Puttering Around: Wells Fargo Championship Recap

 JOIN THE (PYONGYANG) PARTY AWARD: RORY MCILROY

Since rumors of Kim Jong-Un's death broke out in April of 2020, major champions Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Stewart Cink, and Brooks Koepka have returned to the winners circle after absences of over a year (try well north of a decade for the Kitchen Cink) from the champion’s circumference. 

Were top players compelled to visit the conquering compass to pay tribute to the still alive North Korean dictator? Or am I making a connection with an unrelated occurrence? 

Venmo $20 for Casey At Da Bat Pro + Unlimited Gold All Access Max TV Now to find out. 

Rory McIlroy was so touched by his fellow players’ tribute to the Supreme Leader (Credit where credit is due, so much respect to Jong-Un for snapping up a title as robust as Supreme Leader), he decided to join in on the celebrations in the victorious vortex. 

In retrospect, it should have never been surprising that Rory stood in the triumphant tire of the Wells Fargo Championship, after already occupying Quail Hollow’s dominant disc twice, including one trip to the winning wheel at age 20, his first time in America’s successful sphere. 

The “recent form” statistics didn’t wow anybody, but they lacked much context. Just like I have never missed the cut at a PGA Tour event, the only reason the “Rory hasn’t made a cut since February” figure held truth was the fact that Rory had played a mere 2 events since the month of 28 days, and those tournaments (Players and Masters) held the two toughest fields of 2021, according to OWGR points. 

Even if McIlroy showed major ineptitude in weeks prior, it would remain silly to fade him at this Charlotte venue. As he’s proven thrice, it matters not what the recent form looks like (his first trip to the exuberant equator in North Carolina was preceded by over 4.6 billion years of Earth without a Rory win); he’ll still find a way to fly into the outstanding orbit.

Now, as we enter the PGA Championship, Rory McIlroy brings one of the most intriguing situations into The Other Carolina. His appeal strongly resembles Jordan Spieth’s entering The Masters. Not to mention, he’ll be a threat at the June US Open in San Diego, if solely due to the rhyme of Torrey Rory, a rhyme so powerful it could propel him to the gleeful globe.

The Northern Irishman carries the same recent form as the Texan going into Augusta, with both resurgent golfers setting foot in the rewarding ring in their final event before the major, ending a happy halo drought that would raise the eyebrows of a California water manager. 

Plus, they boast amazing course history. Spieth has 5 top 3 finishes in Georgia’s answer to the capital of Maine. Monumental golf hasn’t been staged at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island since 2012. In 2012, Rory McIlroy also happened to win the PGA Championship by 8 strokes, with a Sunday -6, at a marshy, coastal South Carolina course. Let’s move on so I don’t start listing not-so-current events that transpired in the year of Kim Jong-Un’s appointment to the Fourth Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea, but you can connect those dots as straightforward as a McIlroy putt as to what that means for his hopes at the 2021 PGA.

KITCHEN CINK AWARD: (OTHER THAN STEWART CINK) KEITH MITCHELL

CAM SMITH AWARD: (OTHER THAN THE MULLET MAN) PHIL MICKELSON

This week, Keith Mitchell and Phil Mickelson took pages out of some other golfers’ playbooks to land themselves in this column. 

After I hardly knew who he was a week ago, leading into the Valspar Championship, Mitchell certainly… made himself memorable. Although, very few would like to be known for what the Georgia Bulldog was noted for in my recap last week - shooting a Sunday 82, in part thanks to a grand total of TWELVE strokes lost on the putting green.

Still, K-Mitch (C+ nickname, but I needed a filler) took to heart the mantra of “all publicity is good publicity,” being honored to be in the Puttering Around Valspar recap and its’ whopping ONE page view, and took it up a notch, leading the field after 54 holes and ranking top 20 in strokes gained in all three major facets of the game.  

Even more notably, he followed Stewart Cink’s footsteps, turning a random reference in the previous week’s review into an impressive finish, earning him the esteemed Kitchen Cink Award.

