The best golfers in the world have teed it up to finally settle the score of who is the best golfer in the world…on this particular week and this particular course. That’s right- it’s the 103rd PGA Championship at The Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. You have questions, and I have answers.
Can you tell us about the Ocean Course, Dan?
Sure. This will be the longest course in major championship history at 7,876 yards. That’s a spicy meatball!! The Ocean Course was designed by Pete Dye and his wife, Alice. Now Pete Dye is a legendary golf course architect, but I had to look into this because I hadn’t heard of many female golf course architects. With the way society is today, you never know if Alice was included for feel-good, girl-power reasons. Like when people say Marie Curie did anything besides serve her husband croissants. But Alice Dye was the real deal! She was a great golfer herself and definitely had some input into course design. Now was she out there surveying land and moving earth? I highly doubt it. It was more along the lines of “you know honey, that 17th hole would look great with a cute little island green”. Pete Dye became interested in golf course architecture when he was in the Army at Fort Bragg. He would often play Pinehurst No.2 and got to know famed designer Donald Ross. Donald Ross would watch Dye’s golf group play along with his good buddy James Penney…aka James Cash Penney, or JC Penney, which is where you probably got your first pair of jeans. A confluence of great men. It was sad to see what online shopping and violent chaos at the mall did to stores like JC Penney. I remember going into a JC Penney in 2012, and there I walked around for 5 minutes without seeing one person. Granted, it was around noon on a Tuesday, but not salesman nor customer to be found. You could tell JC Penney was not long for this world. I ended up just stealing a bunch of stuff to teach them a lesson.
The Ocean Course is Dye’s masterpiece and possibly the hardest course in the country. This will be a true test of golf, and the winner will have been put through the wringer. If the wind blows, look for a winning score of only about 5 under par.
Who will win?
I think we will finally get the long-awaited showdown of Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. These guys have been on top of the golf world for the past 10 years but have never had that great head-head match-up that golf fans would love to see. They played together on Saturday at the 2016 Masters, where Spieth beat Rory by 4 shots. Neither player played well, and there was never any drama. The drama came the next day when Spieth hit two balls into the water on 12 to give away his second Masters. The two have never played singles against one another at the Ryder Cup. Golf Gods willing, this will be the year they are paired together on a Sunday and have a duel down the stretch. It’s obviously unlikely as there are 156 players in the tournament, but their games are trending in the right direction, so don’t be surprised if they battle it out on Sunday. I don’t think the two players really like each other all that much either. All pro golfers are polite and kind to one another – that’s just standard operating procedure on tour. But having seen too many tournaments and talked to people in the know, these guys have very different personalities. Spieth is a tactician and takes forever to play a shot. He will have long, drawn-out conversations with his caddie even when he is hitting a lay-up shot. McIlroy plays quickly and doesn’t
overanalyze his golf shots. I have seen him visibly annoyed when playing with Spieth. Of course, they are not overt about their dislike…this isn’t Bloods vs. Crips, but you can kind of see if you watch closely. Ideally, it will come down to the famed 18th hole at the Ocean Course, and tensions will be high. Spieth will be going for the career Grand Slam, and McIlroy will be trying for his 5th major. Maybe someone makes a putt, and we get a real testy handshake. For golf, that would seem like a bench-clearing brawl. I’ll say it will be Rory saving par on 18 to edge out Spieth by a stroke.
Can you bet on the PGA Championship?
Yes, you can! Everyone has an online betting app now. It’s ubiquitous. When I googled “PGA Championship Preview” to steal bits from other golf writers, all I saw were betting picks from gambling websites. What they don’t mention is that gambling is just another way for smart people to take money from dumb people. I should know! I have lost money in poker rooms up and down the Atlantic seaboard. It can’t be good for the country that gambling is so prevalent now and will surely let us slip further into Idiocracy. It is really fun if you win, though…
Did you see ol’ Joe Biden hit that stone wall and have the ball bounce backward?
Yes, yes, I did. Anyone can hit a bad shot in golf, and at least he made contact. What was a bit disheartening was his reaction afterward. Just tired, dejected, and confused. He slumps his shoulders, shuffles over, and picks up his clubs. No reaction. No smile, no look of whimsy. He’s tired. We’re tired. It’s gonna be a long four years. To break the video down- Joe Biden is Joe Biden, the golf ball is the USA, and the fence is wokeism, BLM, CRT, Russia, China, and gas prices. That leaves the USA going backward and landing in a ditch.
Biden is also a man that claims to be a 6 handicap. By that fact, he would’ve shot his age multiple times. He isn’t a 6 and has never been near that low a handicap. He is an average golfer at best. He is an excellent liar, though, so I guess that’s something. Basically, his handicap is as fraudulent as the 2020 election. And people always ask- you think the election was stolen by rigged voting machines? No, nothing that elaborate. Just Covid bringing on massive mail-in ballot fraud. And no, I don’t have any evidence to prove it, but I did see each candidate’s rallies before the election…or, in the case of Joe, “rallies.”
Dan Redmond covers golf for Breitbart and can be found on Twitter @danfromdc