If nothing else, we’re going to get a fascinating case study this April in the whole Players-Masters combo platter of (supposedly) non-compatibility.Among other compelling tidbits from Scottie Scheffler’s 2023 Players win and stunning run over the last year: the 2022 Masters Champion has won a high-rough, accuracy-matters Players in the build-up to his Masters title defense. Typically, the two events do not share many common leaders, but given Scheffler’s play and the company he joins in holding both titles at the same time, apparently he’s going to be a defy-the-numbers guy.The five-stroke win over Tyrrell Hatton gave Scheffler another signature win and his sixth PGA Tour title, plus ridiculous momentum headed toward Magnolia Lane and a title defense looking more plausible as Rory McIlroy struggles with is driver and Jon Rahm recuperates from a stomach bug that caused a first round WD.Also…
- All six of Scheffler’s professional victories have come in his last 27 starts
- Scheffler returns to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking
- Scheffler becomes the ninth player to win The Players and the Masters and third to hold both titles at the same time, joining, whoa Nellie…Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods
Pausing here to let you take that in.I’m not sure what else to say about Scheffler’s win given that it’s so similar to 2022 efforts where he put everything together on grand stages. Right now, only a bad tee time wave seems to be the only thing in the 26-year-olds’ way.
Well, he ran away from the field, which seems worth noting.
Though at least Geofff didn't completely cave to the terror of recency bias as this headline writer at Golf.com did:
Was Phoenix also a new era?
James Colgan ignores that header and does provide a telling contrast to last year's event:
In hindsight, last year’s Players served as a foreboding omen for the year to follow: Monahan’s now-famous “legacy, not leverage” commissioner’s press conference denouncing the rumored tour; Cam Smith’s eventual victory, cementing his status as a top player; and Tiger Woods’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony, a moment marking Woods’ official inauguration as the game’s foremost steward.The events of the 12 months that followed changed golf as we knew it. The creation of a new rival tour, the steady drain of top talent — including the late-summer crown jewel: Cam Smith — and the players-only meeting called by Woods on a tarmac in Delaware that drafted a bold counterattack to save the sport.
If "top" means over-the-hill", sure.... Even the Tiger HOF induction reference seems cringe-worthy, given that it might have Been Erica's last public appearance.... Your humble blogger sees a photo like this...
And all I can think of is this:
As was noted in the Soviet days:
“The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable”
Perhaps a bit of a digression....
Though comments like this don't appease my concerns about that certain future:
“We’ve looked at all possible competitive models, and it was evident and perhaps obvious that whatever we do differently, we must showcase our top performers competing against one another more often,” he said. “This is what fans want, and this is what fans have been asking for.”
Yeah, Jay, if by fans you mean Tiger and Rory.... But, speaking of Rors, this quote is quite bizarre, but perhaps unintentionally explains much:
“The Tour isn’t just competing with LIV and other sports,” Rory McIlroy echoed. “It’s competing with Instagram.”
Which at least makes sense of his pushing the Tours increasingly towards exhibitions.... If one were focused on, say, athletic competitions, Insty wouldn't be on his radar. But, Rors, in a head-to-head with Paige Spirinac, I don't like your prospects at all....
But heads were exploding earlier in the week for reasons this Tour Confidential panel hints at:
Scottie Scheffler cruised at the Players Championship, winning the PGA Tour’s marquee event by five to claim his sixth career Tour victory. What was more shocking to you: Scheffler’s winning margin, or the fact that a handful of stars — Rory McIlroy (MC), Jon Rahm (WD), Justin Thomas (T60), etc. — weren’t in the mix, making this the least-star-studded leaderboard of all the designated events so far?James Colgan: In some odd way, I think this is the leaderboard the PGA Tour wanted. Between the top-five leaderboard finishers — Scheffler, Min Woo Lee, Viktor Hovland, Tom Hoge and Hideki Matsuyama — the Tour had the (new) World No. 1, two international superstars, a rising star on the cusp of Special Temporary Membership and a long-time member of the Tour establishment. For all the flak the schedule changes received earlier this week, that sampling ain’t half-bad!Jack Hirsh: It may not have looked like it for a while there, but the leaderboard actually turned sneaky good toward the end. Tyrrell Hatton (World No. 24) finished 2nd, Viktor Hovland (11th) tied for 3rd, Hideki Matsuyama (23rd) was 5th, Max Homa (7th) tied for 6th, etc. Of course that’s not including the World No. 2 (now No. 1) winning. So I’m not really shocked McIlroy, Rahm and Co. weren’t involved because this is golf — you can’t own it, you can only rent it. Not even peak Tiger finished top 10 every week (OK, maybe he did, but none of these guys are peak Tiger). The best players were in the hunt this week, just not the same ones from every tournament. I guess I’m surprised how quickly Scheffler turned a tight leaderboard into a snoozefest over the last six holes.Josh Sens: For a tournament known for being unpredictable, the Players sure has a habit of delivering right on script. By now, we know we can pretty much count on a few surprise contenders and a few surprise missed cuts. And, as often as not, for a big name to come away the winner. It happened again this year. Nothing shocking (though, yeah, the winning margin was wide for an event that tends to go down to the wire). Maybe the surprising part is that we keep talking about the Players as some kind of random-victory generator.
