The post GOLF’s Subpar: D.J. Trahan dishes on his incredible Masters experience appeared first on Golf.

The post GOLF’s Subpar: D.J. Trahan dishes on his incredible Masters experience appeared first on Golf.

Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by 2-time PGA Tour winner D.J. Trahan who talks being paired with Fred Couples and Arnold Palmer at the same Masters.

—

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The post The 1963 U.S. Open at The Country Club made this week’s edition look like a pushover appeared first on Golf.

The post The 1963 U.S. Open at The Country Club made this week’s edition look like a pushover appeared first on Golf.

As the weekend approaches at the U.S. Open at The Country Club, in Brookline, the grounds are drying out and the greens are getting crusty. A grueling test for the world’s best golfers. But any player who gripes should count his blessings.

At least it isn’t 1963.

At that year’s U.S. Open, at this same course, conditions were so tough, they made this week’s competition look like the John Deere Classic.

They produced the highest scores the event had seen in nearly 30 years, since a brutal trial at Oakmont in 1935.

Jack Nicklaus, the defending champ, missed the cut. Not a single amateur made it to the weekend.

Travel

How did it all go down? Let’s review.

Heading into the event, The Country Club was still recouping from a rugged winter. Three of its greens had been so badly battered, they required a dye job. The putting surfaces weren’t the only spots to have suffered. Bare lies abounded in the fairway. At the same time, you could have lost a toddler in the rough.

The tradition of grousing about U.S. Open setups is nearly as old as the event itself.

Chick Harbert embraced it. Taking stock of The Country Club, the former PGA Championship winner described the layout as the “Cadillac of courses — 1911 model.”

Then there was the weather, which did not arrive in a forgiving mood. On Thursday and Friday, the winds were better suited to flying a kite. Only three of 150 players broke par in the first round. By the end of the second, no one was in the red.

Having huffed and puffed over the first two days, Mother Nature then tried to blow the house down. Gusts on Saturday topped 50 miles per hour. Arnold Palmer said they were the fiercest winds he’d ever faced.

If Palmer wasn’t complaining, many others were. That is, when they weren’t pleading for mercy.

Paired with Palmer on Saturday morning, Dean Refram, a journeyman pro who would go on to win twice on Tour, hit a worm-burner off the first tee that didn’t make the fairway. He closed with rounds of 80-79.

This was the era of 36-hole Saturdays at the U.S. Open, a long slog, always, but in this case more like a well-dressed death march. Newsreel footage of the day gives a good sense of the scene — all swaying oak trees and ruffled shirts. The pleats on Arnie’s pants rippled like sails.

Palmer hung on better than most, shooting 77-74 for a four-round total of 293 (at the Massacre at Winged Foot, in 1974, Hale Irwin won with four-day tally of 287). That was nine over par but good enough for a three-way Sunday playoff with Julius Boros and Jacky Cupit.

Boros won. Or, better yet, was the least beaten.

That was then. What a difference 59 years makes. This weekend’s forecast calls for cloudy skies, mild temperatures and modest breezes: nice weather, on a course in mint condition.

But never mind the elements. U.S. Open nerves are always nasty. We are merely in the calm before the storm.

The post The 1963 U.S. Open at The Country Club made this week’s edition look like a pushover appeared first on Golf.

The post You don’t know this secret golf legend. But Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus do. appeared first on Golf.

The post You don’t know this secret golf legend. But Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus do. appeared first on Golf.

PALM BEACH, Fla. — I played with a legendary amateur here the other day, on a legendary course. You may not have heard of either, but golf has a private side, and this is not a golfer, or a course, that seeks attention.

The golfer, Joel Hirsch, has played in 38 USGA events, but that doesn’t mean he got much TV time. The course we played, at the Palm Beach Country Club, is a behind-the-hedge Donald Ross classic, a compact one on 80 gently heaving acres beside the Atlantic Ocean. Its sweeping third green, at the top of a modest hill, is so gorgeous you can get a little emotional, walking across it. (Would it be so hard to build a green like that today?) You don’t see PBCC on top-100 lists, and the members don’t seem to care. Or Joel doesn’t. The Palm Beach Country Club — the course and the driving range — is his winter home, almost literally. The rest of the year, he lives and plays in Chicago.

