2020 Memorial Tournament

[smashdn]

I agree with this. Same reason you don't ground your club when the ball is on an up-slope like a bunker lip or you are extra, extra careful moving sticks and stuff from around the ball. Don't take a chance on moving the ball.

[Holy Moses]

Yes, and he was supposed to be announcing on-course also

[Ferguson]

 

Respectful of your comments, I'm not going to spend too much time on this or question your perspective(s).

 

From my perspective, Bones carrying any bag for any duration is in "direct conflict" with the reasons stated or unstated by Phil and his camp for their separation. Most of "the information" at the time was based on Mike Fluff Cowan's observations. Cowan is a reliable source? Do you think Fluff ever sat at Phil's dinner table and had a glass of vino with Phil and Amy? No and no.

 

[Justsomeguy]

I'd just like to know how John Rahm hits it that far with so short a swing.

[bscinstnct]

 

I think I understand his thinking that he could use the contours to roll it up through the baked fw and do better than going to the flag or to the middle of the green.

 

You reminded me of this time on a local course in Ireland. I was just like 4 feet off the green *but the green rose literally like 2.5 feet straight up. And the flag was short side near me. Was like trying to chip up onto your bed from a tight lie. So, I slammed a putt into the side of the hill and the ball popped up into the air and plopped down on the green. I missed the putt, of course ; )

 

[Holy Moses]

Ask Finau

[BlackDiamondPar5]

LOL I actually thought that was a picture inside Ferguson's brain when he thinks about Phil!

 

[Mikey5e]

You don't hit the ball with your backswing.

[Ferguson]

 

My disgust with Phil is neat, orderly and directionally stable.

[Imp]

On Phil... I'm not sure if it's protesting or... him being so far back, just have some fun finishing the round? Do something different to see if it would work or not? I mean, what's the harm from putting that far out? Is he great with a wedge? Yep. But, why not try the putter and learn from it? Ok, lesson learned, move on. We don't see much from his practice rounds, maybe he's done it in practice too?

--kC

[smashdn]

Let's discuss why it didn't work. He took a healthy whack at it. Did he hit it into the ground some or was the grass just a little sticky and didn't get the roll like you would on fescue?

[straightshot7]

It's not that short. He still makes a shoulder turn far bigger than most amateurs and the rest of his mechanics are great.

[bscinstnct]

 

He is well short of 90* on a lot of swings. In his case it seems like a great advantage for control.

 

i just looked at his SG stats and it’s impressive.

 

Elite numbers tee to green. Poor year putting in 2018 but very respectable this year and last. Only mediocre to poor ranking SG-wise is around the green.

 

Getting a lot of top 5s and now 4 pga, 6 euro wins.

 

That was a pretty fast run to #1 for him.

 

 

 

[dlygrisse]

Actually the argument was "who cares if Phil fires Bones" he is the employer, caddies get fired all the time. Sometimes changes need to be made. For those who don't know, Fergy suffers from PDS. (Phil derangement syndrome)

[Sean2]

During the telecast Jack said he really liked it when courses were set-up like this as it eliminated a good portion of the field due to frustration and lack of patience. He said the TW told him the same thing after his round on Saturday.

[One Putter]

A pro golfer who can stand over a golf club and tell if the lie and length has been adjusted, or feel when the flex in their shaft is at the correct point during a swing, should never be that careless about addressing a chip shot from the rough. I don't think there's any way he didn't know what he was doing there, and he definitely knew the ball moved.

 

Since the intent can't be proven, i'm glad he was penalized for pure laziness at the least. Good for him on being so many shots ahead that it didn't matter. But he really needs to clean it up when addressing chips.

 

Again, i say this just because he is a pro. I know that there are tons of people at munis all over america who do this all the time. That's whatever. These guys are supposed to be pros, so we hold them to a higher standard. Hence the term "bush league" when they try to bend rules.

