At least no one called him ‘Brooksie’. Ah, a silver lining.

That’s good because he had a few names to pin to his own chest. The most prominent would be “confused.” The player who won the 2020 U.S. Open and seven other PGA Tour events, including the 2018 Memorial, the so-called Mad Scientist who adds barometric pressure to his equations on effective yardage to a target, is thoroughly discombobulated.

It was a week of the young guns as Denny McCarthy, 29, KH Lee, 30, Davis Riley, 25, Cameron Young, 25 are all within striking distance of Cameron Smith’s lead at eight-under par — oh, and he is 28. Bryson was nowhere near.

“My golf swing is a wreck,” Bryson said on Friday after posting an altogether sloppy five-over 77, his worst score in 20 rounds at Jack Nicklaus’ prized layout. He missed the cut with lots of room to spare at nine-over 153. “I need to work a little harder with it. Just didn’t have anything out there. Attitude is great. I love being out here again and returning to compete, but it sucks playing bad golf. So it’s just trying to climb the mountain top again.”

It might be a long climb.

Friday’s tour of Muirfield Village included five fairways hit, seven greens in regulation and a cumulative strokes gained/tee-to-green average of -8.322, which ranked 116th in the field of 119 when he signed his card. He ranked 101st off the tee in the second round, which has to gnaw at a player who has expressly sought to conquer the game through sheer power.

DeChambeau, 28, wouldn’t blame his troubles on his repaired left hamate bone, which he had surgically repaired April 14 in Dayton, Ohio. Not once did he feel pain swinging the club, even when lashing through the thick bluegrass rough that might be the equal of what players will encounter in two weeks in the US Open at The Country Club in Brookline. That was another plus.

But mechanically, he is just lost. That simply does not compute.

DeChambeau, who has dropped to 24th in the world, said he is trying to recreate the motion that carried him to plenty of success in 2017-18, when he felt his game was most consistent and repeatable. He won five times in that period, including consecutive FedEx Cup playoff events. Having cranked up his clubhead speed and beefed up his body, he said, shouldn’t hinder the process of finding that form again.

“That was, like, magical to me, where I just felt like I was invincible,” he said. “Every day, I could have the same exact shot no matter what, no matter the conditions, under the pressure, no matter nothing. I’ve been trying to create some motions that are repeatable back from 2017 and 2018 and I can’t find it. It’s crazy. Like, golf is a weird game where, yeah, swings a little different, speeds a little different but the motion through impact should be relatively the same. I just can’t get to a place where it’s similar every single time through impact, like I used to do. And so, just trying to get back to those feels, and I’ve been in and out of it, but it just doesn’t stay.”

When he triumphed in the US Open at Winged Foot with a dominating performance, DeChambeau talked about going down certain “rabbit holes” to improve, but he could always get back to square one and not lose his original swing.

“Yeah, deep down a lot of rabbit holes, and none of them are solidifying any stable manner,” he said. “And what I mean by that is just, it’s just not coming to a consistent base. So like, for example, I’ll try and swing it more inside out for me to get it to draw more, and the ball will cut. And I’m like, that just doesn’t make sense. I swing it more inside out, I feel like I do, but the divot’s to left and I’m like, ‘OK, there’s a huge misconception between my perception and reality’ and so I can’t resolve those two. So, it’s a bit of a mystery and very frustrating because my whole life I’ve been able to consistent drawers and control it and now for some reason I can’t.”

To hear DeChambeau talk this way, to hear the frustration in his voice, is discordant with his cock-sure demeanor of a few years ago. In 2019, as defending champion of the Memorial, DeChambeau returned to Muirfield Village for media day, and he presented a lengthy dissertation on his approach to playing the game. Standing in front of a chalk board set up on the driving range, the brainy California native listed a number of factors that he considers — including things such as air density, elevation change and wind vector — before hitting a “basic” shot of 150 yards.

He might venture down rabbit holes, but his mind tends to hover in the stratosphere.

At least his round was played in relative peace in a pairing with 2020 Memorial winner Jon Rahm and congenial Irishman Shane Lowery, the 2019 Open champion. A year ago, he was in the midst of a strange feud with four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, mostly being played out on social media.

