Golf legend Norman set to run competing tour

It’s that wondrous time of the season when we’re running dry on short-listers but elated when at least one of the usual suspects the unburned is out there contributing to his FedExCup points total. Independence, indeed. What’s hilarious, although as good as an indictment on my disappointing effort in the long-term as any, is that 11 of the 15 golfers in my Power Rankings at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier are still on my board. Seriously think about that. We’re at event No. 36 and I’m swimming in possibilities. Only Tony Finau (No. 1), Webb Simpson (No. 2), Phil Mickelson (No. 6) and Brian Harman (No. 9) are unavailable. I don’t suspect that you’re in similar waters because many of the guys at my disposal would have made sense – and were recommended in this space – earlier this season. Finau lines up well everywhere. He among the MVPs of the bridges to whom we turn at various points when converging trends and horses for courses are in short supply. Look no further if you can plug him in now. The same can be said of Russell Henley, who captures the attention of my brethren. No doubt that’s in part due to the fact that Finau is no longer available to any of us. Elsewhere, even if defending champion Xander Schauffele was contending regularly – he’s been hot and cold in recent weeks – the advice is to let him go about his first experience in that role alone and appreciate how rapidly he’s risen on our radar as a go-to in just his second season with a PGA TOUR card. If the Wyndham Championship wasn’t on the horizon (in mid-August), Webb Simpson would look tantalizing right now. However, if you’re chasing, burn him now. Done. Ever since Jimmy Walker reconnected with the kind of form that we expect without the challenge of Lyme disease, he’s been inside my circle for The Old White TPC. His superb record on the course warrants enough confidence and faith, but that’s multiplied given subscribers to recency bias might be dissuaded by uninspiring results as the largest images in the side-view mirror. That slots him as the perfect hired gun for those of us in pursuit. Then there’s Charles Howell III. How is it early July and we’re still talking about him! He just turned 39, but he’s playing as if he’s given strokes to Father Time. He’s not included in Future Possibilities below only because it doesn’t include the first half of 2018-19. I joked last week that two-man gamers should burn him already if he’s “somehow still on your board,” but lo and behold, I haven’t turned to him in my one-man format. Glance at my performance and realize quickly that the joke is on me. Two-man gamers should target J.B. Holmes, Andrew Putnam and Joaquin Niemann. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Kevin Chappell … WGC-Bridgestone (2); Dell Technologies (3) Tony Finau … Greenbrier (2); Canadian (4) Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Brian Harman … John Deere (3) Russell Henley … Greenbrier (2) J.B. Holmes … Greenbrier (5) Kevin Kisner … Wyndham (6) Phil Mickelson … Open Championship (5) Ryan Moore … John Deere (3); TOUR Championship (6) Kevin Na … John Deere (9); Wyndham (3); THE NORTHERN TRUST (11) Scott Piercy … John Deere (6) Webb Simpson … Greenbrier (5); Wyndham (1) Brandt Snedeker … Canadian (3); Wyndham (4) Jimmy Walker … Greenbrier (8); Dell Technologies (7) Bubba Watson … Greenbrier (8); WGC-Bridgestone (1); TOUR Championship (4)

