Hello, friends, and welcome to this edition of the Rogers Report! I am enjoying a week at home before heading to Oakmont for the U.S. Open, a practice round at the Travelers and tournament days at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. It’s going to be a long and exciting two weeks on the road, and if you have any recommendations near any of those places (particularly for ice cream), please let me know! We can’t move on to what’s been happening in golf this week without a quick recap of the best moments from the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills, so let’s start there.
All of my favorite moments of the U.S. Women’s Open came on the 72nd hole. I loved watching Linn Grant and Ingrid Lindblad eagerly wait to shower their fellow Swede with champagne after the winning putt. I loved watching Maja Stark’s caddie, Jeff Brighton, accept his caddie award and then put on a cheesehead that he took from USGA CEO Mike Whan.
And I really loved when Maja Stark received a FaceTime call from Annika Sorenstam. We often hear about veteran major champs calling new major winners to congratulate them, but we very rarely get to see it in real time.
Shout out to Sorenstam for her very timely call. I won’t soon forget any of these moments.
I also won’t forget the Golf With Us Presented by Ally leadership panel I attended at Erin Hills earlier in the week. Ally, the USGA, and Erin Hills staff invited current female collegiate athletes, sports business majors and young business professionals from the greater Milwaukee area to a panel and networking event aimed at boosting their confidence and using golf as a business tool as they jump into their careers.
The Golf With Us Presented by Ally leadership panel at Erin HilsUSGA
You can read all about the panel and the game-changing conversations that were had at Erin Hills here.
Golf’s longest day
When I hear the words “golf’s longest day,” I often think of the time I flew to San Diego through Seattle for a work trip (back during a time of my life where I didn’t quite understand how airlines worked). For the rest of the world, golf’s longest day is perhaps the most emotionally-charged in all of golf, where Tour pros, elite junior golfers and lots of scratch golfers in between try to qualify for the U.S. Open.
While we’ll be missing big names like Max Homa and Rickie Fowler next week, there were plenty of feel-good stories of guys who did qualify. Alistair Docherty punched his ticket to Oakmont just two weeks after a car accident.
Matt Vogt, a dentist from Indianapolis, recently lost his dad and will tee it up at the U.S. Open next week. Seventeen-year-old Mason Howell is a junior in high school and will play alongside the best players in the world. Stories like this always make me appreciate just how special the U.S. Open is and have me very excited to arrive on site to watch these guys play in person.
Phil’s finale?
LIV Golf is in Virginia this week, and Phil Mickelson was very transparent when asked about the U.S. Open and his plans (or lack thereof) for it going forward.
Q. Phil, I’m curious about your thoughts on Oakmont potentially being your first U.S. Open and the possible end of your life-long quest to win our national Open.
Mickelson: “I haven’t thought about it too much. There’s a high likelihood that it will be, but I haven’t really thought about it too much. What I have thought about is how similar this week’s course is set up to what we’ll see next week. We have greens that are rolling 14 to 15 on the stimpmeter just like we will next week. We have contours, undulations just like we will next week. I think it’s a great way to prepare for next week without minimizing the effects of this week because this is the first tournament of our second half of LIV, and we all need and want and are working hard to getting off to a good start and making the second half of LIV great. It’s also a great way to prepare for next week. Short game, touch, chipping around the greens, rough, speed, lag drills and speed and touch on the greens, all of that’s critical here same thing as next week. It couldn’t be a better spot to get ready.”
Okay, let’s focus on the first two sentences there. Mickelson has missed just two U.S. Opens since 1990, so the fact that this could be his final one feels like a very big deal. Even if he’s not thinking about it right now, I have to assume he’s going to be thinking about it at Oakmont. As someone who thought about their last high school basketball game for weeks before it happened, I’m curious to see the emotions that come with next week for Mickelson.
A surprising collaboration
Good news for all of the motorsports and golf gear heads out there: Pennzoil and PXG have teamed up to create a limited-edition driver. If you’re like me, you might be wondering what on Earth motor oil and golf equipment have in common. The answer? Driving.