Things got edgier during last year’s Memorial when Koepka, who is getting married to longtime girlfriend Jena Sims this weekend in Turks and Caicos, took to Instagram to offer free cases of Michelob Ultra (for which he serves as a spokesman) to fans who had chanted “Brooksie” while DeChambeau was playing and were subsequently escorted from the premises.

The two men appeared to mend fences in September as they helped the U.S. Ryder Cup team to a record victory over Europe, even sharing a hug in the post-round press conference.

“I’ve had better times in my life,” DeChambeau said, considering the last 12 months. “I’m very grateful and appreciative of where I am. I would never complain one bit, but it’s definitely there’s things in the back that have been difficult for me, and again, I’m appreciating where I’m at, and continuing to just work hard.”

He was going to hit the range immediately after the interview in hopes of connecting the swings he made on the course to his practice session to not lose the “sensations” he had just experienced. The opening round of the 122nd U.S. Open is in 13 days, not much time to prepare.

By then maybe he can jettison one sensation. “Yeah, it’s no fun playing golf like this,” he said.

The post Bryson DeChambeau’s game remains a frustrating ‘mystery’ as young guns swing appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Every popular player has felt the burden of playing for the crowd while competing for himself. The late Arnold Palmer once spoke of the pressure of hitting good shots and the resulting sense of desperation that sometimes overwhelmed him as he tried to deliver. Lord knows that when Tiger Woods had his struggles, especially that odd period when he battled chipping yips, there was nowhere to hide, his every mishit a cause for national handwringing. And headlines.

Fowler might not have the record of a Palmer or Woods, but he has the following. His popularity transcends a career that has been decent but not distinguished. In the past, however, the California native could produce consistent appearances on leaderboards and enough fireworks for a win here and there to the tune of five PGA Tour titles. This enabled him to maintain a lofty World Ranking and consistent attendance in the majors — not to mention his commercial appeal.

Fallow periods befall every golfer, but the fan favorites in the game suffer twice — for themselves and for the galleries. Jordan Spieth knows this. He struggled with the sense of meeting expectations not solely his own when he went through a winless period of nearly four years.

“Yeah, it’s difficult having to deal with that sense of letting people down,” Fowler said on Thursday after opening the Memorial Tournament with a two-under-par 70, a satisfactory score on a cool and damp morning that did nothing for the cold he is battling. “I know the fans want me to play well, but no one wants it more than I do myself. You know, I’m trying. I’m trying as hard as I can.”

Fowler is playing the Memorial on a sponsor’s exemption because he has fallen to 135th in the World Ranking and is 112th in the FedEx Cup standings, neither high enough for an exemption into one of the three elite invitationals on the tour. His invite completed a sweep of the invitationals, as he also got into the Genesis Invitational and the Arnold Palmer Invitational on his name and not his numbers.

Stardom has its benefits, but it can’t get the ball into the cup. Last year, for the first time since he turned professional, Fowler failed to make the FedEx Cup playoffs, finishing 134th in the standings when the top 125 advance.

His last victory came in the 2019 WM Phoenix Open, the last year he appeared in all four majors. Fowler, 33, has competed in only three majors in the last two years and faces sectional qualifying for the US Open on Monday in Florida, choosing to try his luck on his home course, The Bear’s Club, which happens to be the southern golf home of Jack Nicklaus, host of the Memorial. Last year, Fowler failed to advance out of the sectional in Columbus.

Fowler isn’t in the field for the first LIV Golf event next week in London, but hasn’t ruled out playing in the future. Ben Jared

“I figured it was better to play a golf course I was familiar with,” he reasoned in opting to jump on a plane on Sunday rather than stay in Ohio. At least he plans on making the cut this week, which hasn’t quite been a given, succeeding nine of 15 times this season.

He almost didn’t tee it up at Muirfield Village Golf Club, a place where he finished runner-up his rookie year. On Wednesday he stayed in bed all day with a 103-degree fever, but he emerged on Thursday morning feeling well enough to tee it up, though clearly fighting sniffles and congestion.

At least he wasn’t fighting his golf game, which has produced just two top-10 finishes the last two seasons combined. Though he finished with a bogey, Fowler was generally pleased with his overall effort on the revamped Muirfield Village layout.

“I managed my way around decently,” he said. “It was good, but nothing special. I mean, I will definitely take it, especially not having full strength or power.”

