What a year it was…2021!

View From The Fairway 2021 Golf Awards.

What a year it was…Golf was back with spectators, amazing golf shots and unbelievable finishes.

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Golfer of the Year – Collin Morikawa

He had some competition, but how can you put anybody ahead of a man who won The Open Championship and then followed it up with victory in the DP World Tour Championship to finish the season as winner of the Race to Dubai? A global superstar – and there is much more to come.

Bad Break of the Year – Jon Rahm

The Spaniard led The Memorial Tournament by six shots as he walked of the green at the conclusion of his third round. He was greeted by a PGA Tour official who informed him that he had recorded a positive Covid test and had to isolate. His response? In his very next appearance, he won the US Open. He then flew across the Atlantic and nearly won The Open. He was looking forward to taking part in the Olympic Games when, unbelievably, he failed another Covid test.

Underachiever of the Year – Louis Oosthuizen

The South African finished second at the US Open and tied third at The Open. On the face of it that is a pretty impressive body of work but he has yet to win on American soil and he actually led The Open before crumbling in the final round.

Comeback of the Year – Jordan Spieth

Spieth spent three years in the wilderness and then, from nowhere, rediscovered his game. There were a succession of top-five finishes and he capped it all by winning again and contending for the sport’s biggest prizes. It is good to see him back.

Worst Headline of the Year – Tiger Woods in Car Crash Horror

As if the 15-time major champion has not been through enough, he crashed his car at 85mph in February. He was lucky to survive and even luckier not to lose his right leg. He has spent the year in rehab but finally reappeared on the course alongside his 12-year-old son Charlie at the PNC Championship. Although he had to use a buggy, the pair finished second and reeled off 11 successive birdies in the second round. He may yet defy the odds once again.

Bore of the Year – That Feud

We have all had more than enough of the ridiculous war of words between Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. They appeared to put their differences behind them at the Ryder Cup when they embraced after Team USA’s sensational victory. Apparently not!

Most Emotional Moment of the Year – Richard Bland & Tim Barter

Bland had played in 477 European Tour events without a victory. And then came the British Masters at The Belfry. He played superbly all week, produced big shots when he needed them, holed putts for fun, won in a playoff and then played his part in simply the best post-victory interview I have ever seen when he spoke to Sky Golf’s Tim Barter. It should be pointed out that Barter has worked with Bland for 20 years and both men could barely speak at the end of it all.

Shot of the Year – Jon Rahm

Actually, it is ’shots of the year’. The putts he holed on the 17th and 18th greens to secure the US Open were reminiscent of Tiger Woods in his pomp. Great players have a habit of being able to produce memorable shots when they really need to do so, and the Spaniard did it twice. Simply incredible.

Emotional Outburst of the Year – Rory McIlroy

Yes, he won twice. But he threw away the DP World Tour Championship and performed horribly in the majors. However, the lasting memory of Rory’s year will be his interview at the end of the Ryder Cup when he fought back the tears while telling the world how bitterly disappointed he was with his form, saying that he felt he had let down his teammates. It was the moment when we realised just how much the Northern Irishman really does care about this frustrating game.

Course of the Year – Kiawah Island

Many of us will remember Kiawah Island from the 1991 Ryder Cup, better known as the War on Shore. It also hosted the 2021 US PGA Championship and it looked spectacular. It nearly reduced some players to tears but it provided a fair test and helped to produce the unlikeliest of finishes when Phil Mickelson emerged triumphant.

Team of the Year – Europe’s Solheim Cup Team

Catriona Matthew’s team weren’t given a prayer of winning on American soil but for three days they played like giants, with Ireland’s Leona Maguire the star of the show. It was a wonderful performance.

Young Player of the Year – Sam Burns

Every so often a young player emerges and you just know that he or she is something special. Burns is such a player. He won the Valspar Championship in May and finished runner-up twice during the 2020-21 season. He then kicked off the new season by winning the Sanderson Farms Championship. In four starts his worst finish is a tie for 14th. And he finished his year by finishing in a tie for third at the Hero World Challenge. A certain major winner of the future.

Surprise of the Year – Phil Mickelson Winning the US PGA

Lefty sprays the ball all over the place, and always has done. If ever there was a course that would find him out it is Kiawah Island but for four days he rolled back the years and, unbelievably, won the US PGA Championship at the age of 50, becoming the oldest golfer ever to win a major. It was a performance that came from nowhere. He has enjoyed further success on the Champions Tour  but missed nine cuts on the PGA Tour. Nobody does it quite like Flaky Phil.

