Lashley opens 6-shot lead in Rocket Mortgage

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Aaron Wise beat Brooks Koepka by two shots in the final round of THE NORTHERN TRUST during last season’s FedExCup Playoffs but walked off the course knowing he needed to adapt to compete with the PGA TOUR Player of the Year. Neither had won the opening Playoff (Wise was fifth, Koepka eighth) but Wise had paid particular attention to Koepka’s ability to hit mid-irons out of the rough and on to the greens during their pairing. The former college star knew there was no way he could do that with his slight frame and if he was to continue his winning habits, he felt he might need to change things up. As a result Wise has since put on 20 pounds of muscle. It was an interesting choice given he had already won the NCAA Championship with Oregon and had trophies from the Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada, the Web.com Tour and the PGA TOUR. He is the reigning PGA TOUR Rookie of The Year thanks mainly to his win at the AT&T Byron Nelson last year. So far this season Wise is 101st in the FedExCup with his lone top-10 coming last November at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Stats suggest it is not getting used to his new frame that is the problem, unless the extra muscle has him hammering putts a little too hard. While ranked 16th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Wise is 176th in Strokes Gained: Putting. But on Thursday at the U.S. Open Wise produced his best opening round of the year. He shot a 5-under 66 at Pebble Beach to join a four-way tie for second, just one behind Justin Rose and gained 4.36 strokes on the greens in the round, ranked fourth in the field. “It was solid, it was nice to get my putter going. That’s kind of what’s been missing this whole year for me in a way. And today I was able to putt well,â€� Wise said. “Just really matching line and speed. I don’t think it is stroke-related at all. It’s just reading the putt correctly and hitting it with the appropriate speed and just been doing a lot of drills to emphasize that and it seems to be working.â€� But back to Koepka, the man who has won four of his last eight majors. Wise has built up a friendship with him. And is still trying to learn from him. They played a practice round together this week where Wise was once again keenly observing. “Something I can take away from him is just his calmness,â€� Wise said. “He’s literally the calmest person in the world. It’s just a calming influence and I can kind of just take away his mentality towards these (events), and the fact that he really slows things down and calms things down even more and that works well for him.â€� Just like Koepka Wise isn’t short on confidence. He expects more than he has delivered thus far this season but knows there is still time. He hopes that patience is rewarded. “Winning is kind of a habit,â€� he explains. “The only way you know you can do it is if you actually do it and put yourself in those situations over and over again. And winning last year… just makes you hungrier and makes you want to get there more. “I haven’t had exactly the best year yet but we still have two majors left and a WGC event and the Playoffs. There are still some big events ahead of me and I don’t need to kind of rush and think that this year is over almost already.â€�

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Professional golf resumes with Sunday’s charity exhibition, the TaylorMade Driving Relief best-ball Skins match, with the team of Rory McIlroy-Dustin Johnson facing the team of Rickie Fowler-Matthew Wolff at legendary Seminole. All proceeds from the match will go to COVID-19 relief. Although not long by today’s standards, Seminole is tough and will require the very best of each player to navigate the famed track. GolfWRX has identified a key club for each of the four golfers and will highlight one a day this week. Wolff’s TaylorMade Spider X putter SPECS Surlyn Insert, Full Sightline Loft: 3.5 Length: 33 Shaft: KBS Lie: 70 SW: D4 Grip: TaylorMade Lamkin “RedCap” As the “young gun” of the bunch this weekend at Seminole and already regarded as one of the purest ball strikers on TOUR, Matthew Wolff will ultimately have to putt well to give his team an opportunity to win the most skins. More than any club in his bag – yes, even his driver — Wolff lives and dies with his putter, and thus far in his young career, if he putts well, he’s extremely dangerous. TaylorMade Tour Tech Ryan Ressa has been working with Wolff since his days at Oklahoma State and this is what he had to say on Spider X. RYAN RESSA: “Wolff has been using the same Spider X copper since Jan 2019 when he was a sophomore at Oklahoma State. He put the putter in play in the first college event of the spring, the Amer Ari Invitational in Hawaii, and won. He was previously using a Mullen 2 Single Bend but immediately noticed better feel, alignment, and speed control. He has always played a single-bend model Mallet, occasionally testing other blades/mallets but always settling back to this gamer.” “His specs are 33 inches, full sightline, surlyn insert, 70-degree lie, 3.5 degrees of loft (as he likes to forward press right before he takes it back) … His putter is at D4 swing weight as well — relatively light for putter standards, but when we originally sent it out to him (early in the release), we still hadn’t received the weights for the back wings. He’s liked the weight the entire time and grown into it. Occasionally he will try heavier heads but always settles back on this original we sent him.” “In the past two years, he’s only played three rounds with a different putter. … In Korea, he played one round with the Del Monte before switching back in round two. The other event was the 2020 [Waste Management] Phoenix Open where he used the Truss Mallet for two rounds before switching back. He generally doesn’t tinker much with this X as he’s begun really grinding on his setup, alignment, and speed more so than trying new models. He’s got a lot of trust in this Spider X and is confident he can make anything with it.” Text provided by GolfWRX Director of Content @johnny_wunder Click here for more information on the TaylorMade Spider putters at PGA TOUR Superstore COMING THURSDAY: Rickie Fowler’s key club PREVIOUSLY: Rory McIlroy’s driver, Dustin Johnson’s wedges

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