DeChambeau finally opens up about caddie split

Brooks Koepka opened at 6-1 at Caesars sportsbook to capture next month’s U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

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Matt Wallace (+6600) … If you thought that Emiliano Grillo was an easy call as the most valuable Sleeper for the Valspar Championship – raises hand – then try the Englishman on for size. He’s 52nd in the Official World Golf Ranking and he enters with a solo third (Valero Texas Open) and a T18 (RBC Heritage) in his last two individual non-majors, but he’s connected five consecutive paydays for good measure. The 31-year-old also is an intriguing fit for Quail Hollow at 10th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and T19 in par-5 scoring. Matthew NeSmith (+12500) … The fact that this is his fourth appearance as a Sleeper this season is a good test on whether you see the glass half-full or half-empty, but there’s no room for pessimism here. The 27-year-old is in his second season and 74th in the FedExCup with seven top 25s, including a T21 at Valspar on Sunday. He ranks 14th on the PGA TOUR in total driving and leads in greens in regulation. His putting comes and goes, but he was in good form at Copperhead, finishing sixth in conversion percentage inside 10 feet. Seamus Power (+30000) … He and his partner, David Hearn, were positioned No. 10 in the Power Rankings for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, but that promise was extinguished when the 34-year-old Irishman tested positive for COVID-19. The duo was tracking from multiple angles, including Power’s modest form upon arrival. He had just finished T9 in the Korn Ferry Tour event in Las Vegas. He’s cashed only thrice in eight starts on the PGA TOUR this season, but that includes in each of his last two events. The odds are with him to extend it at Quail Hollow where he’s 2-for-2 with a T13 in 2019, also during a sudden surge of form. Because he’s plowing forward on conditional status, he had been scheduled to compete in this week’s Simmons Bank Open on the KFT, but a bogey-free, 8-under 62 at Monday’s open qualifying for the Wells Fargo Championship at Gaston Country Club punched his ticket into the tournament proper. Vincent Whaley (+25000) … If the old adage is true that it’s easier to stay on the PGA TOUR than it is to get there, then what do you tell a guy who finished 183rd in the FedExCup in his abbreviated rookie season of 2019-20? This was the reality of the Georgia Tech product who managed only 15 starts before eligibility was extended for 2020-21 due to the pandemic. Like many others, he’s making it count as he preps for his debut at Quail Hollow. Currently 137th in the FedExCup with seven consecutive cuts made in tow, the highlight a T15 in Puerto Rico. What he lacks in firepower tee to green, he betters the average in cleaning up around and on greens. Justin Suh (+25000) … Confirmed as the late recipient of a sponsor exemption when Camilo Villegas opted out after gaining entry with one, Suh has lot riding on his first appearance at Quail Hollow. This will be his last start on a sponsor exemption in 2020-21 unless he achieves Special Temporary Membership [STM]. To do that, he needs no worse than a two-way share of eighth place. A top 10 but short of the two-way T8 would yield a start at next week’s AT&T Byron Nelson where he could continue to chase STM. Short of that and his only realistic method of entry into an event would be via open qualifying. There are nine more of those chances beginning with the AT&T Byron Nelson. Worst case, he’s a virtual lock to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals since his non-member equivalent of FedExCup points would slot him 142nd among members. As it concerns his fit at the Wells Fargo Championship, the 23-year-old is 13th on TOUR in greens hit and T3 in par-5 scoring. Only seven of his 22 rounds in individual competition have been lasered by ShotLink, so there’s not enough of a sample size to buy heavily into it, but it’s still impressive that he’s put himself in this position just nine months after sitting outside the top-1,000 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He’s currently 403rd. Odds were sourced on Tuesday, May 4 at 5 a.m. ET. For live odds visit betmgm. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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DETROIT, Mich. – Patrick Reed has used an Odyssey White Hot Pro 3 putter for years, even before winning with one at the 2018 Masters. While he’s experimented with other putters throughout his career, he’s mostly opted for that model. Even a familiar golf club, however, needs a check up every now and then, and Reed went to an unexpected source for an evaluation. Coming into the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic, Reed was ranked 65th in Strokes Gained: Putting on the PGA TOUR, and he has recorded just one top-10 finish on the season. Fresh off a T30 finish last week at the Travelers Championship, Reed had an appointment set up at a Club Champion – a nationwide company that specializes in club fitting – in Royal Oak, Michigan, which is nearby Detroit Golf Club, host of the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic. The local Club Champion, in addition to having full-swing hitting bays equipped with Trackman, has a SAM (Science and Motion) PuttLab that analyzes putting performance in depth. As Reed explained to Golf Channel, he enlisted the services of Club Champion to verify there was nothing wrong with the specifications of his putter. “I went just to check to make sure that my specs were right,â€� Reed told Golf Channel on Thursday. “For me personally, the best way to do it is if I can find a SAM lab. Club Champions have those, and those have high enough cameras and stuff that you can actually see what’s going on. So you can tell by that rather than machines, since every machine has a different variance. But cameras don’t really lie.â€� Instead of finding an issue with his Odyssey putter, however, he found an issue with his putting setup. Adam White, a Master Club Fitter at the local Club Champion who was on site during Reed’s Club Champion session – along with Reed’s coach Kevin Kirk  — said that while his stroke was in the “88th percentile in overall consistencyâ€� and “94th percentile in rotation,â€� Reed was setting up 1.2 degrees closed to his intended target. Based on the data, according to White, the issue was not with the stroke or with the putter itself, but rather with Reed’s setup position. During the “35-40 minute session,â€� White and his staff had Reed try a few different putters, but Reed ultimately decided to stick with his familiar Odyssey putter. Reed improved on his putting performance in his second-round 68 on Friday, losing 0.952 strokes putting, versus losing 1.629 strokes in his first round 68 on Thursday. He is currently in T15 (at the time this article was posted).

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