As resolutions go, choosing to ignore any invitation to argue is a strong one. But with conviction it’s been adopted for 2025 and my year in golf will be better because of it. Arguing produces stress and needless angst, which in turn spoil a game that consumes and enthralls me.
To support this resolution not to argue, it makes sense to just announce where my stance is right now and get it over with. No reason to engage in arguments if the mind is made up, right? So here is where the line in the sand has been drawn and there’s no interest at this end should you want to wager an argument:
* Seve remains the most charismatic and energizing golfer the game’s ever seen. Yeah, Tiger included. Do yourself a favor and google “Billy Foster talks about Seve” and settle in for pure brilliance.
* Speaking of Tiger, we all thought he was utterly unbeatable in the WGCs and at Bay Hill – then along came data-driven silliness called the PIP. The man plays a handful of less-than-pedestrian rounds of golf and walks away king of the PIP like he’s in 2000 mode. A cool $10m for doing what, exactly? Now that’s the definition of unbeatable. Go figure.
* Perfect segue into this: Tiger’s 2000 season was way better than Scottie Scheffler’s 2024 campaign but just to add another wrinkle, let’s talk about Ben Hogan’s 1953 effort. At 41 he was severely limited as to how much he could walk because of a horrific car accident four years earlier, so he played in only five regular events. He won all five, including three-for-three in the majors, one being The Open Championship in which he’d never played and where he was required to do a 36-hole qualifier. So, yeah, his ’53 season gets the nod over Tiger’s 2000 season given the extreme physical hardships he worked to overcome and the fact he didn’t once fly private.
* It's not golf, but let’s get this over with: Orr was better than Gretzky. Now that that’s settled . . .
* No, no, a thousand times no to this outcry to allow a free drop out of a divot hole. What’s with this movement to try make the game fair and perfect and kindhearted? The game is often unfair, it asks you to accept imperfections, and it can be downright cruel. There are endless video clips of golfers hitting brilliant shots from water or off cart paths so the challenge of hitting a golf ball from a divot hole can be met. When your errant tee shot slams into a tree and caroms into the middle of the fairway, you smile at this rub of the green stuff, right? Should we allow golfers to get relief from divot holes, it will be reminiscent of all those times when players wanted to tap down spike marks, so they’d ask a competitor, “pitch mark?” The competitor, who’d want the same wink, wink later would concur that it was a pitch mark and so the area was cleaned up and spike marks were matted down. Players will similarly see divot holes where there aren’t any and we’ll have free drops all day long. Play it as it lies – quickly, please – and let’s stop trying to hurt player’s feelings when they get a bad break. Chances are, they’ll get a massively good break later in the round.
* Likely, this decision will not be re-visited, but it’s a shame that Turnberry is not in the Open Championship rota. Such a fantastic competitive arena.
* As for those rakes that are provided by golf course superintendents so that players can (hopefully) clean up the bunkers, the 80-20 rule should be in effect: 80 percent of the rake left in the bunker, 20 percent of it outside. And always, leave the rakes entry point of the bunker, which is the low side.
* Nothing bores me as quickly as stories about who some guy has gone to as his swing coach or his short-game coach or his putting coach. It’s never that newsworthy; it’s a writer thinking readers will be impressed that he knows something deep in the recesses of inside golf.
* This obsession with how much money is being thrown at players on the PGA Tour is very curious, methinks. Viewers turn on in droves to watch Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen and never is anything about money discussed. The best sports TV of the year occurs in the early rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs and money is never talked about. Elite athletes earn extraordinary money. Old news. But we tune in to watch their golf talents, not be hit over the head with their bank statements.
* Yeah, sure, the Plantation Course is a total pushover. That’s why Hideki Matsuyama won this year’s Sentry Championship with eye-popping 257 score. But how is it that he finished second-from-last a year ago with 286 score, 29 shots higher? Guessing maybe he played better, the course was soft, and there was an absence of wind. True answer is this: The fact is the game is utterly unexplainable and no one can tell me any differently.
* The Euros see the Ryder Cup differently, hence the tempered attitude toward those who fled to play LIV Golf. It’s all about fielding the best competitive team, not applying personal vendettas, so expect Jon Rahm to be on the team in ’25 and here’s guessing that Sergio Garcia will be a captain in the near future.