“We’ll play one step ahead of the back of each tee box,” Joel said on the first tee. That gets the course, a par 70, to 6,001 yards. Something like that. Not that it matters.

Hirsch — a retired insurance man with a head for numbers — did the first-tee math and gave me five a side. We played for $5. He’s played for more. He’s played for less. He’s played better golfers. He’s likely played worse. I had one thing going for me: no pace-of-play issues. We didn’t have to use the phrase “ready golf.” 

Travel

Hirsch is 80, trim and flexible, and he walks with purpose. Walking 18 is nothing for him. He works out daily. So does his wife, Cynthia. They have had a condo in Palm Beach for decades.

When I met Joel Hirsch, he was 56. That was in 1998 and Hirsch was on top of his game, in every way. The late Tim Rosaforte, once my Sports Illustrated colleague, got us together, at the Palm Beach Country Club. Last month, at a memorial service for Tim at a mega church in South Florida, Joel was there, sitting in the back row. Hirsch knew, or knew of, some of the other golfers there, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Andy North and Mike Donald among them, but Hirsch didn’t go around saying hello. That’s just not him. He was there for Tim’s family.

In general, Hirsch is not somebody who needs a lot of people around. That makes him like a lot of good golfers. Arnold Palmer liked to have a crowd around him, but Ben Hogan didn’t. Nicklaus, Mickey Wright, Lee Trevino, Curtis Strange, Annika Sorenstam, Tiger Woods, the same. Hirsch has played thousands of rounds by himself. Of course, he’s played many more rounds in twosomes and threesomes and foursomes. Plus, the occasional fivesome.

Once, at a U.S. Senior Open, Hirsch played a practice round with Nicklaus and Palmer. The amateur golfer O. Gordon Brewer, a former Pine Valley Golf Club president whose son is the president of Callaway, was also in the group. As amateur golfers, Brewer is to Philadelphia what Hirsch is to Chicago. That is, at the peak of their powers there were few in their cities who could beat them.

That’s a whole thing. Golf has leagues on top of leagues on top of leagues. The club champ at your club has a certain level of golfing status, of course. Hirsch was not one to play in club championships. He didn’t think it was fair, as he played so much national competitive golf and spent so much time working on his game. He wasn’t, of course, a pro. But he wasn’t just another good weekend club golfer, either. He had plenty of events to play in. Give other people a chance.

“Pros against the ams,” Palmer said on the first tee, on that practice round at the 1998 U.S. Senior Open at Riviera, Nicklaus and Brewer and Hirsch within earshot. At the end of the round, Hirsch was never happier to part with $100. He’s played for more money. He has not played a more accomplished better-ball team. You may know that Nicklaus and Palmer won the 1967 World Cup by 13 shots. No shame, for Hirsch and Brewer, to lose to those two.

“Palmer was a great guy and a friend,” Hirsch said. “Maybe not a friend. But more than an acquaintance.” He likes precision. “You could play $100 seven-ways with Arnold, automatic two-downs and all the rest, and he could keep it all in his head. If, at the end of the day, he said, ‘You owe me six,’ you owed him six.” Six hundred. If you know something about Arnold, you know he didn’t play for crazy sums. He worked too hard for his money and liked it too much.

If you know something about golf in Chicago, you know about Hirsch. (Luke Donald, a former Northwestern golfer, and Michael Jordan, former Chicago Bulls basketball player, can both tell you all about Hirsch’s game.) He has lived in and around Chicago since he was 11. He played as a freshman under Dave Williams at the University of Houston, realized after one year he was not going to make a living as a professional golfer and took his golf talent, and his math gene, to the University of Illinois. A writer at the The Trib once wrote of him, “He majored in finance and minored in golf.” The Chicago Tribune knew how to cover golf, and it needed to. Along with Philadelphia and New York, Chicago is one of the three great golfing meccas in the United States.

