Golfing News & Blog Articles

Bryson DeChambeau has faded at this year’s Shriner’s Hospital For Children in Las Vegas, but another bomber moved to within striking distance of the lead.

Matthew Wolff posted a 61 Saturday and yet, it was slightly underwhelming if you dive deeper in this stats. As GolfDigest.com’s Christopher Powers notes, Wolff’s 61 came on the back of three eagles in five holes, including a hole-out form 115 yards.

But…

The only problem, if we had to nitpick, was his putter, a common theme in this early portion of his career. Incredibly, he shot 61 despite gaining only 0.2 strokes on the greens. He missed eight birdie putts of 16 feet or less, including on his final two holes, lipping out both times and watching 59 slip away. In reality, he could have shot 56 or 57.

Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Aronimink has produced an elite leaderboard topped by some of the LPGA’s finest, but there is a Cinderella lurking four back in Bianca Pagdanganan. The world No. 712 is making just her sixth career LPGA start and has never finished better than T28 in an LPGA event. She’s using power to differentiate herself at the Ross-classic where leaders will be teeing off early.

Mercer Baggs at GolfChannel.com with Pagdanganan’s story.

“I got back to the car [on Thursday], and my dad picked me up, and he basically just told me – he just looked at me and said, ‘Welcome to the majors.’ I was like, ‘Thanks, Dad, it's a great welcome,’” Pagdanganan said.

“My dad knows my game pretty well. He's with me in like every tournament, so he basically just told me, 'You've just got to stop thinking,' which I agree, because I do play better when I don't think. I'm not the most mechanical, technical person, I'm all about feel, so that's all he told me: 'You've just got to trust your swing – look at your target and just get it there.'

"That's basically what I've been doing the past two rounds, and it's been working really well.”

Recent LPGA majors have been filled with upsets and surprises, from this event last year, which was won by world No. 114 Hannah Green, to this year’s Women’s Open, which was won by No. 304 Sophia Popov.

BMW PGA 36-hole leader Matthew Fitzpatrick declared Bryson DeChambeau’s approach to Winged Foot a mockery of the game after he studied some of the tracker data. From Ryan Lavner’s GolfChannel.com story:

“I just looked at Shot Tracker (Thursday), some of the places he hit it and how he’s cutting corners,” Fitzpatrick told reporters. “When he’s on, there’s no point. It doesn’t matter if I play my best; he’s going to be 50 yards in front of me off the tee. The only thing I can compete with him is putting. Which is just ridiculous.”

Fitzpatrick also lamented the idea of length overtaking the game.

“I really hope they do,” Fitzpatrick told reporters. “It’s not a skill to hit the ball a long way, in my opinion. I could put on 40 pounds. I could go and see a bio-mechanist and I could gain 40 yards; that’s actually a fact. I could put another two inches on my driver. I could gain that, but the skill in my opinion is to hit the ball straight. That’s the skill. He’s just taking the skill out of it, in my opinion. I’m sure lots will disagree. It’s just daft.”

Daft!

Plenty of perspectives from Michael Bamberger at the KPMG Women’s PGA where he chats with a nice range of players about chasing distance.

Check it out here at Golf.com. And this:

The rejuvenated Lydia Ko is No. 54 on the LPGA driving distance list, with a 256-yard average. She’s 5-5 in extra-long spikes. She shot a first-round 68 here in this grand women’s major, run by the PGA of America.      

This has been said 999,999 times and here comes the millionth: women’s professional golf is, by far, a better example for nearly any of us — man, woman or child; 105-shooter or 68-shooter — who are looking for swing models. Lewis noted on Thursday that she plays in pro-ams every week with men who it the same distance that she does, yet she’s a plus-five and her gentlemen playing partners will typically break 90 only when Jupiter aligns with Mars.   

Adam Schupak’s exclusive chat with Camilo Villegas is both incredible and incredibly tough to read. But kudos to Schupak for so beautifully telling the story Mia Villegas, and for dad Camilo sharing so much in what can only be called unimaginable heartbreak of losing his child to cancer.

Please carve out a few minutes and hit the link here, but a sampling:

So, he and Maria slept at the hospital the night before the scan. Hours of waiting felt like days. It reminded him of visiting St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He made it a habit of going to see the kids there every year during the PGA Tour’s annual stop.

