Who is golf's next needle-mover?
There are plenty of viable candidates, but each seems to be lacking in one area or another.
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina — An imaginary phone conversation in the wake of the Masters Tournament:
“Good afternoon. Thank you for calling American Needle Movers. How may we help you today?
Golf: “We’ve got an opening we haven’t been able to fill. We need a superstar pro golfer the public will find compelling. Our tournaments have been viewed as flat for the last year or so. Geez, the Masters TV ratings were down 20 percent from last year. We need inflation on those numbers, not deflation. Have you got something to pump us up?”
ANM: “May I present the hottest player in golf and your new Masters champion, Scottie Scheffler?”
Golf: “Yeah. No. You’re close. Everybody loves Scottie, he’s a nice guy. He’s winning again and we can’t take our eyes off his happy feet golf swing. But nobody is rushing out to buy RBC Heritage tickets in Hilton Head to watch Scottie. He’s too normal, too down-to-earth. He’s gonna have to run the table to move our needle. He needs to ripen. Who else do you have?”
ANM: “Oh. Well. You have high standards. How about the founder of the original TigerMania, Tiger Woods? He broke the record for most consecutive cuts made at the Masters. And we all know he isn’t a needle mover, he is the needle.”
Golf: “Obviously. But you saw him on the weekend in Augusta. He’s damaged goods. He only plans to play the four majors this year and he has to prove he can even do that. His body clearly stopped cooperating after the taxing first 36 holes. He might contend again if he rides in a cart but that’s not happening. We would die for another wave of TigerMania, but there’s a better chance of the Chicago Bears raising the Titanic than of Tiger winning a sixth Masters, sorry to say.”
ANM: “You’re quite a discerning shopper. Look, we can give you deal on Jon Rahm. He’s won a Masters and a U.S. Open.”
Golf: “No thanks. He fell into that black hole known as LIV Golf. He hasn’t even won one of those 54-man outings yet. He may as well be playing behind the Iron Curtain for all the pub he gets.”
ANM: “Brooks Koepka has five major titles and he’s the current PGA Championship titleholder.”
Golf: “He stunk up the joint at the Masters. Plus, people think he’s a condescending jerk.”
ANM: “I think you’re confusing him with Zach Johnson. But he’s got a good nickname, ‘Major Brooks.’ You can work with that.”
Golf: “No, he’s hiding out in LIV. We’ve had a Brooks Blackout since Oak Hill last year. He’d have to win the next two majors, at least.”
ANM: “Are you seriously looking for a needle mover or just browsing? Sheesh. Hey, we’ve got Max Homa and his amusing tweets.”
Golf: “Wake me up when September ends and his name is on three or four trophies.”
ANM: “We’ve got Ludvig Aberg, the future of golf. There’s Collin Morikawa, who has already won two majors. We’ve got Open champ Brian Harman. He likes to hunt animals.”
Golf: “Please, serious attempts only.”
ANM: “All right. You drive a hard bargain. I can let you have Bryson DeChambeau at a good price.”
Golf: “When did you get into the recycling business? Look, Bryson was the game’s needle-mover three years ago when he bulked up, pounded 380-yard drives and tried driving the green at that par-5 around the lake at Bay Hill. Fans dug his long ball, all right. He was selling tickets like Taylor Swift sells heartbreak. He was hot stuff.”
ANM: “Don’t forget, he shot 58 on the LIV circuit last year at the Greenbrier and won. He’s got the crazy irons that are all the same length. He’s the Mad Scientist. He opened the Masters with a 65 using irons with curved faces that he helped design and got approved by the USGA only two days earlier.”
Golf: “Not bad. We might be able to make a deal if you can get him off LIV and back into broad daylight where he can be seen — like the PGA Tour. But if a needle moves in the forest and no one is there to see it, did it really move? The LIV connection is a stopper, though. I’m sorry, if that’s all you’ve got, I don’t think you can help us with our needle issue.”
ANM: “Wait! Does Taylor Swift play golf?”
Golf: “No.”
