Golfing News & Blog Articles

The Augusta Chronicle’s Damon Cline considers the economic impact of a fan-free Masters and some of the numbers are eye-opening.

The tournament historically could be counted on to fill up metro area hotel rooms – currently 7,200 – and rented homes, which exceed 4,000 listings. On the Georgia side of the market, which has the majority of rooms and short-term rentals, visitors pay “tournament-priced” room rates as well as a 6% lodging tax, $1 a night local fee and a $5 a night state fee.

Richmond County, for example, collects an average of $1.4 million in hotel-motel tax revenues from the month of April, which is about three times higher than the average month.

Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce CEO Sue Parr, who oversees the Masters Housing Bureau, the sole Augusta National-sanctioned home-rental service, said she believes homeowners and renters will work out arrangements for refunds or will hold reservations over for the 2021 tournament.

“All of the above are opportunities for the homeowner and the renter to find that win-win,” she said.

One are not addressed: how many are willing to rent their home out in these times?

Sam Horsfield captured his second title in three weeks on the European Tour by winning the Celtic Classic on Sunday, completing his bogey-free round of 4-under 67 in fading light to finish two strokes clear.

The New York Times’ Ben Smith looks at the last week or so of bad but inevitable news for the studio system as streaming services outmaneuver the famous brands owned by the AT&T’s, Comcast’s, Viacom’s and even Disney’s of the world.

But this being a golf blog the last quote was quite the golf analogy from legendary investor/executive Barry Diller.

“Disney will remain relevant into the future,” said Barry Diller, who once headed Paramount and Fox and is now chief executive of the digital media company IAC. “All of the rest of them are caddies on a golf course they’ll never play.”

As for sports streaming and golf, the same change still seems a ways off given the inconvenience and clunkiness of streaming sports. But the inevitable change is coming.

Tyler Strafaci won the U.S. Amateur on Sunday at foggy Bandon Dunes to beat Charles Osborne 1-up.

Nice to see all-around nice guy Jim Herman find something with a remarkable 61-63 run at Sedgefield CC to win the 2020 Wyndham Championship. The win is his third, and tops his previous best finish this season, a 27th at the 20 player TOC at Kapalua.

Herman turned it around and—besides that 2021 Masters berth (don’t ask)—that all-important spot in the playoffs. Or in the latest lame FedExCup parlance, he worked his way in. Many others worked themselves out Sunday. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work.

Loved Herman’s post round remarks on finding his putting in Adam Schupak’s game story:

Herman, 42, made one critical switch this week, changing to a Bettinardi putter he’d used before and going to a cross-handed putting grip. It did wonders as he holed 444 feet of putts this week and rankled third in Strokes Gained: Putting. The short stick has always been Herman’s bugaboo. He used the claw putting stroke when he won the Shell Houston Open in 2016 and a conventional grip at the 2019 Barbasol Championship.

“For those that struggle putting, you definitely experiment often. I thought maybe last summer when I putted so well at Barbasol, maybe I was on to something, it would be something that stuck,” Herman said. “Then I was off the putter and out of that style by the end of the wraparound Fall start.”

A week after Collin Morikawa posted the lowest final 36 by a major winner, Herman tied the lowest weekend 36 by a winner in PGA Tour history, writes GolfChannel.com’s Will Gray.

Brentley Romine reports for GolfChannel.com on Tyler Strafaci capturing the Havemeyer Trophy in a 1 up thriller against Ollie Osbourne. The two combined for 25 birdies and an eagle despite, at times, zero visibility in the late Bandon Dunes evening hours.

Strafaci is now the fourth Georgia Tech player to win the Havemeyer Trophy, joining Bobby Jones (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1930), Matt Kuchar (1997) and his former teammate Andy Ogletree (2019). The Yellow Jackets are the first program ever to have different players win two consecutive U.S. Amateurs.

I loved seeing these names today as Georgia Tech became the first to have duel back-to-back U.S. Am winners on top of their other former winners.

The last school to have two different players win consecutive #USAmateur titles: University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

H.J. Whigham (1896-97)
Findley S. Douglas (1898)@GTGolf with Tyler Strafaci and last year's winner Andy Ogletree could join them today.

Steven Gibbons’ images for the USGA.

Golf.com’s Kevin Cunningham follows up on a situation that arose Friday at the Wyndham. I didn’t think much of it because the ball in question seemed to be moving and that Rafael Cabrera-Bello was in his right to walk slowly, even if the period lasted over 10 seconds.

