Updates: Tiger Woods, The Open Championship, Round 2

Tiger Woods is making an equipment switch for Saturday’s edition of Capital One’s The Match, and it just so happens to be the item that golfers use most often. Golf.com first reported that Woods is expected to switch to Bridgestone’s B X golf ball for the next two weeks. As part of a busy December, Woods is scheduled to compete in the PNC Championship alongside son Charlie after Saturday’s match, where he will team with FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy to face Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. Woods, who last competed at The Open in July, had been using a Bridgestone B XS golf ball, which is a softer, higher-spinning ball. Woods has traditionally played a softer ball with more spin to have more variety with his approach shots and around the greens. Artistry with his irons and a myriad of short-game shots have been hallmarks of Woods’ historic career. According to Golf.com, Woods began testing the B X on his at-home simulator and noticed that the ball carried 10 yards farther. The B X is firmer and offers lower flight and spin than the B XS ball. “These are more of an exhibition-type situation, and I think that’s factoring into his decision,” Elliot Mellow, Bridgestone’s golf ball marketing manager, told Golf.com. “So he’ll be a Tour B X player at least for the next few events. He’s been looking at distance and the greenside spin is where it needs to be.” After testing the ball on his simulator, Woods did on-course testing with the ball in The Bahamas before withdrawing from the Hero World Challenge with plantar fasciitis. “The real test was (in the Bahamas during Hero week) where it hit it into different winds and liked the ball flight,” Mellow told Golf.com. “The comments we’ve heard from Tiger and his team is that it’s really cool that if he’s looking for something different, we don’t have to go out and build him a specific ball. He can just go to something we’re already making that’s on the retail shelf.” Bridgestone expects Woods to return to the B XS ball when he returns to official competition in the new year, however. “The Tour B XS is still a ball he helped co-design, and it’s a ball he’ll probably go back to in those situations where he needs more playability and workability in the golf ball,” said Mellow. “We don’t get the impression this is a permanent thing. It’s more situational. He’s chasing distance more than spin for all the obvious reasons.”

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McIlroy struggling at Scottish Open

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How to adapt in a pandemic? Put one foot in front of the other, for starters. At facilities that remain open amid the coronavirus pandemic – about 49 percent of courses nationwide as of last weekend, according to the National Golf Foundation – golfers are going back to walking in order to practice social distancing and avoid touching potentially infected things like golf carts. “People are finding that walking isn’t that bad,� said David Ward, a teaching pro at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club in Florida, where business remains strong and every other tee time is a walking tee time. The course has just 72 carts, and with the one-per-cart rule, they go fast. Jax Beach also offers a coronavirus deal on carts; two people go in on one cart for a slightly reduced rate, and each walks for nine of the holes to maintain healthy distancing. According to estimates, walkers cover about five miles and burn roughly 2,000 calories over 18 holes. (Compared to around 1,300 calories for riding.) But walking had fallen out of favor. Now, though, it’s back by necessity. Putting one foot in front of the other has made such a comeback that even before the current lockdown – all but five states have some form of stay-at-home order, either state-wide or partial, impacting 95 percent of the country’s population – golfers were reporting a scarcity of push/pull carts in big-box stores. The trend is more than anecdotal. “We’ve seen a sizeable uptick in the sales of push and pull carts,� said Rodney Chamblee, Merchant of Accessories for PGA TOUR Superstore, where such carts start at $119.99. How sizeable? Sales have doubled over the past several weeks, he said. “That’s certainly been a positive,� said Chamblee, who is not related to Brandel Chamblee, the Golf Channel analyst. “Unfortunately most of things are manufactured in Asia, and you can’t go for long like that before your supplier runs out. China is still recovering from the coronavirus, so a lot of the manufacturing has just gotten going again, and you’re beginning to run into a bit of an imbalance between supply and demand here. If you want a cart, you better get one.� Will the surge of walkers endure even after the pandemic has abated? It’s too early to tell, but possibly. “Our course is not overly long,� said teaching pro Ward of Jacksonville Beach, “and it’s not a hike from the greens to the tees. You’re not walking through a subdivision. I think a lot of people will keep walking.�

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