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Leap years come and go without much fanfare. After all, they’re just astronomical calibrations just once every four years and, except for maybe the roughly five million people on the planet who celebrate their birthday on Feb. 29, they truly can’t be felt. However, a leap year still is as good as any checkpoint to look back on recent history to see what’s transpired and who has achieved what in that short period of time. At this time in 2016, Rory McIlroy hadn’t yet secured his first FedExCup title, Emiliano Grillo was navigating his season en route to the Arnold Palmer Award as the best rookie, and the likes of Tony Finau, Danny Willett, Branden Grace, Daniel Berger, Si Woo Kim and Jon Rahm all were within a year of experiencing their breakthrough victories on the PGA TOUR. This Saturday is February 29. It’ll share its quadrennial existence with Moving Day at The Honda Classic at PGA National’s Champion Course to launch the annual Florida Swing in Palm Beach Gardens. For details on the stern test and how the field of 144 doesn’t need to dive as many as four years into the history books for an understanding of how to succeed, scroll past the projected contenders. POWER RANKINGS: THE HONDA CLASSIC  Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include defending champion Keith Mitchell, Justin Rose, Louis Oosthuizen, Ian Poulter and Lucas Glover among other notables. A check of the expected conditions always is a smart decision upon arrival in south Florida. The ubiquitous winds that have come to help govern scoring at PGA National will be sustained from 10-15 mph throughout the tournament, but they’re forecast to come out a generally northwesterly direction. The prevailing breeze is from the east, so experience in the alternative should help. After the threat of overnight rain ends early on Thursday morning, the stage will be set for beautiful weather with sunshine and daytime highs in the upper 60s throughout the tournament. All that stated, even when the air was largely calm last year, PGA National still averaged as the hardest par 70 in non-majors all season at 71.016. It was the most difficult of its kind in four of the last five seasons, five of the last seven, and so on. What’s more, Keith Mitchell’s winning score of 9-under 271 marked the sixth time in seven years that the champion didn’t need to reach double digits under par. Last year also served as the debut for new, larger putting surfaces, but the field still averaged just under 10.5 greens in regulation per round, seventh-fewest of all courses in 2018-19. The putting: birdies-or-better percentage aligned perfectly, also ranking seventh at 27.25 percent. So, connecting for as many as three par breakers per round with a putter meant that a golfer was better the field average of 2.86. Mitchell didn’t relent off the tee last year, but it wasn’t the driver that lifted him to victory. While he ranked fifth in distance of all drives and led the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, he also paced it in par-3 scoring and finished T2 in scrambling. Numerous parts of the practice area were upgraded since last year, but the only significant work done on the course proper occurred on the tee boxes. They are flatter and firmer. The TifEagle bermuda greens may hit 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. The primary rough, which is overseeded, will be trimmed at about two inches. PGA National tips at 7,125 yards. A preview of The Honda Classic wouldn’t be complete without an analysis of The Bear Trap. You’re going to hear a lot about it, so you might as well understand what’s what. Holes 15, 16 and 17 comprise the challenging trio. It’s a par 3-4-3 stretch that demands confidence and precision. In conditions as docile as it gets last year, these holes averaged just 0.319 strokes over par as a set. It was the lowest aggregate since they were just 0.006 strokes lower in 2013. With breezes up, this week’s field will land in between last year’s clip and the 2018 average of 1.186 strokes over par. En route to his first PGA TOUR title, Mitchell scored 2 under on The Bear Trap with three birdies on the 15th. Of all champions since the course debuted in 2007, only Rory McIlroy has gone lower at bogey-free 3 under in 2012. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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These days Larry David probably gets as much notoriety for portraying his distant cousin Bernie Sanders on “Saturday Night Liveâ€� as he does for playing his alter ego on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.â€� The HBO comedy series, which recently debuted its 10th season, is a cult classic, though. And one of the recurring themes has always been David’s love-hate affair with the game of golf. Remember the classic episode about the black swan? And the one where David tries to retrieve his favorite 5-wood from a friend’s casket? Well, if you do, you’re speaking Martin Trainer’s language. And don’t be surprised if the Californian, who defends his first PGA TOUR title this week at the Puerto Rico Open, writes a sitcom of his own someday. “I’ve always been a fan of comedy,â€� says Trainer, who actually met David once at Riviera Country Club while a student at USC. “I had this idea of inspiration watching a lot of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ episodes where it was set at a golf course. There’s quite a few of them and those were always my favorite episodes. “And I always thought, you know what, I’ll bet someone could write a sitcom that was based at a golf course. … You go to the golf course and there’s all sorts of characters — there’s the guy who wears too much sunscreen and there’s the cart girl and there’s all the people playing golf and drinking at the course. I think that that can be sort of combined into an interesting idea.â€� Trainer jots those potential plot lines into his smart phone, sometimes multiple times a day. He has a sounding board of friends from his days at USC, one of whom had made a documentary and another who is interested in comedy writing, that he can run his ideas past to get their reactions. Like the story Trainer heard about a kid climbing into a tractor parked on the side of hill at one tournament. He pulled the emergency brake and the tractor slid down into a lake. What is there was an epidemic of that happening at different golf courses, Trainer thought? “Oh, and so obviously, ball markers — people use coins,â€� Trainer says. “But I thought of this idea like what if you know one of the characters in like a sign of protest had a ball marker that was not shaped legally so it was like a cone or like a mound. Then players would be hitting it and be bouncing off the marker and it would just cause a lot of conflict. “So, these types of things that I’m paying attention to throughout the day and you know I try to write a couple of notes every single day of things that I observe that could be funny scenarios and so it’s always sort of on my mind.â€� Trainer says he’s a fan of stand-up comedians like Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle. But even more, he’s a student of sitcoms like “The Officeâ€� and “South Park” and “Family Guy.â€� The nomadic life of a PGA TOUR pro offers many opportunities to hunker down in front of a TV, too. “You have a lot of time in your hotel room,â€� Trainer says. “It’s like the lifestyle is kind of built for it when you’re on the road. You’re practicing during the day but in the evenings or at night and travel days you have a little bit of spare time. “So, I’ve been choosing to use that time to sort of study up on all of these and take notes.â€� But his peers on the PGA TOUR can rest easy. When and if Trainer ever writes his sitcom, the characters will more than likely be caricatures than recognizable real-life personalities. “I don’t think that any of the characters are going to be accurate representations of anyone,â€� he says. “It’s going to be exaggerated versions of different people and different athletes that I have observed. “So, it will just be more of a general thing as in, you know, sort of the idea of a really insecure golfer or the over-competitive player who thinks he should be doing way better than he is. Or, the guy who can’t stop talking to the cart girl and he thinks that she’s interested in him but she’s not at all.â€�

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