Worst Haircut of the Year – Cameron Smith

During lockdown there was an excuse for not getting your haircut. But listen Cam, lockdown ended many, many months ago. You need to realise that the mullet you are currently sporting is NOT a flattering look.

Best Beard of the Year – John Daly

This award would normally go to Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston but Daly is currently sporting a facial adornment that makes him look like Father Christmas and wins this award hands down. He also appears to have eaten all the mince pies!

SOURCE:  golfshake.com

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An Unbelievable Player And Unbelievable Partner

Tiger Woods returns to golf with 12-year-old son — and the similarities are uncanny

THE GOLF LEGEND AND HIS SON, CHARLIE, 12, TOOK SECOND AT THE PNC CHAMPIONSHIP IN ORLANDO IN HIS FIRST TOURNAMENT SINCE SUFFERING SERIOUS INJURIES IN A CAR CRASH.

It wasn’t just the signature red shirts that matched for Tiger Woods and his 12-year-old son, Charlie, during Tiger’s first tournament since suffering major injuries in a one-car crash in February.

The uncanny resemblance between father and son was on full display over the weekend, from their similar smooth swings to their confident play as they took turns sinking birdie putts.

Tiger, 45, was just happy to be out on the golf course again after suffering injuries to his right leg in the Feb. 23 car crash outside Los Angeles that were so extensive doctors initially feared they might have to amputate it.

“The fact that I’m able to have this opportunity this year — even a couple weeks ago we didn’t really know whether or not I would be doing this,” Woods said at a press conference. “But here we are. And we had just best time ever.”

Tiger and Charlie finished second at the PNC Championship in Orlando, an event that partners PGA players with family members.

They finished two shots behind John Daly and his son, John Daly II, who is a freshman at the University of Arkansas. It also was an improvement on Tiger and Charlie’s seventh-place finish at the same event last year, where Charlie became the youngest participant in the tournament’s history as an 11-year-old.

At one point, the father and son combined to make 11 straight birdies in this year’s tournament.

“He’s an unbelievable player and unbelievable partner,” Tiger said.

Tiger could be seen noticeably limping at some points during the 36-hole tournament over the weekend, and he used a golf cart to get around the course.

“I’m just happy and thankful that I’m able to do this,” he said. “I still have my own leg, which was questionable for a while, and it’s functioning, and I’m just really tired.”

The 15-time major winner reiterated that he will never be able to play a full PGA schedule ever again due to his injuries. However, the competitive fire that defined his career still burns as bright as ever.

“I want to hit certain shots,” he said. “Charlie was out there telling me a couple times yesterday and today, ‘Hey dad don’t hit that shot, you know what that does.’ I said, ‘You worry about your own game.’”

He also cherished every moment he had back on the course with his son.

“I’m just so thankful to do this again, to have this opportunity to play with my son and to have these memories for both of us, for our lifetime, it’s worth all the pain.”

SOURCE:  today.com

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Tiger takes a swing at golf

What Tiger’s latest flurry of activity means for his recovery, according to a doctor

Tiger Woods seems to be sending mixed signals. On one hand, he’s imploring people to temper expectations, that he’s a long way off from competing at the PGA Tour level and, if we take him at his word, that he’s not sure he’ll ever get to that point. But then he kept on hitting balls throughout Hero World Challenge week. And, most notably, he’s committed to returning to golf (kind of) in next week’s PNC Championship, less than 10 months after his horrific car accident.

There’s a camp of followers that believes Woods will factor in this year’s Masters. There’s another that’s still skeptical he’ll ever return to top-level competition. Woods’ status as a sporting icon also clouds the picture; because the golf world so desperately wants him back, any positive sign—that initial swing video, or his range sessions, or his PNC plans—can easily be mistaken for concrete evidence that the comeback train’s trundling toward glory.

What, then, is actually going on? How close is Tiger to returning to the PGA Tour? And what should we make of his recent flurry of activity?

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” says Dr. Ara Suppiah, founder of the Functional Sports Medicine Institute and a Golf Digest contributor. “But let’s start with the actual injury—or, at least, what we know about the injury. We know his weight bearing bone in his lower right leg, the tibia, was broken in multiple places and that a rod was inserted to bring those pieces together. We know he had multiple fractures to the bones in his foot and ankle, which needed pins or plates.”

