Major Season

Today is the 18th of May 2023. What does that mean to you and your life? Well to me it means the start of golf's second major championship!

As you might have seen from a lot of my posts here on Sports Talk Social over the last number years I love golf, it's my favorite sport to play right now. Well, the only sport I play right now competitively anyway as I'm getting too long the tooth to play soccer Gaelic or hurling competitively anymore. That's the beauty of golf you can play it until any age so long as you can walk and swing you can hit a golf ball and with the handicap system you can play competitively right up into old age. So I absolutely love the sport for that reason, along others and I plan to play well up into my 70s and hopefully my 80s all going to plan.

Where is it on?

As I was saying the second major of the year is upon us and it's the US PGA championship. Traditionally the USPGA used to be the fourth and final major of the year and would take place in August at different golf courses every year. There would be a rotation of approximately 10 years between courses and the occasional new course being thrown into the mix.

A few years back this changed and a decision was made but the US PGA to move the second major championship. It would become the second major of the year and now takes place in May. So once bliss and excitement of the Masters dissipates around April we start to look forward to the second major championship of the Year, namely the US PGA.

This year our second major championship of 2023 takes place at Oak Hill East Golf Course in West State New York. Why is it called Oak Hill, well, it is a golf course that is peppered with oak trees as you'll see on your TV screen if you are watch the major championship golf over the next four days. They've planted in the region of 100,000 trees on the course over the years and there were many there already. Some of these are maturing nicely now. Although at this time of year in May they won't show their full foliage of leaves but at the same time they should be nice to look, as the buds starting to appear on the oak trees.

Oakhills it's a ball strikers golf course and it definitely suits length off the t. From what I hear the roof is grown up quite a bit to the side of the fairways and is extremely lush and thick grass which makes it for a very interesting weekend of golf indeed. I can imagine a winner getting to around seven or eight under here for the win over the four days.

The Contenders

Now let's take a look at who's going to contend this week. Of course we've got the trio at the top of everybody's list those being world number one John Rahm and world number two Scottie Scheffler as well as Ireland's Rory McIlroy. Rory had a Masters to forget about. As usual the potential chance to complete the career Grand slam got the better of Rory and he did not play his best golf. He was abjectly average and failed to make the cut. The following week, he pulled out of the next tour event costing him 3 million dollars. This goes some way to show how disappointed and upset Rory was on the back of a lackluster Masters performance. He has the game, there's no doubt about that, but the mental side lets him down, even after working closely with mind coach Bob Rotella. He needs to stop being a mouth piece for the PGA and giving his opinion on everything and just concentrate on his golf game.

Can he bring his a-game this week to contend and possibly win his fifth major championship title? The jury is out on that one and I believe he probably won't. He may well contend; he may well shoot a round of 64 or below, however he's likely to have a blowout round too of 74 or 75 taking him out of contention. Can he finish in the top ten? Yes. Can you finish second? Yes. Will he win. No. Well that's my opinion anyway.

The other two boys John Rahm and Scottie sheffler now that's a different story altogether. These two men hit a big ball. They're big and strong in physical appearance, but even more importantly they're big and strong in mental strength. That's what wins you major championships.

That mental strength is sometimes seen in younger players who haven't had the hardship and the close calls off a career that builds up in the negativity bank. Indeed that's what young carefree Rory was like. Modern day Rory and others think too much, and dwell on mistakes. It's the older players who have been around a while who can build up a good mental fortitude such as John Rahm and Scottish Scheffler who can contend consistently for Major championships. Although both men are in only in their 20s they've been on the circuit a long time and both have that mental strength and resilience that will see them winning lots more major championships between them for the foreseeable future. If Rory wants to join their current club, he needs to sort his head out and just play golf in a carefree loose manner.

The Outsiders

Best of the rest of the field would be players like the Xander Xander Schauffele and I think Adam Scott deserves a little bit of a shout here too. He's a rank outsider but he's proven in the past to be a very good PGA championship player so I think Adam may well be there there about and I'd give them both quite a good chance to finish in the top 10 at this golf course.

Others that I can see going well here are Sahith Theegala who continues to improve and just in Thomas last year's winner. Both of these will be well suited to this particular golf course and I expect them to boat make the kush and both being contention going into Sunday evening.

Ok so the picture above is of me, and I'm not an outsider for the US PGA this year! Our Captain's day at my club yes, US PGA not so much!!

LIV Shenanigans

Liv golf is the gift that keeps on giving, that being the tour for players leaving the PGA tour for bagfulls of Saudi money that some call Sports washing.

LIV vs PGAbwill be front and center again this week with everybody wondering how the 17 LIV players that are going to tee it up will fair against the field made up of PGA players. I would expect Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and maybe Abraham Answer, who has a good history in these PGA championship events to be in the shake-up but outside of that I'm not too sure if many more LIV players will feature. Big Phil had a fantastic Masters but he knows Augusta National like the back of his hand and knows how to play certain holes better than anybody in the world there. However this golf course is a different animal, thick lush rough waits for players who are wild off the tee, so you need to be big, strong and burley and preferably young to get it back out of this rough and into play towards the green. As such some of the elder statesmen like Phil are going to find it very tough this week and I wouldn't be surprised to see Phil miss the cut.

The Ball

Something else that's sure to come up this week with television pundits, commentators and coverage is the new golf ball that's been talked about. The new equipment, the improved ball technology and the power of the players is such that players continue to hit the ball longer and further making a bit of a mockery of some par 4s and even par 5s.

One potential solution to this problem is the introduction of a new ball that can only travel so far regardless of equipment and player power. Is this the right thing to do? I have my doubts to be honest I prefer to see the players being able to bomb it as far as they can. Instead of bringing in a new ball and changing that side of things I'd like to see them grow the rough extremely high so any errant shot that doesn't hit The fairway is severely punished with thick long lush rough. Maybe add extra bunkers to courses at the lengths where these players hit or close to them to add extra obstacles and difficulty, but changing the golf ball to stop it flying as far, I not in favor of this to be honest.

I know those who oversee the Masters and other people within golf want to see the new golf ball come in but I'm not convinced myself better to the solution. Instead let's make the golf courses harder. The other thing to consider is the viewing public like to see birdies and eagles. Now of course it's also nice to see the world's best struggling in the rain at a British Open tournament where the winning score is plus two giving amateur golfers like myself something to smile about. Really though when it comes down to it you want to see the world's best rolling in birdies, knocking shots onto the green for eagle puts. For me, that's what golf is about chasing those coverage birdies eagles etc it started to drift down the power into the aristocracy okay well then you think what happens after that so by the end of Egyptian society the aristocrats were characterized by

The photos used are all my own captured on my trusty Samsung smart phone

Thanks a million for stopping by

Peace out.