Tour News

Kuchar, the people’s champ, is The Players champ

Published

12 years ago

May 13, 2012

Matt Kuchar seems like the nicest guy in the world. And he probably is. He is known for his loping stride and easy smile, the Florida kid who has a permanent spot on weekday leaderboards in big tournaments.

It’s appropriate that Kuchar picked up the most significant win of his career on Mother’s Day; it was his mother’s idea to upgrade the family club membership to include golf when little Matt Kuchar was just 12. The rest, as they say, is history.

Kuchar has ben around so long that you forget that he is only 33 years old and just entering the sweet spot of most professional golfers’ careers. He appeared on the golf scene in 1998, taking low amateur honors at the Masters as the reigning U.S. Amateur champion. Along with having a game that was far advanced for his tender age, Kuchar won the golf world over instantly, playing the most revered tournament in the world with a smile on his face, his heart on his sleeve and his father on his bag. It looked like the mild-mannered Southerner and the then-precocioius Tiger Woods would play patty cake with the Green Jacket for years to come.

As everyone knows, Woods evolved into a player with a game and a life that were unlike any other. For Kuchar, the path has been more conventional. Kuchar’s first win on the PGA Tour came at the 2002 Honda Classic; however, by 2006 he was on the Nationwide Tour after failing to earn enough money to qualify for the PGA Tour. He won the Nationwide Tour’s 2006 Henrico County Open and finished 10th on the money list to earn his 2007 PGA Tour card. He retained his card in 2007 by finishing 115th on the money list and again in 2008 by finishing 70th.

Seven years after his first PGA Tour win, Kuchar won for a second time during the 2009 Fall Series at the Turning Stone Resort Championship in a playoff over Vaughn Taylor. Kuchar made the 2010 U.S. Ryder Cup team by earning enough points to take the 8th, and last position, awarded on points. At the time Kuchar led the PGA Tour in top-10 finishes for the year, but had not won a tournament in 2010. The winless streak ended at The Barclays in 2010, where Kuchar defeated Martin Laird on the first hole of a sudden death playoff.

Kuchar has had a career of distinction, winning the Vardon Trophy and Byron Nelson Award in 2010 for lowest scoring average and the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Award for leading the money list. And yet the major title that would put him into the mix as one of the most significant players of his generation seemed to elude him. It was as if someone didn’t want him to be a child prodigy, to achieve success without acquiring a few of the experiences that most men have in common. His swing and his putting stroke have undergone changes that have made him into a solid ball-striker and a reliable putter under pressure. His flat-planed swing wraps tightly around his 6’4” frame; frankly, it looks weird but it saved his career. He can repeat his move under pressure, which makes him a threat at virtually every major. Kuchar’s best ever finish at a major came at this year’s Masters, where he finished behind champion Bubba Watson and Louis “The Albatross” Oosthuizen. Barring the once-in a-lifetime heroics of those two, Kuchar would have green jacket to his credit and would be looking to add a U.S. Open title at The Olympic Club in June. As it stands, Kuchar’s victory at TPC Sawgrass establishes him as a favorite to win at the major championship that is most like the Players’ in terms of the mental and physical challenges. For those that would dismiss him, they should note what Kuchar said when told by a beat reporter at last year’s U.S. Open at Congressional that he was the reporter’s pick to win that week.

“Oh yeah?”, remarked Kuchar with the trademark grin. He turned to walk away, turned back and with a wink said, “Good choice.”

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

2 days 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

4 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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