Golfing News & Blog Articles

Harold Varner III tied his career-low round with an 8-under 62 to grab the early lead at the Wyndham Championship on Thursday.

As Titleist’s T-Series irons roll into Year Two on the market, the company is hoping to get you Jacked for Black with cosmetically updated versions of its two player’s distance offerings, the T100S and the T200.

Why Jacked for Black? Because the irons are black and the lofts are jacked and maybe that’s exciting.

(See what I did there?)

Anyway, line extensions are a proven way to reinvigorate products in their second year on the shelf as competition from new products grows. Everyone does it. Titleist’s previous limited black offerings have sold out in a matter of days so it’s not the least bit surprising that the company would take a shot with T100S and T200.

French golfer Alex Levy has been withdrawn from the Celtic Classic, which started on Thursday.

I thought there were too many great stories and fascinating possibilities to dwell on the Brooks-being-Brooks comments prior to the 2020 final round, but with other players chiming in and Koepka’s final round collapse, he felt the need to speak.

Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch followed up with Koepka Wednesday. You’d think he was an epidemiologist with vaccine news given the space given to the put down of his peers’ major totals. Nonetheless I think Brooks has dug another hole, this time with top 100 peg board owners.

Koepka: Obviously, a lot came from it. I don’t mind the pressure of that stuff. I put more pressure on myself than anything external. At the same time, I didn’t back it up. That’s my own problem. Part of being someone who talks openly and truthfully is that sometimes I come off cocky or arrogant, and it can backfire if you’re not going to play good. That’s exactly what happened.

Lynch: Were you shocked at how poorly you played?

Koepka: Yeah. I got stunned at the bogey at 2 and other ones at 7, 8 and 9. By that point, I was already out of it. I was just trying to cheer Paul [Casey] on because he had a chance to win and my shot was long gone.

Lynch: Based on the social media conversation, half of golf fans seem to appreciate you as a competitive beast and the other half dislike you as a mouthy jerk. Are you okay with that?

Koepka: I think there are layers to that question. I’m not the typical golf guy. I don’t know how else to put that. We didn’t belong to fancy country clubs. I’m not someone who can’t wait to go play those exclusive courses around the country. It doesn’t ‘ooh’ and awe me like it does other people …

Qualifying medalist and rising Alabama senior Wilson Furr advanced to the second round of match play in the U.S. Amateur on Wednesday, beating Chiba's Aaron Du 6 and 4 at Bandon Dunes.

Jeremy Krinn on Twitter gets the credit for the take on Jim Nantz’s Masters motto above.

As for this new, hopefully short-lived tradition, ESPN.com’s Bob Harig reminds us how much Tiger Woods fed off of crowd support in winning the 2019 Masters.

"It was special to have that kind of support, that kind of backing,'' Woods said last fall. "I was going up against the best players in the world. I was trying to come from behind for the first time [to win a major]. And that support was so important.''

Woods clearly understands the current circumstances. He said as much last week at the PGA Championship, where there were no spectators. Golf has done tremendously well in this climate for more than two months, playing each week behind closed doors.

And having the television product for an unprecedented November at Augusta National will still be a highly anticipated and hugely interesting sporting event, with anticipation centering around the look of the place in the fall, how it will play and all manner of golf-related aspects to a year that is off the rails.

One question also answered by Harig: for the first time, there will be merchandise sold online to some. Presumably it’ll lean heavily toward items already made sporting 2020.

It will offer those who had tickets or badges for this year a special "exclusive'' opportunity to buy merchandise online, a potential windfall but one that can't make up for all the hardship of this year.

We all look for a trigger to make our swing feel like a knife cutting through butter. You know that feeling when everything clicks and your ball just take off with unexpected power and your friends ask you if you have been working out. Sure I work out but it’s timing that creates excellence in my swing. Get the panic out of your swing by feeling the STEP that makes your swing effortless.

I got this idea when watching a few videos about the rocking motion from your trailing foot to your lead foot. Be happy with a 90 mile per hours swing and just let your arms go for the ride. As you feel your swing reach the top, take that moment to feel the momentum of your club shifting more body weight to your leading foot. YES, that’s the STEP that I’m talking about.

