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Morning 9: Phil a PGA Tour Champions champion | Tiger teaching J-Day? | Rory’s candor on playing environment

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5 years ago

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1. 1 PGA Tour Champions start, 1 PGA Tour Champions win
AP report…”Phil Mickelson chose to make his PGA Tour Champions debut at Ozarks National this week so he could avoid a two-week break right in the middle of his preparations for the U.S. Open at Winged Foot.”
  • “If he was going to show up, Mickelson thought, he might as well win…He closed with a 5-under 66 on Wednesday to reach 22 under, leaving him three shots clear of Tim Petrovic. The wire-to-wire victory made Mickelson the 20th player to win on the 50-and-over-tour in his debut, not to mention gave him some much-needed confidence after a missed cut at The Northern Trust knocked him from the FedEx Cup Playoffs.”
2. TW’s Tour Championship prospects look bleak
Steve DiMeglio for Golfweek…“The onerous task at hand for Tiger Woods is two-fold.”
  • “One, he likely needs to finish fourth or better this week in the BMW Championship to advance to next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta for the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale.”
  • “And two, he’ll have to do so at Olympia Fields Country Club, which is primed to tee up U.S. Open conditions.”
3. Tiger on fan-less Masters 
Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner with Woods’ remarks...”It’s going to make a big difference to all of us,” Woods said Wednesday at the BMW Championship. “It has out here week-in and week-out. We just don’t have the same type of energy and the distractions.
  • “There at Augusta National, you just have all those roars that would go up if somebody did something, somewhere, and then scoreboard watching and trying to figure out what’s going on, there aren’t a lot of big leaderboards out there, so that will be very different.”
  • “Augusta National announced earlier this month that the Masters, now rescheduled for Nov. 12-15, would be played without patrons for the first time. Woods said when he first went to Augusta to play a practice round in 1995, it was “eye-opening” just how much room there was on the course when it wasn’t lined with 40,000 spectators.”
  • “When you put 40,000 people on such a small piece of property – I know there’s no rough, but it gets confined,” he said. “But this will be very different. This will be a fun Masters, and I’m looking forward to defending.”
4. Bryson returns to Olympia Fields
PGATour.com’s Ben Everill with a few morsels relating to Bryson DeChambeau’s dominant 2015 U.S. Am victory at Olympia Fields…“DeChambeau started that week with a 70 on the South Course, which is hosting this week’s BMW Championship. He inadvertently turned up late to his second-round tee time on the North Course and was penalized two strokes. He didn’t believe the penalty was justified, however, and he set out to state his case.”
  • “He sprinted to retrieve a piece of paper that proved he’d been provided with an incorrect tee time, one he was not late for. He started his round not exactly sure where he stood on the leaderboard before being advised the penalty would be rescinded.”
  • “I just sprinted and said, ‘Guys, I’m telling you, this is not correct. ‘They must have been going, ‘What is Bryson doing?’ So I came back and showed him the piece of paper, and he goes, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’ So that’s when he took the piece of paper to the committee, and they told me that they’d be out in a little bit. It was an hour later. They came up with a conclusion that I was fine,” DeChambeau told reporters at the time.”
  • “DeChambeau signed for another even-par 70 on the South Course to easily qualify for the U.S. Amateur’s match-play portion. That’s where he put on a historic performance en route to hoisting the Havemeyer Trophy.”
5. Jason Day gets a lesson from…Tiger Woods
Again, Ben Everill for PGATour.com, this time quoting Jason Day from an interesting report on the Australian leaning on Tiger Woods for tips on how to modify his golf swing to accommodate his ailing back…”Obviously I’m still playing against Tiger, but he’s very open to me about the golf swing because of the specific questions that I’ve tried to ask him … I’ve asked questions and he’s willing to answer them, and I’m trying to make changes right now in my swing. I want to just slowly improve my swing to not only help the playing feel but also help my back along, too.”
  • “Part of those changes is dialing back a little from when he was his most successful in 2015 and 2016…”
