Each week, four of the NCG team get together to ask each other the pressing questions. The only rule is the question must be golf related. In this edition, Alex Perry, Dan Murphy, Mark Townsend and Harvey Jamison take to the tee to discuss Tiger Woods, the Graeme McDowell farce and much more…
Alex: Shooting level par is something most of us can only dream of. But if you were to do it, would you rather 18 pars, or a flurry of birdies and bogeys with maybe an eagle and a double thrown in?
Dan: Par after plodding par is the way I would envisage it. In reality, it might be more like a sumptuous early eagle followed by a handful of unlikely birdies. All of these shots gained would be but a distant memory as they were bled relentlessly away towards the end, culminating in an anguished closing double at the last to dash my dreams of a sub-par round.
Mark: I couldn’t imagine being mentally cool enough to have five straight pars on the trot, let alone 18. Things build in my head and I tend to need to let the cap off my emotions by generally doing something really bad. It would likely be a double (see above), two bogeys and four birdies. And I would have to finish like a train but also not know what my score is – neither of which is likely to happen.
Harvey: I was once close, having parred every hole on the front-nine at Tynemouth Golf Club, but it wasn’t to be as six lost balls, a snapped driver and £40 later had me sign for five-over, my best round to date. I’m definitely a leaker and flurry of early birdies would soon turn into a lackadaisical strain to make seven on the last.
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Dan: Tiger Woods’ putting. I am confused. Is it a strength or a weakness?
Mark: Last week Tiger was 89th for Strokes Gained on the greens, he is now up to 52nd so something obviously clicked with the new mallet putter and he had more birdies (21) than anyone else in the field. Then again Spieth is 177th this year and he might be the best putter ever.
We see so much of Tiger that there’s always a question mark over some part of his game. It’s probably easier to say his game is in great shape, he keeps threatening and, if he had a 10-footer to win a tournament you’d quite fancy him.
Harvey: Not to harp on with stats but Tiger’s switch to the mallet could be a good long-term option. First round of the Quicken loans he made 48 feet and seven inches of putts, underwhelming I know, but in the second round he went and made 104’4” of putts through 12 holes a whole +2 strokes gained. Even though he had a splendid Sunday on the greens at TPC Potomac a poor third round proved his putting (and a few bad tee shots) held him back. If he can have a solid week on the short stuff, I think the rest will take care of itself. Let’s not forget he had 21 birdies all week, on shy of eventual champ Molinari, so it’s closer than you think.
Alex: He obviously knows something isn’t quite right otherwise he wouldn’t have changed to a mallet. His stats are clearly improving and once he finds form with the flatstick that’s when he will get back in the winner’s circle.
So what did we think of the Quicken Loans National cheat storm? And Graeme McDowell’s decision to miss out on Open Qualifying. Fourball continues on the next page…
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Mark: Sung Kang was hung out to dry by his playing partner Joel Dahmen. Given there was a lengthy debate at the time and a rules official agreed to the drop is this acceptable or would we like to see more of this?
Harvey: Beef between tour players is brilliant – God to have a Miguel versus Keegan Bradley square-up again is what dreams are made of – the game is in desperate need of more characters and if drama is the expense I have no objections. However, cheating has no place in the game, at any level, from Phil Mickelson at Shinnecock to Dave in Yorkshire with a dodgy drop it’s wrong and does ruin it for others. If Kang cheated then he should hang his head in shame, I don’t want to sound like my mother, but he’s a role model to countless people that tune in.
Alex: I want to see more of this for two reasons: Firstly, as a golf fan it’s wonderful drama. And secondly, if more people call out the cheats then maybe it will help eradicate cheating from the game.
Dan: I think it’s fair enough. It’s not like he didn’t make his feelings known at the time. We’ve seen this business of where a ball crossed the hazard a few times before on tour, and it also comes up from time to time in club golf. There is no footage, so we don’t know for certain who is right and wrong in this instance. However, the evidence from multiple witnesses would lead you to believe that Dahmen’s assessment of the drop is accurate. Does that makes Kang a cheat or just someone who inadvertently took a bad drop? Only Kang really knows the answer to that.
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Harvey: Graeme McDowell kopped a load of flak for not giving Final Qualifying a go despite not having his clubs. Should he have teed it up with a borrowed set?
Alex: As someone who was recently lucky enough to get 18 holes in at Bethpage Black but had to play with a set of Tour Edge Bazooka clubs – no, me either – part of me wants to tell G-Mac to suck it up and see what happens. It certainly would have been a great story. But FQ is no gimme and he made the right decision.
Dan: No, I don’t think so. FQ is already a real inconvenience to the tour pro – who has to travel out of his way to play 36 holes in a day with the odds against him of coming through in between two of the biggest events of the season. I think McDowell understandably concluded that the additional factor of being without his own clubs tipped the balance. Speaking personally, I struggle to enjoy nine holes on holiday without my own clubs, but that’s just me.
Mark: I love the romance of coming through FQ so I was a bit disappointed with him. Then the reality of playing two rounds, two days before his national Open which is all a bit of a nonsense, with some strange clubs and expecting to still get one of just three spots kicks in and it all seems fair enough. He would obviously have been one of the class acts but a) what does that mean and b) having your own clubs is pretty much everything to a golf pro.
Which particular part of ridiculous dress codes irritate you?
If you could hit one shot again – what would you choose?
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