News

Morning 9: ANWA anticipation builds | Finau’s Masters shoe | Tiger’s Masters checklist

Published

7 years ago

Apr 2, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

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

April 2, 2019

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans.

1. Anticipation building

Golf Digest’s Ryan Herrington filed a look at the ramp up to the ANWA in general, and the competitors taking the course at Augusta National in particular.

“With the most anticipated debut of a golf tournament in decades beginning in earnest on Wednesday, many compelling questions regarding the ANWA remain unanswered. How will one of the world’s most historic courses play when the world’s top female amateurs attempt to make history of their own? Competitors will tee it up from a version of Augusta National’s members tees playing 6,365 yards. But will the greens be as speedy as they are a week later when the Masters is played? And where will the scores fall? Plus, what will it be like for contenders to have the competition pause for a day mid-tournament? How will nerves factor into the entire affair for the entire 72-player field that will christen the championship?”

“The unknowns add their own intrigue to an already exciting event…”I think that’s what’s one of the trickiest parts here,” said Mexico’s Maria Fassi, a senior at Arkansas who is No. 9 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. “We’re all so excited about having the opportunity to play at Augusta, but we’re also supposed to be competing out there. Once I’m there, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. I think it will be all about business when I’m on the golf course. But in between shots, and before and after, I’ll make sure to enjoy just the opportunity of being at Augusta National.”

Full piece.

2. Kuchar, Garcia: It’s time to move on

Well this is…interesting…

Bill Speros at Golfweek…”Speaking Monday together from Austin, Texas, while in a golf cart, the two veteran golfers issued a joint “it’s all good” statement via Instagram video. Kuchar held his smile nearly the whole time, with his outstretched arm behind Garcia who sat forward in the driver’s seat.”

“It was nice to run into Matt Kuchar at Austin Golf Club today. A lot has been said about Saturday and most has been misconstrued. We’re all good here. Nothing but respect for each other and it’s time to move on,” Garcia wrote on Instagram.

“We are going over what happened with our match, and the aftermath,” Kuchar says in the video. “What’s gone on in the aftermath is just incorrect. Wrong. Shouldn’t have happened. I want to tell you Sergio handled the thing extremely well.

Full piece/see the video.

3. Tiger’s Masters checklist

Excellent stuff from ESPN’s Bob Harig examining to the state of Tiger Woods game as he heads to Augusta.

He writes…”Still, it’s hard not to believe that Woods’ game is in far better shape than it was in 2018 heading to the Masters, even if the preceding results might not be as impressive. He’s stronger, seemingly healthier and has his equipment dialed in.”

From Harig’s breakdown of Woods’ putting…”This continues to be a concern. Forget the putt Woods missed that would have extended his match against Lucas Bjerregaard on Saturday. He missed a couple of short ones earlier that day and has had shaky moments throughout the year. Six three-putt greens at both Riviera and Mexico cost him higher finishes at both tournaments. He seemed to find a groove on smoother greens in Florida at The Players. His issues at Austin Country Club during the Match Play seemed to center around difficulty reading the greens at a tricky layout. A lack of rounds there certainly didn’t help, either.”

“Whatever the case, Woods ranks just 78th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting. He is also 84th from 4 to 8 feet and 150th from 5 feet. All of that suggests too many misses from a range that is so important.”

Full piece.

4. The people’s champ

Daniel Rapaport at Sports Illustrated on Kevin Kisner, the PGA Tour start for the common man.

“Kevin Kisner is not one of those guys. The 35-year-old-who just picked up the biggest win of his career at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play-is 5 feet, 10 inches of candor, humor and humility. Fans, journalists and other players appreciate Kisner because he keeps it real, and that’s why his victory on Sunday was so popular within the golf world.”

“Kiz was asked about the $1.74 million he took home for the win. True to form, he responsed: “I’m the cheapest guy in the world. I hoard that money like crazy, because I don’t want it to run out. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to make 10-footers,” he said.”

“You would be wrong. In an interview with Barstool’s Fore Play podcast, Kisner was asked about his odds at each of the four host venues this year.

On Augusta: “They changed No. 5 to 495, so that adds another bogey for me.”
On Bethpage Black: “PGA, Bethpage, got no chance there.”
On Pebble Beach: “I can play decent if the USGA wasn’t running it.”
On Royal Portrush: “I’ve got no idea about Ireland.”

Full piece.

5. Shop With Golf — and Bill Murray

Alexandra Bruell at the Wall Street Journal reports NBC is getting into something…interesting…

“Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, known for programming like “Friends,” “This Is Us” and the “Real Housewives” franchise, wants to sell you golf socks and polos. The company plans to introduce e-commerce marketplaces, seeking a new revenue stream from brands that aren’t necessarily buying costly national TV ads.”

“The first marketplace, called Shop With Golf, will be aligned with NBCU’s Golf Channel, selling products from brands that cater to fans of the sport. William Murray Golf, an apparel brand from actor Bill Murray and his five brothers, is among the 30-plus brands initially slated to sell products on the website.”

And this…”NBCU tapped Mr. Murray to help it promote Shop With Golf. In a 30-second TV ad set to run for 13 weeks across various NBCU properties including MSNBC and CNBC, Mr. Murray loosely evaluates his own performance on the golf course-a joke for golfers who are notorious for inflating their scores. Mr. Murray and his five brothers also star in an online music video accessible on the website, among content featuring other brands.”

Full piece.

6. ANWA tee times

Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols with the details…”Jennifer Kupcho, No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, heads out first alongside Olivia Mehaffey of Northern Ireland and Thailand super teen Atthaya Thitikul.”

“The 9:36 a.m. group features one of the hottest junior players in the country in Alexa Pano as well as Maria Fassi, the 2018 ANNIKA Award winner and Wenyung Keh of New Zealand.”

“Teeing off on No. 10 at that time (9:36 a.m.) is another notable threesome -Andrea Lee, who recently set a school record for tournament wins at Stanford, former NCAA champ Virginia Elena Carta and USC’s Jennifer Chang.”

Full article/tee times

7. Rory Foundation closed

Not jumping to any conclusions, but this is interesting. Per an Irish News report…

“The charitable foundation set up by Co Down golfer Rory McIlroy has closed, it has emerged. The Rory Foundation, which was established in 2013 to offer support to children’s charities, is understood to have ceased operations in December.

However, no major announcement has been made about its closure. A spokeswoman for the company which handled press enquiries for the foundation, last night confirmed the closure.

“The Rory Foundation is no longer active,” she said. “Rory is adopting a private philanthropic policy”.

Full piece.

8. Masters field update

Golf Digest’s Joel Beall on the Masters field as it stands now…which is as one of the smallest in 20 years.

“But as big as this Masters may appear, it will actually be quite small. At least in terms of the field.”

“Justin Harding and Shane Lowry qualified for the Masters on Sunday, finishing inside the Official World Golf Ranking top 50. Their invitations bring the number of competitors to 86. If that figure holds, it would be the fewest amount of players to tee it up at the Masters since the 1997 tournament.”

“There is still one spot up for grabs at this week’s Valero Texas Open, as the winner receives an invitation if he’s not already eligible.”

Full piece.

See the field here.

9. Finau’s Masters shoe

There wasn’t a better golf-related April Fools joke than this…

For those looking to go a bit further down the rabbit hole of silliness, Nike released a short video about the development of the shoe.

Video

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

3 hours 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

2 days 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.