The post Justin Thomas’ caddie has an intriguing wedge suggestion for St. Andrews appeared first on Golf.

The post Justin Thomas’ caddie has an intriguing wedge suggestion for St. Andrews appeared first on Golf.

Open Championship week at St. Andrews is upon us. And as an overzealous golf geek with a love for links courses, this feels like the days leading up to my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. 

With links golf presenting a unique challenge compared to traditional PGA Tour setups, there is a lot of chatter about players changing the way they organize their golf bags, from adding driving irons to removing fairway woods and high bounce wedges.

During a practice round with friend Tiger Woods, we caught a brief conversation between Justin Thomas and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay where Bones suggests they carry two lob wedges with the same loft and drop the 3-wood. His reasoning was to have one wedge with low bounce to hit off tight, firm turf, and the other with more bounce to help get out of a pot bunker if the situation comes up. 

With a dry Old Course playing fast and firm, a 3-wood might be just as useful as a pair of alignment sticks holding a towel and a second specialized lob wedge could mean the difference between saving par or getting stuck in a bunker.

You can listen to the full discussion in the video below from the practice round thanks to The Open’s YouTube channel. The clip is found at the 00:42 mark.

The post Justin Thomas’ caddie has an intriguing wedge suggestion for St. Andrews appeared first on Golf.

The post Why we love the Old Course: The world’s most celebrated links stirs the spirit at every turn appeared first on Golf.

The post Why we love the Old Course: The world’s most celebrated links stirs the spirit at every turn appeared first on Golf.

Can a course be ranked No. 1 and still be underrated? In the case of the Old Course at St. Andrews, which doubles as Open host this week and top dog on GOLF’s inaugural list of the Top 100 Courses in the British Isles, yes. Ironically, no course of the Old’s pedigree on the planet during the last half of the last century was as ignored. Thank goodness we have started to come to our senses.

When it comes to the Old Course, past is prologue. You can see it in the way modern architects have begun, again, to take cues from her, like in places such as Tom Doak’s St. Patrick’s Links (No. 13 on our UK and Ireland list) and Ohoopee Match Club, Gil Hanse’s match-play gem in rural Georgia. What our panel deems the “best of the new” includes a commitment to short, fast grass, playing angles and hazards unsullied by overzealous shapers — the heart of St. Andrews.

Here, an hour north of Edinburgh, sits a relatively flat (though lusciously crumpled) strip of land, giving birth to golf played “on the ground.” The Old’s legendary greenkeepers throughout time have imbued its turf with a near mystical firmness. Couple that with the acreage 30 yards and in — where fescue fairways meld into fescue putting surfaces — and you have a design unmatched in its elasticity and playability. Every shot is within every golfer’s grasp, regardless of age and ability. Literally, it’s a course for the ages.

Moreover, the Old has never yielded to a calendar — it plays well in all conditions. One of GOLF’s panelists played the Old in April, in a 65-mph wind, and had a grand time. A 7-handicap, he drove the green on the 380-yard 16th, where, normally, bunkers 145 yards short of the green have sunk many a player’s hopes.

At St. Andrews, you get by with run-ups, not flyers, though you can play the latter if you like. It’s just that the former is rewarded. Compare that to so many modern courses — narrow designs laden with ball-gobbling rough, water and forced carries — and you tell me which form of golf is more inclusive and energizing, and why St. Andrews, centuries old and the first course in our game’s memory bank, remains the best.

“What sealed the deal,” my brother once told me of the Old, “was spending a Sunday afternoon walking and studying it before I played.” He’s family, but admittedly smart: It’s been the game’s great tacticians, from Jones to Nicklaus to Woods, who have adored and mastered it. Here, you can outthink and out-execute the field. Watching the 150th Open will be a joy, but the sooner the sport recognizes the Old as the absolute pinnacle of design, the sooner it will embrace all her lessons — and we’ll all be the better for it.

The post Why we love the Old Course: The world’s most celebrated links stirs the spirit at every turn appeared first on Golf.

The post Hello, world! How the Open Championship became golf’s ultimate international event appeared first on Golf.

The post Hello, world! How the Open Championship became golf’s ultimate international event appeared first on Golf.

When the winner of the Open Championship is presented the Claret Jug, he is anointed Champion Golfer of the Year, which sounds wildly vague and covers a lot of territory but is nevertheless entirely accurate. The Open is unquestionably the world championship of golf and has been since it was first played in 1860. It just took time for its world — and appeal — to expand.

Like the murky origins of baseball, which, in the U.S., gained grassroots followers at the local semi-pro level around the same time Willie Parks Senior and Junior and Tom Morrises Old and Young were banging around Prestwick and Mussleburgh, there’s no accurate moment of golf’s creation. As the late, great Dan Jenkins once wrote, “…you could say that the Chinese a thousand years ago probably played a form of golf by batting a few snow peas around with chopsticks.”

The point Jenkins was driving at, however, is that golf is unequivocally a Scottish game. “It was the Scots,” he wrote a few sentences later, “who took the game and did something with it when everybody else was busy making crossbows.”

