Rory McIlroy’s been a busy guy since winning the FedEx Cup while world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has taken a lot of time away from competition.
McIlroy, the current World’s No. 2 — has a shot at that No. 1 ranking this week as both he and Scheffler headline this week’s impressive field at the CJ Cup.
The CJ Cup has traditionally been held at Jeju Island off the coast of South Korea but the pandemic played havoc all over the world and this event was a victim. It was held in Las Vegas last year where McIlroy went on a scoring binge and shot 25-under par to edge Collin Morikawa by a single shot.
This week, low scores will be a bit tougher to find as the Congaree Club in Ridgeland, South Carolina (near Savannah, Ga.) will present a real challenge.
This event has the look of what the PGA Tour’s “elevated events” will resemble next season. It has just 78 players, no cut and a hefty prize purse.
You may or may not recall that Rory spotted Scheffler six shots at the Tour Championship and overcame that advantage to win at East Lake. Since then, Rory’s put together an impressive showing in four events while Scheffler hasn’t played in an individual event since East Lake. Oh yes, Scottie did show up at the Presidents Cup matches but failed to win a single match, going 0-3-1.
If Rory wants that No. 1 ranking, he’s going to have to win or finish solo second and get some help from Scheffler, who basically needs to finish out of the top 10 to open the door for Rory. Rory sits at 8.81 in the world rankings, behind Scheffler’s 9.39.
Along with Rory and Scottie, this week’s stop has 15 of the world’s top 20 in the field — throwing water on Head Defector Phil Mickelson’s claim that “the best players in the world no longer play on the PGA Tour.” Sorry Lefty.
Congaree will present a distinct challenger. It has a LOT of sandy areas (typical for that area of the state). It will have a links feel minus the wind. The Palmetto Championship was held there in June when it was rainy and the course was soft. Now it’s expected to be firm and fast with errant shots rolling into who knows what.
Despite limited rough, there are some patches of higher grass that look like big puffs or shrubs and some of those are within the many bunkers bunkers or beside the few areas with water on the course. So stronger bunker play is a must for success on this layout.
And this is the last hurrah for the Tour’s “wrap-around” schedule. There’s still Bermuda, Mayakoba, Houston Open and the RSM to basically end the season but this week is probably the last gathering of the Tour’s elite players.
Next season, it all ends at the Tour Championship then a lot of time off — although there will be things cropping up akin to the old “silly season” that used to provide events for players who wanted to stay sharp rather than taking three months off.
But players have said over the past years that they want time off.
Every other sport has a pretty significant offseason,” said Max Homa, who is in this week’s field. “Andnow everybody is wondering what the heck is going to happen. Well, we can do whatever we want.”
Billy Horschel sounds like he’s ready for that break. “Taking three to four months off is not a big deal,” he said noting how players took a lengthy break with the COVID shutdown in spring of 2020. “I realized that I could do that. I could see what life would be like when golf isn’t first in my life. Right now it still is, and I have a wife and family and they understand that golf comes first a lot of times, that it provides what we have and what they’re going to have in their future. But it’s going to be nice for a lot of us to kick golf to the back burner and put other things in the forefront of our lives.”
Sounds like a plan.
CJ Cup Broadcast Times:
Thursday, Friday, Saturday: The Golf Channel — 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (EDT).
Sunday: The Golf Channel — 2:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. (EDT)
6 Comments
baxter cepeda
It’s been long enough now that the owgr means absolutely nothing!
The most important measure of the world ranks was months ago when the first LIv guys left.
Scottie didn’t even know he could lose it this week. The fact that GC and other monahan slurpers still talk about number 1 as some great honor shows how out of it they are.
No one cares about a system that is destroying itself.
And it’s a system that was always flawed. How can you have commissioners voting if other tours get points. How can you reasonably expect a bigger and better tours to start if players have to wait two years to resume their points.
It’s a strategy designed to keep real competition away.
Sure some smaller tours with basically no purse are happy to wait two years to get some points.
But when guys on the new tour are making more than double what the pga tour is paying—even after the Tours magical sudden doubling of compensation— and making the switch despite the slow playing of Monahan and the boys with granting the points—it only confirms how meaningless the owgr has become as a measure of the best male golfers… at least at this point.
Also aside from the importance of being top 50, the rankings pretty much do nothing for the top players.
I’ll repeat:
Who cares but the slurpers trying to use this flawed system to boast Monahans slowly diminishing and the Euros tour?
And yes Monahans tour like the presidents cup and ruder cup is diminishing. Paying players more money is a desperate move. A move they had to make Because they know they have already been diminished and have to do what they can to not continue to be diminished further. But it will happen regardless.
And this is because the pga tour cannot compete for guaranteed contracts. Professional athletes will prefer competing for contracts and playing for teams rather than selling their arses on the internet like their Paige spiracs boobs.
Monahans “retirement” seems to be getting closer and closer.
Let’s see how much of this puppy makes the “cut” on DLN.
