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It’s standard for TOUR players to need at least a few weeks before feeling fully confident with a new club in the bag during a pressure situation. Apparently, Kevin Tway, Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker didn’t get the memo. All three had new gear in the bag during their sudden-death playoff at the Safeway Open, including a new PXG prototype driver, 3-wood, 5-wood and center-shafted mallet putter for Moore. Picking up 5-10 yards is almost unheard of for TOUR players due to the extensive testing they normally conduct on launch monitors to optimize launch and spin. However, Moore found a much better fit (launch and spin) in PXG’s prototype woods — to the point that he picked up 12 yards of carry with the driver and 10 yards with the 3-wood. Sneds’ new driver: Brandt Snedeker didn’t envision having to start the new 2018-19 TOUR season by testing a myriad of new driver builds at the Safeway Open. But when his Bridgestone JGR Tour B driver broke the weekend prior to arriving in Napa, the nine-time winner was forced to consider his options. Instead of sticking with JGR, Snedeker tested TaylorMade’s M3 460 on Tuesday and Wednesday before giving it the green light for the first round. Snedeker was able to draw the ball with regularity while keeping it within his normal spin rate range. He ranked 22nd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-tee with the new driver build. Mickelson opts for prototype: Phil Mickelson used the Safeway Open as an opportunity to put a new 34-inch Odyssey prototype putter and shaft through the paces. It’s unclear how the head differs from Mickelson’s usual #9 head shape, but the shaft is a shift away from the standard steel he’s used in the past. According to Odyssey, the two-tone shaft, which likely indicates a multi-material design, helped improve the consistency of Mickelson’s putting stroke. He finished 15th in Strokes Gained: Putting with the flat stick. Couples goes from dot to line: It was a minor change for Fred Couples that produced big results on the putting greens at Silverado Resort and Spa. Couples received four Bettinardi putters with different sight line options, within the last month, and chose to go with a sight line over his usual sight dot on the FCB Tour DASS model he’s used on a regular basis. Couples’ putter is slightly counterbalanced with a floating F.I.T. face and red, white and blue paintfill. Couples recorded his 500th made cut on TOUR en route to a T41 finish in California. Tway’s irons: Kevin Tway received Mizuno’s JPX 919 Forged and 919 Tour irons at the Dell Technologies Championship but chose to wait until Safeway Open to put them in play. The time spent at home getting the setup just right paid dividends for Tway, who left Napa with his first TOUR title. Made from two different materials, the JPX 919 Forged features a Boron-infused 1025E carbon steel that improves the overall durability of the head while allowing the face to be thinned out to a COR of .810 — an improvement of .10 when compared to its predecessor. With JPX 919 Tour, Mizuno’s HD grain flow forging process was used on the 1025E (Elite) carbon steel, which compacts more grain structure in the hitting area to improve feel. Louis’ Blueprint: Only two players have been given the opportunity to test out PING’s new Blueprint Forged protoype irons: Louis Oosthuizen and Bubba Watson.  With Watson taking the week off following the Ryder Cup, Oosthuizen became the first PING staffer to use the new irons that offer a compact, muscleback head shape and weight screw in the toe. Notes: PING rolled out new Sigma 2 putters. … Brendan Steele debuted Wilson Staff’s D7 3-wood. … Fujikura’s new Ventus shaft was used by Cody Gribble (driver) and Andrew Landry (3-wood) the first week it was released on TOUR. The tip-stiff shaft offers low torque through an extremely stiff 70-ton pitch fiber at 45 degrees in the bias layer. PGA TOUR SUPERSTORE: Buy equipment here
DUBLIN, Ohio – Billy Horschel won’t begrudge you the memory if all you take away from his victory at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday on Sunday is his eagle at the 15th hole. His nearly 55-foot putt, curling from right to left, was a splendid stroke and extended his two-shot lead to four, the final margin as Horschel (72) bested Aaron Wise (71). But while the eagle stood out, shiny things do not excite Horschel, who obsesses more over peak performance and what goes into it. He wants to understand success like a cheetah understands speed. What works? What doesn’t? He thinks about this as it relates to real estate, business – he doesn’t want to play professionally forever – and, for now, golf. On a list of the hardest workers on the PGA TOUR, he puts himself in the top five. RELATED: What’s in Horschel’s bag? That work is paying off, and in capturing his seventh TOUR title over a cast of younger players – Wise, 25; Joaquin Niemann, 23; Will Zalatoris, 25; Sungjae Im, 24; Sahith Theegala, 24 – Horschel, 35, also authored a victory for professionalism itself. “I think today, knowing the golf course, knowing how it was going to be fast and firm again, it was knowing the pin locations,” Horschel said. “I didn’t have to do anything to do anything special out there. I’ve got a five-shot lead.” In other words, Horschel is 13 years into his TOUR career; he knows what it takes. When Tiger Woods converted all those 54-hole leads/co-leads, Horschel was paying attention. He knew to appraise the difficulty of the course, the rock-hard greens, the pin positions. “I love watching golf,” he said. “As I’ve said for many years, I probably watched more golf than any PGA TOUR player. