Let's look together at the first international golf tournament of 2023, what to expect from the year ahead and an interesting documentary on Netflix...
Credits: golf.com
The 2023 season on the PGA tour has started with the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, which featured 17 of the world top 20 players.
It all commenced with a stratospheric launch from the gate by Colin Morikawa after 3 rounds with a 6 shot lead new putting coach, so he was looking good for a leisurely walk on Sunday just putting a decent round together. However, Morikawa manged to lose this lead, seeing his form with his pitching and putting desert him, his pitch on the 16th rolling back 60 feet towards him back on the fairway, this was a situation that unfortunately he has experienced before, the Hero world championship saw him drop a 5 shot lead where creating hooked shots when he normally plays a fade caused the problem!
At only 25 years old he should be able to learn from these situations, however there will be questions clouding his mind!
The charge of Jon Rham was quite exceptional, he was some 8 shots behind after his first 4 holes in round 4 and still 6 behind having played 13! He shot a -10 score to clinch the title! Much of this performance can be attributed with to his driving skill Rham has a 50% win rate for his last 6 events, from Spain to Dubai and now the US, he’ll be sizing up a green jacket!
Credits: @pgatour on Instagram
DP World tour starts this week with two a rather interesting events in Abu Dhabi, which combines players from the new LIV Tour, including former Ryder Cup Captain, this means both the past, sacked, captain and current captain will be playing, what a pairing that would be!! The Hero Cup 2023 then the full field opening event, Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship 2023.
Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship - Credits: golfaustralia.com
Talking of the LIV tour, we see their schedule starts in Mexico on the 17th March and its sure to be another eventful season ahead as they aim to become an established tour and not just, what can be perceived, a golfing circus!
Full Swing - Golfing documentary
Drive to survive and full swing series on Netflix, in 2019 we saw the first series of “Drive to Survive” a documentary series that followed the teams and drivers in F1, this has helped dramatically increase the interest in the F1 scene, giving great insights into a wide range of personalities and behind the scenes of the F1 circuit. Now the producers of this series have turned their attention to the PGA golf tour.
This series sees the perfect timing of the program being commissioned by the PGA Tour including their players then of course along comes LIV and lures away a number of players, so we’ll see if those players are included after the split or does their journey on the show stop, I for one hope they include the LIV participants after they leave!
This new show, Full Swing, I am sure will become a must watch series in our pre season period of the back end of winter!
Andy