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GolfWRX Morning 9: Louis king again | Q-School craziness

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5 years ago

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By Ben Alberstadt ([email protected])

December 10, 2018

Good Monday morning, golf fans.
1. King again!
Louis Oosthuizen captured his home country’s open for his first win in three years.
  • Ryan Herrington writes…”Louis Oosthuizen was already the winner of a historic Open title, but on Sunday he claimed arguably a more meaningful one to the 36-year-old. With a closing 67 at Randpark Golf Club in Johannesburg, Oosthuizen posted a runaway six-stroke victory over France’s Romain Langasque at the South African Open, his home country’s oldest tournament.”
  • “I wish the family was here,” said a tearful Oosthuizen, ending a nearly three-year winless drought. “The crowd was great this whole week, it was nice to do it for them.”
  • “It was Oosthuizen’s eighth career European Tour triumph, four of which have come in events in South Africa. But this was the first time he’s won his country’s Open after playing in the event for the first time since a third-place finish in 2010.”
2. St. Simons boys triumph
Patton Kizzire and Brian Harman, both residents of St. Simons Island, joined forces to win the QBE Shootout.
  • PGATour.com’s Cameron Morfit …”We’re normally trying to get into each other’s heads,” Kizzire said after the St. Simons Island, Georgia duo shot a best-ball, final-round 61 in blustery weather to reach 30-under and win the unofficial QBE at Tiburón Golf Club. “And this week he was nice to me, which was kind of weird.”
  • Added Harman: “I was hoping I wasn’t going to throw him for a loop.”
  • “For the second straight year Graeme McDowell finished second, this time with a new partner, Emiliano Grillo. They made par on 18 to finish 29-under, one back.”
  • “Three teams shared third, two back: Charles Howell III and Luke List, who was 9-under on his own ball over the last nine holes as they shot 61; Kevin Na and Bryson DeChambeau (62); and Charley Hoffman and Gary Woodland (63), their highlight coming when Woodland aced the 202-yard 5th hole.”
3. A horrific stolen clubs story…with a happy ending
From our Gianni Magliocco…:”Web.com Tour Q-School is well known for being a gruelling process, and while 49 players graduated over the weekend, one man was forced to go to hell and back to do so.”
  • “Cody Blick sat three shots outside of the desired Top-40 heading into Sunday’s final round, and on waking up that morning to prepare for the biggest round of his life, the 25-year-old realized that his clubs had been stolen.”
  • “Blick took to social media immediately, desperately hoping that anyone could help him, offering $5k no questions asked should his clubs be returned.”
  • “Blick was unable to recover his clubs though, meaning he was forced to put together a mishmash of different clubs before Sunday’s final round. According to the Mackenzie Tour Twitter account, they consisted of the “Superintendent’s driver, pro shop’s wedges, random irons and a heavier than usual putter.”
  • “After all of that, Blick pulled off a miracle. The American fired a sensational round of nine-under par 63, which included birdies at his final three holes, to take him into the coveted Top-40.”
4. Walker: Q-School Medalist
PGATour.com Staff report...”With a tight leaderboard down the stretch at Final Stage of the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament, University of Virginia alum Danny Walker emerged from the pack to birdie his final three holes and claim medalist honors at 27-under at Whirlwind Golf Club. Coming from the fourth-to-last group, Walker posted an early 9-under 63 before waiting for his fate as the final groups finished. With the victory, Walker earns fully-exempt status on the Web.com Tour in 2019.”
  • “Players who finished top-40 (and ties) earned guaranteed starts next year. This year, the cutoff came at 18-under 270 with 49 players earning guaranteed starts.”
  • “I’m super excited right now – my goal was to come top-10 this week, so I wasn’t really thinking about winning,” Walker said. “But I’m excited about it now obviously and relieved to have the week done, it’s a stressful week for everybody so it feels good to play well.”
5. The Shark wishes he went single length!  
Here’s an interesting note (or maybe just a Cobra staffer hyping a product his sponsor has cornered the market on among major OEMs).
  • Golfweek’s Dan Kilbridge…”The equipment issue came up on air Saturday afternoon while Norman was watching Bryson DeChambeau. The 25-year-old has already picked up five PGA Tour wins using Cobra King One Length irons, and Norman said he wishes he could have put them in play when he first started out as an amateur.”
