OK, PGA Tour, you’ve woken up from your holidays stupor, rubbed your eyes, and shook the rust off to get another year started in Hawaii, the California desert, and Torrey Pines – now it’s time to play some real, big-time golf. It’s the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the rowdiest and biggest event (at least attendance-wise) on the PGA Tour schedule. You want to watch some beautiful golf on a big-screen TV to warm up for the Super Bowl? This is the event for you – a little desert, lots of green on the fairways and greens (and in the stands), beautiful mountains – it’s Arizona golf at its finest. The weather is supposed to be drop-dead gorgeous – in the low to mid-’70s, and Scottsdale will be absolutely hopping. Stroll around the restaurants and bars of Old Town any night of the weekend and you’re bound to see a pro or two having dinner.
Speaking of golf, I just finished re-reading Tom Coyne’s Paper Tiger about the year he took off from life to try and qualify for the PGA Tour’s Q-School several years ago. You know the commercials on TV featuring PGA Tour players and the slogan “These Guys Are Good”? Well, you read Coyne’s intriguing and entertaining book, and you’ll be left with thinking that these guys are not just good, they are unbelievably (bleeping) good. It took Coyne the better part of a year filled with thousands of balls hit and putted each day, the best in swing and fitness training and psych counseling, and brand-new fitted clubs to go from a 16 to a 0.4 handicap, and the best he could do in a bunch of tournaments and qualifiers was shoot in the low to high ’80s – sometimes not even being able to break 90. It’s really a great book – one that makes you realize that whatever we Goodboys are doing out there, it’s not golf like the pros play – in fact, it’s not even close. Think about it: between the America, European, and Asian tours (and I’m including both sexes here), that rarified atmosphere is reserved for little more than (when you think about it) no more than a thousand or so players in the world.
Like they say, do the math.
You want to see something akin to Goodboys golf? Check this out.
Me, I’ll take my poor excuse for a so-called golf game out to Superstition Springs tomorrow to “unleash the hounds”, Callaway-style, for the very first time. Sunny and and a warm 72 after the work week I’ve had – don’t even ask – doesn’t require too many arguments against a much-needed mental health day on the golf course. And I’m just the kind of mental guy to do it.
