For those of you who spend your autumn weekends focusing on college football and the National Football League, the last three weeks of professional golf might seem a wee bit confusing to the casual sports fan. Three weeks ago the PGA Tour was in Atlanta for the playing of the Tour Championship. The weather was hot and humid. Tiger Woods turned back the clock to 2004 and won that weekend in Atlanta for his first victory on tour during the past five years. The Tour Championship also signified the conclusion of the PGA Tour’s wraparound 2017-18 season with Englishman Justin Rose collecting a hefty check of $10 million for winning the season-long Fed Ex Cup title.
Two weeks ago Tiger and Justin and 22 other world class golfers were in Paris for the playing of the biennial Ryder Cup Matches. The Ryder Cup is an anomaly in that it is team golf contested at the rules of match play. During the past 30 years, the Ryder Cup has become high drama golf as the European team has shown itself to be the equal of the highly regarded American squad. Homefield advantage seems to be the prevailing trend in recent Ryder Cups although the lack of American team unity probably hasn’t helped in the quest to win Samuel Ryder’s little gold cup.
Team Europe totally dominated the American squad in France two weeks ago. Six members of the American team played poorly, namely Tiger, Phil Mickelson, Bryson Dechambeau, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed. When you’re required to play eight golfers in each of the first four sessions and six of the 12 are playing poorly, it’s hard to hide team weaknesses. Every now and then someone like Webb Simpson can drag Bubba Watson to a win, but those moments are few and far between when you’re competing against two world class golfers from Europe.
Patrick Reed has gone from the “Captain America” moniker to “Mr. 83” after his awful Saturday round with Tiger Woods as his better ball partner. Following the completion of the Ryder Cup debacle, we’ve since learned about Reed’s petulance, the pseudo-fight between Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, and the usual theme of throwing the American captain under the bus following a team loss. Somehow Reed shot 83, Tiger went 0-4, and when Phil Mickelson teed it up, he couldn’t even find France let alone the fairway. Yet somehow it’s all attributable to captain Jim Furyk’s leadership? No wonder why the rest of the golfing world sees America’s top linksters as a bunch of millionaire crybabies.
To completely add to the confusion, last weekend was the start of the all new PGA Tour 2018-19 wraparound season. It’s a little bit of a head scratcher. After all, when the World Series comes to its conclusion later this month, they won’t be starting up major league baseball until early April, some five months later. Yet exactly 10 days after the conclusion of the PGA Tour season in Atlanta, the pros were teeing it up at Napa’s Silverado Resort for the commencement of a new season. Sure, Tiger and Jordan and Rory and the rest were not at Silverado, but Phil was there. Of course, one of the advantages to playing golf on a weekly basis is that you can erase all the bad memories of the following week. In Phil’s case, he went from Atlanta to Paris to Napa in the three-week period. He finished at the bottom in Atlanta, struggled mightily in Paris, and yet turned it around at Napa. After being near the top of the leader board through two rounds at Silverado, Phil couldn’t maintain the pace. Nonetheless he was impressive as he finished in a tie for 17th place.
Kevin Tway, best known as the son of 1986 PGA champion Bob Tway, won the Safeway Open at Silverado after surviving a three-man, three-hole, sudden-death playoff. Tway finished atop the leader board in Napa after making birdies on his final two holes. From there he went into a playoff with experienced veterans Brandt Snedeker and Ryan Moore, both of whom played for Team USA in the 2016 Ryder Cup. Yet Tway continued with his birdie barrage, making three consecutive birdies as Snedeker was initially eliminated and finally Moore. Five straight birdies to win your first PGA Tour title is especially impressive. Tway is a classic journeyman who is good enough to keep his tour card each year but has never been able to win. Last year he pocketed just under $1.4 million. Last Sunday he received a check for $1.152 million. That’s pretty heady stuff for a 30-year-old journeyman who is best known because his dad beat Greg Norman in a major championship.
The feel-good story of the week at Napa revolved around 37-year-old Aaron Baddeley of Australia. In 1999, Baddeley shocked the world of golf by capturing the prestigious Australian Open as a 19-year-old amateur. Baddeley parlayed that success by turning pro immediately. He showed his talents by repeating the feat and winning the Australian Open as a rookie professional in 2000. The following year he won the Greg Norman Holden International in Australia. He won the Master Card Masters in his home country in 2007. Aaron also had some success in America, winning at Harbor Town in 2006, Phoenix in 2007, Los Angeles in 2012, and Alabama in 2016. Yet his game went south for two straight years and he lost his exempt status on tour. The best way to get into PGA Tour events was to try the qualifying route.
Baddeley won the four-spot Monday Qualifier at Coyote Creek to get into the Silverado field, played rock-solid golf all week, and ended up one shot out of the three-way playoff, finishing tied for fourth place at the Safeway Open. It was a great way to forget about the last two years and start anew.
The most impressive golfer at Silverado last week was 59-year-old Freddie Couples. The old man river of the PGA Tour ended up tied for 41st place and his tournament was highlighted by a brilliant 65 on Friday. Couples wasn’t always comfortable as a top-notch golfer of the 1990s. His balky back has always been an issue during the past 20 years. And yet when his back feels good and things are going his way, he still has one of the best tempo-oriented swings in the game. It turned out to be Kevin Tway’s week, but all was good for a resurgent Aaron Baddeley and a host of others who are starting anew with the arrival of a new PGA Tour season … even if the last one concluded just three weeks ago.
