Golfing News & Blog Articles

November 13-14 | Poppy Hills/Del Monte

 

The post 16th NCGA Mixed Team Fall Championship appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

Adam Scott has withdrawn from the Zozo Championship in Thousand Oaks, California, after testing positive for COVID-19. He is the 15th player to test positive since the PGA Tour returned in June.

Phil Mickelson is nervous about having fans at the Houston Open, the event just before the Masters.

After a successful late summer run of negative tests prior to the U.S. Open, Adam Scott becomes the third star player in as many weeks to test positive for the coronavirus.

PGA TOUR Statement on Adam Scott

PGA TOUR member Adam Scott has withdrawn from the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD after testing positive for COVID-19.

Scott, who last competed at the U.S. Open in September, will have the PGA TOUR’s full support throughout his self-isolation period under CDC guidelines.

“While it’s difficult news to receive – as I really looked forward to playing this week – my focus now is on recovery for the final stretch of the fall,” said Scott.

With the Houston Open benefiting the Astros* Foundation set to welcome 2000 fans a day at a hefty price, Phil Mickelson added another wrinkle to the imminent return of galleries.

The perennial week-before-a-major player says he’s not so sure about returning in front of galleries and risking exposure that could force a Masters WD.

Speaking before the ZOZO Championship, Mickelson said he’s mulling options.

“I think the PGA TOUR's done an incredible job, I mean an incredible job of getting the players to play and compete in a safe environment,” he said. “We've had a few people test positive. It has not spread from those people. They've kept everybody at a good social distance so if somebody does have it, it hasn't affected and carried through the Tour. I think they've done a phenomenal job of having us feel safe.I think that they will do a very good, safe job in having 2,000 people at the Houston Open. However, for me personally, I don't like the risk that having that happen the week before the Masters. I just feel like the week before the Masters, like that's a big tournament we have and I just don't want to have any risk heading in there. So it has made me question whether or not I'll play there.”

Mickelson later reiterated he would likely play the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Challenge in Phoenix as long as fans were not part of the equation.

October 21, 2020

Legend Mickey Wright Bequeaths Estate, Artifacts to USGA

In support of its mission to champion and advance the game of golf and in appreciation of its continued preservation and celebration of her legacy, the USGA announced that late four-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Mickey Wright has bequeathed her estate and possessions to the USGA.

Wright, who died Feb.17 at the age of 85, was the defining female player of the 1950s and 1960s. The preservation of her story is imperative to the USGA’s mission to chronicle the history of women’s golf and share it with generations to come.

The massive collection of more than 300 artifacts related to Wright’s professional career and personal life includes correspondence, photo albums, scrapbooks, equipment, medals, awards, films and videos, as well as her personal writings, library, record collection and other materials that highlight Wright’s diverse interests, such as sculpture, fishing and the stock market. The collection will be housed at the USGA Golf Museum and Library in Liberty Corner, N.J., alongside the collections of many of the game’s greatest champions.

The late Mickey Wright has left her entire estate and possessions to the USGA, news announced by the organization today.

Beth Ann Nichols got an exclusive look at Wright’s items and shared her observations in this Golfweek.com piece.

Wright carefully charted everything, from her calorie intake to a stock’s performance, the latter with hand-drawn graphs. She was particular about wanting her desk taken up to Far Hills. They also took the adding machine, a lamp, a 2014 Curtis Cup mouse pad and stacks of ledgers. She’d often write to the authors of the investment books she read seeking advice.

A green Titleholders jacket hung in her closet. One of her books, “Play Golf the Wright Way,” was opened up to a spread showing her driver sequence. Wright filled up notebooks with swing thoughts and kept dozens of VHS tapes of her golf highlights. She even had a professional studio preserve certain clips, giving future generations priceless footage of a swing Ben Hogan once lauded as the best in golf.

Tiger Woods is back in action at the Zozo Championship. Our experts offer their best bets and some props for the tourney.

MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of the golf balls on the market to help you find the best ball for your money. Today, we’re taking a look at the Srixon Q-Star Tour. An overview of the equipment we use can be found here. To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.

Typically, we try to be as dispassionate as possible when presenting our Ball Lab findings. The numbers are the numbers and, more often than not, they speak plenty for themselves.

With respect to the Srixon Q-Star Tour, keeping a straight face presents a challenge. I know a lot of you play this ball. I know a lot of you love this ball. Not for anything, I made my lone albatross with the prior generation of the Q-Star Tour so I’m not without my own affinity for it.

