Weekend Wrap - Summer of Our Discontent Edition

Wow, I suppose we should just console ourselves with Rory's Masters win, because absolutely nobody had the Aaron Rai-Wyndham Clark parlay.  With only one major remaining, we're left to debate whether that's a good thing or the other kind.

It's hard to fault anyone.  The USGA picked the most classic of venues (the only founding club of the USGA still able to handle elite play), set the course up appropriately for the anticipate winds, yet delivered a lifeless week of golf.  It's not that the leaderboard didn't feature interesting names, but rather that the play seemed, well, I'm gonna go with lifeless again.

Combined with the aggressive boorishness of the crowds, quite the shock on Long Island, and it all just feels dispiriting.... 

Where to start?  Anywhere but there, so how about Geoff's characteristic numerical summary:

• -4: Winning score to par by Wyndham Clark (64-69-70-73-276)
• 66: Low final round score by Joaquin Niemann, Ludvig Aberg
  
• 67: Final round score of runner-up Sam Burns
• 17: Final round scores in the 60s
• 71.389: Final round scoring average (Par 70)
• 3rd: Lowest final round in U.S. Open history behind 2019 at Pebble Beach (71.190) and 2015 at Chambers Bay (71.293).
• 22: U.S. Open rounds at Shinnecock Hills
• 1st: Sunday’s scoring was the lowest on average in the history of the U.S. Opens played at Shinnecock Hills
• 70-70-70-70: Keith Mitchell’s four rounds (T4), first in U.S. Open history to post four even par rounds
• 3: Players finished under par after 72 holes (3 over five previous
• T23: Position of low amateur Ryder Cowan (68-72-72-73) and Jackson Koivun (72-71-74-68)
• 11: Stimpmeter speeds (Greens single cut)
• 7,419: Final round yardages
• 73: High temperature under mostly sunny skies, dry winds S/SW occasionally gusting into 10-15 m.p.h.

No clue what Geoff means by that 22 rounds at Shinny?  Five modern Opens total twenty rounds.... did they play only two rounds in 1896?  

Now, about those crowds.  Here's one take:

Wyndham Clark had the world against him. He won the U.S. Open anyway

But even Clark wasn’t prepared for Sunday at the U.S. Open and the one-sided nature of it. When

Clark and Scheffler arrived to the first tee at 2:24 p.m., they received a nice ovation; it even seemed nonpartisan. But that did not last.

Fans sang “Happy Birthday” to Scheffler and waited patiently for this final group to put balls in the air. Scheffler hit first, then Clark. Then someone yelled before Clark’s ball had even reached its apex.

“Crash and burn, Wyndham!”

On Clark’s approach from the 1st hole, someone in the Founder’s Club, the luxe balcony hospitality tent left of the 1st fairway, yelled for the leader’s ball to get in the fescue. On the par-3 2nd, Clark missed well left and then had his chip roll slightly over the green. Some fans urged it to keep rolling.

“It’s brutal,” said one volunteer, looking behind him at the grandstands in disgust. “Cheering like that for a bad shot?”

It didn’t stop.

Before Clark teed off on 4, a fan yelled, “Don’t choke, Wyndham!” and was promptly removed by security. A couple more fans were reportedly sent home during the day as well. When Clark hit his approach, he seemed to receive a nice applause. It was such a rarity up until that moment that this reporter — who did not see where the ball landed — made note of it, only to find out the ball had landed 20 yards right of the green. That’s what they cheered for.

Don't know about that.  Seems like he was sufficiently prepared to, yanno, get it done.

Here's an alternative take:

What the U.S. Open crowd got wrong about Wyndham Clark

I do not claim to know much about Clark. I have seen what was reported about his behavior at the U.S. Open last year at Oakmont, when he destroyed a sacred locker room after a lousy round of

golf and later seemed disinterested in expressing remorse. I have seen his bad swings result in temper tantrums, including once accidentally narrowly avoiding striking a volunteer (those expressions of remorse were more sincere). And I have certainly seen the rehabilitation efforts he has undergone in recent months to shed the stigma that he is a hothead, or worse, a Bad Guy.

But after watching him on Sunday at Shinnecock, I do know this: Wyndham Clark has some serious backbone.

