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GolfWRX Morning 9: Rules ridiculousness comes to the U.S. Am | Round of 64 update | Lexi needs “to have a life”

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7 years ago

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

August 16, 2018

Good Thursday morning, golf fans.
1. Round of 64 notes
There were upsets aplenty in the U.S. Amateur’s Round of 64.
  • Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner notes…”The top three players in the world had a tough afternoon Wednesday at Pebble Beach…Braden Thornberry, Justin Suh and Collin Morikawa – Nos. 1-3, respectively, in the World Amateur Golf Ranking – all lost their Round of 64 matches at the U.S. Amateur.”
  • “Thornberry lost, 2 and 1, to Jesus Montenegro of Argentina. As the No. 1 amateur in the world, the Ole Miss senior was in line to receive the McCormack Medal, which would exempt him into both summer Opens in 2019, provided he remains amateur. But now he’ll need to wait and see how the rankings shake out.”
Brentley Romine on John Augenstein taking down the world No. 3: “John Augenstein lives for the big moments.”
  • “Two seasons ago, when Augenstein was a freshman, he sank the winning putt to send Vanderbilt to the final of the SEC Championship. A few weeks after that, he drained a birdie putt on the 19th hole of his NCAA Championship semifinal match. Vanderbilt head coach Scott Limbaugh always says there’s no player he’d rather have when the light are brightest.”
  • “He’s just fiery, man,” said Vanderbilt assistant coach Gator Todd. “He just does things under pressure that you’re not supposed to be able to do. He just has a knack for that.”…The legend of Johnny Clutch continued Wednesday at Pebble Beach, as the 20-year-old from Owensboro, Ky., took down the world’s third-ranked amateur, Collin Morikawa, in 19 holes during the Round of 64 at the U.S. Amateur.”
Also: Geoff Shackelford notes Stewart Hagestad ended an inglorious streak…:”Eight different times, Stewart Hagestad has played a U.S. Amateur and eight times he’s failed to make match play. So don’t blame the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion from taking extra pleasure in his Round of 64 win over England’s Harry Hall.”
  • “The 1-up victory ended two dubious U.S. Amateur streaks for the former Walker Cup player from Newport Beach, California, and sets him up for a Round of 32 showdown with David Chatfield, a 6 and 4 winner over Ryan Smith…”It was a big personal accomplishment that had kind of been lifted,” Hagestad said of finally making match play. “I feel like I slept pretty well last night.”
2. Rules ridiculousness comes to the U.S. Am
Oh dear. The rules are the Rules, yes, but with all due respect, can’t we push an override button and inject some common sense?
Ryan Lavner (again) reports on the penalty that befell Akshay Bhatia at Pebble.
  • “Bhatia was all square against Tilley as they played Pebble Beach’s par-5 14th hole. After knocking his second shot onto the green, Bhatia and his caddie, Chris Darnell, stopped to use the restroom. Bhatia walked up to the green afterward, but Darnell asked what he thought was a USGA official for a ride up to the green.”
  • “The gentleman was wearing a USGA pullover,” Darnell explained afterward. “I asked if I could get a ride to the green to keep up pace, and he said yes. So I hopped on the back, got up to the green, hopped off and thought nothing of it.”
  • ‘Conditions of the competition prohibit players and caddies from riding on any form of transportation during a stipulated round unless authorized.”
  • “It turns out that the cart that Darnell rode on was not driven by a USGA official. Rather, it was just a volunteer wearing USGA apparel. A rules official who was in the area spotted the infraction and assessed Bhatia an adjustment penalty, so instead of winning the hole with a birdie-4 to move 1 up, the match remained all square.”
3. Lexi Thompson returns with candor aplenty
Lexi Thompson has been a high-level, highly visible professional golfer since she was 15, and her life has been centered around the game since she was five. After a grueling stretch, Thompson was understandably worn down, and took a month-long break from the game and, really, the demands of her celebrity.
  • The 23-year-old skipped last month’s Ricoh Women’s British Open. and she’ll return to competition at this week’s Indy Women in Tech Championship.
  • “I’m not just a robot out here,” she told reporters ahead of the tournament. “I need to have a life.”
  • In the past 18 months, the Coral Springs, Florida, native has dealt with her mother’s cancer, the death of her grandmother, and of course, the ANA Inspiration debacle.
  • “You can only stay strong for so long and hide it,” Thompson said.
4. Taming the driver
From his position on the Mount Rushmore of current golf scribes, Jaime Diaz penned an excellent write up concerning a fact we all know: Tiger Woods needs to sort out his driving.
  • Diaz points out, rightly, that entering the PGA Championship, “Many began to wonder whether what Nick Faldo calls the 15th club – nerve – had left Woods forever. But on Sunday at Bellerive, he proved that his mastery under pressure is still accessible.”
  • He writes that an uncooperative driver was all that stood between Woods and the Wanamaker:: “Revived, but reprised. For all of the brilliance Woods exhibited down the stretch, he made two crucial errors. On the par-4 14th, a pushed iron off the tee and an indifferent chip led to a bogey. And, most fatally, the pushed drive into the hazard on the reachable par-5 17th, when he had to have birdie to answer a resurgent Koepka.”
5. Distance researchers set to research
Golf Digest’s Mike Stachura reports… “The USGA and R&A’s investigation into the distance topic, the so-named “Distance Insights” project, will now employ an outside market research firm to ask golfers and non-golfers alike around the world what they think about distance.”

