Tour News

Picks and Preview: The Greenbrier Classic

Published

11 years ago

Jul 3, 2013

In its brief history, the Greenbrier Classic has provided plenty of excitement. From Stuart Appleby’s 59, to a pair of playoff victories (by Scott Stallings, and Ted Potter Jr., respectively) the Old White TPC has been the host of great intrigue. Heck, Tiger Woods (absent from this year’s field) even missed the cut at last year’s tournament.

The Old White ranked as the second-easiest par-70 course on tour when Stuart Appleby signed for his 59 three years back. Two years ago, the 7,274-yard track was the 13th most difficult track on tour. So, depending on weather and course conditions, there’s a great deal of variability in scoring at the White Sulphur Springs gem.

Phil Mickelson returns to golf for the first time since his near miss at the U.S. Open. With the absence of the likes of Woods, Rose, and McIlory, “Leftywatch” will be in full effect.

Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley, and Bubba Watson will all be teeing it up at Chales Blair Macdonald’s masterpiece this week, and “Golf Professional Emeritus” at the Greenbrier, Tom Watson, will be competing as well.

Phil Mickelson: 12-1 odds

Lefty has had a lot of time to lick his wounds. Assuming he’s made peace with another runner-up finish at the U.S. Open, Mickelson should be returning to golf refreshed and hungry for a win. If he can drive the ball reasonably straight, his chances are good against this field.

Webb Simpson: 14-1 odds

A lot of experts are picking Simpson this week, hoping for the happy coincidence of an anchor-er winning the tournament immediately following the Tour’s decision to adopt the USGA’s anchoring ban. Simpson finished tied for fifth last week and has two top 10s in this event.

Bill Haas: 18-1 odds

Last week’s winner, Bill Haas, was rock solid in his win at the AT&T National. He’ll be looking for a second win in a row this week at the Old White, where’s he played well in the past. Haas notched a T2 finish here in 2011.

Bubba Watson: 18-1 odds

Although he’s never played the event before, Watson is in good form as of late. He played well enough to win in his last start, Travelers Championship, with the exception of one bad hole. If he can maintain his focus and continue his improved putting, Bubba could win this week.

Graham DeLaet: 22-1 odds

The Canadian finished tied for 12th at the Greenbrier last year. He’s on a hot streak as of late, too, finishing inside the top 10 in his last two starts.

Billy Horschel: 25-1 odds

Billy Ho didn’t play well last week. However, he’s notched more top 10s than anyone on tour this year and has made the cut in both attempts at TPC Old White.

Louis Oosthuizen: 28-1 odds

Louis hasn’t played since withdrawing from the U.S. Open with a hip injury. That injury followed his withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament with neck issues. If Oosthuizen is able to give it a go this week, he could surprise, as he’s not likely to return until he’s able to legitimately compete.

Jordan Speith: 33-1 odds

Much has been made of Jordan Spieth’s progress from card-less and status-less, to virtually assured a Tour card next year. He’s notched five top 10s this year, and given his accuracy off the tee, could be poised for a sixth this week.

Jimmy Walker: 55-1 odds

A model of consistency to begin the year, Walker has cooled off as of late, missing consecutive cuts. Regardless, he has finished inside the top 10 in two of the three tournaments at the Greenbrier and is poised for a rebound this week.

Jeff Overton: 70-1 odds

Ovie is a longshot this week, with the oddsmakers giving him about a 1 percent change of winning in White Sulphur Springs. However, he’s fourth in all-time earnings in the short history of the event and and has only carded one round over par at TPC Old White.

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

1 day ago

Jul 25, 2024

Brian Knudson

Every week we spot some really cool and custom putters out on the putting green and in tour players’ bags. This week is no slouch with some really interesting and beautiful putters being tested. Let’s take a look at some of the standouts we found.

Tyler Duncan: Scotty Cameron Phantom T-11.5

The Phantom 11 is a pretty wild putter by Scotty’s standards with a multi-material design that boosts MOI for more forgiveness. Duncan’s T-11.5. takes the stock model and moves the shaft to the center of the putter head. We don’t mean a center shafted version, but the shaft is installed in the center, behind the face as well. We don’t have any official details on this T-11.5 but it looks like that setup should create a putter where the face points towards the hole or target, similar to a L.A.B. putter.

