News

GolfWRX Morning 9: US Open strikes back | Pro shoots 92 | Marquee carnage

Published

8 years ago

Jun 15, 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)

Good Friday morning, golf fans.Yesterday, in discussing the PGA of America’s president’s DUI, I made an inappropriate remark about past president Ted Bishop based on rumor rather than established fact. it was a poor choice, and I retract my comment about his state of sobriety during the “lil girl” tweet.

1. Is this U.S. Open you were looking for?

Only four players broke par on a day when winds gusted as high as 32 mph, and the course dried out from the one-tenth of an inch of rain that fell on the property on Wednesday.

Players got around Shinnecock Hills in an average of 76.47 strokes during round one.

Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Phil Mickelson, combined to shoot 25 over par.

The opening-round scoring average made this the toughest U.S. Open first round since the 1986 USO at Shinnecock.

Combined over par total for the World Top 10:.+52

2. Putting troubles continue for Tiger

One of the longest and strongest player-putter relationships has to be under some serious strain. Tiger Woods carded an opening-round 78 that saw him throwing away strokes on the green.

“It’s tough out there,” Woods said. “But, I mean, I shouldn’t make two doubles and a triple and a four-putt.”

The doubles in question can be traced directly to poor putting; obviously, so can the four-whack. Woods started his round with a triple bogey that saw him try to putt a ball from off the green that didn’t make it to the putting surface.

Woods: “So it was pretty evident nobody was making any birdies in the morning. Lots and lots of bogeys and higher in others. And so I — my game plan was not to make any others, and I made three of them. So didn’t do very well there.”

3. Carnage among the top class

Things didn’t exactly go well for the morning’s marquee group–which will doubtless give featured group truther, Rory McIlroy, more ammunition.

Kevin Van Valkenburg dug into the trio’s troubles: “McIlroy shot an 80, which at 10 over is the worst round of his career in relation to par at a major. Spieth shot a 78, a big chunk of that coming courtesy of a triple-bogey he made on his second hole of the day. Mickelson’s 77 was, improbably, the low round of their group, but it still likely means his quest to complete the career Grand Slam, barring a miracle, will have to wait another year. Together, they were a combined 25 over par.”

Full piece.

4. Hope lives for Mickelson

While Phil Mickelson didn’t speak with the media following his opening-round 77, Tim Rosaforte was apparently able to catch up with Lefty later…probably thanks in part to how bad the afternoon scores were.

“I played really well,” he said. “I hit 13 of 14 fairways. I didn’t make single double bogey, I’m going to go out tomorrow and try to do the same thing.”

“It was the highest score of Mickelson’s major championship career when hitting 13 fairways or more.”

“I’ve got no complaints,” he said. “If I play the next two rounds in par-par, I’m right back in it.”

5. The cruelty of No. 11

While all eyes were trained on No. 7 following 2004’s mishandled treatment of the hole, No. 11 actually merits further examination this time around (which isn’t to say it’s being mismanaged…just really hard).

Golf.com’s Alan Bastable writes: “Give a 15-handicapper a bucket of range balls from this tee – with the same 15-20 mph crosswinds the players battled in the first round – and he or she might not stop a single shot on the putting surface.

“Three-quarters of the hacker’s shots would be batted down by the wind and into one of the bunkers in front of the green, a handful would come in low and hot and run through the green into a collection area that leaves a petrifying clip-it-clean-or-else pitch, while the remaining swings would result in a motley collection of nervy tops, chunks and snap-hooks.”

Full piece.

6. 92!

Scott Gregory turned in an opening-round 92 at Shinnecock–the first opening round in the 90s in a U.S. open in 26 years. Since World War II, there have been 43 scores of 90 or higher in the championship. John Battini’s 96 in 1955 is the highest.

The previous highest opening round in a U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills was an 88 by amateur John Daly.

E. Michael Johnson points out: “Of course, all this pales in comparison to the all-time Open record for inefficacy, set by J.D. Tucker in 1898 at Myopia Hunt Club. Tucker took 157 blows in the first round before “rebounding” with a 100 in the second round. W. Collins, in the same event, shot 154 but had the decency to withdraw before his second go-around.”

7. Notable quotable

The USGA’s official remarks on the course in round one.

“The golf course is in excellent condition. We are extremely pleased with the agronomics and presentation. Today’s setup reflects the challenging wind conditions that have been forecast. Green Speeds – With the heavy wind forecast, putting greens have been appropriately prepared from a speed and firmness perspective. We expect putting green speeds to be in the area of 11 feet 6 inches by midday. Firmness – Damp conditions Wednesday resulted in a more receptive golf course for Round 1.”

CHARLES HOWELL III: I was most impressed with how the golf course was set up, to be honest. I thought this morning, with as hard as the wind was blowing, the balls would start kind of oscillating and moving by the middle of our round, and they didn’t. I think a lot of credit goes to the USGA and Mike Davis for what they’ve done today. I was here in ’04, my last competitive round here. I’ve still got some scar tissue from that. But they did a heck of a job today.

8. The Unfortunate Case of Johnny McDermott

Deviating from this U.S. Open in particular to U.S. Opens in general. Or, more specifically (confused yet?) the first American-born U.S. Open winner.

A longform piece well worth a read, especially if you’re unaware of McDermott’s story. Steve Eubanks profiles the great and troubled McDermott for Global Golf Post.

9. Burmester

Playing in his first major, South African Dean Burmester stood on the 18th tee at seven over par. Burmester bypassed all trouble on the 18th, obliterating his drive 411 yards at the downwind 485-yard hole-he had but a finessed wedge left to the back left pin.

He finessed it right into the hole for an eagle two.

Q. What were you thinking? DEAN BURMESTER: Well, when it went in, I was relieved. I was having a long day, you know, 7-over. Ended up 5-over, not too bad. It was a lovely way to finish.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

4 hours ago

May 13, 2026

Pro Shop

What is Lorem Ipsum?

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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.