  • “Believe it or not, if I had to do it all over again as a 13 or 14-year-old, I would go to one-length clubs,” Norman said. “I actually had a set made for me when (DeChambeau) first came and joined Cobra Puma and I got it straight off the bat. When you think about it, my 4-iron and my 8-iron are the same length, but my ball flight was so good on all of them because your spine angle stays the same.”
  • “I truly do believe that,” Norman said. “I think parents now, for longevity, golf is a sport you can play your entire life, so if you look at that motion that (DeChambeau’s) going through there it’s such an effortless motion. He’s stacked up beautifully. At the end of the day, the motion is so simple through there. So the one-length golf club, in my humble opinion, give a kid at six, seven, eight … get him used to it and he’ll do well.”
6. Steph’s tourney to Lake Merced
Golf Channel’s Will Gray...”A new PGA Tour event in the Bay Area hosted by NBA superstar Steph Curry is now expected to debut next fall at Lake Merced Golf Club.”
  • “According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, the club’s membership voted “overwhelmingly” to approve an estimated $3.6 million in renovations that are viewed as a “prerequisite to holding the tournament.” The planned changes will reportedly be overseen by Rees Jones and could stretch the Daly City, Calfornia, course beyond 7300 yards.”
  • “Lake Merced has hosted an LPGA event four of the past five years, with Lydia Ko winning three times. It is slated to host the LPGA’s MediHeal Championship from May 2-5 next year. The Curry-hosted event is expected to take place in September as part of the fall portion of the 2019-20 season and likely close to the Safeway Open, which is annually played in Napa.”
7. LET in Limbo
Golfweek’s Alistair Tait…”The 2019 LET Qualifying School is scheduled Dec. 16-20 in Morocco. Once again, those players who earn one of the 25 cards have no idea how many tournaments they will play next year. The LET has yet to publish its 2019 schedule.
  • It cost $1,450 to enter this year’s Q-School. Imagine getting your dream job and having no idea where, when and if you’ll be working?”
  • “There were just 15 events on this year’s LET schedule. Two of those – the $3.25 million Ricoh Women’s British Open and $3.85 million Evian Championship – were majors and basically out of reach for most Q-School grads. The $1.5 million Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open is essentially an LPGA event and also is off-limits to most Q-School grads. In other words, those who earned cards were playing in low-purse events.”
  • “By low purses we’re talking between a low of $140,000 for the Jabra Ladies Open to $500,000 for the Hero Women’s Indian Open. The first four events on this year’s schedule were co-sanctioned with the Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour. Two of those were worth just over $100,000. You don’t have to be a math genius to work out that traveling to, and accommodation in, Australia isn’t cheap. Even a top-10 finish in those events could leave players taking a loss on the week.”
8. Pining for the Q-School of yore?
According to the Forecaddie, some Tour vets are feeling a bit of nostalgia.
  • “For almost 50 years, the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament was the coliseum for Sansabelt soldiers, where battle-scarred veterans and fresh-faced rookies fought it out over six days to earn their stripes. For every career launched at Q-School, many others crashed to earth. Stories from that make-or-break week are plentiful and almost always painful. Like Steve Haskins, a journeyman who entered the arena 14 times but never made it out with a Tour card.”
  • “Even those who survived the gauntlet have scar tissue. It’s been 35 years since Brad Faxon’s only trip to Q-School, but he can recall it with forensic detail still. Fall 1983, TPC Sawgrass, 108 holes with a cut after 72.”
  • “I shot 71 in the fourth round to move way up,” Faxon said. “Then rain and lightning came and they cancelled everybody’s scores. Next day I shot 76 and went from the top 10 to, like, 50th place.” He narrowly made the cut and secured a card that he kept for almost three decades.
9. Q-School heartbreak
Move over, Cody Blick…
  • Golf Digest’s Joel Beall…”Sullivan, a 35-year-old journeyman who missed 20 of 23 cuts on the Web.com Tour last season, looked to be in fine standing to retain Web status for 2019, in 23rd place heading into the final round of Q-School at Whirlwind G.C. in Chandler, Ariz. Unfortunately for Sullivan, on a day when the field went low, he hovered around par for 13 holes, and then had the bad fortune of finding the water on the 14th hole.”
  • Sullivan tweeted…”We’ve heard all the QSchool horror stories over the years. I was wondering if anyone had ever putted it into the water on the back nine to miss by one? If not…..dibs.”
  • “Sullivan ultimately made a double, and followed with a bogey on the 15th. And while he did mount a commendable charge, answering with a birdie on the 16th and eagle on the 17th, Sullivan missed a four-footer on the final hole.”

