Josh Allen? Patrick Mahomes? Jalen Hurts? This year’s MVP race is heating up, but who has the early edge?
At Big East media day, Andy Katz talks with Shaheen Holloway about his 2022 Cinderella run with Saint Peter’s and how he’ll ty to replicate a deep tournament run now coaching his alma mater Seton Hall.
Scottie Scheffler’s last putter switch paid quick dividends. He won in his first start with a new Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS prototype, then rolled off three more wins in his next five starts, including the Masters, to reach world No. 1. Surely, Scheffler hopes his latest switch leads to such quick success. The reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year has a new flatstick in the bag at this week’s THE CJ CUP in South Carolina, his first individual tournament since finishing second at the TOUR Championship in August. “I typically don’t like changing equipment at all, but I’ve been using (the new putter) now for probably two, three weeks,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “Late in the year I putted what felt like to me pretty poorly, I was really streaky. I was trying a few different things and that’s not really a way to improve when you’re kind of, felt like I was kind of blindly throwing darts just trying to find something. Sometimes I was lining the ball up, sometimes I wasn’t.” The new putter that Scheffler has in the bag this week is a new Scotty Cameron T-5.5 Proto mallet putter. The mallet is a departure from the style that Scheffler has used in recent years, but it reminds him of the style that he used during a successful junior career that included a victory at the U.S. Junior Amateur. Why the drastic change? “For me it’s just really easy to line up, I feel like I’m more consistent with it,” Scheffler said of the new putter. “I feel like my ceiling’s still the same. I can get hot with the putter and make a ton of putts, but I felt like my floor was a little too low last year, so hopefully this will be one of those deals that will kind of raise the floor.” At last month’s Presidents Cup, Scheffler was seen getting putting tips from U.S. Captain’s Assistant Steve Stricker and working past sunset with his longtime coach, Randy Smith, on Quail Hollow’s putting green. “I definitely was frustrated with how I was rolling it at the Presidents Cup,” Scheffler said. “I wasn’t hitting my lines. I couldn’t get comfortable over the ball.” As Scotty Cameron tour rep Brad Cloke explains it, Scheffler was recently practicing at home with an older Scotty Cameron Futura T5W mallet putter that the company had sent him years ago. Feeling that the T5W putter was helping him start the ball on-line more consistently, Scheffler asked Cloke last week for an updated version of the putter. Scotty Cameron then built Scheffler a new prototype of the Phantom X T-5.5 putter, which has a single black line on the top-line and two white lines on the back flange, just like the T5W putter Scheffler practiced with at home. For further customization, Scheffler’s new putter also has custom “Grinder” and “S.S.” stampings on the outer toe and heel portions, and it comes with deeper face milling marks, helping soften the feel and acoustics to match his previous GSS blade putter. Cloke said the size and stability of the Phantom’s mallet head are likely what helped Scheffler start the ball on his intended line more often. “I think the key takeaway, though, was just getting it lined up better for him, and framing it a little better than the blade,” Cloke told GolfWRX on Tuesday. While the putter switch may seem surprising after winning four times in 2022, Scheffler actually recorded negative Strokes Gained: Putting stats in six of his previous nine events where the stat was measured (the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship did not report Strokes Gained: Putting stats). Scheffler finished the 2022 season ranked fourth in both Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green but was 58th in Strokes Gained: Putting. A new putter could help Scheffler get on another hot streak like the one we saw in the spring, though. We’ll have to wait until Thursday to see if the putter officially gets the call-up into competition, but if it does, another string of victories could be in store for the world No. 1.
You don’t hook a guy in the right rear at speed. It doesn’t matter if you’re Bubba Wallace, Dale Earnhardt or Junior Johnson. You. Just. Don’t. Do it.
