Life is nice this time of yr in the Bahamas.
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Welcome again to the Monday Finish, the place we’re slicing ’em into the woods and telling our buddies we’re “cutting down a Christmas tree.” Seasonal golf jokes, gang. Make ’em whilst you can!
FIRST OFF THE TEE
’tis the season.
One of my buddies requested a easy query the different day.
“When does the PGA Tour season end for the year?”
It sounded like a easy query, not less than. I began to inform him that it ends at the Tour Championship; that’s the conclusion of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.
Nah, I figured — higher embody the Presidents Cup. That was an enormous deal, and the Ryder Cup might be even greater subsequent yr.
Or is it the RSM Classic? That’s the final full-field occasion of the fall season, in spite of everything.
Hmm, however then there’s the Hero, with its restricted however star-studded area. That actually marks the starting of the offseason for many of the prime guys…
…besides the ones who’re taking part in in the Match subsequent week. And don’t even ask me to clarify the place the QBE Shootout matches in.
Ah, however now Tiger Woods performs the PNC Championship along with his son Charlie. Nelly Korda performs, too, and Justin Thomas, and this yr might be Jordan Spieth’s debut. That’s mainly the fifth main at this level, so… yeah.
“Never,” I instructed him.
HERO WORLD CHALLENGE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
About that Hero World Challenge, although. I spent final week in the superb Bahamas. Here are 10 issues I heard — and noticed — at Albany. (Sidenote: It’s not Albany Country Club. Not The Albany Golf Club. Not Albany Resort. Just Albany. Cool, I assume, however could make issues complicated as hell.)
1. Viktor Hovland, Norwegian Vacationer
This week’s huge winner was Viktor Hovland, who defended his title at Albany with a two-shot victory over Scottie Scheffler. Hovland is notably from Norway however performs his finest golf in circumstances which are anti-Norway. His 5 PGA Tour-sanctioned wins (we will argue one other time about the Hero’s validity) have are available in the following areas:
-Puerto Rico
-Playa del Carmen, Mex.
-Playa del Carmen, Mex.
-Albany, Bahamas
-Albany, Bahamas
He’s had loads of success close to the equator these final couple years — but additionally launched a 22-hour summer time street journey to Norway’s northern tip, the place he set the course file at Lofoten Links. In different phrases, Hovland defies simple categorization. But I preferred what he mentioned in his winner’s press convention about his countrymen. While he lives in the U.S. and doesn’t spend a lot time on social media, he appreciates Norwegian patriotism.
Viktor Hovland’s favourite spherical of 2022? It got here nowhere close to a match
Dylan Dethier
“We only have five, six million people, but it seems like when Magnus Carlsen is winning, everyone tunes in and starts playing chess, or if it’s Thor Hushovd in Tour de France, everyone just started biking that summer, or, you know, what Erling Haaland is doing [in soccer] is incredible and obviously with Casper Ruud in tennis. People love their sports and I think they root for their fellow countrymen when they do something well.”
He did effectively.
2. Tiger Woods, dog-“walker”
It was an all-around bummer that match host Tiger Woods wasn’t capable of play this week. By all accounts — together with his personal — he’d been taking part in effectively in the lead-up to the occasion. Ripping up under-par rounds. Upping energy and swing velocity. And working to progress his strolling, each by way of 18-hole rounds on foot and additional “beach walks” with Albany’s sandy terrain in thoughts. Turns out, he overdid issues. Hopefully he’ll be tremendous for the golf-cart worlds of the Match and the PNC.
But though Woods was clearly pissed off to not play, he additionally appeared … completely happy. Happy to dish out some takes at the podium in his pre-tournament press convention. Happy that the finest in the world had come to his match. Happy to hit the fitness center every morning, mingling with contestants and Albany members. Happy to bop by way of the scene along with his 13-year-old son Charlie. And completely happy cruising the course along with his two canines, Bugs and Lola.
The final bit was the quickest and happiest Tiger sighting from my week. It got here throughout Wednesday’s pro-am and concerned Woods crusing previous one pro-am group, cackling in his high-speed cart whereas Bugs and Lola sprinted down the fairway alongside him. As far as dog-walking goes, this appeared like a reasonably good scene.
