PGA 2024 Preface Thanks to each of you for the prompt submission of your team. We had no problem getting to teams of 6. IF one of your top 6 drops before the start of play, I will enter your 7th pick. Lots of story lines.... Rory wins big at the Wells Fargo and then announces he is getting divorced.... Scottie's wife finally had a baby boy... the LIV golfers will again try to prove they are just as good, maybe better, than the PGA Tour players. Lets hope for decent weather in Louisville and a nail biter of a finish. Hans Day One Day one of the 2024 is in the books. Fireworks!!! At the top of the leaderboard is Xander Schauffele shooting an amazing 9 under 62. He was almost as hot as Andy's Happy Hookers. How does 21 under par sound for this team, day 1!! 334 has to be some sort of record for day 1 or 2 in our major pools. The question is... will they keep it up?? Tying for second at 343 (-12) were Jack's Smoothies and my Ace Holes, led by none other than Xander. Par for 5 scores is 355. Every team was under par, with the Red Foxes in the caboose at 352. I understand rain will begin over night and continue for most of Friday. My prediction is this will keep scores low, if not even lower! Lift clean and place along with soft greens is a recipe for really low scores. Only heavy rain or wind will bring the scores up. I didn't see any of the afternoon action. Hopefully Friday I will catch more of the action. I'd welcome commentary from any of you. But, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Scottie Scheffler's start.... hole out for an Eagle on the 1st hole. Is this guy human? He finished 4 under and cannot be overlooked. Hans Day Two Hans ended up his Day 1 review tossing some compliments in Scottie Scheffler's direction for his round 1, 67. But how about his day today? He gets arrested, handcuffed, booked, and put in a retaining cell. He had an early tee time and had no idea if he would make it. Thankfully for him, the tournament was delayed 80 minutes due to the traffic issues created by the police investigation of the fatal accident. He did his stretching while in jail and was released in time to make his new adjusted tee time. So with all of that swirling around him, what does he do? He birdies the first hole! And goes on to shoot a -5, 66. That is pretty freaking amazing! And so much for the importance of "routines" :-) Albert First, a moment of silence for the worker at the PGA who lost his life trying to get to the course. Scottie got caught up in the chaos and was arrested, as we have all heard. Ever the focused guy that he is, Scheffler goes out and birdies two of the first three holes, goes on to shoot 5 under 66. He is a factor going forward at -9, only 3 shots off the lead. At the time of this writing, only Rodgers on Jack's team remains on the course with one hole to go. He will miss the cut, but his Smoothies teammates played great Friday and took Day 2 honors for low team- 339. Al's Dimpled Balls tied for 2nd at 342 along with Ikey's Heroes, a mere one shot ahead of 4 teams! Going into the weekend, two teams have 5 going - Andy's Hookers and Jack's Smoothies. All others have 4, except my Ace Holes with only 3 remaining. A couple of noteworthy performances. I think top honors go to Tommy Fleetwood. To make the cut on the number, he needs to eagle his final hole as the sun is setting. On #18, a par 5, he hits his second shot to just under 7 feet, and makes the putt!!! Well done Tommy - a fan favorite and one of Mags Mulligans. Speaking of Mags Mulligans... they are led by Colin Morikawa who shot one of the 65's on Friday, temporarily taking the lead, but eventually settling into second place. First place remains in the hands of Xander Schauffele, but only by one shot. Trailing Xander and Colin are Sahith Theegala, -10 and Scottie, -9. I expect continued good play this weekend. My prediction of 'clean and place' did not happen. I listened to a lot of the action on PGA Tour radio and saw basically none of the play. The announcers were often speaking about mud on the balls forcing shots one way or another... How did the LIV players do?? Every one of them made the cut except