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a bad thing.” Given that he is now 3-for-5 at converting 54-hole leads/co-leads to victory, it’s probably a good thing. Horschel has not only studied the game, he has assembled an all-star cast around him that includes his (longtime) swing coach, Todd Anderson; fitness guy, Alex Bennett at the TPC Performance Center; stats guy, Mark Horton; and caddie, Mark “Fooch” Fulcher, who was on the bag for Justin Rose’s 2010 Memorial victory and joined Team Horschel last summer. Horschel’s wife, Brittany, has his back, too, although she had never been there to witness one of his wins until Sunday. She’s been too busy with their three young children, Skylar, Colbie and Axel. She’s also, ahem, superstitious. “My wife has never wanted to fly in on a Saturday night when I’ve had a chance to win,” Horschel said, laughing at the running joke in their family. “She feels like she may be bringing bad luck or something. “I had a chance to win Bay Hill this year,” he continued. “My family was there. They were right there on the 18th green. As I was walking up, had a chance to make a putt to go into a playoff with Scottie Scheffler.” The most important, relatively new addition to the team is probably Fulcher, who thought that this might have been his 40th victory between caddying on the PGA TOUR, LPGA, and DP World Tour. (When your caddie has lost track of how many times he’s won, you’ve got yourself an experienced caddie.) After Horschel missed the cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge last week – his first missed cut on TOUR since the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, nearly a year ago – he called a team meeting with Fulcher and statistician Horton. “We just said, ‘We need to get back to it,’” Horschel said. It, meaning their process, even if it sometimes feels too slow and deliberate for pedal-to-the-metal Horschel. “To be honest, it was probably long overdue,” Fulcher said. Not missing a cut since the U.S. Open was becoming too much of a story. Also, they were not thinking well, and consequently making poor decisions. Perversely, the missed cut at Colonial, and the ensuing meeting, prepared Horschel for winning. Deep into his successful but somewhat underrated career – he has never played on a U.S. Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team – he is enjoying his best run since winning the 2014 FedExCup. He captured the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play last season, plus the BMW PGA Championship, the crown jewel of the DP World Tour. And now he’s earned the coveted Jack Nicklaus handshake at Muirfield Village, moving from 30th to 10th in the FedExCup. “He’s an incredible professional, and I think he’s getting better,” Fulcher said. Teeing it up against significantly younger competition, Horschel is a throwback to an earlier era when guys like Ben Hogan and Tom Watson and others routinely peaked in their mid-30s. He would know all about that. He also knows where success has eluded him: in the majors. It just so happens the next U.S. Open, at The Country Club in Boston, is in two weeks. Horschel will continue put in the work; he loves the grind. If it doesn’t pay off at the U.S. Open, then it will at The Open Championship, and if not at St. Andrews, then next year. He admits the majors get him extra riled up, maybe too riled up. “He’s emotional,” Fulcher said. “What I have seen, though, is he’s a lot quieter on the golf course now, especially in moments like today. He’s a lot more set in his process than even when I started with him. He was a bit loose.” Work hard, stick to the process, and success will get in the way. Horschel firmly believes that. “Sometimes they get a little tired,” he said of his team, which he calls the best in the business, “because I want to just keep pushing and keep going forward. But they all understand it’s all for the betterment of the team and hopefully gives us the best chance to be victorious. And it’s great to have three wins in roughly the last 15 months.”
As we roll through the second half of the season, players look to make the final push for the FedExCup playoffs at TPC Deere Run. Round 2 tee times Round 2 leaderboard HOW TO WATCH PGA TOUR LIVE: Featured Groups – (8 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET), Featured Holes – (4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET) Telecast: Golf Channel (4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET) Listen:Â PGA TOUR Radio, (1 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET) NOTABLE PAIRINGS John Huh, Johnson Wagner, Ollie Schniederjans 7:20 a.m. ET off the 1st tee Charley Hoffman, Davis Love III, Troy Merritt 7:40 a.m. off the 10th tee Kyle Stanley, Ryan Moore, William McGirt 7:50 a.m. off the 10th tee Kevin Kisner, Bubba Watson, Steve Stricker 8:00 a.m. off the 10th tee Sebastian Munoz, Kurt Slattery, Nicholas Lindheim 9:10 a.m. ET off the 1st tee Brian Harman, Wesley Bryan, Cody Gribble 1:00 p.m. ET off the 1st tee Daniel Berger, Zach Johnson, Charles Howell III 1:10 p.m. ET off the 1st tee
