Major(s) News & Notes, February 20, 2025
Masters odds, Couples wants to top his Masters record, Ryder Cup standings, Old Tom items up for auction, Bubba's shot finally earns its YouTube due, Quotables, This, That and Reads.
Days to The Masters first tee shot: 49
Days to the Chevron start: 63
Days to the PGA’s first tee shot: 84
Days to the U.S. Women’s Open first tee shot: 198
Days to the U.S. Open’s first tee shot: 112
Days to the Women’s PGA: 119
Days to The Open’s first tee shot: 148
Days to the Women’s Open first tee shot: 161
Days to the Walker Cup flag-raising ceremony: 197
Days to the Ryder Cup opening session: 218
As we float along like FDR at Warm Springs desperate for the healing powers of reunification—between the not-previously-united pro golf entities called the PGA Tour and LIV—The Quadrilateral has news to break. According to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter: The Masters is less than fifty days away.
The West Coast Swing wrapped and did it’s (traditional) job of crystalizing where things stand for top Masters contenders. (I know there is a Mexico Open this week in Puerto Vallarta…on the coast.) We’d have even more Masters clarity if the Genesis had been played at ANGC-tarrot-card-reader-Riviera, or if Xander Schauffele’s game was put on display east of Kapalua.
Nonetheless, we know Scottie Scheffler thinks he completely stinks after a third place finish in a signature event. Rory McIlroy is fine as long as he’s not trying to putt on puffy Rees Jones-hexed poa greens. And even then he played fine. Hideki Matsuyama continues to march his way toward contending for a second green jacket. Also, several European Ryder Cup hopefuls are once again starting the year off in top form while top Americans are easing into 2025.
Over in LIVland, Jon Rahm’s game seems competent enough for now and Joaquin Niemann is again teasing the world with his potential. Also, Talor Gooch reportedly still plays on that tour, too.
We have increasing evidence that Tiger Woods is not in a mood to play tournament golf while Phil Mickelson spends his days scrolling X and feigning injury to avoid long Hy Flyer flights. But back to the healing news, on Thursday the great minds of pro golf and sovereign wealth fundom are meeting in Washington to help the world mend. Thoughts and prayers.
With only weeks to go, I find healing power in the Masters odds to get a sense of what starts will align in April and via the eyes of people who also bet on digital pony races:
You know what else is neat about this time of year with the Masters nearing? It’s a reminder that we’re close to seeing how a sporting event is run with dignity, class and a lack of desperation. One devoid of Youth Derangement Syndrome programming solidifying its non-major status.
Moving along, Lawrence Donegan and I recapped the Genesis and other golf news in the latest McKellar.
And in the world of major championship adjacent notes, we have items on Fred Couples looking to go out with a (possible) Masters bang, a first look at the Ryder Cup standings, some incredible items up for auction, a long overdue moment in major history finally makes YouTube, some key Quotables, This, That, and a few Reads.
Couples Wants To Top (His) Masters Record
Fred Couples is 65 and around that unspoken cut-off age (ish) for Masters competitors established and then quickly rescinded by former Chairman Hootie Johnson.
Asked last week about Bernhard Langer’s delayed finale to 2025, Couples suggested he-his-ownself needs to “sit down with Fred Ridley to discuss the future.
“I've missed a couple, so I'm going throw in there, ‘hey, Fred my back went out a few years ago,’” Couples said. “It'll being great with Bernhard where he's a guy that can break the record I have as the oldest guy to make the cut. He's such a competitor and he plays well there. But he'll tell that you everything has got to go really, really well.”
Couples added, “If anyone can do it, he can.”
Then Couples suggested he’ll be gunning for a record he set in 2023 in becoming the oldest player to make the cut at 63 years, six months and five days. Couples has made 31 total cuts at the Masters, third on the all-time list.
“I just feel like the way I play at Augusta, I still have a shot, too,” he said of the cut mark.
Couples has struggled with back issues in recent years and plans to play two March Champions events before resting.
“It's not like I need to play every day to be ready for Augusta,” he said. “I need to drive it really well. I don't drive it nearly as far anymore.”
Couples harbors no illusions about contending in today’s world.
“I can't compete with the Jon Rahms and the Koepkas and Schefflers and Schauffeles and Cantlays, but I can compete with that cut number. That for me is a goal.”
Ryder Cup Standings
It’s still way too early.
But given a strong European start to 2025, it’s also good to look at the current standings. If you’re an American, I guess be thankful the matches are not played in March.
The USA rankings where six qualify and six are picked by Captain Keegan Bradley:
The European rankings where the top six qualify and six are picked by Captain Luke Donald:
Old Tom Scrapbooks Up For Auction
Several incredible items from the Morris family collection are on offer from Golden Age Auctions. Various photos, scrapbooks and other items belonging to Old Tom Morris include the historic image of Young Tom Morris posing with the Open Championship Challenge Belt.
The image was taken by Thomas Rodger, who only printed two images from the studio session that also included the famous photo of dad and son. That Old Tom & Young Tom “Cabinet Card” photograph recently set a golf photograph record when it sold for $85,350 in November.
