Cameron Champ’s grandfather Mack passes away at 78

The putter remained hot during the middle portion of the match, as Johnson strung together three birdies to grab a 1-up lead on the 11th when his lengthy effort from 60 feet found the bottom of the cup. Even with the momentum in his favor, Johnson would go on to lose three of the next four holes to Poulter, en route to a costly defeat. “I felt like I played pretty well,” Johnson said. “Made some nice putts. I knew it was going to be a tough match starting out. I just didn’t hit enough fairways.” Rahm goes back to M2: Jon Rahm finished the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season ranked 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee with a TaylorMade M4 driver. When you’re ranked inside the top-5 in any statistical category, the assumption is the clubs in the bag are working without any issues. Only that wasn’t the case for Rahm, who shelved his M4 in favor of last year’s M2 at the TOUR Championship and continued using the driver during the Ryder Cup. It’s unclear why Rahm suddenly shifted away from M4 late in the season, especially given that he never finished worse than T26 in the strokes gained category during the Dell Technologies Championship and BMW Championship; and his missed cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST was due to a balky putter and poor ball-striking week with his irons. Whether it was really a couple less-than-stellar weeks (for his standards) with the driver that led to the swap, the M2 sparked a strong week off the tee at East Lake Golf Club, where he ranked fourth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee. Rahm entered Sunday singles 0-2 for the week but managed to defeat Tiger Woods in a tightly contested match to squash a United States comeback that, for a brief moment, looked to be in full swing. It was Rahm’s 365-yard drive on 17 that put him in perfect position to stuff a gap wedge to three feet for the win. JT’s wedges: Vokey wedge rep Aaron Dill created something special for Justin Thomas’ maiden Ryder Cup appearance. Hoping to give Thomas some good vibes, Dill stamped stars and “Ryder Cup” on the back of his SM6 lob wedge, before adding red, white and blue paint fill to give it an American flag look. “You outdid yourself on this one AD,” Thomas said of Dill’s creation on Twitter. Thomas went 4-1 with the custom stamped wedge at Le Golf National. Free agents lead the way: Francesco Molinari (5-0) and Tommy Fleetwood (4-1) led the way for Europe in their impressive takedown of the United States. Given the success of equipment free agents last season on TOUR, it seems fitting that two key equipment free agents were at the forefront of the route. Molinari and Fleetwood were under contract with Nike Golf for their equipment until the end of 2016 when the apparel giant left the hard-goods industry. Fleetwood has remained a free agent throughout the bag; Molinari signed a ball deal with Titleist in 2017 and putter deal with Bettinardi earlier this year, but the other 13 clubs (all TaylorMade) remain up for grabs. PGA TOUR SUPERSTORE: Buy equipment here Dustin Johnson joked with reporters on the eve of the Ryder Cup that he’d “surprise” everyone with his putter selection, before confirming he’d continue with the cross-handed grip and TaylorMade Spider Tour putter that nearly helped him win the FedExCup title. While Johnson stuck to his word over the first two days of play, he opted to go away from the grip and mallet on Sunday, returning to a conventional grip and Anser-style TaylorMade TP Black Copper Juno against Ian Poulter. Johnson’s flat stick had a single white sight line on the flange and his initials stamped on the right bumper. The head shape is identical to the TP Collection Juno he used to win last year’s THE NORTHERN TRUST.

Click here to read the full article…

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. - Tiger Woods’ 2019-20 PGA TOUR season came to an end Sunday at Olympia Fields as he finished with a 1-over 71, falling well short of the top three finish he needed to advance to the TOUR Championship. The two-time FedExCup champion will not have a chance for a third next week at East Lake, instead he will take two weeks off before kickstarting his 2020-21 campaign at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. "I didn’t play as well as I wanted to the first couple days. Today was nice. I hit the ball really well and made only a couple putts, but today was more indicative of how I want to play in a couple weeks," Woods said. "This golf course was basically a U.S. Open, with the rough being as high as it is and fairways a little bit narrow. Look at the scores, and I don’t think that we’ve seen scores like this in a non-major in a very long time. This was a great ramp-up for me for the U.S. Open. I wish I was playing next week, but I’ve got a couple weeks off." Needing to go super low on a tough course on Sunday, Woods raised an eyebrow or two with two birdies in his first four holes but he couldn't make enough of the mid-range chances he presented himself to create a miracle. A bogey right before the turn was countered with a birdie at the 11th but that was his last of the season. A bogey at the 15th was followed with a double bogey at the 17th. "It’s me missing the ball in the wrong spots. When I missed in the correct spots I was able to advance in the correct spots, make putts, but if I missed them in bad spots, this golf course will certainly punish you," he added. Measuring Woods performance for the season depends on if you're a glass half full or half empty type of person. Starting back last October in Japan Woods claimed his 82nd PGA TOUR win at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, joining Sam Snead at the top of the all-time win list. "Well, it's a big number," Woods said of his 82nd victory at the time. "It's about consistency and doing it for a long period of time ... I'm very fortunate to have had the career I've had so far." Woods was referencing tough times from 2014 through 2017 where it looked increasingly likely he might not play again such were his back issues. But in April of 2017, he saw Dr. Richard Guyer of the Center for Disc Replacement at the Texas Back Institute, where spinal fusion surgery gave Woods a new lease on life. "Probably the low point was not knowing if I'd ever be able to live pain-free again," he said after winning the TOUR Championship in 2018. "Am I going to be able to sit, stand, walk, lay down without feeling the pain that I was in? I just didn't want to live that way. This is how the rest of my life is going to be?" He would famously win the 2019 Masters before his win in Japan. Woods followed the ZOZO win up with a fourth place in his Hero World Challenge (an unofficial TOUR event) before leading the U.S. Team as a playing captain to a stirring come from behind victory in the Presidents Cup. Woods took his team to Royal Melbourne in December and overcame a 10-8 deficit heading to singles to win 16-14. He was 3-0 personally that week.

Click here to read the full article…

Click here to read the full article…