Each week on GolfChannel.com, we’ll examine which players’ stocks and trends are rising and falling in the world of golf.
RISING
Bubba Ball (+10%): When he’s on, the game’s ultimate showman can obliterate a golf course. Our only hope now is that he’ll shelve the extracurricular activities and focus on maximizing his awesome talent.
Jordan Spieth (+7%): The 20-year-old wunderkind led the Masters with 11 holes to play, but now he’s getting skewered for emoting too much on the course? Puh-leeze. The kid has an insatiable desire to be great. I can live with a few club drops.
Miguel Angel Jimenez (+5%): Finally, a reason to watch the Champions Tour!
Swede touch (+3%): Yep, I’ve already pre-ordered the Jonas Blixt Short Game DVD. Some of those shots were just filthy.
FALLING
Rory (-1%): A backdoor top-10 doesn’t obscure the fact that Boy Wonder might be in need of an Augusta exorcism, because those ghosts from 2011 linger still.
Adam Scott (-2%): Three back after two rounds, the world No. 2 inexplicably threw up a Saturday 76 to blow himself out of contention. Ah, so that’s why it’s so difficult to go back-to-back.
Freddie (-3%): You knew his putter was going to stop cooperating, but that doesn’t make the inevitable weekend slide any easier to take.
Phil (-5%): The bad news is that he squandered an opportunity to burnish his legacy. The good news: After a rare Masters MC, he probably turned his jet northeast to Pinehurst and spent the weekend.
Future Masters (-7%): Sports fans got a glimpse of a Masters without Tiger and Phil … and apparently it wasn’t one they enjoyed. Final-round ratings were the worst in a decade, which makes you wonder whether the golf world is in for a rude awakening when these two proud champions are unable to compete.