It’s true the first 29 Champion Golfers of the Year were Scotsmen, and that 54 of the first 55 Open winners were either Scottish or English (Arnaud Massy, a French fellow, won in 1907). That might not sound like a true world championship on the surface, but the island of Great Britain, indeed, was the championship golf world until 1914. Even though the U.S. Open was first played in 1895 (35 years after the first “Open”), its first 16 winners were from Britain. For context, consider that when Francis Ouimet won the 1913 U.S. Open, it wasn’t his winning that shocked the sporting world. It was who he beat: then five-time Open champ Harry Vardon — a Brit — and the defending champ, Englishman Ted Ray. (No one remembers John McDermott, the first American to win the U.S. Open — 1911 and ’12 — because he beat other Americans.)

The stateside players in the field when Ouimet won knew exactly what it would mean to beat English stars. Before the tournament started at The Country Club, the “veteran” McDermott (he was only 21, having won his first U.S. Open at 19 — still the youngest ever winner) was approached by a 20-year-old newcomer who introduced himself thusly: “I’m Walter Hagen, from Rochester, and I’ve come to help you boys take care of Vardon and Ray.”

Harry Vardon won his sixth (still the record) and final Open Championship in 1914, at Prestwick. Nine days later, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, leading to what was afterward called the Great War and eventually dubbed World War I. Vardon’s win capped a 20-year streak of dominance at the Open by the Great Triumvirate, which included himself, Englishman John Henry (J.H.) Taylor (five wins) and Scotsman James Braid (five wins). In all, the trio racked up 16 of 20 Opens beginning in 1894. Once the war began, however, the Open closed between 1915 and 1920.

The U.S. didn’t enter the hostilities until April 1917. The gap between the start of war in Europe and the U.S. entrance into it meant Hagen was gaining tourney experience while nearly everyone in Britain was engaged in the war effort. Hagen won the 1914 U.S. Open (while canceling a tryout with the Philadelphia Phillies) and made the semis of the first PGA Championship (1916). With the U.S. having avoided the brunt of the war, golf in the states picked up in 1919, and Hagen was again U.S. Open champ.

Farther south, in Georgia, Bobby Jones was inching his way onto the scene. In 1916, he won the Georgia Amateur (at age 14) and made it to the Elite Eight of the U.S. Am at Merion.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the “Great War” ended. The Open rebooted in 1920 (champ: Scot George Duncan at Royal Cinque Ports). Jones signed on for 1921, the first year Americans turned out in significant numbers for the tournament. Because no U.S. player had ever won the Open, the circulation director of the U.S. version of Golf Illustrated had the idea to conduct a public subscription to fund travel to St. Andrews (the 1921 host venue) for 12 leading American pros. In the end, 11 (including Hagen and Jones) made the trip, and Jock Hutchison — born in St. Andrews but by this time a naturalized U.S. citizen — won the Open. He was the first “American” to do so.

The first meeting of Bobby Jones and the Old Course during that late June of 1921 went famously bad. During the third round, Jones — 19 years old and on his first trip abroad — picked up on the 11th hole and tore his scorecard into pieces. He finished the round and played the fourth, but was DQ’d once he pocketed his ball. Contemporary accounts reveal Jones had large galleries and that the Scots loved watching him play. But they had no truck with his quitting, and he let it be known he thought the Old Course was a dog track.

On June 27, many British papers ran a small notice under the headline “Americans Return Home.”

So they did, for New York City aboard the Cunard Line’s Aquitania. The group consisted of Mr. Bobby Jones, Mr. Chick Evans, Dr. Paul Hunter and Walter Hagen. [Editor’s note: Hagen was not an amateur, so no “Mr.” for him.] They informed a Press Association representative that they found British putting greens very difficult indeed, and that their failure was largely due to their taking so many strokes on greens whose intricacies they could not master.

Despite the disappointment, Hagen and Jones would be back — soon.

Prize money was puny in professional golf for a long time. Hagen won $300 for his 1914 U.S. Open victory. (Vardon pocketed £50 for his Open win the same year.) “The Haig” quickly recognized that exhibitions were the way to make real dough as a pro golfer, and he became a regular in Britain and beyond.

Among the first to recognize Hagen as one to watch was England’s Harold H. Hilton. (The H was for Horsfall.) With a cigarette dangling dashingly from his lips, Hilton collected trophies at the 1892 and ’87 Open Championships, the 1900, ’01, ’11, and ’13 Amateur Championships and the 1911 U.S. Amateur. He was the first player to win both Amateurs in the same year. Had it not been for World War I and the stoppage of play, Hilton would be a household name even to this day. Instead, in 1922, he signed on as editor of the UK version of Golf Illustrated and a correspondent for The Evening Standard. When Hagen arrived for the Open at St. George’s in Sandwich in 1922, he was very much on Hilton’s radar.

