Last week after his match play rules/protocol dust-up with pesky Kevin Na, Dustin Johnson decided to enter this week’s Valero Texas Open.
On Monday he came to his senses.
D.J., with time to think about it over the weekend, decided that the TPC San Antonio might not be the best place for him to prepare for defense of his Masters title next week at stately Augusta National Golf Club.
D.J. took to the Twitter-Sphere to drop the bomb of disappointment:
“After much careful thought over the weekend I have decided to withdraw from the Valero Texas Open. I now plan to spend the week at home in preparation for next week’s Masters. I sincerely apologize to the sponsors at Valero and all my friends in San Antonio as I realize this is disappointing news. I have no doubt it will be another great week for the Valero Texas Open.”
This one goes back to the old saying: “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.” And having the world’s No. 1 and defending Masters champ show up at one of those contrived TPC courses simply sounded too good to be true.
WGC Match Play: How’s This For A Better Format?
Even Billy Horschel agreed with our assessment of the finals of the WGC Match Play last Sunday, witness to his words:
“It wasn’t pretty,” Horschel said. “I feel sorry for the fans watching the coverage because they didn’t see any great golf shots, or very few of them at that. They saw a lot of sloppiness. They saw a lot of pars win holes. It was just one of those days where you knew you just had to keep grinding it out, trying to give yourself the best opportunity to make easy pars and hopefully that was going to get the job done,” he said. “I didn’t have my great stuff.”
One of the problems is that players who make it to the Round of Eight, have to play 36 holes on Saturday and then the actual finalists go another 36 on Sunday.
That’s gotta go.
How about this, taking a lesson from amateur golf:
Thirty-six holes of medal play qualifying for the 64 invited players. The low 16 then move on to play on Friday. The eight winners then play on Saturday and the winners play Saturday afternoon. That way, the championship final and consolation are 18 holes on Sunday, they don’t have to start early in the morning when basically no one is watching on the broadcast. They can got for a noon or 1 p.m. start and play just 18 holes on Sunday.
That way, you don’t have players who are basically tired and what you saw last Sunday, as Billy himself said, was “a lot of sloppiness.”
Koepka Busy With His Rehab:
How busy is Brooks Koepka with his rehabilitation after right knee surgery: “Busy as hell,” Koepka said in a Twitter update.
“Progressing nicely and happy how it’s going,” Koepka added.
5 Comments
baxter cepeda
Because It’s called the match Play.
The last day was crazy windy Tom. As you know Tour pros make less birdies when it’s windy.
Sure Billy thought he should have been better. The guy is a crazy perfectionist.
Again it was a tough scoring day and needless to say nerves play a big part; which is exciting!
The important thing is it was close.
As much as a 36 hole final seemed important; it too often was over by the time the coverage started.
If there is one thing the match play should do is go back to no groups. But of course that cannot happen for this event because so many top guys are coming from all over. I would still do it but I get it.
I hope someone is smart enough to take a sleepy pga tour event and turn it into sudden death match play.
I also hope a pga tour event or two follows the US Am model as well; stroke play before match play.
But aside from making 20 top tour pros play on Friday for just pride and maybe pestering DJ; this event is in a better place than most right now. I definitely don’t see any need to add stroke play. I’m already annoyed when they use stroke play to break 3 player ties from those silly groups.
All I know is today UCLA went from first 4 to final 4. And that we love and watch countless ncaa tourney games because it’s win or go home.
It’s that simple.
Tom Edrington
I’ll stick with my “not all that great” belief in professional match play. Awful for television, over-run with commercials and even Billy said he felt sorry for anyone who had to watch….
baxter cepeda
We never mentioned how the course was super green this year; unusually green the first few days.
I was disappointed the course wasn’t as demanding most of the event.
It wasn’t until Sunday that it started to look more like previous years; less green and a lot more bouncy. Add the wind and nerves. It’s simple math really.
Philo2021
I agree that back to back 36 hole days makes for tired players and poor golf. Add the wind and you have slow play.
Tom Edrington
Yes, the finalists basically played the equivalent of a Tour event in two days…