OUT OF BOUNDS
By Gary Van Sickle
When looking into golf’s crystal ball, sometimes ‘you cannot be serious!’
L
et’s apply tennis legend John McEnroe’s famous line to 2017, the year in men’s golf: “You cannot be serious!”
Sergio Garcia wins a Masters at
the course he loved to hate? Erin Hills, a supposed beast, yields record-low scoring in its first (and last) U.S. Open? Rory McIlroy and Jason Day combine for zero PGA Tour victories? Justin Thomas wins five times, including a PGA Championship, and someone named Xander Schauffele nearly takes the FedEx Cup? You cannot be serious! And yet it all happened. We didn’t see any of those things coming a year ago. So let’s think outside the bun with bold predictions for golf in 2018. French toast: The Americans
don’t simply win the first Ryder Cup played in France, they kick off a decade of dominance. Team USA has the world’s top three players — Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth, in any order — plus Patrick Reed, Rickie Fowler, U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, Daniel Berger and the aforementioned Schauffele. And all but Johnson are in their 20s! Europe’s big names are aging, McIlroy is coming off a year in which an injury may have curtailed his interest, and now he and Sergio Garcia are married (um, not to each other!) and possibly focused on things besides golf. As for young guns, well, there’s Jon Rahm of Spain and uh, um . . . uh-oh. Europe beware. The tide has turned. Hello, Kitty: The big cat is no longer
fearsome, but Tiger Woods at least has a golf club in his hands again. Ever since the hydrant episode, I’ve said he would eventually turn into a comeback story. Well, doubters, here he is. Can he come back from spinal fusion to win majors? (Enter McEnroe: “You cannot be serious!”) First let’s see if Tiger can put a few rounds together without re- injuring himself. Expectations should
44 | AZ GOLF Insider | ANNUAL 2017
remain low but I’ll go this far: Tiger will play in all four major championships. He hasn’t done that since 2013. Pink tank: Bubba Watson will make
a resurgence in the coming year now that he’s done playing that pink golf ball and is going back to a real ball, a Titleist. I hope he enjoyed the endorsement money because Bubba effectively spent a year going into gunfights armed only with a knife. He will win again in ’18.
Crowd control: The Waste
Management Phoenix Open will break its Saturday attendance record (204,906) and its four-day mark (655,434) during this year’s tournament. (Will the last one out of downtown Phoenix kindly switch off the lights?) In an equally unexpected call, here’s my long-range forecast: Summer. Closing time: Golf courses in
America have been closing on the average of one every other day. I look for that trend to accelerate in ’18 — and get even worse. We’ve got more courses than we have golfers to support them. I also predict the National Golf Foundation will continue to assure us that less is more. In my experience, less is never more. It’s always less. The spectacle at The
Let’s see, who’s got the best short game now
and also happens to be the world’s best clutch putter? Yeah, hand this U.S. Open title to Jordan Spieth.
Spectacles: Carnoustie, the meanest course in the Open rota, hosts the British Open again in Scotland. I predict no one playing Carnoustie will have fun that week, not even the winner. China syndrome: PGA Tour
China will resume competition in 2018 after a year off due to financial and political issues. I predict the tour will not expand into North Korea. Make America grate again: The
The skinny on Shinny: The U.S.
Open returns to Shinnecock Hills after the fiasco in 2005 where somebody lost control of the greens on Sunday. Retief Goosen won that Open with a superhuman short game just as Corey Pavin captured the previous Open at Shinnecock Hills in ’96. Hmm, the best chipper and putter have won twice at Shinnecock? Let’s see, who’s got the best short game now and also happens to be the world’s best clutch putter? Yeah, hand this U.S. Open title to Spieth.
Donald Trump golf empire will take a hit as a growing number of customers stay away from courses sporting his name because of his controversial and polarizing image. The PGA Tour won’t take a tournament back to Trump Doral unless Trump sells it . . . to someone other than Russians, that is. And, yes, I cannot be serious! n
Veteran Gary Van Sickle writes for numerous national golf publications from his office in Pittsburgh.
www.azgolf.org
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