Feb 1, 2023

Jim McCabe's front 9 musings

1 – “There’s my ball and whoa . . . ”

In addition to identifying his golf ball in a palm tree – even if it was later determined to be the wrong tree they were looking at – Patrick Reed with the official’s binoculars also reported seeing the first Pterodactylus in about 150 million years.


2 – They go hand in hand

Bunkers are a fixture at golf courses. Good, consistent sand not so much.


3 – Fix the slippery spots

February is at the door. Wants to know if you’ve re-gripped your clubs.


4 – Action is long overdue

Here we are in the year 2023 and in-course out-of-bounds is still a thing. Disturbing, very disturbing.


5 – Put a little pressure on him

How do you have a Q&A with Phil Mickelson and not get him to take you inside the HY Flyers war room and discuss the team’s horrendous ’22 campaign?


6 – Bright spot, always

Viktor Hovland’s smile is the best in golf since Lorena Ochoa’s.


7 – Just sayin’

There are friends who have their wives convinced it takes seven hours to play golf, so they’d appreciate less talk about speeding up the game.


8 – Hey, let’s watch Pebble

Strength of course trumps strength of field this week.


9 – True confession

That beat-up ball in my bag? It’s called my “hard-left-to-right-wind-with-hazard-right” ball.