Rory Kickabout Injury Video Shared...By Rory's Foundation!?

Of the two most sought-after caught-on-tape moments in modern golf history, one has emerged in the strangest place imaginable.

While I'm not optimistic we'll ever get to see the Woods residence security cameras showing a valiant effort by Elin Nordegren to free her injured husband from his Escalade wreckage, it's hard to wonder how video of Rory McIlroy's football "kickabout" injury was never seen...until Tuesday night at a fundraiser dinner!?

That's when McIlroy's Foundation interview with James Nesbitt before a well-dressed audience saw for the first time when the then-World No. 1 took a football game fall, knocking him out of The Open at St. Andrews.

Thanks to the readers who sent the podcast sharing the audio from an enjoyable interview along with the ensuing discussion about the embarrassing injury. The video can't be seen in the podcast, only heard.

But there was this posted by the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open account:

The crowd getting some never seen before footage of when @McIlroyRory did his ankle in. #AnEveningWithRory pic.twitter.com/zSGyiE5odN

— DDF Irish Open (@DDFIrishOpen) May 17, 2016

The revelation of the clip suggests it was obtained by the McIlroy Foundation and I suppose if there is a time to share, it's to those paying for an intimate evening with the host!

Speaking of the host, he's not fond of how people are characterizing his game.

Alistair Tait reporting for Golfweek.com:

“So it frustrates me that the narrative is, There’s something missing in Rory’s game or, What’s wrong with Rory? I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong. It’s very close. It’s not as far away as I feel some people think.

“I know that if I go out and play my best or close to my best, that I’m going to have a great chance to win this week, next week, basically all season, because I’m in a really good place with where my game is."

State Of The Game Podcast 63: Iain Carter & The 2015 Majors

Looking at the major winners over the last decade, there have been some great years though on closer inspection, each has its events that look less-than-satisfying in hindsight.

As we discuss with Iain Carter, author of The Majors, the BBC golf correspondent picked a very good year to write a book about the men's Grand Slam events. Because history will look very kindly on the year. Even with Augusta being way too green, Chambers Bay too brown, St. Andrews' greens were too fast and Whisting Straits apparently defenseless (though who knows how anyone breaks par there!), the players picked up the slack for the governing bodies and delivered four very memorable weeks.

Carter joins us to discuss the season, his book and the upcoming year.  Happy listening via your free podcast app subscriptions (hopefully auto downloading), at iTunes, on the show page or as an MP3 download.

Or below:

“What would have happened if he had two-putted the eighth?”

End that question with the eighth green at the Old Course and anyone who follows golf closely knows the topic: Jordan Spieth, holder of the green jacket and the U.S. Open trophy, with a chance to win The Open and he inexplicably putts uphill, way past the hole, intp the only spot you can't putt your ball, well off the otherwise benign green.

James Corrigan, in reviewing Spieth's year for the Telegraph, goes back to the same spot that I keep thinking of in remember 2015. Because that putt encapsulates the historic majors season posted by Spieth by reminding us how close he was to winning the first three majors of 2015. But it also reminds us that someday he'll lie awake at night knowing the first three were so within his grasp and yet even the world's best putter could throw in a shockingly average putting week and still miss a playoff by one.

Corrigan writes:

The point is that if Spieth had enjoyed even one of his average putting weeks, he would, by his own reckoning, have become just the second golfer to win the Masters, US Open and Open in the same year and become the first to have the chance to win all four at the USPGA. In the event, he finished second at Whistling Straits behind world No 2 Jason Day, but who knows much how the Claret Jug could have inspired him in that August week?

We could easily have been talking about the greatest season in golf instead of just “one” of the greatest and with the strength in depth in the game we can only wonder when we might witness a player coming so close again; especially a player of his tender years.

Update on Wednesday, December 30, 2015 at 08:07 AM by Geoff

**Cameron Morfit talked to looper Michael Greller about the season and there was this about Spieth's bounce back ability, which included the moment mentioned above:

What were some of his other great bounce-back moments?

Go back to Augusta, Saturday: He hasn’t missed a shot, and he makes double bogey on 17 and misses right on 18. It feels like all the momentum is shifting to Justin Rose. And Jordan hits that flop shot from above the hole and makes the putt for par. St. Andrews: He four-putts No. 8 for double bogey and bounces back and birdies nine and 10. He just doesn’t go away. [Laughs] That’s what I love about him. He’s got so much fight. He scratches and claws.