Given perceptions and Srixon’s reputation for quality, I had high expectations for the Q-Star Tour.

The best of the existing course rankings—Golf Magazine’s World Top 100 came out strong last year under Ran Morrissett’s fine-tuning to present a strong international list rewarding architecture over some obvious oddball inclusions.

The new U.S. Top 100 is coming out any day now and they’re already discussing it on GolfClubAtlas.com and is eye-opening.

The obvious theme of panelists from my first glimpse: restorations rooted in historical accuracy and fun are sending courses up the rankings, while half-hearted-or-worse-redos took big hits with the elite panel.

At first glimpse it’s hard not to notice the fall of name-brand, legendary layouts that present the golfer a mixed bag of design changes.

Since the last Golf U.S. list in 2018:

Derek Lawrenson explains the USGA and R&A’s new World Handicap in his weekly Daily Mail column and is not entirely sold, as well-intentioned as he found the new world order as of November 2.

For the amateurs who play a significant percentage of their golf outside their home course, the changes will be welcomed. It’s obviously simplistic to take an eight handicap at a straightforward inland course and think it translates to playing off the same mark at, say, Royal Birkdale. This more nuanced approach will make the necessary adjustments.

The reason I’ll get a couple of extra shots at my home course is that it has a high slope rating, meaning it is more difficult than your average track.

Why introduce this in the middle of a pandemic is a valid question. But when we’ve grown accustomed to the changes, it ought to make sense.

In the meantime, you can always take refuge in the cheerful conclusion reached by our handicap chairman: ‘Do not become overwhelmed by all the information, the calculations and the formulae: remember, the computer will do it all for you.’

I laughed out loud a few times during Golf Digest’s “Undercover Caddie” with Joel Beall tackling the tricky topic of PGA Tour events without fans.

While a few veteran stars maybe haven’t had their old home field advantage without fans giving them an extra adrenaline boost, it’s been apparent players have enjoyed not dealing with gallery inconveniences. The unnamed caddie acknowledges that the PGA Tour has “feels less like a professional sports league” and “more like a very serious member-guest that’s being televised.”

But says for caddies, life has been way easier and for players too, including Wednesdays.

OK, one thing is better: no pro-ams. Do you see brokers in the layup line at an NBA game? How about salesmen taking hacks in the batting cage at Fenway Park? Listen, the Wednesday events do a lot for charity. We meet some interesting people through them, and no, they’re not all chops. But if you’re asking if I’d rather my man prep for a tournament by (a) playing with fellow pros or (b) acting as a tour guide … I think you know my answer.

This reminds me: this week’s ZOZO Championship at Sherwood features a pro-am with players only obligated to play nine of the 18-hole round. And as odd as they are compared to other pro sports, they are integral to the PGA Tour’s business and most of all, the charities.

Returning to Sherwood Country Club for the ZOZO Championship, Tiger Woods was asked about the speed chase by players.

TIGER WOODS: Well, distance has always been an advantage. Now that we have the tools, that being the launch monitor, the fitting of the golf clubs, the adjustability. I think all that plays into the fact that you're able to maximize the capabilities of a driver. There's no reason why you can't pick up more yardage and guys have done that. They've changed shafts, they've changed lofts, they've changed weights on their heads and length of clubs. Driving is such a huge part of the game and it's so advantageous if you're able to get the ball out there. It just makes the game so much easier.

And this on distance was nice. Someone else has lost patience.

Q. Just one last question, and on the back of an earlier question about driving distance of the ball. As you know, the administrators are a little worried about where the game's going. Should they be worried?

TIGER WOODS: They should have been worried a long time ago, but the genie's out of the bag now. It's about what do we do going forward and how soon can they do it. I don't know if they're going--you're not going to stop the guys who are there right now. You can carry--guys are figuring out how to carry the ball 320-plus yards, and it's not just a few of them. There's a lot of guys can do it. That's where the game's going. There's only going to be a small amount of property that we can do, we can alter golf courses. I just don't see how they can roll everything back. I would like to have--like to be able to see that, as far as our game, but then we go back down the road of what do you bifurcate, at what level? So that's a long discussion we've had for a number of years, for 20-plus years now, and I think it's only going to continue.

Tiger Woods said on Tuesday that he is considering adding another tournament prior to the Masters -- the Houston Open.

