Reed, Noren share lead at Farmers Insurance Open

It’s a safe assumption that every club in the bag is working when you shoot 34 under and break an all-time scoring record on the PGA TOUR, as Cam Smith did at last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions. That said, in addition to the new Vokey SM9 wedges Smith put in play for his 65-64-64-65 romp at Kapalua, his putter may be the most interesting portion of the bag. Smith putts with a Scotty Cameron 009M prototype. Generally, the 009M is a traditional Anser-style putter most similar to the retail Newport line. The “009” is a reference to San Diego’s zip code, where Cameron’s studio is located, while the ‘M’ stands for ‘masterful.’ Smith said he put the slant-neck Scotty in play at last year’s Sony Open in Hawaii, pointing out that the club is celebrating its birthday this week at Waialae Country Club. He’ll certainly want to buy it a gift. The Australian was 10th in Strokes Gained: Putting last season and is fourth in the young 2021-22 campaign. He led the field in that statistic last week at Kapalua, as well. Smith said he prefers a slant neck and, when considering a new putter last year, told Cameron and company he wanted the neck design in whatever club he would test. “There’s lots of cool stamps in the back there as well,” Smith said. “I’ve always loved the dot on top. I’ve never been a line guy. I feel like I can just feel the putter a little bit better. I don’t get so obsessed with the line. I feel like I’m able to just hit a good putt, and a good putt out of the middle means more chances of going in.” You can see the stamps and the sight dot below. And while there are elements of the design Smith can point to that suit his preferences, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi quality as well. “I just really like this one. I don’t know why,” Smith said. “It just feels great in the hands. I feel like I’m able to hit really good lag putts with it, which is a big thing out here. We leave ourselves some pretty nasty putts sometimes. I feel like I’m able to get the ball rolling real good. And like I said, the biggest thing for me is the strike. So I just feel like I hit lots of good putts with it out of the middle, and it feels so good.” Scotty Cameron TOUR rep Drew Page said Smith had been in a mallet-style Teryllium T22 Fastback model. The pair collaborated on a blade design after Smith, a self-identified “blade guy” said he wanted a similar slant neck on a blade-style putter. “He liked the neck. We put it on a 009 head. We gave it to him here, (at the) 2021 Sony Open, and he has put it in play and used it ever since,” Page said. “It gave him the look and offset that he wanted and gave him back the feel that he wanted with the blade. I think he just wanted to go back to his roots and have a little bit more playability within his stroke with a blade.” If putting is a game of comfort and confidence, clearly Smith has both. We can also add “cool” to that list, as Cam’s Cameron is one of the coolest looking on TOUR.

Click here to read the full article…

Henry Shrimp, Isaiah Salinda and Brandon Wu all won their matches to lift Stanford to a 3-2 victory over Texas to capture the NCAA men’s golf championship.

Click here to read the full article…

2021 U.S. Open, Round 2 Top 10 win probabilities: Patrick Reed (1, -4, 25.7%) Justin Thomas (T3, -2, 18.3%) Bryson DeChambeau (2, -3, 15.1%) Harris English (T3, -2, 6.9%) Xander Schauffele (T7, E, 5.3%) Hideki Matsuyama (T7, E, 4.6%) Jon Rahm (T12, +1, 4.4%) Jason Kokrak (6, -1, 3.1%) Rafa Cabrera Bello (T3, -2, 2.1%) Matthew Wolff (T7, E, 2.0%) Top Strokes-Gained Performers from Round 2: Putting: Rafa Cabrera Bello +6.2 Around the Green: Paul Barjon +3.9 Approach the Green: Tony Finau +4.5 Off-the-tee: Rory McIlroy +1.8 Total: Bryson DeChambeau +7.3 NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live "Make Cut", "Top 20", "Top 5", and "Win" probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the U.S. Open, or to see how each golfer's probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model's home page.

Click here to read the full article…