In case you weren’t already aware, it is very hard to win a major championship. It might be said that it is hardest to win a U.S. Open. A national championship victory is an experience tantamount to waterboarding — except here the drowning is not simulated. You do not win an Open. You endure through one, flailing wildly through a vast ocean of failure and disaster to eventually emerge with a score lower than your competitors. Very often, it takes every last ounce of you.

This is because the U.S. Open is the ultimate test of yourself. It reveals things that you wouldn’t dare say out loud. It presses you where you are weakest. It shows you who you really are.

To win a major championship the way that Clark did on Sunday at Shinnecock — in which he was competing not only against himself but against all of Shinnecock — was a reflection of Clark’s innermost self that not even he could paper over.

So how’d he do it?

He did it laughing.

Yeah, he was a laugh riot out there.  But the point is to deflect it, and obviously they found a way of doing that....

From Geoff:

Hubert Green played the final four holes of the 1977 U.S. Open under a death threat. Clark played the final 18 holes against Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns, and a pitiful fan base refusing, en masse, to acknowledge a two-time U.S. Open champion’s clutch play.

To the credit of USGA security, efforts were made early in the round to crack down on fans crying out zingers like “Don’t choke” and other nonsense. Clark opened in three-over-par 38.

“Man, they definitely didn’t want me to win,” Clark said. “It’s pretty rare in an Open Championship or a major to have fans kind of boo against your shots or cheer for bad shots.

Looked like the USGA was far more proactive than the PGA of America, though that's quite the low bar.  Not least because the PGA of America wanted the chaos, given the vastly different nature of the events.

So, care for a review of Clark's "issues"?

2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow

One month prior to his incident at Oakmont, Clark received backlash for dangerously throwing his driver after a subpar tee shot. The driver hit a T-Mobile sponsor sign (the same sponsor Clark's hat represented) and was just a few feet away from a wind flag attendant. Here is a video of the outburst on hole 16 at Quail Hollow.

And, of course, this one cited all week:

2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont

During last year's U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Plum, Pennsylvania, Clark made headlines due to a post-round outburst. In Oakmont's historic locker room, which strives to maintain its original 1903 design, photos surfaced of a locker door bashed in.

Clark took his anger out on a locker door after he missed the U.S. Open cut, shooting eight over the first two days. Here is a photo of the aftermath from Clark's outburst at the storied Oakmont locker room.

There's pictures and video at the link.  That PGA club toss will get your attention, as it really could have taken out a volunteer.  Also, amusingly, he took out a TMobile sign, amusing because he currently sports a TMobile logo on his cap.

I'm ignoring a stupid comment from the Masters Par-3 contest, but I do want to add this one:

Bay Hill, March 2024, third round, 18th hole, cameras all over him. Clark is in the third-to-last group, playing with Scottie Scheffler. He hits his tee shot in the juicy right rough, yards from the lake there. His ball settles deep in it. He has, and this is a term of the art, nothing. One play: hack it out.

But Clark went in there with the heavy flange of a wedge, shoving it behind the ball four or more times. (The rule book says you can touch that grass “lightly” — the rules want to make sure you are not improving your lie.) While doing so, the ball — to Brandel Chamblee, to me, likely others — seemed to move. Your ball can’t move when you’re addressing it. If it does, it’s a shot and the ball goes back to where it was. That’s why Jack Nicklaus hovered — hovering is not addressing. Tour rules officials conferred and decided not to give Clark a penalty. I was not the only person flabbergasted by that.

“The ball clearly moved,” Chamblee said in the Golf Channel broadcast that day. “He clearly didn’t ground his club lightly. You begin to wonder: What does a Tour player have to do to get a penalty?”

Amen, Brandel.

Have you seen that clip of Patrick Reed at the Barclays?

So, is he any worse than Sergio, who still seems welcome in polite society?  PReed is about to be welcomed back on Tour, so can we at least be consistent?  He also didn't go to LIV with all the other a******es, so that should be a mark in his favor.

I know what this game can do to us, not that any of the above can be excused.  I actually remember liking his apology after the PGA incident, because he spoke of having to earn our trust back.  The Oakmont incident came far too soon after that, and his reaction to it was off-putting.  The apology came too late, but (operating from memory) I seem to remember it included some sense that the club should have kept the incident quiet.  Kinda like Bryson berating a Golf Channel cameraman for hurting his brand......   All those years of the Tour not disclosing disciplinary actions has created a generation of spoiled brats, eh?  Who coulda seen that one coming?

