Leaderboard: Three teams tied at QBE Shootout

OAKVILLE, Ontario – News and observations from the final round of the RBC Canadian Open where Jhonattan Vegas won his second-straight title north of the border in a playoff over Charley Hoffman. Vegas became the sixth golfer to defend at the Canadian Open, and the first since Jim Furyk in 2006-2007. Vegas credits family A year ago, Jhonattan Vegas was on FaceTime with his family back home in Venezuela, celebrating his win as best he could. This year, he got the real thing, as wife Hildegard and daughter Sharlene Marie were on site at Glen Abbey. “I would say it has to be the sweetest victory out of the three. Just having my family here, even my mom and dad… they were with me my first time I won. But having my wife and daughter, and especially my daughter, being with my daughter for the first win. It’s hard to compare that. It’s hard to put it in words,â€� said Vegas. “It’s just really fun, watching them really enjoy it in person and seeing how nervous they are when I’m on the course playing. Every time you get a chance to share these moments with your family, it’s just really grateful.â€� With his win, Vegas nearly locks up a spot on the International Team for this year’s Presidents Cup team, a feat he said would be ‘awesome.’ “It’s always a lifetime dream to be part of some of those great teams. I mean, not that many guys can experience what being on a Presidents Cup,â€� said Vegas. By his own admission, Vegas said he was in ‘great form’ heading to the PGA Championship in two weeks, stating he feels like he can compete on a major stage. “Obviously I’ve never put myself on a major stage to win, but I feel like my game is good enough,â€� he said. With the future of Glen Abbey uncertain, Vegas said he would be one of the biggest voices to make sure the course stays put. “Especially if I keep winning here,â€� said Vegas, laughing. “I’ll definitely make a statement on trying to keep Glen Abbey going.â€� Hughes finishes as Low Canadian For the first time in his career, Mackenzie Hughes won the Rivermead Cup as the Low Canadian at the RBC Canadian Open. Hughes, from nearby Dundas, Ont. (about 20 miles from Glen Abbey), had a robust crowd out following him all week. Although he finished with a bogey on the par-5 18th Sunday, the week overall was positive, he explained. “Obviously yesterday was a disappointing finish. But I wanted to come out here and finish strong and show some pride and try and be low Canadian,â€� said Hughes. “Last hole was a bit sour tasting and I’m probably going to think about that one for a little while. I had my sights set on three and I made six. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow, but lesson learned… don’t get ahead of yourself. Overall it was a fun day and a really fun week.â€� Hughes finished at 10-under par and tied 32nd. He went to Kent State University in Ohio, and played Firestone Country Club – the host of next week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – a couple of times while there. “It’s a really nice golf course, demanding, and you have to drive the ball really well there,â€� he said, as he prepares to make his debut at that event. “I’m excited for a major-type venue, and hopefully it’s a nice week.â€� And while it was a whirlwind week for Hughes – his family and friends hosted a baby shower Sunday evening for him and wife Jenna, as they are expecting their first child on October 28th, and the par-3 course he grew up playing was renamed in his honor Tuesday – he admitted he managed to make time to speak with Presidents Cup assistant captain Mike Weir about the prospect of making that team. “Obviously I know I’m a ways out from making that team, but you know, if I go out and win Firestone, then I’m obviously in contention to get on that team. (Weir) will be out there and hopefully I can put some good form together and a few good rounds and just see where that puts me. I’m not going to put any more pressure on myself to try and win. If I go out there and play the way I did today, I’ll like my chances,â€� said Hughes. “There will be more Presidents Cups in the future, but you never know what might happen.