Phil Mickelson also mimicked another popular golfer named Cameron Smith, a winner at the Zurich Classic two weeks ago, and it wasn’t just that the Mickelshades and Cammullet displayed equal “midlife crisis” vibes despite their 23 year age gap.

At the RBC Heritage, Cam Smith invented (read: first made me think of) a revolutionary concept in the game of golf, when he opened in the lead, and faded into irrelevance by the end of the tournament. (Even though it makes no sense to intentionally do poorly as an actual strategy, just go with it) Perhaps Smith was told by the kangaroo gods beforehand that he could only shoot X score over 4 days, and decided to go all out on day 1 to maximize his exposure. 

The problem was, Smith did too well. He diminished his dazzling creation by shooting 2 strokes under par over the final 3 days. If we draw a metaphor to the world of flight, Smith was Clement Ader, the croissant (French people can be referred to as croissants, per the Casey At Da Bat translate app) who constructed an earlier version of the airplane that birthed brilliant engineering principles, but couldn’t quite get off the ground like his successors.

From there, it was time for the Wright Brothers to take over, who enacted the vision of a jet without a blemish, to go down in history as the first. In this bizarre golf theory, Phil, Son of Mickel represented both Orville and Wilbur on this momentous flight. 

But, while the Wrights’ storied flight sputtered a bit, Lefty saw the opportunity to hit the Exposure Theory (it has a name!) out of the park, and kept his eye on the ball and knocked it into the bleachers like he was Harry Higgs on the 18th at Quail Hollow. 

Phil shot a Thursday 64 to lead the field and generate thirty metric tons of “Look at the old guy” buzz. He followed that act with consistency, although not the kind you’d want if you were cheering for fewer strokes rather than more pieces of evidence for the Exposure Theory, submitting +4, +5, and +5 scorecards. 

With a showing like that, all you can do is smile to yourself, and admire an ET (it’s already got an abbreviation! And one that some could call… extraterrestrial!) GOAT at his best. In a game where perfection is impossible, Phil Mickelson has FLAWLESSLY executed a difficult task.

EXASPERATED PRIVATE JET PILOT OF THE WEEK: BRYSON DECHAMBEAU’S CHAUFFEUR

DISCLAIMER: None of this is true, except the parts that are.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY: A CHAUFFEUR’S WEEK IN CHARLOTTE

It had been a long week for Bryson DeChambeau’s chauffeur. 

The iPhone 3 which his boss demanded he record Bryson’s tricep dips with stalled out after colliding with one too many of the Mad Scientist’s concoctions of protein, protein, and protein. On Wednesday afternoon, the longest driver’s driver paid a visit to the local hardware store to forage for DeChambeau’s druthers for the backyard to recreate the highlights of his 2020 season - an anthill, Augusta par 67 scorecard, and a cameraman to berate, AKA all things you could find at your local ACE/Home Depot. He found out he might be replaced by a robot down the road.  

The man who employed him didn’t relish Monday-Friday either. A week prior to the AT&T Byron Nelson, a home event for the former SMU Mustang and current Dallas homeowner, he trekked (read: hopped in a jet) out to the East Coast for a Charlotte tourney. 

Despite a course that matched his ability to crush a golf ball like nobody else, he struggled a +2 over Thursday and Friday after getting quite familiar with the Carolina creek water. 

When the Golf Channel coverage started, the broadcasters acknowledged it like a done deal, like DeAndre Jordan’s commitment to the golfer in question's hometown NBA team, that Bryson would miss the cut. Therefore, DeChambeau dialed his favorite pilot to take him home to his pull-up bar and Vitamix (second straight week of mentions for Vitamix. I’m only about 37 mentions away from a $0.10 advertising deal!) blender. 

