18 observations, thoughts and predictions for the week in golf…
- The best story in professional golf this week occurred in South Africa. Matteo Manaserro, from Italy, was a prodigy, achieving historic benchmarks at a tender age. He was the youngest winner on the European Tour, at the time, the youngest player to make the cut at the Masters and appeared destined to be in the rarest air in professional golf. And then he wasn’t. Matteo was reduced to cobbling weeks together on the Alps Tour in 2020 and the Challenge Tour in 2022, playing in front of no one. On Sunday he returned to the winner’s circle and said it was “the happiest day of his career”. Looking into the abyss and staying at out of it… 3942 days between his 4th and 5th wins on the DP World Tour. Golf is revealing. Mannasero revealed that he wouldn’t submit to the game driving him out of it. Bravo.
- I was fortunate to spend the weekend around a handful of men who have devoted their professional lives to making others better at golf and running golf programs at clubs across America. Bruce Davidson, John McNeely, Gordon Johnson, and Charlie Epps convened at Congaree Golf Club to conduct a concentrated weekend program of instruction for a group of Congaree ambassadors. The program was like the one executed every year for several deserving juniors from across the country with financial challenges. To listen to these men talk with emotion about their gratitude for one another was a profound reminder that the GAME is not men playing for large sums of money. The game is really everything else.
- Billy Harmon and I did a show together many years ago on Golf Channel called, “On The Range” along with Billy Kratzert. It was designed to share the methods of the best players working on the range each week on the PGA Tour. The show did not have a long run but for those who saw it they were gifted the insights from Billy Harmon that were outstanding. The Harmon family is golf royalty, but I only wish Bill’s voice was heard much much more. Humor, truth and humility is a splendid combination to have in a golf analyst. This past weekend he had me crying with laughter and poignancy. He’s a real gem.
- Bailey Tardy turned professional in 2019 after a collegiate career at the University of Georgia. After building a resume through being productive on the Epson Tour she earned her LPGA card in 2023. Sunday, at 27 years old, she won for the first time on the LPGA at the Blue Bay. After winning Tardy talked about the doubts and the financial realities that come with struggling and missing cuts. Pondering getting a “job” but ultimately pushing through to find progress. Tardy winning is a great story and another reminder that doubts are inevitable especially as you go it alone, but belief that wins out makes the triumph even more satisfying.
- Rory McIlroy continues to share his thoughts on the evolving nature of the PGA Tour structure and schedule. He removed himself from the tour board, but he suggested this week that he’s for the tour being “more cutthroat and more competitive. He wants less players and less tour cards. What? Haven’t we shrunk the tour enough already with 70-man fields and no cut events? Don’t we already have a two tour and tier system at a time that more players are proving their ability to win? More competition is the field at the Players this week despite it being diluted by LIV’s existence. Making fields smaller doesn’t make it more competitive, it just makes the odds greater that name players win. By the way, Rory has come a long way from saying he absolutely hates LIV to his latest with ESPN’s Marty Smith when he was asked about joining LIV and simply said, “it’s not for me”. I don’t think there is anyone in the men’s game who wants a deal with LIV more than Rory. His position has evolved.
- Rory put together a scintillating inward nine on Saturday at Bay Hill to vault him onto the first page of the leaderboard only to go in full reverse on Sunday. He managed to avoid making a triple in the API for the first time this season, but he did make a “7” on the par 5 6th at Bay Hill to continue a weird trend of sloppy play. McIlroy now returns to a place in the stadium course where he has won but his stats thus far this season are bad outside of his exceptional driving. He is currently outside the top 130 in SG approach, around the green and putting. His commitment to a more robust schedule in advance of the Masters has yet to produce even one week of contending let alone finishing in the top 10.
- No more camping out for that elusive time at the Old Course. An online ballot will replace the overnight queue for single golfers hoping for a last-minute tee time on the Old. The modern and equitable digital solution will begin on March 12th with assistance from the golf logistics company, “ClubUp”. While it was romantic that players were literally sleeping by the starters hut this more civilized and organized system is a proper solution to the unwavering demand to get a slot on the Old Course.
