Knock off the ‘too friendly’ talk

SAN DIEGO — Two career-changing putts for Jon Rahm brought two trophies Sunday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Jon Rahm, U.S. Open He cradled his 3-month-old son, Kepa, as he walked off the 18th green at Torrey Pines on Father’s Day. And then he collected the silver U.S. Open trophy after a performance filled with passion and absent of blunders that wiped out everyone else. Rahm made a bending 25-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole to catch Louis Oosthuizen. He buried another curling, left-to-right birdie putt from 18 feet on the final hole for a 4-under 67 and a one-shot victory. “Little man, you have no idea what this means right now,” Rahm said to his son on the practice range when he won. “You will soon enough.” The 26-year-old Rahm became the first Spaniard to win the U.S. Open, finally getting the major prize to go along with his enormous talent. On a back nine filled with double bogeys by so many contenders and a shocking meltdown by defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, Oosthuizen was the last to fall. Trailing by one shot, Oosthuizen drove into the canyon left of the 17th fairway for a bogey that left him two shots behind, and then he missed the fairway on the par-5 18th that kept him from going for the green for a look at eagle to force a playoff. He settled for a birdie and a 71. It was his second straight runner-up in a major, and his sixth silver medal since he won the Open Championship in 2010 at St. Andrews. Only two weeks ago, Rahm was on the cusp of another big win. He had a six-shot lead at the Memorial after 54 holes, only to be notified as he walked off the 18th green at Muirfield Village that he had a positive COVID-19 test and had to withdraw. Worse yet, his parents had flown in from Spain to see their new grandson, and Rahm was in self-isolation and couldn’t be there for a special moment. Sunday made up for it. His parents were at Torrey Pines to witness a world-class performance capped off by one of the great finishes in U.S. Open history. He earned 600 FedExCup points and moved up 17 spots to No. 2 in the FedExCup standings. Rahm finished at 5-under 278 for his sixth PGA TOUR victory. The first one was at Torrey Pines four years ago when he holed a 50-foot eagle putt on the 18th.

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The Texas Hill Country and TPC San Antonio (AT&T Oaks) take center stage this week for the Valero Texas Open, where Kevin Chappell will defend a PGA TOUR title for the first time. The Valero is the third of five tournaments in the Lone Star State, with Texans like Jimmy Walker, Jhonattan Vegas and Sergio Garcia (a part-time resident of Austin) garnering much of the attention. A Chilean, former No. 1-ranked amateur Joaquin Niemann, will be in the news as well. The Valero marks his professional debut. Si Woo Kim, who will defend his title at THE PLAYERS Championship next month, comes in hot after a playoff loss at the RBC Heritage last week. But Garcia, who co-designed TPC San Antonio with Greg Norman, will get most of the attention. He hasn’t played the Valero since its first year at AT&T Oaks, in 2010, and is coming off a wild Masters defense that included a record 13 at the 15th hole. Players stay at the J.W. Marriott, which features such an elaborate water slide, the Valero has a reputation as one of the most family-friendly stops on TOUR. The AT&T Oaks Course is a 7,435-yard, par-72 that rewards exceptionally solid tee-to-green players, and those, like Chappell, who thrive on hard courses. PGA TOUR LIVE Thursday-Friday broadcasts will begin at 8:15 a.m. ET, and end at 6:30 p.m. The Twitter window will be from 8:15 a.m. to approximately 9:15 a.m. Thursday and Friday. We will move to Featured Holes Coverage at 3:30 p.m. Featured Holes consist of the 13th, which at 241 yards is the longest par-3 on the course, and which features a view of downtown San Antonio from the tee; and the par-4 17th, which presents players with the widest fairway on the course and at 347 yards will tempt many to try and drive the green.  Here are the Featured Groups: (Note: All times Eastern; FedExCup ranking in parentheses.) MORE: PGA TOUR LIVE | Tee times THURSDAY Pat Perez (17), Xander Schauffele (44), Kevin Chappell (52) After winning the CIMB Classic to open this season, Perez is trying to bounce back from a missed cut at the Masters in his last start. Still, he’s not far off; he was in contention at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship until a final-round 75 (T20). Reigning Rookie of the Year Schauffele is coming off a T32 at the RBC Heritage and hasn’t had a top-10 finish since the Genesis Open in February. Meanwhile, defending champion Chappell is coming off two straight missed cuts and a forgettable WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, where he didn’t make it out of his pod. TPC San Antonio, though, is his happy place. Tee time: 8:40 a.m. off 10. Jhonattan Vegas (85), Jimmy Walker (117), Adam Scott (113) Vegas got off to a nice start in 2018 with a T7 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and a T11 at the CareerBuilder Challenge, but he’s cooled off since. Last start: T38 at the Masters. Walker, meanwhile, is enjoying a bit of a bounce-back after having to write off most of 2017 as he recovered from Lyme disease. He finished T20 at the Masters, and was T28 at the Valspar Championship before that. Scott is coming off a T32 at the Masters, but at 113th in the FedExCup he’s clearly struggling. One likely culprit: He’s 194th in strokes gained: putting (-.595). Tee time: 8:50 a.m. off 10. FRIDAY Charley Hoffman (81), Zach Johnson (60), Matt Kuchar (54) Hoffman is the all-time career money leader at TPC San Antonio’s AT&T Oaks course, with a victory in 2016, T2 in 2011, and T3 in 2013. He also has four more top-15 finishes, and has made the cut eight times in eight chances. Johnson, 42, has seen glimpses of his old self in making 11 cuts in 11 starts this season, but is still chasing the form that made him a 12-time PGA TOUR winner and potentially a Hall of Famer. The ever-steady Kuchar has three top-15 finishes at the Valero; he also has two top-10s and two top-30s in his last four PGA TOUR starts.   Tee time: 8:40 a.m. off 10 Billy Horschel (110), Si Woo Kim (26), Sergio Garcia (83) A four-time TOUR winner and the 2014 FedExCup champ, Horschel is starting to heat up after his T5 finish at the RBC Heritage. He also has a solid record at the Valero: top-five finishes in 2016, ’15 and ’13. Kim, a playoff loser at the RBC, came just a roll of the ball from picking up his third TOUR win last weekend and is rounding into top form just in time for his title defense at THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass next month. And Garcia should be ready to roll in San Antonio after his missed cut at the Masters left him with more time off than he’d anticipated.   Tee time: 8:50 a.m. off 10.