NEW YORK CITY – Skratch and Mastercard today announced a two-part series documenting the journey of APGA Tour Player of the Year Kamaiu Johnson – who won the inaugural Mastercard APGA Player Achievement Award in 2022 and with it an exemption to play on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, beginning in December. Over six episodes, ‘Relentless Pursuit’ will follow Johnson as he competes on the APGA for the award, prepares for PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and eventually finds out whether he is able to keep eligibility status or qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour and continue the path to the PGA TOUR. “This past season on the APGA Tour was a dream come true and I’m incredibly grateful to have received the Mastercard APGA Player Achievement Award, giving me the opportunity to compete on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica,” remarked Johnson. “I’ve worked extremely hard to have an opportunity like this and I’m excited to share my story through the ‘Relentless Pursuit’ series. Support like this is incredibly important to all of us out on the APGA Tour as we hope to share our stories and provide inspiration to the next generation of minority golfers.” The APGA Tour was established in 2010 as a non-profit organization with a mission to bring greater diversity to the game of golf. The Mastercard APGA Player Achievement Award is an initiative to promote the top performer from the APGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Player Development Program, a 12-member subset of the APGA Tour focused on developing minority golfers who have shown success on the APGA Tour and who support its mission. Johnson earned the award after winning the 2022 Mastercard APGA Tour Championship to earn the top spot in the Player Development Program in 2022. He also captured a $50,000 first place prize from the event’s $150,000 purse, each the largest in APGA Tour history. The 29-year-old has four APGA titles in the last three years and has competed in events on the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour. The Mastercard APGA Player Achievement Award will provide Johnson with financial support to play on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, which tees off December 1-4, 2022 at the 116 Visa Argentine Open presented by Macro in Buenos Aires, Argentina followed by the Neuquen Argentine Classic in Chapelco, Argentina before moving to Santiago, Chile from December 15-18 for the Scotia Wealth Management Chile Open presented by Volvo. “Mastercard is focused on creating an equitable and inclusive society, including a commitment to increasing diverse representation,” said Rustom Dastoor, Executive Vice President, Marketing & Communications, North America at Mastercard. “Together with the APGA and Skratch, we are proud to highlight the stories of APGA players, in addition to providing unforgettable opportunities and resources to support their personal and professional development.” A teaser for the first season was released earlier today on Skratch’s social channels including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The first episode will launch tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 20 and will feature Johnson winning the 2022 Mastercard APGA Tour Championship followed by the release of the second episode on November 2 which will include an appearance from 2022 PGA TOUR Rookie of Year Cameron Young. Season 2 will be released in 2023. “We are excited to work with Mastercard to launch this series and highlight the incredible stories of the individuals playing on the APGA Tour,” said Skratch General Manager Sam Raeburn. “Skratch strives to support diversity in golf, attract a millennial audience and reach a more diverse fan base and we believe this series will do just that.”
Aaron and Austin Nola will face one another as pitcher and batter in Game 2 of the NLCS.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida – The PGA TOUR announced today that Cameron Young has been named the 2022 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year as voted by the TOUR’s membership for the 2021-22 season. Young, who made his Presidents Cup debut for the victorious U.S. Team in September, earned five runner-up finishes and ended his rookie season No. 19 in the FedExCup standings. Young, a 25-year-old native of Scarborough, New York, and a 2021 Korn Ferry Tour graduate, will receive the Arnold Palmer Award for winning Rookie of the Year. He was selected for the honor over Tom Kim and Sahith Theegala, receiving 94 percent of the membership vote. “Congratulations to Cameron Young on being voted PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year by his peers,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “Cameron’s career has seen a remarkable rise over the last several years, and he quickly became a favorite among fans last season with the style in which he attacks the golf course. And of course, given Cameron’s Wake Forest ties, receiving the Arnold Palmer Award as PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year will certainly hold a special significance for him.” Young’s runner-up finishes on the season came at the Sanderson Farms Championship, The Genesis Invitational, Wells Fargo Championship, The Open Championship and Rocket Mortgage Classic. With five second-place results, Young tied the most by any player in a single season over the last 40 years, with Vijay Singh in 2003 the last to accomplish the feat. Young also recorded a pair of T3s at the RBC Heritage and PGA Championship, falling one stroke out of a playoff in each. The nine players that finished ahead of Young in his seven top-three results are all currently ranked in the top 25 of the Official World Golf Ranking. Young, a 2019 graduate of Wake Forest University, and 2021 Arnold Palmer Award winner Will Zalatoris are the first pair from the same college to win Rookie of the Year honors in back-to-back seasons (est. 1990). The two played together for the Demon Deacons for two seasons and both earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors in those years (2016-17 and 2017-18). Arnold Palmer, the namesake of the award, won two individual NCAA Championship titles while at Wake Forest (1949, 1950). With $6,520,598 in Official Money in 2021-22, Young earned the most money in a single season by a rookie in PGA TOUR history, a record previously held by seven-time PGA TOUR winner and current World No. 6 Xander Schauffele ($4,312,674 in 2016-17). At No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking as of September 15, Young entered the 2022-23 PGA TOUR Season as the highest-ranked player without a victory in his PGA TOUR career. Scottie Scheffler was in that position at the start of last season and went on to win four times, including the Masters Tournament, and moved to World No. 1 on March 27, holding the top spot through the end of the season. Each of the last six players named PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year qualified for the 2022 TOUR Championship, with Xander Schauffele, Aaron Wise, Sungjae Im, Scheffler, Zalatoris and Young winning the award in their respective rookie seasons. With the exception of Zalatoris, who was No. 7 in the standings for the U.S. Team but withdrew his name from consideration for a captain’s pick due to a back injury, each of the last four competed in last month’s Presidents Cup. PGA TOUR members who played at least 15 official FedExCup events during the 2021-22 season were eligible to vote.
They might not have had a great debut, or even second or third-year campaign. But they’ve put in the work, and are poised for stardom in 2022-23.
No player goes 1-on-1 more than Luka Doncic. There are plenty of impressive reasons why.
Is Connor McDavid still No. 1? How high did Cale Makar climb? We count down to the top players for the upcoming season.
