A Flair For the Dramatic
In one of the most exciting finishes to a non-major that we’ve seen in years, Bill Haas won the Northern Trust Open at Riviera in a playoff over Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley on Sunday. A seemingly fade away anti-climactic finish with tough Riviera winning the battle most of Sunday turned into a setting for the spectacular as both Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley birdied the 72nd hole when they absolutely had to in order to force a playoff with Haas. Haas went from the player to beat to the forgotten one in the playoff, and then after pouring in a 45-footer for birdie on the second playoff hole on the short par 4 10th hole was suddenly the champ of another large scale event (Haas won the Tour Championship last fall, lest we all forget his phenomenal flop shot from the water on the 17th hole in the final round). Don’t look now, but Haas now has the second most wins of any American 20-something with 4, just one win behind Dustin Johnson’s total of five. Something tells me that we’ll be seeing Haas and his belly putter and ah shucks grin around quite often for some time to come.
Phil Wins at Pebble, Reminds Us to Expect the Unexpected
It’s amazing the difference just a few rounds of golf can make. Just 3 weeks ago, Phil Mickelson made his debut at the Humana Challenge with predictions a plenty that at age 41 his game was well and gone, and that a winless 2012 was in his future. Well, a T-49th, a MC and a T-26th later and those naysayers didn’t seem too far off the mark. This week, after some solid golf over the first three rounds, Phil entered Sunday’s final round of the Pebble Beach National as the clear underdog to his playing partner Tiger. After a -5 thru 6 start, Phil never looked back and roared to post a 64 and a 2 shot victory. Tiger on the other hand fired a Tony Romo-like 75 to lose to Phil by 11 shots for the round, or what would’ve been 7+5 in match play for those that were counting. It was a definite head scratcher in two different regards for both Tiger and Phil and sure makes us wonder just like those old Ford commercials used to say, “What will Phil do next?”
Talk About Redemption
Coming into this PGA Tour season, only the most die-hard golf fans would’ve been able to recognize Kyle Stanley. After last week at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, he became the guy that you most wanted to give a hug to (Stanley blew a 7 shot lead in the final round and eventually lost in a playoff to Brandt Snedeker). Now, after this past week, Stanley has become the guy you first want to go up and give a major high five to. Stanley did the unthinkable and shed his colossal heartache from last week at Torrey and fired a final round 65 on Sunday to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open, his first PGA Tour victory. Resilience, dedication and confidence don’t quite sum it up. This kid has some serious cojones about him. The win was reminiscent of David Toms’ (The Players Championship-Colonial) and Rory McIlroy’s (Masters-US Open) major bounce backs last year. Congrats Kyle, not too shabby to be in that company.
A New Year in Golf
I just returned from my 30th PGA Show in Orlando, (yes dad started taking me when I was incredibly young). Over 20,000 people in the industry converge on the Convention Center and see all the new products, trade rumors, and decide which products will be hot and which will flop. At it’s peak over 10 years ago, close to 50,000 people from all over the world partied for 4 days and celebrated golf’s eternal growth. Those days ended when the recession hit 4 years ago and most have been hanging on ever since, There was a renewed sense of excitement however, with lots of great new products and a hope the economy would continue to improve. Jack Nicklaus even did a presentation on Golf 2.0, encouraging courses and manufacturers to make the game quicker, easier, and more fun to play. I say it’s about time. Read more on “A New Year in Golf” »