- Will Zalatoris is trending and his play at Bay Hill locked up a spot in the Open. His early year has been a true build back and he will get a ton of attention this week at the Players and most certainly at the Masters. In addition to the alteration to his golf swing after back surgery he has made a tweak in the length of his driver shaft. It looks like he is hitting 5 iron off the tee but he is putting it in play more and the broomstick is far less disorienting to watch than the stop and start loop stroke with the conventional length putter.
- Abraham Ancer was just getting to a point in his career that he was being considered one of the better players in the world and then he left for LIV. Sunday in Hong Kong he won his first individual title against a field of players that is simply better than it was 18 months ago. He does not have the major exemptions that other LIV players have so seeing him in the best fields will require him to work his way through the qualifying system for the Opens.
- The Players week always produces the stale and unoriginal discussion about its status as a championship. I once asked Jay Monahan if he liked the event being called the 5th major and he paused which allowed me to editorialize my own position if I was in his. Why would you want to be 5th? You either are or you’re not and the Players is not a major. It’s the Players and that is massive. It’s not for forever, but especially now with the absence of so many players who play on LIV and will not be present, that conversation needs to take a year off or a decade.
- The Stadium course is one of a few courses that costar their events. I played it one year after it opened in 1983 and it was a blast. It was also unkept, rugged and truly looked native. Those days are long gone but it remains one of the few provocative courses that are host sites for big events. Here is hoping that the tour set up staff does not present a neutered examination. March means lush overseed but it doesn’t have to be SOFT. It’s a TV show, and firm is fun.
- I used to love sitting around the newsroom at Golf Channel with my researcher, Kevin Ryan, the day after the Players perusing the earnings of lesser-known players. The Players purse was so bloated in comparison to all the other events that Ollie Schniederjans T16 in 2019 grossing him 193,750 seemed like a HUGE deal. It was then. I feel like I’m talking about 25 years ago not five.
- Luke Donald appears like a guy running an investment house in Canary Wharf while holding down the medal title at Sunningdale. In reality, he’s a former world number 1, victorious Ryder Cup captain and a very capable lead analyst calling golf on television. Kevin Kisner will be back in the tower next week in Ponte Vedra but it appears NBC may have options and they might exercise all of them to a degree.
- Mike Tirico shared the 18th tower in what is a four-wide arrangement this past week on NBC at Bay Hill. Tirico is a machine and he’s also someone that everyone likes working with so his cozy proximity to Dan Hicks, the lead voice with NBC, did not make it awkward it just made it better. Tirico is the big event face of NBC sports so his participation in the golf broadcasts is a bonus. You can also look forward to hearing him on the Masters coverage from SiriusXM as the lead host. Why? Because he’s a machine. Don’t be surprised if he calls a Savannah Bananas baseball game in that week.
- Scottie Scheffler breaking back through after 51 weeks without a win is frightening… for his peers. He is a truly historic ball striker and good putting means he will blow fields away which is what he did at Bay Hill. He is now returning to the Players where he won last year and the Masters looms in less than a month. This might be the beginning of a really special tear. Add his menacing new beard which I think he can grow in a practice round and he casts the longest shadow on the PGA Tour by a legitimate margin. Rory suggested he return to the mallet putter at Riviera. Great suggestion, dangerous suggestion.
- Jackson Van Paris is not the best player on the Vanderbilt Golf team. Van Paris finished tied for 10th in the Puerto Rico Open on a one-off sponsor exemption. And we are talking about shrinking the PGA Tour down to less than 100 players? Please.
- Great to see the Cologuard Classic on PGA Tour Champions celebrate individuals who have and are battling cancer, and it was especially sweet to see Stewart Cink playing for my old partner Charlie Rymer who has come out the other side of colon cancer treatment.
- Wyndham Clark is one of my Masters favorites.