The Perth Super 6 Returns, Format Intrigues And...

While some may be confused by the format, I still feel like there is something curious and worth watching about this second-year event. Perhaps the lack of ease in explainin the format to a regular fan is the main issue, though really this is a just a normal golf tournament until a Sunday shootout. From there it's match play, with byes given to the stroke play leaders.

Anyway, in support of fresh formats, I give you the European Tour's FAQ page and infographic to explain the event start Wednesday evening on Golf Channel:

Q: What’s the bottom line?
A: - 156 players start for three rounds of strokeplay
- A standard cut to the leading 65 pros (and ties) will be made after 36 holes
- A further cut after 54 will reduce the field to 24 players for a final day of match play action
- If there are any ties for 24th position, a sudden-death play-off on the 18th will determine the qualifiers
- Sunday will bring five rounds of six-hole match play battles – Super 6
- The top eight players after 54 holes will receive a bye into the second match play round
- Any ties for the top eight will be decided by a score count back based on the last 18, 9, 6, 3 and 1 holes
- In Super 6, any results not determined after six holes of match play will be decided by playing a shootout hole
- The shootout hole is a purpose-built par three using the 18th green, but played from a new tee box positioned around 90 yards from the green on the right of the 18th fairway.
- Only one man will be left standing

Dubai Duties Free: Rory Spreads Host Role To Other Irishmen

There was a point you'd have to figure a player in their prime like Rory McIlroy would tire of the duties involved in hosting a professional tournament.

Thankfully for the Rory-rejuvenated Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, the host will be handing duties off to a rota of Irishmen. In some cases this could be problematic, but given the charisma of Paul McGinley, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell, the event should keep the momentum going. McIlroy's Foundation will still be the Irish Open's charitable beneficiary.

Brian Keogh reports for the Independent on what the move means for Rory's career thinking and includes this from 2019 host McGinley.

"He has certainly helped regain the momentum of the Irish Open and he has done his bit. He wants to remain involved going forward but the Irish Open was a weight of responsibility.

"Even though he has won it, he has missed the cut for four of the last five years. So while his commitment to playing will remain, it is a question of handing over responsibility and we are happy to take on the mantle.

"We owe Rory a lot for where the Irish Open has come from and where it is going. So it is only right that we take responsibility off Rory's shoulders and let him do what he does best."

One last request this year Rory before you hand things off: put that call into Tiger! He needs some links golf under his belt!

PGA Tour Going Against The (Sports) Grain On Pace Of Play

The European Tour introduced a shot clock tournament this year in response to a growing sense the pro game takes too long. And while we have not seen the slow play "personal war" predicted by Chief Executive Keith Pelley when he took the job in 2015, the European Tour continues to suggest that it sees where the world is headed: toward shorter, tighter windows for sporting events.

Major League Baseball is working desperately to shorten games. Bold proposals will be floated at the upcoming owners meetings, even to the point of experimenting with radical plans for extra innings. This comes after the first wave of pace initiatives did not go far enough.

The NBA has already limited timeouts at the end of games and cut TV timeouts. The end of a game moves better.

The NFL attempted to address fan concerns about their long games but only made a half-hearted attempt at picking up the pace. At least they tried.

Even professional tennis is experimenting with a much faster product for the "NextGen".

The PGA Tour avoids enforcing its pace of play rules and, as we saw at Sunday's 6-hour Farmers Insurance Open that was tainted by J.B. Holmes, this is a tour rallying around a player who openly defied (paying) fans, his playing partners and common sense. He knew he could not be penalized so why rush?

We could blame the PGA Tour's slow-play apathy to now-retired Commissioner Tim Finchem's disdain for penalty strokes and his obsession with vanity optics (such as players taking off their caps to shake hands). Those concerns of the Commissioner's office about a player's brand taking hit made enforcement impossible for the tour's referees, who also face pressures in moving fields around from faster greens and distance-driven log-jams on half-par holes.

There was hope new Commissioner Jay Monahan would follow the progressive lead of colleagues like Adam Silver (NBA) or Rob Manfred (MLB) and realize that younger fans are far more interested in action sports that take less of their time. But forget the kids. Who can watch a sport that takes over five hours and featuring players who have no regard for anyone else but themselves? Imagine paying $55 to watch a guy not play ready golf and playing only when he absolutely feels ready.

