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1 “Feel like I can go faster”
David Dusek at Golfweek…”Three years ago, DeChambeau asked his trainer, Greg Roskopf, a question. “What is the end game in all of this, in all this neuromuscular training and working out?'” Roskopf replied that he wasn’t sure because no athlete had ever, “gone the distance.”
- “To that, DeChambeau said, “I’m willing to go the distance, and we went the distance…”
- “I truly felt like I started to become an athlete probably around December of this past year,” DeChambeau said during a pre-tournament press conference Tuesday. “I started moving weights up quite a bit, and when I was with Greg in Denver, we just kept upping the weight, and I’m like, ‘Man, I did not think I would be able to tolerate all these forces going through my body,’ and I kept recovering well after that.”
- “I wake up every day and feel like I can go faster, I can swing it faster,” DeChambeau said with a smile on Tuesday. “Just last week, I got my 6-iron up to 112 miles an hour swing speed. My ball speed was 160, and that was me going after it. But I don’t know where the limit is on this, and I’m excited about that because I keep looking forward to each and every day to go down this rabbit hole to see how far I can go.”
2. Bryson has “figured something out”
Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner with a few of the mad scientist of golf’s latest #content gems…”I think I’ve figured something out in the golf swing that will hopefully help me hit it a little straighter,” he said Tuesday. “That would be nice.”
- “His length, of course, has not been the issue since he added roughly 40 pounds of muscle over the past year. He currently leads the PGA Tour in average driving distance, at 323.9 yards…”
- “So how, exactly, did one of the game’s bulkiest bashers work on his accuracy during the off-week? It’s a trial-and-error process in which DeChambeau said he “must have tried 50 different things” as he worked his way through the entire bag.
- “It’s just a process of elimination going on,” he said, “and then finding a little nugget every once in a while going, Oh my gosh, it works with everything! And that’s what I felt this past week.”
3. JT on Winged Foot: Really hard, maybe his favorite course
Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner…“Thomas played two rounds at Winged Foot (alongside Tiger Woods) earlier this week in anticipation of next month’s U.S. Open.”
- “It’s really hard,” he said Tuesday. “I absolutely loved it. It’s one of my favorite, if not my favorite courses I’ve ever played. It’s right there in front of you. It’s not tricked up. Nothing is hidden. You just stand on the tee and you’re about 490 yards away and you have a really narrow fairway and a pretty severe green. There’s a lot of holes like that.”
4. Thomas: No golf ball rollback needed
Zephyr Melton, owner of the best name in golf journalism, with this for Golf.com…“That said, there is still a place in the game for plodders. In fact, of the four golfers who have won multiple times this season – Brendon Todd, Collin Morikawa, Webb Simpson and Justin Thomas – only Thomas ranks inside the top 100 in driving distance. Bombs might generate headlines, but (this season, at least) precision has proven to be more important.”
- “I think the fact that three guys have won multiple times this year being outside the top 100 in distance just proves yet again that you don’t need distance,” Thomas said at The Northern Trust. “Yeah, it’s helpful, but it makes me cringe and it really bothers me when whoever says that, you know, the golf ball or everything needs to be rolled back because there’s plenty of people that are still performing well that don’t hit it as far.
- “It is quite an interesting stat,” Thomas continued. “I loved it when I saw it because that just kind of proves yet again that length is not the answer. It’s just helpful. Still got to get the ball in the hole.”
5. Beware USGA email scam
…and no I’m not referring to the one where you send $10 and all you get is a bag tag… kidding. Kidding.
- Golfweek’s Todd Kelly…”The United States Golf Association put a warning out on social media on Tuesday about an email scam soliciting part-time employment at September’s U.S. Open.”
- “The USGA advises everyone that this is scam and those involved are not affiliated with the USGA or the tournament.”
- “The USGA was recently made aware of a fraudulent email campaign in which persons are falsely posing as USGA representatives to offer job candidates part-time employment for use of their vehicles to advertise for the 2020 U.S. Open. Please be advised that this is a scam. This email campaign and the persons involved are in no way affiliated with or have any connection to the USGA or the U.S. Open. Do not respond to the email and do not provide any personal or financial information. If you receive any such email or solicitation, please email the USGA at [email protected]. You may also want to notify your local law enforcement regarding this scam.”
