When you think Cleveland wedges, you think classic. You think consistent. And you think Zip – as in Zip Grooves. Well, there’s a fresh Zip in town as today Cleveland Golf unveils its new RTX ZipCore wedge.  

There’s only so much technology that can be added to a blade-style wedge and still keep it a blade-style wedge. While ZipCore maintains much of Cleveland’s RTX DNA, there’s enough innovation here to warrant a closer look. 

With apologies to Brenda Lee, you can consider the Cleveland RTX ZipCore a new old-fashioned wedge.  

Tearing Down the Flagship 

The RTX – and its rotational ROTEX face milling – has been Cleveland’s flagship wedge since 2012. Each iteration has brought slight changes in CG location, groove technology, and sole grinds. With RTX ZipCore, Cleveland is – to a degree – tearing down the flagship and starting fresh.  

“There’s always this balance between pushing performance to the next level of technology and innovation, and Tour players and avid golfers wanting something that’s familiar,” says Cleveland Marketing Director Brian Schielke. “They don’t want to look at something that’s a radically different shape or has a different feel from what they’re used to.” 

With limited on site at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship, PGATour.com’s Stewart Moore did a nice job capturing Sunday evening’s incredible saga of Daniel Summerhays. The 36-year-old announced his retirement to start the week in his hometown event, then fired a final round 62 to be leader in the clubhouse for a few hours. He was eventually tied by two others and lost on the first hole of a three-way playoff, ultimately won by Kyle Jones.

Now he’s going to assess if it’s really time to walk away for the teaching and high school golf coaching job he’s taking.

From Moore’s story:

For the 36-year-old Summerhays, in his post-loss press conference, there was a bit of reflection. Was it time to turn away from a life in golf? He won the Korn Ferry Tour’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship as an amateur in 2007; lost in a playoff at the PGA TOUR’s Sanderson Farms Championship in 2013; in 2016, gained entry into the U.S. Open as the fourth alternate and wound up T8 for the week; that same year, finished solo-third at the PGA Championship with six birdies in his final 10 holes to earn his lone career trip to the Masters Tournament.

That torrid run in major championships was just four years ago.

Tony Paul previews this week’s PGA Tour return to the Motor City for the Rocket Mortgage Classic and finds a negative in the thing I’ve heard the most positive comments about: fan free events devoid of derelicts wailing baba booey.

For starters, there will be no fans, no baba booeys, no elevated blood-alcohol levels. That threatens to suck some of the fun out of the tournament.

And we don't exactly know when there will be another, given the Red Wings and Pistons are done, while the Tigers are supposed to start the season in late July — though COVID-19 has a strange way of keeping everyone from making plans in stone these days.

The tournament lost several multiple players on Monday who hadcommitted, with the PGA Tour announcing Harris English as the fifth player to test positive for COVID-19. He has withdrawn and will spend ten days in quarantine. His Whoop band apparently hasn’t arrived in the mail yet as the boilerplate statement only included the shameless homage to the Ministry of Sawgrass almost assuredly not uttered by English:

PGA TOUR COVID-19 Update - June 29, 2020

 As part of the PGA TOUR’s pre-tournament screening process this week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, PGA TOUR player Harris English tested positive for COVID-19 and has been withdrawn from the event. 

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand helps fill out the shocking exit from golf by Fox Sports with several insights into the deal announced Monday, including this about when discussions started.

Two months ago, after the USGA decided to postpone the U.S. Open to September, Fox Sports execs Eric Shanks and Larry Jones reached out to Pete Bevacqua and Jon Miller at NBC Sports to see if their network -- which owns Golf Channel -- would be willing to carry some of this year’s event. Fox’s fall schedule is jam-packed, and it saw NBC as a potential lifeline to help it carry and sell one of golf’s four majors. Early in the discussions, it became clear that NBC wanted a bigger piece of the USGA package, and Fox wanted out.

Write down time!

