Opinion & Analysis

My 10 favorite assignments of 2020

Published

3 years ago

Dec 22, 2020

In December of 2012, my first GolfWRX article reached your eyes. For trivia buffs, it considered the viability of sidesaddle putting. Mash all the polemics of 2012 to 2019 together, and they won’t add up to the potent cocktail of 2020. Humanity’s flawed nature, from one sea to the other, was laid bare in the USA. From ethnic strife to biological frailty, to a simple inability to think beyond one’s own needs, 2020 was a year to forget, PLEASE! (No matter what Satan and Girl 2020 try to tell you.) On we strode, torsos leaning into the winds of defiance and change, with hopes to come out of it all in 2021. On considering that cheery note, I decided to compile, for the first time, my ten favorite GolfWRX pieces. I hope that you enjoy recalling this handful of scribbles, and that we see each other again, this time, in 2021.

1. Interview with Debert Cook

Part one

Part two

Why does this matter? Debert Cook is a woman … a woman of color … a woman of color at the helm of a major golf magazine. She lends her perspective to us in the two-part interview, so that we might enter the world of brown and black golfers, and understand what they feel, experience, and enjoy, within the game that we all love, and sometimes share.

2. An in-depth talk: Golf course architect Brandon Johnson

Easily the longest-to-conclude interview I’ve ever done. Brandon Johnson wanted to get it right, so he took his sweet time, and he got it right. Despite my years of study of golf course architecture, I had yet to run across Mr. Johnson, until a friend pointed me in his direction. What came of it, was a narrative thread of an architect who moved through layers of the industry, until he found his well-deserved niche.

3. Tour Rundown: WGC to new world no. 1, Werenski, Kang and more

It was one of many TRs this year, but what set it apart were the numbers: 10K readers, to be precise. My top-selling piece of 2020. What’s funny is, it didn’t showcase a major championship, nor anything particularly salacious. Somehow, it reached five figures. Cool. No more questions.

4. December Open title goes to A Lim Kim

I placed this article at number four, three weeks before the tournament was contested. In writing about the Biden cabinet, some pundit noted that it was not, in any sense, pale, male and yale, suggesting that diversity might be a good thing for government. The same can be said for golf. Golf, its writers, and its power players need to be proactive in welcoming people of all ethnicities, gender identification, age, and social strata, to the world’s greatest game. In December, the Women’s Open in Houston concluded the major championship slate for 2020, and it brought a lot to the fore. Two courses were used in tournament proper, for the first time in history at ANY Open championship. The ultimate champion, A Lim Kim, was everything unexpected and exuberant about golf. The venue and conditions were quite challenging, and provided an appropriate conclusion to an unfortunate year in human history.

5. Two more golf books: “Getting to 18” and “One for the Memory Banks”

Tom Doak has written a healthy number of books. Luke Reese has written one. Tom Doak does not write humorous books. Luke Reese could probably not avoid writing a humorous book. For this reason, this pairing of golf book reviews sticks in my head as my favorite book review piece of 2020. I’ve met Tom Doak on three occasions. I don’t suspect that any of them is etched in his memory, but the triumvirate is indelible in my own. As for Luke Reese, we enjoyed a 45-minute conversation on the phone last sprummer (the time between spring and summer) and he truly had me at hello. Tom Doak’s books are meticulous, attractive, the type that grow in value for intellectual and financial investors. Luke Reese’s collection of anecdotes makes us all better story tellers and historians.

6. The GolfWRX interview: Golf songster Sam Harrop

Out of nowhere came Sam Harrop. For me, at least. He might differ, as that would suggest that his life has taken place in nowhere. If there’s anything a failed artiest enjoys, it’s a send-up, a version, of a famous work. What Jake Trout and the Flounders (look them up) did in the 1980s, Sam Harrop does to a higher degree as the 2020s dawn. His golf takes on popular songs are playable, again and again. That means, you won’t tire of them. You will send the YouTube links along to your friends, and you should post them to your social media accounts. Think of them as LP or EP memes. The laughter will come, in gales.

7. GolfWRX Spotlight: Tour Edge Exotics EXS Blade wedge review

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned over time … please tell me what it is, ’cause I don’t know. Seriously, it’s that an equipment review needs to state its purpose in the very first sentence. The scientists, the engineers, the gear heads, all write from a perspective of precise, limitless data. That is not my style of research nor writing. I’m the reviewer who tells you how the club looks, how it feels at various points in the address, swing, and club toss into oblivion. I’d heard so much about Tour Edge, that I sought them out, and was afforded the opportunity to review their wedges. Funny part is, they came out with a brand new line, from tee to green, three weeks after I turned in this review! Fingers are crossed that they’ll have me back for a second course.

8. “A Little Madness: Stanley Thompson’s 5 Great Courses”

Why another book review piece? This one is different. Ian Andrew, a practicing golf course architect from metro Toronto, has worked with Tom Doak (see above) on St. George’s, in Ontario. He also works on the US side of the border, and is consulting architect at a number of courses. Andrew is as fine an expert on the great Canadian architect, Stanley Thompson, as there is. A Little Madness was his labor of love, and he decided to complete the book when the pandemic arrived. Andrew self-published the book, no mean feat, and the result is worthwhile. It should still be available for purchase so, after reading the review, you might wish to secure your own copy and enjoy a little madness of your own.

9. Why all of golf’s majors should pass on 2020

This was me, raising the alarm on golf and its tournaments. My concern was for humanity. I, like all other golf aficionados, was thrilled to watch three of four major titles contested on the men’s side, and three more on the women’s. What still bothers me is the notion of normalcy that a return to professional sports conveys. It suggests to all of us that this pandemic isn’t that bad, but it is. It suggests to all of us that sacrifice and avoidance are for other people, but they aren’t. My fear of human response is tempered only by my faith in human ingenuity. Science will save the day, but not for all.

10. An Interview with Bill Coore

A long ways back, Bill Coore called me out of a swamp. Trudging around a site that he and Ben Crenshaw were considering for a course, he decided to answer my interview request with a 45-minute conversation. I was equal parts thrilled and horrified. Thrilled that a fellow Demon Deacon would value my time and questions; horrified that he might take a bad step and disappear forever, into Dagoba. Fortunately, only the former transpired. The pair opted out of that particular site, but eh ones on which they have built courses have been intuitively chosen.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

4 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

4 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

1 week ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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