Rickie Fowler's Big Number, Cam Smith's Penalty and Will Zalatoris' Zany First Win
The Ranking takes a look at the most important golf news ever … or possibly just what happened in the last week:
10. On the Tee ... Newman!
Someone at the U.S. Golf Association is a fan of the old “Seinfeld” sitcom, not that there’s anything wrong with that (even though it’s a dated reference). One pairing for this week’s U.S. Amateur Championship at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey is Mark Costanza, Hazen Newman and Campbell Kremer. Yes, Kremer, Costanza and “Newman!” If you don’t know the significance of those names, well, yada-yada-yada …
9. Not Rickie's Number
Things were just fine for Rickie Fowler as he continued his upward trend into the St. Jude Championship’s third round. He was headed for the top 70 on the points list and a spot in the second round of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Fowler was 3 under for the day, 7 under for the tournament and then … an accident worthy of a Farmers Insurance agent. He hit his tee shot into the water at 18—Fowler, not the Farmers Insurance agent. Then he dropped—Fowler, not the bald guy with the Oscar—and deposited his iron shot in the water, too. It added up to a 9 on the par 4. Did Fowler still have a realistic chance of advancing in the playoffs after that disaster? This just in from Germany: Nein.
8. It's Like They Were Never There
"The Invisible Men" best describes the players who jumped ship from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. The likes of Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and the rest were not only removed from the current FedEx Cup points list but also from the tour’s career money list—and that's news. Why? Because some players might be impacted on those lists by the dearly departed. In fact, the LIV defectors earned Rory Sabbatini, an Olympic silver medal-winner for Slovakia, another exempt year on tour. Sabbatini cashed in a one-time, top-50 career-money-list exemption to play this year but missed the this season’s top 125, dropping to 31st on the all-time money list. But after the LIV names were erased, Sabbatini rose to No. 22 and can use a one-time top-25 career-money-list exemption to play in 2023. The question now is, did Phil, D.J. and Bryson ever really exist?
7. Greg Norman Talking ... Again
LIV Golf emperor Greg Norman, in Australian Golf Digest, on Rory McIlroy saying he was happy to get his 21st win so he could move past Norman on the PGA Tour victory list: “I take it as a compliment that he wanted to beat my 20 PGA Tour wins. His next goal should be to win more than 91 tournaments globally or to maintain No. 1 in the world for more than 331 weeks.” Big talk. Remember when Norman won the British Open with a closing 64 and said, “I was in awe of myself,” after the round? Yeah, it’s still that.
6. Baba's Big Wins at the Women's Am
Six. The U.S. Women’s Amateur was notable for the names of its finalists—two international players in Monet Chun of Canada and 17-year old Saki Baba of Japan. Monet was outpainted by the teen in the final, as Baba won convincingly 11 and 9. In a semifinal match, which Baba also won convincingly by a 7 and 6 margin, she said she was thinking throughout the round, “I’m going to win, I’m going to win!” Funny, that’s exactly what Greg Norman was thinking in federal court a few days earlier.
5. Fred Being Frank
Right said, Fred. Fred Couples, a golfing savant, minced no words about his dislike for the LIV Golf lawsuits, the rival’s potential impact on the PGA Tour and its front man, Greg Norman: “I have a funny feeling I know where’s it’s coming from and it’s coming from their leader, who no one has liked for 25 years. And that’s not being mean, that’s just the truth.” As for the players who defected, Couples added, “I’m glad they’re gone.” Anyone else wishing Fred Couples had replaced Nick Faldo as CBS’s color commentator?
4. Were the 'Golden Girls' Not on Either?
Don’t take five, Cameron Smith, just take two. Sunday morning, PGA Tour officials informed British Open champ Cameron Smith that he’d been assessed a two-shot penalty for playing from the wrong place. It was tough news because Smith was only two strokes off the 54-hole lead held by J.J. Spaun. At the fourth hole, Smith took a drop but played his shot even though it was clearly touching the hazard line, a violation, as we all know, of Rule 17.1. A rules official spotted it only because he happened to be watching a rebroadcast of the third round, according to Associated Press writer Doug Ferguson, who tweeted, “Too bad he wasn’t watching “$100,000 Pyramid.” (Is that still on?) A victory would’ve lifted the Aussie—Smith, not Ferguson—to No. 1 in the world rankings but he shot a closing 73 and finished six shots back. This glitch puts a hold my 2022 wrap-up story headline: "Revenge of the Mullet."
3. What a Way for Will to Win No. 1
Second place doesn’t suck for anyone other than Tiger Woods, who aimed higher, but it was getting old for Will Zalatoris, who is already three-fourths of the way to the Runner-up Slam in major championships. Zalatoris finally broke his duck (as they say in the United Kingdom, where duck-breaking is legal and encouraged) and scored his first PGA Tour victory, winning a wild and crazy three-hole playoff over Sepp Straka. Zalatoris hit a shot that bounced on the rocks multiple times but didn’t fall into a water hazard, settling between the rocks and the sod. Then Straka dumped his shot in the water. Straka would make a double bogey. Zalatoris agonized about trying to play his ball but instead returned to the drop zone, got up and down for bogey and the victory. Count it as a W and as a Z for Zany.
2. LIV Golf Loses Round 1 in Court
A California federal judge ruled against three LIV Golf players who sought a temporary restraining order for the right to compete in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup postseason events. The players—Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford—were among 11 players who also filed an antitrust suit against the tour, which will be heard later next year. “If LIV Golf is elite golf’s future,” ruled U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, “what do [the players] care about the dust-collecting trophies of a bygone era?” The LIV lawyers suit had as much chance of winning this battle as Temple has of beating Alabama in football. The PGA Tour’s attorneys improved their court record to 2-11-1 (or something like that).
1. Feherty Tells It Like It Is
One. David Feherty, golf commentator and humorist, in the Toledo Blade on why he took a job broadcasting controversial rival LIV Golf’s tournaments: “They paid me a lot of money.” That’s the truth. You can’t handle the truth! Well, we just weren’t expecting it after all those players said they were hoping to grow the game or some such crap. A tip of the cap, sir.
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