Stories behind the walk-up music at Zurich Classic

Justin Thomas arrives at Southern Hills after a fifth-place finish at last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson. Even more promising than the high finish was his performance on the greens. Thomas finished 20th in Strokes Gained: Putting at TPC Craig Ranch while debuting a prototype Scotty Cameron putter. Thomas is in the midst of a solid season – he ranks 15th in the FedExCup despite a winless drought that’s lasted more than a year – and the putter may be the key as he seeks to win a second PGA Championship this week at Southern Hills. Last week marked Thomas’ seventh top-10 in 12 starts this season and ninth top-25. Thomas gained 0.8 strokes per round on the greens last week, his best performance in that metric since February and his second-best this season. Thomas is known for his excellence with his irons, having ranked no worse than sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach in each of the past five seasons. But he’s struggled to cash in on all those birdie opportunities, finishing outside the top 100 in Strokes Gained: Putting in each of the past three years. He’s 82nd in that metric this year. Thomas started his PGA TOUR career with a classic Newport 2 blade-style putter with a traditional plumber’s neck, collecting his first win, at the 2015 CIMB Classic, with the club. The next 13 of his 14 PGA TOUR wins came with a custom Scotty Cameron X5 mallet that he debuted in the summer of 2016. The mallet had a short flow neck and a dual-winged shape. That switch preceded Thomas’ top season, his five-win 2017 that included his first major triumph and FedExCup. In 2020, Thomas and Scotty Cameron celebrated his success with the putter by releasing a collaborative Phantom X5.5 putter, which was inspired by Thomas’ custom putter. Scotty Cameron released 2,020 limited-edition putters to the public. Thomas and his putter seemed inseparable. That was until he debuted a slightly different putter before last year’s Open Championship, however. The dual-winged, mallet head shape of the new flatstick, a Scotty Cameron T5, was nearly identical to his previous gamer, except the putter came with an extended plumber’s neck hosel that differed from the short slant neck style he’d been using for years. The custom hosel used what’s called a “knuckle” construction, which is a piece of a shaft that connects the bottom portion of the hosel to the top portion. The knuckle allows for the neck to be elongated without adding too much weight. Thomas had only a short stint with the new putter, though. By the end of 2021, he had returned to the Phantom X5 with which he won 13 times. That was until last week, at least, when Thomas brought out a new T5 with slight modifications from the one he used in 2021. WRX caught up with Scotty Cameron tour rep Drew Page last week to understand why Thomas made the switch back and what’s different about this unique Scotty Cameron T5 prototype. Page said that Thomas’ new T5 prototype has smoother milling marks on the face than his longtime X5, a silver-colored knuckle neck and an aluminum plate on the back cavity. The new knuckle neck is slightly duller than the standard, which uses a chromed piece of shaft, and the aluminum plate was added to adjust the sound at impact, a change that Thomas requested after his first experiments with the putter at last year’s Open. “He started working with a knuckle neck last year before the British Open,” Page told GolfWRX. “He put the first version of it in play at the (2021 Open Championship). Then, afterwards, he came back with feedback for us, what he liked, what he didn’t like, and what he wanted to see out of it. We were able to create that. The new, custom neck design also provides a different toe hang, Page said. This helps Thomas gain more stability throughout the stroke. “It stabilizes the stroke a little bit. His open to closure rate is just better, it’s more consistent as far as his strike and starting on line,” Thomas said. “He can feel it throughout the stroke a little bit. A player like that, it’s very much about honing in and being in touch with what they feel throughout the stroke. That produces confidence in being able to make putts, which is huge.” Thomas also switched from the X5 head to the T5 because Scotty Cameron no longer makes the former. Thomas would’ve needed to stockpile inventory of the X5 head if he wanted to continue to experiment with that model. “He was like, ‘Alright, let’s get into current product,’ so that’s why we went that direction,” Page said. “He can see something new, and he knew if he does get into it as a full-time thing there’s no shortage of current product to get, or head shapes, or new heads in that line if we want to alter necks. It’s expected that Thomas will continue using the Scotty Cameron T5 prototype putter at the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week. During this time of experimentation, however, nothing is set in stone.

