Just don't know where my mind was yesterday, I'll blame it on the travel hangover.... or, yanno, just being an old fart.
The Kids Are All Right - It's one of my very favorite events of the year, yet I somehow forgot to give my readers a heads up yesterday. We are officially in the NCAA Championship Fortnight, and it always delivers the goods. Not least in the first week, when the ladies have the stage.
First up, the individual title was awarded last evening:
Maria Jose Marin follows in footsteps of Arkansas legends to win NCAA individual title
Maria Jose Marin enjoys when there's pressure.Last year as a freshman, she shot four rounds under par in a T-4 finish at her first NCAA Women's Golf Championship. Then she went into the summer and won medalist honors at the 2024 U.S.Women's Amateur at Southern Hills and dominated her way into the semifinals of match play, where she had to withdraw because of an injury.As a sophomore, her stellar play has continued, and coming to Omni La Costa, Marin was perhaps the star in the field most under the radar because she cooled off this spring.After Monday, she's no longer going to be overlooked.Marin won the 2025 NCAA individual title, finishing at 12-under 276 for the biggest win of her college career and third of the season. She shot up the leaderboard Sunday morning, signing for 7-under 65, then backed it up with a 3-under 69 on Monday to polish off a two-shot win over Florida State's Mirabel Ting.
But that's just the appetizer, as it's the next two days that will be such fun. The individual event also serves as team qualifying for the match play bracket, and you'll want to catch some of it:
Stanford made NCAA history at Omni La Costa — and it meant nothing. That’s a problem
The underlying question in women's collegiate golf is who will deny Stanford this year?
Stanford just completed one of the greatest performances in NCAA Women's Golf Championship history, and in another 12 hours, it won’t mean a thing. That's a problem.The Cardinal shot 27-under 1,125 for 72 holes of stroke play at the 2025 NCAA Women's GolfChampionship at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa's North Course, putting the finishing touches Monday on an NCAA record. Stanford's 27-under mark is the lowest 72-hole score in NCAA Women's Golf Championship history. USC held the previous record of 19 under, set in 2013.Even more impressive, this Stanford team just completed an undefeated season in stroke play. in nine stroke-play events, not a single team beat the Cardinal, making Stanford the second team to go undefeated in a single season in stroke-play events after Arizona State accomplished the feat in the 1994-95 season. Stanford does have one blemish on its resume, though, after losing to Wake Forest in the semifinals of ACC Championship match play. Stanford beat Wake Forest by 28 shots in three rounds leading into the bracket.
Which means absolutely nothing:
Ultimately, a dominant performance at the NCAA Championship in stroke play — rewriting the record books and running away from the field — doesn't matter because no trophy is awarded after stroke play. That happens Wednesday after match play.The national-championship format was altered to include match play at the 2009 NCAA Championship and 2015 NCAA Women’s Championship in an effort to make the championships more interesting for television. Now, in addition to 72 holes of stroke play, the top-eight teams advance to match play, where they battle it out to determine a champion.
It may not be fair, but why start now. What's more important is that it provides great drama, though it is often misunderstood. Folks will attribute the drama to it being match play, but the more appropriate credit is to the Team Match Play format.
They play two rounds today, with the quarterfinals on in the early afternoon. Give it a watch and you can thank me later.
PGA Championship Leftovers - Geoff is up with his list of winners from Quail Hollow, and you'll have guessed that it's quite a short list. Here's his day-after take on the winner:
Scottie Scheffler. Two elements of his victory must be pretty depressing for his peers: the man does not play for fame or fortune so he’s not going to lose interest any time soon, and Scheffler’sbetter attitude last week helped carry him to victory while sporting his B game. Having taken the week before meant Scheffler was rested and hungry. Whether you agree with him on mudballs or not, his answers also suggested a certain mental clarity and reflection about last year’s often chaotic approach to improving his putting. Avoiding wasted energy during a major week is essential to winning and there was less of Scheffler’s tendency after missed putts to look at caddie Ted Scott as if he’d been arrested again. Even losing his driver to a non-conformity test Tuesday did not appear to fluster Scheffler. He has no interest in building a brand, “growing the game”, or increasing his YouTube subscriber base because he doesn’t have one and never will. Scheffler’s a driven performer in the purest golf sense and should have only one real concern in what looks like a path to more major wins: remaining healthy. He’s off to a good start by pledging let others make the ravioli on Christmas Day. Tall golfers have generally experienced more injuries and sticking with an approach of letting longtime instructor Randy Smith monitor his technique instead of launch monitors or video should help on the longevity front. Oakmont, here he comes.
