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Ernie Els is done with Augusta National, calling his relationship with the venue a “f—ing nightmare”

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For most players, bidding farewell to Augusta National is an emotional and difficult experience; however, Ernie Els is not one of those players, and on Friday he explained why he is perfectly content with the fact that he’s unlikely to drive down Magnolia Lane again in his career.

Speaking to the New York Post, the South African disclosed how he won’t miss the annual trip to Augusta National, stating how he’s “had enough of it.”

“To be honest with you, I won’t miss the place. I had enough of it – especially the last five years I played it terribly.”

Els kicked off his 2016 Masters campaign with a now infamous seven-putt, while in 2017 Els finished the event on a total of 20-over par. For the Big Easy, he’s sick of the sting that Augusta National has continuously inflicted throughout his career.

“When a thing stings you it keeps stinging you,” Els said. “When it gives to you it keeps on giving. I’ve seen that with Gary Player. I’ve seen it with Jack (Nicklaus). I’ve got a love-hate relationship with the place. It was always almost like a curse to me. It was not a romantic deal to me. It was a f**king nightmare for the most part.”

The 49-year-old finished runner-up at the Masters twice, with his closest call coming in 2004 where he was beaten by a dramatic birdie on the final hole from Phil Mickelson. Attaining the green jacket is one of the few significant achievements which Els’ resume lacks, and for the four-time major champ, he believes that it’s a course which will only continue to provide painful experiences should he perform there any more.

“You start disliking the place when you shouldn’t. I try to keep my honor for the golf course and the people, because the members are great and the course is actually great. But it just doesn’t want to give me anything and then I was finally like, ‘You know what? That’s fine. Let’s move on.’

It’s like, ‘Sh-t, it’s not giving me anything. How many times do you want to run into a wall?’ That how I felt my last couple of years. I didn’t want to say it before, and I don’t have any bad feelings about it. It’s just the way it is. I had enough of it. Move on. It’s a unique place, but I’m done with it. It’s done with me.”

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Gianni is the Managing Editor at GolfWRX. He can be contacted at [email protected].

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. Pelling

    Mar 14, 2019 at 8:53 am

    Ernie joins a long list players over the years to be teased by Augusta’s lure. McIlroy, Rose, Day, Love, Kite, Norman, Miller, Weiskopf, Venturi all had claims to the green jacket.

  2. Tom

    Mar 13, 2019 at 3:58 pm

    ‘Gianni the brute’ deleted my comments….obviously censorship, sad.

  3. A. Commoner

    Mar 12, 2019 at 7:24 pm

    Wonder why vulgarity has to be part of public comments. Maybe to impress the young?

  4. miek

    Mar 12, 2019 at 8:35 am

    apparently journalism major is now one semester long and the only thing they teach is how to write a click bait headline.

  5. Mower

    Mar 11, 2019 at 9:24 pm

    That is one fine clickbait article title.
    Earnie’s dissing Augusta, wait… oh, it’s out of context.

  6. Brian

    Mar 11, 2019 at 7:12 pm

    He’s awesome.

  7. TheFightingEdFiori's

    Mar 11, 2019 at 7:04 pm

    Perfect example of a misleading title. Total clickbait… but still interesting quotes from the Big Easy.

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Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

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Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.

This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.

Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.

The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.

Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.

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Equipment

Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.

Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.

Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.

According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.

He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.

Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

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Equipment

Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.

After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.

According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.

“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…

“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

 

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