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KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Jordan Spieth could tell you he’s been in the top 10 in seven of his last nine PGA TOUR starts, including his 12th victory at the Valero Texas Open last month. He could tell you the significance of a potential victory at this week’s 103th PGA Championship at Kiawah, where a fourth major win would give him the career Grand Slam – a distinction held by only Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. But as to when exactly he knew that he was “back” to his old self after a vexing, lengthy slump that saw him fall to 92nd in the world earlier this year? That’s more complicated. RELATED: Power Rankings | Expert Picks | Nine Things to Know: Kiawah Island “I’m not sure if there was a single turning point,” said Spieth, who is coming off a T9 finish at the AT&T Byron Nelson last week. “I think it was kind of a progression of finding some feels that allowed me to stand comfortably over the ball and hit a shot under pressure, and then doing that for multiple days in a row and then having that happen a couple tournaments in a row.” Those two tournaments, he added, were the Waste Management Phoenix Open (T4, including a third-round 61) and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (T3) in early February. It was, he said, the “time frame where I kind of thought, Man, I know it’s not where I want it to be, but it doesn’t need to be for me to at least tap in to how to contend out here.” Spieth, who had weather delays getting out of Dallas and was set to play the course for the first time Tuesday afternoon, is up to 26th in the world, eighth in the FedExCup. That’s not up the standards he set in 2015, when he was No. 1 in both, but then again, is that standard even fair? What does it mean to be back, anyway? Winning on TOUR? Spieth has done that. Winning his fourth major? It could happen this week. Revisiting the peaks he reached in 2015? That year, of course, is when Spieth won five times, including the Masters, U.S. Open, TOUR Championship and FedExCup. He was Player of the Year and reached No. 1 in the world. But that metric is problematic, as well. “I was actually a better player in 2017,” he said, “but everyone just looks at results. I had a lower scoring average. I was better tee to green. I was a better player.” For Will Zalatoris, who plays often with Spith in Dallas and will join him (and Webb Simpson) for the first two rounds of the PGA, being back means doing Jordan Spieth things again. And what exactly are Jordan Spieth things? “The disgusting chip-ins,” Zalatoris said, “the 40-footers that when you’re playing against him they’re awful, when you’re playing with him they’re the best thing on earth, or at least when he’s on your team. But the guy, I mean, he worked so hard at it for a year and a half, just hours and hours of beating golf balls. Obviously, we get to see what goes on here, but I’m fortunate enough to see what goes on back home, and there’s nobody that works harder than him. “It was just a matter of time.” A match at Dallas National “three or four months ago,” he added, left no question. Zalatoris and his partner were on the green; Spieth and partner Martin Flores were on either side of it, Spieth having pull-hooked his tee shot left of the cart path. Zalatoris knew not to get too comfortable. “Jordan hits this chip shot that skips through the rough,” he said, “goes up, checks on the hill, then basically just goes Mach3 and just slams into the back of the hole and goes in. Then he follows it up with like a 30- or 40-footer on the next hole. It’s just like, this is just Jordan. “I think to me – I’d seen it for the few months leading up to that,” he continued, “but that was like the most – that was when I knew, OK, he’s back. It’s been fun to see.” Spieth said he’s tried to stay level-headed amid the mass hysteria of his high highs and low lows. “It’s golf,” he said. He said he’s not thinking about the Slam and won’t until the weekend – and that’s only if he’s contending. “I feel like I’ll have a lot of chances at this tournament,” he said, “and if I just focus on trying to take advantage of this golf course, play it the best I can and kind of stay in the same form tree to green I’ve been in, all I can ask for is a chance.” Just a chance. For some players – the most riveting, can’t-turn-away players – it’s all they need. And that’s why the Slam is very much in play at Kiawah. As Zalatoris, Daniel Berger, Matt Kuchar and others know well, when Jordan Spieth things start happening, anything is possible.