OMG, a bold-faced name missed the cut! Quelle horreur! We need to immediately outlaw this... What? Oh, we have?
Joel Beall took a shot at this issue on Friday:
Players 2023: This championship leaderboard is a Rorschach test for golf's future
Do tell:
When you look at this scoreboard, what do you see?Do you see meritocracy at work, that foundational virtue of the professional game that isseemingly being compromised by golf’s ongoing civil war? Do you see a list of players, many of which are unknown to the casual fan, and see it as revenge for the rank-and-file, making their voice heard after being dismissed by their more popular peers? Do you see what’s happening and think James Hahn is smiling, cigar in one hand and scotch in the other as he righteously basks in the glow of validation?Do you see Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Adam Svensson, Ben Griffin, Min Woo Lee, Taylor Pendrith and Will Gordon and think, “This is why we need full-field events with cuts!” because the only thing that decides who wins and who doesn’t in this beautifully cruel game is the score next to the name?Or ... do you think the opposite?
Yanno, folks, if you have a 70-80 player field, some of these guys will get in anyway. So, to ensure that we satisfy Jay's "fans", I think the field only needs to be 10-12 players....That's the logical extension of their thinking.
Of course, it's not golf, but in making those omelets you're gonna break a few eggs....But Max Homa assures us it isn't a money grab, so there you have it.
The TC gang attempts a deeper dive into our Scottie:
Scheffler, who now joins Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only pros to hold Players and Masters titles at the same time, won with the biggest winning margin on Tour so far this year. What does it say about his game that he was able to pick apart TPC Sawgrass like he did?Colgan: It says that right now, Scheffler is the best player in the world, full-stop. Jon Rahm might have higher peaks than him, and Rory McIlroy might have longer stretches of dominance, but neither of them have Scheffler’s inevitability. Goodness, that’s a superpower.
Inevitability? Geez, I don't know what you're smoking, but you better have enough to share. Talk about our recency bias, but if this proves Scottie is the best in the world, then it also logically supports Rory's relegation to the Korn Ferry tour.
Hirsh: Judging anything off a win at TPC Sawgrass is tough for me, because no one really plays consistently there. Last year, amid his dominant run, Scheffler finished 55th and that was after a MC the year before. That said, his ball-striking was spectacular all week, with the exception of a few double crosses here and there. He was No. 1 in strokes gained: tee to green this week, but was just 48th in putting. Despite his driving prowess, his short game is probably Scheffler’s greatest strength, so to win with “average” putting shows just how well he’s hitting it. His coach Randy Smith said this was the best he’d ever seen him hit it.
No, but we can draw conclusions from those six wins at wildly varying venues, not to mention that five-stroke margin.
Sens: The power off the tee. The dead-eye iron game. The surgeon’s touch. We’ve seen that all from Scheffler. What continues to stand out is how relaxed he looks doing it. And how short a memory he seems to have. Last time he held a big lead, at East Lake, he squandered it. Clearly, it didn’t traumatize him. Just listen to the way he talks about the game. This is a guy who has got the golf/life balance thing down.
Not to mention that he ran up that margin with a middling putting week..... that should get the guys' attention.
One last bit from Joel:
But that is for them to work out. The question is posed to us, the consumers. Because while this tour is a membership-driven entity, its success and failure ultimately lies with the fan. Through two days at TPC Sawgrass, we’re seeing a glimpse of its positives and negatives, depending on your perspective.For the romantics and old-schoolers, the idea that every shot matters and spots aren’t given and you only make what you earn is part of the tour’s ethos. It was arguably one of the organization's biggest selling points against LIV Golf, for that circuit thus far feels like an exhibition featuring guaranteed paydays to players most fans don’t want to pay to see. To this class of fan, the designated events’ limited-field, no-cut element opens the tour up to the very ridicule that was directed at the opponent.