Tom Edrington
Well, well, well, if it isn’t LIV-loving Baxter returning! I think you’re the only one that has Monahan “retiring” — and the OWGR have worked pretty well since they started……keep in mind more than half of LIV fields can’t be found in the top 300. LIV doesn’t want to follow the long-established procedure for ranking points…..they want EVERYTHING NOW…..and it’s never worked that way for anyone….and LIV has a timeline, the plug could be pulled by 2025 or anytime The Crown Prince wakes up on the wrong side of the bed — Looking forward to see if Rahm can chase Rory at the CJ Cup — if this were a LIV event, Rory would have won and there would be no anticipation for a great Sunday showdown….so LIV-on Baxter, you and the rest of the U-Tube watchers, all 90,000 of you — wow, huge numbers!!! OBW, where is he Lamest Commissioner’s TV deal?? Just like he promised OWGR points to his players in the last exhibition…..
baxter cepeda
I needed an off-season more than Monahans boys.
I won’t name because you will only disparage but a player in his 40s with plenty of pga tour experience recently called Monahan not a good ‘war time’ commissioner. He prefixed that with he is a “nice guy” but—something you hear a lot from people who are about to dump a guy.
Again, the world rank system is set up so anytime a true competitor comes up, they will struggle against the pga tour establishment thanks to this two year system.
The fact is the owgr measures pro golf —as in money golf— and Liv is giving the most money to pro golfers.
That alone…but the fact all these top 100 players, major champs and what not have made the leap despite this 2 year period nonsense designed to keep them under control by the pga tour, is the real reason Livs points should be expedited.
Of course LIv wants this now.
But so do many unbiased people looking at this like myself. As People have been saying from the beginning it does golf no good to let players like Cam, and dj and brooks and Bryson and so forth drop off in the rankings simply because they are pursuing a more lucrative pro tour.
It renders the owgr obsolete. Useless. It makes the majors have to go strictly to qualifying, or use rankings from the different tours; which would obviously have to include LIv.
This two year period should never have existed. Also this ridiculous 72 hole rule that is regularly broken. Or anything against shotgun starts which is also regularly broken such as pebble with 6 different tees on 3 different courses; not to mention a bunch of amateurs in the way.
The cut thing is the most sensible argument against Liv but is also flawed. How is it good for the sport to send guys home early?
The compromise there is simple: the bottom half may play out the tournament and make money but the bottom half or more at the end do not get any world rank points.
Btw the world rank points has been criticized throughout its existence, the old Tom knew this, which is why the owgr boys just had to came out with yet another —already criticized— iteration, mcginley told us plenty.
But more importantly this latest version was obsolete as it was being announced Thanks to LIv changing the landscape of the sport. It’s crazy really.
This would be a very simple question for an unbiased board: is this Liv something that should get points right now? Based on money and the players they have, The answer is unequivocally yes.
The same question should be asked if a tour with points should lose points.
The owgr obviously has some pull, but if it’s going to be actually legitimate moving forward, they have more overhauling work to do than ever. They need to be more “real time” moving forward. 2 year delays is just stalling.
Top 30o comment: Things change quickly. I don’t know what Chacarras rank is but he is now Livs version Theegala. But of course he is not getting points. So the rankings won’t reflect that.
Which is why We can respectfully argue a lot of things. But the longer the owgr maintains this slow play stance the less any rankings arguments matter.
Speaking of numbers…
Livs numbers were low the last couple of events as are pga tour and dp events held in the middle of the nite on golf channel.
But over time with u tube the viewer numbers have a chance to trickle up. I often watch later; people Watch highlights. That’s the power of u tube; which is why I honestly wish they stick with utube and not rely on the traditional tv route, which is crazy to say for me of all people.
But Obviously it’s something they have to do. I’m assuming this arrangement with fox starts next year. And who knows how it continues to evolve.
The thing that is interesting is how quickly it’s become a question of which is better. Even if the answer is still the pga tour, the fact the question is being asked is crazy. It’s like comparing a months old startup tech company to apple and Microsoft.
I really don’t see any potential hissy fits from that king ending this. I don’t see a king like this micro managing some tiny part of the pif. The pif obviously has an extensive staff. They have some serious off the wall investments going on over there with true mind boggling numbers. A proven little commodity like hosting a tour with a bunch premier golf stars, that seems like about as vanilla safe an investment the pif has going. This is akin to the premier investments they have in auto racing and soccer. Not only is it fun to own, but it’s guaranteed to creep up in value.
Meanwhile Monahan may not be fired yet but let’s not forget how much power and control he has lost already. You could almost say he has already been unofficial fired from his original role.
Tom Edrington
Could you please strive to keep it under 500 words…..I quit reading halfway through so I’m not sure what it all added up to……..
baxter cepeda
Just more replying to your points.
But the last sentence or two is what i want you to see:
that Monahan may not be fired officially but he has clearly been demoted for a while now. Almost like he was fired from his old role.
Tom Edrington
I think you are extraordinarily delusional….