Introducing "Lieing" And A Weekend Wrap
Scheffler dominates at Bay Hill. Plus, Clark's ball mashing goes unpunished, Ancer, Tardy and Manassero win, Woods passes on Players, Quotables and NBC is bringing Kisner back for the Players.
That bundle of glee named Scottie Scheffler is back in the winner’s circle after cruising to victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. The 27-year-old’s seventh career win came after starting the day tied for the lead. It’s his second win at Bay Hill and his five-stroke margin is the largest since Tiger Woods’ 2012 win.
Besides recording a dominant win in advance of his Players defense and just weeks ahead of the Masters where he won in 2022, Scheffler appears to have found something on the greens. (I’m not sure if you’ve heard but he’s not been so great with the flat stick.)
After a rough first round on the greens and a Saturday hissy-fit over a missed putt, Scheffler finished the week gaining over four strokes on the field via his flat stick. He finished fifth overall for the week in a category that has been his obvious weakness and on some of the Tour’s trickiest greens.
Overall, Scheffler ended up five clear of Wyndham Clark and six ahead of Shane Lowry thanks to some impressive scrambling. Scheffler recorded his -15 under total at Bay Hill by getting up and down 15 of 22 times to lead the field, helping offset so-so ballstriking numbers by his lofty standards (32 of 56 fairways and 50 of 72 greens).
“His ball-striking is, honestly, on another level compared to everyone else right now,” said Rory McIlroy. “We knew if he started to hole putts, then this sort of stuff would happen.”
The win is just part of an overall picture of extreme consistency exhibited by few players today. The API win becomes Scheffler’s 48th top-10 since joining the PGA Tour at the start of the 2019-20 season. That’s seven more than any other player in the span. Sunday’s top-3 finish was his 24th since joining the tour, five more in the same span that the next closest competitor Jon Rahm. And he who won’t be recording any more now that he’s leading Caesar’s perennially unlucky Legion 13 troops into Jeddah, Hong Kong and Doral.
Scheffler said after collecing the $4 million winner’s check that he’d like to be remembered for his attitude—and did it with a straight face.
“I would like to be remembered as someone that always gave it his best and just kept a good attitude,” he said when asked about his legacy following Sunday’s 66. “I feel like that's my goal always going into an event, is being tough, being competitive, and going out and competing, having a good attitude, and being committed to my shots.”
A detached viewer might be shocked to hear this after Scheffler’s recent run of frustration and relentless on-course brooding. Though the former University of Texas and Walker Cup golfer did not entirely dismiss the impression of someone who fails to enjoy his success.
“It can be tough out here,” Scheffler said. “This game can humble you really fast. I'm trying to be more grateful for the success and more grateful for these wins. Sometimes I have a habit of winning an event and just immediately trying to move on to the next week. So going in tonight, I'll try and celebrate and enjoy this win with my family and, yeah, it will be fun.”
Also…
Will Zalatoris qualified for The Open at Royal Troon as the leading player in the field not already exempt, finishing in a tie for fourth.
Jake Knapp made a 12 on Bay Hill’s infamous par 5 sixth after two water balls and an OB tee shot.
Rory McIlroy became the first player to drive Bay Hill’s 10th green.
Lieing
Lie-ing /ˈlīiNG/
The sometimes unconscious but typically nefarious practice whereby elite golfers aggressively place a chosen club behind their ball (and even sometimes go back and forth trying two clubs in extreme cases) to purportedly test how the sole will rest on the ground. This typically takes place in the rough where blades of grass may be displaced in the process to subsequently reduce groove-depleting interference between clubface and ball.
-Quadrilateral working definition
In light of Saturday’s latest case of consequence-free mashing and subsequent ball oscillating/moving/something, it’s a good time to go live with the official name and definition for what used to be seen as making the ball lie. Or, in more succinct terms, cheating.
The act in question takes place regularly with high incidents of activity on the PGA Tour. But as with many things pro golf, it’s seeped into the every day game.
