It was sad to hear of the sudden passing of Tommy Horton, one of professional golf’s fine gentleman. He was a dominant player on the European Seniors Tour having won 23 times and topped the Order of Merit five times. He was also a Ryder Cup Player in 1975 and 1977. On and off the golf course he had a lovely relaxed demeanour and was devoted to the PGA and the progress of club professionals. Condolences to his wife Helen and family and the Royal Jersey Golf Club.
Ernie Els tweeted excitedly a few days ago Thank You for the great Xmas present @TheMasters can’t wait!
Having received an invitation to be at Augusta National as an honorary invitee. However, all was not as it seemed.
Days later he had to say “work continues to qualify to compete at The Masters”
Ernie’s 5 year exemption to play in the Masters for winning the 2012 Open ran out in 2017 and sadly he found out that being an honorary invitee only meant being given two clubhouse passes and a present from the Masters Committee. Even the privilege of being allowed to play practice roy do and the Par 3 contest ended this year.
So, back to having to qualify…
December 30 is an important day to pop back up and wish Tiger a happy 42nd birthday. His solid showing in the recent Hero Challenge will have made his harshest critics back off a bit, even though he faces an uphill task preparing to come back properly without a swing coach. Butch Harmon is just waiting to be asked back, and says that he strongly believes Tiger will win again. I do too, he is an extraordinary person and athlete.
Tiger announced today that his next competitive outing will be at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines followed by the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles in February. The tournament was his first ever PGA Tour start, aged 16, and is now supported by the Tiger Woods Foundation.
He admitted that during his recent 10 month layoff from the game there were times that his injured back was so painful he couldn’t walk. Not knowing the condition of his back means that he is unable to commit to a full time schedule “I wish I knew when I would play and where it would make it so much easier to prepare. My swing is shorter because I cannot turn as much.
He said he was pleased with how explosive his swing was during the Hero Challenge, also how well he putted, He said it felt good to have an adrenaline rush again “I appreciate competitive golf now more than I ever have”. Player of the Year Justin Thomas who played the last round with Tiger said he had never seen him so happy to be back and to compete so strongly”
He’s a fighter of a competitor, gritty and determined. Overcoming a lot of barriers to get to the top.
His athletic swing is compact and strong, he doesn’t over swing but generates huge clubhead speed. he can move the ball in both directions and has great turn in his upper and lower body. The coil of the backswing builds up speed loading the power to swing at the ball. He has power and accuracy with control and great distance.
His acceleration towards the ball is consistent and well timed. His body delivers on the downswing lower body, chest and arms. He goes at it very hard and gets a long distance. However, such an athletic movement inclines him to injury and combined with various health issues he mY not have the longevity of career as others.
His technique in his short game is simple. stable hand and arm movement controlling the spin on the ball he is very good at pitching and chipping but outstanding with his putter. He putts well under pressure and his technique is perfect.
What makes Jason Day special is he is passionate and works very hard, a steely competitor to be feared.
He’s so good at everything but if you had to pick out his biggest strength it would be his ability to score. He finds a way to get the ball in the hole, and when he misses he still puts it in the best position to salvage the best score he can get.
Mentally, Spieth is very strong and a formidable competitor. he enjoys the heat of the battle and is incredibly resilient. He has the ability to forget and gets over his mistakes quickly which shows his focus on his score.His course management and shot selection is very intelligent and he keeps a cool head under pressure.
He is not an athlete in the mold of Dustin Johnson or Jason Day and if he has a flaw it is that he tries to force his swing to get more distance. His swing involves a lot of hand eye coordination. His grip is very weak and this makes his swing a left sided motion. He doesn’t hit the ball with great speed and so where other players might hit 3 wood off the tee he will use his driver.
His natural shot is a fade and through the ball he tends to go over onto his left foot a lot. He is very accurate and straight. His swing is a stable, compact motion which puts a lot of spin on the ball.
