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GolfWRX Morning 9: Tiger talks 2019 | Phil’s legacy | Koepka snubbed again

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7 years ago

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

December 12, 2018

Good Wednesday morning, golf fans.
1. Brooks snubbed again
“I get no respect!” Who said it, Rodney Dangerfield or Brooks Koepka?
  • Golf Channel report…”That narrative received a little more fuel to the fire Tuesday when ESPN released its list of the top 20 most dominant athletes of 2018. On a list that included Olympic gymnast Simone Biles (No. 1), NBA superstar LeBron James (No. 13) and LPGA golfer Ariya Jutanugarn (No. 4), Koepka was notably absent.”
  • “Koepka won two majors this year, the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship, and also captured the CJ Cup @ Nine Bridges this fall.”
  • “For a guy who already believes he’s been overlooked during his career, this certainly won’t help change his mind.”
2. Tiger talks 2019
Woods sat down for an exclusive with Golf.com. Here are a few morsels from an interesting conversation.
  • “Let’s shift gears for a moment. If you could steal one part of any player’s game – any player ever – what would you make your own?…Well, I figure if I could hit every fairway for the rest of my life I’d be all right. [Laughs] From there, I can figure out how to get it on the green, I can make my fair share of putts and I can get it up and down. But if I could hit it in the fairway [every time] about 320, maybe 340 yards, I’d be all right.”
  • “So, Greg Norman?…Well, it depends. In that era, 280 was a long drive. Now it’s, “Hey, can you carry it 320 in the air?” The game has evolved and, I was telling some [people in Melbourne], when I came down here to play the Presidents Cup in 1998, some of the guys were transitioning out of persimmon. The game has changed dramatically since then.”
  • “So what does a successful 2019 look like for you?…I had one win this year. It was amazing to have [2018] culminate with the Tour Championship. I’m not going to win every tournament – I never have. But if I can just get myself in contention, I think I’ll win my share.”
3. Mickelson’s legacy
Did 2018 change the way we think about Lefty?
  • Golfworld’s Dave Shedloski...”When Phil Mickelson raced across the 13th green at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in the third round of the 118th U.S. Open and whacked his ball while it was careening down a slope away from the hole, he crossed through the fourth circle of golf hell. Not only did he change the direction of the shot as it was moving, but, it was believed, he had altered the direction of his career narrative. Whatever the artful player did going forward, that unhinged moment when he broke the rules and arrogantly explained that he did so intentionally, all occurring on his 48th birthday, was sure to affix itself permanently to Lefty’s legacy. Or so went the predominant opinion.”
  • “Five months later in Las Vegas, as part of a mega-hyped match against Tiger Woods, Mickelson won $9 million. Never in the lead up to the winner-take-all match or during coverage of it or in the postscript was the U.S. Open or the incident mentioned-except by Woods, who taunted his rival when he ruthlessly pointed out that he had never won the national championship. Neither was the L’Affair Shinny a topic of discussion in September at the Ryder Cup in Paris, not even among the tabloids. Nor in August at the PGA Championship in St. Louis.”
4. Shots o’ the year
Doug Ferguson goes through the bag, highlighting some of the most memorable shots hit with various clubs in ’18.
  • A few…“3-IRON…Just about every tournament brought a moment that indicated Woods was back to being Woods. One of those moments was the opening round of the BMW Championship at rain-softened Aronimink. From 242 yards on the par-5 16th, Woods hit a 3-iron high and straight. It landed 8 feet in front of the hole and stopped 5 feet next to the pin for an eagle on his way to a 62. It was the first time he had at least a share of the lead after any round in five years.”
  • “PUTTER…The most memorable shot with the putter didn’t go in the hole. Phil Mickelson only wanted to make sure it didn’t go off the front of the 13th green on Saturday at the U.S. Open. So he trotted over and slapped at the ball as it was still moving , an egregious rules violation. Mickelson says he knew the penalty (two shots) and liked that better than having to play from off the green. He also knew his U.S. Open was over. He made a 10 and shot 81, matching his worst score in the only major he hasn’t won.”
5. Louisville Golf
Our Peter Schmitt paid a visit to arguably the finest purveyors of persimmon, Louisville Golf.
  • “Jeremy Wright gets it. Taking over at Louisville Golf is not for everybody. This isn’t a multi-billion-dollar revenue generating machine with private research facilities and elaborate corporate complexes. It’s not about money…or fame…or 385-yard drives. Gerard Just, the youngest of the Just brothers who started Louisville Golf might have summed it up best:”
