This professional is sick of ‘vanilla’ stars PGA Tour. Now he is ready to grow

Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla – Isaiah Salinda looks comfortable. Only this attracts you. But what he leads really makes you lean forward.

“Can I be honest?” He begins. “Are you recording this or anything else?”

“We do not I have To be, ”the reporter explains.

“No, no, no – you can. F – K it,” he says. “Many guys here are just a kind of cookie-cutting, short vanilla cookies, you know what I mean? I’m trying to be different.”

Morningte Wednesday morning and Salinda is one of the 12 players’ championship debutors sitting in the director’s chairs, spread in a mass circle for their first -time press conferences. He is wearing a bad bird polo with a desert sunset, presented in it, which partially explains what it means different. His mountain man’s thighs are testing the boundaries of his golf pants. He is the proud owner of what the tour calls “a strong selection of fun socks” – which included the Cookie monster pair that he wore at the beginning of the week – but he is chosen for those pure white today, not to leave his shirt. He’s different. In many ways, this is exactly what is looking for PGA Tour.

In recent months the tournament has begun Fansa versatile name to Initiatives driven by the survey answers out of more than 50,000 golf fans. Among the four takeings being put into action is a simple on paper – Make the players more relevant – This is not that easy in reality. Because they prefer to keep their public thoughts as direct as their shooting. It can preserve the sponsors’ brand pillars ironed in their shirts, but that safe approach does not attract the eyes and ears that the tour requires most at this time of TV ratings and popularity competitions.

With Salinda, work is easy. He is also in the trend: he has fewer than 5,000 followers on Instagram, but wraps the tour team of the tournament they have made it by presenting it regularly exceeds those of the most popular stars. like the one he posted after our convo on Wednesdaywhich has won him several hundred additional followers since then. Later that afternoon, when Caddy Collin Morikawa made an ace on the island of Green 17th Hole on Wednesday, was Salinda concentrating in front of the camera with a gladiatorial impression.

“Aren’t you fun!”

Salinda is thinking of joining Twitter, seeking to get a little in the tournament of the tournament, definitely interested in creating a personal brand. But mostly, he simply wants his tour of the tournament to be relieved a little. Go from the script. Play practical rounds with tournament rookies. Speak a little s-. He graduated from Stanford in 2019 and slowly set up through the tournament by PGA Tour Canada in two years at Korn Ferry Tour. He returned to the 28th Thursday, but the youth ribbon in many lacks the days of the team golf college. He moved to Vegas, he says, only to be able to compete with the crew of the tournament players living there, such as Morikawa and Min Woo Lee.

“I just love the juice,” says Salinda, so I ask her very clearly, “Do you speak S-?”

“Buddy, I speak a lot,” he replies. “To what point I think not many people like me here.”

To play a round of practice with Salinda – at least according to him (excuse me, I have no experience) – is to run and make fun of constantly. Judah is simply “raw confidence,” he says, regularly releasing the wicked club twirls, no matter where the ball goes.

The constant lack of Tiger Woods Pliv Liv Golf Snatching Stars means that the tournament has been eager to develop more fan favorites. The best golfists will gain popularity as a result of their game but the tour hopes MORE Players can win fans from their personalities, and then start at higher altitudes from their best weeks on the course. The best way to notice is to gain, of course, something Salinda came to cursed near a few weeks, ending a back hook of a play -off in Mexico Open. While waiting for the leaders to finish, he said he was “clinging” to the camera, but the moment the broadcast manufacturers turned the red light in his direction, he made the button.

“I hate myself,” he said this week, laughing. “I hate that I did it. But my agent was standing by me. He told me nothing, but I knew I couldn’t say anything absurd. Next time, when this is, I will be more unique, I think. I will stay out. “

Next time It can be the next transmission window. Salinda’s opening round at Tpc saw It was clean and efficient, consisting of 15 pars and three birds, leaving him three shots of leaders again. He walked to mark only a piece of fanaticism that Xanders, Jordans and JTS, who also also receive media interviews. Despite surpassing them on Thursday, Salinda was not asked by anyone. Its relative anonymity continues if only for 18 more holes.