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DJ, Rory, Rickie in Skins Event is More Than Driving Relief

By Kathlene Bissell

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA - MARCH 10: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his shot from the 18th tee during a practice round prior to The PLAYERS Championship on The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on March 10, 2020 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA - MARCH 10: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his shot from the 18th tee during a practice round prior to The PLAYERS Championship on The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on March 10, 2020 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images) /
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Finally! Live golf! Rory, DJ, Rickie and Matthew Wolff playing a charity skins game this Sunday is just what the doctor ordered.

Finally! Live golf! With DJ, Rory and Rickie!

Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff playing a charity skins game this Sunday is just what the doctor ordered.  I don’t know about you, but I’m about to burst from no golf on TV.    Even if TaylorMade Driving Relief isn’t a real tournament, it’s live.  It’s televised.  And it’s golf!

You can have the NBA, MLB, NHL and even the NFL.  Give me a few guys hitting the small white pellets any day.

At this point, in a world racked by virus, TaylorMade Driving Relief is the best use of the word relief since the old, old, old and annoying Rolaids commercials where they asked, “How do you spell relief?  R-O-L-A-I-D-S.”  I now spell relief as TaylorMade.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I have golf withdrawal to the point of  gnashing of teeth and shaking all over, but a person can only watch so many COVID-19 news conferences and politicians saying horrible things about each other before going slightly wacko. And for me it wasn’t a long trip to get to wacko in the first place.

In addition to actual golf, there’s also the bonus of getting to see Seminole Golf Club on TV. It’s been in the top 100 probably since the top 100 began.

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Seminole is an old, private Donald Ross 1929 creation that the pros will probably eat up, unless it’s windy, but no matter.  The mission in this event is to make birdies and eagles because those translate into more donations for the American Nurses Foundation and the CDC Foundation courtesy of TaylorMade and United Health.  This foursome should be able to post under par scores like crazy on a course that’s just a little over 6800 yards.

Five of the par fours at Seminole are under 400 yards. McIlroy and Johnson will be nearly able to drive a couple of them, particularly if there’s wind behind them. Right now, the Weather Channel said wind from the NNE at 11 MPH.  But it will shift around Sunday evening to SSE.  The course has holes that go all directions.

Regardless of the breezes, whoever has the best wedge game, which might be Fowler, is likely to end up with the best score.

Now, three of the four par fives are just over 500 yards, and one is 497, and that’s not long for today’s PGA Tour players.  Fortunately, the par threes are sure to challenge with the shortest one being the 13th at 170 yards and the longest being the 8th at 235 yards.

The greens can be tricky. According to Golf Digest, caddies at Seminole have their own golf stat which they call Greens Visited in Regulation.  That’s because the Donald Ross greens are push up style which means are hard to hit and harder to hold. That could make watching the TaylorMade Driving Relief a lot of fun to watch if you like to see the best players in the world suffer a little.

In addition to being a top 100 golf course, by all accounts Seminole’s membership has been something to behold over the decades. Names like Joseph P. Kennedy, Henry Ford II, Jack Chrysler, Paul Mellon, Phillip Armour, John Pillsbury and Robert Vanderbilt were among the members in decades gone by.

The course was created by brokerage legend E.F. Hutton, whose firm was later folded into American Express. Ben Hogan supposedly loved the course, maybe because it was so private people couldn’t find him there.  Today’s head pro is Bob Ford who used to be at Oakmont.

In terms of modern members, Tom Brady supposedly just joined.

When: Sunday, May 17,  2-6 p.m. ET

How to  watch:  NBC, GOLF Channel, NBCSN, Sky Sports

Streaming via PGA TOUR LIVE (NBC Sports Gold and Amazon Prime Video), GOLFPASS, GolfChannel.com and GOLFTV powered by PGA TOUR. Pre-match high jinks and the first two holes will be available on Twitter.

For additional information, see: https://drivingrelief.pgatour.com/o/en/campaign/drivingrelief

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