Jordan Spieth talks to NBC Sports’ Steve Sands on Friday at the PNC Championship.
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If you didn’t tune in to Friday’s PNC Championship pro-am, I get it.
The golf season has stretched previous its restrict. It resulted in August, however probably not, and once more in September, however probably not, and positively it ought to have ended by November, proper? But it didn’t actually finish there, both, and so right here we’re with the PNC on the telly, a event that finishes per week earlier than Christmas and simply two weeks earlier than the 2023 {golfing} 12 months begins once more. So, once more, no arduous emotions should you sat this one out.
But you missed some good tv should you did.
Golf Channel took us to Orlando, the place Dan Hicks and Peter Jacobsen quarterbacked a free-wheeling, feel-good medley broadcast. Freed from the stress of displaying necessary golf pictures, they turned a two-hour broadcast into an interview carousel as a substitute, tossing out to Steve Sands and Kay Cockerill and Gary Koch, who wrangled main champ after main champ plus their keen members of the family, the interviewees as younger as 11 years outdated and as skilled as 87, whereas we bought to see golf’s greatest names as fathers and sons and moms and daughters.
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Lee Trevino is 83 and appeared as delighted to be there as anyone. He loves being round Tiger Woods and buying and selling swing ideas with Charlie. He’s blown away by the depth of the discipline and made positive to remind title sponsor PNC that the event has turn into “the greatest thing they ever fell into in their life.”
And hoo boy, does he love golf.
Asked whether or not it’s true he nonetheless hits balls on daily basis, Trevino nodded.
“Every day,” he mentioned, and defined why. “Look, I by no means had a selection. When I used to be a younger man, with my instructional background, this is the solely factor that I might do and do effectively. And the Good Lord gave me an incredible quantity of expertise and I don’t need to disappoint him after I see him. That’s No. 1. No. 2, I’ve no different choices. I can’t do the rest. I might search for balls… however I find it irresistible, I do. I am going out on daily basis. I hit balls for an hour, perhaps two. I chip and putt.
“I don’t play much anymore,” he added. But if there was any wistfulness, he breezed previous it. “I love the game. Still love it. Can’t play it nearly as well, but I love it.”
This week’s solely contestant older than Trevino is 87-year-old Gary Player. He performed all the hits in an interview of his personal: The significance of lifting weights. The undeniable fact that quickly, somebody will drive the ball 500 yards. The declare that he nonetheless travels greater than anybody else on the planet (!). He, too, careworn how grateful he felt to be right here.
“It’s an education,” he mentioned, “and I cannot think of a better way of living.”
The youngest contestant bought in entrance of a mic, too. Annika Sorenstam’s son Will is an 11-year-old left-hander with a easy quick sport and no scarcity of on-course persona. He discovered his membership twirl from Tiger Woods, he mentioned. As for the approach he walks in putts?
“If I see it on a good line, I just start walking,” he mentioned. Simple as that.
John Daly was there, too, defending his title earlier than he will get his knee changed subsequent Wednesday. He had recommendation for his son — “do the opposite of your daddy, and you’ll be just fine” — however appreciative for the second, too, calling it “a wonderful ride.” With his personal Daly aptitude, in fact.
“If I knew that I was going to live this long I would have taken worse care of myself,” he mentioned.
Mark O’Meara was requested how usually he’s reminded of 1998, when he received the Masters and the Open Championship in the similar season.
“Not enough,” he mentioned with amusing.
But Padraig Harrington, one in all the sport’s great talkers, mentioned he’s having fun with basking in his previous accomplishments.
“Everything is a reflection on when you were in your good days,” he mentioned. “It’s rather nice.”
Still, he balked at the assumption that he’ll be taking part in largely PGA Tour Champions occasions come 2023. Harrington is keenly conscious that if he wins on the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour this coming season he’d be amongst the oldest to have ever achieved so.
There had been execs of their prime round, too. Nelly Korda has been busy; she teed it up at the QBE final week and bought sooner or later off earlier than prep started for the PNC. She’ll be sure that not to see a course subsequent week, she mentioned, when all the Kordas get collectively.
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She additionally shyly accepted phrases of reward from Spieth, who she mentioned she seems to be up to. That’s on prime of reward from Harrington, which comes on prime of reward from Max Homa and Kevin Kisner and numerous different taking part in companions final week. But she additionally tried to unfold that reward round to her friends.
“It’s been really cool to see the kind of feedback that I’ve gotten from the guys,” she mentioned. “They should come out to an LPGA event and watch all the girls play out there because they’ll be equally impressed with everyone out there.”
Justin Thomas is a brand-new husband; between his marriage ceremony and a trio of December occasions — the Hero, the Match, now the PNC — he’s been a busy man.
Jordan Spieth is nonetheless a comparatively new father; he dished on the newest with Sammy Spieth. “Happy kid, good sleeper, what more could you ask for?”
Their fathers spoke to digicam, too. Mike Thomas mentioned his golf preparation concerned extra fishing than he’d initially deliberate and joked that his son’s swing recommendation is “a long list.”
“More of a notebook,” Justin added.
Shawn Spieth, in the meantime, reminisced on how a lot his proficient {golfing} son had fended for himself as a teen. That ended up serving to him down the street.
“Once he was out here professionally it was second nature to him,” he mentioned, including that Spieth felt little or no stress from his dad and mom. “It’s not like Chris or I competed on the highest level, so it’s not like they had to follow us,” he mentioned.
Oh, proper. There was one other well-known father on property, taking part in alongside his son. Those of you that did flip on Golf Channel might need achieved so with the intention of catching a glimpse of the event’s two headliners, the Woodses, 46-year-old Tiger and 13-year-old Charlie. They limped round the course aspect by aspect, the elder Woods battling plantar fasciitis plus [gestures generally] and his son combating via some rising pains.
Tiger gave us some flashback moments as he carved spinny wedge pictures round the greens, dialing in his quick sport. And he gave us some new seems to be, too, like Tiger the Golf Dad, taking a large stance to seize his son’s swing down the line after which reviewing the iPhone footage instantly thereafter.
“That’s a perfect, perfect backswing,” Tiger advised Charlie. “You’ve never been there. How awesome is that?”
After their spherical concluded, Golf Channel minimize to Woods’ press convention. One reply — to a query requested by our James Colgan — caught out: Has the approach he thinks about his legacy modified this season?
“Yes. Yeah,” Woods mentioned. “The golf ecosystem has forced everybody to rethink how we look at the game and how we need to make the game better. So this whole year, for all of us who have been a part of golf, we’ve had to look at it from a different lens.”
He was speaking about LIV Golf, in fact, and its impact on the whole professional sport. Within the hour, a number of bits of LIV-related information hit: the New York Times reported that the breakaway league’s COO had stepped away, all whereas LIV and the PGA Tour clashed in court docket and called each other liars.
The PNC isn’t immune to the results of the exterior world. Take Henrik Stenson, whose LIV defection seemingly value him a return invitation this 12 months. But this is a one-off, a celebratory golf event, the place individuals play from 4 completely different tee bins simply to be sure that everyone has a superb time. It’s an gratifying bubble involving the who’s-who from the {golfing} world. There aren’t any world rating factors at stake. More to the level, there aren’t any debates about world rating factors.
That’s not to say it’s not necessary, although.
“The last couple years have been magical,” Woods mentioned. “And to be able to do it gain, we’re looking forward to it.”
Should make for good TV, too.