“Who will win the Open Golf Championship at Sandwich next week?” wrote Hilton in the Standard on June 17, 1922. His answer was not Hagen, who according to Hilton “… was not very successful in his two attempts on links on the coastline, tending to confirm the contention which not a few put forth, that Hagen, having been brought up on courses of an inland nature, is more likely to show his best on such a class of links than upon a true seaside course.” Hilton cautioned, however, that Hagen’s friends said, “Watch out for Walter; he is the best player by strokes in the States, and when he is once in the lead, the others have a job to get it away from him.”

A week later, The Evening Standard reported: “A sunburnt young man, wearing a grey suit and a straw hat with a black and white band, walked up No. 11 platform, Waterloo Station, early today with the Open Golf Championship in his pocket and the cup in a case about a foot and a half high. He was Walter Hagen, returning to America….”

Hagen’s win at St. George’s put to rest the idea that the best U.S. players couldn’t win on Britain’s most demanding links and opened the floodgates for the Open to become golf’s most international of events. He was runner-up the following year at Troon by a single stroke to England’s Arthur Havers, the last non-U.S. winner until 1934. Hagen was Arnold Palmer before television. He wore colorful clothing compared to the boring tweeds of golf’s early champions, and he always appeared at ease, no matter the pressure. Wrote Hilton of Hagen: “When watching him play, I had not the slightest idea that I was being impressed. It was only after I had left him, and had time to think the day’s proceedings over, that I realized how well the American was performing.”

There were three more Claret Jugs in the Haig’s future (Hoylake, 1924; St. George’s again, ’28; and Muirfield, ’29), and Jones got in on the act in 1926 (Lytham & St. Anne’s), 1927 (St. Andrews) and 1930 (Hoylake). Hagen and Jones set the pace for U.S. winners at the Open (and the Scots came to revere Jones after his spasm of immaturity in 1921). If Jones’ wins in the U.S. and British Amateurs are included in his majors tally, he (13) and Hagen (11) are third and fourth all time, ahead of everyone not named Nicklaus or Woods.

To what degree U.S. players owned the 1920s and early ’30s at the Open following the war, truth told, is debatable. Jim Barnes (1925, Prestwick) was English but had lived in the U.S. for many years. Tommy Armour, who won in 1931 at Carnoustie, was born in Edinburgh and served in the Black Watch during the Great War but lived most of his life in America. Gene Sarazen was born in New York and “invented” the sand wedge the same year he won the Open (1932, at Prince’s), and Denny Shute (1933, St. Andrews) was Ohio-born.

Incorporating Hutchison, Barnes and Armour into the U.S. mix, there were 12 American winners in 13 years. Exclude those three, and the international growth of the Open remains apparent.

As tends to happen, in the blink of an eye it was all over. Jones retired in 1930 after winning the Grand Slam. Hagen’s win in 1929 at the Open was his last major. Fewer Americans showed up in Britain because travel was arduous, and the prize money remained insignificant. Johnny Bulla, a wonderful and largely forgotten U.S. player, finished second to Dick Burton in the 1939 Open. Two months after Burton won, Hitler’s armies began their subjugation of the European continent. The Open was paused again for yet another “Great War” — this time for six years. When the championship resumed in 1946, it began to fully blossom as the world’s most alluring event. As the Americans did following World War I, a burgeoning crop of international players put their stamp on the Open. The years 1949 to 1965 were dominated by players outside the UK and U.S.A. Between Bobby Locke (South Africa), Peter Thomson (Australia), Kel Nagle (Australia), Gary Player (South Africa) and Bob Charles (New Zealand), international players won 12 times in 17 years. Eventually, other Open winners emerged from around the globe: Argentina, Spain, Ireland, Sweden and Italy.

In the middle of all that, of course, was Arnold Palmer, who traveled to St. Andrews for the Centenary Open in 1960. Even the R&A felt the luster of the Open had dulled — and welcomed “Arnie” with, ahem, “Open” arms. Palmer finished second to Nagle but returned to win in 1961 at Royal Birkdale and 1962 at Royal Troon. He’d relit the beacon. Not long after, from 1970 to 1983, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf and Bill Rogers ran up the best-ever U.S. run at the Open: 12 wins in 14 years.

The Open, it seems, never stops evolving as the world championship. But it was Hagen and Jones who pushed the shift of the Open from a parochial gathering to an international happening. Well played, sirs.

The post Hello, world! How the Open Championship became golf’s ultimate international event appeared first on Golf.

The post Jean van de Velde on his teaching gig, Open heartbreak and Open records appeared first on Golf.

The post Jean van de Velde on his teaching gig, Open heartbreak and Open records appeared first on Golf.

Frenchman Jean van de Velde will forever be known for the three-shot lead he squandered on the 18th hole of the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 1999, but now he’s content in his full-time job as a golf instructor.

GOLF: You’ve played a handful of times on the European Senior Tour since turning 50, but what takes up your time?

