sunday, it runs the full gambit on what is the future for Tiger.  We know nothing; the injury could have been career ending for all we know, or it could have been a simple tweak of the back that can be fixed with special treatments.  Of course it looked terrible, Tiger could hardly stand or walk and looked in terrible pain on Sunday at Firestone.  But let me put this thought in your mind, back in 2012 Tiger hurt himself in the final round at the WGC-Cadillac.  It looked terrible, Tiger could hardly walk, and it looked very serious.  Guess what happened, ten days later he looked perfect when he showed up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and won the tournament.  So we have to forget what we saw on Sunday at Firestone, it could be something that is easy.

Now on the other end of the spectrum, Tiger has been under a lot of pressure to get his game back so that he can play on the Ryder Cup team.  Sorry, I think that the boat has left the station after some of the shots that Tiger showed on Sunday.  The way Captain Tom Watson was talking on Monday morning on XM radio, he sounded like he has made his decision and won’t have Tiger on the team.  We can’t say or write anything about this because we don’t know how serious this his.  I personally would have liked to see Tiger take his time, figure out a way to get his game back to the level it was at this time last year and came out strong at his tournament in December.  One thing that is becoming more know it’s not with Tiger’s swing that is causing the problems, it’s the way he is thinking on the course.  The winning mojo is just not there and who knows if he can ever regain it.

Sad story on the same realm, at the end of the 1930s Ralph Guldahl was the best golfer in the world.  He won the Masters and U.S. Open and was the dominating force in 1938, ’39.  But one day a strange thing happened to Guldahl, he went to see a movie and before the movie they had newsreel shows, giving the news of the week.  In the movie that he attended they had a story on Guldahl winning and they did a slow-mo swing of his.  It’s was the first time Guldahl had seen his swing in slow-mo, and he didn’t like it.  He tried to alter the swing and in a matter of weeks got into a terrible tail-spin in which he wasn’t able to get out of and went from the best player in the world to the worst, just because he thought that his swing wasn’t right.  The same with Tiger, I think that his mind is not helping him and he isn’t thinking the same way that he uses to that is his #1 problem.

Dustin Johnson:

This is a sad story for not only Dustin but golf.  On Thursday, Johnson announced that he was going to take some time off to work out some personal problems.  He would not play in the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup, but he never said how long he would be out and what the personal problems was.  On Friday, Golf.com came out with an article that said that the Johnson had failed his third drug test and was suspended by the tour.  In a matter of hours, the Tour fired back that they didn’t suspend Johnson and that this was a private matter.

In this day and age of quick news fueled by sites like TMZ and such, when is the PGA Tour going to learn that they have to be upfront and the ones that report the news.  Baseball, Football and Basketball are the ones that report any disciplinary action on any of their players.  Yes, it’s a bombshell for about a day and then goes away.  But by the PGA Tour’s action of hiding things so that they don’t look bad to sponsors, it fuels the news cycle to a feverish pace.  Just look at how long the Tiger Woods scandal was in 2009 and ’10.  If he was just upfront with people and said, he needed privacy things would have been better instead of news organizations having to find out the dirt and reporting about it.

In the case of Johnson, I am pretty sure that he uses marijuana, which in the real world is not that big of a deal, but for athletes it’s a no-no.  Making matters worst, the stories are past drug use but looking at all of Johnson’s life, and we have the accusations that Dustin had affairs with other players wives.  Sorry, this has gone too far but you have to blame the PGA Tour for not being in front of the story, taking the whack and moving on.

What I think happen and again this is my personal thoughts, nothing that is factual.  I believe it’s true that Johnson has failed multiple drug tests on tour and in this case they went to Johnson and gave him a choice, suspension or seeking help.  I think Johnson and his advisers figured out that seeking professional help for his problems were the best course of action, and the Tour took no action on him.  The lesson to be learned on this, you can’t hide anything from the media, they are going to find it out.  The hardcore golf media (not many of us left) really don’t want to see a story like this go viral in which outside “gossip” sites get involved.  Most of use in the golf media figured that Dustin was “probably” disciplined by the tour for drug use a couple of years ago.  We want to report about golf, not what kind of “kinky” lifestyle a golfer wants to lead.  So for the good folks at Ponte Vedre, come on be upfront on bad things, these guys are humans and do mess up.

Jason Dufner and Jason Day:

At the Bridgestone defending PGA Champion Jason Dufner revealed he has two painful bulging discs in his neck, and it’s been bothering him since the Masters.  Right now he is trying to get over it with steroid injections and says that surgery has not been discussed.  But the fact is that he isn’t 100% and shouldn’t be thought as a favorite, I wouldn’t even bet a dime on him making the cut.

As for Jason Day, it’s been a long year.  He did win the WGC-Accenture match Play championship, but he has had problems with strep throat, tonsillitis, a problem with his left thumb and wrist problems but now he is fighting a bout with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or BPPV.  Doctors feel that the problem was caused by his need of cortisone for his thumb and anti-inflammatory drugs for his throat problem.  So he withdrew after the third round of the WGC-Bridgestone and has been told to rest for at least 48 hours.  So he may also play in the PGA Championship but I can’t make him a pick, at best think he will be lucky just to make the cut.

Tournament information:

This is the 96th PGA Championship. The plans for the PGA Championship were created on January 16, 1916 at a meeting of a group of PGA Tour professionals including Walter Hagen. Their vision was to create a national championship that would rival the U.S. Open in terms of importance. Just months later, their vision came to reality as the first PGA Championship Match Play event was played at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, NY that year. Englishman Jim Barnes took home the inaugural crown.

