|
Good Thursday morning, golf fans… I am looking to form a long-term M9 partnership with a coffee company — seems like a natural synergy! — if you’re the right highly caffeinated person, please drop me a line.
|
|
1. Azinger: “If Brooks doesn’t love the Ryder Cup…”
Who could have forecast the winds of blowback yesterday? That’s right. Everyone.
- Golf Channel Digital team…”Former U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger, in an NBC Sports/Golf Channel conference call to discuss next week’s competition, said he read Koepka’s full quotes and didn’t think Koepka was fully invested in the matches.”
- “Brooks, when I just read that article, I’m not sure he loves the Ryder Cup that much. If he doesn’t love it, he should relinquish his spot and get people there who do love the Ryder Cup,” the 2008 winning captain said.”
- “Not everybody embraces it, but if you don’t love it and you’re not sold out, then I think Brooks should – especially being hurt, should consider whether or not he really wants to be there.”
|
|
2. Rahm out of pro-am with stomach bug
The World No. 1 sat out Wednesday.
Golf Channel’s Max Schreiber…”World No. 1 Jon Rahm withdrew from the Fortinet Championship’s Wednesday pro-am because of a stomach illness.”
- “Rahm was supposed to tee off at 8:40 a.m. PST and moved his press conference to 2 p.m. But he then canceled his pre-tournament presser altogether and the Tour announced he would not appear at Silverado Resort and Spa’s North Course at all on Wednesday.”
|
|
3. Unity & birdies
Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard…”If the team scouting trip to Whistling Straits this week is any indication, there are at least two themes that will define the Ryder Cup – U.S. captain Steve Stricker’s message of team unity and a golf course that will be set up for plenty of low scoring.”
- “The majority of the U.S. team spent Sunday and Monday at Whistling Straits playing two practice rounds and attending a relaxed team dinner hosted by Stricker.”
- “We understand how much it means to [Stricker], how much it means having it in his home state. I think you are going to see a very cohesive team that’s playing for each other and understands the bigger picture,” Harris English told GolfChannel.com. “We are all a team.”
|
|
The Morning 9 Recommends…
|
|
Like lightning in a bottle, this jolt of electricity in your coffee cup will vanquish grogginess and “revolutionize your morning.”
A smooth, subtle, never-bitter cherry and chocolate flavor profile, Death Wish’s brew is the only one I count on to hit my 5 a.m. Morning 9 deadline!
|
|
GolfWRX may earn a commission of “Recommends” products.
|
|
4. Storylines of 2021: The Bryson saga
ESPN’s Bob Harig rounds up the major plot points of the 2020-2021 season. Not surprisingly, one Bryson DeChambeau features prominently.
- “No player made more headlines than Bryson DeChambeau. From his six-shot U.S. Open victory in September 2020 to his spat with Brooks Koepka — and that was just the beginning of the Bryson drama — DeChambeau was an overwhelming story in the season just completed.”
- “He won his first major at Winged Foot, had a stirring victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, wowed fans with long drives, contended at the 2021 U.S. Open, lost in a stirring playoff at the BMW Championship and continues to approach the game from a different place.”
- “But after his March win at Bay Hill, the headlines were mostly for other things. The spat with Koepka that began at the PGA Championship was the biggest one and is still ongoing. That led to on-course heckling and some verbal, social-media sparring between he and Koepka.”
|
|
5. Assistant captain Stenson
BBC report…”Sweden’s Henrik Stenson has been named as the fifth and final European vice-captain for next week’s Ryder Cup.”
- “The 45-year-old joins compatriot Robert Karlsson, Germany’s Martin Kaymer, Luke Donald of England and Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland in the role.”
- “The 2016 Open champion has played in five Ryder Cups, winning three times.”
- “He knows what it takes to win – and that experience and knowledge will be crucial for us,” said European captain Padraig Harrington.”
|
|
6. Keeping the dream job
Adam Schupak puts some meat on the “PGA Tour rookies” bone with his item for Golfweek.
- “There are 27 rookies in this season’s class on the PGA Tour, the most since 2011 when 35 earned cards, and 26 of them are in the field this week (all but Matthias Schwab). Max McGreevy and Jared Wolfe are making their Tour debut.”
- “Some, like Aaron Rai, a 26-year-old Englishman who once holed a record 207 straight 10-foot putts at age 15, needed just three starts in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to graduate while others such as Scott Gutschewski, 44, is returning to the big leagues full time for the first time since 2011, and had made just two PGA Tour starts in the past 10 years. How did he celebrate his success? He went to Denny’s.”
- “It ain’t Applebees, but still pretty fancy,” he tweeted.
|
|
7. Furyk to seniors
Listen to Jim! Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt with remarks from the 17-time PGA Tour winner that point to the appeal of the senior circuit for shorter hitters — and the relevance for golfers getting on in years.
- “It’s one of the reasons why I really enjoy the Champions tour. Not the only reason, but I joke that I got to know my 4- and 5-iron really well playing the PGA Tour and kind of missed hitting the 8, 9 and wedge into par 4s,” Furyk said on Wednesday. “I get an opportunity now to attack a little bit more at times and get some shorter irons in my hand and make a few more birdies. It’s a lot of fun.”
- “But while Furyk was mandated by PGA Tour rules to play the world’s best courses at their very longest, he said it’s a mistake that common players make when enjoying the game in middle age.”
- “As amateurs get older, it’s very common that if they grew up playing the blue tees, they want to play the blue tees. It’s hard to move up to the whites,” Furyk said. “When they finally do, they go, ‘Wow, this is fun, why didn’t I do this earlier? I should have been doing this five years ago.”
|
|
8. Inbee the best putter in golf?
Our Andy Lack…”The PGA Tour has embarked on a data driven revolution over the past decade, and with the unveiling of KPMG Performance Insights, the LPGA is following suit.”
- “Beginning at the 2021 LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship in June, the KPMG team has gathered data from over 240,000 individual LPGA Tour Shots.”
- “While there were a number of a fascinating conclusions that Justin Ray this week highlighted for LPGA.com, Inbee Park’s putting stood out the most.”
- “Any LPGA Tour fan is familiar with the fact that the seven-time major champion is one of the best putters in the world, but the advanced analytics shed even more light on just how brilliant she has been.”
- “Since the start of KPMG Performance Insight tracking, LPGA Tour pros have a conversion rate of 28% on putts from 10 to 15 feet. For context, PGA Tour golfers hover around 30%, with the leaders in that statistic making 10-15 foot putts 40 to 41% of the time.”
|
|
|
9. Photos from the Fortinet
GolfWRX is live from Napa for the 2021 Fortinet Championship. Along with the return of in-hand WITBs (8 players!) we have a number of general galleries for your perusal.
In addition, we got a look at putters from Ping, Bettinardi, and Scotty Cameron — covers, too!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
19th Hole2 weeks ago
19th Hole1 week ago