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It is the son’s dream that is here and now, to be cheered and respected for being played out with a youthful exuberance in an era where the entrepreneurial spirit is widely celebrated. But what of the son’s father, a mountain of a man who lived this same dream decades ago, at a time when it wasn’t so fanciful and admirable, when it was brushed with enmity in an era where ignorance often trumped human dignity? So, what does Jim Dent think of Joseph’s pursuit of this professional golf dream? At the other end of the phone conversation, Jim Dent’s words are slowly delivered and softly spoken. Not because he’s 81 years old, but because that’s Jim Dent’s nature – cautious and gentle. It belies the America in which he grew up but helps explain why Dent was such an intriguing study for virtually all the nearly 1,000 tournaments he played across his PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions career. It is true what Michael Bamberger wrote beautifully in a Sports Illustrated feature in 2014, offering testimony on behalf of a golfer he had studied and known for more than 25 years. “What I’ll say here is what anybody who has ever stood on a TOUR driving range will tell you,” he wrote of those days when balata golf balls thundered off Dent’s persimmon driver. “Golf will never see the likes of Jim Dent again.” Yet, here he is, watching his 20-year-old son carry on the dream, a young black man trying to succeed in a pro golf world dominated by white athletes. Could golf see the likes of Joseph Dent? Jim Dent digests the question, pauses briefly, then says: “Joseph has made me proud already. But he’s going to be a great asset to this game. I just hope I’m around long enough to walk the fairways with him and see him succeed.” Joseph Dent is not your typical fledgling professional golfer. And not just because he’s black. Nor just because he’s the adopted son of a 12-time winner on the PGA TOUR Champions, a man who navigated through a segregated America to find his way in pro golf. No, Joseph Dent is unique in that he doesn’t boast a polished AJGA resume, doesn’t go on forever about his tournament experience and exotic travels and practice-range travails. Fact is, he played on the golf team at Strawberry Crest High School in the Tampa, Florida, area for just two seasons – as a freshman and a senior – partly because his passion for the game wasn’t quite there, and partly because he agreed with his parents that he needed to mature and focus on his academics. “I first played golf when I was 8 or 9, but my dad put us in all the sports. So, I went through phases. Baseball is what I played at first, but in middle school I fell in love with golf,” Joseph said. That passion has blossomed since leaving high school, to the point where Joseph Dent is all aboard the Advocates Pro Golf Association Tour (APGA), which this week is in St. Augustine, Florida, at the World Golf Village’s Slammer & Squire course. Representing the Tampa Bay Chapter of the First Tee, the younger Dent already has demonstrated that the road he is on just might have potential. He opened with a 72 at the APGA tournament at TPC Sugarloaf outside of Atlanta a few weeks ago “and it was the first time I felt like I was in contention (as a pro).” The sense of excitement was intoxicating and even after he closed with a 76 and fell into a share of 13th place, Dent came away with a smile on his face. “It gave me a real good idea of what I have to work on to get better,” he said. That Joseph Dent has an avenue on which to travel his pro golf dream is a positive step from his father’s youth. Whereas Jim Dent honed his game at Mays Landing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and made the National Negro Open (he won in 1969) a “must-play” to be squeezed in around a never-ending series of Monday qualifiers and those mandatory money games, his son feels fortunate to have a circuit that gives him a true sense of what may be ahead. The APGA was established in 2008 with a simple mission – “to bring greater diversity to the game of golf by developing African Americans and other minorities for careers in golf.” But while the PGA of America did blatantly discriminate when Jim Dent was a kid – the “Caucasian-only” clause was not lifted until November of 1961, 14 years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in baseball – the APGA does not. Its tour, which has five tournaments on the remainder of the 2020 schedule, is opened to all golfers, regardless of skin color. Joseph Dent vows a commitment to this tour, to himself, and, yes, to his father’s legacy, which fills him with pride. “He has encouraged me to always follow my dream, to do what I love,” Joseph said. “His advice has been simple – you have to put in the work. It’s his fundamental belief.” That the golf dreams of Jim Dent and son Joseph intersect at “The Patch” is