2022 Masters

Carolina Speed

Hall of Famer
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
Messages
5,758
I hope Scheffler is the rare young player to get better after a some immediate early success. The sport would benefit to have a genuine star. No disrespect to DJ, Rory, DeChambeau or Koepka but they just haven’t been great or even consistent for years at a time.
You can add Jordan Spieth and Jason Day to that list Freethinker. The way Jordan Spieth started, I really thought he would win at least 10-12 majors. He'll be fortunate to win any more Majors after almost winning all four in 2015 and The 2017 Open Championship. I'll never understand why Spieth changed his swing. He's never been right since. The Masters sets up the best of any for Spieth but he can't even make the cut. The US Open will probably destroy him this year if he doesn't get his act together. Day has been a little unfortunate in that he's battled the injury bug. Although he's won at least one tournament over a 13-14 year career, DJ is another puzzler. He seems to have all the tools be an easy 10 Major winner, but I guess his laid- back attitude doesn't help him. I'm not sure why none of these players could continue their winning ways over long periods of time. I've always given credit where it's due, and Tiger Woods deserves to be said of him; that he is the ultimate competitor. I'm not sure any of these guys wanted it as bad as Woods.
As for Scheffler, I hope he's the next great player, but the odds say no. The Bobby Jones's, the Hagen's the Hogan's, the Nicklaus's, and the Woods' only come around so often. We can only guess who will be the next All-Time great.
 
Last edited:

Don Wassall

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Sep 30, 2004
Messages
31,416
Location
Pennsylvania
I hope Scheffler is the rare young player to get better after a some immediate early success. The sport would benefit to have a genuine star. No disrespect to DJ, Rory, DeChambeau or Koepka but they just haven’t been great or even consistent for years at a time.

There are a number of genuine golfing stars, and now Scheffler is another. I've been following golf for a long time and it's never had as many great golfers as it does now. Pining for another Jack Nicklaus to come along is extremely unlikely to happen. Nicklaus played most of his career in the days when there were only a few really good golfers, and there were few international players. Many of them smoked (right on the course, puffing in between shots) and many drank heavily and the prize money was embarrassingly low. Some of them worked other jobs to make ends meet. Now you have lots of young kids who train from a very early age to become pros. As athletes the players on today's PGA Tour are far superior than any time before. The money is fantastic too, and so the competition is very intense with all kinds of schools and tours, along with many topnotch college programs. And that's just in the U.S. You have players now who would have been football and baseball players in previous generations but instead are golfers.

Expecting one or two individual players to dominate for years and years over all the other great players is akin to not enjoying the NHL or MLB because teams aren't winning four and five straight championships anymore. For better or worse sports are geared toward parity now, and the sheer competition and prize money in golf makes it the same way. The odds of someone coming along and winning major after major are extremely low and it shouldn't detract from anyone's enjoyment of the sport.

Tiger Woods was an extreme outlier, and in the 26 years since he turned pro there hasn't been a single (other) good Black player on the Tour, and of course Tiger is more Asian than Black. Harold Varner is competitive of late but is no threat to win a major and will likely fade soon enough. That's also what's great about golf, it remains a sport totally dominated by Whites and some Asians. I enjoy the current Tour and its many stars quite a bit, and even the media's rekindled Tigermania this week didn't prevent me from enjoying the many great things about The Masters, one of the world's best sporting events.
 

white is right

Hall of Famer
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
10,163
This guy came 10th and nary a mention of his name on the broadcast as far as I remember. I actually thought he didn't qualify for the Masters(which has the hardest qualification standards of the majors less former winners).

So Varner, Champ and Woods held up the flag for Blacks but only Woods was worshiped by Blacks..https://www.espn.com/golf/player/_/id/11098/cameron-champ
 
Top