The Ranking: Get Ready to See a Lot of Tiger Woods on the Course
It was a good week in golf.
How can The Ranking be so sure? Because Tiger Woods was a hot news topic. Twice in a few days.
The news about Tiger was only medium-hot, but anything involving Tiger showing up and playing golf automatically becomes hot, according to the law of the jungle. He’ll play at least twice in December, not counting a probable appearance in the annual father-son event with Charlie Woods.
The rest of The Ranking’s views on The Week in Golf
10. Jordan Spieth, pro golfer and distinguished University of Texas alum/dropout was the guest picker on ESPN’s “College Gameday” show in Austin, Texas, before Saturday’s Texas-Texas Christian football game. How’d he do? Fair. Spieth went 6-4 with his picks. He correctly called Washington’s upset of Oregon and nailed Kansas State over Baylor but suffered a classic fail when he boasted his Longhorns would defeat TCU “by 10 or 15.” Texas lost, 17-10. That odor you smell? It’s burnt orange.
9. GOLFTV, the pay-for streaming service whose PGA Tour coverage was never watched by The Ranking staff, is done as of Dec. 12. The PGA Tour has a 12-year, $2 billion streaming rights deal with Discovery, GOLFTV’s parent, which will move its Tour coverage to a bigger streaming platform that The Ranking staff doesn’t subscribe to, either.
8. The Rules of Golf have been tweaked again, so decreed by the czars of the game. Yes, prepare to be thrilled by Rules of Golf news. Five minor changes were made, the most significant allows a player to replace a club damaged during a round as long as that player didn’t damage it via abuse. So you snap your drive shaft over your knee in a fit of rage after a bad drive? You’re still out of luck. But if a tree falls on your driver and breaks its shaft, you can legally replace the driver. What if former NBA player Tree Rollins falls on your driver and breaks it? Hmm. We’ll get back to you.
7. Angel Cabrera, the former Masters champion currently serving time in an Argentine prison for assaulting a former business partner, was sentenced to another 28 months for assaulting a former girlfriend. Cabrera, 53, said prison “has done me good.” Good news. Anyone else up for a good old-fashioned South American jailbreak?...
6. Steven Alker finished off his finest year of golf by winning PGA Tour Champions’ Schwab Cup, the tour’s equivalent to the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup. Alker finished third in the last event, won by Padraig Harrington. The gigantic Schwab Cup bonus Alker netted was $1 million. Funny how that sounded like a lot more before LIV Golf came along.
5. Tony Finau won one time in his first 185 tournaments. His victory in last week’s Houston Open was his third in 2022 and fourth in his last 30 starts. This is a public service announcement to remind you to add him to your fantasy team next season. You’re welcome. You’ll receive an invoice shortly, payable to The Ranking.
4. Linn Grant qualified for this week’s CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., but the young Swede can’t get into the U.S. because she hasn’t been vaccinated for Covid, just like how tennis star Novak Djokovic missed the U.S. Open for the same reason.
3. Tiger Woods will tee it up in a few weeks. As expected, Woods announced he’ll play Dec. 1-4 in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, his first competition since he missed the Open Championship cut in July. Tiger is the unofficial tournament host. He’s also the unofficial reason this 20-man outing, which benefits his foundation, somehow receives world ranking points. Meanwhile, 48-player LIV Golf events receive none. Memo to LIV: You should’ve offered Tiger $2 billion to switch sides.
2. Have yourself a merry Tiger Christmas. Woods will make a second December appearance by playing in The Match, a Silly Season exhibition staple. The last Match, in June, featured NFL quarterbacks and was “Omaha!” unwatchable. This time, Woods and Rory McIlroy square off against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla. There’s no way TV can screw this up, right? Of course not. Tiger and friends will play at night under lights (ugh!) and the match will be a traditional golf round of … 12 holes, which means this will be Tiger’s first realistic chance to shoot his age (46).
1. Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch, two memorable voices of televised golf, won’t be back next year. It’s the end of an era as NBC said it wants to “refresh” its golf coverage. (The Ranking will refrain from predicting what kind of doom the word “refresh” portends.) Maltbie was a 30-year NBC golf veteran and a jolly, likable pro; Koch worked full-time for NBC for 25 years. Both men were knowledgeable, insightful and not afraid to say more than, “That’s right, Johnny,” when Johnny Miller ruled the show. How to rate their genteel TV golf careers? Better than most.