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Cheers to your 2021 U.S. Women’s Open champion
We’re not giving it away THAT easily, headline skimmers. It was THAT good on Sunday.
Through 10 holes of Sunday’s final round, there was little drama at Olympic Club in San Francisco. That seemed unfair to a club whose very name suggests the height of competition. Come to think of it, Lexi Thompson’s performance to that juncture was quite olympian in its dominance. She had reached 8 under par and was far ahead of all chasers. Her final-round partner, Yuka Saso, had tumbled from the mountain’s heights with consecutive double bogeys at the second and third holes. Along came Nasa Hataoka, a runner-up at the 2018 PGA Championship, with a back-nine run of her own. Thompson then created the drama with double at the 11th and bogey at the 14th. It was as if the inhabitants of Olympus themselves had grown bored and decided to inject the aforementioned drama into the proceedings. How did it finish?
Let’s begin with Saso. She began the day at 6 under one shot behind 54-hole leader Lexi Thompson. At the second hole, her drive squirted far to the right, and she needed two recovery pitch shots to reach the fairway. From there, a third pitch and two putts dropped her to 4 under. At the third, Saso tugged her tee ball into the left front bunker, then exploded to the green’s second tier. She was tentative with her attempt at par, and missed the second putt, making a second double bogey. Saso would find her compass, however. She made birdie at seven, bogey at eleven, and a pair of coming-home birdies at 16 and 17 to reach 4 under par.
Next came Hataoka. The Japanese champion, three times a winner on the LPGA Tour, opened day four with a birdie, then made a double bogey of her own at six. She bounced back with birdie number two at seven and added a third at the ninth. Her train paused momentarily with bogey at 11, then accelerated into the station with three closing birdies, at 13, 14, and 16. She was the first to reach the clubhouse at minus 4 and was joined minutes later by Saso.
And what of Lexi Thompson? If the words to Mighty Casey come to mind, alas, they are all too appropriate. Thompson wore the mantle of leader for so long, it grew heavy. After turning in 34 strokes on the day, a seer would tell her that a score of 39 coming home would win the trophy outright. Thompson is a power player, with a step-out follow-through. For 3.5 days, her swing was in sync, and the numbers were admirable. On Sunday’s inward half, everything came unglued. At 11, her drive went left, but her recovery was quite good, ending thirty yards shy of the green, leaving an uphill pitch for three. The swing decelerated and her wrists cupped, chunking the ball into the slope. From there, another pitch and two putts gave her a crushing double bogey.
Crushing? Not necessarily. Thompson made par at 12 and 13, but missed the fairway high and right at 14. Another pitch down left a wee recovery toss, and again, she was tentative. Two putts led to another bogey, her tally was five-under, and her lead had shrunk to one. Although she made par at 16, that might have been the hole that gutted her. Three perfect shots left her a twelve-foot, downhill run at birdie. For a time, the putt looked good, and what a boost that would have given her. It turned left with 18 inches remaining, and par was all that came of her excellent execution.
It might be too much to review her struggles on the closing 750 yards. Suffice it to say that she took nine strokes. Seven would have won the event. Eight would have gained her a spot in the playoff. Another drive left brought on the bogey at 17 while a misclubbed or mishit approach at 18 dropped her into the Lion’s Mouth bunker fronting the final green. Each of us would clamor for the chance to play as the professionals play, but none of us would ever wish to experience what Lexi Thompson did on June 6, 2021. Our hearts were with her.
And thus did Saso and Hataoka join in the second, two-hole playoff for a U.S. Open crown. The USGA traded its three-hole, aggregate-score format for a two-hole method in 2018. That year, Ariya Jutanugarn survived against Kim Hyo-joo after two additional, sudden-death holes. In 2021, Saso and Hataoka each parred the ninth hole, the first of two in overtime. At the tenuous 18th, the pair again traded fours, so it was off to another sudden-death resolution, the second in three playings of this event.
Return to the ninth tee, they did. And left did Yuka Saso go, into the rough. From there, she hit the approach shot of the week, slashing an iron out of the lettuce onto the putting surface, 10 feet from glory.
Out-of-the-rough magic by Yuka Saso!#USWomensOpen pic.twitter.com/37EH2RmI11
— U.S. Women's Open (USGA) (@uswomensopen) June 6, 2021
And just like that, one hole removed from draining an eight-footer to stay alive, Saso dreamed the birdie putt into the hole and tied Inbee Park to the day as the youngest U.S. Women’s Open champion in history.
19-YEAR-OLD MAJOR CHAMPION!
Yuka Saso ties Inbee Park as the youngest #USWomensOpen champion in history. pic.twitter.com/Ay1dzEH3S5
— U.S. Women's Open (USGA) (@uswomensopen) June 6, 2021
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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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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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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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Carolyn
Jun 7, 2021 at 10:56 am
The back nine Lexi unlike the other girls continued to put on the happy having fun look, when it was time to grind she was done…maybe too much of the “head” coach at that time. Winning always takes a killer instinct and some of that has been taken away form Lexi Others have tried the “Having fun” approach and found you have to toss that out the window when it is crunch time. Maybe that will be be Lexi’s next lesson…….