Golf's Affinity For Youth At The Expense Of Achievement

I get it: golf is not cool. Never really has been. Usually the winners of majors have a few wrinkles and look silly in a flat-brimmed hat. Like, OMG, ick.

When winners of major golf tournaments are young and the new thing, they're understandably adored. In the cases of Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day's, they absolutely should be cause for excitement.

This doesn't make it right to ignore or whitewash history.

Doug Ferguson did the best job of celebrating the breakthrough year for several young players in 2015, most obviously Jordan Spieth. And Ferguson managed to NOT make the point of a generational shift at the expense of people who have built impressive careers. Ones that many of today's next all-time greats would love to have when they in their forties. Ferguson's best point about the short memories in golf was actually made by Rory McIlroy.

Woods had a revolving door of rivals for more than a decade. He was No. 1 even when the math said otherwise.

Now there is a chance for a lasting rivalry, or rivalries. There already is talk of a modern "Big Three," though it's still too early for that.

"We live in such a world that everything is so reactionary, and everything happens so quickly," McIlroy said at the start of the PGA. "A year ago after I won this tournament, it was the Rory era. And then Jordan wins the Masters and it's the Jordan era. Eras last about six months these days instead of 20 years."

Because of his recent play, the incredible playing legacy of Tiger Woods is now under threat given that he was winning handily not that long ago. But it's not just Tiger who is taking a hit because of his recent struggles: the way he beat players so handily (versus today's tightly-bunched leaderboards) has folks as venerated as Dan Jenkins and as not venerated as Shane Ryan suggested Tiger beat a bunch of "nobodies."

The eagerness to declare the new Big Three and to downplay the achievements of Woods is rooted in the desire to make golf appealing to a new generation of fan, one that finds the game about as appealing as previous 18-34 year old demographics. Not very interested.

There are obvious financial motives for hyping the young talent at the expense of those falling outside the coveted demo. Marketers want to reach 18-34 year old's, so we see hype for these youth saviors of the game threaten to spin out of control and undermine the very reasons to be excited about the latest Big Three. Also clouding judgements: Tiger's character and attitude toward media compared to the latest wave. Traces of old-fashioned entitlement and general ignorance of history could also be part of the equation.

The rush to anoint is dangerous and a little embarrassing when you consider Rory's point. Remember back in May when Rickie Fowler joined a mythical "big three" after winning The Players? Or when Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley were the next greats after their 2011 and 2013 PGA Championship wins? Where are they now in the discussion?

The short attention span reaction would be less bothersome if there wasn't re-writing of history threatening to take place. We have a sport with tremendous history which, because of its slowness and cost, will always skew older no matter how hard people try. We can't allow Tiger's legacy and the great achievements of those prior to 2010 be tainted. Nor should we stand for the suggestion that no one prior to the current generation was capable of strength, athleticism or eye-opening skill.

On Sunday night after the PGA, Golf Channel's Live From gang addressed the overall sense that a course built for this new generation of player was already beginning to have a hard time asking interesting questions of players due to 380-yard drives. They insisted this was an exciting form of play thanks to great athleticism and club optimization. Pro-bifurcationist Brandel Chamblee, who respects and understands the game's history, even got caught up in the moment, insisting this was "the evolution of the athlete" and projected a sense that we were watching a vastly superior collection of golfers, the likes of which we'd never seen before. John Strege documented at GolfDigest.com.

“You go back to when they started measuring clubhead speed out here and it wasn’t that long ago, in 2007. In every single spot, they’re faster. They’re faster. They’re faster. The [equipment] limits were set along that time, so it is the athlete that is better. This is the only sport I know where when they light it up we all have a knee-jerk reaction to respond and say, ‘well, the equipment, the equipment.’ At some point you do have to celebrate the athlete. I don’t think anybody watches Usain Bolt break the tape and go, ‘it’s the shoes.’

“Yeah, I get it. They’ve got longer drivers, they’ve got bigger heads. But these guys don’t look anything like the previous generation, and they didn’t look anything like the previous generation to that. It is a beautiful landscape out here. They’re fit and they can flat swing it hard.”

Yes, they swing hard and don't look like any previous generation. They're taller, leaner, smarter, better scripted and just darn special. But don't tell us this makes them superior golfers historically or that previous generations with access to today's stuff would not be able to do similar things armed with the same arsenals of equipment and outside assistance.