Features

Discuss amongst yourselves. My sources are Ben Crenshaw, the original Robert Trent Jones and the inimitable Herbert Warren Wind. 

Hirsch was the Chicago District Golf Association’s Golfer of the Year in 1993 and ’94. In other words, in his 50s, he was very, very good. He won one British Senior Amateur in 1996 and another in 2000. In 1999 — at age 58! — he qualified for the Western Open in a Monday four-spotter. Yep, the real deal.

“Hey, Joel,” Tiger Woods said to Hirsch at that ’99 Western Open, then held at Cog Hill. They were passing each other in the press tent. Previously, they had played practice rounds together at U.S. Ams. During that week, the week of the ’99 Western Open, Hirsch and Woods and Jordan played Medinah, where the PGA Championship would be held in six weeks. Woods won that ’99 Western at Cog Hill. Six weeks later, he won the ‘99 PGA at Medinah, too. Now Woods is trying to fix-up two public courses in Chicago, Jackson Park and South Shore.

Until the other day, it had been 24 years since I had seen Mr. Hirsch. Fifty-six to 80, of course, changes a man. I arrived on the practice tee at the Palm Beach Country Club (not be confused with the super-fun and public Palm Beach Par-3 course or the excellent Jack Nicklaus public course in North Palm Beach) and there he was, on the far end of the range, which doubles as the 10th fairway. He looked leaner and tougher than he did the last time I had seen him. Hungrier. Now he resembles the actor Christopher Walken. It’s Hirsch’s hair, lean face, knowing eyes. Kind of his manner, too. In conversation, Hirsch gets things down to their essence.

He was wearing white shoes, khaki tech-fabric shorts with no belt, a long-sleeved white shirt, a white bucket hat. He seldom takes a practice swing. I exaggerate nothing when I say Joel hit his tee shot off the first, with a driver, 260 yards. Yes, it was downwind on a firm fairway, but the shot was also up in the air, caught on the face, and it had about three yards of draw. His swing is long, limber and rhythmic. His left arm does not straighten, a function of a mild case of childhood polio.

Hirsch has a wide stance. (He is mostly self-taught, but one of his teachers, Ed Oldfield Sr., preached wide stances. See: King, Betsy.) Hirsch seems to always know how he wants to play the shot, pausing briefly now and again to consider the wind or the lie. His golf was a clinic and his longtime PBCC caddie, Zak Haas, showed not even a hint of surprise at the quality of his shots. Zak has seen Hirsch hit a million of ‘em.

I’m not saying that Hirsch is at the Trevino level. I mean, that would be crazy talk. But his golf is excellent.

He putts with a normal-length putter and uses a self-taught claw grip. He shot 34 going out. He wanted to know how I found my way to golf. (We talked, except when we didn’t.) Hirsch came to golf by way of the caddie yard. Chicago and caddies. It’s a real thing. (See: the Murray brothers.) I made a 4-for-3 on the short par-4 home hole, to Joel’s par, and we headed into the locker room, our most excellent round done, all square. Five a side. He knew. 

Joel hasn’t played competitive golf in years, but he’s thinking about getting back into it. He’s already played in a couple Florida State Golf Association events this year, at Donald Ross public courses in north Florida, in the 75-and-older division, courses so sound, Joel said, “you could play them every day for the rest of your life and never get tired of them.” (One in Ocala, another in Palatka. He is not, at all, a golf snob.) Hirsch said his golf was OK, but not where he wants it to be, and he didn’t contend in either event. It was all sort of last-minute.

When the Hampton Inn in Palatka had no rooms, he and Cynthia found an old-timey bed-and-breakfast in a converted mansion. The proprietor, also 80, helped Joel bring his bags, not light, up the steps and to their room. There was no grunting.

Joel took inspiration from the gent.

