Quick look at Valspar Championship

AUSTIN, Texas – The PGA TOUR’s biggest hitter faces a first-timer who’s almost eligible for PGA TOUR Champions. The FedExCup leader squares off with a match-play master. Some potential Presidents Cup previews and a rematch that dates back to amateur golf also are on the docket for Day 1 at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. There are 32 matches scheduled for Wednesday, but here’s five that we’re especially keen on (seedings in parentheses). GROUP 5: Scottie Scheffler, USA, (5) vs. Ian Poulter, ENG, (59), 1:38 p.m. ET. Scottie Scheffler was still a Texas guy with promise, but no PGA TOUR wins, when he went on a run at Austin Country Club a year ago. The former Longhorn made a push all the way to the final match before losing to Billy Horschel. En route to the championship match, Scheffler scored a big win against Ian Poulter, a man with a reputation as a match play ninja, in the Round of 16. Scheffler wasn’t intimidated by facing a player who’s fearsome in this format. Poulter may have eight top-10s at this event, including a win in 2010, and is known for his work in Ryder Cup Singles but Scheffler won easily, including a clutch chip-in. Scheffler was 3 up through 10 holes, but Poulter looked set for one of his trademark comebacks when he drained a 41-foot birdie putt on the 11th green. Scheffler responded by chipping in from off the green for a birdie of his own and marched on to a 5-and-4 win. Scheffler then beat Jon Rahm that afternoon, who he’d go on to beat again later that year at the Ryder Cup. Oh, and Scheffler has earned his first two PGA TOUR titles in his last four starts and sits atop the FedExCup standings. You don’t think Poulter would love a little revenge? GROUP 9: Bryson DeChambeau, USA, (9) vs. Richard Bland, England, (54), 2:44 p.m. ET Because of a persistent wrist injury, we haven’t seen Bryson DeChambeau since he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open back in January. He had to sit out his title defense at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and THE PLAYERS, but is set to return at Austin Country Club. The questions surrounding DeChambeau are plenty. Just how fit is he? Can he rein in his distance on the tricky, tight front nine? And can he overcome a poor record (2-3-1) at Austin Country Club in this event, where he has fallen to the likes of Antoine Rozner and Kiradech Aphibarnrat in the past. His next opponent is Bland, who made a great run at the U.S. Open last year at Torrey Pines. He finds his place in the field mainly through last year’s British Masters victory, which was his first DP World Tour win in his 478th start, but his run didn’t stop there. The Englishman has five other top-five finishes on that tour since, including a runner-up at the Dubai Desert Classic, and will fancy himself against a rusty DeChambeau despite being closer to PGA TOUR Champions eligibility than he will be to some of the American’s drives. GROUP 6: Kevin Kisner, USA, (29) vs. Marc Leishman, Australia, (37), 10:53 a.m. ET Here is a matchup you might think to overlook but, you’d be missing out if you did. Kisner, the 2018 runner-up and 2019 champion of this event is still smarting after missing out on the 2019 Presidents Cup and 2021 Ryder Cup squads despite showing his skills in this format. Now he gets to present his prowess against a player who will undoubtedly be part of Trevor Immelman’s International Team for the 2022 Presidents Cup set for Quail Hollow latter this year. Kisner did represent the U.S. in the 2017 Presidents Cup, and Leishman will remember that appearance. Leishman, with countryman Jason Day, faced off against Kisner and Phil Mickelson over the opening two days. After a halve in Thursday’s Foursomes, their Four-ball match came down to the 18th hole. Mickelson made a midrange birdie before producing a “Three Amigos” celebration dance with Kisner. What is not lost on six-time TOUR winner Leishman is that this came before he had a chance to tie the match with a putt of his own. When he failed to convert his putt, it left a sour taste that no doubt remains today. GROUP 7: Xander Schauffele, USA, (7) vs. Takumi Kanaya, Japan, (56), 12:10 p.m. ET The Olympic gold medalist from the Tokyo Games faces the next star from Japan. Kanaya represents Japan’s best hope now that Hideki Matsuyama is sitting out this week because of a balky back before his Masters defense. This match could help Kanaya in his Presidents Cup candidacy, as well. Kanaya, 23, already is a three-time winner on the Japan Tour and once was the world’s top-ranked amateur. Schauffele has had the chance to burst out of the group stage three times at Austin Country Club but fallen short at the final hurdle each time. Last year, he lost in a sudden-death playoff for the opportunity to advance to the Round of 16. He’s burning to atone. GROUP 2: Collin Morikawa, USA, (2) vs. Robert MacIntyre, Scotland, (61), 12:54 p.m. ET One of the surprises a year ago was Robert MacIntyre getting through to the Round of 16 after collecting just one win in Group 1. The plucky young Scot, now 25, found his way out of the same group as then-world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, Kevin Na and Adam Long despite only beating Long. Ties against Johnson and Na ended up being enough after upset results in other matches. MacIntyre was bounced by Victor Perez in the knockout stage. Now he gets the chance to face Morikawa, the world’s second-ranked player, in a group that also has