Opinion & Analysis
18 Stats and Stories from Live at the Shriners Open
When the opportunity arose to report in person from this year’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, I didn’t hesitate to go all-in.
Arriving on Monday, I spent the week under brilliant blue skies on the immaculate grounds of TPC Summerlin, where, as it turned out, the field showcased a larger number of promising youngsters than usual, along with seasoned pros, including the eventual winner.
What follows is a selection of stories and statistics that made an impression on me during a lucky golfer’s week at the Tour’s fabulous Sin City stop.
1) Jerty Bird, from inside the ropes
Nothing much more fun than strolling the fairways in a @PGATOUR event – it’s way cooler than imagined.
— Marty Jertson (@jertybird) November 3, 2016
Jertson, who is Senior Design Engineer at Ping, earned his Vegas spot by winning sectional qualifying. His Thursday round was definitely not a good stroll spoiled: on his way to a 1-under 70, Jertson was the only player to hit every green in regulation — he does, after all, play clubs that he helped create. Unfortunately, @jertybird came back down to earth on Friday, still hitting three out of four greens, but shooting 1-over par and missing the cut by three at even par.
See the clubs Jerston had in the bag this week.
2) The 2016 PGA Champion struggles, to say the least
With an Official World Golf Ranking of 18, Jimmy Walker was the highest ranked player in the Shriners field. Unfortunately, he didn’t play like it. His 8-over par, 74-76 missed the cut by eleven, just two shots better than the worst score posted. Over his final 27 holes, Walker managed only two birdies. Which isn’t surprising, in light of a couple of other rankings: 129th in strokes gained putting, 132nd in total putting, and 139th (dead last) in strokes gained off the tee.
3) The big hitter
Longest drive of the week: 370 yards (Ryan Brehm, 13th hole, fourth round). Beast.
4) An over-sized field: The lucky ones
The Shriners field was to consist of 132 players; a mix-up resulted in there being 144. How many of the Lucky Twelve opened the door when opportunity knocked?
Eight, including most notably of course the winner, Rod Pampling, who followed a course-record 60 on Thursday with rounds of 68, 71, and 65. The other seven who made the cut: Ryan Blaum, (10-under, T31); Trey Mullinax, (9-under, T36); Will MacKenzie, (7-under, T48); Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, (7-under, T48); C.T. Pan, (5-under, T57); Seamus Power, (5-under, T57); and Mackenzie Hughes, (2-under, T68).
5) A victim and a survivor
Early morning on the range: The calm before the storm
As a result of the super-sized field, play was suspended because of darkness in both the first and second rounds. Among those affected by the latter interruption were Kevin Tway and Ryan Brehm, each with several holes to go. When the re-start horn sounded at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Tway was on the green, and Brehm was on the tee. It was a gorgeous desert morning, with the just-risen sun casting long shadows. But other than a few tournament workers and a single spectator, players and caddies were on their own.
Tway’s first stroke at the crack of dawn was with his putter: from 38 feet, he rolled it 10 feet past. Something about the silence and the lack of a crowd made Tway’s comebacker seemed more nerve-racking than a putt I’ve ever faced.
Meanwhile, Brehm had driven it 276 yards onto a slope of desert waste ground. To hit his second, he had to get entirely too intimate with a scraggly bush. Brehm managed to advance the ball, but only a couple of yards, and still in the rocky scrub. Extricating himself from his new best friend, Brehm held the club across his belly, gripped in both hands, as if tempted to snap the thing in half.
Tway did make his tester, but it wasn’t enough to salvage the round, ultimately shooting 1-over. Tway finished 36 holes at 2-under, missing the cut by one. Brehm ended up double-bogeying the sixth, which left him just one above the then projected cut-line. But he rallied with birdies on two of his final three re-start holes, and shortly thereafter headed right back out, into the decidedly more glamorous atmosphere of Moving Day proper. He’d go on to post a 67, and sat in T21 at event’s end.
6) Henley closes hot
Low round on Moving Day belonged to Russell Henley: a bogey-free 63. Heading into Sunday, the two-time Tour winner had gone 30 holes without a bogey. He has form when it comes to moving and then closing hot: at Sanderson Farms, where he finished T14 at 11-under, he had eleven birdies and just one bogey over the final 51 holes.
