Tour News
Leading ain’t easy, even on Friday
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By Zak Kozuchowski
GolfWRX Managing Editor
After the last putt drops – that’s when professional golfers want to be leading a tournament. Because despite how well golfers are playing or how good they say they’re feeling, leading a golf tournament does something strange to golfers – even the best ones in the world.
Martin Laird and Ian Poulter breezed through Round 1 of The Players Championship with matching 7-under 65s at the difficult TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course. Both players said the right things in their post-round interviews. Laird said he was putting well, and happy with his new caddie. Poulter said he was relaxed, as he was finally able to move his family into his new home that took nearly three years of construction.
But what professional golfers say about their game when they are leading a tournament rarely impacts their play the next day. That’s the thing about pressure. It’s like a snap hook. There’s no talking to it.
Laird, a two-time winner on Tour, had the best chance of keeping the top spot at The Players in Round 2, playing his first 15 holes in 3-under par. That put him at 10-under, three shots ahead of a streaking Zach Johnson at one point, who was playing in the group behind him.
Laird’s day wasn’t perfect through 15 holes, but like most tournament frontrunners, he had found a way to make the most of it. He had given himself short birdie putts on the previous par 5s, Nos. 2, 9 and 11, and converted them all. Two of his bad swings were fairly benign as well. On No. 6, he chose iron off the tee, but caught it thin and off the heel of the club. Had he struck it solidly, the shot would have likely scampered into the rough, but to quote Laird, “Hit it so bad it’s alright.”
On No. 8, he hit another tee ball to the right, this time a high spinner with the driver that didn’t go very far. But it was one of the “good misses” that golfers love to tell their playing partners about. Helping Laird too was the fact that he’d scored an early tee time, which meant the wind was mild and the course was as soft as it would be all day. Also, he played his first 15 holes in relative obscurity – either most fans didn’t know who Martin Laird was, didn’t care to know him, or didn’t have their coffee before the gauntlet of holes Nos. 16-18. But the fans were there on No. 16, and murmuring about Laird’s low score.
“Did you see that,” a husband told his wife. ‘This guys is 10-under. He might win it.”
Laird launched a drive in perfect position on 16, giving him a good yardage with a 4 iron to attack the flag.
“I hit three of four great iron shots in a row right at the flag and kind of got a little greedy there,” Laird said. [I] tried to fade one into the wind to get it working down the green there to the pin.”
But Laird’s ball didn’t get working down the green. His shot never had a chance, splashing well right of the green in The Stadium’s famous lake. After that shot, Laird got working down the leaderboard.
Laird splashed another ball on No. 17 off the tee with a 9 iron. Tiger Woods said in his Tuesday press conference that he didn’t like the island green par 3 because at times good shots can go in the water. Laird’s shot was not one of those. It was thin, it was low and it was well short of the green.
On No. 18, Laird went the conservative route, hitting a 5 wood off the tee. For the first time in two holes, he made a good swing, sending it down the middle of the water-lined fairway. He bailed out to the right on his approach, leaving himself a delicate chip toward the front left pin location that he botched. And when his par putt didn’t fall, he had played his final three holes in four-over par and finished at 6-under.
Johnson, who shot 66 in Round 2, played his final three holes in even par, putting him at 8-under. In the span of three holes, Laird had gone from being in front, to being “in the hunt.”
Poulter took a less roundabout route to disaster. He teed off at 1:39 p.m. on No. 10, when the course had firmed up and the wind had achieved full strength. He promptly double bogeyed two of his first four holes, dropping him to 3-under, five shots out of the lead he once owned. He dropped another shot at No. 15, but unlike Laird, handled the pressure of Nos. 16-18 without fail. He birdied No. 16, parred No. 17, and barely missed his birdie chance on No. 18.
Poulter steadied the ship on the front nine (his finishing nine), but the damage had been done. Poulter only has one Tour win to his resume, the 2010 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, but he’s won 11 times in Europe. However, that’s pressure. It doesn’t care who you are or where you’re from – when golfers are playing well, it’s there. It will be felt by Johnson tomorrow, and by the weekend leaders, especially on Nos. 16-18. That’s why there will be thousands of people in attendance surrounding those holes on Sunday, and countless viewers watching worldwide. Pressure can make anything happen. Sometimes it helps a player, sometimes it hurts a player, but it’s always fun to watch.
Click here for more discussion in the “Tour Talk” forum.
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Tour Photo Galleries
Photos from the 2024 3M Open
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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
- 2024 3M Open – Monday #1
- 2024 3M Open – Monday #2
- 2024 3M Open – Tuesday #1
- 2024 3M Open – Tuesday #2
WITB Albums
- Tobias Jonsson – WITB – 3M Open
- Keith Mitchell – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Tony Finau – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Maverick McNealy – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Tom Hoge – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Mac Meissner – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Robert Streb – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Sahith Theegala – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Sam Burns – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Santiago de la Fuente – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Billy Horschel – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Chris Gotterup – WITB – 2024 3M Open
- Roger Sloan – WITB – 2024 3M Open
Pullout Albums
- Ping putters – #1 – 3M Open
- Ping Putters – #2 – 3M Open
- TaylorMade Spider Tour S broomstick putter – 3M Open
- Odyssey Broomstick #7 putter – 3M Open
- Bettinardi putters – 2024 3M Open
- New EyeLine training aid – 2024 3M Open
- Sam Ryder’s custom Cameron putter – 2024 3M Open
- Odyssey putters – 2024 3M Open
- L.A.B. Golf putters – 2024 3M Open
- Tyler Duncan’s custom Cameron putter – 2024 3M Open
- Zac Blair’s custom Cameron putter – 2024 3M Open
- Paul Barjon – PXG putter – 2024 3M Open
See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.
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Equipment
Collin Morikawa’s pre-Open equipment adjustments
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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.
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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Tour Photo Galleries
Photos from the 2024 Barracuda Championship
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GolfWRX is on site this week for the PGA Tour’s only Modified Stableford event, the Barracuda Championship.
We have plenty of galleries from Truckee, California, assembled for your viewing pleasure, so let’s get to it.
General Albums
WITB Albums
- Barclay Brown – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Ryan Brehm – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Marcel Schneider – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Pat Steffes – NorCal PGA Section Match Play Champ – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Mitchell Schow – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Ricardo Gouveia – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Todd Clements – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Gunner Wiebe – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Oliver Wilson – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Louis De Jager – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Mats Ege – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Andrew “Beef” Johnston – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Mike Lorenzo-Vera – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Jeong Weon Ko – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Alex Fitzpatrick – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Manuel Elivra – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Ian Gilligan – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Fabrizio Zanotti – WITB – 2024 Barracuda Championship
Pullout Albums
- TaylorMade putter covers – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Kevin Dougherty’s custom Cameron putter – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Camilo Villegas’ custom Cameron putter – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Cameron putters – 2024 Barracuda Championship
- Oliver Wilson’s 1 off Odyssey putter – 2024 Barracuda Championship
See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.
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