Tour News

2013 Web.com Tour Finals: Svoboda sports thickest skin, wins Chiquita Classic

Published

11 years ago

Sep 8, 2013

On a steamy Southern weekend that would be ideal for growing bananas, it was a New Yorker who came away with the second of four Web.com Tour Finals events: the Chiquita Classic, held at River Run Country Club in Davidson, NC. After a bit of a late stumble in regulation, the New Yorker triumphed on the first hole of a playoff over Will MacKenzie.

In its eventful infancy, the Web.com Tour Finals has proven itself capable of generating drama out of strange bedfellows and interesting juxtapositions of players. Last week’s Hotel Fitness Championship came down to the final hole, where injury-plagued former major champion Trevor Immelman escaped a final-nine bid from young up-and-comer Patrick Cantlay to win the first Finals event and regain PGA Tour status for the 2013-14 season.

By contrast, Chiquita Classic winner Svoboda’s career, which began on the mini tours in 2004, is finally on the rise. The St. John’s University alum grew up playing golf at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., which tortured the best golfers in the world as recently as the 2006 U.S. Open, so he is no stranger to intense pressure on the golf course. Svoboda finished 25^th on the Web.com Tour money list in 2013. This in itself assured him a 2013-14 PGA Tour card, but his win at River Run will move him well up the Reshuffle list, which determines the PGA Tour pros that will be given the final spots in the first few full-field events of the new season and who will have to Monday-qualify for the same.

MacKenzie, who finished 40^th on the 2013 Web.com Tour money list, chipped in for eagle on his final hole to break out of a five-way tie for second place. The timely shot capped a round of five-under par 67. The final three holes saw a three-shot swing between the two players, with Svoboda bogeying the par three 17^th between pars on the 16^th and 18^th holes.

Ben Martin, who finished second on the 2013 Web.com Tour money list, finished in a tie for third at 11-under par with John Peterson. Martin shot a final-round four-under par 68 while Peterson had a one-under par 71 on Sunday. Peterson finished 30^th on the Web.com Tour money list but has locked up his PGA Tour card after a top-five finish in the Hotel Fitness Championship last week.

Japanese phenom Ryo Ishikawa, who has struggled to find consistent success in the United States, finished in solo fifth place after a stellar final round of six-under par 66, leaving him at ten-under par for the tournament. It appears his way is also paved to the 2013-14 PGA Tour.

The Finals now head north, to the Scarlet Course at Ohio State University, for the Nationwide Children’s Championship. The pressure on those still on the outside of the chase for the last 25 PGA Tour cards will be multiplied and more drama is sure to ensue.

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

20 hours 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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