The PGA Championship
Alright, I’m just going to say it…Rory looked really solid last win. That closing back nine was one of the more impressive things this season, now it's not Denny McCarthy impressive, but nonetheless closing out a golf tournament on the back nine of an elevated event is very impressive. This carries a lot of weight for Rory rolling into Valhalla, the site of his last major championship back in 2014.
Well, major season is completely upon us now and the golf community could use it. In the past I've been positive in regards to the state golf is in, but as of late, I'm really starting to see how troubled the professional golf situation is. First and foremost a deal needs to be strict with LIV golf immediately. Casual golf fans want to see the best players in the world as often as possible and without a merger, fans will continue to be stripped of that. Piggybacking off of that deal, we need to get away from contracts and million dollar dealings. There is plenty of money in golf, it's actually disgusting how much money surrounds golf. Most of the players aren’t playing for legacy or for history, but only for a check. That’s the one piece of the game that has changed drastically and personally, golf won’t be fixed unless we get back to that type of attitude among the players. What gets me is when was 10-20 million not enough? Why do these players need hundreds of millions to show up and play? Maybe I'm old fashioned and don’t get me wrong, the money is great, but winning golf tournaments, winning majors, when did that become not enough? I think for anything major to change not only do we need the people in charge to change policies but we need the players to remember why they started playing golf in the first place. Until then we'll just have to wait for the majors to see full, complete, max competition fields and this week at Valhalla Golf Club should provide an incredible week of golf.
The PGA Championship has typically been my least favorite majors, but this year specifically should be much better for a few reasons. With that state of the golf world, we rarely see full field events so this is a rare moment, Valhalla is an absolutely incredible golf course, and I love seeing how the PGA professionals stack up against the tour pros. This is a big week for a lot of players that have been struggling thus far. The biggest disappointment this season has been Tony Finau. At the start of the season, I was so high on him, I thought he was going to have another huge season but his play has been very disappointing thus far. He needs to string together a few solid weeks to get his momentum going again. Another player that has kind of let some golf fans down this year is Viktor Hovland. In Viktor’s case however I think it's not that he's having a down year, it's just average compared to what he did to close out last season. Viktor is probably the one guy that doesn’t have a major and should. He’s such an all around solid player and now that he really honed in his chipping and his play around the greens I believe a major victory is right around the corner for Viktor. This year across the board excluding Scottie and Wyndham, none of the top players have done much, it's been the year of the rookies and young guns. This has also drastically affected viewership, a lot of the weekend golf fans don’t care if a young rookie grinder wins. They want to see one of the top, household name players win. That problem will only begin to get worse, that's why a merger is going to happen in the near future. At this point in the state of golf, anything short of a merger would pretty much ruin both the PGAT and LIV. (Mike)
This week belongs to Collin Morikawa. He is a former PGA winner and I think he will add to his trophy collection this week. Valhalla is playing extremely long and has pretty small greens in relation. This week will be dominated by the best iron players in the world so it makes it pretty easy to pick the best of the best. As long as Collin finds himself in the fairway consistently, he should be giving himself ample chances with the short stick. Another guy I really like is Mr. PGA Championship himself, Brooks Koepka. Much like Morikawa, Brooks is an elite iron player. would love nothing more than to see these two battling it out on Sunday afternoon.
Every week we seem to stray further away from any sort of merger. Key stakeholders in charge of the LIV and PGA Tour merger left their position this week. It has been a decent amount of time since we heard rumblings about a merger, but still nothing has been announced. Golf fans continue to lose out at the expense of a few greedy folks who seem intent to ruin the professional game. As long as Tiger is around the problem will be slightly overlooked, but as we have seen, his weeks out on Tour are numbered and everyone needs to be thinking about what the Tour looks like in five, ten, or even fifteen years time.
Regarding last week, Xander has once again proven he is a fraud when the lights are shining the brightest. Rory looked destined to win Sunday, but the way Xander did not even put up a fight is something that has become too familiar over the years with him. He is no doubt an elite golfer, but to continually be in these positions and face the same fate over and over is quite telling. It seems like this reputation is potentially something that will follow him until he silences the critics and delivers on a big stage. Xander should have been one of the guys stealing wins now that so many good players have left the Toue, but that just has not been the case. (Tyler)