Oregon Golf holds grand opening for ‘The Jake,’ state-of-the-art teaching facility, clubhouse
In the world of college athletics, it’s not uncommon for some of the top universities in the nation to get caught up in an arms race.
When the success of your program — no matter what sport it may be — depends on the level of talent on the team, and that talent depends on recruiting, then it makes sense that schools want to be at the forefront when it comes to flashy facilities.
The Oregon Ducks golf programs just joined the race.
On Thursday afternoon, the University of Oregon held a grand opening for the Peter and Jan Jacobsen Oregon Golf Teaching Facility, nicknamed The Jake. The facility is located just south of Eugene, at Emerald Valley Golf and Resort in Creswell.
The facility now offers a home to the men’s and women’s golf teams at Oregon, both of which have seen unprecedented success over the past decade. It is fit with the latest in golf technology and resources in a weather-protected environment. The facility includes three oversized driving range bays with integrated TrackMan technology, an indoor putting studio, and a covered outdoor heated driving range.
Media members were able to get a look inside the facility on Thursday morning, with a tour of the grounds and a walk-through of all the latest technology that is included inside the building. Here’s a look at what we saw:
The first encounter with the Arnold Palmer Invitational’s namesake had a way of leaving a lasting impression.
They say never meet your heroes.
The implication is that doing so will fail to live up to your expectations and the resulting bad experience will negate what they meant to you. While there may be some truth in that adage, they should’ve added one caveat – unless your hero happens to be Arnold Palmer.
Any time spent with Palmer was time well spent, but the first encounter with the Arnold Palmer Invitational’s namesake had a way of leaving a lasting impression.
Here are the remembrances of more than a half-dozen PGA Tour pros past and present, who enjoyed that privilege before his passing in September 2016, and never forgot their first encounter with Mr. Palmer – and for good reason.
“I hope someday that somebody realizes how important this event is to the past, present and future of the PGA Tour.”
Peter Jacobsen is “disheartened” that some of the best players in golf asked for permission to skip the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in favor of receiving appearance money.
Jacobsen, 67, who retired from competitive golf this week and spends most of his time as a golf analyst for NBC Sports, had some choice words for the 20-odd PGA Tour pros, including Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, who elected to take guaranteed money and play the Asian Tour’s Saudi International instead of a staple of the Tour.
Jacobsen made his PGA Tour debut at Pebble Beach Golf Links in 1977 when the tournament was still known as Bing Crosby’s Clambake. Speaking from Pebble where he competed in the AT&T for the 32nd time, Jacobsen said, “This is the most important tournament on the PGA Tour and I think some of the players are a bit short-sighted when they don’t understand that.”
AT&T has sponsored the event since 1986 and is the Tour’s second-longest running sponsor behind only Honda’s backing of the Honda Classic. AT&T also underwrites a second Tour event, the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas, and Jacobsen noted that the Pebble Beach pro-am is chock full of all the leading executives who sign off on the sponsor dollars that are the backbone of the Tour.
“What better place than Pebble Beach to spend time with and thank these corporations for sponsoring this Tour and giving all these players the opportunity to seek fortune and fame,” he said. “I understand getting appearance fee money. I’ve done that myself. But I think this is the one tournament that is extremely important to the success of the PGA Tour and it’s disheartening for me to see so many miss this tournament, so many of the stars, because I think the best players on the PGA Tour should be here and playing with the top people in business, the top people in entertainment and sports. It’s disheartening for me just to see this and I would have loved to have seen the best players in the world playing here this week.”
Jacobsen played the AT&T consecutively from 1979 to 2008 and he’s long been a proponent of the pro-am as the lifeblood of the Tour.