Sergio Garcia and Jason Kokrak. Morikawa failed to win a match in his tournament debut last season, settling for a halve with J.T. Poston but losing to Max Homa and Billy Horschel in group play. Morikawa has seen MacIntyre before. While they didn’t go head-to-head, both were part of the 2017 Walker Cup where Morikawa’s U.S. team won handsomely over MacIntyre’s Great Britain and Ireland squad. That 2017 U.S. team also featured Scheffler, Cameron Champ, Will Zalatoris, Maverick McNealy, Doc Redman and Doug Ghim. The U.S. rolled, 19-7, at Los Angeles Country Club, site of next year’s U.S. Open. Before a missed cut at THE PLAYERS and T68 last week at Valspar, Morikawa was showing some improved putting to roll to five straight top-10s, including two runers-up. Can Morikawa match up his stellar approach game with his short game as the Masters looms? If so, he could be dangerous here. MacIntyre could prove to be a tougher opponent than paper would indicate, however.

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As children so often do, Jason Baffa’s son cut to the chase when he asked his father if he was ever going to finish that golf movie he was directing. “You’ve been working on it all my life,â€� the six-year-old said pointedly. Well, almost all his life. The movie, “Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk,â€� was actually four years in the making and finally hits theaters nationwide on Friday. The exquisitely-filmed feature length production, which is narrated by Bill Murray, looks at the profession from all angles – from caddies at local clubs like Ballybunion and Bandon Dunes to the men who tote the bags for players on the PGA TOUR. It’s an interesting mixture of characters and caddies but one thread runs throughout. All the men and women featured in the documentary love their jobs and making the people they caddie for improve so they can enjoy the game. Baffa took time recently for the conversation below with PGATOUR.COM. A list of theaters showing the film can be found here. PGATOUR.COM: What made you want to get involved with this project?  BAFFA: I think the idea of this visual journey and golf and the big theme in all their projects has sort of been people’s connection to the environment, and the positive you get back out of a life spent enjoying the outdoors. So, I’m naturally kind of interested in that type of thing. But what really hooked me on this was that idea, and you’ve got to remember, this was now four, five years ago. So, I feel like media’s giving caddies even a little more attention now, but this relationship — and I grew up playing a lot of golf, but I grew up playing all sports. … And I thought about it as we were discussing it, and the guys were pointing out much of what ends up in the film is this athletic relationship where someone’s inside the ropes, but they have so much input as far as strategy and emotional help and whatever that player needs. And I couldn’t really think of any other relationship like that in athletics. Some people mentioned boxing and maybe having the person in your corner, but they’re not in your ear, and it’s a little less than sort of this close-knit relationship. So that was the thing that really grabbed me, and the idea that we could explore that in a feature film, sort of for the first time. And I’m always attracted to things, I’m like, ‘Ah, I don’t think that’s been done.’ You know? PGATOUR.COM: You say you played golf growing up. Did you ever caddie? BAFFA: I didn’t, but I played quite a bit. My father and my uncle, my late uncle, were passionate golfers when I was growing up, so I would get out with them quite a bit. And then as I got older and other sports started taking up time, it got harder to play. … But I’ve always loved the game, and I always really loved watching with my dad. It was something, we’d get out early on Sunday and come back and watch whatever tournament was finishing. I think that was sort of a neat experience to then get to sit down with a Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw, because these were the people I was watching, and we were watching together. So, it was fun to have it come full circle in that way. PGATOUR.COM: So how did you narrow the focus to the caddies that you spotlighted? How did you uncover these people? BAFFA: It was a team effort. One of the producers, Clark Cunningham, his role was very much finding the off-beat stories, like the Special Olympics story, and getting in touch with Greg Puga. And then Ward Clayton, who wrote ‘Men on the Bag: The Caddies of Augusta’ — he was so connected with history, and then also the modern pro players. And Ward really helped a lot in connecting us with people. … It was a long journey, four-plus years, maybe, by the time we got everything we needed, but it truly started with just casting a wide net. We went to the Masters, I think it was the 2015, and that’s where we found Jerry Beard (the local caddy on Fuzzy Zoeller’s bag when he won the Masters) and a few other people. And we just started interviewing anyone who would talk to us. And then that would open a door, ‘Oh, you got to talk to this person or that.’ And we took all that and then started looking at it and piecing together what we thought made sense, and then building on that. So, it was a very broad, interesting approach. I don’t know if I’d recommend it to other filmmakers. You have to be very patient, but in the end, I’m happy with what we came away with. PGATOUR.COM: Bill Murray is the narrator of the documentary. How did he come to be involved in this project? BAFFA: If you think of a name that people know and love, that we know that they love golf and their film portfolio has golf in it, how could we not get him? And everyone said, ‘Well, you’re insane, because he’s impossible to get. So that sort of began this ongoing thing. Luckily, we had a lot of time where we kept trying and trying, and we finally caught up with him, it was Chicago. I guess maybe it was the BMW (Championship), but we were at Chicago and he was in the pro-am. And that’s when we were able to get the little bit of interview with him and just make the contact and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing.’ And I think via that we probably got a number, because he doesn’t have the agent or whatever, so it might have been the lawyer’s number or his brother, I don’t know. And then we had to keep calling like, ‘Hey, do you think Bill would do it? Do you think Bill would do it?’ And we finally heard, the good news is, yeah, he’s interested. But the bad news is, yeah, he’s interested. You may have to wait a long time. And we did. We were just patient, and we kept bugging them. And as he is in his amazingness, you get a text saying, ‘Hey, can you guys fly out tomorrow? I’m ready.’ And that’s kind of how we did it. I flew across country, and we got together. You asked me who were memorable people to work with, well obviously, I’ve looked up to him since I was a kid, so that was phenomenal. And his love for golf, he came with opinions, and creativity, and worked on the script and really brought his perspective to it. And that’s more than we could have asked for. So, I’m really glad. And I think now listening and looking at it, he almost approached it like he’s caddying the viewer. He’s not there trying to upstage the movie. He just kind of holds your hand and takes you on a loop, and I love that. I just love it. PGATOUR.COM: After four years, you must be so glad to have the finished product in front of audiences. BAFFA: It’s an interesting feeling. There’s a little bit of this void, because it’s been such a huge part of your life, but then you’re getting feedback from the people who are now getting to experience it for the first time. And in a way, that’s surprising, because these stories I now know so well. So, it’s nice to get feedback from someone who sees it fresh. It’s a process, for sure. I got asked at the film festival — it was an interesting conversation just a sort of creative to an audience member, and they said, ‘Well, how many different versions of this film did you make, did you cut before you said, ‘This is the one.’’ …  What popped in my head is, I was like, ‘Look, I like to cook. I make an Italian Bolognese on Sunday. And when you’re making that sauce, you try it as you go, and maybe it needs a little more salt, or maybe it needs a little more spice or whatever. And eventually you get it to the point where you’re like, ‘Yeah, this tastes great. I’m ready to share this with my friends.’ So that’s, I guess, a little bit of how it is making a documentary. You just keep tweaking until you’re like, ‘Okay. It’s ready to serve.’ There’s one really neat thing about this film that I’m starting to get a bigger picture on as I’m talking to audiences after they see it, and I don’t know if we even knew it going into it, but all these people we talked to and worked with who are in the caddying profession, they love being there for their player. They love kind of this service industry idea of, “I’m here to make them better.” And I think that’s a beautiful just sentiment for life, because we’re so me, me, me, social media, selfie, and here are these people who literally love what they do. And what they do is try to help someone else be better. And I think that’s kind of a beautiful thing, and I’m glad it’s resonating with audiences. PGATOUR.COM: The film has close to 400 unique archival assets. You said finding them was a bit like going on an archeological dig, but the old photos and video really add a lot to the film. BAFFA: I love history and how what came before us influences us now, especially with sports, and one of my favorite edits in the movie or moments is when we go from the old eight-millimeter news reel of St. Andrews and the edit takes you to the exact image today. But it hasn’t changed. The media’s changed, but what you’re seeing hasn’t, and I just always feel that that’s so powerful. I really love that and how it connects us in the present to the past. PGATOUR.COM: The movie is getting a lot of good press and accolades. That must be very gratifying. BAFFA: We’ve won best documentary at two of the four festivals we’ve done to date, so that’s pretty cool. The Chicago press just dropped a headline I can forward. Ward sent it to me. The opening line of the review is something like, “Bill Murray’s role in this film is small, but this may go down as one of his greatest movies ever.” Which I was just flabbergasted by. So, this film, for whatever reason, and granted a lot of these people, they have a love for golf and that helps. They’re hungry for some new stuff, so that’s good. But it really does seem to be connecting with people. It makes people laugh. It makes some people cry, and the old rule in filmmaking is when you do that, you have something that’s pretty special. So, I don’t know. I’m really kind of curious and exciting to see how this all plays out. I could never be one to assume or suggest one or another thing, but I know a lot of love went into it.