  • …”I definitely don’t swing it as hard as I had in the past. I still can. I can get the club speed up to 120 and the ball speed can get up to 180 easy if I want to, but I just don’t try and do that anymore because, A, I don’t think it’s great on my back going that hard, especially with the way I’m swinging it right now, and B, I’m putting more of a premium on trying to hit the fairways,” he said”
  • “I’ve been working a lot more on feel shots, quarter, half shot, three-quarter shots. I don’t hit a lot of full swing shots really typically anymore with my irons because I feel like I lose a little bit of control there and then that can obviously put a little bit of added pressure on my back.”
6. Tiger, Rory to feature in Ryder Cup-style charity match at Big Cedar Lodge
Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”…with the Ryder Cup postponed, Tiger Woods and three other former world No. 1’s are stepping up to fill the void.”
  • “Woods will team up with Justin Thomas to take on Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose in the Payne’s Valley Cup, an 18-hole, Ryder Cup-style charity match at Big Cedar Lodge’s Payne’s Valley Course, Woods’ first public design set to open next month in Ridgedale, Mo. The event will be played on Sept. 22, three days before the biennial matches were originally scheduled to take place at Whistling Straits, and will feature four-ball, foursomes and singles formats.”
  • “Payne’s Valley is the first public golf course that I have designed. I couldn’t be prouder of how it turned out,” Woods said. “It was an honor for me and my TGR Design team to work with Johnny Morris and Big Cedar Lodge on this spectacular golf course. I am thrilled that it will be featured during the Payne’s Valley Cup.”
7. Huggan: Rory is right
“I was struck by how profound Rory’s comments [at last week’s Northern Trust] were,” writes John Huggan.
“Sometimes I come off a green and make a birdie, and I’m sort of-you know, you’re sort of laughing coming off a hole that you’ve just messed up, and you make a birdie and it’s sort of almost a more negative emotion in some ways,” explained McIlroy, the reigning FedEx Cup champion who enters this week’s penultimate playoff event in Chicago at 12th in the standings. “It’s weird. It’s very strange. I want to get an intensity and some sort of fire, but I just haven’t been able to. That’s partly to do with the atmosphere and partly to do with how I’m playing. I’m not inspiring myself, and I’m trying to get inspiration from outside sources to get something going.”
“Indeed, all of that is difficult to achieve when almost no one is watching live. Like every golfer, Rory owns a certain kind of privacy no one else knows anything about. Because we only see the result of his shots. But he knows when the shot is better than the result. And knows when the result is better than the shot. It is one of the best aspects of the game, something the big players surely understand perfectly. If Tiger Woods was listening as Rory spoke, I bet he was nodding his head.”
“But that’s the thing about Rory. He isn’t currying anyone’s favor. He’s not trying to tell anyone something they want to hear. Instead, he thinks out loud. Understandably, he is dismayed by the weird world in which he is currently spending his professional life. He is dismayed by the lack of atmosphere and spectators. He was the one person in the field prepared to say that what they have all been doing for the last few weeks isn’t really professional golf. It’s just not. It’s the golf people play at their clubs. It’s the monthly medal. And he was brave enough to say so for all the world to hear.”
8. 56!
Katherine Underwood of 10Boston…”A Massachusetts man has the golf world buzzing after shooting a 56…”
  • “For some perspective, 58 is the lowest score carded on the PGA tour. Nick Maccario got two strokes better than that.”
  • “It was foggy on Sunday morning, so Maccario said he wasn’t expecting much when he hit the links with his buddies.”
  • “After birdying 12, 13, 14, 15 in a row, I knew that if I just pared last three holes, I’d shoot a 59,” Maccario told NBC10 Boston Wednesday.
  • “The competitive amateur golfer grew up playing at Bradford Country Club in Haverhill but said he’s never played like this.”
9. Phil Mickelson’s Charles Schwab Challenge winning WITB
Driver: Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero (9 degrees)
Shaft: KBS TD 70 C5 TX
Fairway woods: Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero (13.5 degrees)
Shaft: KBS TD 80 C5 TX
Irons: Callaway X Forged Utility (2), Callaway Epic Forged (4-6), Callaway Apex Pro (7), Callaway Apex MB (8-PW)
Shafts: KBS Tour V 125 S+ (4-PW)
Wedges: Callaway PM Grind ’19 “Raw” (54-14, 60-12, 64-10)
Shafts: KBS Tour-V 125 S+
Putter:  Odyssey WHXG Blade “Phil Mickelson”
Grip: SuperStroke Pistol GT Tour
Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X (with Triple Track)
Grips: Golf Pride MCC (White/Black)

