BlogFrys.com Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Hard to believe that just like that 2014 is ended, and the 2015 season is starting up.  Yes, because the new wrap around schedule makes playing in October in the 2015 season, it’s a great way of getting a jump on folks.  For Jimmy Walker, he loved what happen last year as he won the Frys and then followed it up with wins at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am.  After that Walker had top-tens in the Masters, Players Championship, Colonial, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and the Deutsche Bank.  So you can see the reasons he finished 7th in the FedEx Cup race and 4th on the money list.

After last year, it will be interesting to see if more players participate in one of these next seven events.  Now it doesn’t mean that you’re at an impossible disadvantage, Jim Furyk didn’t play his first events until Pebble and still finished 4th in the FedEx Cup race.  It’s just a way to get a big head start on things.

One of the things that happened between 2007 and 2014 was the Golf Channel became the place to watch golf.  They don’t mind competing with the NFL even though I have been told that Golf Channel loses a fortune with these fall events.  With this and the advent of events in Asian coming online, this created a way for the PGA Tour to complete against the NFL.  Frankly it’s like background noise, nice to have PGA Tour golf in the fall but it’s still not the same as golf between the Hawaii stops and the Tour Championship.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years.  There is room for golf in the fall, a lot of folks want to see an event every week.  But for the players, especially your marquee names they want to be off in the fall, even with good events in China like the HSBC.  Problem with that, players take time off during the west coast events in January and February so there isn’t any perfect solution.

I also wouldn’t be a surprised in the near future to see three events from January move to the fall.  The first is Humana, which has lost its sponsor after 2015.  I can easily see this becoming a fall event next year under a new sponsor.  I can also see the Hyundai and Sony moving, would make sense as a stopping point before the tour goes to Malaysia and China.  So what would be gained for the PGA Tour with this move?  You wouldn’t have events the first three weeks in January, weeks that are dominated by the NFL in playoffs.  The PGA Tour can complete with the Super Bowl, which is played later in the day, but it can’t complete against playoff games that run at the same time. So you are playing these first three events up against the NFL and also on Golf Channel. Not downgrading Golf Channel, just saying a network will get you more eyes watching, so it’s only smart business to just not play golf up against these playoffs.  Also, it’s not like your getting the best players in the world to show up. They complain that they need those weeks off, so maybe a move of these three events would help the overall picture of golf.

Ryder Cup thoughts:

Last but not least we have to talk about the Ryder Cup.  I have been to every Ryder Cup since 1979 and have to say that last months affair in Scotland has to be the low point.  Let’s face it, American players are prima donna’s that aren’t comfortable in playing team events that include match play and partnerships.  We have made fun of Tiger Woods as a person that doesn’t do well when he has to partner up with others. The fact is most of the players on the PGA Tour don’t know how to play with each other.  The Europeans hangout together, like each other as a family unit and do well in different games like foursomes. But our guys just don’t seem motivated together.

Phil Mickelson brought up an important point in saying how Paul Azinger seemed to motivate players in the 2008 Ryder Cup with a different style.  The fact is simple, Tom Watson captaincy wasn’t well received by the players and turned into one of the low points for the Americans in Ryder Cup history.  It’s too bad for Watson, a proud man who had his reputation hurt by the challenge of being captain.  The days of playing for an older person like Watson who at 65, about 20 years older than the oldest players on the America team, is probably over.  Watson is a superstar from a different era, a time when the way he captained this year wasn’t respected and liked.  This is a different era of players that need a person that is more associated with them.

It’s not like Watson didn’t try to be closure to his players, he attended a lot of PGA Tour events and spent lots of time with them.  But his attitude was one from a different era and one that didn’t go over very well.  We heard the rumors of players snickering over some of Tom’s thoughts and decisions.  The players just didn’t buy into his style, and that’s why you’re hearing some of this gossip of player unrest.

It will be debated if Phil Mickelson was too harsh in the media interview the Sunday after the singles.  I was there and it wasn’t like Phil was dying to be a tell-all, he was answering a simple question from a reporter on what he thought was great about the 2008 team.  Phil may of gone a bit too far and frankly we will never know if he had any ill-will against Tom Watson and wanted to get his aggression out.  The overall aspect of this is more embarrassment for Watson, the PGA of America and to the players themselves.