Jean van de Velde: I always loved being a teacher. When you play, you don’t have much time to learn, but I have always been fascinated by the mechanics of the game. We opened up a huge facility in Paris near the airport to teach, and I’m down here at Punta Mita, Mexico at the Four Seasons golf course most of the year helping others…

GOLF: Would JVDV the teacher have helped JVDV the pro golfer?

Jean van de Velde: Yes, without a doubt. Teaching brings a lot of things back to the table and you say, why didn’t I do that before when I was playing? When you have a scorecard in your pocket and a pencil in your hand it’s a different deal, but you learn so much more as a teacher.

GOLF: How does teaching mainly amateurs compare with playing professional golf for a living which you did for so long?

JVDV: One thing we all enjoy with members and kids or guests is we share the same passion about the game. We can just enjoy each other’s company and play golf. It doesn’t matter if we are at the same level or not. I’ve played very little since I turned 55. One of the reasons I stopped in 2011, is I didn’t want to play 21-25-30 times abroad. I might play a little more on the European legends tour, we’ll see, but you’ll never see me join it.

GOLF: Do you watch the Open Championship when it comes on TV?

JVDV: I watch the last rounds of the Masters, Ryder Cup, and the Open Championship. Without a doubt, I always see them.

GOLF: Does it hurt you to watch the Open Championship or do you enjoy it?

JVDV: Why would it hurt me? At the end of the day, what a wonderful experience. The result was not what I wanted it to be, but at the end of 72 holes, nobody beat me. We had a playoff to break a tie. I’ve talked about it a million times. It’s didn’t hurt me, but I can only talk for myself. Maybe it hurt others.

GOLF: Is there something about your golf career you think gets overlooked?

JVDV: Putting is something I know how to do. In 149 Open Championships the record for putting on 72 holes is 101 putts. You know who holds that? Me.

The post Jean van de Velde on his teaching gig, Open heartbreak and Open records appeared first on Golf.

The post Vessel launches limited-edited 150th Open Collection for select bags, duffels appeared first on Golf.

The post Vessel launches limited-edited 150th Open Collection for select bags, duffels appeared first on Golf.

As Open Championship week draws closer, that means limited edition Open-centric gear drops are on the way — like this one from Vessel.

In partnership with The Open, the luxury bag company on Thursday launched a limited edited 150th Open Collection to commemorate the 150th playing of the oldest major in golf, which starts a week from today at the Old Course in St. Andrews.

The design incorporates The Open’s signature colors and the iconic claret jug.

The collection includes Vessel’s Prime Staff Bag, Player III Stand Bag, VLX Stand Bag, Signature 2.0 Garment Duffel and Signature 2.0 Toiletry Bag.

But you have to act fast, as an extremely limited number of products will be available to the public. There will be 200 of every item, although the Player III Stand Bag will have 350 for sale. Everything will be numbered 1 to 200 or 1 to 350.

The items go live at 1 p.m. ET today (July 7), which is when prices will be available. You can check them out at the link below, and browse more great golf gear in GOLF’s Pro Shop here.

Vessel 150th Open Collection

In partnership with The Open, luxury bag company Vessel has launched a limited edited 150th Open Collection to commemorate the 150th playing of the oldest major in golf.

$TBA from www.vesselstore.com

The post Vessel launches limited-edited 150th Open Collection for select bags, duffels appeared first on Golf.

The post These 3 clubs can help make you a master of links golf appeared first on Golf.

The post These 3 clubs can help make you a master of links golf appeared first on Golf.

It’s that time again, the Open Championship is on the horizon, and this year not only marks the 150th playing, but it is taking place at the home of golf — the Old Course at St Andrews, Scotland.

Firm and fast ground with a golden brown tint might not be the norm for golf in North America, but links golf is the true original format of the game and requires playing in some unique conditions. Whether you’re a professional or just an amateur golfer looking to make the pilgrimage to golf’s version of Mecca, links golf demands creativity not commonly called upon in a parkland setting, and having a few different clubs in your bag can make navigating the terrain just a little bit easier.

Driving iron/Low lofted hybrid

As they say, nay(no) wind, nay rain, nay golf — so as you might expect playing links golf along the coast is going to bring in some elements from mother nature. Being able to keep the ball low and running along the ground helps you reduce one more variable you have to worry about when hitting a shot, and it can be useful well inside 100 yards. 

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to use a low-lofted hybrid both off the tee and approaching greens, look no further than the textbook examples Todd Hamilton employed to win the 2004 Open Championship at Troon in a playoff against Ernie Els. He navigated himself around with a 17° Sonartec MD hybrid bent all the way down to 14° allowing it to serve as his 3-wood and impromptu chipper.

The wide sole and low loft make it difficult to chunk when around the greens and, when hit with a putting stroke, gets the ball rolling quickly. 

Low bounce lob wedge

Links golf doesn’t require a complete overhaul to your short game, but firm and fast turf makes it more difficult to not only take a divot but chip and pitch around the green if you are used to playing in softer conditions.

