It was a pretty fun weekend in pro golf, with Rory McIlroy winning his second straight tournament at Quail Hollow while phenom Rose Zhang posted an impressive victory on the LPGA Tour.
But we’re gonna switch up it this week and start with some thoughts on a round our own.
Swing thoughts
Something about playing golf, by both of us
One of the most iconic views in golf is the player, on the verge of a championship, walking up the 18th fairway, a trophy perhaps just two putts away.
The playing partner often clears to the side, leaving the soon-to-be winner to embrace the stage.
On Friday, eight of us, grouped together for the last hole, walked up the 18th fairway at Charleston Municipal Golf Course. The stakes were non-existent, and I believe bogey would have at least gotten you into a playoff if it was an eight-person match.
And yet, the view was still iconic.
It’s tough to pinpoint an exact formula for good golf courses.
You can be captured by the allure of coastal courses with historical magnitude, something we experienced at Torrey Pines.
You can play country clubs with pristine greens and great amenities.
Then you can find a proverbial hole-in-the-wall with charm and character that makes you question ever spending $200+ on those elite courses.
Maybe it’s recency bias, but after playing Charleston, AKA The Muni, we’d take the latter more than you’d expect.
We first discovered The Muni on No Laying Up’s ‘Strapped,’ a YouTube series dedicated to playing golf on a budget, which shattered some pre-conceived notions about city-run courses.
These were places we’d assumed were synonymous with lacklustre conditions and jammed tee sheets. A place for blue-collar golf addicts to go hit some balls at twilight.
Surely you’d never pick a muni for a golf trip. But this muni — The Muni — is special.
Redesigned by Troy Miller, and heavily inspired by famous architect Seth Raynor, the course presents a framework for how to bring a city course to the spotlight.
The first hole provides a solid intro on what you’ll find for the rest of the day — a fairly wide open Par 4 that’s maybe a little longer than expected, some trouble if you miss the green, and a tricked-out putting surface. The front nine was mostly inland, with some creeks and at least one gator providing the trouble. The back nine is set across the South Carolina marshland and a dangerously close highway.
Burnished by mini flag sticks, those greens go in every direction on every hole. Some are funnels, some are rectangles, most are fast, few are normal.
It makes for a fun challenge, and we couldn’t help but feel the same way the Strapped boys felt once it was all done — immediately ready to go tee off on 1 again.
Yet as great as the course was, the image of eight of us playing the 18th is the one that’ll stick.
It was, of course, completely ridiculous. No one escaped without a duffed shot of some sort — not to mention we were all playing the same Wilson ball, just to add to the confusion.
But it was also exactly what golf should be.
The false front
A take one of us needed to get off our chest, by Myles
Rory might be a match-play killer. Anyone who follows golf closely knows the Northern Irishman can be emotional — just watch any of his press conferences since the sport’s civil war began. What’s encouraging is that Rory now seems to have parlayed that into winning on the golf course.
At the Ryder Cup in Rome, he famously beefed with a pair of caddies including Joe LaCava — Tiger’s former looper who now handles the bag for Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay is one of seven players on the PGA Tour’s board of directors, a position once also filled by McIlroy until he stepped down just a few months ago. Recently, though, Rory’s wanted back on, likely to help grease the wheels on a deal to reunite men’s golf. But we learned this week that Rory was denied re-entry, a blockage possibly led by Cantlay himself.
Back to the match play thing, though. In Rome, Rory came out the next day after the caddie tiff and beat Sam Burns in his singles match, setting the stage for a European victory. Two weeks ago, he won a team event with Ryder Cup teammate Shane Lowry. On Sunday, at a Quail Hollow course that he’s won at three times previously, Rory found himself in the final group with Xander Schauffele, Cantlay’s best friend on Tour, with both players well clear of third place to start the day — a classic match-play situation. But by the 15th hole, that idea was gone. Rory had gone eight-under over his previous eight holes, putting enough room between him and Xander to double 18 and still win comfortably.
Over the past 10 years since his last major win, there’ve been all sorts of contrived narratives as to why this is the one at which Rory will end the drought. Now, with a seeming fire in his belly, the upcoming PGA Championship might really be the one…
Links roundup
Golf content we consumed over the past week…
We had no room to discuss Rose Zhang properly this week, but highlights from her duel with Sweden’s Madelene Sagström are absolutely worth checking out
Kyle Porter fleshed out the Rory-Cantlay board situation quite nicely in his Normal Sport newsletter
Alistair Docherty — born in Canada, though he identifies as American after moving there at age seven — enjoyed a life-changing result at the Myrtle Beach Classic
It’s major week
A PGA Championship primer, by Nate
A lot of my friends tune into golf only on major weeks, and I’d imagine this makes up the vast majority of golf watchers.
So to get you caught up before the PGA Championship begins this Thursday, here’s everything you need to know:
Where is it?
Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. There is significance to both the location and the golf course.
It’s Justin Thomas’s first time playing a PGA Tour event in his hometown and it’s a big one. While not in the best form, JT showed signs of life this past week finishing T-21 and already has two PGA Championships to his name.
The course itself has hosted multiple majors and a Ryder Cup. Most notably, Rory won his fourth major here in 2014, beating Phil Mickelson by a stroke. This will surely be a talking point in your living room, with newer fans trauma-bonding over Rory’s inability to close majors in the last ten years and older fans patiently awaiting his dominance.
What’s on the line?
Michael Block’s legacy.
This PGA pro became an overnight hit after getting into contention at a major, dunking a hole-in-one in Rory’s face, and ultimately finishing T-15. If he doesn’t contend, we need to re-evaluate our golfing heroes. But in all seriousness, get ready for this story to be thrown in your face, starting with his CBS Special, "One Moment in Time: Michael Block's Miracle in May."
Brooks Koepka and Scottie Scheffler.
Brooks, the defending PGA Champion, could win back-to-back majors for the third time, earning his sixth total to tie Phil. And we know he’s in form after winning the last LIV event.
Scottie is coming off an absolute heater, which was pretty much only stifled by sitting out the past few tournaments as his wife was due to give birth any day. Now, the child has arrived. So will Scottie be over-exhausted given the new addition in his life, or will his game somehow go up a notch with a freshly added dose of #perspective?
Some sleeper stories and picks
Another shot at the grand slam for Jordan Spieth.
To be real, there’s not much more to say on this front. While there’s a chance for Spieth to do something only five other players have done, it doesn’t seem likely given his current form.
A couple Canucks can crack through.
With the lead on the 16th hole at the third round in last year’s PGA, Corey Conners plugged a ball so deep into a bunker it might have been witchcraft. Brooks took solo lead heading into the final round, and our hopes and dreams for a Canadian dub were done. But Conners seems to be back in form and has a solid track record in majors.
Taylor Pendrith allegedly won his first PGA Tournament last week at an event called The CJ CUP Byron Nelson. He also finished T-10 at the Wells Fargo this past week, albeit 14 strokes shy of first place. Mackenzie Hughes did him slightly better in T-6.
And we know Nick Taylor isn’t one to be fazed by the moment, given playoff wins at the Canadian Open last year and Waste Management a few months ago. He isn’t in the best form, but now could be the time to turn it around with a title defence coming in just two weeks in Hamilton.
Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and the (formerly) big golfer, Bryson DeChambeau.
What they all have in common is great finishes at the Masters this year. Sitting in the 26-28 to 1 category, they’re neither deep sleepers nor top contenders. But we wouldn’t be surprised if any of them became the story on Sunday.
I loved this one. And oh wow such a great pic!