An altruistic aviator, he obliged, despite plans with friends to attend a Carolina Panthers game. Now, he may have forgotten that the NFL was not in season during May, but his selfless sentiment remains pronounced. So, once his employer informed him of his failure to make the weekend, the chauffeur was kind enough to donate the football tickets that didn’t exist to some kids in need. The pilot flew home, disappointed to miss out on seeing his buddies, but content to catch up on some Zzzzzs.

 

Around 3 AM, Bryson woke up from his intense sleep in a (long scientific word) chamber. He checked the Golf Channel, and realized that following a wild wind to end the day, which birthed a freakishly hard 18th hole that was about two tenths of a stroke to par more difficult than any other hollow divot at the Hollow of Quails, he made the cut! He woke up a now-disgruntled Mr. Chauffeur, explaining anyone’s report on Saturday morning that there seemed to be an asleep driver in central Texas. The chauffeur may have even navigated a Chinese rocket later that day. 

And that’s the story of how Bryson DeChambeau irked his pilot. Fortunately, Bryson shot 6 strokes under par over the weekend. So they all lived happily ever after. Except the surprised pilot.

Here’s the actual story! The truth is almost as crazy as my work of fiction/non-fiction.

LAND OF THE FREE AWARD: VIKTOR HOVLAND AND GARY WOODLAND

A great week to have a last name ending in “-Land.” Viktor Hovland takes a T3. Woodland held a 36 hole lead and goes home with a Wells Fargo Championship Fifth Place Trophy. If I had changed my surname to CaseyatdabatLand and flown out to Charlotte, I might’ve Monday qualified, and perhaps made the cut, solely thanks to the goodwill of the golf gods. Thoughts and prayers to Henrik Norlander, who shot +14 and missed the cut. I suppose the justices of the PGA Supreme Court deemed his name did not count as a “Land” since it didn’t end with it. 

FITNESS TRACKER OF THE WEEK: WHOOP

This week, on the weekday broadcast, Golf Channel unveiled a partnership with Whoop, and their heart rate trackers. Top players like Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy wore them, and their beats per minute was displayed. Nick Faldo couldn’t help but stare at it like it held the meaning of life. Every time it moved up a beat, the former Masters champion speculated about the golfer’s nerves, and then someone else would jump in, “Actually, Sir Nick, they’re going uphill.” 

I really enjoyed looking at the levels of the players. Especially on a Thursday afternoon jam-packed with lulls, it was fun to have an extra feature to check out, and see Rory’s heart’s reaction after a pleasing bomb off the tee, or how JT’s blood pumped following an unfortunate miss while putting.

Still, I think the Whoop feature could be used even better. Here are my 4 best (read: maximum humor potential) ideas for the fitness trackers and the PGA Tour:

-Have someone jump out at the players when they least expect it and yell “BOO.” See which players’ tracker gets highest. DO NOT TRY on the PGA Tour Champions; we don’t want any heart attacks.

-Tell each player that due to legal mumbo-jumbo, they’re implementing a roommate system, and they must bunk with Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau, see which players get alarmed. Potential Problem: We won’t know who is excited and who is disturbed about spending time with that duo. Solution: We can safely assume everyone is concerned

-A buzzer around the fitness band. Once it deems you’ve taken long enough to take your swing, it starts whirring and vibrating, and escalating in power. By minute 5 of JB Holmes lining up a putt, his entire body would be shaking like he’s exiting a slasher horror film

-Whoop-sponsored fitness competitions: see which golfers can run a marathon and which can’t complete a 400. Who can do a 5 minute plank? Get into weird stuff too - KH Lee may not have a win on the Tour, but I’ve got my money on him in a sack race. Could Cam Smith and Marc Leishman carry their chemistry from the Zurich Classic over to a game of Spikeball?

MOMENT OF THE TOURNAMENT: THE TOSS

Is there a better spot to be in golf than up 2 strokes entering the 72nd hole? Trick question: 3, 4, or any number higher than 2 strokes in the lead is better than being 2 up heading into the final tee box.

