The PGA TOUR’s ‘Florida Swing’ came to its final stop this past week at Innisbrook Golf Resort’s Copperhead Course for the Valspar Championship.

With the recent reconfiguration of the PGA TOUR schedule this event has been put in an awkward spot in a jam-packed schedule. Slotted after back-to-back signature events at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players, and ahead of the pre-Masters tune-ups in Texas for the top stars, it also has to compete with the opening weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament for viewership. Yet, despite this awkward placement, this event still has managed to draw big names in search of form.

This week the Norwegian Viktor Hovland won his seventh professional event, and first since the 2023 Tour Championship, despite a rocky 2024 season and a recent run that had him missing three consecutive cuts at The Genesis, Arnold Palmer, and The Players.

It was not looking like Sunday would be his day when walking to the 13^th tee he trailed Justin Thomas by 3 shots, who was a couple holes ahead of Hovland. With the daunting “Snake Pit” finishing stretch of 16, 17, and 18 still ahead of him, Viktor would go on to make his charge with birdies at 14, 16, and 17. He was also aided by a critical bogeys from Thomas on the par 4 16^th and 18^th holes after Justin drove it into trouble on both holes. Hovland would go on to bogey 18 but it was enough to secure the one shot victory over Justin Thomas at -11 (273) for the week.

Dealing with illness this week I was not able to watch as much of the golf as I had hoped outside of Sunday’s final round but watching Justin and Viktor down the stretch on Sunday and listening to their post round comments, it was apparent this week meant so much more than the leaderboard could show.

In 2022 and 2023 it seemed like Viktor Hovland was on top of the golf world. He won the 2022 Hero World Challenge, finishing T-7 at The Masters, T-2 at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill, before his breakthrough PGA Tour win at the 2023 Memorial. He closed out the year with back-to-back wins at the BMW Championship, and Tour Championship en-route to winning the FedEx Cup. And to top it off he was a key member of Europe’s Ryder Cup blowout victory over the United States, picking up 3.5 points for the European team. He was only 25 years old and suddenly found himself at number 3 in the world golf rankings, and a golf swing that was the envy of golfers worldwide. I personally have spent hours breaking down his swing to use as a model for my own, and I will be featuring more on his swing mechanics in upcoming posts.

Fast forward to this past Monday he was arriving at Innisbrook Golf Resort the 19^th ranked golfer in the world, eighteen months removed from his last victory, and five changes in swing coaches. Coming off three consecutive missed cuts it would have been easy for him to not show up or to struggle to another missed cut, but he came out and won. In his press conferences all week he was lamenting his swing and his ball striking, even saying of his swing “it’s still not great” in his post-victory press conference on Sunday afternoon.

Justin Thomas is another player who has seemingly fallen on hard times the last few years with his last victory coming at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in May 2022. His recent form also suggests he may be getting close to breaking through once again, but in golf there are no such guarantees.

Golf, especially in the competitive arena, is a game that can give us the highest highs and the lowest lows it feels like life can possibly hand us. When our swing is in the right spot it feels like we will never miss hit another shot again. It becomes like second nature to be able to slip into the zone, let go of all the outside noise, and precisely pick apart the golf course shot by shot. When we are going through a swing change, or just struggling, it feels like we may never play this game well again. The once crystal-clear visualization of a desired ball flight suddenly becomes muddled. The reliable “never go right/left” swings suddenly start going that undesirable direction. Every swing feels like it could be enough to induce a fit of anxiety. I believe there is no lonelier feeling in sports.

No matter how good a swing change may feel on the range or playing at home, there is no substitute for testing it under tournament pressure when the spotlight is the brightest. And for guys on Tour, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to work through their swing changes or struggles for the whole world to see. Public perception and pressure can swing as wildly as a player’s form. One good result and the world declares you are “back”. One bad result, and you are “lost” or “searching”. A few bad results in a row? You may as well retire. It is so easy to get lost in all the noise and start questioning not just the direction of your game, but also your purpose.

Yet Viktor’s victory this week proved an old adage: on our scorecards we just have to write a number, not draw a picture. The perfectionist in us will absolutely hate it. It will feel wrong. We will feel like we are getting away with something horrible. We all crave and expect the perfect swing with the same repeatable ball flight on every shot. But that isn’t golf. It’s a game of managing ourselves, our swings, and our mistakes. If you get the ball in the hole in fewer strokes than everyone else, you win. The picture in our minds may seem most important, but at the end of the day nothing matters more than the number on the card.

