Weekend Wrap - Summer of Nelly Edition

 Quite the good week for golf, methinks.  It will be fun watching them squander it.....

Houston, We Dodged A Bullet - The Tour That Can't Shoot Straight may have finally found a home for that major that has a permanent venue, though Houston itself is a big part of said problem.  But Geoff dives right in on the threshold issue of the day (see what I did there?):

Nelly Korda made the kiddie pond leap. With pride and an impressive cannonball to avoid a lower leg injury.

“Feet first,” Korda said. “I knew it was four feet so I was expecting to hit the ground very fast.”

That answered one of the key questions around the 2026 Chevron Championship and its makeshift pool. Another on most minds? Whether more than a few hundred people would show up over the weekend (they did). Otherwise, that’s about it for suspense at the first women’s major of the year. Blame Nelly.

Mercifully for all involved, Korda’s brilliance will be the takeaway from what was an otherwise flat and uninspired edition of the major formerly known as The Dinah.

My own take on the actual competition isn't quite as harsh as Geoff's, as the LPGA ended up with a great final round threesome, though he's on point that Nelly was never threatened.

But it was no walk in the (Memorial) park:

Unflappable and focused, Korda put together a wire-to-wire masterpiece. But she insisted this

was no walk in Memorial Park.

“Honestly, having that big of a lead, it's not easy,” she said. “It was definitely one of the hardest things I've had to do mentally.”

After taking the week off ahead of Chevron’s first playing inside Houston city limits, Korda carved up the minimalist muni with rounds of 65-65-70-70 to set 36 and 54-hole scoring records. Her 270 total finished just one stroke shy of Dottie Pepper’s 27-year-old set at Mission Hills.

With noticeably more rough than the men dealt with during March’s Texas Children’s Houston Open, Korda’s driving distance and accuracy took on real meaning. She landed in 40 of 52 fairways with a 269.0 average. Korda hit 59 of 72 greens and took 115 putts in a win that appeared nearly flawless—other than a few short misses.

“What I was telling myself was I really want to hoist this trophy because I want to show the kids at home that it’s okay to miss short putts and still win a major championship,” Korda said. “You’re going to make mistakes. You have to mentally still be in it 100%, and that’s really what I wanted show. I wanted to show it to myself and I wanted to show it to everyone looking up to me.”

Sure we'd have preferred the collar to be a little tighter down the stretch, but the state of the women's game is such that this is manna from heaven.  There is simply no other woman on the LPGA that has a fraction of Nelly's Q-rating, partially due to the sorry state of American women's golf.  But, while Patty and Jeeno are appealing players, the tour needs the American market more than human's need oxygen, and that means Nelly has outsized importance.  So, the summer of Nelly would also inevitably be the Summer of the LPGA.

Let's duck into the Tour Confidential for a bit, before returning to some downer notes from Geoff:

Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship, blitzing the field to win by five and claim the first major of the year, the third of her career. Two years ago she won seven times, but followed it up with a winless 2025. This year she has already won twice. Is a summer of Nelly Korda dominance ahead? What’s changed?

James Colgan: It is the hardest thing in golf to win a tournament. And yet, it is very, very hard to lose golf tournaments when you’re playing the way Nelly did this weekend. On the front nine on

Sunday with a five-shot lead, feeling all of the pressure in the world to close it out, Korda made seven pars and two birdies. There’s a maturity in that kind of sensibility on Sunday at a major, and I think it explains a lot of her success in Houston.

Sean Zak: I think Nelly has settled in to a comfortable spot with what she wants to be to the game. When she last went on a run like this, there was immense pressure for her to carry the entire women’s game. To try and live up to cross-sport comparisons to Caitlin Clark. I’m not sure Korda ever really felt great about all of that.

To answer the question, I hope a Summer of Nelly is upon us. She is unquestionably one of the best golfers we’ve ever seen, which just makes me want to see what she’s capable of achieving at her very peak. This comes the same week that DataGolf launched its women’s rankings. I want to see her take off and plant her flag with one of the best seasons of all-time. And then, if I can be greedy, I want to see Jeeno Thitikul go toe-to-toe with her.

Josh Schrock: Here in Houston all week, it was very apparent that Nelly Korda is at peace with who she is, and her maturity on the golf course stems from both personal happiness and a decision that she and caddie Jason McDede made to approach things differently after 2025. She’s made a concerted effort to play smart golf, not take on unnecessary risk and not let negativity, both internal and external, seep into her game. McDede told me that the loss last year at Erin Hills was really the catalyst for the changes she made to her mentality, and I think there’s reason to believe she could rip off several more wins this year. Every part of her game is firing, and her decision to hire a “no nonsense” putting coach has helped address what was the Achilles’ heel of her game. The hype train leading into Riviera will be out of control.