There is no reason to downgrade the accomplishments of previous generations in the rush to anoint the latest the absolute greatest. Especially to feed an imaginary beast that is coveted demo.

FiveThirtyEight: Where Jordan Spieth's 2015 Ranks

On the heels of an assessment by his colleague last week that included all of the 2015 season, Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight tries to quantify where Jordan Spieth's Win-Win-T4-2 season in the 2015 majors places it amongst the great ones.

Using a metric called z-scores that measure show many standard deviations a player’s score was from the mean the place it fourth behind three Tiger Woods years.

Here's the piece with a searchable list by name of other players in the discussion.

If numbers aren't your thing to put the season into perspective, consider all the scar tissue cases in majors that Karen Crouse of the New York Times compiles in pointing out how hard it is to win a major these days. And then you have Spieth coming along going Win-Win-T4-2. Oops.

Zach Johnson On Links, Whistling Straits & Liking A Course

Open Champion Zach Johnson was very engaging in today's pre-PGA press conference despite getting a tiny crowd of reporters (peaked at 16!?). Mercer Baggs has a nice roundup of his comments here.

Even though he missed a playoff the last time around at Whistling Straits by just a shot, Johnson was not afraid to admit the course is not a favorite.

I brought up his January comments about the Old Course not being a favorite, hoping to hear less about that and more about his feelings on Whistling Straits and whether a player has to like a course to play well on it.

Here's the full exchange:

Q. Earlier this year you had said The Old Course was not one of your favorite courses in the rota. But you won there.

ZACH JOHNSON: Yeah. I'll clarify that. It's inaccurate -- go ahead.

Q. You can clarify. My question, though, related to this week is, do you have to like a golf course to win on it and do you like this golf course?

ZACH JOHNSON: That's a good question. Second part, no, you don't. This isn't my favorite golf course that we stop at for the PGA Championship, but I've played okay here, so evidently I can play here. So, no.

The first part, maybe you did say it right, forgive me if you did, but year in, year out, that's my favorite golf tournament. And inside the ropes, as a competitor and I would say as a quasi--athlete, I don't need motivation to play at the Open Championship. We don't have it here, maybe that's the reason, we don't have true links golf here, in my opinion. I just appreciate what that tournament is all about, and what it requires of me and us, my peers.

Now, if I'm going to go down the list of ranking the venues of The Open Championship, it wasn't my favorite. I mean, that's because there's two or three golf courses I've played in that tournament that I would probably put in my top five, potentially my top two. But St. Andrews is not in the top two or three. It's probably still in my top 10 favorite of all time. Does that make sense?

I just love true links golf. Yes, my love for St. Andrews has certainly grown. And it literally it grew three weeks ago. My appreciation and respect for St. Andrews was always there. It's probably also mushroomed a little bit, for the right reasons.

But it's hard to rank them. And it's not fair to rank them, either, because I love The Open Championship and I love true links golf. I've said that all along.

Someone said I've made now, I don't know what, nine or ten cuts in a row in that tournament. And maybe it's because I love it. Maybe I've got to start doing that in other tournaments. Mentally I go in there and I'm so excited to play, regardless of the venue of that tournament.

Now you tell us punters!

Why Can't We At Least Have An Old Course Ball?

The concept of a rollback in distance is understandably awkward for a culture as self-involved as ours. One where folks naturally recoil at the thought of losing a few yards from their drives and pay for the privilege in so many unsustainable ways.

But let's allow the narcissism to run rampant for a moment and just agree that the world economy would collapse if the current USGA and R&A Overall Distance Standard was tightened a wee bit.

Instead, how about we agree that as in professional tennis, where enough integrity was unearthed to agree that a slightly slower ball would make Wimbledon better, we could do the same in golf at our Wimbledon: the Old Course.

From John Huggan's post-Open-at-the-Old-Course assessment:

Everything the R&A did to prepare the Old Course for this Open was designed to make the ancient links more difficult. Not more interesting. Not more fun. Just more difficult.

Appallingly and inappropriately, the Old Course surely has more long grass growing within its boundaries than at any time in its long history. With varying degrees of offensiveness, many bunkers are surrounded by rough. Plus, almost all of those wonderful hazards now appear man-made. So perfectly round are they, their faces close to vertical, they resemble doughnuts more than bunkers.

