brocks

No, this was always Tiger's best chance of winning. Field size makes a huge difference, even when the extra players aren't as good as the top 30. I've written several posts on this already, so I'll just refer you to a stat: during his prime, Tiger won 26% of his regular PGA events, 28% of his majors, and 65% of his stroke play WGCs. The WGCs typically had the top 70 or so players in the world, but they were still over twice as easy to win as the full field regular tour events, which probably didn't have more than 50 of the world top 100 players.

It's better this year than it will be next year. Tiger beat Rose by five shots this week, but if this had been played under next year's rules, Tiger would still be winless since 2013.

https://tw itter.com/KellyTilghmanGC/status/1043975656307142658

What kind of bet is that? I do that every Sunday. Then again, they're Norwegian. Maybe cinnamon rolls to them would be like sardines to me.

I know, right? Even I could have made that last putt.

Tiger now dormie.

But... but... I thought there was no comparison to all the young guns today and the retreads Tiger was beating 20 years ago.

I was rooting against Rose all day because he needs to finish T5 or worse for Tiger to win the Cup, but on the last hole, I was rooting for Rose to make a birdie so he's paired with Tiger again tomorrow. Tiger has been driving it great, IMO because he's stopped trying to kill it, and that worked well paired with Rose. But paired with Rory, I have to wonder how many times Tiger gets outdriven by 30 yards before he starts swinging too hard.

I think Tommy is on to something. I think I heard them say on the broadcast that this is the fourth time Tommy and Tiger have been paired this year, and Tommy beat Tiger the first three times, so that's a pretty classy tweet.

He was playing well at the BMW, but needed to tighten up a few things. Looks like he did that; he made his sand saves, and all his misses were fairly close. I guess the worst shot he hit was his drive on 7, and his recovery from that was amazing, just like in his prime. Even if he doesn't win this week, next year looks like it will be really, really fun. And to that Euro bloke who keeps saying he's glad Tiger is on the Ryder Cup team --- stick that in your bangers and mash.

Nice putt.

While it's true that Snead (and Hogan, and others) have been credited with official wins in events with as few as 15 or 16 players, while Tiger didn't get official wins for his 18-man event with arguably stronger fields, that doesn't mean Tiger has the record. The governing body determines whether a win is official or not, period. If the PGA says Sam's events are official and Tiger's aren't, that's it. And in fact, a review was done by the PGA in the 1980's, and some of Sam's Greenbrier wins WERE designated unofficial. Others were ambiguous, but they simply didn't have enough documentation to disallow them. Sometimes it works the other way. In the case of the British Open, several players got an unofficial win retroactively upgraded to official. Also note that last year, the Zurich was converted to team format, which disarms the people who complained about Sam (and Jack) getting credit for team wins. Jack also has an individual stroke play win that featured a field of 20. That one (the 1976 World Series of Golf) not only counted as an official win, but it paid him $100K in official money in a year when the British Open paid only $13,500 to the winner, and most PGA events paid $40K or less. Jack won only two events that year, neither a major, but that huge official check helped make him the leading money winner, which in turn helped make him Player of the Year, even though Ben Crenshaw won three events that year, and Hubert Green won three consecutive events. It would be inconsistent to say Tiger should have the wins record, while (for example) disallowing Jack's claim that he won the scoring title several years during the 70's when he didn't play the then-minimum number of rounds (although I do give him credit for two years during the 60's, when he did everything right, but was ineligible for the Vardon simply because he didn't have enough time on tour). So yeah, Tiger has the individual wins record, but that's not a thing. The official PGA wins record is what the PGA says it is, and the PGA says Snead has 82 to Tiger's 79.

Absolutely. The career slam is a whole other thing.

True, but Tom Brady isn't an independent contractor. Nobody is going to make Tiger or Phil play if they don't want to, and neither the Tour nor the sponsors want the Cup to be a joke, with some second tier player winning because most of the big names skipped an event --- or worse, were not allowed to play any of the four if they didn't commit to all four.

