Scottie Scheffler was again in motion in Texas this week.
Getty Pictures
Welcome again to the Monday End, the place we’re nonetheless making an attempt to determine if “Davis Riley” has two first names or two final names. To the information!
GOLF STUFF I LIKE
Going again to what works.
As I attempted to make sense of Davis Riley‘s Sunday steamroll over the remainder of a proficient PGA Tour discipline, one element stood out: He’d just lately reunited together with his former swing coach Jeff Smith.
“We haven’t re-invented the wheel or accomplished something completely different,” Riley mentioned after a Friday 64. “I really feel like I’m in a superb head house and cozy there and I really feel like simplicity has been the important thing for me.”
Riley made issues look easy on the weekend, significantly on Sunday; whereas most of his competitors struggled with gusty situations and a agency golf course, the proficient Alabama grad plotted his approach by way of a difficult golf course, making a birdie for each bogey and cruising to a five-shot victory.
What’s attention-grabbing about Riley returning to an outdated coach and discovering success? The truth that we’ve just lately heard different high execs say the identical factor.
Take Collin Morikawa. Earlier than the Masters he talked about being “in transition”; he’d cut up together with his lifelong swing coach Rick Sessinghaus within the fall however scuffled within the months that adopted. Forward of the Masters he obtained on the cellphone with Sessinghaus a pair occasions once more. Then he completed T3.
Extra good outcomes adopted as they formalized their relationship once more. Ninth on the RBC Heritage. Tied for sixteenth on the Wells Fargo. Then back-to-back fourth-place outcomes on the PGA Championship and the Charles Schwab Problem. One thing is working.
“A lot better,” Morikawa mentioned post-round on Sunday, requested about his psychological house now in contrast with the beginning of the yr. “I owe a number of that to Rick. Clearly becoming a member of again up with him, it’s been superior. It’s not like we’ve accomplished something new, it’s simply with the ability to speak.”
Then take Viktor Hovland. He completed 2023 because the FedEx Cup champ and the most well liked golfer on the planet however modified coaches, modified philosophies and misplaced his approach — till he reunited with Joe Mayo, the person who’d helped rebuild his quick sport, the week earlier than the PGA Championship. Then he completed third.
Viktor Hovland made a mysterious teaching change. Now he’s going again
“I believed this was probably going to be a bit little bit of a undertaking and perhaps take six, eight weeks earlier than I’d see sort of speedy enchancment,” Hovland mentioned. As an alternative he contended for the win all of Sunday. “Yeah, that was sort of best-case situation proper there.”
There was additionally Rory McIlroy’s journey to Las Vegas to see Butch Harmon, who at all times appears to set him straight with the identical recommendation.
“The work I did with him wasn’t an amazing quantity of fixing what he did, it was his perspective and the way in which he performed sure photographs,” Harmon mentioned on the Son of a Butch podcast. From “150 yards and in he made a full swing like he was hitting a driver and I wished him to make extra 3 quarter swings and chop the comply with by way of off a bit.”
McIlroy gained the Zurich Basic with Shane Lowry and ran away from the sector on the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hole earlier than a T12 on the PGA Championship. His swing appears to be working, too.
It’s simple to cherry-pick the teaching modifications of winners and contenders, in fact. If teaching modifications don’t work out we regularly wouldn’t even hear a lot about them. So it’s robust to parse out correlation or causation in any significant approach. However there’s one thing satisfying about high golfers shedding their approach, returning to one thing important and discovering success. It was in there all alongside.
Tapping into your previous to raised put together on your current? That’s golf stuff I like.
WINNERS
Who gained the week?
Davis Riley gained the Charles Schwab Problem by 5; it was his first particular person PGA Tour victory, he strikes from No. 250 to No. 78 on the earth and he locks up PGA Tour standing for years to return.
Richard Bland gained the Senior PGA Championship in his first-ever senior tour begin; it was a very intriguing victory given Bland’s standing on LIV. He gained’t be eligible for the PGA Tour Champions however will proceed teeing it up for the Cleeks the remainder of the season.
