Weekend Wrap - Summer of Nelly (Part III)

OK, I'll admit it, a "Back in the Saddle" header might have been more appropriate....  It has been a while, I'll concede.

Even allowing for my back-sliding into a once-a-week golfer, my absence requires some explanation.  Two factors involved, a family matter of some urgency required my focus, then a trip to Portland, OR to see the bride's family.  No promises going forward, but this is an attempt to give you a reason to check my homepage.

I did actually watch some golf yesterday, flipping between the finish in Ohio and the drama on the Pacific.  The latter being the far more significant....

Nelly In Full - It's trite to note that the hardest thing to do in golf (or any endeavor, really) is to win when you're supposed to do so, but it's triteness is a result of its accuracy.  I don't think we can appreciate the weight that is on this slender woman's shoulders, as there is no one else that can move the LPGA dial even a hair.  

It's similarly trite to note that venues matter, and this was quite the get for the USGA, with the added benefit of those prime time viewing windows.  With Nelly in contention and beautiful California weather, those ratings have to be boffo, no?  We'll see, the worry is that the combination of Nelly's slow start and an audience that doesn't know how to spell USA might not have stumbled upon the early round coverage....

As usual, Geoff has much to offer, including his numerical summaries:

Nelly Korda By The Numbers

• 73-67-67-69: Korda’s four rounds

• 276: Nelly Korda’s winning total

• 276: Ben Hogan’s winning total in the 1948 U.S. Open at Riviera

• 7: Stroke deficit after the first round, tying the largest ever to go on and win (Park, 2017), Mallon, 2004, Berning, 1972, Mann, 1965).

• 2: Major titles, four LPGA Tour wins in 2026

• 39 of 56: Fairways hit (T18)

• 263.5: Avg yards of all drives (11th)

• 270.3: Avg. yards on measuring holes (11th)

• 42 of 72: Greens in regulation (32)

• 39’11: Proximity average of

• 24 of 30: Scrambling (1st)

• 107: Total putts

• 253’4”: Putts made (3.560: Strokes gained putting)

OK, perhaps a tad antiseptic, but is you recast those numbers for only the final three days, you'd see some even more impressive stats.  Again, I blame Lebron's shoes.....

Amusingly, Geoff ledes with that nervy final putt:

History will say the par clincher measured 2 feet, 10 inches.

But with all due respect to the advanced metrics provided by the PGA Tour’s brilliant ShotLink system, Nelly Korda’s winning putt in the 81st United States Women’s Open traveled another 10 inches after wrapping around most of the cup’s 13.35-inch circumference. When it finally dropped, the 27-year-old recorded a second consecutive major victory. But this one came in a championship the red-white-and-blue-blooded Bradenton, Florida native wanted the most.

“A nice ice cream swirl to cap off the day,” Korda said through a mix of tears and laughs. “Why did I leave myself such a long putt?”

That's what we were all thinking, even father Petr as he mimicked the length to Nelly's mother.   But her reaction was priceless, and serves as an apt synecdoche for the entire week, all of which was a struggle.Big sister Jessica gets a fair share of the credit:

Over four days, one component of Korda’s game kept her hanging around enough to ultimately

lift the Harton Semple Trophy: a short game performance for the ages.

The driving that plagued Korda in the opening rounds became machine-like on the weekend thanks to a grip change suggestion from her sister Jessica.

“It’s the hardest thing in the game of golf is to change your grip,” Korda said. “I was fiddling with it so much even on the range my sister was like, I just saw you regrip your grip four times before you hit that one shot, and I’m like, yeah, ‘because it feels awful.’

“I do not recommend changing your grip during a major championship.”

Nelly’s final round iron play lacked the crisp sound heard during Saturday’s 67. On a kikuyu golf course with hard greens measuring 13 on the Stimpmeter, the approach struggles meant Korda’s chipping and putting would make the difference in holding off runners-up Hull and Lopez.

And that's exactly where she won it, around and on the greens.  I thought her chances were slim when she failed to birdioe either of Nos. 10 and 11, the last real opportunities, excluding the Par-5 17th.  There she left herself way more than she wanted with a so-so chip, but the putt found the center of the hole.  Her putt on No. 18, well that fond more of a corner of the round hole....

Geoff captures that 17th hole pivot point:

By Sunday, it was the incredible play and persistence of her peers that created the most stress. There were multiple four-way ties throughout the sunny, windy final round. But none more tense than when Korda stepped up to her second shot for a go at the par-5 17th.

A roar from the packed crowd around the famous amphitheater 18th green filtered down Santa Monica Canyon when Gaby Lopez made a 15-footer for birdie to join Charley Hull (65-67 weekend) in the clubhouse lead at seven-under-par.

Following a 285-yard drive on the penultimate hole, Korda’s approach fell in line with many of her other less-than-crisp final-round approaches. She advanced the 223-yard shot only 205 yards. But she missed this one short and left of a pin cut 19 paces into the green and only three paces over the pronounced tier. Korda wedged to nine feet and faced a deciding downhill putt. It’s a strange one because it doesn’t break as much to the right as it looks or as Riviera’s natural tilt toward the Pacific would dictate. But Korda had been sinking three-footers all day on the “poa” greens that her male counterparts whine about. The steady hands and smooth stroke came through again for her third birdie.

“What I’ve been doing with my putting is just really looking at my intermediate target right in front of the ball where I want to roll it over and I knew that I needed to make it,” Korda said. “I knew it was going to be a really fast putt so I needed to put decent pace on it with how much I was playing it left-to-right.

“And I don’t really throw out fist pumps too often, but I did this weekend. I threw out a couple fist pumps here and there and I threw out a double fist pump on that hole because I knew what it meant.”

She still had to get it to the house, which she barely pulled off.  Nelly reflected on her path here:

“That 14-year-old girl that stepped on the range at Sebonack in 2013, I mean, her dream has just

come true sitting next to this trophy right now,” Korda said. “This week was definitely a grind. I don’t even feel like I had my B game (laughing). I was just grinding out there. And that’s what I guess major championships are all about, right? It doesn’t matter if you have your B or C game, you have to be there mentally.”

Korda’s on-course growth into an uber-steady presence is one of the more incredible career evolutions in the long history of the game. Always a fast player, Korda could get easily annoyed at slow-playing partners and rounds. She often pulled the trigger on shots too quickly. Fast forward a few years, and the quiet energy she exudes never goes full Hogan at the expense of remaining in touch with the course and crowds who adore her graceful presence.

“L.A. definitely showed up and it was a lot of fun to play in front of amazing crowds,” Korda said. “It’s amazing to see how much our Tour has grown in that standpoint of dads, parents, coming out with their little kids. I mean, that’s kind of what makes what we get to do so much sweeter.

To this observer, the key bit is Nelly winning with pars.... If she can grind it out with her C-game, then it's going to be fun seeing her upside, because her firepower has never been in doubt.

Geoff started on a truncated version of his Champions, Cut-Makers and Bufoons (that last one might not be exactly how he phrases it), which allows for some credit to the two ladies that missed by "this much":

Charley Hull. Whatta character, whatta swing, and whatta third round 65 that kept going Sunday with a 67. But Charley. The Malibu hate? Here’s guessing if you stayed in a house on Broad Beach you might think a tad differently about The Bu.

Gaby Lopez. Look out: she just birdied the last hole at Riviera to join the clubhouse lead of the U.S. Women’s Open. A brilliant performance that started with early trips to Riviera, scouting out its intricacies. But it’s another thing to translate the studying into an A performance.

They both made great pars at No. 18 to post -7.... Hull in particular is piling up the near-misses, although I'd find it easier to root for her if she'd lose the Malbon duds.

Shall we sample the Tour Confidential panel's insights?  Yeah, it's been a few weeks, but that query is still rhetorical:

1. Nelly Korda continued her dominant 2026, winning the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera for her fourth win of the season, fourth major title and, most importantly, first U.S. Women’s Open title. What did you learn about Nelly as she outlasted the field during a thrilling Sunday in LA?