Shall we see what the Tour Confidential panel wants to talk about?  Again, you don't seem to be on board with this rhetorical thing:

Wyndham Clark won the 126th U.S. Open, taking a commanding six-stroke lead into the final round and ultimately besting Sam Burns by one stroke at Shinnecock Hills. How did Wyndham run away from the field so easily the first three days and then hang on, even when it looked grim, on Sunday?

Josh Sens: Clark’s putting was deadly all week. But in those opening rounds, he himself said that

the driver was key, that when the big stick is going well, he’s tough to beat. It probably helped that Shinnecock, like Los Angeles CC before it, was set up with wide fairways. Clark found a lot of short grass in those opening rounds. And then, when his tee-to-green game got sloppy in the closing rounds, his putter remained en fuego.

Zephyr Melton: He had a red-hot putter, got some fortunate breaks when he hit it astray, and hit some seriously impressive shots when things got tight. Winning wire-to-wire is always impressive, but to do it in U.S. Open conditions at Shinnecock is on another level.

Josh Schrock: He took advantage of the good end of the wind draw on Thursday, and did the same late Saturday when it died down. He built his lead that way and then leaned on a ridiculously clutch putter to bail him out when needed. To win a U.S. Open, especially wire-to-wire at Shinnecock, you’re going to need everything working in your favor; that includes making a number of par and bogey saves. Wyndham did just enough to keep the train on the tracks on Sunday and get it in the house.

I didn't see Saturday's round, in which he might have won it by building that lead.  I do think they're selling short how well he played the back nine on Sunday, pulling himself together in the nick of time.

Due to some past unsavory headlines — a rules controversy, club-throwing incident and damaging an Oakmont locker — Clark has had to work to reshape his image. Although some argue lots of golfers have tempers. Do you think the criticism of Clark is fair? And will this help turn it around?

Sens: It’s one thing to have a temper. It’s another to trash someone else’s property. Clark earned his reputation. He acted like a toddler on more than one occasion. But this week, he said and did all the right things, and he was gritty as all get out when it mattered. Sports fans like that, and I’m sure Clark earned some admirers along the way. Whether he’s actually changed, who knows? But since when has the American public ever demanded that its celebrities/athletes actually be the people they present themselves to be?

Melton: The criticisms after locker-gate are definitely fair, especially considering his lack of accountability and passive apologies. But in the world of sports, winning cures everything, and adding another trophy to his resume won’t hurt.

Schrock: How do we define fair? Sports and sports fans, by and large, are not rational or fair. Golf has lacked villains since most of them left for LIV, and if Clark can somewhat fill that void, then that’s good for the sport. It wasn’t just about him smashing a locker or almost hitting a volunteer with a driver at the PGA or mashing the grass down behind the ball at the API. It’s all of it. The fans went a little overboard cheering against him Sunday. But fans don’t like runaway winners, for the most part. They either want drama or a massive win from a superstar. Add in Clark’s transgressions, and you get a guy who isn’t exactly a fan favorite and a New York crowd that will try and will a train wreck into existence. Will a wire-to-wire win at Shinnecock help change that? Does it really matter? Probably not.

Fair?  I don't even know what the question is going for, as how could either of those anger issues be ignored?

To me, the locker incident is that far more troubling, because it wasn't in the moment.  You finish a round and sign your scorecard and, a half-hour later, you're destroying property?  That said, his career body of work doesn't hold a candle to Sergio's.  Wake me up when Wyndham spits into a cup or damages greens that others still have to play...

Scottie Scheffler, who turned 30 on Sunday, came up short in his first attempt at the career Grand Slam. What gives you optimism he won’t have to wait long to complete the slam, and what gives you pause?

Sens: The only thing that gives me pause is that it’s very hard to win majors. Beyond that, nothing. He’s the best player in the world. He’s healthy. And unlike some other generational talents, he does not seem prone to sabotaging himself on or off the course. If it’s not next year, it will be soon enough.