â€� Graham DeLaet fired a 1-under-par 71 Sunday to finish at 8-under. He was tied for 48th. Johnson confident into final major Dustin Johnson admitted Sunday he wasn’t satisfied with his score, but his tie for eighth gives him some positive vibes as he heads to the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational next week, where he defends, and the PGA Championship the week after. “I’ve really got a lot of positive things going into the next couple weeks. Got two big weeks ahead of me next week defending at the WGC, and obviously the PGA Championship. The game is in good form,â€� said Johnson. The World No.1 made no bogeys Sunday and shot a 5-under-par 67. But, he said he left a lot of birdies out there. “I hit it a lot better than my score,â€� said Johnson. “I just hit a lot of good putts that just didn’t go in the hole. But I really feel like the game is in good form. I feel like I played well every day here. Just didn’t hole enough putts.â€� Johnson flew home to Florida Sunday evening where he’ll have some family time before coming back up to Akron, Ohio for his title defense. With a big smile he said he was excited to see his kids. He also said he feels ‘comfortable’ over the golf ball right now, and is eager to tee-it-up for the next two events. “I’m hitting my irons good and hitting good wedge shots. I’m really looking forward to the next two weeks,â€� he said. Hoffman looking ahead Although it wasn’t the result Charley Hoffman was looking for Sunday at the RBC Canadian Open, falling short in a playoff against Jhonattan Vegas, his fifth top-5 finish of the year will help push him forward with good momentum moving into the FedExCup Playoffs, the PGA Championship, and of course the Presidents Cup. “The whole progress of going forward, and I’m doing that, playing well, and obviously you always want to finish these ones off. It’s going to be a little bittersweet but I’m happy with the way I played,â€� said Hoffman. “Obviously good momentum. Got a major championship and the FedExCup coming up, and looking forward to that and hopefully I can keep it going.â€� Hoffman admitted he hit a poor tee shot on the playoff hole, and that was ultimately his demise. Although Vegas also found a fairway bunker, Vegas had a line to the green, unlike Hoffman. “Just hit really probably the worst drive of the week for me down there and Jhonny caught a break by having a shot at the green. Hats off to him the way he played,â€� said Hoffman. “I played great. Just didn’t get the putts to the hole, which is probably going to be what I’m probably going to lose a little sleep over.â€� Hoffman is projected to move to 12th in the FedExCup standings, a career-high. Hagy makes big FedExCup jump Brandon Hagy made his professional debut in Canada at the Nova Scotia Open on the Web.com Tour in 2014, and things came full circle Sunday at Glen Abbey, with Hagy notching his best-ever TOUR finish north of the border. Hagy fired a 4-under-par 68 Sunday to move into a tie for fifth. Starting the week he was 129th on the FedExCup standings, but he’s projected to move to 108th, and the result, he said, will do wonders for his confidence moving forward. “It feels really good. I’ve worked really hard for this. I’ve played some good golf. I think some of my finishes haven’t shown how I’ve been playing. It’s kind of the rub of the green,â€� Hagy explained. “It’s tough out here. It’s all the best players in the world, but I knew I just had to keep staying the course… It feels pretty good.â€� Hagy said the key to his round was staying mentally focused on the task-at-hand, something he’s been trying to improve on. “I’m really proud of how I played. It’s nice to make that eagle on the second hole and kind of get it going. Made some good putts. Chipped in once. I’m just really happy with how I kept my composure out there and tried to stay as neutral as possible,â€� he said. “I’ve been working on that a lot this last year, too, so it definitely played off.â€� Robert Garrigus, who tied Glen Abbey’s course record with a 10-under-par 62 on Saturday fired a 3-under-par 69 on Sunday and finished tied with Hagy and Tony Finau for fifth. Garrigus, too, moved into the Top 125 on the FedExCup, from 131st on the 109th.

