Hit and hope: OWGR impact looms large for LIV Golf players at the Masters

The whispers were getting louder last week in Austin. Jordan Spieth is in trouble. He’s lost his putting mojo. Now Spieth has certainly struggled with his putting so far this PGA TOUR season compared to other times where it appeared he would never miss. But to suggest the 11-time PGA TOUR winner and three-time major champion can’t turn it around at a moment’s notice is beyond foolish. This is Jordan Spieth we are talking about. Yes, this is the guy who famously fell away at the 2016 Masters. But it is also the guy who turned a shocking round into a Claret Jug winning one at the 2017 Open Championship. By making clutch putts. He’s a former FedExCup champion. And he’s still only 24. Let’s look at both sides of the story as Spieth gets ready to attack the Houston Open this week. It’s not all good reading. We don’t deny that. He’s 172nd on the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting. In the previous five seasons he finished 42nd, 2nd, 9th, 20th and 60th in this stat. He’s 201st in Total Putting, 112th in One-Putt Percentage and T68 in 3-Putt avoidance. Brace yourself Spieth fans… it gets worse. Spieth is 196th in putting from three feet, 191st from four feet, 103rd from five feet. He ranks 189th in all putts inside 10 feet. But he’s been tinkering. He’s been working on things. “I’m human and I’m realistic that based on kind of the way the year’s gone. It’s been a pretty trying time for me, especially on and around the greens,â€� he said last week in Austin. “Stuff I took for granted in setup and pace control and all that kind of stuff, subconscious short game, stuff I’ve taken for granted in the past has been a little bit more difficult and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back to that level and I’ve been trying different things.â€� Perhaps it is trying so many things that has been the problem. And perhaps even thinking it is a problem is part of the problem. “I’ve got so many check points in my head right now that I’m trying to get to before I get line and speed,â€� he continued. “And in the past it’s, okay, I’m set up, everything is good, line and speed. So, there’s like an extra like half a second or whatever but that’s an eternity when you’re over a putt of trying to just get yourself, okay, that’s good, now get that.â€� So now let’s look at the good. A year ago Spieth missed a three-foot putt at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. It dropped him to T128 in the rankings from three feet. He never missed another three-footer all season, finishing the year ranked T8. After this week he heads to the Masters. He has been T2, 1, T2, T11 there. The greens at Augusta National are some of the slickest and toughest on TOUR. And all of this work is set to pay off at some time. He’s hopeful it will begin this week in Houston. “I’ve put in a lot of work and I’ll get results out of it,â€� he says defiantly. “It will just take a little time. I don’t know when it will come. I don’t know if it will come next week. I don’t know if it will come next year. But all I can do is embrace the challenge. I mean it’s better than backing away from it, that’s for sure. “Everything is fine. Once again, like the British Open it looked like whatever, and then I make one putt and it comes back. I just need a couple of putts to go in at some point, it’s just taking longer than normal. A couple of putts go in and all of a sudden it starts raining.â€� I for one forecast rain in the near future.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Anirban Lahiri was dirty on himself. Sang-Moon Bae was near inconsolable. Jason Day had had a week to forget in a year he’d otherwise bottle for life. Adam Scott was cut deep, emotionally wallowing in the pain of a sixth consecutive defeat. But in those first few moments after the heartbreaking loss in the 2015 Presidents Cup in Korea the International Team captain Nick Price proved – for the 1000th time – why he is the man for the job again this week at Liberty National in New Jersey. Price told Lahiri, who had missed a four-foot putt that could have clinched at worst a tie, and Bae, who had chunked a chip trying to win the now tying point, that they would never face pressure like that again in their lives. He lifted the world off their shoulders and tried to place it on his own. He shifted the focus and told the pair it was their first crack at the event and they would get another chance and be better for it. It wasn’t lip service. While Bae was not in the mix this year thanks to leaving the game for military service, Lahiri was one of Price’s captains picks. There were five players ahead of him on the points list but Lahiri got the nod. Price believes in his man. And in return, Lahiri and the rest of the team believe in him. “He’s a player’s captain. The boys usually rally around him. When he talks, everyone shuts up and listens,â€� Day says.  Showing the brave face in Korea can’t have been easy. After taking over from Greg Norman for the 2013 Presidents Cup, the former world No. 1 Price came into the job ready to rumble. He’d played on five International teams, including the only two successful ones. A win in 1998 and draw in 2003. But what he found was a sense of defeat before the competition had even begun. The players liked to represent their countries but just felt like they were on a hiding to nothing given the 34 points they played for. With nowhere to hide the depth of the International Team was being severely tested. For context – Lahiri is the 68th ranked player in the world this week, the lowest mark of all 24 players involved. Phil Mickelson sits at 30th in the world, the “worstâ€� of the Americans. All up, there are currently 34 American players ranked higher than Lahiri in the world. So, the disparity had made life hard on the International Team and the mounting losses had affected morale. Price had already begun campaigning for a points reduction prior to 2013. When his team fell 18.5-15.5 at Muirfield Village despite a rousing effort in singles where they began six points in arrears, he really ramped it up. He called for it publically in the post mortem press conference. He then spent every effort he could pleading his case with the powers that be before having success. In 2015 they played for a total of 30 points and bar those late mistakes an “upsetâ€� would have transpired. Not only had he worked his butt off to get the change, but he had learned from his first trip out and focused heavily on team unity and comradery in the lead up. Price affected more change also. Now there are four Captains Assistants on the books of both teams allowing someone to cover each match during team sessions. “Americans play every year under their own flag. We don’t have that, but Pricey has made everyone feel like we are under the same banner,â€� Day adds. “He has us together. He has us wanting to fight for the guy next to us as well as for ourselves. And that’s huge.â€� In the reception after the loss in Korea, Adam Scott stood up to thank their captain. It was expected to be his last go around at the top and gratitude was in order. It wasn’t a prepared speech. It wasn’t fully polished. But it was emotional and powerful. “Adam was incredibly kind to both my wife and I, because I think they appreciated the amount of time that we put in,â€� Price recalled of the night. “This wasn’t something that we took lightly. We put in a lot of time and effort into this, and so that was what made me feel so good was I think the boys recognized that. “It’s a time‑consuming thing, but I think the guys understand the passion that I have for the Presidents Cup, and I want to pass that passion on to the other guys.â€� By the time Scott was winding up the speech he made a point to say he wanted Price back again in 2017. The players hadn’t planned it or really spoken of it but to a man they started to bang their fists on the tables in agreement. Their cheers grew more raucous. Glasses were raised in toast. It was clear, Price was their man. “Nick is such an incredible guy. It’s been documented his entire career. An amazing champion, an amazing competitor,â€� Scott says. “He’s a very relaxed guy. He can make anyone feel comfortable around him, and that’s important for all players on the team.â€� Scott was also extremely impressed in the no stone unturned strategy improvement from Price from 2013 to 2015. It was evident Price had spent many late nights planning from the moment they left Ohio in 2013. “He learned so much from doing it the first time on how to manage his team, have a strategy, get the team to embrace it,â€� Scott adds. “It just was a different level for me when he was in Korea than the time before and the captains before that. “He really had a great plan and executed it. When we didn’t execute on the course, he had a backup plan for us. He was really prepared, and I think he led so well.â€� And so, Price left Korea finding positivity in his efforts. He thought about the Ryder Cup in the early 1980s when Europe came close to winning and the late Seve Ballesteros called it a victory because they were finally competitive. Perhaps Price is overseeing the changing of the guard. With the 2019 Presidents Cup heading to Royal Melbourne in Australia, the International team is quietly confident the trend could continue to shift towards them. There is a real hunger to get the Cup now. A hunger that had dwindled with each drubbing they’d taken. But this International Team is inspired to not only win for themselves, but also for Price. “He will be the first guy who should get to touch the Cup if we win it,â€� Day says. “He’s earned it.â€�

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Danny Lee is certainly not the first golfer on the PGA TOUR who is trying to chase a little more speed with his driver. But he may be the first to cause a bit of a last-minute panic by one of his fellow TOUR members after just one swing. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Inside Hovland’s strengths Wednesday afternoon at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, Lee, who finished T2 last week at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, was in the middle of a speed-training session. He was getting up to about 185 m.p.h. ball speed but Viktor Hovland, who was next to him, wanted to see how much more speed Lee could generate with his driver – which is about an inch longer. Lee stepped on one, and the shaft shattered. “That was very unexpected,” said Lee. “I felt so sorry for him. If I had a spare driver, I would have given it to him, but I didn’t.” “I just looked up after he hit the shot and it was in pieces,” said Hovland. Enter James Hahn, who had another Ping G-425 driver to nearly the same specs as Hovland’s usual gamer. “(Hovland) kept hitting it on the driving range and surprisingly he was hitting great with it,” said Lee. Kenton Oates, who is a PGA TOUR rep for Ping, said the driver Hovland put into play on Thursday was the same model, same loft, and had the same swing weight – with a slightly different shaft – as Hovland’s usual driver. “You give something pretty close to a guy like Viktor and he’ll figure it out,” said Oates. Hovland didn’t seem to have a problem with it. The defending champion in Mexico fired an opening-round 4-under 67 and missed only two fairways – both, he said, when he didn’t actually hit driver. “It’s a little bit shorter, it’s a different shaft, but honestly, almost helped me this week because it’s a little shorter,” said Hovland. “It probably goes 10 yards shorter, but I just felt like I could really hit it a little lower and a little straighter. So I’m hitting that thing really well.” Hovland, who was fifth on TOUR last season in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, ventured to another golf course in the area to try the new driver on Wednesday into different winds. But it was a quick learning session for Hovland. “As soon as I like, hit a couple with it, I was like, ‘this feels pretty nice. I think I can work with this,’ said Hovland. Oates said Hovland’s driving has always impressed him and Hovland’s consistent shot shape has been combined with a gain of nearly 6 m.p.h. of ball speed since he joined the TOUR. Oates said because the break (which happened because Lee has such an aggressive recoil on his driver swing) that occurred in Mexico was a unique situation for the Ping team. If this was the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open next week, Oates said, the two-time TOUR winner would have had a new driver in about 20 minutes. Oates said PING staffer Taylor Moore, who was in Mexico hoping to get into the field as an alternate, was also willing to provide a suitable replacement to Hovland. After the driving performance Hovland put on in the opening round at El Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course, Oates laughed when he was asked if Hovland may consider Hahn’s specs when he gets fit into some new Ping stuff next year. “Dude, next year? If he’s hitting it like this it might be next week,” said Oates. “You play this game, and a lot of times guys may be out with their friends and say, ‘you know, I hit so-and-so club.’ This is a different situation, but it does happen (on TOUR) and that ends up being the best fitting process.” While it all worked out in the end for Hovland (and Lee, who opened with a solid 3-under 68) will Lee still try to make it up to Hovland somehow? “In the future,” said Lee, “I’ll give him something for sure.”

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