Talk about not playing for fortune, Scottie passed up the Truist Money-Grab to be rested for the PGA Championship. Just like the LIV players have shown us what they value, so has Scottie.....Maybe, if Rory had skipped the Truist as well, he might have had enough energy to speak to the media. Oh really, you don't think energy was the issue....
Dylan Dethier, in his weekly Monday Finish column, documents the profound swing thought that turned Scotties day around:
ONE SWING THOUGHTScottie Scheffler’s complex tip.Scheffler has said plenty of times that the things he works the most on are pretty basic setup adjustments. It was fitting, then, that this was the story of the mid-round tweak that saved his Sunday, which came from caddie Ted Scott:“On 7, 8, 9, I felt like I hit the shots really solid and it was coming out left,” he said. “And I told Teddy walking off 9 tee, I was like, ‘That one felt pretty good. I don’t know why that was left again.’“He was like, ‘Well, maybe you’re aimed over there. Just try and hit a little further right.’“I was like, okay. So I got on 10, and felt like I squared up my shoulders and hit it right up the middle.”
Hmmm, that's why Ted Scott gets the big money.... Not just the layers that are good. And while Scottie seems a perfectly well-adjusted sort, the fire does burn pretty hot:
Scottie Scheffler won the PGA Championship by five shots, reminding the golf world of its current pecking order. He’s No. 1 and everybody else — even the recent-career-grand-slam-winning Rory McIlroy — is fighting for second. Magnificent win, magnificent finish, magnificent command of the golf ball throughout the finishing stretch on both Saturday and Sunday, when Scheffler dominated the easy holes (Nos. 14 and 15) and the brutish Green Mile (16, 17 and 18) en route to a comfy final margin. One quote from the PGA Tour chaplain Brad Payne, Scheffler’s good friend and frequent pickleball partner, from this Scottie story I wrote:“I’m a good athlete,” Payne says, “but he’s on a different level. Usually we don’t lose, but if it gets close, he starts pushing me farther to the sideline. He goes from taking up 50 percent of the court to 65 to about 90 percent. Then, when we get up by about six points, he’ll let me back in.”
Geoff was worried about ravioli above, but if you were Scottie Scheffler, would you risk playing pickleball? Am I the only one that sees a blown knee or ankle coming?
Dylan has some other curious takes. I still can't get my arms around Jon Rahm leaving for LIV, given that he made the most eloquent arguments against it of almost any player. You'll like him more after hearing this reaction, although there is a blindingly obvious follow-up question triggered:
2. Jon Rahm enjoyed the chase:“God, it’s been a while since I had that much fun on a golf course, 15 holes,” he said. He added this, from Sir Charles:“I always like to go back a little bit on something that Charles Barkley likes to remind basketball players all the time. Like, I play golf for a living. It’s incredible. Am I embarrassed a little bit about how I finished today? Yeah. But I just need to get over it, get over myself. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not like I’m a doctor or a first responder, where somebody if they have a bad day, truly bad things happen.“I’ll get over it. I’ll move on. Again, there’s a lot more positive than negative to think about this week. I’m really happy I put myself in position and hopefully learn from this and give it another go in the U.S. Open.“Sorry for the long answers. I’m trying to process things right now.”(We like long answers, Jon.)
Jon, any thoughts on why it's been such a long while? And by thoughts i really mean, yanno, second thoughts....
Did you catch Bryson's interview on CBS after his round? The first thing to note is that he actually made himself available, which is quite the low bar, yet notable. He was bizarre, speaking of tricks under his sleeve, but this is about as hot a take on the subject as you'll find:
1. Bryson DeChambeau (T2) wants a better golf ball:“What I really think needs to happen, being pretty transparent here, is just get a golf ball that flies a little straighter,” he said.Feel free to eye-roll at that one — Oh, you want a straighter golf ball? Same, Bryson! — but DeChambeau’s outside-the-box thinking has unlocked efficiencies through the bag and it’s reasonable to think he could push some engineering team to break new ground with the ball, too, which he explained presents extra challenges at his speed and trajectory.“Everybody talks about how straight the golf ball flies. Well, upwards of 190 [mph ball speed] like Rory and myself, it’s actually quite difficult to control the golf ball,” he said. “The ball sidespins quite a bit and it gets hit by the wind quite a bit because our golf balls are just in the air longer. So I’m looking at ways of how to rectify that so that my wedges can be even tighter so it can fly straighter.”
