Category: Trap Five

We’re in that weird low point that happens in the middle of every golf season. Post-Masters, post-Players, pre-U.S. Open; we’ve got all the anticipation of the beginning of the season without any of the knowledge that the end of the year brings.

And because we’ve got another few weeks until what is shaping up to be a Tiger Woods-less U.S. Open, there’s no one overarching golf story on which to fall back.

Instead, we get pop-interest stories like Rory McIlroy’s breakup, a Stanford University golfer using a push cart during a tournament, and a few nuggets from Tiger, with a bit of reflection on the year as a whole for good measure.

Let’s dive in.

Continue reading “Five Pre-U.S. Open Golf Stories”

2014 is going to be an interesting year. We’ve got Rory McIlroy trying to recapture his pre-2013 form; Phil Mickelson giving the career grand slam another go at Pinehurst; Jordan Spieth and a number a young players looking to make the leap; and of course Tiger Woods six years removed from his last major championship win.

Let’s get to it.

Continue reading “Five Predictions for 2014”

According to a statement released by EA Sports recently, the video game giant and golfer Tiger Woods have severed ties.

According to who you believe, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour video games already appeared to be on the rocks, and the ’15 edition (to be released in 2014) will be either delayed until at least April or not sent to market at all.

Neither option would be all that unheard-of; EA has monkeyed with the release dates for the Tiger Woods games before. The games were released in the fall every year between 2003 and 2007, until moving towards the late summer for the 2008 version and earlier in the summer for 2010. In 2012 EA cut a deal to include Augusta National in the game, and worked hard to push it out before The Masters.

EA is also no stranger to cutting off a game entirely. They dropped the MVP Baseball series after 2007 (mostly because rival 2K Sports signed an exclusivity deal with MLB in response to EA’s similar deal with the NFL), and have yet to pick the series back up even after the 2K/MLB deal expired. After their NBA Live 10 game received (justifiably) terrible reviews, they cancelled its follow-up, NBA Elite 11, at the last minute, and haven’t released a basketball game since despite relatively weak releases from 2K (though NBA Live 14 is set to come back later this year).

It remains to be seen what exactly the ramifications of the Tiger/EA separation are. I suppose it’s possible that Tiger remains in the game as a playable character, though his days on the cover are surely gone.

The games remain different year-over-year, but the yearly releases have become frustrating. Excess players, expensive extra courses, and rotating single player modes have made the games stale, and while the extra space of Blu-Rays and larger on-board stock hard drives should help them, EA needs to make some deep changes. Here are a few things I think could get the PGA Tour video game series off and running again.

Continue reading “How EA Sports Can Revive the PGA Tour Video Games Sans Tiger”

The U.S. Open heads to Merion Golf Club this year for the first time since 1981. The second major of the year comes around the halfway point during what has been one of my favorite seasons in a while.

We’ve seen Tiger Woods return to near top form, winning four of his first eight events, though he’s still yet to win a major since the broken-knee victory at Torrey Pines in 2008. Three of the wins have come at courses where he’s traditionally dominated (Torrey, Doral, Bay Hill), though he threw in a win at Sawgrass and a missed cut at Murfield for good measure.

There’s also Phil Mickelson, who won in Phoenix early on but was virtually non-existent at The Masters, Rory Mcilroy, who is winless in Nike clothing, and of course Adam Scott, the winner of the season’s first major.

We’ll also take a look at the future of short courses in major championships, and the USGA needing a good week.

Continue reading “Five People Who Need to Win the U.S. Open”

Since the infamous Thanksgiving Night 2009 car crash, Tiger Woods, once a sure thing to pass Jack’s record of 19 major championships, has won just five times on the PGA Tour. All of those wins have come in a 13-month stretch, starting with the 2012 Arnold Palmer Invitational, and culminating in his won at Doral just recently. (And I’m not counting the Chevron because, c’mon, only host Tiger himself thinks that’s a real tournament.)

Woods now has 76 wins on the PGA Tour, behind only Sam Snead’s mark of 82 wins. His 14 majors trail just Nicklaus, and, if you’re inclined to go there, he’s also third all-time in European Tour wins (behind Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer) because they sanction the majors and WCG tournaments, which Tiger has dominated.

As Tiger marches back towards the world number one ranking, and readies for the first major of the season, let’s take a look at his journey back from 58th in the world rankings.

Continue reading “Recapping Tiger’s Last Five Wins”

Now that the 2013 has started, it’s time to look a little bit back, and a little bit forward.

And sure, there are some reasons to be a bit turned off by golf. It’s as expensive as ever, it can be painfully slow, and gone are the days when use your gut as a third hand while putting (if you’re into that sort of thing), but there are even more reasons to be optimistic. We’ve got two players who tower over the rest of the field (plus a select group of more-than-competant runners-up), the majors are all entertaining, and the Playoffs won’t take a plead from the President to work (unlike the BCS).

It’s fun to follow sports on a week-by-week basis, but it’s also valuable to take a step back once in a while. Let’s dive in.

Continue reading “Five Reasons to Be Excited for 2013”