News

Morning 9: Kuchar wins Sony, says caddie pay scandal “not a story” | Remembering the missile scare of 2018

Published

7 years ago

Jan 14, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

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

January 14, 2019

Good Monday morning, golf fans. Hope you’re greeting the week with a smile wider than Matt Kuchar’s.

1. Kuch captures the Sony

A beautiful back nine secured Matt Kuchar’s second win in three starts.

PGATour.com’s Ben Everill...”Having started Sunday two shots in front of Andrew Putnam, Kuchar made the turn one back of last season’s Barracuda Championship winner following some early stumbles.”

“But a 5-under 30 back nine blitz pushed the veteran to 22 under for the week, ultimately four clear of his nearest challenger.”

“And he’s ready for more success….While not making any outlandish promises Kuchar was happy to be reminded of Vijay Singh’s early 40s….Singh won 22 times on TOUR after entering his fourth decade of life including the FedExCup in 2008.”

“I would certainly like to (do what Singh did),” Kuchar said. “He set a great example. Certainly showed that is possible. A number of guys showed that it is possible. It’s nice to know that.

“It’s not like you hit 40 and you have to go away. There are guys that have done great. Certainly I’m off to a way better start than I would’ve expected. Feels good. I hope to continue.”

Full piece.

2. Caddie paygate

In a situation that is either developing or dead, depending on who you believe, an unsavory accusation (in tour pro land, at least) was leveled against one Matt Kuchar.

Geoff Shackelford summarizes…”Former PGA Tour player Tom Gillis took to Twitter suggesting Matt Kuchar, 2019 Sony Open leader, former Players Champion and winner of $45 million in his PGA Tour career, might want to pay his caddie this week more than the $3000 he claims Kuchar paid “David” upon winning last fall’s Mayakoba Classic.”

“The win garnered Kuchar a $1.3 million winner’s check plus presumed bonuses. You may recall that David was a local caddie Kuchar used when he entered last minute and his normal looper, John Wood, had a previous engagement.”

Tom Gillis tweeted…”If Kuchar wins this weekend let’s hope he pays his man more than 3k like the last win. 45 mil in earnings. Could’ve changed the mans life. ??”

Kuchar, for his part denied the $3K number has any validity…”Following his third round at the Sony, Kuchar denied the amount quoted and said it was not a story. From Rex Hoggard’s GolfChannel.com story…”That’s not a story,” Kuchar said. “It’s wasn’t 10 percent. It wasn’t $3,000. It’s not a story.”

Shackelford’s piece.

Golfweek’s Kevin Casey writes…”Kuchar did note in his comment that he didn’t pay “El Tucan” 10 percent of the winnings, but that is justifiable. A local caddie generally doesn’t have the ability to do as much for a player as his longtime professional looper. A local caddie also doesn’t have to deal with the large travel costs that a full-time pro looper must on a week-to-week basis.”

“Thus, the 10 percent benchmark more applies to professional caddies rather than all loopers. A local caddie may then expect a smaller percentage.”

“Whatever Kuchar paid the man, he disputes it was $3,000 and clearly feels the amount he did dole out was appropriate.”

Full piece.

3. Meanwhile, in the Bahamas…

Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”Through 15 holes, Oda is 8 under and two shots clear of the field at the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay.”

“The former UNLV product eagled his opening hole and added seven more birdies before darkness suspended Sunday’s opening round. The first two events of the Web.com Tour season, both played in the Bahamas, will be played Sunday-Wednesday.”

“Lee McCoy, Willy Wilcox and Austin Smotherman are tied for second at 6 under. McCoy and Wilcox finished off 66s while Smotherman, like Oda, has three holes to play.”

Full piece.

4. Buddies again

Eamon Lynch with some perspective on the presumed selection of Steve Stricker as the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain.

“I reached out to a former European Ryder Cupper, who requested anonymity to speak about a U.S. selection process that seems increasingly reliant on a close-knit buddy system….”We base our decisions on what the players who will be playing want, not on a circle of friendship,” he said dryly…But the European veteran insisted that captains aren’t the issue.”

“…The captain doesn’t hit a shot, but he decides who does and who gets on the plane. Furyk reserved a seat to Paris for Mickelson, his task force buddy who was out of form and played poorly. Like his two immediate predecessors, Stricker will be crowdsourced into the captaincy from a select group of pals and invariably will face the same questions about whether his decisions are based on merit or loyalty, on sense or sentiment.”

