News

Morning 9: McIlroy lurking in China | Kostis: Dismissal “little bit disrespectful” | 40% of tour players didn’t vote on POY?

Published

7 years ago

Nov 1, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

By Ben Alberstadt

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

November 1, 2019

Good Friday morning, golf fans. In non-golf news: Reports suggest it’s November.

**Just a reminder we’re looking for advertisers for 2020. Drop me a line if you’d like to talk about getting your message in front of the M9 readership.**

1. Fitzpatrick leads, McIlroy lurks

AP report…”Already with three victories and a career-best 17 finishes in the top 10, Rory McIlroy has put himself in position to add to those totals going into the weekend at the HSBC Champions.”

“He made a mess of the 16th hole Friday and escaped with bogey after hitting three tee shots (only two of them counted). He bounced back with a 5-iron to 3 feet for eagle on the final hole for a 5-under 67, leaving him one shot behind Matthew Fitzpatrick.”

Full piece.

2. And in Bermuda…

AP report…”Scottie Scheffler closed with a bogey for a 9-under 62 and a one-stroke lead Thursday after the first round of the PGA Tour’s inaugural Bermuda Championship.”

“Scheffler played his opening nine at hilly Port Royal Golf Club in 6-under 29, making an eagle on the par-5 17th. He added birdies on Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 7. In position to birdie in for a 59, he parred the par-3 eighth and dropped the stroke on the par-4 ninth.”

Full piece.

3. At the Swinging Skirts

Checking in on the action at the worst tournament name in the history of bad tournament names…

AP report…”Mi Jung Hur shot a second consecutive 6-under 66 to take a one-stroke lead after Friday’s second round of the LPGA Swinging Skirts.”

“Hur, who is looking for her third victory this season, is at 12-under 132 overall. Defending champion Nelly Korda (67) was one shot back while trying to win her second LPGA title of the season and third of her career.”

“Minjee Lee (67) and In-Kyung Kim (65) are two strokes behind.”

Full piece.

4. Meanwhile, at Pinehurst…

Golf Channel’s Randall Mell on the Q-Series developments...”Yealimi Noh moved closer to realizing the dream that escaped her in a pair of runs at winning LPGA titles as a non-member this summer.”

“The good news is that she doesn’t have to win Q-Series this week to gain tour membership. All she has to do is finish among the top 45 and ties in the final stage of the LPGA Qualifying Tournament. That’s looking more than likely with her 3-under 69 Thursday moving her into solo third place through six rounds with just two rounds to go.”

“Muni He continued to set the pace at Pinehurst No. 9 in North Carolina, with a 70 moving her to 18 under overall, two shots ahead of Hee Young Park (66) and seven ahead of Noh.”

Full piece.

5. Disrespectful

Rick Young at Score Golf…”I reached out to the Phoenix-based swing instructor earlier this week and it is clear that Kostis is disheartened by the unceremonious way he and McCord were shown the exit door by Sean McManus. The CBS Sports chairman broke the news to the two eldest members of his golf broadcast team by telling them in separate conversations that their contracts were not being renewed and that the network’s coverage – “stale” is how McManus allegedly described it to the two – was moving in a different direction.”

“I’m surprised Gary and I didn’t get the same loyalty other announcers have received who have worked for CBS for a long time,” said Kostis. “That’s my biggest surprise in this whole thing. I wasn’t sure if I was going to work beyond this current television contract (2021) but it would have been nice to have a year to go out and say goodbye to fans, say goodbye to sponsors, friends we’ve met in different locations. I thought it was a little bit disrespectful.”

Full piece.

6. Olympic golf location debate?

Geoff Shackelford writes…”Reuters’ Andrew Both obtained a letter that “well-known” Japanese politician Shigefumi Matsuzawa has written to the IOC calling for the 2020 Olympic golf venue-Kasumigaseki-changed due to the likelihood of deadly heat waves.”

“Matsuzawa said his concern was not only for the golfers but for volunteers and spectators without clubhouse access who, he wrote, would have nowhere to escape the heat and humidity.”

Full piece.

7. Decline of 7,500 in registered golfers in Scotland

Martin Dempster at the Scotsman with the grim news…”Golf club membership in Scotland is continuing to drop, according to an annual survey of the sport across Europe.”

“The KPMG’s Golf Participation Report for Europe reveals a loss of 7,521 registered golfers in the sport’s cradle between 2017-18,”

“The four per cent drop means there are now 180,281 golfers registered to Scottish golf clubs compared to 187,802 in 2017 and 209,812 in 2014.”

Full piece.

8. “I’ll never get there”

Alex Myers at Golf Digest...”In an on-camera interview with GOLFTV at this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions, McIlroy made it clear he believes he has no chance of reaching Tiger’s 82-win total. That’s right, no chance.”

“I’ll never get there,” McIlroy says in the clip. “I’m a realist and I know that 82 PGA TOUR wins is something that in this day and age is probably not going to be surpassed.”

Full piece.

9. 40 percent didn’t vote?

Good spot by Geoff Shackelford from Golf.com’s Anonymous Players poll…

First, the data…

“WHO GOT YOUR VOTE FOR 2019 PGA TOUR PLAYER OF THE YEAR?

Rory McIlroy: 33%
Brooks Koepka: 17%
Other: 10%
Didn’t vote: 40%”

And Shack correctly notes: “While this validates how many likely voted for McIlroy, it also does not do give much power to that whole “voted by his peers” argument.”

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.