News

Morning 9: How will Augusta play? | Exclusive talk with Anthony Kim’s caddie | Brooks Koepka: Course designer?

Published

6 years ago

Nov 5, 2020

Ben Alberstadt

By Ben Alberstadt

Email me at ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com

November 5, 2020

Good Thursday morning, golf fans.

1. DJ returns to action after COVID-19

Golfweek’s Adam Schupak…”After spending 11 days quarantined in a hotel room, Dustin Johnson ran out of TV shows and movies to watch.”

“There isn’t one you can name that I didn’t watch, I don’t think,” said Johnson, noting that “Yellowstone,” was his favorite. “I was just laying around kind of doing nothing. It was one of those things where I was like waiting to get sick because you know you have it, but for me it was very mild and obviously I’m very thankful for that.”

“Johnson tested positive for COVID-19 on October 13, and withdrew from the CJ Cup and Zozo Championship, after experiencing achiness, congestion and a mild cough. He tested positive at an off-site location in Las Vegas run by Sanford Health. During a press conference ahead of the Vivint Houston Open, Johnson, who won three times last season and is the reigning FedEx Cup champion, declared himself a picture of health. As for his game with the Masters looming just a week away?”

“My health is good. The state of my game is undetermined,” he said.

Full piece.

2. Koepka tees it up at a course he helped design

Bet you didn’t know BK dabbled in golf course architecture! PGATour.com’s Sean Martin…”Koepka was the player consultant on the dramatic renovation that this week’s venue, Memorial Park, underwent before hosting the Vivint Houston Open.”

“To be honest with you, I had no aspirations of ever being like I want to design golf courses, nothing, but then being asked to do this, it’s a really cool idea,” Koepka said. “Obviously, I wanted to help Jim out.

“I think any time you can play a hand in having some opinion on a course that we’re going to play out here, I think it’s unique, it doesn’t happen very often. And it’s been cool just to see it evolve. I know this golf course is quite difficult. It’s quite long. You’ll see some high numbers, especially if the wind gets up. It kind of resembles a little bit of a U.S. Open. I think some people would say, which I feel like I’ve done pretty good at.”

“Famed architect Tom Doak led the renovation with Koepka providing input during on-site visits and over email.”

Full piece.

3. Ferguson: Why it’s OK 4 top-40 players aren’t teeing it up at the 2020 Masters

The AP’s Doug Ferguson picks up his opinion piece pen…”This is not a time for Berger, Hovland, Palmer and English to wonder what they’re missing, because they were never part of the 2020 Masters. This is the time for them to celebrate what they’ve achieved to at least be part of the conversation, and to look forward to the next Masters. They earned it.”

“All four are guaranteed spots at Augusta National next April by reaching the Tour Championship, no small feat for any of them.”

“Berger and English were out of the top 125 the previous season.”

“Hovland was a PGA Tour rookie. Palmer’s game never seems far off, though he had gone six years since he last played in the Tour Championship.”

“Now they’re in the top 40, and not likely to lose much ground with only two tournaments left this year after the Masters.”

Full piece.

4. “Ratings ouch”

Geoff Shackelford writes…”Even with a Masters invitation (somehow) on the line and of course, the all important FedExCup points, Brian Gay’s Bermuda Championship win still had fewer Golf Channel viewers than the Timbertech Championship.”

“That event featured Darren Clarke holding off Jim Furyk and Bernhard Langer for his first PGA Tour Champions win.”

“Saturday’s third round of the Timbertech “won” the weekend and averaged 43,000 in the coveted none-Villages demo.”

Full piece.

5. Lanto’s story

PGATour.com’s Doug Milne with an interesting look at last year’s Houston Open winner and a special individual in his life…”After turning professional in 2010, he would endure years of losing money and gaining credit card debt. In his first 10 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2017, he earned a collective total of less than $5,000.”

“I thought about quitting,” Griffin remembers thinking.

“What overtook his skepticism, though, was a stubborn perseverance to succeed. Returning to this week’s Vivint Houston Open as the defending champion, his determination clearly paid off. And, it has paid off in more ways – and to more people – than he ever could have imagined.”

Full piece.

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6. A defense of Election Day golf

Golf Digest’s Sam Weinman wrote yesterday, Election Day…”I am going to play golf. There, I said it. I am going to play golf because I care about the election but I want a break from caring for at least four hours. I am going to vote and then I’d rather be in three feet of fescue than anywhere near my Twitter feed. The spotty cell service at my golf course never seemed like a good thing until now.”

Full Piece

7. How will ANGC play next week?

Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard…“Thanks to extended forecasts there is some clarity when it comes to next week’s Masters. Following months of speculation, temperatures are expected to linger in the mid- to high-70s for the week with elevated chances of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“For many that’s a welcome reprieve from what could have been for the first fall Masters. Much of the speculation heading into the year’s final major fixated on the potential for much colder conditions in November.”

“…Warmer-than-normal temperatures, however, are only part of what promises to make the 2020 Masters a singularly different tournament. Even with spring-like temperatures there are plenty of unknowns when it comes to the game’s most well-known layout.”

Full Piece

8. An exclusive chat with Anthony Kim’s caddie

Our Johnny Wunder spoke with Brodie Flanders…

“JW: What’s your favorite AK moment?”

“BF: I could write a book about my favorite AK moments. There’s so many. He’s been my family for half my life now. I had the pleasure of playing against him in the World Juniors in Japan at 16 to being roommates with him in college at OU, to walking with him for a few years inside and outside the ropes, and even building some businesses together. If I had to single out a moment, it was his back 9 run at the 2010 Masters. AK never feels that he’s out of a tournament and what I always appreciated most about his game was the way he’d close the rounds. It wasn’t unusual for him to go 4-5 under on the last 9.”

“On Sunday, he told me on the 13th that if he could go birdie, birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie, he’d win.”

“He birdied 13, 14, and on 15 he had almost the identical yardage he had from Saturday. He flushed a 5 iron right behind the hole. Walking over the Sarazen bridge I tried to take it all in for probably the first time that day. I was at the Masters on Sunday with my best friend and he’s making a run. He said to me while reading that eagle putt on 15 “these ppl are about to go f*n nuts… watch this” and then he rolled it in. Goosebumps. He did the same thing on 16. I’ll never forget that day for the rest of my life.”

“Two weeks later, he hung it up to have surgery finally. One of many to follow.”

Full Piece

9. Anthony Kim’s 2010 Houston Open WITB

Always fun to take a look at WITBs of seasons past. Here’s AK’s setup for his 2010 win in Houston.

Driver: Nike VR Pro LTD (9.5 degrees @10)

Shaft: UST AxivCore Tour Black 79 X

3-wood: TaylorMade Burner TS (13 degrees)

Shaft: UST AxivCore Tour Black 89 X

5-wood: Nike Sasquatch Dyno (19 degrees)

Shaft: UST AxivCore Tour Black 89 X

Irons: Nike VR Pro MB (3-PW)

Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Wedges: Nike VR Pro “MT Grind” (54, 59 degrees)

Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Select Circle T Newport 2

Grip: Scotty Cameron Pistol Red Full Cord

Grips: Golf Pride BCT 60R

Ball: Nike One Platinum

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

12 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.