Jon Rahm. Not only was Gabes upset by this, but he was the pick by Al and me in a golf pool. Big bummer. Enjoy the action this weekend. I'm cheering for Xander to continue his stellar play. Hans Day Three We have a horse race! An interesting finish to Saturday's round puts both Colin Morikawa and Xander Scauffele in the lead at 15 under, wth Sahith Theegala one shot behind and LIV's Bryson DeChambeau among others at -13. The round of the day goes to Ireland's Shane Lowry. He narrowly missed shooting 61 and led Gabes' Foreskins to a convincing low team round of 267. Jack's Smoothies continued their good play with a second place finish of 271, one ahead of Andy's Hookers. The Smoothies have 'cashed' each day so far and sit in second place overall, 4 shots behind the Hookers, and 5 shots ahead of the Foreskins for overall money. Ikey's Hereos and Al's Balls have a shot at some overall money. The rest of us do not. This was the first time I got a chance to sit and watch the tournament. What a beautiful course, and thousands of spectators! How about an uphill 256 yard par 3! There are 8 players at -12 or better. Each has a shot at winning. I would not be surprised to see someone behind the leaders put together a strong round and jump ahead. Look for the scoring to remain low with the greens still receptive. To give you an idea, we have 40 golfers in the pool still playing. 25 shot in the 60's, which is at least 2 under par of 71. Only two of our golfers shot over par Saturday - Brooks Koepka the highest at 74, and Scottie Scheffler at 73 (which was not a surprise). Enjoy the final round. I am still pulling for Xander. Hans Day Four Xander Schauffele birdied his first and last holes and won the 2024 PGA. There was drama at this birdie fest down to the final putt. When it dropped, I let out a big YEESSS, with Sheila commenting.. that was a little excessive - and I said, not it wasn't. Oh yes, we had a pool that my Ace Holes conveniently didn't do well... but they didn't finish DFL. Chuck's Used Callaways took that honor. Top honors for the tournament goes to Andy's Happy Hookers. They also won Sunday's daily. In second place Sunday were Mags' Mulligans. His was the 7th team to grab part of 1st or 2nd one of the days. Sadly, The Foxes, Pinseekers and Callaways did not cash this tournament. The overall pool finish has Andy's Hookers in 1st, Jack's Smoothies in 2nd and Gabes' Foreskins slipping into third money. Congrats to each. As for the play, I was impressed with Bryson DeChambeau's focus and gutty birdie on 18 setting up a possible tie. His 64 was the low score on Sunday. A few 65's on Sunday including Schauffele, Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood. If anyone would like to add commentary, please do. This is a wrap for the 2nd major of 2024. We'll see everyone again in 4 weeks at Pinehurst for the US Open. Hans Great job recording and reporting, Hans, very well done and very much appreciated. Some takeaways: on Saturday, when just about everyone was shooting in the mid 60s and a paunchy Irishman shot 61, how is it possible for Scottie S and Brooks K to shoot 73 and 74? To their credit, and adding to the Saturday head scratcher, they both shot 66. I was very surprised to see Colin Morikawa play so poorly in the final pairing today. As the man with 2 Major Championships, versus Xander looking for his first, you might have expected the opposite. Bryson stepped up big time to make this exciting. He was gracious in defeat. This will go a long way to reshaping his image. Hard to believe that Jon Rahm did not make the cut. This after being a nonfactor in his defense of his Masters championship. Albert Ranked by Score 1 2 Andy 334 343 272 270 1219 3 Jack 343 339 271 272 1225 4 Gabes 348 343 267 278 1236 5 Mags 346 343 281 271 1241 6 Albert 350 342 275 278 1245 7 Fox 352 346 273 282 1253 8 Hans 343 343 286 286 1258 9 Sobo 348 349 282 281 1260 10 Chuck 349 355 285 291 1280 Winners Andy Jack Hans Al Ikey Gabes Mags Day 1 22.05 4.73 4.72 31.5 Day 2 22.05 4.73 4.72 31.5 Day 3 9.45 22.05 31.5 Day 4 22.05 22.05 9.45 Final 113.40 47.25 28.35 189.00 Total 157.50 83.48 4.72 4.73 4.72 50.40 305.55