Tour News

Evian Masters preview: One last sip [waiting on the new flavored water]

Published

12 years ago

Jul 26, 2012

Vince Robitaille

By Vince Robitaille

GolfWRX Staff Writer

As yet another Olympic chapter commences, one ends this week in Evian-les-Bains. In its last edition as a non-major event, the Evian Masters will give impressions of trials and preparations; players, however, will treat it entirely otherwise.

When LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan announced, 53 weeks ago, that the Evian Masters would officially become what it had unofficial been for quite some time, namely a major tournament, many saw what resembled the grand opening of the proverbial floodgates and voiced their opinions accordingly. The prospect of further additions to the major circuit diluting the importance of the whole – a case could be made that with a supplementary fifth crown, a second on the Old Continent, a sixth seems all the more like, especially given Asia’s golfing prominence and the fact that it’s still left major-less. The option of a World Golf Championships-type series, most likely sponsored by HSBC – their omnipresence in the Australasian leg of the LPGA schedule prompting such an assumption – could provide a palliative alternative to the issue, but a need for much larger eligible pools of players seems to arise with such a choice; perhaps new administrative regulations from the KLPGA could deliver such an influx. Such pondering would be better suited once the 2013 Evian Masters rolls in, 14 months from now.

The clear favorite heading into the week is two-time and defending champion Ai Miyazato. The Japanese star is arguably back to her old form that permitted her climb to the top of the LPGA’s food chain back in 2010. A mildly disappointing 2011 campaign was overshadowed by the likes of Na Yeon Choi and Yani Tseng’s utter dominance, and has made the Evian Masters Golf Club her home away from home. The question, nonetheless, will be to see how the current World No.4 will adjust to her newly renovated home. The course being lengthened significantly in preparation for next year, as well as to what could be one of the quirkiest groups Yours Truly has witnessed – Miyazato sharing tee times with English legendary swashbuckler Laura Davies and hot-blooded Swede Helen Alfredsson.

While Miazato will be eyeing her third triumph nearby the ever-famous spring, dismissing two Ladies European Tour players in their mid-twenties, more precisely Melissa Reid and Caroline Masson, would be rather foolish. Reid’s recent familial horror story and subsequent victorious return to action stand for an accurate barometer of her mental toughness and talent; an illustrious second half of the season could be looming ahead, despite its tearful start. As for the young German, with the monkey off her proverbial back – the former Oklahoma State University student lifting her first professional trophy at the South African Women’s Open earlier this year – and steady play that has her sitting atop the 2012 Order of Merit, the table seems set for a breakout party.

Click here for more discussion in the “LPGA/Ladies golf talk” forum.

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

2 days 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

4 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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