I am usually not a fan of these Silly Season limited field cash grabs. I understand it’s a chance for many players to pocket some guaranteed, low pressure money and the tour makes some bucks and a few sponsors get some added screen time.
But for my money Thanksgiving through New Year’s should be some much needed down time for these world weary golfers. And has the PGA Tour ever heard of over saturation?
As much as I love watching these guys work their magic a few weeks without golf may just increase the appeal for the rest of the season, the real season.
That being said The Hero World Challenge is like that car accident I passed heading home today: I just had to look.
A glance at the leaderboard shows some big names played fairly well at Isleworth Golf & Country Club. Of course, all eighteen of the golfers playing this week are big names, like I said not a fan of such small fields, especially when they award World Golf Ranking Points.
Anyway, still suffering from some jet lag, Jordan Spieth topped the field with a solid 66 for a one stroke lead. With the winner’s check from the Aussie Open still in his travel bag the 21 year old managed to keep his stellar play going. 
When Spieth closed with a 63 last week we heard many predict that the flood gates would now open up for Spieth. He’s off to a great start and the likable Texan has a chance to be one of the golfers that carries the PGA Tour now that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are on the short side of their careers.
Four golfers are tied for second one shot behind Spieth and each carries their own unique story.
Zach Johnson is pound for pound the grittiest player on the PGA Tour. He’s slight of build but strong of heart. He’ll never overpower a course but for the life of me he seems to be in the mix every week.
Henrik Stenson could very well be the most underappreciated number two golfer in the history of the rankings. The 2013 FedEx Cup and Race to Dubai winner had a quiet season on the PGA Tour.
He must have been spending all his practice time counting all that cash. But he broke through at the European Tour’s DP World Tour Championship to get to second place in the rankings right behind Rory McIlroy.
Stenson could walk through Times Square and no one would recognize him. And I bet he likes it that way.
Semi-retired golfer and full time Wisconsin football fan Steve Stricker is also in second place.
Strick has a gift we all are jealous of: he can wake up in the middle of winter, pull out the sticks and find more fairways and greens in 18 holes that we do in a month. So he gets a quick fix of Florida sunshine in the middle of a tough Wisconsin winter. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Another popular golfer huddled in second place is Rickie Fowler. Fowler has been designated by everyone from Butch Harmon to Golf Magazine to my Greek Brother as the golfer for 2015. And I can’t disagree with them. 
Fowler now has a solid year of Butch’s direction behind him and we saw flashes of brilliance from Rickie time after time in 2014.
This is a golfer who along with McIlroy and Spieth can carry golf for the next few decades.
As far as the host of the Hero World Golf Challenge, Tiger Woods he was the perfect host. From his opening tee shot, which he put in the backyard of one of those million dollar homes, he was the gracious host and just got out of the way for everyone else.
Woods is low man on the totem pole shooting plus five 77 and eleven shots back.
He looked rusty, particularly his chipping game as he hit four chips a 20 handicapper would have been upset with.
This on a course that Woods admits he has played about 2,000 times. Ouch.
But I’ll give Tiger a pass here. He’s playing in competition for the first time in about four months and working on his swing…again.
Ryan Lavner of The Golf Channel has Tiger’s game story.
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