Ourand also noted the ultimate problem dooming the Fox-USGA partnership had nothing to do with the production side of the presentation after the first year struggles:

Golf never fit Fox: Fox gets a bad rap for its golf production. The network’s performance at last year’s U.S. Open in Pebble Beach was praised widely. But golf never fit into Fox’s plans. The Fox execs that originally cut this deal -- Chase Carey and Randy Freer -- left the company soon afterwards, and nobody was left to champion the sport. Fox never was close to adding to its golf portfolio; it wasn’t a serious contender for either British Open or PGA Tour rights, which should have been the first sign that it wanted to get out of the USGA deal.

Unfortunate news for the top PGA of America professionals in the U.S. who have seen their annual championship rescheduled and now, cancelled.

Set for Austin in late July, with the top 20 going to the PGA Championship in San Francisco and the top 3 recently announced as U.S. Open exemptions, it’s both a shame and also an eye-opener for August’s championship given the mention of travel restrictions.

The news was emailed to PGA members. Ron Mintz posted the sad news:

The PGA of America announced on Monday that it has canceled the PGA Professional Championship.

1 of 2

“With the health and well-being of our PGA Members, volunteers, rules officials and staff serving as our guiding principles throughout this effort, recent COVID-19 surges in the area and various travel restrictions made our collective pursuit prohibitive.” 2 of 2

Monday marked the 10th day of self-isolation for Nick Watney, the minimum required for PGA Tour players who test positive for the coronavirus.

June 29, 2020

The Story Behind Dropping

Golf is a complicated game. No matter how low your handicap, you will still occasionally end up in a situation where you are dropping a ball. Sometimes dropping can benefit your situation, such as when you get free relief from a condition on the golf course that is not meant to be there (like temporary water or a cart path). Other times, you are dropping because you are in a situation where you cannot or do not want to play your ball as it lies (such as in a penalty area).

In 2019, the dropping procedure saw a major overhaul when it shifted from shoulder height to knee height. However, this was not the first time that this procedure saw a major pivot. In 1984, the Rules of Golf went through another significant reorganization which, at the time, was considered the biggest in the history of the game. While the Rules of Golf had been written jointly by the USGA and The R&A since 1952, each organization was still issuing separate Decisions on the Rules. In 1984, the two organizations came together to write a truly unified code with a single set of Rules and a single set of Decisions.

To take a drop prior to 1984, you were required to stand facing the hole and drop your ball over your shoulder and behind you. Effective in 1984, the Rules of Golf shifted to the shoulder height drop that we are all familiar with.

Dropping Over the Shoulder

Harris English on Monday became the fifth PGA Tour player to test positive for the coronavirus, learning the results at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.

If watch any golf on TV you’ll notice that there certainly doesn’t seem to be one backswing that is universal to all Tour players. Their backswings range from long to short, laid off to across the line and fast to slow. The million dollar question is which one will work best for you and your game. Watch this video to start to understand your options…

Length of Backswing

Don’t be overly anxious to shorten your backswing. If the arms are collapsing or the hands are letting go then by all means work towards making the necessary upgrades.

Longer backswings should almost have an across the line look, while shorter backswings simply must have the clubhead more behind them with a laid off look.

Amount of Time

PGA Tour players Bubba Watson, Harold Varner III, Jason Day and Wesley Bryan will participate in a nine-hole match on Wednesday to benefit charity initiatives for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Press releases these days are usually so light on details and heavy on the fluff. Not this!

Let’s get to it, For Immediate Release:

USGA Announces New Media Rights Partnership with NBCUniversal  

Move is a win for golf fans  

Wow, even the subhead has layers.

No two golfers have identical swings. Why, then, would we assume (or be led to assume) that any two golfers would require exactly the same thing from their equipment?

It’s our mission to understand what equipment best serves each unique golfer. The desire to capture more data is why our 2020 Most Wanted Driver Test consisted of 35 real humans and captured more than 15,540 shots. The more we know about the performance of each of the 37 drivers in our test, the better we can help narrow your choices.

It’s tempting to watch the PGA TOUR and assume the same drivers that work for the pros will also serve you. The data say otherwise.