This week the eyes of the golf world were on TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the 51st edition of The Players Championship.  Often referred to as golf’s “5th major”, The Players is the PGA Tour’s flagship event, and Rory McIlroy walked away today with his second Players Championship joining elite company.

Since 2019 when the event moved back to its traditional spot in mid-March, weather has seemed to play a much bigger factor than it did during its 12-year span being played in mid-May from 2007 to 2018. Days with colder than normal temperatures and higher winds have added even more unpredictability to this event, which has never been lacking on one of Pete Dye’s most diabolical course designs. Even the appearance of the course has looked radically different in March with lush green fairways and rough more closely resembling Augusta National than the dried out TPC Sawgrass we would see in May.

I may be in the minority on this, but I personally preferred the way the course looked and played in May, but that is a discussion for another day.

This year’s Players championship was no different, with several days being affected by high winds and a long weather delay on Sunday further softening the course and pushing the eventual playoff to be played on Monday morning.

Windy conditions wreaked havoc on Saturday which saw the two 36 hole leaders, Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia, shoot rounds of 78 and 75 respectively effectively ending both their chances of walking away with the trophy. Relatively unknown JJ Spaun, the 57th ranked player in the world, entered Sunday with the lead sitting at -12. Despite not being a well known name among fans Spaun has gone on an impressive run this year with two (now three) top 3 finishes, in addition to his one PGA Tour victory at the 2022 Valero Texas Open. His caddie, Mark Carens, also had good experience at this tournament having been on the bag for Si Woo Kim’s victory in 2017.

Rory made his presence known early on Sunday with an impressive birdie-eagle start, then another birdie on the long par 3 8^th hole. Spaun looked shaky at times but made the turn with a 37 (+1) and was only one shot back of McIlroy after the horn blew for inclement weather.

When play restarted at 5:15 after a several hour weather delay, Rory started off quickly with a birdie on the short Par 4 12th to grab a commanding 3 shot lead with only 6 holes to play. For a few minutes it looked like this could be another runaway victory for McIlroy but a bogey on 14 and missed birdie opportunities on 15,16, and 17 left the door open for Spaun.

JJ would go on to birdie 14 and 16 and leave his potential tournament clinching putt agonizingly short on the 18^th hole. This meant the tournament would be heading to a Monday morning three-hole aggregate playoff of holes 16, 17, and 18, the first playoff in 10 years.

From the first tee shots Monday morning, it felt like Rory’s championship to lose. He went driver-wedge-two putt birdie on the Par 5 16^th, while Spaun scrambled for par from the front greenside bunker. But the true decisive moment would come on the second hole of the playoff, the famed and feared island 17^th hole claiming one more victim Monday morning. With only a 1 shot wind and a 20+ mph wind, Rory faced the most nerve-wracking tee shot in professional golf. His flighted 9 iron was a work of art finding the center of the island green. Moments later Spaun flew his tee shot into the water culminating in essentially a tournament ending triple bogey. It was gut wrenching to watch Spaun’s shot find the water after making such a great swing, almost hitting it too pure which penetrated through the strong headwind. Even in his post round press conference he seemed genuinely shocked he went long when watching the replay of it the for the first time. But those are the breaks of championship golf. Rory hit the shots he needed when he needed it. That is special stuff, especially on that golf course in those conditions. And Rory certainly further cemented himself into a special category with this win. With his 28th PGA tour victory, he also became only the 8th multiple time winner of The Players, and joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Scottie Scheffler as the only players to win multiple majors and multiple Players championships. Not bad company to be in.

For JJ Spaun even though the week ended in heartbreaking fashion, I think he must look at this as a huge positive. One thing about The Players championships is that the cream always seems to rise to the top, and he was right there with a chance to win. Given his form this year, I would not at all be surprised to see him continue to contend in big events and maybe breakthrough for a second win.

Rory’s most powerful weapon, his driver, had a very uncharacteristic week hitting less than 50% of fairways. In almost Tiger-like fashion, he found ways to manufacture golf shots when he got out of position – shots that only a handful of players in the world can execute under tournament pressure. It’s hard enough to win on Tour with your A game, let alone finding ways to win when you don’t have your best stuff that week. That is one thing I feel like we haven’t always seen from McIlroy as much as we would have expected. Again, we may be spoiled from watching Tiger win tournaments with his A-game to his D-game and every grade in between. But it was almost refreshing to see him struggle a little this week and still find a way to win.

