By Joel Beall
Mickey Wright, widely considered the greatest female golfer of all time, died on Monday of a heart attack, according to the AP. Wright was 85.

Wright joined the LPGA Tour in 1955, at a time when compiling a whopping 82 wins. That total includes 13 major championships, and Wright remains the only LPGA player to hold all major titles at the same time. At her height, Wright won 44 times in a four-year stretch, and was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year twice, in 1963 and 1964.

“At my best I would go into what I called a ‘fog.’ I never thought of it as the ‘zone’ you hear about today, though maybe it was something like that,” Wright told Golf Digest’s Guy Yocom in a 2017 interview. “It was a mental state where I could concentrate really well and play with a greater confidence than usual. I had it when I shot 62 at Hunting Creek in Louisville in 1964. It was elusive, but that’s when I played my best.”

But Wright’s excellence was not confined to her performance. Her swing was so mechanically sound and pure that Ben Hogan dubbed it the finest swing in the game. Moreover, she also served as LPGA president during a two-year stretch. A responsibility that took its toll on her.

“I attended every cocktail party and Rotary Club event,” she told Yocom. “The sum of trying to meet the expectations of [teacher] Earl Wright, the LPGA, my father and the public exhausted me physically and emotionally. I developed an ulcer and had all kinds of anxiety. It wasn’t the years, it was the mileage.”

Worse, she was plagued by foot injuries, forcing her to retire from full-time competition at age 34 in 1969. She continued to play sporadically for the next several years, even winning the 1973 Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle (now the ANA Inspiration), but she withdrew from public life in 1973.

Nevertheless, her love for the game never tired, as she told Yocom, and continued to play recreationally.

“I still love swinging a golf club more than just about anything,” Wright told Yocom. “For years after my last competitive appearance in 1995, I’d hit balls from my porch. When the USGA Museum put together the Mickey Wright Room in 2011 and needed a few mementos, I sent, among other things, the little swatch of synthetic turf. I hit balls off it one last time and figured that was it.

“Then some good friends of mine in Indiana heard about it and sent me a brand-new practice mat. You know how it works: Put out a mat, some balls and a club in front of a golfer, and the temptation to use them is going to be too much. So I keep my hand in, five or six balls at a time. Just enough to remain a ‘golfer.’”

Wright’s attorney Sonia Pawluc told the AP that Wright had been hospitalized for the past few weeks in Florida after an injury from a fall.

“There’s got to be golf in heaven,” Wright told Yocom. “I hope I get there and that it’s just me and my 2-iron. Or maybe a couple of angels will be looking on. Everything will look like Sea Island Golf Club did in the old days, sedate and beautiful. I’ll be facing that shot to a well-trapped green again, trying to duplicate that shot from 1957. If it’s really heaven, I’ll pull it off.”

The post Hall of Famer, trail blazer Mickey Wright dies of heart attack appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Welcome to the Masters morning rundown, your one-stop shop to catch up on the action from Augusta National. Here’s everything you need to know for the morning of April 9.

Tiger staying mum around Thomas

Tiger Woods hasn’t won the Masters in 14 years. As Justin Thomas found out, that doesn’t mean his competitive mindset has dulled.

Woods and Thomas, along with Fred Couples, comprised the first group off the 10th tee at Augusta National Monday morning. On the surface, an enviable pairing for Thomas, who’s making his fourth career start at the tournament; aside from Phil Mickelson, what better Masters veterans—Woods a three-time champ, Couples with 20 top-25 finishes—could a fledgeling talent seek for Augusta advice?

Unfortunately for Thomas, Tiger wasn’t in a wisdom-imparting mood.

“Tiger probably isn’t as … I’m not trying to be mean, but he isn’t as helpful as Freddy,” Thomas said after Monday’s practice round. “At this point he [Woods] doesn’t quite give as much information. I’ve picked Tiger’s brain enough around this place that he probably has told me everything he is going to tell me.”

Okay, not quite the “9&8” iciness we’ve seen from Tiger in the past. But also a sign that Woods very much considers himself a contender at this tournament, and views everyone else—Thomas included—as an adversary. A sentiment that could translate to its share of roars come the weekend.

As for Thomas, whose best finish at the Masters is a T-17, don’t feel too bad for the 2017 PGA champ. Not only does he feel confident enough in his own strategy—”I truly do feel like I’ve played this place enough, and even though it’s only been a couple of times, I’ve picked up on things pretty well,” he said—Couples was also kind enough to give the 25-year-old the lowdown on his Augusta game plan.

Speaking of Couples…

Andrew Redington

Couples not playing on retiring…yet

There were whispers during last year’s tournament, in which Couples demonstratively battled his recurring back pain to make the cut for the 30th time in his career, that the Hall of Famer was considering hanging up the proverbial spurs. He turns 60 this fall, and as Woods noted last year, Augusta National is becoming “a long golf course for Fred.”

While Couples dispelled the rumours on Monday of an imminent Masters retirement, he also acknowledged that time is not on his side.

“I plan on playing a few more, but if it keeps playing this long we’ll see,” Couples told the Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard after the round.

Though the tournament and club don’t force anyone to retire, former green-jacket winners are waving goodbye at earlier ages than years past, the course becoming too difficult and the players cognizant of avoiding a “Doug Ford” moment. But to his credit, Couples has been far from a ceremonial player with six top-20s this decade. This year marks Couples’ 34th Masters; only Jack Nicklaus has made more weekends than “Boom Boom” in tournament history.