After the inaugural tournament, the event took a two-year break from 1917 to 1918 because of World War I. The break in action didn’t phase Jim Barnes, as he went on to win the PGA Championship in its return to the Tour in 1919. Since the two-year hiatus, The PGA Championship has only seen one other break, that being in 1943 due to World War II. The biggest change in the event’s history occurred in 1958, when the format of the event was changed from Match Play to 72-hole stroke play.

The famed Wanamaker trophy, awarded to the winner of the PGA Championship, can trace its routes back to the beginning of golf equipment. In the early part of the 20th Century, A.G. Spalding & Bros. was the predominant maker of golf equipment; however, Rodman Wanamaker sought to create a company that would rival Spalding in the golf industry. Though his plan ultimately failed, his dream will always me remembered as he was the one that first sponsored the PGA Championship and the trophy, which today bears his name.

Course information:

• Valhalla Golf Club
• Louisville, Ky.
• 7,458 yards     Par 35-36–71

We have all heard about new courses that many claims are magical wonders, but the true test of a course is when the tournament is held, especially when a major championship is played on it.  In 1996 the PGA of America took a gamble on the course just outside of Louisville, Kentucky.  Now politics has a lot to do with holding three PGA Championships and a Ryder Cup in a span of 18 years, but many say the course is great for a major championship.

Valhalla lies on land that makes up two very different nines.  The front is on flat meadowland with a river running through several of the holes.  Even though, its not considered a “links design” several of the holes have that look.  The back nine is totally different, played on the side of a hill with the fairways guarded by tall hardwood trees.

Now many think that the reasons the course is chosen as the site of a PGA Championship is because of how tough the course is, great shot value, tradition and the promise that the venue will produce a first-class tournament with a worthy champion.  In most cases, thats true and Valhalla has provided some of that.  But lets face facts, the real reason Valhalla has been chosen to hold not only three PGA Championships in a span of 18 years and the 2008 Ryder Cup is all money and politics.

Politics because the course is mostly owned by the PGA of America.  The money part is two fold; first a site fee isn’t that big of a deal on a course owned by the PGA of America and two because golf-starved Kentuckians will sell the place out.

Now here is an interesting stat.  Jack Nicklaus has been a very popular golf course architect with a dozen of his courses holding PGA Tour events since 2000.  But in major championships only two Nicklaus courses have been venues, here at Valhalla and Shoal Creek.

As a course Valhalla is pretty good with 18 very distinct type of holes.  There isn’t a weak hole among them with a couple of them proving to be quite special.  The hardest hole back in ’96 and 2000 was the 12th, a dogleg right that plays 467 yard with most of the trouble coming from the tee shot.  Miss the fairway and you have no shot to the green as proven back in in the two previous years when more bogeys and double bogeys were scored on this hole than any other.  Another tough hole was the par 5 seventh, in a day when most par 5s are pushovers, the seventh proved otherwise.  Even though it played under par its average was 4.94 in 1996 and 4.73 in 2000 made it one of the hardest par 5s on tour.

In 2012 Jack Nicklaus was brought in to make some changes to the course for this year’s PGA Championship.  All 18 greens were redone, all of the bunkers were altered and cleaned up and major alterations were made to hole 2, 3, 7, 9, 14 and 15.  One of the biggest changes was changing the second hole from a par 5 to a par 4.  Even with par being lowered, 291 yards have been added since 2000.

One hole they left alone was the par 5, 18th.  The hole has a lot of drama to it, a medium length par 5 at 542 yards that most of the field can get home in two on. But it has water on it and in front of the green, so a lot can happen on the hole to add excitement.

In the two PGA’s and Ryder Cup the course has received high praise from the players, and I can see that happening this year also.

• In 1996 the course played to a 72.636 average (half a shot over par), making it the 15th hardest course on the PGA Tour.
• In 2000 the course played to a 72.971 average (just about a shot over par) making it the 9th hardest course on tour that year.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the PGA Championship:

Key stat of the week:

It’s really sad but the big thing of the week could be poor weather.  Just look at the long range forecast and you can see that each day will be very hot and humid.  I can tell you that combination in Louisville will make for an uncomfortable day for the players.  But the really bad part, rain and thunder are predicted every day except for Sunday, so this could be a rough week.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Important to see who is the best total driver of the ball going into the week and then checking to see who hits the most greens on the PGA Tour.
• Funny that the one player that is in the top-three in both stats is Graham Delaet so the thought is that he should be the favorite.  Now that theory could work, Shaun Micheel was in the same boat in 2003 and won, but these are different times.  As good as Delaet hits the ball he is a very average putter, but still if you are looking for a dark horse it could be him.  Also high on the list is Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia, two players that are playing great this summer.
• In looking at the stats of the winners in 1996, Mark Brooks tee to green stats weren’t very impressive but he led the field in putting stats.  Since he was T-63rd in scrambling that means that he really putted well.
• In 2000 Tiger was very impressive leading not only the driving distance stat but also greens in regulation and birdie average.  Overall he was 1st in total driving, 1st in ball striking and 2nd in all-around and T4th in Scrambling.  Of course with those good stats his putting stats were in the middle of the field, so in his case it showed that you had to hit the ball good to win.
• Need for patience.  This is one of those courses that par is your friend, so don’t look for low scoring.
• Does a non-marquee guy have a chance this week?  Could Thongchai Jaidee, Yoshitaka Takeya or even Jonas Bilxt win?  Not a chance, look for either one of the usual suspects or someone like a Sergio Garcia, Rickie Fowler or Jim Furyk who really wants to do well in a big event.  As for an underdog, maybe the PGA Championship has been loaded with them beginning with John Daly and ending with guys like Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel.