Biggest Sunday comeback domination in Pres Cup history. Improving your grip can straighten those tee shots, and all the rest. The invention of the club that gets you off the beach. We have a lot packed into issue # 12, soooo… Let’s get into it!
PGA Recap
Forget everything the first 3 days told you. The Presidents Cup put on a full theatrical production this weekend, and the U.S. team saved their best for Sunday.
Let's rewind. The Internationals walked into Sunday singles holding a three-point cushion at Medinah, the kind of lead that usually turns dramatic tournaments into formalities. Team USA had other plans. They won 9 of the 12 singles matches, with one more halved for good measure, in what's being called the biggest Sunday rout in the tournament's history. Final score: USA 17, Internationals 13. Eleven Presidents Cups in a row for the red, white, and blue, and the Internationals are somewhere trying to figure out how a three-point lead evaporated in one afternoon.
Jacob Bridgeman sealed it, sinking a three-foot par putt on the final hole to beat Min Woo Lee 1-up and lock in the point that guaranteed the Cup. Not a flashy way to win a trophy, but nobody's handing back style points for a three-footer that mattered that much. Especially after how far the U.S.A. was down to start the day. I mean who wasn’t feeIing a bit patriotic afetr that victory? I vote next year the team uniform is Apollo Creed’s American flag shorts he gifted to the Italian Stallion in Rocky III.
The real story of the day, though, was 21-year-old Jackson Koivun, who fell 2-down early to Si Woo Kim and just decided that wasn't going to be his afternoon. He clawed all the way back to win 2-up, capped by a clutch tee shot on 18 while his own teammates crowded around to watch. Not a bad way to introduce yourself to the Presidents Cup as a rookie. This kid can play a bit. Watch out on the tour Scheffler…
Collin Morikawa flipped his match on the back nine to swing another point USA's way, and Patrick Cantlay canned a birdie from inside 60 feet on the par-3 16th against Adam Scott, because apparently that's just a Tuesday for Cantlay at this point.
Scottie Scheffler, in between winning his own match, took a moment to be the adult in the room after a fan heckled Nico Echavarria mid-swing. Scheffler conceded Echavarria's next putt outright rather than let the disruption decide the hole. A nice reminder that even in the middle of a comeback for the ages, somebody's still keeping score on decency too. Cheers Scottie!
Captain Brandt Snedeker, who knows a thing or two about Medinah heartbreak from the losing side of the 2012 Ryder Cup, watched his team do the exact opposite this time around. As he put it afterward, they "went out and played their tails off." Hard to argue with the scoreboard on that one.
Worm of the Week
Well we don’t pull punches in this section and we’re not starting now. The winner of the Worm did indeed get the last laugh at tournament’s end but he sure made it more interesting than team U.S.A. cared for.
Sunday singles at the Presidents Cup, the exact stage where Team USA needed bodies to step up and complete the largest comeback in the event's history. Sam Burns drew Sungjae Im, and by hole 2 he'd already found a way to make things tense for all the wrong reasons. He hit a full-send hook off the tee that sailed clean out of bounds, good for an opening double bogey. Most golfers would call that plenty of adversity for one Sunday. Burns, ever the overachiever, wasn't done.
Fast forward to the 13th, needing something, anything, to steady the ship, Burnsy found a different way to make the same result feel brand new: tee shot, straight into the water, second double bogey of the day. Two holes, two completely different methods of self-destruction, same blemish on the score card both times. It's almost impressive how thoroughly he diversified his portfolio of disaster.
Im, for his part, mostly just had to stand there and let it happen, closing out a 3&1 win while Burns did the heavy lifting on the other side of the ball. Team USA still completed the comeback and hoisted the Cup anyway, which means Burns gets the rare honor of winning it all and taking home the Worm trophy in the same 24 hours. A split decision if ever there was one.
Sam, we've all hit one ball out of bounds and one ball in the water in the same round (or same hole, way too often). Most of us just don't do it on national television with a trophy on the line. Winston tips his little tam-o'-shanter to you, in equal parts respect and secondhand embarrassment.
Chili Dip Golf Tip
Your Grip Could be all Wrong, Through no Fault of Your Own
Nobody teaches hackers how to hold the club, so most of us just grab it the way that feels natural and build an entire golf game on a foundation that was broken from day one. Here's the fix. Takes about thirty seconds to learn.