Per his talk with the Golf Channel Live From crew following his playoff victory it sounds like his next tour stop will be the Houston Open in two weeks. But undoubtedly this victory shifts all eyes to Rory going into the season’s first major, The Masters, in just 3 weeks in search of the final leg of the elusive career Grand Slam. This will be his 11th year going into Augusta with the opportunity to complete the career slam, and while his results have been solid it still feels disappointing for a player of his caliber. Since 2015 he has 6 Top 10s including a runner up finish in 2022, 2 Top 25s, and 2 missed cuts. Will this be the year Rory finally gets over the hump at Augusta and avenges his recent Sunday heartbreaks in majors? We will find out soon – but for today no one can question that Rory is the face of the game.

Being the first big name star to really emerge in the post-Tiger era, the pressure on him the last ten plus years has been immense, and probably even crushing at times. He has been a lightning rod for criticism in recent years with his very vocal takes on LIV and the current state of professional golf. Putting aside my personal opinions on many of his detractors, especially the internet armchair analysts, its clear golf needs a dominant and even somewhat controversial figure to be the face of the sport. No, he’s not Tiger Woods. There’s probably nobody who will ever be able to play up to the standard that Tiger set at the peak of his career. Those medium to short range knee knocker putts will probably always have us holding our breath in ways we never did watching Tiger. But it’s time to just let Rory McIlroy be Rory McIlroy. Appreciate greatness wherever we can watch it, and for however long we have it.

Sitting down and writing this first blog post feels like it has been several years in the making. I have long thought about how I wanted to dip my feet into the world of golf content, but the ideas have always stayed within the confines of my notebooks and conversations where I would make mere musings at the idea. I’ve always been shy around a camera and microphone, and everyone and their brother already has a podcast these days. Even in today’s wide world of social media it can often feel hard to come up with content that is unique and interesting enough for people to consume. Last year I created a website under a different name, but the idea fizzled out quickly when I realized what a massive undertaking it was going to be. There’s the famous quote about planting a tree that the best time was 20 years ago but the second-best time is now. If the best time to start was years ago, I am making the most of the second-best time – now.

Golf has always been a massive part of my life since the time I first picked up a club with my dad around the age of 7. But as many people do, I started to drift away from the game as I got older. I thought golf was going to be simply relegated to a mere hobby a few weekends in the summer, and a fond memory to reminisce about during cold winters, or long monotonous days behind a computer screen. But these last 5 years have been a journey of reconnecting with the game, and rediscovering who I am and what golf means to me. Golf is not just a sport I love – it’s a fundamental part of who I am. Now I have recommitted myself more than ever to push my limits, competing in high level tournaments, and seeing where this game can take me on and off the course.

Over time I will continue to post my reflections on my own golf journey, golf’s place in the changing sports landscape, the events on the professional tours, my own experimentation with new equipment and gadgets, as well as my own golf swing. There will be a lot to write about in the leadup and preparation for tournaments. Maybe I will eventually overcome my camera shyness and venture into video or podcast content. I’m sure my writing style will evolve (and hopefully improve) over time. For my first series of upcoming posts, Rediscovering My Golf Journey, I will take a deeper dive into my own life and how the game has and continues to shape me. With today also being the conclusion of THE PLAYERS Championship, I am planning to have a championship recap posted on Monday.

I will also feature articles, photos, reviews, and eventually discussions of golf course architecture of the many courses I have the privilege of playing along the way. While most will be in the Midwest, particularly around Michigan, I also hope to highlight golf travel opportunities across the United States and internationally. One of the most underappreciated aspects of playing this game is the opportunity to visit some of the most beautiful and historic places, while meeting incredible people from all corners of the world.

I’m still not sure exactly what this will become or where it will take me, but I hope for those that find this blog, they may be inspired to pick up the game, or reinvest themselves into the game they once loved.  I hope my own journey and perspectives through the game and life can resonate with people. And more than anything I hope someone reading this site could bring someone new into the game like my dad did all those years ago, igniting a lifelong passion and pursuit of learning who we are and what we can become through golf.

Welcome to One Time!