Everybody likes fresh starts
A fresh start...
That’s what this time of year, the approaching spring, means to millions of golfers anxious to get out into warmer weather and test all the off-season swing theories they’ve studied.
It’s what players who have switched equipment, such as Rory McIlroy with new Callaway clubs, are seeking.
It’s what Michelle Wie almost had at this weekend’s HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore, and what Inbee Park did get. Wie tied for fourth, her first top-five finish since 2014 on the LPGA Tour.
It’s what the Rules of Golf will get when the incredible overhaul that had been perculating for so long and announced last week is implemented.
And it’s what this website means to me personally as I unveil it the week of March 6. I developed it to provide golf readers with a dose of what I enjoy most: looks at golf history while keeping an eye on the present and future to see how they all mix together.
There won’t be anything complicated, just observations, opinion, bits of news, a daily historical bit, all adding up to what hopefully is a celebration of the greatest game of all.
MASTERS THINKING: We’re less than five weeks away from the end of the Masters on April 9. So it’s a good time for a Masters weekly countdown of favorites. I like this lineup, in no particular order yet: Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Jordan Spieth, Brandt Snedeker, Jimmy Walker, and Daniel Berger, with Phil Mickelson as the oldest contender and Jon Rahm and Thomas Pieters as the likely best rookie contenders.
CATCH UP ON READING: If you’re still stuck indoors, here are some reading options by two authors that will get your spirits uplifted until you can get onto the course. A two-volume golf set of P.G. Wodehouse’s “The Clicking of Cuthbert” and “The Heart of a Goof” were released toward the end of last year from Overlook Press for $37.50. And Dan Jenkins’ new novel, “Stick a Fork in Me,” published in January by Tyrus Books ($16.99), is not one of his golf efforts, although there is a golf-obsessed character. This one’s about another arena he’s good at skewering: college athletics and political correctness.