We know how that goes.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

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The post How a U.S. Open champion was crowned Sunday (at Bay Hill!) appeared first on Golf.

The post How a U.S. Open champion was crowned Sunday (at Bay Hill!) appeared first on Golf.

ORLANDO — There’s water on one side and rough on the other and the bone-dry fairways are firmer than the roof of your courtesy car and about as wide. The sun is out, the wind is up and if you can shoot even you have flat-out golfed your ball. Arnold Palmer always wanted a U.S. Open at one of his courses, and on Sunday he got one, three months ahead of Father’s Day.

Sunday, Sunday at Bay Hill Speedway.

Jon Rahm, who won the National Open at Torrey Pines last year, needed three putts on 16 in the finale, and when he came off the green he raised his putter head high above his head as if readying to smash it into the rear bumper of a parked golf cart.

The great and large Spaniard held off that swing but not the swift kick he gave to the boom mic beside the left Mastercard tee marker on 18 after his last tee shot finished in the gnarly right rough. You have to like a man who cares, though he, of course, should have replaced the microphone himself. A tournament staffer did it for him, immediately and silently.

News

Rahm signed for 74 and the word was out even before his shirttails were: Rahm would not be doing media on this Sunday afternoon. His playing partner, Aaron Wise, returned 74, too, though his had fewer histrionics.

Pairings are a funny business and there was no hand-of-man influence that brought together two U.S. Open winners from the north of Ireland for Sunday’s 1 p.m. tee time, Graeme McDowell (2010, Pebble) and Rory McIlroy (2011, Congressional). Both men shot 76 — not too shabby on a day when six players shot 80 or worse — and lived to tell the tale. (Lucas Glover, winner of the 2009 U.S. Open, shot 81.) “I feel punch drunk, to be honest,” McIlroy said.

If you watched the golf on TV over the weekend, you likely saw the defending Arnold Palmer Invitational winner, Bryson DeChambeau, your 2020 U.S. Open winner at Winged Foot. You didn’t see him on the course this week — he withdrew as he recovers from who knows what exactly — but he came out of limbo again and again in a TV spot in heavy rotation for a shaft manufacturer called LA Golf. If you thought the company made sunglasses, it’s totally understandable.

Gary Woodland, stolid and solid and the winner of the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, played a superb round of golf on Sunday — for 16 holes. But he closed with 5-5 (double bogey, bogey) for 73, one over par and was more pointed than even McIlroy. “I’m glad I’m off that course,” he said. “I’m glad I’m done.

“The last two weeks, it’s just a mental grind.”

PGA National, Week I of the Florida Swing: water and wind and rough.

Bay Hill, Week II of the Florida Swing: water and wind and rough.

TPC Sawgrass, Week III of the Florida Swing: water and wind and rough.

Arnold Palmer was born and raised on the U.S. Open, U.S. Opens at Oakmont in Pittsburgh, down the road from his family’s home in Latrobe, Pa., most particularly. He once said that, as a golfer, he was never the same after winning the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, in Denver, that he had checked off, at age 30, the single-biggest professional ambition in his life.

Bay Hill was Palmer’s crowning achievement as an architect. (It’s a Dick Wilson course in the club history but over the years Palmer shaped every green, every bunker, every tee, every square inch.) He wanted the course to play hard for his tournament and it did. 

News

Scottie Scheffler, at 25, has now played in five U.S. Opens. He missed the cut in 2016 and ’19 but he was the low amateur in 2017, and last year at Torrey he had a T7 finish. Then came his fifth Open start, the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

An hour after victory, he was still wearing his game-day shoes and still had his glove in his back left pocket but now he was wearing the red Arnold Palmer cardigan awarded to the winner here. Scheffler shot an even-par 72 on Sunday to win by a shot. As Johnny Miller (winner of the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont) used to say, “Pars are the good guys at U.S. Opens. They wear white hats.”

“Par is a pretty good score on every hole out here,” Scheffler said in victory. “I’m never upset with par.”