 
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Photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship

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May 7, 2024

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GolfWRX is live this week at the Wells Fargo Championship as a field of the world’s best golfers descend upon Charlotte, North Carolina, hoping to tame the beast that is Quail Hollow Club in this Signature Event — only Scottie Scheffler, who is home awaiting the birth of his first child, is absent.

From the grounds at Quail Hollow, we have our usual assortment of general galleries and WITBs — including a look at left-hander Akshay Bhatia’s setup. Among the pullout albums, we have a look inside Cobra’s impressive new tour truck for you to check out. Also featured is a special look at Quail Hollow king, Rory McIlroy.

Be sure to check back throughout the week as we add more galleries.

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

See what GolfWRXers are saying about our Wells Fargo Championship photos in the forums.

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SuperStroke acquires Lamkin Grips

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1 day ago

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May 6, 2024

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SuperStroke announced today its purchase of 100-year-old grip maker Lamkin Grips, citing the company’s “heritage of innovation and quality.”

“It is with pride and great gratitude that we announce Lamkin, a golf club grip brand with a 100-year history of breakthrough design and trusted products, is now a part of the SuperStroke brand,” says SuperStroke CEO Dean Dingman. “We have always had the utmost respect for how the Lamkin family has put the needs and benefits of the golfer first in their grip designs. If there is a grip company that is most aligned with SuperStroke’s commitment to uncompromised research, design, and development to put the most useful performance tools in the hands of golfers, Lamkin has been that brand. It is an honor to bring Lamkin’s wealth of product innovation into the SuperStroke family.”

Elver B. Lamkin founded the company in 1925 and produced golf’s first leather grips. The company had been family-owned and operated since that point, producing a wide array of styles, such as the iconic Crossline.

According to a press release, “The acquisition of Lamkin grows and diversifies SuperStroke’s proven and popular array of grip offerings with technology grounded in providing golfers optimal feel and performance through cutting-edge design and use of materials, surface texture and shape.”

CEO Bob Lamkin will stay on as a board member and will continue to be involved with the company.

“SuperStroke has become one of the most proven, well-operated, and pioneering brands in golf grips and we could not be more confident that the Lamkin legacy, brand, and technology is in the best of hands to continue to innovate and lead under the guidance of Dean Dingman and his remarkably capable team,” Lamkin said.

Related: Check out our 2014 conversation with Bob Lamkin, here: Bob Lamkin on the wrap grip reborn, 90 years of history

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Tour Rundown: Pendrith, Otaegui, Longbella, and Dunlap soar

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May 6, 2024

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Take it from a fellow who coaches high school golf in metro Toronto: there’s plenty of great golf played in the land of the maple leaf. All the greats have designed courses over the USA border: Colt, Whitman, Ross, Coore, Mackenzie, Doak, as well as the greatest of the land, Stanley Thompson. I’m partial to him, because he wore my middle name with grandeur. Enough about the architecture, because this week’s Tour Rundown begins with a newly-minted, Canadian champion on the PGA Tour. Something else that the great white north is known for, is weather. It impacted play on three of the world’s tours, forcing final-round cancellations on two of them.

It was an odd week in the golf world. The LPGA and the Korn Ferry were on a break, and only 13/15 of the rounds slated, were played. In the end, we have four champions to recognize, so let’s not delay any longer with minutiae about the game that we love. Let’s run it all down with this week’s Tour Rundown.

