Let’s face it, one of the problems that plagues the PGA Tour is slow play.
Some tournaments are worse than others. Typically play is in threesomes and in the bigger events, they go twosomes over the weekend and there’s no excuse when it’s just a couple of guys and no one else. So let’s see what the pace of play looks like when you have a foursome of tour players out there.
This week’s stop on the PGA Tour down there in New Awwwlins, brings the long-forgotten team event back into play. It’s not a new idea. Disney World in Orlando used to host a spiffy team event back in the ’70s at the end of the season where buddies teamed up and had some fun while the wives and kids knocked themselves out over at the theme park.
Ben Crenshaw’s favorite partner was Georgie Burns, they won one year. Jack Nicklaus used to play with Tom Weiskopf until one time Weiskopf overslept and nearly missed their tee time, leaving Nicklaus to swear off team golf and Weiskopf.
In those days it was strictly best ball. This week they’ll play alternate shot for the first and third rounds, best-ball for rounds two and four. The cut will be the low 35 teams and ties on Friday.
You’ve got some interesting teams down there in New Orleans at the TPC Louisiana.
One of the strongest teams on paper is Masters runnerup Justin Rose and Open champion Henrik Stenson, two of Europe’s strongest Ryder Cup players.
One team to watch is the Japanese duo of Hideki Matsuyama and Hideto Tanihara. You might recall that Tanihara put it on Jordan Spieth in the Match Play earlier this year.
Rickie Fowler and Jason Day are a formidable duo. One puzzling pairing is Jordan Spieth and Ryan Palmer. You would have figured Jordy would go with one of his spring-break buddies.
One interesting pairing is the one where the PGA Tour was asked the bend its rules in a big way and of course, the tour did.
Brooks Koepka’s people basically told the sponsors he’d play on the condition that he could pick younger brother Chase as his partner. Chase is not long out of the University of South Florida and has qualified for the Challenge Tour, one of the feeder tours over in Europe along with the Sunshine Tour. Chase hasn’t done all that well although he’s only played in three events. Making cuts has been a challenge for the younger Koepka.
You’ll also see a big size difference and power difference between the Koepka lads. Brooks is a bomber and is a muscular 185 pounds. Chase looks like he might hit 150 if he put a lot of rocks in his pockets. He has to rely on his short game, primarily, if he’s going to score well.
“I think we can win this thing,” Brooks boldly declared this week. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all come Sunday if we’re right there.”
Now that would be a major turn of events for little brother Chase. He had to get an “unrestricted” exemption into this team event as he’s not a PGA Tour member.
Even more eye-opening is the gap in their world rankings. Brooks checks in at No. 19 in the world, while Chase is in a far away galaxy at No. 1,460. Ouch.
One interesting sidenote is that if the Koepkas do win, Chase gets a PGA Tour card for the next two years.
So keep an eye on those guys and see if Brooks is a prophet or not.