His short game and putting are superior. He chips in a lot and he has a great technique pressing the last three fingers in his grip to keep the club face square and keeping control of distance. He holes so many putts and enjoys practicing his putting.
But most of all as a competitor he is genius level.
Amongst all the PGA Tour professionals Dustin Johnson looks the best athlete. at 6 feet 4 inches he has a huge high arc to his swing, and with his flexibility and strength he hits the ball huge distances and is straight with it.
He has a huge turn on the backswing and gets into a consistent position at the top. His left wrist is bowed and it seems only when he over rotates the wrist does he hit a bad shot. HIs flexibility gets him into a strong position on the backswing, storing up energy for great speed and power on the downswing.
The height he gets on the backswing allows him to accelerate through the ball with minimum rotation through impact. It’s keeping a stable and square position through impact that gets him to hit the ball as straight as he does. it’s a swing of amazing control and power, he consistently hits his driver 320 yards.
What I like about his swing is it is not overly techical. It’s the natural swing of a gifted athlete, he doesn’t have to have too many swing thoughts.
His natural shot is a power fade, something he achieves by keeping his hips stable and not rotating through impact.
His short game 150 yards in with his wedges is superb. He’s also a great putter with a natural feel for pace.
His weakness is that he can sometimes lose concentration and make poor decisions, particularly under the pressure of major championship. If he had Jordan Spieth’s mind he would reign supreme.
Tiger Woods acted as Vice Captain to the victorious American team at the President’s Cup last week, his first appearance in public since pleading guilty to reckless driving in the Spring.
He courted attention out on the golf course on Saturday when he was rebuffed by European Tour referee Andy McFee for stepping in on a ruling against the Americans on the 12th hole of Liberty National.
“This is just between me and Spieth” said McFee to the 14 times major champion. So that told him.
And then there was discussion about his acrimonious relationship with Phil Mickelson. That was fudged over, in the way that only Mickelson can. “We’ve become good friends in these team events” he said, meaning the other 51 weeks of the year they are not.
But to the serious, Woods was put on the spot about his future in golf and answered like this:
“I don’t know what my future holds. We’re taking one step at a time, My timetable is what my surgeon says. I’m hitting 60 yard shots very straight now”
So this is a non committal answer about calling time on his illustrious career, it’s understandable that someone so hugely important to the game of golf would be willing to let go and pass on to the very young generation that are now dominating the game.
As the eloquent Martin Kaymer said in a recent message, everyone must never forget the huge debt of gratitude they owe to Tiger. There’s been too much emphasis on the salacious. Let’s not forget that the most revered golfer of all time, the late Arnold Palmer was not a saint, far from it. But the public were willing to overlook all that because they loved him unconditionally.
Tiger Woods is deserving of the same forgiveness and love, as Martin Kaymer says. When asked in interview last week what he thought about the ‘taking the knee’ protest against the playing of the National Anthem he expounded “There’s a lot of unrest, political and racial. Things can be healed, we can progress as a nation and come together”.
Tiger too needs us to give him a break from the psychological battering he’s taken since his still unbelievable downfall. He needs a new role, now, one which takes the pressure off him ever returning to competitive golf.
I was in Sweden in the summer and finally got to see an episode of Parneviks was on prime time TV.
In the episode I saw they had various famous in Sweden house guests staying at their mansion in Florida. Hapless Jesper took the men out to the golf course, got himself in trouble and Mia stays home with the women, complaining a bit about her family.
Jesper didn’t smile much and it looked too much trouble for him. There were clips of him calling Mia!! For her to come and sort out a mess he’d got himself into. But looking at the film below, perhaps he’s just worried about his young son wearing a bra.
Top American coach Hank Haney analyses Ryo Ishikawa’s beautiful swing. I could watch him forever. Here’s how he does it.
In Matsuyama’s bag is a mishmash of brands. Srixon Z965 irons, TaylorMade M2 fairway wood, Homma hybrid clubs TaylorMade putter, Cleveland RTx wedges and Calloway Big Bertha driver. You would expect him to check in a Titelist ball just to ring the changes there as well but he plays Srixon.
