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19th Hole

Rory McIlroy’s equipment changes paying early dividends at BMW Championship

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1 year ago

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Rory McIlroy holds the first round co-lead of the BMW Championship after a blistering seven-under par 64 that included seven birdies and one eagle. A couple of recent equipment changes might have been just what the doctor ordered for the four-time major champion.

Last week at the Northern Trust, McIlroy was so disappointed with his three-wood that he actually threw the club into the woods during his final round.

The recent Wells Fargo Championship winner took a quick flight home to Florida ahead of this week’s BMW Championship, and returned to competition this week strapped with a few new secret weapons.

“I went into the garage and rummaged through a few different things, got my old putter back out, got my old 3-wood, brought a few shafts out, tried out different shafts in the driver, went to a new shaft in the driver, and it seemed to work out today,” McIlroy said after the round.

“Work out” might be an understatement, as the world number 16 tied his best round of the entire season, and included shots like this, which have us conjuring memories of vintage McIlroy.

McIlroy is as thoughtful as they come, and the equipment changes (which included putting a Graphite Design Tour AD XC shaft in his driver) certainly was backed by technical reasoning.

“I just had a driver I felt was spinning a little too much, so a couple of times last week into the wind, I’d hit it and it would balloon up in the air and then if I wanted to try and hit a cut off the tee, I was not comfortable doing it because I felt like I was losing too much distance by hitting the cut,” McIlroy commented.

A simple switch seems to have been the perfect spark for the 28-time PGA Tour winner. McIlroy tees off at 11:21 A.M. Eastern standard time alongside Sungjae Im and Billy Horschel in round two of the BMW Championship.

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19th Hole

Phil Mickelson says it’s harder to win on LIV than PGA Tour in wild (and amusing) Twitter return

Published

9 hours ago

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Jan 30, 2023

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Phil Mickelson is active once again on Twitter and is spicing things up in typical Lefty fashion.

There are tomes now written about the 52-year-old since last May, when he pulled out of the defence of his PGA Championship crown,  joined LIV, justified the choice, and spoke of never taking part in an interview with Alan Shipnuck. Each story providing its own element of Lefty as we know him.

Over the weekend, Mickelson posted a tweet that most interpreted as a dig at the PGA Tour’s non-shorts policy, saying:

Then the three-time Masters champ has ramped it up, going after the world number one, Rory McIlroy. In a back-handed compliment, Lefty requested that viewers “see if he can finish it off,” while capitalizing the word “Dubai” and making sure everyone knew the event was being held in the middle east.

The replies were biting but, let’s face it, quite amusing!

To the comment that his career has been loaded with Sunday chokes, especially in majors, Mickelson replies, “I have won 6 though,” a jibe at McIlroy with four majors and none since 2014?

Of course, with less than a month to the start of the 2023 LIV calendar, it is time to ramp up interest again, particularly with a brand new broadcasting agreement.

Mickelson even made a cheeky claim that LIV events are tougher than PGA Tour events, since he’s yet to win on LIV but has “won 45 of those PGA thingies.”

Whatever Mickelson might or might not say and how much we are to believe him, he’s doing the job of generating noise if not interest.

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19th Hole

Gary McCord explains why he once missed every green ON PURPOSE during a PGA Tour event

Published

9 hours ago

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Jan 30, 2023

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Gary McCord, who’s eccentric personality made him popular in the CBS broadcasting booth, did an interview with Barstool Sports on the “Foreplay Podcast” last week.

McCord, who also played a role in the movie “Tin Cup” told an interesting story. He wasn’t the most successful player on Tour, but decided there was one record he could break.

Going into the event, McCord was leading the Tour in putting. In order to preserve his lead in that category, he decided to miss every green in regulation.

“I knew at that particular point my career sucked, and it wasn’t going anywhere,” McCord said then. “So, this was the only thing literally I was going to win.”

The “performance” enabled McCord to win the putting title that season with 28.57 putts per round.

McCord tells the full story here:

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19th Hole

‘This guy does not stop’ – Tour pros take aim at Patrick Reed over latest rules controversy

Published

9 hours ago

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Jan 30, 2023

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The words Patrick Reed and controversy seem to go hand in hand these days, and it continued at the weekend.

During the third round of the delayed Dubai Desert Classic, Reed took a penalty drop after identifying his ball lodged in one of a group of trees. Trouble is, the ball is only identifiable by a specific arrow marking in what appears to be a palm full of golf balls. And, in this case, by binoculars.

If unable to identify his ball, Reed would have needed to go back to the 17th tee to re-load, more than likely causing to him to score double-bogey instead of just the one dropped shot.

The former Masters champion had already found himself embroiled in a debate surrounding his apparel daubed with ‘LIV Golf’, and in a spat with the world number one in Dubai.

Pre-event, video footage showed McIlroy apparently ignoring his greeting when on the practise ground, resulting in a bit of tee-throwing, leading social media to comment we have moved from ‘Tee Gate’ to ‘Tree Gate’ in the space of a few days.

In a statement issued by tournament officials, the DP World Tour confirmed that “two on course referees and several marshals” identified that Reed’s ball had been caught up in the tree.

As shown by the Golf Channel, this is the alleged offending tree, shown with a heap of golf-balls never to be seen again:

Image

The full statement issued reads:

Image

Despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, a couple of DP World Tour pros seemed not best pleased with the incident, with some footage appearing to show Reed’s ball entering a different tree than where he eventually found his ball.

French Tour pro Matthieu Pavon responded to the video of the incident saying: “Wow wrong tree ?! Maybe optical illusion” followed by a laughing emoji. While his compatriot Mike Lorenzo-Vera went a little further stating: “This guy does not stop.”

According to Reed himself, he would have gone back to the tee had he not been 100 percent sure the ball was his.

Ironically, almost a year to the day after being involved in a rule dispute at Torrey Pines, Reed again finds himself as the focus of attention over a drop.

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