"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"
In which...there is a nod to some GOATs, there's an appreciation of the trickiness of picking a winner, and we 'BohRap' the hell out of events in Dubai.
Aside from the major tournaments, the world of golf is arguably defined by three season long competitions:
The Fed Ex Cup, the Race to Dubai and...for a few of us, 'The Swindle' Fantasy DP World Tour league.
Let's deal with the first two first.
Last year, Rory Mcllroy bested the rest on both sides of the pond.
In winning both the Fed Ex and R2D, he regained his position as World No 1.
It was a fantastic achievement given the depth of competition around the globe.
In the end, a fourth placed finish in the DP Tour's season finale, The Tour Championship, was just good enough for McIlroy to win the R2D. It allowed him to hold off Jon Rahm, the tournament's winner, and top the season long standings.
McIlroy and Rahm, both playing great golf, both already with wins in 2023, and for my money, on current form, the undoubted World No.1 and No.2.
I suspect these two will win at least one of the majors this year, and one or the other will probably finish 2023 as the World No 1....
...but you can never be certain in golf.
Afterall, I reckon a golf tournament is probably one of the hardest of all sporting events at which to try and predict the winner.
By that I mean that the 'very best' tend to dominate major tournaments in tennis, squash, badminton, swimming, athletics, snooker etc. with greater regularity than in golf.
In these sports the world's best seem to win more frequently in the major tournaments they play.
A look at the record of a few Greatest of All Time (GOATs) from other sports lends some support to this theory.
Roger Federer played in 81 tennis majors and won 20 - about a 25% success rate.
Ronnie O'Sullivan has racked up seven snooker world championships in 30 attempts - a 23% success rate.
Squash legend Jahangir Khan didn't lose a match between 1981 and 1986! (c500 matches unbeaten!). In the 1980's and early 90's he monopolised the British Open (winning 10 times in a row) and World Championship (6 times). In twenty 'major' appearances he made the final every time, and won 16 of them. An astonishing 80% conversion rate!
Now compare those records with two of golf's GOATs - Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
Jack teed it up a lot in major championships, more than any other golfer in history. 164 times all told.
But quite a few of those were in years when he was over 55yrs and past his prime.
So let's focus on his pomp - the 60's, 70's and 80's.
From 1957 to 1989 Nicklaus played in 120 majors.
He won 18 of them - a record that may well never be beaten.
That's a win ratio of 15%.
Tiger's record is remarkably similar - 15 majors from 100 attempts - prior to his most recent injury in 2020. Also a 15% win rate.
And our current world No1? Without question the outstanding talent of this generation.
Rory has 4 majors from 58 attempts.
A win ratio of just under 7%.
And therein lies the problem for the golf punter. On any given week, there's simply no guarantee that even the very best in the world will win.
It's a devilishly difficult puzzle trying to consistently back the right golfers at the right tournaments and why, in my book, winning a DP Fantasy League, even one with just a few mates for competition, is noteworthy.
The 'win some, lose some' nature of the challenge is perhaps also why you could have thrown a blanket over the top three in our league, right up until the final round of the final tournament last year.
As the screenshots below show, Phil Hanson timed his run perfectly.
Sunday 20th November 08:00hrs...Phil in third place.
Sunday 20th November 10:00hrs...Moving on up...
Sunday 20th November 13:00hrs...First place and season winner!
l can't recall now, but it might be true that the last hour of the six month season, when Phil finally took top spot, may just have been the only time he topped our league all year.
A brilliantly paced campaign!
And as there's never much of an off-season in sports...we're already underway with the 2023 DP Fantasy League.
We're only two weeks in, and there are months of tournaments and multiple potential combinations of golfers a player can select. Which golfers do well at which courses? Who is in form? Which higher ranked players need to be kept in reserve for the bigger tournaments? Who should be made captain (double points) this week? Who scores highly with birdies and eagles?
There are lots of factors to consider, which can make it a complicated endeavour.
In fact, before I watched the Dubai Desert Classic this weekend, I'd imagined there was only one harder scenario in all of golf.
Trying to identify your golf ball when it's stuck in a tree.
While you're actually looking in the wrong tree.
Turns out I was wrong.
In real life, Mr Reed's successful tree-top ball spotting was quite unbelievable...ly easy.
Apparently the trick is to just open your eyes, look up to the skies, and see.
Postscript
I'm of the opinion that the LIV product isn't nearly as entertaining as some of the quotes, spats, slights and general 'good' and 'bad' tension that it's created among the world's best players.
It's as if a tranche of golfing villains have been created overnight - super rich ones.
They're all sort of of like Bruce Wayne in reverse.
But they're not real villains, just very mercenary professional sportsmen.
And anyway all the best stories need a decent villain. Where would Batman be without a Joker to fight? (He'd be indistinguishable from a million teenagers...not coming of of his cave enough , and clocking up too much 'screentime' every day that's where...)
Anyway the point is that much of the entertainment and drama this weekend has been centred on McIlroy versus Reed, DP World Tour versus LIV, Good versus Evil.
Whatever your own take on the people and the issues I think we can all agree it's been entertaining no?
Just look at a few of the quotes from Mr McIlroy and Mr Reed...most of them are even true...
McIroy:
"I'm living in reality, I don't know where he's (Reed) living. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't expect a hello or a handshake."
Reed:
"if you're (McIlroy) going to act like an immature little child then you might as well be treated like one".
McIlroy:
"I was subpoenaed by his (Reed's) lawyer on Christmas Eve. So, trying to have a nice time with my family and someone shows up on your doorstep and delivers that, you're not going to take that well"
Reed:
"The good thing is I know who I am. All I can do is focus on my golf and focus on me. Felt like I've done that this week. Felt like I played great."
"It always seems to come down to Rory and I. We love to put on a good show. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong end of this one. Hats off to him, he played some great golf, especially on the weekend."
McIlroy:
"If it had been anyone else in the field it would have been a nonissue, but because of certain things in the past, people bring stuff up, which is maybe unfair in some ways. But again, it is what it is. I've stood and defended Patrick in some of the controversies. I don't feel like he was trying to get any advantage."
Reed:
"I've been caught in a landslide, there's no escape from reality, but I'm a very rich boy, so I don't need no sympathy. To be honest I'm easy come, easy go, I'm LIVing high, LIVing low.
Any way the wind blows, it doesn't really matter, to me. To me."
Magnifico.
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