7) The youngster
Twenty-year-old Aaron Wise was the youngest Shriners Open entrant, making his fifth career PGA Tour start as a sponsor invite. The 2016 NCAA individual medalist while at Oregon, Wise will be on the Web.com Tour in 2017.
Wise’s coach, Jeff Smith of TPC Summerlin, has described Wise as “one of the straightest drivers I have ever seen when he wants to be. His ability to drive the golf ball is what sets him apart.”
Related: See the clubs Wise has in the bag in 2016
At the Shriners, however, Wise couldn’t find the fairway at first: he was T132 in Driving Accuracy after the first round (only 4 of 14 fairways), and still struggling through the second. That evening, he was the last man on the range under the lights, driver in hand and working, as he explained to me, on losing the push-cut and keeping the clubface from “getting right” on him. Result? In Round 3, Wise climbed to T1 in the same category, hitting 11 of 14 fairways.
Wise shot 68 Sunday, finishing T10 at 14-under. But the driver troubles had returned: he hit only 4 of 14 again, and dropped back to last (T72) in terms of closing-day Driving Accuracy.
8) The best scramblers
- Best scrambling percentage: 78.26 percent (Vaughan Taylor, making 18 saves on 23 missed greens in regulation).
- Best sand save percentage: 100 percent (Seung-Yul Noh, 4 for 4; Sean O’Hair, 3 for 3).
- Most bunkers hit into: 12 (Ernie Els, who made 6 saves), 11 (Keegan Bradley, who made 8).
9) The best putters
- Fewest putts per round: 21 (Chez Reavie, round 2).
- Best percentage on putts from outside 25-feet: 27.8 percent (Brian Gay, 5 out of 18).
- Best one-putt percentage: 56.94 percent (Michael Kim, with 41 one-putts over the seventy-two holes).
10) Fez wearers, fundraisers and a great swing
Within two club-lengths of just about everywhere you go at the Shriners, you catch sight of a fez. It has got to be the most distinctive headgear encountered on the PGA Tour. Worn by higher-ups in the Shriners — including “Potentates” — each fez is embroidered with the arabian-themed name of the wearer’s home course, by which I mean his local chapter, known as a “temple.” For example, in the accompanying photo, Richard Burke, Jeff Sowder, and Kevin Costello represent for Atlanta’s “Yaarab,” Wichita’s “Midian,” and Albany’s “Cyprus.”
What a golf swing.
Tommy Morrissey, 5, hit the ceremonial first tee shot today @ShrinersOpen. https://t.co/7JU1ieGzoD
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 3, 2016
It should be noted what outstanding charitable work the Shriners do through their Hospitals for Children. At 22 locations, they provide life-changing care for kids, regardless of their families’ ability to pay. One of their patients, 5-year-old Tommy Morrissey, dazzled a number of hard-to-impress Tour pros early in the week with his unique golfing skill. For more about Tommy and the Shriners: @onearmgolfer and www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org.
11) A fruitful late-night range session
Martin Flores was spotted as the last player on the range after he moved the wrong way on Moving Day, following up back-to-back 67s, which included a total of 13 birdies, with a birdie-less 77 (the day’s worst round), leaving him T68 at 2-under. The rest of the field bagged 304 birds on Saturday; only Kevin Streelman joined Flores without a single circle on his card.
He must have found something on the range Saturday night, because he finished with a Sunday 65, good for T41. From 77 to 65 in just one day; isn’t golf a crazy game?
The Shriners is Flores’ third event of 2016-17, and the second cut he’s made. He re-earned his Tour card for this season with an outstanding ’15-’16 on the Web.com Tour, where he had a win plus seven top-10s in 21 starts.
12) The most difficult hole
The 492-yard, par-4 third, which played to a 4.27 scoring average, allowing only 33 birdies, compared to 120 bogeys and 17 doubles or worse. Winner Rod Pampling played the hole in 2-under for the week, making birdie, birdie, par, par.
13) The easiest hole
The 560-yard, par-5 16th, which played to a 4.14 scoring average, as the field notched 32 eagles and 231 birdies, versus only 27 bogeys and 3 doubles or worse.
