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/ Geoff Shackelford
Here’s something you don’t see every day. Especially in competition. From the DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi Championship:
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It’s been a while since we’ve had a player drop a big, whiny and strange rant about golf architecture. In this case it’s Kyle Phillips Yas Links in Abu Dhabi, home of the Abu Dhabi Championship won by Thomas Pieters.
But it was defending champion Tyrrell Hatton who unraveled after making nine to end Saturday’s third round. The Guardian’s Ewan Murray delivered a few account. From his story:
“It must be one of the worst par fives that I’ve ever seen in my life and, over the last two days, I’ve clearly played it about as well as it was designed,” said Hatton, who took seven there on Friday.
The problem seems to be the lack of reachable and a centerline bunker splitting a huge landing area, with the left round shortening the route to the hole.
Pressed on what precisely is wrong with the 18th, Hatton was not of a mind to back down. “What’s wrong with it? Where do you start?” he asked. “It shouldn’t have a bunker in the middle of the fairway and it shouldn’t be over 600 yards from a forward tee. If you hit a good drive as a pro you should have at least a chance to go for the green in two, otherwise the hole becomes a par three [after the first two shots] and that’s if you play it well. Hardly anyone will get there in two today.”
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I don’t suppose anybody alive has ever done more for the game, not Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, not anybody, except possibly the Scotsman who invented it in the first place. The Scots invented it, but Hope and Bing Crosby popularized it. When they used to do their wartime fund-raising tours, the game was popularly believed to be the private reserve of guys who ran railroads or owned oil wells. It was restricted to posh country clubs the average Joe got into only for school dances. Hope changed all that. He brought the game down to the level of the common man. If Hope could play it, anybody could. BOB HOPE
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The 1968 Masters champion, 11-time PGA Tour winner and longtime NBC golf announcer passed away at age 92.
The team at KSDK in St Louis was first to report the sad news.
Dan O’Neill’s lengthy and detailed remembrance for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a fitting salute to the only native of that city to win a major. He opened with this:
Shortly after he won the 1968 Masters, Bob Goalby received a letter from Bobby Jones, the legendary patriarch of the championship. In his correspondence, Jones wrote:
“I ask you to always remember that you won the tournament under the rules of golf and by superlative play.”
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The story says Phil Mickelson’s foundation will continue to benefit from tournament proceeds through 2024, but there is no mention of Mickelson’s role as host (announced in 2019) and he did not give a pre-tournament press conference.
American Express Extends Sponsorship of The American Express through 2028
Title Sponsor, American Express, helps TOUR continue sixty-two-year tradition in the Coachella Valley
LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA — The PGA TOUR today announced American Express will continue its role as title sponsor of The American Express in La Quinta, California, through 2028. The annual tournament, which features a unique pro-am format, takes place January 20-23 at PGA WEST Stadium, PGA WEST Nicklaus and La Quinta Country Club.
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The CBS golf gang briefed media on plans for the upcoming 2022 season, the 65th consecutive for the network. A few highlights:
CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus said the relationship with the PGA Tour “has never been better” as they start a new production arrangement
The Tour provides “below the line” personnel and pictures, CBS retains control of personnel and ability to deliver enhancements
McManus credited Farmers for “coming up with” this year’s Saturday finish to avoid AFC and NFC Championship games
Jim Nantz will work the opening Farmers event remotely from the AFC Championship game site and said “my longing for golf is the one that I feel the most” of sports he covers.
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Allan Robertson, that great giant of the game in the days that are gone, was no gigantic driver. It was his accuracy, combined with his imperturbable sangfroid, that pulled him through victorious in so many fights. HORACE HUTCHINSON
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Allan Robertson, that great giant of the game in the days that are gone, was no gigantic driver. It was his accuracy, combined with his imperturbable sangfroid, that pulled him through victorious in so many fights. HORACE HUTCHINSON
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As a sizable herd prepares to descend on Saudi Arabia in a few weeks to cash in and talk league golf with Greg Norman’s pals, there are signs that the Crown Prince’s act is wearing then. Except with autocrat-tolerating pro golfers.
While the potential damage to sportwashing may make those at the Global Home feel better about the likelihood of Saudis failing at disruption, the damage done to the “product” may be just as painful.
Last week Bryson DeChambeau, who has been blowing off press sessions even when he’s endorsed by the tournament sponsor, gladly talked about the Public Investment Fund Saudi International Powered by Softbank Investment Advisers (PIFSIPSIA).
It’s amazing what happens when the fees are paid by folks linked to murder instead of mortgages! From Steve DiMeglio’s item at Golfweek:
“So, not a politician, first off,” he said Thursday in a video conference with the media ahead of next month’s tournament in the Middle East. “I’m a golfer, first and foremost, and I want to play where the best golfers in the world are going to play. And that is the end of the story for me.”
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It’s not a huge surprise to read of Kevin Kisner’s frustration over getting passed over in recent Cup Captain’s picks. After stellar play in 2017’s Presidents Cup, Kisner seemed like a wise candidate for Paris the following year. Especially given the likelihood of the European’s narrowing landing areas and nullifying long driving. He was passed over for Royal Melbourne’s 2019 Presidents Cup despite being a strong fit for the course and format. And as he continued to emerge as an incredible match play golfer, culminating in a 2019 WGC match play win, his game was seen as less suited to the (ultimately successful) plan for Whistling Straits: bomb’s away!
Either way Kisner’s no Task Force fan based on comments made in the Subpar podcast hosted by Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz.
From Golf.com’s story by James Colgan detailing Kisner’s gripes:
“I don’t know, man. They don’t like me I, guess,” Kisner told GOLF’s Subpar podcast. “I’ve had the same phone call for about four [Ryder Cups] in a row from about every captain. ‘Man, you were on the team and then you didn’t play well in the playoffs.’ OK, bud.”
If match play resume is part of the criteria, Kisner certainly has an argument. In five starts at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, between 2016-2021, he’s 16-6-2, including a victory at the event in 2019.
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Golf is a pastime of the open air—“a blowing away of mental cobwebs,” runs the famous phrase—and in golf there is, or ought to be, no place for the cheat, the ignoramus, or the opportunist where the rules are concerned. It is impossible to eradicate cheating entirely and there will always be some golfers eager to profit by the letter of the law to the detriment of the spirit. But I believe the great majority of golfers are men and women enjoying the game for the game’s sake and willing to obey both letter and spirit. GEOFFREY COUSINS
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Anyone who has been privileged to play such courses as Prestwick, St.Andrews, Dornoch or North Berwick in Scotland cannot forget the joys of tantalizing little hummocks and the golfing appearance they give those courses. Over and over again, my American friends who have played those British courses remark to me on the charming variation one gets in lies on fairways and the shots up to the hole where hummocks exist.
TOM SIMPSON
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Anyone who has been privileged to play such courses as Prestwick, St.Andrews, Dornoch or North Berwick in Scotland cannot forget the joys of tantalizing little hummocks and the golfing appearance they give those courses. Over and over again, my American friends who have played those British courses remark to me on the charming variation one gets in lies on fairways and the shots up to the hole where hummocks exist.
TOM SIMPSON
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