Your new U.S. Open winner is lanky, easy-going, unpretentious. He doesn’t make things harder than they are, especially when they’re hard enough on their own.

“This course is a total beatdown,” he said.

U.S. Open II, at The Country Club, begins June 16.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.

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The post This flashy Bay Hill bucket hat pays homage to The King and is super stylish appeared first on Golf.

The post This flashy Bay Hill bucket hat pays homage to The King and is super stylish appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Gimme That, a GOLF.com column where we’ll highlight one notable item we think you might like. Whether it’s an article of clothing, an intriguing electronic device or anything in between, we want to share these items with you because they’ve generated a bit of chatter by our water cooler (or, these days, on our Slack channel). So sit back, scroll down and keep up with the latest gear golf has to offer.

This all-over printed bucket hat is the perfect accessory for spring/summer golf. We’ve seen how much you love our Nicklaus bucket hats already, and if you’re looking for something slightly more flashy, this is it – and it still celebrates one of the greatest to ever do it! The hat features the Bay Hill logo, which is where the Arnold Palmer Invitational is being played right now, and Arnie’s signature red, yellow and green umbrella insignia.

Bay Hill Imperial Allover Umbrella Bucket Hat

This all-over umbrella logo printed bucket hat features a Bay Hill patch and a navy and white stripe around its base.

$40 from go.skimresources.com

The post This flashy Bay Hill bucket hat pays homage to The King and is super stylish appeared first on Golf.

The post Pay tribute to The King with these unique Stitch headcovers appeared first on Golf.

The post Pay tribute to The King with these unique Stitch headcovers appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Gimme That, a GOLF.com column where we’ll highlight one notable item we think you might like. Whether it’s an article of clothing, an intriguing electronic device or anything in between, we want to share these items with you because they’ve generated a bit of chatter by our water cooler (or, these days, on our Slack channel). So sit back, scroll down and keep up with the latest gear golf has to offer.

One of my favorite ways to express myself and break the ice with playing partners on the course is through my headcovers. This day and age, there are so many fun, unique options out there. Stock covers just aren’t cutting it anymore!

Here at GOLF, we’re big fans of Stitch Golf, and it seems they’re big fans of The King. They make leather and knit headcovers for drivers, woods and hybrids that feature Palmer’s signature red, yellow and green umbrella logo that you’re seeing all over the place at the Arnold Palmer Invitational this weekend.

Any of these headcovers are sure to up your on-course style and will give you something fun to talk about during your next random pairing!

Arnold Palmer Leather Headcover

Genuine leather headcover that features Arnold Palmer’s signature logo.

$98 from stitchgolf.com

Stitch Arnold Palmer Knit Headcover

Wool headcover with green, red and yellow strings that features Arnold Palmer’s signature umbrella logo.

$72 from fave.co

The post Pay tribute to The King with these unique Stitch headcovers appeared first on Golf.

The post These iconic-colored alignment sticks are the perfect training aid appeared first on Golf.

The post These iconic-colored alignment sticks are the perfect training aid appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Gimme That, a GOLF.com column where we’ll highlight one notable item we think you might like. Whether it’s an article of clothing, an intriguing electronic device or anything in between, we want to share these items with you because they’ve generated a bit of chatter by our water cooler (or, these days, on our Slack channel). So sit back, scroll down and keep up with the latest gear golf has to offer.

Talking about becoming a better golfer won’t actually make you a better golfer. Practice will make you better. Yeah, we’re talking about practice. And if you’re going to practice, you might as well do it right. There’s no better practice accessory to bring with you than these alignment sticks from Hazy Sticks. 

It’s important to properly use your alignment sticks if you want to practice effectively. “Establishing the target line is really important for your alignment sticks,” says Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood. “Most people don’t establish a target line.”

All you need to do is place one alignment stick behind the ball in the direction of your desired target. After that, place the other alignment stick parallel to the first in front of your stance. Before taking a swing, remove the alignment stick behind the ball. It’s as simple as that. 

