News

GolfWRX Morning 9: Cheating plot thickens | The greatest Monday qualifier ever | Air France stymies GMac

Published

8 years ago

Jul 3, 2018

Good morning, GolfWRX members. As most of you are signed up for our newsletters, you likely already know that I’ve been sending this little Morning 9 roundup of nine items of note.

In case you’ve missed it, or you prefer to read on site rather than in your email, we’re including it here. Check out today’s Morning 9 below.

If you’re not signed up for our newsletters, you can subscribe here.

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

July 3, 2018

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans.

1. Kang cheating plot thickens

Joel Dahmen (pictured above) is getting support in his claim that Sung Kang’s ball never crossed the hazard (and thus that he took an illegal drop) from the ShotLink volunteer who was working the hole.

Kang’s second shot was very far left and at no point ever came close to being inbounds from the initial point of entry 225 yards or so back,” Michael Klock told Golfweek Monday.
Klock also tweeted: “He (Kang) sure did cheat. I was running SHOTLink on the green. That ball never came close to entering up where he dropped… Should’ve been 200 yards back. Told your caddie who told the rules official but Kang threw a fit and got his way.”

Both Kang and the PGA Tour released statements saying they were satisfied with the ruling and will not be making any further comment.

2. The greatest Monday qualifier of them all?

T.J. Vogel has done it again. Vogel fired a 6-under 65 to qualify for the Greenbrier. It’s his seventh Monday qualification of the year.

For context, nobody Monday Qd more than three times last year. Also, look at these scores.

64 to qualify for the RSM Classic

64 to qualify for the Honda Classic

63 to qualify for the Valspar Championship

65 to qualify for the Wells Fargo Championship

66 to qualify for the AT&T Byron Nelson

66 to qualify for the FedEx St. Jude Classic

65 to qualify for A Military Salute at Greenbrier

Incredible stuff.

3. Air France loses GMac’s golf bag

Graeme McDowell is slated for the Open Championship qualifier today. Trouble is, he has no golf clubs. Air France lost his sticks, and predictably has no idea where they are. Sans clubs, McDowell is withdrawing.

He tweeted: “I cannot give 100% without my own equipment which has been mishandled by Air France and must turn my attention to the Irish Open this weekend….”Lots of you wanting to know why I don’t grab a set off the rack and give it my best shot to get in The Open. Of course I could do this, but wouldn’t be firing on all cylinders.”

McDowell could still make it to the Open via qualifying spots at the Irish Open or Scottish Open.

4. Coach: Ko’s parents aren’t meddlers

David Leadbetter, Lydia Ko’s former coach, blasted the golfer’s parents after the teacher-coach duo split up earlier this year.

“We honestly felt that if the decision was left entirely up to her, that she would still be with us,” Leadbetter wrote on his website at the time.

The man who took over for Leadbetter, Ted Oh, told New Zealand’s Radio Sport he hasn’t seen the meddling.

“I’m not trying to start a controversy but what I’ve experienced is so good so far,” he said. “I’ll be on the range in 35 degrees heat and her mum will call me over and say ‘why don’t you go back to the clubhouse, it is too hot out here’. They are so supportive. I never experienced that (interference) really don’t understand what he (Leadbetter) was talking about.”

5. Why Tiger couldn’t save his tournament

ESPN’s Bob Harig with a brilliant deep dive into the disintegration of the National.

Setting the stage…”What began in 2007 as the AT&T National was to be Woods’ tournament in the way of Jack Nicklaus‘ Memorial and Arnold Palmer‘s Bay Hill. It would have a limited field of 120 invited players, just like Jack and Arnie. In Woods’ case, it would benefit his foundation, which went all in on the nation’s capital, building three Learning Centers in the surrounding area and using the tournament platform to raise funds and honor the military around the Fourth of July.”