By signaling this week he sympathized with the supposed plight of Holmes, Monahan confirmed he will not use the power of the Commissionership to speed up play. All Monahan had to do was suggest that with high winds and pressure, it was a tough spot but the fans were right to believe this was a less-than-ideal look for the sport, particularly at a time millions of non-golf fans had tuned in for the Grammy's.

Instead, Monahan made it hard to believe his tour is interested in gaining new fans or in addressing the concerns of longtime fans that some of today's players are just too slow to watch. The Holmes incident captured on camera what paying fans all-too-often see during a PGA Tour event: a player taking much longer than their allotted 40 seconds.

Meanwhile, the European Tour is forging ahead with pace-related initiatives on multiple fronts designed to draw in new fans and intrigue those bored with the sport. While some of the measures are extreme and a middle ground with the PGA Tour position is the ideal, at least the European Tour is building off of the prevailing view after golf's 2016 return to the Olympic Games: the professional sport is woefully ill-equipped to compete in the global sports marketplace at its current pace, scale and preferred format. The pro game will fade into irrelevance if it does not adapt in a world that loves sport more than ever, just in smaller doses.

Dempster On European Tour Course Setup Griping

While Torrey Pines was playing tough, things in Dubai were declared too easy by some who didn't care for the low cut line. But as you read Martin Dempster's Scotsman commentary, it's apparent the Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club has been passed by. It's the darned Pilates and Yoga work these guys are doing, again!

Make sure to read the entire piece for context, but a few things stood out like this...

More than 100 players broke par in the first round when Jamie Donaldson led the way with a 62; that cut was six shots lower than last year and China’s Haotong Li recorded the most birdies – 30, which was three more than Tiger Woods made in 2001 – in the event as he also set a new winning aggregate of 23-under-par. That beat efforts from Thomas Bjorn (2001), Stephen Gallacher (2013) and Rory McIlroy (2015) by a shot.

The reason? Nutrition, you'll be shocked to find out, was not cited as a reason.

Length is certainly a factor in the modern game. It was scary at times to see the distance McIlroy, for example, was leaving himself for approaches into tougher holes like the eighth and 12th last week. Even Richie Ramsay, who is not in the same league as either Rory or Dustin Johnson in the big-hitting stakes, has managed to find a bit of extra distance with a new 
driver and is benefitting enormously from that.

This was not enough to prevent Rory McIlroy to be upset with himself for some tactical errors on Sunday, reports Brian Keogh.

PGA Tour Maintains Strength Of Field Edge Over European Tour

Doug Ferguson looks at weekly Official World Golf Ranking points awarded to see if the European Tour has closed a substantial strength of field gap. While PGA Tour stops prevailed 56.27 to 41.27, a tiny change from last year in favor of Europe, Ferguson noted this:

However, throw out the four majors and the four World Golf Championships, and regular PGA Tour events offered an average of 49.43 points. That's more than all but four regular European Tour events – Abu Dhabi, the BMW PGA Championship (which is guaranteed 64 points as a flagship event), the Scottish Open and DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

Without the majors and WGCs, Europe offered an average of 31.68 points to the winner. Only four regular PGA Tour events awarded fewer points – John Deere Classic, Safeway Open, Las Vegas and the RSM Classic.

Video: Precious Ducks At The Joburg Open!

More fantastic wildlife at a South Africa golf tournament, this time at the Joburg Open. As featured on  Morning Drive. Serious cuteness...

Video: Chief Executive Pelley On State Of The European Tour

Nothing groundbreaking is revealed in this sitdown with Golf Channel's Todd Lewis, but after watching it I think you have to give European Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley credit for doing a lot to re-position the European Tour.

Now, some of the ideas might be excessive and the Rolex Series' long-term ramifications unclear, but he has people talking about the tour and viewing it as a true rival to the PGA Tour.

Video: 2-Yard-Wide Fairway Gives Us Glimpse Into The Future

The European Tour's social stunts are always well-produced, if increasingly desperate in their bids to go viral. That said, this scene outside of Dubai not only shows some of the lovely countryside available for golf development, but also gives us a glimpse into the future should we never actually regulate distance. After all, the thinking goes, if we just narrow the fairways then the boys will not the ball so far.

