News

GolfWRX Morning 9: New PGA CEO…paving the way for a megadeal? | #InviteHER | Steve Williams: Tiger believer

Published

8 years ago

Aug 29, 2018

Ben Alberstadt

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

August 29, 2018

Good Wednesday morning, golf fans.

1. New PGA CEO

Per Golf Channel Digital…”Former Deutsche Bank Americas CEO Seth Waugh has been named Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of America, replacing Pete Bevacqua who announced his departure from the organization last month.”

“Waugh is currently completing a three-year term as an independent director on the PGA of America’s board of directors. As PGA CEO he will also remain a senior advisor for the investment group Silver Lake, where he has worked since 2017.”

“It is an honor and a privilege to lead this remarkable Association into its second century,” Waugh said in a release. “Like so many, I share a passion for the game that has given so much to me, and in the process, has somehow become a huge influence in my life. The opportunity to work with nearly 29,000 PGA professionals and others in the game to give back and to help our beautiful sport is a true gift.”

“Waugh, 60, spent 13 years at Deutsche Bank and was instrumental in working with the PGA Tour to create the Deutsche Bank Championship in 2003. The tournament, now known as the Dell Technologies Championship, will be played at TPC Boston this week for the final time before it is contracted with the shortening of the FedExCup playoffs beginning in 2019.”

2. #inviteHER

A few facts: 29% of non-golfing women reported they had an interest in playing golf in the immediate future. 74% of these women said that “they’d try the sport if there were a free-golf morning event they could attend with a group of friends.”

How do we increase women’s participation in the game? Well, here’s a new idea that’s brilliant in its simplicity: #inviteHER.

From a joint press release…””Powered by theLPGA Women’s Network and WE ARE GOLF’s Women’s Task Force, golfers – men and women alike – are encouraged to bring friends, colleagues and family to join them on the course through online resources and social media assets. The #inviteHER movement seeks to create an enjoyable, welcoming experience for those interested in trying the game or picking it back up – whether through a group lesson, complimentary clinic, driving range session or on-course experience.”

#inviteHER’s primary objective is to grow awareness and participation among women and girls through the power of an invitation from one of the 24 million American golfers. The game should more closely mirror U.S. demographics as only 24 percent of the current golf population is female.

“Women want to be invited to the game and it’s our duty to give them that opportunity at one of our nation’s 15,000 local facilities,” says Jane Geddes, Executive Director of the LPGA Amateur Golf Association and Chair of WE ARE GOLF’s Women’s Task Force. “We are committed to promoting an environment that makes all females feel more comfortable on the course so they develop into lifetime golfers.”

3. Megadeal cometh?

Geoff Shackelford writes that Seth Waugh’s appointment to the head of the PGA could have some significant future ramifications.

Shack floats the idea that a PGA Tour/PGA merger could happen.

“Consider what currently sits before the PGA of America: an expiring television contract for the PGA Championship and a possible headquarters move to Frisco, Texas. Those are big ticket items that will shape the organization for decades to come and left by Pete Bevacqua for the next CEO when he moved to NBC Sports. Does Seth Waugh really take the PGA job to quibble with a Mark Lazarus or Sean McManus over commercial breaks-per-hour and then have a celebratory dinner when the deal is done? When he could be playing Cypress Point or Seminole or National Golf Links?”

“…But here’s where a merger makes sense: power, money and branding….Rights to PGA of America’s PGA Championship expire for CBS in 2019. The PGA Tour’s rights expire in 2021 with the networks and Golf Channel. It is no secret that the PGA Tour would like its own channel or an ownership stake in NBC’s Golf Channel. They passed up that opportunity when the current deal was negotiated but these two entities begin a new streaming partnership in 2019 for PGA Tour Live.”

“Currently, two major media corporations have shown a love of golf and content: Comcast and AT&T, headed by two CEO’s–Brian Roberts of Comcast and Randal Stephenson of AT&T–are both Augusta National members who sign big checks in golf and are lodged in megadeal madness to expand their companies.”

Full piece.

4. Romo.Web.com?

Our Gianni Magliocco with the details...”Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current NFL analyst, Tony Romo, is ready to take a crack at earning a Web.com Tour Card. The 38-year-old will tee it up this Wednesday at the Web.com Tour Q-school pre-qualifier at Lantana Golf Club in Texas. Romo will compete as an amateur under a plus-0.4 handicap. The Californian will be the first former professional athlete to attempt the feat since ex-tennis pro, Mardy Fish, attempted to do so back in 2014.”

“Earlier in 2018, Romo made his PGA Tour debut at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship on a sponsor exemption and then competed in a local U.S. Open qualifier. On both occasions, he failed to break 77.”

“Romo tees it up in the pre-qualifying section on Wednesday morning at 9.45 ET. The former Pro Bowl quarterback will be hoping to claim one of the 228 spots on offer for pre-qualifiers to advance to the first qualifying stage which begins on September 25th.”

