News
Tiger Woods withdraws from The Northern Trust with an oblique strain
Hours before his round two tee time, Tiger Woods withdrew from the Northern Trust, citing a “mild oblique strain” as the reason behind the withdrawal.
In a prepared statement released by the PGA Tour, Woods said
“Due to a mild oblique strain that led to pain and stiffness, I have to withdraw from the Northern Trust. I went for treatment early morning but unfortunately I’m still unable to compete.”
The 15-time major champion struggled throughout his opening round at Liberty National posting a four-over par round of 75 to leave him near the bottom of the leaderboard.
Despite his WD, Woods remains hopeful of teeing it up at next week’s BMW Championship.
“I’d like to thank the New Jersey and New York fans for their support and remain hopeful I can compete next week at the BMW Championship.”
Following his withdrawal Woods now sits outside the top-30 in the FedEx Cup standings, putting an appearance at East Lake for the Tour Championship in jeopardy.
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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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Perkins Restaurant
May 22, 2022 at 10:03 pm
Leave him near the bottom of the leaderboard? Actually now, the very bottom. That’s what you do when you play so poor, you pull a Michel Wie and fake an injury and withdraw. But I’ll be back for the BMW golf fans.
JThunder
Aug 10, 2019 at 9:37 pm
If you want to know the other half of the story on his back issues, read the Vanity Fair article on his non-golf “regimen”. Plenty of stuff in there that will mess up your back.
Dave r
Aug 10, 2019 at 5:46 pm
That’s what a 75 will do.
Vince
Aug 10, 2019 at 12:57 pm
Matt Kuchar is a jackass….hee haw…
Ryan
Aug 9, 2019 at 8:10 pm
The military style workouts have taken their toll on his body. Like Johnny Miller once said about him at the Players, “We are trying to figure out who puts the ball in the hole the least, not who bench presses the most”
Christopher
Aug 9, 2019 at 2:28 pm
Tiger’s looked exhausted this year, I have wondered if his win at Augusta was a little gift from the golfing gods. If he wants to continue playing competitively I hope he can get back to reasonable health, but he doesn’t look well.
shank
Aug 9, 2019 at 1:22 pm
Tiger will never be the GOAT as Jack is the GOAT and Tiger has ZERO chance of beating his records.
Tom Morrison
Aug 9, 2019 at 1:18 pm
Good, Tiger Withdrew! Now maybe we’ll get to hear about, and see highlights of, the leaders instead of the media’s Woods infatuation.
Tartan Golf Travel
Aug 9, 2019 at 12:02 pm
PEDs will take their toll. He’s too big for his small frame. Look at those chicken legs. Shame but I think his tile contending will be few and far between. He always has a chance at Augusta.
A. Commoner
Aug 9, 2019 at 3:57 pm
Tartan is right on. Best medical professionals (except for one past) attending and still one unexplained problem after another?
15th Club
Aug 9, 2019 at 11:58 am
I remember a good time when some golf fans — mostly younger fans who were primarily general sports fans and casual golfers — thought that Tiger’s aggressive workout regimens would allow him a golf career of unprecedented length.
At the same time, I recall others — mostly older fans whose primary interest was golf only — saying that Tiger worked out like an NFL or NBA player, whose careers rarely last more than five or ten years.
To me it is clear that Tiger has shortened, and not lengthened,his career in professional golf with his off-course regimen and choices.
My only question now with Tiger is whether his career, which has paralleled the career of Jack Nicklaus in so many ways, will see his Masters win in 2019 be the equivalent of Jack’s Masters win in 1986.
Large chris
Aug 10, 2019 at 4:54 am
Well his first and last (so far) professional victories were 23 years apart. Pretty long career in any sport, including golf.
15th Club
Aug 10, 2019 at 9:02 am
True! With 14 majors in one 11-year stretch, and 1 major in another 11-year stretch. A remarkable comeback, for that last win.
Really a triumph over the damage caused by his previous regimen, and not a product of the regimen’s success. In my view.
Duke
Aug 9, 2019 at 11:45 am
It’s like the Masters victory took whatever Tiger had left in the tank.
GOAT