Tour News

Z. Johnson wins John Deere Classic in a playoff

Published

12 years ago

Jul 15, 2012

Winning major golf championships is often about perseverance under pressure filled circumstances. The players, the fans and even the announcers got a real taste of major-style drama as Zach Johnson edged out Troy Matteson on the second playoff hole to win the 2012 John Deere Classic at the TPC Deere Run course in Silvis, Illinois.

Johnson shot a 6-under 65 on Sunday to tie with Matteson, who wobbled to a 2-under par 69. Matteson appeared out of contention with a double bogey on the short par-4 16^th, but he bounced back with an improbable 60-foot bomb of a putt on the 17th hole to earn his way into the playoff with Johnson.

On the first playoff hole (No. 18), Zach Johnson hit into what is now known as “Stricker’s Bunker” on the left side of the fairway. Matteson pushed his drive right and got a break as it kicked partly out of the trees to leave a shot at the green, albeit a difficult one. Almost unbelievably, both players went into the water hazard with their second shots. Matteson pitched his fourth shot about 10 feet past the hole. Johnson actually took four nerve-wracking drops to get in position for his fourth and left it 18 feet past the hole. His putt slid five feet past the hole. Matteson then had a put for the win, but he also hit his putt several feet past the cup. Both players made their short putts to take the playoff to a second hole.

On the second playoff hole Johnson, failed to hit the fairway again and found himself in the same left fairway bunker. Matteson put his shot in the fairway, but it almost made no difference what Matteson did next because Johnson hit the shot of a lifetime on his second, carving a 6-iron out of the sand to six inches. Matteson left himself 20 feet to stay in the tournament; in a metaphor for his week, he came up just short. Johnson kicked in his putt and became the Tour’s fourth multiple tournament winner in 2012, joining Tiger Woods (3), Jason Dufner and Hunter Mahan. Johnson’s ninth career victory also gave him his biggest come from behind victory, coming from four strokes off the lead in the final round to catch third-round leader Matteson. Matteson, who had missed one more cut than he had made coming into the John Deere, enjoyed his best finish of the year and also got a great consolation prize by qualifying for the 2012 British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes this week.

Two-time defending champion Steve Stricker, who won in dramatic fashion in 2011 with one of the best shots of the year on the 18^th hole setting up a victory-clinching birdie, was in great position to notch his third consecutive win going into the final holes. But a series of uncharacteristically erratic drives led to bogeys on Nos. 14, 15 and 17, leaving Stricker tied for fifth place at 16-under 268. Third-place finisher Scott Piercy finished just two shots out of the playoff by shooting a brilliant, bogey-free 64 on Sunday (18-under 266). Aussie John Senden also had window of opportunity when he carded a birdie and eagle on Nos. 14 and 15, but he slammed it on his own hand with bogeys on the next two holes and finished in solo fourth place.

Lee Trevino in 1971 is the only golfer to win the week before the British Open (the Canadian Open) and then go on to win the Open championship the next week. The chances of Zach Johnson becoming the second are considered slim. Indeed, he probably isn’t even the player with the last name Johnson with the best chance; that distinction would belong to compatriot Dustin Johnson. But Z. Johnson, winner of the 2007 Masters, is clearly in winning form and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him among the leaders next Sunday.

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

14 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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