1. A more challenging Plantation Course ahead
The AP’s Doug Ferguson on the Coore/Crenshaw Plantation Course facelift…”Fifteen players are competing for the first time and won’t notice the $12.5 million refinement project by designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw….Dustin Johnson did.”
- ”It’s definitely a little harder,” said Johnson, who has been playing every morning as the sun climbs over the horizon and is done with 18 holes before the breakfast buffet has been cleared. ”The greens are firmer because they’re new. The greens are firm and the fairways are soft. I think it will play more difficult.”
- …”This refinement was not all about length…The Plantation Course had grown old enough that it lost its speed from so much thatch in the grass. The idea was for this course to play fast. That would make it more difficult for elite players to control their shots, and make it easier for resort guests who found the course too long because the ball wasn’t rolling as far as it once did.”
Full piece.
2. Disappointed he hasn’t achieved more…
Golf Digest’s Dave Shedloski…”It’s not that Thomas, 26, seeks perfection. He’s smart enough to know that’s a fool’s errand in the unpredictable milieu that is tournament golf. But despite 11 PGA Tour victories, including a PGA Championship, a month atop the World Golf Ranking, a FedEx Cup title and PGA Tour Player of the Year distinction in 2017, plus laying down several scoring markers (including a 59 at the Sony Open), Thomas is far from satisfied.”
- “I’m disappointed I haven’t achieved more, to be honest,” Thomas said Tuesday at Kapalua Resort, where he is one of 34 players competing in the Sentry Tournament of Champions, the site of one of 11 tour titles. “I shouldn’t say disappointed, but I mean, I’m obviously … I’m pleased with my career thus far, but I feel like I could have and should have won a lot more tournaments and definitely should have contended and won some more majors. So that’s just my opinion.”
Full piece.
3. A flaw in the new world handicap system?
Dean Knuth (the Pope of Slope!) filed an interesting piece for Golf Digest…”That said, as the USGA, in conjunction with the R&A, rolls out the much-anticipated WHS-consolidating a half dozen handicap calculations previously used into a single Index-throughout much of the world, including the United States, I have serious concerns with some of the details of the new system. In an effort to create a “One Size Fits All” process every golf association can accept, I believe the WHS is a downgrade from the old USGA system. What was a straightforward and careful system has become something more complicated and less precise. And American golfers will immediately feel its changes.”
- “My biggest concern has to do with the introduction of what I’ll call “par handicap.” What is a par handicap? Simply put, it’s when par is used in the calculation that creates a golfer’s playing/course handicap.”
Read the full piece for the particulars of the Pope’s complaint.
4. Sentry staying on
AP report…”The PGA Tour is beginning a new year by announcing a 10-year deal with Sentry Insurance as title sponsor of the Tournament of Champions, making Kapalua the home of PGA Tour winners through at least the end of the next decade.”
- “The extension means Wisconsin-based Sentry will be the longest-running sponsor since the winners-only event moved to Maui in 1999.”
5. Nichols reflects
One of the best in the biz, and arguably the best female golf writer, Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols looks back on her top 5 storylines of the decade that was.
Here’s one of her entries: “Stacy Lewis gives away winner’s check to Houston”
- “I was out of the country celebrating a friend’s milestone birthday the day Stacy Lewis won in Portland. I woke up in the middle of the night to a text from my husband that Lewis had given us one of those “this is why we love sports” moments. We somehow knew this would happen.”
- “Even with all of her onsite obligations, she took my FaceTime call and reflected on what it meant to win for Houston. It’s a day I’ll never forget. I pulled an all-nighter and then went paragliding over Lake Como for my friend’s 40th the next morning. No doubt Lewis was flying higher!”
Full piece.
6. Lanto & Ben
PGATour.com’s Helen Ross, master of the tour pro human interest story, penned a piece on Lanto Griffin’s friendship with Ben Carroll…
- “Ben Carroll was in eighth grade when he met Lanto Griffin for the first time….The teenager knew about him, of course. Griffin was chasing his dream on the mini-tours, but he used to hit balls on the range at Blacksburg (Virginia) Country Club – where he still holds a share of the course record of 61 — just like Carroll was doing that day.”
- “Carroll’s instructor, Brad Ewing, and Griffin were friends. Carroll recently had won his age group at the Virginia state amateur, and Ewing thought the two should meet….”I said, ‘Watch this kid hit some balls. He’s definitely got some skills,’ ” Ewing recalls.”
Full piece.
7. Dottie does good
From Golfweek staff…”Inspired by 49ers star cornerback Richard Sherman, Dottie Pepper decided to pay it forward in her hometown.”
- “Pepper paid off the school lunch debt of more than 50 students at Dorothy Nolan Elementary School in Wilton, New York, according to a report in the Times-Union. “It’s debt that didn’t need to be sitting there, burdening people,” she told the newspaper.”
- “Pepper and her sister, Jackie Diehl, attended the elementary school, which is near Saratoga Springs, according to the report. She declined to say how much she donated to the school.
Full piece.
8. The dangers of overspeed training
Chris Finn of Par4Success on how overspeed training can be potentially problematic
Here’s a sampling of what Finn had to say.…”The “more RPMs under the hood” golfer describes over 50 percent of amateur golfers. Most of you sit at work and don’t train your body to move at maximal speeds outside of when you swing the golf club. The number of adults and senior golfers who train maximal speed at the gym, run sprints and train with plyometrics (correctly) is under five percent.”
- “Why is this good news?…Because if you don’t move fast at any point in your life other than on the golf course right now, doing pretty much anything fast repetitively will make you faster. For instance, you can jump up and down three times before you hit a drive and your speed will increase by 2-3 mph (6-9 yards) just from that according to a research study.”
- “This means that for the average amateur, adult golfer in this category, picking up 5-8 mph (12- 20-plus yards) almost immediately (it won’t stick unless you keep training in though) is incredibly simple.”
Full piece.
9. GolfWRX x TaylorMade
In case you missed it, we released the finale of the GolfWRX @ the TaylorMade Kingdom video series a few days ago, and it’s a good one. Not only do we get a lesson in the history of the game-changing Spider putter from TM’s designers, but our Brian Knudson puts his gamer to the test against the Spider X.
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