“This event is a microcosm of what the PGA Tour is, what it should be and what it has become,” Jacobsen said to the Associated Press in 2018. “If some players don’t recognize that? That’s fine. I understand that. Those who do, I admire. I’ve said to a lot of guys, ‘How much money did you make last year?’ They say, ‘$5 million.’ I say, ‘Would you sacrifice one week a year to continue to make $5 million? Go play the AT&T.’ ”
Jacobsen also blamed the managers and agents of players, who typically receive a cut of deals negotiated on a player’s behalf such as show-up money, for giving advice that may have been self-serving.
“The players have gotten to where the only people they listen to are the agents. That’s a real bad direction for the game of golf to go,” Jacobsen said. “I hope someday that somebody realizes how important this event is to the past, present and future of the PGA Tour.”
Peter Jacobsen will play in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the 32nd and final time.
After 661 PGA Tour events, seven victories plus two majors on PGA Tour Champions, Peter Jacobsen intends to play one last competitive round on Saturday at Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course, wrapping up a pro career that spans six different decades.
“Father Time catches up to us all,” he said. “My gosh, it’s a new game out here. They’ve got these new tees so far back that I’m hitting driver-hybrid to most of these holes. It’s time for me to get back to broadcasting. It’s time to hang the clubs up.”
But not before one last farewell at this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he is making a start for the 32nd time at the event he considers the most important week on the PGA Tour calendar. No one has understood the value of the pro-am format better than Jacobsen, and no one appreciates having one more chance to say goodbye to competitive golf.
Jacobsen, who spends most of his time as a golf TV commentator for NBC/Golf Channel, thought he’d had his PGA Tour swan song at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California, in 2018. That’s when his amateur partner, rocker Huey Lewis, talked him into one more spin around the fabled track for old times sake. Originally, they were supposed to play in 2017, but Lewis suffered an ear infection and withdrew so they returned for one final walk together on the hallowed fairways. Leave it to Lewis to woo him back again and then suffer another injury – to his shoulder this time – that forced him to WD. (Jacobsen instead is playing with recording artist Ben Rector.)
But there’s not much arm-twisting involved to make Jacobsen, 67, spend another week in this slice of heaven. The seaside resort community of Pebble Beach is where Jacobsen originally met Arnold Palmer when he accidentally jumped in front of him trying to play a practice round in what became the start of a beautiful friendship. It’s where he formed a longtime partnership with actor Jack Lemmon, who never made the cut, and together were part of the famous “human chain” at the 16th hole at Cypress Point. It’s also where Jacobsen won what he’s termed his most memorable title on the PGA Tour in 1995.
Jacobsen was 22 years old when he made it through PGA Tour Q-School, which back then meant he could play in Monday Qualifiers. That didn’t amount to a hill of beans as he failed to earn a spot in tournaments in Phoenix, Tucson, and Palm Springs to start the 1977 season. Jacobsen arrived at Pebble Beach bound and determined to break his streak and qualify for Der Bingle’s bash. He did just that shooting 70 at Del Monte Golf Course, a score good enough to make the field at what was then known as the Bing Crosby Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. He’d finally arrived.
So, Jacobsen headed over to Monterey Peninsula Golf Club, which was part of the course rotation at the time, and toured the back nine as the sun set in the Pacific. After playing No. 12, he cut over to the 16th hole, which led to an unforgettable moment.
“Everything in the world seemed as though it couldn’t get better when my concentration is broken by the sound of footsteps. Lots of them. Suddenly, somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 people round the corner from the 15th green to the 16th tee traipsing after none other than Arnold Palmer. He was larger than life to me. That’s when it hit me that I had committed a rookie mistake and jumped in front of him during his practice round,” Jacobsen recalled.
What did The King do when he approached Jacobsen, a mere peasant at the time in the world of golf?
“I envisioned he would say something like, ‘Hey, rookie, get out of the way!’ Heroes, they say, generally disappoint. But not Arnold. He stuck out his hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Arnold Palmer. Can I join you?’” Jacobsen recalled.
When they finished, Jacobsen remained on the putting green at the 18th hole and turned to his caddie and said, “Now that was magic right there.”
