Golfing News & Blog Articles

Also, Alexander Hughes parred the first and last hole at South Lakes in greater Tulsa to post 55.

From Adam Woodward at Golfweek:

Hughes, a former player at Central Oklahoma, tied the Guinness Book of World Records’ lowest score in a single round of golf with a 55 on Thursday at South Lakes Golf Course in Jenks, Oklahoma.

After making par on the first hole, Hughes made a hole-in-one on the 155-yard par-3 second, followed by another par. Then he got hot, birdieing Nos. 4-8 with an eagle on No. 9 to make the turn at 9-under 26. His birdie streak ended on No. 10 with a par on 11, but the four-year letter winner at Central got to 10 under with a birdie on No. 12.

The card and last hole attempt at birdie.

BIG NEWS: Alexander Hughes ties world record for lowest round in golf history with a score of 55(-16) at South Lakes Golf Course in Jenks, Oklahoma.

The other 55(-16) was shot by Rhein Gibson at River Oaks Golf Club in Edmond, Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/l5gYUr1KU2

A tough, even seemingly irrational call was made by LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan and the LPGA to remain firm on September 10-13th’s ANA Inspiration: the field set for earlier this year remains in place, despite Sophia Popov’s improbable Women’s Open win.

Some context from Julie Williams at Golfweek summing up the tough situation and membership “category” issues created by the pandemic rescheduling. From Whan:

“You don’t have to like that, you don’t have to agree with me on that,” Whan said. “But that way, from the very beginning we knew that a winner there was going to qualify for the 2021 ANA.”

As for limited membership, Whan points out it has happened before – and recently.

“I’ve been commissioner 11 years. I’ve seen plenty of non-member wins at majors,” Whan said. “And I’ve seen almost all of those non-members go onto long and storied careers on the LPGA.”

After posting a BMW opening 77, Cameron Champ still spoke to press about his show of support for protestors and other professional athletes choosing to not contest official games and matches. From Adam Schupak’s report in Chicago:

The PGA Tour posted a video on social media on Wednesday that Champ re-tweeted, in which he wore a Nike golf shoe that is black on his left foot and white on his right foot, the latter with the words “Jacob Blake” and “BLM” in blue marker. During Thursday’s round he shook up his message.

“I have Papa Champ on my sneakers, Black Lives Matter and Breonna Taylor,” he said. “Obviously there are some very important reasons why that’s on my shoes. For my grandfather, if anyone knows my story, he grew up in the South, Jim Crow, all those eras through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and obviously Breonna Taylor, which is another ongoing issue. For me again that’s kind of where I stand with this. I just want to show my love and support and obviously with my hat, as well.”

Champ’s full remarks here were also of note:

Q. Just to build on that, with the NBA it looks a lot different than the PGA TOUR. I just wonder, there's probably a number of players, certainly fans who have a different idea of what Black Lives Matter means. I just wonder if you feel in any way like an outlier when you support this or you wear the shoes and you're the only one here, right? Just how you kind of square that and how you feel about that.

CAMERON CHAMP: Yeah, I mean, it's -- again, I mean, I do to a sense. Like I said, it's a situation where, again, that video I did yesterday, and I've been told what some people have said. I'm like, that's just -- if you don't understand the full view of everything and realize what's going on and realize the statistics with massive incarceration to law and order to war on drugs to statistically speaking there's, what, I think 12 percent of the U.S.'s population is African-American which makes up 33 percent of the incarcerations versus 62 or 63 percent Caucasian and it makes up 30 percent. So how do those numbers add up?

The reversal of golf’s fortune is put into context in the latest National Golf Foundation update. News of big June and July’s in the U.S. came from GolfDatatech, as did word of an increase in 9-hole and evening play, prompted this analysis:

This two-month rebound has allowed us to climb from a 16% YTD deficit on April 30 to now a 3% lead over 2019. Seems almost inconceivable given the loss of 20 million spring rounds from course shutdowns and virus-related anxieties. And the good news is likely to keep coming. Several golf course management companies have told us that August has been almost as good.
 