Fowler signed autographs for 20 minutes after the round and then spent another 20 with reporters. He’s good with the responsibilities placed upon him as a “name” player. Always has been. That’s a significant part of his appeal, along with his hip apparel and, early in his career, a mop of hair that (in golf rules parlance) was nonconforming.

He’s always been one of the cool kids on tour, certainly among the coolest. But he still has to perform well enough to remain on tour.

Not that he doesn’t have an option to play, you know, elsewhere. At the PGA Championship, where he finished T-23, he seemed open to the idea of participating in the rival LIV Golf Series, or at least considering it. He remains interested, but decided to pass on the inaugural event next week in London. “We’ve just kind I’ve been in talks with them for a long time,” he revealed. “It’s something to definitely look at and you know, at this point it wasn’t the right move or decision for me. But I’m leaving options open and kind of seeing how things play out.”

How things play out probably depends on how he plays. Doesn’t it always?

“It’s been a bummer not being where I know I should be, but when I’m at home I’m grinding. I’m not sitting around at home not doing anything, you know?” Fowler said. “I enjoy the process of trying to get better, and I’m hoping that it will eventually lead to a lot better results. In the meantime, I’m trying to embrace the ups and downs.”

And in the meantime, he does get to enjoy the embrace of support from fans. It’s a blessing. It’s a curse, too. Because maybe in response he is trying too hard. He nods in agreement, but then offers a counter: “No one puts more pressure on me than I put on myself.

“Everyone deals with some kind of adversity, whether it’s in sport or life or whatever. It’s more about how you come back from that. If people want to see me play well, that’s great, because I want to play well. And then we’ll all be happy.”

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The post Rickie Fowler has a big few days ahead at Memorial as he ‘keeps options open’ on LIV Golf appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

On Wednesday at the Memorial Tournament, with the release of the commitment list for the first LIV Golf Invitational Series event, which offers a staggering $25 million purse, shaking up the golf world, McIlroy figuratively put a hand to his face to stifle a yawn.

“I’d say indifferent is probably the way I would describe it,” the four-time major winner said regarding his reaction to the news. “A couple of surprises in there I think.”

He didn’t single out any of those surprises. He also didn’t think anyone should be singled out for discipline by the PGA Tour for playing in the deep-pocketed league that will debut next week in London with a field of 48 players headlined by Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Louis Oosthuizen.

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“I certainly don’t think they should drop the hammer,” McIlroy, 33, said in assessing what the tour should do in response to players who have signed up for the LIV Series. “Look, they [the tour] are well within their rights to enforce the rules and regulations that have been set. But there’s going to be … it’s going to end up being an argument about what those rules and regulations are.

“I have some very close friends that are playing in this event in London, and I certainly wouldn’t want to stand in their way to … for them to do what they feel is right for themselves. It’s not something that I would do personally. But I certainly understand why some of the guys have went, and it’s something that we are all just going to keep an eye on and see what happens over these next few weeks.”

A native of Northern Ireland who is coming off an eighth-place finish at the PGA Championship, McIlroy said that when he turned pro in 2007, he definitely was playing for the money. He remembered having dinner with Oliver Fisher, a good friend from amateur golf, and thinking that the $200,000 that Fisher had made in his first year as a professional meant, “the guy was loaded.” Obviously, McIlroy doesn’t play for the money now — he has earned more than $62 million on the PGA Tour alone.

“You know, you have some guys in a position where like they are literally not guaranteed a job next year,” McIlroy said with empathy. “It’s hard to stay in the top 125 out here, especially when you’re a guy in your 40s and maybe you don’t hit the ball as far as you’ve used to. As we’ve seen, it’s a young man’s game nowadays. So someone that isn’t guaranteed their tour card next year, another entity comes along and says, ‘We’ll guarantee you this amount for three years, plus you’re playing for a ton more prize money, and you’re playing less events, you can spend more time with your family.’ I mean, whenever you sit down and look at some of those things, you know, it’s very appealing to some of those guys that are in that position.

“Again, I’m not in that position, and it’s not something that I would do. But you know, you at least have to try to put yourself in other people’s shoes and see where they are coming from.”