The one club you will see a lot of pros switch out during the Open Championship is their lob wedge to a lower bounce option which helps get the leading edge of the club lower to the ground. A lower leading edge in firm conditions allows for an aggressive approach to the ball without the fear of hitting the dreaded skulled wedge that travels well past than intended target — hey, we’ve all done it.

Some great examples of low-bounce wedges you can find on the market are the Titleist Vokey Low Bounce K-Grind which offers a low bounce angle with a wider sole, and the Vokey T-Grind which offers low bounce and a thinner sole for those that want a bit more versatility in shot selection. The Callaway Jaws Raw Z-Grind, and the TaylorMade MG3 LB also make for great options.

Beyond a lob wedge, your standard gap wedge and sand wedge will work without issue for their intended purpose, but it’s always a good idea to spend a bit more time around that practice green before heading out to play.

Adjustable driver / Fairway woods

This one is easy, and it’s more than likely you already have this in your bag. 

Adjustable drivers and fairway woods offer you the opportunity to fine-tune your ball flight for your swing and the conditions you might find yourself in, including at altitude. In the case of playing in windy conditions on firm turf like those found playing links golf, a lower launch angle with less spin is going to be more ideal than trying to simply optimize carry distance. A few clicks with a wrench is a lot easier than trying to make a swing change on the go.

(Not a club) but a golf ball switch

An honorable mention goes to changing out your golf ball for one that is designed to spin less and apex lower through its flight. As is the running theme for all the aforementioned club choices — being able to flight the ball lower can help increase accuracy and get you closer to the hole more often.

The post These 3 clubs can help make you a master of links golf appeared first on Golf.

The post Who’s got a shot? An early look at the Open Championship betting favorites (with help from experts) appeared first on Golf.

The post Who’s got a shot? An early look at the Open Championship betting favorites (with help from experts) appeared first on Golf.

Nick Faldo did it. Ditto Sam Snead and Seve Ballesteros. Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus pulled off the trick twice.

Time after time, when golf’s oldest championship has come to the Old Course, the game’s biggest names have come out on top.

Except when they haven’t. John Daly and Zach Johnson both claimed the Claret Jug at St. Andrews. In 2010, Louis Oosthuizen ran off with the title by seven shots.

If anything is clear from the historical record, it’s that anything can happen at the home of golf, which has hosted the Open more often than any other venue. Of all the majors, the Open Championship is perhaps the least unpredictable, so let’s take a shot at it — with the help of an A-list architect, a top Tour coach, a handicapper and a past champ.

UNDERSTANDING THE DESIGN

At first glance, the course could be mistaken for an open field, fringed by wispy grasses, with little in the way of elevation change. But what you see isn’t what you get at a course that Scottish-born golf architect David McLay Kidd calls “the most nuanced on earth.”

Never mind the lack of dramatic ups and downs. The terrain isn’t flat. It’s a wonderland of humps and hollows, brimming with blind shots and quirky bounces. The subtleties, tough to puzzle out when you’re playing the course, are even harder to appreciate on television.

“[The Old Course] is completely contrary to what I would call American golf, in that it’s not a visual extravaganza,” Kidd says. Attacking it, he says, requires a leap of faith and a measure of acceptance. On many holes, you must choose a line and trust it, avoiding hidden-from-view hazards, knowing that your ball won’t stop where it lands. Idiosyncrasies abound. Take the par-4 17th, the fabled “Road Hole,” with its daunting tee shot pinched on the right and a green-side bunker that does to balls what black holes do to galactic matter.

“It’s such a weird and twisted hole that I’d get shot if I tried to build it today,” Kidd says. That it makes sense at the Old Course tells you something crucial about this year’s Open venue.

“You can spend a lifetime here,” Kidd says, “and not figure out its intricacies.”

HANDICAPPING THE EVENT

If you’ve won the green jacket, do you have a better crack at the Claret Jug? As a golf handicapper, Brady Kannon looks hard at recent form. But he also scrutinizes the historical record, searching for patterns in player performance. Something he’s noticed: “Guys who’ve done well at Augusta have tended to do well at the Old Course too.”

And not just guys like Nicklaus, Ballesteros, Woods and Faldo, whose games stacked up well anywhere they pegged it. Consider Zach Johnson. Or Louis Oosthuizen, who came within a whisker of adding the Masters to his list of major wins.

“Marc Leishman and Jason Day are a couple of other guys who have good records at both,” says Kannon, who cohosts Long Shots, a PGA Tour betting show on the VSiN radio network.

Perhaps it’s only fitting. In designing Augusta, Alister MacKenzie drew inspiration from the Old Course. Or perhaps that tie only goes so far. Where the greens at Augusta National are lightning fast and heaving, they are relatively flat and slow around St. Andrews.

“At the Open, I probably place less emphasis on putting than I do at any other event,” Kannon says. “Generally, I think the lack of speed on the greens brings everyone into play.”

Who, then, stands out? Given that wind can be a big disruptor, Kannon leans toward low-ball hitters. “I’ll be looking at some of the younger guys, like Joaquin Niemann and Daniel Berger,” he says. And he’s already placed a bet on a wily veteran.

