Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we wish the CBS broadcast would have shown more of Taylor* and we can’t wait to see if Patrick** can win the big one. Let’s get to it!
*Pendrith, who finished T9 at the Farmers
**Rodgers, also T9, still chasing his first PGA Tour win
This was a big week in the golfing world, gang. And we’ve got another, bigger week in the works. Let’s keep things snappy, one sentence per subject, and get through the biggest.
WINNERS
It was a big week for…
Big week for Nelly Korda, who finished her final round bogey-double-bogey-eagle-birdie (read that again!) to force a playoff and ultimately pull off a miraculous win in her hometown of Bradenton, Fla. — her first LPGA victory since 2022.
Big week for Matthieu Pavon, who made a preposterous 18th-hole birdie from the thick rough at Torrey Pines to win the Farmers and become the first French PGA Tour (this is up for debate, but let’s go with it) winner in over a century.
Big week for Lydia Ko but a heartbreaking week, too, as she’s now started her season 1-2 — but was on the verge of a Hall-of-Fame victory before a three-putt led to a brutal playoff loss.
Big week for the Hojgaard twins, with Nicolai finishing solo second at the PGA Tour’s Farmers and Rasmus coming in solo second at the DP World Tour’s Ras Al Khaimah Championship.
Big week for fellow Danish pro Thorbjorn Oleson, who won his eighth DP World Tour title (by six!) and is quietly playing excellent golf; this was his fifth top-10 in seven starts.
Big week for Tony Finau‘s ball speed, which appeared to effortlessly crack 190 mph on the Farmers broadcast thanks to some offseason training as he hopes to reestablish his distance as a weapon — though it was mostly stellar iron play that helped him to a T6 finish despite a balky putter.
Big week for Will Zalatoris‘ putter — yeah, the new big one — which he used to gain strokes on the field en route to a T13 finish, the most promising start he’s had since his return.
Big week for drone shots and for CBS’s general production, which makes this entire West Coast swing feel bigger; despite a lack of leaderboard star power Torrey presented great and is really just the appetizer to the Pebble-Scottsdale-Riviera trio coming next.
Big week for 19-year-old Aldrich Potgieter, who became the youngest winner in Korn Ferry Tour history — and joined Sungjae Im, Akshay Bhatia and Jason Day as the circuit’s only teenage winners — just days after 20-year-old Nick Dunlap won the American Express.
Big week for bumpy greens; the afternoons at Torrey lead to some wiggly shorties including the missed three-footer for Pavon at No. 17 and wayward efforts from nearly everyone, including Finau and Xander Schauffele, who described his putting week as “rough” and expects more bouncy poa annua at Pebble this week.
And a big week for Anthony Kim fans, intrigued by the prospect of his reappearance a dozen years after last teeing it up on Tour.
BIG WEEK AHEAD FOR…
Just wait…
Big week ahead for the PGA Tour-LIV rivalry; the established circuit is taking its top pros to Pebble Beach the same week LIV kicks off in Mayakoba — while murmurs of a truce bubble up in the background.
Big week ahead for the PGA Tour and its investment partner, the Strategic Sports Group (SSG). More on this in the coming days, but let’s just tease it vaguely here: Something is happening.
*PGA SAID TO NEAR MULTIBILLION DOLLAR DEAL WITH US INVESTORS
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 29, 2024
*LIV GOLF NOT PART OF INITIAL PGA TOUR INVESTMENT VEHICLE
Big week ahead for Nick Dunlap, 20-year-old PGA Tour winner, who announced he’ll be leaving Alabama to make his professional debut at Pebble this week and kick off a season of signature-event competition.
Big week ahead for Jon Rahm‘s LIV team, which is expected to announce the signings of Promotions player Kieran Vincent, talented Tennessee amateur Caleb Surratt and, per the Telegraph on Monday morning, World No. 16 Tyrrell Hatton ahead of Mayakoba.
Big week ahead for TV ratings guys, who can break down just how much traction LIV has gotten with its offseason signings — and how much Pebble + star power means to viewers as the Tour launches its next stage of Signature Events.
Big week ahead for bumpy greens, again, per Schauffele: “It being wet up at Pebble I imagine the greens will be bad, just mushy and poa annua-y,” he said.
Big week(s) ahead for the color red, not just for the Super Bowl (49ers, Chiefs, Taylor Swift) but also for Tiger Woods, who is expected to tee it up in two weeks’ time at the Genesis Invitational in an all-new fit…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Winning words.
Not everybody was watching football on Sunday afternoon as the hometown kid closed out her ninth LPGA title beneath the setting west Florida sun.
From Nelly Korda: “Every win has a story. This one was definitely — just, with the struggles of last year and just with today as well, I thought I completely lost it.
“But being in my hometown and having the hometown support was incredible. I didn’t think this many people would show up. Even on the first day, Thursday, the amount of people that were out here supporting was incredible. I couldn’t have done it without all their positive energy.”
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday Finish HQ.
It’s 56 degrees today, gang. There’s some light in the sky. The sun sets after 5 p.m. I’m hearing birds chirping. Seattle has a sneaky early spring and I’m getting some whiffs of that this week…
WHAT’S NEXT
3 things to watch this week.
1. Pebble in primetime.
I’ll tap in Nicolai Hojgaard here to comment on the Tour’s next stretch, probably my favorite three-week (non-major) period of this year’s schedule:
“It’s some great events, it’s some really, really iconic golf courses I’ve never played before. This week Torrey Pines and then playing Pebble and Riv, it doesn’t get any better, so real excited for the next few events.”
2. LIV’s waiver wire
Rosters seem to be finalized as of Monday, and with hardly a day to spare! Friday marks the beginning of LIV’s third season (second full season, I suppose) and we’ll expect to hear final word on players, teams, format and more — perhaps just as soon as this article gets published.
3. Phil on Warming Up
I talked to Phil Mickelson about golf. More accurately — I stood next to Phil Mickelson while he talked about golf. Either way, we came away with a new episode of Warming Up (the second of this “season”) and I hope you give it a watch.
See you next week!
