{"id":3515,"date":"2022-01-12T14:59:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T14:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2022-01-12T14:59:15","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T14:59:15","slug":"is-watching-the-pga-tour-getting-monotonous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/golf\/personalities\/3515\/is-watching-the-pga-tour-getting-monotonous","title":{"rendered":"Is watching the PGA Tour getting “monotonous?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cam<\/a>

Cam Smith<\/p><\/div>\n

The new golf year on the PGA Tour is upon us. There are several reasons to enjoy this time of year. Imprisoned by the icy winter in Michigan compounded by Covid, it\u2019s hard not to be enthralled by the images of Hawaii in all of its sun-soaked glory. Oh to be there among the sandy beaches and those magnificent breaching whales!<\/p>\n

No doubt the calibre of golf is high as witnessed by the record-breaking sub-par performances last weekend at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. I mean, three players broke the PGA Tour\u2019s scoring record of -31 under par. Australian Cameron Smith led the way with a -34 total, putting together amazing rounds of 65-64-64-65. He\u2019s now climbed to the 10th spot in world player rankings. (Two years ago I bet on Smith at 200-1 <\/i>odds to win the Masters. Alas, he finished second.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve played the Plantation course at Kapalua on Maui and found it anything but a pushover. The greens were confounding. I played with a member from Vancouver and hit 6 or more greens than he did but he still beat me by ten shots. He knew the greens and their grain, always deciphering if a putt was slow or fast. I had no clue and three-putts cluttered my scorecard.<\/p>\n

After he won on Sunday, Smith said the greens reminded him of the ones in his native Australia: \u201cThe greens being quite slow and grainy. Yeah, it\u2019s awesome, I love it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

I always thought Johnny Miller was onto something when he said if you want to lower the scores on the Tour just slow down the greens. Forget that, I guess.<\/p>\n

Justin Thomas was asked about the low scores at Kapalua and shared some insights. \u201cIt\u2019s so low because it\u2019s so soft and if you give us soft conditions, fairways this big, a course this short, we\u2019re going to shoot nothing,\u201d said Thomas. (Apparently, a 7,600 yard course is short these days.) Furthermore, the weather was perfect with nary any wind.<\/p>\n

What wasn\u2019t mentioned was the fact \u201clift, clean and place\u201d was enacted for the first two rounds due to soggy conditions. The PGA Tour and its players don\u2019t want \u2018mud balls\u201d to spoil the mood or the television. The PGA Tour is about making birdies to enhance the entertainment pleasure of its fans and sponsors.<\/p>\n

\"Lorne<\/a>

Lorne Rubenstein<\/p><\/div>\n

Canada\u2019s Loren Rubenstein, award-winning golf writer\/author and colleague, told me recently over coffee that he doesn\u2019t watch PGA Tour golf much these days. He finds it somewhat monotonous, lacking the necessary ingredients of challenge and skill, lessened now by the advances in equipment and the golf ball.<\/p>\n

Watching golf this weekend, I tend to agree with him. It all looked so easy and effortless to make a ton of birdies. I\u2019d like to see more of a premium placed on driving accuracy and hitting greens in regulation. And like many golf fans, I love to see the players deal with the elements. That\u2019s one of the underlying appeals of the Open Championship.<\/p>\n

Okay, this is a roundabout way to say I\u2019m hoping for thirty-mile-an-hour winds for this weekend\u2019s Sony Open at Waialae Country Club. If not, I\u2019ll still be watching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Images courtesy of the PGA Tour and Golf Canada<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new golf year on the PGA Tour is upon us. There are several reasons to enjoy this time of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":3517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[976045,9,17,7],"tags":[813735,2686,1034123,2832,2835,1036836,2450,1028460,1034071,1027880],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tournament","category-golf","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities","tag-plantation-course","tag-kapalua","tag-lift-clean-and-place","tag-terry-moore","tag-justin-thomas","tag-pga-tour","tag-lorne-rubenstein","tag-cameron-smith","tag-1034071","tag-sentry-tournament-of-champions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2022\/01\/smithtrophy-847-gregoryshamus.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3521,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}