This year’s last Major Championship will be held ‘across the pond’ at Royal Troon. There have been four Open Championships held at the venerable club that plays to a par 71 at 7385 yards. It is without question one of the most unique courses in the Open Rota.
The PGA Tour rolls into the Motor City to play the rocket Mortgage Classic and the Detroit Golf Club. As a side bar, any time you get an invite to a golf course named after the city in which it lies, most times than not, it will be a real treat (think LA Country Club, Milwaukee Country Club, St Louis Country Club), Detroit Golf Club is no exception.
Pinehurst #2 is a classic Donald Ross masterpiece. It really is unlike any other major championship golf course in several aspects. The greens are the first thing you notice. To say they leap off the page at you is, however, a huge understatement. Steve Pate, my teammate at UCLA, multiple PGA Tour winner, and 2-time Ryder Cup player, described them as “upside down German army helmets, except harder to hit.”
Rory has won here before and by all accounts his game is ready. His biggest hurdle is the mental gymnastics he must endure to get back into the winner’s circle for a major. It has been over a decade since he’s won one and the more time that passes, the harder and bigger the obstacle becomes.
This week the PGA tour circus heads to Charlotte, North Carolina and an absolutely great track in Quail Hollow. Yes, that Quail Hollow, the one that hosts the famous, or if you played it like I did, infamous Green Mile (that prison reference points to the last 3 holes at Quail, which, if your game is only slightly sketchy, playing it can seem like a life sentence).
Then the young studs got there and absolutely shot the pads off the place so…I need to stay in my lane. Which of course is firmly entrenched on the sidelines talking golf. Ok, so who do we like this week?
I want to end this article with one cool story. Several weeks ago, a fan yelled to Scheffler, “go get em Scotty!!! Just like Tiger!! You are World #1. Now all you need to do is stay here for 11 more years!!”. That’s right, Woods held that position for a whopping 683 weeks! Let’s see if Scheffler can do the same.
Every single player knows where the holes will be located and how and where to try and play from to give them their best chances. That is one of the ways that AGNC can get into your head.
The headliner is clearly Rory McIlroy and whenever the Irishman is in the field he has a good chance to win. Simply said, if Rory putts well, he wins. The world may have never known a better driver of the ball and with that sort of weapon at his disposal, most courses, even on the PGA Tour can be whittled down to nothing more than driver, a variety of wedges, and mid to long irons into the par 5’s.