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Saudi World Golf Tour 2022/2023 Thread

DCDeac said:
To be fair, his "all drives" distance average is 276. That'd put him at 196th on tour, or 6th from last. Rory is 1st at 314, the tour average is 292, Rose is at 284.

Against an elite field as a non-touring pro he was 6th in strokes gained putting and had a top 10 round in strokes gained approach Saturday. If you waved a magic wand and gave Block +40 yards of distance off the tee tomorrow, I'm not sure how wrong he is. At the same time, generating insane club head speed while maintaining control is basically the entire point of hitting golf balls well, so it's kind of like a 6'2" 3 point specialist saying if he was only 8 inches taller he'd be an elite basketball player...
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For the sake of argument, we can assume he's right (which is BS; the guy is a 46 year-old club pro for a reason; there are a plenty of PGA players that have made a great living who are not super-long off the tee, but are elite around the game and on approach), Block came off as a self-absorbed douche. The reason why Block received his 15 minutes of fame is that during the PGA Championship, Block played up the self-deprecating everyman persona, just enjoying the ride, but more comfortable hanging out with his boys in the Grill Room. He has revealed himself as a blow hard claiming that his short game puts Rory's short game to shame. Hope he shoots 90 today.
 
TBF though, Rory's short game is why he doesn't win more often.
 
Rory is the third ranked player in the world. His short game is fine.
 
I'm still pulling for him to do well, but I would not be surprised if he doesn't fair that well. Regular tour events are about making lots of birdies and I think that is where his firepower won't match up. Granted, Colonial is probably a pretty good course for him, but scraping together lots of pars and making a few birdies can get you a good finish in a major, it barely makes or even misses cuts in regular tour events.
 
Pilchard said:
Rory is the third ranked player in the world. His short game is fine.
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His short game is better than it was a few years ago when he wasn't chipping it well at all. He's also tightened up his wedge game. But he's still only so-so as a putter and has days where he can't make a single putt over several feet. That said, he has fewer days like that now than he did a while back.
 
Yeah I mean he's generally not going to be better than 90% of PGA fields since his target and practice regimen isn't focused on playing full time tournament golf. That said he does have a lot of experience in some kind of tournament conditions playing in sectional PGA events. I'm expecting he's going to be emotionally exhausted from the last week.
 
While watching him over the weekend I was joking with a friend that Block must be the cockiest, most overconfident club pro in the world to be able to hang in mentally for 4 rounds on that course against that field. Maybe folks missed a few of his comments about lessons and his game during his multitude of interviews - didn't seem like he hid it that much.

I'm just not gonna torch a guy who played 50 yards behind Rory for a round and lost to him by 2 while outplaying him around the greens and on his approaches, who, when asked what the difference is between them, is like "well shit I'm pretty sure it's hitting it from 50 yards back every other hole!"

Plus he only asked about Rory specifically, who is the best driver in the world and has a notoriously spotty short game. If you ask him why he's not as good as Russell Henley I'm sure you'd get a different answer, kinda doubt it'd be "oh I'm better than him." But who knows.

Side note, strongly disagree that Rory's short game is fine. 2014 was a long time ago.
 
The whole clip is actually a lot more complimentary to Rory than this bit lets on. He goes on to basically say that if Rory's putting gets going his game unbeatable.
 
Michael Block bogied 4 of his first 5 holes, and is currently T107 in a 120 man field. Block three-putted on third hole. Rory apparently would have four putted.
 
So far today, if he had Rory‘s length he’d just be further in the trees or out of bounds.
 
Golf people are weird. Let the dude shoot shit. So what if he thinks he could have made the tour if he was the longest hitter.
 
Well, today he is about to finish DFL, which should not surprise anyone. I cannot imagine the letdown after last week. And sure he is cocky. To DC's point, how could a PGA pro play that kind of weekend without supreme confidence in his ability? Good for him, and he will ride that success to a couple of missed cuts over the next few weeks, then go back to his day job $300k richer than he was before (and probably more with some sponsorship adds).
 
I think Block has a schtick that probably plays well with the barstool crowd. Easy way to make some quick cash off this.
 
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