ANM: “Darn. Well, thanks for calling ANM.”
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MASTERS LEFTOVERS
A roar had just gone up from the 10th green Sunday afternoon at the Masters. I was standing back near the 10th tee in the shade of the big scoreboard that faces Augusta National’s 18th green. A young-ish guy in sunglasses walked up and waited for the scoreboard workers to update the numbers. “I hope that was Homa making a birdie,” he said.
No, I’m pretty sure it was Scottie Scheffler, I told him, because the gallery cheered pretty loudly after his approach shot there. I didn’t mention that Scheffler was playing with Collin Morikawa, not Homa.
“Well, me and my buddy have Homa in a Calcutta back home. I really need Homa to make a couple of birdies,” he said.
Good luck, I told him, but I’m sure that’s a Scheffler birdie. “Well, I’m wishing that girl has that baby so hard right now,” he said. (Scheffler’s wife, Meredith, was expecting to give birth soon and Scheffler said he’d pull out of the tournament if she went into labor.) The new numbers went up. Scheffler added a birdie and widened his lead. The guy looked at his friend. “Well, second’s not bad,” he said. “If we just finish fifth we get our money back.”
Then they headed down the hill toward the 10th green.
This has been Great Moments in Masters History …
THINKING INSIDE THE BUN
Former U.S. Open champ Matt Fitzgerald was delivered a surprise when he finished a media conference Tuesday afternoon before the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. Two chefs from Fraser’s Tavern, a dining hotspot at the host Sea Pines Resort, continued a tradition by bringing him the new menu item, The Defending Champion Burger. (Which no doubt will be known as The FitzBurger.)
Fitzpatrick had given the chefs input about his favorite burger additions. The FitzBurger featured a patty made from a blend of short rib, brisket and chuck; a sesame-seed bun; applewood smoked bacon; Swiss cheese; and garlic herb aioli. Fitzpatrick took a large bit of the burger that was presented to him on a tray under glass, devoured it and nodded his head. “It’s quite good,” he said.
And the FitzBurger sounds better than some past winner’s versions would’ve sounded such as CinkBurger, PanBurger, KoooochBurger and the BooBurger. (Stewart Cink, C.T. Pan, Matt Kuchar and Boo Weekley in case you were wondering.)
POTPOURRI FOR $20, ALEX
British Open winner Brian Harman, a native of nearby Savannah, Georgia, was reminded in the media room Tuesday that he posted a 47 on Augusta National’s back nine last week. “The conditions just got the better of me,” Harman said, chuckling. “I hit a wedge shot into the water on 13, which is the hole I restarted on, and I just lost my patience. Then I hit it in the water on 16. Both shots I felt like I executed pretty good. If you could have let me move my ball three feet I probably would have made two birdies instead of a double and a triple. I wasted the golf tournament but I was proud of the way I hung in there Friday afternoon and shot a decent score even after I wasn't going to make the cut.” … Fitzpatrick was asked just how difficult conditions were on the weekend at Augusta National, which was baked firm and very fast. “I felt that every single shot last week, particularly with how strong the wind was, it was on a knife’s edge.” … Former Masters champ Charl Schwartzel was asked about Friday’s windy Masters conditions and if it caused him to face any impossible shots. Said Schwartzel: “I thought I had 81 impossible shots.” … You may have missed Nick Faldo on an early pre-round Golf Channel visit last week talking about playing with Tiger Woods in 1997 during the first two rounds, including Woods’ opening 70 that featured a first-nine 40. “I didn’t see him, I was in the bloody trees,” Faldo said. “We didn’t say a word until we got to the fifth green. Those were the early days of Sub-Air [mechanized in-ground drains]. The fifth green was biscuit brown. All he said was, ‘That’s different, isn’t it.’ How can he shoot 40 on the first nine and win by 12. That was stellar Tiger.” … Most ridiculous forward-looking stat: The soonest any player (other than Woods or Phil Mickelson) could match Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships is the 2027 PGA Championship. And that’s only if Brooks Koepka wins the next 13 majors in a row.
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