Bryce And Briny Show Ends With Bryce Turning Into A World Class Curler

It was one of the great finishes of 2011, with CordeValle's driveable 17th adding to last year's mystique. But as thrilling as the Frys.com Open six-hole playoff was, I just can't get very excited about Bryce Molder's win over Briny Baird after watching Molder pat down the line of his sixth-playoff hole winning putt.

Before you send your hate mail, understand I'm well aware that there are ballmarks on the PGA Tour and he's entitled to fix them, but anyone watching live who is not Molder's instructor, immediate family or Chairman of the Briny Baird Hate Club, winced at the sight of him turning into a curler, patting a large area and not (at least while cameras were on him) having been seen using a handtool to fix a mark.

Some who watched live saw no foul, others laughed out loud at the audacity of the act. But, we can't watch a replay so you'll have to picture a young man with a short putt to win a golf tournament using his nice big putter head to pat down a ballmark the size of a cereal bowl!

You can also watch a Golf Channel replay at 8 a.m. PT, 11 a.m. ET Monday, according to listings.

There you have it. Bryce Molder wins. Jeff Rude has the details.

Here are the highlights from ESPN, which include talk of the Tiger fan incident:

Comments

[Danielle]

Glad you brought that pat down up. I was a wee bit embarrassed for him. Would have loved to see his team out ahead of the ball prepping the landing area...brushing the space in front of the cup...furiously...to get it to drop.

[Del the Funk]

Hmm...I too noticed that. I hope it was purely on the up and up. Despite the fact that I was pulling for Briny it sure seems that Bryce is a 1st class individual.

[SteveC]

I was at a golf course watching in the bar with buds and we all reacted immediately. I don't care if there was a ball mark he had repaired, he covered too hard of an area and why didn't he pat it down after repairing it the first time? It seemed like overkill. And this seemed much worse than Kenny Perry's push down of rough a few years ago.

[DavidC]

What are the chances the replay is edited to not show this?

[Emerson]

I didn't see it, so I can't comment on the pat down. But as someone who was also born with Poland's Syndrome (no left pec muscle), it was cool to see Molder win. Yeah, there are far worse birth defects to have, and Molder's never made a big deal out of it, which is cool too, and I'm his same age, 32. It was always more of a psychological defect, the PS. When I was in high school and the right side of my chest started to develop more and the left side looked so deformed, there wasn't any Internet. I didn't know what the heck it was until I got into college and self-diagnosed myself on the Internet. Like I said, I had all my moving parts, but was always hiding something I was embarrassed about, and it was an obstacle to overcome as an athlete who played basketball and golf. An elbow in the chest playing basketball risked a broken rib, and I can't tell you how many drives I slam-hooked until I learned to develop a Furyk-like loop in my swing to overcome the missing pec. Anyway, that's a little of my story, and hats off to Molder. He is someone for kids with PS to look up, especially athletes.

[Warren Dennis]

I know it was late in the day over there, but watching it all unfold in the early morning here in Oz, there's no way Molder did anything other than fix a ballmark with a pitch-repair tool, standup, put the tool back in his pocket and then tap down the repaired area of the green with the putter head. It was stock standard, and I have no reason not to want PF Chang to win, despite his sponsorship deal with the Briny Baird restaurant chain.

[Mulligan]

Here we go, people picking on curling again. Curling is a great game with world class athletes. I seem to recall that Hank Williams was not popular here after he disparaged golf in a similar manner.

[MatthewM]

Someone hurled a hot dog at Tiger? Please - get creative guys. The least you could do is dress as a hydrant and quietly position yourself next to a green...

[johnnnycz]

I LOVE to go curling, you HAVE to try when growing up in Canada because it's part of high school Gym...it's like a combo of putting/chipping/shuffleboard. Best part is that you can get 8 guys on one sheet of ice and adult beverages are usually allowed...so it's like playing in a gangsome that last 1.5 to 2hrs max.

In curling, the sweeping with brooms/brushes is done to make the rock SPEED UP and straighten the out/in-turn spin so as to "curl" your rock around other rocks, so the curling analogy to what Molder did is tenuous at best. Pros have been tamping down big areas ever since the abolition of spike marks...after all isn't everything on the greens now fixable?

[johnnnycz]

oh yeah...the ice in curling is supposed to be bumpy and softish (or "pebbled" as they call it) in order to for the rock to be able to "grip" the ice and turn like a draw/fade shot in golf.

Flat/hard ice is no fun to curl on...you just end up mostly trying to ram (or rather "take out") the other rocks and try not to break an ankle before beer/nachos/hockey-game time.

[thebigdad]

Curling, like golf for the modern era at least, is a now seen as simply an organized excuse to drink. In golf the clowns do it carts with $5 stogies and dollar beer. In curling it's on ice with at least the risk of concussion when the beer kicks in. Done 'em both and curling is just not worth the effort. It can't be a sport when you Olympic hopefuls are upset that they CAN"T drink when training!

[Squeaky]

Thanks Geoff, there was a lot of tamping going on out there.

[PeteWill]

As a rules official, I too was disgusted with Molder's actions on that putt. The problem is that this happens all the time. It's a rule that just doesn't get enforced and that is a shame.

[Larry In Minnesota]

I'm sitting in my man cave watching this and my immediate reaction as a rules official was "hey, he can't do that!". Now, I did not see him repair the area with a ball mark tool but that doesn't mean he didn't. So someone who was actually there near that green would have to be the final say. Anyone there in the flesh?

[Kyle Roper]

As a member of the Briny Baird Hate Club for the last 11 years I can say that I was a bit disappointed that Molder didn't go for the Bugs-Bunny-style scratching a trench to the cup for the win.

[Lynn S.]

I watched the playoff. In the back of my mind Molder seemed to repair and pat down at least two ball marks on every putt in the playoff. I was thinking these guys sure fix their putting line a lot more than I do.

[AK47]

I got the idea it was like a nervous twitch for Molder to just pat everything down and habitually repair something - anything! - on every putt. I don't think he knowingly did anything wrong but when it happened, I thought, You can't do that. Kinda like what I thought when Dustin Johnson took that practice swing and sand fluffed up at Whistling Straits.

It'd be a brave Rules Official who'd call him out on it, though.

[Hawkeye]

Distance control in curling is way tougher than in golf.

[hogan]

Unless Molder repaired a ball make when the camera was not on him, the tamping was a clear violation of the rules (can't touch the line of putt). If so, then gutless Rules Officials.

[No Longer Used to be Former S&T Convert]

If it was as bad as some imply, wouldn't Briny say something?

The playoff was compelling TV not really competing with football, it will be interesting to see ratings. Bryce's 3 drivers into 17 were unbelievable under pressure. I was wondering if they would have gone back to 17 if he hadn't made the putt to win, or would they have waited until today?

[Matt]

I cringed when I saw that as well. However tapping down a ball mark or old under-repaired mark even if you did not attempt to repair it with a tool first is still within the rules.