We’re nearing the conclusion of the summer season and yet playoff fever is everywhere you look. The National Hockey League is already well into the second round of their playoffs in the quest for Lord Stanley’s Cup. The National Basketball Association is nearing the completion of its opening round and although I know it’s inevitable that the L.A. Clippers will advance out of round one, I have certainly been entertained by the uniqueness of Luka Doncic’s game.
The PGA Tour just completed week one of its playoff system. The top 125 ranked golfers in the Fed Ex Cup standings were in Boston last week. That number has been whittled down to 70 for this week’s version of the playoffs in Chicago. The low 30 advance out of Chicago to next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta. After that, the season is over.
Of course, golf’s version of the playoffs is not as defining as the playoffs for team sports. Teams win and advance. Sometimes with the Fed Ex Playoffs point system, it’s hard to decipher how things stand. For instance, last weekend Louis Oosthuizen was in the hunt to barely get into the low 70. He started to falter on the final nine and suddenly he shot up to 78. A couple of birdies down the stretch got him closer to the magic cut line. The only golfer who stood in his way was Doc Redman. Redman couldn’t much help himself Sunday because he had already missed the 36-hole cut Friday afternoon. Finally, when the dust settled, Oosthuizen was in 70th place, ahead of Redman by six points. Because I never did follow through and try to get that doctorate in Quantitative Analysis, I’m not exactly sure how that happened. I have to admit I’d much rather watch Oosthuizen, a former British Open champ, play instead of the relatively unknown Redman, a third-year professional.
I find it more valid to gauge a pro golfer’s success based on major titles and victories instead of points. I find some glaring differences in this year’s playoffs. First and foremost are those top-tier professionals who will be missing round two this week. Among the notable exclusions are Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth. Fleetwood and Rose didn’t play much in America because of the pandemic. Koepka has been hurt. Fowler and Spieth have lost their way. On the inside this week are golfers such as Richy Werenski, Harry Higgs, Tom Hoge and Joel Dahman. All are winless on tour, all are in the top 50 in points, and I dare fans of the game to pick them out of a lineup. Yet they are in Chicago because they had better seasons than Spieth and the others.
Speaking of winning, four golfers have won twice on tour this year while Justin Thomas has accumulated three victories during the 2019-2020 wraparound season. Of those five golfers, only Dustin Johnson is ranked inside the top 40 in driving distance. Johnson is currently sitting in 17th place. Justin Thomas is 40th, Webb Simpson is 107th, Collin Morikawa is 109th, and Brendon Todd is taking up the rear in 202nd place. Yes, we’d all like to hit the ball as far as Bryson DeChambeau (ranked first at 324 yards), but wins are the defining category with majors magnifying the situation. I’ll take Collin Morikawa’s year over anyone else’s, regardless of his less-than-overpowering driving statistics.
Brendon Todd is a great example of the “horses for courses” phenomena in golf. Some pros excel on certain types of course while others don’t. Todd’s two wins this season were at resort courses in Bermuda and Mexico. Morikawa’s victories at highly ranked courses, namely Muirfield Village and Harding Park, point to his comfort level on traditional courses. Last week’s playoffs were held at TPC Boston, a relatively new course designed for greater spectator access. The next two weeks are at Olympia Fields and East Lake. East Lake in Atlanta is the old-style course where amateur great Bobby Jones first got his start in golf. It was designed by Tom Bendelow and Donald Ross at the turn of the 20th century and has a long history of hosting events such as the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur and the Ryder Cup.
This week’s tournament site, Olympia Fields, isn’t as well known as East Lake, but it too has a history. It opened in 1915 and was designed by two-time British Open champ Willie Park Jr. Nowadays Olympia Field is a 36-hole complex, but when I was growing up in that area, it was a 72-hole facility. Two of the courses were sold off to deal with suburban encroachment. Walter Hagen won the 1925 PGA Championship at Olympia Fields and Johnny Goodman won the U.S. Open there in 1928. Jerry Barber putted his way to a PGA win at Olympia in 1961 and Jim Furyk won the U.S. Open in 2003. It also has hosted five Western Opens won by Walter Hagen, Jock Hutchinson, Macdonald Smith, Bruce Crampton and Jack Nicklaus.
Winning the Fed Ex Cup playoffs is worth a cool $15 million. Golfers among the top 30 share a bonus pool purse that extends between $15 million and $1 million for 30th place. On top of that, the top 30 are exempt in golf’s four majors next year. And while golf’s playoffs don’t take on the same dramatic center stage that other playoffs seem to, it is all very entertaining … even if we can’t exactly figure out how it all pencils out.
One of golf’s big names that failed to get to Chicago this week was Phil Mickelson. Mickelson finished 75th on the points list and had just two top 10s. Unlike the vast majority of pros outside the top 70, Mickelson did have an alternative. Because he turned 50 years of age in June, he is now eligible for the PGA Champions Tour. He entered the senior tourney at Ozarks National earlier this week. Mickelson didn’t disappoint as he carded rounds of 61-64-66 to win his first senior event by four strokes. The earliest days of the Senior Tour featured golfers with names such as Arnold, Jack, Lee and Gary. The Champions Tour would get an incredible boost if Phil Mickelson made it his full-time golfing home.
Finally, the 37th edition of the Lake County Amateur Golf Championship tees off this weekend at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain. The granddaddy of competitive golf tourneys in our area, the Amateur features an especially strong field this year. Ready to tee it up are the likes of Cypress College golfer Matt Wotherspoon, former Monterey Peninsula College golfer Travis Stockton, three-time Amateur champion Juan Lopez of Finley, and three-time champion Billy Witt. Witt is also the two-time defending titlist and a third consecutive Lake County Amateur victory would put him in rarified space alongside Jonathan Carlson, Brad Pendleton and the late George Hoberg Jr.