Josh Berhow: She’s continuing to do what is one of the hardest things to do in any sport, which is to win when everyone expects you to win. She’s now finished first or second in seven of her

eight starts this season and has kept one really fun storyline — the season-long grand slam — alive for another few weeks. It’s just really impressive how she continued to plug along Sunday, kept hitting fairways and didn’t make any mistakes. That puts a ton of pressure on the people playing around you, as they know they have to make a move because it’s unlikely Nelly Korda will mess up. And it’s really difficult to make a lot of birdies in U.S. Opens.

Nick Piastowski: I guess this isn’t “learned,” but maybe more confirmed — that she’s willing to reassess. In her press conference on Saturday night, Korda talked about a recent “mindset shift,” saying that “instead of saying, you know, I’m screwed in this position, oh, here we go again, I’m just going to embrace the challenges and I’m not going to walk off the golf course; I’m just going to figure it out.” It’s maybe a smaller thing, but clearly something has clicked, and the fact that she did the work here is impressive.

Josh Schrock: I don’t know if I learned anything new about Nelly Korda, but watching her navigate what was undoubtedly the scariest round of her life on Sunday showed me that she is exactly who a lot of us thought and hoped she’d be. Her talent was always undeniable, but winning Chevrons and KPMGs is different than winning a U.S. Women’s Open on a course like Riviera. Everything always pointed to this being her destiny, but even she admitted she had doubts it would ever arrive. There’s something rewarding about watching someone reach their destiny, and now we get to find out where it leads her.

Josh Berhow's bit about Nelly not messing up is the point, methinks.  nelly has been a bit of a mistake-prone golfer, posting a ten on her first hole of a recent Open.  Her grinding as she did yesterday is the revelation, as we now have to check to see which of the LPGA's fourteen majors each year is up next...

It doesn't take them long to get to the tough one:

2. Charley Hull put together a record-breaking weekend at Riviera, Gaby Lopez got hot late on Sunday and In Gee Chun hung around to keep the pressure on the contenders. What played a bigger part in making this one of the most memorable U.S. Women’s Opens in years: Some of the game’s biggest stars fighting down the stretch, or the famous stage that hosted the event? And how can women’s professional golf replicate it?

Berhow: You can have one and not the other and still produce good golf tournaments, but when they both come together it makes it must-watch TV, which is the goal for every major golf tournament. Korda and Hull are arguably the two most famous players in the women’s game, and I love how different they are. Charley is twitchy and aggressive with that fast-swing tempo while Nelly is just so smooth and methodical. It’s a great, friendly rivalry if we could see them atop leaderboards together more often, but what I really enjoyed was seeing how the women played Riviera versus what we see when the PGA Tour stops there. It’s a fabulous private course, but viewers at home can relate to it and appreciate it much better watching how the women play it.

Piastowski: I think they work hand in hand — great courses bring out great play, and subpar courses, well, you know the rest. This week also “felt” big, didn’t it? Prime time! L.A.! Riv! There’s history there. There are challenges. Hell, places like Riv just look cool. And when given a proper spotlight, more folks care — though we do have to talk about how the broadcast was just three hours on Sunday. I think this is the LPGA’s next step — secure more regular-season events at big-name courses. And yes, the majors should continue the recent trend of doing that. And, yes, somehow, someway, the women should be playing at Augusta National.

Schrock: You need both, but I think Michelle Wie West nailed it pre-tourney when talking about the importance of the women playing the same courses as the men. It adds context and elevates everything. What really works is when we have the same venue host the men’s and women’s U.S. Open in the same year, like when Wie won at Pinehurst in 2014 after Martin Kaymer did. It’s incredibly important for the women to get to create their own moments on iconic holes and at golf’s cathedrals. The cream also tends to rise to the top at the cathedrals as it did this week and at St. Andrews in 2024. Venues matter.

OK, Nick, perhaps a little less caffeine might be in order....  This is really a tough one for the LPGA, and Nick shows what a halfwit he is.  The lady professionals are never playing ANGC, those folks made the decision to support the amateur game, and did so in a manner designed to hurt the LPGA.   Has anyone except your humble blogger noticed that the "Chevron" isn't exactly the "Dinah".

The question obviously overstates the quality of the leaderboard, but does so in a way the explicates the LPGA's dilemma.  Sure, Charlie is a name brand, but the girls has won exactly nothing.  To be real, the only name of the leaderboard that mattered was N. Korda, and perhaps we should talk through why that is.

Any professional sports undertaking needs to be strong in the U.S. market, the economics don't work otherwise.  So, how has American women's golf been doing?  Well, Lexi was supposed to save us, but it turned out that she's a delicate flower, so it's all on Nelly's shoulder.  The real problem is the foreign dominance of women's golf, but perhaps not in the xenophobic kind of way.

American audiences have embraced Anika and Inbee, the real problem lately has been that no one, two or three players from the foreign contingent have separated themselves and allowed the audiences to become familiar with them.  Jeeno, Patti and In Gee are all great, or could be if we saw them more often.

Of course Riviera was also a big part of the story, although I come down differently on the subject of playing were the men play.  I think this week came off better than some, if only because No. 10 played as George Thomas designed it to do....  It really doesn't work so well for the men, but in other circumstances the ladies risk showcasing their weaker play.

3. What’s your final takeaway from U.S. Women’s Open week?

Berhow: Nelly is really good and will dominate the conversation later this month at the KPMG Women’s PGA — as she tries to make it three in a row — but another storyline is starting to emerge as well: Charley Hull now has five runner-up major finishes without a win. Her last three: T2, T10, T2. She’s gotta break through at some point.

Schrock: We’re entering the summer of Nelly. She’ll dominate KPMG week but also will arrive at the Evian with a chance to win the LPGA Grand Slam (four of five) and also have a chance to do so at the AIG Women’s Open. If she wins both, she gets what Lydia Ko, and other ball knowers, would call the real career Grand Slam. And she’s about to kick down the door to the Hall of Fame. It’s all Nelly, but the biggest question is: Can the LPGA capitalize on a moment that feels much bigger than Nelly’s run in 2024?

Piastowski: That we’re watching a historic run. And, as Schrock said, above, the LPGA powers-that-be must capitalize on it.

So, remember how important venues are?  I mean we've touched upon it several times already...... You might want to take notes.  So, do we have a suitably exciting venue for that KPMG, where all eyes will be on Nelly?  Per Grok:

The 2026 KPMG Women's PGA Championship is being held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.

Thud!  The LPGA, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory....

The Postman Delivers -  Wow, this is as close to acknowledging that there was a tourney in Ohio as the Tc gang gets:

5. We had all sorts of good golf over the weekend (in Spain, California, Ohio and elsewhere), but who won the weekend without winning on Sunday?

Berhow: Hmmmm. J.T. Poston, Memorial winner, can now skip U.S. Open Final Qualifying on Monday so he has to be psyched, but that doesn’t answer the question. How about Kiara Romero? A 20-year-old amateur just tied for sixth at the biggest professional women’s golf tournament on the planet. That’s pretty good! (Oh, and honorable mention: Maria José Marin, another amateur, tied for 8th.)

Schrock: Four amateurs — Romero, Marin, Asterisk Talley and Aphrodite Deng — all acquitted themselves well at Riviera. Talley made U.S. Women’s Open history with her Saturday 66, and Romero took home low-am honors (Go Ducks!). The future of women’s golf is in great hands.

Piastowski: We all did, right? What a weekend. Here’s your pass to take off on Monday.

Does Josh Berhow not read the questions....  Although I do love that Poston was scheduled to play in Sectional today, although they no longer hold qualifying in Columbus, OH, because the Signature Event fields are too small to include guys that aren't exempt.  That fact alone should tell us something....

I'm not going to blog Poston's win, except to note my pleasure at recent events.  Aaron Rai's win at the PGA and a J.T. Poston-Ryan Gerard playoff at Jack's Place are helpful reminders of the nature of our game.  We can't script the outcomes and the best players in the world win less than 5% of the time, so just suck it up and deal with it.  I love the chaos, but I know how much Patrick Cantlay hates it....Play better, Patrick, but stop trying to keep guys that might be beat you out of events.

