FedExCup Movers: John Deere Classic

Click here to read the full article…

We thought we knew how it would go. We had no idea. If there was a theme to the 2021-22 season, it was surprise. Scottie Scheffler hadn’t won, but then he captured the WM Phoenix Open in a playoff, opening the floodgates. Scheffler was the first player to win twice on the season, the first to win three times, and the first (and only) to win four. It all happened in a torrid six-week stretch in the spring. Will Zalatoris also got in the win column, capturing the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He was suddenly FedExCup No. 1 and the favorite to win it all when the dust settled at the TOUR Championship, but he hurt his back and didn’t play again. Defending FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay captured the BMW Championship and could’ve taken the top seed to the TOUR Championship had Xander Schauffele not missed a putt on 18. Scheffler slid back into FedExCup No. 1; Cantlay suddenly started fighting his putter at East Lake; and neither ended up winning. That honor, of course, went to Rory McIlroy, who came into the TOUR Championship with a six-shot Starting Strokes deficit, opened triple-bogey, bogey in the first round, and came all the way back to win it all. Of course he did. Here are the superlatives from a very surprising season: Shot of the Year Matt Fitzpatrick, bunker shot on 18 at The Country Club, U.S. Open With a one-shot lead at the U.S. Open, Matt Fitzpatrick watched his tee shot drift left and find the fairway bunker on 18. Going for the green was risky, as it meant clearing a grassy knob; Jon Rahm had tried it the day before and made double bogey. But Fitzpatrick, who all year had struggled from fairway bunkers, knew he needed to make par to force playing partner Will Zalatoris to make birdie. He chose a 9-iron and, without deliberation, caught the ball perfectly flush. It cleared the lip of the bunker and soared into the cool, darkening sky, and when it landed on the green, he had hit what Zalatoris called one of the best shots in U.S. Open history. “It’s one of the best shots I’ve ever hit, there’s no doubt about it,” Fitzpatrick said. Best approximation of the Cal-Stanford Big Game Cal product Max Homa edged Stanford’s Maverick McNealy at the Fortinet Championship in nearby Napa, California. Best title defense Viktor Hovland at the World Wide Technology Championship; Rory McIlroy at the RBC Canadian Open (picking up where he left off in 2019); Patrick Cantlay at the BMW Championship Best (sort of) title defense Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Open at The Country Club, where he’d also won the 2013 U.S. Amateur with his little brother Alex as his caddie. Bravest shot Jordan Spieth from cliff’s edge, 8th hole, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Spieth’s tee shot nearly tumbled over the 65-foot cliff that juts into the par-4 8th hole at iconic Pebble Beach. Then Spieth nearly did. Michael Greller, his caddie, voted to take a drop, but after some deliberation Spieth addressed the ball and took a lash before scurrying backward, away from danger. The shot missed left, but he got up and down. “Michael hated it,” Spieth said. “He tried to talk me out of it three times. I don’t blame him, looking back. I’m just glad I made the par to make it worth it, because I don’t think I would have made par with a drop, but if I made bogey, it would have really not been worth it.” Most dynamic duo Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and are expected to figure prominently in the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club next week. Dynamic duo II Scottie Scheffler and Ted Scott joined forces at The RSM Classic last fall and hit it off in a way few player-caddie combos ever have. Starting with a playoff victory at the WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler won four times, including the Masters Tournament, in a span of six starts to become world and FedExCup No. 1. Best comeback Justin Thomas was seven back but won the PGA Championship. Sam Burns was also seven back but won the Charles Schwab Challenge. Rory McIlroy dug himself a 10-shot hole at the TOUR Championship, what with the Starting Strokes format (he began six behind Scottie Scheffler) and his triple-bogey, bogey start. To win after all that? Impressive. Best comeback, II Tom Kim quadruple-bogeyed the first hole and won the Wyndham Championship by five shots; Xander Schauffele shot the highest opening round by a winner, 72, at the Genesis Scottish Open. His 11-shot comeback over the next 54 holes was unmatched. Best performance in the soup Max Homa won his second Well Fargo Championship in sub-optimal weather (four days of cold rain) at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Best, last stand by a 40-something Chez Reavie became the only player in his 40s to win on TOUR for the entire season at the Barracuda Championship. Most appropriate champion Hideki Matsuyama, ZOZO Championship Matsuyama became the greatest-ever player from Japan when he won the Masters Tournament last year, and thrilled his home country again when he won the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, Japan’s only tournament on the PGA TOUR, by five. It was his seventh TOUR title, second TOUR win in Asia, and first since the 2016 WGC-HSBC Champions. He led the field in Greens in Regulation (81.94%) and co-led in eagles (2) and par-3 scoring average (2.75), and later won the Sony Open in Hawaii on the way to making the TOUR Championship for the 9th straight time, the longest active streak on TOUR. Best of the Midwest Tony Finau went from winless on the season to earning a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team with back-to-back wins at the 3M Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic. Wildest ace Adam Hadwin, No. 16, Rd. 2, Memorial Tournament presented by Workday When the ball dropped for his first hole-in-one on the PGA TOUR, the normally stoic Hadwin threw his club skyward, pumped his arms, and began slapping hands of his playing partners and fans alike. His wife Jessica tweeted that she’d never seen him so excited. “I think I kind of blacked out for a second when it went in,” said Hadwin, who used a 7-iron for the shot, which spanned 194 yards and came in from left to right. Best flirtation with 59 Sebastian Muñoz became the first player to shoot two rounds of 60 in a single season at The RSM Classic and AT&T Byron Nelson, both in the first round. Best use of a captain’s pick Scottie Scheffler went 2-0-1 and beat Jon Rahm in the Ryder Cup. The result also foreshadowed perhaps the biggest story of 2022: The Rise of Scottie.