arguably the most flavorful part of the story. “The Patch” is what they call Augusta Municipal Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia, which is approached via an entrance that only recently was re-named Jim Dent Way. It is a fitting tribute to a native son who called Augusta home for most of his life and has contributed mightily to benefiting people of color – in that town and throughout the country. While Jim Dent never won on the PGA TOUR like other trail-blazers Pete Brown and Charlie Sifford did, he established a presence for parts of five decades and inspired generations. “As a man of color, I thank Mr. Dent for what he did,” Ira Miller, general manager of Augusta Municipal GC told the Augusta Chronicle. “He paved the way so I could be in this position. Blacks are now in the game; not as many as I would like to see on the PGA, but it will someday. He paved the way for us all.” Remarkably, while growing up in Augusta, Dent couldn’t play “The Patch,” as it was segregated. Dent played his golf on caddie days at Augusta National and next door at Augusta Country Club (when he successfully snuck on, that is). But “The Patch” became a haven for minority golfers in 1964 and remains even more so today. Though Jim Dent by 1964 was on his endless car travels from coast to coast to chase the golf dream, his ties to his hometown are forever. One of his four children by a previous marriage, James Dent, is the head professional at Augusta Municipal and now Joseph Dent searches for the secret to this game as a caddie at Augusta National and on the range at Augusta Municipal. You can almost see the curl of a beautiful smile on Jim Dent’s face. “I tell Joseph that it’s a lot of work and even though he isn’t getting paid to practice, every golf ball he’s hitting today is like putting money in the bank,” the father said. He has told his son other things, too. Like what Julius Boros once told him about soft hands or the simple advice Sam Snead had about guarding against “missing a short iron,” or the tips Gene Littler delivered one sultry morning at Inverrary Country Club. Beautiful memories start to percolate, and Jim Dent laughs softly. “I got to hang around with a lot of great friends and learn from them. If you can’t learn from the best, you can’t learn.” As he has grown and matured, Joseph Dent has embraced his father’s teachings and been nurtured by his parents’ love and wisdom. “I’ve known Joseph (and brother Joshua) since Jim and his wife (Willye) adopted them 20 years ago. They are first-class kids and you know mom and dad raised them well,” said Gary Koch, who can be identified several ways. A former collegiate standout at the University of Florida (national champs in 1973) who won six times on the PGA TOUR, he’s been a longtime member of NBC’s heralded golf team. But it’s his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Tampa Bay Chapter of The First Tee that brings enormous satisfaction. He can speak to the strong support groups, the summer camps, the fact that 80,000 children were introduced to the game of golf at some level last year, many of them being children or color or from low-income families. Beyond that, Koch has had his own foundation that has been awarding two $10,000 college scholarships to chapter graduates the past six years. “These are not based on how good you are at golf, but how well you’re doing in school,” said Koch. “We want them to make sure they stay in the game.” Koch subscribes to the First Tee mantra, about teaching core values, about providing opportunities and improving access so that children of color and low-incoming families can be a part of golf’s future. In so many ways, Koch identifies with a philosophy that has been at the Dent family’s goodness. “I’m just paying it forward,” Jim Dent once said when he refused to accept lavish praise for providing the funds to buy Brown a home in Augusta or for adopting three children with Willye when he had reached an age when retirement was on the horizon. (The couple adopted a newborn girl, Victoria, 24 years ago, then adopted twins Joseph and Joshua four years later. Joshua, who attends Livingstone College in North Carolina, also loves to play golf.) “My aunt took me in,” Dent explained to Bamberger in that SI story. “All we’re doing is the same – paying it forward.” Having benefited from his father’s gentle soul and hard-earned wisdom, Joseph plays golf with a passion. But so, too, does he play with a profound appreciation for opportunities that his father helped forge. “I have read so many stories about him and while I can only imagine what it was like for him, I know he had to roll with the punches,” Joseph said. “That’s why I admire him and why he inspires me. He had a belief in himself. He let his clubs do the talking.” Joseph will do similarly. His father’s dream, after all, is his dream now.

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