The other bit to note is what a mess our game has for a schedule.  Obviously the Women's Open should be scheduled against inferior Tour events, the Nelson or Colonial.  This diminished both the Open and Jack's event, and is completely unnecessary, except that our game is run by idiots.

The Wider World - Of course I don't have time to blog it right now, but interesting doings in our game.  That other tour has hit a speed bump, and the PGA Tour is dramatically restructuring its own schedule.  This may be as good as we get for today:

4. With the Saudi PIF no longer funding LIV Golf beyond this season, the league is in search of investors. A couple of weeks ago, Bryson DeChambeau said he’s “giving all I can to make it happen” in terms of potential investments but admitted his role as a player might be limited. Meanwhile, Jon Rahm said this past week he knows little about the business side of things and his “job is to play golf.” Should LIV’s stars feel obligated to help keep LIV afloat? Do they hold much power?

Berhow: Noooo. I mean, yes, if they have wealthy investors in their Rolodex, sure, reach out to them. But Rahm should not be scrutinized for his comments — he’s right. His job is to play. I’m sure promises were made to him when he joined the league, and I would assume one was never to help them find future funding in a few years. That’s why they pay the execs the big bucks.

Schrock: No. If you really, really want to help keep the league alive because you believe in team golf or want some place to play that isn’t the PGA Tour, then by all means, go for it. But I think Rahm has the right idea. Play golf and see what happens when the dust settles.

Piastowski: Maybe. If DeChambeau and Rahm tell whomever that they’ll be playing LIV Golf for the next decade and that they’ll work on bringing in other stars in, that’s a pretty good pitch. But yes, at the end of the day, the product is golf, so the golfers should play compelling golf.

In the pantheon of horrible Tour Confidential questions, this is a worthy conte4nder.  Not even clear what they're going for, but isn't the bigger issue whether anyone cares?   Obviously it's about what their options are, but it's pretty obvious that there are two guys the PGA Tour will want back, and then there's everyone else.  

But don't take anything for granted.  Two Golfweek headers, first the feeding frenzy:

Don't spend it all in one place, boys, because the paydays might be in jeopardy:

Really?  But I thought those guys only cared about growing our game..... It's so disillusioning!

I do hope to blog further on these changes, but that will have to keep for now.  Have a great week and I'll see you when life permits.

Weekend Wrap - Rugby Scrum Edition

I'll admit to failure in finding a suitably wry pun for the winner's surname....  But the rugby scrum analogy enjoyed heavy usage all week.

I won't pull any punches with you, I have no spare time to allocate to a frivolous blog post, and yet here I am at the keyboard.  This will be produced very much on the clock, and I'll likely have time only for Geoff's thoughts and the Tour Confidential panel's  ruminations.  That covers a lot of ground, so hopefully you won't feel cheated.

As it so happens, however you feel about the 108th PGA Championship, it did serve one critical purpose.  It kept your humble blogger from watching Sunday baseball, for which it will forever have my gratitude.

We all know how Geoff responds to Golden Age architecture, but bear with me as I liberally excerpt from his lengthy lede:

Looks like we’re about to have a run on iron covers.

Ambidextrous golf glove wearing, too.

And why not?

Aaron Rai ran away from an army of elite contenders-turned-pretenders to win the PGA Championship by three over Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley. The 31-year-old Englishman is a true

individualist whose inspired success is born out of devotion to family, hard work, and craft.

You’ll hear it ad nauseam in the wake of Rai’s shocking Aronimink triumph: he may be the nicest man in golf. Or at the very least, the classiest, most modest, respectful man currently bathed in random logos who can break par on a fairly regular basis (even though as a PGA Tour individual in 2026, he was only 19-under-par before posting a nine-under-par 271 total).

Rai treats marshals like peers, fans like friends, and every playing partner as if they’re a multiple major winner. He’s a dream fellow competitor for those who enjoy the company of a respectful, elegant, but sometimes excessively meticulous practitioner. He tells the media their questions are good ones even when they aren’t. His vocabulary includes words beyond like, you know, sort of, and Chipotle**. His work ethic would be cruel to those around him if he weren’t so classy.

I know he has a sweet reason for using them, but I's still triggered by iron headcovers.....

Refill your coffee, because Shack has more to say about the young man:

Twice this week, when I was racing out of the media center at dusk to catch a shuttle, Rai was the last man grinding at Aronimink’s vast chipping practice area. He was mastering hack-outs and other random flop shots he’d need around Donald Ross’ museum-worthy greens. (Rai ended up 8-of-19 scrambling and 0-for-4 from the sand. So he’s got room to improve.)

I excerpted that 'graph individually because of those shocking stats.... You wouldn't think he could sniff the lead seeing those numbers, though the complex green sites would, I assume, affect scrambling stats across the board.

But you might have sussed out an anomaly, one we'll see noted later in the Tour Confidential panel.  The defining moment, the visual image that will forever accompany this event, was the 68-foot putt on the 17th green.  But perhaps the shot we should remember was the bunker shot on the short No. 13.  The whole world put their tee shots into that front bunker, and everyone seemed to try to chunk and run it to the back pin.  Rai was the only guy I saw carry it all the way, but that up-and-in doesn't make his sand save stat line....presumably because it was his second shot on a Par-4.

Let's let the hagiography continue:

The Englishman’s respect for the game and those who came before him might be unprecedented

in a world of entitled greatest-ever superjocks who couldn’t pick Walter Hagen out of a lineup (or feel shame in not knowing who paved the way to crazy paychecks).

I first met Rai on a freakishly cold February morning at the 2023 Genesis Invitational. A three-time winner in Europe, highlighted by a playoff win over Tommy Fleetwood in the 2020 Scottish Open, Rai was at Riviera in his second year carrying a PGA Tour card. He’d reached The Show after a T2 at the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, but Rai hadn’t gotten into the pro-am that day. And because of the hideous practicing conditions, he decided to watch his hero, Tiger Woods, play Riviera’s back nine while three other amateurs slapped it around.

I, as a Grade A moron, asked Rai if he’d gotten into the event on a sponsor’s invite. Being the gentleman we saw on display at Aronimink, Rai kindly said he had his Tour card. He could have pointed out that he was in year two as a PGA Tour member. But he was raised properly.

I'm almost coming to believe that Geoff likes the young man.... As Geoff recounts, anyone picking Rai in the event wasn't doing so upon proven form:

Ranked 44th in the world heading into the week, Rai was a 150-1 longshot to win. He’s been inconsistent since winning the 2024 Wyndham Championship.

This season, Rai struggled until a fifth-place finish in last week’s Myrtle Beach event. Before that, his best 2026 finish was a T23 at the Cognizant Classic. Rai finished 48th at The Masters.

His 67-65 weekend at Aronimink looks even more staggering given his record in Grand Slam events:

• Rai has three T19’s in 12 major appearances with nine cuts made.

• The three T19’s came last year at Quail Hollow’s PGA, the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, and the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s.

• His previous low round, a 67 at Quail last year, was matched Saturday before Sunday’s stunning back-nine 31 and 65.

Golf.  I'll let Geoff detail that closing burst:

Rai began the hot final round two back of Alex Smalley, dropped a shot at the difficult par-3 eighth, then eagled the 589-yard ninth to reach five-under-par. He took the solo lead at 4:58 p.m

. with a birdie at the dangerous 11th. Rai never lost the lead and distanced himself from clubhouse leader Justin Thomas and on-course pursuers Jon Rahm, Matti Schmid, Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Nick Taylor, and Cameron Smith.

Rai’s long bunker shot at the drivable 13th turned out to be a difference maker.

“The bunker shot on 13 was on a slight upslope, which in a way helped to stay really aggressive on it,” he said. “But the upslope also made it difficult because it was such a long bunker shot. It was probably 40 yards or so.”

A birdie there at 5:25 p.m. moved Rai to seven-under-par. That put him two ahead of Thomas, Rahm, and Schmid, and three ahead of McIlroy who, moments before, bogeyed the same hole to end his hopes.

Two brilliant shots at 16th got Rai to eight-under, allowing him to play well away from the dangerous left hole location at the 17th. Facing a difficult two-putt, Rai sank the 68-footer and barely blinked, caving only for a fist clench as caddie Jason Timmis raised his arms.