I think Sean Zak hits on the dilemma, that there is an unnatural pressure on the one lady.  There's great natural talent there for sure, though she's also been mistake-prone and has struggled with leads, yanno, the human stuff of our game.  But, as I alluded to above, there is simply no other LPGA player that will cause folks to turn on their TV's.

And this silly bit:

A pre-tournament talking point at the Chevron was if the winner’s leap into Poppie’s Pond should continue with the tournament now taking place at a new venue, Memorial Park. A small pool was built as a placeholder this year (which Korda splashed into) until a more natural water feature is built by Tom Doak before next year. Should the winner’s leap have stayed put at the previous venue, Carlton Woods? Is it gimmicky? Or is it a fun tradition and important to preserve?

Colgan: Golf people get so worked up about the dumbest things. I’d argue sports are fun precisely because of our stupidly blind adherence to totally outrageous (and often watered down) traditions like the winner’s leap. We’re investing emotionally into someone’s capacity to put a white ball into a hole in the ground in fewer lashes than their opponent. That’s as dumb as it gets. If the winner wants to jump into a kiddie pool or battle an orangutan after, we should be unmoved.

Zak: If they battle an orangutan, I’m gonna be moved by that. Sorry, James. But I actually kinda dig this tradition, mostly because … who cares? Bring your hate elsewhere. There are more important — and way more gimmicky — things to get angry about. Nelly’s team seemed to enjoy the leap.

Schrock: Completely agree. What was all the fuss about? The players want to keep tradition alive and the LPGA created a stopgap move to allow it. There’s way too much hand-wringing about dumb things in golf. This was much ado about nothing. Korda was one of the players who wanted the tradition kept alive. She dove in. We move on. It’s sports. Go take a lap if you’re so aggrieved, maybe in a pool.

That sound you hear is my eyes rolling in the socket, not that I much disagree with anything the writers have said, with the exception of wanting to ban Zak's analogy.

This is a tough one in that the tradition was tied to a specific venue, and it's never not going to feel forced in Houston.  That said, unlike the big-boy tour, this isn't the ladies voluntarily abandoning their birthright, this was forced on them by Augusta National, a/k/a The Patriarchy.  So, I'm inclined to let them make the best of it, without my usual snark.

Alas, Geoff leaves us with these depressing thoughts:

Korda’s brilliance distracted from what was an inauspicious start at Memorial Park. The venue played incredibly well despite three inches of rain leading into the first round (with the LPGA staff admirably playing the ball down despite player grumbling).

But practically non-existent galleries on Thursday and Friday were impossible to ignore. As were the empty hospitality chalets (a primary motivation for Chevron to move the tournament closer to its headquarters.) Throw in persistently gray skies and lack of vibe in the fourth largest market, and it’s hard not to blame the oversaturation of pro golf caused by returning to a venue that hosted the PGA Tour just last month.

There will be a similar conundrum when Korda turns up in Los Angeles for the next women’s major, the U.S. Women’s Open. Riviera Country Club also hosts an annual PGA Tour stop in a notoriously fickle golf market.

Yes, and there's one other issue of the ladies following the men, that golf viewers can see the difference.  And while the Chevron comes in the sports shoulder season, the U.S. Women's Open will be in the heart of the summer, competing against both a stronger sports schedule and, perhaps more importantly, the summer outdoor activities of their viewership.  And, as Geoff notes, LA doesn't turn out for anything and, if they do, they leave in the fifth inning to beat traffic.

Fitzmagic - Am I the only one that notices that the best moments on the PGA Tour seem to come in their least important events, kind of bass-ackwards to this observer.

The Tour shrinks field sizes dramatically to try to script their Sundays, then we see that the best moments are the ones that couldn't be scripted due to their implausibility.  Nick Dunlop comers to mind, but how about a scenario where a major winner hits a world-class shot the deliver a PGA Tour card for his kid brother?  Nah, c'mon, that could never happen!

Brother of the Year Matt Fitzpatrick hits superb sand shot to win Zurich Classic, give brother Alex a PGA Tour card

The ballgame moment—as in, "we've got ourselves a ballgame"—came on the 12th hole, when

an errant drive from Matt Fitzpatrick kicked off a chain of events that ended with his younger brother Alex putting out for double bogey. This was the closing stretch of the final round of the Zurich Classic, played in the alternate-shot format, and everyone knew the stakes: with a win for the brothers, Alex Fitzpatrick would get a two-and-a-half-year PGA Tour exemption on the spot. (He wasn't without a backup plan—he's seventh in the Race to Dubai standings on the DP World Tour, and the top 10 also get PGA Tour cards for the following year, but this was both a swifter and a bigger prize.) For most of the front nine, it appeared as though they'd cruise to a win. The double bogey invited doubt, and a heap of pressure.

