Feels like the beginning of the PGA season
I know it’s not, but this week’s Players Championship sure felt like the beginning of the PGA Tour season.
In reality, the Players was event No. 23 in a 49-tournament schedule. Regardless, the fifth-biggest championship in professional golf kicks off the most compact and perhaps the most exciting six months in the history of the PGA Tour.
For many years, especially for those of us in the Northeast, the official start of the season happened when the when the green jacket was placed on the shoulders of the Masters winner in early April. But that was then, this is now.
This new schedule provides golf fans with great spectating every month from March through August. Next month will be the Masters, the next month will be the PGA Championship, the next month the U.S. Open, the next will bring the British Open. The regular season ends in August with the FedEx Cup playoffs and the Tour Championship.
For the players, the new setup is something of a nightmare. Not only must they keep their games sharp, as in championship sharp for six straight months, but scheduling has become much more difficult. They need to play enough to stay sharp, but also find time to take weeks off. Sometimes favorite tournaments must be sacrificed in order to get in the appearances that are necessary.
I’m a big fan of the move made by the PGA Tour to move the players to its current date. I covered several of them in March and there was always an air of uncertainty about how the course came through the winter of Northeast Florida and how the weather would be for the four tournament days.
You always had to pack for variety. Sometimes shorts were a good idea and there would be other days when they were a really bad idea. One day in the 40s or 50s, the next day the temperature reached 80.
One thing that really has me intrigued about the new PGA Tour season is how many players will be able to capture momentum in one of the majors and then keep it for the next one. As has been proven many times, momentum is a very fickle and fleeting thing.
The compact schedule may not everybody’s favorite, but it will definitely be the first time the sport has had an almost constant presence in the sports world all summer.
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If you were watching the third round of the Players yesterday, you hopefully heard yet another outrageously funny line uttered by NBC analyst David Feherty. The camera was focused on Tommy Fleetwood, the long-haired English sensation, who was a co-leader after 36 holes with Rory McIlroy.
Feherty said, “He looks like a homeless guy who robbed a Nike store,” referring to Fleetwood’s Nike sweater, hat and glove.
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An FYI for you: My golf radio show on 93.7 The Fan returned to the air Saturday morning. It’s an hour show, from 7-8 and will be one each week through September. Take a listen and let me know what you think.
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Do you have an interesting story about your club or course or an individual who has done something special? Let me know. Send your story ideas to mike.dudurich@gmail.com.