On the night of his accident, Woods’ initial injuries were described as “comminuted open fractures to both the tibia and fibula” by Dr. Anish Mahajan, CEO of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Woods also required surgical release of the covering around the muscles in his leg to relieve pressure due to swelling.

Tiger noted during his press conference last week that amputation of the leg was on the table. Suppiah says: “Amputation would only be an option if the wound was not healing properly—say, if it was infected—or if blood flow to the leg was an issue. We also know that he is in pain every day.

“Now, if you take those injuries and try to construct a golf swing, there will be a number of issues. One is that the affected limb, his right, may be shorter than the unaffected limb. That will result in wear-and-tear that is different than what he’s used to and can impact the knee, hip and lower back.”

How much of an issue that might be, Suppiah said, would determine the length discrepancy. He did note, however, that shoe technology has improved drastically and that Woods could easily have a customized shoe made to ensure his pelvis is level and mitigate the impact.

“He’ll need to turn on his right leg on the back swing and then push off it to use the ground force and generate speed in the through swing. How much he’s able to do that will largely depend on how much pain there is. He can clearly make 10 swings, but can he make 200? We still don’t know.”

Suppiah suggested the ankle will play a crucial role in determining how much and how quickly Woods might be able to return to tour-level competition.

“Will the ankle swell up when it exerts force on an uneven surface? When you have surgery, with the injuries he has suffered, invariably there will be a loss in the range of motion in the ankle and foot joint. The ankle is a bit like the wrist; it has to be able to move in multiple directions to withstand and create force. How much of that can he do?”

The PNC Championship’s format won’t provide a full picture of Woods’ prospect, Suppiah says, due to its format. There are just two days of competition. Woods will drive around the course, which is flat to begin with, in a cart. He will not have to hit every tee shot and can pick up when he’s out of a hole or faced with a dicey lie.

“Swinging on a level playing surface is very different from walking on hilly courses, terrain, rough. He’s not close to that yet. Now, this is very, very positive. It’s definitely a huge step in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go. If he is having pain every day, that’s a huge load. It’s not just pain—it’s suffering. It’s the mental agony of dealing with chronic pain. That is exhausting.”

Woods was recovering from a microdiscectomy procedure to his lower back at the time of the accident. That December 2020 operation was the fifth he’s had on his back but first since a career-saving spinal fusion surgery in April 2017. Suppiah does not foresee the back being an issue at least initially.

“Any back injury, when you take pressure off the back and rest it, will be better. I don’t know what happened to the back when he had that accident. The car rolled over, and forces were strong enough to break his leg and his ankle, which means he would’ve been in a precarious position. But the back is not being spoken about right now. Even if it was, in the nine months when he was recuperating, it should’ve healed fully.

“Tiger is a savant of the golf swing. If he can walk, he can find a way to swing the golf club. If you took any other average person, who’s not as fit or as driven or doesn’t have the team behind him, you’d be looking at a significantly longer recovery time. But he’s a supremely fit athlete with a drive that is unseen in most everybody. That’s why he is able to do this.”

SOURCE:  golfdigest.com

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Hovland was good enough to win anywhere

Viktor Hovland cements his status as the Resort Golf King on an unexpectedly chaotic Sunday

Collin Morikawa had squeezed the life out of the Hero World Challenge, his five-shot 54-hole lead all but assured to produce a sleepy Sunday and usher world golf into its December slumber. After a chaotic year—Tiger’s car accident, Spieth’s return, Bryson and Brooks’ beef—golf’s new steely-eyed closer was ready to stake his claim to 2021. Collin’s year. A victory at Albany Golf Club … coming off a win in his last start at the European Tour season finale … on the same week he got engaged to his longtime girlfriend … to bring him to World No. 1. Finally, some stability. Collin on top.

No. No. No again.

Morikawa’s advantage evaporated with two double bogeys in his first six holes of the final round, and it was his housemate this week who catapulted to the title and furthered his claim as the best resort golfer in the world.

Viktor Hovland, who shared a beachside villa with his fellow Class of ’19er, played Nos. 14-16 in five under par to edge Scottie Scheffler by a shot and pick off his second title in four weeks. This won’t go down as an official PGA Tour win like his victory at last month’s Worldwide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, but we’re talking semantics. The 24-year-old from Norway takes home $1 million and 48 World Ranking points for his effort, and his six-under 66 to beat a field chalk-full of superstars was good enough to win anywhere.

