Category: Thrash Talk

The 2012 Masters: Staff Predictions and Questions

The lead up to this years event is better than ever, check out who the staff likes and what they will be looking for at this years event.

Thrash TalkThe Masters truly starts the golf season. Sure there are plenty of events on the West Coast and the Florida swing, but that week in April with the beautifully manicured fairways at Augusta truly gets the season underway.

There has not been a Masters in the last few years that has the excitement of all the big players playing so well going into the event. Tiger winning, Rory winning, Luke Donald winning, Phil winning, and Mahan (now the top American in the OWGR) winning twice, all before the event. It is set up to be one of the best ever. With that I have collected the predictions and some additional questions from the staff here at The SandTrap, enjoy.

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Whom Do You Root For: Tiger or Phil?

Both players are treasures of our game, but likely you root for only one of them.

Thrash TalkThe question for you is do you root for Tiger or do you root for Phil? Likely you don’t root for both. In a strange way us golf fans tend to pick one or the other of these guys, and if you are in a group, a debate will likely ensue about who is the best. Tiger is consistent and dominant in the same way that Phil is go-for-broke and approachable. They truly are almost opposite people who are fantastically great at the same game.

I think the media fluffs up their relationship trying to spark a rivalry between them so there is something to talk about. I think they probably are just fine with each other and in the Ryder Cup locker room probably consider themselves friends. The irony in that statement is that they are terrible Ryder Cup partners (just ask Hal Sutton) because they are total opposites in how they approach the game.

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The Best Player Never to Have Won a Major… For Their Career

My choice is a player who hardly anyone knows and I bet it will surprise you.

Thrash TalkThis award, while it is nice to be recognized with an award, is not one you want to win. Ms. Congeniality is another way of putting it. Today’s candidates, if I was to pick one, would have to be a very close tie between Luke Donald and Lee Westwood. I think we don’t hear so much about this title anymore because it is not such a clear cut winner as it was a few years ago. Phil Mickelson held this title for the longest time and he could really go nowhere and discuss golf without this topic rearing its ugly head. David Duval held it for a while, but in his case winning a major seemed worse than not winning one. His career has gone down the tubes since kissing the Claret Jug. Don’t get me wrong, I like David and root for him each week that he plays, but one has to be honest at some point.

But the point of this article is to debate who deserves the title for their entire career. For me there is a clear winner. When I was asked this question this guy came to the top of my list without much thought. Colin Montgomerie.

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Hank’s Book – With Whom is Tiger Really Angry?

Tiger appears unhappy with Hank, but what is his real motivation?

Thrash TalkI know I am a bit late to this party and by now much of the hoopla surrounding the book has died down, but actually I think that is the best time to discuss things of this nature because we have all had a chance to think it over a bit now. The thing is, I love biography books, I have read a number of them, most recently being the one about Steve Jobs. Since I work in that industry it was particularly interesting because I know many of the players. While Hank’s book about Tiger does not qualify as a biography, it is somewhat of a “story behind the story” book. The adage that the truth is stranger than fiction may not always apply but it is still very intriguing to hear from the horses mouth what went on behind closed doors. So for that part I will probably read the book.

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Tiger vs. Jack – A Different Perspective

This isn’t about the magical number of 18, or even 19, but rather about a magical year in golf.

Thrash TalkIf you only read the title of this article you might think this is another comparison on who is the best golfer of all time. No, considering the stall that Tiger has had in his current play it really ends the debate for now. Over the course of his career Jack is by far the better player. More major victories, 18 versus 14, but what really puts Jack over the top for me is the number of second-place finishes in majors, 19 versus six. And if you include top-ten finishes in majors Jack really starts to pull away.

In the bar last week I made the hypothesis that 2000 for Tiger was better than any single year that Jack had. When I started looking into it I was definitely right. Jack’s best year was 1972 when he won the Masters, the U.S. Open, finished second at the Open Championship, and tied for 13th at the PGA. Jack had an excellent 1980 when he won the U.S. Open and the PGA, but 1972 was better. To be frank when I looked into it Jack had an incredible run in the 1970s. He was in the hunt in almost ever major played during those years, but not only in the hunt but he had an enormous amount of top tens. Still 1972 was a great year but it was no match for Tiger’s 2000.

