News

Morning 9: Which famed caddie turned down Tiger? | European Tour “brand refresh” | Only 2 kinds of golf swings?

Published

7 years ago

Sep 24, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

By Ben Alberstadt (ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com; @benalberstadt on Instagram)

September 24, 2019

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans.

1. Turning down Tiger

Forgive the summary of a summary, but Stephen Hennessey at Golf Digest did a fine job highlighting the notable elements of a very fine piece…

…”That’s part of the intrigue behind a great recent story by the Caddie Network on all-time great caddie Tony Navarro. The story, worth a longer read on its own on Navarro, details how Navarro declined the opportunity to be considered for Tiger’s caddie. Navarro was Greg Norman’s caddie in 1998, and Tiger had just decided to part ways with Mike “Fluff” Cowan, leaving the most desirable opening in looping circles open.

“In the story, the Caddie Network details how Butch Harmon, then Tiger’s swing coach, was asked about potential replacements for Fluff, and Butch recommended just two names: Stevie and Navarro. But Navarro’s candidacy for Tiger’s caddie ended immediately after Butch first talked to Navarro.”

“As Butch told the Caddie Network’s Craig Dolch…”I told Tiger there were two guys he should hire – Tony Navarro and Steve Williams. I spoke with Tony first. But he said, ‘No, I’m still working for Greg.’..”That’s the kind of guy Tony is. He’s incredibly loyal. Whoever he works for, he’s 100 percent invested in that person.”

Full piece.

Read the original Caddie Network piece here.

2. Quite a field at the Dunhill Links (and of course the courses aren’t bad either!)

Golfweek staff with a programming note of note…”Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Jon Rahm are just some of the big names playing at this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. McIlroy has been runner-up three times in the tournament.”

“Starting Thursday, the tournament will be held over three courses – the Old Course at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns. There are two competitions this week, the individual professional tournament and the Team Championship, which pairs pros with amateurs.”

“Rose will tee it up alongside Justin Timberlake, who is playing in the event for the first time. McIlroy has played with his father, Gerry, in the Team Championship in the past.”

Full piece.

3. A take from a Scotsman at The Scotsman

Martin Dempster at The Scotsman…

“To put that into pespective, the corresponding figure in 2013 was fewer than 8,500 and, though the presence of the likes of Timberlake for the first time this week, as well as regulars such as Hollywood legend Bill Murray and a host of sporting greats might not appeal to the traditionalists, it definitely does to others.”

“Put it this way, more non-golfers are likely to take in this event, especially when they can take advantage of a free admission offer on the first three days, than have attended any other golf tournament held so far this year in Scotland and the game can surely only gain from that.”

“The Irish would be all over an event like the Dunhill Links like a rash and Scottish golf fans should certainly be giving this week’s event the support it deserves.”

Full piece.

4. European Tour brand refresh

Well…”The European Tour has launched a creative new brand strategy, with the aim of broadening the Tour’s appeal to new and existing fans and commercial partners.”

“Golf’s global tour has unveiled its new identity, which includes a modern, fresh logo alongside a new website and App, all underpinned by the Tour’s guiding principles of Innovation, Inclusivity and Globality.”

“The brand refresh focuses on ‘Driving Golf Further’, the strapline which features underneath the new logo, as the Tour seeks to build on its strong, established reputation for award-winning content, innovative tournament formats and immersive technology.”

“The European Tour’s new identity was unveiled at the Tour’s recently refurbished, state-of-the-art headquarters during the BMW PGA Championship, the fourth event in the Tour’s Rolex Series – an alliance of its eight premium events. It will be rolled out on October 1, coinciding with the launch of the Tour’s revamped website and App.”

Full piece.

5. PGA Tour cancels China Series’ Hong Kong event

AP report…”The PGA Tour Series-China is canceling its tournament next month in Hong Kong because of civil unrest and safety concerns.”

“The season was supposed to end with the event Oct. 17-20 at Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club in Hong Kong. Instead, the 13th and final tournament will be held Oct. 10-13 at the Macau Championship.”

“Hong Kong is in the fourth month of protests that occur every weekend, and some have been violent.”

Full piece.

6. Only two kinds of golf swings…

Golf.com’s Luke Kerr-Dineen…:GOLF Top 100 Teachers and Titleist Performance Institute experts Dave Phillips and Jon Tattersall

“…Body mass golfers, like Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, and Lee Westwood, are usually bigger in stature, carry more weight and are stronger in terms of raw strength. Body mass golfers’ swings may look slower than their counterparts, but they still generate lots of speed because they have more mass than others

…Rotary golfers typically have lower body mass, Phillips and Tattersall say, and generate swing speed by learning to fire their muscles really quickly, often using the ground for maximum leverage. Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy – two of the longest pound-for-pound golfers in history

Full piece.

7. From Taiwan to the Tour

Good bit from C.T. Pan himself in GD on his journey to the Tour…

“We didn’t have much when I was a kid. I was the youngest of six, and we had cousins living with us, too. There was so little room that I shared a bed with my parents and other siblings until I was a teenager. The only way I could play golf was by sneaking on our local course. I’d wake up before 4 a.m. and get in nine before the clubhouse opened, and another nine after it closed. I didn’t know until later that the golf shop knew-they always know, right?-but looked the other way. Especially when they found out I was good.”

Full piece.

8. Mav McNealy interview

McNealy, who secured his Tour card, chatted with PGATour.com…

“PGATOUR.COM: You struggled towards the end of your first season. How bad did it get?”

“Maverick McNealy: “Last year, at the end of the season, I was in a really bad place. I had a really hard time with my ball-striking. I was really stuck underneath and had this really bad right block. It became mental.”

“There was a week there where I came home to Vegas and I lost two dozen golf balls in a week. I just couldn’t hit a fairway. When it got to Columbus (for the opening event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals), I told my caddie, ‘I don’t know if I can play. I don’t know if I should keep going.’ He told me, ‘Just get your butt on an airplane.’ It was a heroic effort to make the cut in Columbus. I missed the rest of the cuts in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, but that was kind of the turning point.”

Full piece.

9. When golf gives you lemons…

A sour morsel from the Golf Digest mailbag…”I heard about an LPGA Tour pro who sucks on lemons when she gets stressed out while playing. Is this true? Does this actually have a calming effect on people? -Carlos Watson, Indianapolis”

“A: Strange but true. When the going gets tough, Nanna Koerstz Madsen, a 24-year-old from Denmark, likes to chomp down on a nice, juicy lemon. It seems the ritual is partly designed to distract her. She has said it helps shift her focus away from stress or anger. But some nutritionists believe there are more benefits than that. Lemon juice contains potassium, which can help combat anxiety, and it has been shown to reduce blood pressure. Its electrolytes will also help keep you hydrated, it’s known to ease joint and muscle pain, and it even aids digestion. Other than the excruciatingly sour taste, what’s not to like?”

Full piece.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

6 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.