His point: all of the hole-tucking, green speed-pushing ways were employed not to test skill, but to work around modern distance that dates the Old Course. The same distance we are told has been capped. Though tell that to Jason Day and Bubba Watson, who had under 75-yard shots into a 456-yard par-4 Sunday in Canada.

I think we can all agree visiting the Old Course for the Open is a special affair and that it would be fun to actually see the it play somewhat more like it did 20-40 years ago when a long iron had to be used on par-4s.

So I ask: what would be so awful about an Old Course ball emerging every five or six years? The manufacturers could package it in a fun way, sell it to us suckers and advertise how they did their part to make The Open better?

What would be so terrible about this? Please, enlighten me...

Considering The 2015 Open After Playing The Old Course

Of course I’m rubbing it in by mentioning the great privilege of playing St Andrews the day after The Open. But move past the envy stage! Because there is still plenty to consider from the 2015 Open Championship.

The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play after such a fascinating Open also meant getting to play the final round hole locations in far more pleasant conditions than the leaders faced. (Though we did get an opposite wind direction: into the breeze going out, downwind coming in.) The greens were not cut, but there was no shortage of speed.

More on that and some other random observations…

-The hole locations. I can only recall two pin placements that seemed genuinely accessible. The 9th was so center cut that it was almost deceptive due to the lack of definition. The 5th hole was cut 85 yards deep. I faced a third shot yardage of 73 yards to the front.  Now there’s something you don’t experience everyday. The rest of the holes were tucked, hidden or stuck in places the caddies had rarely seen. I heard the same observation from locals who were pleased to see some new locations used, but who also groused about the inability to come up with a few more creative uses of these amazing greens.

- Were these tucked pins offering risk-reward possibilities? Not really. The third and seventh holes featured locations that a ball could be funneled to by a player who could recall how to use the contours, but the rest seemed designed to prevent scoring. Which only makes the final round 66’s from Zach Johnson and Marc Leishman that much more extraordinary. They performed in some of the worst weather and managed to take advantage of the limited opportunities.

- The putting were shockingly good. Consider this: no mowing, a full tee sheet from 6:50 am on and play to hole locations that were used the day prior. Our group, that included Australian journalist Ben Everill and Golf World editor Jaime Diaz, teed off at 3:40 (and behind Americans…you know who you are!). Yet I felt like anything inside six feet was going in if you started the ball on the proper line. The greenkeeper and his crew really do work wonders there. But clearly there is also something very special in the St Andrews turf that allows it to withstand the abuse it gets. 


- Jason Day’s 18th hole birdie putt could very easily be left short. On our list of key putts to try was Jason Day’s final effort that would have gotten him into a playoff. Day left it short and many were shocked how well he took it or that a player could leave that putt short. We tried it and sure enough the cup was on a spot where the ball slowed dramatically near the hole. Whether this was an intentional choice or mere coincidence, we won’t know. But we all agreed to appreciate Day’s point of view.

- Jordan Spieth’s first of four putts on No. 8 was, to be fair, pretty terrible. I was pin high of the back left hole and because of the contours, had a nearly impossible two-putt from about 75 feet. I pulled it off but had to make about a 20 footer. Jordan Spieth’s path to the hole had very little contour in the way. It was just long and you couldn’t leave it above the hole (the green rises up and then falls down to the collar area). It was just a very, very bad attempt that could only happen on greens that large and with an immense amount of pressure.

- Jordan Spieth’s par putt on 17 was very good. Many pointed out that his putt for four at the Road hole missed and forced the need for an 18th hole birdie was actually quite difficult from our late evening sampling. It took quite the dive at the hole if you didn’t hit it firm.

- The Road hole plays better and just as tough with light rough. Naturally. Without the pitch-out rough to the left of the 17th fairway like we saw in 2010, the Road played as hard as ever. Many players curiously took an Auber-conservative route to the hole by playing into No. 2.  Yes a new back tee was required, but I can assure you the difficulty is maintained by the difficulty of the green and not the bizarro work down to the area around the Road bunker. Let’s hope they remedy that and then leave the hole alone.

- The course remains a marvel in so many ways. From the way it handles all of the traffic to the magical contours, to way the greens are mere extensions of the fairway, the endearing qualities written about for so many years remain as ever-present today as they did 150 years ago. And while some don’t care for the commercial quality to the place with so much tourist play, the Old Course at St. Andrews is the world’s most important course and the Links Trust ably balances the needs of the local clubs, the town and the university player with the desire of golfers worldwide to experience this historic place.