5. LA Golf Shafts news day

It was a big news day for upstart LA Golf Shafts–on GolfWRX, at least.

First, LA hired former Aldila head of engineering John Oldenburg to lead product development.

Full story here.

Then, the company announced it has partnered with Bryson DeChambeau–an excellent choice given the business model of collaboration between player and designer.

Full story here.

“I love the science behind the game, so the concept of actively participating in the development of my own shafts is very appealing,” said DeChambeau. “I’m excited to partner with a design innovator such as John Oldenburg, to not only improve my game, but bring those same solutions to recreational golfers everywhere.”

6. Jenkins returns

Golf Digest has an excerpt of the legendary golf writer’s 23rd book.

Here’s a brief bit where Jenkins discusses covering the Masters…”I started in the old press tent in 1951. It overflowed with grown men in fedoras bumping into each other, or their folding chairs and Smith-Coronas. A few 40-watt bulbs dangled from the ceiling. There was a din of phones ringing and bells pinging on wire machines. The place was dense with cigarette smoke. I knew this was where I belonged.”

“Western Union operators were clacking on their whining contraptions in a cramped alcove sending out urgent pieces about Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, the only two golfers of interest in those days. Sports editors back in the offices in New York, Chicago, even Fort Worth, took a dim view of their writers filing stories on golfers they’d never heard of.”

“…The writers were still dressing in coats and ties at golf tournaments. I suppose it was because Grantland Rice did. I was excited to see the nattily attired Rice at my first Masters. This saintly gent in a shirt, tie, sweater, checkered jacket and light-gray hat. I saw him across the crowded tent. But I was too shy to introduce myself to the gentleman who, along with bringing dignity to my profession, had given the Masters its name. Three years later, he passed away.”

Full excerpt here.

7. DeChambeau the worker

An unbylined AP column rightly points out that in our fixation on Bryson DeChambeau’s methods, we forget that he’s not merely sticking his nose in books and making advanced calculations: he works hard.

“The scientist is always working, always searching, rarely satisfied….Video captured him so frustrated on the range at the British Open that at one point he crouched and put both hands over his face. That doesn’t make him different. It makes him a golfer. He had another long range session on the eve of The Northern Trust. And he worked as long as light would allow Saturday after a 63.”

“It’s half of what I do in my off weeks,” DeChambeau said. “People don’t realize how hard I work to try and get a better understanding of my biomechanics. I’ve never really been super talented. People would disagree with that, but I’ve always had to work twice as hard as everybody growing up. I was never as good as a junior. Right around 14, 15, I started working really hard and that’s kind of what changed my game.”

“I wasn’t great at reading and writing,” DeChambeau said. “But I certainly worked my butt off to be an A student. And I’ll never forget the first time I got a B in high school. I was mortified because I had worked so hard, and I just wasn’t good enough in writing. … That’s been me my whole life. I’ve had to grind and work it out and figure it out on my own.”

8. Year of the Tiger ahead?

In a piece for the Players Voice, Woods ex-caddie Steve Williams suggested that next year we’ll see Tiger Woods win again.

“It’s set to be an epic year and the golfing world will watch with huge interest….If [Woods] can win at Augusta – and he’s proven he can compete there even when he’s not at his peak – who knows what could occur on these iconic venues of the type he loves playing.”

He also offered this interesting tidbit

“Back when we were working together, we’d often have this conversation about how many majors he wanted to win. I believed that when he got to the target he wanted he would rack the cue – it’s just that we were always unclear on what that number would be…Initially it was 20 and then he said one day, ‘No, Stevie, your favourite number is 21 and we’ll get to that’. I came back with: ‘No, you’re a great Michael Jordan fan, so why don’t we go for 23?’.'”

9. A new PGA Tour video game has arrived

…bet its got nothing on Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’99, glorious time waster of my youth that it was.

From the Golf Channel Grill Room staff...”After promises from developer HB Studios that “The Golf Club 2019″ would be made available for download before the end of the month, the game launched Tuesday with a surprise – it’s been published by 2K Sports.”

“The PGA Tour announced in May that it was liscensing its branding and six TPC courses (Sawgrass, Scottsdale, Boston, Deere Run, Summerlin and Southwind) to HB for the third edition of its “Golf Club” game. The Tour had previously maintained a longtime relationship with EA Sports, which produced the now-defunct “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” franchise.”

“The Golf Club 2019” allows players to progress from the Web.com Tour to a full 32-event season through its PGA Tour career mode. The game fills a void left by the discontinuation of the EA series, which came to an end follow the release of “Rory McIlroy PGA Tour” in 2015. It also brings back its custom course creator in addition to revamped gameplay, graphics, commentary and online multiplayer features.”

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

14 mins 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

1 day 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.