I liked his muted reaction.  We knew at that juncture he would play the 18th with a four-shot lead (Rahm and Smalley got to -6 a bit later), but it's not clear whether Rai knew where he stood.  I like that he didn't emulate his hero, and kept his game face on until he was certain it was out of reach.

Shall we segue to the Tour Confidential gang?  Again, mostly rhetorical it was: 

Aaron Rai emerged from a crowded field to win the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club on Sunday, claiming the first major title of his career. How did Rai, who won by three, run away from the field so easily when others couldn’t?

Zephyr Melton: When you look at the strokes-gained stats, you can see Rai made his hay in two

areas: approach play and on the greens. For the week, he ranked second in the field in SG: Approach and fifth in SG: Putting. With the way Aronimink played all week, dominating in those two categories turned out to be the recipe for success. He may not have been one of the longest players in the field (66th for the week), but when you are hitting it close and making putts, you can afford to give away a little distance. As a fellow short hitter, I respect the hell out of it.

Josh Sens: He was also *checks stats* fourth in fairways hit, which was crucial this week, what with the juicy rough and those feisty greens and not-to-mess with hole locations. Distance control was crucial. That’s hard to do when you’re playing approaches from the spinach. Rai was mostly in the short grass off the tee.

Josh Schrock: All those stats are nice but what will stick with me from a Sunday where Aaron Rai did what Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and others couldn’t, are three shots. First, the bunker shot on No. 13. I watched all day as guys went into that bunker and left the shot out of the sand short as they tried to run it up the slope. Rai flew it onto the back shelf and stopped it. Made par. Next came the 15th hole when he pulled 3 wood off the tee, knowing he’d have a long second shot in. He stuck to his game plan that hit a tight draw into that green. On the 16th hole, he worked the ball the other way to set up a two-putt birdie. He had total control of his ball and, outside of Justin Thomas, was probably the only one on Sunday.

They actually mention it in a question we'll get to below, but remind who it was that said the rough had no penalty?   That was actually quite the bad call, as the speaker himself discovered on Thursday.

We've had no shortage of silly TC panel questions over the years, but this one is quite the challenger for most bizarre premise:

Alex Smalley held the 54-hole lead, while five players were two back and 21 total started Sunday within four shots of the lead. Does this type of final-round setup make for a better major Sunday? Or would you prefer something like a couple of stars — or another option — dueling in the final pairing?

Melton: It probably makes for a more compelling Sunday for the casual fan with so many names in the mix, but it’s not necessarily the best way to determine a champion. When there is separation at the top of the leaderboard, it’s usually an indicator that great shots are being rewarded and bad ones punished. The type of setup we saw this week at Aronimink made some golf purists pull their hair out, but for the casual fan, it made for a compelling board heading into the final round. To each their own.

Sens: Early in the week, lots of comparisons were made to the U.S. Open, with the firm conditions and the big bounces and the challenges around the greens. But by Sunday we had something that felt closer to an Open Championship, with a bunch of unexpected names on the leaderboard on a setup that didn’t necessarily favor bombers. The ending was anticlimactic, but for a good part of the day, it was an entertaining change of pace. It’s not often we get that deep into a major with so many guys — a mix of big stars and lesser lights — still having a legitimate chance to win.

Schrock: It makes for a good TV product. Does it always identify the best player? No. Did it this week? I think so. Perhaps that can be the PGA’s identity going forward. A chaos-car crash major.

Zephyr, it's not only the best way to determine a champion, it's the only way.  We put the strongest field out there and low number wins.  

It appears that Zephyr Melton comes from the Patrick Cantlay school of Tour Management, in which the riffraff are not welcome.  It's not a theatrical production, you don't get to write the final scene.

Josh Sens goes down a different, more interesting track, musing as to whether the design and set-up of the curse contributed to the compressed leaderboard, but it was always an interesting mix of show ponies and lesser lights.  To wit, I see what Josh was going for in his Open Championship analogy, but this observer mostly embraced the chaos.

PGA Championship host Aronimink Golf Club received some flak early in the week — “strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent; it’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there,” Rory McIlroy said pre-tournament — but the course and conditions proved to be a difficult test. Was the course unfairly judged? How would you grade Aronimink as a PGA venue?

Melton: I’ll give it a solid B. It wasn’t as good as some PGA hosts in recent history (Southern Hills, Kiawah), but it was much better than some others (Valhallah, Quail Hollow).

Sens: In the era before grade inflation, B meant good, which seems about right. It was a good venue. McIlroy might have felt like there was no strategy off the tee, but he sure cost himself some opportunities by not finding the fairway, and I’m sure he’d love to have that errant tee shot on the short par-4 13th back as well. If there was anything to harrumph about, some of the hole locations seemed borderline. That’s where I’d knock off a couple of points.

Schrock: I really liked it. I loved the greens and thought the setup for three of the four days was tough but fair. It’s not Kiawah but it’s better than most and will probably be better than next year’s in Frisco.

Or last year's at Quail Hollow.....  Gee, Fazio vs. Ross....that's a tough one.

Who won the 2026 PGA Championship without winning the PGA Championship?

Melton: Gimme Cam Smith. He’s been MIA in majors recently with six straight missed cuts coming into the week, but his performance at Aronimink showed he’s still got plenty of game. A T7 is a nice sign that he’s still got plenty of game and can compete on the biggest stages. It was fun seeing him in the mix again.

Sens: Good call on Smith. A bit farther down the leaderboard, it was fun to see 54-year-old Padriag Harrington shake off an opening 74 and put together a tidy weekend to finish inside the Top 20. That’s pretty much a win for the over-50 set.

Schrock: I agree with Zephyr. Smith was at the top of the golf world when he left for LIV in 2022. He played well in 2023 but has been in the wilderness ever since. He’s chaotic good in golfing form. Honorable mention to JT, who has been non-existent in majors since he won at Southern Hills. Golf is better when he’s in contention on the big stage.

In general, it was a pretty good week for LIV, especially coming off that Masters washout (Hatton, excepted).  I think you could include guys like Smalley and Matti Schmid in this category, guys that showed the goods for most of the week, and even had their moments on Sunday.  It has to make them dangerous the next time, yanno, if there is a next time.

Which means the biggest loser of Sunday was who or what?

Melton: I know Jon Rahm was only bested by the eventual champ, but I’ll give him the nod here. On a day when none of the biggest stars made a huge move, the Wanamaker seemed to be his for the taking. Unfortunately for him, he simply couldn’t find enough birdies and remains stuck on two major titles.

Sens: And there’s Rory, who woulda, coulda, shoulda but failed to get anything out of the par 5s all week.

Schrock: I struggle with this one. Rory clearly was battling the driver all week. Two rounds it worked. Two, it didn’t. He could’ve stolen one this week but I don’t think he leaves Aronimink kicking himself. To me, it’s Scottie. Scottie played great golf in tough conditions on Thursday and Friday and then missed all sorts of putts from inside five feet on the weekend.

Bryson?  Yanno, for being at home on Sunday....

To me, Rory gets points for getting himself back in the mix after the death march to the clubhouse on Thursday, but I keep coming back to his assessment that the rough held no penalty.  That's a pretty epic failure to understand the course they were about to play.   

I totally agree on Scottie, though we need to include not just Sunday here.  It's a conundrum because it's seemingly fixable, except for the nagging fact that he hasn't fixed it all season.  I assume we'll see him in Columbus, but all the world's eyes will be on him at Shinecock.

And, as our wrap:

An action-packed week featured a Bryson DeChambeau missed cut, Cam Smith resurgence, a rare penalty and lots of relative unknowns flying up the leaderboard and contending at a major championship. What did you learn during PGA week?

Melton: Pre-tournament narratives should not be taken as gospel. Aronimink was supposed to get torn apart. Instead, we had a U.S. Open break out. Golf can be a funny game that way.

Schrock: That there might be nothing cooler than Patrick Reed’s schedule going Masters, PGA, U.S. Open with nothing in between. And he’s probably going to contend in all three!

