• Golf Digest’s Joel Beall writes: “John Bodenhamer, USGA senior managing director of rules, competitions and equipment standards, told Golf Digest that he had a 45-minute conversation with DeChambeau on July 3 explaining the association’s decision-making process regarding the use of the compass. In the end, Bodenhamer said, it was determined that the compass had the potential to “compromise a player’s skill and judgement.”

• “With some of these sorts of devices, it can be difficult lines to draw on what’s permissible and what is not permissible,” Bodenhamer said. “But here, we drew the line there with Rule 14-3 [that the compass did not conform].”

• He needed birdies on the par-5 17th and the par-3 18th for a 59, but parred both holes.

• “I knew a 59 was in there, but it’s all right,” Simpson said. “Great start. Scores were good though, so you’ve got to keep the pedal down.”

• …and on the LPGA Tour, Australia’s Katherine Kirk went lower but scored higher. Kirk carded a 10-under 62 to open the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic.

• Sports Media Watch reported 3.6 million people tuned in for the final round of the Quicken Loans National on CBS, a 2.3 rating. That’s an increase of 92 percent in ratings and 89 percent in viewership over last year.

• Impressively, in the 20 rounds Woods has played on broadcast television, every round but one yielded an increase in both viewership and ratings (the lone exception: the tape-delayed final round of the Memorial).

• “Joakim Lagergren, Peter Uihlein and Danny Willett all made early moves up the leaderboard as day two of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open hosted by the Rory Foundation got under way.

• “Ballyliffin Golf Club was making its Irish Open debut at the fourth Rolex Series event of the season and while conditions were more overcast than they had been on day one, the northern coast of Ireland was still providing a stunning backdrop for links golf.”

• “Swede Lagergren, American Uihlein and England’s Willett all picked up shots on the front nine to join overnight leader Ryan Fox at five under, a shot clear of fellow morning starters Dean Burmester, Russell Knox and Lee Westwood.”

• Host Rory McIlroy was 2 under for the tournament through 10 holes at the time of this writing, three strokes back.

• The Golf Channel’s Chantel McCabe caught Phil giving a 300-level tutorial on chipping to the famed wideout.

• McCabe’s videos here.

• “Now, did they set up Shinnecock poorly? No. I don’t think they set it up poorly at all. I think Mike Davis did a pretty darn good job of it. I just think that because course conditioning has changed so much, and they have courses just on the edge…the setup lends itself-you saw scores on Saturday and Sunday in the mid 60s in the morning and the mid 70s in the afternoon…I don’t think they really wanted that.”

• “I think if you back to Shinnecock again, I think the wise thing would be to redo the greens…not change them…but there’s nothing under those greens other than what nature had there….but with the way they do things today, that lends itself to not being able to be controlled. And they could redo those greens exactly as they are now and control the moisture level on those greens, then the setup that they had would work fine, and work fine in the morning and the afternoon.”

• The “Comeback Player of the Year, Star Division” Award…This goes to Bubba Watson, and it’s not a hard call. Bubba had his worst year in more than a decade in 2017, and judging by his age (39) and his seeming level of disinterest and frustration, smart money banked on him spending the bulk of 2018 behind the counter of his candy store in Pensacola ordering Ted Scott to re-stock the Sour Patch kids. Instead, Watson beat his ennui and the medical issues that cost him 20 pounds, and came back to win at Riviera, the WGC-Match Play and the Travelers. That’s three wins (and counting?), the highest total of his career. All this on the doorstep of his 40th birthday, and a year spent wondering if he’d ever win again. Not bad!

• The Rory McIlroy “Existential Crisis That We Would Really Like to See Resolved Very Soon” Award…Please come back, Jordan Spieth. To quote Harry Nilsson, I can’t live if living is without you.

• Niemann, 19, (19!) had his lowest score in nine PGA Tour starts this season. His boom-or-bust pattern has been incredible: three top-10 finishes, four missed cuts.

• The young Chilean played the Greenbrier a year ago as an amateur, shot 64 in the final round and tied for 29th place. He fired a 7 under in Thursday’s opening round.

• “I’m one of the youngest out here so I feel like I’ve got nothing to lose,” Niemann said. “My game was feeling really good and my putter was good. So all my game was good today.”

• It’s as easy as that.

• “Carnoustie? It has caused its share of fits to all in the two times Woods has played The Open there, and Woods was not exempt. He tied for seventh in 1999 and for 12th in 2007. He was not a final-round contender at either tournament.

• What Woods said he’s working on: “”Basically, just trying to get efficient hitting the golf ball both ways and then getting comfortable hitting the ball down,” Woods said of what he has to do to prepare. “Carnoustie is an unbelievable driving golf course. You have to drive the ball well there, but also not your traditional in-out [links] golf course. It’s a lot of different angles, so a lot of different crosswinds. I have to be able to maneuver the golf ball both ways there efficiently. You just have to hit the golf ball well there.”

• Harig on Woods’ putting: “This has been the big subject of late. Woods made the decision at the Quicken Loans National to put his trusted Scotty Cameron on the shelf in favor of a TaylorMade mallet-like putter that he says feels better to him at the moment. He all but confirmed he’ll be using it at The Open. He said the grooves on the face help get the ball moving a bit faster, a common problem for him on slower greens.”

• “At TPC Potomac during the Quicken Loans National, the results were mixed. He was seventh in the field in strokes gained putting, a nice improvement from his struggles of late. That was mostly due to him making a good number of longer-range putts, an important factor that had gone missing. But he had some head-scratching misses as well, making just 9 of 16 putts from 4 to 8 feet and missing 13 for the week inside of 10 feet.”

More from Bob.