Tour News

ShopRite LPGA Classic recap: Top hog

Published

12 years ago

Jun 4, 2012

Vince Robitaille

By Vince Robitaille

GolfWRX Staff Writer

Most often than not on the LPGA Tour – or seemingly on any tour these days, really – the acute depth of the field makes for high blood pressure levels around the 72nd green, this weekend, however, things were just a little different. How different, you ask? The-name-on-the-trophy-could-have-been-inscribed-by-the-halfway-mark different. While Yani Tseng outrageous spell of dominance consisted more of a macroscopic dominance, Stacy Lewis, now ShopRite LPGA Classic, quite simply enabled most of us to tune into the Memorial right in time to witness the grandest fist-pump since the glorious 2005 Masters charge.

The 14th edition of the tournament’s opening day was highlighted by rather inclement weather, gusts of winds and high humidity bordering on a foggy haze; at least, until Mika Miyazato and the Razorback’s respective engines got warm enough to run at full capacity. At said moment, both players engaged on somewhat of a golfing rampage that each of them to their lowest rounds of the 2012 season, a pair of 6-under 65’s. Asking one to select whose round was most impressive would be analogous to pinning his back against the wall. In one corner, Miyazato displayed, through a blemish-free performance that included five birdies, the type of surgical precision and steadiness that enabled her to cumulate twelve top-10’s – three of which coming in majors – during her first three seasons on the LPGA circuit. In the other, Lewis had every single by-stander gasping as she opened in what could aptly be described as a seesaw fashion. In fact, the four-time All-American wasted no time to get in red figures, recording a birdie on the very first hole of Stockton Seaview’s Bay Course. Celebrations, nevertheless, were short-lived as an impromptu double-bogey – that being said, was there ever such a thing as an on-point double-bogey – on the subsequent hole brought the then — World no.7 back down to earth… momentarily. Indeed, after capping off a five-shot swing that would leave Lewis back to 1-under through an eagle on third, the 2007 Dinah Shore Trophy recipient shaved five additional strokes before the sun set on Friday.

Amongst other notables on the ShopRite LPGA Classic’s inaugural day, two American high-profile players drew the proverbial spotlight on themselves, but for diametrically opposite reasons: one for her late-round prowess, the other for her continuous hardships. The former, namely Paula Creamer seemed poised for a great weekend at the turn as her 34 strokes – The Bay Course’s par-72 setup is unevenly divided between a par-37 front nine and a par-34 back nine – placed her in the leading trio. A slight mishap on the 15th hole, after a monotonous string of five consecutive pars, brought her back to 2-under and ignited the fire that has been known to burn within the Pink Panther; a fire that manifested itself in a brilliant 3-wood that, not only found the green in two on the 501-yard-long par-5, but left Creamer within 5 feet of a 64.

None other than Michelle Wie, sadly, personified the other end of the spectrum. Much like it has been the case this season, things went sourly from the very beginning, as Wie couldn’t fare any better than bogeys on the first two holes followed by a double-bogey on third. The Hawaiian would eventually turn in a disastrous card of 7-over that, in retrospect, seemed fairly scarier than her dreadful results of late. Of course, one could reasonably wonder how Wie’s most recent fallout in New Jersey differs from the previous one. The answer would come through the fact that her now signature woeful putting, is seemingly creeping into her formerly stellar ball striking abilities. Actually, if we were to be quite honest, we’d say that this week acted more as the confirmation of a contemporary tendency, than as a standalone occurrence.

Reverting back to Stacy Lewis’ bid at supremacy amongst Americans, the campaign was locked up midway through the second round; the new World No.3 kicking things off by birdieing three of the five first holes. Sitting comfortably on 9-under – a mark that would ultimately prove enough to net her the championship, as none of her adversaries would reach the double digits – seemingly wasn’t enough for the 2011 Kraft Nabisco victor, as she’d maintain the pressure in order to repeat her previous days’ feat. With a second triumph in three outings, stating that Stacy Lewis is spearheading – one would be hard-pressed not to, hereby, mention how she harpooned her bag on Sunday afternoon – the summer’s major stretch as the new favorite, starts to feel like quite the euphemism. No more chip on the shoulder for you, Ms. Lewis, you’re top dog now. Well, top hog.

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

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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