Beach
Boy
Davis Love’s Decision
Rocco’s Smashing Debut
In case you were digging your way out of
a snowdrift Sunday or gorging yourself on
early Downton Abbey episodes on Netflix,
you might have missed this:
The sport of golf has a hot new kid.
Actually Brandt Snedeker isn’t really new
or a kid even though he has a high school
haircut and the enthusiasm of a glee clubber.
The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am
he commandeered last week, at age 32, by
a never-threatened two shots was his fifth
career PGA Tour title. Last year he won the
Tour Championship. So, actually, he isn’t all
that new either.
But, boy, is he hot.
The four top-threes he calmly has col-
lected in five starts this year have rock-
eted him to No. 4 in the Official World Golf
Ranking. In horse racing they call this early
speed. In Spain they simply say en fuego.
Meanwhile in South Africa, lesser-known
Richard Sterne has returned from a back
injury with a purpose, prevailing in Joburg.
In Florida, the ever-popular Rocco Mediate
won his first ever Champions Tour event and
gave the round bellies a much-needed smil-
ing new face.
And in New Zealand, a 15-year-old Kiwi
prodigy named Lydia Ko won her national
open while doing a frighteningly good
impression of the player Michelle Wie was
supposed to be way back when.
Finally, the longer Vijay Singh (who has
admitted using a banned substance) is al-
lowed to blithely keep showing up at PGA
Tour events (T50 at Pebble), the more the
credibility of that Tour’s largely unexplained
anti-doping enforcement process shrinks.
Brian Hewitt
Pebble Beach winner
Brandt Snedeker