Kevin C. Cox

Rose quells idea of curse

It’s not as forbidding as the Par 3 Curse. But being No. 1 hasn’t been providential at Augusta as of late.

Since the Official World Golf Rankings’ inception in 1986, only three players—Woods, Couples and Ian Woosnam—have won the green jacket while holding No. 1 honours. A fact brought to the attention of the current title holder, Justin Rose, on Monday.

Only Rose wasn’t having any of it.

“[Dustin Johnson] has been the No. 1 predominately in the last year and a half,” Rose said. “So I think the weeks that I am No. 1, it’s really cool. I feel like I haven’t had my run yet where I’ve sort of separated myself as the No. 1 player in the world. That’s a goal of mine, still. So I don’t look at it that way, really, at all. So no one’s really being that dominant right now. I think if anyone’s been dominant, it’s been Rory in the last sort of a couple of months.

“Hence, why the ranking between Brooks, myself, Dustin, even going back to Justin Thomas, it’s bounced around a lot. From that point of view, I’m not going to take on that story.”

That, my friends, is one heck of a reverse jinx.

Rose, who owns an impressive track record at the Masters but lacks a victory, does have some extra ammo in this bag this week. Or should we say “on” the bag, as caddie Mark Fulcher is returning after being sidelined the last three months following heart surgery.

“I could have come back at the Match Play [two weeks ago], but I thought why push it,” Fulcher told Golf Digest’s Brian Wacker. “I’m very happy. It feels good to be back.”

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Spieth’s Masters odds drop

As you may have heard, Jordan Spieth’s not exactly coming into Georgia on a heater. His last top 25 finish came in September, missed three cuts in the new year and ranks 148th on the season in strokes gained. That’s the profile of a player battling for their card, not a three-time major winner.

But Augusta National has been Spieth’s personal playground, boasting a win, two runner-ups, a third-place finish and an appearance in the penultimate group at the Masters, and his 70.05 scoring average is the best career mark among those in this year’s field.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that, after showing signs of life in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, Spieth’s Masters odds dropped from 20/1 to 16/1, now among the handful of favourites to capture the green jacket.

Except that public figure was not moved because of Spieth’s play, but the play of one ambitious gambler.

Spieth from 20/1 to 16/1 for Masters after a $6k wager on him @SuperBookUSA

— Jeff Sherman (@golfodds) April 7, 2019

Given Spieth’s performance or lack thereof, this campaign, that seems like a wasted $6,000, especially if historical trends about play heading into Augusta are to be believed. Conversely, if anyone is built to snap out of a slump among the Georgia pines, Spieth’s as good a bet as any.

Masters forecast filled with rain

Forget the Champions Dinner or players skipping shots over the 16th. Circulating menacing weather forecasts is the Masters’ true tradition unlike any other.

Alas, whereas most years the media—bunch of no-good scoundrels, that media—has been guilty of sensationalizing bad conditions on the horizon, the threat is very real this week in Augusta. Monday’s practice round was suspended, the course cleared around 4:00 P.M. Worse, severe storms are expected again on Tuesday, with rain likely hitting on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Before sounding the alarm (literally and figuratively), an entire Masters round hasn’t been cancelled since 1983, when the tournament finished on a Monday. Nevertheless, if these forecasts are any indication, we are in for a long, and wet, week. Place your Rory McIlroy bets accordingly.

The post Masters 2019 morning rundown: Tiger shuns Thomas (on advice), Rose quells idea of curse, and an ominous Masters forecast appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Kirk Triplett is not a Hall of Famer, but he rode a Hall of Fame swing to a playoff victory over Woody Austin in the Hoag Classic on Sunday.

Playing the par-5 18th hole at Newport Beach (Calif.) Country Club for the third time on Sunday, Triplett finally hit the 3-wood second shot he intended, then holed an 18-foot eagle putt for his seventh PGA Tour Champions victory.

The left-to-right putt was similar to one he holed on the 18th hole in regulation to get into a playoff with Austin.

Each of the players parred the 18th on the first playoff hole. Playing it again on the second extra hole, Triplett drove it in the fairway, while Austin flared his tee shot right and missed the green well right with his second.

Triplett then hit a 3-wood from 252 yards that just carried a bunker left of the green and rolled out to 18 feet of the hole.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Triplett said when asked his thought process on that shot. “Like any good baseball player, I’m one out of three. I’d be in the Hall of Fame, right?

“I’ve been trying to hit the centre of the green every single time. That one I thought would go in the bunker, but it covered.”

Austin squandered two opportunities to win, by failing to get up and down for birdie from the fringe at 18 in regulation, then hitting a poor bunker shot at 18 on the first playoff hole, leaving him a long birdie putt that he missed.

Triplett is off to a torrid start to his 2019 campaign. Only a week before, he tied for second in the Cologuard Classic and finished in the top 20 in two of his other three starts.

He finished with a three-under par 68, as did Austin. Fran Quinn, who took a three-stroke lead into the final round, made only a single birdie on Sunday, posted a three-over par 74 and tied for fifth, two shots back.

The post Kirk Triplett’s ‘Hall of Fame’ 3-wood shot gives him playoff win over Woody Austin in Hoag Classic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.