Long drive champ Kyle Berkshire, whose ball speed has topped out -- so far -- at about 230 mph, is ready to return to the more conventional game and hopes to eventually earn his way into tour events.

For the first time, Augusta National is offering online shopping -- but only to patrons who are on record as having tickets.

As we begin the November Masters run-up, the player scouting trip narrative is likely to be different. Or non-existent.

In recent years, players have increasingly seemed more willing to turn up the weekend prior and go. (As opposed to the 2-3 day trip months out when course conditions are radically different.)

Perhaps it’s familiarity with the course through television. Or maybe a change in how players view local knowledge. Plenty have been burned by not seeing the course in tournament week conditions, which get pushed Wednesday evening after the practice round. So it was not a huge shock to see Collin Morikawa plan to take a modest approach to his first Masters.

From today’s ZOZO Championship press conference, the first event for Morikawa in his native southern California since winning the PGA Championship in August:

I don't want to put any of these things in my head where I'm going to have to show up and, man, this is going to be so much harder to prep for than another event. I think I've done a really good job every course I've gone to for the first time in figuring it out and I feel like I'm very prepared. I never feel on a Thursday like, oh, man, I wish I had one more practice round. I don't think that's going to be the case at Augusta. Yes, I'm going to want to be out there a little more just to figure out some greens, figure out the slopes, but I'm not going to just go out there at 8:00a.m. in the morning and leave at 6:00p.m. just because it's Augusta National. I'm going to spend my time-wisely and really get my rest because at the end of the day you want to feel as prepped and pressure fresh by Thursday.

Opportunities don’t come around like this often, but given the multiple TPC Sawgrass renovations, it actually might be a stretch to say while supplies last.

From Rich Mueller on Upper Deck’s return to golf cards, with a very special gift included.

Upper Deck announced Monday it would be launching three golf releases in 2021, including Artifacts, which will launch the series at an as yet undetermined date in the spring.

Artifacts Golf will have a 50-card base set, a 30-card rookie set, a Multi-Majors Winners Memorabilia subset, signed memorabilia cards and Diamond Relic insert cards that can include up to four “lab created” diamonds per subject. 

All three golf releases will include Legendary PGA Tour Course Relic cards featuring sand and dirt from the famed TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, home of The Players Championship.  

Ok the sand I can see. But dirt?

Cobra KING Tour Irons – Key Takeaways

Cobra’s new KING Tour irons are the first Cobra irons made from Metal Injection Molding (MIM).Cobra says the process creates an iron that feels softer than premium forgings.KING Tour is a player’s cavity-back iron set with what can be considered “traditional” lofts.

Golf innovation goes by many names. The new Cobra KING Tour irons won’t give you anything fancy-sounding like Thru Slot Speed Pockets or Super Metal L-Face Inserts. But then again, Cobra isn’t promising explosive distance, either.

And when you’re the kid brother in Golf’s Big Five, innovation wears different clothes, too. With the Cobra KING Tour irons, innovation wears work clothes – specifically, a factory worker’s clothes. The innovation is more in how the KING Tours are made, which Cobra says impacts how they perform.

The new Cobra KING irons aren’t forged nor are they cast. In fact, they are Cobra’s first full iron set manufactured using Metal Injection Molding – or MIM – technology.

So when it comes to innovation, MIM’s the word.

The MIM King

Cobra may be the baby of the Big Five family but it takes a backseat to no one when it comes to manufacturing innovation. Whether it’s Metal Injection Molding or 3D Metal Jet printing, Cobra seems intent on reinventing golf club manufacturing. Cobra broke new ground early last year with its KING MIM wedges. But a full set of MIM’d irons? That, dear reader, requires a deeper dive.

Mizuno ST-X and ST-Z hit USGA conforming listWill likely be marketed to mid-slow swing playersPricing remains unknown for the probable early 2021 release

 

Two new Mizuno drivers hit the USGA conforming list on Monday – the Mizuno ST-X and ST-Z. As per usual, what we know is a combination of reasonable assumptions based on the provided images and some dot-connecting with prior Mizuno driver releases.

Starting with the ST190 (released fall 2018), Mizuno metalwoods began trending in a more competitive direction. It’s not that Mizuno lacked the technical know-how or design capabilities to manufacturer a tour-ready driver. Simply, it just wasn’t a point of emphasis.

So, the ST190 was a positive step and in January 2020, the ST200 line was arguably the first bonafide “tour-ready” flagship Mizuno driver.

So, where does that leave us now?