As I’m the apparent coiner of “backstopping” according to Michael Bamberger—which is almost the same as an Oxford dictionary recognition—I hereby declare that “lieing” best describes the activity in question. One that shares similarly twisted and nefarious ties with another form of unnecessary trampling all over golf’s (once) most vaunted principle: playing it as it lies.
The lieing we see daily on the Tour is just another backscratching, wink-wink, we-all-do-it-here-on-the-grown-man’s-tour-so-it-all-evens-out nonsense that only the PGA Tour could produce. Mashing down behind the ball, or lieing, is act of direct rules defiance. It’s also pathetic given the multitude of modern tools at the professional’s disposal: sharp grooves, wedges sculpted to that particular week’s bunkers or turf, and absurd distances that put wedges into hands on 450 yard par 4’s. Even with all of these benefits, the modern professional declares in mashing down behind the ball that he is no rugged warrior when it comes to accepting fate and playing the ball as he found it.
Lieing seeped into the national discussion long before Wyndham Clark’s Saturday incident at Bay Hill. In the 2009 FBR Open Kenny Perry’s ball was not visible when he arrived, only to be visible after he mashed the ryegrass rough behind the ball. On the first hole of sudden death against Charley Hoffman, Perry approached his ball, gave it a few mashes as the CBS cameraman never moved. The ball went from invisible to visible. This allowed us to see the first high profile case of lieing.
I watched it again Saturday and it was as bad as I remember at the time when the Tour came to his defense as the rest of the world saw an act of rules defiance. Perry was seen by most upright world citizens as having violated the rules. The European side of the game made an example of his mashing as the way not to approach a shot, as detailed in this story at the time by my McKellar podcast co-host Lawrence Donegan.
The practice generally went away for a while after Perry’s behavior. And 99.9% of professional golfers generally approached their ball the way they always have through the decades: carefully. Instead of mashing, pressing, testing and manipulating the grass behind the ball, they took practice swings to test the ground well away from the ball. Not wanting to be seen as cheaters, pros approached any ball near spectators even more carefully.
But in an era of entitlement, lax rules enforcement, and the Tour herd creating unspoken modifications to the rules when it suits their games, the practice began gaining steam even after Patrick Reed’s high profile run-ins with similar situations to Perry’s. In Reed’s recently dismissed lawsuit against various media members, Golf Channel’s Damon Hack was included for his questioning of Reed’s actions at the Farmers Insurance Open after Reed couldn’t wait to touch his purportedly embedded ball before an official arrived. As Hack noted on air in summing up what he saw, Reed’s behavior was a far cry from the days when players approached their ball as if it was a Faberge egg.
True professionals were long afraid to be seen as improving their lie. Yet in a short time and one unsurprisingly evolving as players began to believe they’re above the rules, mashing behind the ball has become standard practice in American professional golf. Even players known for their integrity and respect for the rules are doing it. And why not since no one seems to think it’s a violation or even a slight afront to the spirit of the Rules.
In their defense—if they read the Rules of Golf—the re-written standards gutted the most important language contained in the old 13.2: “A player must not improve or allow to be improved the position or lie of his ball ... by any of the following actions - pressing a club on the ground, moving, bending or breaking anything growing or fixed.”
Today’s updated Rules focus more on protecting the player who might have moved a ball and from the cruelty of modern HD cameras. Kind of sad for a rules principle going back to the 1700’s.
I’ve watched a shocking number of players in recent years engage in lieing. Even on short grass where you’d think tight lies would not bother the decathletes. I’ll never forget watching a well-known player at the 2022 U.S. Open press so hard behind his deep rough lie that I could see the clubshaft bending.
You’ll be shocked to know he was also a repeat “backstopping” offender.
Which brings us to Clark’s case of Saturday lieing. You’d think he’d be extra careful given how a situation was reviewed during last year’s U.S. Open final round where he won by a stroke. There, Clark went back and forth between wedges, placing them behind the ball and forcing an official review to determine whether he had moved his pellet. The USGA determined he did not violate the rules.