On the bag this week is none other than Mike “Fluff” Cowan, Jacobsen’s caddie for 18 years until he joined Tiger Woods when he turned pro in 1996. Jacobsen and Fluff first met at Silverado Country Club in Napa, California, in the fall of 1977.
“He looked like a cross between Grizzly Adams and Jerry Garcia,” Jacobsen said. “He introduced himself and said he was impressed with my game.”
Fluff didn’t start packing for Jacobsen until the following spring at the Heritage Classic, and together they won six of Jacobsen’s seven titles. With Fluff’s longtime boss Jim Furyk taking the week off, Jacobsen put the old band back together.
“It’s like old home week,” Jacobsen said.
Pebble Beach is one of his favorite places on Earth – he played the AT&T consecutively from 1979 to 2008 – and he’s long been a proponent of the pro-am as the lifeblood of the Tour.
“Our greatest salesmen are not living in Ponte Vedra [Beach, Fla.] at Tour headquarters; they are playing inside the ropes,” Jacobsen told me in 2018 for a story that appeared on Morning Read. “I don’t care how many fancy food carts they put on the tee and how many gift bags you give amateurs. The greatest asset of the PGA Tour is its players.”
Jacobsen was able to take a farewell tour this week as a past champion. In 1995, he played 36 bogey-free holes at Pebble, including a flawless 65 on Sunday, to edge David Duval for the title.
“Some of the best golf I’ve ever seen,” Fluff said. “Peter hit 69 out of 72 greens that week at Pebble, Spyglass, and Poppy Hills.”
Having been through a hip replacement and other surgeries, Jacobsen’s body won’t allow him to compete on PGA Tour Champions let alone against the flat bellies. He’s pulling up the rear, signing for 81 at Spyglass on Thursday and a respectable 76 at Pebble Beach on Friday, which included finishing with a birdie at 18 at the place where it all began. Not too shabby for a guy who teed it up this week without any grand illusions. Not everybody gets to go out on his own terms, but this week Jacobsen gets to say goodbye in style.
“It’s been a dream,” he said speaking of his send off, but he might as well have been referring to his long journey through the ranks of professional golf. “It’s been fantastic.”
The idea of reviving a Ryder Cup-style team event for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, and now it is set to come to fruition.
Rory McIlroy nailed it during the Ryder Cup when he said team golf is the best.
Do we really have to wait two years for the next Ryder and Solheim cups? Well, the Presidents Cup is less than a year away, but so is a new creation for the golf calendar: the World Champions Cup, which pits three teams of senior-aged golfers. How about these three captains: Jim Furyk for Team USA, Darren Clarke for Europe and Ernie Els for the International squad. Not too shabby at all. All three have been captains within the past five years in international competition and continue to thrive as winners this season on PGA Tour Champions.
“It’s a continuation of long rivalries,” said Peter Jacobsen, who is serving as chairman of the inaugural competition, which is scheduled for November 2022. “These guys are beyond interested in rekindling those competitive flames. For them to be able to do it as seniors is going to be very special.”
Darren Clarke will captain the European Team in the World Champions Cup. (Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post)
As the saying goes, there are no new ideas, and a Ryder Cup style competition for the 50-and-over set previously existed a couple of decades ago. From 2001-04, Arnold Palmer captained a U.S. side in the UBS Cup against Gary Player and once Tony Jacklin. The idea of reviving something like it for the graybeards has been kicked around and talked about for years, Jacobsen said. Intersport, which founded and operates the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, is working on signing a title sponsor and securing a course for a November 2022 date. Originally the plan was to launch the tournament this fall, but COVID had other plans and pushed it back a year.
The format of the three-day competition will be twice daily nine-hole matches featuring both team and single play with points awarded for each hole won in each match. At the conclusion of the matches, the team with the highest point total wins.
“I guess you can call the scoring member-guest-ish,” Jacobsen said.
For the first time, the competitors of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup will go head-to-head in the same competition, while older rivalries will be renewed.