  • “That outside research firm, Sports Marketing Surveys, is an international group with experience working with golf organizations and even a string of golf equipment companies to provide consumer and market research. What is their mission with golf’s ruling bodies? On one hand, it’s doing the heavy lifting of understanding the global picture of distance in golf, or, according to Monday’s announcement, “how distance in golf has impacted them over their full golf experience, if at all, and its projected impact into the future.'”

  • “Of course on the other, using an outside research firm also will at the very least ensure that whatever decision might be made by the ruling bodies is not going to have the appearance of being a foregone conclusion concocted in the halls of Golf House in New Jersey and the R&A clubhouse in St. Andrews.”
6. What if…
Ryder Cup points, as we know, are accumulated over a two-year period. But what if we were just looking at the past year?
  • The undead Twitter ratings guru, Nosferatu, posted a list of what the U.S. roster would look like if only 2018 points counted.
  • As Alex Myers of Golf Digest notes, “a couple things jump out. First, current outside-the-bubble boys Bryson Dechambeau and Tiger Woods, who finished 9th and 11th, respectively, would be on the roster already.”
  • Further, neither Jordan Spieth nor Rickie Fowler would be on the roster, finishing 13th and 10th in points respectively.
7. Odds on Tiger winning a major in 2019?
Golf Digest’s Joel Beall...”SportsBettingDime.com has Woods listed at 5/1 to win either the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open or Open Championship in 2019.”
  • “In non-Tiger centric news, Dustin Johnson has the best odds to win a major at 11/4, with Jordan Spieth trailing at 3/1. Brooks Koepka, winner of three of the past seven majors, comes in at 4/1, as does Rory McIlroy, who hasn’t won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship. Reigning. Player of the Year Justin Thomas isn’t far behind at 9/2.”
  • Also on the Woodsian front: Tiger has reportedly committed to the BMW Championship (third Playoff event) September 6-9
8. Fowler injury update
We learned Rickie Fowler was dealing with an oblique injury at the PGA Championship. Now, he’s shutting it down for the first playoff event, next week’s Northern Trust Open.
  • In an Instagram post, Fowler announced the news Wednesday, saying that an MRI revealed a partial tear in his right oblique.
  • He says he’ll be back to competition soon and “more than healthy” for the Ryder Cup.
9. 1 day, 36-hole competition, 3 holes-in-one
Ali Gibb, 51-year-old amateur golfer, for winning her club championship at Croham Hurst Golf Club in England, Monday. Oh, and she made three holes-in-one on the day.
  • That’s right, during the 36-hole final, Gibb aced the fifth hole twice and only needed one shot at the 11th hole during her second 18.
  • “Today was just a weird day. It was just very, very strange,” she said,per a BBC report. “On my card I had a nine, two eights, sixes, fives, fours, threes, twos and three ones.
  • “I have had a hole-in-one before – three actually. One was here on the seventh, one at Surrey National Golf Club, and one at the Atlantic Beach Golf Estate in South Africa,” Gibb added.
  • “It’s just absolutely extraordinary. I think I will wake up tomorrow asking if I’ve just been dreaming about it and if it is club championship day today instead!”

