Golf Writing Returns

PGA Tour Commissioner Brian Rolapp delivered his State of the PGA Tour ahead of the Players. One hallmark of his plan is to create(?) a marquee (?) West Coast event in January or February to kick the season off. The West Coast swing currently includes Pebble Beach, the Waste Management, Torrey Pines, and Riviera hosting the LA Open. So….somehow one of those will be ultra-marqueed. IDK. I think he should just wait for the Hairy Putter to pen his first post of the year….

KMartians! It’s been a while. A few of you would say too long; thousands more would say, “and who are you?” The undeniable truth of the matter is that the Hairy Putter has never been more than an arm’s length from the KMARKosphere, waiting on the right opportunity to get back into the game. And with conditions primed for a rare Proper Test at Sawgrass in the springtime… let’s just say HP didn’t see his shadow. It’s 95 in SoCal and fast and firm in Ponte Vedra. Winter is dead and golf season is upon us. Let’s dive in – 12’er of high life in the cooler if you get thirsty.

I MUST say… the best part about writing for KMARK is that you have the unique license to publish a Players preview after the first round concludes. And the best part about that? No need to guess on storylines! Let the storylines find you. I do have verifiable proof that Sepp Straka was my pre-tournament pick, but I’ll hold off until I really need to use it. He didn’t even find the fairway today. Big Aus(trian) simply scrambled his face off, including a saucy little number on 16 to find himself tied atop the leaderboard. He’ll certainly need to find the T in T2G if he wants to finish off a career defining win this week. 

On the macro, much was made of the conditties in the run up to this year’s Players… will the rain come? And if it does will the course hold firm? Don’t like the weather? Just wait 5 min. Old Florida joke from what I hear. Well, the benefit as someone writing from MY position is that I can confidently tell you the rain did come and much to our chagrin, the course held firm! I’d argue the rain actually provided an interesting wrinkle if nothing else. Some groups got absolutely dumped on for an hour, and just about everyone had to deal with significant speed adjustments on the greens throughout the day. Can’t tell you how many putts I saw come up 5 feet short below the hole on 17. The forecast seems to be favorable for spice as the weekend unfolds and I’m optimistic that the thud we managed to hear throughout today will only play a larger factor as the shots get more significant. 

Stealing the rest of the pre-tournament headlines were two big questions, “What’s up with Rory’s back?” and “When will Scottie be back?” As it turns out, Colin’s back is now facing the questions, after an awkward practice swing on his second hole of the day forced a shocking WD for many experts’ outright winner pick and what many (Morikawa himself) are calling “just the worst thing in the world.” Stiff competition globally for that title, I’m afraid. Lots of folks are now calling into question the workload required by TGL participants. I think those people are… fucking idiots. I stand with Billy Horschel (and Monday Q Info guy most days, for the record).  As for Scottie… he just needs to shoot one 63 and the whole vibe will shift. I won’t be caught on the opposite side of that bet in the next few weeks. 

In a programming note and drawing attention back to Rory for a moment – NBC’s deployed an “investigative wind graphic” journaling McIlroy’s playoff shot on 17 during last year’s playoff victory against JJ Spaun. And honestly, kudos to those boys in the production meeting. You have to imagine that crew was HYPED to see that one play out 361 days later like some safely divulged war secrets. One of the better 30 second documentaries I’ve ever seen.

Not everything went off without a hitch broadcast-wise, however. We had Wyndham Clark pretty much sexually assault Kay Adams before the tournament began (not NBC’s fault). And perhaps more damning, during the last quarter of the broadcast, we inexplicably had coverage halted to reveal a “Balls in the Water on 17 During the ShotLink Era Tracker” which began rapid ascent until it reached the number 1,000 in a matter of 20 seconds. Evidently someone hit the thousandth ball in the water on 17 during the Players since 2003. That’s where the story ended… you just had to be there. I couldn’t even tell you who hit the shot. Just a brilliant half-baked moment in golf history. One step forward and two steps back as always.

Speaking of half-baked, there was just so much more Matti Schmid and his untucked shirt than anyone could have bargained for on the back end of today’s broadcast. Does he get fined for that? Genuine question. Also, I’m pretty sure Hideki was wearing tuxedo pants today. My man values form AND function. Last question - did YOU know S.H. Kim had Minnesota all-state hockey flow and seer-sucker polo game? I certainly didn’t! His double in the dark on 10 will most assuredly have him packing up Friday evening unfortunately.

We’ve reached our allowed budget for now, but while I’ve got a few words left to spare, let me at least shout out Sahith and Smotherman for playing some greasy golf today. And an extra big shoutout to this guy, who’s got the alarm set to see if his Smotherman first round leader ticket cashes for $15K after Austin decided to mark his 15 foot birdie putt and call it a day. We’ll call it a day as well over here. Catch you this weekend.