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Morning 9: LIV ratings | Match Play format | Masters video game challenge

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By Ben Alberstadt with Gianni Magliocco.

For comments: [email protected]

March 21, 2023

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans, as attention now turns to the WGC Match Play.

1. A WGC Dell Technologies Championship Match Play format reminder

It’s match play this week, folks! Via Golf Channel Digital…”The 64 players are divided into 16 groups of four (click here for this year’s groups). Each player will compete in match play against the other three players within his group over the first three days. A match victory is worth one point. A tied match is worth a half-point. A loss is worth zero points.”

  • “The player with the most points in his group after three days of round-robin play will advance to the knockout stage…”
  • “If two or more players are tied in their group after the three pool-play matches, then those players will compete in a stroke-play, sudden-death playoff to determine who advances.”
  • “Sixteen players will qualify for the single-elimination portion.”
  • Wednesday: Group play…Thursday: Group play….Friday: Group play…Saturday: Round of 16 (morning); quarterfinals (afternoon)…Sunday: Semifinals (morning); finals and third-place match (afternoon).
Full piece.

2. LIV Golf ratings

Alex Raskin of the Daily Mail…“LIV Golf is already losing its limited viewing audience in its first season on the CW Network.”

  • “The controversial Saudi-backed tour held its second event of the year in Tucson, Arizona last weekend, not that many seemed to notice. LIV drew only a 0.14 rating across 33 markets in the 18-49 demographic, according to Kevin Van Valkenburg of No Laying Up.”
  • “That is somehow worse than the tour’s debut on the CW network, which drew a 0.2 rating in late February.”
Full piece.

3. Pros demand ball rollback…in 1983

From the Golf Digest archives…”Here’s a look back at what some top players from 40 years ago thought of the golf ball distance debate. The arguments for and against a rollback hit on the same points as today, even as the average driving distance on tour has increased by 30 yards since 1983.”

  • “I’ve told the USGA that I think the balls are going too far and that it has to pull them back. It’s wrong for the game of golf.” — Jack Nicklaus
  • “If the golf ball is cut back in distance, we are going to have fewer people playing golf. There will be less need for a USGA to rule the game, because people are going to go play tennis or something else.” — Davis Love Jr.
  • “They’re at the limit right now. The ball shouldn’t go any farther. We’re getting stronger and stronger people out here, and we’re obsoleting courses. This has been building up for about 10 years now, what with two-piece balls that bore through the wind and so forth. Things are getting out of hand. The performance of a ball has to be consistent. We can’t have a ball that goes through the air and isn’t affected by conditions.” — Tom Watson
Full piece.

4. Smart! Remote workers are working at night so they can golf in the afternoon

Steve Mollman for Fortune…”Remote workers are taking a cue from college students. Rather than working 9 to 5, they’re spreading work out to off hours. That means that late afternoons, for instance, are fair game for doing something fun. If you’re planning to work later that night, after all, why not?”

  • “One beneficiary of the shift to remote work, it appears, is golf courses. According to Stanford researchers, working from home “has powered a huge boom in golfing.”
  • “The researchers, Nick Bloom and Alex Finan, studied data from the company Inrix for 3,400-plus golf courses and shared their findings in a recent research paper entitled “How Working from Home boosted Golf.”
  • “Comparing Wednesday in 2022 to the same day in 2019, they found a 143% increase in golfers playing more golf on that day, and a 278% jump in them playing on that day in the mid-afternoon.”
Full piece.

5. “It’s sad”

6. Simpson, long-time caddie split

7. Poulter hits out at Ryder Cup decision makers

Michael McEwan for Bunkered…”Ian Poulter has hit out at the prospect of he and fellow LIV golfer being denied the chance to play on and captain future Ryder Cup sides.”

  • “In a Q&A with Instagram followers, Poulter was asked for his thoughts on LIV’s longevity and the prospect of never becoming Europe’s Ryder Cup captain.”
  • “[The] LIV Golf League is here to stay,” he said. “It’s only 30 rounds old and every start up business takes time.”
  • “I’m so proud to see how far it’s come in such a short space of time. It’s an incredible business and product and it will be incredible.”
  • “And if the DP World Tour chose to not have any LIV golfer as captain after they have supported them and still do for over 25 years, then shame on them. Sad but that’s on them.”
  • “Time will tell and once all the info is out things will change I’m sure.”
Full piece.

8. Masters to host video game challenge

Christopher Powers for Golf Digest..”Between using the word “meh” in a Masters promo last Friday and letting the boys from Dude Perfect through the gates last year, it’s quite clear that Augusta National is dead serious when it comes to getting with the times.”

  • “The club announced its latest “How do you do, fellow kids?” move on Monday, revealing it would be hosting the Road to the Masters Invitational inside of the Press Building on Sunday, April 2, the eve of the 2023 Masters. It is a livestream, video game tournament that pits participants from the sports, entertainment and gaming worlds against one another in the new EA Sports PGA Tour: Road to the Masters video game.”
  • “The event will begin at 6 p.m. ET on April 2, and will run until 8 p.m. ET. It will be streamed on the following platforms and channels: Masters.com; @TheMasters on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook; @EA on Twitch; @EASportsPGATour on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube; @EASports on Facebook; ESPN+ and the ESPN app. For those who can’t tune in that Sunday evening, an edited version of the show will be broadcast on Wednesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.”
Full piece.

9. Iykyk

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Equipment

Did Rory McIlroy inspire Shane Lowry’s putter switch?

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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 timing of Lowry’s putter changeup was curious: Was he just using a Spider putter because he was paired with McIlroy, who’s been using a Spider Tour X head throughout 2024? Was Lowry just being festive because it’s the Zurich Classic, and he wanted to match his teammate? Did McIlroy let Lowry try his putter, and he liked it so much he actually switched into it?

Well, as it turns out, McIlroy’s only influence was inspiring Lowry to make more putts.

When asked if McIlroy had an influence on the putter switch, Lowry had this to say: “No, it’s actually a different putter than what he uses. Maybe there was more pressure there because I needed to hole some more putts if we wanted to win,” he said with a laugh.

To Lowry’s point, McIlroy plays the Tour X model, whereas Lowry switched into the Tour Z model, which has a sleeker shape in comparison, and the two sole weights of the club are more towards the face.

Lowry’s Spider Tour Z has a white True Path Alignment channel on the crown of his putter, which is reminiscent of Lowry’s former 2-ball designs, thus helping to provide a comfort factor despite the departure from his norm. Instead of a double-bend hosel, which Lowry used in his 2-ball putters, his new Spider Tour Z is designed with a short slant neck.

“I’ve been struggling on the greens, and I just needed something with a fresh look,” Lowry told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. “It has a different neck on it, as well, so it moves a bit differently, but it’s similar. It has a white line on the back of it [like my 2-ball], and it’s a mallet style. So it’s not too drastic of a change.

“I just picked it up on the putting green and I liked the look of it, so I was like, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”

Read the rest of the piece over at PGATour.com.

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Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

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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.

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Equipment

Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

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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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