“The World Champions Cup will give golf fans the opportunity to see the game’s greatest players come together in a team format on the world’s biggest stage,” said PGA Tour Champions president Miller Brady in a press release announcing the competition. “International team events are some of the most significant competitions in our game, and it will be fun to see Ernie, Jim and Darren, along with their teammates, compete for the inaugural World Champions Cup next year.”
Mike “Fluff” Cowan is golf’s most popular and hippiest caddie and still going strong at 72.
Mike Cowan is making the most of his extended COVID-19 pandemic-induced layoff. On March 26, he underwent elective surgery to have a stent inserted in his right leg to open up a partially-blocked peripheral artery. It instantly relieved the pain in his right calf.
If the name Mike Cowan doesn’t ring a bell, you’re not alone. His boss Jim Furyk guesses only about 10 percent of golf fans would recognize that name and says, “I’d be curious how many Tour pros would know it.” One of Cowan’s previous bosses, Tour veteran Peter Jacobsen, says that any time he mentions his former caddie by his name during a speaking engagement he gets the same response.
“I get blank stares,” Jacobsen says.
As soon as Jacobsen mentions his nickname, there’s a collective look of recognition.
To the man better known as Fluff, all that matters is this: “The guys who’ve written checks to me have known,” he says.
Everybody loves Fluff, perhaps golf’s most famous caddie. He’s certainly the hippiest caddie and one of the Last of the Mohicans, dating back to the days when loopers found work in the parking lot and subsistence living meant bunking four to a room and eating under the golden arches. And yet Fluff keeps showing up with a smile and his trademark fluffy, walrus mustache, which he last shaved off in 1984 and makes him the spitting image of actor Wilford Brimley.
“If you told me 10 years ago that Mike would still be caddying at 72 years old, I’d have chuckled and said, ‘C’mon. Get out of here,’ ” Furyk says. “But he’s still going strong.”
Caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan during the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, where he looped for Jim Furyk before going on to work with Lydia Ko in the U.S. Women’s Open the next week.
Let’s start with the nickname.
A couple of otherwise long-forgotten Eddies from Jacksonville, Florida – Eddie Davis and Eddie Fletcher – coined the name in the late 1970s because they thought Cowan bore a resemblance to Steve Melnyk, the 1969 U.S. Amateur champion, Florida Gator and former PGA Tour pro turned broadcaster. Melnyk’s nickname in college was Fluff, and they started calling Cowan “Short Fluff.”
“Pretty soon it was shortened to Fluff,” Cowan says. “I think they were trying to get my goat because Steve Melnyk isn’t exactly the most handsome man.”
Fluff accepted it as something of a rite of passage, noting, “It’s almost like you haven’t made it in the caddie world until you’ve got a nickname.”
Fluff’s first PGA Tour event was a Monday Qualifier for the 1976 Greater Hartford Open long before it became known as the Travelers Championship. He caddied for Dave Smith at Tunxis Plantation (now known as Tunxis Country Club) in Farmington, Connecticut.
“I was so green that when he didn’t qualify I didn’t know enough to go to the course and see if I could get a bag there,” Fluff says.
Smith asked him to go to the Buick Open the next week and Fluff, who learned the game from his father growing up in Maine, played small-time college golf at William Penn University, and had recently been fired from his job as an assistant golf pro, couldn’t think of anything better to do that summer than follow around the pro circuit. For his first half dozen or so events he never worked for the same guy twice. He showed up at the next stop and worked the Monday qualifier. Back then, it was easy to find a bag in the parking lot. No one was out there to make a living – his first bag paid him $20 a day and 3 percent of earnings.
“Cesar Sanudo was the first pro that actually paid me $100 when we missed the cut. That was huge,” he says. “Gypsy (Joe Grillo) and I stayed together a lot, almost regularly. A bunch of us would share a room, low round of the day would get the bed and the rest of us would make do. If you had a good week, you partied hard; if you didn’t, you got by. It wasn’t like we were out there saving money. But I didn’t have anything but me.”
