It’s that time again. It’s time to take a quick look at some recent happenings in the golf world. So many things… so little time. Where to begin?
Let’s take a look at a trend that’s starting to develop. I have no issue with following the rules and even bending them sometimes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Without any semblance of rules… you have anarchy. When it comes to the Rules of Golf they’re in place for a reason. Much like Newton’s First Law of Physics (“For every action… there’s an equal but opposite reaction”). While some of the rules are silly and can hurt you (some of these were addressed on January 1st) some are in place to actually help golfers. Some of the new modernized golf rules put into place the elimination of the “T.C. Chen”. Yes… the double-hit! Now there’s no penalty for doing so and over social media I’ve seen various videos of golfers (including PGA Tour players) practicing or just goofing around from behind a tree executing the “Intentional Chen”. UGH! It nauseates me. Now you’re actually stretching the envelope of the rule thus taking away a little bit of the integrity from the game. Like there hasn’t been enough taken from it already. If a Tour player were to do it… it would be “Bush League”. Period! The rule needs to be re-written to include “not intentionally for the purposes of getting out from behind a hazard etc”. Or at least something to that effect.
We crowned a new winner at the 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii this past weekend. Matt Kuchar played some great golf. He bested the field by 4 shots finishing at -22. Armed with the golf clubs and golf ball below he took home a nice little paycheck of just under $1.2M (yeah… you know where this is headed).
Ball: Bridgestone Tour B X
Driver: Bridgestone Tour B JGR (Fujikura Atmos Tour Spec 6S), 9.5 degrees
3-wood: Titleist TS2, 13.5 degrees
Hybrids: Bridgestone Tour B XD-H (18 degrees); Ping Anser (20 degrees)
Irons (5-PW): Bridgestone J15CB
Wedges: Bridgestone J40 Forged (52 degrees); Cleveland RTX-4 (56 degrees); Cleveland RTX-3 (62 degrees)
Putter: Bettinardi Kuchar Model 1
So this week all over social media we heard about an incident…story…rumour or whatever you want to call it involving his win at 2018 Mayakoba Classic. For this tournament, Kuchar hired a local caddie. Apparently, the parties involved came to an agreement. The caddie would be remunerated $3,000 USD for his work during the week. Sheesh! I’d love $3,000 for a week of work. Crap! I’ll do it for $2,000 USD (always undercut the competition). Anyways, Kuchar would go on to win the tournament and if you believe everything that you read (especially on the internet) the caddie didn’t receive any more than the $3,000 after the victory. To this end I have this to say. With none of us being there firsthand none of us should be so freaking quick to judge Kooch! If that was all of the money that the caddie received then that sucks I guess. If he was given more money than that out of the winnings then good for him. He rendered good services during the week and deserved a payout. You know who didn’t make $3,000 USD that week? Me!
As we know, Justin Rose left TaylorMade Golf to sign with Honma. Actually, he didn’t leave them. His contract expired and he was an equipment free agent in a way similar to players on professional sports teams and NASCAR drivers. According to reports, it all started with a putter. But not just any putter. The way that I translate it, is that he tested a putter (Axis1) and consequently rolled the ball well with it. One thing led to another. After testing out Honma products late in 2018 he began to really appreciate the quality of their products. Honma Golf allowed Rose to have input on the design which as it turned out weighed-in on his decision significantly. This is something that I truly appreciate. This meant something to the Englishman. There were other little things in the contract that swayed Rose to go in that direction including the ability to pick and choose any metalwoods and golf ball of his choosing. For the time being, it’s being reported that Rose will continue to play TaylorMade fairway woods. I expect that to change not too far down the road. Rosey… I like you even more.
That’s it for Odd ‘n’ Ends for this week. The next time we do this… I’ll have wrapped up my Demo Day experience at the 2019 PGA Merchandise Show.
Until The Next Tee!!
#SeeUOnTheNextTee #FightAndGrind
The Next Tee (TNT) 