Related Topics:

Ben Alberstadt is the Editor-in-Chief at GolfWRX, where he’s led editorial direction and gear coverage since 2018. He first joined the site as a freelance writer in 2012 after years spent working in pro shops and bag rooms at both public and private golf courses, experiences that laid the foundation for his deep knowledge of equipment and all facets of this maddening game. Based in Philadelphia, Ben’s byline has also appeared on PGATour.com, Bleacher Report...and across numerous PGA DFS and fantasy golf platforms. Off the course, Ben is a committed cat rescuer and, of course, a passionate Philadelphia sports fan. Follow him on Instagram @benalberstadt.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. SV

    Aug 26, 2018 at 7:07 pm

    Speaking of Ryder Cup teams, why aren’t each team chosen on the basis of the world ranking? It seems simple, 12 best for each side go at it. No captain’s picks, no controversy over who did or didn’t make the team.

    Reply Report comment

  2. Bert Gwaltney

    Aug 16, 2018 at 1:04 pm

    The Conditions of Competition included a clear understanding of the Rule, BUT, a volunteer made a decision it was OK by allowing and providing transportation to the tee, to speed up play. Look’s as if the USGA is remiss again for not instructing volunteers to not provide transportation. Correct penalty but, should a player or caddie be mislead by a volunteer. Id it their responsibility to identify who is and who is not an authorized USGA representative? I think we’re not seeing the entire picture, maybe missing some information here.I know as a Committee Member I have made a decision many times to take players back or forward to improve the pace-of-play, especially when a ball is lost causing excessive delay.

    I’d also question players anchoring their stroke when putting; looks to me that it’s bing overlooked again!

    Reply Report comment

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Tour Rundown: Bend, but don’t break

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3 weeks ago

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Aug 4, 2025

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I’m going to gush in this intro paragraph, to get the emo stuff done early. I’ve not pulled harder for a professional to win, than Cameron Young. I coach golf in New York state, and each spring, my best golfers head to a state championship in Poughkeepsie. I first saw Cameron there as a 9th grade student. I saw him three more times after that. I reconnecected with Coach Haas from Wake Forest, an old interview subject from my days on the Old Gold and Black, the Wake newspaper. He was there to watch Cameron. After four years at Wake Forest, Young won on the Korn Ferry Tour, made it to the big tour, almost won two majors, almost won five other events, and finally got the chalice about 25 minutes from the Wake campus. Congratulations, Cameron. You truly are a glass of the finest. #MotherSoDear

OK, let’s move on to the Tour Rundown. The major championship season closed this week in Wales, with the Women’s Open championship. The PGA Tour bounced through Greensboror, N.C., while the PGA Tour Americas hit TO (aka, Toronto) for a long-winded event. The Korn Ferry lads made a stop in Utah, one of just two events for that tour in August. The many-events, golf season is winding down, as we ease from summer toward fall in the northern hemisphere. Let’s bask in the glory of an August sunrise, and run down a quartet of events from the first weekend of the eighth month.

LET/LPGA @ Women’s Open: Miyu bends, but she doesn’t break

Royal Porthcawl was not a known commodity in the major tournament community. The Welsh links had served as host to men’s senior opens, men’s amateurs, and Curtis and Walker Cups in prior years, but never an Open championship for the women or the men. The last-kept secret in UK golf was revealed once again to the world this week, as the best female golfers took to the sandy stage.

Mao Saigo, Grace Kim, Maja Stark, and Minjee Lee hoped to add a second major title to previous wins this season, but only Lee was able to finish inside the top ten. The 2025 playing of the Women’s Open gave us a new-faces gallery from day one. The Kordas and Thitikulls were nowhere to be found, and it was the Mayashitas, Katsus, and Lim Kims that secured the Cymru spotlight. The first round lead was held at 67 by two golfers. One of them battled to the end, while the other posted 81 on day two, and missed the cut. Sitting one shot behind was Miyu Yamashita.

On day two, Yamashita posted the round of the tournament. Her 65 moved her to the front of the aisle, in just her fourth turn around a women’s Open championship. With the pre-event favorites drifting off pace, followers narrowed into two camps: those on the side of an underdog, and others hoping for a weekend charge from back in the pack. In the end, we had a bit of both.

On Saturday, Yamashita bent with 74 on Saturday, offering rays of hope to her pursuing pack. England’s Charley Hull made a run on Sunday closing within one shot before tailing off to a T2 finish with Minami Katsu. Katsu posted the other 65 of the week, on Saturday, but could not overtake her countrywoman, Yamashita. wunderkind Lottie Woad needed one round in the 60s to find her pace, but could only must close-to’s, ending on 284 and a tie with Minjee for eighth.

