It’s time for THE PLAYERS again. Can’t believe it’s been another year since Scottie Scheffler won his second one. Meanwhile, my plants died with the frost in late January, something that hasn’t happened for years. And my grass turned mostly brown, something else I haven’t seen for quite some time. (So much for global warming!) In addition, my back seems to require Tylenol Extra Strength and anything else I can come up with to keep it in line. My furnace/AC unit is getting whiplash going from heating to cooling and my fingernails are getting damaged from all the typing required to write about THE PLAYERS. Yeah, if that’s all, you wish you had my problems. Did I mention the Dollar weed?
OK, OK. By now you know that was all a diversion to keep from picking a winner of this year’s PLAYERS, something that is a horrible task. People who write about golf are not supposed to have favorites for anything, so that makes it extra difficult. Then there’s the betting thing, which for decades was a no-no in golf. Now it’s not. What’s a woman to do?
That’s why I always consult the Cracked Crystal Ball. I’ve decided after all these years to give her a name: Sophie, after the stage name of the “star” of “Funny Woman” on PBS. She seems to be cracking up audiences right and left, at least when she’s not getting booted from the network, so it’s a match.
Sophie, or Barbara — her real character name — has moxie and so does the Crystal Ball, Crack and all. So, I’m going to ask her everything until she complains and does a twirl and hides.
Well, first of all, she’s distressed because Rickie Fowler hasn’t won THE PLAYERS a second time. She was NOT upset with his all-Camo outfit a few weeks ago because she knows, as does Rickie, that there are a ton of golfers out there who are also outdoorsmen and women. Just ask Steve Stricker. Every fall, he disappears into a tree or climbs up a tree or tree house somewhere in Wisconsin and hunts. He does it the old-fashioned way, with bow and arrow. If he gets something, he gives it away to a food bank organization.
Personally, you would never catch me up a tree with a bow and arrow. I’d be awful at it. And what if a bear showed up? Then what? I saw my life’s full of bears when I went to Alaska with my mother. They were everywhere. Not as prolific as moose. The state is completely littered with moose or mooses or meese, take your pick. There was the lone wolf, and you can have all of those you want; I’m happy to leave them in Denali National Park. (Has anybody changed the name of that yet? Just asking.)
I passed Sophie a note asking about this year’s PLAYERS. Now that she warmed up thinking about Rickie, I only have to flash something orange at her to get an answer.
Ah, a missive from Sophie. While we’d all like for super-history to be made and have it be Scottie Scheffler for a third time, she says it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Scottie had that ravioli injury and lost time from the pre-season preparation that he likes to do. He’s probably a month behind where he wants to be because he couldn’t hold or hit a club for several weeks. She says we have to give him another month to get back in his groove. Maybe just in time for the Masters. He was OK at the WM Phoenix Open and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and actually had a chance at the Genesis, but they all slipped away from him. He probably needs a little more practice so his laser-like shots are on target. Maybe April, May, he should be back in the center of the bullseye range. It could be perfect timing for the Masters or the PGA Championship, but he’s going to have to wrestle Rory McIlroy for that one. Quail Hollow is where McIlroy won for the first time in the U.S. He loves Quail Hollow.
Speaking of McIlroy, his drives have been a thing of beauty lately, Sophie notes. And she likes the spring in his step. The driver is his favorite club, Sophie thinks, and if he can continue to improve that accuracy, he would be hard to beat anywhere. Unfortunately, unless he’s picking one or two holes at THE PLAYERS, it’s not going to do him much good because he hits it so far, he’s not going to use many drivers. Hopefully he’s as accurate with his 3-wood as with driver. He’s really hard to beat anyway. And now that his irons have improved so that his second shots dance around a little closer to the pin, he could be really dangerous, at least that’s what Sophie says. Arguing with the Cracked Crystal Ball is a fool’s errand. I never try to do it.
McIlroy said he learned some things when he played with Scheffler over the last year, as he explained on Sky Sports. He said he’s become better at strategy and picking conservative targets.
“Another big thing is obviously my short game,” he added. “Last year, it was a little up and down where I would have a good week, then I'd have a bad week. There wasn't a ton of consistency in it.”
He also learned some mental toughness playing with Scheffler.
“Every time I play with him — and watch how he plays and how disciplined he is — it's a really cool thing to watch,” McIlroy noted. “I'm trying to take a little bit of a leaf out of his book.”
And why not? Scheffler won nine times last year.
