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Monday Morning Marshal: PGA Tour Week in Review 2/9/2015

Adam Fonseca

As a new segment here on GolfUnfilitered.com, we'll take a few minutes every Monday morning to offer our take on the previous week on the PGA TOUR. Be sure to add your own take on the topics discussed in the comment section below. You can also reach out to me on Twitter, where I will do my best to respond.

 

AdamSarson.com

Jason Day Wins the Farmers Insurance Open

It may have taken a four-man playoff to get it done, but Jason Day's victory at the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open says a lot about where the PGA TOUR is headed. The 27-year-old Aussie now has three PGA TOUR wins on his resume, and it seems like he should have at least a half-dozen more by now. His efforts have earned Day a spot in the Top 5 of the Official World Golf Rankings, becoming the highest-ranked Australian on the list (Adam Scott is ranked way down the list at No. 5). Throw in the fact that he has three runner-up finishes at two different majors (Masters 2011, U.S. Open 2011 and 2013) and it's clear to see that Day has been simmering to a boiling point for years.

Which is what makes watching Day so maddening. At some point we need to stop talking about Jason Day's potential and more about him taking the game by the horns. Unfortunately, wins at the Farmers Insurance Open isn't going to cut it. While he took a step in the right direction by winning the WGC Match Play event in 2014, Day will remain in the "Could Be" column until he wins his first major.

That being stated, the Golf Channel's Jason Sobel tweeted the best reaction to Day's win:

 

 

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are Falling Apart

Their respective departures from this week's tournament may have been different on paper, but it is abundantly clear that neither Tiger Woods nor Phil Mickelson have any damn clue what they're doing on the golf course anymore. Poor play can be attributed to any number of external factors -- such as bad weather, missing teeth or inappropriate stock tips -- but it appears what ails Big Cat and FIGJAM is an unhealthy mix of physiological and psychological shittiness. In Tiger's case, poor physical health coupled with yet another swing change (his fourth!) has all but rendered the greatest player of our generation to nothing more than a weekend hacker. Actually, check that; Tiger needs to make it to the weekend first before he's worthy of that designation. shots-fired-o Phil's situation seems a bit different. He's not exactly the youngest guy on TOUR anymore -- and hasn't been for awhile -- and he's got his own medical concerns as well. But something that Phil never seems to do is blame his poor play on anything other than what's going on between his ears. Unlike Tiger, Phil's golf swing as a whole seems sound; it's his putting that has all but deserted him, and it's left him baffled.

“My putting is beyond pathetic,” he told Golf Digest after missing the cut at Torrey Pines. “And if I can’t get back to the levels of 2013, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.” Me neither, Phil, because I predicted you'd be named a player-coach for next year's Ryder Cup. GET IT TOGETHER MAN.

 

Best of Twitter

For those unaware, a "hot take" is a knee-jerk reaction shared or angle taken on a sports topic without first giving it any semblance of a coherent thought. Or, in other words, "anything I write in my Twitter feed." There were a few doosies this week from around the interwebs, including the one I tossed out following Brook Koepka's five-putt on 18 during Friday's second round:

Tough room.   Other favorite tweets from the week include: