News
A Major Win for Lorena Ochoa
The #1 LPGA player finishes #1 again. Dinah Shore, beloved matriarch of this LPGA major, would be proud of Lorena Ochoa’s steady tournament and excellent final round in capturing the title at the Kraft Nabisco Championship at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, CA. Low-rena does it again with a sparkling five-under 67 and a dominating winning margin of five strokes.
Annika Sorenstam, feeling peppier after an I.V. at the hospital and a good night’s rest for her ailing stomach, carded a 68 for the day and a score of -6 for a second-place tie with Suzann Petterson. Suzann, after hurtling from 62nd place to 9th following yesterday’s round, shot an impressive Sunday 68.
But this Sunday belonged the Lorena, the enchantress of the short grass, who sank every putt in sight today and boomed 300+ drives that left even her errant tee-shots with only a short-iron approach. All of it added up to a celebratory leap with her mother, father, sister, and assorted friends into Poppy’s Pond (named for longtime tournament director Terry "Poppy" Wilcox) beside the 18th green, a tradition begun by Amy Alcott in 1988.
Not that Lorena should be looking behind her, but Annika and Suzann raced aggressively up the leaderboard this Sunday, stoking the fires under an already hot year on the LPGA tour.
Here are the top 10:
1 Lorena Ochoa -11
T2 Annika Sorenstam -6
T2 Suzann Pettersen -6
T4 Maria Hjorth -5
5 Seon Hwa Lee -4
T6 Mi Hyun Kim -3
T6 Na Yeon Choi -3
T6 Hee-Won Han -3
T8 Inbee Park -2
T10 Se Ri Pak -1
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Equipment
Did Rory McIlroy inspire Shane Lowry’s putter switch?
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.
The timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?
Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.
When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.
To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.
Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.
“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.
“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”
Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.
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Equipment
Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter
Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.
This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.
Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.
The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.
Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship
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Equipment
Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange
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.
…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.
Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.
Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.
According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.
He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.
Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.
Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.
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Andy Brown
Apr 7, 2008 at 9:07 am
Just recently I had read some comments from Lorena Ochoa where she said she always keeps an eye on the leaderboard to look out for Annika and how she is doing. She did not have to worry about anyone else this week. Another commanding performance, another win and this time it’s a Major. People, stop worrying about Tiger Woods, it is Lorena where all the attention must be focused. Quite honestly she seems to have a better chance to put in a phenomenal season than even Tiger Woods. Of course if Tiger Woods comes across this message he might just take his game to the next level(whoa!) but just look at Lorena this season. This Major was a newspaper report put it “a slam dunk victory for herâ€.
She seems all set to improve upon her great run last year and that is no mean feat. Her only defeat this year has been at home and that probably hurts quite a lot. Now she is just a point shy of being inducted into the Hall of Fame but since she is yet to complete her ten years on tour she cannot be a part of that club till 2012.
Again the leaderboard this week made me wonder how the South Koreans manage to churn out so many top quality women golfers and why the same is not replicated on the men’s tour.