Major(s) News & Notes, January 5th, 2023
Major(s) News & Notes, January 5th, 2023
Remembering golf's most prolific winner, Kathy Whitworth. Plus, the Scott Stallings Masters invite mishap, Fitzpatrick's Ryder Cup hot take, Barry Lane, NBC changes made official and much more.
Days to the 2023 Masters first tee shot: 91
Days to the 2023 Chevron Championship: 105
Days to the 2023 PGA Championship 133
Days to the 2023 U.S. Open: 155
Days to the 2023 Open Championship: 197
Days to the 2023 Ryder Cup: 267
Let’s hear it for surviving a Friday news dump-free holiday season! Though we did get a Monday drop featuring the not-shocking news of Warner Discovery giving back three continents and untold millions from its no-longer $2 billion PGA Tour international streaming deal. So much for David Zaslav’s “golf Netflix.”
Happy New Year.
Ready for a spellbinding golf season filled with excessive focus on player scheduling? But compared to 2022’s LIV ranking points speculation, stories about players discussing their elevated event opt-out week sounds like a night sleeping on the beach under Hawaiian stars at the White Lotus.
As detailed in The Quad yesterday, the white belt types who stayed around to play the PGA Tour in 2023 will get the idyllic Masters prep over the coming months. They’ll get to play in every type of weather condition, setup and course design. Even better, match detractors were given concrete evidence by Scottie Scheffler that today’s decathletes can withstand seven rounds of jousting and still win the Tradition Unlike Any Other two weeks later.
Meanwhile their LIV-defecting peers will only get six rounds of pre-Masters prep but more time to grow the game. A few may add rounds by playing Asian Tour events and boy doesn’t that sound exciting? (Just after Wednesday’s Quad went to the printer, Cameron Smith announced he’d shorten his off-season to turn up at early February’s Saudi International on the storied Royal Greens, not to be confused with Royal Portrush or even the Royal Caribbean.)
If you’re looking for some last minute 2022 recaps and 2023 appetite-wetters, several folks have tried to imagine how the season will play out given all the moving pieces of last year.
Brendan Porath zeroed in on the
“elevated”“designated” event concept and is hoping this is not a WGC rehash minus events outside the U.S. He’s skeptical that this’ll be any more sustainable than the dying vision of Tim Finchem who somehow still gets paid even though he said golf would be as popular as the NFL by 2020.If pods are your thing, the Shotgun Start guys previewed 2023 while the NLU team recapped 2022 before making 2023 predictions. I laughed, I cried and I penned profound journal reflections after listening to each episode.
Refreshingly, things seem more peaceful in the women’s game. At least until it becomes the Aramco LPGA Tour. Majors-wise, the women will experience a longer build-up to their first major now that the old Dinah has moved to late April in Houston. Those who choose to play most weeks will have seven starts to prepare for Carlton Woods. Even better, the tournament will no longer compete with the Masters and its surrounding events. But in an odd scheduling move, a Hawaii stop is slated for the week prior after the women play prep events in Arizona and Palos Verdes. Given everything else going in golf and the world, it’s beyond a minor issue. Particularly since the game just unexpectedly lost one of its best…
Remembering The Great Kathy Whitworth
The legacy of Kathy Whitworth was summed up by Doug Ferguson in his AP remembrance:
Kathy Whitworth set a benchmark in golf no one has ever touched, whether it was Sam Snead or Tiger Woods, Mickey Wright or Annika Sorenstam. Her 88 victories are the most by any player on a single professional tour.
Besides hoisting more trophies than any pro has on one tour, Whitworth captured six major championships, including three Women’s PGA’s when it was the LPGA Championship. She was a two-time AP Female Athlete of the Year and was inducted into the LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fames.
“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life — loving, laugh and creating memories,” her longtime partner Betsy Odle said in a statement shared by the LPGA Tour after Whitworth’s Christmas Eve passing.
Whitworth offered a total package of personality and brilliant talent. She had a self-taught swing featuring incredible hip clearance long before that became, gulp, hip. Her huge personality, longevity, epic short game and natural interactions with fans made her a longtime favorite. Winning relentlessly like no one else in the history of golf helped, too.
Regarding her incredible ability to find the winner’s circle, Bill Fields noted this in The Albatross about Whitworth’s late career play:
Whitworth’s winning years spanned nearly as long, 1962 to 1985, and she lifted eight trophies after her 40th birthday, titles that took to her to the pinnacle of the sport.
In a fantastic must-read remembrance of her life and times, Ron Sirak explains how someone who made the game look so effortless got off to a disastrous start. Whitworth nearly quit and took 3 1/2 years before winning the first of her 88 titles.
Fortunately, her father and a couple of local businessmen subsidized Kathy with $5,000 a year for three years.
