You have to give the PGA Tour credit.
It knows how to steal some headlines when it needs to or wants to.
And yes, the power-brokers up there in Ponte Vedra wanted desperately to garner to ink prior to this week’s Players Championship.
So what did Jay Monahan and his henchmen come up with?
“Hey guys, let’s pair Tiger and Phil for the first two rounds!”
Yeah, Tiger and Phil, that will turn heads in a moment. Too bad it didn’t work out for Hal Sutton when he boldly try to pair them when he was Ryder Cup captain.
Now then they had to come up with a third.
Well, their dilemma is that not everybody likes Tiger, not everybody likes Phil, so wait a minute — throw Rickie Fowler in there because EVERYBODY likes Rickie Fowler.
Pure genius.
It could have been Patrick Reed but then you have a group where everybody doesn’t like somebody. Too confusing.
The announcement of that trio sent everyone at The Golf Channel hustling to tell you the last time Tiger and Phil played together, the last time Tiger and Phil played in The Players together. The only thing they didn’t tell us was the last time Tiger and Phil went out for a casual dinner together, and the answer to that would have been a quick “never.”
So you have Tiger, Phil and Rickie boosting those Thursday Golf Channel television ratings. They go off at 1:52 then 8:27 on Friday morning.
The Tour needed a group to boost the Friday afternoon ratings.
Enter Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas. They play at 1:52 on Friday, 8:27 on Thursday.
Another clever pairing was Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.
So there’s a bunch of interesting pairings for the first two days.
Now, the Tour has to sit back and hope they all make the 36-hole cut.