14) Perez changes clubs, gets his swagger back
Pat Perez had the kind of week (15-under, finishing T7) that prompted questions about how it felt to have his “swagger” back. Biggest factor: he’s healthy again. But he’s also switched to some new clubs, as he explained to ASAP Sports, “and I got a lot longer once I was healthy.” He added: “I’m actually hitting it solid, so much farther than I used to, and I’m in places that I have never been on this course. I hit 7-iron into 16 today and made eagle. I’ve never had anything less than hybrid in there.”
See the clubs Perez used at the Shriners Open here.
15) “Other,” the worst word in golf
In golf, there are eagles, birdies, pars, bogeys, double-bogeys … and “other.” Ah yes, the dreaded other. At the Shriners, there were 26 of them (as against 61 eagles and 4,685 pars), and one other belonged to defending Shriners champion Smylie Kaufman. His third-round snowman at the par-4 sixth hole resulted from first having trouble off the tee, and then trying to get back out of that trouble. Plus — wait for it, all of you who, like me, know all too well how this particular tune goes — three putts from 20 feet.
16) The drama
Sunday’s final group consisted of Lucas Glover, Rod Pampling and Brooks Koepka, with Glover in the lead by one at 15-under. After the trio started with pars, there was lead-altering action on virtually every hole. Glover and Koepka birdied two. Glover bogeyed three. Birdies all-round on four. Koepka bogeyed five. Pampling birdied six. Pars all round on seven. Pampling birdied eight, then he and Glover birdied nine.
At the turn: Pampling (18-under); Glover, (17-under); Koepka, (15 -under), and four other players had also reached 15-under by then.
Pampling bogeyed 10. Glover bogeyed 11, then birdied 12, while Pampling bogeyed 12. Koepka’s par-streak, meantime, had reached seven at this point. It didn’t reach eight: Kopeka birdied 13, as did Pampling and Lucas. Pampling birdied 14. My head was starting to spin.
So, with four to go: Pampling (18-under); Glover, (18-under); Koepka, 16 (16-under). Molinari was in the clubhouse at 16-under, with Oglivy, in the last-but-one group, now at that number too. Birdies all-round at 15 for the final group. Koepka birdied 16. Glover bogeyed 17. This is getting interesting.
One to go: Pampling (19-under); Glover, (18-under); Koepka, (18-under). And Pampling drives the nail into the coffin by absolutely burying a 32-footer to close out with a birdie. Koepka finished second with a par and two shots back, while Glover finished third with a closing-hole bogey.
Related: What Pampling was thinking over his winning putt
In all, 26 birdies and bogeys were made by the final group. Talk about excitement!
17) Pampling earned it
Rod Pampling made a combined 325-feet and 4-inches of putts on his way to the win. He ranked first in total strokes gained, in strokes gained around the green, and in strokes gained tee-to-green. He was T15 in driving accuracy, and hit 56 of 72 greens in regulation (T11).
18) Sunday Scorecard
- Francesco Molinari’s Sunday 61 started taking shape when he holed-out from 124 yards for eagle at the 440-yard 11th hole (he started on the back). Molinari added eight birdies in his bogey-free round, and had the clubhouse lead at 16-under 268, where he was later joined by Harris English and Geoff Ogilvy for a T4 finish.
- Keegan Bradley’s strong season continued, closing with a 66 to finish T7 at 15-under.
- Kevin Streelman got right back on the birdie train on Sunday, sinking a 5-footer on the 10th hole, his opening hole.
- Martin Flores had to wait to re-board that train until his sixth hole of the day, after starting out with five pars. He then added more birdies on his seventh, ninth, 10th, 16th and 18th. Flores’ line: 67, 67, 77, 65, for an 8-under 276 and a T41 finish. He also drove long all week, averaging 307 yards, second in the field.
- Russell Henley never got it going. He bogeyed number five, after opening with four straight pars, then also bogeyed nine and 16. Posting only a pair of birdies, he finished with a 72, for T24 at 12-under.
As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.
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robin
Nov 7, 2016 at 1:52 pm
what about Kyle Stanley! My favorite player his first top ten in quite sometime,so happy for him.