“Unlike Augusta, the Old Course is an easy walk, so that won’t be an issue,” Kannon says. He’s got Tiger at 50:1.

MASTERING THE MENTAL GAME

Every Tour pro can control his ball, but none can control the weather. That’s worth remembering at the Open, where fate can be determined by tee time alone.

“More than any other tournament, you can have no chance based on being on the wrong side of the draw,” says coach Claude Harmon III. Sure, it helps to shape your shots, just as it pays to have a sound grasp of the ground game. But, Harmon says, “most players these days are so good and so adaptable, they can adjust quickly and play anywhere.”

Nor do many players modify their games much when they touch down across the pond.

“You’ll see creative shots, but, at the elite Tour level, these guys have so much skill and confidence, they’re pretty much going to show up and do what they do,” Harmon says.

Gone is the era of Open specialists whose games seemed uniquely suited to the test. Of today’s stars, Harmon says Jordan Spieth would appear to fit the profile, given his creativity. “And it’s no surprise that he’s been an Open champion.”

On the other hand, Harmon says, “Rory McIlroy hasn’t dominated historically the way you think he would.” No wonder forecasting can feel like folly. If there’s one metric that matters above all, Harmon says, it’s the mental game.

“It’s as much about patience and mindset as anything,” he says. “You’ve got to understand that you are going to hit some good shots that wind up in some bad places.”

That’s one of the things Harmon’s father, famed coach Butch Harmon, did to help Phil Mickelson win the 2013 Open. “He encouraged him to embrace the randomness.”

FINDING THE RIGHT STUFF

Zach Johnson has played in three Open Championships on the Old Course. In each of those events, the winners carried 14 clubs in their bags.

“Otherwise,” Johnson says, “we had nothing in common.”

That diversity reflects the beauty of a course that favors no one. People often say you need to hit it low. And you do, Johnson says, though at times it helps to launch it. And you also have to know how to fade and draw it. Your wedges must be sharp. Long irons too.

“Whatever you do poorly, the course will expose it,” Johnson says.

You can try to plan. It’s one way to make the golf gods chuckle. No strategy makes sense until you know what the wind is doing.

“The advice you always hear is to hit it left because you’re better off left going out and coming in,” Johnson says. But, if the gusts are blowing at a force and direction you weren’t expecting, you’ve got to be prepared to manufacture something else. A stout par 4 on Thursday might be drivable on Sunday.

The one consistent truth is that the greens “are slow and firm” compared to most Tour venues. Often, Johnson says, “the fairways are faster, and so you have to adjust.” The winning formula, he says, is “imagination” and the athleticism to “pull off any shot under any condition.”

If he had to pick a winner — why not? — he’d pick himself. “It’s always been my favorite course anywhere, and, now, coming back after winning, I can’t wait.”

WHAT THE GOLF GURUS SAY

Under the veil of anonymity, GOLF staffers picked their front-runners for the 2022 Open. Here, in order of top vote-getters, are some hopefuls and hot takes.

JON RAHM. “Not only will he win at the Old Course, I’ll tell you how: by draining a birdie on the 72nd hole, following in the footsteps of his country-man, Seve Ballesteros.”

JORDAN SPIETH. “The game’s ultimate grinder has always played well at the Open, where creativity and will is of the utmost importance. There’s lots to like about his game this summer too.”

JUSTIN THOMAS. “At Southern Hills, he fought off a storm of self-doubt to finally win his second major. Fitting for a guy who — take note — is among the game’s best in foul weather.”

TIGER WOODS. “A two-month break from the PGA will do his aching body a world of good — as will the Old Course’s flat terrain. Time for the game’s preeminent iron player to shine again.”

MATTHEW FITZPATRICK. “The Brit has been playing lights out in the States (oh yeah, and just won a U.S. Open). Familiar UK conditions could be just what he needs to keep the momentum going.”

VIKTOR HOVLAND. “An elite driver of the ball who, at St. Andrews, won’t need to worry too much about his substandard chipping game.”

SHANE LOWRY. “He’s quietly turned into one of golf’s most consistent performers, especially in difficult weather. He’s also finished inside the top 25 in five of his last six majors.”

CAMERON SMITH. “Brilliant short game, and he keeps knocking on the door. It’s gotta Open soon, right?”

The post Who’s got a shot? An early look at the Open Championship betting favorites (with help from experts) appeared first on Golf.

The post GOLF’s Subpar: What Carlos Ortiz has learned from his past Major preparation appeared first on Golf.

The post GOLF’s Subpar: What Carlos Ortiz has learned from his past Major preparation appeared first on Golf.

Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by PGA Tour winner Carlos Ortiz who shares what he has learned from the mistakes he’s made preparing for Majors.

—

This week’s episode is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. If you’ve never tried FanDuel Sportsbook, what are you waiting for? Go to https://www.fanduel.com/subpar or download the FanDuel Sportsbook app to get started. Be sure to sign up with promo code SUBPAR so they know we sent you.