The line from Woods that resonated as the most real, although, got here in his Saturday look on NBC’s telecast. He was speaking about the mission of the TGR Foundation, which started as a golf-based basis however has targeted on academic alternatives for underserved communities for the final 20 years.
Woods mentioned he feels it’s his accountability to assist underserved children. And then he mentioned one thing with actual surprise. “It’s amazing how a little bit of support, of guidance, and they thrive.”
3. Mud ball follow
The Hero performed with most popular lies on Thursday and Friday to fight muddy circumstances from a wet lead-up to the match. On Saturday, nonetheless, match organizers determined to introduce slightly chaos and performed the ball down, which resulted in a sequence of horrific ball flights as mud balls cruised wildly off-line.
Scottie Scheffler was requested after the spherical if it made issues slightly thrilling, realizing the ball might go anyplace.
“Exciting’s definitely not the right word for it,” he mentioned. Agree to disagree, Scottie!
On Sunday they elected to play the ball down for the last spherical, too. As a consequence, gamers had been doing one thing on the vary that I’ve by no means seen: truly practising with clumps of mud on their golf ball. Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Max Homa and others had been experimenting, attempting to determine methods to predict what may occur to his ball’s flight. No phrase but on what they realized.
4. OWGR skepticism
Among the takeaways from Woods’ press convention was his criticism of the Official World Golf Ranking. Echoing Jon Rahm’s feedback from the DP World Tour Championship, Woods referred to as out a “flawed system” significantly in the manner it rewards limited-field occasions.
“It’s a flawed system,” he mentioned. (*10*)
The debate continued on-line with Justin Thomas and Bubba Watson becoming a member of the fray…
Let’s simply conform to unpack this one other time, okay?
5. Sam Bankman-Fried
I wrote about this earlier in the week however the most weird subplot of the total match was the undeniable fact that cryptocurrency’s man of the second (and not in a great way) Sam Bankman-Fried was in residence only a mid-iron from the motion. Most execs I talked to had been curious as to his whereabouts, whereas not less than a pair pro-am contestants had seen him out and about in Albany. One described him as barefoot and trying furtively over his shoulder as he walked outdoors.
Why Sam Bankman-Fried is the largest curiosity at Hero World Challenge
Dylan Dethier
From what I might inform, this wasn’t a crowd of execs who’d been personally invested in FTX. But a number of had buddies who had been and wished unwell upon SBF, who broke his silence by way of a New York Times interview on the eve of Hero World Challenge battle.
6. Fitzpatrick’s splash
There was an exhibition referred to as the Hero Shot on Tuesday afternoon throughout which seven golfers from the area — Woods, Thomas, Fleetwood, Homa, Billy Horschel, Tom Kim and Matthew Fitzpatrick — hit wedge pictures at a floating goal in the pond by No. 18.
It was immensely satisfying watching the tempo with which every participant hit his wedges. But it was much more satisfying watching the last shot of the competitors, wherein Fitzpatrick hit the 87-yarder into the gap (an enlarged bucket a pair toes in diameter) on the fly, sending up a formidable splash in the course of. He was dialed in.
7. Tom Kim, licensed try-hard
The runner-up in the competitors was Tom Kim, who wastes zero movement in his superb golf swing.
But the better part about Kim’s look was the manner he lived and died with each shot. He’d instructed me earlier than the wedge-off that he was critically nervous to hit pictures in entrance of Woods. Once the competitors began he appeared something however nervous. He appeared one hundred pc himself. He eagerly lobbied for factors when his pictures landed at the fringe of the pink and black targets. He even referred to as for video evaluate.
“V-A-R, V-A-R!” he yelled, World-Cup fashion.
And he additionally superior to the finals, the place he might need gained if not for Fitzpatrick’s splash. We’ll see loads extra of Tom Kim, and quickly.
8. Jon Rahm, chief
I requested Jon Rahm if he might pinpoint the second he’d develop into a frontrunner in the professional golf world. He laughed.