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When Scottie Scheffler signed with TaylorMade on the eve of THE PLAYERS, he joined a TOUR staff that also includes Tiger Woods. Scheffler’s signing came shortly after he picked up his first two PGA TOUR wins at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Those victories vaulted him atop the FedExCup standings. Scheffler and Woods don’t just have the same equipment sponsor now. They use the same irons, as well. Scheffler was a free agent before signing with TaylorMade a couple weeks ago, but he began using the company’s P-7TW irons last year. The clubs bear Woods’ initials because he had a hand in designing them. He also used them to win the 2019 Masters. To learn about the birth of the P-7TW irons, you’d have to go all the way back to January 2017, when Woods first signed with TaylorMade Golf (and Scheffler was still at the University of Texas). TaylorMade had an arduous task back then. The company had to design a set of irons that Woods felt comfortable using in competition, and that would live up to his incredibly high demands in regards to looks, feel, performance and specifications. “Throughout my career it’s been based on hands and feel,” Woods said in a 2019 YouTube video by TaylorMade. “My dad used to always tell me that the only direct contact you have with your golf club is with your hands. And if I feel something is slightly off, even a grip diameter could be just a fraction off, there might be a bubble underneath the grip, I can feel that. But then it’s the feel of the shot. If I feel something as it comes off that shaft, and I know where that ball should be in that window, and it’s not there, we have a problem. We need to address that, we need to talk about it, and we need to fix it.” For decades prior to joining TaylorMade, Woods used irons made by master craftsman Mike Taylor (formerly of Nike Golf, and currently with Artisan Golf). Woods is notoriously exacting when it comes to his irons, and as the legend goes, he can feel even the slightest difference in specs. “I think the biggest thing when we looked at Tiger’s (previous) specs was the level of granularity, and how in-depth and precise it was,” said Paul Demkowski, Manager of Product Development at TaylorMade. “A human hair is like six thousandths of an inch. His specs are down to the thousandths of an inch, and he can see that and feel the difference.” With that level of precision needed, TaylorMade began crafting prototypes. As expected, the task wasn’t easy. “I’m not sure how many different 6-irons we made him initially, but I would have to say it’s eight or nine before we actually got to a place where we actually got the flight, launch and spin right,” said Keith Sbarbaro, TaylorMade’s VP of Tour Operations. Woods initially started using TaylorMade’s “TW Phase 1” irons in 2018, and then switched into the TaylorMade P-7TW irons that hit the retail market in 2019 (and end up in Scheffler’s bag two years later). The P-7TW irons are special because they match exactly the look, feel and performance that Woods was looking for. That means the blade lengths, face height, center of gravity locations, and sole geometries all were fit to Woods’ liking. They also use heavy tungsten weighting behind the face to provide the deep feel and flight windows that Woods prefers. “My iron game got better when we put the tungsten in the head just behind the sweet spot,” Woods said. “For some reason, it not only made it feel deeper, but more importantly, my ball flight became more consistent. I didn’t have the kick-ups; it had a much more penetrating ball flight. I’ve always liked a harder, deeper feel to it. The tungsten gave me that type of feel and that type of reaction that I had been looking for. It’s been a lot of years and we never really got it right until these versions.” The TaylorMade P-7TW irons also go through TaylorMade’s “milled grind” machine milling process to ensure every iron has the same exact specs. That allowed Woods to have confidence that when he wore out a set, he could switch into a new set without worrying that something was amiss “The fact that I’m getting the same exact head that I just wore out is huge,” Woods said in a YouTube video by TaylorMade. “There’s really no variance between club-to-club, set-to-set. Now having the milled grinds, well, duh, I can have a new set every week.” Now, as Scheffler takes on the field at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, he’ll be using the same P-7TW iron heads that Woods, a three-time winner of the event, helped design. Scheffler also is using the same True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 Tour Issue shafts that Woods uses, as well. Given Woods’ unmatched dominance in match play, maybe the irons can help Scheffler add another title to this year’s impressive haul after finishing runner-up last year at Austin Country Club.

