Do we not have a running 2017 golf thread?

"The thing I don't understand is how he can lose $3 million in one night at the Bellagio."

"I don't understand how he spent 50 grand at fucking Perkins in the last year."

 

The shitshow started when he was selected to be a Captain.

 

Was about to bump up the Lexi topic for this news. Good grief, can you imagine any other sport handling things that way?

 

I wonder how this news is going over at the country club today.

 

I imagine they will need more than one rules official - unless they just want someone watching what goes out to the masses to prevent phone calls.

I understand times and players change, but Watson did win a Ryder Cup as captain and had never participated in a losing Cup before. (There was a tie that allowed the Euros to keep it). It wasn't like the PGA gave Lehman or Sutton another shot. How it went down - yeah, train wreck. Generational dysfunction.

 

I still reject this premise. He failed because he was bad, and he was a surly ass, not because he was old.

Put Nicklaus in the same role and they still lose, but they show up better prepared and they don't shank their captain in the presser. Which again, was good for the long-term health of the US team. It was never going to change unless Phil (or Tiger, which was never happening) lit someone on fire. They'd tried to change it in private and have more of a Euro system and were rejected by the PGA of America.

Tom Watson sat Spieth and Reed, the only team worth a damn that whole cup, for reasons he can't even explain. McGinley said he knew who was going to lead off for him first (McDowell) two years before the RC. Meanwhile Watson sat down the US's only good team, Spieth and Reed, after telling them they would play in the afternoon on Friday, and then couldn't remember who he sent out in their place when asked about it. He was making it up on the fly.

 

The only problem with your characterization is that prior to this change, all of the governing bodies were accepting communications from the busybodies, and investigating them. And not one instance of a penalty levied against a player as a result of a fan calling in has been proven wrong. The busybodies were undefeated. Now, if the people running pro golf tournaments want to use their own officials to monitor the broadcasts, fine. But it's their fault for accepting the communications in the first place, and, as this 2011 quote from former Tour commissioner Tim Finchem shows, they were embracing the call-ins:
“We like the fact that people call in. We like the fact people who watch the telecasts get excited about something they see. We don’t want to turn those people off. We want to accept the information and deal with it. Cutting them off is not an option. It is just a question of how the rule is applied.”
Finchem: PGA won't halt fan calls on rules

 

Takes a special kind of person to want to insert themselves into a tournament.

 

I'm not saying Watson did a good job, or that the PGA shouldn't have gotten input from the players before a captain is chosen, but given that it was in Scotland. The other candidates were David Toms (13w, 1m, 3RC - 0-3) and Larry Nelson (10w, 3m, 3 RC - 2-1)

 

And since you're having so much trouble with reading comprehension, I'll boil it down: the governing bodies of golf not only accepted the fan communications but embraced them as evidence fans were watching and engaged. They're not doing that any longer. Case closed.

 

Here is why the current system revealed how terrible their old system was: There will never be another Ryder Cup captain who hasn't previously served as a vice captain first. Furyk said as much on a recent podcast. That's how Europe does it, and that's how the US is doing it going forward. You get to know the players, you get to understand them and how they feel comfortable being motivated. Furyk said he didn't even really know Justin Thomas at all until the most recent President's Cup. He might literally be the American's best player. How was Watson going to have a feel for any of them?

Azinger actually wanted to be captain again, but the PGA of America felt he was taking too much credit for his success the one year they did win it, and weren't about to bring him back. Toms wasn't ever a real candidate, from what I've heard. Never involved in any of the stuff, never really considered. Nor was Nelson, even though I think he got pretty screwed in the whole deal. Watson got picked because Bishop was a huge Watson fanboy. And while, yes, the RC was played in Scotland, Gleneagles isn't a true links course. It was designed by Jack Nicklaus, and designed as a resort course. Watson being a great links player and being the captain who could understand strategy for how to build a team for Gleneagles are two different things. If the thinking was "We'll take our greatest links player ever and have him prep for Scotland the Scottish way" then his decision to add Webb Simpson (a bad links player) and pair him with Bubba Watson the entire time (another bad links player) was even more baffling.

They were probably always going to lose that RC on European soil, especially once Tiger and Dufner got hurt, and DJ was suspended for drugs. But Watson was truly bad as a captain in every facet.