Click here to read the full article…

Bob Parsons is the founder and owner of Parsons Extreme Golf (PXG); he’s also a billionaire entrepreneur, the founder of GoDaddy.com, a Marine and … now he’s a golf club designer, too? Well, maybe not exactly, but he did spark the idea for PXG’s new Gen2 driver technology, according to himself and the company. Due to his love of muscle cars – Dodge muscle cars, to be exact, of which he has a Demon, a Charger, a Hell Cat, and a Durango 392 SRT, among others – Parsons suggested his engineers make a driver crown to look like the hood of American muscle cars. Parsons’ idea to mimic the scoop of a muscle car on its new 0811 Gen2 X and XF drivers, which have titanium faces and bodies, led to a carbon fiber crown design that is said to raise ball speeds by keeping energy focused where it needs to be at impact. It’s called “hot rodâ€� technology, according to the company. “We went down a rabbit hole, and my god there was a rabbit there,â€� Parsons told me. So Parsons, while simply making a recommendation for an aesthetic design based on his love of American muscle vehicles, actually came up with a new engineering technology. Here’s how the story goes, straight from Parsons himself. “So I come in one day and I say guys, why don’t we try on our driver, rather than making the crown plain, making it look like a scoop on a muscle car. And they didn’t want to do it at first, but they did. And then they thought about it and they said you know what it might be fun. So we did it. And what happened was, first it acted like an alignment aid, which is what I thought it would do. And I thought it would look kind of cool, which it did. To our surprise, there were performance benefits. One of them is stiffening that crown, and having that scoop there kind of focuses the energy, or keeps the energy there from dissipating.â€� To reference My Cousin Vinny, does Parsons’ case hold water? For that answer, we turn to PXG’s engineers Mike Nicolette and Brad Schweigert for an explanation on exactly how the new technology works. “The most noticeable thing is the crown. One of the things we’ve learned, working a lot more with polymers these days is just how they interact, the things they do well, the things there’s drawbacks on … the crown geometry is made up of carbon fiber and it’s binded together with the polymer resin. That resin material, when it deflects, it bends and it dissipates energy. We figured out a way to make the crown stiffer so that you don’t lose or dissipate any energy in the crown, which yields higher ball speeds and ultimately more distance. So that’s a big part of the story.â€� Basically, with the muscle-car-inspired-scoop, the carbon-fiber crown has multi-level, variable thickness that works to reduce energy dissipation, thus increasing ball speeds across the face. Also, the multi-level design enhances aerodynamics by reducing drag, according to PXG. The crown also has a new matte paint with anti-glare to reduce distractions, according to the company. Now, for the tough question: Are these drivers special?  More specifically, will these drivers now hold the same appeal and performance as PXG’s irons? Since July 2015, when PXG launched its Gen1 0311 irons, the company has been known mostly in the equipment world for its irons, which use a special TPE (thermoplastic urethane) material behind the face to increase both feel and ball speed. But when it comes to its 0811 drivers — and the various low-spin X and higher-forgiveness XF driver launches — PXG’s drivers seem to have lacked the same level of regard as its irons from the equipment world. Schweigert takes on the difficult question: “We knew it. The irons were special. They offered the consumer everything. They had a really unique feel, they had a unique technology story. They looked amazing, they performed really, really well. So, we knew those were going to be the all stars, so to speak. The driver category in and of itself is tough, because there’s a lot of product that performs pretty well. So it’s hard to differentiate yourself. I think the difference now with this new generation of woods is that I feel like we’re on the cusp of everything that we have with the irons. Because you have this really cool unique look that differentiates it from everything else that’s in the marketplace. It feels really really good, and that differentiates it. It has a different feel from everything else in the marketplace. Performance is outstanding. There’s a fitting story there, in being able to customize it for an individual. We’re cautiously optimistic that it’s going to take a seat alongside our irons as being considered industry-leading product. That’s the expectation for us. So far, all of the feedback we’re getting reinforces that expectation. Now it’s just wait and see, to see if that comes to fruition.