News

GolfWRX Morning 9: USGA scrutiny begins | PGA Prez DUI | Tom Brady can putt

Published

8 years ago

Jun 14, 2018

Good morning, GolfWRX members. As most of you are signed up for our newsletters, you likely already know that I’ve been sending this little Morning 9 roundup of nine items of note to start your day.

In case you’ve missed it, or you prefer to read on site rather than in your email, we’re including it here. Check out today’s Morning 9 below. Feedback is always welcome–send everything from news tips to complaints (hopefully more tips than complaints)!

If you’re not signed up for our newsletters, you can subscribe here.

By Ben Alberstadt (ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com)

June 14, 2018

Good Thursday morning, golf fans. Enjoy the action from Shinnecock.

1. Don’t screw it up

For the reactionary par protectors at the USGA, as has been discussed ad nauseum, the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock has to go well. The combination of having, on some level, screwed up the last three U.S Opens and returning to venue where they definitely screwed up in 2004 only serves to accentuate this fact.

Accordingly, every decision the governing body makes this week will be heavily scrutinized. Not an enviable position to be in, to be sure.

An early decision to note, per Geoff Shackelford…USGA CEO Mike Davis: “We have purposely slowed the greens down a little bit today, knowing the kind of winds we’re going to get tomorrow…We’ve also changed up some of the hole locations, just to make sure they’re in areas that can handle this kind of wind.”

“I would also say that if we get some of the top winds that they’re predicting, it doesn’t matter how slow the greens are and how flat the surfaces are,” Davis said. “You will see balls blowing, and that’s just the nature when you get up into 30-mile per hour plus, which we might get gusts.”

2. Rory: Better safe than sorry (obviously)

After plenty of U.S. Open experience (and a win!) Rory McIlroy has settled on the right approach to dealing with a U.S. Open setup.

“I think I’ll adopt quite a conservative strategy off the tee,” McIlroy said. “You’re hitting into big targets. So even if you’re leaving yourself back and maybe hitting a couple of extra clubs into these greens, it’s not such a bad thing. I’d rather be doing that than hacking my way out of the rough.”

3. “Tom Brady can putt”

The Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady practice round was widely reported yesterday, now Rickie is adding some color to the reports with a few details on the round at Friar’s Head.

Will Gray of Golf Channel writes “As is often the case with Tuesday matches involving Mickelson, there was a little something on the line. And after winning five Super Bowl titles, Brady can now also boast about the time that he teamed with a five-time major champ to take down the team of Fowler and Dunne.”

“I’ll tell you what, Tom Brady can putt,” Fowler said, adding that he was “on the wrong side of it” against Mickelson. “So if I can take that into this week, I think that’s the one thing I took off of him that will help me.”

4. PGA + DUI

PGA of America president Phil Levy was hit with a DUI. Look, I’m not here to sift through anyone’s trash or kick a man when he’s down, but it the firing of Ted Bishop over his infamous “lil girl” tweet (also while drunk) makes you think the next PGA prez may be a teetotaler.

Per Golf Channel:

“Levy, 57, was traveling on Highway 111 on June 7 when he veered off the road and crashed into a posted sign,according to a release posted on the county’s website.Officers responded to a call about the single-car crash at 11:22 p.m., and though he did not sustain any injuries, Levy showed signs of being under the influence, the report said. He was transported to an area hospital for evaluation and later booked into the Riverside County Jail in Indio at 1:48 a.m.”

“Paul Levy has accepted responsibility for his terrible lapse in judgment,” a PGA of America spokesman said in a statement. “He has expressed deep regret and fully understands how irresponsible his actions were..The PGA of America will support Paul as he seeks counseling, faces the consequences of his actions and works through the legal process in the months ahead.”

5. Breaking 100 can be painfully easy (emphasis on painfully)

GolfWRX Editor-in-Chief, Andrew Tursky recently switched to southpaw in an effort to continue playing golf while saving his injured back.

He broke 100 for the first time from the left side of the plate and offers advice that includes

Ignore par
Don’t make triple bogeys
Limit your use of the driver
Don’t take risks
Treat every putt as a lag

Check out his piece for additional advice.

6. Best of U.S. Open week merch

Geoff Shackelford hit up the U.S. Open merchandise, well, mall, it’s pretty much a mall to check out the best of the wares.

He reported on nautical themage in abundance, a “Shinnecock Fescue Breeze” candle, and more.

Check out the piece.

7. Rory McIlroy’s “fun golf”

Taking the Zac Blair approach, Rory McIlroy has been playing more golf for fun lately following his father’s membership at famed Florida track Seminole.

“For maybe five or six years, I never played fun golf…It was all to do with getting ready to play tournaments. I didn’t understand people who went out and played a lot,” McIlroy said.

McIlroy recently played National Golf Links of America, Friar’s Head, and Garden City Golf Club.

8. Backstopping poll

Amid the furor over backstopping on the PGA Tour, after seeing plenty of venom related to the subject on Twitter, after reading Tour pros’ takes, I still wondered what the average golf fan thought of the practice.

So far, 41 percent of votes say it’s not really a big deal. 32 percent said they don’t care either way, and only 27 percent said it sure is a big deal.

9. Michael Williams talks to Hale Irwin

Hale Irwin joined GolfWRX’s 19th Hole podcast for a chat with Michael Williams. Subjects discussed include: Irwin’s epic victory at the “Massacre at Winged Foot,” the 1974 U.S. Open. Irwin also compares his contemporaries to the players of today in terms of talent and competitiveness.