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We have been here before. Not us; our society. And eerily mirroring the influenza pandemic from nearly a century ago, these days we are not only fighting an invisible enemy, we are wrestling with emotional decisions on what is right and wrong. RELATED: Golf in these times: A series of reports from across the country The answers now, as then, aren’t easily defined. Only days after the PGA TOUR on March 12 joined the NBA, NHL and MLB in suspending play to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, there was a widely popular view that while “social distancing� was appropriate, it shouldn’t preclude golfers from playing the game they love. In fact, a March 24 story in The New York Times reported that five municipal golf courses in New Jersey’s Somerset Country recorded 6,501 rounds in the first 19 days of March, a 300 percent increase from all of March in 2019. Across the country, thanks in large part to a mild winter, the threat of the virus didn’t seem to slow down the march to the first tee. But as we’ve seen with this pandemic, the picture changes swiftly and as dire reports filtered in, state officials in many states expanded orders for businesses – even golf courses – to close. Still, you’ll hear passionately from those who favor the merits of keeping golf courses opened, opining that they offer a safe escape. If he were alive, President Woodrow Wilson would likely be joining that chorus. In the fall of 1918, the United States was in the second year of a pair of global struggles – World War I and a Spanish flu pandemic – yet President Wilson insisted golf was part of the solution. He wanted soldiers playing golf while in training. “President Wilson let it be known that men should not neglect physical exercise and set the example by playing golf every day,� is how one national reporter chronicled the decision to give the sport a presence on every military base. In various newspaper accounts, President Wilson’s pro-golf agenda was championed as healthy and productive. But at the same time, other stories provided compelling accounts about 74 soldiers dying of influenza at Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois, while an ace southpaw pitcher named Babe Ruth, just weeks after leading the Red Sox to a World Series victory, was ordered to stay bed-ridden with the Spanish flu in October of 1918. By that time, the pandemic had engulfed the globe and depending on which historical reference you read, the Spanish flu in 1917-18 claimed more than 20 million lives, perhaps as many as 50 million. Ruth, of course, was not a victim, but even as he was quarantined in his home in Baltimore, newspapers were constantly presenting each side of the lively debate. The Salt Lake Tribune on Oct. 20, 1918, ran a story about members of the Women’s Red Cross Motor Corps insisting on playing golf in Ogden, Utah. “Trust women to find some pleasant way of routing our latest enemy, the Spanish influenza,� read the story. “Golf is their answer.� Yet turn a few pages and there was a story focused on physicians who were galvanized by their anger toward the government, charging a lack of attention to fight against the flu. Then if you happened upon the Tampa Tribune, on the same page where Ruth’s fight against influenza was positioned, there was an advertisement proclaiming a simple antidote against influenza. “Go Fishing – Play Golf.� Curious and trying times, redux. As an unthinkable horror grips our citizenry, dramatic changes to our everyday life are everywhere. In the insular world of professional golf fans, it means a stretch without the PGA TOUR that they’ve never known. Right now, competition has been suspended through May 17, a total of 10 weeks and 11 tournaments. That’s just on the PGA TOUR; play has also been halted on five other tours beneath the PGA TOUR umbrella, as well as on others throughout the world. No PGA TOUR? If you reach for a comparison and pick the World War II era, it would make sense. While accurately the PGA TOUR as we know it didn’t come into existence till 1968, a circuit for touring professionals was operational since the founding of the PGA of America in 1916. One hundred years ago, in fact, there was a “PGA TOUR schedule� that consisted of 22 tournaments, disjointed though it may have been. Mostly, it was a series of state opens, but if you accept it for what it was, the point is, only once since 1920 has there been a year without “tour� golf. That would be 1943, at the height of World War II. You’d probably have guessed that, considering the scope of what World War II involved. But if you were to assume that sports were pretty much shut down in America back then, you’d be asking for a mulligan. Fact is, while the horrors of WWII can never be understated and the heroism never forgotten, sports in America were open for business the entire time. A mandate from Franklin Delano Roosevelt even insisted upon it. In January 1942, only weeks after the epic bombing at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sent word to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis – “a personal letter, rather than an official point of view� is how he phrased it – asking that games not be canceled. What’s more, President Roosevelt suggested a greater emphasis on night games, “to give more day workers a chance to see an occasional contest.