So, he and Maria slept at the hospital the night before the scan. Hours of waiting felt like days. It reminded him of visiting St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He made it a habit of going to see the kids there every year during the PGA Tour’s annual stop.

“I remember walking in the lobby and seeing all the parents there. That to me was the really hard part,” he said. “All of a sudden I was one of those parents at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.”

When a knock on the door broke the silence, Villegas was greeted by an army of faces and he instantly knew the verdict was grim.

“You don’t need 10 doctors to tell you the good news,” he said.

So, he cried. Fresh tears.

For three days.

The Bryson DeChambeau show carried on in Las Vegas with a 62, a day after having a putt for 58 on his own pro-am ball.

At least in this case, as Steve DiMeglio’s Onionesque account of the Shriner’s Hospital For Children score shredding, DeChambeau was joined by four players posting 63 and five shooting 64.

[Pausing here for a response from those who say scoring hasn’t changed due to the de-skilling of the pro game.]

Still, good laughs should be had at the absurd state of the skill/distance balance, a real tribute to the total loss of control by the authorities going on two decades.

It wasn’t a fair fight on a windless, sun-drenched day as DeChambeau, who won the U.S. Open at rugged Winged Foot in his last start, hit nine tee shots past the 300-yard barrier, including a 365-yard blast that reached the green on the par-4 7th. He is the first player in the ShotLink Era that began in 2003 to drive the green.

The No. 6 player in the world also drove the 315-yard par-4 15th – with a 3-wood. The longest iron he used for an approach was a 6-iron – and that was for his second shot on the 583-yard par-5 13th. Seven of his nine birdies came from within six feet and he was equally satisfied with two 10-foot putts he made for par.

With this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Sophia Popov returns to a major from her non-LPGA membership exile and Bill Fields files a New York Times profile of the surprise Women’s Open champion.

A teaser:

Six months ago, Popov, was competing on the Cactus Tour, an Arizona-based circuit for fledgling women’s golf pros. Prior, she had competed on the Symetra Tour, the developmental arm, after having lost exempt status on the LPGA Tour, but it and most of the world’s other major golf tours were on hiatus because of Covid-19. Employing safeguards like cup liners and individual riding carts, the Cactus Tour played on.

Beyond getting in reps, Popov rediscovered her winning touch, claiming her first professional trophy at a tournament in mid-April and then taking two of the tour’s next five events. “It was important because I hadn’t won in six years, since I was a senior in college,” said Popov, who played at Southern California. By the time the larger tours resumed this summer, Popov had a dozen Cactus Tour events under her belt and renewed confidence.

“There is a craft to playing and winning no matter the stage,” said Rashell, who has worked with Popov since the spring of 2019. “You have to beat the players that are around you down the stretch. You have to get used to how that feels. There is pressure regardless of where you’re playing.”

For the first two rounds at Royal Troon, the field battled severe weather conditions — the wind was so strong Popov had to use a 4-iron from 126 yards on her approach to No. 1 the first day — that tested strategy and resolve.

She goes on to also discuss, among other things, the sight of her $650,000 winners check in her bank account.

Thanks to reader John for Simon Cambers’s New York Times look at historic Wentworth as the rescheduled BMW PGA Championship begins.

Wentworth held the Ryder Cup in 1953, but to many golf fans the club will always be remembered for hosting the World Match Play Championship, which it held from 1964 to 2007.

Staged each October, shown live on the BBC and often played in challenging autumnal conditions, each match was played over 36 holes, a test of stamina as much as skill. Though it later expanded to 16 players, it began as an eight-man knockout event, with Palmer the first champion, beating Neil Coles of England in the final.

Ernie Els, who won the event seven times and later helped to redesign the West Course, loved Wentworth long before he got to see it himself.

“The history speaks for itself, especially the World Match Play,” Els said in an interview. “All the great players played there. Growing up in South Africa, we’d read all about Gary and Jack and Arnold winning there. Then watching Greg, Seve, Faldo, [Sandy] Lyle and Woosie [Ian Woosnam] in the 1980s. It was an iconic tournament and venue.”

