“I think you could make the point this was as good a week for UNLV golf as anybody can remember,” said Jack Sheehan, a longtime observer of the Las Vegas golf scene. “In ‘98 they won the (men’s) national championship, but I don’t think they even had a women’s program then. And then Hoffman shakes off the demons …”
Just when it appeared Jordan Spieth might take a comfortable lead into the final round of the Masters, he slipped on a banana peel down the stretch and allowed a pack of players back into the race.
Jordan Spieth’s only annoying quality is that he’s too good. Just when it appeared safe to bet against him, he went out Thursday and fired a 6-under 66 to take a two-stroke lead after the first round of the Masters.
So, how odd is this? Tiger Woods is absent from this week’s Masters, but he’s not really missed because the business of golf betting is booming.
Golf’s future is in the hands of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and several other young guns, yet Augusta National might as well be Phil Mickelson’s backyard, and he still has enough going for him to make believers out of the bettors.
He signed the scorecard and then stopped at his golf bag for a quick check of things, and when William McGirt noticed there were only 20 messages awaiting on his cellphone, he was a bit surprised.
Remember that critically acclaimed but short-lived TV show called “Men of a Certain Age” starring Ray Romano, about guys who were closing in hard on middle age and trying just as hard to deal with it?
I’m not sure attendance or quality of field should ever hold a significant place in the evaluation of the annual PGA Tour stop in Las Vegas, not until those wearing rhombus-shaped, tasseled red hats are no longer involved.
It was last Thursday morning and the flotsam and jetsam of the Tom Brady announcement had just begun to swirl when the PGA of America put out a terse one-paragraph statement: The Grand Slam of Golf, a fairly popular exhibition match featuring the winners of the four majors — or in the case of this year, the three major winners and a capable alternate — would not be held in 2015.
If majors continue to slip from his grasp, Dustin Johnson will be stuck with the label of a career underachiever. The critics will say he squandered his immense talent, that he never could win the big one.