We did a little digging for perspective. Only three times in at least the past 151 months has the industry seen a monthly rounds increase of 20% or more. All three were during a heatwave in late 2011/early 2012, yielding surges in play at courses in the north that were typically closed and at a time of year when percentage increases can be misleading. To have a jump this significant during a high-volume summer month is unprecedented and reflects approximately 10 million more July rounds versus a year ago.
 
Our latest year-end forecast has us up 2% to 6% year-over-year. Consider this  – we haven’t seen more than a 5% Y.O.Y. increase since 2012 (during that surreal winter heatwave).

Buckling under playoff pressure like he hasn’t faced since last year, Tiger bogeyed his last three holes and was not necessarily channeling his inner Norman Vincent Peale.

He made clear there was no discussion of playing as several other athletes protested or elaborated on the times.

Q. Just general thoughts on -- it was a rough finish, but how the course was playing and what was the strongest part of the challenge?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the course was fine. The course is in perfect shape. Not the way I wanted to finish, but the golf course is playing difficult for sure.

Q. Was it a challenge dealing with the heat? Did that wear you out at all?

Branson’s big moment this week could be upstaged in September when Tiger debuts his first “public” course design, Payne’s Valley. The Golf Channel/NBC/Excel production features Woods and Justin Thomas vs. Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose. I sense some contractually-obligated “days” are getting checked off.

Anyway, for Immediate Release:

ORLANDO, Fla. – NBC Sports and Excel Sports Management announced today the Payne’s Valley Cup, a special 18-hole charity team exhibition match headlined by four of the world’s top golfers to commemorate the grand opening of Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Mo. Payne’s Valley represents the first public golf course design for 82-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods, who will team up with World No. 3 Justin Thomas (Team United States) to take on major champions Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose (Team Europe) in the Payne’s Valley Cup.

Airing live on GOLF Channel on Tuesday, Sept. 22 (3-7 p.m. ET), the Payne’s Valley Cup will feature an entertaining mix of some of the best competition formats seen during Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups: Fourball, Foursomes and Singles matches. NBC will televise a special encore as two separate telecasts on Dec. 26 and 27 from 4-6 pm ET. The four players competing in the Payne’s Valley Cup have an eclectic resume: all four have been World No. 1; are major champions, all have won the FedExCup and have been part of victorious Ryder Cup teams.

The made-for-television exhibition match will be produced by NBC Sports, featuring all four players mic’d up during competition while showcasing Woods’ new golf course that pays tribute to Ozarks-native and World Golf Hall-of-Famer, Payne Stewart. 

The PGA Tour issued this statement in response to yesterday’s social justice protests in other sports, leading to the postponement of several games, including the NBA playoffs.

PGA TOUR Statement - August 27, 2020 

The MLB, MLS, NBA, WNBA and WTA protests are player-led, peaceful, powerful ways to use their respective platforms to bring about the urgent need for change in our country. There have been a number of efforts in the past to send a message that the current climate is unacceptable, and these teams, leagues and players now taking this step will help draw further attention to the issues that really matter. The PGA TOUR supports them – and any of our own members – standing up for issues they believe in.

The PGA TOUR made a pledge over the summer to be part of the solution, and we have been actively working to make deeper and more specific commitments to racial equity and inclusion in the communities where we play, as well as supporting national organizations within this movement that we had not previously engaged with.  However, we understand that now is not the appropriate time to highlight our programs and policies, but rather to express our outrage at the injustice that remains prevalent in our country. 

Sports have always had the power to inspire and unify, and we remain hopeful that together, we will achieve change.

During a media call to promote the upcoming playoffs, Paul Azinger and Brandel Chamblee swooned over Phil Mickelson’s brief CBS/PGA Championship stint.

From Alan Bastable at Golf.com:

“I listen to every word that’s said on air and check it and cross-check it, and I find myself pulling for the commentators as much as I do the players,” Chamblee said. “I want them to tell me something I don’t know. I want them to tell me something nobody else has thought of, and it’s hard to do that because the whole world is kicking and scratching for the same information and they all have the same information, and I thought Phil did that.”