Disclaimer: must be 21+ and present in AZ, CT, NJ, or NY. First online real money wager only. Refund issued as non-withdrawable site credit that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-(888)-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), or 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), or 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY(467369) (NY).

The post GOLF’s Subpar: What Carlos Ortiz has learned from his past Major preparation appeared first on Golf.

The post Why Brandel Chamblee picked Collin Morikawa to win the Open — five days ago appeared first on Golf.

The post Why Brandel Chamblee picked Collin Morikawa to win the Open — five days ago appeared first on Golf.

Collin Morikawa’s second major championship victory at Royal St. George’s — in his Open Championship debut! — was a surprise to many, but not Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee.

In fact, Chamblee picked Morikawa as his favorite to win the tournament during Golf Central’s “Live from the Open” show on the Wednesday before the Open began.

News

“This golf course has a darn good record at picking the best ballstriker in the game,” Chamblee said. “It did it eons ago with Harry Vardon and Henry Cotton. It certainly did it with Greg Norman in 1993. It’s likely going to do it again this week. Collin Morikawa is the best ballstriker in the game. Since strokes gained metrics came about in 2004, there’s only been one player who’s ever finished a season gaining more than a stroke and a half over his peers with his iron play: 1.5, that’s the number.”

Chamblee then referred to a strokes gained graphic, which featured notable seasons in terms of the strokes gained: approach metric.

“If you look at that, Tiger Woods did it in 2006. You see who was second: Adam Scott,” Chamblee continued. “Ernie Els was second to Tiger Woods in 2007 — incidentally Tiger won the Open in 2006. In 2013 it was Stewart Cink. Look at the difference in there. And why that is notable is because Collin Morikawa, like Tiger Woods, is picking up more than a stroke and a half over his companions, or his peers, with his iron play. And there’s a huge difference. Collin Morikawa is also, unlike Tiger, an extremely straight driver. He was second in fairways hit at the PGA, second in fairways hit at the U.S. Open. And week in and week out, it just does not disappoint him. He just needs to putt average. And he will, like Ben Curtis, win the very first Open Championship that he plays in.”

A savvy prediction indeed! As it turned out, Morikawa’s putting was better than average, and ended up being his most impressive statistic of the week. He led the field (along with Ian Poulter and Jazz Janewattananond) with an average of 27.75 putts per round. By contrast, runner-up Jordan Spieth ranked 6th, with an average of 28.25. Louis Oosthuizen was 14th, with an average of 29.

You can check out Chamblee’s full remarks below.

The post Why Brandel Chamblee picked Collin Morikawa to win the Open — five days ago appeared first on Golf.

The post Louis Oosthuizen’s major play won’t get the appreciation it deserves appeared first on Golf.

The post Louis Oosthuizen’s major play won’t get the appreciation it deserves appeared first on Golf.

On Sunday at the Open Championship, as Collin Morikawa began to separate himself from the field, I wondered for a moment if Louis Oosthuizen would rather come in third than second, thus avoiding the agony of another runner-up finish.

It was mostly a silly thought and the thought of someone who thinks and writes about this sort of thing far too often. To Oosthuizen, the only added “agony” of a runner-up would be some extra questions about winning and the heartbreak of a near-miss. He’d get those anyway. But in a golf tournament, we too often forget that second place is preferable to every other position except first. And it pays accordingly. Oosthuizen could buy several new tractors with the paycheck difference between second and third.

Louis Oosthuizen is not a choke artist. Let’s start there, to get it out of the way. He began Sunday’s finale at the Open Championship with a one-stroke lead, he played lackluster golf and he did not win the tournament. He has done similar things before. But he did finish T3, marking another spectacular major showing from the 38-year-old. The fact that his Sunday showing is considered a failure is another reminder that we’re not very good at thinking about this sort of thing. It should be a reminder that we can celebrate his terrific showings while still wondering what might have been.

News

At the last three major championships, this is the list of players who have beaten Louis Oosthuizen:

Phil Mickelson
Jon Rahm
Collin Morikawa
Jordan Spieth

Not a shabby list. While we’re at it, here are the male golfers under the age of 50 who have more runner-up finishes at majors than Oosthuizen:

Tiger Woods

That’s it. That’s the list. Woods has seven runner-up finishes. Oosthuizen has six. After Sunday’s T3, he has two bronze medals to go with the six silvers. But in professional golf, we keep track of winners. With the exception of Tokyo in a couple weeks, we don’t do medals. (We do do money, every week.) And so the King Louis-as-bridesmaid narrative continues, accurate but underappreciative.

Oosthuizen remains a joy to watch on golf’s biggest stages. While his short game has become his calling card of late, newcomers to the Oosty Show typically fall in love with his swing first. Paul Azinger called it syrupy. David Feherty described it as “like watching a door opening and closing.” What they’re getting at is the fact that a man who might challenge 5-foot-10 can move a club so efficiently that he can pound drives with a shockingly simple move.