The Open Championship Finishing On Monday: "There were a lot more families in the crowd than any of the other days."

Before we leave St. Andrews behind, I'm going to milk every drop out of this remarkable place both here and with my sticks!

Which also means while I'm out and about collecting a few more thoughts and insights from locals, let's try not to dwell too much on the negative. Except that we just had a 10-hour major championship delay, Monday finish and the third such play suspension in a row at an Old Course major. This is not acceptable.

With rumblings around town that the greenkeepers were overruled on a roll-instead-of-mow strategy for the putting surfaces prior to the forecasted winds, the R&A may be directly to blame for not having kept control of the links, making their 60% refund to fans paying 80 pounds a questionable (and unwieldy) solution.

From Martin Dempster's excellent assessment of the week.

High winds, of course, then became the next problem on Saturday but, alas, the R&A initially got it wrong with their attempt to tackle those conditions. Starting play on time was a gamble that should not have been taken and, in fairness, chief executive Peter Dawson did admit that in hindsight. In the final throes of his tenure – Martin Slumbers, who shadowed Dawson at the event, takes over the reins later in the year – a ten-and-a-half-hour suspension of play certainly wouldn’t have been on the wish list for the week. Nor would a decision about refunds and it is safe to say that Dawson may well have some heavy mail bags landing on his desk before heading off into the sunset because 60 per cent on a ticket costing £80 seems like short-changing spectators when they saw less than four hours of golf.

There was a silver lining. Many around town are noting that they either witnessed or heard about an unparalleled day here for golf viewing Monday. Alcohol was virtually non-existent on site and there was an air of youthful excitement thanks to the prices. Dempster writes:

In truth, the decision to extend the event into the Monday for only the second time in its history became the only one available to the R&A and, in a roundabout way, it may have actually helped attract some newcomers to the game.

Taking advantage of a day ticket at £10, many in an attendance of 35,370 may not have been at the event otherwise and, moreover, there were a lot more families in the crowd than any of the other days.

It was also pointed out to me that the corporate world had exited the stage, leaving the day almost solely to golf fans. Combine that with the civility and exuberance in the air, and it's something to note for all the grow the game crowd the next time they sit down to prioritize and set ticket prices, especially in this part of the world.

Ratings Up Solidly For ESPN's Open Championship Coverage

Nice showing for ESPN, especially for Monday's final round, a summer work day in the States.

For Immediate Release:

ESPN’s live coverage of The Open – the third major of the golf season from the famous Old Course at St Andrews, Scotland – delivered strong ratings and viewership throughout the weekend, posting double-digit increases from 2014.

Overall, The Open delivered a 1.4 US household rating, up 27 percent from 2014 (1.1), and 1,940,000 viewers, up 29 percent from 2014 (1,500,000), according to Nielsen. Monday’s final round coverage peaked from 1:30-1:45 p.m. ET with a 3.7 household rating and 5,294,000 viewers  as American Zach Johnson captured his second career major, defeating Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman in the first playoff at The Open since 2009. Daily highlights:

First Round (Thurs): Coverage averaged a 0.8 household rating, flat with 2014, and 1,091,000 viewers, a nine percent gain from 2014 (1,000,000 viewers);

Second Round (Fri and Sat): Due to weather delays, the second round aired across Friday and Saturday, averaging a 1.2 household rating, up 33 percent from 2014 (0.9 rating) and 1,550,000 viewers, a 29 percent spike from 2014 (1,205,000 viewers);

Third Round (Sun): a 2.1 household rating and 2,910,000 viewers, increases of 110 percent (1.0 rating) and 115 percent (1,351,000 viewers), respectively, from the weather impacted 2014 event;

Final Round (Mon): a 2.1 household rating, up 11 percent from 2014 (1.9), and 2,851,000 viewers, up five percent from 2014 (2,703,000 viewers).

Nice digital showing too...

Across all platforms throughout the entire tournament, The Open on WatchESPN saw a daily average of 599,000 unique viewers that watched over 40 million minutes per day, up 60 percent and 105 percent, respectively, compared to last year’s tournament.  Additionally, each round of The Open saw increases over their respective day of play in 2014, averaging a 23 percent increase in unique viewers and a 33 percent increase in total minutes.

