Weekend Wrap - DP Finito Edition

Yeah, I feel that I should blog at least once a week, regardless of how ugly it gets....  That, of course, places no obligation upon you to read said musings....

I could cheer you up with a reminder that the Masters is a mere five months off....

Hero Worship In The Extreme - Tiger sycophancy is so prevalent that it carries its own Medicare billing codes.  Though perhaps this guy is taking it just a bit far?

It will be awhile before we see Justin Thomas back in action on the PGA Tour.

The 32-year-old 16-time Tour winner announced on social media Friday that he had undergone a microdiscectomy — a surgical procedure to remove part of a herniated disc that is pressing on a

spinal nerve root — on Thursday, and will be out for the foreseeable future while he recovers. Thomas said the procedure was performed at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, and it went well, as he delivered the update with a personal video to his followers.

“I’ve had some nagging hip pain for a handful of months and after some time off and worsening symptoms, an MRI showed I had a disc problem that needed to be treated,” Thomas wrote in the video’s caption. “My next few weeks will be a lot of resting before the rehab process begins. I have a great team behind me who I fully trust to get me back to a better place than I was before!”

As for a timeline for a competitive return, Thomas said he’s not targeting a specific event.

You'll never catch up to your hero after waiting until Age 32 to have your first back surgery.  Rookie move.

Geoff added this little detail:

The world No. 8-ranked player had the surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, the same facility where Tiger Woods underwent disc replacement surgery on his lumbar spine in October.

Hmmm.  At the time that surgery was announced, I don't remember it being called a disc replacement, which seems a higher order of  maintenance.

Thing is, back surgeries are like deer..... there's never just the one.

Like A Dog With A Bone - If you've been with us for more than a week, you'll have figured out that I don't give up my grievances easily.  Just mention the Western Open if you want to test that hypothesis...

With the ladies about to conclude their FedEx wannabee playoffs, the Tour Confidential gang allocated a couple of Q&A's that we'll get to in a sec to the girls, but somehow didn't touch this bit:

Big changes are coming to the Chevron Championship. The event is once again on the move, this time to a familiar location on the golf calendar. The first women’s major of the season is headed to Houston's Memorial Park Golf Course in 2026, multiple sources have confirmed to Golfweek.

The event, slated for April 23-26, will be held one month after the PGA Tour's Texas Children's Houston Open at Memorial Park, a municipal track that ranks eighth on Golfweek's best public access courses in Texas.

Memorial Park first hosted the Houston Open in 1947 and enjoyed a long stretch from 1951 to 1963. After undergoing a $34 million renovation, funded by the Astros Golf Foundation and designed by Tom Doak, the tournament returned to Memorial Park in the fall of 2020.

Isn't that "familiar location on the golf calendar" an odd bit?  The location is familiar, it's the calendar reference that's out of lace.  I thought they meant that the event was returning to its pre-Masters calendar slot, but no sponsor will take on the Augusta women's event.  Hence the need to move the event after only three years at the dreadful Carlton Woods.

Here's your laugh for the day:

The Chevron Championship controversially moved from the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California, to the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at the Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, in the spring of 2023.

Steve Salzman, the club’s CEO and general manager, told Golfweek several years ago that he hoped the tournament would be at Carlton Woods for the next 51 years, referring to the length of time the event was held at Mission Hills.

The club, when reached for comment, declined to comment. There were still two years left on the contract.

Missed it by THAT much.  Does Chevron have a pig on its hands, or what?  But the event that once kicked off golf's major season and offered a memorable venue that delivered exciting finishes, is now buried in late April with precious little chance of grabbing an audience.  Remind me again, Fred, of all you've done for women's golf.

The Euro Beat -  Those golf.com writers sure are ga-ga over Rors:

Rory McIlroy lost the DP World Tour Championship in a playoff to Matt Fitzpatrick but

still won the season-long Race to Dubai title for the seventh time, capping a season in which he won three times on the PGA Tour — highlighted by his Masters title to complete the career Grand Slam — and helped Europe win a road Ryder Cup. Was this McIlroy’s best year ever?

James Colgan: This was absolutely the greatest season of Rory’s career, but not for the reasons you’d think. Yeah, the Grand Slam was nice, and yeah, the road Ryder Cup win (something McIlroy himself called one of the hardest achievements in golf) doesn’t hurt. But for my money, the totality of these accomplishments is even better than the sum of the parts. This was the year that McIlroy solidified himself as the greatest player of his generation, and even if he goes on to win more or win bigger, this year will always be more important to his lasting greatness than the ones that came before or after it.

Josh Sens: For sure. It wasn’t just what he won but how he won. The wild ride on the way to winning the Masters, ending a 10-year major drought at a tournament that had given more heartache than any other. And then that showing at the Ryder Cup, backing up his prediction amid all that ugliness from the crowds. Those moments will sear into collective memory more than any other season achievements.

Josh Schrock: There’s no question. As my colleagues noted, it’s not just what he did, but how he did it and where he did it. He won at Pebble, TPC Sawgrass and Augusta National, vanquishing personal ghosts and avoiding what would have been a soul-shattering collapse. He navigated post-achievement depression after winning the Masters, had an inspiring week at his Open, won the Irish Open in thrilling fashion and then led Europe to an away Ryder Cup win. As James noted, he’s the greatest player of his generation and might have cemented himself as the greatest European golfer of all-time.

Josh, did you get the Bat-signal that we're OK referring to it as a depression?   Because that was an awfully weird few months there....

Also amusing is that greatest player of his generation bit, because to make it work you'll have to slot Tiger, Rory and Scottie into three separate generations, which is a tad generous.