Melton: He’s got the highest floor of any player in the game, and even when he’s got his C+ game (like he did this week), he keeps himself in contention. It’s only a matter of time before he knocks one off.

Schrock: He’s just always around the top of the leaderboard. He hasn’t had his A game all year and is always in the mix on Sunday. As long as he continues to have the highest floor in golf, he’ll have more chances to get this done. But while we can all sit here and say that Scheffler should have many more chances to win the career Grand Slam, sometimes things aren’t that neat. We don’t know what the future holds, where his game will be at each time this tournament comes around, whether or not he’ll get the bad side of a draw here or an unlucky bounce there. These opportunities actually don’t happen all the time. It felt like Sunday was a big missed opportunity.

The whole week was a huge missed opportunity.  I don't know what's going on with the guy, who seems exceedingly cranky.  The ball-striking still seems elite, he just looks clueless with the putter.

Joaquin Niemann received a two-shot penalty for throwing a golf club during his first round at Shinnecock Hills. No video has surfaced, although The Athletic reported Niemann was angry he didn’t get free relief from fire ants after hitting two balls out of bounds, kicked a flag used to mark his ball and some nearby sand before throwing his club approximately 50 yards. The penalty falls under a new code of conduct policy to police such things. But without any video, do you think the penalty was too severe? Why not just a warning?

Sens: Let’s not fall into the Instagram-era trap of thinking that if it wasn’t captured on video, it didn’t happen. Clearly, there were witnesses, and Niemann didn’t deny what he did. If anything, he should be happy the rules didn’t call for him to be booted from the tournament.

Melton: The act must have been particularly egregious to warrant a penalty without prior warnings. Unfortunately, without any video evidence, we’ll never know exactly what happened.

Schrock: I don’t have a problem with the penalty as much as I do with the arbitrary nature in which it’s given out. Niemann didn’t deny any of the reported parts of the incident. On Sunday, he joked it was a pretty good throw while also saying he felt the USGA was being intentionally harsh on him. Frustration happens, but there has to be a line. The problem is that we don’t have a clear idea of where that line is and what constitutes crossing it. Jon Rahm drop-kicked his driver down the fairway without penalty. Niemann threw his club away from people and got dinged two strokes. I think the way punishments are given out and the lack of transparency about why they are or aren’t given is a bigger issue than Niemann’s individual incident.

I have no clue what happened, but it's amusing to hear Joaquin Niemann thinking he's important enough to be singled out by the USGA.  Who does he think he is, Talor Gooch?

What was your most memorable takeaway from the 126th U.S. Open?

Sens: That as tough as Shinnecock is to play, it might be even tougher to set up. A lot of agony and effort went into getting this one right, both in maintenance practices and in public communications about the conditions. No one wanted the course to become the story. But to some extent, it became anyway. To the point where I heard a superintendent say that if it takes so much sweat and stress to get the course right, it might not be a suitable modern U.S. Open venue.

Melton: That even when Shinnecock is “easy,” it’s still damn hard. With all the complaining we saw on social media, you’d think the winning score was 30 under! Despite being gettable, only three players finished the week in the red. What a test that place presents.

Schrock: Going to go off the wall here. With Wyndham putting the tournament in a chokehold from basically Thursday evening on, my biggest takeaway is what a bad time it was for LIV to have a dud of a week. As the league pitches outside investors to get money to exist in 2027, its two biggest stars completely no-showed from the good side of the draw. The 78 Jon Rahm shot on Friday was shocking and Bryson DeChambeau quickly exited the proceedings on Friday morning. Bad time to have a bad week.

Shinny is one of the truly great places in golf,  but I'll admit to qualms about it as an Open venue.  Seeing the USGA over-correct in the face of those Thursday wind forecasts, and knowing the unique agronomic issues, is it worth it?  It still challenged the guys, but wasn't it a tad, yanno, boring?

This is a good one to go out on:

Who won the week without winning the week?

Sens: Tom Kim. He qualified his way in, then guaranteed himself a spot in next year’s U.S. Open. Not bad for a guy who’d all but vanished from the radar.

Melton: Keith Mitchell. He opened the tournament with a 41 on his opening nine, bounced back with a 29 coming home, and then turned in three more rounds of level-par play. Pretty solid week, I’d say.

