News

Morning 9: Mickelson pressing for Prez Cup pick | Stenson parts with legendary 3-wood | Sheep Ranch

Published

7 years ago

Oct 9, 2019

Ben Alberstadt

By Ben Alberstadt

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

October 9, 2019

Good Wednesday morning, golf fans. Happiest of birthdays to my beloved wife!

1. Mickelson pressing for Presidents Cup pick

Nobody has a way with declarative writing like the GOAT of game stories and in-tournament perspective pieces, the AP’s Doug Ferguson…

“Phil Mickelson has never played this much golf this late in the year since the PGA Tour began a new season in October instead of January.”

“He’s never had this much of a reason.”

“Mickelson is running out of time to show why U.S. captain Tiger Woods should pick him for the Presidents Cup. At stake is a streak that is unlikely to be matched. Mickelson has played on 24 consecutive Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams, qualifying for 20 of them. The last time he wasn’t on a team was 1993, the year Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth were born.”

“Through two tournaments, there are few signs of progress except for his weight loss.”

Full piece.

2. Shackelford: New-look Houston Open off to rough start

Writing on his eponymous website, Shackelford had this to say about the Houston Open…A “weak” 24 level event puts the Houston event in the John Deere Classic, Sanderson Farms, opposite field camp and highlights how, even with a huge golf supporter and friend of the game Jim Crane attempting to maintain a PGA Tour presence in America’s fourth largest (golf loving) city accessible from anywhere in the United States within three hours.”

“Furthermore, there may be too much “content” when players outside the world top 2000 are getting in on some sort of Tour status. Among the tournament alternates are retirees and volunteer assistant golf coaches.”

“The tournament director is not hiding his frustration with the field quality, reports Golf.com’s Art Stricklin.”

“I’ve been doing this for 13 months and I know I’ve looked a lot of players in the eye who said they were coming and they are not here,” tournament director Colby Callaway told GOLF.com. “So, I’m a little surprised, but it is what it is.”

Full piece.

3. Goodbye, old friend

Per Andrew Tursky at PGATour.com…“Henrik Stenson and his Callaway Diablo Octane Tour 3-wood, one of the most recognizable and lethal player-club duos in golf, are no longer together.”

“Stenson has put his trusty club into retirement and is currently testing new 3-woods to put into play at this week’s Houston Open, his first start in the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season.”

“The Callaway Diablo Octane Tour 3-wood served him well, as Stenson won the 2013 FedExCup title, the 2016 Open Championship, the silver medal at the 2016 Olympics and ranked as high as No. 2 in the world while leaning heavily on his prowess with that model.”

Full piece.

The replacement? Looks to be a 13.5-degree Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero. Project X HZRDUS Yellow prototype shaft.

4. Why Phil hit driver out of the bush, according to Phil

Golf Digest’s Alex Myers…“…after Barstool’s ForePlayPod twitter handle shared a different angle of the ridiculous recovery shot…Mickelson explained the unusual club choice in a way that only Phil-and maybe Bryson DeChambeau-can: I hit driver was the depth of the face. With the ball sitting one foot off the ground I was afraid of whiffing it with a shallower face of a 3wood or long iron. I hit it 50 yards from the green in the fairway so it worked out…”

Full piece.

5. Payne Stewart’s son is an LPGA tournament director

Cool story. AP report...”Aaron Stewart was always around golf even when he wasn’t heavily invested. Now he’s involved in ways he never imagined.”

“Stewart, the son of late three-time major champion Payne Stewart, has been appointed tournament director of the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions in Orlando, Florida.”

“The event is the season opener on the LPGA Tour and is held Jan. 16-19. It features two events in one — 72 holes of stroke play for LPGA winners the last two seasons and celebrities competing in a Stableford format.”

Full piece.

6. Sheep Ranch

Golf Digest’s Stephen Hennesey with this on the new Coore-Crenshaw course at Bandon Dunes…”One of golf’s most mysterious sites is almost ready for its grand debut. Or for some, a re-introduction. Sheep Ranch is set to become the fifth 18-hole course at highly popular Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, as it will open its Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw course in June 2020, the resort announced Tuesday.”

“And to understand why this is such a highly anticipated opening, one must appreciate the evolution of this land….Sheep Ranch sits on about 140 acres north of Old Macdonald, and for the past 16 or so years, there were 13 unirrigated greens played by a very small group of golfers. Fire trucks watered the turf, where Tom Doak and Jim Urbina did initial construction after they built Pacific Dunes. Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon among his other highly popular golf resorts, bought this land in 2000 with his business partner Phil Friedmann for $4-million cash. Doak had designed these 13 greens with crisscrossing fairways accompanying them, allowing golfers to play into them from various directions. But at the time, Keiser and Friedmann, intending at first for their land to be the site of a new private 18 holes, stopped funding the construction after locals started talking about this secret project, worried that the success of the resort could be in jeopardy.”

Full piece.

7. Back to St. Louis

AP report…”The PGA Tour Champions is returning to the St. Louis area next year for the first time in nearly 20 years.”

“The tour announced a four-year deal Tuesday with St. Louis-based Ascension. The Ascension Charity Classic will be held Oct. 2-4 at Norwood Hills Country Club, which hosted the 1948 PGA Championship won by Ben Hogan and the Greater St. Louis Classic on the PGA Tour in 1972 and 1973.”

“The PGA Tour Champions was last in the area from 1996 to 2001 at Boone Valley, west of St. Louis.”

Full piece.

8. Finau & Preston Summerhays

PGATour.com’s Sean Martin on the unique friendship between Tony Finau and the reigning U.S. Junior Am champion, Preston Summerhays…

“…Summerhays’ father, Boyd, was once the top-ranked junior in the country. He played college golf at Oklahoma State, where his teammates included Charles Howell III and Bo Van Pelt, and played 29 events on the PGA TOUR from 2004-06 before injuries ended his career. Now he is the instructor for Tony Finau, Scott Harrington and Wyndham Clark.”

“Golf success runs in the Summerhays’ genes. The family has featured multiple generations of successful players. Preston and his sister, Grace, who advanced to the Round of 16 at the U.S. Girls’ Junior, are continuing that tradition.”

“Preston is waiting to see if the TOUR player with whom he has the closest relationship, Finau, also will be in Australia in December. Finau FaceTimed Preston shortly after that U.S. Junior. Am win. They’ve played hundreds of rounds together. Preston calls him “a great influence” on his career.”

Full piece.

9. Don’t call it a comeback!

Golf Digest’s Dave Shedloski on Beemer’s tour berth…”Rich Beem hasn’t played much golf in the last five years while serving as a reporter and analyst for Sky Sports based in the United Kingdom. But he did compete in the PGA Championship in May — the one major championship he never misses because, well, he won the thing in 2002, closing with a four-under 68 at Hazeltine National to beat someone named Tiger Woods by a stroke.”

“That’s awesome,” Beem said. “I’m flying under the radar again.”…Beem, 49, is competing this week at Golf Club of Houston in Humble, Texas, thanks to receiving a sponsor exemption. It will be his first appearance in a regular tour event since the 2014 Barracuda Championship. To say he has no expectations isn’t quite accurate, even though he is coming off two weeks in the United Kingdom, where he covered the BMW PGA Championship and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for Sky, and has barely touched a club.”

Full piece.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

4 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

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.