At the last event of the season, Fluff looped for Ed Sabo at Walt Disney World, and after Sabo paid him he asked Fluff a question that would come to define his life: “What are you doing next season?”
Tiger Woods and his caddie ”Fluff” at the 1998 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. Photo by Andrew Redington/Allsport
“I had no intentions of turning this into what it has become,” Fluff says. “I’ve never planned anything in my life. I always have gone with the flow. It must be the Grateful Dead in me. Every time I went home to see my dad, he’d ask me, ‘When are you going to quit this caddie thing? When are you going to find yourself a real job?’ After four, five years working with Peter, my dad quit asking me that question.”
Peter would be Peter Jacobsen and they first met at Silverado Country Club in Napa, California, in the fall of 1977.
“He looked like a cross between Grizzly Adams and Jerry Garcia,” Jacobsen says. “He introduced himself and said he was impressed with my game.”
Fluff didn’t start packing for Jacobsen until the following spring at the Heritage Classic. At the time, Fluff was living in his car with a dog named Shivas and hoping just to earn food and gas money to get from one tournament to the next. He was (and remains) a loyal “Dead Head,” and anytime they drove to a tournament together, Fluff cracked open his case of cassettes of bootleg Grateful Dead concerts. (Fluff has since upgraded to a hard drive with every concert the band has ever played.) Jacobsen, who once joined Fluff at a concert in Providence and eventually converted into a fan of the band, loved to push Fluff’s buttons and saw the Dead as an easy target. He’d say that he listened to a one-hour special on the Dead last night. “They played all their greatest hits for two minutes and talked to them for the other 58,” Jacobsen recalls. “He’d get really pissed at me.”
For more than 18 years, Fluff was as important as any club in Jacobsen’s bag. Fluff claimed his first winning bag with Jacobsen at the 1980 Buick Open before many of today’s players were even born. In August 1996, at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, Jacobsen withdrew midway through the second round. He could barely walk. That Friday afternoon as Fluff packed Jacobsen’s golf bag, his boss said he was going home and didn’t intend to play again until he was healthy.
Tiger Woods talks with his caddie, Mike “Fluff” Cowan, before teeing off on No. 2 during the final round of the 1998 PGA Championship at the Sahalee CC in Redmond, Wash.
“I didn’t know whether that was going to be two weeks or two months. I went home to wait it out. During that time, I got a call from Tiger. It was right after he won his last U.S. Amateur in Portland. Tiger basically said to me, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m not doing nothing.’ He said he was turning pro and asked me to work the next six, seven events. I said, ‘I don’t know when Peter will be ready again but I can work the next couple, for sure, and then go from there,’ ” Fluff recalls. “It was two, three events into working for Tiger and I’m seeing stuff that is blowing my mind, the shots he hit, the distance he hit it. Everything about his golf game was ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ I knew from the get-go it was special.
“I still hadn’t come to grips with anything until I caught wind that there was a caddie – and I’d just assume not name him – that wanted to make a play for Tiger’s bag. It was at that point where I thought, I can’t let this go by. I’ve got this job right now. All I thought I had to do was tell Tiger I was ready to go full time.
“It was at that point that I called Peter. I hated doing it over the phone but that was the only way to do it. I said I was going to go to work for Tiger. That’s kind of how that all went down. I was family with Peter. I changed his kid’s diapers. I lived with them in the off-season in Portland back when we used to have an off-season. Peter took it in stride and (his wife) Jan said to me if I didn’t take it she was going to fire me.”
Fluff still calls it one of the hardest decisions he’s ever had to make in his life. To this day, he will see people point at him and say, ‘That’s Tiger’s old caddie.’ Usually Fluff will let the remark pass but sometimes he’ll correct them and say, “No, I’m not Tiger Woods’ caddie. I’m Peter Jacobsen’s caddie. I had a stint with Tiger, which was wonderful, and when I was Tiger’s caddie I was his caddie, but in my mind I was always Peter Jacobsen’s caddie.”