â€� Like its previous driver release, PXG’s Gen2 0811X drivers, will be a lower-spinning version, with forward CG positions available for even lower spin, and the Gen2 0811XF driver will be the more forgiving option. Those familiar PXG-signature weights have also been given a tweak to increase the adjustability of center of gravity (CG) – the X driver has 9 weight ports and the XF driver has 5 ports, with the silver Tungsten weights measuring 4.1 grams and the black titanium weights measuring 0.8 grams. “The way we’ve constructed those weights, we made it more intuitive for the mass movement … it’s both more intuitive and more efficient. So when you move one weight you see a bigger effect.â€� This change will help golfers better find the right setting to optimize their ball flight, and it will help fitters to dial in the consumer. Overall, PXG reports a CG below the neutral axis in its X driver, and it says the XF driver is at the MOI (moment of inertia) limit mandated by the USGA. The drivers also have PXG’s honeycomb TPE insert in the inner portions of their soles to dampen vibrations and enhance feel and acoustics. PXG reports its X driver is the lowest spinning driver on the market and has a 2 mph faster ball speed than the closest driver competitor, while the PXG XF is reported by the company as the highest MOI driver head on the market will 1 mph faster ball speed than its closest competitor on the market. Compared to its own Gen1 drivers, PXG says the Gen2 X driver has 1-2 mph faster ball speed, 300-400rpm lower spin rate, is 7-10 yards longer and has a 26 percent tighter dispersion area. The Gen2 XF driver, compared to the Gen 1 XF, has 1 mph faster ball speed, “similarâ€� spin rate, “slightlyâ€� higher launch angle, is 3-6 yards longer, and has a 34 percent tighter dispersion area, according to the company. There’s also been a drastic price decrease. PXG’s previous retail drivers sold for $850, while the new Gen 0811X drivers (9, 10.5 and 12 degrees) and the Gen2 081XF drivers (9, 10.5, 12 and 14 degrees) will sell for $575 starting on January 15. Each of the drivers have a 60-degree lie angle, measure 45 inches in length and come stock with a swing weight of D3. Parsons explains the price drop: “We priced it to take advantage of our scale now. And it’s still the most expensive driver there is, but it’s now an affordable luxury, moreso than it was. When we did our Gen 1 stuff, we’re a small company. Just getting going. You know, we’re not selling all that much so reach out and we start buying. And you don’t buy really in quantity, or you don’t know what you’re quantity is going to be. And so, you know it’s like you, when you go buy stuff and you buy just a few, you pay more than when you buy a lot. Same here. We’re always going to be a high performance brand. So we will never make a low performance product at a low price. It’s just not something we’ll do. Our stuff is always high performance period. And it will always outperform anything that we run up against. At least in our eyes it will. So from that standpoint, I don’t ever look to change that.â€� PXG fairway woods and hybrids Like the Gen2 0811 drivers, the Gen2 0341 fairway woods and Gen2 0317 hybrids also have the hot rod technology on their carbon fiber crowns to improve ball speeds. They each have anti-glare crowns, honeycomb TPE sole inserts, CG-adjustability in their soles via weight ports, and weight forward designs for lower spin. Same as the drivers, the fairway woods and hybrids have 4.1 silver tungsten weights and black 0.8-gram titanium weights for fine-tuning the soles. Compared to the Gen1 0341 fairway woods, PXG reports the Gen2 woods have 1-2 mph faster ball speeds, 300-400rpm lower spin, “similarâ€� launch angles, are 7-10 yards longer with a 3 percent tighter dispersion area. Compared to the Gen1 hybrids, PXG reports the new Gen 2 hybrids have 2-3 mph faster ball speeds, have “similarâ€� spin rates, “similarâ€� launch angles, are 4-7 yards longer with a 6 percent tighter dispersion area. The Gen2 0341 fairway woods (13, 15, 18 and 21 degrees) will sell for $425, and the Gen2 0317 hybrids (17, 19, 22, 25 and 28 degrees) will sell for $375.

Click here to read the full article…