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The Players Championship field by the rankings

The Players Championship field by the rankings

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
The Players Championship field by the rankings https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

As usual, a deep field has turned up at TPC Sawgrass for the Players Championship. Dustin Johnson, No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and Xander Schauffele, No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Pro Rankings, top the field. The top 16 players in the Sagarins are all in attendance and so are the top 11 players in the OWGR.

The entire Players Championship field is broken down below according to the Golfweek/Sagarins and the OWGR.

So far in the 2020-21 Tour season, the average ranking of the winner heading into the week in which he won a PGA Tour event has been 102.19 in the Golfweek/Sagarins and 111.76 in the OWGR.

Players GW/Sagarin OWGR
 Xander Schauffele 1 5
 Dustin Johnson 2 1
 Jon Rahm 3 2
 Patrick Cantlay 4 9
 Viktor Hovland 5 13
 Tony Finau 6 14
 Webb Simpson 7 10
 Bryson DeChambeau 8 6
 Daniel Berger 9 15
 Rory McIlroy 10 11
 Justin Thomas 11 3
 Will Zalatoris 12 46
 Tyrrell Hatton 13 7
 Joaquin Niemann 14 29
 Zach Johnson 15 116
 Louis Oosthuizen 16 22
 Patrick Reed 18 8
 Harris English 19 18
 Adam Scott 20 24
 Paul Casey 21 19
 Cameron Tringale 22 89
 Russell Henley 23 58
 Abraham Ancer 24 28
 Brian Harman 25 95
 Collin Morikawa 26 4
 Corey Conners 27 44
 Sungjae Im 28 17
 Hideki Matsuyama 29 23
 Matthew Fitzpatrick 30 16
 Ryan Palmer 31 26
 Cameron Smith 32 27
 Scottie Scheffler 34 30
 Tommy Fleetwood 35 21
 Kevin Kisner 36 35
 Kevin Na 37 25
 Chris Kirk 38 84
 Christiaan Bezuidenhout 39 34
 Sam Burns 40 87
 Patton Kizzire 42 207
 Mackenzie Hughes 44 53
 Billy Horschel 45 33
 Si Woo Kim 46 54
 Jason Kokrak 47 32
 Kevin Streelman 48 59
 Cameron Davis 49 133
 Matt Jones 50 85
 Sergio Garcia 52 43
 Lanto Griffin 53 50
 Jordan Spieth 54 52
 Emiliano Grillo 56 144
 Brendon Todd 57 49
 Brendan Steele 58 78
 Robert MacIntyre 59 42
 Ian Poulter 60 62
 Max Homa 61 38
 Bernd Wiesberger 62 41
 Alex Noren 63 94
 Richy Werenski 64 102
 Talor Gooch 66 82
 Jason Day 67 47
 Sepp Straka 68 151
 Charley Hoffman 69 125
 Carlos Ortiz 70 45
 Doug Ghim 72 257
 Francesco Molinari 73 92
 Adam Hadwin 77 96
 Lee Westwood 80 31
 Sebastián Muñoz 81 60
 Scott Stallings 84 251
 Henrik Norlander 85 99
 Bubba Watson 86 56
 Keegan Bradley 87 138
 Rory Sabbatini 89 114
 Mark Hubbard 90 153
 Matt Kuchar 92 51
 James Hahn 93 154
 Justin Rose 94 39
 Charles Howell III 95 141
 Adam Long 98 64
 Harold Varner III 99 131
 Doc Redman 100 137
 Michael Thompson 101 105
 Stewart Cink 103 148
 Wyndham Clark 105 129
 Scott Piercy 107 184
 Chez Reavie 108 67
 Rickie Fowler 109 70
 Maverick McNealy 111 130
 Tyler Duncan 113 161
 Shane Lowry 114 40
 Kyle Stanley 115 212
 Lucas Glover 116 147
 J.T. Poston 117 66
 Denny McCarthy 118 221
 Andrew Putnam 119 123
 Joel Dahmen 121 74
 Gary Woodland 122 48
 Adam Schenk 123 248
 Austin Cook 125 201
 Troy Merritt 129 171
 Matthew NeSmith 130 146
 Dylan Frittelli 131 68
 C.T. Pan 133 170
 Bo Hoag 134 228
 Jason Dufner 135 336
 Luke List 138 165
 Pat Perez 139 227
 Peter Malnati 140 156
 Cameron Percy 144 290
 Charl Schwartzel 147 208
 Tom Hoge 150 113
 Jhonattan Vegas 151 177
 Anirban Lahiri 152 452
 Nick Taylor 154 127
 Byeong Hun An 156 80
 Marc Leishman 157 37
 Patrick Rodgers 158 209
 Martin Laird 160 93
 Brian Stuard 161 197
 Branden Grace 164 75
 Brice Garnett 165 254
 Andrew Landry 173 121
 Cameron Champ 179 81
 Russell Knox 185 213
 Phil Mickelson 190 101
 Danny Lee 191 164
 Nate Lashley 193 122
 Danny Willett 194 69
 Kyoung-Hoon Lee 199 149
 Ryan Armour 200 231
 Victor Perez 204 36
 Aaron Wise 217 145
 Ryan Moore 224 206
 Tom Lewis 229 90
 Brandt Snedeker 231 140
 Jim Herman 232 120
 Harry Higgs 234 139
 Keith Mitchell 242 203
 Vaughn Taylor 250 204
 Robby Shelton 266 177
 Xinjun Zhang 271 248
 Sam Ryder 277 269
 Robert Streb 294 117
 Brian Gay 300 199
 Scott Brown 313 253
 Beau Hossler 321 319
 Scott Harrington 335 327
 Henrik Stenson 341 91
 Hudson Swafford 350 189
 Sung Kang 361 124
 Graeme McDowell 367 110
 Tyler McCumber 383 298
 Jimmy Walker 440 482
 Jerry Kelly N/R 907
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PGA Tour institutes 'Bryson Rule' with internal OB left of the lake on No. 18 at TPC Sawgrass

