News
The Masters changes eligibility policy for its Par-3 Contest
One of the most exclusive events all year just got more exclusive. As reported by PGA.com, Augusta National has issued notices to honorary invitees that only “players in the field and past Masters champions” will be allowed to play in the Masters Par-3 Contest, which takes place on Wednesday of Masters week.
Before this news, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship winners received invitations to the Masters tournament for five years and were considered “honorary invitees” after that period. Past U.S. Amateur champions were also considered honorary invitees. That title allowed the invitees to play in the Masters Par-3 contest, use the practice facility and play in practice rounds.
Those perks are no longer available to the honorary invitees.
The decision affects a number of previous participants including Ian Baker-Finch, David Duval and Curtis Strange. See what those players told PGA.com about the situation below.
Ian Baker-Finch: “As a person and an honorary invitee, I’m disappointed because it was my favorite day of the year. I loved it. I’ll still be there, though, and I’ll watch like everyone else.”
David Duval: “I would never clog up the golf course when guys are trying to prepare. That’s the problem I would have had [with the practice rounds]… I guess [the par-3 contest] could be easily expanded if they started it earlier. But you have to protect it. You have to protect the competitors.”
Curtis Strange: “We had our time, and now it’s their time. I think it’s extremely nice that we’re invited to come back with your spouse. It’s been nice for these guys who want to hit balls and play practice rounds. But times change. I think with time constraints, they want to make it for players in the field. My sense is that the Par 3 was getting a little bit crowded and taking a little bit too long, and they wanted to streamline it. I think that’s fine.”
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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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Equipment
Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship
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.
So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.
After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.
Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.
According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.
“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…
“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”
Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.
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TONEY P
Mar 31, 2017 at 11:13 pm
I actually agree with the tournament people. What’s next a Pro am.
Miuralovechild
Mar 15, 2017 at 9:44 pm
I wish someone would win the par 3 and the tournament so everyone could shut the **** up and talk about something else. The only thing more irritating is hearing about the undefeated ’72 Dolphins every year.
Dave R
Mar 15, 2017 at 8:47 pm
Yes let them do what they want,they will anyway!
Mad-Mex
Mar 14, 2017 at 11:17 pm
Its their tournament, they can do what ever they want, don’t like it? Am sure there is 100 people ready to take your ticket
Jo Jo
Mar 14, 2017 at 10:09 pm
No more Nate Crosby
ooffa
Mar 14, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Same boring course year after year.
C
Mar 14, 2017 at 4:39 pm
Guess you’d want them to move the Players, as well?
ooffa
Mar 15, 2017 at 8:32 am
Yes, that is correct.
Double Mocha Man
Mar 14, 2017 at 11:22 am
I’m still waiting for them to “float” a Cadillac on one of the ponds.
C
Mar 14, 2017 at 2:40 pm
That’ll happen the same year they let fans walk around with actual beer bottles/cans instead of the Masters labelled plastic cups.
Hopefully, never.
Darrin
Mar 15, 2017 at 2:24 pm
You will be waiting a long time.
C
Mar 14, 2017 at 9:31 am
So no more letting kids putt?
Matt K
Mar 14, 2017 at 8:42 am
You had your time Curtis, not “we.” What about the guy who just won the US Am two summers ago, would’ve had a life of amazing Aprils, or at least when his schedule allowed him to go to Augusta. Sad day for the tournament. Bob’s tournament just got that much closer to the Frys.com classic. What’s next… lets stop inviting the US Mid Am champ, nobody cares about that guy anyway, he’ll just shoot two 76s and be on his way. This probably sounds dramatic, but The Masters is the last bastion of tradition in golf. Hate to see them erode any part of it… cuz usually there’s more to come.
C
Mar 14, 2017 at 9:59 am
“The Masters is the last bastion of tradition in golf.”
Don’t tell that to the R&A.
Matt
Mar 14, 2017 at 12:59 pm
You definitely have a point there… St. Andrews edges Augusta as my favorite place on Earth. Should’ve said “American Golf.”
DeShamBeau
Mar 14, 2017 at 6:40 pm
“Traditional golf”. Hahahahahahahahahaha
Forsbrand
Mar 13, 2017 at 5:13 pm
Let Michelle Wie play 🙂
Don Julio
Mar 13, 2017 at 11:20 pm
Settle down.
Jack Nash
Mar 15, 2017 at 11:34 am
With her tabletop putting style?