Check it out.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

3 hours ago

May 13, 2026

Pro Shop

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Why do we use it?

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

News

2026 PGA Championship betting odds

Published

2 days ago

May 12, 2026

Gianni Magliocco

Scottie Scheffler leads the betting ahead of the second major championship of the year, with the World Number One a +345 favorite to get his hands on a second PGA Championship.

Rory McIlroy who won the Masters back in April is a +800 shot to complete half of the calendar slam at Aronimink Golf Club this week, while Jordan Spieth can be backed at +5900 to become a career grand slam winner.

Here is the full betting board for the 2026 PGA Championship courtesy of DraftKings.

Scottie Scheffler +345 – (Check 0ut his WITB here)

Rory McIlroy +800 – (Check out his WITB here)

Jon Rahm +1300
Cameron Young +1500
Bryson DeChambeau +1700
Xander Schauffele +1850
Matt Fitzpatrick +1950
Ludvig Aberg +2000
Tommy Fleetwood +2600
Collin Morikawa +3500
Brooks Koepka +3900
Justin Rose +4300
Russell Henley +4600
Si Woo Kim +4700
Justin Thomas +4800
Robert MacIntyre +5300
Patrick Cantlay +5300
Viktor Hovland +5400
Tyrrell Hatton +5500
Jordan Spieth +5900
Sam Burns +6000
Hideki Matsuyama +6200
Adam Scott +6400
Rickie Fowler +7000
Chris Gotterup +7400
Patrick Reed +7400
Min Woo Lee +7800
Ben Griffin +8000
Sepp Straka +8400
Shane Lowry +9000
Akshay Bhatia +9200
Maverick McNealy +9200
Joaquin Niemann +9200
Jake Knapp +9200
Jason Day +9600
Kurt Kitayama +10000
J.J. Spaun +10000
Harris English +10500
Nicolai Hojgaard +11000
Gary Woodland +11000
David Puig +11000
Michael Thorbjornsen +12000
Jacob Bridgeman +12000
Keegan Bradley +12500
Corey Conners +14000
Alex Fitzpatrick +15000
Sungjae Im +15500
Sahith Theegala +15500
Harry Hall +15500
Alex Noren +16000
Thomas Detry +16500
Marco Penge +16500
Kristoffer Reitan +17000
Alex Smalley +17000
Wyndham Clark +17500
Sam Stevens +17500
Keith Mitchell +17500
Daniel Berger +18500
Ryan Gerard +20000
Nick Taylor +20000
Rasmus Hojgaard +21000
Dustin Johnson +21000
Pierceson Coody +23000
Aaron Rai +24000
Jordan Smith +24000
Angel Ayora +24000
Bud Cauley +25000
Matt McCarty +26000
Jayden Schaper +26000
Brian Harman +27000
Taylor Pendrith +27000
Ryan Fox +27000
J.T. Poston +27000
Cameron Smith +29000
Ryo Hisatsune +29000
Michael Kim +29000
Max Homa +29000
Denny McCarthy +29000
Tom McKibbin +30000
Rico Hoey +32000
Matt Wallace +32500
Ricky Castillo +33000
Haotong Li +33000
Michael Brennan +34000
Max Greyserman +36000
Stephan Jaeger +37500
Christiaan Bezuidenhout +37500
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen +39000
Aldrich Potgieter +40000
Andrew Novak +42000
Patrick Rodgers +42500
Daniel Hillier +42500
Max McGreevy +46000
Billy Horschel +48000
Chris Kirk +48000
Ian Holt +49000
Casey Jarvis +49000
William Mouw +50000
Steven Fisk +50000
John Parry +50000
Nico Echavarria +52500
Garrick Higgo +52500
John Keefer+55000
Matthias Schmid +57500
Austin Smotherman +57500
Sami Valimaki +60000
Andrew Putnam +60000
Lucas Glover +62500
Daniel Brown +62500
Jhonattan Vegas +75000
Emiliano Grillo +80000
Mikael Lindberg +85000
Adrien Saddier +100000
Bernd Wiesberger +100000
Elvis Smylie +110000
Stewart Cink +130000
Kota Kaneko +130000
David Lipsky +150000
Chandler Blanchet +150000
Andy Sullivan +150000
Joe Highsmith +180000
Adam Schenk +200000
Travis Smyth +200000
Davis Riley +225000
Martin Kaymer +400000
Brian Campbell +400000
Padraig Harrington +450000
Kazuki Higa +450000
Jordan Gumberg +450000
Ryan Vermeer +500000
Austin Hurt +500000
Tyler Collet +500000
Timothy Wiseman +500000
Shaun Micheel +500000
Y.E. Yang +500000
Michael Block+500000
Mark Geddes+500000
Luke Donald+500000
Bryce Fisher+500000
Jimmy Walker +500000
Jason Dufner +500000
Jesse Droemer +500000
Jared Jones +500000
Garrett Sapp +500000
Francisco Bide +500000
Zach Haynes +500000
Paul McClure+500000
Derek Berg +500000
Chris Gabriele +500000
Braden Shattuck +500000
Ben Polland +500000
Ben Kern +50000

Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2026 PGA Championship

Published

2 days ago

May 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site for the second major of 2026: The PGA Championship from Aronimink in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

The tournament’s location, just outside Philadelphia, and its status as a major championship mean GolfWRXers are in for a treat: WITBs from a strong field, custom gear celebrating the PGA Championship, and the rich culture of the City of Brotherly Love — we have noted a relative absence of cheesesteak-themed items thus far this week, but most of the rest of the usual suspects are well represented.

Check out links to all our photos below.