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Red Hot Horschel wins in New Orleans

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If the Zurich Classic had been a horse race, the track conditions would have been classified as “sloppy,” with multiple inches of rain falling on TPC Louisiana in the New Orleans suburb of Avondale during the week. But on a marathon Sunday, Billy Horschel was the one sprinting victoriously toward the scoring tent.

Horschel took advantage of lift-clean-and-place provisions and made nine birdies on the day en route to an 8-under 64, good enough for a one-shot victory over penultimate-groupmate D.A. Points.

The University of Florida alum vanquished Points with a 26-foot, 8-inch putt on the par-5 No. 18, exacting sweet revenge on the man who had made a tournament-winning putt on the final hole less than a month ago at the Shell Houston Open. Before his second shot on the hole, Horschel had to wait for more than an hour after rain halted play — one of the several times it happened Sunday.

Click here to see pictures of the clubs Horschel used at the Zurich Classic, as well as his “What’s in the bag?” video with GolfWRX on-course reporter Sara Brown.

The celebration from Horschel rivaled the one that erupted from Adam Scott two weeks ago at the Masters and if that seems a little overkill, consider the tremendous breakthrough nature of Horschel’s victory. After knocking on the door a number of times in the last year-plus, Horschel is now on a four-week streak of top-10 finishes. He also has not missed a cut in his last 23 starts, a Tour-best mark.

Horschel’s nine Sunday birdies brought his total for the current season to 220, giving him a staggering lead of 31 on Jimmy Walker. Walker, for his part, finished in a seven-way tie for eighth at 13-under par for the week, shooting 71 on Sunday.

Points was the very epitome of a hard-luck runner-up this week, having made 21 birdies and a mere two bogies in 72 holes. He capped a stellar performance this week with a bogey-free, seven-birdie Sunday 65. That charge included a six-foot birdie make on the final hole that proved anticlimactic after Horschel ended things early.

Kyle Stanley parlayed a final-round 67 into a solo third-place finish at 17-under par, his best finish on Tour since his victory at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February 2012. Perhaps this portends a continued run of good play from the Washington native and former Clemson University standout who now calls South Carolina home.

Teenage phenom Tianlang Guan finished up his Zurich Classic on Sunday with a 2-over 74, landing him at 4-over par for the tournament and in 71st place. In spite of a lackluster final 36 holes, his making the cut at only 14 years old is an impressive achievement and has golf fans salivating about what the future holds for the young native of China.

The Tour moves east to Charlotte, N.C. this week for the Wells Fargo Championship, where Rickie Fowler earned his maiden Tour victory in 2012.

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Tim grew up outside of Hartford, Conn., playing most of his formative golf at Hop Meadow Country Club in the town of Simsbury. He played golf for four years at Washington & Lee University (Division-III) and now lives in Pawleys Island, S.C., and works in nearby Myrtle Beach in advertising. He's not too bad on Bermuda greens, for a Yankee. A lifelong golf addict, he cares about all facets of the game of golf, from equipment to course architecture to PGA Tour news to his own streaky short game.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Blanco

    Apr 29, 2013 at 3:11 am

    I remember spending a half hour watching this guy hit 8 footers off a Putting Tutor at the Fry’s.com in 2011. Had never heard of him before that. I remember thinking: is this one of the guys that floats around the 120s who we never see? Or is he a young gun on the rise?

    Thine hath rizen Sir Horschel. Thine!

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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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