On Golf Central’s Live From, Brandel Chamblee dissected the situation and said a penalty should have been called.
Clark’s situation and others like it keep popping up in a world where players run the show and sign paychecks. As Chamblee asked in light of the latest obvious violation not called one, “What does a tour player have to do to be penalized?”
The generally fantastic Rules officials of the PGA Tour also work major championships but wherever they go still report to the Delaware summit inmates running the asylum. Yes, the same people who think nothing of taking two minutes to hit a shot.
What about the Commissioner? Given the emphasis on betting need to maintain integrity so the PGA Tour looks more credible than the tour offering seven minute last ball searches, surely he’s concerned about the apperance of bending the rules?
Jay Monahan has been openly hostile to the Rules of Golf on several occasions since taking over for Tim Finchem. Even if he had not desperately worked outside the parameters of rulemaking protocols during the recent distance insights study, Monahan’s not about to risk an $18 million, free-private jet job that is at the mercy of players who seek every advantage they can get.
It’s too bad. A penalty on Clark Saturday would have put an end to the practice of lieing. It would have been the golf version of a perp walk. And it would have shown the PGA Tour is serious about protecting the most important rule of them all. But the current U.S. Open champion has openly discussed his LIV offer and the PGA Tour has had a rough start to 2024. The collective herd undoubtedly would rather look the other way in the name of business and the chance to mash away behind their golf balls.
LIV: Ancer Records First Individual Win
Abraham Ancer’s final round 72 opened the door for Cameron Smith and Paul Casey to force a playoff at LIV’s Hong Kong stop. But Ancer responded with a first playoff hole birdie to win his first individual LIV Golf title.
Cam Smith’s runner-up marks his first decent event of 2024. The 2022 Champion Golfer of the Year came away encouraged after a final round 66. “It was a step in the right direction this week,” said Smith. “Played some really patient golf over the weekend. A lot different than the first few weeks.”
Anthony Kim posted his first sub-par round since returning to pro golf. Only four players posted lower final rounds.
2023 Masters runner-up Phil Mickelson opened with 80 to finish second-to-last and five behind Kim.
Tardy Gets First LPGA Win
Bailey Tardy cruised to a four-stroke victory at the 2024 Blue Bay LPGA. Tied for the lead going into Sunday’s round, Tardy fell behind Sarah Schmelzel but an eighth hole eagle and ninth hole birdie got the University of Georgia golfer tied for the lead before she eventually got to 19-under par, breaking the tournament’s 72-hole total by six shots.
“I got off to a little slow start on the front nine, and then just really stayed patient out there. I can't say that I woke up today knowing I was going to shoot 65 or knowing I needed to go that low to win,” said Tardy.
It’s Tardy’s first LPGA Tour victory in her second season with a card. The 27-year-old turned professional in 2019 but has struggled at times after foregoing her senior season. Tardy contended at Pebble Beach in last year’s U.S. Women’s Open where she finished T4.
Lilia Vu, a two-time major champion in 2023 and defending champion at the upcoming Chevron Championship, withdrew for the second straight week. According to Golfweek’s Beth An Nichols, Vu cited fatigue and soreness for not playing the HSBC final round. The Vu attempted to rest and cited “illness” in pulling out of the Blue Bay. Last year Vu took a month off due to a back injury, returned for the Women’s PGA and captured her second major at the AIG Women’s Open.
Matteo Is Back
Just 3,942 days since his last DP World Tour win Matteo Manassero is a winner again. A final round 66 included birdies in his final four holes to win the Jonsson Workwear Open with a 26-under-par total.
Thriston Lawrence (63), Shaun Norris (68) and Jordan Smith (68) finished in a tie for second.
It’s the 30-year-old Italian’s fifth European Tour win and most emotional yet.
“This is the best day of my life on a golf course for sure,” Manassero said. “It’s been a crazy journey over the last couple of years. I knew that I was getting on the right track but then you never know.”
Woods Passes On 50th Players
PGA Tour Enterprises Vice Chairman Tiger Woods opted not to enter this week’s Players Championship.