This is what two-yard-wide fairway golf will look like should we be so lucky. Nicolas Colsaerts, Ross Fisher, Richie Ramsay and Søren Kjeldsen are the lucky participants, or the players who did not say no depending on your view of these things:

6'9" Leukemia Survivor Thomson Earns European Tour Card With Birdie-Birdie Finish

It's sounds cinematic on many levels, and if you're a Telegraph subscriber you'll undoubtedly get a great read from James Corrigan about 21-year-old Jonathan Thomson.

For those of us not behind the paywall, there is this AP story on the incredibly tall, amazingly courageous golfer. The Englishman endured five years of chemotherapy.

The 21-year-old Thomson was diagnosed with a strain of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of 7, and went into remission after five years of chemotherapy. He represented England in tournaments at youth level and turned pro in September 2016, spending this season on the EuroPro Tour – the third tier of European golf.

Thomson shot 67-72-68-67-71-69 at Q-School to qualify with two strokes to spare.
“I know who will be leading the driving distance stat next year,” said European Tour player Tyrrell Hatton, a good friend of Thomson’s.

Guardian: "Golf sponsors happy to pay but appearance fees can distort sport"

Appearance fees seem like less of an issue than they used to be for the European Tour.

But as The Guardian's Ewan Murray notes in dissecting their current place in the game, still very much on the minds of some and having an impact on schedules or motivation to win the Race To Dubai.

Nonetheless, the situation raises questions. It seems fair to ask what standard of field would participate in Turkey were enticement not given to stellar names. If the answer is that the competition would become the domain of only lower-grade golfers, does that not undermine its Rolex status? There is also an ethical argument regarding why golfers, or any sportspeople of a certain financial level, should be paid simply to appear. In many ways, this surely contradicts the ethos of sport, albeit that such a point could be applied to money’s tight grasp of football, tennis and so many other enterprises.

Is Rahm A Controversial Winner Of The European Tour's ROY?

That's the question posed by Ryan Herrington at Golf World, and while I'm loathe to even argue the merits of an award that is essentially inconsequential, I think it's a worthy post to consider.

And not because Rahm is undeserving as he's an incredible young player who was deserving of a PGA Tour ROY but was not eligible. Nor should we necessarily be rewarding tour provincialism as a pre-requisite for consideration, but as Herrington points out, Dylan Fritteli was a genuine European Tour player with 28 starts to Rahm's 12. Both won one event. The European Tour's press release said Rahm clinched the award Sunday based on money winnings, but why this week's season-ending championship is not included, is unclear.

Herrington writes:

Yes, Rahm played in 12 officials European Tour events in 2017, claiming one win at the Irish Open and four top-10s in 12 starts while earning €2.8 million to put him fourth in the Race to Dubai entering this week’s season finale. However, of the 12 events, eight were either major championship or WGC tournaments that also counted toward his PGA Tour numbers. Is playing only four regular-season events native to the European Tour enough to be deserving of the honor?

At first glance, the answer feels like a definite maybe.

In the past, the Henry Cotton Award was said to come from a committee of European Tour, R&A and Association of Golf Writers and if they are still voting on it, they certainly rewarded a nice year by Rahm. But given all that's going on with efforts to give the European Tour a boost, the lack of reward for the tour's most devoted (and maybe best rookie) seems like an idea worth revisiting.

Pelley: '18 Ryder Cup Will Be Bigger Show Than Ever Before, But Draws The Line At Smoke Tunnels!

I'm guessing the teams will not be suspended from harnesses and dropped into the proceedings. They will, however, be subjected to over-the-top antics. Cue the pyro!

In talking to Adam Schupak for one of three New York Times items tied to the Race to Dubai/Rolex Series, European Tour Chief Keith Pelley has given us advance notice: expect Ryder Cup pomp x 100.

Our first tee experience at the Ryder Cup is going to be sensational. The opening ceremony, it should be a show, right? It’ll be much more of a show in France than it’s ever been before. I can guarantee you it will be. Still, we’re not bringing the players out in smoke tunnels, right? You’ll still have that aura that golf has, that majesty that golf has, but there will be a big entertainment element, absolutely, no question.