PGA Tour: TP takes TS at Byron’s place

The 1980s was a decade when a Canadian emergence was anticipated on the PGA Tour. It failed to materialize, but a path was carved for the next generation. Mike Weir captured the Masters in 2003, but no other countrymen joined him in his quest for PGA Tour conquest. 2024 may herald the long-awaited arrival of a Canadian squad of tour winners. Over the past few years, we’ve seen Nick Taylor break the fifty-plus year dearth of homebred champions at the Canadian Open, and players like Adam Hadwin, Corey Conners, Adam Svennson, and Mackenzie Hughes have etched their names into the PGA Tour’s annals of winners.

This week, Taylor Pendrith joined his mates with a one-shot win at TPC Craig Ranch, the home of the Byron Nelson Classic. Pendrith took a lead into the final round and, while the USA’s Jake Knapp faltered, held on for the slimmest of victories. Sweden’s Alex Noren posted six-under 65 on Sunday to move into third position, at 21-under par. Ben Kohles, a Texan, looked to break through for his first win in his home state. He took the lead from Pendrith at the 71st hole, on the strength of a second-consecutive birdie.

With victory in site, Kohles found a way to make bogey at the last, without submerging in the fronting water. His second shot was greenside, but he could not move his third to the putting surface. His fourth was five feet from par and a playoff, but his fifth failed to drop. Meanwhile, Pendrith was on the froghair in two, and calmly took two putts from 40 feet, for birdie. When Kohles missed for par, Pendrith had, at last, a PGA Tour title.

DP World Tour: China Open in Otaegui’s hands after canceled day four

It wasn’t the fourth round that was canceled in Shenzhen, but the third. Rains came on Saturday to Hidden Grace Golf Club, ensuring that momentum would cease. Sunday would instead be akin to a motorsports restart, with no sense of who might claim victory. Sebastian Soderberg, the hottest golfer on the Asian Swing, held the lead, but he would slip to a 72 on Sunday, and tie for third with Paul Waring and Joel Girrbach. Italy’s Guido Migliozzi completed play in 67 strokes on day three, moving one shot past the triumvirate, to 17-under par.

It was Spain’s Adrian Otaegui who persevered the best and played the purest. Otaegui was clean on the day, with seven birdies for 65. Even when Migliozzi ceased the lead at the 10th, Otaegui remained calm. With everything on the line, Migliozzi made bogey at the par-five 17th, as his principal competitor finished in birdie. To the Italian’s credit, he bounced back with birdie at the last, to claim solo second. The victory was Otaegui’s fifth on the DP World Tour, and first since October of 2022.

PGA Tour Americas: Quito’s rains gift title to Longbella

Across the world, superintendents and their staffs will do anything to prepare a course for play. Even after fierce, nightime rains, the Quito TG Club greeted the first four groups on Sunday. The rains worsened after 7 am, however, and the tour was forced to abort the final round of play. With scores reverting to Saturday’s numbers, Thomas Longbella’s one-shot advantage over Gunn Yang turned into a Tour Americas victory.

64 held the opening-day lead, and Longbella was not far off, with 66. Yang jumped to the top on day two, following a67 with 66. He posted 68 on day three, and anticipated a fierce, final-round duel for the title. As for Longbella, he fought off a ninth-hole bogey on Saturday with six birdies and a 17th-hole eagle. That rare bird proved to be the winning stroke, allowing Longbella to edge past Yang, and secure ultimate victory.

PGA Tour Champions: Dunlap survives Saturday stumble for win

Scott Dunlap did not finish Saturday as well as he might have liked. After beginning play near Houston with 65, Dunlap made two bogeys in his final found holes on day two, to finish at nine-under par. Hot on his heels was Joe Durant, owner of a March 2024 win on PGA Tour Champions. Just behind Durant was Stuart Appleby, perhaps vibing from his Sunday 59 at Greenbrier on this day in 2010. Neither would have a chance to track Dunlap down.

The rains that have forced emergency responders into action, to save hundreds of lives in the metro Houston area, ended hopes for a third day of play at The Woodlands. Dunlap had won once previously on Tour Champions, in 2014 in Washington state. Ten years later, Dunlap was the fortunate recipient of a canceled final round, and his two days of play were enough to earn him TC victory number two.

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