PGA Tour institutes 'Bryson Rule' with internal OB left of the lake on No. 18 at TPC Sawgrass

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
PGA Tour institutes 'Bryson Rule' with internal OB left of the lake on No. 18 at TPC Sawgrass https://ift.tt/3enGpYo

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Call it the Bryson Rule.

Just days after Bryson DeChambeau said he would consider aiming left of the the water at the dogleg-left par-4, 462-yard 18th hole at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, the Players Championship Rules Committee has installed an internal out of bounds left of the lake for play of hole 18.

On Sunday, after DeChambeau drove within 100 yards of the 550-yard par-5 sixth hole on both Saturday and Sunday and closed out his one-stroke victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he was asked if there were any unique angles at Pete Dye’s famed layout that he was dreaming up for this week.

“I have thought about sometimes on 18 going left into 9. But we’ll see, with the stands and everything, if it’s even worth it,” he said. “But that’s really the only one that I could see being unique and a little different as of right now. There’s really not another hole.”

The Players: TPC Sawgrass yardage book

That would require one of his tape-measure blasts across the lake running the length of 18 and potentially into a sliver of rough right of the ninth cart path and the water. Another option would be to hit all the way into the ninth fairway, but under that scenario he’d face a blind shot over hospitality tents.

“It just gives you a better shot into the green, I think, personally, where you can just hit it a little long and you’re always going to be OK,” he explained. “It’s probably not worth it. I mean, the cover’s like 310, but we’ll see. I just, I look at all options and hopefully there’s an advantage there. But if not I’ll just hit 4-iron down the fairway and hopefully an 8-iron or 7-iron into the green.”

Asked on Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference if he was serious about taking a circuitous route to the 18th green, DeChambeau was non-committal but still thinking outside the box.

“I’ll probably give it a try, but it’s most likely not going to happen,” he said. “I haven’t seen it yet, but if there’s stands there there’s really no reason to go for it, when I could just drive it 100 yards from the green if I get a good wind normally. It’s not really that big of an advantage, but taking the water out of play and having an easier second shot, it may be easier, I don’t know.”

Rules officials heard about DeChambeau’s latest gambit and nipped any thoughts of taking a unique route at 18 in the bud. Any shot coming to rest left of the white stakes on 18 will be determined to be out of bounds.

“In the interest of safety for spectators, volunteers and other personnel, the Players Championship Rules Committee has installed an internal out of bounds left of the lake for play on hole 18,” the Tour said in a statement.

The Tour noted that similar instances of internal out of bounds for safety purposes have occurred at The Open Championship (hole 9) in 2017, the 2021 Sony Open in Hawaii (hole 13 and hole 18), and most recently, the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational (hole 6).

