There's four inches of fresh snow reported here in Park City.... On the one hand, that doubles our snowfall total for the season. On the flip side, it's likely to be what the kids call dust on crust. So, what would you like to talk about?
Welcome To The Club - Golf Channel's Randall Mell has a little thing called Randall's Rant, the current installment of which carries this promising header:
Randall's Rant: DJ's blast explodes in golf's face
Say what? But Randall, chicks dig the long ball.....
It was another irritating example of how much the game has been corrupted by high-tech witchery, of how scientifically hot-wired drivers and balls are making the game way tooeasy.
So was Johnson hitting 15 drives of 375 yards or more on the week.
Yes, the Plantation Course at Kapalua isn’t your ordinary venue, with all those hills and high winds boosting big hits, but today’s players are dramatically shrinking the dimensions of venues everywhere.
Johnson’s savage lash at the 12th couldn’t have been better timed, coming in the year’s opening event, because it sets up what finally may be the year golf’s governing bodies force a showdown with golf ball manufacturers.
As one can see, the rant comes as a package with some wishful thinking..... Here's his call to arms:
The question today is whether Dustin Johnson’s monster drive was good for the game or bad for the game, whether it was something to celebrate or something to disparage.
The war on the ball starts with the nature of that question.
We can both celebrate it as an athletic feat, but acknowledge that it's changed the game in too substantial matter. Geoff had this eerily similar reaction:
It's both something to celebrate that a player of his ability can put all of the tools at his disposal together to hit such a drive. It's the inability to make the case that he can display his skill at 10-20% less distance, and maybe even reap more of a skill advantage, that is something to disparage.
That's the piece that seems most understood. The intention of those in favor of a rollback is not to take that distance advantage away from the DJ's of the world, he'll be longer than most using any ball. And he still goes home to Paulina, so no crocodile tears for DJ....
Unsurprisingly, there's been an adjustment of Masters' odds, though not quite to the extent you might expect:
Dustin Johnson dominated the PGA Tour's first event of 2018, running away with an eight-shot win at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. The impressive victory strengthened Johnson's grasp on the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking and improved his Masters odds among Vegas sportsbooks. But perhaps a bit surprisingly, DJ is still not listed as the betting favorite for the year's first major.
Westgate Las Vegas Sportsbook now lists Johnson at 8-to-1 odds to win at Augusta National in April, down from 10/1 before he picked up his 17th career PGA Tour title. Jordan Spieth, who finished ninth in the limited-field event, remained the favorite at 7/1.
Rory McIlroy (12/1) has the next-best odds, followed by a big group at 15/1: Jason Day, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Rickie Fowler, and Justin Rose. Tiger Woods is listed at 20/1.
Jordan does have a pretty good record on that track, but mostly it's way too early, especially since we've not yet confirmed that DJ has rented a one-story house for the week.
Ever Vigilant - That vaunted PGA Tour Drug policy has nailed another big name:
For the second time in a month, the PGA Tour has suspended a player for violating itsanti-doping policy.
On Monday, the PGA Tour announced that veteran Brad Fritsch has been suspended three months for taking a banned substance. "Mr. Fritsch self-reported this information after discovering that an ingredient in a supplement that he was taking was on the prohibited list," read the tour's statement. The tour continued that it had accepted his acknowledgement, and that he will be able to return at the end of February.
Following the announcement, Fritsch posted a statement on Facebook explaining how the error occured, blaming a new diet program as the root of the problem.
On the one hand, it's a tad churlish to poke fun at the anti-doping regimen as Jay Monahan is in the process of bringing it into the 21st century.... On the flip side, sure is low-hanging fruit.
State of the Game, Legalwise - Rex Hoggard actually gets the new Commish to respond to questions about two ongoing lawsuits, though the responses aren't especially, you know, responsive. One of the two is my personal fave, Vijay's jihad against the Tour, so I'm a bit disappointed:
Singh accused the Tour of recklessly administering its anti-doping program, among other things. That lawsuit is still pending (there’s a hearing scheduled for Wednesday in thecase, in fact), with the Tour appealing a recent decision by the New York judge and Singh’s lawyers pleading for a trial date.
“This case has been going on for a long, long time,” Singh’s attorney Peter Ginsberg argued before the court late last year. “Is it possible for the court to give us a trial date? This war of attrition is just battering my client, who is still plagued by this.”
I'm less interested in the trial than in what might come out in discovery.... But this at least sounds promising:
“I'll just say that we're going through the process and once you get into a legal process, and you've been into it as long as we have been into it, I think it's fair to assume that we're going to run it until the end,” he said.
To the death, Jay..... The other lawsuit involved is the one on behalf of the caddies....
The Main Event - It's Style Week at Golf.com, and it's not for the squeamish. Now they ease into it gently, taking no risks in naming Adam Scott the most stylish man in the game:
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I hadn't realized that Adam did a tour with the cast of Grease, though he can probably pull off anything where putting isn't a requirement.
For the ladies, see what you think of their top choice:
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They certainly were her idea, one that should have been disqualifying in the category.... I'll concede that the legs are well displayed, improbably reaching all the way to the ground, but it's far from her best look.
But misfires abound....Remember Paula Creamer? Yeah, the pink one....
Girls, here's a pro tip..... when even the poodle wants to be cropped out of the photo, just say no.Paula CreamerPink, as it turns out, became Creamer's on-course color, but her fashion sense was shaped at her childhood home.
Rickie, can I borrow those shades?
Rickie FowlerOn Sundays you know Fowler as the man in the orange, but Rickie's palate extends far beyond one shade, as evidenced by the head-turning get-up he wore to the 2017 Kentucky Derby.
In a display of corporate synergy, they even sucked the uber-serious Tour Confidential panel into getting with the program:
6. With GOLF's inaugural Style Issue now on newsstands — and with Style Week officially here on GOLF.com — we must ask: Of any player past or present, whose style do you most admire?
Shipnuck: Hogan. So clean and timeless.
No argument there, though that cigarette dangling from his mouth is problematic today.....
Sens: Arnie's one obvious choice. Ditto Seve Ballesteros, slashing his way to a win at the British Open at St. Andrews in ‘84 (dark blue sweater over a crisp white collared shirt), where he cut about as dashing a profile as a golfer can cut. More dashing, anyway, than a certain former editor at our magazine who used to tuck his shirt deep into his underwear and then pull the underwear up so high that it rose above his belt line as he teed off. I guess you'd call him the anti-Arnie.
Those guys were both so magnetic, you couldn't take your eyes off them. Though it's less their style of dress than their force of personality....
Zak: I don't think Justin Thomas gets enough love for his style. Of all the elite players, he's taken plenty of steps toward the Billy Horschel/Morgan Hoffmann end of the spectrum (but not that far), and done it in a very classy, simple way. He rocks pink pants better than anyone else, but that's as complicated as he makes things. And oh, yeah, he also wins a lot now. Trophies make every pair of fluorescent pants look better.
There's no question that JT looks the part, but that Polo style has been done to death.....
Ritter: All good choices so far. I'll add Freddie, whose swing and insouciance meshed well with his on-course style.
Yeah, just watching Freddie walk is cool....
Passov: Surprise, surprise, I'll go with Tiger, who was always meticulously attired, albeit red, red, red. As a history buff, I'll tell you to go back and check out Jimmy Demaret, a three-time Masters champ in the 1940s and 50s, who pushed the fashion envelope fairly frequently and generally succeeded in looking sharp.
Sorry, Joe, but Tiger gets DQ'd for his mock turtle phase.....
Bamberger: Young Tom. Plus, the mustache.
Young Tom, he was a Nike guy, tight? Always the rebel.....
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