Nacho Elvira gained the Soudal Open in Belgium, holding off three golfers by a single shot — together with one other LIV participant in Belgian native Thomas Pieters — to say the second DP World Tour victory of his profession.
Harry Higgs gained in unimaginable style for the second consecutive week on the Korn Ferry Tour, draining a 37-footer for eagle on the second playoff gap to primarily assure he’ll be again on the PGA Tour subsequent season. he adopted the win with a touching speech honoring Grayson Murray, whose tragic demise hung over the golf world this weekend.
NOT-WINNERS
Not everyone can win the whole lot.
Scottie Scheffler made his worst single-hole rating in 9 months on Thursday — a triple-bogey 6 that despatched him to three over par — however he rebounded and performed his approach into the ultimate group on Sunday, the place he was outgunned by Riley however nonetheless completed T2.
“I battled again very properly on Friday and Saturday. So far as as we speak goes, I simply wasn’t in a position to put as a lot stress as I’d have hoped to placed on Davis early within the spherical and he simply sort of cruised all day,” Scheffler mentioned Sunday. “He performed nice golf.”
Keegan Bradley completed T2 alongside Scheffler and was delighted together with his gritty closing spherical, calling it “my finest spherical of the yr, most likely.” He’s as much as No. 16 on the earth, mentioned he’s trying ahead to what he known as principally back-to-back U.S. Opens with Memorial adopted by Pinehurst and feels usually inspired staring down the summer season season.
“I’m enjoying good golf proper now. I had a troublesome stretch there within the Florida swing, and now I really feel like I’m again enjoying the way in which I ought to play.”
Morikawa’s fourth-place consequence has him chomping on the bit.
It’s rather a lot higher than the place it was firstly of the yr, and we’re getting there, I simply — clearly you need it sooner quite than later, and with two extra majors to go, you recognize, I actually need it.
And Kevin Kisner confirmed some promise by way of three rounds, making the lower and sitting T32 earlier than a Sunday 79 despatched him to T65. Nonetheless, it was considered one of his extra promising showings of the previous yr as he seems to be to regain kind.
SHORT HITTERS
5 intriguing tales, in short.
1. The Louisville PD launched movies of the moments round Scottie Scheffler’s arrest, yielding few new particulars however leaving me believing two issues are true: First, the video misses a key second within the incident the place Scheffler and the arresting officer first make contact. However second, until there’s one thing actually dramatic that occurred in these few off-camera moments, what’re we nonetheless doing dragging this case ahead? Certainly there are higher makes use of of the judicial system than a trumped-up felony cost primarily based on a misunderstanding. No one wins by this shifting ahead.
2. Mark Flaherty grew to become the most recent member of the PGA Tour’s Coverage Board to step down and did so at a wierd time: Sunday night time of the PGA Championship. In his resignation letter he thanked Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and the board chairman Ed Herlihy however, notably, no person else on the board.
3. The brains (and names) behind Bandon Dunes are increasing south: The Keiser household introduced 36-hole resort Wild Spring Dunes will function one course by famed architect Tom Doak and one other by the legendary group of Invoice Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
4. Jim Nantz is constructing one other yard golf gap, this time replicating the inexperienced of Augusta Nationwide’s par-5 thirteenth — and he’s turning a patio on his home right into a tee field.
5. Jon Rahm completed No. 2 on Forbes’ record of highest-paid athletes, incomes an estimated $218 million thanks to an enormous signing bonus from his signing with LIV Golf. Cristiano Ronaldo — additionally enjoying for a Saudi sports activities league — topped the record at $260 million. Rory McIlroy (nineteenth, $80.1 million complete), Tiger Woods (twenty third, $67.2 million), Scottie Scheffler (twenty ninth, $59.2 million) and Cameron Smith (forty third, $48 million) additionally cracked the highest 50.
ONE SWING THOUGHT
From the U.S. Open champ.
