KENT GRAY
eard the one about the flightless Falcon, the brazen Shark and the endangered Tiger? It’s actually no joke but shapes as serious fun nonetheless, three tantalising subplots set to drive golf’s 2017 narrative.
There could well be a explosive punch line after all courtesy of Greg Norman, but more from Australia’s intriguing Great White golf entrepreneur later.
For starters, lets savour the welcome return of Tiger’s trademark fist-pump to primetime during last month’s Hero World Challenge. Golf is undeniably better when the 14-time major champion is prowling the fairways as illustrated by the TV ratings for his Bahamas return, up 190 percent on Thursday compared to the previous year’s opening round. Sunday? Only the most watched Q4 round in Golf Channel history.
The anecdotal evidence elsewhere proved equally compelling. In Dubai, a pal who averages approximately three minutes of golf on telly a year was able to rattle off Tiger’s scores (73-65-7076, for the record) and several individual shots, yet not a single detail of Hideki Matsuyama’s impressive victory.
Of course, only time will tell if Woods can seriously contend again. But it sure was fun watching the former world No.1 rip it and chip it without grimace, either from back pain or yipinduced embarrassment.
Regardless of Woods’ schedule and whether his 2017 bow is in Dubai or elsewhere, this year’s Desert Swing shapes as another doozy.
We’re so fortunate to have golf’s best visit golfdigestme. com january 2017 our sandy patch in their pomp year- afteryear. On a personal note, it’s a real thrill to be back inside the ropes editing the action for
with Dustin Johnson’s debut tilt at the famed Falcon Trophy, still in the clutches of his equally rad Ryder Cup comrade Rickie Fowler, an enticing entrée to the three weeks of annual Gulf-ing goodness.
This season’s European Tour promises unprecedented digital and broadcast innovation as part of the new $50m Rolex Series. The lucrative seven-tournament race within the Race to Dubai doesn’t officially take the tee until May’s BMW PGA Championship but after our exclusive interview with Keith Pelley, I suspect the European Tour supremo’s disruptive vision for the game will begin to be rolled out as early as Abu Dhabi. Tunes on the first tee anyone?
The Rolex Series, as with the Race to Dubai, still climaxes at the DP World Tour Championship in November but quite what the golfing landscape will look like by then is anybody’s guess given Norman’s big tease last month.
The 61-year- old put the game on high alert during the opening of a new course in Mexico, promising to invite reporters to his office mid year to “tell you exactly how we’re going to break this cast iron that’s been wrapped around golf for so long”. “We’re going to shatter it,” Norman promised. “The institutions [USGA, R&A, PGA of America, PGA Tour] will eventually buy into it because they will have to buy into it. They won’t have a choice.”
Norman has promised big before without delivering and his detractors will write this latest missive off as yet more fishy rhetoric. But given how unpredictable 2016 proved, headlined by a golfer about to be the leader of the supposed “free world”, perhaps we should circle the date.