On Sunday, Yamashita put away the thoughts of Saturday’s struggles, with three-under 33 on the outward half. She closed in plus-one 37, but still won by two, for a first Major and LPGA title.

PGA Tour @ Wyndham: Young gathers first title near home

Cameron Young grew up along the Hudson river, above metro New York, but he also calls Winston-Salem home. He spent four years as a student and athlete at Wake Forest University, then embarked on tour. This week in Greensboro, after a bit of a break, Young opened with 63-62, and revved the engine of Is this the week once more. Runner-up finishes at the Open, the PGA, and a handful of PGA Tour events had followers wonder when the day would come.

On Saturday, Young continued his torrid pace with 65, giving him a five-shot advantage over his closest pursuer. Sunday saw the Scarborough native open with bogey, then reel off five consecutive birdies to remind folks that his time had, at last, arrived. Pars to the 16th, before two harmless bogeys coming home, made Young the 1000th winner of an official PGA Tour event (dating back to before there was a PGA Tour) throughout history. What’s next? I have a suspicion, but I’m not letting on. Mac Meissner closed with 66 to finish solo 2nd, while Mark Hubbard and Alex Noren tied for third.

Korn Ferry Tour @ Utah Championship: Are you Suri it’s Julian?

Who knows exactly when the flower will bloom? Julian Suri played a solid careet at Duke University, then paid his dues on the world’s minor tours for three years. He won twice on two tours in Europe, in 2017. Since then, the grind has continued for the journeyman from New York city. At age 34, Suri broke through in Beehive state, outlasting another grinder (Spencer Levin) and four others, by two shots.

Taylor Montgomery began the week with 62, then posted 64, then 68, and finally, 70. That final round was his undoing. He finished in that second-place tie, two back of the leader. Trace Crowe, Barend Botha, and Kensei Hirata made up the last of the almost quintet. As for Suri, his Sunday play was sublime. His nines were 32 and 31, with his only radar blip a bogey at ten. He closed in style with one final birdie, to double his winning margin. Hogan bloomed late…might Suri?

PGA Tour Americas @ Osprey Valley Open presented by Votorantim Cimentos – CBM Aggregates

Some tournament names run longer than others. This week in Toronto, at the Heathlands course at TPC Toronto, we might have seen the longest tournament title in recorded history. The OVOPBVCCBMA was a splendid affair. It saw three rounds of 62 on Thursday, but of those early risers, only Drew Goodman would stick around until the end. 64 was the low tally on day two, and two of those legionnaires managed to finish inside the top three at week’s end. Saturday brought a 63 from Patrick Newcomb, and he would follow with 64 on Sunday, to finish solo fourth.

Who, then, ended up winning the acronym of the year? It turns out that Carson Bacha had the right stuff in TeeOhhh. Bacha and Jay Card III posted 63 and 64, respectively, on day four, to tie for medalist honors at 23-under 261. Nathan Franks was one shot adrift, despite also closing with 63. If you didn’t go low on Sunday, it was about the check, not the championship.

Bacha and JC3 returned to the 18th hole twice in overtime. Card nearly chipped in from the thick stuff for birdie, while Bacha peeked and shoved a ten-feet attempt at the win. On the second go-round, Card was long with his approach, into the native grasses once more. He was unable to escape, and a routine par from the fairway was enough to earn the former Auburn golfers a first KFT title.

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Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2025 Wyndham Championship

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4 weeks ago

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Jul 29, 2025

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GolfWRX is live this week from the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, the Wyndham Championship.

Photos are flowing into the forums from Sedgefield Country Club, where we already have a GolfWRX spirit animal Adam Schenk WITB and plenty of putters for your viewing pleasure.

Check out links to all our photos below, which we’ll continue to update as more arrive.

General Albums

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See what GolfWRXers are saying and join the discussion in the forums.

 

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BK’s Breakdowns: Kurt Kitayama’s Winning WITB, 3M Open

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4 weeks ago

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Kurt Kitayama just won his 2nd PGA Tour event at the 3M Open. Kurt is a Bridgestone staffer but with just the ball and bag. Here are the rest of the clubs he used to secure a win at the 2025 3M Open.

Driver: Titleist GT3 (11 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 TX

3-wood: Titleist GT1 3Tour (14.5 degrees, A3 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX

7-wood: Titleist GT1 (21 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7MB (5-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-12F, 56-14F), Vokey Design WedgeWorks (60-K*)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 2 Tour Prototype
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy 1.0PT

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS (with Mindset)

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