� With political blessing, major league baseball played on and so, too, did pro football and professional hockey. At first, so did golf, and history shows that one of the greatest Masters took place just five months after Pearl Harbor – Byron Nelson prevailing over Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff in April 1942. It was the highlight to a 24-tournament PGA TOUR schedule. Yet, even with the drama of Nelson vs. Hogan at Augusta National, a somber tone had already been set by the United States Golf Association. Just weeks after the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor, the USGA announced that the U.S. Open would not be conducted that summer. Joe Dey, then the executive director of the USGA (years later he would be named the first PGA TOUR Commissioner) conceded it wasn’t out of a sense of patriotism, but in deference to the competitive landscape. It didn’t make sense to Dey to compete for a national championship “with most of the better shot-makers in the service or too busy with defense work.� Notable voices didn’t agree, Gene Sarazen being the most vocal. He argued a national open belonged to the golfers, not an organization, saying, “It’s the same as John Jones starting a tournament and calling it the John Jones’ national open. Really, it’s a private affair, with the USGA reserving the right to deny entry.� The Squire’s complaint aside, the U.S. Open was not held from 1942-1945, joining The Open Championship, which was not played from 1940-45. There were attempts to fill the U.S. Open void and for years it’s been argued that Ben Hogan in 1942 won what was the equivalent … only the Hale American National Open wasn’t backed by the USGA and, in advance, sportswriters never hyped it as a U.S. Open. “The winner won’t be the open champion because there can’t be any such flora or fauna during the war,� wrote Lawton Carver, International News Service Sports Editor. “But he will be the next thing to it.� A few months after the Hale American, Dey proved to be prophetic as an assortment of the best players – Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Lloyd Mangrum, Jimmy Demaret, Horton Smith – left for military service and, sure enough, money for purses was impossible to generate in late 1942 and all of 1943. Not that efforts weren’t made to organize competitions in ‘43. The All-American Open was held that summer, but golf writers were blunt in their assessment of Jug McSpaden’s win. The golfer who finished second, Buck White, “was only able to contend only as a result of a noticeable lack of depth in a field that even included heavyweight boxer Joe Louis.� On furlough from the Army, Louis missed the cut. But the absence of big names didn’t seem to dim the public’s thirst for golf. The All-American generated $900,000 in war bonds and spectators were excited to watch 50-year-old Walter Hagen shoot 73. To Fred Corcoran, the masterful promoter of all things golf, there was serious precedent to pursuing a series of patriotic and charitable tournaments. Back in 1918, the country’s most popular golfer was a 16-year-old kid from Atlanta, Bobby Jones. That year, he reportedly played in as many as 50 Red Cross tournaments and in his autobiography, “Down The Fairway,� Jones wrote: “We had the time of our young lives, traveling all over the country . . . playing golf almost every day, and being proclaimed as fine young patriots. When I heard that our combined efforts had raised upwards of $150,000 for the Red Cross, I couldn’t comprehend it at all. It had been so much fun.� Corcoran did understand. So did Craig Wood, who had won the Masters and U.S. Open in 1941 and told famed sports columnist Grantland Rice in 1943 that golf shouldn’t be idle. “There are still good golfers left who can set a fast pace. With the racing, football and baseball have been going, there’s certainly no reason why golf should fold up, since golf is the playing game of millions,� said Wood. “I still believe this country needs a playing game today more than it needs a spectators’ game.� Wood was correct; interest in, and financial support of, a PGA TOUR was buoyant, and a full slate was returned in 1944 (the Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship remained idle and didn’t return until 1946). Admittedly, in ’44 the depth wasn’t impressive, with Hogan, Snead, Mangrum, Demaret and others still in service, but in Nelson (first, second or third in 18 of his 20 starts), the PGA TOUR in 1944 had an easy guy around whom to promote and bridge to full glory in 1945 when the stars returned. And just how did the PGA TOUR fare once the landscape was back to normal? Quite impressively, thank you very much, because in 1945-46 “The American Triumvirate� – Hogan, Nelson, Snead – combined to win an astounding 54 tournaments and capture a nation’s attention. From the ashes of 1943, the nation had been returned its “playing game,� one that has only grown and matured and been run brilliantly and uninterrupted for 75 years. Until now. But against a backdrop of the unknown and the caution, there is confidence that Wood’s words will be at the heart of what fuels golf’s return: “Golf is the playing game of millions.�

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