Another range parking lot was inundated by Bryson DeChambeau drives before he was asked to move back, begging two questions: why does the ball need to go so far and who keeps putting parking near a range.

Anyway, check out Steve DiMeglio’s entertaining compendium of clips from Bryson’s pre-Shriner’s Hospital For Children press conference, as the U.S. Open champion returns to PGA Tour action for the first time since Winged Foot.

Four par-4’s figure to get a crack, and the iron distances are befitting the desert air and elevation. And the incredible distances DeChambeau hits the ball.

“There will be holes where I’m going to try and drive them, get it up as close to the green as possible,” DeChambeau said. “It’s just fun having a 7-iron go 220. That’s unique. And 4-iron, 265. There will be holes where I had to hit 3-wood and now I’m hitting 4-iron off the tees.”

I believe this was said in a serious tone:

A few folks old enough might remember that majors and Tour events did not always put leaders together or out last, so the rescheduled Women’s PGA Championship plan should not be a big deal. Nonetheless it will be odd to see leaders sandwiched in certain tee time slots Sunday to accommodate TV, which has NASCAR to get to.

From Beth Ann Nichols’ Golfweek story quoting Kerry Haigh:

NBC will air the championship on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. ET and on Sunday from Noon to 2 p.m., ahead of NASCAR. To make that work, the leaders won’t be teeing off last on Sunday. And if play from Friday pushes to Saturday morning, the same will hold true for the third round as well.

“We feel it’s important that everyone watching the telecast will see the leaders,” said Haigh, “see the leaders play all 18 holes, and we think that is important. And although it’s a little different and out of the box, we as partners with the LPGA and KPMG are prepared to make those changes for what we think will be a greater and a better championship for everyone to observe.”

With even less daylight this November and a thrilling NFL match-up to get to, I wonder if the Lords of Augusta might consider something similar to help ensure proper morning golf course preparation? Or split tees? To be continued.

Derek Lawrenson explains how new LA resident—don’t get used to this blissful traffic Franky—Francesco Molinari is finally resurfacing this week.

The 2017 Open Champion is the last recent major winner to dust off the clubs and return during the COVID-19 era, teeing up at the Shriner’s over the European Tour’s BMW PGA. He hasn’t reached Anthony Kim levels of intrigue given the sheer absurdity of 2020, but it’s still remarkable how long Molinari has sat out. He has failed to register a top ten since the 2019 Masters.

Because they aren’t hitting it long enough and the air isn’t thin enough to make 400 yards an expected thing, new Titleist’s are turning up at their favorite testing grounds: TPC Summerlin.

Twenty years after the first Pro V’s showed up in Vegas and instantly turned most Titleist staffers into decathletes, it’s that time of year. Sources close to absolutely no one predict the new new Pro V1’s and Pro V1x’s will be longer and, wait for it, I swear, really, like, really straighter.

Golfweek’s David Dusek reviews and previews the Pro V’s history at the Shriner’s and what can be expected as the conforming ball is put into play.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Titleist Pro V1 at the 2000 Invensys Classic. That week, 47 players in the field switched into the new multi-layer, urethane-covered ball, including Billy Andrade, who went on to win.

Historically, Titleist brings prototypes of the three-piece Pro V1 and the four-piece Pro V1x balls to Las Vegas to get feedback from players, then makes the balls available to consumers in late January of the following year.

The company is not providing any details regarding modifications it has made to the balls at this time, but it is likely that the balls are receiving refinements instead of significant overhauls. Why? According to Titleist, about 73 percent of all the players on the PGA Tour last season used either a Pro V1 or a Pro V1x. That number jumps to 75 percent on the European Tour and 83 percent on the LPGA Tour.

Which means, when we take 12 dimples off it and make it a few millimeters larger, it’ll still be the most popular! Right Wally?

Given the continued onslaught of daily positive COVID-19’s reported in the United States, including a shocking White House outbreak, it’s a bit of a miracle that Tony Finau is the only PGA Tour player known to have tested positive since two cases at the U.S. Open. Before that, the Tour had enjoyed a six-week run of virus-free events.