6. Ratings?
Geoff Shackelford writes…”last week’s Wyndham Championship, won in compelling fashion by Jim Herman over Billy Horschel. It was soggy, hot, with an ok field, but sports television offered plenty of competition: NASCAR, NHL playoffs and MLB games across the country. Oh, and sports fans have lives that might have them doing other things, too, reportedly.”
- “Yet the Wyndham held its own against the heavy competition. From ShowBuzzDaily.com’s roundup of sports ratings where you can see how the other sports fared…”
- “The 1.62 edged out the Portland-Memphis NBA play-in game on ABC Saturday, which did draw a much younger audience, but just a 1.29. While this was not a true playoff game and the NBA/ABC combo is off 45% on average from 2012, this is still an eye-opening sight with golf facing tougher competition Sunday. (The Athletic’s Ethan Strauss looks at the NBA’s falling ratings here.)”
- “Up 36% from last year’s Wyndham, the tournament at Sedgefield also held its own against 2019’s BMW Championship. That was won by Justin Thomas and contested on a similar weekend as the 2020 Wyndham, but with less TV competition and a better field…”
7. Mac Bernhardt
Michael Bamberger at Golf.com with the story of exiled agent Mac Bernhardt (who once represented Davis Love III and Justin Leonard) as he mounts a comeback…
- “…In 2013, the company Barnhardt owned, Crown Sports Management, was bought out by Lagardère Sports, which has a golf division run by Steve Loy, Phil Mickelson’s agent. In May 2018, Barnhardt was, in his own candid telling, fired. That act triggered a noncompete clause. Barnhardt was pushed to the sidelines for a two-year period. Those two years have come and gone and then some. Which brings us to the comeback he is attempting.”
- “…In the story of his business life, to turn our subject’s 58 years on this earth into a movie script, Barnhardt’s in the part of Jerry Maguire where Jerry (Tom Cruise) is trying to recruit the fictional NFL receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to be the first client in the new, we’re-humans-first agency Jerry wants to launch. In real life, Barnhardt settled on his Rod Tidwell last summer. That’s when he started focusing his particular brand of attention, with its curious blend of purposefulness and nonchalance, on Ogletree, a tall, lean golfer from Union, Miss., where his father owns a Piggly Wiggly grocery store….”
8. Ricky Barnes’ wild ANGC story
Told on the latest episode of Subpar, Barnes recounts getting locked out of Augusta National Masters Sunday following a night out at the bar to celebrate his low am honors…
- “I get back to the front gate to get dropped off and the gate’s closed,” he said. “I’ll never forget it. I hop the brick stone wall, get over, and I’m jogging down Magnolia Lane thinking someone’s going to shoot me.”
- “…I go upstairs, and they’ll kill me for saying this,” Barnes said. “[British Amateur champion Alejandro Larrazábal] is the only one still there. And it’s only us two. So we walk down the crow’s nest, and there’s a telephone booth and we walk left and we keep going around and there’s the champion’s locker room.”
- “Then, Larrazábal slipped on a green jacket in a nod to fellow countryman Seve Ballesteros.”
- “Alex goes right into Seve’s locker, and he’s got Seve’s green jacket on,” Barnes said. “He’s pouring drinks with Seve’s jacket on.”
9. JT peaking?
Golfweek’s JuliaKate E. Culpepper…“Thomas, 27, has plenty to be confident about entering the playoffs: he’s No. 1 in FedEx Cup points, the No. 2 golfer in the world ranking and has the most wins on the PGA Tour this season.”
- “However, the 13-time Tour winner insists he’s just warming up…”I’m not trying to peak this week,” Thomas said Tuesday. “I’m trying to kind of start the upward climb to hopefully be peaking (at the Tour Championship) in Atlanta.”
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19th Hole2 weeks ago
19th Hole2 weeks ago
geohogan
Sep 8, 2020 at 8:08 am
BD is the real deal… Tin Cup
He will keep pushing, the weights, until his proprioception is gone
… and his fitness trainer admitted he doesnt know.
Where has weight training got Koepke….damaged knee and hips?
ask Jason Day.
Dat jurnolizm do
Aug 19, 2020 at 10:23 am
Great job missing the story about Charlie Woods crushing a US Kids event with Tiger looping for him.