• He begins…“There’s nothing like the soothing sights and ground-shaking sounds at Augusta National to get minds off far too many contentious moments this year.”

• “The opening act to the golf season has not been dull, just not always for the right reasons.”

• “More than “Who won what?” too much attention has been on “They did what?”

• “Perhaps it was only fitting that two players under the most scrutiny this year – Sergio Garcia and Matt Kuchar – would share the stage at the Match Play in a quarterfinal meeting that jokingly was dubbed the “Apology Match.”

• A morsel…”Players are asked who they look to for style inspiration, and that’s not limited to the golf course with names like David Beckham and Justin Timberlake coming up. I’m told that Xander’s fashion preferences have evolved a lot in a short time. Initially hesitant to wear even the subtlest of patterns, he’s now become one of the more adventurous golfers on the Adidas roster. This is both the result of Schauffele’s growing confidence and stature on the PGA Tour, as well as continually being pitched on new apparel.”

• “They let us lead, they see us as the experts,” Adidas Golf president Jeff Lienhart said. “We certainly want the products we put on their back to reflect their personalities and their sense of style. And we have a diverse enough range that we’re able to do that with everybody.”

• “I decide I’m going to let the five-person team surrounding me lead as well. I’ve always considered myself a pretty decent dresser on the course, but that’s not saying much when compared to my regular golf group (Sorry, guys). I also have a leg up on my friends having worked with Golf Digest’s Mr. Style, Marty Hackel, for a decade, and procured most of my best pieces through him. But as someone who thinks spending more than two minutes packing for my annual trip is a lot, I’m intrigued as to how it takes more than two years to pick out golf clothes at the highest level.”

• “Save for the eight years from 1965 to 1972 in which the U.S. Amateur was contested at stroke play, a 36-hole championship match to decide the winner has been a staple of the USGA’s oldest event. And each time the finale has been contested on a single course, playing the same 18-hole loop twice. But that tradition is set to change this summer at North Carolina’s Pinehurst Resort.”

• “USGA officials announced on Tuesday that this year’s 36-hole championship match, set for Aug. 18, will be played over two courses: Pinehurst No. 4 for the morning 18 holes and then Donald Ross’ famed No. 2 course for the afternoon.”

• “The departure from the past comes in the wake of architect Gil Hanse’s recent redesign of the resort’s No. 4 course. Since its re-opening in 2018, No. 4 has received near universal praise, leaving a strong enough impression to convince the USGA to experiment with using it to co-host the championship match.”

• Our Gianni Magliocco…“Norman also discussed a pivotal moment in his career, when he wasn’t able to close on a Sunday afternoon at Shinnecock Hills at the 1986 US Open. The Australian held a one-shot lead heading into the final round of the event, and Norman stated how he lost his cool with the abuse he was receiving from the fans that day, and how it was a significant learning experience for himself.”

• “It was interesting with the crowd reaction. They were saying ‘Go home you effing Aussie’, ‘You can’t play golf’, ‘You’re a choker’, you’re this, you’re that, so it was very hard because they get you while you’re walking between the green and the tee, when you’ve got six foot of space, and they’re just yelling into your ear.

• “So it was hard to focus on it, and I kind of lost my cool on one of the holes on Sunday, and I should never have done it. I went up into the gallery, and I knew who it was. There was this sea of faces, and I just swung to the right, walked right up to this guy, and I said ‘Look, if you want to say something to me, say it to me in the car park at the end of the round when I can do something about it.”

• “I broke the sporting code of golf, and I should never have done it, but I just had enough. It was an education for me to tune yourself out or block things out a little bit better.”

Full piece.

• “I like playing competitively if I can leading up to majors or some big weeks,” Fowler said Tuesday at his Valero Texas Open news conference. “So for me, like I said, I played Houston in the past leading up to Augusta. I typically play the Scottish Open into the British (Open). Sometimes into the U.S. Open or the PGA (Championship)… I have definitely seen it be beneficial to play the week before.”

• “You know, you’re not far coming off competition when you tee it up Thursday morning in a major. It just makes me feel more comfortable, more confident.”

• “Two of the most significant shots Graeme McDowell has hit in his career were a 6-iron, for different reasons and on entirely different stages.”

• “The most famous was on the 16th hole at Celtic Manor in 2010 at Ryder Cup, which came down to the final match between McDowell and Hunter Mahan. McDowell had a 1-up lead when he hit 6-iron to 15 feet for a birdie that gave him control of the match and led to victory.”

• “The other was Sunday in the Dominican Republic, where McDowell was trailing Chris Stroud by one shot with two holes to play. On the par-3 17th, the 6-iron was so pure that McDowell didn’t even watch, walking over toward caddie Kenny Comboy and looking up only when it settled 8 feet from the flag.”

• “The Ryder Cup made him a hero….The birdie he made in Punta Cana restored his PGA Tour card.”

• “…SIX YEARS LATER, HALEY Moore is an NCAA legend, an invitee to this week’s inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur, a graduating senior who expects to enjoy a long and fruitful pro career. But during that initial trip to Tucson, her family had its reasons for wanting – no, needing – Haley to be handled delicately. Her life hadn’t been as easy as her scores made it seem.”

• “Hers was a classic case of teenage bullying: Bigger than kids her age and socially awkward, classmates stared and gossiped about her. She was always one of the last kids picked in gym class. She steered clear of extracurricular activities. Lunchtime was a necessary evil. “They’d say that I was fat and I was ugly, and I’d go sit down at a table at the end, and right when I’d sit down, they’d get up,” she says. “And I’d just be like, OK, whatever.”

• “In sixth grade, a group of students stole her backpack, filled it with water and tossed it into the boys’ bathroom. Everything was ruined – her bag, her notes, her new Justin Bieber book. Haley was mortified, but the bullies weren’t punished. A hard lesson instilled early.”

• “She’s looking to make her first start since withdrawing in pain in the first round of her title defense at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore almost five weeks ago. It will be just her third start in five months, since she underwent season-ending surgery last fall to repair an avulsion fracture, bone spurs and nerve entrapment in her right hand.”

• So far, so good.

• “It feels pretty good, knock on wood,” Wie told GolfChannel.com on her way to the range Tuesday after nine holes of practice. “I should say no comment on that because every time I say I’m feeling pretty good, something else happens.”

• “Very simply, “bounce” is the design feature of the sole of a wedge (or actually, any golf club) that helps it perform properly when it makes contact with the turf. A “worm’s eye view” of any wedge shows that the sole of the club has a downward angle from the leading edge back to the trailing edge. That angle, in relation to the horizontal line of the turf is what is defined as the “bounce angle”

• “In general, the higher that angle (measured in degrees from the horizontal plane of the turf), the more the club will tend to be “rejected” by the turf upon impact. Conversely, the lower the angle the less “rejection force” will be experienced. But also realize that the width of the sole and the bounce angle combine to produce a certain playability. A wide sole with a low bounce angle might perform very similar to (but also very differently than) a narrow sole with a higher bounce angle. Bounce is just not a simple subject.”