Finau’s announced the bad news taking him out of this week’s Shriner’s Hospital Classic In Las Vegas:

Earlier today, I received a positive result for Covid-19 under PGA TOUR on-site testing protocols and have begun a period of self-quarantine to protect others around me. I am feeling well, and am otherwise in good spirits.

From Bob Harig’s ESPN.com story on Finau becoming one of the highest profile players to test positive.

Finau is just the 14th player to test positive for the coronavirus since the PGA Tour's return from a 13-week break at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial in May. Two players tested positive at the U.S. Open, but prior to that, the tour was on a six-week run of no positive cases.

In a MorningRead.com exclusive, Bradley Klein catches up with Eric Trump, overseer of Trump Golf properties, who says the “golf business has never been better” for the company and predicts their best year ever. Though it may not look that way on tax returns that reportedly show huge losses.

“The portfolio isn’t losing money,” said Trump, referring to the firm’s golf holdings. “You can make an operating profit, and that’s not the same as a tax loss based on depreciation, on legitimate write-offs on a schedule. That’s how real estate works.”

Klein focuses on the loss of tournaments from Trump branded properties, with only the 2022 PGA currently scheduled at Trump Bedminster. This, after Trump properties hosted 30 significant events across multiple tours from 2001 to 2017.

In typically upbeat tones, Eric Trump said he anticipates getting back to holding major events beyond the 2022 PGA, though he did not assign a time frame to the goal.

“When he gets out of politics,” Trump said of his father, “we’ll do a million tournaments.”

Noteworthy and unfortunately for multiple reasons, including—I believe—as the first significant 2021 tournament cancelled due to the pandemic. (Here is a list of 2020 events cancelled courtesy of GolfDigest.com’s Ryan Herrington.)

The organization’s previously cancelled the Asia Pacific Amateur scheduled for this fall.

For Immediate Release:

2021 LATIN AMERICA AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Future championship plans to be announced at a later date

LIMA, Peru – The 2021 Latin America Amateur Championship (LAAC) has been canceled due
to complications presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LAAC, conducted by the USGA, The R&A and the Masters Tournament, was scheduled to
be played January 14-17, 2021, at Lima Golf Club in Lima, Peru. Future championship plans will
be announced at a later date.

Founded in 2014 by the Masters Tournament, The R&A and the USGA, the LAAC was established to further develop amateur golf in South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The event annually moves to top courses throughout Latin America and showcases the sport’s rising talent in the region.

Notable alumni of the championship include 2018 LAAC champion Joaquin Niemann of Chile,
Sebastian Munoz of Colombia and 2019 champion Alvaro Ortiz of Mexico.

Niemann competed on the 2019 Presidents Cup International team and became the first Chilean to win a PGA Tour event with his victory at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier in September 2019. After winning the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship in 2019, Munoz finished in a tie for eighth in the 2020 PGA Tour playoffs. Last year, Ortiz became the first player from Mexico to compete in the Masters since 1979, finishing as the Low Amateur Runner-Up.

The champion of the LAAC receives an invitation to compete in the Masters Tournament, The
Open, The Amateur Championship, the U.S. Amateur Championship and any other USGA
amateur championship for which he is eligible. The champion and runner(s)-up also receive an
exemption into final qualifying for the U.S. Open.

Since we apparently can’t roll back athleticism or change equipment rules to maintain the relevancy of tournament courses, cockamamie ideas surface from time to time in the name of protecting imaginary bottom lines.

Though I have to say, in twenty years of hearing what efforts golf courses must go to not to act, this falls into the extra-kooky category. Not reptiles-in-the-rough-crazy, but close.

From Rex Hoggard, reporting on a Golf Central podcast conversation with Mike Schy, Bryson DeChambeau’s longtime swing-coach, when asked how you Bryson-proof a course.

“I’ve thought through this and I think I have the answer,” Schy explained on this week’s Golf Central Podcast. “I believe the rough should be scaled so that the closer you get to the green the thicker the rough becomes. Let’s say 60 yards out the rough is 7 inches deep and as you go back [toward the tee] the rough is scaled [shorter].

So, an inch lower every 20 yards? Do you paint a line at each stage, maybe go all grid-like?

Picture a shady character opening up a trunk to reveal the loot. “I’ve got Sun Mountain, I’ve got Tour Trek, and I know a guy with some Stewart X9’s at cost.”