Preventing a slice on the course? Wyndham Clark has a tip for you: Tee up your wedges on the vary. Attempt to hit attracts, which is a bit simpler to do with the ball’s teed up. That’ll assist zero you out.
“I are typically steep,” Clark mentioned on our newest episode of Warming Up. “So underneath stress … I begin swinging actually left, huge divots, swipey cuts. And so what I’m making an attempt to do right here is neutralize that and do the alternative so after I get into competitors [my ball flight] is the place I would like it to be.”
Right here’s the remaining:
ONE BIG QUESTION
Will we’ve any PIF-PGA Tour readability by June sixth?
The one-year anniversary of the framework settlement quick approaches. So … now what?
We mentioned this in Tour Confidential, too, however what indications do we’ve {that a} deal is shut? Rory McIlroy mentioned there’s been no progress made. Tiger Woods mentioned there’s an extended approach to go and that the state of affairs is fluid. Jimmy Dunne was so pissed off with the dearth of progress that he stepped down from the board. Mark Flaherty stepped down, too. Jordan Spieth known as tales of stalled talks a “false narrative,” which can be true, however Spieth additionally mentioned earlier this yr that he’s okay if a deal doesn’t get accomplished instantly. Immediacy doesn’t appear to be a precedence.
So is a deal shut? It doesn’t seem to be it. What appears extra probably is that no person is aware of what’s going to occur. Within the occasion of some form of reconciliation between excursions, it’s nonetheless up within the air about what would occur to LIV. And with out some form of reconciliation, what’s the purpose of any of this? Within the meantime, Spieth and his friends are targeted on not making a foul deal. That’s precedence No. 1: not ceding management to an unpredictable investor. Perhaps there’s an in-between stopgap resolution right here the place they safe a PIF funding for the PGA Tour with out significant change within the skilled golf panorama. But when I’m a golf fan rooting for LIV stars to return to the PGA Tour by the tip of this season or subsequent? I’m not holding my breath.
ONE THING TO WATCH
Patrick Reed tells his facet of the story.
Some pointless context: We launched this Patrick Reed interview across the Masters but it surely was such a busy time that we by no means revealed the condensed Q&A model that ran within the journal. However now? That’s reside, too!
What’s within the interview? I wished to ask Reed about his background and about his breakthrough moments and about his fame — each good and dangerous, from Captain America to guidelines controversies to lawsuits and extra — and whether or not it’s deserved. Right here’s that full sitdown:
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday End HQ.
Seattle has been within the {golfing} information left and proper. Bryson DeChambeau, coming off a terrific runner-up end on the PGA, credited a lot of his current success to Washingtonian caddie Greg Bodine. RJ Manke simply Monday-qualified into final week’s Korn Ferry Tour occasion and completed inside the highest 20. Max Herendeen, repping the Pacific Northwest on the College of Illinois, begins Monday in prime place on the NCAA Championships — and he’s group’s main with one spherical to play. Plus there’s a significant coming to city in lower than a month!
REFLECTIONS ON GRAYSON MURRAY
Gone too quickly.
It was touching to learn and listen to tributes after the tragic lack of Grayson Murray, who died Saturday on the age of 30. A press release from his household confirmed that Murray had taken his personal life. “Life wasn’t at all times simple for Grayson,” the assertion learn. “We all know he rests peacefully now.”
I’ve been struggling to wrap my head round of Murray’s sudden loss and it was clear his friends had been, too; from Scheffler to Bradley to Webb Simpson and extra they described the eeriness of seeing him at some point and figuring out he was gone the following, whereas his title nonetheless sat on a placard within the locker room and on the underside of the leaderboard. There’s no making sense of it, not likely. However the very best factor I learn this weekend was a robust essay by Gary Williams, who displays on his personal journey with alcoholism, his bond with Murray and the harmful powers of dependancy — crafty, baffling, highly effective — that at all times lurk.
You’ll be able to learn that right here.
Be effectively, buddies. We’ll see you subsequent week.
Dylan welcomes your feedback at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