“Honestly, when I first teed off and obviously got off to just making a few pars early on, I didn’t really think winning was even in question,” Hovland said. But after he’d made three straight birdies on Nos. 6-8, looked at the leader board behind the ninth green and saw he was in contention after starting the day six back, “that’s when I knew that, ‘OK, if I play really well on the back nine, I’ve got a chance.’”

“Honestly, when I first teed off and obviously got off to just making a few pars early on, I didn’t really think winning was even in question,” Hovland said. But after he’d made three straight birdies on Nos. 6-8, looked at the leader board behind the ninth green and saw he was in contention after starting the day six back, “that’s when I knew that, ‘OK, if I play really well on the back nine, I’ve got a chance.’”

“He plays like an athletic Jim Furyk,” is how tournament host Tiger Woods put it. But his second on 6 swerved violently left, hampered no doubt by an unfortunate clump of mud stuck to his ball, forcing yet another drop and leading to another double bogey that saw him relinquish a lead that he never sniffed again. A three-putt bogey at the last sealed a bitterly disappointing 76, given what he could’ve accomplished with just a one-under round.

Hovland held steady for 13 holes as the tournament dissolved into a dizzying mess. Early in the day, Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson were penalized two shots for inexplicably teeing off from the wrong tee marker. Roughly an hour later, Morikawa’s doubles handed the lead to Sam Burns, who butchered his way around the green on the drivable par-4 14th. An overcooked chip from left of the hole resulted in a third shot up a steep, shaved slope. And a fourth shot. And a fifth shot. Indeed, three times he bumped a fairway wood—it was a popular play this week, given Albany’s grainy Bermuda green surrounds—only to have it roll back to his feet. His sixth went 15 feet past the hole and while making the comebacker, it still resulted in a rally-killing triple.

Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler got his nose in front with four straight birdies from Nos. 14-17, and his final-round 66 saw him finish solo second. “I looked at the leader board and when I was making the turn,” Scheffler said, “I think there was a couple guys at 16 [under] and I thought to myself, and [caddie] Teddy [Scott] and I mentioned, ‘Let’s have a pretty good back nine here, still have chance.’

“So I was pretty motivated going into the back nine and was able to hit some really good shots. Hit some great putts, too. Some of them looked like they were going in and didn’t, but outside of that, felt good with how I played.”

Burns’ playing partner, Daniel Berger, holed a full wedge shot for an eagle 3 on the hole directly after Burns’ collapse. It was a sign of things to come, with that downwind par-5 15th, yielding more eagles than pars during the final round.

More rare—at least for some—were eagles on the 14th. That’s where Hovland took control of this tournament, holing a bunker shot that could well have rolled into the same valley of death that torpedoed Burns’ chances. It struck the center of the pin, however, and dropped in for a 2, his third on that hole in four rounds.

He followed that up with an eagle at 15 (driver-approach to 20 feet, swish), then added a dart on the difficult par-4 16th for a birdie that pushed his out-of-nowhere lead to three and rendered the final few holes a just-don’t-screw-it-up situation.

Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple. When it comes to golf in 2021, nothing has been. Hovland bricked a four-footer for par at 17 before NBC’s broadcast noted a potential rules violation. Hovland’s tee shot finished just short of the green, and he removed sand that was on the green and directly in his line. Officials checked to see if he hadn’t also brushed away sand that was off the green, which would’ve been a penalty, before quickly deciding that everything was OK. So his bogey stayed a bogey. Fiasco averted. Two-shot lead intact.

Still, the dropped shot ensured that his tee shot on 18, a difficult dogleg left with water all down the left, would be nervy as hell. He striped a tight draw just left of center—youth, it’s a helluva drug—only to have to wait for playing partner Patrick Reed to sort a rules situation in a waste area right of the fairway. (This foray into Albany’s sand, thankfully, did not result in a full-blown crisis). A blocked approach forced him to play a delicate third off grainy and somewhat barren turf just right of the green.

A closing bogey sufficed, and the man from Norway, who lives in Oklahoma, captured another title in paradise.

“It’s crazy to think that I’m … you know just playing the PGA Tour is pretty incredible just from thinking back to where I grew up and playing golf in Norway, you’re playing golf six months out of the year and it’s pretty farfetched to even just play golf professionally coming from Norway,” Hovland said. “So for me to be here and winning tournaments is pretty unreal.”

SOURCE: golfdigest.com

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