Sens: That guys with iron covers and plastic tees can be serious golfers, too. And that no matter what kind of form he’s in, Xander Schauffele continues to be a major-championship machine. This is his 10th top 10 in his last 14 tries, two of which were wins.

I respect Patrick Reed's golf game, but I don't want to live in a world where he's considered "cool."

I'll look forward to the evolving takes on this championship, especially Geoff's thoughts on the venue.  We're at a difficult juncture in our game, where major championship scoring can look like the AMEX.  Donald Ross green complexes are one way of holding back the surge of red numbers, but not everyone was over the moon with this week's play.   

I enjoyed the chaos, and I also feel that the guy who got handed the trophy earned it.  Other folks will feel that the wrong guy got handed the trophy, but isn't that the game we have?  At least he's a worthy wrong guy, worth as a human being, for sure.  Yanno, except for the iron headcovers....

Gotta leave you here.  Have a great week and I do hope you enjoyed the golf.

Weekend Wrap - Norwegian Wood Edition

I know I've devolved into a once-a-week blogger, though in my defense that still places me on the podium of my age group.  The thing is, life has suddenly gotten very busy, and I wish it were for better reasons (though the issues mostly to family members, they just require my attention).

For today, the issue is that we are hosting U.S. Open qualifying at Fairview, and we have all sorts of employees and members attempting to move on to Sectional.  A field of 120 players will be chasing six slots, so odds are long.

I'll try to do better, though not sure there's much to back up that promise.

That Thing That's Not Supposed To Happen - The purpose of the Money Grab™ is to keep the vast riches within the confines of the cool kids cabal, so something went horribly awry.  I could also have gone with a NY Times homage, such as "Women, Minorities and Cantlay Hardest Hit."  Really, the bits just write themselves....

Kristoffer Reitan’s unexpected Truist win summed up his pro golf journey

For Kristoffer Reitan, all of this has been unexpected.

Standing on the 18th green at Quail Hollow Club, having just outlasted Rickie Fowler and Alex Fitzpatrick to win the Truist Championship, a PGA Tour Signature Event, it was hard for Reitan to sum up a career-changing win, one that perfectly gels with his unique golf journey.

He went from the Challenge Tour to the DP World Tour, and then, a year ago at the Soudal Open, lightning struck and everything changed. Reitan started that Sunday nine shots off the lead. But he made nine birdies in his final 15 holes to shoot a course-record 62 and eventually win in a playoff.

“I don’t know what to say,” a stunned Reitan said that day in Belgium. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little kid. I keep thinking back to a few years ago when I was considering stopping playing because I didn’t find it enjoyable anymore, didn’t see progress, and to be able to turn it around the way I have been doing the last couple of years has been amazing — to seal it with victory here is ridiculous.”

That win, and another that followed, helped him secure a PGA Tour card. Then came another climb. He started slowly this season as a rookie, but his game has clicked over the last month. Then, last week, the unexpected happened again as Reitan got into the Cadillac Championship due to Jake Knapp’s Thursday morning withdrawal. He vaulted into contention at Doral but faded on Sunday. As he finished his final hole in Miami, Reitan didn’t think he would make it into the field this week in Charlotte. Despite a double bogey on his final hole, Reitan squeaked into the Truist field and made the most of an unlikely chain of events.

One week later, he had outclassed the best in the world and reached a place that he was worlds away from when he hung up the clubs in 2022.

More significantly, he ended up at a place the system was designed to keep him from.  

Of course, in pushing through the outrageous concentration of purses into a handful of events with micro-fields, fig leaves had to be employed.  Thus, arcane provisions were included to allow a few randos to play their way in.  After all, those meritocracy illusions don't write themselves....

But the look at the glory of the PGA schedule in the last two weeks.  Having jammed two of their eight Signature Events Money Grabs™, we were treated to the joy of watching a gaggle of elite players skip the first, and phone it in at the second.

Of course, it's even a little worse than that, because most of us began with a prototypical Rickie tease...  He went on an epic tear and the camera couldn't leave him, but the Man in Orange was never a great finisher at his peak, and his peak is no longer visible in the rearview mirror.  C'mon, you didn't think he was going to birdie the 18th, did you?

This is one of those "The Irony, She Burns" moments to me.  As LIV implodes and the PGA is seemingly reasserting its dominance, it's putting on a dreadful show for us.  Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Golf In The Time of LIV -  You'll be shocked to know that if you employ CTRL:F - Truist on today's Tour Confidential, it will yield zero results.  What does everyone want to talk about?  Yeah, you nailed it in one...

For the first time since news broke that the Saudi PIF will not fund LIV Golf following this season, the league’s CEO, Scott O’Neil, and players spoke to the media at this week’s D.C. tournament. What was your biggest takeaway from what you heard from Trump National?

Jack Hirsh: That LIV is on the ropes. I think we knew this already, but nothing O’Neil said

would do anything to convince me otherwise. It seemed like O’Neil was acting more reactionary than anything, which means he didn’t see the PIF pulling funding. That’s not a death sentence, but the next time the media hears from him, he’s going to need to come up with a more concrete plan about how LIV was going to survive. It didn’t sound like he knew how that would happen yet.

Josh Schrock: As expected, it feels like everyone is trying to figure out what’s next or if there is a next for LIV Golf. O’Neil didn’t offer many specifics on what funding they might get or how a 2027 season would look. I thought Jon Rahm saying that the players would need to make “concessions” to keep the business alive was telling. What does that look like? Who is interested in doing that? Still a lot of unknowns.

Dylan Dethier: LIV as we know it is over. That’s already been true — the original vision was a marriage of Greg Norman and Yasir Al-Rumayyan and had nearly blank-check access to the Saudi PIF reserves — but it was even clearer this week, as O’Neil explained that the plan is to make a new plan and players spoke of concessions and unknowns.

Sorry, Jack, but I'll have to differ here, as it very much is a death sentence.  Sure, they'll be out pitching the historical significance and grow-the-game chops of LIV, but you'll need a moment to stop laughing, no?

Rahm's comment is interesting, but feels quite naïve.  LIV has all of two players that matter, and those two guys have to feel that they squandered their opportunity, though one may be in better shape than the other.  To wit:

One looming question is the future of Bryson DeChambeau, whose contract is up at the end of this year and who said last week he could focus on growing his YouTube channel and playing “tournaments that want me” if it doesn’t work for him to return to LIV or the PGA Tour. How valuable is Bryson to the future of the PGA Tour? And who holds the leverage in Bryson’s future?

Hirsh: There’s no doubt Bryson is super important to the PGA Tour from the standpoint of how many eyeballs he can draw to it that wouldn’t otherwise watch. That said, people are going to see

right through his bluff. Bryson is entertaining, no doubt, but if he’s not playing competitive golf, then some of that really goes away. What is to differentiate him from any other YouTuber? I think his viewers hold the greatest amount of leverage in his future. Maybe I’m wrong and people would continue to watch him if he stopped playing any competitive golf once his exemptions ran out. But if I’m not and he loses his command on his viewers, you’re going to see he come back to the PGA Tour with his tail tucked.

Schrock: Bryson has value to the PGA Tour. If you’re just looking at a spreadsheet of who brings in eyeballs and whose presence would translate into dollars and cents, Bryson would be in the green. But the PGA Tour is doing good without him and I don’t think he’s doing himself a lot of favors by saying the PGA Tour is struggling and complaining about the policy regulating players’ social media content creation at tournaments. It will be fascinating to see what a return would look like for Bryson, should he want to come back. He was the lead plaintiff in the antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour in 2022, which members had to pay to defend. He disparaged the PGA Tour on his way out and worked to recruit players to LIV. Basically, everything Brooks Koepka didn’t do, he did. Bryson had all the leverage in negotiations when Koepka ditched LIV. With the PIF no longer involved, he has lost that leverage and now it’s up to the PGA Tour to decide if and how he returns. Playing YouTube full-time is a good headline but, as Jack noted, eventually the exemptions run out. They don’t hand those out for breaking 50 with Steph Curry.

