Monday Morning Golf Recap
Tournament Details
Name: Waste Management Phoenix Open
Dates: February 4th – February 7th, 2016
Golf Course: TPC Scottsdale
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Purse: $6,500,000
2016 Winner: Brooks Koepka
Tournament Recap
First of all, awesome weekend of golf and golf atmosphere. The WMPO is always the best tournament on the schedule in terms of atmosphere. They call it The People’s Major and they’re right. It’s the one weekend (not counting the Ryder Cup) when golf lets it’s hair down and goes nuts. Booze flowing, players mingling with the crowd, throwing stuff into the stands, people Dabbing and all sorts of other drunken debauchery. Most of the time golf thumbs its nose at rowdy drunk spectators but at the WMPO, they embrace it. They embrace it because it works. Over 200,000 people showed up on Saturday. 200,000! Broke every record in the book. It just goes to show how much people love getting day drunk while watching a little golf. The WMPO is like a pressure valve for golf. Sometimes you gotta open that sucker up and let loose. Otherwise golf can get very very stuffy.
Second of all, how the fuck am I not writing this recap about Rickie Fowler winning this tournament? How? Jesus Christ. That was a baffling ending to say the least. It looked like a forgone conclusion after 70 holes. Rickie was up two strokes with two holes to go over Hideki Matsuyama. Done and done. Everybody drive home safely (or call an Uber. Definitely call an Uber). Not to mention the crowd was really pulling for Rickie. Not a single Matsuyama fan in the gallery. Even Dan Hicks started doing the thing where the camera pans to the golfer’s family in the crowd and the announcer says things like, “Oh there’s Rickie’s grandparents. They have always supported him. They might die soon so they wanna see him win one time.” That’s the golf equivalent of the fat lady singing. The tournament is over when the announcer does a soliloquy about the family. It’s the Nantz Special. Only it was premature. That was on the 16th hole before things semi-unraveled for Fowler.
The next thing that happened was Rickie pulled driver on the par-4 17th and drove it OVER the green and into the water hazard. That’s right. Rickie drove the ball 360 yards and put it in the drink when laying up would’ve been just fine. Here’s the thing though, and people are all over Rickie for pulling driver there, there’s no way he thought he’d drive it over the green. No chance. Should he have probably just laid up with a 3-wood since he had a two stroke lead? Yeah probably but hitting it over the green probably seemed impossible. The damage was done though. Fowler bogeyed 17 then birdied 18 while Matsuyama went birdie on 17 and birdie on 18 (a clutch-as-fuck 17-footer for birdie by the way) and we had ourselves a playoff at -14.
Things got a little hairy at this point. Not for the golfers but for sports fans. Listen, I’m a huge golf fan. Always have been and always will be. But I’m an American first and foremost. And being an American means you watch the Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday. So I was hoping and praying that either Fowler or Matsuyama would slam the door on the first playoff hole and we’d be free to eat mozzarella sticks, drink beer and watch football. NOPE. Four of them. Four playoff holes. Pretty uneventful until Rickie put it in the drink on 17 again and gave Matsuyama the opening he needed. Rickie bogeyed. Hideki parred. Game. Set. Match. Hideki Matsuyama is your 2016 Waste Management Phoenix Open champion. Another great ending for a year of golf that has already had a bunch of great endings. I still can’t believe Rickie didn’t win.
Matsuyama’s scorecards
Shot of the Week
We’re going in a different direction this week. This was the Waste Management Phoenix Open. That means the famous par-3 16th. Whoever makes a hole-in-one on that hole automatically gets SOTW honors. And since no humans made a hole-in-one on 16, we’re giving it to LDRIC the robot. He was the only thing that did it. So congrats to the robot community. Humans gotta step it up next year.
Other candidates for SOTW
In terms of people actually playing in the tournament and not a robot, this birdie putt by Matsuyama on the 72nd hole to send it to a playoff was the SOTW.
Or actually this eagle hole out on Saturday at the par-4 2nd from Matt Every might be the real SOTW. Might even be the shot of the year. We can’t even see him! Yet he still nails it. Unreal stuff.
Rickie chips in for birdie on Sunday at the par-4 10th
I can’t find video of it but fuck it. I’m putting Rickie’s 6,000 yard drive on 17 on Sunday as a candidate for SOTW. Did it probably lose him the tournament? Yeah but it’s still a 360-yard drive. No way no how did Rickie think he was gonna put that much mustard on it. Absolutely CRUSHED it. It might not’ve been pretty but it was important.
Fan of the Week
Stoolies
Passed the fuck out
I don’t know if this picture is real or even current since I feel like I’ve seen it before. But if it’s real and current then this guy won the WMPO
Also FOTW honors to anybody who booed Bubba this weekend. The PGA Tour took down every vine of people yelling and booing Bubba but just know that your support is appreciated. Bubba deserved every boo he got. First for saying he hated the golf course. Then for the fake apology that his sponsors 5000% made him say. The guy is just the worst. Operation #BooBubba was a rousing success.
Random shit
Just one thing this week
WELCOME BACK DAVID FEHERTY!
God damn it I missed him. He’s the best in the business and it’s not even close. Good call on letting him go, CBS. Genius. He’s only the most beloved analyst in the game.
JOHN DALY WATCH
Big big BIG news on JDW this week. Sounds like they have just finished up the John Daly 30 for 30 and it’ll debut at SXSW so that’s awesome. 30 for 30s are great on topics that I don’t give a shit about. Now they’ve done one on one of the things I’m most interested in. I could not be more legitimately excited for this. Few people have lived a crazier life than out boy JD.
Hot Instagram Golfer of the Week: Cassandra Blaney
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