Zurich Classic Shows Big Names Could Care Less About Team Play

You might be asking yourself in what warped parallel universe would Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose all miss the 36-hole cut in a regular PGA Tour event?

The answer is that the odds are incredibly ridiculous that would happen.

It did, last Friday, down there in Avondale, a few long drives southwest of downtown New Orleans.

Why?

Add the really sloppy play of one Jordan Spieth to the list and you might get the idea that these big-name players really don’t give two hoots about team play.

And you would be right.

The aforementioned famous foursome all went home after a couple of tries.  No remorse, just another day in the life of wealthy athletes who would rather show up at a fat-purse individual event.  It is in their DNA.

This team stuff?  That’s for the up-and-comers, the players who don’t see many, if any wins, and that’s what you had at the top of the leaderboard on Sunday.

Here’s something else to consider:

Unlike the European Tour, the PGA Tour does not allow tournaments to pay “appearance fees” to get a particular player to show up.

Ah, but the crafty sponsors have figured a way around that.

Zurich North America is a well-heeled property-casualty insurance company.  Knowing that these big name sorts, deep down inside, aren’t really hip to this team play nonsense, they came up with a way to pay legal “appearance fees.”

Zurich cut some hefty checks to Day, Fowler and Rose and named them “Brand Ambassadors.”

So yes, when a company lines your pockets with money, it’s also understood that you will show up at said company’s PGA Tour event and participate.

So yes, Day, Fowler and Rose showed up and stayed long enough for a couple of cups of coffee and some tasty beignets.

Forget the weekend, they showed up, see you next time.  Oh by the way, thanks for the fat check!

Sadly, the two biggest names — Day and Fowler — didn’t come close to making the cut.  You had to shoot at least seven-under par to stick around for Saturday and Sunday.  They shot five-under.  Talk about under-achievers.

At least Stenson and Rose were hovering on the cut line, all they need on Friday was for one of them to birdie the reachable par five 18th and they’re in.  No birdie.  Seriously?  Two major champion, world-class players can’t scratch out a four on a five par?

To make things even worse for the Zurich folks, the New Orleans area got hit by a heavy storm on Sunday.  They teed off four hours early to try and beat it but couldn’t.  The delay lasted nearly seven hours and just about everyone who showed up to watch had better things to do that watch bad weather trash the place.

When play finally resumed, the folks who stayed amounted to a Web.com event’s Thursday gallery.

This one was left to be decided without anyone to see it.

But it got worse.

Kevin Kisner hit this amazing pitch-and-run shot at the 72nd hole that was going about eighty miles per hour when it hit the flagstick and crashed into the hole for an eagle.

That shot tied the shell-shocked leaders — Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith and thanks to that rain delay, darkness overtook at the TPC Louisiana.

So how do you get even fewer people to show up at a golf tournament?

Take a team event and finish with an early Monday morning playoff.

No it wasn’t easy in the Big Easy to get the big names excited.

Thanks to a Monday playoff, count everyone else in there with them.