Those pesky Sports Illustrated writers are back at it again, and somehow Joe Passov seems to still be gainfully employed. Shall we jump in and contribute to his annual performance review?
1. Rory McIlroy ends his engagement, then comes from seven back to win the BMW PGA at Wentworth in England. Are we now looking at the once and future No. 1 in the world?
distraction, but this was vintage Rory. A swing so rhythmic, yet so powerful, you want to cry. He was awesome with the driver. He missed a couple of short putts and, strangely, hit some poor irons when it mattered, but just killed it in every other way. Adam Scott was awfully impressive in his own right this week, but consider me sold on Rory.
Michael Bamberger: Rory's future will likely be like his past, brilliant at times and ordinary at others. He'll contend often and win some percentage of those times, in tournaments major and not-so-major.
Josh Sens: Amazing how life spills into golf. Rory must have been having doubts for some time and it's hard to imagine it wasn't affecting his mindset on the course. But No. 1? I don't think so.
Gary Van Sickle: It's still a ways to No. 1 for Rory, but he's got as good a chance as anyone.
Jeff Ritter: He was the once and future No. 1 no matter what happened with Caroline. Talent wins out.
My Take: Forget Rory, it's Travelin' Joe that's world No. 1 in my book. he seems here to have thrown man-crush Adam Scott under the bus (I'm sure he'll do a 180 in answering the inevitable Adam Scott question), and it was "Vintage Rory", except for his iron play and putting, which are like 60% of the game.
As I noted here, this was no doubt a timely win for the lad, and he surely showed great resolve with his play down the stretch. But serious questions remain about his putting and the number of loose shots. The other point worth noting about the young man is that his big wins have all come on soft tracks playing target golf. I still vividly remember watching Rory in the second round at the 2010 Open Championship, where the winds were so strong they had to suspend play. Strange as it seems for a guy that grew up in Northern Ireland, he seemed clueless in the wind, throwing up moon-ball after moon-ball, not even trying to flight it down. I don't like his chances anywhere with wind or that plays hard and fast, like say Pinehurst and Hoylake. Valhalla, on the other hand, could be his spot.
2. The current No. 1 Adam Scott won in a playoff over Jason Dufner at Colonial -- and made a clutch 15-footer to stay alive on the second playoff hole. There was some grumbling when Scott ascended to the top spot despite not playing last week. How much does this win validate Scott's No. 1 ranking?
BAMBERGER: I am on strike from the rankings. I do regard Scott as the best player in the game now, but not by any significant margin.
RITTER: Majors are the ultimate validation, but for a first event as No.1, you can't ask for anything more.
SENS: Scott wasn't topping the best field in the world. Rory wasn't in the event. So I don't see this win as the ultimate stamp of approval. That will come when he loses that broomstick and still wins a major.
PASSOV: This Colonial win was big-time validation for Adam Scott's No. 1 ranking. He needed to close -- or win -- at some point soon, to make up for Bay Hill and the Masters. He won on a shotmaker’s course, at a historic venue, where your name on the trophy means something, and he beat a fellow 2013 major winner in a playoff. Impressive stuff. That said, this whole week-to-week, who's No. 1 thing is just silly.
My Take: As I opined previously, Scott deserves credit for adding the event and for hanging tough when +4 on Thursday. But one win in a tertiary-level tour event no moire validates him as the No. 1 player in the world than climbing a ladder makes me tall.
That said, you can't ask for more than a W in any week, and the fact that he's a soft No. 1 isn't his fault only. Let's give this a rest and see how this gaggle of top players sorts itself out in the next three months, which just happens to include three majors.
VAN SICKLE: Monty played one of the finest rounds I've ever seen him play and Tom Watson made a sizzling run at him. The Senior PGA was riveting stuff and I watched most of that. I caught the playoff of the PGA Tour. Didn't see any of the women.
RITTER: Just a great day for a golf fan to commandeer the remote control. Korda is a nice story, and the LPGA is having a banner year, but I was all-in on Tom Watson's run at the Senior PGA.
PASSOV: I wouldn't switch from major winners dueling at Colonial to watch Jessica Korda -- yet -- but serious golf claps for a sensational performance today. I did go back and forth to see if Monty could hold off Tom Watson and win for the first time on U.S. soil, my task made especially easy by Colonial's weird finish, with only David Toms among the final five or so groups having a chance. Now, this isn't disparaging the ladies. I watch a bunch of LPGA coverage, and the more these talented young players develop rivalries where they bring out the best in each other, like today, the more I'll watch.
