Tour News

ShopRite LPGA Classic preview: Fountain of youth

Published

12 years ago

May 31, 2012

Vince Robitaille

By Vince Robitaille

GolfWRX Staff Writer

After a short pause allowing the world’s premier female golfers the opportunity to catch their breath after the dramatic incidents of the Sybase Match Play Championship, said golfers are back at in the Garden State. The ShopRite LPGA Classic, with its 144-player-deep field, kicks off Friday morning at 7:15 EST on Stockton Seaview’s Bay Course, and, if last year’s edition is any indication of things to come this weekend, players will experiment the overwhelming feeling of being engulfed in the Deep Blue Tour yet again. This time, however, with the LPGA Championship around the bend, those who’ll be able to stay afloat won’t only survive the ripping sea of the LPGA, but will have their sights – whilst wavering – set on the jewelled treasure out beyond the horizon.

A disparate triumvirate consisting of Cristie Kerr, Jiyai Shin and Brittany Lincicome – from which the latter elevated herself to reign, towering over other imperatores, if only for a brief period – made the 2011 ShopRite Classic the Rome of their clash. As all parties involved proverbially crossed the Rubicon, Kerr’s assault seemed the most likely to net her supremacy over the Championship as she boasted a comfortable lead at 11-under on the 7th tee of the final day; then, a chink in her armored was exposed. Back-to-back bogeys – the second one stemming from a wayward drive that resulted in an unplayable lie – left the American at 9-under and slipping. Joining her at the point were Jiyai Shin and Lincicome who exploded early with an eagle on the par-5 3rd and a birdie on 6th. The youngest American briefly grabbed a hold of the lead at the turn, before Shin managed to get to 11-under through consecutive birdies on 11th and 12th. Ultimately, back-to-back bogeys cost her the tournament as Lincicome skillfully navigated the last 38 holes of the tournament without a single blemish en route to an aggregate tally of 11-under. The supreme feat of the latter’s performance lies in an escape from the greenside fescue on the very last hole enabling her to convert the subsequent winning birdie.

Whilst Lincicome seems poised to enter the winner’s circle once more in regards to her recent form, her somewhat inconsistent putter – inconsistent in the sense that is has the malign habit of flinching one round every weekend – seemingly representing the lone barrier fending her off, our interest lies elsewhere. If we were to be more specific, we’d say that it lies with English legend Laura Davies. Not that we expect the one grabbing our attention to come out victorious in New Jersey – actually, one might find himself better off giving Powerball a shot than trying to predict how she’ll perform from week-to-week – but, no matter the outcome, she always gets there in a scorching manner and we can’t help watching. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the course appears to be built to her exact specifications. One of the most heralded links player in women’s golf, her awe-inspiring record on the Ladies European Tour speaking for itself – despite the absence of an ever so important trophy in her case – Davies finds herself in her element on the grounds of The Bay Course. Adding to her comfort is the fact that, on top of familiarity with both design components and surfaces, the Commander of the British Empire can enjoy the clement and calm, in comparison to the British Isles and coastal Australia – to name a few of the places she’s made her own in regards to the golfing world – weather of New Jersey. A prime example of this combination’s potency can be found in Davies’ third place finish in the 2006 edition; a performance which included a career-low 62.

Laura Davie’s go big or go home mentality might have produced 57 combined wins on the LET and LPGA Tour, but for pretty much every top-10 recorded, a cut has been missed. So far this season, for instance, in eight LPGA Tour-sanctioned events, Davies wasn’t allowed to participate to the weekend’s action on four occasions. Ever saddening is the fact that, of those opportunities, she could never reap anything more than a mediocre tie for 49th at the Lotte Championship. The reason behind the drastic turn for the worse that Davies’ production has taken halfway through the 2011 season is nebulous, although one could point the finger at either time or her reckless course management finally catching up to the 48-year-old, but, as she showed last week in Munich with her runner-up finish, she’s always only a few rounds away from a trophy. After all, albeit a British Women’s Open victory might represent the fitting end – and, concurrently, her main desire – to an illustrious career that is, no matter what technicalities might say otherwise, undeniably Hall of Fame-worthy, I’m pretty sure that the ultimate Solheim cupper wouldn’t mind adding ShopRite LPGA Classic champion to her resume. After all, ending a LPGA Tour winless drought that dates back to Angela Stanford’s rookie year might just be the Fountain of Youth to her Ponce de Leon.

Click here for more discussion in the “LPGA/Ladies golf talk” forum.

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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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