A sports dynasty rekindled today as Tiger Woods breezed past third-round leader Francesco Molinari, then held off a Who’s Who of modern golf en route to his fifth Masters Championship at Augusta National Golf Club and 15th major golf championship overall. Woods didn’t just defeat Dustin Johnson and Francesco Molinari; he defeated shame and humiliation...
Somewhere in Heaven Dan Jenkins is smiling, because this is what a major championship leader board is supposed to look like. Our great lion of a sports writer may be watching his first Masters from Heaven, but the heart of a true golf writer always aches for the greatest names to be in contention, not puzzling strangers. So right now, with five former major champions...
[Editor’s Note: We’ll be filing two game stories this week, one during the first three days of play and our usual tournament recap for Sunday night. You can follow all the action at Golf News Net and here.] The Masters is the greatest sporting event of the year: period, full stop, end of sentence, end of paragraph. Not the Super Bowl, not the World...
We’re a little late starting the Jazzy Awards – that’s short for Jay’s Golf Awards – but we’re early on the ski slopes…so we’ve got that going for us. As always, in the name of journalistic purity, we publish our Player of the Year Award in this column. This year we voted for Francesco Molinari. “What???”...
There is SOOOOOOOO much meat on this bone, we could discuss it for years! European Tour pro Brandon Stone had 500 tries to make a hole in one on a par-3 on his favorite course in the world, Sun City in South Africa. This video unearthed by Ryan Ballengee of Golf News Net follows Stone’s quest to cardv a seventh ace in his career. What follows, of course, is...
The last time heads rolled like this, Marie Antoinette let them eat cake. The Storming of the Bastille might seem like a massage compared to the potential bloodletting this weekend, as the U.S. Ryder Cup team looks to win on foreign soil for the first time in 25 years. With a murderer’s row line-up, chemistry everywhere you look, and a golf course that looks...
CHARLOTTE, NC – His name means “Thunderbear” and his golf game rises with the sudden ferocity of a storm. Perhaps the most mercurial young rising star of the European Tour, the lanky Danish player born Jakob Olesen, but who pays professionally under his middle name, “Thorbjorn,” shares the lead in the 99th PGA Championship with the...
Ryan Ballengee has this story about the surreptitious…and disconcerting…adjustment of Euro Tour players’ drivers while the clubs are stored for the night. Ballengee reported that a number of players, including rising European Tour star Bernd Weisberger, had their driver settings adjusted while the clubs were stored for the night at Le Club National...
ERIN, WI – Dana Fry, who along with Mike Hurdzan and lawyer-turned-writer-turned-golf architect Ron Whitten, designed 11-year old Erin Hills, site of the 117th U.S. Open, recently said in an interview that, “it’s unprecedented for the USGA to host the tournament at a venue this new.” He’s close to being correct. It’s actually only...
We thought we’d seen this movie before, and we were ready for yet another heart-wrenching ending. If past history were any indication, Sergio Garcia was supposed to lose this Masters in the clutch, not win it. Something horrible always happens to Garcia, he’s played the flawed tragic hero perfectly for close on two decades. Shakespeare would have loved...
It was 1998 when we first met Justin Rose. Back then he was a green and grateful amateur, just 17 years old. But that week in July, he ignited the normally staid English crowd into one joyous celebration after another as he nearly won the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. It was sparkling scene: the salty waves lapping at the feet of the mammoth fescue-covered...
One of my dear friends, my idols, and my icons, John Hopkins of Global Golf Post, wrote this poignant and fascinating retrospective on the life of the one and only Seve Ballesteros. Hoppy is a true Literary Lion and a gentleman as well, beloved by his peers and esteemed by his readership. Even on our best days, we all wish we were Hoppy. This is one legend writing...
Last year Tony Dear of GNN came on our show and said he thought Danny Willett could win the Masters. We all pointed at him and laughed. Now Theon Greyjoy is sporting a Green Jacket serving blood puddings at Masters Dinner. So Tony came back on the show for Part 1 of our Masters Preview show. It’s here, so check it out. We’ll post Part 2 aling with our...
Yes, I know, most people voted for Dustin Johnson. But I think that’s a sympathy vote. I also think we in the golf media are doing that herd groupthink thing again. Dustin won the U.S. Open at Oakmont with a cloud hanging over his head, but he didn’t shoot 63 on Sunday and 20-under overall setting a major championship record. It was one of the greatest...
Amidst a tumult and shouting that would have impressed even the great Grantland Rice himself, the United States defeated Europe 17-11, winning their first Ryder Cup since 2008. Patrick Reed preened like an NFL linebacker, Phil Mickelson made putts from Duluth, St. Cloud, and Monkato, and Ryan Moore – the last man to make the team – sank the Ryder Cup...