Get caught up on the action from Tuesday at the Players Championship.
PGA Tour, Getty Images
Hello friends, and welcome back to the Rogers Report! I’m on site at the Players Championship all week and will be writing a column on my observations each day. I usually like to hang out on the range and practice green before the tournament round starts to get a lay of the land, but the media doesn’t have access to those areas this week (bummer!!!). But worry not, my loyal readers. We’ve found other ways to catch up with the players!
The GOLF squad started our day with a run in Jacksonville Beach (sorry to flex), and then I stopped at Target to pick up some ice cream for this week’s episode of the Scoop. I don’t think buying a handful of pints of ice cream at 8:00 a.m. will ever get old. I’ve learned to embrace the curious looks from cashiers who think I might be purchasing it for breakfast.
Autographs
I made my way to the 18th green after having a quick breakfast in the media center this morning and quickly remembered that the Players Championship is the week of the autograph. Dozens of kids line up right off of the 18th green to get some signatures while players come through. Please note that this is not a quick process — it’d say it takes at least 15 minutes for players to get through the crowds of kids. Also, is it spring break for kids in Ponte Vedra this week? There are so many kids and teenagers out and about on the course. Either all of them have awesome parents who let them play hooky today, or school is out.
One of the reasons I say this is the week of the autograph is because of how creative kids get with signature placement. It’s less about getting an autograph to keep and more about the process of acquiring the signature. This is the second year in a row that I’ve seen forehead signature requests, which is hilarious.
One of my very favorite things about going to golf tournaments is listening to what people in the gallery say. I think “overheard on the course” might be a new segment I introduce to the Rogers Report when I’m on-site at tournaments, so I’ll definitely have more of these as the week goes on. But in the meantime, here are three from Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass:
“I wish I was a professional golfer. I’d be so tan from all the time spent on the course.” I love how that was this gal’s takeaway of the perks of being a professional golfer. Also, relatable.
“Thank you for the autograph, sir! … Dad, who was that?” Polite and curious. Good for this kid!(P.S. Kid – it was Sam Burns!)
“I think this is Jon Rahm teeing off here.” This was my absolute favorite. Props to these guys for not being as online as the rest of us.
I do not doubt that an Overheard at Tour Events account would go as viral as Tiger Tracker did back in the day.
The presser of the day
No, no — not Jay Monahan’s State of the Tour press conference. I’m talking about Scottie Scheffler’s. Never mind being No. 1 in the world. Scheffler is No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Quotes this week. Not everyone likes to open up much during their talks with the media (and that’s fine), but I really appreciated just how thoughtful Scheffler was in his chat with the media on Tuesday afternoon. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.
“I think I attribute it [staying grounded] mostly to my faith, but I also have a great upbringing. I have great parents. I have a great wife. We have great friends at home. So I’m surrounded by a lot of people that really don’t care very much whether or not I won last week. It’s great, we’re going to celebrate, but at the end of the day, if I shot 75 on Sunday, I think Monday would have looked pretty similar to how it looked this week, besides maybe a few extra text messages in my phone that I received. But at the end of the day, life goes on, a lot more than just my golf score, and this is just one little phase of my life, and it just happens to be in front of an audience. But outside of that, you know, home’s a lot more important to me than out here.” I know we joke a lot about “perspective” in golf, but wow! Golf really isn’t Scheffler’s whole life, and I think that’s pretty refreshing. Talk about maturity.
“I mean, Tiger’s definitely the best player I’ve ever seen, and I think he’s the best player we’ve ever had. Anytime you can stand up there and walk alongside him and compete in the same golf tournament as him is really special … I just learned a lot by watching him. I mean the way he competes in this game is different than a lot of players. He puts everything he has into every shot that he hits on the golf course, which I think is a really underrated skill out here. Like when he steps over a ball, at any moment in the golf tournament, whether it’s his first shot on Thursday or the last shot on Sunday, I feel like he is as into it as he could possibly be.” Tiger Woods: Better than most.
“I don’t really think about that kind of stuff. As far as the World Rankings go, it’s nice to be No. 1. I would much rather be No. 1 than No. 2, but in my day-to-day life, it doesn’t really affect anything. It’s probably a lot harder to stay at No. 1 than it is to get there, and so if it’s something that’s going to occupy a lot of my thoughts, I don’t think that’s a very good thing.” Is the World No. 1 the person who thinks the least about being the World No. 1?
“No. 17 is pretty wild when you get here in person. Sometimes when you’re standing there in the practice round, you’re like, how could people ever miss this green. Then you get up there and you start standing over your shot, and you’re like, man, wait a minute.” Relatable!
“When you’re not performing as well as you should at something, what is the solution always? Typically just to try harder at that thing. Well, if you’re missing your jump shot, well, you need to practice your jump shots more, and if I’m missing putts, well, then I need to practice my putting more. But I think it goes a little bit more in depth than that. At times last year I think I definitely tried too hard on my putting.” As someone who isn’t an expert in golf instruction, I appreciated the cross-sport reference.
Miscellaneous
Alright folks. Two final housekeeping notes for you all. First is that my sister, Ellen, is back providing commentary on her experience watching “Full Swing.” She’s not super into golf, but her notes on each episode have become one of the things I look forward to most.
(Please note that me sharing her notes is not an endorsement of her thoughts. Enjoy!)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, food! If you are ever in Jacksonville, do yourself a favor and head to TacoLu. Go for the tacos and stay for the dessert — the best sopapillas of all-time.
