World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum announces finalists for 2019 induction class

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – While Hideki Matsuyama is known to use and experiment with a variety of different Scotty Cameron prototype putters week-to-week, the putter he’s using at the 2019 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational is particularly noteworthy. Recently, Scotty Cameron released a retail line of “Teryllium T22� putters, 22 years after Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters with a Scotty Cameron TeI3 Newport putter that had a face insert made of Teryllium. The 2019 release of the putters had many of the familiar designs, including a Teryllium face and the domino-like dot pattern in the back cavity. The new T22 putters are milled from 303 stainless steel, they have a matte black finish, they have sole weights for adjustability, and there’s a new inlay that has vibration-dampening characteristics. On Monday, ahead of the 2019 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Scotty Cameron also unveiled new tour-only prototype models that are built with a very similar look to the T22 retail release, but they have different engravings on the heads. In the photos below, notice the Circle T stampings on the face and sole, the “Tour Only� stamping on the back bumpers and the altered nomenclature of the tour-only putters compared to the retail heads.  According to a Titleist representative, all of the tour-only putters are built at the Scotty Cameron Putter Studio in California, and they’re considered prototypes because of their ability to be modified pre-production. As seen at the 2019 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, the tour-only Scotty Cameron versions are made in at least a Teryllium Newport (TNP) model and a Teryllium Newport 2 (TNP2) model, each with various sight lines. Matsuyama’s version of the putter, which he had been testing earlier in the week and ultimately put in play on Thursday, is a TNP2 model with a gray sightline. His putter also has two 10-gram weights in the sole. In his opening round of the event, Matsuyama shot a 65 (5-under-par) with 2.581 Strokes Gained: Putting.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. — A look at the completed matches in Thursday’s Foursomes sessions at the Presidents Cup at Liberty National. MATCH 1: USA wins, 6 and 4 Rickie Fowler/Justin Thomas (U.S.) def. Hideki Matsuyama/Charl Schwartzel (International) Holes won: USA 9, Internationals 2 Holes led: USA 11, Internationals 1 Recap: The Internationals took the early lead when the U.S. conceded the second hole, having found trouble with Justin Thomas’ errant tee shot. After that? It was all America. The momentum switched when Fowler chipped in from 72 feet for birdie to win the third hole. Thomas then drained a 12-foot birdie to win the fourth, and the Internationals bogeyed the fifth. All the sudden, the U.S. was 2 up and kept the pressure on. The Internationals struggled, shooting 5 over on the front side. A double-bogey at 7 and a bogey at 9 put the Internationals 5 down at the turn. Schwartzel rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt to win the 10th, but the Americans responded by winning the next two holes, Thomas rolliing in a couple of birdie putts inside 10 feet. QUOTES Charl Schwartzel: “There was a few key moments where things changed. One was on the fourth hole. Their ball, Rickie and Justin’s ball pitched about a foot over the bunker. It looked like we might actually win that hole; end up losing it. I hit a bad shot on 7 in the water. And then you give Rickie and Justin, which are both unbelievable players, playing good golf now, you give them just a little bit of momentum, they are hard to catch.” Hideki Matsuyama: “”We really didn’t get into our game today. Just the rhythm just wasn’t there.” MATCH 2: In progress Click here for match scorecard MATCH 3: In progress Click here for match scorecard MATCH 4: In progress Click here for match scorecard MATCH 5: In progress Click here for match scorecard

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Aaron Wise turned pro six years ago but the impact of the two years he spent at the University of Oregon, where he won the 2016 NCAA title, are still being felt today. The long putter that he’s wielding at the U.S. Open once belonged to his college coach, the former TOUR player Casey Martin. Putting has been a hindrance for Wise, who was the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year four years ago. After finishing 51st in Strokes Gained: Putting during his breakout season of 2018, when he won the AT&T Byron Nelson and qualified for the TOUR Championship, he’s ranked outside the top 170 in that metric in each of the previous three seasons. He hasn’t won on TOUR or qualified for East Lake since, but the long putter he’s using at this week’s U.S. Open appears to have him back on track. Wise, 25, is 30th in the FedExCup after a runner-up finish at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday and now in contention at the U.S. Open. He went back to the long putter, which he started using in college, last August. “It was one of those things that I had tried before and I kind of forgot about it,” Wise told PGATOUR.COM in November. “I thought it might be worth a shot.” The switch has paid off, as Wise has four top-10s this season, matching his career-high from that 2018 season. He’s been exactly a TOUR average putter this season – ranking 109th in Strokes Gained: Putting, averaging 0.00 strokes gained per round – but that’s been enough for him to have success after losing strokes on the greens in each of the past three seasons. He is 16th in Strokes Gained: Approach this season. The TaylorMade Ghost putter has a history in the U.S. Open, as Martin used it a decade ago when he qualified for the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club. According to Golf.com, the only modification Wise has made to the putter is cutting it down from 49 to 46 inches since the putter can no longer be anchored. Wise only used the putter for a few months in college, but he won with the club and hung onto it after its short stint in his bag came to an end. “I just took his gamer and never gave it back,” Wise told Golf.com. “But he’s OK with it. Hopefully, it gives me some good mojo this week.” So far, it has.

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