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The post Rory McIlroy says players shouldn’t be harshly punished for playing LIV Golf event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
If Jon Rahm had his way, the Tour Championship wouldn’t be the only tournament on this year’s PGA Tour schedule in which a player begins with a multiple-stroke advantage. When he returns to the Memorial Tournament this week in Dublin, Ohio, the World No. 2 wouldn’t mind a similar staggered-start format — with his name out front.

Since 2019, the tour has employed a format in which the FedEx Cup leader receives a two-stroke lead over his nearest pursuer at the playoff finale at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Rahm would dearly love six shots when he tees it up on Thursday at Muirfield Village Golf Club. “The way I played there the last two years it should be at least six. Maybe more,” said Rahm, smiling wryly, a little more than a week ago after the final round of the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Sound excessive? Well, anyone who remembers what happened to Rahm at the 2021 Memorial knows he isn’t pulling that six shots out of thin air — even though his lead by that margin disappeared just that rapidly when he walked off the 18th green after completing his third round at Muirfield Village.

Rahm had just put the finishing touches on a scintillating eight-under-par 64 that tied a pair of tournament records: the largest 54-hole lead and the 54-hole scoring record of 18-under 198. No sooner had he stepped off the putting surface a tour official informed him he had tested positive for COVID-19. In accordance with tour regulations, he had to withdraw from the tournament.

Instead of an almost-certain second consecutive victory at Jack Nicklaus’ event, Rahm was ushered to a golf cart and departed wearing a mask that couldn’t fully conceal a look of shock and dejection.

The following morning, Nicklaus, the tournament founder and host, still was distraught by what had transpired. “I wish there was some way to give Jon three-quarters of a trophy,” the Golden Bear said. Patrick Cantlay, who went on to win the FedEx Cup and PGA Tour Player of the Year, got the win instead. He and Collin Morikawa inherited the third-round lead at 12-under par, and Cantlay outlasted Morikawa in a playoff.

Rahm, 27, assuaged his disappointment two weeks later by capturing the US Open at Torrey Pines, his first major title. That doesn’t mean he is any less annoyed by having had to forfeit his efforts at Muirfield Village, a performance that ranks among the finest of a career that includes seven PGA Tour wins and six more international titles since he turned pro in 2016.

“It’s hard to say that it was maybe the best I’ve played. I mean, the US Open was really good, right?” Rahm said. “But, sure, I played some amazing golf that week at Muirfield Village. The hole looked like a bucket. Basically, I felt like anytime I was on the green, that ball was going in, and the ball striking was also unbelievable. So yeah, it’s gonna be tough to top those three days of golf.”

Rahm, who won the Mexico Open at Vidanta earlier this month, said that his game “just flows” at Muirfield Village. So does some controversy. When he captured the 2020 title, he was penalised two shots after completing play when it was determined that he had caused his ball to move just before chipping in at the par-3 16th hole. That turned a birdie into a bogey and a five-stroke victory into a three-shot win.

“Everything that has happened there, it’s kind of hard to believe,” he said. “A lot of shots that I should maybe have back. You think I could get them all back?”

The Spaniard was smiling slyly positing the notion.

“I don’t blame him for thinking that way,” said Morikawa, who played the first two rounds with Rahm and recognised how well the then-World No. 3 was playing. “It was big league what he was doing out there, six-shot lead … just great golf. Obviously, it sucked what happened to him. It was bound to happen to someone at some point. But Patrick and I, we had to regroup, get our minds around sort of a new tournament. I don’t think it took anything away from Patrick winning.”

Morikawa said he texted Rahm the following week, the one between the Memorial and the US Open, and told him that he was sorry what had happened and that he hoped for a quick recovery.

“I was happy for him to see that he hadn’t lost his form,” Morikawa, the reigning Open champion, said graciously, referring to Rahm’s US Open win. “I guess he was kind of owed one.”

Rahm thinks he still is owed one. Just don’t say he deserves a second Memorial victory.

“What can I say? It was the world we lived in at the time,” he said. “Luckily everybody was healthy, and I didn’t have any problems, which is the way we should look at it.

“But in my mind,” he added, “I have two wins there already.”

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The post Jon Rahm (jokingly) has a solution for how to remedy his withdrawal at the 2021 Memorial appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour reported zero players tested COVID-19 positive at this week’s Memorial.
The announcement marks the second straight week zero players on tour tested positive for the virus. Though the tour has remained in Columbus—thus cutting down on the need for travel and the inherent exposure risks that come with it—a contingent of players did not play in last week’s Workday Charity Open.