His effortless power used to propel Oosthuizen higher on the long-drive charts. In 2015 he ranked 31st on Tour in driving distance — but 146th in Strokes Gained: Putting. This season he’s down to 94th in driving distance, but entered the week leading the Tour in SG: Putting and 10th around the greens. He has evolved to short-game wizard. His renaissance has been special to watch.

On this particular Sunday, Oosthuizen’s swing looked solid. He hit 10 of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens. But his misses were roundly punished and he couldn’t match the effortless scoring of his first two days nor the stripe-show put on by Morikawa, his playing partner.

It was no shock Oosthuizen didn’t come out of the gates hot; the first six holes are a tough stretch where he’d made just one birdie through three rounds. When he made bogey to Morikawa’s par at No. 4, the lead was tied. No problem — game on.

But Oosthuizen’s bogey at 7, a par-5 that the rest of the field was eating alive, marked a huge blow to his chances. One pairing ahead, Spieth and Corey Conners both made eagle. In his own group, Morikawa made birdie. Then Morikawa birdied the next, too. The gap was suddenly three.

Oosthuizen didn’t go away. He issued a reminder of his deadliness with a golf club at No. 11, a 253-yard par-3, where he striped an iron directly at the flag. So directly, in fact, that it hit the pin, glanced off to a few feet and set up his first birdie of the day. It wouldn’t be enough.

After his win, Morikawa took a moment to gush about Oosthuizen’s game and his general way of being.

“Louis is an outright amazing player and person. I hope I get more pairings with him because he’s just a great guy to play with,” he said. “Just everything about his tempo. It’s nice to see another guy just stripe it down the middle. I mean, when I watch him play and hit his drives, I’m like, ‘Wow, I want to hit it like that.’

“Yeah, Louis is consistent, he really is. He’s going to keep knocking at these doors, and I’m sure he’s going to knock a few more down. He’s just too good.”

Let’s review Oosthuizen’s quote-unquote “losses” at the last three majors of the year. The first came at the hands of Phil Mickelson, an all-time great who cashed in his Destiny Coupon for a week at the PGA Championship. The next came when Jon Rahm, the world’s best golfer, needed to make bombs on each of the last two holes of the U.S. Open to edge him out. And the third came on Sunday, when a generational irons player with a newfound putting stroke and a resurgent Jordan Spieth took the top two spots on the podium. Sometimes you just get beat.

“Another second place, you know, I’ve got to take it,” he said after the PGA. “But I feel like I could have probably get two or three more shots out of my game.”

“I’m second again. No, look, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing,” he said after the U.S. Open. “I played good today, but I didn’t play good enough.”

On Sunday at The Open, Oosthuizen didn’t speak to the media after his round. He sent out a tweet, congratulating Morikawa and poking fun at another near-miss. Sometimes there’s just not much more to say, anyway.

It’s natural to wonder when players come this close how it might affect them when they leave the course. Oosthuizen’s heartbreak is no media invention; he’s acknowledged himself just how badly he wants another major win. But he also seems almost uniquely situated to deal with the near-misses. His farm in Ocala, Fla., seems like an oasis. When he’s on the road in the States, he stays in the same RV every week. He exists in a bunker of stability and simple comfort. And after a disappointing result, he can truly get away.

“I just spend time on the farm with the family, with the kids, and just get my head away from golf completely,” he said after his opening round. Oosthuizen’s happy place is with his family — and his toys.

“I’m always on the tractor, don’t worry,” he added, glint in his eye. “I don’t need to play good or bad to be on the tractor.”

If Oosthuizen hasn’t found the secret code to closing out golf tournaments, he seems to take solace in the fact that he has everything else pretty well handled.

When Spieth finishes second, as he did on Sunday, there’s perhaps more fanfare but less long-term concern that he’s missed an opportunity. Partly that’s a function of age; Spieth is 27 while Oosthuizen is 38. But it’s also because Oosthuizen still somehow keeps sneaking up on us at majors. His performances can feel like statistical anomalies; he’s a strong player in other events but he’s not this good. Even the folks in Las Vegas price Oosthuizen like they expect an inevitable regression to the mean. How can he keep playing like the best golfer in the world only when the pressure is highest? So we feel for him, both because his misses are so near and because future chances seem less guaranteed.

But if there’s anything to be learned from King Louis perhaps we should learn it from the man himself. On Saturday, pressed on his laid-back demeanor, a reporter asked if there is anything that gets him worked up. He cited a pull-hook 5-iron he’d hit just 45 minutes before. “It was the wrong club. It was the wrong choice I made, and I hate making wrong decisions,” he said. How ’bout other stuff, off the course? Waiting in traffic?

“Everyone gets worked up on stuff like that. I mean, little things. Just chill.”

In other words, don’t worry about Louis Oosthuizen. He’s doing just fine, thanks. He’s controlling what he can. And he’ll be back.

The post Louis Oosthuizen’s major play won’t get the appreciation it deserves appeared first on Golf.