The powers that be did the fans a solid this week at The PLAYERS by making some world class, star-studded groupings. Unfortunately, those players didn’t return the favor.
The marquee of marquee groupings: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, the three most popular golfers on the planet laid a big fat egg in the first round of The PLAYERS.
It reminded me of when I went to see “The Shape of Water.” The hype around that film was so great I thought it had to be a knockout…but I wasn’t impressed. I had the same feeling I had today after I watched these three guys hack it around Sawgrass: big deal.
Woods was the best of the lot but that isn’t saying much. His even par 72 was marred by a poor driver (35% in driving accuracy), water balls and uninspired play. His only real highlight came with his eagle at the ninth. Other than that he was off in all aspects of his game.
Rickie looked to be having a decent round…at least until he got to the greens where he putted horribly losing a stoke and a half to the field (-1.545 strokes gained putting). And then he came upon number seventeen the scene of his heroics during his 2015 PLAYERS win. No heroics this time as he rinsed one and finished at two over par.
Then we have Phil. Phil who has had a resurgent season with six top tens, a win in Mexico and coming off a T5 at the Wells Fargo. He was pumped to be playing with Tiger and ready to go man y mano. Oh boy, it was ugly early and it got really ugly late. In fact it was unwatchable. Early, he was ham and egging it and surviving his wayward tee balls and managed to get it back to even par after thirteen. And then the bottom fell out. Double on fourteen, bogey on fifteen, double on sixteen with a water ball and he topped it off with another water ball on the infamous seventeen to fall to seven over 79 and probably finished his PLAYERS for 2018. But I guess he thinks his shirt looked good.
Disappointing doesn’t begin to describe their play but at least Tiger and Rickie are still in it.
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