On top of that, you can also use alignment sticks to correct your swing path in a variety of ways through different setup positions. There are endless possibilities on how these sticks can improve your game.

Instruction

So, why should you put Hazy Sticks in your bag? For starters, they are made of 100% genuine hickory. There are a lot of poorly manufactured alignment sticks out there. You don’t need to worry about that with Hazy Sticks. The gloss protective finish and nickel end caps will have these looking sharp for countless practice sessions.

And lastly, don’t you want everything in your golf bag to look good? I can’t guarantee you’ll play better because Hazy Sticks are in your bag, but you will look good. This white, green, yellow, and red color scheme is hard to beat. 

Look good, practice good.

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The post Who are the top 4 highest-paid athletes ever? Hint: 3 of them are golfers. appeared first on Golf.

The post Who are the top 4 highest-paid athletes ever? Hint: 3 of them are golfers. appeared first on Golf.

The second, third and fourth highest-paid athletes of all-time are golfers. The man at the top of the list? He owns his own golf course, attends every Ryder Cup and so loves the game that he even played before regular-season, playoff and Dream Team Olympic basketball games. 

And all four made over $1.3 billion. (Yes, that’s a B.)  

In other words, you might want to bookmark GOLF.com instruction stories. 

In a story published by sports business website Sportico on Thursday, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus ranked behind only Michael Jordan on a list of the biggest money earners in sports history. The inflation-adjusted ranking, Sportico said, included salaries, prize money, purses, bonuses, endorsements, licensing, royalties, memorabilia, book deals, appearances and golf course design, and the cut-off for earnings was June 1 of this year.

At No. 1 on the list was NBA legend Jordan, with $2.6 billion in career earnings. Woods was the only other athlete to crack two billion dollars, with 2.1. Palmer was at $1.5 billion, and Nicklaus at $1.38 billion.

According to an analyst interviewed by Sportico, a secret to golfers’ success lies in their longevity. Consider Nicklaus and Jordan. The Golden Bear turned pro in 1961 and was still cashing on the PGA Tour in 2005; MJ was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984 and retired in 2003. 

“With competitive careers that can span 30 years or more, golfers have the longest shelf life of any pro athletes,” Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing expert at Pinnacle Advertising, told Sportico. “Combine that with their global appeal across a broad and high-end fan demographic, and it’s no wonder so many rank high among the all-time earners in sports.”

Two other golfers made Sportico’s top 25 list. At No. 11 was Phil Mickelson, with $1.08 billion in inflation-adjusted earnings, while Greg Norman was at No. 15, with $815 million. 

Athletico’s complete story can be found here.  

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The post On a course built by an American original (Arnold!), another American original (Bryson!) shines appeared first on Golf.

The post On a course built by an American original (Arnold!), another American original (Bryson!) shines appeared first on Golf.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Golf is slow to embrace different, which explains Ben Hogan’s indifference toward Arnold Palmer. You know, the Iceman practically wrote the book called Fairways and Greens, and then Arnie showed up, all slashin’-’n-smashin.’ AP hit bombs and holed them, too.

“How’d he get in the tournament?” Hogan asked a lunch companion on a weekday in April in Eisenhower’s first term, with Arnold in earshot. Imagine that one on Twitter. Arnold heard it, there in the Augusta National grill room. “He never used my name,” Arnold told many people over the years. “It was always, ‘Fella.’”

Morning, fella.

Beat that for cold.

And now we have this Bryson fella on the 1st tee, here at Bay Hill, Sunday afternoon. He was wearing his Ben Hogan racing cap and his Arnold Palmer golfing shoes, with the King’s famous signature stenciled on their heels. Yeah, sure, somebody is paying Bryson to wear those shoes. Still, a nice gesture, and they must have Extra Stability Foundational Soles registered trademark, or something like that, given the slug the guy gives it.

(They’re Pumas, by the way, speaking of registered trademarks. Somewhere, Walt “Clyde” Frazier must be smiling. If you want a lesson in style, check the man out. He wasn’t “branded” Clyde. He was Clyde.)

