Wormburner Weekly

It’s Lucky number 13 for Wormburner Weekly and I genuinely want to thank all my subscribers for coming along for the ride so far. We got a 1 in 100 winner, a tip for you and the Worm, and a real knee slapper of a joke this week. Let’s get into it.

PGA Recap

Austin Smotherman finally did it. In his 100th career PGA Tour start, the man won his first title at the Bank of Utah Championship, finishing at 26 under, two shots clear of Doug Ghim. Trace Crowe and David Ford tied for third at 23 under. If you've ever played a hundred rounds waiting for something to click, you understand the feeling. Not at this level, but you get it, kinda.

Smotherman started Sunday strong, building a three-shot cushion with birdies on 5, 6, and 7. Then came the 13th. His approach plugged up against a bunker lip, he made double bogey, and the lead shrank to one. Did he unravel like you do after snap hooking a tee shot into the porta potty and then snapping your driver over your right knee? No, because he’s not a wittle baby, he answered right away with a tee shot on 14 that set up a six-foot birdie, made another on 16, and closed it out. In his own words afterward, "It didn't have to be pretty." No kidding, Austin, and the trophy didn't care either. That paycheck definitely didn’t care.

Ghim had his chances, but three-putted from 30 feet on the 13th, missed a six-footer for par on the 15th, and finished with a birdie that arrived a little too late. Which, conveniently, brings us to the putting tip in this very newsletter (see below).

The win bumps Smotherman from 79th to 51st in the FedExCup Fall standings, earns him a two-year exemption, and gets him into the 2027 signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Not a bad weekend. Ghim climbed from 89th to 58th with the runner-up finish. A pretty good week even for the guy who didn't get the hardware.

Worm of the Week

Doug Ghim just finished second at the Bank of Utah Championship, which is a great week by any normal standard and a very specific kind of heartbreak by ours.

Let's start with Saturday. Ghim was bogey-free through the first 36 holes at Black Desert, a feat that in my own golf life has never once happened across any three consecutive holes. Then he hit what he later called a "pedestrian drive" on the par-5 9th, left himself 279 yards, and decided that was a green-light situation. Love him for it but the ball sailed right into the lava rocks. Stroke-and-distance. Bogey. There's no good way to describe watching a perfectly decent day get swallowed by volcanic debris, but I've done it with a pond and a forgotten sleeve of Kirkland balls, so I feel for the guy, we’re basically golf brothers now.

And on came Sunday. Ghim sat second behind Austin Smotherman, lurking, and when Smotherman doubled the 13th, the door cracked open. Ghim filled the crack with silly putty. He stepped up to a 30-footer on the same hole and three-putted it. Two holes later, a six-foot par putt on 15 slid by. Then a birdie at 18, because of course, but by then he was two shots back at 24 under.

To be fair, finishing second with a Sunday 69 is not a disgrace. It's also the exact outcome you get when the flat stick goes cold at the worst time, which is why the Chili Dip Tip this week is about not three-putting. You're welcome, Doug. Consider it a gift for the road, and a thanks for being the loyal subscriber I have no doubt you are.

Chili Dip Golf Tip

How to Stop 3 Putting (It’s a Speed Problem)

Let's talk about the most humiliating sequence in golf: lag it 35 feet, leave it 6 feet short, miss that, and tap in for a three-putt while your playing partners look at their phones, not so successfully suppressing their grins. Here's the fix, and it has almost nothing to do with reading the break.

Aim at a circle, not a hole. On any putt over 20 feet, forget making it. Picture a three-foot circle around the cup and try to stop the ball inside it. Your goal is a tap-in second putt. Boring? Yes. Cheaper than a three-putt (for you degenerate golf gamblers)? Hell yeah.

Look at the hole during your practice strokes. Your eyes are surprisingly good at judging distance, and your body follows what they see. Stand next to the ball, stare at the hole, and swing the putter back and forth like you're rolling a ball to it. Then step in and repeat that same feel. It sounds goofy. Just try it. It works.

Same tempo, different length. A longer putt does not need a harder hit. It needs a longer backswing at the same smooth pace. Rushing the stroke on long putts is how you blade one across the green like a skipped stone.

Bold uphill, gentle downhill. Uphill putts need more pop than you think, and most hackers leave them short. Downhill putts are the opposite: picture the ball just dying at the hole, because a hard downhill putt can end up in the next zip code.

Roll a few before you tee off. Before the round, hit three or four putts to the far fringe. Learn what the greens are doing today, because they're never the same two days in a row. This 2-minute practice alone can just maybe knock off a couple strokes. Why wait till hole number four to get a feel for the speed of the greens when you can do it before your first tee shot?

Master your speed and the three-putts quit showing up (as much). Make peace with the two-putt, and your scorecard will thank you later. Your playing partners probably won’t, but that’s ok, ‘cause now they’re the ones buying at the 19th.

Today in Golf History

On what was almost this date in 1957 (October 5), Great Britain & Ireland beat the United States 7½ to 4½ in the Ryder Cup at Lindrick Golf Club in Yorkshire. For the last time. It's the kind of result that sounds routine now, but was a shock then, because it was GB&I's first win in the event in 24 years. They then lost for 28 consecutive years and in that time span eventually the team rebranded as "Europe" and became the much more competitive event we have today. Dust off the Walker Cup comeback from a few issues back and you'll see why this one feels familiar.

The Americans led 3-1 after the opening foursomes, and then the singles happened. GB&I won them 6½ to 1½. Shorter, fast greens and a stiff breeze reportedly didn't hurt the home side, and six Americans three-putted the very first green. Meanwhile, Irishman Christy O'Connor bought a new putter at lunch, walked out, and beat Dow Finsterwald 7&6. Who hasn’t bought a putter at lunch and used it to beat a future major champion? I did that, like, 3 times in 2002…

But the real show was Eric Brown against Tommy Bolt, a man with a famous temper. Brown won 4&3 in a match that was hostile from the first tee. Bolt griped that the crowd "cheered when I missed a putt and sat on their hands when I hit a good shot." The two never shook hands. Afterward, Bolt snapped a wedge in half in the locker room and skipped the presentation altogether. Winston has never snapped a club in half, mostly because he's a worm and has no hands, but he certainly understands the impulse.

Ken Bousfield got the clinching point over USPGA champion Lionel Hebert, and captain Dai Rees, who won his own match 7&6, got his moment.

The Degen Den

Ok, ok. Yes, maybe I should put more effort in than, ‘That guy has a cool name,’ or ‘He fits the salary cap despite the fact that he is playing with a broken arm this week.’ Regardless, once again a less than stellar effort was carded. Two mushed cuts, a tie for 65th, tie for 59th, and two tied for 13th. That was good for 13430th out of 16646 entries. Ugh. Here’s that card which will be followed by next weeks choices for the Baycurrent Classic at Yokohama CC in Japan. I will try not to drop such a Classic Turd in that one:

Golf Joke of the Week

A golfer tells his buddy, "I'd move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course." His buddy says, "Try heaven. You've already moved most of the earth."