Tour News

Potter breaks through, wins The Greenbrier Classic

Published

12 years ago

Jul 8, 2012

On the commercials that feature the PGA Tour’s catchphrase is “These Guys Are Good,” the guys they show are all the familiar faces that typically populate the leaderboards. But on a week when most of those players were either absent or underperforming, some other guys got a chance to shine.

The result: yet another first-time winner as Ted Potter Jr. birdied the third playoff hole to defeat Troy Kelly and win the 2012 Greenbrier Classic in White Sulphur Springs, W.V. Ranked 218th in the world, Potter overcame a four-stroke deficit with five holes to play, finishing with his second straight 6-under 64 to match Kelly at 16-under. Kelly closed with a 66.

“I made a few putts on the front nine, and just tried to stay close and make some more on the back nine,” said Potter. “I just tried to plug along and make birdies.”

A Tour rookie, Potter’s best previous finish had been a T-13 at the Sony Open early in the season. Kelly, in his second season on the PGA TOUR, had a chance on the par-5 17th to take a one-shot lead, but missed his 10-foot birdie attempt. He made par from just inside four feet on the par-3 18th to earn his spot in the playoff.

Both Potter and Kelly had finished in regulation at 16-under par 264.

A native of Ocala, Fla., the left-handed Potter was a teen golf phenom, blowing away the competition on the youth circuit. But like many young stars, he quickly found himself surrounded by local heroes trying to earn their bones on the bigger stages. After earning his way onto the PGA Tour by finishing second on the money list on the Nationwide Tour, Potter had struggled to find his footing, missing the last five cuts prior to the Greenbrier.

In a tournament that story lacked starpower with the Europeans absent and both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson missing the cut, the path was clear for new blood to make its presence felt. U.S. Open Champion Webb Simpson started the day as the prohibitive favorite with a two-shot lead on the field. But he carded four back-nine bogeys while stumbling to a final round 73 and a T-7 finish. World No. 5-ranked Simpson and No. 50 Kevin Na were the only players in the top 50 among the tournament’s top-10 finishers.

This was the third straight close finished on the Old White TPC Course. Scott Stallings beat Bob Estes and Bill Haas on the first hole of a playoff last year for his maiden PGA Tour victory, and Stuart Appleby shot a 59 to beat Jeff Overton by a stroke in 2010.

Your Reaction?

LIKE0
LEGIT0
WOW0
LOL0
IDHT0
FLOP0
OB0
SHANK0

Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

19 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

Your Reaction?

LIKE12
LEGIT5
WOW3
LOL0
IDHT0
FLOP0
OB0
SHANK2

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.

Your Reaction?

LIKE10
LEGIT0
WOW0
LOL1
IDHT1
FLOP0
OB1
SHANK0

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.

Your Reaction?