The Sand Trap .com

What a finish! Even without the three-hole aggregate score playoff and one hole of sudden death, the last few hours of the Players Championship was easily the most entertaining golf of the last several years.

It featured a charge from deep in the pack, some near-miss specialists trying for redemption, and rookies defying the odds. No less than seven players had very good chances of getting to 12-under to get into the playoff, or even of reaching 13-under, which could have been good enough for the win in regulation.

Let’s hit the links.

Continue reading “Volume Four Hundred Thirty-Two”

I love match play. The way that each hole is a new life in the competition. How it’s the basically the only scenario in golf when you are competing head to head with another person rather than solely against the course and the elements.

But TV and match play is a tough fit. Here’s the thing, during the early rounds it’s difficult to follow the match ups closely because the network is flipping between groups. We want to see the action but it detracts from the viewers ability to stay current with the status in each match and hence the drama. Once the bracket gets narrowed down, we get a final that is god-awful to watch when one player gets up by more than two holes. I’m not sure what the solution is, other than a multi-cast so that you could follow any group you wanted. But that is not going to happen, at least not on network television.

Golf could use a new way to showcase match play (and stroke play for that matter). But the PGA TOUR is trying to stick to (and protect) traditional media, so adamantly that they just suspended the media credentials of a journalist for using social media to “broadcast” a practice round. At a time when golf is contracting in this country, it seems somewhat short sighted to censor an innovative journalist so harshly over her coverage of (again) a practice round.

That’s it for the op-ed portion. Let’s hit the links.

Continue reading “Volume Four Hundred Thirty-One”

Get your bracket ready. The WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship, the most unique of the WGC events, returns next week.

There’s a new format designed to keep the game’s best around for more of the tournament. Instead of single-elimination from the start, the event now features a round of pool play with the top points-earner from each of 16 groups advancing to the more familiar bracket.

There will be two notable absences from the star-studded field this year: Phil Mickelson will skip the event for personal reasons and Tiger Woods failed to qualify. Still, the field features the top 64 OWGR players (and alternates) and should be a fun watch with the TPC Harding Park as the backdrop and antagonist.

But before we get too far into next week, let’s hit the links.

Continue reading “Volume Four Hundred Thirty”

Spieth-mania was in full force and hard to miss in the week following young Jordan’s victory at the Masters. Among his appearances: the Late Show with David Letterman, the TODAY Show, CNBC Squawk Box, Morning Drive, CBS This Morning, the Dan Patrick Show, ESPN Radio, Mike and Mike in the Morning and too many more to mention.

Somewhat surprisingly, Spieth honored his commitment to the RBC Heritage when he could have justifiably begged off. Very surprisingly he didn’t just go through the motions, he was competitive, finishing T-11. It’s going to be very interesting to see how Spieth develops over the next few years and to see if the budding Rory-Jordan rivalry can be what we always hoped Tiger-Phil would be.

Let’s hit the links.

Continue reading “Volume Four Hundred Twenty Nine”