And while Phil has no plans to retire to the booth anytime soon, the two NBC stars are anxious to see where his TV career goes.

“I thought it was hilarious; some of the most compelling golf I watched was watching Mickelson in the booth,” Azinger said. “I loved it. “

THIS..IS..RIGHT..ON! We are playing the same great courses that @jacknicklaus @ArnoldPalmer & Peter Thomson won on. I’m excited for our future because technology has ruined these great course for the elite men. All the best for us girls! https://t.co/jELjCz94JR

Andy Johnson wins the analogy award for summing the contrast between last weekend’s AIG Women’s Open at Troon and the slugfest at TPC Boston, aka the Northern Trust won by eleven by Dustin Johnson.

During the 2020 Women’s Open, played at a windy, 6,632-yard Royal Troon, we saw just that. Cunning and shotmaking came to the forefront. The competitors’ typical trajectories and spin rates brought slopes on and around the greens into play. Fronting bunkers were intimidating, often prompting players to aim away from a pin if they had a poor angle.

As a diehard golf fan, I felt how a diehard baseball fan must feel during the postseason. In playoff baseball games, the margins are slim, and the most successful teams manufacture runs in nuanced ways: hit and runs, safety squeezes, pitch-outs. Similarly, the Women’s Open highlighted precise driving, well-struck long irons, varied short-game play, and patience. This is the kind of stuff that tragics love and obsess over. And in golf, despite advances in equipment, the intricacies we crave can still be found in women’s tournaments because the scale of the players’ games fits the scale of the venues.

At the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust, on the other hand, those scales were completely mismatched.

The news isn’t too encouraging these days but for golf the signs are positive. And while we’re all sleeping better knowing the never-happy manufacturers are selling clubs and balls, it’s the course operators and lower-level clubs that form the backbone of golf. It seems, based on National Golf Foundation data, that the pandemic has freed people up for more afternoon and evening golf, a surefire way to hook and retain participants.

From the NGF report:

Golf course operators report that afternoon and evening tee times have been popular, which seems right given that Covid-19 has changed the contours of the work day for many. Sorting through recent NGF golf participation and engagement research, the number of short loops (as a percentage of total loops) is up over 15% in 2020.

Core golfers report that 33% of their rounds this year have been of the nine-hole variety, while occasional golfers tell us that nearly half (48%) of the rounds they’re playing are nine holes. This will be seen as good news by many, especially the USGA given their PLAY9 initiative, and would indicate that the “time barrier” to golf is being overcome by more golfers.

And I loved this perfect summation from the NGF:

We’ve talked about the increase in beginners and youth golfers, so clearly the late-day tee times aren’t just for the work-at-home crowd.

With late summer days, those nine-hole twilight rounds present the perfect opportunity for families to get to the course after an early dinner, or newcomers to get more comfortable with the game.

Phil Mickelson’s eye-opening—if you could see behind the aviators—22-under-par PGA Tour Champions debut outside Branson was impressive. That’s even if the competitive setting more closely resembled afternoon cart games at The Bridges than big boy golf, but Mickelson proved he’s still got something special during a four-stroke win over Tim Petrovic.

Jay Busbee with this on the win and Tiger’s assessment…or was it a dig?

Look, it’s easy to laugh off Mickelson’s achievement as an unfair matchup, the golf equivalent of LeBron James rolling over a neighborhood pickup basketball game. Mickelson’s odds to win the tournament were as low as +220 (bet $100 to win $220); that’s getting in the neighborhood of prime Tiger right there.

Woods himself knows just how much of an advantage Mickelson currently owns. “He was already one of the longest hitters out here [on the PGA Tour],” Woods said Wednesday at the BMW Championship, “and now he goes to where he’s going to pick up a huge advantage off the tee ... There’s no reason why he can’t win every event he plays out there. He’s got such a big advantage over the rest of the field just with sheer length.”

That’s right, he could win every week “out there”!

More importantly, buried lede here: Phil is putting with a blade and making putts. I feel the Golf Gods at work here. The entire bag of Callaways for Mickelson including a nice shot of his old school putter.

