⛳Golf has a big problem

Good morning. Spring migration is still doing its thing, which means some tiny bird just flew hundred of kilometers to land in a tree, sing aggressively, and act like it owns the place.

The PGA Tour has its own big migration problem too. Stars keep moving in and out of fields, sponsors want bigger names every week, and the new schedule conversation is starting to sound less like “how do we improve the product?” and more like “how many times can we ask the same players to show up?”

-Harry Carlisle

The PGA TOUR heads to Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, this week for the Charles Schwab Challenge, the longest-running non-major TOUR event held at the same venue. The field is not as star-heavy as last week, but Colonial gives the week something better than a generic course setup: the Horrible Horseshoe.

That’s the nickname for holes 3, 4, and 5, a brutal early stretch that wraps around the practice range and can wreck a round before it ever gets comfortable. The name traces back to 1940, when Perry Maxwell redesigned holes 3, 4, and 5 before the 1941 U.S. Open, turning them into the hardest holes on the course.

Hole to watch: No. 5, the final leg of the Horseshoe. It’s a long par 4 with the Trinity River running along the right side for nearly the entire hole, and it’s often mentioned as one of Colonial’s best and hardest holes. Miss right, and the river is waiting. Bail too far left, and the approach gets longer and uglier.

Players to watch: Ludvig Åberg is the favorite, but he’s making his first start at Colonial, and the course usually rewards patience more than raw power. Justin Thomas and Russell Henley fit the ball-striking profile, while defending champion Ben Griffin returns trying to become the rare player to repeat at Colonial.

Bryson DeChambeau is reportedly tied to a LIV Golf idea that would do something surprising: make the league smaller.

The reported plan would cut LIV closer to 10 events, bring in outside investors, and seek roughly $300 million in new money. Nothing is finalized, but the direction is interesting because of who Bryson is.

He has major exemptions, a massive YouTube audience, and a fanbase that follows him even when LIV is off. If LIV needs a smaller, more media-friendly future, he’s probably one of the few players who can help sell it.

The Japan Golf Tour is at the Gateway to The Open Mizuno Open in Okayama, Japan, and Ryo Ishikawa’s story is still one of the wildest in modern Japanese golf.

In 2007, he won a Japan Golf Tour event as a 15-year-old amateur, becoming the youngest winner of a men’s regular tournament on the tour. A year later, he turned pro. By 2009, he was already Japan’s money-list winner and one of the biggest young golf stars in the world.

His nickname was “Hanikami Ōji,” usually translated as the Bashful Prince.

Before Hideki Matsuyama became Japan’s major-winning face of golf, Ishikawa was the teenage phenomenon people expected to carry Japanese golf globally. It never quite became a PGA TOUR takeover, but his career in Japan is still deep: 20 Japan Golf Tour wins, major starts, and a level of name recognition few players in Asia can match.

Why he matters this week: The Mizuno Open is one of Japan’s clearest bridges to the global golf stage because it offers a route into The Open Championship. That makes Ishikawa more than a nostalgia name. He’s a former phenom trying to get another major-championship appearance.

One of the most interesting golf stories right now is the calendar.

Former Ryder Cup player Stephen Gallacher warned new PGA TOUR boss Brian Rolapp that pushing stars into a heavier, signature-event-style schedule probably won’t work if the top players don’t want to play that much.

The tension is easy to understand.

Sponsors want stars. TV wants stars. Fans want stars. But players like Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler usually build their years around roughly 20 starts, not a packed 30-event grind.

That creates the problem the TOUR keeps running into: the biggest names are the product, but the biggest names are also trying to protect their energy, their major prep, and their offseason.

Fans and golf writers have been grumbling that too many regular PGA TOUR weeks turn into soft, low-rough birdie contests, especially after Aronimink showed how much more compelling golf can feel when firm greens, rough, wind, and awkward pins make the best players uncomfortable.

There’s no announced TOUR-wide setup overhaul, so don’t expect every stop to suddenly become a major. But the criticism connects to the same product problem as the schedule fight: if stars are going to play fewer weeks, the weeks they do play need sharper stakes, stronger fields, and golf that punishes loose shots.

Today’s Golf Mini is titled Links, and it’s live. Give it a try and let us know how you do.

Play the mini crossword →

When you walk in, you see a rake lying directly behind your ball. You move the rake, and the ball rolls slightly.

What do you do?

A) No penalty, replace the ball
B) No penalty, play it from the new spot
C) One-stroke penalty, replace the ball
D) One-stroke penalty, play it from the new spot

A) No penalty, replace the ball

A rake is a movable obstruction. Under Rule 15.2, you’re allowed to move it, even in a bunker.

If your ball moves while you’re moving the rake, there’s no penalty, but you must replace the ball on its original spot.

This is different from moving a leaf, stick, or pine cone near your ball. Those are loose impediments, and if your ball moves in most areas of the course, it usually costs you one.

Spring migration is still one of the best free shows in sports-adjacent nature.

Baltimore Orioles spend winter in warmer places, then move into eastern and central North America in spring. Cornell’s All About Birds says they arrive from early April to late May, which means late May is still prime “wait, was that orange bird real?” season.

If you see one, congratulations. You just got paired with the best-dressed bird on the course.