Yeah, it’s an incredible feature pairing.
And yes, hopefully Tiger Woods will fully understand that he better not try to keep up with his playing partners in the first round of the PGA Championship on Thursday at Bellerive.
The goodfellas at the PGA Of America were kind enough to put Eldrick in with two young, bombers and we’re talking bombers — as in long, really, really long.
Woods is out early Thursday with just-crowned and defending PGA champ Justin Thomas and the guy who played the final 18 with Thomas — Rory McIlroy.
Those guys were bombing it on Sunday.
McIlroy hit two drives past the 400-yard mark, including one at the 660-yard famous 16th at Firestone where he hit his second shot hole-high with a seven-iron.
At he final hole, J.T. launched one past the 390-mark and had a flip-wedge in.
Yikes!
Yeah, this distance thing is out-of-control.
So that’s the kind of action Woods will see on Thursday and Friday.
The Woods comeback took a hit over the weekend at Firestone. With round of 73-73, it was his worst final 36 holes in eight years.
The stat geeks have also produced some interesting numbers as far as Woods’ driver clubhead speed.
It was 122.6 miles per hour at the Wells Fargo, 119.4 at The Players, 118.5 at The Memorial, 118 at The National and 117.7 on Sunday at Firestone.
See a trend?
The CBS crew thought Woods looked slower and stiffer on Sunday as far as the way he walked, the way he swung the club, even the way he went to retrieve his golf ball from the hole.
Tiger even alluded to a great need for “recovery time” between rounds at age 42.
Through his career, Woods has seldom played the week before a major. Now he has.
How will he hold up this week with the young bombers?
Stay tuned on that one.