Schrock: Jackson Koivun and Miles Russell. The future of U.S. golf both made the cut and played the weekend together for both rounds. Koivun, who will now turn pro, tied for low amateur, and Russell, who is 17 (!), acquitted himself much better than a number of golf’s big names. The future is bright. Put them out first at Adare Manor, Furyk.

Those first two are worthy.  Mitchell's 41-29 might have been my single favorite moment from the week.

Surprised no one mentioned Sam Burns, who finished stronger than I've seen him do previously.  

Hope you enjoyed.  I need to get a move on, so have a great week. 

Weekend Wrap - Bel Air/Shinny Week Edition

I did watch quite a bit of golf this weekend, but likely not what most folks were watching.... The header will give it away.

The Ladies of Bel Air - Team match play just rocks.  There aren't a wide range of options to use the format, but it makes the amateur game far more interesting than the professional counter-part, at least on certain weeks.

Farah O'Keefe goes 5-0 and the U.S. routes GB&I in singles to reclaim the Curtis Cup

It couldn’t have been more appropriate that Farah O’Keefe was the one to secure the winning point for the U.S. to win the Curtis Cup at Bel-Air Country Club.

O’Keefe—the 21-year-old star and unquestioned leader—was told by captain Meghan Stasi in one of the famous Bel-Air tunnels that the U.S. would win the Curtis Cup. That was all O’Keefe needed to finish in style. She closed out the match and beat Charlotte Naughton, 2 and 1, securing the victory with a short putt on the 17th hole. Her teammates were celebrating at the 17th, and she joined them and jumped up and down with her teammates in a circle.

The Americans won the trophy back from GB&I, which won two years ago at Sunningdale. The U.S. has long dominated the event and a GB&I team hadn’t won on American soil in 40 years. That didn’t change Sunday with the Americans dominating in the 13-7 final tally.

Except that it wasn't a route, as Geoff explains:

The 44th Curtis Cup looked headed toward a down-to-the-wire finish until clutch back-nine play by the USA carried Captain Meghan Stasi’s team to a 13-7 win at Bel-Air Country Club.

While the final score will look like a dominant win, Sunday’s eight singles matches were all tight in a perfect reflection of the week’s intense matches in Southern California.

In fact, at times the board looked like a sea of (Carolina) blue during yesterday's singles.   And while it wasn't the craziest of Sundays, there were some crazy swings in individual matches, with two four-up leads squandered:

• Patience Rhodes recorded the first point for GB&I after going four down through seven holes against USA’s Kelly Xu, who never fell more than one down over the back nine in a wild opening match. Rhodes had to make a long par-putt to retain her lead and the first point. Xu enjoyed an unusual day in team match play history. She received her diploma before Sunday’s singles matches. While Xu might have wished she could walk with her fellow Cardinal, they walked out on Sundar Puchai despite the Google CEO never mentioning AI. Xu may have lost but she’s the first Stanford grad to ever get her degree from a USGA President and on the Swinging Bridge. Not bad!

• USA’s Jasmine Koo fell down four through 11 holes but miraculously birdied five of her next six holes before making par at the last to overtake Nellie Ong 1UP. The 20-year-old USC All-American from Cerritos, California recorded USA’s first and possibly most important point of the Singles to blunt the sea of powder blue on the board.

Mostly I just thought Bel-Air looked spectacular.  We've had quite the George C. Thomas tour the last few years, with Opens at Riviera and LACC, and that U.S. Women's Amateur at this very venue in 2023.

Geoff's notes on the venue are unfortunately limited by his paywall, here's as far as we can ride with him:

There might not be a venue more difficult logistically to hold an event played with crowds and the quirks that come with a team match play event. So it was especially delightful to see Bel-Air and the USGA pull off a special week in the hills above Los Angeles.

The remarkable golf course conditioning provided by Justin DiPeppo’s crew brought out the best attributes of the 2017 restoration project that returned an intelligent purpose to so many holes. Along with fun setup touches by the USGA’s team and surprisingly tough hole locations, Bel-Air showed how much better match play is when contested on something offering just enough of a say to spice things up.