An unbylined AP story sent to me by reader Steve details legendary broadcaster Vin Scully’s plans to sell off much of his memorabilia, including golf items right down to his clubs.

Vin Scully sat outside watching two sets of his golf clubs being loaded into a truck. He thought of afternoons teeing off at Bel-Air Country Club or with President George H.W. Bush.

Those left-handed clubs had produced a lot of shots over many rounds, some good, some bad. Traipsing the fairways was a way to relax and swap stories away from the ballpark through the years. Seeing them go stirred emotion that surprised the 92-year-old Hall of Fame announcer.

"Wow, there is a chapter of my life that really hurts," Scully told The Associated Press, "but at my age and after some physical problems, I knew I'd never be able to hold them again. I heard a door close in my life."
Scully took a bad fall in April at the end of his driveway while retrieving the mail, breaking his nose and ribs and suffering a concussion.

"It was a learning experience," he said. "I hold on to my walker."

Scully is spreading the proceeds between family members to pay for home schooling and to UCLA for neuromuscular research.

Looking ahead to his 2020 Masters defense this November, Tiger Woods noted a couple of key elements that will be different.

Beyond the roars giving you an idea where another player stands, he also referenced the loss of basic distractions (backing off a shot due to a noise) and the lack of confinement. Presumably, as he said at the PGA, this favors players not used to everything that comes with playing on the biggest of stages. He’s not wrong.

From Ryan Lavner’s GolfChannel.com report:

“When you put 40,000 people on such a small piece of property – I know there’s no rough, but it gets confined,” he said. “But this will be very different. This will be a fun Masters, and I’m looking forward to defending.”

Some players have mentioned difficulties focusing without fans and plenty more are enjoying it. Pace of play has improved but the idea of being less confined is fascinating. For some players, having fairways lined by players might be a positive in helping to focus on the job at hand, and perhaps, for others not having the fan presence makes things trickier.

Anyway, it’s an oddity of 2020 that cannot be quantified.

With the U.S. Open’s surprise return to NBC there will be ups, downs, perks and a few remote-control headaches that might include multiple phone calls with older relatives. Be ready to explain Peacock.

Good news?

The new Peacock app has a free option and if you’re only casually into the U.S. Open, probably not necessary since it’s largely handling field outlier broadcast windows. Maybe.

The bad news? If you’re a cord cutter and willing to pay to stay in one place despite Peacock, Golf Channel and NBC Sports existing under the same Comcast umbrella, you’ll be doing some app switching, updating, password entering, yada, yada. But you’ll survive, I promise.

Here is the schedule retaining the same 45 U.S. Open hours as last year on Fox. However, with the need to incorporate Peacock, the U.S. Open is losing 90 minutes of cable coverage each weekday round compared to Fox Sports 1. This year’s event—a one-off played in September at Winged Foot—is down four hours of broadcast television coverage Saturday and Sunday compared to Fox’s 10 hours and 8 hours respectively.

I kept waiting to hear that record equipment sales tracked by Golf Datatech were fueled by a major distance-gaining breakthrough.

Turns out, it’s just social distancing.

GolfDigest.com’s Mike Stachura offers an extensive breakdown of the surge in sales and reaches out to all of the CEO’s who rarely advertise in print any longer because, they’re (kind of) happy campers! Until they hear the anti-capitalist governing bodies will blow this pandemic-fueled resurgence of golf.

Each of the club and ball categories were up more than 25 percent in both units and dollars compared to a year ago. Specifically:

Balls: Up 27 percent in units, 28 percent in dollars

Putters: Up 32 percent in units, 36 percent in dollars

Wedges: Up 64 percent in units, 74 percent in dollars

Woods: Up 74 percent in units, 68 percent in dollars

Irons: Up 83 percent in units, 93 percent in dollars

As calculated by Golf Datatech, iron sales set an all-time high for any month the research firm has tracked in its more than two decades of looking at industry numbers.

What record did it beat? The one set just last month.

Now, for the CEO’s who were all contacted so Stachura didn’t get any angry calls. The wisdom gleaned is life changing.