SENS: Playing golf takes precedence over watching it live, so I hit the pitch-n-putt with my kids and TiVo'd everything else, giving it all equal time
BAMBERGER: I was on the links myself, but if my cart would have had a TV in addition to its wet bar, and if it somehow did not have split-screen technology, I would have the gentlemen of a certain age. Monty in contention is a beautiful thing.
My Take: As I noted, my Tivo made the decision for me. Just a great week of golf across the board, which to me again raises the issue of the ladies finding a way to finish their events on a day other than Sunday, as they can't win this battle. And note that no one even mentions Rory...
4. At age 11, Lucy Li qualified for next month's U.S. Women's Open. Should the Open have an age limit? If Li was your daughter, would you let her play?
BAMBERGER: I would. She qualified through open qualifying. It's a one-time thing. She's not there for the money. Her parents will be around. She's not missing school to be there.
PASSOV: This just seems insane to me. Yes, the U.S. Women's Open should have an age limit. No 11-year-old should have to endure the kind of pressure that major championship golf commands.
VAN SICKLE: Age limits for sports participation are discriminatory. I'm still surprised Maurice Clarett lost his lawsuit against the NFL.
RITTER: If you earn your spot you deserve to play, regardless of age. If Li was my daughter I would now be finalizing a seven-figure deal with Oprah and her OWN Network to do a six-part miniseries based on my daughter's amazing life. But I'm not a parent, so what the heck do I know.
My Take: Do click through and read the rest of Joe's rant, which is a classic of the genre. It's quite an amazing feat, and I frankly doubt that there'll be much pressure experienced. After all, if she shoots 85-85 isn't that still kind of amazing... There are many tougher decisions her parents will face as to how to keep her living a semblance of a normal life, but this one's well inside the leather.
5. The Colonial is the PGA Tour's annual homage to Ben Hogan. Where does Hogan rate on your all-time list of greatest golfers?
VAN SICKLE: The game has changed too much, I don't think you can compare him to today's one-
dimensional power-hitters. Nicklaus and Tiger are at the top of pro golf's all-time hill. Hogan, Nelson and Snead would have to be right there at the next step.
PASSOV: Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are 1 and 1a. Hogan comes next. Folks forget that he only entered a single British Open (and won it), missed four U.S. Opens during his prime due to WWII and skipped the PGA from 1949 through 1959, after winning it twice in the previous three years. With his unparalleled ball-striking and demeanor, he might have won another five majors easy -- maybe more.
SENS: I think Hogan would be a top-20 golfer today. Maybe. A giant of his era, but that was the era of golf as a game played by a small handful of almost exclusively white men. Different times.
BAMBERGER: Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan.
My Take: My immediate reaction is surprise that not a single writer put Bobby Jones in his pantheon of greats. What gives there?
It's good fun but ultimately impossible to compare players across eras, but wherever you place him on your list (and I'd have him somewhere in the 4-7 slot), his place in the game is secured by his character and amazing recovery from the devastating accident. It took him a while to develop a work-around for his snap-hook, but he dominated his era (it helped that Nelson retired) and he performed at an amazing level for a man who could barely walk the golf course.
VAN SICKLE: I once three-putted the seventh green at Waupaca (Wis.) CC, walked up a hill to the eighth tee, fired my ball down at the ground in anger … and watched it take two bounces and disappear down a gopher or chipmunk hole, never to be seen again. It would've been hilarious if I wasn't steaming mad at the time. Three decades later, yeah, it's pretty funny.
PASSOV: In the summer of 1980, I tugged a drive at Rolling Hills Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona and my ball drifted just off the property into the oryx exhibit at the Phoenix Zoo. I was willing to retrieve the ball, but as I approached the course boundary, a huge rattlesnake began to slither in my direction.
RITTER: In a 1995 high school grudge match, my opening tee shot bounded along the edge of the rough and plummeted down a gopher hole. I never recovered and got trounced. Needless to say, college golf was not an option.
BAMBERGER: Shot hits tree and returns to me, most sensitively.
SENS: I once made a hole-in-one with only my wife as witness. She couldn't have cared less. Talk about anticlimactic.
My Take: I was playing our 18th hole with Big Break Anthony last summer and in trying to reach the Par 5 in two I put my second into a horribly-maintained, massively-deep bunker, right up against the face. I of course tried for the hero shot, and when the ball bounced back at me I instinctively caught it, dropped it in the sand and had another go. No import to it of any note, though for weeks I had to listen to AC telling folks about the funniest thing he had ever seen on a golf course.
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