Zac Blair: Scotty Cameron 009.M Cameron & Co. “Longneck”

Blair might be in possession of the largest Scotty collection on tour! It seems like every week he has something new, and flat-out gorgeous, that he is trying out. I have seen a lot of 009.M putters over the years, but never one with a long plumbers neck on it. This 009 is a Masterful that utilizes additional CNC machine work to reduce the amount of hand polishing needed to complete the putter. The long, or tall, neck on the putter usually is used to reduce the amount of toe hang and make the putter more face balanced. The face contains a very shallow milling while the sole features a tour truck, tour only, diamonds, and the rare Circle L stamp. The Circle L was made for Scotty’s close friends who lost matches or games and was meant to poke a little fun at their misfortune.

Paul Barjon: PXG Prototype

There are a lot of putters out there that become so widely used and popular that other manufacturers will borrow some of the design cues. The Spider is one of those putters and it looks like PXG has made a prototype putter for Barjon that has some similar features. This proto has a tapered mallet shape with twin wings that come out from either side of the rear. Twin movable weights sit in each wing on the sole and the sole features a plate that is bolted in place at the corners. The top contains a single siteline and the face uses PXG’s advanced pyramid face structure.

Odyssey Ai-One Cruiser Broomstick #7

More and more long, counterbalanced, and alternative putters seem to be showing up recently. The long, or broomstick, putter is making a comeback and more than a few players have joined Adam Scott in using that style. Odyssey has thrown its hat in the broomstick arena with a new Ai-One Cruiser model. The head shape is the very familiar #7 model, but with the shaft going into the center of the club head. An Ai-One face is there to help keep ball speed consistent on off-center hits and three white lines are on top for framing ball and aligning the putter.

TaylorMade Spider Tour S Broomstick

Another option in the long putter is TaylorMade’s Spider Tour S broomstick that we saw around the putting green. The head looks to be a little larger than the standard Tour S and that makes sense with the broomstick-style putters demanding heads near or over 400g. A TPU Pure Roll insert is installed in the face and the shaft is a more traditional double-bend design, just much longer! There isn’t the True Path alignment on top, just a full darker grey finish with a single siteline. Two moveable weights are out in the wings of the putter to dial in the specific weight a player might want.

Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 3M Open

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Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2024 3M Open

Published

3 days ago

Jul 23, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site this week at TPC Twin Cities for the 2024 3M Open for the penultimate event of the PGA Tour’s regular season.

The photos are flying in from Blaine, Minnesota. We’ve already assembled general galleries and a fresh Tony Finau WITB.

Check back throughout the week for more photos!

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

Chris Gotterup’s TM P-7CB irons – 2024 3M Open

See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.

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Equipment

Collin Morikawa’s pre-Open equipment adjustments

Published

1 week ago

Jul 18, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

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.

Three years later, Morikawa has once again changed his irons to deal with the unique Scottish turf.

Morikawa has been using TaylorMade P730 blade short irons (7-PW), P7MC mid irons (5-6) and a TaylorMade “Proto” 4-iron with a cavity-back construction this year.

However, he switched into a new set of TaylorMade P7CB irons (5-PW) before finishing T4 at last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, to go along with his familiar “Proto” 4-iron. TaylorMade’s P7CB irons are the finalized versions of the “Proto” 4-iron that Morikawa has been using, except they remain unreleased to retail.

According to TaylorMade, Morikawa switched into a full set of the new P7CB irons to aid with turf interaction, just like he did prior to his 2021 Open victory.

Morikawa is honing in on his winning formula overseas.

Morikawa also has switched from his usual TaylorMade Qi10 5-wood to a lower-launching TaylorMade P790 3-iron equipped with a Project X HZRDUS 105 Hybrid shaft. The loft of the club has been bent down to 19 degrees.

TaylorMade says that Morikawa switched into the new driving iron In order to “have an option to hit something lower that will roll out in the fairways.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.

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