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Players Championship offers free viewing of ambitious 'Every Shot Live' platform

Players Championship offers free viewing of ambitious 'Every Shot Live' platform

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
Players Championship offers free viewing of ambitious 'Every Shot Live' platform https://ift.tt/3cbZnP0

The PGA Tour’s ambitious “Every Shot Live” platform only got one round at the 2020 Players Championship.

The whole package will be available this week, beginning with Thursday’s first round – all 32,000 shots, or less, if the best professionals in the world have anything to say about it.

The estimate for the total number of shots was drawn from the 2019 tournament. Thanks to 120 dedicated cameras spread out over the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, fans don’t need to miss a single shot from their favorite player or a select group – an option even more important this year, since the capacity for the tournament is being limited to 20 percent.

Every Shot Live is available to PGA Tour Live subscribers on NBC Sports Gold but fans will get a bonus this year: the first round will available free, and a one-week trial is available on PGA Tour Live.

Past ticket purchasers will qualify for the free week and will be notified by email on March 8 with directions on how to register.

Every Shot Live got a big power boost last week with the announcement that the Tour had forged a partnership with Amazon Web Services to be the official cloud provider for the Tour.

“This transformational partnership with AWS will give our fans the opportunity to experience the PGA Tour like never before,” said Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “Growing and diversifying our fan base is a top priority for us, and thanks to the collaboration and innovation from AWS, we are creating more ways to experience the game of golf, while personalizing our content to enable fans to engage with the tournaments and players they support.”

Fans will also be able to control their viewing experience with AWS’ TOURCast, a leaderboard that will provide new camera angles, course navigation, speed rounds and on-demand stats.

AWS will also assist First Tee in developing an online community for its teachers and youth leaders in order to grow the program.

The Tour will also move almost a century’s worth of content to AWS, with video, audio, and images dating back to the 1928 Los Angeles Open into a data lake, where live footage from future tournaments will also be streamed.

The task of utilizing the cameras to cover every shot by 144 players, for 72 holes, is being undertaken by PGA Tour Entertainment and NBC Sports Group.

“The Players has developed a tradition of innovation where we’ve been able to deliver new technology to golf, and we are excited to welcome Every Shot Live back for the 2021 event,” said Players executive director Jared Rice in a statement. “With a limited footprint of fans on site this year, we want to ensure those closest to this event – our friends and neighbors here in Northeast Florida – feel engaged with us. We know the impact of Every Shot Live, as well as the various opportunities our partners are offering throughout this community, will allow for everyone to feel as though they are part of the action taking place onsite.”

In addition to Every Shot Live, The Players also is offering fan engagement opportunities in the area for the 2021 Players, which sold out of its available tickets within hours on Feb. 16.

The Players has partnered with area restaurants and golf courses to bring the tournament to the community in the form of promotions, nightly food and drink specials and opportunities for fans to win Players merchandise.

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Bryson DeChambeau back at work for Players Championship after celebrating win with chocolate milk and pinball

Bryson DeChambeau back at work for Players Championship after celebrating win with chocolate milk and pinball

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
Bryson DeChambeau back at work for Players Championship after celebrating win with chocolate milk and pinball https://ift.tt/3cbZnP0

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Bryson DeChambeau didn’t go on an all-night rager after winning last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, didn’t hit the clubs and dance the night away, didn’t jet off to Las Vegas.

Instead, the big kid at heart celebrated by downing chocolate milk, eating Arnold Palmer gummies containing iced tea and lemonade, and playing some pinball. Had a bit of champagne, too, eyed some of the King’s memorabilia.

So, no, DeChambeau doesn’t do hangovers. Instead, he was in bed by 11 and up-and-at them early Monday morning to begin preparation for this week’s Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship event.

“It’s been a quick turnaround,” said DeChambeau, who was on the TPC Sawgrass range by Monday afternoon and worked on his swing past sundown. “I’ve got to get focused for this and figure out the best strategy this week and how I can best navigate the golf course.”

The Players: TPC Sawgrass yardage book

He also was likely a bit tired to pull an all-nighter after being inspired to victory by a text exchange with Tiger Woods and winning his idol’s tournament. For four days he was the Big Show at Bay Hill, playing to the crowd and uncorking drives that left many in awe. Try the 375 to 390 yards range. He also showed he has more than brute strength as he called upon his superb precision and top-notch putting in becoming the first multiple winner of the season and notching his eighth PGA Tour title.

