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Saturday, March 25, 2023

All My Guys Are Gone...

Well, I'm totally shocked. All four of my picks in the WGC-Dell Match Play were eliminated in pool play. Even Number 2 seed Jon Rahm

The Walter Hagen trophy

  • Tommy Fleetwood (24 seed)
  • Jon Rahm (2 seed)
  • Min Woo Lee (41 seed)
  • Jordan Spieth (12 seed)

As hard as it is to believe, I guess it's just something about 2023. After all, if you've been keeping up with March Madness, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, you know the unthinkable has happened, As of Friday night, all 4 Number One seeds have been eliminated.

ESPN routinely runs a fantasy competition for basketball fans where they can submit a bracket thru a special app. Over 20 million brackets were submitted this year... and by last Saturday, the third day of the tournament, every single one of them had been busted.

Welcome to my life, friends. Maybe we'll all have better luck next year.

Hopefully we golf fans will have a match play tournament to get lucky in. Get it done, PGA Tour!

Friday, March 24, 2023

Jon Rahm's Trail Wrist Action (Video)

Personally I tend to feel this wrist action as if the golf club was a tennis racquet and I was making a forehand stroke. But for many of you, Russell Heritage's description of how Jon Rahm makes this move will work very well for your swing. This wrist action is often explained by teachers (I remember Martin Hall demonstrating this move in a couple of different videos) but only in terms of how the lead wrist moves. It's much easier to understand if you look at the trail wrist by itself, as Russell does here. 


Thursday, March 23, 2023

Flat Wrist or Bowed Wrist? (Video)

If you want to square the clubface at impact, knowing how you naturally use your wrists is important. In this short video Alex Elliott helps you understand how wrist position affects how your forearms move at impact.


Wednesday, March 22, 2023

The First Full Field LPGA Event of 2023

We're finally back to a full field event on the LPGA. Welcome to the LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain.

Defending chapion Leona Maguire

Understand that this is the LPGA's first event in Arizona since 2019—and I believe sit's the first LPGA event at Superstition Mountain itself since 2008—so there's a lot of excitement in the area this week. It's the first time the LPGA Drive On Championship is being held at Superstition Mountain.

Mina Harigae started the week by getting married at the course. (It's where she met her new husband Travis Kreiter and also where they live.) And the LPGA is planning all kinds of excitement, including DJs and flat screen TVs carrying the live broadcast of the event as well as NCAA Tournament coverage near the driving range at "the 19th Hole."

Full field means 144 players... and this field will include defending champion Leona Maguire, the first Irish winner on the LPGA, and Lexi Thompson, who's been largely missing so far this season.

Arizona means prime time golf, but to watch it live you'll have to stream it on golfchannel.com. NBCSports.com, or the NBC Sports App. Streaming starts Thursday at 6pm ET while GC's tape-delayed coverage begins at 9pm ET. (The times for all four days, streaming and tape-delay, can be found at this link.) Welcome back, LPGA!

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Twofer Tuesday: WGC-Dell Match Play

It is with a heavy heart that Twofer Tuesday heads to Austin TX for the final edition of the Dell Match Play.

Defending champion Scottie Scheffler

I hate that the Dell Match Play ends its run this year. It's definitely one of the most exciting tournaments put on by the PGA Tour, and I for one will miss it. But at least we get to enjoy it one more time.

The 64-player bracket is headed by defending champion Scottie Scheffler and, as my habit has been in the past, this week I'll be picking FOUR players, one from each 16-man grouping in hopes of picking the Final Four. It hasn't worked out that way in the past but I still love to try it.

And of course that means I get four chances to pick the overall winner this week. Given how unpredictable match play can be, I'll need them. 

For those of you who want to fill out a bracket, here's the link to the printable bracket for the event. I'm listing the seeds according to the bracket form, but note you may see some slight variations on different webpage listings. Starting in the upper left corner of the bracket and moving clockwise, my picks are:

  • Tommy Fleetwood (24 seed)
  • Jon Rahm (2 seed)
  • Min Woo Lee (41 seed)
  • Jordan Spieth (12 seed)

Because this is a five day event, coverage begins on Wednesday. PGA TOUR LIVE/ESPN+'s coverage starts at 10:15-10:30am ET and GC's coverage starts at 2pm ET. (You can find the PGA TOUR LIVE streaming schedule at this link.) It's the last hurrah for this event; let's enjoy it while we can!

Monday, March 20, 2023

The Limerick Summary: 2023 Valspar Championship

Winner: Taylor Moore

Around the wider world of golf: Matthew Baldwin won the SDC Championship on the DP World Tour; Ernie Els won the Hoag Classic on the Champions Tour; Gabriela Ruffels won the Carlisle Arizona Women's Golf Classic on the Epson Tour; Jake Mccrory won the Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica; David Micheluzzi won the Play Today NSW Open on the Australasian Tour; and Miguel Tabuena won The DGC Open on the Asian Tour.

Taylor Moore with Valspar trophy

My Twofer Tuesday picks came so close! I had Tommy Fleetwood (T3) and Justin Rose (T36). Justin struggled unexpectedly but Tommy was solidly in there until that bogey on the 15th took him out of the competition.

  • Top10s: 9 for 22 (8 Top5s 1 Top10)
  • Winners: 2 for 11 events
  • Top20s: 11 for 22

The story when the day started was Adam Schenk leading since day one, just a stroke ahead of Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood. The day ended with bogies—Tommy on 15, Adam on 18, and Jordan on 16 AND 18.

Oh yes, and Taylor Moore went three-under on the final seven holes. He was casually practicing on the range, hoping to make a playoff, when he got the news that he had landed his first PGA Tour win.

It was a big paycheck for Moore, who snagged nearly $1.5mil. And while the event was a heartbreaker for Adam, he and his mother-to-be wife took home almost $900k... which will certainly buy A LOT of diapers.

You've got to love it when a first-time winner comes through and closes the deal. Especially when the pressure of getting their first Limerick Summary is on the line. Way to go, Taylor!

The back nine was so full of tension,
Nobody paid Taylor attention.
He posted his score,
Prepared to play more…
And got more than honorable mention!

The photo came from this page at golfchannel.com.

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Are You Swinging Too Flat? (Video)

If your swing is too flat, you'll tend to push shots—or duck hook them, depending on how much hand action you have—and maybe hit the ball fat as well. Jonathan Kim-Moss has a drill to help you correct that problem and get your swing on a better plane, which will help with both accuracy and distance.