Tour News
Ranking the 2015 Masters rookies
![](https://www.golfwrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/MastersRookies.png)
A first-time Masters participant has not won the event since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979, and experience at the course has been oft-cited ever since as a necessary tool to victory at Augusta National.
The 2015 group of rookies arriving at Augusta National is not quite as formidable as last year’s bunch, with only 20 in tow versus 24 in 2014 and a group lacking the immense attention last year’s bunch received beforehand.
Still, there are some key names from this group, and it’s important to keep an eye on them in case any of them make noise in the initial effort at Augusta.
Below, I’ve ranked the rookies No. 1-20 based on their chances at this year’s Masters. This is not necessarily a ranking of how good the players are, although certainly that played a large factor in the ordering.
I grouped them into separate categories as well to give an idea of where each set stands against the rest of the field.
Anyway, the rankings…
Most Likely Contenders
1. Brooks Koepka
2. Shane Lowry
3. Morgan Hoffmann
4. Seung-Yul Noh
5. Brendon Todd
In this category we have the rookies I feel have the best chance to be in the mix for that famous back nine at Augusta on Sunday.
Koepka comes in first by a mile, even if he’s not fully healthy heading into the event, and that should be no surprise. The 24 year-old American is the highest ranked among this group at No. 19 in the world, the best player of the set and has performed quite well this season with a win already.
The Augusta National layout also fits his game to perfection, as he hits the ball extremely long and high and possesses a nice all-around game with that excellent putter and exquisite approach play. His great mid-iron play is a valuable asset at this course as well.
Behind Koepka, Lowry has my attention because he also profiles pretty well for Augusta, with his enviable length and a great approach game from mid- to long-iron ranges, as Rich Hunt noted here. Lowry also had an affinity for showing up at big events last year, with a runner-up at the BMW PGA Championship, a top-five at the DP World Tour Championship and a top-10 at the Open Championship.
Hoffman and Noh are both wildcards in that they are talented young players that aren’t very reliable yet. They both possess that killer long-ball, high-ball combo that works so well at Augusta, which is why I have them up here.
Todd may currently be the second best golfer on this list overall and has played well of late with five consecutive top-30s. But his short-hitting, low-ball game that also features poorly from longer approach shot distances is horrible for Augusta. Actually keeping him on this top list speaks to my belief in his ability and recent performance.
Intriguing Prospects
6. Cameron Tringale
7. Danny Willett
8. James Hahn
9. Robert Streb
10. Erik Compton
11. Anirban Lahiri
A pretty eclectic group here, all up and comers but some in different ways.
Tringale played quite well last week on a Golf Club of Houston layout similar to that of Augusta National, and he has a pretty solid all around game and decent ball flight height that bode well for this course. I would only say he’s a moderate fit here, though, and he’s still far off from being a great player.
Lahiri and Willett both fall under the category of long-time foreign golfers adjusting to play in the United States. They each competed in PGA Tour events in the run up to the Masters with pretty lackluster results.
I’ve split them kind of apart, though, because Willett’s U.S. results have shown significantly more promise, and the Englishman is more accustomed to higher level competition with his lengthy European Tour career versus Lahiri’s mainstay on the Asian Tour until this season. In addition, the Race to Dubai leader appears to possess more length than Lahiri (who has won twice this year, to be fair).
Streb has fallen on hard times of late with consecutive missed cuts, but it wasn’t long ago that he produced a win and six top-20s in seven events (albeit against a weaker set of fields). His all around game comes out solid and he hits it long. If he didn’t flight it so low, he would be at the top of this category, and if his play were better of late, he would be in the contenders section.
Hahn has genuinely improved as a player in 2015 regardless of his win at Riviera and he’s also a long, high-hitter. But I still trust Hoffmann and Noh’s talents significantly more.
Compton, of course, would be a great story and he did tie for second at last year’s U.S. Open, but that doesn’t mean he will contend at Augusta. He was a pretty long driver in 2012, but has oddly lost significant club head speed and distance and has become below average in driving distance in the process (it has nothing to do with his heart transplant, as he actually regained his lost clubhead speed from that experience by 2012).
His game just screams “meh” for Augusta and he missed five straight cuts earlier in 2015. He’s barely hanging on in this category.
Happy to Make the Cut
12. Brian Harman
13. Bernd Wiesberger
14. Corey Conners
15. Bradley Neil
Despite his small stature, Harman is historically average in driving distance on the PGA Tour. And he’s displayed a really good all around game that bodes well for Augusta.
That being said, he’s here because his form of late has been abysmal. Harman has missed four straight cuts and looks nowhere near ready to compete at Augusta. Stranger things have happened, but he’s in a deep hole.
Wiesberger’s game has been in great form in Europe in 2015 and he had that little star run at the PGA last year, but he hasn’t performed well in the U.S. this year and I don’t think he’ll be up for the rigors of Augusta.
Conners and Neil are great amateur players, both around top 20 in the world, but you need to be pretty much at the top in those rankings to be expected to make the Masters cut.
Pretenders
16. Gunn Yang
17. Antonio Murdaca
18. Matias Dominguez
19. Byron Meth
20. Scott Harvey
Pretty much a crapshoot here. Yes, I know Yang is the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, but until he proves otherwise, that was a total fluke. He has nowhere near the game to compete at Augusta.
Dominguez won the first ever Latin American Amateur Championship, which, while great, is not really a victory that prepares him for Augusta. Ditto for Murdaca, although the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship is a little more established.
The U.S. Amateur Public Links champion (Byron Meth) and the Mid-Amateur Champion (Scott Harvey) are generally not Tour quality players despite their high-profile amateur win, and that is the case this year as well.
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Equipment
Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open
![](https://www.golfwrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/putter-roundup-2024-3m.png)
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
![](https://www.golfwrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Screen-Shot-2024-07-24-at-11.33.52-AM.png)
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
![](https://www.golfwrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MorikawaP790-1.jpg)
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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Nostradamus
Apr 9, 2015 at 3:30 am
Yes, Murdaca is an amateur and there for the experience, but you seem to have neglected to mention he won by 7 shots in shooting -13 at Royal Melbourne. Granted, it was an amateur field (which included the young Chinese fellow who made the cut at Augusta in 2013) but anyone who knows abt RM knows the greens are like glass, you need to place all your shots in the right place or you’re stuffed and it shares a common architect with Augusta in Alastair McKenzie. And in shooting -13, the guy demonstrated he can play. Agree with you that Koepka is top of the list…..amazing talent.
Kevin Casey
Apr 9, 2015 at 9:22 am
To be fair, a seven shot lead is always impressive and it’s a good point about the course. But no matter the margin of victory, it still only represents one performance from Murdaca (his best one for sure). On the average, he’s a real good amateur player but nowhere near elite (he’s barely top 80 in the WAGR and that’s with the win). He’ll still need to have an epic performance to make the weekend. He can make the cut, but I think his odds are pretty slim there. I mean a 14-year-old Asian Pacific Amateur winner in Guan made the cut last year, but he did play unbelievably well to do so.
I did underestimate Hideki Matsuyama at the Masters when he won his APAs though, so we’ll see.
Still, it’ll be really tough for Murdaca. But it is a great accomplishment though, and nobody can ever taken his first Masters experience away from him.
Golfraven
Apr 8, 2015 at 5:33 pm
Matias Dominguez will be right there on weekend sfter seeing him playing the par 3 contest. If he putts as good as his wedge game is, he has good chance for the medal.