Yes, there is a lively second-hand market for push carts. Hello 2020!

Jonathan Wall at Golf.com reports on the end in sight for manufacturers who’ve been unable to meet the push cart demand that has led to sell-outs, silly second-hand prices and supply shortages:

Dynamic Brands, along with Hansen’s ProActive Sports Groups, the distributor of Clicgear and Rovic brands for USA and Mexico, have been in the same boat as nearly every other manufacturer in the golf equipment industry. Business has been good — really good. But a double-edged sword exists.

At the end of August, Golf Datatech, an independent market research firm, reported a record-breaking month for U.S. golf equipment sales in July, as total sales (on and off the course) soared to $388.6 million. It was the highest total since the company started tracking data in 1997.

Clicgear was already forecasting an increase in sales with the release of its Model 4.0 push-cart — its first new model in several years. What the company didn’t expect was how the pandemic would shape their business. With more golfers requesting push carts than ever before, Clicgear blew through its current supply of Model 4.0’s, along with the rest of its stock. They’ve been playing catch-up ever since with a deep backlog of orders.

A class action lawsuit joined last week by eleven Golf Channel employees has prompted the closing of the network’s Orlando headquarters. The campus is slated for permanent demise this December, with a small number of jobs moving to Stamford, Connecticut where NBC Sports is currently located.

In a late Friday email to staff shared by multiple sources, Golf Channel president Mike McCarley cited the lawsuit in announcing the need to investigate.

“In light of the allegations, we are thoroughly investigating the matter to ensure that our campus environment is safe,” McCarley wrote. “While we do so, out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you continue to work remotely as has been the case during the pandemic. Over the next few days, we will communicate with the limited number of employees currently allowed on-site to further limit access, involving moving our production off-site beginning Monday.”

Another sources says a traditional Monday email to staff offered no follow-up news but did highlight National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a reminder for staff to get flu shots.

The channel faces at least two known lawsuits but none directly related to the Lockheed Martin class-action suit announced last week and reported on by the Orlando Sentinel.

South Coast Today’s Kiernan Dunlop reports on Acushnet’s need to make around 200 hires to handle the surge in golf thanks to distance. That’s…social distance, not actual distance increases. Go figure!

Dunlop writes:

The open houses will continue into October and the company plans to hire over 200 people when all is said and done, according to Laurie Herbert, director of talent acquisition.

Golf has been a positive activity for people to partake in during the coronavirus pandemic, Chief People Officer for Titleist Brendan Reidy said, since it’s outdoors and allows for social distancing.

“We continued to see incredible demand for our products as we came out of the heart of the initial part of the pandemic,” Reidy said, “It has really effectively forced us to look at how we respond to that demand.”

During a time where unemployment and layoffs are rampant, mass hirings by companies seem to be a rarity.

“We’re privileged to be in a position where our business has turned around where we can continue to make these investments,” Reidy said, “To see that Acushnet [Company] is doing well and has come through 2020 in a positive way has really left a positive mark on people.”

Just think Wally, all that money spent on patents and Global Golf Post propaganda pieces to lobby against distance when it was another form of distance that spurring demand.

Either way, love the investment in American jobs and in the company. What a refreshing contrast to so many golf organizations and businesses slashing and burning their way into the future.

The eyes-closed-while-putting component to Sergio Garcia’s Sanderson Farms Championship win is certainly amazing, but other factors added to his emotions.

From Adam Schupak’s thorough Golfweek story on Sergio’s first win since the 2017 Masters:

Afterwards, Garcia dedicated the victory to his father, Victor, who has lost two brothers, Paco and Angel, to COVID-19 back in his native Spain.

“It’s sad,” said Garcia, who now counts Tour wins in three different decades (2000s, 2010s, 2020s). “And I know that a lot of families have lost a lot more people, but you never want to lose anyone like that, and I wanted to win this for them.”

Schupak also details the struggle to find a presentable putting stroke, though the win was still done with trademark Garcia ballstriking and strokes gained leads for the week in driving and approach play.

Garcia now returns to the world top 50 and puts himself in the mix of pre-(November) Masters favorites.