The other fun bit of note was this:

Congratulations, Kelly Xu! 🎓

Missing @Stanford's commencement to represent the USA at the Curtis Cup, Xu got a special graduation ceremony of her own at Bel-Air Country Club before Sunday's singles matches. pic.twitter.com/UT2Qhavj6R

— USGA (@USGA) June 14, 2026

As explained in Golfweek:

Xu missed walking this weekend with teammate Megha Ganne, who made her professional debut last week at the U.S. Women's Open, and former Cardinal Rose Zhang, who officially walked this weekend but graduated after the last quarter.

Those Cardinal girls have always been close.

Even better than this great week is what lies ahead:

Future Curtis Cups in the United States: National Golf Links of America, in Southampton, N.Y., in 2030. Pine Valley Golf Club, in 1934, followed by Bandon Dunes (2038) in Oregon, Cypress Point Club (2042), and Seminole Golf Club (2046).

The only cruelty are those latter dates.... At the time of that Seminole match, your humble blogger will be..... let's see, carry the one and.... Nah, let's not go there.

Buddy Trip - How much of the Canadian Open would you guess your humble blogger watched?  Whatever you guessed, you're high.  In fact, the only golf I watched from Canada this week was the conclusion of that playoff in the U.S. Open qualifier Monday night.  It featured Max Homa, William Mouw and Max McGreevy, though it didn't end well for that first Max.

That was of slight interest, perhaps.  I had been wondering how the USGA would react, given the changes at Jack's event.  The most important qualifying site was always Columbus, OH, the Monday after the Memorial.  Problem is, with the Tour focused on micro-fields, the guys that need to qualify no longer have tee times at Muirfield Village.  So, instead of Columbus the day after, they had all those guys play in Ontario the week of the RBC, which makes sense.

I'm just blogging this because Bud Cauley is a former phenom/good guy that's endured setbacks, and this will be a popular victory:

It took longer than Bud Cauley ever dreamed. But finally, after 239 starts and years of uncertainty, he's a PGA Tour winner

It’s not uncommon these days to see tears of joy from the winner of a PGA Tour event, but if

anyone deserved a good cry, it was Bud Cauley after his long-awaited victory Sunday in the RBC Canadian Open.

Battling back from the golfing wilderness is something plenty of players endure, but Cauley had to fight hard for a number of years just to get back to the wilderness. Cauley's two-stroke win over fast-closing Matt Fitzpatrick in Caledon, Ontario, was the culmination of rebuilding his game to the highest level after doctors finally rebuilt his body sufficiently to pursue the career he always dreamed of having.

Cauley, 36, won in his 239th career start on the PGA Tour and 15 years after he turned pro following three years as a first-team All-American at the University of Alabama. It also came almost eight years to the day he nearly died in a one-car crash in Dublin, Ohio, following the second round of the 2018 Memorial Tournament.

It was June 1 that year when Cauley went to a nearby pub with former NHL player James Wisniewski and two other Columbus area acquaintances. One of those men, a local surgeon named David Crawford, was driving and lost control of his car about a mile from Muirfield Village Golf Club. The car struck a driveway culvert, went airborne, hit a number of trees and came to rest in a ditch. Seated in the rear passenger seat, Cauley was most seriously injured because the car struck the tree on passenger side, crumpling the door. Cauley suffered a concussion, six broken ribs on his right side, a punctured lung and a broken left leg.

Miraculously, he returned to competitive golf in September, but after playing in the season-opening Safeway Open in 2020, he had to step away to address lingering soreness in his ribcage. Thus began an odyssey of surgeries and complications that sidelined him for 3 1/2 years, until the 2024 WM Phoenix Open.

It might be a second tier event, but it was won by a first-class survivor.

Perhaps the best part of the Bud Cauley story is the comparison and contrast with the one that will follow it.  A reminder of the fact that people that had everything couldn't be satisfied with it, but a guy like Cauley just gets on with things.  But the most important thing to the top players over the last few years is to make the climb harder for the Bud Cauleys of the world.

Bottom Story of the Day - This is quite ugly, though I'm really not sure how to react.  As I understand, the original reporting is by Joel Beall at Golf Digest, although that is behind their silly paywall.  Here's a summary thereof:

According to Golf Digest, a female employee at The Farms Golf Club accused Mickelson of making “nonconsensual and inappropriate physical contact” before a round of golf earlier this

spring. The publication stated that the employee reported the incident to supervisors, prompting a club investigation.