Start your STEP forward at the top of you swing during the change of direction for your club. If you rush your swing, you will miss the weight shift STEP. Baseball batters STEP forward as they lung into their forward swing. You may even notice golfers who turn their foot forward (or STEP forward) as they transfer their weight to the leading foot at the top of their swing.

It’s a strange feeling if you have never PAUSED for your weight shift at the top of your swing. You will feel like you are delaying your swing but that momentum shift to your leading foot actually allows you to start opening the leading side of your hip and pressing with your trailing foot as your arms drop.  Then release your wrist through the bottom of the swing.

If you don’t rush at the top of your swing, you can feel your weight shift forward as your LAZY arms let your club lags from the top of your swing and then whip through the release with more power through impact. MAKE SURE YOU FINISH YOUR SWING or you will leave the face of your club open for a push or a slice.

The TPCesque marble tee signs are aging gracefully

After Torrey Pines next year and Bethpage’s Ryder Cup in 2025, the major event schedule mostly returns to country clubs or high end resorts (I’m not sure how we’ll characterize Frisco’s PGA Championship course under construction, but it will be open to the public).

As Garrett Morrison wrote in lamenting the winding down of muni major sites, San Francisco hasn’t quite gotten what it hoped for with the $23 million renovation PGA Tour Design Services 2003 effort and the grifting that could have funded refurbishments on all of the city courses.

Still, there is no price to put on the images that came out of San Francisco on east coast prime time and the perfect conclusion to Harding’s resurrection. The course will have just that much more cache when it becomes the regular site of a Steph Curry-hosted fall Tour event and while it’s not a major, the schedule is booked well down the road with no obvious opening until 2031 or so.

While the front nine can get redundant or downright goofy at the 8th, as I noted here with the ShotLink evidence on my side, the back nine presents a pretty stout set of holes and grand conclusion. While the 16th may not be a future template hole, the scatter charts demonstrate a huge variety of ways it was attacked over four days. Not many holes, including Riviera’s vaunted 10th, can make that claim in the era of protein shake six packs and packages of bacon for breakfast.

With the distance discussion in mind, Golf.com’s Jonathan Wall reports on a project to identify the difference between late 20th century balatas and today’s ball. Fresh out of the package and tested with a robot, you’ll be shocked—shocked!—to learn that the ball and elite player launch conditions lead to incredible spikes in driver distance, not so much with irons.

The data and conclusions are useful for two obvious reasons: to diffuse average golfer whining about the tremendous loss in distance they would experience by a tweak of existing equipment regulations, and just how much fitting, spin rates and technology are impacting skill. In other words, the robot became a lot less athletic when hitting a balata.

Please check out the whole piece but Wall’s conclusions are fascinating, including these:

5. If ball spin is utilized to limit distance, this could potentially affect players with different swing styles in different ways. Players with lower spinning shots — for example, an “inside/out” path below 2,400 RPMs spin — will be less affected than a player who plays a power fade — slightly “outside/in” path at 2,600-2,800 RPMs spin — with the same clubhead speed. A universal ball would provide different results based upon its design parameters.


6. If you were to combine the modern-day Tour driver with a Tour-level balata at mid or mid-high spin, a distance loss of 40-plus yards is possible. 


7. Wedge spin is approximately 2000 RPMs higher on the Tour-level balata versus the modern-day solid-construction.


8. Driver distance loss varies based upon launch conditions.


9. 6-iron distance loss is roughly 1 club shorter when comparing the two balls. 


10. An increase in wedge spin would cause some players to adjust their swing to adapt to excessive spin produced with the Tour-level balata and modern-day wedge.

I’m sure point 10 will lead to first world sob stories of cruelty to the youth of golf, but since they get on launch monitors and adjust all the time, I’m confident they will not be permanently harmed in such a process.

Augusta National hoped by waiting so late in the year to hold the 2020 Masters it would have a shot at roars in Amen Corner. Alas, it won't. Why this major being played in eerie quiet will be so different than all the others.

The Masters Tournament rescheduled for November will take place without spectators or guests, due to the coronavirus pandemic that postponed the event from its original date.

Not a huge surprise given the times and the prediction from Augusta’s mayor last week.

Note the “hopefully” in 2021 line in Chairman Fred Ridley’s quote.