So, you think you're owed a golf ball that only goes straight? Would one of you please send Bryson a case of Tour Balatas?
Back to Geoff and his tiny list of winners:
Vegas, English, Riley. They each recorded their best finishes in a major after experiencing career peaks and valleys. Vegas ended up T5, English T2, and Riley T2. Of the three, English has been quietly building a nice U.S. Open record since 2020 (4-3-T61-T8-T41), so he should be a legitimate threat at Oakmont in a few weeks.
Harris English at Oakmont? Geoff, I know weed is legal in California, but maybe it would be better to wait until after you publish the post?
He also liked the short hole:
Short 14th. Another major, another short par-4 livened up proceedings that desperately needed a little architectural intervention. Fun stuff happened at the 14th. The hole livened up the round after the series of utterly forgettable holes from the eighth to the 13th. The difficult finishing holes were made more palatable by the opportunity to score here and at the par-5 15th. Eventual Champion Scheffler played 14/15 in a field-leading nine-under-par. For the inevitable next PGA when the field is carrying it 10-15 yards longer, it would nice to see the lake banks cut a bit closer. They don’t need a tight shave ala Augusta’s 15th, but a bit more fear factor and visual crispness would add a little more tension.
CBS. The investment and upgrades of recent years continued to make the PGA Championship a fantastic viewing experience: constantly improving use of drones, informative on-screen graphics rarely used during The Masters (including wind gauges), realistic hole portrayals to highlight green contours, and crisp work from all the broadcasters. While traditionalists might think it’s all too much, the gizmos salvaged an event dulled by playing at a regular PGA Tour stop. The announcers fed us just the right amount of stats to highlight trends or bolster points. And unlike NBC’s four-wide mess where it’s not clear whose role is what and when they should speak, it was obvious which holes were the primary responsibility of Frank Nobilo, Ian Baker-Finch and Andrew Catalon (who was a tad too excited at times working his first PGA, as evidenced by several declarations of any non-rainy day as spectacular even when it was in the high 80s and muggy). On-course reporters Dottie Pepper, Colt Knost and Mark Immelman stood out with quick, sharp and informative takes, but Knost needs an acting class to learn how to be surprised when great shots he’s just witnessed are shown to the audience on tape. Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman continue to gel as a lead team, with Immelman having a Johnny Miller-like week of immediate, succinct, and pointed takes when necessary. He and brother Mark do superb swing analysis when allowed. As promised by the producer, viewers got new perspectives of several key holes and wind gauges proved handy on a breezy Saturday (but still could have been used more). The drone tracers remain spectacular, even though the jarring cuts to show a ball hitting the ground remain annoying if it’s clear tee shots are going to finish in the fairway. We really don’t need to see what the ball does unless it might roll into a hazard or if it finishes in a divot. An 18th hole crane shot was a great addition, but over four days, there was no view to tell us whether balls were in or out of the fake creek. Maybe a creek cams in some fake rocks for 2033?
For those defending Wyndham Clark’s crazy club throw, this is from the marshall who stood near.
— Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) May 18, 2025
That driver hit hard, 5 feet from him.
That’s serious impact.
Zero reason a volunteer should have to deal with this petulant behavior. Crazy people defend this idiocy. pic.twitter.com/uTY5xH8r1r
Is there anyone defending Clark? Kinda hard to defend the indefensible, especially when you see the chunk taken out of the wall. he did apologize, and it at least isn't the prototypical non-apology apology:
On Monday, Clark issued a formal apology via social media, saying"I would like to sincerely apologize for my behavior yesterday on Hole 16," Clark wrote. "As professionals, we are expected to remain professional even when frustrated and I unfortunately let my emotions get the best of me. My actions were uncalled for and completely inappropriate, making it clear that I have things I need to work on. I hold myself to a high standard, trying to always play for something bigger than myself, and yesterday I fell short of those standards. For that I am truly sorry."I promise to better the way I handle my frustrations on the course going forward, and hope you all can forgive me in due time."
I especially like that last sentence, in which he acknowledges that he actually has to earn forgiveness..... I could provide a lengthy list of players that could not be reached for comment, wink, wink.
That'll be it for today, a bonus Tuesday post. We'll catch up later in the week.
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