News

Morning 9: Incredible Mickelsonian streak ending? | Appreciate the endless PGA Tour season | Masters invite issue?

Published

7 years ago

Oct 15, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

By Ben Alberstadt

Email me at ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com and find me at @benalberstadt on Instagram and golfwrxEIC on Twitter.

October 15, 2019

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans.

1. End of a helluva streak?

Phil Mickelson’s bid to stay inside the top 50 in the OWGR is reaching a crisis point…

Scenarios! c/o Brian Wacker (and Nosferatu)

“Mickelson, who enters the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup in South Korea ranked 47th, could drop outside the top 50 depending where he and others finish in the no-cut event and how myriad scenarios play out. Here’s one, according to OWGR guru @Nosferatu, should Mickelson finish outside the top 52 in the tournament to not earn any points: If Byeong Hun An (currently 48th in the OWGR) finishes in the top 52, Tyrrell Hatton (49th) finishes inside the top 25 and Cam Smith (51st) inside the top 18 in Korea, and if Shugo Imahira (52nd) finishes inside the top five at the Japan Open, Mickelson would drop outside the top 50. A number of players-Alex Noren, Erik van Rooyen, Joaquin Niemann, C.T. Pan, Jazz Janewattananond, Charles Howell III, Jason Kokrak, Corey Conners and Collin Morikawa, among others-could also leapfrog Mickelson in the ranking. Four of them would have to do so to knock Mickelson out.”

Full piece.

2. Appreciate it for what it is

Golf Digest’s Joel Beall, unexpectedly, sings the praises of the never-ending PGA Tour season…

“In 2019, it has been the best version of itself. Good and spirited golf, sure, but also living up to its billing as a platform for rising talents. Joaquín Niemann became the youngest non-American winner (20 years old) in more than a century at The Greenbrier, Sebastián Muñoz (26) the first Colombian to win on tour since Camilo Villegas in 2014 with his Mississippi conquest, and Cameron Champ (24) showed that last year’s Sanderson Farms victory was no fluke in Napa. It has brought us breakthroughs in Munoz and Lanto Griffin, the latter who went from broke to a millionaire in less than two years, and the promise of young bucks in Akshay Bhatia and Cole Hammer (even if they occasionally fell off the saddle).”

Full piece.

3. More like the Scandanavian mixed, please

Golfweek’s Alistair Tait…“Hopefully the 2020 Scandinavian Mixed tournament will become the norm. What could be better than gathering the top players, male and female, on the same course, playing for one prize fund and one trophy?”

“…About time, too, say I and many more like me who want to see the increasingly moribund professional game shaken up. The game’s authorities need to do everything they can to attract new players, especially younger players. England alone lost approximately 300,000 club members in a 10-year period between 2007-2017. While the proportion of women and juniors has not really moved in all the years I’ve been reporting on golf.”

Full piece.

4. Forecaddie: Praising Ochoa (and company)’s support of emerging women’s talents in Mexico

TMOF writes…”The IGPM – Impulsando al Golf Profesional Mexicano – gives $450 toward entry fees for Symetra Tour players each week. Those who don’t have status but make the cut get reimbursed.”

“Gaby Lopez, a winner on the LPGA, called up offering to help with airline tickets for Symetra players. Newly minted LPGA pro Maria Fassi told Alvarez she’d help in any way she can.”

“Six of the 14 players don’t have status on the Symetra Tour but are involved in everything – including an upcoming four-day stay at Ochoa’s ranch in Mexico – and are given small stipends.”

“We know the process of every girl is different,” said Alvarez, “and we don’t want to leave anyone behind.”

Full piece.

5. “Bob from Oban”

Nice work by Golf Digest’s John Huggan profiling “Millionaire Bobby Mac”…

“Just as the superstar that Arnold Palmer became was forever the working-class boy from Latrobe, Pa., MacIntyre’s soundness of character, inherent good nature and solid upbringing are all inextricably linked with his hometown, a picturesque ferry port with a population of about 8,500 on the western edge of the Scottish Highlands. MacIntyre’s inventive shot-making-most recently witnessed with a driver off the deck played at last week’s Italian Open that had social media buzzing-is to a large extent a product of growing up at the local course, an eccentrically contoured par-62 layout measuring 4,471 yards.”

“I love the way Phil Mickelson plays. He puts everything on the line, and that’s how I try to do it,” MacIntyre says. “But my creativity stems from playing at Glencruitten. It is short. It is tight. It is up-and-down mountains. You never have a straightforward shot from the middle of the fairway. You might be in the middle of the fairway, but there is a hill to go ’round. It’s a place where I learned every type of shot: low, high, hooking, fading.”

Full piece.

6. Reconsider?

Hard to refute these points from Geoff Shackelford…

“When Chairman Billy Payne restored this grand perk of a PGA Tour victory, the logic was solid and the support unanimous. But with the new schedule dynamics and several fall European Tour events crushing the PGA Tour stops in field quality, the Masters should reconsider the automatic and coveted invitation.”

“The most obvious reason: golf is an international game and the founders of the Masters made special efforts to include foreign-born players. But the more glaring purpose: huge disparities in field strength.”

“In recent weeks, the BMW PGA Championship, Alfred Dunhill Links and Italian Open all enjoyed decisively superior fields to competing PGA Tour stops”
BMW PGA (416) vs. Sanderson Farms (106)
Alfred Dunhill Links (323) vs. Safeway Open (289)
Italian Open (248) vs. Houston Open (73)

Full piece.

7. The king of all formats?

Here’s a hot take via Golfweek’s Jason Lusk…

“There is no better golf format than skins.”

“You can keep your two-dollar Nassau with auto presses or your handicap-weighted Stableford points games that require way too much post-round math. And don’t even mention silly dot games that actually reward missing greens with sandies – isn’t the point to avoid the bunkers?”

“Skins games are all about birdies. Unless the game has dozens of players who are accustomed to circling numbers on their scorecards, because then it might be all about eagles. Pars usually only matter when almost everybody hits foul balls.”

Full piece.

8. Respectable start for Li

Golf Channel’s Randall Mell…”Lucy Li was among amateurs making strong starts Monday at LPGA Q-School’s second stage event at Plantation Golf & Country Club in Venice, Fla.

“Li, who just turned 17 on Oct. 1, opened with a 3-under 69, good for a tie for 17th, five shots behind Germany’s Olivia Cowan, a Ladies European Tour member. Min A. Yoon, a 16-year-old amateur from South Korea, opened with a 65 and sits one shot back.”

“A minimum of the top 30 and ties will advance to the Q-Series finale later this month, with the possibility up to 48 players advancing…”

Full piece.

9. You get (to keep) a car!

A double Forecaddie day! TMOF also penned this piece: “Michigan State rules junior can keep car won at Symetra Tour event.”

“Michigan State coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll thought the same…No way was that 2019 Mazda 3 AWD going back to East Lansing…The MSU compliance department’s initial take: absolutely not.”

“But then Tanida’s swing coach, Andy Wada, recalled a player on the men’s team from Marquette, Hunter Eichhorn, getting to keep a car he’d won in a scramble.”

“Michigan State’s people called Marquette’s people, information on the ruling was passed along and lo and behold Tanida got to keep the car.”

Full piece.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

3 hours ago

May 13, 2026

Pro Shop

What is Lorem Ipsum?

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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.