Zach Johnson was selected Wednesday to receive the Payne Stewart Award. The award goes to the player who best exemplifies Stewart's value of character, charity and sportsmanship.

The PGA Championship is over, but the PGA Tour rolls on to the Wyndham Championship, where Webb Simpson is the favorite. Here are our experts' best bets.

Riddle me this, Batman: Just what is it that makes the new Cleveland Huntington Beach SOFT Premier putters premier?

Is it price? Not really, they’re only a $30 upcharge from the newly revamped non-premier Huntington Beach SOFT line. Is it performance? Not likely. Once you look under the hood, there’s literally no difference in the putter heads themselves.

Could it be value? It would seem that’s where Cleveland is hanging its hat.

You can’t really call Cleveland’s double-barreled release this week an upgrade to the Huntington Beach SOFT line. One barrel is more of a reshuffling while the other barrel is a new line of cosmetics. But still, an OEM giving you 16 milled-face putters made from 304 stainless steel, all for well south of $200?

That, in the words of Buford T. Justice, is an attention-getter.

Organizers of the Oct. 15-18 Buick LPGA Shanghai said Wednesday that the tournament would not be played because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Collin Morikawa’s second round par on Harding Park’s 16th

Words I never thought I’d type: the 16th at Harding Park for of the more fascinating studies in day-to-day variety outside something we’d see at The Old Course. The credit goes to the PGA of America’s Kerry Haigh, Mother Nature and the players.

With regulatory malfeasance all but rending the risk-reward par-5 extinct, the short par-4 is all we strategy-lovers have as evidence of what we’re missing. Haigh's decision to move the tees up twice, working in conjunction with the conditions and player comfort levels as they got to know the 16th, led to a fascinating four-day dispersion of plays. None moreso than Morikawa’s, whose final round eagle will go down as one of the great shots in modern major history.

Though as I wrote here for The Athletic, the shot got even better when we learned after the round that (A) he originally had no intention of driving the green at any point (B) he caved and drove it Friday and (C) he had to get up and down off the fringe for par in round two.

Morikawa’s memory of going for it was not a positive one. Yet in the final round moment with a chance to win a major, the carrot dangled before Morikawa was just too appealing. To witness a player succumbing to temptation and pulling off the shot, just makes his decision even more bold. That may be why his caddie double-checked about the final round play:

I can’t recall a greater bamboozle, errr, negotiating jobs than the PGA Tour somehow getting Wyndham to pay out $10 million in Rewards for a pre-Playoffs field and no one turning up to claim their easy payday.

An(other) impact fund with no obligations!

Justin Thomas adds to the legacy of Wyndham Rewards winners passing on the Wyndham Championship for very good reasons: he just played a major, will have to turn up at the PGA Tour Playoffs and as Doug Ferguson reports, does not need to hit a shot to collect $2 million. Or even check-in.

Amazingly, Wyndham pays full freight even though it wasn’t even a full PGA Tour schedule (with 11 tournaments cancelled).

The hotelier recently reported second quarter losses of $174 million.

Bandon Dunes gets its first nationally televised event with the 2020 U.S. Amateur.

Wilson Furr is your medalist after posting a -11 total over Bandon Trails and Bandon Dunes. Furr posted a 62 at Bandon Trails. And 18-for-3 playoff Wednesday morning will determine the final spots in the 64-player match play and Furr’s first round opponent.

Defending champion Andy Ogletree failed to advance to match-play by just a stroke while 2019’s runner-up, John Augenstein posted a -5 36-hole total and is in match play.

Cohen Trulio, one of last year’s semi-finalists who drove to Oregon from his Mississippi with his dad, tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw before stroke play started, reports GolfChannel.com’s Brentley Romine.

Golf Channel has all the coverage along with NBC’s new Peacock app, featuring a free option and hopefully fewer crashes per hour than NBC Sports Gold. In a clunky play to push downloads, you’ll have to watch for an hour on Peacock and then go to Golf Channel Wednesday to Friday before everything moves to Golf Channel through the conclusion. In the recent past, the U.S. Amateur final would get NBC and Fox network airings, but not this year.

Justin Thomas, who has a PGA Tour-best three victories this season, will be the top seed when the FedEx Cup playoffs begin, resulting in a $2 million bonus.