“Oh, there was a clear moment, very clear,” he mentioned. “The second I won the U.S. Open apparently I got all the credibility I needed. Before that, nobody cared. I got Covid, Memorial happened, then I win the U.S. Open and all of a sudden my opinion matters. That’s kind of how it went.”
That’s a humorous factor that occurs to skilled athletes. Until we all know their tales, we don’t essentially discover them fascinating. But till we discover them fascinating, we don’t essentially discover out their tales. Good golf begets good questions. And into the question-and-answer cycle they whirl.
9. Justin Thomas, learner
Thomas was speaking about how a lot he’d realized on his path to the PGA Tour, a path that included a visit to Q-school and by way of the Korn Ferry Tour. I requested him what he’d realized this yr — an up-and-down yr that nonetheless included golf’s largest prize, a serious championship.
“What did I learn this year? Probably to not be so hard on myself,” he mentioned. “I felt like at the starting of the yr I used to be taking part in pretty much as good or higher than anyone and I simply had no wins to point out for it.
“I felt like when you’re in those rolls, those rhythms like Scottie [Scheffler] got on last year, like Rory’s on right now, you see Rahm get on them, like I was on however many years ago, winning comes easier than it should and sometimes you just feel like that should happen every time, and that’s just not the case.”
His intuition, Thomas mentioned, was to label 2022 as a mean yr. But his mentor Tiger Woods would say that his PGA Championship trophy adjustments every thing about that calculation. Woods as soon as mentioned in the event you gained a serious, regardless, it’s been an excellent yr.
“If he says it, then yeah, it’s a great year,” Thomas mentioned. “He’s done it all, so it was a great year. It wasn’t just average, it was great.”
Mark in your scoresheets at residence!
10. Tom Hoge, numbers man
There’s loads of mingling that occurs in and round the foyer and on line casino flooring of the Baha Mar, the resort vacation spot that’s a 20-minute drive from Albany and serves as the social hub all week. That’s the place I bumped into Tom Hoge, a tremendous PGA Tour professional in his personal proper whose providers had been referred to as in to fill out the pro-am area on Wednesday regardless that he wasn’t in the principal occasion. (This occurs yearly; this yr’s crop of supplemental execs included Lexi Thompson, Morgan Pressel, Luke Donald, Hoge, Justin Leonard and extra.)
We bought to speaking about his schedule, as a result of Hoge performs…so much. He cracks 30 worldwide begins almost yearly and continues to be sport for add-ons like the Hero pro-am or this week’s QBE Shootout. So why play a lot? He had a logical clarification.
“I’ve got nothing else to do,” he mentioned with a shrug and a smile. “I go home and play every day for 40 bucks. I may as well play for 1.5 mil out here.”
Fair sufficient.
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday Finish HQ.
Nothing says “welcome back from the Bahamas” like touchdown in a blizzard in the wee hours of the morning and inching in direction of residence in a Lyft till a few half-mile from residence the place the driver drops you off to trudge up the hill by yourself, balling your fingers into your sweatshirt sleeves and dragging your golf golf equipment behind you the remainder of the manner. The snow was stunning, although.
WHAT’S NEXT
Three issues to observe this week.
1. The 9-9-9 Challenge
Skiing, golf, baseball, beer, sizzling canines — all in sooner or later? We simply posted a enjoyable expedition to our newly launched Drop Zone YouTube channel that includes our quest for 9 runs, 9 holes, 9 innings, 9 beers and 9 sizzling canines all in sooner or later. Get excited for ski season and get excited for a spring expedition of your individual alongside these identical strains…oh, and subscribe!
2. Ze Match
C’mon. It’ll be enjoyable!
3. The QBE Shootout — for years to return!
According to the AP, the QBE goes to develop into a PGA/LPGA Tour crossover occasion. We’ve been clamoring for this kind of factor for years, and whereas the format of final week’s Australian Open was extraordinarily cool (males and ladies at the identical venue the identical week, like tennis tournaments do) I’m keen to listen to extra about the QBE setup.
We’ll see you subsequent week!