But they're not done:

McIlroy’s seven Race to Dubai titles is just one shy of Colin Montgomerie’s record of eight, which McIlroy seems likely to tie or break. Does McIlroy receive enough credit for the worldwide success he’s had?

Colgan: I feel like Rory’s criminally underrated resume abroad is almost a running bit among golf fans today. But I think this goes back to what I was saying above: All those other accolades seemed a bit … empty in the face of the major championship drought. Now that the drought is over, we can see those achievements in their fullness.

Sens: Hmm. I dunno. He collected $1.2 million for second place in the event, and another $2 million for winning the season-long race, and his name appeared in banner headlines in every golf publication around the world. What are we supposed to do? Start erecting monuments in his honor? He’s accomplished a lot overseas. But he’s not exactly crisscrossing the globe at the clip of stars from generations past. He plays a select schedule and gets rewarded extravagantly for it.

Schrock: I think Colgan nailed it. Rory has been a consistent, worldwide great for more than a decade, but the major slump, countless heartbreaks and missing green jacket caused most to overlook the big picture.

Let's see, despite Montgomerie's lack of success in the U.S., he won his eight Order of Merits on the second most prestigious golf tour in the world, whereas Rory won his seven on the third strongest tour.  Kind of a significant difference, no?

Though at least they're focused on the important bits in the game:

Speaking of McIlroy, teams were announced for the Golf Channel showdown he’s headlining with Scottie Scheffler on Dec. 17. McIlroy’s team will consist of Shane Lowry, Haotong Li and Luke Donald, while Scheffler will have Sam Burns, Luke Clanton and Keegan Bradley in an event with all sorts of different formats and games baked into it. Do you think the unique spin will be enough to have it draw better than other made-for-TV matchups?

Colgan: I mean, I think it’s a little funny that we’re filling the quiet season for golf with … more golf. If there’s evidence that real human beings actually want to watch these events, I certainly haven’t seen it. But for those of us writing about the sport, these made-for-TV shenanigans are better than a black hole of nothing on the golf calendar, so … I guess that’s good?

Sens: Well said, James. It’s hard to get overly excited about an event like this. But complaining about them from this perch does seem a bit contradictory.

Schrock: Co-sign the above. New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp emphasized the importance of scarcity in improving the professional golf product. This is the opposite. I’m all for taking swings, but I have a hard time seeing this break through.

Rolapp is on to something there, though it's quite the tough time to scale back the number of events after allowing the elite players to implement their money-grabs with those micro-fields.  

Distaff Doings - The writers must have their heroes, though this one seems to mostly disappoint:

The LPGA season concludes next week with the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., and it will be Nelly Korda’s last chance to get a victory. Korda won seven times last year — how is she one week away from a potential winless season?

Colgan: Yeah, it’s shocking — and it’s disappointing, too, if you’re the LPGA — but I think the easiest explanation lies with the flatstick. Korda ranks 98th on Tour in 2025 in putts-per-final-round and 101st in three-putt average. Interestingly, that’s not too far off where Korda ranked in those categories in her seven-win 2024. But when you factor for variance — and regression in some of the otherworldly parts of her game last season — it’s not hard to wind up with a seven-win difference.

Sens: Golf is a beautifully fickle game where the tiniest margins can separate success from failure, nowhere more so than at the elite level. When the irons are just a hair off, when the putts that used to drop start grazing the cup — those little misses produce disproportionately lesser results. If anything, this year further underscores how insanely great her 2024 was.

Schrock: The answer lies in a little bit of everything. The putting has held her back when she has been in contention. She has been dealing with a neck injury that might be more of a pain than she initially let on. She also mentioned she’s been dealing with a swing issue where she has been dealing with a laid-off look at the top. It’s also hard to win. Her stats aren’t much worse than last year, but she just hasn’t been in a mix a ton and when she was in the mix at Erin Hills, the putter betrayed her.

Is it really all that shocking?  She's never been a great putter, and also seems to hit a lot of crooked shots, not perhaps the best combo.

This last bit is unfortunately the tell.  It doesn't matter which of these two provided the greater buzz, the issue is the realization that the only energy and buzz comes from ladies not integral to the actual event:

What was the more interesting subplot to this week’s Annika: WNBA star Caitlin Clark attracting monster pro-am galleries or the attention of Kai Trump, granddaughter of President Donald Trump, receiving a sponsor’s exemption and shooting 83-75 to miss the cut?

Colgan: There were an awful lot of people who rushed to defend the President’s granddaughter from allegations that she … might not have earned an invite on the merits of her golf. (No hate to Kai, whose TikTok megastardom made her a great fit for a sponsor exemption, but I didn’t realize this was up for debate!) If the LPGA can turn even 10 percent of those people into regular watchers, it will have been worth the effort!

Sens: While it’s fun to watch Clark shift from the court to the course, it’s always especially interesting to see a very good player try to compete at the next level. It’s an in-your-face reminder of the gap between the best and the rest. I guess you could say that the way people’s political allegiances colored their take on Kai’s exemption was also interesting. But mostly that was just depressing.

Schrock: The most interesting subplot was what the LPGA can do to try and retain the extra eyeballs Clark and Trump brought. It’s great that Clark is into golf and can expose her fans to golf. Televising the pro-am is a win! Giving Trump a sponsor invite is an opportunistic swing for the social media impressions, but if there is no big plan to capitalize on moves like this, then it ends up meaning very little. The LPGA should be applauded for trying things to increase viewership, interest, etc., but Caitlin Clark and Kai Trump aren’t the antidote to what ails the tour.

Would I be wrong to guess that the Pro-Am drew higher ratings?

That will have to suffice for today.  It's a busy week for your humble blogger, so not sure when we'll meet again, but have a great week.