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Tom Hoge captured his first PGA TOUR victory Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, standing strong down the stretch against the likes of former FedExCup champions Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth. It was a long-awaited win for the TCU product and North Dakota native, coming in his 203rd career start. Recent changes to both his swing and equipment have clearly paid off for Hoge, who moved to No. 2 in the FedExCup. His win came just two weeks after a runner-up in The American Express. A putter switch quickly paid dividends, as last week’s victory was punctuated by a 20-foot birdie putt on the 71st hole. Hoge put the one-of-a-kind club in his bag at Pebble Beach, and the backstory of how it got there is quite incredible. Hoge was looking for a new putter a couple weeks ago at The American Express. He wanted one that could help him align more squarely to the target. According to Odyssey tour rep Joe Toulon, Hoge had a tendency to occasionally aim too far left. Hoge’s caddie, Henry Diana Jr., approached Toulon with a request to build a custom Odyssey 2-Ball for his player. “Henry thought a 2-Ball with a long line on it might be something easier for him to line up,” Toulon told GolfWRX. “He didn’t tell Tom about that conversation. I said, ‘You know what, I’ll have one made up and ready to go in case that time comes.’” The problem with the order, though, is that it had to be custom made. Hoge only plays putters with a plumber’s neck, but Odyssey doesn’t make a White Hot OG 2-Ball putter with that hosel. So, Toulon had to put an order into Odyssey headquarters for a custom version with a plumber’s neck. The order took about a week, and it got delivered during the practice days before last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Upon arrival, Toulon noticed the plumber’s neck was significantly heavier than the stock hosel options on the 2-Ball, so he removed the back weight on the sole. At that point, the putter was ready for Hoge’s approval, and he tested it against his other options prior to the event. Obviously, Hoge ended up making the decision to switch into the new custom putter. And the rest is history. But there’s another fold to the story. Diana Jr., Hoge’s caddie, originally suggested the 2-Ball putter because he has a bit of history with that model himself. Back in the mid-90s, Diana Jr. was a professional golfer who, like Hoge, also struggled with aiming too far left. He was using a 1986 Dave Pelz 3-Ball putter at the time. That club was a predecessor to Odyssey’s original 2-Ball putter, which was released in 2001. Diana Jr.’s father was a tool and die maker who built golf clubs on the side. When Diana Jr. was searching for a fix to his alignment issue, his father decided to make him a 2-Ball version. The 2-Ball worked wonders for the younger Diana. Then, years later, Odyssey brought a 2-Ball putter to retail and it became a huge success. “My dad was a tinkerer and he was always forward-thinking in a lot of ways and he had great ideas,” Diana Jr. told GolfWRX. “Pelz was obviously the pioneer of it, and then [my father] tweaked it, then Odyssey obviously came out with it. But it really worked…It’s just unbelievable how full circle it went.” It was a great call by Diana Sr. to craft a prototype version of the 2-Ball back in the mid-’90s, and it was a great call by Diana Jr. to suggest the custom build for Hoge. It wasn’t just the shortest club in the bag that helped Hoge win for the first time. Changes to the longest club also paid off. “When I started helping him – the reason I started helping him – was because he didn’t drive it well enough,” Hoge’s swing instructor, Scott Hamilton, told GolfWRX. “He was at like 51% or 52% driving accuracy. He was so in front of (the golf ball). The thing that makes his iron swing so good wasn’t very beneficial for his driver. He liked to push his pelvis forward on his backswing, so he’d get so in front of it, and that just didn’t work with the driver. “We worked really hard on getting him to load and stay behind it. … He’s greatly improved his driving.” Hoge was using a Titleist TSi2 driver in early 2021 to help take advantage of its more forgiving properties compared to the lower-spinning TSi3 version. According to Van Wezenbeeck, the high MOI (moment of inertia) driver helped offset Hoge’s inconsistency (more on Titleist’s TSi drivers here). The improvements that Hamilton and Hoge made started to set in, however, and he was gaining speed. As his spin rates started to climb while using the TSi2, Van Wezenbeeck and Hoge started to explore the lower-spinning TSi3 head and more stable shafts. Hoge is hitting the ball both longer and straighter, a combination that any golfer would take. “We were kind of fighting spin with the TSi2, and the mishit wasn’t as good,” Hamilton said. “When he jumped to the TSi3, the spin and launch profile started matching up and it started really moving out there. … Last year, he was probably at like 113 or 114 (mph of swing speed), and two years ago he was like 112. … He hit one the other day like 122 or 121. So he’s ramped speed way up. His on-course speed is like 115-117 now; not always, but when he wants it, it’s in there. So that always helps.” It does indeed.

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