Fluff was on the bag for Tiger’s first major championship as a pro at the 1997 Masters. That’s the one when Tiger famously shot 40-30 in the opening round and then cruised to a 12-stroke victory. As they made the turn after shooting 40, Fluff delivered the following pep talk. “I don’t know what it had to do with anything but walking to the 10th tee, I said something to the effect of it’s nothing more than the start of a long tournament. Let’s go shoot something in the red and we’ll be all right, and from there he just dominated that golf course.”
Caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan’s mustache has long ago turned white making him the spitting image of actor Wilford Brimley. (Tracy Wilcox/Golfweek)
“Tiger was fun to work for,” Fluff continues. “He never put the blame on me for anything that happened. I’ve been very fortunate because there are a lot of players that, for whatever reason, can’t take the blame for their own actions. So, who is the closest one to them? Their caddie. They get blamed. I’ve never had that out of a player. Not one of them has ever blamed me for something that happened. Jim may be the best at it.”
Jim would be Jim Furyk, his employer since 1999. After the final round of the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club that year, Tiger ended their 29-month partnership in the parking lot.
“I don’t hold a bit of animosity because he fired me. I don’t know why he did it exactly. I’ve never asked him and I never will. I don’t care,” Fluff says. “It happened and you move on. You can’t worry about what isn’t. All my life, I’ve hated ‘What if.’ Deal with what comes along. I never went, ‘Oh jeez, I could’ve won that Open.’ ”
Instead, he went home and waited. Well, there was a short-term flirtation. Fluff is passionate about playing the game and toyed with the idea of turning professional.
“Be it the mini tours or try to Monday into some Senior Tour events. At that time, I still felt like I could play, but nothing ever came of it,” he says.
The week of the 1999 Players Championship, after Furyk had parted ways with caddie Steve Duplantis, Fluff got a phone call. Furyk’s wife Tabitha and father Mike made the initial overtures to see if Fluff was interested.
“Jim and I started at a small, little tournament in Augusta,” Fluff jokes of their debut at the Masters. “That was my first week. It helps that I’ve had a great deal of success with Jim. As it turns out, I’ve done just fine.”
Jim Furyk with Fluff Cowan at the 2017 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)
Together, Furyk and Fluff won the 2003 U.S. Open, the 2010 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup and shot a 59 at Conway Farms and the Tour’s all-time low 18-hole score of 58 at TPC River Highlands. To commemorate those sub-60 rounds, Fluff framed his pin sheets for his boss. When ticking off a list of what makes Fluff exceptional at his job, Furyk compliments him for never being late – “not once” – and loves that he has the demeanor of a sphinx.
“He’s the same guy whether I’m shooting 60 or 80,” says Furyk, who has employed Fluff for 21 years as of next week, “although his (Maine) accent comes out when he gets excited.”
Back to Fluff, who still remembers one instance at the par-3 16th at Augusta National where they were in-between clubs and Fluff recommended a comfortable 5 iron over nuking a six.
“So, he hits 5-iron over the green, which is not a good place to be on that hole,” Fluff says. “His comment to me was, ‘I hit that harder than I wanted to.’ He put the blame on himself rather than my decision.”
Fluff is golf’s iron man. (Only Pete Bender and Andy Martinez who started in 1969 have been caddying on Tour longer, but both took extended breaks.) He’s like the Energizer Bunny; he keeps going and going, losing weight and ditching the Mountain Dews that used to fuel him.
“My dad used to say to me the world belongs to those who show up. And that’s what he does,” Jacobsen says. “He shows up, and I’ve never seen him have a bad when he’s caddying.”
Even his peers marvel at his endurance and longevity.
“It’s not possible,” says Paul Tesori, caddie for Webb Simpson. “And when Jim takes time off he’ll go find another bag and keep working.”