[Potatohead]

I thought the whole point of the new rule was that technology wouldn't be used to determine things like this? I also agree with Brandel in that this happens many, many times during an average event. Thirdly I believe he would not have been penalized if it would have lost him the tournament.

[One Putter]

Maybe it does happen more than you'd think and people get away with it, but they show close ups of guys chipping and putting all the time and we very rarely see what we saw with Rahm, if ever.

[Potatohead]

 

The rough at most events is not 5" long either. Plus, the amount of close ups like that in the rough compared to actual shots like that in the event is infinitesimal.

[bscinstnct]

 

They showed TF do the same thing, looked even worse to me how the ball was moving around.

But even when the ball doesn’t seem to move, these guys seem to take plenty of liberty pushing down grass in rough off the fw and green and improve their lie. It can be subtle, but even that extra blade of grass can cost you big money I guess

[straightshot7]

Why only look at club position as a measure of one's backswing? His shoulder turn is probably right around Tour average. He keeps a lot of width in his backswing and keeps his arms/wrists relatively rigid compared to others. If he just let his arms/wrists fold more like Ryan Palmer does, he'd be at 90 degrees.

If I draw a line through the middle of the right shoulder through the middle of the left shoulder, you see roughly their shoulder turn size. Tiger has always been very flexible and makes a bigger turn, but as you can see Rahm's shoulder turn is the same as Palmer's, if not deeper. And no one accuses Palmer of having a short swing.

Turn size is more important than where the club is positioned at the top. That has to do more with the arms/wrists. Rahm is also laid off which makes it appear shorter.

[coluccim]

I won 3 match parlay on 2somes with that penalty (Had Reed, Finau and Palmer in their matches), It was definitely a penalty, lol

[Jay28]

 

Luke was 34, I think, when he reached world #1. It took him a decade to get there.

Rahm is only 25 yrs old (sometimes easy to forget) and has got to #1 in the 4th shortest time from turning pro in history.

11 wins worldwide now - that's about 3 per year since turning pro.

Luke was a very good player who worked hard to make it to the top. Rahm is a much bigger talent. I can see him going on to win 30-40 tournaments (maybe more).

What remains to be seen is whether he can control his temper and use to his favour in the majors - he needs to win a few, 5 or 6 at least, to fulfil his potential. I think he's the biggest talent to emerge since Tiger.

 

 

[bscinstnct]

 

ss! What’s happening?

 

Ya, I was talkin shoulder turn, not club position. And that line ain’t drawn right, imo, if it’s supposed to show shoulder turn.

Here is a frame from the video I posted I tried to freeze it at the very top of his swing. To me, you can tell by how much of the back of his shirt you can see compared to TW and RP. I could be wrong. Either way, his driver control is a big asset.

 

[smashdn]

Rahm needs a strong caddy to talk him out of dumb stuff. Rahm needs to learn to trust and listen to that caddy.

[Imp]

"Imagine if in the NFL, 1 team was allowed video replay and the other wasn’t. That’s what you have on @PGATOUR. Not every shot is videoed the same way, with same scrutiny or with same # of angles. Going back to replay for rules infractions is an unfair playing field. #Memorial"

I kind of like that line of thought. His response afterward during the interview also said alot when he was essentially ambushed with the question on live TV BEFORE any rules officials could even discuss it (which I was shouting at the TV saying "FOUL!!!")

 

[Holy Moses]

As Slugger White said, intent doesn't matter

[Potatohead]

Rahm has an excellent caddy

[bajadock]

Slugger had how much $$$ on the over?

[smashdn]

If you know him, tell him it is the opinion of a high-handicap golfer posting on GolfWRX that he needs to be more assertive and keep Rahm settled down. Rahm has a ton of talent, he just needs to play within himself and play according to the situation. I base this more on the fairway bunker shot he rinsed at 11 when in contention at Sawgrass. Don't play yourself out of the tournament with low percentage shots with high risk factor.