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Morning 9: What does Mickelson’s win mean for his U.S. Open chances? | The modern Snead?

Published

7 years ago

Feb 12, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

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

February 12, 2019

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans.

1. Any U.S. Open importance?

That’s the question surrounding Phil Mickelson’s Pebble Beach win. For a man who has finished second at the U.S. Open no fewer than 700 times, it stands to reason that winning on the course where the tournament will be contested this year would be an advantage, regardless of the difference in setup and conditions.

ESPN’s Bob Harig examines…

“Undoubtedly Mickelson will be the subject of considerable conjecture when the golf world returns to Pebble Beach in June for the 119th playing of the U.S. Open, the major that defines Lefty’s bouts of futility more than anything. Six runner-up finishes, some in the most heartbreaking fashion, dot his career, the tournament keeping him from a career Grand Slam.”

“Nobody has ever won a major championship at the age Mickelson is at now, but then again, not too many players have had the confidence to play two holes essentially blindfolded — as he wanted to do to finish this off Sunday night instead of Monday morning.”

“The course will be completely different in June, with the rough taller and the greens firmer and no amateurs to take the edge off the proceedings. But that talk is for a different day.”

Full piece.

2. 6 mph!?

Here’s the quote from Phil during the course of his Pebble Beach win. Make of it what you will.

“So at the end of last year, even though I played poorly, I had something happen where it seemed like overnight…it had really been a year in the works, where my driver speed, it shot up 5, 6 miles an hour, which rarely ever happens to anybody, yet alone somebody in their late 40s.”

That’s a 15-20-yard increase in driving distance.

FWIW: Mickelson’s average clubhead speed thus far in 2019 is in excess of 120 mph. It was just over 116 last year, so the claim isn’t pure fiction…

3. Possible modern Snead?

Golf Channel’s Randall Mell on Mickelson answering a query about comparisons to one Sam Snead…

“He was asked after winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Monday if he might be the Sam Snead of the modern era, matching Snead’s ability to keep winning late in life.”

“Snead was 52 years and 311 days old when he won the Greater Greensboro Open in 1965.”

“The science is so much better nowadays than it was in his time,” Mickelson said. “The medicines, the fitness knowledge, the nutritional knowledge in all these areas, we’re able to take advantage of that and get our bodies to recover, get our bodies to perform to function much more efficiently.”

“So, there’s no reason why players of this generation could not play to a longer time period and have a longer career.”

Full piece.

4. Traveling like a Tour pro…

…sort of.

Yes, Alan Shipnuck’s meditation on a private jet flight from Pebble to LA with Branden Grace was facilitated by NetJets in more ways than one, but it’s still a solid piece.

“On Sunday evening, while taxiing at Monterey (Calif.) Airport, Branden Grace stared wistfully out the window. “Man,” he said. “There are some big jets parked here.””

“Indeed, something like a billion dollars worth of private aircraft comes and goes during the week of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Grace, the winner of eight European and one PGA Tour event, was seated in the cushy leather seat of a sweet 8-passenger private jet. By any measure he has arrived, and yet, at the sight of slightly fancier aircraft, Grace couldn’t help feel a twinge of envy. This is not uncommon. “We have had golfers who are playing really well in a tournament say, ‘Hey, I want an upgrade,'” says Patrick Gallagher, an executive vice president at NetJets. “DJ called once on a Saturday night and said, ‘Give me the big plane going home, I’m winning this thing.’ And he did.””

Full piece.

5. $5,000

There’s much, much more to Michael Bamberger’s excellent report on El Tucan breaking his silence surrounding what Matt Kuchar paid the fill-in caddie for his services last year, but here are the gritty details regarding what the caddie (says he) was awarded.

“David Giral Ortiz, the diminutive Mexican caddie who goes by El Tucan, said in a recent phone interview that after being paid $5,000 by Matt Kuchar on the Sunday evening after the golfer won the Mayakoba Golf Classic on Nov. 11, he has not received any other payment.”
“The caddie said he was offered an additional $15,000, for a total of $20,000, but that he found that unacceptable. He also said he would not want to work for Kuchar at next year’s tournament.”
Come for that information, but stay for the alleged responses from Kuchar’s agent, Mark Steinberg!

Full piece.

6. Celebrity Cup

Geoff Shackelford reports on Monday’s action at Riviera

“Team Tiger won the inaugural Celebrity Cup.”

“Of course, no one at sun-splashed Riviera cared which team of A-listers ground out net birdies as part of the Genesis Open’s Monday kickoff. The day also included the fifth annual Collegiate Showcase (won by Kentucky’s Lukas Euler) and kicks off the 2019 Genesis hosted by the TGR Foundation.”

“The inaugural event provided a rare up-close opportunity to see major celebrities and elite athletes testing their golf skills in front of captains Tiger Woods and Fred Couples. More than anything, it was Woods and his TGR Live’s most significant effort yet to put the star power back into early week activities at Riviera, where the celebrity pro-am was once arguably the tournament’s most popular day back in the 1970s when the A-listers were James Garner, Peter Falk and host Glen Campbell.”

Full piece.

7. Langer’s winning wands

The senior juggernaut’s WITB is always, well, a mixed bag, so it’s always interesting to see what he’s gaming.

Golf Digest’s E. Michael Johnson with the full details, but how about Langer’s irons and wedges?

Irons (4): Ping S55; (5): Artisan Golf; (6-8): Adams Idea Pro Black MB; (9): Artisan Golf; (PW): TaylorMade RSi TP

Wedges: Cleveland 588 RTX (50, 56 degrees); Titleist Vokey prototype (60 degrees)

Full piece.

8. Smoltz ready for Champions starts

The PGA Tour Champions handed John Smoltz a three pack of exemptions, and he’s ready to use ’em.

John Davis writes…”John Smoltz used to tame batters with a blazing fastball and a wicked slider. Now he’s hoping to tame golf courses with a self-standing putter and exemptions he recently received from the PGA Tour Champions.”

“The Hall of Fame pitcher and former National League Cy Young Award winner is going to use the first of his three exemptions to tee it up March 1-3 in the Cologuard Classic at Omni Tucson National Resort.”

The Atlanta Braves legend also echoed an interesting take he’s put forth before…”I would rather be throwing a 3-2 pitch in the ninth inning, with the bases loaded and Albert Pujols at the plate, than have to hit a big golf shot when it really mattered,” Smoltz said in a press conference Monday at the resort. “But I believe in dreaming and attacking my dreams.”

Full piece.

9. USO Qualifying sites announced

Via AmateurGolf.com…”The USGA announced on Feb. 11 its list of local qualifying venues for the 2019 U.S. Open to be played at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links.”

“Local qualifying, which consists of a single 18-hole round, will take place at 110 sites in 43 states and Canada from April 29-May 13. Those players who advance out of local qualifying will join a group of exempt players in sectional qualifying, which will be conducted over 36 holes at 12 sites, nine of them in the U.S., one in England, one in Canada and one in Japan.”

See the full list here.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

2 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

1 day 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.