Tiger Woods had a brand new caddie on the bag this week: his daughter Sam.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — That Bernhard Langer, aged 66, has now received 5 PNC Championships ought to let you know one thing. This event has been round some time. That he (and his son, Jason) did it with online game scores of 60-59 ought to let you know one thing, too. This event is uncommon, quirky, and lighter than most every thing we’re used to.
None of the regular nuts and bolts matter at the PNC Championship, a scramble between two-player groups of a significant champion and a member of the family. So on a Sunday afternoon in the warmth of NFL playoff competition, you’d be forgiven for not tuning in to observe the Langers win one other outsized championship belt.
But not like the NFL, the place one other rollicking, worthwhile season pushes ahead, golf kinda wants this proper now. Especially this 12 months.
As we close to the proposed, Dec. 31 deadline for a deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF — we’ve acquired two weeks people! — the future couldn’t be any murkier. Is Patrick Cantlay ravenous for management of the coverage board? Are there extra defections coming? Would that even do something for LIV’s sagging viewership? What about the ladies’s recreation, and that theoretical merger between the LPGA and the Ladies European Tour? Everyone appears embroiled in one thing.
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But at the Ritz-Carlton, a principally fundamental course at a principally fundamental resort, in a metropolis many individuals go to to have fundamental holidays, we’ve got a event the opponents completely adore and a handbag measurement they wouldn’t even acknowledge. A event that locations them on an unfamiliar stage. That makes them tear up, with infinitely extra hugs than bogeys. A event so, uh, healthful, that it really introduced LIV Golf and the PGA Tour collectively, if solely in the slightest method.
That’s proper, Graeme McDowell, famous member of LIV franchise Smash GC, was at the PNC Sunday morning, inside the ropes, simply watching. He had introduced his younger son, Wills, after all, observing previous man Tiger Woods limp from the placing inexperienced to the chipping inexperienced, then chipping inexperienced to apply vary.
Best I may inform, T-Dub and G-Mac didn’t trade any phrases, however that couldn’t have been the level of this go to. McDowell needed to be contemplating his potential future involvement in this event, as a significant winner himself. That is as soon as the trials of professional golf immediately turn into the bizarre historical past of professional golf tomorrow.
Wills was extra in spending time along with his buddy, Will McGee, greatest identified ‘round these parts as Annika’s Son. McGee is the youngest in the discipline and, at simply 12 he’d haven’t any clue about this, however his ebullience was the smartest thing going at an occasion dragged down by wind and rain.
He hovered about the campus with the type of pep Rory McIlroy has when main a event by three. Light on his toes, seemingly bouncing with every step, smiling at the chunked pictures on the vary, telling Tiger Woods all about his junior golf schedule, then sacking himself on the couch for an afternoon nap. Every 44- 48- or 68-year-old in the discipline sees a little bit of their former, golf-giddy selves in him. They’re in all probability envious, too. Will doesn’t should concern himself with mergers and acquisitions.
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Will tugged in any respect of our heartstrings when he tugged on his mother’s hand as they walked up the 18th fairway Sunday afternoon, begging her to decelerate so they might actually get pleasure from the second. Mom teared up as she defined it afterward. Will did too! It could also be the most relatable factor in every week’s value of relatable issues. Seeing your dad and mom cry is the quickest method to take action your self.
This event has all the time delivered a little bit of emotion, however the occasion has all the time felt a bit too necessary, for different causes. In current years it has served as our final probability on the calendar to ask Tiger Woods questions earlier than the new 12 months, and to gauge how he’ll look when he returns to PGA Tour motion. This 12 months was no different, besides there weren’t many questions on his type. Maybe as a result of we kinda didn’t need to speak about it. He didn’t play very nicely this weekend. He’s nonetheless rusty. The climate was sloppy and his iron pictures weren’t particular. Yet one more reason to look away.
But no — what’s enjoyable about Woods at the PNC is what occurs between pictures. When he leans in near his caddying daughter, Sam, explaining the nuances of mis-hits with the driver. When he and Stricker focus on placing method. Or when get claps again at his overconfident son.
You’ll by no means see Woods hand out extra hugs than you do at the PNC. Both to his children, but in addition to the remainder of the discipline. Hugs for Annika, who he calls Anny; hugs for all 4 of the Strickers; hugs for Tom Lehman and John Daly and Justin Thomas’ grandma.
Woods the golfer is a bit caught between generations. At instances, he misses these guys from the 2000s he used to beat up on, the lot of them now on the Champions Tour. And but, he longs most frequently for his mates on the fashionable PGA Tour, whom he thinks he can nonetheless cope with. More than something, that Tour is begging Woods to remain younger, asking him to tug the Tour coverage board towards the most sustainable way forward for the sport. But that’s a job for tomorrow. The day after the PNC. Something you’d by no means take into consideration as you watch Steve Stricker’s household roast him in the center of a press convention.
It’s no surprise the main method golf followers expertise the PNC is through social media, with photos of Daly being Daly main the method till Justin Thomas’ canine Frankie slaps a wet kiss on Tiger simply off the sixteenth inexperienced. Our social media-inclined society calls these moments of levity timeline cleansers, used to fight the fixed unfold of knowledge singed negativity. A 30-second video of puppies in a discipline is cute, certain, however its different goal is simply bringing our minds again to stage.
Well, the PNC serves as one massive timeline cleanser. A scheduled cleanser earlier than Jan. 1, 2024. A professional golf information cycle cleanser earlier than who-knows-what. We’ll be again to the nuts and bolts right here quickly sufficient, however I received’t be upset if Christmas comes first. I think about the total discipline feels the identical method.
The creator welcomes your feedback, issues, and another notes at sean.zak@golf.com.