Matsuyama strikes me as ambitious. He took his near misses at the US Open and USPGA last year hard but he said he learnt a lot last year about the need to play consistently. He can be a streaky hot player as his phenomenal bogey free round of 61 at the WGC- Bridgestone Invitational showed. A hard and diligent worker he says he knows that he will only win a major or reach world number one by working on every aspect of his game without taking short cuts. It’s a young man’s swing, flexible and strong and there is time to drink a beer before the downswing starts.
A huge 2017 with three victories, top 10 in birdie average and driving distance.
We’ve watched the decline of the Ladies European Tour over the past few years and wished someone would come to its rescue. Over the decades the LET have had so many inside squabbles and fights and the wrong people in charge, such a turnover of the wrong people, that it’s not surprising that it’s now reached a crisis situation but thats not a bad thing if a huge sea change can come about not just in women European golf, but in the sport as a whole.
Its just tough on the players at the moment. The leaked email from LET board member Helen Alfredson said it all. “Even though you will all feel sad, disappointed, upset, furious, angry and rightfully so, I ask you to PLEASE KEEP IT INSIDE THE ROPES and try to be a team and look professional. You won’t gain anything using social media to vent the frustration”. But speak out they did. The most positive of whom was Carly Booth who said she was loving being at home in Manchester while there were no tournaments to play in and spending time with her partner.
The current status is that ongoing talks are taking place between Commissioner Mike Whan of the LPGA in America and intriguingly, Keith Pelley, Chief Executive of the mens European Tour. They have promised to work together to provide one vision, and let’s hope they come up with something soon before the start of the new season in Europe, which in the mens case will be in December.
Commissioner Mike Whan has done a good job improving the profitability and profile of the LPGA and is widely respected by his players. However, the Ladies European Tour is mainly a potential business opportunity for their tour. He’s said that he wouldn’t be targeting sponsors who could provide purses of over a million Euros. 250,000 to 300,000 Euros per event would be the target, clearly showing that he thinks a Ladies European Tour absorbed into the LPGA would just be a small developmental circuit underneath their tour’s umbrella. The top 10 players would play their way onto the LPGA tour.
Do the players of the LET really want that option? It effectively brings about a world tour run from America by the LPGA. Rory McIlroy talked two weeks ago about the merger of the mens PGA and European tours being inevitable. I beg to disagree. A world tour has been discussed since the 1980s and effectively there is a geographical world tour here in Europe and with the World Golf Championship events. But merging the two mens professional bodies, that will be a long time coming. The massive payouts on the PGA Tour will always lure European players of the highest talent ready to compete out there, but it isn’t counter productive for the European Tour to compete. It is its own animal, a very different breed, with different cultures and courses unlike America and it can’t become a homogenised brand. And neither can the Ladies European Tour be sucked into the LPGA without completely losing its identity.
The involvement of the mens European Tour, who are always looking at ways to grow and expand their business, in discussions about LET’s future opens up a whole new set of opportunities. If only people can open their minds to the possibilities.
Learning from tennis where mens and women events take place concurrently at the same venue, this would be hugely appealing to spectators and TV audiences to have the option to watch the events at the same time. The nearest we’ve ever got to this were when the women played the same course at the Rio Olympic Games and when Pinehurst No 2 was used for the Women’s US Open the week after the men had played their US Open.
It’s a cultural change, but would the men be willing to consider the idea? At amateur level we’ve had the mens and womens unions merge, something which will filter down to county level sooner rather than later. At professional level, the LET players want opportunities to play a full schedule. Running their tour alongside the mens, by officials from the European Tour would seem to be the most attractive and viable option. Even if it takes time to roll out male-female events at the same venues at the same time, it would be an interesting option for Keith Pelley’s team to have on their horizon. And more interesting than the forced excitement of their new Super Sixes events.
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