Now the world No. 6 and reigning U.S. Open champion has to tackle one of the strongest fields in golf and Pete Dye’s diabolical TPC Sawgrass and its assortment of water hazards, sharp edges and puzzling greens. While he might not unleash with his driver more than six times a round and drive across a lake as he did twice last week at Bay Hill’s par-5 6th, he can still overpower the course with his metal woods and long irons.

“I just can’t bomb it out there. You have to put the ball in play and there’s a few holes where you can take advantage, from a length perspective, but for the most part, the par-4s you’ve got to hit it in play and you’ve got to have great iron play this week,” he said. “So that’s what I’m really focused on. If I can get my iron play down this week and my wedges down this week, I’ll have a great chance to win with my putting.”

He’s also hauling a bunch of confidence after winning at Arnie’s place. While he told a reporter on Monday he won with his “C” game, DeChambeau downplayed that boast on Tuesday.

“By no means am I trying to cause anything by (“C” talk), other than saying that I just was not hitting my best the way I wanted to last week,” DeChambeau said. “From my perspective I just didn’t feel like I had it all. But I was still able to play golf and win a golf tournament, which is great. If anything my driving didn’t feel great. My putting was obviously, I’d give it an “A,” but my iron play was just not where I wanted it to be, and my expectation levels are really high.”

That’s why he’s basically set up shop on the range at TPC Sawgrass. For hours on end, he bangs golf balls into the horizon. But video surfaced Monday of him goofing around on the range, with silly follow-throughs and goofy swings.

Still, even these comical moments are educational to DeChambeau.

“I would say 25 percent is definitely messing around, for sure,” DeChambeau said of his time on the practice ground. “I’m very risk averse when it comes to trying things. It goes along the same lines as me hitting and making weird swings on the golf range and trying to figure out what is this doing, why is that doing that and why is the ball flight like that, because of this motion.

It’s like free-hand painting almost. I’m just trying to figure out what’s working in life and why it is the way it is. And then the other 75 percent I’m working hard on a motion that I believe is accurate.

“That’s the way I do it. I have to keep it light and fun. If I just grind all the time, I’ll definitely not be in the right place mentally if I’m just consistently going at it.”

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Winning clubs at the Players Championship

Winning clubs at the Players Championship

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
Winning clubs at the Players Championship https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is one of the most visually intimidating golf courses in the world, with water and sand everywhere you look. The final stretch, holes 16, 17 and 18, demand that a player hold his nerves when faced with daunting tee shots and approach shots that require precision.

The Pete Dye masterpiece ranks No. 1 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list, No. 11 for all resort courses in the United States and No. 22 in the U.S. for all Modern Courses built in or after 1960.

The players on the list below were able to handle the pressure and win the PGA Tour’s crown-jewel event, the Players Championship. Check out the equipment they used to get the job done.

The Players: TPC Sawgrass yardage book

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Rory McIlroy ahead of Players Championship defense: 'I certainly believe that my best days are ahead of me'

Rory McIlroy ahead of Players Championship defense: 'I certainly believe that my best days are ahead of me'

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
Rory McIlroy ahead of Players Championship defense: 'I certainly believe that my best days are ahead of me' https://ift.tt/3bAedQt

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Following another Sunday fade in which he drove two balls into the water at Bay Hill’s par-5 sixth and shot 76, Rory McIlroy admitted to feeling dejected before he made the two-hour-plus drive to Northeast Florida and one of the more unusual title defenses in golf.

“I don’t know, like, maybe looking to go in a different direction. I don’t know. I need something, I need a spark, I need something and I just don’t seem to have it,” McIlroy said before he departed the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

On Tuesday, during his pre-tournament interview at the Players Championship, McIlroy elaborated on how he felt after another disappointing result for him.

“I think it was just me walking off the course not having my best day and I guess sort of venting a little bit to whoever was there at the time. So that was really it,” he said.

McIlroy’s inscrutable comments post-round lead to a flurry of Monday Morning Quarterbacking with many guessing that he might make the knee-jerk reaction of sacking his caddie or coach, but McIlroy put any of those concerns to rest.

The Players: TPC Sawgrass yardage book

“I certainly didn’t mean like a change of personnel, per se,” he said. “I think more a change in philosophy or maybe what I’m trying to work on, maybe going in a slightly different direction.”

It’s hard to imagine how much the world has changed since McIlroy last stepped foot on property at TPC Sawgrass. He was World No. 1 and playing some of the best golf in his career. He would have been the favorite of an April Masters, and then after salvaging an opening-round 72 with birdies on his final three holes, the Players was canceled and golf took a three-month break.

