Pump Brakes on Rory
By Dan Daly
VegasInsider.com
Sure, Alex Cejka may have won the Puerto Rico Open on Sunday for his first PGA Tour title, but a certain country music singer who happens to own two Major Championship titles finished a very respectable two shots back for a T10. If not for playing a six-hole stretch on the back nine Saturday afternoon four over par (including a ball that hit the cart path and went OB), John Patrick Daly might have finally ended his 11-year winless drought on the PGA Tour. Laugh all you want but about a T10 at the Puerto Rico Open but this is on the heels of an opening round 65 at Pebble a few weeks ago. I’ve been telling you for years he has one more four day run in him on the PGA Tour before he goes off and dominates the Senior Tour next year.
Crawl, walk, run folks.
The opening round at Pebble with the big boys was the crawl. The T10 at the Puerto Rico Open was the walk; and the run is very close, I know it is. Sure it may be a tournament like the Puerto Rico Open with a lesser field, but a PGA Tour win is a PGA Tour win and still comes with all the perks…including a spot at Augusta. Just remember where you heard it first.
On that note, it was nice to see The Shades of Duval out of the booth and back out on the course where he belongs with a very respectable four round total of even par and a T47. I’m not sure he will ever seriously contend again, or even come close to it, but it sure would be fun to see him make a run one week before he hangs it up for good.
As for the “B Team” tournament this week.
As unwatchable as a majority of the 2014 PGA season was, I have to say the 2015 season so far has been pretty exceptional. I know the ratings don’t quite reflect that yet but if the Majors can follow suit with big names in contention and exciting finishes that will change. The Tour really needs this to keep up, and quite frankly as a fan of golf, so do I.
I’ve never heard, read (tweets) or seen more PGA Players absolutely crucify a golf course and the layout like they did this week. It’s one thing in a major when they try and trick up a good course, or even when the course is almost unplayable like Quail Hollow or The Byron Nelson greens were a few years ago. But not like this, not on a golf course that was in great shape. I didn’t hear or read a single player have one positive thing to say about the course. JB Holmes shot a frickin 62 and still complained about the course. Even in his post round interview DJ didn’t mention a word about the course; which is almost unheard of. Hell, even Brandt Snedeker’s caddie called it, “the worst golf course I’ve ever caddied on.” That’s when you know it’s bad. I would throw out a “Mr. Trump, You’re fired” but that would be way too cliché.
Clearly, all you need to do to succeed on the PGA Tour is “take a leave of absence.” I said the week before he came back that DJ was going to tear it up this year but I had no idea to this degree, this quickly. I mean the man is on a mission his first month back. If he can putt even half way decent he may win 5 or 6 times this year on Tour and throw in at least one Major, if not two, to boot. Personally, I’m all for it. Love the guy. You may start to see guys turning themselves in for all kinds of drug violations here pretty soon just so they can “take a leave of absence.”
According to my email and twitter I am a Tiger lover and have to write about him as much as possible, so my random Tiger stat of the week …On Sunday, DJ became the eighth player with multiple victories in a World Golf Championship event. The seven not named Tiger have combined for 15 WGC wins. Tiger has 18 by himself. I’m sorry but that’s just silly.
What can I say about JB Holmes? A five-shot lead to start the round and you can’t close the deal? Really? It wasn’t quite Greg Norman or Jean Van De Velde-esque but it’s a five-shot lead going into Sunday on the PGA Tour, you have to close that out JB. The guy didn’t make a single putt over six-feet the entire day on Sunday. With his second runner-up finish in his past four starts (he lost a playoff at the Farmers) he is still a long way from the Furyk zone. So at least he has that going for him.
On a side note, watching DJ and JB each make a hole-in-one 20 minutes apart on the same Saturday was pretty entertaining television.
The only thing harder to get used to than Charley Hoffman and Jason Dufner’s new haircuts is seeing Adam Scott with a short putter. Doral was Scott’s first start of 2015, and his first tournament since switching to the short putter and he finished a very respectable fourth. If he can somehow learn to putt with a short putter again, watch out, the guy still hits it as pure as anyone on Tour.
Can we all pump the breaks just a little bit on Rory and crowning him the next Tiger or Jack. As I have said more times than I can count, the guy is fantastic, and when he’s on, he’s the best in the world. Problem is, he is just too inconsistent to be in that conversation. Tiger has missed 12 cuts in almost 20 years on tour, and three of those have come in the last year alone. Rory has missed 11 cuts on the PGA tour since 2009 (and 29 cuts worldwide). And as much as people want to hate on Tiger and his attitude on the golf course I can tell you with 100% certainty he never once helicoptered a 3-iron, or any club for that matter, into a lake like Rory did on Friday.
Granted, it was a helluva a throw, but between the toothache WD and the 3-iron into the lake, the guy has a very long way to go on a lot of levels to even be in the same zip code as Tiger and Jack. I said a month ago that Rory won’t win a single major in 2015 and I stand by that statement. At the rate he’s going, he may not win a single tour event at all. While I doubt that, he definitely isn’t the same player he was at the end of 2014 when everyone was ready to anoint him one of the greatest of all-time.
Bubba, oh Bubba. Broke my heart to see him collapse like that. I actually think his tank job on the back nine Sunday might have even been worse than JB’s was in a way. The guy was cruising along at 4-under through eight, had a two-shot lead all of the sudden, hit it to 10 feet on nine and had the par five 10th after that. He missed the 10-footer for birdie on the 9th and then hit a bad, but not horrible, drive on the 10th and the guy just went completely mental and never recovered. My two-year-old doesn’t let things affect her as much as Bubba does.
I’m starting an online fund raiser to get this guy an all-expense paid trip to Augusta to follow Bubba around next month…and every year thereafter for that matter.