Once again, we’re segmenting our data for 2020 to provide more meaningful information to the individual golfer. We’ve broken down our driver test results into three different swing speed categories. Today, we’re focusing on slow swing speeds (less than 94 miles per hour).

No two golfers have identical swings. Why, then, would we assume (or be led to assume) that any two golfers would require exactly the same thing from their equipment?

It’s our mission to understand what equipment best serves each unique golfer. The desire to capture more data is why our 2020 Most Wanted Driver Test consisted of 35 real humans and captured more than 15,540 shots. The more we know about the performance of each of the 37 drivers in our test, the better we can help narrow your choices.

It’s tempting to watch the PGA TOUR and assume the same drivers that work for the pros will also serve you. The data say otherwise. Once again, we’re segmenting our data for 2020 to provide more meaningful information to the individual golfer. We’ve broken down our driver test results into three different swing speed categories. For this breakdown, we’re focusing on mid swing speeds (95 to 105 miles per hour).

While overall results for the Most Wanted Driver test yielded small differences, the mid swing speed group showed a significant difference between the longest and shortest drivers. The mid swing speed group is the middle of the bell curve and encompasses the greatest number of golfers so likely you’ll find information here that applies to you.

No two golfers have identical swings. Why, then, would we assume (or be led to assume) that any two golfers would require exactly the same thing from their equipment?

It’s our mission to understand what equipment best serves each unique golfer. The desire to capture more data is why our 2020 Most Wanted Driver Test consisted of 35 real humans and captured more than 15,540 shots. The more we know about the performance of each of the 37 drivers in our test, the better we can help narrow your choices.

It’s tempting to watch the PGA TOUR and assume the same drivers that work for the pros will also serve you. Data say otherwise. Once again, we’re segmenting our data for 2020 to provide more meaningful information to the individual golfer. We’ve broken down our driver test results into three different swing speed categories. For this breakdown, we’re focusing on high swing speeds (greater than 105 miles per hour).  

Whether you’re an off-the-rack buyer, someone who’s constantly tweaking your gear or a golfer who is going to take the time to get fitted by a knowledgeable professional, we’re here to help you.

This year's U.S. Open at Winged Foot in New York will be broadcast on NBC after Fox Sports asked to end its 12-year contract with the USGA, multiple people told The Associated Press.

Nick Pietruszkiewicz of ESPN.com was one of the select media members on site at the Travelers Championship and summed up the PGA Tour’s third week back:

• There were positive tests, of players and caddies.

• There was the sudden arrival of the PGA Tour commissioner and the possibility of another shutdown.

• There was one major champion leaving and one playing a round all by himself.

So yes, the stark reality of all this was evident all across the property, every day of the week.

He goes on to detail the whirlwind events and while drawing no conclusions, the new normal outlined in the story sounds like something that will be tough to sustain. And this was all before yet another positive test was announced (more later).

But if things continue at this pace of positive tests, contact trace-based WD’s and daily guideline changes and is juxtaposed against nationwide outbreaks, golf’s importance may pale.

The good news?

AP’s Doug Ferguson reports that Fox Sports has “asked to end” its 12-year USGA contract and, over the last two weeks, a deal was ironed out.

Andrew Marchand of the News Corp-owned New York Post, confirmed the news in a Tweet. An announcement is expected Monday.

From Ferguson’s story, the pandemic appears to have played a role:

One person said NBC would pay for just under half of the rights fee through the rest of the contract.

Two other people said the deal began to take shape this month, especially with the U.S. Open being moved to September during the opening month of the NFL.

One person said Fox was contemplating moving the U.S. Open to FS1, an idea that was rebuffed by Mike Davis, the CEO of the USGA. That led to deeper conversations about the contract and how it could be resolved.

Dylan Frittelli became the fourth PGA Tour player to test positive for the coronavirus and had to withdraw from Rocket Mortgage Classic next week in Detroit.

Dustin Johnson ended a 15-month drought and extended his career-long season victory streak to 13 by winning the Travelers Championship.

Things had gone smoothly the first two weeks. That changed this week at the Travelers Championship, where golf's return endured positive tests, needs for adjustments and plenty of resilience.