Golf Digest reported that officials located Mickelson during his round, confronted him regarding the complaint, and instructed him to leave the property before completing play.

The Farms Golf Club later issued a statement to Golf Digest confirming action had been taken.

“The Farms Golf Club is committed to maintaining a golf club environment that is safe, respectful and reflects the highest standards of conduct,” the club said.

The statement added: “Following a staff member report of member misconduct, the Club provided immediate and ongoing support to the staff member, conducted a thorough independent investigation of the incident and took decisive action. This individual is no longer a member of The Farms Golf Club.”

Golf Digest stated that multiple sources identified the individual as Mickelson. The publication also reported that a spokesperson for Mickelson later confirmed he had resigned from the club.

Phil Mickelson declined to comment directly on the allegations. However, a spokesperson previously told Golf Digest: “Any misunderstanding has been cleared up. Phil continues to attend to a family health matter and is uncertain when he will be able to return to professional golf.”

This is a Wow! because of it's location, the presumption being that this is how he behaves at home (this excerpt doesn't cover it, but The Farms is in Rancho Santa Fe) among those that know him best.  And this is how he behaves amid a family health crisis as well, one that most of us assume involves Amy.

That said, I'm always a bit queasy about such allegations against famous men, because.... well, you know the because.  And the club wasted no time, which makes it feel like it must have been expecially egregious.

Here's the inevitable pushback:

His attorney, Tom Clare, told Golf Digest that there is video evidence that will exonerate Mickelson of any wrongdoing. "There is a great deal of misinformation circulating and, while Phil’s full attention is devoted to a private family health matter, he has retained defamation counsel and is determined to hold accountable any publication or individual trafficking in speculation or false rumors." According to the Golf Digest reporting, The Farms Golf Club claims that there is no camera footage of the incident.

The incident occurred at The Farms Golf Club, in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Mickelson is no longer a member of the golf club and was removed from the golf course on the day of the incident. According to Golf Digest, a female employee accused Mickelson of, "nonconsensual and inappropriate physical contact" prior to a round. The incident was reported to supervisors and Mickelson was asked to leave the property in the middle of his round.

Anonymous sources were cited by Golf Digest about the unwanted contact with a female employee at the club. While not much has been divulged from the situation, a spokesperson for Mickelson did tell Golf Digest, “Any misunderstanding has been cleared up. Phil continues to attend to a family health matter and is uncertain when he will be able to return to professional golf.”

The Farms Golf Club also provided a statement to Golf Digest. The statement included the following about the situation. "Following a staff member report of member misconduct, the Club provided immediate and ongoing support to the staff member, conducted a thorough independent investigation of the incident and took decisive action. This individual is no longer a member of The Farms Golf Club."

I for one take great comfort from the fact that any misunderstanding has been cleared up..... Good to know.

That said, Phil seems to have stepped in it on his way tot he first tee.  While the club is citing a "thorough independent investigation", said "thorough independent investigation" seems to have been concluded before Phil made the turn....  It sounds like it was so awful that there is no benefit of the doubt?  And, yet, despite my contempt for the man, I can't bring myself to believe that he could be so reckless amongst his peeps.

And, to repeat myself, with Amy perhaps not well....  Of course, this happens as the circus heads to Shinnecock.  Last time there you'll be constantly reminded about Phil swiping at that moving ball.  That's Phil in a nutshell, but I'll just add this reminder, that after he had beclowned himself at Shinny, he put Amy in front of the microphones to take the heat.  So perhaps Amy being ill is just an inconvenience for the man....

Exit Strategy - Scot land is about eight weeks out, but it's never too early to start anticipating it.  I just happened across this delightful video of one of my favorite spots in the Auld Grey Toon:

The Himalayas are a hoot, but mostly I just like the fact that there's a Ladies Putting Club that's older than all golf clubs in the U.S.

I do hope we score on the Daily Ballot this year, but I also want to get up the St. Andrews on one of our Sundays, when the Old Course is a town park and dog walk.  

I will try to do some blogging as we glide towards Shinny.  No promises, but hopefully good faith intentions will suffice.  Have a great week.

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.