Chris Gotterup is a betting man, even though one of golf’s next big things isn’t a guy who checks the odds. No, no. After all, this is forbidden.
But he knows a winner when he sees one.
Take last week, when he was grouped with Scottie Scheffler for rounds one and two of WC Phoenix Open. After 18 holes, Scheffler was playing the most un-Scheffler, but Gotterup realized where things stood: World No. 1 two days was just a hiccup – and the money couldn’t leave his wallet fast enough for the second round, provided he could do so.
“Everybody has seen it here,” Gotterup said.
“If I could bet on golf, I’d put a lot of money on him going out and playing well on Friday.”
OK, OK, so you probably thought the same thing, and Scheffler finished eight strokes better. How about this then? If you really want to hear about a bet, and if you really want to see what’s under Gotterup’s Nike golf hat, he can tell you about the time his father promised to take him to Pebble Beach, the cathedral that is host of this week’s PGA Tour stopbut only when he would break par – then, when he was 13 or 14, Gotterup went out and shot a two-under 69 at Rumson Country Club in New Jersey. (“I have the scorecard somewhere in my house.
And here it is:
Know that his Masters trip in a few months will be his first – but it’s by his choice. Gotterup has been invited to the tournament before.
And he simply said, thanks, but no thanks.
He is a player. And he would go when he played.
“I haven’t been invited to play, in general,” Gotterup said Wednesday. “But I’d come down – one of my sponsors would do a dinner down there every Wednesday before and they’d ask me if I wanted to come down on Thursday and watch.
“I don’t know, I feel like it would destroy me — like, I don’t really like watching other people play if I’m not playing that week. It’s mine, I don’t know, I’m kind of weird in that sense. The way I wanted it to be, like it’s the busiest tournament in sports and I don’t want to play a spectator. I don’t want to play there.
“I had faith in myself that I would be able to do it as a player. Now that I will be able to, it will be much more rewarding to step on the first ball there than being a fan.”
;)
James Colgan
He will also go as the favourite. Last year, he won Genesis Scottish Open. This year, he won Sony Open AND WC Phoenix Open. He has mixed power throughout the bag with close touch. They play well at Augusta National.
Like self-confidence.
“It’s just one of those tournaments where I think — like here it’s similar in that I could show you every hole on that course even if I didn’t step on it,” Gotterup said.
“So I’m excited to just be out there and enjoy maybe one of these off weeks, enjoy, like I get, not the nerves, but like the fear factor to hopefully go away and try to settle down by the time the tournament comes around.
“Just talking to him like at Bridgestone, things we’ve done, talking to him Freddie (couples) AND Tiger (Woods) AND Jason (Day) and all these guys love it, it’s just the one tour that everybody talks about all the time. I don’t know, it’s just exciting.”
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