  • “You know, I guess you could say we’re simple people. We don’t really go on vacations. But we work hard and we enjoy what we do. We don’t make a lot of money. I don’t think my kids could afford to work here to be honest, but they hate their jobs. We never really had that problem.”
  • “Louisville Golf was established in 1974 by Elmore Just and Steve Taylor when they left Hillerich & Bradsby (crafters of Louisville Slugger baseball bats and Power-Bilt golf clubs). Elmore ran the business side of the company and Steve oversaw the manufacturing aspect. Back then, in the heyday of persimmon, the club manufacturers were on an allotment. Since persimmon (remarkably well-suited for golf clubs due to its strength and density) is a relatively slow-growing wood, there was only so much material to go around and upstart Louisville Golf had to fight for every block they got. Eventually, they built the business into a major player, making 800 clubs a day for the likes of Hogan, MacGregor, Wilson, Spalding, and others.”
6. Patrick Sullivan
He who putted a ball into the water and missed a four-footer at Q-School, Patrick Sullivan, isn’t letting it get him down.
  • A bit of Brentley Romine’s profile…”Life on the mini-tours was tough. He lost as much as $8,000 when the U.S. Pro Golf Tour, which had promised million-dollar purses, folded. He competed in Q-School, which was then offering PGA Tour cards, every year, but only made it to second stage once. Several times, he was eliminated at first stage by a shot.”
  • “By 2010, he decided to settle down. “I was tapped out,” he said. He married his girlfriend, Talia, and took a job as an assistant pro at the Alotian Club in Roland, Ark., and later moved to Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock.”
  • “Working 60-hour weeks, though, eventually grew on Sullivan. One day, Talia asked her husband, “You really want to play golf again, don’t you?”
  • “Sullivan re-committed himself to pro golf in 2015, and that year won the Arkansas Open, for a third time. But he still couldn’t get over the Q-School hump. He finished just shy of advancing at first stage in two straight years, by one shot.”
7. What we learned
Kyle Porter looks in the rearview mirror at what we learned in 2018.
  • “1. Tiger is not human: It still doesn’t seem real. To come from the place he came from to the place he got to — winning the Tour Chamionship over 29 of the best golfers on the planet — was remarkable. If I was floored at the PGA Championship when he shot 64 on Sunday to nearly steal the show, I was flabbergasted that Woods was able to win a month later. I know nothing he does should surprise, but if you’ve been following closely, you know he was completely cooked — and then he wasn’t.”
  • “2. Jordan Spieth is human: After averaging over three wins and 12 top 10s a season in the previous three seasons, Spieth came back down to earth in 2018. I’m still purchasing all of the stock (and will do so if you want to sell some to me), but prolonged success at the two-or three-win level per year might be an impossibility in this era.”
  • “3. Justin Rose is the most consistent top player: He might not have all the wins to back it up, but Rose finished in the top 10 in 15 of 22 events worldwide in 2018, which means he’s finished in the top 10 in 20 of 47 events over the past two years. Thirty of 47 events!”
8. Reed against the world
That’s Scott Michaux’s headline in piece for Golf Digest.
  • A portion…”So now what? In what should have been a triumphant season in the continued development of one of America’s top young talents, Patrick Reed instead faces a different reality. What kind of environment has he created for himself moving forward, not just with fans trying to figure him out but also with his peers?”
  • “Reed’s tarnished relationship with his Ryder Cup teammates follows the same pattern as his collegiate experience. He was persona non grata when he was kicked off the team at Georgia in 2009 after one season, and others on the Augusta State roster tolerated him as a necessary evil in helping deliver the school consecutive NCAA championships in 2010 and 2011.”
  • “They all hate him-any guys that were on the team with him [at Georgia] hate him and that’s the same way at Augusta,” said Kevin Kisner, a Georgia alum who predated Reed’s arrival in Athens and lives 20 minutes from Augusta in Aiken, S.C. “I don’t know that they’d piss on him if he was on fire, to tell you the truth.”
9. Valentino Dixon
Our Michael Williams talked with Valentino Dixon about the Golf Channel documentary detailing his at once inspiring and heartbreaking saga in the latest episode of the 19th Hole.

 

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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.

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Tour Rundown: Bend, but don’t break

Published

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

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

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

Published

4 weeks ago

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Jul 28, 2025

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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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WITB

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