Fantasy golf advice: One & Done, Genesis Open

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Monday's practice round at Augusta National reminded Adam Scott of his pre-tournament preparations 14 years ago, when the course played to a record-setting degree of difficulty. Amazed by the course's firmness before the 2007 Masters, Scott decided to use a bottle of water to conduct an experiment. RELATED: Nine things to know about Augusta National | Roundtable: Predictions, favorite tradition & more "I actually remember being on the 16th green with Greg Norman and I poured some water on the slope. The water just trickled all the way across and off the green. It never got absorbed," Scott said. Zach Johnson won that week with a score of 1-over 289, matching the highest winning score in tournament history (and the highest in more than 50 years). Scott didn't repeat the experiment Monday, but he imagined the results would have been similar. The firm course conditions - a stark contrast to what we saw in November - were a popular discussion topic Monday. Is this setup a reaction to Dustin Johnson's record-setting performance on a soft course last fall, a la the U.S. Open conducting the Massacre at Winged Foot a year after Johnny Miller shot 63 at Oakmont? That's what some people think, but perhaps it is simply a matter of Augusta National taking advantage of an ideal forecast. While cold weather added to the difficulty in 2007, temperatures in the mid-80s are forecasted this week. There's a chance of rain Thursday and Friday but if the percipitation stays away then the winning score could be in the single digits under par (compared to Johnson's 20-under 268 in November). Jose Maria Olazabal, a two-time Masters champion, said, "If the weather stays like this, we’re going to see Augusta as good as ever." Another former champion, Fred Couples, said the course could play as difficult as it has in a "long, long time." It's been four years since the winning score was 279 (9 under par) or higher. Sergio Garcia shot that in 2017 before beating Justin Rose in a playoff. It was the fourth time in a five-year span that the winning score was single digits under par. The average winning score in the past three Masters, however, has been 272 (16 under). Players welcome a tougher test here because the firm conditions bring out the best in Alister Mackenzie's design, accentuating the humps and bumps on its famous putting surfaces. Accurate shots can be rewarded by slopes that will funnel the ball toward the hole while mishits will be even more severely penalized as they roll away from their target. "You have to use more imagination, have to play the angles, have to make sure you miss the ball in the right spots, and that might not be the green on that hole," two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson said about a firm Augusta. He remarked on the ‘thud' that his chip shots made Monday, a sign that balls aren't checking up when they hit the green. Players are accustomed to Masters officials presenting benign conditions for practice rounds before "flipping the switch" to firm up the course for the competitive rounds. Scott said the course was already in tournament condition Monday. "If that’s a sign of things to come, we’ve got to buckle up for this week," he said.

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The helicopter ride was actually what made him nervous. Not the 8- or 10-foot drop out of the chopper on his skis down to the pristine, snow-covered slope. Mark Hubbard admittedly isn’t a big fan of heights, and this was just his third helicopter ride. He’d never been heli-skiing before, but the chance to go with some buddies was just too good to pass up. “I’m terrified of helicopters,â€� Hubbard explains with a smile. “But the actual drop in wasn’t too bad. It’s kind of one of those things where you just kind of do it. You just kind of jump and go. “But the ride up there, it’s kind of like a roller coaster. Like, the worst part for me is the slow climb to the very top. Once you start going, it’s awesome.â€� Hubbard’s friends worked on the ski patrol and had been charged with clearing the fresh, loose snow so there wouldn’t be any avalanches. When everything was deemed safe, there was time for a little back-country skiing on slopes that had not been touched.   Hubbard felt the rush as soon as his skis hit the slope; the helicopter hovering overhead. “You’re dropping into a pretty steep grade,â€� Hubbard explains. “You kind of hit it and just start going. There’s not a whole lot of kind of drop and stop the way they angle it. … You just kind of smooth it out. “I’m a horrible surfer. But it’s got to be the same as, you know, kind of dropping into a big wave. Like there’s not a lot of hits and slap kind of thing. If you’re doing it right, you kind of just drop in and coast.â€� While heli-skiing is considered a bucket-list item for some adventure-seekers, Hubbard has only done it that one time – and he says, “that was probably enough for me.â€� After all, his appendages, fingers, arms and legs, are pretty important if he’s to be successful at his job on the PGA TOUR. “I don’t take any risks anymore for me,â€� Hubbard says. “Like, I have a better chance of falling down the stairs than falling on most of the runs that we do. I stay away from the tough stuff now. It’s just a leisurely stroll down the mountain to me now. But back in the day, I wouldn’t say no to a whole lot.â€� Hubbard, who grew up in Denver, Colorado, has skied basically since he could walk. For several years, until he was about 15 years old, he participated in the DEVO Junior Alpine program at Vail and did some downhill racing. He soon realized he wasn’t going to be the next Bode Miller, though. “I’ve always been, and this is true, you know, of running, too — I don’t know if it actually translates or not, but I’ve always been kind of quick side-to-side, like have (a good) first step,â€� Hubbard says. “And so, I’ve always kind of been agile like that on skis. “So, I’m pretty good at moguls and I’m pretty good in the trees and stuff like that. But in terms of racing, I never, never was fast enough.â€� Still, until recently, Hubbard says he’d often joke that he was probably was as good a skier as he was a golfer. But he just put together his best season on the Korn Ferry Tour – winning once – and has finished 13th or better in three of his first five starts this fall in his return to the PGA TOUR.   Hubbard ranks 17th in the FedExCup, has earned more than $1 million – nearly as much as in his three previous TOUR seasons combined – and ranks ninth in the Birdies Fore Love competition that ends this week. So now the pendulum may have slanted toward golf. “I might’ve in the last month, I might have crossed that threshold,â€� Hubbard says. Hubbard, who posted a career-high tie for second last month at the Houston Open, says the most difficult skiing he’s ever done was at the top of Crested Butte in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. “It gets really steep,â€� he explains. “There’s lots of exposed kind of trees and rocks and stuff like that and it gets a little icy late in the day. So that’s probably the toughest — especially late in the day when the conditions are just so-so, I mean, you’ve really just got to commit. “That’s why I actually, I think that’s one of the reasons I really like skiing things. You can overthink it. I know as soon as you start thinking like that’s when you’re in trouble. You’ve just kind of got to plan you route like you do, you know, the game-planning you think about. “You visualize where you’re going to go, but then once you’re going and you just kind of have got to go. … I like stuff that puts you kind of in the moment where you can’t overthink things.â€� Hubbard says his wife Meghan, whom he proposed to on the 18th green during the final round of the 2015 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, has also become an avid skier. Soon after this week’s The RSM Classic is over, the two are taking a bucket-list trip to Europe where they plan to ski in the Alps. One of the places likely on the itinerary is Zermatt, Switzerland, which is in the shadow of the famous Matterhorn. But skiing isn’t the only thing on the agenda for the month-long trip – they also plan to hit the famous Christmas markets in places like Austria and Germany. “It’s been our dream to do it,â€� Hubbard says. “And we both turned 30 this year, so our clock’s ticking a little bit. It’s been a good year, so yeah.â€�

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Rickie Fowler birdied two of his final four holes and overcame a bizarre triple-bogey on the 11th hole at TPC Scottsdale to win the Phoenix Open on Sunday.

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