Monday, January 27, 2014

Pure Silk Qatar Insurance Masters

What an exhausting weekend. Between Setsucon, the Grammys, and other commitments, there was a lot that had my attention. It is a shame, because we had three great tournaments this weekend, all with very compelling final rounds.

- With a birdie putt on the final hole, Jessica Korda entered into a level of elite players on the LPGA Tour. Now, I don't want to overplay this - it IS just her second win on tour - but she has competed at a high level since she joined the tour in 2011. Her talent is good enough to be a major winner and a top player in the world, and sometimes her attitude is what holds her back. That image of her firing her caddy in the middle of the third round at the US Open is still firmly burned in my mind. Hopefully this win will put that behind her.

- Stacy Lewis seems to be losing a lot of tournaments on 72nd hole. The event in China, the event in Mexico, and now the event in the Bahamas all looked like they were going to be won by Lewis until the eventual winner pulled out a great shot or a great putt on the last to pull it away from her. I don't know if she should be encouraged, because she has a chance to win every tournament she's entered, or frustrated.

- Lydia Ko is a future world number one and a likely Hall of Famer. There will come a time when Ko will dominate the LPGA, much like Annika and Lorena did before her. Let's just make sure we give her some time. What she's doing at 16 is absolutely incredible, but she is still a teenager, and she needs to be given the opportunity to fail before she can become the face of the sport.

- I am putting a bounty out on whoever stole Na Yeon Choi's confidence. A couple years ago, if NYC entered the final round with the lead, the tournament was hers. She would step on the gas and make sure no one caught her. I don't know if it is her putting, or if a years worth of non-victories have killed her mental state, but seeing NYC fall down the leaderboard while others are firing at pins is almost painful to watch. Between her and So Yeon Ryu, there are two amazing Korean golfers who have possibly the best golf swings and most talent of anyone on tour, but can't find ways to win.

- I don't really know what to say about Scott Stallings. There were seriously at least a dozen storylines that would have made talking about the Farmers Insurance Open easy - Jason Day finally getting his second win, or Graham DeLeat capitalizing off that Presidents Cup performance he gave last fall, or KJ Choi coming back from the ashes to claim another title - and yet it's Scott Stallings, a man who seems to win once a season and does nothing to capitalize on it, who walks away with the win. I know I'm probably being too hard on Mr. Stallings. He seems like a nice enough person. I just see a man who now has three victories on the PGA Tour and has yet to sniff a major, or make an international team, or even make it to the Tour Championship. Hopefully he can make me look like a fool this year and boost himself into another stratosphere.

- We now have more questions than answers surrounding the state of Tiger Woods' game. A lot of people are over reacting and saying that he's completely lost it, which is unfair since he just won the Player Of The Year Award; however, Tiger owns Torrey Pines, and to miss out on a secondary Saturday cut is just odd to see. We won't truly know where Tiger's game is until Bay Hill, another course he has dominated. Until then, look forward to all the golf writers shoveling dirt on his career.

- Get better, Phil Mickelson. The Tour is a more interesting place when you are competing. Hopefully Lefty's back is just a minor pain, and he will be back soon.

- What I said about Lydia Ko earlier also extends to Jordan Speith - we needs to allow him to fail. We have gotten so used to Jordan (who is younger than I am and I feel weird about that) playing superb golf and coming close to closing the deal that, when he shoots 75-75 on the weekend, we think there is something wrong. There isn't anything wrong. It's golf. Speith will be just fine, will likely win again this year, and be a contender in a major. He just needs time to know what losing feels like.

- Shout out to Ryo Ishikawa. Glad to see that his bad performance in Hawaii was not a sign of things to come for this season. Ryo is starting to look like the golfer we knew as a teenager when he was winning all sorts of tournaments in Japan. Ryo is still young, and if he starts playing golf like he did this past week, we could easily seem him return to that form.

- I'm going to stop short of saying that this is the best stretch of golf in Sergio Garcia's career, but he does look like he has all the confidence back that he lost a few years ago. Two wins in as many months, currently second on the Race To Dubai standings, and a lock for the European Ryder Cup Team. A lot of people have given up on Sergio's major chances. Perhaps this could be the year he finally fulfills his promise.

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