Find your lead hand's "V." Hold the club out in front of you and grip it with your lead hand (left hand for right-handers). Look at the V between your thumb and index finger. It should point somewhere between your chin and your trail shoulder. Pointing at your nose? Grip's too "weak" (a technical term, not an insult, you’ll know when we insult you), and you'll leave the face open, sending shots right. Past your shoulder? Too "strong," and you'll close the face, sending shots left. (Opposite directions for all of this for lefty’s)
Let your trail hand match it. Your trail hand's V should point in roughly the same direction. If one hand's arguing with the other, your ball flight is just a blind dart throw in a windstorm.
Grip pressure: toothpaste, not death grip. Firm enough it won't fly out of your hands, loose enough you could squeeze a tube without making a mess. Most hackers grip like they're strangling the thing, which kills wrist hinge and costs you distance and feel. The club is not attacking you, yet. Treat it right and it will do the same for your shots.
Check it before every shot. Grip breaks down without you noticing, especially late in a round when your hands are tired or sweaty. Three seconds, glance down, confirm your V's are still where they belong. It becomes automatic fast, and it fixes more bad shots before they happen than almost anything else.
Your grip is the only part of your body actually touching the club. Get it right and a lot of your other problems quietly start fixing themselves.
This all being said, much like the different mechanics of different individual’s golf swings, golfers play with different grips. This tip is for you to try if you don’t feel comfortable with the grip you are using or want to try something different on the range. Fundamentally it just may fix a thing or two. Trial and error my friends, trial and many, many errors. That’s golf.
Today in Golf History
On this date in 1923, Gene Sarazen beat Walter Hagen 1-up at Pelham Country Club to win his second consecutive PGA Championship. That alone is a solid golf history footnote. But Sarazen's real contribution to the sport didn't come from a trophy at all. It came from a garage.
A few years after this win, Sarazen got frustrated with how badly he (and almost everyone else) played out of sand, so he started tinkering with club design on his own. He added extra weight to the bottom of an iron, which created something golf had never seen before, bounce. That is the thicker part at the bottom of the iron or wedge that prevents you from digging too much into the ground (well, prevents some of you, some of the time). That single invention became the modern sand wedge, and it fundamentally changed how the entire sport plays out of bunkers. Every greenside bunker tip exists because a two-time PGA Champion got tired of being embarrassed in the sand and decided to just build a better club.
Sarazen went on to become one of only five golfers in history to win the career Grand Slam, and he's also credited with the most famous single shot in golf history. The "shot heard 'round the world," a holed double eagle on the 15th at the 1935 Masters. But if you've ever hit a clean bunker shot in your life, the club in your hand traces directly back to a frustrated champion from nearly a century ago who decided the sand was the problem, not him.
Winston has never invented a golf club, but he has personally endorsed several of Sarazen's design choices from the comfort of a bunker he refuses to leave.
The Degen Den
Well it’s been worse for the Master of Mushy lineups, but it’s sure could have been better. Scheffler did Scheffler things to lead the card and Young showed up but the others, (despite Koivun’s late stage heroic comeback Sunday) well, have a gander. No bueno. 7049th out of 12,762 entries for the 5 buck contest.
To the victors go the spoils for the U.S.A., unfortunately my lineup was just plain spoiled
Hey, remember that time when we won a cool Benjamin playing this ridiculous game? Yeah, me neither. But what the hell, let’s try again at the Bank of Utah Championship, where we shall take no prisoners :
We can’t lose this time, We got the Koivun the Kid!
Disclaimer: These picks are provided purely for entertainment purposes. If you gamble, don’t gamble. If you don’t gamble, carry on wise one.
Golf Joke of the Week
A course marshal gets on the loudspeaker and tells a golfer to move his ball back behind the tee markers before hitting. The golfer looks toward the clubhouse and yells back, "Tell the guy on the loudspeaker this is my second shot."
As always, thanks so much for sharing our love of Golf! When I say ‘our’, yes, I am referring to myself and a fictional Worm logo named Winston. Therapy didn’t help me much, to answer your question. If you want more lunacy related to the links, check out the latest blog post here for how to get out of the high grass. No, not get high on grass, you read that wrong I assure you. Catch ya next week!