The Common Golfer

How much does it cost to carry a 15th club in your bag?  $131,250 and 188 FedEx points.  That is the final damage for Jim Furyk, after discovering a 15th club in his bag on Saturday of the Barclays.  He realized the error near the green of the second hole, and was penalized 4 strokes (2 per hole).  He still finished with a 70 for the day, but without the 4-stroke penalty would have finished the tournament in sixth place rather than fifteenth…resulting in a huge pay cut.

Furyk had been practicing on the range with a 60 degree wedge with extra bounce, and thought he may need that with all the run-off areas around the greens at Liberty National.  However, he decided to stay with his normal 60 degree wedge.  In the process, there was a lack of communication between Furyk and caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to Heath Slocum on his victory at the Barclays.  Slocum definitely played well down the stretch, winning with a 21+ foot putt.  His victory vaulted him from 121 to #3 in the FedEx Cup standings, which nearly ensures his participation in The Tour Championship in three weeks.

Other big movers were Ernie Els, who moved from 47 to 11, and Padraig Harrington, who moved from 66 to 14.  The 125 player field at the Barclays will now be whittled down to 100 for the Deutsche Bank Championship next week.  Barely missing the “cut,” at numbers 101-110 are K.J. Choi, Ben Curtis, Chris Riley, Harrison Frazar, George McNeill, Matt Bettencourt, Bill Lunde, Michael Allen, Robert Garrigus, and Adam Scott.

The biggest shockers on the list of players not to advance to next week are K.J. Choi, and Adam Scott who probably can’t wait for this horror of a year to be over.  I look for both to rebound and return to prominence next season.

These pics were released by TaylorMade are of their new xFT (exchangeable face technology) wedges with an interchangeable face.  There are two available face inserts:  the ZTP Groove Face which is conforming to the new groove rules in effect next year, and the Z Groove Face for recreational players who can use deeper grooves until 2024.  The wedges will come with a torque wrench for changing out the face.

This is actually a great idea, assuming that there’s no sacrifice in performance or feel with the removable face.  It will be interesting to see how expensive the face inserts will be.  I have a “go to” wedge in my bag, that I tend to hit much more than any other club, and every year or so I need a new one.  TaylorMade is recommending that pros replace the face 4 times per year, top amateurs 2 times per year, and recreational golfers once a year.  Please let me know what you think.  Would you be willing to try these wedges out, or would you be more likely to stick with more popular wedges like Cleveland or Titleist Vokey?

After his round on Saturday, at the Barclays, Tiger Woods commented on the length of Liberty National Golf Course.  ”Where the tees are, they are playing the ladies’ tees most of the day,” Woods said.  ”The tees are way up, I mean, geez, they are so far up there.  It’s just unbelievable how short the golf course is playing.  I was telling (caddie) Stevie (Williams), ‘This is a day where if you’re playing a good round, we can get up there in that lead.’ Because I thought if anything, today would be the day they play it back because we have ball in hand, who cares. But they played even further up today.”

The scorecard for Liberty National reads 7,417 yards, but on Saturday was playing at 7,064 yards.  Clearly, Tiger and I have much different definitions of the word “short!”  So often, I feel that Tiger focuses on being politically correct, and it’s refreshing when he actually comments candidly.  I think Tiger also tends to speak more freely at tournaments he doesn’t care as much about (this goes along with a great article at Waggle Room – When Tiger Smiles A Lot, You Know A Tourney Isn’t Important).  What are your thoughts?  Is 7,064 yards too short for tour pros?

This cartoon, from a 1913 issue of The American Golfer, makes fun of slow golfers (special thanks to Golf Course of Rhymes).  If you read the caption, though, they considered a 3-hour round slow!  Wouldn’t we all kill for a 3-hour round nowadays?  If these guys below knew about the 5 1/2 hour round I had a few weeks ago, they’d turn over in their graves.

Well it happened earlier than I’d anticipated (I was thinking Sunday afternoon), but Sergio Garcia has again taken the lead in a tournament only to quickly give it away.  Today, after taking a first round lead at the Barclays with a 65, Garcia shot a second round 76.  In his defense, it was running during his entire round, and if you ask Garcia he’ll probably tell you that it rained harder on him than the other players.  Or maybe it’s that the new TaylorMade Penta golf balls he’s playing were defective.  All we know for sure, is that it probably had nothing to do with Garcia’s playing ability.  ;)

I’m probably being too hard on Garcia because I am actually a fan of his.  But other than last years Players Championship, where even he seemed shocked to have played so well, I’ve learned not to get excited when I see Garcia atop the leaderboard.  All too frequently, he falters on the weekend and blames his poor play on factors that always seem to be outside of his control.  At this point, it has to be a mental issue.  Can someone please call Dr. Rotella, and book Sergio an appointment?  It’s not too late, and I sincerely hope that Garcia can overcome his demons and start to win more tournaments.

So he seems like a great guy, and I still mean everything I said about being happy that Ryan Moore won his first PGA event.  However, let me be the first to announce that something is a bit loose in Moore’s head.  According to Golf.com, he is throwing away $300,000 to $500,000 per year!

Moore prefers to use his own gear, and has paid for everything in his bag and everything he wears.  ”I pick a club because I want to play, not because I have to make it work. To me, there is a lot of comfort and a lot of confidence in that,” Moore said. “Everything you see me wearing, I paid for.”  But take a look at these sponsorship estimates: Read the rest of this entry »

TaylorMade announced that Y.E. Yang has started using their new Penta golf ball at the Barclays Championship.  At the PGA Championship, Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen tried the new ball out for the first time.  However Yang won the tournament with his old ball, the TaylorMade TP Red LDP.  Additional TaylorMade pros have now added the ball to their arsenals.

This seems like an odd time to switch balls, coming off a major championship!  Today in the first round of the Barclays, Garcia shot a 6-under 65 to tie for the lead.  That round, paired with his strong performance last week at the Wyndham, makes you wonder if he’s just playing well or if the Penta has helped elevate his game.  Do you think a Penta-playing tour pro will win any of the four FedEx Cup events?  Please comment!

Being the world’s biggest Ohio State football fan (only 9 more days until the season starts!), I naturally hate everything related to the SEC – especially the Florida Gators.  I still wanted to post a picture of Camilo Villegas’s new putter, however, because I am a huge fan of Scotty Cameron putters and love what they provide through the Custom Shop.  I wish I’d had mine painted in Scarlet & Grey.

Regardless, I hope Camilo’s new putter is as successful for him as the Gators have been against Ohio State over the past few years  GO BUCKS!

I’m not sure why I’m recognizing these guys (it only encourages their bad behavior). But I found this amusing. Follow this video step-by-step to improperly drive the ball well.