1. Woods-Manning vs. Mickelson-Brady set
Our Gianni Magliocco…“On Thursday, AT&T’s WarnerMedia announced full details of ‘The Match: Champions for Charity’ featuring Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady – with the contest set to take place on Sunday, May 24…The match will take place at 3 p.m. ET from Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida, with $10 million going to benefit Covid-19 relief.”
- “The contest will include team match-play four-ball on the front nine and an alternate shot format on the back nine – with each participant teeing off and then each team playing alternate shot from the selected drive. As with the original match between Woods and Mickelson, there will be on-course challenges to raise additional charitable funds.”
- “The event will be simulcast on TBS, TNT, TruTV, and Headline News, and all of the donated money will go towards the fight against the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic including the following organizations: Direct Relief, the American Red Cross, Save Small Business, and the ALL IN Challenge.”
2. Singh a “turd”?
Golf Channel’s Will Gray…”Singh has lifetime status on the PGA Tour, and at age 57 he still competes regularly against players half his age while adding an occasional start on the PGA Tour Champions. But his status won’t get him into Colonial, which typically has a restricted field and includes several unique exemption categories. Under the Tour’s guidelines, any fully exempt player is allowed to play in a concurrent Korn Ferry tournament as long as he is not eligible for that week’s PGA Tour event.”
- “That same bylaw has apparently opened the door for Singh, a player with more than $71 million in career earnings and indefinite exempt status, to potentially play in a Korn Ferry event that will include dozens of cash-hungry players who are vying for a handful of PGA Tour cards. One such player is 35-year-old Brady Schnell, who took to Twitter to call Singh a “true piece of trash” and a “complete turd” if he opts to play the Korn Ferry event.”
3. Plenty of rounds are being played…
Bill Pennington for the New York Times…Around noon on April 17, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota announced that the state’s 450 golf courses, shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic, could open the next day. At 3 p.m., the Hazeltine National Golf Club, about 25 miles southwest of Minneapolis, activated its automated online tee time booking system.”
- “It took two seconds for 172 golfers to fill the entire tee sheet for the following day….“We went into the system at two seconds after 3 o’clock and saw that every tee time until 6:30 p.m. was accessed by somebody,” said Chandler Withington, Hazeltine’s head golf professional. “Throughout the state, every course was packed.”
- “Minnesota is a microcosm of the golf boom enveloping the United States as courses have reopened in the past month, a time when the percentage of golf courses open nationwide has surged from 44 percent to about 88 percent, according to the National Golf Foundation. There are more than 16,000 golf courses in America and only a quarter are private clubs. With schools padlocked, fitness centers closed and many parks and playgrounds off limits, golf – with social distancing restrictions – has become a rare outdoor respite that combines exercise, companionship, competition and space.”
4. Harrington reveals
Adam Schupak at Golfweek…“Padraig Harrington let the cat out of the bag that Englishman Luke Donald will be one of his vice captains for this fall’s European Ryder Cup team at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin.”
- “Harrington, Europe’s captain, made his faux pas while making a guest appearance on Sky Sports’ “The Golf Show,” on Tuesday. It was a humorous moment as he tried in vain to correct himself before giving up and breaking into laughter, and saying, “That’s not to be announced yet.”
5. Gary Player: I can fix Jordan Spieth
Gianni Magliocco…”Golf legend Gary Player appeared on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio this week and claimed that he is “absolutely convinced” that Jordan Spieth would be World Number One once again if he spent one hour with the South African.”
- “Spieth currently sits 56th in the Official World Golf Rankings, but Player believes that he could make the Texan reach the summit of the game once more – citing Spieth’s mind while declaring long-hitting “the most overrated thing in golf.”
- *All quotes courtesy of SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio*...“If I could spend one hour with Jordan Spieth, I’m absolutely convinced he’d be number one in the world.”
- “I say that because long-hitting is the most overrated thing in golf. The thing that wins golf tournaments is the mind, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of the mind.”
6. Mass courses open
Jason Lusk at Golfweek…”Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker reopened his state for golf Thursday, effective immediately, making the Commonwealth the last state to announce when the sport could be resumed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.”
- “Maryland and Vermont had been the most recent holdouts to announce the reopening of their courses. Both those states’ courses also were allowed to reopen Thursday, according to the National Golf Foundation. New Hampshire beat each of those to the announcement this week, allowing its courses to reopen May 11, making it the last to have it courses closed despite the earlier announcement.”
- “Alaska is still closed due to seasonality, and some courses are still closed because of municipal or county mandate. Across the country, 79 percent of golf courses in the United States were open as of May 3, according to a National Golf Foundation update. That’s up from 58 percent the week before.”
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