Holed Out

Welcome back to another long year of professional golf. It's sadly more of the same across the board, but hopefully this pool adds intrigue despite the PGA TOUR making every attempt to sterilize the product.

Golf has an early start this year, which probably caused a few people to miss the submission deadline. But I'm always a "less is more" guy so it's nice to lead by example and #shrinkthegame.

Here are some comments on the selections:

• Rory will always be a popular pick... but a lot of people saw more upside to a sophomore Ludvig (33.3%) over a proven veteran Collin Morikawa (8.7%).

• People do NOT like Wyndham Clark (20.3%). He's kind of a weird guy, and his wipey-slice miss off the tee can get him in trouble. But I expected that group to be much more even.

• Cameron Davis (Group 3.1) was the only player not selected.

• Five people wrote-in Luke Clanton — who doesn't have PGA TOUR status and I believe is still technically an amateur. It's almost certain he'll get a TOUR card this year through the PGA TOUR U program. But a change in his status should affect his current amateur qualifications for the US and British Opens. Regardless, if you haven't heard of him, start paying attention.

• Scottie Scheffler beat Xander by 51 points last year — which is a lot — but Xander is trending up and won TWO Majors last season. And yet, only 4 people (5.8%) dared to go against Scottie. I was not one of them after getting burned doing so last year. But the Scottie picks kept rolling in even after it was announced he WD'd from this week's tournament with a hole in his hand!

  
  

It's just a flesh wound.

This week is the first "Signature" event out in Hawaii, jokingly now called the "Tournament of Mostly Champions." It's a small field with a few big names skipping: Scottie, Rory, and Fleetwood from the top 10 rankings. The course favors driving distance (don't they all?), but putting and around the green are more important than usual. Driving accuracy does not matter at Kapalua.

It's some of the best watching of the year, due to the late finish in the Eastern Time Zone.

Welcome back, and good luck!