Now they had to battle, and it was the elder brother, Matt, who continued to leak oil as the back wore on. He followed the errant drive on 12 with a pull on the par-3 14th that led to a bogey, and when the Norwegian duo of Kristoffer Reitan and Kris Ventura finished their superb day with an eagle on 18, the teams were tied at 30 under. A few minutes later, Alex Smalley and Hayden Springer made it a trio, finishing with birdie and broaching the possibility of a three-team playoff.

he Fitzpatricks needed a birdie in the last four holes to win outright, but trouble found them again on 15 with a poor drive and approach that left them off the green. This time, though, Matt buried an eight-foot par putt to stay abreast, and he bailed his little brother out again on 16 with a chip from off the green to two feet. On the par-3 17th, Alex's excellent iron to 14 feet led to a simple par, and then it was down to the extremely birdie-able 18th. One birdie, and the brothers had it.

Matt shook off the back nine tee demons to bomb a 322-yard drive down the left side of the fairway, but with 260 yards left, Alex's approach came up 35 yards short in a bunker.

What happened next might be the shot of the year and certainly goes down as the best sand shot since Bryson DeChambeau secured his U.S. Open win at Pinehurst on the 18th hole. Matt Fitzpatrick's shot came out high, but stopped quickly, and came to rest a foot from the hole.

The Zurich isn't much, but at least they've found a means to differentiate themselves from the week-to-week mindlessness of Tour life.  But throw in the family connections and, presto, you've found real-life drama involving an attractive family (not to mention the third-ranked player in the world).

I've linked to the TC panel, but would you believe that they don't even acknowledge this event in their Q&A?  They spare a slot for Ryder Cup ticket prices more than a year out, but ignore a heartwarming story that happens on national TV.  Bizarre.

Schedule Follies - This is far from the most pressing issue of the day, but the TC panel had this on next year's schedule:

It’s official — for the first time in nearly six decades, the PGA Tour will not stop in Hawaii during the 2027 season, a domino of the forthcoming schedule change. Will you miss Hawaii? And what was your favorite moment during the Tour’s time in The Aloha State?

Colgan: I’ll miss Hawaii. The golf course was fun and distinct, and the vibes were aspirational in a way few events on the golf calendar are. In a lot of ways, it feels like this is the moment we’ll look back upon as the Tour’s defining shift toward commerce in the mid-2020s. Not a bad thing, but a thing worth noting!

Zak: It’s okay to miss Hawaii as a season-starter and also know it was not an economically viable tournament. We live in an era of sports that will squeeze plenty of Things We Like out and replace them with Things We Still Like But Are Better Funded. It is what it is. This is a strictly commercial move and I think we’ll look back on it in five years in a totally accepting way. That said, the Tiger-Ernie battle from 2000 was one of the best mano a mano golf moments we’ve ever had.

Schrock: I’ll miss Hawaii for sure. Kapalua was a great course and it gave everyone buried in snow in the northeast an escape. That being said, I completely understand why the decision was made from a financial standpoint. Agree, this decision feels like a notable moment in the PGA Tour’s for-profit journey.

Do these guys remember that Hawaii was two events, not one? 

Personally, I have greave doubts that this makes sense.  To me, the Tour's biggest problem is that mind-numbing sameness of the week-to-week experience, yet the events that are cancelled tend to be the more interesting.  Hawaii offers not just those unbelievable vistas at a time of year folks need them, but also a useful time difference that allows for prime time broadcasts. 

That said, they're focusing on next year's schedule, whereas they've screwed up next week's event:

Is next week’s PGA Tour field a problem? Or just the truth?

It's a hot mess of an article, because it oddly focuses on the sponsor's exemptions, which is its own ugly story these days.  But the important point is this:

Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Bob MacIntyre, Ludvig Aberg and Matt Fitzpatrick — all ranked in the world top 15 — will be skipping next week in Miami. (For McIlroy, it’ll be the second Signature Event skipped this season.) All together, it’s the most significant voluntary departure of talent any Signature Event has seen to date, and there’s an extremely obvious reason: most pros are okay playing three events in a row. But some definitely don’t want to play a major championship in that third week.