“The biggest issue is sponsorship. Based on television ratings, web traffic, social media posts and attendance, Woods is the game’s biggest attraction by a landslide. So why the difficulty? Quicken Loans wanted to be in its home of Detroit, and when someone is willing to write a check, the PGA Tour will oblige. Minneapolis has also come on board with a new tournament and title sponsor for next year. Woods, with all the time and resources invested in the nation’s capital, wanted to stay here.”

Read the full article.

6. PGAI tour

Oh boy. The PGA Tour is doubling down on artificial intelligence.

Press release…”Following successful technology launches over the last three years in augmented reality and virtual reality, the PGA TOUR has unveiled Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms to enhance broadcast and digital storytelling. Among the TOUR’s primary areas of focus in AI are a Microsoft-developed Content Relevancy Engine (CRE), a smart video clipping tool and an automated story creator that all utilize data captured by ShotLink powered by CDW.”

An example of the CRE at work (appropriately featuring Bryson DeChambeau)…”To illustrate CRE, we will use a recent example of a situation in which it was utilized. At the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in June, Bryson DeChambeau was clinging to the lead in the final round when he missed the green on the par-5, 15th hole, leaving himself 57 feet from the hole. At this point, he was 15 of 19 in Scrambling to lead the field. DeChambeau pitched to within 5 feet of the hole, a distance from which he converted 46 of 50 times for the week. Sure enough, he made the putt to maintain the lead and went on to win his second PGA TOUR title in a playoff.”

7. The PGA Tour & the Rules of Golf

Geoff Shackelford puts the Dahmen/Kang dispute in (a disturbing) context.

“The incident lands as the PGA Tour and several players have begun to chip away at the Rules of Golf. Consider

“The PGA Tour has never issued a statement about the backstopping practice even after Jimmy Walker wrote on Twitter that he leaves a ball down for those he likes or feels sorry for. Any player who might mark their ball in a desire to protect the field, is now seen as not “one of the boys.”

“The PGA Tour openly defied the USGA and R&A’s views on distance and seems poised to fight any effort to protect the role of skill in golf in order to market the athleticism of today’s players.”

“Phil Mickelson stopped his ball from rolling down a slope at the U.S. Open and has not been –condemned or fined (to our knowledge) for conduct unbecoming. Two young superstars found his behavior funny.”

“The PGA Tour has resisted empowering officials to hand out slow play penalties for years, with former Commish Tim Finchem even declaring that he didn’t see such rules enforcement as necessary.”

More of Shack’s hot take

8. Links Golf Showcase(!)

From the GC Press release…Beginning Thursday, July 5, NBC Sports Group will kick off its month-long stretch devoted to links golf from some of the game’s most historic venues. The stretch will feature more than 100 live tournament hours dedicated to links golf, which complements the additional 182 hours of programming dedicated solely to The 147TH Open, taking place July 19-22 at Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland
NBC SPORTS’ “LINKS GOLF” SWING THROUGHOUT JULY: The European Tour’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open gets underway on Thursday from Ballyliffin Golf Club, and the following week the Tour will stage the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open (July12-15) from Gullane Golf Club. Both European Tour events are part of The Open Qualifying Series, with three spots available at each event for finishers inside the top-10 who have yet to qualify. Following The Open at Carnoustie (July 19-22), The Senior Open will be staged at the home of golf from the Old Course at St Andrews (July 26-29). The Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open (July 26-29) also will be staged at Gullane Golf Club. The month-long stretch will culminate with the Ricoh Women’s British Open (August 2-5) from Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Links in England.

9. On the subject of links golf…

Here’s a look at current Open Championship odds (via Bovada) so you can mull over your bets during 4th of July BBQs.

Dustin Johnson +1100
Jordan Spieth +1200
Rory McIlroy +1200
Rickie Fowler +1600
Justin Rose +1600
Tommy Fleetwood +1800
Brooks Koepka +1800
Tiger Woods +2000
Justin Thomas +2000
Jason Day +2500
Henrik Stenson +2500
Jon Rahm +2500
Sergio Garcia +2500

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

7 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.