“I almost quit because I was playing so bad,” Whitworth said. “I went home after being on tour three or four months, and I thought, ‘I just don't know if I am good enough.’ I was talking to
Mom and Dad around the kitchen table, which we usually did, and they said, ‘Well, you have three years. If you don't make it, just come home and we'll do something else.’ When they said that it kind of took the pressure off me.’
Whitworth won her first check at the Land of the Sky Open in Asheville, N.C. “Thirty dollars,” she said. “Tied for last-place money, but you would have thought I won the tournament.”
Knoxville’s Scott Stallings Is In The Masters!
The Scott Stallings who threatened to do terrible things to yours truly for suggesting Kenny Perry should not be using PGA Tour events as Champions Tour tune-ups, grew anxious over his Masters invite that never came in the mail. The poor lad!
Apparently a much nicer and less-excessively jacked Scott Stallings, also married to a Jennifer, received the invite in a very un-Mastersly screw-up.
The story went viral, even made local newscasts across the country, no doubt to the painful chagrin for whoever in Masters HQ pulled up WhitePages.com and sent the invite to the wrong Knoxville Stallings.
Perhaps a bigger reveal in all of this was Augusta National’s use of FedEx to send invites instead of UPS, the official Masters merchandise shipper. Perhaps the chairman got access to the PGA Tour’s premium discount code, CHASINGFEDEXCUPPOINTSISLIFE50%OFF? Or maybe he wanted LIV guys to be freaked out by a FedEx visit?
Either way, we know about this saga because the actual pro golfer named Scott Stallings shared how he was contacted on Twitter by Scott Stallings:
And the other Scott posted this epic return-to-sender moment:
The actual Scott Stallings has two previous Masters appearances in 2012 (T27) and 2014 (MC).
He finished 29th in the 2021-22 FedExCup standings, earning an invitation to the 2023 tournament.
Elsewhere, it was smooth sailing for LIV defectors in getting invites. They were extra-happy to share their pre-Christmas Masters invitations arriving via those former benefactors at FedEx.
Golfweek’s Cameron Jourdan has a roundup.
Huh? Fitzpatrick Wants Sergio In Rome
It’s one thing to want a Ryder Cup win at all costs after 2021’s Whooping at Whistling.
Jon Rahm has already said he is open LIV golfers in Rome this year if they can help the team. And now U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick has gone deeper down the desperation ditch by telling Sky Sports that Sergio Garcia is the one he wants in Rome. And he’ll even corner off the miserable one from the rest if it might mean lifting Samuel Ryder’s trophy.
“Sergio would be the one that would stand out for me, particularly,” Fitzpatrick said.
“I don't know the details of [his relationship with McIlroy].
“I'm happy to share a room with him, if that's going to be the case, I can corner him off for everyone else.”
Ahhhh, that vaunted European chemistry!
Barry Lane, R.I.P.
NBC: Faxon, Byrum, Kaufman On The Team
NBC Sports confirmed that Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman are newcomers to the NBC golf team, while Curt Byrum will also serve as a hole announcer after 22-years on Golf Channel where he’ll continue to work.
Faxon will make his on-air debut at the Honda Classic and contribute to Golf Central and Live From studio programming.
According to the announcement, Kaufman “will join John Wood, Notah Begay III and Arron Oberholser as on-course reporters” starting at this week’s Sentry TOC. He is replacing longtime on-course reporter Roger Maltbie, who has accepted a part-time role for Golf Channel while NBC hits “refresh” on its the team.
The network also said Damon Hack and Cara Banks “will serve as golf reporters this year, conducting interviews with players, family members, executives and more, in addition to continuing in their current roles.” The duo replaces Kathryn Tappen, who worked just one rough year as interviewer after she was thrown into the role by Golf Channel Executive Producer Molly Solomon after NBC lost its NHL package.
“We have the deepest roster in the game and are excited to showcase our new voices in Brad and Smylie as well as familiar faces in new roles as we start the 2023 PGA Tour season this week at Kapalua,” said Solomon.
Technically the depth departed when Gary Koch and Roger Maltbie were deemed too old, expensive or both.
Sensing the gravity of taking over for a master of the profession like Maltbie, Kaufman hawked some medium grade golf product!
This, That, Tweets And Reads
🏌🏼♂️ Ryan Barath investigates Costco’s latest efforts to move into the golf equipment business.
Reads
😍 Lorne Rubenstein on how even golf writers have their favorites.
👨🏻💻 The Information’s Theo Wayt and Martin Peers report on Amazon considering the creation of a standalone sports app, signaling no letup in the corporation’s pursuit of more sports properties.
Enjoy the scenes from Hawaii,
Geoff
GS: Would be great to hear more about your new book and any others that are ‘23 releases. And have to say advance notice on Lutron WHoo Dat wanting to pitch a Ryder Cup just reminds me how sad that bidding scenario is. Then again the European Tour needs to hit the jackpot every four years. Not a pretty picture.
“The white belt types...” - great use of such an evocative image and slipped in so quietly.