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In the 1970s, Ping began making two gold-plated replica putters for golfers who won major TOUR events using a Ping putter. One of the gold putters went to the player, the other was kept at the company’s headquarters in Phoenix. Eventually, the stockpile of gold putters, which mimic the exact specifications of the game-used putters, grew into a collection of nearly 3,000 that are now housed in Ping’s “Gold Putter Vault.� And the collection continues to grow. In turn, the Gold vault also houses a stockpile of fascinating stories. During a recent trip to Ping’s headquarters, I entered the vault with tour guide and longtime Director of Marketing at Ping, Pete Samuels, to uncover some of those stories from inside the vault. Below were my discoveries, with narration from Samuels. The First of Many “The first documented putter win (for Ping) was 1962, the Cajun Classic, which was won by John Barnum. I believe it was the (model) 69 series. This tradition of doing gold-plated putters started in the mid-70s, so some of these putters have been added after the fact. The first major was the ’69 Masters with an Anser by George Archer. It’s been interesting over the years, people have been becoming more and more aware of it… pros who did win, who never got a gold-plated putter, just because the records weren’t as well kept back then. So if a player reaches out to us and says ‘Hey, I won such and such tournament, but never got my gold putter.’ If it’s documented, we can prove it, we’re happy to give it them. We want as many putters in here as we can get, right?� Westwood vs. Seve: Who has more Gold putters? “From a wins perspective, Seve has the most wins with 47. And they’re all with the Anser putter… I’m pretty sure it was the same spec. So what we do is we build (the Gold putters) the exact specs of their putter: length, lie, loft, all that. I can’t say all of those wins were with the same Anser, they’re all an Anser model, but he may have had more than one over the years.� “Then as far as Westwood… so Lee just won (the 2018 Nedbank Golf Challenge) with a Fetch. I think he’s closing in on Seve, with a couple more wins he’ll overtake him. But Lee has more Gold putters in the vault because as a staff player we also acknowledge some career milestones or achievements, so he would have some Ryder Cup putters in here. We also give staff players a gold putter based on surpassing a career earnings milestone. So he has several of those as well. I’d have to count them up. It’s probably in the mid-50s in terms of how many he has. But wins wise, he’s still a hair short of Seve, but not much. Hopefully he’ll win a few more here. I think (Westwood has) 13 or 14 different models. Probably 14 now because of the Fetch, that’ll be another new model for him. What’s interesting is everything from mid-mallets to pure mallets to even blades, some Anser-style putters. Quite a variety.� Ping at THE PLAYERS “There was a string here, that mid-to-early 90s, we had a pretty good streak of putters winning THE PLAYERS. So from ’91 to ’97, every one except for Nick Price in ’93.� Steve Elkington won the 1991 and the 1997 PLAYERS Championship, Davis Love III won in 1992, Greg Norman in 1994, Lee Janzen in 1995, and Fred Couples in 1996 — all using Ping putters. Tiger Woods, the putter that started it all “It’s an Anser 2, which he used growing up. And these are the ’94 and ’95 U.S. Amateurs, where he used the Ping Anser 2, stainless steel was the material. Those are definitely must-sees when people come in here they want to see the Tiger putter. As you know, he still uses a Ping grip on his current putter. On his current putter he blacks it out, but it’s the same grip design that he had on his Anser 2.� “He did some experimenting this year for sure. Pretty much since he switched from the Anser 2 to the Cameron he’s had the Ping grip on there, because it’s our understanding, it’s not confirmed, there’s some debate… but we believe either 13 or 14 of his major wins have had the Ping grip on it. Somebody questioned all 14, but we’re pretty sure it was all 14. “He definitely loves the grip, and we provide them to him obviously, happily. We actually still sell it. We have what we call a black-out version, because he’s made that popular and people ask for it.� Not only putters “We’ve got a replica of Bubba’s wedge that he hit out of the trees on the 10th at Augusta in the playoff with Louis to win that Masters. The same year, if you recall, Louis made a double-eagle on No. 2, so we have a replica of his 4-iron in memory of that. “And then we do have some other wedges like when Bob Tway holed out of the bunker to win the ’86 PGA, that’s a Ping Eye2 wedge. Azinger hold out of the bunker at The Memorial on 18 to win to beat Payne Stewart. Jeff Maggert chipped in on I think the first extra hole at the match play to win ’99 with the Eye2 sand wedge, as well.� 1988 “The other cool story is in 1988, Ping putters were used to win all 4 major championships, which was the only time in history to date that that’s happened. If my memory serves me, Sandy Lyle won The Masters with the Ping Pal, Curtis Strange won the U.S. Open with the Zing 2, Seve won the British with an Anser, and Jeff Sluman won the PGA with the Pal 2. Pretty cool feat when you think about winning the Grand Slam of Golf.�

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