Update on Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 11:50 AM by Geoff

**Golf Channel had a good week too. Nice to see surging interest in The Open.

ORLANDO, Fla. (July 22, 2015) – Golf Channel posted its most-watched week ever for The Open Championship, driven by Golf Central’s Live From St. Andrews coverage from Monday through Sunday. Additionally, Golf Channel served nearly 8 million unique viewers across the week, not including viewership on Monday, July 20, with coverage surrounding the weather-delayed final round. This is the most unique viewers for Golf Channel during the week of The Open since 2009 (8.3 million).

For 24-hour Total Day (6AM-6AM), 105,000 average viewers per minute were tuned into Golf Channel, the network’s most-watched week ever for The Open (Mon-Sun) and representing +30% YOY and +46% vs. the historical average (72,000) for this week (2006-2014), according to data released by The Nielsen Company.

GOLF CHANNEL VIEWERSHIP COMPARISON: THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

2015                105,000          

2014                81,000             +30%

2013                86,000             +22%

2012                68,000             +54%

2011                58,000             +81%

2010                59,000             +78%

2009                69,000             +52%

2008                87,000             +21%

2007                73,000             +44%

2006                70,000             +50%

Last week, four respective days set new marks for most-watched day during the week of The Open, including Monday (92,000), Tuesday (98,000), Wednesday (136,000) and Sunday (133,000). And, Wednesday’s 136,000 average viewers was the second most-watched of any day during The Open for Golf Channel, trailing only Saturday of 2008 (150,000).

Classic TV's 2015 Open Championship Shot Tracking...

Reveals that ESPN showed many more shots during Monday's final round from St Andrews than last year at Hoylake.

From their write-up, which includes links to the breakdowns at the year's other majors.

ESPN showed 358 shots during this period which worked out to 1.23 strokes per minute - a sizable increase over the ESPN shot rate of 1.01 from the 2014 Open Championship.

This was also a higher shot rate than I tracked for CBS from the 2015 Masters and Fox from the 2015 US Open, but trailed the rate that NBC showed during the 2015 Players. The Masters post contains links to the shot charts I did for the 2014 majors.

As WatchESPN was blocked here in the UK, I wasn't able to see much of the Road hole coverage or other digital feeds. Anyone watch and any thoughts?

Looking (Mostly) Good: The Upcoming Major Venue Schedule

It's always a sad day to say goodbye to the Old Course, especially all signs point to no return until 2021. That year aligns the championship with the 150th anniverary of Willie Park Sr.'s win in the inaugural Open at Prestwick.

The R&A schedule includes old favorites Royal Troon (2016) Royal Birkdale (2017) and Carnoustie (2018). There is a commitment to considering the 2019 slot for Royal Portrush, depending on what happens there with the addition of two holes and other issues. The 2020 venue is TBD, and then St. Andrews figures to be the 2021 site. A pretty stout lineup with Turnberry looming for a return and Muirfield hopefully joining the conversation again soon thereafter.

As I noted in Golf World, the USGA will solidify it's schedule going forward this week by confirming the already reported news in local papers around Boston, Los Angeles and Pinehurst: the U.S. Open is going to some dynamite places over the next decade.  They will take The Open to The Country Club in 2022, Los Angeles Country Club in 2023 and Pinehurst No. 2 in 2024. Thats on top of five-start venues in Oakmont (2016), Shinnecock Hills (2018), Pebble Beach (2019) and a revitalized Winged Foot (2020). We'll just have to grin and bear Erin Hills in 2017 and soak up the San Diego vibes in 2021 when Torrey Pines hosts.

The PGA of America venue roster inspires less after Whistling Straits this year and Baltusrol next year. Quail Hollow (2017) and Bellerive (2018) at least loom as nice opportunities to sweat. Bethpage in 2019 should be fun if the greens survive, while 2020 at Harding Park looms as a second tier course chosen in part for date flexibility in an Olympic year, while Kiawah isn't getting many juices flowing after the last go-round (2021). And 2022 at Trump Bedminster is, well, causing headaches.

To view it another way, look at the upcoming years. Needless to say next year is pretty stout as is 2019:

2016 - Oakmont-Troon-Baltusrol
2017 - Erin Hills-Birkdale-Quail Hollow
2018 - Shinnecock-Carnoustie-Bellerive
2019 - Pebble Beach-Portrush(?)-Bethpage
2020 - Winged Foot-(?)-Harding Park
2021 - Torrey Pines-St. Andrews-Kiawah
2022 - The Country Club-(?)-Trump Bedminster