 

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Tour Rundown: Bend, but don’t break

Published

3 weeks ago

on

Aug 4, 2025

By

I’m going to gush in this intro paragraph, to get the emo stuff done early. I’ve not pulled harder for a professional to win, than Cameron Young. I coach golf in New York state, and each spring, my best golfers head to a state championship in Poughkeepsie. I first saw Cameron there as a 9th grade student. I saw him three more times after that. I reconnecected with Coach Haas from Wake Forest, an old interview subject from my days on the Old Gold and Black, the Wake newspaper. He was there to watch Cameron. After four years at Wake Forest, Young won on the Korn Ferry Tour, made it to the big tour, almost won two majors, almost won five other events, and finally got the chalice about 25 minutes from the Wake campus. Congratulations, Cameron. You truly are a glass of the finest. #MotherSoDear

OK, let’s move on to the Tour Rundown. The major championship season closed this week in Wales, with the Women’s Open championship. The PGA Tour bounced through Greensboror, N.C., while the PGA Tour Americas hit TO (aka, Toronto) for a long-winded event. The Korn Ferry lads made a stop in Utah, one of just two events for that tour in August. The many-events, golf season is winding down, as we ease from summer toward fall in the northern hemisphere. Let’s bask in the glory of an August sunrise, and run down a quartet of events from the first weekend of the eighth month.

LET/LPGA @ Women’s Open: Miyu bends, but she doesn’t break

Royal Porthcawl was not a known commodity in the major tournament community. The Welsh links had served as host to men’s senior opens, men’s amateurs, and Curtis and Walker Cups in prior years, but never an Open championship for the women or the men. The last-kept secret in UK golf was revealed once again to the world this week, as the best female golfers took to the sandy stage.

Mao Saigo, Grace Kim, Maja Stark, and Minjee Lee hoped to add a second major title to previous wins this season, but only Lee was able to finish inside the top ten. The 2025 playing of the Women’s Open gave us a new-faces gallery from day one. The Kordas and Thitikulls were nowhere to be found, and it was the Mayashitas, Katsus, and Lim Kims that secured the Cymru spotlight. The first round lead was held at 67 by two golfers. One of them battled to the end, while the other posted 81 on day two, and missed the cut. Sitting one shot behind was Miyu Yamashita.

On day two, Yamashita posted the round of the tournament. Her 65 moved her to the front of the aisle, in just her fourth turn around a women’s Open championship. With the pre-event favorites drifting off pace, followers narrowed into two camps: those on the side of an underdog, and others hoping for a weekend charge from back in the pack. In the end, we had a bit of both.

On Saturday, Yamashita bent with 74 on Saturday, offering rays of hope to her pursuing pack. England’s Charley Hull made a run on Sunday closing within one shot before tailing off to a T2 finish with Minami Katsu. Katsu posted the other 65 of the week, on Saturday, but could not overtake her countrywoman, Yamashita. wunderkind Lottie Woad needed one round in the 60s to find her pace, but could only must close-to’s, ending on 284 and a tie with Minjee for eighth.

On Sunday, Yamashita put away the thoughts of Saturday’s struggles, with three-under 33 on the outward half. She closed in plus-one 37, but still won by two, for a first Major and LPGA title.

PGA Tour @ Wyndham: Young gathers first title near home

Cameron Young grew up along the Hudson river, above metro New York, but he also calls Winston-Salem home. He spent four years as a student and athlete at Wake Forest University, then embarked on tour. This week in Greensboro, after a bit of a break, Young opened with 63-62, and revved the engine of Is this the week once more. Runner-up finishes at the Open, the PGA, and a handful of PGA Tour events had followers wonder when the day would come.

