OUT OF BOUNDS
By Gary Van Sickle
Year in golf remembered by these 9 memorable moments
L
ooking back at the highlights, lowlights and Bud Lights of 2016… MEET THE “MEDIUM
THREE:” The so-called “Big Three” of 2015—Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy—were downgraded. Neither won a major although each won a pseudo major. McIlroy captured the Irish Open, a dream for any lad from Northern Ireland, plus the lucrative FedEx Cup. Spieth blew the Masters but won at Colonial, where any Ben Hogan-worshipping Texan would give his last golf ball to win. Day snagged The Players, which PGA Tour officials would love to convince you is golf’s fifth major. (P.S. It’s not.) AMERICAN IDLE: I’ve still got
goosebumps from when Tiger Woods nearly played in a PGA Tour event. He committed to the Safeway Open on Friday before the 2017 season’s opening event, creating a cascade of Tigermania, then bailed out on Monday — the shortest Tiger Era ever. His other memorable moments? Being unable to hit a short-iron shot over a lake at Congressional on media day; driving a cart around at the Ryder Cup as an assistant captain; and telling interviewer Charlie Rose that, oh yeah, he’s still going to win five more majors and pass Jack Nicklaus. Just as soon as, you know, he starts playing again. PROSE FOR AMATEURS: You
have to get some good breaks to win a national championship. Or maybe you just need the right name. Curtis Luck, an Australian, took the U.S. Men’s Amateur title thanks to a stretch in which he won eight consecutive holes during the 36-hole final. Meanwhile, South Korea’s domination of women’s golf is apparently extending to amateur golf. South Korea’s Eun Jeong Seong, 16, became the first player to win the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur in the same year.
44 | AZ GOLF Insider | ANNUAL 2016 WAR BY THE LAKESHORE:
Crowd behavior was an issue at the Ryder Cup in suburban Minneapolis. The bad form may have been instigated by a pre-tournament column written by Englishman Pete Willett, brother of Masters champion Danny, in which Pete described Americans as “fat, stupid, greedy, classless.” Hey, man! Who you calling fat?
American fans probably wouldn’t have known
who Danny Willett was at the Ryder Cup if not for golf’s ‘Shot of the
Year’—Jordan Spieth’s 9-iron that splashed in Rae’s Creek at Augusta National’s 12th hole.
A SPLASH IN THE PAN: American
fans probably wouldn’t have known who Danny Willett was at the Ryder Cup if not for golf’s “Shot of the Year”—Spieth’s 9-iron that splashed in Rae’s Creek at Augusta National’s 12th hole in the final round. Spieth dunked a second shot (wedge), too, made a quadruple- bogey 7 and handed the green jacket to the previously obscure Willett. DJ RULED: What if you had a US
Open final round and nobody knew the leader’s score? That nightmare scenario unfolded at Oakmont when USGA officials delayed giving Dustin Johnson a penalty because his ball moved on the putting surface. The decision to wait until the players were in the scoring area has been the universal process at PGA Tour events. Luckily, DJ still won by three strokes, even after the penalty
was ultimately applied. On the plus side, this puts an exclamation point on one more rule that deserves a rewrite. A simplification of the rules is on the way, and this incident is just another example that it’s not too soon in coming. SAME OLD, SAME OLD: Sweden’s
Henrik Stenson won the British Open at Royal Troon with a final-round 63. Ho-hum. He was the 29th player to shoot 63 in a major. (Robert Streb became No. 30 at the PGA a few weeks later.) Stenson needed that round to hold off Phil Mickelson. Ho-hum. It was Phil’s 11th major-championship runner-up finish despite the fact he also shot 63 in the first round and a very respectable 65 in the finale. PEDAL TO THE MEDAL: Golf’s
return to the Olympics after 112 years was an unqualified success in Rio. Justin Rose and Inbee Park were proud champions and the telecasts were exciting for an unexpected reason—the races for second and third (and silver and bronze medals) were just as important. Matt Kuchar won America’s only medal, a bronze, after a closing 63, and he was happy as if he’d finally won a major. (Not that he’ll likely ever get the chance to compare.) All that excitement led everyone to the conclusion that a team competition at the Olympics might be a good thing, too. VALLEY OF THE FUN: The
Waste Management Phoenix Open outdid itself, cracking the 200,000 attendance barrier for Saturday’s third round and drawing a record 618,365 fans for the week. Unbelievable. Figuring 3.5 Bud Lights per fan…that’s a record number of bathroom breaks. As highlights go for 2016 in the wide world of golf, call it a Number One. n
Gary Van Sickle was the senior writer for Sports Illustrated and
Golf.com for the past 20 years. He still writes golf from his office in Pittsburgh.
www.azgolf.org
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