“We’re now over 6,000 total tests that we’ve given to our constituents, and if you look at players and caddies on the PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour, we’ve had 21 positive tests, six players on both tours, three caddies on the PGA Tour and six caddies on the Korn Ferry Tour,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said this week at Muirfield Village. “Now, each one of those 21 — you don’t want to have any, but I think as you look at where we are and the trends for our overall program, and again, the tightening that we’ve done, I think that the results are very good, and we’re certainly encouraged by that. We’re proud of that.

“I think our players deserve a ton of credit for not only what they’re doing here on-site in terms of social distancing and masking and being entirely aware of what we need to do when we’re on property, but also as I’ve gone market to market seeing players in hotels and other places, I think we’re doing—we’re executing a plan that we set out, and we’re confident that if we continue to do that we’re going to be in a really good place as we go forward.”

There are two cautionary COVID-19 groups at the Memorial, with Dylan Fritteli paired with Graeme McDowell and Denny McCarthy with Harris English. Last week, the tour put Fritteli, McCarthy and Nick Watney in the same threesome, as the players continued to test positive for coronavirus but were cleared by CDC guidelines as they were no longer showing symptoms.

It wasn’t a clean slate across the board, however. The tour did announce one caddie tested positive at Muirfield Village, while one player registered a COVID-19 test on the Korn Ferry Tour. The tour declined to release the names of either person.

The post Caddie and Korn Ferry player test positive for COVID-19, but zero cases among PGA Tour players at Memorial appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
When it was announced that next month’s Memorial tournament at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, would be the first PGA Tour event to allow spectators after the Tour resumed its season last week in Fort Worth, many might have expected that every tournament to follow would do the same.

Not so fast.

On Monday, 3M Open tournament director Mike Welch confirmed to Golf Digest that the event, scheduled for the week after Memorial, July 23-26 at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn., will take place without fans in attendance.

It wasn’t the outcome Welch or anyone hoped for, but it beat the alternative: not playing at all.

With restrictions by state and local officials on crowd gatherings still in place and ongoing protests in Minneapolis and beyond over the recent death of George Floyd, the tournament came close to not being held, Welch confirmed. That’s what happened to this year’s John Deere Classic, which was cancelled earlier this month because of a ban on large gatherings in Illinois and the financial implications of holding a tournament without spectators.

It also was reported on Monday that the PGA Championship will be played without spectators in early August.

“It certainly was a very real possibility,” Welch said when asked if the 3M came close to meeting the same fate as the Deere. “Going dark was one of the options. It wasn’t the option that anybody wanted.

“In the end, why we wanted to put on the tournament is because all of these events are about the charitable impact on communities. Last year being our first year of the tournament, to not be able to do that in our second year would have been unfathomable.”

In 2019, the 3M Open donated more than $1.5 million toward Minnesota nonprofits, and Welch said this year’s tournament will also benefit local charities, despite missing out on money generated from corporate hospitality, ticket sales and other revenue streams like food and beverage. So the Tour and tournament officials continued to pitch the idea of proceeding without spectators to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other officials late into last week and into the weekend. They were also able to use last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge as an example of how a tournament could be held safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a TV show now,” Welch said. “We’re moving forward, and it’s a 37-day sprint that we’re happy to make.”

The post Here’s how close another PGA Tour event came to being cancelled appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Tiger Woods has officially committed to playing the 2018 Memorial, according to tournament organisers.

Following back-to-back tournaments at the Wells Fargo Championship and Players Championship, it was widely assumed Woods would make one more appearance before this year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, with Muirfield Village serving as the most likely stop. Woods has won the Columbus tournament five times in his career, his most recent victory in 2012. He last played in the event in 2015, when he infamously shot an 85 during his third round.

Woods will likely skip the FedEx St. Jude Classic (he’s never played in the Memphis tournament), which sites between the Memorial and U.S. Open. This will give Woods a week of recovery before traveling to Southampton for the year’s second major.

In his latest comeback, Woods has posted four top-12 finishes in his last six events, and ranks eighth in strokes gained on tour.

The Memorial begins on May 31. Jason Dufner is the defending champ.

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