Hovland’s teaching change, Scheffler’s setback, golf’s stunning makeover

Welcome again to the Monday End, the place after a prolonged offseason (4 months lengthy! Except you embody the FedEx Fall, the Presidents Cup, the Hero, the Grant Thornton, the PNC Championship, the Showdown…) we’re lastly again, gang. PGA Tour season has arrived. To the information!

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GOLF STUFF I LIKE

Golf’s picture makeover.

As we’ve arrived on the finish of 2024 I’ve learn lots about how, big-picture, this was a foul 12 months for skilled golf. Whereas I don’t suppose that’s true on a micro stage — there was a lot good things, like Scottie Scheffler‘s complete season, Xander Schauffele‘s main breakthrough, Lydia Ko‘s fairy story, Nelly Korda‘s dominance, Bryson DeChambeau‘s star rise — I perceive the purpose. Rankings are stagnant at greatest, golf followers are someplace between “aggravated by” and “apathetic to” the continued division between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, and the divide continues to distract and detract from the on-course motion with no clear finish in sight. Not good.

However let’s set that apart for a second and take into account a very totally different narrative, one largely faraway from the skilled golf sliver of the sport. Golf, on the entire, has utterly remade its picture. Folks like golf now. Earlier than, they didn’t. Severely.

New analysis from the Nationwide Golf Basis (NGF) sheds mild on this phenomenon due to a “Perceptions of Golf” examine (right here) it has carried out a number of occasions over the previous decade. The findings? A transparent decline in Individuals describing golf negatively. In 2013 a whopping 57 % of respondents described golf negatively. The NGF’s analysis discovered widespread descriptors like boring, stale, pretentious, intimidating. Anyone who has frolicked round golf is aware of this country-club stigma and the sense that the sport is just too unique and unwelcoming and, even if you happen to do determine to play, too gradual.

However the NGF’s knowledge exhibits that that notion was already altering earlier than the Covid golf growth. In 2019 47 % used detrimental descriptors. By 2022? Simply 37 %. And in 2024 that quantity dipped to 31 %. That’s a large swing, slicing the negativity in half. That’s large for golf. It’s large for individuals who love golf. And it’s an indication that one thing has labored — even when it’s not clear precisely what that one thing is. It could possibly sound a bit like a USGA focus-group fever dream however the NGF highlights phrases like enjoyable, thrilling, partaking and cool.

Over that very same time interval, there was a “huge” improve in golf participation, which implies 15 % of Individuals now play on- or off-course golf (suppose TopGolf, and so on. for “off-course”), up from 10 %. However that’s nonetheless a tiny sliver of the inhabitants, which implies that non-golfers have to be feeling significantly better in regards to the sport, too. Particularly, that 26 % shift in negativity interprets to 70-80 million folks feeling higher about golf. It might not resolve the PGA Tour-LIV divide. However as somebody who likes golf and needs different folks to really feel the identical method? Extra folks like golf now. That’s golf stuff I like.

(Full NGF article right here.)

WINNERS

Who received the week?

In response to the OWGR, there have been no official occasions that occurred final week. I’m very assured that is the one week of the 12 months that’s true. So there aren’t any match winners. However hopefully a few of you turned out winners due to new golf golf equipment below the tree and the promise of a brand new golf season on the horizon. Subsequent week we’ll get again to the true factor. Winners. Losers. Every little thing in between. For now? We’re all winners.

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NOT-WINNERS

Our final two FedEx Cup champions.

Loads of us sit up for the vacations as a time to relaxation up and recharge, able to hit the bottom working within the new 12 months. And loads of us hit the precise holidays and understand it doesn’t at all times work that method. Enter Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland. Whereas our two most up-to-date FedEx Cup champs could not emerge from the vacations overfed and overserved like the remainder of us, they’re hardly arriving at Kapalua in prime kind.

Scheffler, in reality, isn’t arriving in any respect. He suffered a glass-related damage whereas getting ready Christmas dinner that, in accordance with a press release from his agent Blake Smith, concerned “a puncture wound to the palm of his proper hand from a damaged glass.” There was nonetheless glass in his hand, which required surgical procedure. Smith stated he was anticipated to be again at 100% in 3-4 weeks and is scheduled to play the American Specific — however after a nine-win 2024 that is hardly the best way Scheffler needed to kick off the brand new 12 months.