On Saturday, Young continued his torrid pace with 65, giving him a five-shot advantage over his closest pursuer. Sunday saw the Scarborough native open with bogey, then reel off five consecutive birdies to remind folks that his time had, at last, arrived. Pars to the 16th, before two harmless bogeys coming home, made Young the 1000th winner of an official PGA Tour event (dating back to before there was a PGA Tour) throughout history. What’s next? I have a suspicion, but I’m not letting on. Mac Meissner closed with 66 to finish solo 2nd, while Mark Hubbard and Alex Noren tied for third.

Korn Ferry Tour @ Utah Championship: Are you Suri it’s Julian?

Who knows exactly when the flower will bloom? Julian Suri played a solid careet at Duke University, then paid his dues on the world’s minor tours for three years. He won twice on two tours in Europe, in 2017. Since then, the grind has continued for the journeyman from New York city. At age 34, Suri broke through in Beehive state, outlasting another grinder (Spencer Levin) and four others, by two shots.

Taylor Montgomery began the week with 62, then posted 64, then 68, and finally, 70. That final round was his undoing. He finished in that second-place tie, two back of the leader. Trace Crowe, Barend Botha, and Kensei Hirata made up the last of the almost quintet. As for Suri, his Sunday play was sublime. His nines were 32 and 31, with his only radar blip a bogey at ten. He closed in style with one final birdie, to double his winning margin. Hogan bloomed late…might Suri?

PGA Tour Americas @ Osprey Valley Open presented by Votorantim Cimentos – CBM Aggregates

Some tournament names run longer than others. This week in Toronto, at the Heathlands course at TPC Toronto, we might have seen the longest tournament title in recorded history. The OVOPBVCCBMA was a splendid affair. It saw three rounds of 62 on Thursday, but of those early risers, only Drew Goodman would stick around until the end. 64 was the low tally on day two, and two of those legionnaires managed to finish inside the top three at week’s end. Saturday brought a 63 from Patrick Newcomb, and he would follow with 64 on Sunday, to finish solo fourth.

Who, then, ended up winning the acronym of the year? It turns out that Carson Bacha had the right stuff in TeeOhhh. Bacha and Jay Card III posted 63 and 64, respectively, on day four, to tie for medalist honors at 23-under 261. Nathan Franks was one shot adrift, despite also closing with 63. If you didn’t go low on Sunday, it was about the check, not the championship.

Bacha and JC3 returned to the 18th hole twice in overtime. Card nearly chipped in from the thick stuff for birdie, while Bacha peeked and shoved a ten-feet attempt at the win. On the second go-round, Card was long with his approach, into the native grasses once more. He was unable to escape, and a routine par from the fairway was enough to earn the former Auburn golfers a first KFT title.

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Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2025 Wyndham Championship

Published

4 weeks ago

on

Jul 29, 2025

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GolfWRX is live this week from the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, the Wyndham Championship.

Photos are flowing into the forums from Sedgefield Country Club, where we already have a GolfWRX spirit animal Adam Schenk WITB and plenty of putters for your viewing pleasure.

Check out links to all our photos below, which we’ll continue to update as more arrive.

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

See what GolfWRXers are saying and join the discussion in the forums.

 

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BK’s Breakdowns: Kurt Kitayama’s Winning WITB, 3M Open

Published

4 weeks ago

on

Jul 28, 2025

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Kurt Kitayama just won his 2nd PGA Tour event at the 3M Open. Kurt is a Bridgestone staffer but with just the ball and bag. Here are the rest of the clubs he used to secure a win at the 2025 3M Open.

Driver: Titleist GT3 (11 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 TX

3-wood: Titleist GT1 3Tour (14.5 degrees, A3 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX

7-wood: Titleist GT1 (21 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7MB (5-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-12F, 56-14F), Vokey Design WedgeWorks (60-K*)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 2 Tour Prototype
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy 1.0PT

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS (with Mindset)

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WITB

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