KAPALOA, Hawaii (AP) – One moment a blue humpback whale’s tail pierced the Pacific Ocean below Kapalua’s Plantation Course. Not long after, when the players started lining up for practice runs, a short shower sent everyone looking for cover.
It was a fitting start to a new year on the PGA Tour, as conditions can change without warning. As for what to expect in 2023 – the short answer is anything – check in with Scotty Scheffler and what he’s been up to going for the past year.
“It was one great win,” Scheffler said with a laugh. “When you have zero, all you are looking for is one.”
He ended up with four, including a Masters Green jacket, a PGA Tour record of $14 million in tournament winnings and a Jack Nicklaus bronze award for being Player of the Year.
At these times, trying to decipher which player will appear is secondary to the many other issues off the track. Here are six themes to think about for 2023:
Leaf golf
The question “Who’s next?” Give way to “what next?” to the competing league funded by Saudi Arabia. LIV Golf has been largely quiet in the past month except for the revelation that its chief operating director has resigned. The 2023 schedule was expected in November, but at the end of the year, only seven locations had been announced for the 14 tournament schedule.
More urgent is whether LIV Golf can find a TV partner for the US and UK, even if it has to pay for it.
As for who is next, expect rumors to fly once the PGA Tour kicks off this week in Kapalua, though there’s no substance in any top player speculation.
Cameron Smith and Joaquin Nyman waited until the FedEx Cup Playoffs to join LIV Golf last summer. LIV’s first tournament is February 24-26, a week after West Coast Swing in Riviera finished with a $20 million purse at the Genesis Invitational.
Despite the millions of dollars LIV paid to sign top players last year, it’s hard to imagine lower prices for a big name. LIV can’t afford to lose momentum.
Tiger wood
Tiger Woods doesn’t play as much as he does.
The plantar fasciitis that kept him from playing in the Bahamas and held him back in the PNC Championships raised more doubts about his future. His emotional crossing over the Swilcan Bridge at St Andrews in July was the last time Woods walked in a tournament.
Woods’ oldest performance may be at the Riviera in February for the Genesis Invitational. Masters is certainly a target (Woods never misses the cut as a pro). The PGA Championship at Oak Hill in May, which might be cold. Woods tied for 39th in 2003 and tied for 40th in 2013 with two previous PGAs at Oak Hill.
Woods remains active in helping to reshape the PGA Tour. But the fans want to see him play.
Main
The masters waited until 11 days before the end of the year to say their standards would remain the same for the month of April, even as board chairman Fred Ridley expressed disappointment at the disruption caused by LIV Golf.
Most telling was a reminder that any adjustments or changes to the invitation criteria will be announced in April. One possibility is to rely more on the money list than the world rankings, as they did in 1998.
The US Open will decide on any changes at its annual meeting in February. The PGA Championship used the PGA Tour’s money and invitation list, which is normally the World’s Top 100 Tour, but was not stated that way on the entry form.
When or if LIV gains world ranking points, most players will have slipped out of the top 50. Moving up the rankings with a field of 48 players will not be easy.
Removal
That is the name of the par 13 hole at Augusta National, a par 5 reached in two pars with a driver and a sanding wedge by some of the tallest hitters. And everyone seems to be hitting it off for a long time these days.
The masters finally decided to lengthen one of the most dynamic holes in the course, extending the tee to make the hole play 35 yards longer.
Ridley quoted Augusta National co-founder Bobby Jones as saying that the decision to go green on the 13th had to be a momentous decision. “I would say our observations of these great players hitting medium and even short putts on that hole is not a critical decision,” Ridley said in April.
Tony Finau was there in November when he was wet and slick and hit 3-iron and 4-iron in the innings he played. Players are expected to reach around 5 Iron in April. It must be determined whether the decision is “critical”.
slam
The question has been the same for the past five years: Who will reach the Grand Slam first? Rory McIlroy is the obvious pick at the Masters, coming off a stellar season that saw him return to number one in the world.
Jordan Spieth gets his seventh crack in the final at the PGA Championship.
The difference is Augusta National and the scar tissue it leaves from being the only major player to have played at the same track. This will be McIlroy’s fifteenth appearance at the Masters. Sergio Garcia (19) and Mark O’Meara (15) are the only players to have played the Masters Tournament often before finally winning. Neither of them was going to the final stage of the Grand Slam.
The other, of course, is Phil Mickelson. He will be 53 when he tries to win the US Open.
Ryder Cup
The first question is who is playing?
The Americans have had three players on the winning team from Whistling Straits join LIV Golf who are ineligible to earn points. Due to the depth, they are easily replaceable.
Europe has lost five players from the ’21 team to LIV Golf, although all are in their 40s and toward the end of their careers with the exception of Bernd Weisberger at 37. The core of the team – McElroy, John Rahm, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, Victor Hofland – is in tact.
The matches will be held in Italy for the first time. Not new to the Ryder Cup is the perception that Americans would rather win. It has been like this for the last 30 years since they last won on European soil.
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