Dethier: They each really stand to benefit from an enthusiastic partnership. They’ll also each survive just fine without the other. There’s some risk in trying to force something that neither side fully buys in on; to Bryson’s point, he should only play the PGA Tour if he wants to and if they want him to.

I think they at least circle around the right issues.  Bryson's social media presence is a great asset, though one that the Tour inevitably will over-value.  But, as noted above, there are only two guys that matters, so those two guys will end up back on the Tour.

But the guys deal with only so far.  Bryson had the leverage when he was offered a return option, but with LIV's inevitable demise, he has far less leverage than he did back then.  Like Jack Hirsch, I think Bryson wants to be something more than Paige Spirinac, and to do so he needs to be a professional tour player.  He has a few more years of major exemptions, but he's not exactly lighting it up in the majors with LIV tourneys as prep, how do we think he'd perform with only YouTube content as prep?

That said, the interesting bit to me is whether he and Rahm will be treated differently.  I asked AI about his role in LIV v. PGA Tour, and got this synopsis:

• Role in Suit: Alongside Phil Mickelson, DeChambeau was one of the most prominent players among the original 11 golfers who sued the PGA Tour for suspending them after joining LIV Golf.
• Reason for Suing: DeChambeau stated he remained part of the suit for a time due to money he claimed the PGA Tour owed him for the Player Impact Program (PIP), calling it a matter of "principle".
• Withdrawal: In May 2023, DeChambeau and Matt Jones were the last two players to drop their names from the lawsuit, with his agent noting it was "not my fight" as the legal battle shifted to focus on the LIV Golf entity itself.

 I expect to see Bryson treated a bit more harshly than Rahm, but time will tell.

While appearing on The Rich Eisen Show last week, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said he’s interested in doing whatever makes the PGA Tour better when it comes to player reintegration, but “we need to balance that with the interest of our current golfers.” How does Rolapp go about improving his Tour while also not irking current members who never left in the first place?

Hirsh: Oh man! Isn’t that the million-dollar question? I don’t think there’s a scenario where the

PGA Tour product vastly improves for the fan, but the majority of Tour pros (especially guys ranked from like 75-125) aren’t irked. Personally, I’m not a fan of the proposed two-tier Tour, but I can see how that would make it easier for the casual fan. As for reintegration. I say guys who wouldn’t otherwise be exempt need to take the Patrick Reed route. Sorry, not sorry.

Schrock: When someone finds the answer to this question, let me know. I do think we’re really only talking about a handful of players and the real questions revolve around Bryson and Rahm. Feels like the second-tier bucket — the Tyrrell Hattons and Joaquin Niemanns — can take the Patrick Reed route back via the DP World Tour and most of the membership wouldn’t bat an eye. But how Rolapp constructs a punishment and way back for Bryson and Rahm, two players who have irked membership in a way Brooks Koepka didn’t, will be a fascinating tight-rope act.

Dethier: I think we’ve seen versions of these reintegration programs with Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed — but those guys returned voluntarily, while LIV was still in existence. This version is far more complex. Especially with Bryson declaring that he’ll be with LIV as long as LIV exists, and that he wants to watch out for the league’s young would-be stars and their futures, too. I don’t see a simple fix.

Schrock mostly hits it I think, though he thinks Rahm has more 'splainin' to do.  He may be right in that Rahm's timing no doubt gave LIV encouragement to go on....

Even as I acknowledge that those two guys will make it back, it's not like I miss either of them.

Anything On For Tis Week? - I'm already eyeing the exit, so please bear with me.  But at least the TC panel noticed a certain event on for this week:

The second men’s major of the year has arrived, as we head to Aronimink outside of Philadelphia for the PGA Championship. What’s your top storyline for this year’s event?

Hirsh: That more golf tournaments need to be in Philly. I’m biased, but come on, we only get a golf tournament in the Philly metro every four years (the next one on the schedule is the 2030

U.S. Open at Merion). There are dozens of outstanding tournament-quality venues within 90 minutes of the airport. Not to mention it’s the best food city in the northeast (I said what I said). I think the Philly crowds are going to show out in force this week and show everyone exactly why we need to have a regular event. I’m sure the Cobbs Creek project will be highlighted and hopefully, soon, that might be the host of a tournament in Philly.

Schrock: I feel like every PGA Championship has the same top storyline, which is: So, what’s the identity of this major? Ever since the move to May, the PGA Championship has been adrift. It’s a major, but doesn’t really have the major juice we will get at the U.S. Open, Masters or Open. It’s almost Chevron-esque in that you’re telling me it’s a major but I’m not seeing it. Going to Valhalla and Quail Hollow hasn’t helped. I’m bullish on Aronomink giving us a major feel we’ve been missing at this event but we’re still looking for an identity for the fourth major.

Dethier: Jordan Spieth hunting the career Grand Slam, fellas! [Returns to earth] Honestly, for me it’s the ongoing Scottie-Rory major hunt. To Schrock’s point, as the PGA continues to hunt for an identity, its strongest virtue is that yeah, it’s a major! These are the ones that we really keep track of. I can’t wait.

A good rule of thumb is that any city with its own school of golf architecture is likely to be a pretty good golf town....

I'm certainly relieved that Dylan's tongue was planted firmly in his cheek as he touted the Spieth Grand Slam quest.

And this inevitable query:

Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have won four of the last five majors, with McIlroy already taking the Masters this year. Which player do you like better heading into the PGA?

Hirsh: Rory just won one. Scottie has finished second his last like bajillion events. I more likely see him defending his title than Rory getting halfway to the slam.

Schrock: Rory won at Augusta with his B- game. Scottie has been playing with his B- game for like the last two months and barely finishes outside the top five. I feel like Scottie’s floor is Sunday contention and a to -five, whereas Rory could win or bomb out early. I’ll take Scottie.

Dethier: Scottie’s the best golfer in the world and continues to play like it, so I’ll take him at an old-school major championship test over anyone. But I think Cameron Young might win, and I also think these three could end up 1-2-3 in some order, like they did at Augusta National.

Can I take a Fitzgerald brother to be named later?  And this GMTA moment:

Alex Fitzpatrick wasn’t a PGA Tour member until he teamed with his brother, World No. 4 Matthew Fitzpatrick, to win the Zurich Classic last month. But in his first two starts as a Tour member, Alex tied for 9th at the Cadillac Championship and now 4th at the Truist Championship Sunday. Has his play been the biggest surprise of 2026? If not, what has been?

Hirsh: Yeah, and I don’t think anything will top it. To go from having zero status to winning a

team event with your brother and finishing top-10 in the next two Siggies? Now he’s playing in his second major. Quite the whirlwind.

Schrock: In a year of surprises, from Brooks Koepka’s return to Rory’s second jacket and a freakin’ Gary Woodland win, I think Alex Fitzpatrick’s last month, namely how he has played post-Zurich, is the biggest surprise. I would like to throw in Brandt Snedeker winning in Myrtle Beach today, which was his first win in almost eight years and first since he had experimental surgery on his sternum. He had five top-10s in six years coming into this week!

Dethier: The biggest surprise of 2026 is what Sungjae Im did from that bunker on the weekend. Other than that, though? Yeah, I’d say the Brothers Fitzpatrick take the cake, with a nod to some epic, inspiring wins from the trio of 40-somethings (Rose, Woodland, Snedeker). Also, did you see what happened on the Euro Tour this weekend? Golf is full of glorious, unexpected surprises. Maybe another one this week.

You know what stays in my mind?  The image of Matt seeking out and congratulating the Young family after his heartbreaking loss to Cam at Sawgrass.  I'm thinking this is a family for which I am happy to root.

The Times, They Are A-Changin' -  Via longime reader and golf buddy Mark. W:

Claire Dowling has been nominated by the Past Captains of the Club and becomes the first woman to serve as Captain. Claire will begin her year in office after the traditional Driving-in

ceremony on the first tee of the Old Course on Friday 25th September 2026.

A distinguished amateur golfer, Claire represented Great Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup on four occasions and was part of the 1986 team which secured the first GB&I victory over the USA team on American soil with a 13-5 win at Prairie Dunes.