News

OK, Bryson and Hogan: Bryson went to college in Dallas, at SMU, where golfers still get a heavy dose of the ultimate Texas golf legend, dead now 25 years, or close to it. For method, Hogan and DeChambeau could not be more different, but they share one significant thing: Hogan thought for himself, which is why his actual swing-theory bible (Five Fundamentals) is the best-selling golf book ever and by far. DeChambeau is an original thinker, too. Witness the same-length irons, the Moe Norman takeaway, the fat grips, the graphite-shafted putter, the nightfall practice sessions, the beef-and-shakes diet. The weirdness, when you get right down to it. That’s meant as praise.

As for Arnold: DeChambeau first met Palmer in Latrobe, Pa., as a Walker Cup golfer in 2015. He made his first appearance in the event that wrapped up here on Sunday, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, as an amateur in 2016, the last API that AP saw, at least from earth level. Asked that week five years ago what impressed him most about Palmer, DeChambeau said, “How giving he is. I hope that one day I can do the same.”

(Good stuff, as Johnny Miller used to say, when he manned the NBC booth here. Arnold was always an NBC guy, like Bob Hope and John Chancellor. Arnold could be a badass and an outlaw, but he venerated tradition, too.)

Arnold and Bryson both loved the idea of the drivable par-4. As for the drivable par-5, that’s a more recent development, courtesy of Bryson A. DeChambeau. (B.A.D., on the cover of his yardage book.) You know Arnold’s giggling at the very notion, driving a par-5. Why, if you’re quiet and bend an ear, you might hear him cackling right now.

News

If you follow this game closely enough to be reading this report, you of course know that Bryson DeChambeau won the 2021 API on a cool and windy Sunday, by making a five-footer on the last, finishing one shot ahead of Mr. Lee Westwood, 47-year-old bearded English golfer and Ryder Cup star.

And what a pleasure it was to see Lee in Sunday’s final twosome, on this occasion trying his best to stay with DeChambeau, who outdrove him by half a football field, now and again. There were 5,000 fans on hand, most of them masked, most of them following the final twosome. When DeChambeau smashed a drive on the par-5 6th hole almost within spitting distance of the green, he raised his hands, Rocky-style. When Westwood followed, in spirit but not remotely in length, he raised his hands, too. He was having himself a good time, his girlfriend-caddie smiling beside him. He earned $1 million for finishing second. And that’s rounding it down.

Bryson made that winning putt on 18, and he shook the ground right through his Pumas. The connection to Arnold was complete. How many golfers have won the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Open, Jack Nicklaus’ tournament (the Memorial) and Arnold’s tournament? TWO! Tiger and Bryson. That’s some club. Bryson said that Tiger sent him a text Sunday morning. 

Now here’s something you may not know about DeChambeau’s Sunday. He nearly lost the event on his very first shot of the day. He hit a crazy slice in a slice wind with a driver as his opening salvo, a shot so bad that DeChambeau’s caddie tossed him another ball, on the assumption he would have to reload, what with that fussy O.B. rule and all.

Bay Hill is a suburban development, really, and Bryson’s tee shot was perilously close to a Bay Hill backyard. His ball settled in such lush rough that spectators stopped to snap a photo of his divot hole once he had cleared the scene. On the other side of a net fence, in the backyard of a greenish-yellow house with a hammock and driveway hoop, a dozen people watched the spectacle with the joy that comes from watching an Arnold Palmer, a John Daly — and a Bryson DeChambeau. Generational talents. He made bogey. It could have been worse.

“Man, after that drive on 1, I was thinking, ‘Uh-oh, this is not going to be a great day,’” DeChambeau said about five hours later. He was wearing a red cardigan, emblematic of API victory, so you know it was, in fact, a great day, for him and for modern golf. Also, another nail in the coffin of ye olde game. 

