Masters has record field of international players

Anirban Lahiri wasn't in the field for the Sanderson Farms Championship when he booked a ticket on the TOUR's charter flight from the Dominican Republic to Jackson, Mississippi. He needed a top-10 finish in the Dominican to get in this week's field. He hadn't had one in nearly two years, but Lahiri was confident about his game entering last week's Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. "Jackson isn't exactly an easy place to get to, especially from the Dominican. ... I felt really good up in Napa (at the season-opening Safeway Open), had a horrific start and really fought my way back, played some quality golf after a long time. I felt like I could ride that momentum last week, and I love playing paspalum, so I just had that feeling that if I go out there and do what I’m doing right now, I should get on that plane to Jackson. It paid off," Lahiri said after shooting a bogey-free 66 in the first round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. Lahiri is 33 under par in his last eight rounds. After a first-round 74 at the Safeway Open, he shot 14 under in the next three rounds at the Silverado Resort. He was 13 under par at Corales Puntacana to finish sixth. Lahiri, a two-time Presidents Cup participant, struggled before this recent run. He had just one top-10 in the 2018-19 season and didn't finish in the top 40 in any of his 12 starts before the season ceased because of the coronavirus. Lahiri was in India for five months, which gave him an opportunity to work with his instructor, Vijay Divecha. He didn't return to the TOUR until the Wyndham Championship, the final regular-season event of the 2020 season. "I left pretty much the Monday after (the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard) to go play the Asian Open, and then we got locked in. They closed the borders down. So I was there for a long time," Lahiri said. "I spent about 40 days straight with my coach before I came back out here, and I got back to the basics, undid a lot of the bad habits that had crept into the game and just tried to clean up the game, clean up the mind."

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Scottie Scheffler recorded his first PGA TOUR victory Sunday at the WM Phoenix Open following a three-hole playoff against reigning FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay. While the win should mostly be attributed to years of hard work, perseverance and raw talent, at least a sliver of credit must go to a putter change he made the week of the event. Scheffler hasn’t been one to change putters much throughout his career thus far, mostly opting for a Scotty Cameron Tour Rat 1 prototype putter. Heading into 2022, though, he wanted a slightly different look Back in December 2021, Scheffler took a trip to the famous Scotty Cameron Putter Studio in California to work with Scotty Cameron Tour Rep Brad Cloke. Before the trip to the studio, Scheffler had been experimenting with a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Timeless putter at home — for those who may not know, Scotty Cameron’s Newport has a bit rounder and softer edges than its Newport 2 style. While Scheffler liked the slightly different look of his Newport 2 Timeless putter at home, he wanted to get something more dialed in. And there’s no better place to do it than Scotty’s studio, where the fitters can make custom adjustments to weighting, profile, look and materials. “He just wanted to switch things up a little bit and give himself a slightly different look heading into 2022,” Cloke said in a Titleist press release. “Prior to visiting us in the studio, he’d been messing around with an older Newport 2 Timeless he had at home. He’d added bunch of lead tape to the sole to try and get it to a similar swingweight as his Super Rat. He really liked the profile but the feel wasn’t exactly where he wanted it, so we went to work on building him a new setup with adjustable weighting.” Of course, custom putter builds don’t just happen overnight. Scheffler had to wait for his new putter to get made and delivered from the studio. So, for the first few events of 2022, Scheffler used the Newport 2 Timeless putter that he’d been experimenting with. His new Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS prototype finally showed up the week prior to the WM Phoenix Open. It is 36.25 inches long and it has two 25-gram weights in the sole to get the weighting right for Scheffler’s stroke and feel preferences. The putter went right into play, and, obviously, it worked. Scheffler ranked second for the week in Stroked Gained: Putting (+6.49) and he made 44.7% of his birdie attempts. Illustrating how slim the margins are on the PGA TOUR, the new club helped Scheffler hole a couple crucial putts that helped him just make the cut at TPC Scottsdale. Scheffler advanced to the weekend with just a stroke to spare, thanks in part to a 35-foot birdie putt he made on his second-to-last hole Friday. “I kept telling (caddie Ted Scott) on Thursday and Friday I was scoring really poorly. I was playing fantastic golf, my swing felt great, short game felt good, putting felt good, everything felt really good and I was only 3 under,” Scheffler said in his pre-tournament press conference for this week’s Genesis Invitational. “I was really fighting the cut line on Friday afternoon. I had to make like a 6- or 7-footer on 7 for par to stay at 2 under, which was the cut line. Then I ended up making like a 40-footer for birdie on 8 to get to 3 under, and got up and down on 9 because I thought the cut line was going to be at 3 under.” Scheffler shot up the leaderboard with weekend rounds of 62-67 to claim his first TOUR title. Thanks to Cloke and his fitting efforts, Scheffler was able to find the right look, and Scheffler was able to capture his first career victory. Sometimes it’s the little things that can push golfers over that performance barrier. In terms of other putter changes, Adam Scott also switched putters recently. More on that change here.

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