Pebble Beach is joining Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakmont Country Club as anchor sites, a strategy that allows the USGA to return to its most famous courses more frequently for the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open.
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Scottie Scheffler’s last putter switch paid quick dividends. He won in his first start with a new Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS prototype, then rolled off three more wins in his next five starts, including the Masters, to reach world No. 1. Surely, Scheffler hopes his latest switch leads to such quick success. The reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year has a new flatstick in the bag at this week’s THE CJ CUP in South Carolina, his first individual tournament since finishing second at the TOUR Championship in August. “I typically don’t like changing equipment at all, but I’ve been using (the new putter) now for probably two, three weeks,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “Late in the year I putted what felt like to me pretty poorly, I was really streaky. I was trying a few different things and that’s not really a way to improve when you’re kind of, felt like I was kind of blindly throwing darts just trying to find something. Sometimes I was lining the ball up, sometimes I wasn’t.” The new putter that Scheffler has in the bag this week is a new Scotty Cameron T-5.5 Proto mallet putter. The mallet is a departure from the style that Scheffler has used in recent years, but it reminds him of the style that he used during a successful junior career that included a victory at the U.S. Junior Amateur. Why the drastic change? “For me it’s just really easy to line up, I feel like I’m more consistent with it,” Scheffler said of the new putter. “I feel like my ceiling’s still the same. I can get hot with the putter and make a ton of putts, but I felt like my floor was a little too low last year, so hopefully this will be one of those deals that will kind of raise the floor.” At last month’s Presidents Cup, Scheffler was seen getting putting tips from U.S. Captain’s Assistant Steve Stricker and working past sunset with his longtime coach, Randy Smith, on Quail Hollow’s putting green. “I definitely was frustrated with how I was rolling it at the Presidents Cup,” Scheffler said. “I wasn’t hitting my lines. I couldn’t get comfortable over the ball.” As Scotty Cameron tour rep Brad Cloke explains it, Scheffler was recently practicing at home with an older Scotty Cameron Futura T5W mallet putter that the company had sent him years ago. Feeling that the T5W putter was helping him start the ball on-line more consistently, Scheffler asked Cloke last week for an updated version of the putter. Scotty Cameron then built Scheffler a new prototype of the Phantom X T-5.5 putter, which has a single black line on the top-line and two white lines on the back flange, just like the T5W putter Scheffler practiced with at home. For further customization, Scheffler’s new putter also has custom “Grinder” and “S.S.” stampings on the outer toe and heel portions, and it comes with deeper face milling marks, helping soften the feel and acoustics to match his previous GSS blade putter. Cloke said the size and stability of the Phantom’s mallet head are likely what helped Scheffler start the ball on his intended line more often. “I think the key takeaway, though, was just getting it lined up better for him, and framing it a little better than the blade,” Cloke told GolfWRX on Tuesday. While the putter switch may seem surprising after winning four times in 2022, Scheffler actually recorded negative Strokes Gained: Putting stats in six of his previous nine events where the stat was measured (the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship did not report Strokes Gained: Putting stats). Scheffler finished the 2022 season ranked fourth in both Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green but was 58th in Strokes Gained: Putting. A new putter could help Scheffler get on another hot streak like the one we saw in the spring, though. We’ll have to wait until Thursday to see if the putter officially gets the call-up into competition, but if it does, another string of victories could be in store for the world No. 1.
Curious about the top performances in golf’s Grand Slam events? We’ve compiled them for you below. No surprise, but the names Nicklaus and Woods appear on this list several times. Rory McIlroy has a growing presence here, as well. LOW 72-HOLE SCORE (with relation to par) Masters Tournament 18 under, Tiger Woods: 1997, 70-66-65-69; Jordan Spieth: 2015, 64-66-70-70 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. U.S. Open 16 under, Rory McIlroy: 2011, 65-66-68-69 at Congressional Golf Club in Bethesda, Maryland Open Championship 19 under, Tiger Woods: 2000, 67-66-67-69 at St. Andrews (Old) in St. Andrews, Scotland PGA Championship 20 under, Jason Day: 2015, 68-67-66-67 at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan, Wisconsin LOW 18-HOLE SCORE Masters Tournament 63, Nick Price (1986, third round); Greg Norman (1996, first) U.S. Open 63, Johnny Miller (1973, fourth round); Jack Nicklaus (1980, first); Tom Weiskopf (1980, first); Vijay Singh (2003, second); Justin Thomas (2017, third). Open Championship 63, Mark Hayes (1977, second round); Isao Aoki (1980, third); Greg Norman (1986, second); Paul Broadhurst (1990, third); Jodie Mudd (1991, fourth); Nick Faldo (1993, second); Payne Stewart (1993, fourth); Rory McIlroy (2010, first); Phil Mickelson (2016, first); Henrik Stenson (2016, fourth). PGA Championship 63, Bruce Crampton (1975, second round); Raymond Floyd (1982, first); Gary Player (1984, second); Vijay Singh (1993, second); Michael Bradley (1995, first); Brad Faxon (1995, fourth); Jose Maria Olazabal (2000, third); Mark O’Meara (2001, second); Thomas Bjorn (2005, third); Tiger Woods (2007, second); Steve Stricker (2011, first); Jason Dufner (2013, second), Hiroshi Iwata (2015, second); Robert Streb (2016, second). YOUNGEST CHAMPIONS Masters Tournament Tiger Woods, 1997 (21 years, 3 months, 14 days) U.S. Open Johnny McDermott, 1911 (19 years, 10 months, 14 days) The Open Championship Seve Ballesteros, 1979 (modern era, 22 years, 3 months, 12 days); Tom Morris Jr., 1868 (pre-modern era, 17 years, 5 months, 8 days) PGA Championship Gene Sarazen, 1922 (20 years, 5 months, 22 days) OLDEST CHAMPIONS Masters Tournament Jack Nicklaus, 1986 (46 years, 2 months, 23 days) U.S. Open Hale Irwin, 1990 (45 years, 15 days) The Open Championship Roberto De Vicenzo, 1967 (modern era, 44 years, 3 months, 3 days); Old Tom Morris, 1867 (pre-modern era, 46 years, 3 months, 10 days) PGA Championship Julius Boros, 1968 (48 years, 4 months, 18 days) OLDEST FIRST-TIME MAJOR WINNERS Jerry Barber (45 years, 3 months, 6 days, 1961 PGA Championship) Roberto De Vicenzo (44 years, 3 months, 1 day, 1967 Open Championship) LONGEST TIME BETWEEN FIRST AND SECOND MAJORS 11 years, Julius Boros  (1952 U.S. Open-1963 U.S. Open) 11 years, Ben Crenshaw (1984 Masters-1995 Masters) PLAYERS WINNING THE WEEK BEFORE A MAJOR (since 1934) 2014, Rory McIlroy (WGC-Bridgestone Invitational-PGA Championship) 2007, Tiger Woods (WGC-Bridgestone Invitational-PGA Championship) 2006, Phil Mickelson (BellSouth Classic-Masters Tournament) 1988, Sandy Lyle (Greater Greensboro Open-Masters Tournament) 1971, Lee Trevino (Canadian Open-Open Championship) 1959, Art Wall (Azalea Open-Masters Tournament) 1949, Sam Snead (Greater Greensboro Open-Masters Tournament) 1946, Ben Hogan (Winnipeg Open-PGA Championship) 1945, Byron Nelson (Chicago Victory Open-PGA Championship) 1939, Ralph Guldahl (Greater Greensboro Open-Masters Tournament) 1939, Henry Picard (Scranton Open-PGA Championship)  Read more stories about the Grand Slam
Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland have teamed up this week at the 2022 Zurich Classic in New Orleans. The young superstars combine for only 49 total years of age (Morikawa is 25 years old, and Hovland is 24 years old), but they already have eight PGA TOUR victories between them (Morikawa has five, and Hovland has three). With Morikawa currently ranked No. 2 in the Official World Golf Rankings, and Hovland ranked No. 5, the Morikawa-Hovland duo is sure to be both a fan favorite — and a betting favorite to win the event, too. While neither player has made any major changes to their equipment setups in the last few months, each have recently made one minor tweak: Hovland has changed into a modified Ping G425 LST driver, and Morikawa changed the weight of his TaylorMade TP Collection Juno putter. Ahead of the 2022 Zurich Classic, GolfWRX.com spoke to both players to gain further insight about why they made their respective gear changes. Viktor Hovland Leading up to the Masters, Hovland was using a Ping G425 LST 9-degree driver head, which has a relatively flat lie angle to influence a fade bias. Hovland, however, who already plays a natural cut shot, noticed he was struggling to draw the ball. To help combat the issue, Hovland and Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates experimented with different loft and lie angle settings. The two eventually settled on a setting in his Ping G425 LST 9-degree head that shifted the lie angle upright by 2 degrees. All things being equal, a more upright lie angle will typically help golfers draw the ball, whereas a flat lie angle will influence a fade. According to Hovland, the upright driver setting also matched up better with the lie angles on his Ping i210 irons, helping him achieve more consistency throughout the set. ”We had a hard time drawing the driver, because it was too flat,” Hovland told GolfWRX.com at the 2022 Zurich Classic on Tuesday. “I have pretty low hands at impact, so we figured it’d be easier to make it more upright so I didn’t have to work as hard to draw it. When I do draw it, with that current setting, I tend to draw my irons too much. We just kind of matched it up to the rest of the set.” While many PGA TOUR players would be concerned using an upright driver, since they tend to guard against a left miss, Hovland doesn’t worry as much about missing to the left. “Most of the time when I’m playing well, it’s not going left too much,” Hovland said. Collin Morikawa You may not think five grams is a lot of weight, but for Morikawa, it can make a huge difference in feel on the greens. Typically, Morikawa uses a TaylorMade TP Collection Juno putter with 2.5-gram weights in the heel and toe portions of the sole. When he plays on relatively slower green complexes, however, he says he wants something a bit heavier. Ahead of The 2021 Open Championship, which Morikawa won, he replaced the 2.5-gram weights on his putter with 7.5-gram weights. Ahead of the Zurich Classic, he’s doing something similar by replacing the 2.5-gram weights with 5-gram weights. Although the change only equates to 5 grams of additional overall head weight, it’s significant for Morikawa, who’s going from the lightning fast Augusta National greens to the relatively slower TPC Louisiana surfaces. “I just added a little more weight to the putter,” Morikawa said on Monday at the 2022 Zurich Classic. “For me, it’s what I do on slower greens, like what I did at The Open. Instead of trying to hit it harder, or do something different, it just matches my feel a little better, and helps me work my way from fast greens to slow greens.” For amateur golfers, take this as a lesson to not underestimate the power of just a few grams. Adding or subtracting weight, especially in certain areas, can drastically change both performance and feel. If you’re using a putter that has interchangeable weights, we recommend messing around with different configurations to see what feels best for you, or consult with a professional fitter to get dialed in.
