Phil Mickelson walks away with The Players crystal in only his third week of working with Butch Harmon while Sean O'Hair splashes down and Tiger fails to make any waves at all. Plus this week, Sergio Garcia the cheat, Steve Pelisek of Titleist on the new 907 drivers, and a whole lot more in this episode of Golf Talk.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed for our podcasts here or download Episode 058 as an MP4 file. For those who want to subscribe to us in iTunes, click here.
For this week's Show Notes - links to articles we discuss in the show and additional information - just read on.
While baseball may be a game of inches, golf, it's been said, is a game of angles. It's better to approach Augusta National's 11th green from the far left edge of the fairway than, say, what used to be the far right edge of the fairway. It's better to leave yourself an uphill putt than a downhill putt. If you play a fade, you're better off teeing up on the right-hand side of the teebox.
My grandfather was a farmer and devout Protestant. He would not work his fields on Sunday even if looming weather threatened to wipe out his crop. Back in the day, that same ethic existed at many golf clubs and thus caddies were not permitted to work on the Sabbath.
I know the PGA Tour guys play for a ton of money and that this is their livelihood and all, but man do they play slow. The biggest culprit to slow play in the United States might be watching Tour players and their pre-shot routines. Just hit the ball!
Early last week I logged on to
Nike has been in the iron business for a while now and have had the chance to release a few generations of clubs. While Nike doesn't have the long history of other club manufacturers, they are producing some very good equipment, some of which is used by the best players in the world.
This week, golf fans are getting an earful about "The Players." They're hearing what a great course it's played at, what a great field it has, and how it's just the teeniest bit shorter in stature than those "other" majors: The Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship.
The Players has been called the "fifth major" by certain fans and members of the golf media. The Sand Trap staff members don't consider it a fifth major, but it's pretty damn special nonetheless. If I was a professional golfer, I'd want to win this event more than any other after the four major championships. It isn't called "The Players" for nothing.