I found a similar poll from last year. Back then, 72% said Tiger would never win another major. This time, 90% said he will. That should give him a lot of satisfaction. Hilarious how a significant percentage of players think others cheat or play too slowly, but exactly 0% admit to doing it themselves. Interesting that Trump lost 14 points of support since the last election, so that accords with more general polls. I was surprised only 56% voted for him, because these guys really care about taxes; that's why so many of them live in Florida (no state income tax). IMO the 10 events vs 1 major thing is totally dependent on context, i.e the player's record. If you're DJ, and already have over ten wins but only one major, another major is going to be more important. If you're Phil, ten wins would move you ahead of Arnie to 5th on the all-time wins list, which is a much bigger deal than having 6 rather than 5 majors. If you're Tiger, then he'd be an idiot to take one major over FOUR wins (assuming those are his only two choices), because the four wins would give him the all-time record over Snead, but one more major would still leave him second in that category.

You have guys like Ricky and Rory this year, and Tiger and Phil other years, who don't play all four events even when eligible, so I doubt the players would go for that.

His stats at the BMW might be a bit deceptive, because the waterlogged fairways kept the ball from rolling very far, if at all. I remember seeing a couple of drives that plugged right where they hit, and would surely have gone into the rough with even a below average length roll. That said, he does seem to be swinging more smoothly with the driver, and his misses are not as wild. And even with all his putting and driving problems, he hasn't had a really bad tournament since June, and has had four really good ones, including two majors. I don't think it's overly optimistic to assume that between now and next year he can gain consistency in his driving and putting, and sharpen up his short game, especially his sand play. Doing that should be worth a couple of shots per round, and that's all he needs to win.

Yes, go here: https://www.pgatour.com/players/player.08793.tiger-woods.html/scorecards/r028 You can see them pretty much in real time during a tournament. Just go to the official PGA Tour leaderboard, e.g. https://www.pgatour.com/competition/2018/bmw-championship/leaderboard.html and click on a player's name in the standings. You'll see the expanded scorecard with shot tracker, etc. From there, click on "Full Scorecard" and scroll down past the scorecards to see the strokes gained stats for that event.

https://qualifying.pgatourhq.com/static-assets/uploads/2017-18_pga_tour_handbookregs_final.pdf At the bottom of the "One New Event Played Per Season Requirement" it says, "NOTE: Regular Members (as defined in Article IX, Section A.1.f. through h.) shall be exempt from the provisions of this Regulation in the current season." It looks to me like that is something they put in for 2016, when the rule was first introduced, to give the players time to adjust their future schedules. They probably meant to take it out by now, but it's still there, so Jordan has an out. In the same pdf under penalties, it doesn't say how suspensions are implemented. If they just suspend somebody for the first three events of the season, like they do in football, it would be meaningless for Spieth, because he doesn't play the Safeway Open anyway. Anybody know how that works?

35 players have now finished their round, which means they can continue the tournament Tuesday if they have a weather stoppage today. If play had been stopped before half the players finished, they would have ignored today's play, and awarded prizes based on the 54-hole standings.

They have a week off before the Ryder Cup, so they would probably play Monday if needed. Now back to the 57 watch.

I hope Tiger continues his trend of having the first round be his worst.

I've made a birdie five years in a row.

No, Koepka is still a lock for the PGA of America POTY (decided by a point system), and probably also for the PGA Tour POTY (decided by a vote). The only other player to win the first two FedEx Cup playoff events was Vijay Singh, in 2008. And he won the WGC Bridgestone earlier that same month. Under the rules of that year, he only needed to show up at the last two events to win the FedEx Cup, which he did. He was also the leading money winner for the year. In spite of that, POTY went to Padraig Harrington, who won two majors and nothing else that year. In fact, he didn't win again, on either the PGA or Euro Tour, for 7 years. And Vijay never won another official event on the PGA or Euro Tours, ever. It's tough to stay on top.

Looks like there's a good chance we'll have Tiger paired with Brooks tomorrow.