Besides the Morris items, the 1682 printed “Laws and Acts of Parliament Made By King James and His Successors, Kings, and Queens of Scotland” stands as one of the first references to golf.
Also, Golden Age is offering an intriguing set of Augusta National images taken by Perry Maxwell around the time of his 1937 renovation work. Included is the best look I’ve ever seen of the 10th’s greenside bunker after Maxwell moved the surface west by 75 or so yards. I’m sure Cliff Roberts was a ball of joy when his seventh shot found those fuzzy bunker islands:
Mitzvah: Bubba’s Shot Finally Gets Its YouTube Moment
Thirteen years after one of the great shots in major championship history, YouTubers no longer have to watch the moment through someone’s screen capture or by fast-forwarding through an official telecast.
Oddly, the area where Bubba Watson played from at Augusta National has been changed for reasons unknown. While patron congregators are less frequent over a decade later and the hooked wedge locale has been altered, some still turn up 350 yards off the 10th tee to check out how he did it. And now they can watch the shot anytime they like:
Quotable
Tiger Woods on his mother Tida’s influence: “She would keep score, walk every hole and how many putts I hit, how many fairways I hit, how many greens I hit. She tracked it all. Gosh, all those days led us to the point where — and she was — oh, man, she was hard on me about school, about getting good grades and doing well in school. To be honest with you, if I didn’t get any homework done, I wasn’t allowed to go play. Not with my friends, just go play in general. It was important that I got good grades, and school came first before any sport I was playing. She meant everything to me. Losing her has been a very hard and difficult process to go through.”
Woods after Tuesday’s TGL match: “I really haven't thought about golf, so I don't think I'm going to be thinking about it for just a little bit here.”
Jordan Spieth, following his Phoenix T4 with a missed cut at Torrey Pines: “It’s been a tough week on the wrist…It beat it up pretty good, but I’m hoping this next week, laying off of it for five or six days and working on it with therapy — it’s just inflammation so hopefully it will just go away and this will end up being a good thing that I kind of pushed it.”
Scottie Scheffler after finishing third in the Genesis Invitational: “I feel pretty bad about where I'm at…I'm trying to stay patient with myself, which can be tough because I have high expectation and I think when I get out here and start competing, I definitely forget that I had lost some of the progress I made in the offseason. It's not easy to come out here and play competitive golf at a high level and get right back to where I was last year, losing those weeks that I had at home where I couldn't do anything.”
Paul McGinley backing Rory McIlroy’s view of Ryder Cup stalwarts-turned LIV defectors. “The European Tour spent a lot of money defending [the arbitration case] against players that felt they had a right to play, even though they were going to play on a different league that was going to compete directly against the European Tour at the time, more so than it was competing against the PGA Tour.We don't have the riches or the money in reserve that the PGA Tour has that could have surmounted those challenges. We had to spend a lot of the members’ money defending ourselves in the case against the players left a really bad taste for a lot of people.”
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil on his predecessor Greg Norman: “We can tap into his experience, his leadership, his friendship. And he challenges too. At the board meeting I was hoping for a friendly face on the other side of the table, but he mixes it up pretty good.”
This And That
Jon Rahm (OWGR No. 52) fell out of the top 50 this week for the first time in eight years.
The LPGA’s South Korean media rights partner, JTBC, “failed to pay for broadcasting all LPGA events in 2024 and 2025” according to a memo obtained by Golfweek. The company is also listed as a rightsholder of The Open and PGA Tour. (Nichols/Golfweek)
The USGA is now accepting online entry applications for the 125th U.S. Open Championship at Oakmont. Entries will be accepted through Wednesday, April 9, at 5 p.m. EDT. To be eligible a player must have a handicap index not exceeding 0.4, or be a professional.
The PGA Tour and Cosm announced a collaboration to present the 2025 Players Championship in “shared reality” at Cosm’s venues in Los Angeles and Dallas.
Reads
⓶⓹ Ron Green Jr. on the early themes emerging in 2025.
📺 James Colgan with a glossary for golf TV ratings analysis.
🤑 Money in Sport looked at LIV’s UK filings and guesstimates what the PIF has spent.
🇦🇺 Mike Clayton on sandbelt vegetation.
🎾 Charlie Eccleshare with help from Gabby Herzig on the love affair top tennis stars have with golf.
🤞Billy Witz on the power struggle over college athletes’ well being.
👨👨👧👦 Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg on the happy Murdoch clan.
🕴🏻Joel Stein on his sartorial remaking inspired by Ted Danson’s Netflix character.
Finally, ICYMI, the drone footage Mount Etna’s eruption proves that the little digital buggers not just revolutionizing golf course imagery.
Thinking of the Masters. Given Jack's current health. I wouldn't be shocked if he doesn't hit an opening tee shot. Given that, has Ben Crenshaw ever be approached?
About Bubba's Master's Shot:
“About B.W. let’s be candid
Fortunate that he’s left-handed
If he had hit a slice instead
“Our usual shot,” all we’d have said.”
Excerpt From:
If Golf Balls Could Talk
Leon S. White, PhD
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