Tour News

Everything you need to know about the WGC-Cadillac Match Play

Published

9 years ago

Apr 28, 2015

In lieu of its usual February date, the WGC-Cadillac Match Play will commence this Wednesday with the final to take place four days later. The calendar shakeup is accompanied by a format shift from a pure single-elimination event to a round-robin single-elimination hybrid. They’ve even swapped the course, with San Francisco’s famous Harding Park hosting the tournament this year.

Unfortunately, the match play format means there is no DraftKings contest this week. But The PLAYERS Championship will be the next event upon us and DraftKings will be back with their $100,000 prize pool ($10,000 for first place) at a $3 entry fee contest, or FREE with first deposit, for the year’s fifth major. The top 7,850 finishers will earn cash and our “beat the writer” contest will continue.

Click here to ENTER.

If you’re looking for a bigger investment with a more sizable potential payoff, DraftKings will also feature special contests for The PLAYERS. For a $20 entry fee you can enter a $150,000 pot ($20,000 for first place) and for a $100 entry fee you can be part of a $300,000 pool ($50,000 grand prize). Enticing options!

Now, back to this week’s WGC-Cadillac Match Play event. What do you need to know? All of the key information is below.

The New Format

As I alluded to above, there is a combination round-robin, single-elimination format this week.

Harding Park will play host to the 2015 Match Play event.

The round-robin portion is over the first three days, with the 64 competitors separated into 16 groups of four. The top seed in Group 1 is the No. 1 seed in the field; the best in Group 2 is the No. 2 seed, and so on through Group 16. The other three members of the groups were determined Monday in a selection show. One player each from the Nos. 17-32, Nos. 33-48 and No. 49-64 sections were randomly selected and placed into the groups.

The quartet within each pool will face one another in three matches from Wednesday-Friday, and whoever has the best record among the set wins their group (if two are tied at the end, the tiebreaker is the head-to-head result, and a three-way tie will result in a playoff).

Each group victor will move on to the Round of 16, where the tournament reverts to single elimination. The Round of 16 match ups are based on the group number where a player triumphed. The Group 1 winner will face the Group 16 winner, Group 2 vs. Group 15, etc.

The Round of 16 and quarterfinals will take place on Saturday and the semifinals and finals will commence on Sunday.

Sizing up the 16 Groups

So we know the makeup of each group following Monday’s selection show. Which pools pique our interest the most?

I’m privy to Group 1, as Rory McIlroy and his exploits are always fascinating, and I’m curious about what Billy Horschel may offer. The former Gator really hasn’t been in form at all this year, but he strikes me as a player who really has the temperament for match play. McIlroy’s record at this event is shaky, so it should be interesting to monitor whether Horschel can surprise.

There’s also Group 4, where we’ll be treated to a show with three bombers and mega-talents in Bubba Watson, Louis Oozthuizen and Keegan Bradley duking it out. But wait, there’s also Miguel Angel Jimenez! With him there’s also the storyline of whether he this old short-knocker can somehow outdo these fierce long-hitters. Don’t put anything past MAJ!

Group 11, with Jimmy Walker, Ian Poulter, Webb Simpson and Gary Woodland is getting some hype as the “Group of Death.” I’m not sure I agree. Poulter is a former winner here and is of Ryder Cup fame, but he’s been ousted in the first round of this event three of the last five years, and Simpson doesn’t come in with much form. This is still a pretty interesting group, though.

Finally, watch out for whoever wins Group 14. Matt Kuchar and Hunter Mahan both have incredible records at this event, and Ben Martin is a pretty interesting wild card. The Clemson product isn’t very consistent, but he tends to really capitalize when his game is on.

Possible Cool Round of 16 Matchups

We have to start off with Spieth vs. Reed, right? Spieth has a pretty easy group, and while Reed has Ryan Moore to get through (no easy task), he’s got a solid chance to move on. Imagine the hype if these two young American titans got to square off.

McIlroy could be in line to play Hideki Matsuyama, which would also be an intriguing contest between two young super talents.

I’m curious to watch best friends Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler face off if they take care of business in Groups 4 and 13. We also have the potential of a Bill Haas-Hunter Mahan pairing, which may not sound to glamorous but remember what happened last time when these two battled.

I also want to see Jim Furyk versus Brooks Koepka. Their styles are just so different and there’s the generational aspect as well with Furyk an aging vestige of the Tiger era and Koepka very much among this recent crop of young super talent.

Whatever the case, we should see some fireworks this week. And at the very least, you won’t see McIlroy or Spieth packing after one day.

Don’t forget to enter for The Players Championship DraftKings contest.

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

23 hours 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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