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Tiger Woods in 2012: What Now?

What does Tiger’s win at the Chevron World Challenge mean for the future?

Thrash TalkThere are two parts to me, the golf fan. The first part is the one that smirked when Zach Johnson’s putt was left the entire way on the last hole at Sherwood, the part of me that jumped out of my desk chair and pumped my fist when Tiger’s putt went in. That’s the part of me that live chatted 2011’s Masters, begging Tiger’s eagle put on the 15th at the Masters to go in. The part of me that watched the entire Monday playoff in the 2008 U.S. Open, watched his chip on 16th at the 2005 Masters roll and roll and roll… and then fall. That’s the part of me that hazily remembers the 1997 Masters. I call that part of me “Optimist.” Otherwise known as “Irrational.”

The other part, “Realist,” lives in a post-2009-Thanksgiving world. A world in which Tiger Woods destroyed himself. He’s not Ben Hogan and a bus didn’t nearly crush him late one night. He messed up. Post-2009 me, still a fan of Tiger’s on-course achievements, has felt stupid for two years for not moving on.

What am I supposed to do? Every time I think he’s done, he gives me the eighth hole at the Masters. Every time I think he’s back he gives me the PGA. Then he looks wholly average at the Frys.com, and event he could have dominated just two years ago. Now this. He wins an 18-man event, his own event, and I’m supposed to think he’s ready for 2012? He’s ready to challenge Nicklaus? He’s ready to tell Rory and Rickie “Eh, not yet guys?” I don’t think so.

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Staff Predictions: PGA Championship 2011

Will one of the up-and-comers such as Westwood, Johnson, Fowler crack the major championship riddle? Will Tiger or Mickelson return to form? Or might another Rich Beem rise at Atlanta Athletic Club?

Thrash TalkOften derided as the fourth major, trailed way, way behind the other three, the PGA Championship has actually staged some of the best finishes in recent history.

The 2011 edition sets up for drama, with the Steve Williams soap opera filling up space and reminding us that anything Tiger Woods-related remains the hottest of hot stories. Add the fact that Woods is back playing in a major since the Masters, a bucket-load of non-major winners are closing in on hoisting one of the four big trophies, and Atlanta Athletic Club could be the scene of one exciting golf tournament.

Will an established star such as Woods, McIlroy or Mickelson rise? Is this the week Lee Westwood or Steve Stricker breaks through? Maybe the newest Y.E. Yang. Read on to see what The Sand Trap staff has to say about it all.

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Tigers’ Quest, Legacy Will Soon Shift to Burden, Curse

As the clock ticks, and he limps back into competition, the pressure to pass Nicklaus’s majors mark builds.

Thrash TalkFor the first three decades of his life, Tiger Woods had a mission, a quest, a number by which golf immortality has always been measured.

Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major championships set the bar so high, until Woods came along and declared that his singular focus in life was to reset that number to 19, if not well higher. It’s so outlandish, the thought of a young pro with as good an amateur record as golf’s seen since Bobby Jones talking about taking down Jack so early in his career, it redefines the word bravado.

But when Woods said it, when he described his bedroom shrine to the Golden Bear, when it became clear his father had trained him for this starting in a playpen, it became intriguing, and quickly it turned believable.

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Staff Predictions: British Open 2011

Who will hoist the Claret Jug in Sandwich? Will the Americans get trounced by their overseas counterparts? Where do we stand on links golf?

Thrash TalkThere’s little mystique to Royal St. George’s, and even less love for the English venue. It’s not the birthplace of golf like St. Andrew’s or an impossibly difficult test like Carnoustie. When a course crowns so unheralded a champ as 2003’s Open winner Ben Curtis, somehow the host bears the brunt of the criticism.

Ask Ian Poulter about the track at Sandwich, and he’ll say “it’s an average course at best.” The 18 holes that sit as far south as any in The Open rota are wildly considered the most quirky, fluky among the bunch.

But isn’t that exactly what’s so loved about link golf? The creativity, the nuance, the ability to define a champion who does more than lasers his seven iron more precisely than anyone else that week. It’s got humps and bumps and wacky lies and oddball stances and nothing’s a given. But when in golf is anything a given.

Who will emerge? Who will surprise? There’s a strangely common theme among The Sand Trap staff. Read on to see what we think.

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