Katy Perry, who may or may not be a golfer, has a song called The One That Got Away and I’m referencing it to Max Homa (Titleist Pro V1).
Homa, who looks like a smaller version of Dustin Johnson (TaylorMade TP5x), won the Wells Fargo Championship last weekend. If you were sharp enough to bet him, you received some juicy odds. My buddy Andy Bankuti got him at 35-1 odds, which to me was an overlay. In other words, way over what the odds should have been. I didn’t pick him in the PG Golf pool because I foolishly went hard on Tyrrell Hatton (Titleist Pro V1x) and Corey Conners (Titleist Pro V1), both of whom made the cut but played poorly in final round and took me down. I will never pick Hatton again.
Meanwhile, in another pool I’m in, I had Homa as one of my six choices. I finished second because Keegan Bradley (Srixon Z-Star XV) played well enough in the final 36 holes and effectively scuppered my chances of winning. I needed him to double bogey on the last hole to win. It was going to take a miracle, and even though he made a questionable shot out of the bunker after his tee shot landed in it, he still managed a bogey and claimed second-place prize money.
Dang.
If anyone ever tells you nobody remembers who finished second, I’ll stand up and say, “I’ll tell you who finished second in the Wells Fargo Championship – Keegan Bradley and me.”
I guess when you bet you suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortunes, which Hamlet said. Well, actually Shakespeare said it. I’m not sure if he was a gambler, a golfer or both or neither.
OH CANADA: On June 6, the Canadian Open will resume after a two-year hiatus caused by COVID-19 and I am both excited and concerned about how the new Saudi Golf Super League will affect it.
The Canadian Open has been around for a long, long time. At once it was considered the unofficial fifth major.
It had run into a scheduling problem a few years ago because it followed The Open Championship, and some elite players were simply too fatigued from having to blast their way out of heathers and bunkers and having to cross various time zones afterward.
But then the USGA moved the schedule around to basically position the majors to be played once a month over the course of four months. So, the Canadian Open became a lead-in to the U.S. Open, which meant it was being played in the same continent, give or take a few hours depending on the time zone.
Rory McIlroy (TaylorMade TP5x) played in the 2019 Canadian Open and absolutely tore apart the course and won handily.
Because the Canadian Open takes place this year in the same eastern time zone as the U.S. Open, June 16-19 in Brookline, Massachusetts, many top golfers are scheduled to be in the field, including Masters winner Scottie Scheffler (Titleist Pro V1).
“Competing for a national championship is always a great honour and I’m thrilled to be coming to Toronto in June to play in the RBC Canadian Open for the first time,” he said recently.
The Mullet Man, Cam Smith (Titleist Pro V1x), is also scheduled to be in the field.
McIlroy is slated to defend his title.
It should be a solid field, and the event takes place a 20-minute drive from where I live.
As for the Saudi Super Golf League, well, it’s still a mystery who will be in it, though it’s unlikely any of the major stars of the sports – at least the ones still in the top-30 – will bother to tee it up. The risks of challenging the PGA Tour and possibly suffering the consequences, which could be expulsion from events, is simply too risky. Phil Mickelson (Callaway Chrome Soft X) is the wild card in all of this. If he decides to exert his authority and go to war with the PGA Tour, that is his prerogative. He has already suffered sufficient collateral damage from some remarks about the Saudi tour that have caused him millions in endorsements. He could easily make all of that back aligning with the Saudi tour, then again after all he said about the Saudi government and its politics, the most practical thing of all would be to stay on U.S. soil.
Then again, Mickelson has always marched to his own drumbeat.