It would be easy to just go on and on was about Bryson the Basher. The fact is, he putts beautifully. It’s not beautiful to look at, the whole method, but he does putt the heck out of that golf ball. His birdie putt on the 8th was about 25 feet, downhill, into the wind, with the flagstick waving this way and that, with a lake beyond the hole and a scoreboard beyond the lake. But the man of the hour has singular focus! The fun thing is to watch him with his eyes closed at interesting times during the round. It’s sort of next-gen Jason Day/Tiger Woods stuff. 

“I think that’s a very underrated aspect of my game,” DeChambeau said of his putting. Indeed — indeed it is!

News

Bryson’s dream foursome has five players in it, he said Sunday night. (There he goes again, breaking the rules again.) Hogan, Arnold, Moe Norman, Bryson’s father and Bryson his own self. That’s five. For all of his reverence for Hogan, Bryson knows and accepts that Hogan couldn’t relate to Palmer’s style of play, and he knows there are people in the game that can’t relate to his style of golf.

“It happens every 20 years, in every sport,” Bryson said. “People come around that are changing things, and one generation can’t relate to the next.”

But what would you do, Bryson? What would you do if you were hanging with Hogan and Arnold? Could you broker a peace? And if so, how?

“I would say, ‘Relax, it’s just golf,’” the winner said. “That’s what everybody tells me. [But] I’m my own worst psychologist.”

He laughed. His new cardigan could barely contain him.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.

The post On a course built by an American original (Arnold!), another American original (Bryson!) shines appeared first on Golf.

The post 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational purse: Payout information and winner’s share at Bay Hill appeared first on Golf.

The post 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational purse: Payout information and winner’s share at Bay Hill appeared first on Golf.

We’ve reached the final round at the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Below is everything you need to know about the tournament’s purse money, including payout information and winner’s share.

2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational final round preview

If you were looking for a touchpoint moment in the early PGA Tour season, you found one in Bryson DeChambeau Saturday. The 27-year-old U.S. Open champion set the golf world ablaze on Saturday when he blasted a 370-yard drive over the lake on the famed sixth hole. While DeChambeau didn’t attempt to drive the green on the water-guarded par-5, his celebration after connecting with his tee shot will likely serve as this weekend’s lasting image. He enters Sunday’s final round just a stroke back of the lead and with a boatload of momentum.

At the 54-hole mark, Bryson trails only Lee Westwood, who is looking for his first victory in more than a decade. Westwood (-11) will have to fend off a star-studded list of chasers in addition to the surging DeChambeau, including Jordan Spieth (-9), Tommy Fleetwood (-8) and Rory McIlroy (-7).

Below is the payout information, including winner’s share, for the Arnold Palmer Invitational’s $9.3 million purse; you can catch the action from 12:30-2:30 p.m. ET on Golf Channel, and from 2:30 p.m. till the completion of play on NBC.

Arnold Palmer Invitational payout information, winner’s share

1. $1,674,000

2. $1,013,700

3. $641,700

4. $455,700

5. $381,300

6. $337,125

7. $313,875

8. $290,625

9. $272,025

10. $253,425

11. $234,825

12. $216,225

13. $197,625

14. $179,025

15. $169,725

16. $160,425

17. $151,125

18. $141,825

19. $132,525

20. $123,225

21. $113,925

22. $104,625

23. $97,185

24. $89,745

25. $82,305

26. $74,865

27. $72,075

28. $69,285

29. $66,495

30. $63,705

31. $60,915

32. $58,125

33. $55,335

34. $53,010

35. $50,685

36. $48,360

37. $46,035

38. $44,175

39. $42,315

40. $40,455

41. $38,595

42. $36,735

43. $34,875

44. $33,015

45. $31,155

46. $29,295

47. $27,435

48. $25,947

49. $24,645

50. $23,901

51. $23,343

52. $22,785

53. $22,413

54. $22,041

55. $21,855

56. $21,669

57. $21,483

58. $21,297

59. $21,111

60. $20,925

61. $20,739

62. $20,553

63. $20,367

64. $20,181

65. $19,995

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