“Regardless of the result in Wisconsin 20 months hence, Stricker’s appointment will be a positive for the U.S. team. It’s a tacit acknowledgement that a playing record is immaterial to efficacy as a captain, that character and all-around decency are just as relevant to leadership, perhaps more so. And that’s as good a standard as any to establish for the time, years from now, when the task force finally exhausts its bench.”

Full piece.

5. Charley!

BBC Report…”England’s Charley Hull earned a wire-to-wire win in the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open in Abu Dhabi to claim her second Ladies European Tour title.”

“Hull, 22, took a one-shot lead into the final round and a three-under 69 saw her finish a shot ahead of Norway’s Marianne Skarpnord on eight under.”

‘”I’ve practised really hard over winter and it feels great to win,” said Hull. “Hopefully I can get a few more wins. I’m very happy with my round so it shows that my hard work is paying off.”‘

“Hull clinched the victory when she splashed out of a bunker on the 18th and saved par with a solid putt.”

Full piece.

6. It’s a young man’s game

AP Column (presumably Doug Ferguson) quantifying the youth movement on the PGA Tour…

A taste…”How many players on the tour now are 25 and under?” Cink asked. “Forty?”

“He was close. There are 29 players with full status on tour who are 25 or younger. That includes Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, who already have won majors and reached No. 1 in the world. It includes Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau and Xander Schauffele, all of whom are among the top 10 in the world ranking.”

“They play a lot more, against better competition when they’re younger now,” Cink said. “And they’re just more seasoned when they come out here. There is no break-in period anymore like there used to be because you don’t need to learn.”

“When he started two decades ago, Cink said most players – Woods is an exception in almost every way – had to reinvent the wheel and learn to play the style of golf required on the PGA Tour.”

“Now you just come out here, guns blazing,” he said.

Full piece.

7. The Loves go to Singapore

Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard...”Although he plans to play almost exclusively on the PGA Tour in 2019, he will make one exception next week when he will travel to the SMBC Singapore Open. Although his wife, Robin, has always wanted to see Singapore and his son, Dru, will also be in the field, Love’s primary motivation for playing the event, that is co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour and Asian Tour, is to qualify for The Open Championship.”

“The Singapore Open is an Open qualifying event, and the top-4 finishers not otherwise exempt earn a spot in the field at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland in July.”

“I just want to play in it. I just love playing in it I don’t care where it is,” said Love, who last played The Open in 2012. “It’s just like the U.S. Open or the Masters, I would just like to play them one more time. Especially The Open.”

Full piece.

8. The great missile scare

Excellent stuff from Rex Hoggard, who interviewed some of the Tour pros who reserved the “you’re about to be hit with a missile attack” text message in Hawaii last year.

“Because Hawaii is a vacation destination, many players bring friends and family for the week. Charles Howell III, who has played the event 17 times in his career, had his wife and two children with him.”

“We were in the back of the hotel having breakfast and I just told the kids let’s just go to the beach and watch it,” Howell recalled. “There’s not much you can do at that point so you might as well get a front-row seat to this thing. We can’t get far enough away from one those big old things (missiles).”

“Tourists flooded the streets of Waikiki searching for bomb shelters and answers, but the vast majority of players took a more philosophical approach. Justin Thomas, for example, turned on some music and went to his balcony.”

“I just watched,” Thomas said. “If a missile comes in I’m really not going to be able to do anything. At least I can watch it come in. I was going to die if I was in my room or on my balcony. If this is the real thing, I’m going to enjoy my last couple of minutes looking at the ocean.”

Full piece.

9. Fleetwood with prototype Tiger Woods irons?

What’s that you have in your hands there, Tommy Fleetwood? That iron looks strikingly familiar to the “P-7TW” iron we featured in a Forum Thread of the Day last week on GolfWRX

What’s going on here? Well, as most WRX Members believe, the TaylorMade P-7TW irons will be Tiger Woods’ gamers in 2019. Woods had been playing a prototype TW-Phase 1 most of last year. TaylorMade hasn’t released any details or given an indication the irons will come to retail.

But what does this have to do with England’s finest head of hair? Well, Fleetwood, a former Nike staffer, has been clinging to his final set of Oven-produced Nike VR Pro Blades for dear life since the company exited the hard goods business in August of 2016.

Knowing the clubs can’t last forever, and apparently unable to compel Paul Casey to part with his similar weapons, Fleetwood looks to be looking to alternatives ahead of next week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, judging from the pictures below. It’s not surprising, then, given the apparent similarity between the P-7TW iron and Nike VR Pro Blade, that Fleetwood would opt to put the irons to the test early in the year.

Full piece.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

1 hour 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.