| By Ben Alberstadt with Gianni Magliocco.
For comments: ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com
Good Tuesday morning, golf fans, as we gear up for the Valero Texas Open where players have their last chance to clinch a spot at next week’s Masters. |
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1. Tiger & Mike Trout are building a golf course
PGATour.com staff report…”Tiger Woods’ newest golf course project will be in collaboration with another athlete with a legendary swing: baseball superstar Mike Trout.”
- “Two of the biggest names in their respective fields announced the creation of Trout National – The Reserve, a Woods design from Tiger’s own architecture firm TGR Design. Set to open in 2025, the course will be built in Vineland, New Jersey, just a short drive away from Trout’s hometown of Millville, where he still resides today.”
- “I’ve always watched Mike on the diamond, so when an opportunity arose to work with him on Trout National – The Reserve, I couldn’t pass it up,” said Woods in his press release. “It’s a great site for golf and our team’s looking forward to creating a special course for Mike, Jessica, John and Lorie.”
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2. New Masters qualifiers
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak…”The field for the Masters grew by four on Monday.”
- “Jason Day, Harris English, Keith Mitchell and Min Woo Lee punched their tickets to the season’s first major, which begins April 6, by being in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking on March 27 and having not previously qualified for the tournament to be held at Augusta National.”
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3. ANWA: The favorites
Golf Digest’s Tod Leonard round up the contenders…”Anna Davis…The California native was ranked 100th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking when she shot a final-round 69 to be the youngest player so far to win the ANWA. Now sthe 17-year-old is No. 9 in the world, mostly on the strength of competing in seven LPGA events after her victory and making the cut in five of them. Davis has two impressive wins in 2023, at the Junior Orange Bowl International and Junior Invitational at Sage Valley.”
- “Ingrid Lindblad…In terms of past ANWA results, the 22-year-old Swede who plays at LSU should be the favorite. She tied for third in 2021 and second last year. It’s hard to fathom that the current WAGR No. 2 didn’t prevail in ’22, considering Lindblad made eagles at 8 and 15 and birdies at 3, 7 and 14. But she bogeyed the final hole to lose by one. This, after missing the ’21 ANWA playoff by one stroke. The résumé is all there, including being the low amateur at last year’s U.S. Women’s Open with a T-11.”
- “Rose Zhang…On paper, the 19-year-old sophomore at Stanford is the clear favorite. She is the hottest player in the college golf, with five victories in her first six starts this season, and Zhang made the cut in three LPGA majors last year. She also just broke Lydia Ko’s record for consecutive weeks (131) as the WAGR No. 1. But the ANWA has remained elusive, with Zhang’s best finish in three starts being a T-3 in the ’21 edition.”
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4. Romine: Make the Tour Championship match play
Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”Which brings me to this crazy – maybe not-so-crazy – idea: The PGA Tour should add a match-play event back to the schedule for 2024, and it should be a designated event.”
- “…Match play should decide … the Tour Championship.”
- “Now, take a deep breath, and think about it. Let’s get rid of the polarizing staggered start, expand the field at East Lake by two players to the top 32 in the FedExCup following the BMW Championship, and have the Tour’s best go head-to-head, mano a mano, for the $18 million first-place prize.”
- “The Final Fore? It could be electric.”
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5. Player on why the Masters is the least of the majors
Our Matt Vincenzi…”In an interview with Sportsmail, Gary Player spoke about which major championship he believes is the best among them. The 87-year-old won nine major championships, including the Masters three times and The Open Championship three times.”
- “But never mind the Masters, the Open is by far the greatest tournament on the planet.”
- “Interestingly, Player ranked the Masters fourth of the four majors.”
- “I rate the Open at one, the US Open two, PGA three and Augusta four,’ he adds. Four marvelous tournaments.”
- “When asked why he ranked the Masters after the other three, Player said it was because the others have been around longer.”
- “It’s the youngest of the majors. The others are steeped in tradition and history, and they still have to catch up. Nothing comes to the top without time.”
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6. Bryan Bros. buy a golf course
Mike Dojc for Forbes…”Brothers Wesley and George IV, count over 200 thousand subscribers on their Bryan Bros Golf YouTube channel which has been churning out trick shot hijinks, match videos and other golf centric shenanigans for nearly a decade.”
- “The Columbia, South Carolina based siblings learned the game from their PGA professional father George III and have both experienced high-level success in golf. Wesley has a PGA Tour win under his belt and currently competes on the Korn FerryKFY +1.9% Tour, while his older brother is a 3 time All-American who played on various mini-tours before finding social media stardom.”
- “The Bryan Bros have added golf course developers to their CV’s after purchasing Indian River Golf Club in South Congaree, just a five-mile drive from Columbia Metropolitan Airport. They plan to revitalize and rebrand the 30-year-old public course that has fallen into disrepair, turn it into a private club and open up a Bryan Bros teaching academy onsite where their pops will serve as employee No. 1.”
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7. LIV golfer coverage at Masters
Adam Schupak for Golfweek…”How will broadcasters address – or ignore – the elephant in the room that is the ongoing civil war in professional golf with 18 members of LIV Golf competing at the 87th Masters next week?”
“It was an obvious question and one that CBS Sports’s Chairman Sean McManus knew he was going to be asked during the network’s annual pre-Masters conference call – it’ll be the 68th consecutive year for CBS broadcasting the Masters! – with sports writers. And McManus, who has been reticent in discussing LIV, gave a good answer.”
“We’re not going to cover up or hide anything,” he said. “As I’ve said often, our job is to cover the golf tournament. We’re not going to show any different treatment for the golfers who have played on the LIV Tour than the other golfer. If there is a pertinent point or something that we feel we should bring up in our coverage Saturday or Sunday or on our other coverage throughout the week, we’re not going to put our heads in the sand.” |
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8. New LPGA Malaysian event
Ryan Herrington for Golfdigest…”t didn’t take long for the LPGA Tour to fill the recently created hole in its 2023 schedule. On Tuesday, tour officials announced the inaugural Maybank Championship will be held Oct. 26-29 at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club, the first time the LPGA will hold an event in Malaysia since 2017.”
- The tournament replaces the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA, which was cancelled last Thursday due to “operational factors.”
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9. Photos from the Valero Texas Open
- Check out all of our galleries here!
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