Tour News

Stricker Slam: The John Deere Classic preview

Published

12 years ago

Jul 11, 2012

Pete Pappas

By Pete Pappas

GolfWRX Staff Writer

Steve Stricker’s bobblehead is going for $50 a pop on eBay. That’s more than any PGA Tour player bobblehead has sold for on eBay all season – really.

But put the brakes on calling this “Strickermania.” It’s not. Not yet at least.

Stricker Slam

Stricker will attempt to become just the fifth player in PGA Tour history to win the same tournament four consecutive times when he goes for the “Stricker Slam” this week at the 2012 John Deere Classic.

If Stricker manages to win he would join an exclusive club that includes Tom Morris Jr. (British Open), Walter Hagan (PGA Championship), Gene Sarazen (Miami Open), and Tiger Woods (Bay Hill Invitational and Buick Invitational).

A victory at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., would also give the 45 year-old his second title of the year — he kicked off the Tour season with a win at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Stricker comes in to the John Deere Classic as World’s No. 13^th ranked player — the highest ranked player in the field.

Stricker’s TPC Deere “Run” has included a flawless performance, a spectacular performance, and even a purely magical one the past three tournaments.

In 2009, Stricker missed only 17 greens and salvaged par a field-leading 17 times (100 percent). He finished tied for ninth in total driving, sixth in proximity to the hole, and third on approach shots inside 125 yards.

Highlighted by an opening round bogey-free 11-under, Stricker was even more impressive the following year setting the TPC Deere Run course record in 2010 at 26-under.

And then last year on the 72^nd hole needing birdie to win for the third consecutive year, Stricker’s miraculous 182-yard approach shot from the fairway bunker, over water, with the ball well below his feet somehow managed to land 25 feet from the hole on the fringe (this shot was voted No. 2 “Shot of the Year” by PGATour.com).

With ice in his veins Stricker called upon his silky-smooth putting to sink the long birdie putt and defeat a shocked and dismayed Kyle Stanley by one stroke. His 22-under finish for the round was also good enough for the second-best score in John Deere history.

Inside The Ropes

Eighteen of the World’s Top 20 ranked players are not playing TPC Deere Run this week. However, seven past major winners, five previous John Deere champions and 31 winners on Tour over the past two years — including Zach Johnson, Stanley, Carl Petterson, Nick Watney, Jonathan Byrd, Camilo Villegas, and Ben Crane should all give Stricker a formidable run for his money.

Last week’s Greenbrier Classic champion Ted Potter Jr. is hoping the momentum of his eagle-birdie finish to force a playoff carries over this week.

Z. Johnson is playing the John Deere for the 11^th straight time, finishing third in this event last year. He is fifth in stroked gained putting and 16^th in birdie average on Tour.

Byrd won at TPC Deere Run in 2007 and is playing well this season with five top-10 finishes (a career high). Byrd ranked T-2 in birdies last week at Greenbrier.

Villegas has just three top-25 finishes in his 17 starts this year. He’s coming off back-to-back missed cuts in his last two starts (AT&T National and Greenbrier).

Stanley is also struggling of late. Six missed cuts in his last 10 starts have dropped him from No. 1 in the FedExCup Standings down to 16^th.

Plugged In Predictions – The Greek Syndicate

A Stricker win this week guarantees those eBay bobbleheads will be at least double in price. And yes I’m the one snatching them all up on eBay at that $50 “discount” price looking to turn a profit come Monday.

Stricker has a 65.33 stroke average here since 2009. And he’s 68-under his last 216 holes at TPC Deere Run. Four top-10s this year is nice, but it wouldn’t matter if he had none. Deere Run is Sticker’s house.

Groupings At A Glance

Steve Stricker, Camilo Villegas, Kyle Stanley

Jhonattan Vegas, Mark Wilson, Tim Clark

Zach Johnson, Nick Watney, Ted Potter, Jr.

Jonathan Byrd, K.J.Choi, Stewart Cink

Charter Service

For the fifth consecutive year the John Deere Classic will offer players bound for the British Open a direct charter flight to England. The all-first class 100-seat Boeing 767 is scheduled to leave immediately following the conclusion of the event. Upon arrival in England grounds transportation will immediately take the players and their traveling parties to Royal Lytham & St. Annes — site of this year’s Open Championship.

Click here for more discussion in the Tour Talk forum.

Notes

Television Coverage (EST)

Thursday and Friday: Golf Channel 3:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday: CBS 3:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Radio Coverage (EST)

Thursday through Sunday: Sirius XM PGA Tour RADIO 12:00 – 6:00 p.m.

You can follow Pete on twitter @TheGreekGrind and GolfWRX @GolfWRX

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

5 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

2 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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