Born and educated in Dublin, Claire attended Dublin College of Catering and graduated from Trinity College in 1979 with a Bsc(Mgt) in Hotel and Catering Management.

Yes, Mark, we will be at Crail in August.  Will you be there for Dowling's Driving In ceremony in September?

That will have to suffice for today, as Sned's popular win will be left on the cutting room floor.  Have a great week.

Weekend Wrap - Summer of Nelly, Part II

Did you discern that my tongue was firmly in my cheek with that header?  Seeing last week's header as I hit the "Create New Post" icon, it seemed that that particular summer is ongoing.... Not that I saw any of it or intend to blog it.

Young At Heart - I didn't see a single minute of yesterday's action, though I did watch a bit of the early rounds.  I was moderately interested in how Young would hold after multiple days with big leads, especially after the series of guys (Justin, cough, Rose) showing tightened collars....  But not here, apparently.

Geoff ledes with some bullet points:

What can we take away from the PGA Tour’s vibe-free Signature snoozefest at Trump Doral? Plenty.

• Cameron Young established himself as the favorite heading into the PGA Championship after a resounding six-stroke victory at Trump Doral. The 30-year-old posted a 19-under-par 269 total to beat Scottie Scheffler by six strokes.

• Young took the Cadillac Championship wire-to-wire with less than his best par-5 play (-3) or approach precision (48/72 greens, 38’3” proximity, SG 26th).

• The city-raised reformed street gang member* led the field in birdies (24) and Strokes Gained Putting (7.062). His power off the tee remains his greatest attribute after posting a 311.7-yard, all-drives average.

• Young has been on an incredible run. His stroke play finishes since missing the cut at The Open last year: 1-5-11-T4-T9-10-T22-T41-T55-T7-T3-1-T3-T25-1

• He calls penalties…on himself. At No. 2 Sunday he was assessed a stroke penalty for a breach of Rule 9.4 (player causing ball at rest to move) and then made 13’6” putt to save par.

• Scheffler’s game is not far from his best form. The so-so first rounds and occasional off-days approaching greens popped up at Doral but in far less worrisome fashion. In his final start before the PGA at Aronimink Scheffler hit 56/72 greens with a 40’10” proximity average, finishing 6th in Strokes Gained Approach. And he seemed as miserable as ever on the course!

Like me, you might be scratching your head over that third bullet point.  Geoff is blessed with a good memory and it's an amusing click-through if you're so inclined.   Though, perhaps not if you still harbor any illusions about journalism....

And he's even got more, especially for those wondering what he thinks upon a return visit to this venue:

• Justin Rose’s new irons from McLaren Racing didn’t get off to the best start. Granted, they may not have received a fair shot after Rose hit only 29 of 56 fairways and needed a final round 68 to finish T62. But when the Tour’s leader in greens in regulation hit a fairway, the new clubs did not shine: he lost 1.311 strokes to the field, hitting 48/72 greens.

• Rory McIlroy and five other top 15 players did the right thing avoiding a hot and humid Bermudagrass test that will play nothing like Aronimink.

• As brother Matt took the week off, Alex Fitzpatrick put his Zurich Classic-enabled PGA Tour card to excellent use. A final round 67 landed Fitzpatrick a T9 finish and a $500,000 check. Yes, $500k. What a farce. But good on Alex.

• Following a bogey-free weekend and final round 64, World No. 54 Adam Scott will be inside the world top 60 status ahead of the U.S. Open’s May 18th OWGR cutoff. After playing next week’s PGA Championship, the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock would be Scott’s 100th straight major.

• It’s time for the Blue Monster moniker to decamp to Boca Vista Phase 5 and buffet dinners at 3:45 pm. Stretched to 7,739 yards with firm greens featuring a big first bounce until Sunday’s inch-of-rain, 59 of the 72 players finished under par. Half the “Monster” holes played under par. The field finished -330.

Good point there from Geoff.  Not only do the mental midgets minding the store in Ponte Vedra Beach lay in signature events the two weeks prior to the PGA Championship, but they put the guys on friggin' Bermuda.  

Of course, I was reliably informed by Mr. McIlroy himself that golf would only survive if we as fans know when Rory is going to play.  And then he refuses to show, so it's just possible that he was, yanno, lying to us.

Geoff kept himself under control in those bullets, but shall we let him fly his freak flag?

The Tour’s return to Miami was an optics disaster for the new leadership and board members who bequeathed “Signature” status on this mundane effort.

At least the event provided a signature example of what it looks like when a tournament has no legacy, no ties to the community, poorly-timed scheduling, and a bloated, unsustainable purse. The Cadillac Championship also provided a convenient reminder that no-cut, limited fields are particularly drab in a splintered, post-WGC world.

Worse, the purveyors of mundane mess managed to make LIV look good.

That dying entity drew better crowds in its April playings at Doral. LIV also had a much more impressive buildout and managed to exude atmosphere. (No, I’m not saying this needed a DJ spinning Careless Whisper remixes.)

OK, let's take a moment to enjoy that bit of schadenfreude....  I'll just add that Florida golf courses look visually awful on TV, because of the grain mostly.  I just the look of it, which is especially funny when you consider that the venues owner hated the look f Pinehurst.

Shall we allow Geoff to ramble on?   Again, rhetorical.

But this was the first event created from scratch by the PGA Tour’s newly renamed “Events” business—you know, the one that’s expected to be a driver of profit for the Strategic Sports Group. They gave us a dreary, cheap-looking product in a major market that had little interest in seeing the Tour return.

We’ve been told that this combination of the SSG wisdom and a CEO coming from the NFL was supposed to bring fresh perspectives. They would bring in beancounting-forward entities at Fenway Sports for fresh approaches to big time golf. This one looked more like a nightmarish hybrid of John Henry’s 2026 Red Sox and Steve Cohen’s dismal Mets. Other than CBS’s continuing to push innovation on the telecast front, there were no signs of a fresh approach. Throw in brilliantly scheduling the Cadillac Championship on the same weekend when F1 was in Miami, sprinkle on some lack of appreciation for what makes a market or golf tournament click, and the frugal-looking presentation hardly gave the Tour’s new owners “brand equity”. Or whatever nonsense will get Blankie his 11% return.

Thought: maybe instead of hitting the majors up for money, the Tour should ask for advice on how to put on a tournament? Just one idea.

Still, it was astounding to see how few people bought tickets the first three days. For those old enough to remember what it looks like when people attend a tournament at Doral, I can confirm it used to be a festive, fun event to watch when kicking off the Florida swing.

In May, when it’s 90 degrees and $90 to get in before fees and exhaustive security searches, it’s a wonder they drew anyone at all. Throw in the Trump factor as he polls in Jimmy Carter territory, and the event needed a creative approach to compensate for various constraints. But at least that massive charitable contribution will…

Props to Geoff for the linkage to the Red Sox and Mets' fortunes....  He is spot-on about the lifelessness of the Tour these days, which I assume means that they'll have to figure out a means to get more money into Patrick Cantlay's pockets.

Life In The Time of LIV -  In the moment of that D-Day announcement back in 2023, someone suggested a wellness check on Brandell Chamblee.... I'm awaiting proof of life on Phil.

I'll not stint in my enjoyment of their failure, though it would be far more pleasing had the PGA Tour not been turned into LIV-lite.  But it's all the Tour Confidential panel wants to chew upon this morning:

In a press release Thursday, LIV Golf announced new board members as it transitions from “a foundational launch phase to a diversified, multi-partner investment model.” Hours

later, its bankroller, the Saudi PIF, released its own statement saying the “PIF has made the decision to fund LIV Golf only for the remainder of the 2026 season. The substantial investment required by LIV Golf over a longer term is no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy.” Now that you’ve had a few days to digest this bombshell — and after a rollercoaster April for LIV Golf — what thought has lingered with you?

Josh Sens: That for all the tumult, not much changed, aside from some players getting a whole lot richer. I suppose you could say LIV’s birth shook the Tour out of its complacency, which led to (ongoing) schedule changes and even fatter purses for already extravagantly paid golfers. Beyond that, though, what? Is there now an insatiable demand for team golf? There is not. Is professional golf itself a better product now for fans? I don’t see a ton of evidence of that.

