Golfing News & Blog Articles

Spirit of the Game: Collin Morikawa—Coming Up Big

May 17, 2021

When it mattered the most, being short proved a great advantage for Cal alum Collin Morikawa.

This is not about his diminutive stature but rather his length off the tee. TPC Harding Park was a bombers’ paradise until the critical moment of the final round of last year’s PGA Championship on the short par-4 16th.

With the hole playing at 294-yards it was inviting players to have a crack, particularly as nine of them had been part of the lead during a frantic final round. Someone had to step up. Problem was, in these modern times of big hitters, for most of them, 294 yards is too short to wail away with driver.

Bryson DeChambeau hits his drives over 350 yards, so to Tony Finau. Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Matthew Wolff, Cameron Champ … the list of long hitters in contention was long.

Thirty years ago, an anonymous ninth alternate won the PGA Championship. It was John Daly. As he triumphed, a family grieved, a father and husband killed at the tournament when he was struck by lightning. Daly and the family are forever linked.

Your Golf Ball Questions Answered

Over the past couple of weeks, we asked you to send in your golf ball-related questions. Suffice it to say there were more than we could handle in a single serving—which is awesome—but we picked a couple of handfuls. Here you go. If your question wasn’t answered, keep them coming and maybe we’ll do another one of these again.

Let’s get it.

Q (@richriker): Have we reached peak performance with golf balls? Is it now just about manufacturing cost savings and price points?

A: Balls sure as hell aren’t going to get longer but that’s been true for quite some time. As with all things golf, there is always room for gains through material advancement and companies will continue to tweak launch and spin profiles. Aerodynamics is the least understood area of golf ball design so there’s an opportunity, for example, to provide greater wind stability. You’re also going to see improved ionomer cover blends as brands try and get closer to urethane performance at a lower cost.

Monday qualifier Dicky Pride won the Mitsubishi Electric Classic on Sunday for his first PGA Tour Champions title, closing with a 5-under 67 for a 3-stroke victory.

K.H. Lee earned his first PGA Tour victory Sunday at the AT&T Byron Nelson, finishing at 25 under for a 3-stroke win over third-round leader Sam Burns. With the win comes a spot in next week's PGA Championship.

Sam Burns still has the lead going into the final round of the AT&T Byron Nelson despite more magic on the 18th green from local favorite Jordan Spieth.

Paul Goydos will take a 1-shot lead into the final round of the Mitsubishi Electric Classic after shooting a bogey-free 3-under 69 on Saturday.

Richard Bland won his first European Tour title at the 478th attempt after beating Guido Migliozzi in a playoff at the British Masters on Saturday.

When you think of premier golf resorts in the United States, it’s the usual cast of suspects. My hunch is that Big Cedar Lodge in Branson, Mo., might not make your list.

It should.

Maybe it’s because the brainchild of Johnny Morris (founder of Bass Pro Shops) bills itself as a premier wilderness resort, replete with myriad outdoor activities. Set against the backdrop of Missouri’s Ozark Mountains and Table Rock Lake, Big Cedar has plenty to offer beyond its three 18-hole championship courses and two short courses.

Compared to golf-centric destinations such as Streamsong and Bandon Dunes, Big Cedar leans more toward a guilt-free golf trip designation. The city of Branson with its lengthy list of family-friendly activities is about a 15-minute drive from Big Cedar. More on that in a bit.

The point is that Big Cedar Lodge isn’t exclusively about golf. That said, for the golfing enthusiast, it easily could be.

Sam Burns birdied six of his last eight holes Friday for a 10-under 62 and a two-stroke lead over Alex Noren at 17 under after the second round of the AT&T Byron Nelson.

Stephen Ames had a "steady" Friday at the Mitsubishi Electric Classic, shooting a 6-under 66 for a 1-stroke lead over Paul Goydos.

Phil Mickelson accepted a special exemption from the United States Golf Association to play in the U.S. Open next month at Torrey Pines.

Lost in this week’s big TaylorMade news is the fact that golf’s two other top dogs have released remarkably strong Q1 financial reports. Both Callaway and Acushnet blew away 2020’s COVID-infected Q1 results. What makes it interesting is both companies outperformed their pre-COVID 2019 numbers.  

And not by a little, either.  

Acushnet is reporting $581 million in sales for Q1. That’s up 42 percent from 2020 and 34 percent from 2019. Callaway, meanwhile, says it hit $652 million in Q1. That’s a new Q1 company record. It also represents a 47-percent increase over last year and a 26-percent jump from 2019. 

What’s more, both companies reported healthy net profits.  

No doubt about it. The golf business is hot right now.  

The new Evnroll V-Series is all about versatility. Hence the “V” part of the V-Series moniker.

To be more specific, we’re talking about four interchangeable hosels and six different heads.

The four hosels offered are: short slant, short plumber, long plumber and long slant. Each fits a different type of putting stroke and while creating various amounts of offset.

With that said, we’d like to get some feedback from MyGolfSpy readers.

Omar Uresti, at 52, has stirred up some controversy by playing in PGA professional events. He also is one of the players who let Michael Collins carry his bag. So, yes, there's a lot to talk about.

Jordan Spieth nailed a 55-foot eagle putt on the par-5 18th and shot 9-under 63 on Thursday, giving him a share of the lead with J.J. Spaun at the Byron Nelson.

Amy Bockerstette's historic appearance at the NJCAA women's golf national championship came to an unexpected and early end Thursday when the final round was reduced because of weather conditions.

Scotland's Robert MacIntyre has made plans for another late-night gaming session after carding a six-under-par 66 to take a share of the halfway lead at the British Masters on Thursday.

One day after an NCAA women's golf regional was abruptly canceled, multiple coaches were still puzzled by the controversial decision.

Whether the relationship is correlative or causal, increased distance and lower scores are inextricably linked.

And whether the topic is biomechanics, flexibility, sequencing or anything else, the common denominator is speed. As in swing speed.

Though the market now features a variety of relatively similar products, it’s fair to suggest SuperSpeed created the mousetrap upon which others are trying to improve.

What is SuperSpeed?

A quick refresher. SuperSpeed Golf believes its OverSpeed training system has benefits for any level of golfer. The basic premise is that every player can access more speed than he/she currently has because of how our brain receives and communicates certain information.

In plain English: Swinging a training stick faster than normal causes your brain to remember this faster speed—even start expecting it.