The PGA of America will need to think hard about the next captain.  I also think the PGA and golf needs to think hard about the future of the Ryder Cup.  For me, I was very bored over the affair on Sunday, matter of fact I am bored period with not only the Ryder Cup but golf in general.  It’s a bit like having sex twice a day, seven days a week, there is way too much of it to keep us interested.  I feel the PGA Tour has done too good of a job in creating these new events like the FedEx Cup and the Presidents Cup.  These events have created a reason for golf being very boring.  You think American players like playing every year in the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup?  There is nothing to look forward to, the Europeans only play once every two years and have something to look forward to.  It’s hard to invision the PGA of America, The PGA Tour, the PGA of Britain and the European Tour doing this.  How about having a Ryder Cup once every two years that includes everyone and we don’t have the Presidents Cup anymore.  Is there a fair way in which Europe expands to include Africa and Asia while America gets Canada, South America and Australia?  Then you will get the best players in the world playing just once every two years.  While I am at it, I think there is too much golf from the British Open through the Ryder/Presidents Cup.  I think the FedEx Cup is too cumbersome and frankly important golf should be limited to between the Super Bowl and the start of the NFL season.  Half of the European team didn’t play in the FedEx Cup playoffs, which I think could be an advantage for them.

I’d be interested in hearing from others on this topic, either below in our speak your mind box or send me an email to Sal@golfstats.com.

About the Frys.com Open:

This event started in Scottsdale, Arizona and after three years at Grayhawk transferred to CordeValle Golf Club, close to it’s sponsors headquarters in San Jose.  The hope was that CordeValle would be a temporary home as it’s been a dream to hold the event at the Institute Golf Course in Morgan Hill, CA.   But construction problems and such have forced the event not to be played on the ultra private course that very few have ever seen.  So CordeValle was to be a short term fix, and for this year and next the event moves to Napa Valley and the Silverado resort for the next two years.  Then the event is supposed to move to the Institute Golf Course (which is suppose to be a great course).  I will believe it when it does happen, which I don’t think it will.

Silverado course information:

Many will not remember, but Silverado was a proud site of the PGA Tour between 1968 to 1980 and then held a senior event, the Transamerica between 1990 and 2002.  So Silverado had a deep relationship with professional golf.  The resort changed direction because it didn’t need to spend the money to host a professional event.  Napa Valley has become a great destination for couples over 40, between the great weather and the vineyards, Silverado didn’t need it.  The resort lost some of its touch and needed some sprucing up. One of the areas that have been improved was the golf courses.  There are two of them, the South and the North, a couple of years ago Johnny Miller put together an investment group that purchased the courses, and Miller reworked the North Course. What Miller did was revamped all of the greens, put in new bunkering and realigned the fairways and trimmed the trees that were too cumbersome.  Of course because of the downturn of the golf marketplace, Miller didn’t go crazy by changing a lot of the holes, adding lakes and streams.  Still Miller is happy at the work, and he is hopeful to be able to do the same to the South Course.

So what will the pros find this week?  The greens are one of the things that Miller points out that makes it a better course.  “These greens are as tough as Augusta at high speeds,” Miller said to Golf.com. “I would probably have five three putts a round.”  The course was also increased from 6,900 to 7,203.  Now on the surface this may be too short for the best pros in the world.  So I can see both the long distance players having a field day while the shorter hitters also enjoying shorter approaches to the greens.  One thing that was brought out in the 13 years it was played in the 70s,  the caliber of champions which included players like Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw among it’s champions.

Another important aspect of the Miller redo, in an effort to improve playability and aesthetics, turf renovation got rid of Kikuyu grass and return the course to its original mix of rye and Kentucky bluegrass condition.  Will all of this be enough, guess we will know in the next couple of days.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Frys.com Open:

Key stat for the winner:

Since this is a new course for all of the players, experience will play a very limited role.  Traditionally tournaments on the PGA Tour that hold events for the first year, usually, are won by journeymen and players with very little experience winning.

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

• Johnny Miller says the greens are perfect and fast, so good putter should have a field day.
• Scrambling is also very important because it’s not that demanding around the greens at Silverado. So greens hit isn’t as important as being able to get up and down on those missed.
• Weather, come on do we have to talk about it?  We know it’s going to be picture perfect every day, in the mid-70s with lot’s of sun.
• Lastly, the field isn’t loaded with many marquee and experience players.   Look for someone that has not been in the winners circle to prevail since over 75% of the field have not won on the PGA Tour.  Also with this being the first event of a new year look for a lot of guys off the Web.Com priority list to be playing.  This year 39 of the top-41 off that list are in the field.  For some reason, Bud Cauley and Tom Gillis are the only ones that didn’t play.