With a rain-delayed, Dustin Johnson 11-stroke runaway and loads of competition, CBS should not have drawn any audience for the 2020 Northern Trust Open. Instead, Sunday’s respectable 1.52 and 2.279 million average viewership is miraculous given competition with the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Indy 500, NASCAR and regional MLB action.

As always, the full listing and context can be found at ShowBuzzDaily.

A few other observations:

—The AIG Women’s British drew poor numbers on Golf Channel, particularly given the recent spike in morning golf viewing. The miniscule 245,000 average for the Sunday morning final round makes the one-hour handoff numbers on NBC (.64/886,000) that much more impressive.

—One hour shows on NBC gave the women network exposure and a tighter broadcast window that led to the decent .62/897,000 average.

Agronomy—aka fast, hard running fairways—is the go-to faux argument for preserving distance standards should a Harry Higgs or Craig Stadler come along and blow the notion that “athletes fuel distance spikes”.

Certainly today’s generally more fit and better fit players generate increased clubhead speed, and, therefore more distance.

On the surface, agronomy as a distance booster should be a tougher sell since courses have never been greener. One very famous annual major stop, Augusta National, unapologetically presents fairways mown toward tees to slow down drives.

For now, don’t do a deep dive on 2020 yet because the numbers are not all in and the sample size differs from year’s past now that all PGA Tour tees have a Trackman. Look instead to the previous 13 years when the PGA Tour’s amazing ShotLink started measuring carry and distance on the two measuring holes per round.

Those fancy launch monitors peskily track carry while ShotLink documented the final distance of the drive.

Ignore the Todd’s, Terry’s and Chip’s at the start of this video, eventually Olympia Fields provides a fine drone tour of their North Course. It was last seen at the 2003 U.S. Open won by Jim Furyk, site of four majors overall and host of this week’s BMW Championship. The Willie Park Jr. design is among many things to know heading into the BMW, as listed here by PGATour.com’s Mike McAllister.

With the PGA Tour’s fall Asia swing not happening, reports of a revamped swing in the western United States is starting to come to fruition. One leg is now official: the CJ Cup moving from Nine Bridges in Korea to Las Vegas’ exclusive Shadow Creek.

The October 15-18 date will follow the already-scheduled Shriner’s in Las Vegas, giving the Tour a nice one-two desert swing minimizing travel. Now, there are casinos so…it might a COVID exposure wash.

Two events in Asia, Japan’s Zozo and China’s HSBC, remain on the current schedule but are not expected to happen in those locales.

For Immediate Release:

PGA TOUR, CJ Group announce move of THE CJ CUP  from Nine Bridges in Jeju Island to Shadow Creek in Las Vegas 

Those of a certain vintage have seen the restoration movement’s amazing rise. Only a handful of classics are in questionable hands, though they are biggies (Augusta National, Pine Valley, Riviera).

The list of classics undergoing successful restorations is much longer and is adding four once-unthinkables to the repaired, restored, rejuvenated division: Inverness, Oak Hill, Congressional and Oakland Hills.

All mangled for tournament golf by unsympathetic mid-century salesmen, the most prominent of all finally takes the Jones monster off its back: Oakland Hills is wrapping up a Hanse Design restoration and wants back on the major rota.

Tony Paul provides this detail-rich update on the cost, assessment approach for members and the club’s desire to not waste its time with regular PGA Tour golf.

That system cost more than a third of the $12.1-million budget for the project, funded by the membership. Members had the option of paying $10,000 up front or $100 a month for 12 years, or $12,000. It was a major financial and logistical commitment from the membership, which has booked the North Course solid for months this year. There will be more sacrifice next year, with carts not allowed until 2022.

The USGA has sites booked for the U.S. Open through 2027, and the PGA Championship is accounted for through 2031. Oakland Hills clearly hopes it gets one or both, possibly a U.S. Open before the end of the decade. A regular PGA Tour event isn't the goal, and never has been.

"We're here to host a major championship," said Steve Brady, the head pro, adding that even if Oakland Hills doesn't get another major, the membership will find the renovation well worth the commitment. "We're not just about making Tour players rich."