Tour News
Top Storylines from Day 3 at The Open Championship
![](https://www.golfwrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/the-open-144th-open-st-andrews_3326622.jpg)
Once again, a delay greatly impacted play at the Open Championship.
On Friday, there was a three-hour stoppage because of rain and on Saturday that delay jumped to nearly TEN-AND-A-HALF HOURS due to heavy winds.
Played was suspended at 7:32 a.m. local time (after 32 minutes of golf) and resumed around 6 p.m. There was only enough time for the remaining groups left to finish their second rounds, so not much action to parse through.
Regardless, here are a couple of headlines to take away from this odd day.
Dustin Johnson Remains out in Front
We finally have 36 holes in the books (the third round will resume at 8:15 a.m. local time Sunday with twosomes off of No. 1 tee, the final round will be contested on Monday), and Dustin Johnson is still your leader.
The 31-year-old American closed out his final five holes in even par, posting a birdie and a bogey en route to a 10-under 36-hole total, which puts him in the lead by one.
He controversially had to play two holes in sketchy conditions, but he retains his top post. Oddly, despite his many major contentions, this is Johnson’s first 36-hole lead at a major. We’ll see if the redemption story he is authoring right now will have a happy ending in two days.
The R&A vs. the Weather
This is really the main storyline today.
It’s easy to bash the R&A and plenty of people are doing it (the players especially). I’ll preface then by saying, the organization did some things right.
For one, the R&A was correct to delay play for this lengthy period. The balls were rolling on the greens after players had already marked them and placed them back.
The craziest example came at the expense of Louis Oosthuizen.
To force players to deal with that would be patently unfair.
Brendon Todd made a good point about the fear of the ball potentially moving back into the putter at address (which would cost the player a stroke).
Also, if the ball blows away further from the hole like it did with Oosthuizen, players must putt from the longer distance, even though the ball originally stopped closer to the hole minutes before.
The R&A came out correct as well in halting play as soon as possible at the 11th hole, as that green was the most exposed and clearly unplayable very soon in the action.
However, there was plenty that went wrong.
Play started at 7 a.m. and went on for about 30 minutes in the fierce wind. It was a curious decision to play in the first place considering the conditions proved quite quickly to be unplayable.
The R&A came up with this explanation:
An update from The R&A on the state of play at #TheOpen. pic.twitter.com/4LvIixxPI6
— The R&A (@RandA) July 18, 2015
If you trust this reasoning, well, the R&A is not out of the clear. After all, the 11th green proved too exposed almost instantly and play was halted there while it continued elsewhere on the golf course. Weird. It’s tough to justify having some players battle the conditions while others remain put. Even if just one hole is unplayable, the action should be suspended.
Most egregious, though, was that St. Andrews should have been designed to remain playable even in these high winds. It has for centuries in the past. The greens are kept slow in anticipation that strong winds will come and balls won’t move because the surfaces aren’t slick.
Well, Brendan Porath of SB Nation put it best, these St. Andrews greens that should be stimping at 6, 7 or 8 were pretty much at 10. That is way too fast for a links that should hold these winds fine.
Also, remember how the R&A restructured that 11th green in order to avoid wind delays? Welp, that green was still the biggest culprit in this wind suspension.
Now, we have the full third round on Sunday and an Open that is finishing on Monday. Part of this is the product of weather the R&A can’t control. But some of it is the R&A’s mishandling of the situation.
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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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Chuck
Jul 19, 2015 at 2:28 pm
For anyone seriously interested in the fine points of golf equipment, this post by Geoff Shackelford at his blog is required reading:
http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2015/7/18/old-course-news-pushing-green-speeds-to-the-brink.html
The Saturday wind delay was directly related to green speeds. And green speeds are directly related to modern standard tricks with golf architecture, intended to protect par (never mind the overall integrity of the character of play in general) from ever-increasing distances produced by equipment technology.
You're worse than Ben
Jul 18, 2015 at 9:07 pm
Why did you leave tiger missing the cut out
That’s what we wanted you to write about
So we could comment “why does everything have to be about him”
I feel cheated
other paul
Jul 19, 2015 at 12:38 am
Yeah, where are the poor Tiger stories?