Hovland, in the meantime, will likely be in Hawaii however could also be barely restricted. The Norwegian posted what seemed to be the X-ray of a damaged toe to Instagram with the caption studying, “Mattress body 1 – 0 me”. The 27-year-old is No. 8 on the planet and had been trying to 2025 as a bounce-back 12 months after a irritating 2024 and a four-month match layoff. This isn’t the beginning he’d envisioned; he instructed Norsk Golf he’s dealing with a four-to-six week restoration.

SHORT HITTERS

5 issues that occurred ultimately 12 months’s Sentry.

Does a 12 months in the past really feel like ceaselessly — or simply yesterday? From Jan. 2024:

1. Viktor Hovland confirmed his cut up with swing coach Joe Mayo due kind of to artistic variations. Sure, this simply occurred once more (extra on that in a minute). Time is a flat circle.

2. Jason Day launched his new Malbon sponsorship. It might really feel like they’ve been collectively ceaselessly however Day x Malbon is just one 12 months previous. Similar with Xander Schauffele and Descente, for that matter. The Monday End hears we’ve acquired some partnerships coming this week, too…

3. Tiger Woods left Nike, the primary domino to fall within the launch of Solar Day Pink. Okay, this didn’t occur at the Sentry. However on Jan. 8, 2024, Woods confirmed the cut up with the Swoosh, the top of arguably golf’s most well-known sponsorship.

4. Scottie Scheffler completed T5. It was his first top-five end of the season; he’d wind up with 15 of ’em in 21 occasions, together with 9 wins. Yowza.

5. Chris Kirk received. It was his solely top-five end of the season, although he threw down two different top-10s and made all of it the best way to the Tour Championship. Huge week forward — anyone’s gonna make it rely.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

From Xander Schauffele.

Don’t let a pre-round shank get you down.

So says Xander Schauffele, this week’s pre-tournament favourite, the World No. 2 and my newest visitor on Warming Up, a pleasant driving-range interview present that I encourage you to observe right here or beneath.

“I used to shank it so much. Warming up in faculty, for some purpose,” Schauffele stated. “Not a lot, however like, there have been in all probability 4 tournaments in a row the place I hoseled it, and it sort of helped me perceive how insignificant a warm-up is. It was an enormous studying lesson for me then.”

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ONE BIG QUESTION

The place will Hovland land subsequent?

If the reply was “on his toes,” effectively, that simply acquired a bit bit harder. However the plot thickens for our Scandinavian hero, who was arguably the most well liked golfer on the planet on the finish of 2023 however recorded simply two prime 10s in 2024 as he shuffled swings and swing coaches. To some extent this was at all times the plan; we talked in 2023 about his duty to be the CEO of Viktor Hovland the corporate and his want to make use of coaches as sources; he’s by no means needed to be overly dependent.

Hovland instructed Norsk Golf that he and Joe Mayo cut up a couple of month in the past; I don’t belief my Norwegian sufficient to supply a precise translation nevertheless it’s clear they didn’t agree on the best way ahead for Hovland. Right here we’ll lean on Google Translate:

“I really feel like I’ve discovered a lot now and have a lot experience, that I don’t want anybody holding my hand anymore. It’s at all times good to have somebody who can watch what I’m doing, take a look at the steps I’m taking. So I ship some movies to a different coach, however he’s extra of a guide.”

One lesson Hovland took from final season: he can compete even when he doesn’t have his greatest stuff. Final 12 months he completed T3 on the PGA Championship, in spite of everything, within the midst of a semi-slump. That bodes effectively for his 2025, even when he’s getting off on the incorrect foot. So regardless that he’s feeling sluggish from a Norwegian winter break, rusty off a four-month aggressive hiatus and now a damaged toe on the hardest stroll of the PGA Tour season?

“However golf is an odd sport,” Hovland instructed Norsk. “I may immediately discover one thing that works.”

ONE THING TO WATCH

Pleased Gilmore 2.

Adam Sandler‘s again. Christopher McDonald‘s again. Julie Bowen‘s again. And now we’ve got a solid that features Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler and… Travis Kelce? Right here comes Pleased Gilmore 2. In an period of hit-or-miss sequels, right here’s hoping we’re glad to reboot this one.