Josh Schrock: I think Sens pretty much nailed it. What will stick with me long after LIV either morphs into something else or goes away entirely is that money couldn’t buy the parts of professional golf that actually resonate with fans: the tradition, the history and the meaning of the results. Billions of dollars can do a lot, but they can’t speed up time. It takes decades for sports leagues to resonate with fans and to develop a connection. LIV Golf was never going to be able to achieve that goal in a short time frame. As our Michael Bamberger wrote, LIV Golf changed the PGA Tour, but not for the better. And I feel like a reckoning is coming now that the Tour’s great opponent is teetering.

James Colgan: Good points, gents. My lingering thought was this: We never heard the “don” of LIV Golf, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, say a single word. However golf history remembers LIV’s most powerful Saudi benefactor, it will NOT remember him for saying a single word about the sport. “His Excellency” left golf as he entered it: Without a peep.

Exactly.  They didn't improve or change golf, they merely hurt the place they left.  Oh, large checks were cashed, which was in fact the entire point.

I'm just saddened that His Excellency wasn't granted the Augusta National membership that may have been what this was all about.  But to all the folks who said the Saudis could fund this as long as they wanted...... Isn't funny how you can be correct and still not get it.  

At Trump Doral for this week’s Cadillac Championship, several players were asked if LIV members should be welcomed back to the PGA Tour, and what types of penalties they should face. If you werePGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, how would you handle players’ reintegration? Is it different for everyone? Would you not allow certain players at all?

Sens: Open a pathway for guys to play their way back on, with a point system that has some kind of reward for past performance. So that maybe the likes of Bryson and Rahm and Smith can compete in regular Tour events but not elevated events, which they’d still have to play their way into. The less relevant LIV guys would probably just retire rather than face that grind. And the younger guys would be left to try to earn their cards, which is what they’d probably be doing anyway.

Schrock: It’s going to have to be a case-by-case basis. As Rolapp and Jordan Spieth have noted, the PGA Tour extended an offer to Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith earlier this year and it wasn’t accepted. The next deal shouldn’t be as forgiving. Both Spieth and Rolapp also subtly mentioned the lawsuit that DeChambeau was a key plaintiff in after LIV launched in 2022. That’s a lawsuit that PGA Tour players had to pay to defend, and the road back for those who signed on to sue the Tour should be harsher than those who went to LIV quietly, like Brooks Koepka, and didn’t rock the boat. Rahm will be the interesting case. His exodus came at a time when LIV was floundering, and it gave the rebel league juice and calcified the two sides’ stances in golf’s civil conflict. That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I’m not sure there’s an easy way to bring either of the big names back without upsetting a big portion of Tour membership, but the Tour would certainly benefit economically from reintegrating them quickly. As for the rest of LIV’s roster, some who resigned their membership, like Patrick Reed, can try to play their way back via the DP World Tour or KFT. Many will disappear with their millions and not even knock on the door at the global home. In all honesty, we’re probably talking about 15-20 players in total that decisions need to be made on.

Colgan: I’d give Bryson a path back. His presence would single-handedly change the PGA Tour’s economics, and he’s probably the only LIV player for whom that is true (Jon Rahm probably deserves consideration here as well). Everyone else would be subject to a lengthy (and expensive) return process through the Tour’s strategic partners at the DP World Tour and the KFT, or a short-term retirement.

There's a few points that I'd like to make here.  The first is that I'm struggling to identify anyone beyond Bryson and Rahm that's even worthy of discussion at this point.  I'll concede that Bryson has created a following, one that the geriatric PGA Tour can't help but overvalue, but does anyone think Rahm moves the needle?

I will confess that Rahm is that quintessential guy that can't read the room.  he jumps thinking naively that he's so important that they'll have to cut a deal....  How did you enjoy your years in the isolation tank, Jon?  How has it helped you prepare for the majors?  And now?  he picks this time to hold out and go to war with the DP World Tour, just as LIV is vaporizing....  I guess he wants to ensure that he has absolutely nowhere to play in 2027.  Which, quite frankly, works for me.  He was arguing about having to play six of their events instead of four, so I'm totally cool with him playing in none.

But maybe the best reflection is how those three guys will regret not taking the Tour's offered deal.  None as much as Cam Smith, who by the evidence couldn't qualify right now for the championship bracket of your club championship.

Even if LIV Golf receives alternative funding, with the substantial PIF coffers no longer

available, does this end any sort of competition that was remaining with the PGA Tour?

Sens: I think so. If LIV taught us anything, it’s that the world does not need more professional
golf. At least not for the money these guys think they deserve to be making. Ironically, the Tour’s real competition for eyeballs these days doesn’t come from LIV. It comes from a bunch of YouTube bros producing their own content.

Schrock: Yes. Without the $30 million purses and signing bonuses, LIV will cease to be any sort of threat to the PGA Tour. It sounds like it’s close to a wrap, barring an unforeseen bailout.

Colgan: No fat lady is singing. Yet. But it sounds like she’s warming up.

I confess that I didn't think the PGA Tour was financeable, but LIV?  Surely you jest

What’s the best-case scenario for LIV Golf going forward?

Sens: Maybe pivot to crypto?

Schrock: Try to merge with the DP World Tour. LIV can slink along with limited funds, but there will almost certainly be a talent exodus once the money dries up.

Colgan: I think there’s a vision that could exist with significantly smaller purses at LIV’s previously successful golf-crazy venues (Korea, Australia, South Africa). The problem LIV is going to run into is that every sports league needs significant TV revenue to survive, and they’re not anywhere close to that right now.

I don't know, what does McKinsey say?  Have you stopped laughing yet?

With the benefit of hindsight, they should have tried to do a deal with the Euro Tour or, even better, the LPGA.  But McKinsey assured them world domination was their birthright, so what could go wrong?

Dis and Dat - Just a couple of minor bits to get me out of here.  The TC panel reference above could only spare this silly question about the week's play:

Sunday’s golf slate featured two blowouts, as Nelly Korda won by four in Mexico and Cameron Young won by six in Florida. Both have had fantastic starts to 2026, but which one are you taking as most likely to continue this success through the summer?

Sens: I think they’ll both keep rolling, but Young’s summer is going to stand out just a bit more boldly when he wins his first major at Shinnecock.

Schrock: It’s Korda for multiple reasons. The first is that she’s the unquestioned best player on her tour. Young has been fantastic but has to deal with Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and the blistering hot Matt Fitzpatrick. Korda changed her mentality after a winless 2025 and has been relentless to start this season. The only thing that can hold her back is a balky putter, but her new putting coach seems to have at least made that a net neutral. I expect her to win at least one more major this year and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a three-major 2026 for Nelly.

Colgan: Cam! He’s a no-doubt top-5 player in the world right now, and a maiden voyage PGA Championship at Philly looms.

Cam has no doubt found his footing, but nelly can beat those girls in her sleep.  At least when she stays out of her own way.

I'm forever leaving browser tabs open, but do you agree I can dispense with this one?

Luke Donald is back as Euro Ryder Cup captain. What about Tiger Woods?

His Greta Garbo act in 2025 seems to have moved the needle, as many more folks now agree that he's the GOAT of dicks.

I'm not going to dive in too deeply, but there is something really odd in play with the R&A's site selection process:

Royal Lytham & St Annes To Host 2028 Open

The 11-time site returns, ending speculation that Trump Turnberry or Muirfield would land the next available open date.

Really?  Wee Lytham?

Not too many years ago, it was unclear if Lytham would ever return to rota hosting status after the 2012 edition won by Ernie Els. With most of the contenders hitting irons off tees to avoid Lytham’s 206-or-so bunkers, the links looked outdated by a modern game just beginning to welcome golfers who could walk without assistance, occasionally eat something green, and even dare to lift a weight. Els lifted the second Claret Jug of his celebrated career that week by edging out Adam Scott.

Turnberry hasn't hosted since 2009 and Muirfield since 2013, so the plot thickens.  Will we ever see Muirfield again?

That will have to suffice for today.  Have a great week.