Before we get to all those high-altitude happenings in Mexico City Thursday, perhaps we should share some important messages from Grupo Salinas.
In case you weren’t paying attention, Grupo Salinas is the media monster that basically stole this WGC event from Cadillac and Doral. Cadillac just couldn’t justify forking out the sort of money that the kindly Grupo conglomerate shelled out to bring this wing-ding of a WGC event to its home country of Mexico.
During Thursday’s first round action, Grupo Salinas let us know that it is basically, in its words, not ours, “An agent of positive social change.” And if that’s not enough, it wants everyone to know that it represents: “A culture of shared prosperity.”
Okay, nothing says shared prosperity better than handing out about $10.2 million to be divided up among a couple of bus loads of PGA Tour millionaires. Now that’s a culture of shared prosperity, isn’t it?
If Grupo Salinas does indeed promote everything it tells us it’s promoting down there in Mexico, then why in the hell do all those people continue to pour across the border into the good old U.S. of A? Maybe Grupo Salinas should build its own border wall to keep folks IN MEXICO, so that they can participate in the Grupo Salinas “Culture of shared prosperity” along with its “positive social change.”
Yes, with a movement like that going on, according to all those Grupo-produced commercials, yes, why would anyone want to flee Mexico?
Anyway, keeping that in mind, back to the $10.2 million and the rich guys chasing it at the Club de Golf Chapultepec. In case you’re wondering what Chapultepec means, we’re thinking it translates into something like — “don’t hit it in the trees!”
One guy who didn’t have much trouble at all during day one of this fat-purse WGC gathering was our favorite Irish lad — Rory McIlroy.
Rory had a lot of fun, playing here for the first time and he’s been on a roll with three straight top fives coming into this week.
Needless to say Rory’s massively long at this altitude of 7,600 feet. “If you hit it in the air the driver will carry 370 yards.” He meant when he hits it in the air, not you, me or anyone else except for maybe Dustin Johnson and yes, Tony Finau. For the record, Finau drove it on a 415-yard par four during his first round. But back to Rory, who played one heckuva round on his way to an eight-under par 63.
Rory did everything right and guess what? The putter was performing for him. “It’s nice when you’re confident with the flat stick,” McIlroy said after turning in a card that featured and eagle and seven birdies. The eagle came at the 305-yard opening hole, his 10th of the day. “My two-iron is carrying 295 so I just aimed at the bunkers on the left of the green and cut it,” was how McIlroy described his tee shot that soared perfectly, landed on the front of the green and settled just six feet from the hole. Easy two on a par four where Tiger Woods started his day with an out-of-bounds three-wood that led to double-bogey.
“Nice to go from Riviera to here, I got a little confidence last week,” McIlroy added.
Rory wasn’t the only bomber having a good time out there in the perfect weather. Dustin Johnson made it look easy with a 64.
Justin Thomas, who flat-out fell apart last Sunday at Riviera, was in with 66 as was Matt Kuchar, who knows a lot about “shared properity” in Mexico after he was basically shamed into paying his Mayakoba Classic caddie a nice fee of $50,000 as opposed to the tightwad $5,000 he first handed over. Shared prosperity Kuch, shared prosperity — just ask Grupo Salinas
Tiger Woods looked confused all day after that opening out-of-bounds tee shot. He was up and down, laying up a lot, dinking and dunking his way to an even par 71.
Safe to say Phil Mickelson won’t repeat as champion. The defender took 79 blows to open his week. Lefty can thank Sanghyun Park for keeping him out of the basement. Park shot 80.
Brooks Koepka was 10 worse than Rory with 73 and poor Jordan Spieth’s woes continued. With his dad filling in on the bag for Michael Greller, Spieth shot 75. Greller went home after the sudden death of his father.
Bryson DeChambeau couldn’t calculate the altitude effect, apparently. The Mad Scientist shot 75.
So while the millionaires play on, Grupo Salinas will continue with the “shared prosperity” mission and the “positive social change.”
In the meantime, it might be nice to see a Rory-D.J. shootout come Sunday afternoon.