Please remember, those sage administrators telling us that Hawaii isn't viable are the same mental midgets that put signature events before and after majors.  Remember how they told us we had to exclude the riffraff so we'd know when Rory was going to play?  Yeah, they lie to us.  And when they told us it wasn't about the money?

Alas, Poor Furyk (The Sequel) - I have good news for anyone hoping for me to recapture enthusiasm for this blog, this story won't hurt.  Not only can I recycle one of my favorite nicknames (as in the header), but we can relive all of that 2018 bloggy fun just as PReed returns to the fold.  Good fun!

Geoff captures the dreary reality of it:

Jim Furyk Is The Next Ryder Cup Captain, Again

PGA of America and Task Force holdovers select another uninspired Ryder Cup

I'm sorry, was Hal Sutton unavailable?

It’s official. Stewart Cink is the new Larry Nelson.

Both were born in Alabama and became adopted Georgians. While Nelson won three majors to Cink’s one, each played on multiple Ryder Cup teams, Cink competed five times to Nelson’s three. But Nelson played on two winning teams to Cink’s one.

Both are nice guys who’ve made no known enemies outside of the PGA of America. Each has represented their country with class and dignity. Neither has ever sold merch outside a Hooters on Washington Road. Are they too nice?

You’d think the modern-day, in-total-shambles-PGA-of-America might have prioritized kind-guy values after the boondoggle at Bethpage messed with Samuel Ryder’s reason for starting the matches.

“I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly, and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilized world,” the founder said.

Instead, they’ll be wheeling out Furyk to lead the USA team at Adare Manor, according to the Associated Press. He’s officially the new Davis Love. The inoffensive guy golf org’s turn to again and again in a safety-first, ass-covering, utterly-lazy world. Apparently, the PGA of America’s driving force in the decision this time was geared toward…letting brass sleep at night? You know, because those wild, wacky rebels like a Stewart Cink, or a Justin Leonard, or a David Toms or a Fred Couples would be too much trouble. Even the most recent losing American Captain, Keegan Bradley, could have been brought back if only he’d ever brought himself to admit bungling the 2025 job’s extra-important fan “engagement” component.

Geoff quite obviously understates the importance of experience,  specifically the experience of losing Ryder Cups badly.  

But, strike that, it so happens Geoff is all over that experience thing:

Furyk is level-headed and has vast experience handling losing well. He gives decent-enough press conference. He’s earned a Masters and Ph.D. in Sunday Night Forlorn Face after playing on seven losing squads and captaining the 2018 team to an especially ugly defeat at Le Golf Nationale.

Furyk was also supposed to be the sage veteran voice to Bradley at Bethpage. Perhaps he was the lone outlier vote against starting with the European’s beloved Foursomes. Or maybe he lobbied Bradley hard to discourage fans from hurling insults and beers at the visiting team’s family. We’ll never know.

Hey, but as a Vice Cart Driver Furyk’s 2-2!

USA! USA! USA!

It's not the losing that bothers me, as that 2018 team wasn't ever likely to win.   But if you go back (and for surer we will) and look at his pairings, it's hard to imagine giving him another captaincy.  He showed an inability to understand the two team formats, throwing guys like Phil and PReed out in foursomes, and Justine Reeds tweeting show his complete loss of team discipline.  So, great choice, guys!

The PGA of America announced Jim Furyk as its Ryder Cup captain for 2027, and he’ll

become just the fourth repeat captain in the modern era. While we already discussed the news earlier this week, Furyk has had plenty of experience since his 2018 loss (as Ryder Cup assistant and Presidents Cup captain). What do you think his biggest learning from Paris has been that will be most beneficial next year?

Colgan: Don’t allow yourself to start the Cup by getting punched in the face. A fast start is the biggest asset for any road team, and it’s especially true at the Cup.

Zak: Here’s what the biggest learning needs to be: pairings decided weeks in advance. Perhaps months in advance. The Euros have trotted out pairs they knew would be playing together back in June. It seems like a strategy that keeps working.

Schrock: There has to be a better strategy with the pairings than letting guys play with who they want to and flying by the seat of their pants as the competition goes on. The U.S. has the talent but they are lacking in every other area.

 Did Furyk not know that pairings mattered in 2018?

Reminds of Davis Love's mewling after Medinah..... He didn't know that they should have a plan for pin locations....  Hmmm, wasn't that his job?    It's really fascinating because they tell us how time consuming the job of Ryder Cup captain is, then we find out they can't be bothered with the actual job.  Maybe hire someone that gets it?  Just spitballin' here....  Or, do what you always do, wait around for Tiger with no Plan B, then make an ill-conceived snap decision.

I will need to leave you there.  Have a great week.