Turns out, the rules officials on site didn’t see it that way. Cabrera-Bellow told what press was assembled at Sedgefield that he had convince officials not to penalize him.

“So what they wanted to speak to me about is they felt that I took too long to approach the hole,” Cabrera-Bello said Friday night. “We reviewed the footage and the referee said that it was so, so close and so tight, but they wanted to know if I have deliberately to slow down my walk to the hole and I told them that I didn’t, I slowed down because I saw my playing partners walking in.”

According to Rule 13.3a, in such a scenario players have a reasonable time to walk up to the ball and then 10 more seconds to wait for it to fall. If it falls in after that time, the golfer receives one penalty stroke.

That would account for the overall 20 seconds here, but let that be a lesson: you have the walk-up time plus 10 seconds—should you be so fortunate to have one teetering on the edge.

The putt:

Jim Herman rallied to win the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his third PGA Tour title, a victory the 42-year-old said he didn't see coming.

A hole-in-one on the 12th hole at Firestone helped Jerry Kelly seize control at the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship on Sunday as he won his first major on the PGA Tour Champions by two shots over Scott Parel.

The PGA Tour regular season is over. Only 125 players qualified for the FedEx Cup playoffs. Here's the full list.

Telegraphing another long day with her slower peers at the Renaissance Club, Stacy Lewis vowed Sunday to not complain to her caddie.

This is what it has come to.

Lewis prevailed in the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open after four-player playoff that included Azahara Munoz, Cheyenne Knight and Emily Pederson.

Here is what she said after Saturday’s tepid round, from Beth Ann Nichols:

“I think the biggest challenge for me tomorrow is staying in what I’m doing,” Lewis, “and the pace of play is dreadfully slow, and that doesn’t play into my favor. People I’m playing with are pretty slow.”

Stacy Lewis captured the Ladies Scottish Open title after a dramatic playoff with Azahara Munoz, Cheyenne Knight and Emily Kristine Pederson.

FIlipino-Japanese golfer Yuka Saso conquered the NEC Karuizawa 72 championship in Kitasaku-gun, Negano Prefecture in Japan on Sunday.

Tyler Strafaci and Charles Osborne advanced to the U.S. Amateur final Saturday at Bandon Dunes to earn spots next year in the Masters and U.S. Open. Sunday's winner also earns a spot in The Open in 2021.

I’ll admit it’s the links golf. Deprived of a proper links season, we have an epic day ahead this Sunday book-ended by links golf (and yes purists, I’m aware neither is technically a links).

I know I don’t have to tell you about the Wyndham Rewards runner-up race and Playoff(C) ramifications Sunday at soggy Sedgefield. Frankly, I just don’t want to add any stress in your life.

So let’s focus on the “other” golf. In the pandemic era this one is set up to be a doozy.

If you’re up at 5 am ET, Golf Channel will have the European Tour finale where a 2017 Walker Cupper, Conor Syme, leads a teammate, Sam Horsfield. Beef, now comfortable playing in a COVID-19 world, is lurking.

Easily the most compelling Sunday leaderboard can be found at a firmer, faster Renaissance Club in lovely Gullane, and other than the creepy Aberdeen Standard adverts on the tees, the final round on Golf Channel runs from 7-11 am ET.

While Bandon Dunes hosts the U.S. Amateur, this happened over at the Sheep Ranch. We’ll take their word for it on the ball going in giving the quality of the reactions. A putter at 16 to make 1:

Amazing golf isn't just being played on #BandonDunes in the #USAmateur this week, it's also being played on #SheepRanch. Check out this ace by @the4koehnkes (IG) on No. 16 with her putter! The boys on Bandon may want to take notes on playing the ground game more often. 😉 @USGA pic.twitter.com/hvaAuqzn72

Si Woo Kim takes a two-stroke lead into Sunday’s Wyndham final round, but it’s the two shots he hit while tape rolled (or things were beamed to the Cloud…you get the idea).

After an ace at Sedgefield’s third, Kim had a chance for another as predicted by Jim Nantz.

The next obvious question was answered by Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com:

Only three other players on tour have ever made two aces in one round, with Brian Harman the last to do so at the 2015 Barclays. Kim, meanwhile, will have to instead settle for a two-shot lead as he tries to pick up his third career victory on Sunday.

Jerry Kelly bogeyed two of the last four holes for another even-par 70, leaving him with a one-shot lead Saturday in the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.

Si Woo Kim thinks he's playing like he did four years ago when he earned his first PGA Tour victory at the Wyndham Championship.

Connor Syme carded a bogey-free 63 to take the lead heading into the final day.