Sungjae Im turned a shootout into a one-man show Sunday in Las Vegas, running the tables with seven birdies in eight holes around the turn for a 9-under 62 and a four-shot victory in the Shriners Children’s Open.
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New world No. 1 Jon Rahm calls it “busy.” Webb Simpson calls it “very strange.” Scott Van Pelt of ESPN, which will televise next week’s PGA Championship, calls it “a time of total disarray.” Call it the Crazy Eight. Starting with this week’s World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis, the next eight weeks will determine the winner/s of a WGC, the FedExCup, and two majors. England’s Tommy Fleetwood is among the players who circled this stretch on their revised calendars, dropping in for last week’s 3M Open and committing to nine big weeks of golf through the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Sept. 17-20. “I’m going to work hard and play hard and see how well we can do,” Fleetwood said. That’s a common sentiment on TOUR as players commence the biggest and most impactful stretch of golf this season, and maybe the biggest in years. FEDEX ST. JUDE INVITATIONAL: Featured Groups | Tee times | FedExCup standings Said Rahm from TPC Southwind: “It’s one of those situations where somebody could get hot and possibly run away with the World Golf Championship, majors, possibly the FedExCup. “… It will be a good time to start playing good golf,” he added. Rahm of course is already playing good golf, having won the recent Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide to take over world No. 1. He is eighth in the FedExCup, but volatility could be the rule for both metrics going forward. The winner at TPC Southwind this week will earn an elevated 550 FedEx points (up from the usual 500), while someone will bank 600 at the PGA Championship next week. The Official World Golf Ranking could feature shake-ups at the top, as well. According to Sports Betting News, FedExCup No. 1 Justin Thomas could return to world No. 1 with a win this week. So could reigning FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy, who lost the top spot to Rahm two weeks ago. “It’s extremely important,” Thomas said of the prospect of returning to world No. 1. “It’s never something that I won’t want to have and won’t be trying to get to if I’m not there. The thing about that is it’s not about getting there, it’s about how long can you stay there.” (Thomas, the 2017 FedExCup champion, was world No. 1 for four weeks in 2018.) How players handle this busy time will have a lot to say about that. Each of the eight weeks is of course important for its own sake, but it’s hard not to take in the bigger picture. Simpson spoke of how nice it will be to have “the best players in the world” at TPC Southwind since that will also be the case for the PGA at TPC Harding Park. (The 44 of the top 50 in the OWGR in Memphis this week is the most on TOUR since the 2019 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.) Thomas, who will be attempting to join McIlroy and Tiger Woods as the only two-time winners of the FedExCup, name-dropped East Lake and the season-ending TOUR Championship (Sept. 4-7) even as he geared up for a run at another WGC title at TPC Southwind, where he finished T12 last year. “I find this place very similar to East Lake,” Thomas said, “to where if you drive it well, if you hit the fairways, it’s not a very difficult golf course. You have a pretty good amount of short irons and some wedges to where you can control your distance into the greens. Because it’s so important to be putting from below the hole or on the correct side.” As for the Crazy Eight, which will also decide the Wyndham Rewards Top 10, no one knows how things will go. Will one player get hot and take a big stack of chips? Will a star emerge? “I feel like it’s breakthrough season at a time of total disarray,” said ESPN’s Van Pelt. Fatigue could be a factor. Although one wonders how that’s possible after the TOUR’s three-month hiatus, there’s so much to play for, so many big events all crammed together, it could test the stamina of even the current wave of 20-something superstars. “Nothing special,” Rahm said of how he’ll handle so much golf. “Probably keep doing what I’ve been doing right now. I would say I’m out of quarantine, I’m in really good shape, so I feel physically and mentally strong enough to do what I need to do the next few weeks.” As for looking ahead, so much could happen. Too much. Do we even dare prognosticate? Curtis Strange, who will be calling next week’s PGA for ESPN from home in Morehead City, N.C., didn’t take a stab at where we’ll be in eight weeks. Nor did his colleague, Andy North. Instead, they, along with Van Pelt, credited the PGA TOUR and Commissioner Jay Monahan for bringing golf (and to some extent sports) back. “I hope it all goes through,” Strange said. “I hope the players stay disciplined … I hope that’s the storyline.” Settle in. It should be a wild ride.
It’s a star-studded field at Austin Country Club in Texas, where 62 of the world’s 64 top-ranked golfers are competing in the round-robin event.
DETROIT, Mich. – Look around the practice greens at a PGA TOUR event, and it’s unlikely you’ll see the same putter setup twice. With all of the new putter grip technologies, prototype putter heads, shaft designs and varying putter lengths, it’s easy to see why each putter used by a PGA TOUR professional is somewhat of a snowflake. Every player is looking for that perfect look and feel to instill confidence on the greens in order to putt their best. J.B. Holmes is no different, except he uses something on his putter that very few TOUR pros use: athletic tape. No, not lead tape, which many players use to add weight to their club head. Holmes’ SuperStroke Traxion Pistol GT 1.0 putter grip is wrapped with athletic tape that can be found in your local sporting goods store or pharmacy. About two years ago, Holmes says he started using athletic tape around his putter grip to combat sweaty hands. “My hands sweat a lot and the grip gets slick, so I do that so it doesn’t get slippery,â€� Holmes told PGATOUR.COM. Actually, Holmes doesn’t apply the tape himself, nor does he have a putter maker from the equipment trucks do it. Instead, he trusts his caddie, Brandon Parsons, to apply the athletic tape. On the other end of the putter, Holmes uses a Scotty Cameron 009M Tour Only SSS 350 prototype head that he’s had in the bag for “about a year.â€� Holmes says that he’s “a guy who can switch putters week-to-week,â€� but that he hasn’t made a change for awhile. Back in February, Holmes used this putter setup — although he has fresh tape on the grip now – to win the 2019 Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club. For those with extra sweaty palms, try out Holmes’ putter grip trick for less slippage.