That's charmingly naïve, Joel, they don't actually give a damn about the fans. Oh, ultimately the ratings will come back to bite them on the butt, but they can't see past their existential fear right now. Remember how exciting those WGCs were? Well, I can only hope that you enjoy your Groundhog Day, because we're headed back to the future, or something...
On a more amusing note....well, perhaps amusing isn't quite the concept, but this is the kind of thing that will be increasingly rare:
What's he doing in the field of a big-money event to begin with?
Taylor Montgomery is going to be just fine. The big-hitting PGA Tour rookie is already well on his way to a successful first campaign on tour. He's projected to remain inside the top 20 of theFedEx Cup standings after this week, and at 56th in the Official World Golf Ranking, he still has an opportunity to play his way into the Masters over the next two weeks. He's going places.But the Las Vegas resident was clearly dreaming bigger in the middle portion of his round, when he began ascending up the leaderboard and increasing the size of his paycheck with every birdie. After starting one over through five holes, Montgomery birdied Nos. 7, 9, 11 and 14 to climb to three under on his round, 10 under for the tournament. If he simply parred in, he would have earned a share of third place with Viktor Hovland and Tom Hoge. That would have been a $1.325 million pay day, more than half of what he's made this season already.Even after making bogey at the par-4 15th, Montgomery could have still won over a million by parring in. With the gettable par-5 16th awaiting, that was a virtual certainy. Turns out, it was anything but. Montgomery made a double-bogey 7 at the 16th without hitting a ball in the water. At the 17th, he found the water twice.
I've been reliably informed by Jay Monahan that fans have no interest in this sort of thing....
Today in Fargiveness - Quite the sequence revolving around Rory and his accent driver:
Q. I think the first day last week your driver was slightly off and you got it back. Is it something that you're just not cracking on with your tee shot?RORY McILROY: Yeah, obviously I went to that new driver in Riviera, and it's just not -- yeah. Look, I wish I could use my driver from last year, but I can't just because of -- you use a driver for so long, and it starts to get a little too -- basically it just wouldn't pass the test.These driver heads are so finicky, it's hard to get one exactly the same.Yeah, I mean, I'm obviously trying my best, trying to get something that's as close to what I had last year. Yeah, just struggled a little bit off the tee the last couple weeks.Q. Are you working on trying to find another driver that works?RORY McILROY: This one is as close as it's been. Yeah, there's obviously a part of it that's the user, as well. It's quite a lot of user error in there, as well.Q. How often are you going to test --RORY McILROY: Well, they were testing drivers at Riviera, but I just didn't even want to take the chance. I just was not comfortable knowing that it could feel -- doesn't look good on me, doesn't look good on TaylorMade.Q. Good story for us, though.RORY McILROY: Yeah, but I'm not at your beck and call all the time.Q. Just for the layman, what would it feel like? Why would a driver fail the test?RORY McILROY: Just the COR, I guess, the trampoline effect basically. The more a club is used, the more it's hit, the more springy the face becomes.Q. Is there more of a tendency with this club to do something one way or the other?RORY McILROY: No, not really. Yeah, well, if anything there's not a lot of left in it, which I like. Historically my miss off the tee has been left, so it's nice to know that you're sort of taking, I guess, that side out of play.Q. How long have you had that driver in play before --RORY McILROY: I changed to it on Thursday night of Riviera.Q. I mean the old driver.RORY McILROY: Oh, basically since the week after Dubai last year, whenever that was.
So, just to be clear, he quite obviously hates the new TaylorMade driver, which is great except that he's put his Ulster accent on the line to sell it to the plebes.
Geoff had this as well:
It’s not been a banner rollout for Taylormade’s latest Stealth Plus Max 4K UHD Carbon Infused 60X Twist Face $999.99 driver, with Collin Morikawa ditching his for a previous line (😱) and Rory McIlroy struggling with a new Plus model he put in the bag after round one at Riviera.
But how is his mocking of Rory's accent not Ulsterphobia?
Udder Stuff - I need to get on with my day and close down chores, but we'll classify this under regrettable fashion choices:
J Lindeberg needs to be stopped. pic.twitter.com/yLVfJOYENu
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) March 12, 2023
There was this from the LIV bot last week:
Keith Kitayama and Charles Kirk won the last two events on tour. Two guys nobody on the planet has ever heard of.
— LIV Golf Insider (@LIVTracking) March 7, 2023
Anyone who knows golf knows how much Thomas is disliked by most. It’s fairly obvious why. I’ve been aboard that train for years. Even before #LIVGolf https://t.co/yQ2jfER4h6
I'm sure they'll be updating since Scottie is a name brand....
I'll leave you here and catch you from Unplayable Lies World HQ later in the week.
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