Still, Rory McIlroy was in a spot that anyone, save for a few anarchists who believe money is an evil construct, would envy - a bogey or better to win a PGA event, and more importantly for most non-golf junkies (read: sane people), a deposit of $1.458 million. 

The emotional meaning would be immense, coming back to the course of his first American victory, on his wife’s first Mother’s Day as one of the people celebrated on May 9th.

Nevertheless, if there was a place within 1,000 miles where grinding out a +1 at this juncture would be harder, I haven’t encountered it. The 18th averaged nearly a half a stroke over par, stacking 30 doubles or worse up against a mere 19 birdies. It was a pin that could lift you up or take you down: see McIlroy’s 43-footer to lock up his first victory on American soil, and Jason Day’s PGA Championship catastrophe at Quail Hollow that tacked 8 strokes on to his final total.

The 5 stroke gap between McIlroy’s 2010 birdie and Day’s 2017 quadruple bogey came off the tee, with the profound impact between a green fairway with no obstacles far as the eye could see, and a patch of straw with a tree in front of it. That’s how one leads to a third shot on the green, an eventually immaculate putt for birdie, and the other requires laying up with an iron and going from behind a hedge to the middle of the rough. 

Thus, McIlroy knew this would be an important shot on a mean hole. Sadly, his drive was not the 372 yarder landed near the green that he pummelled earlier in the weekend. Instead, it dove into a wedge between the rough and fairway containing a creek. Somehow, it did not make the satisfying “sploosh” of a golf ball shaking hands with a body of water.

Instead, it caught a piece of grass, and handed Rory and caddie Harry Diamond an interesting strategic decision - chip into the fairway, for a better lie, leading to an easier third shot, which if placed on the green, would all but lock up the Wells Fargo Championship, requiring purely a two-putt. Or, he could take a penalty shot and fire his third shot from the rough. 

Each brought fears and risk- if he failed to vacate a tough position and kiss the fairway, a playoff would be best case scenario. And the play out of the rough was a HARD golf shot, with a failure to hit the green requiring a good pitch & putt to win. 

Suddenly, Abraham Ancer, who strung together 3 birdies on 15-17 to round out a bogey-free round, was watching with the interest of a Cleveland Cavaliers fan during The Decision. Before the drive, he probably recognized the low chance of a double bogey giving him a chance at his first PGA Tour win, but now his chances could be read with nervous excitement on a Magic 8 Ball.

Rory and Diamond (probably the name of a pop duo in a couple years) opted to take the conservative route and take the penalty stroke and play out of the deeper cut. Knowing how this shot went down, I LOVE the move, after seeing the ball, struck with an 8 iron, land softly on the green. Now, if it had landed 20 yards short, and pushed a playoff, I probably would’ve criticized it. That’s how hypocrisy goes.

Rory putted smart, setting up a 2-footer he could probably drain if you dragged him out to a putting surface at midnight, still asleep, and stuck a flatstick in his hands. He was just as good while wide awake, even if my heart fluttered while it remained on green grass. 

Ancer had come a stroke away from a playoff for his first win at the highest level of golf. He had followed a #1 in strokes gained putting at Valspar with a #1 in strokes gained tee-to green. The Mexican could only marvel at Rory McIlroy’s excellence, and his ability to compete with him, and nearly push him to a 73rd.

Rory could do nothing but pump his fist and commemorate another great round. Until the emotional meaning sunk in. Not just that he had won for the first time in years. Not just that it came at the venue where he first won in the States. Not just that it made him the favorite for the PGA Championship. But that it came on his wife’s first Mother’s Day, with a baby cheering on Rors with her. So he FLUNG that winning ball into a roaring crowd of spectators, and savored a day, a moment that will be remembered in the McIlroy household forever.

If you, like millions of Americans, suffer from a medical issue where you cannot catch any balls of sport, and were in the stands at Quail Hollow’s 18th, it probably wasn’t a moment you’ll remember, that is, if you passed out upon contact between the dimple of the face of Rory’s golf ball and the dimple of the face of you.