The Cracked Crystal ball is nodding in agreement. We should all be as disciplined in our golf games as Scheffler. And none of us should make pasta of any kind using wine glasses. We should eat pasta. We should drink some wine. We should keep the utensils separate.
Sophie says that the foreign players are having a banner year so far on the PGA Tour. Except for Harris English and Mavrick McNealy, all the winners to date are from outside the U.S., originally, although it’s hard to hang that on Sepp Straka since his family moved to Georgia when he was much younger. He says that made him the only golfer from Vienna, Austria, with a slightly Southern accent, although his idea of a Southern accent and mine are different. You’d agree if you heard an interview. But there’s an outside chance you’ll get an “all y’all” out of him. You want to hear Southern Speak, listen to Kevin Kisner.
What it does look like is that it’s past Ryder Cuppers and Presidents Cuppers who are winning. Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Hadwin — Presidents Cup. Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Åberg, Thomas Detry and Sepp Straka — Ryder Cup. Harris English, Ryder Cup. It’s hard to argue with that because it’s been true in the past.
However, Maverick McNealy has opened the door to new guys winning the RSM last fall. He was overdue, really, and perhaps is coming into his own.
Sophie likes him a lot and thinks it’s hysterical that he and his three brothers are all named after cars. There’s Maverick, Scout (Maverick’s caddie), Colt and Dakota. Obviously, his parents have a great sense of humor and like cars a lot. His dad, Scott McNealy, is the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, which was sold to Oracle in 2010. Scott’s father was a bigwig many years ago in the auto industry, so it obviously rubbed off.
What car would you want to be named after? I’d say anything but Edsel! Younger people will have to look that one up. Volante, which was an Aston Martin convertible, isn’t bad. We digress.
There are some guys that Sophie thinks have been overlooked in past years, and she says it’s time to give them a mention. Players like Patrick Cantlay, somebody who’s cerebral enough to outthink Pete Dye and play the right shot at the right time. Then, of course, it’s about execution. Cantlay, Sophie thinks, has sooooo much potential, and she’d love to see him win it. She just did a twirl ending with backspin. That’s pretty convincing right there.
X-Man has injured himself. Something about a rib? Well, you can only reach back and hit those 330-yard drives so often without something getting tweaked. Sophie is sorry to hear about that. She likes X and hopes he heals soon. She likes anybody Fred Couples likes, and Fred is fond of both X and Cantlay.
She’s also interested in seeing Justin Thomas have another one of his comebacks. And I heard her sigh a couple weeks ago when Jordan Spieth’s game was looking promising. But she has to look at who played well at TPC Sawgrass lately.
I suggested Wyndham Clark. She asked if that was a hotel or a person. I reminded her that he recently won the U.S. Open and did NOT mention that he beat Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler in the process. (You know how she feels about Rickie.) She didn’t flash light or spin, so guessing Sophie’s a No on him.
I asked about Sahith Theegala, and she kind of started humming a happy sort of song. That’s a yes. He’s a possible, has a chance as far as the ball is concerned. Brian Harman made her hop up and down and Matt Fitzpatrick caused a wiggle in her wobble. She’s obviously conflicted at this point.
Hideki Matsuyama has never won THE PLAYERS, she pointed out, but she wouldn’t give me more than a definitely maybe on his chances. Adam Scott has won THE PLAYERS, and she thinks maybe he could again. That’s interesting.
Collin Morikawa has the perfect style game for TPC Sawgrass. He’s a thoughtful player, though not long, and that’s not a problem with this course. Everyone saw the way he just held onto the “Hammer” in the TGL match because he said he was the brains of the team and didn’t want to do anything crazy. He’s doing something right because his team has a gazillion point lead now. Well, OK, they have 15 points and the next closest team has 8. Maybe the Cal Berkeley grad is smart enough to pick his way around the alligators to win.
Sophie likes this idea. She’s doing a little shimmy.
But there’s one golfer she has really been impressed with this season and last. Ludvig Åberg. Even though she has a hard time pronouncing his last name — who doesn’t — she likes his chances. Besides, he moved to Ponte Vedra last year. She’s sure it was to be closer to her. You’ll have to forgive her. She’s totally infatuated with Ludvig and the little funny mark over his last name. But what really convinced her was that he has Rickie’s former caddie, Joe Skovron.
She sighed and gave off sparkles and then rotated and hopped into the closet where she rests between each PLAYERS. So, we’ve seen the last of her for a while. But her pick is not bad.
There you have it: Ludvig Åberg for PLAYERS Champ.