“It blows me away,” says Neil Oxman, a longtime caddie, most notably for Tom Watson. “And let it be known that Furyk has one of the heaviest bags.”
Tiger and Fluff share a laugh on the range at the 2018 Quicken Loans.
How much more mileage is left in Fluff? Three years ago, he said he wanted to hang on long enough for his daughter, Bobbie, to graduate high school. That would be next spring. Earlier this year, Fluff hobbled around and missed a few pro-ams and practice rounds. But he could be in store for a new lease on life later this year, when Furyk turns 50 and becomes eligible for PGA Tour Champions. Whenever Furyk makes the jumps, Fluff will be able to use a golf cart until the tournament starts on Friday (the vast majority of senior tournaments banned the use of golf carts during tournament play in 2015) and most of them are only 54 holes rather than the typical 72-hole grind on the junior circuit. Still, even after successful surgery, Fluff knows he’s deep into the back nine of a legendary career.
“If you saw me after the round getting out of my car at the hotel, you’d say, ‘How the hell is he going to caddie tomorrow?’ But somehow or other I get out here and I put one foot in front of another. How many more years? I can’t really say. Until I’m a hindrance. I’m thinking I might outlast Jim. I’m thinking he might retire before me. Just imagine if I can make it to 80, then I can be really crotchety.”
Tiger Woods said he is skipping the Players and his fellow competitors and commentators say he’s making a smart move to rest for the Masters
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ORLANDO – The news that back stiffness would prevent Tiger Woods from competing next week threw a wet blanket on the Players Championship in what is perennially the deepest field in golf.
Woods, a two-time Players champ, hasn’t played since hosting the Genesis Invitational last month. He also skipped the WGC-Mexico Championship. Graeme McDowell summed up the thoughts of many pros in the Arnold Palmer Invitational when he said that he was disappointed, but not surprised, to hear the announcement from Woods.
“He’s the X-factor at any tournament,” McDowell said. “You know he’d love to play next week, but he’s on a mission, and that mission is to win another green coat.”
Veteran Tour pros and TV commentators Davis Love III of CBS and Peter Jacobsen of NBC also weighed in from interesting vantage points as pros who have both endured their share of back trouble.
“I get it. When you’re stiff, you’re stiff. If anyone should call him and commiserate, it should be me,” Love said. “You know when you don’t have it. I’m not smart enough to think, ‘If I play I’m going to hurt myself.’ I’m still going to keep going. He’s done that before. Now he realizes, ‘I don’t have a good knee, I don’t have a good back, and I’m going to hurt something else.’ It’s not that he can’t do it, but he doesn’t want to risk getting it worse. You know what he’s thinking – just get me inside the ropes at the Masters and I can win again. I’m sure he’ll tell you, this is cautionary and for protection and not to worry about it. He’ll play when he’s ready to play.”
“I feel badly for the tournament and I feel badly for him, but it’s not surprising to me,” Jacobsen said. “I’ve had back surgeries and I know what it’s like when you get out of a chair and you go try to practice and something tightens and you shut it down. You know in your mind that unless you want to show up and be a celebration type golfer, he shouldn’t be playing. I completely understand it and I applaud him for it. He’s thinking about next week, next month, next year. He can play well like Phil (Mickelson) into his 50s, but he has to measure himself. He has to pick and choose his spots. Anybody can play hurt; nobody can play well hurt. You want to know when you tee it up on No. 1 that you can play and contend for 72 holes.”
CBS lead analyst Nick Faldo shared a similar sentiment in a tweet:
I can promise you he wants/needs to play! But how many starts will his back let him have his year? Needs five days straight let alone practice time! 😳 https://t.co/w7nlmzu7NN
There are three tournaments after the Players that Woods could potentially play: the Valspar Championship, where he finished second in 2018, WGC Dell Match Play, where he lost in the quarterfinals last year, and the Valero Texas Open, where he last played in 1996, his rookie season.