McIlroy hasn’t been the same player since golf returned. He’s record four top-10 finishes in his nine starts this season, but hasn’t won in 16 months. He’s dropped to No. 11 in the world, the first time he’s outside the top 10 since the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational. He’s still the defending champion at the Players, a tournament that has never had a champion successfully defend, but his confidence in his game has taken a hit as he battles with inconsistency.

“It felt so good on Thursday and then felt off a little bit on the weekend, so it’s like what happened, what changed, what is the difference,” said McIlroy of his performance at Arnie’s place. “It’s funny, I’d almost feel better if my game was worse, but it’s the inconsistency of I shot 66 on Thursday and thought, I’ve got it, I feel really good, and then I didn’t quite have it. The ups and downs are just a little too much.”

That’s in stark contrast to McIlroy’s victory here in 2019, which showed off his vast array of talents. He ranked second in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, tied for third in greens in regulation, 11th in proximity to the hole and first in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and led the field in par-3 scoring. McIlroy has struggled with an unusual swing pattern for him, which he blames for the difference between victory and another T-10 finish like he had at Bay Hill.

“Usually what happens is the club gets out in front of me on the way back and then drops behind me on the way down, where at the minute it’s the opposite, it sort of gets behind me early and then I sort of throw it back out in front of me on the way down,” he said. “This feeling that I have at the minute, I’m not used to managing it, so that’s where the two-way miss comes in, and that’s where I just have to figure out what to do to get it back to a familiar pattern.

“The good stuff is there. It always will be. I’ll always be able to figure it out and find a way. But it’s when it goes slightly off, how do you manage that and how do you – I feel like over the last few years, I’ve been really good at when my game hasn’t been fully there still be able to shoot 69, 70, still being able to get it under par, where I feel like the last few weeks when it hasn’t felt quite right, I’m sort of treading water and I’m just trying to shoot even par, and that was sort of what it felt like last week.”

McIlroy’s current winless drought of 16 months dating to the 2019 WGC-HSBC Championship and failure to win a major since 2014 begged the question, is his best golf behind him?

“No, I don’t think you can ever think that. I’ve talked about this before; you have to be an eternal optimist in this game, and I truly believe that my best days are ahead of me, and you have to believe that. There’s no point in me being out here if I didn’t think that. That’s just not part of my psyche or anyone’s psyche out here,” he said. “I think that’s the difference between people that make it to the elite level and the people that don’t, because they don’t think that way. I certainly believe that my best days are ahead of me, and I’m working hard to make sure that they are.”

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If you plan it, they will come: Ladies National Golf Association creates new event for mid-ams, seniors

If you plan it, they will come: Ladies National Golf Association creates new event for mid-ams, seniors

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
If you plan it, they will come: Ladies National Golf Association creates new event for mid-ams, seniors https://ift.tt/3qvB2sD

Ellen Port is perhaps best known for her seven U.S. Golf Association championships (four U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateurs and three U.S. Women’s Senior Amateurs). But the 59-year-old Port, who didn’t take up the game until she was in her 20s, still remembers the first national title she won. It was the 1994 Women’s TRANS National Golf Association Amateur Championship.

Port claimed the TRANS title the same year she made her debut on the U.S. Curtis Cup team. Twenty years later, Port captained the Americans to victory in the Curtis Cup.

“Personally, I hold all those associations in such a high regard because I didn’t have the luxury—I knew nothing about golf,” she remembers. “And I didn’t have junior golf. All I had was the Western and the TRANS and really, the North & South.”

The TRANS became the Ladies National Golf Association in 2019 and next month, Port will play in the first LNGA Mid-Am Senior Championship. The new event will be played April 18-21 at Anthem Country Club in Anthem, Arizona. The LNGA Amateur retains its usual late-July slot and will be played at the Country Club of St. Albans in St. Louis.

Ellen Port holding her fingers showing how many times she has won after the final round of match play at the 2016 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at Wellesley Country Club in Wellesley, Mass. on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. (Copyright USGA/Matt Sullivan)

Male mid-amateur and senior players can tee it up all over the country most weeks of the year if they choose to do it. Those kinds of opportunities haven’t existed for female players who compete as amateurs into their mid-20s and beyond, but that’s starting to change.

“We don’t need 40 of them,” Port noted, “we need four or five of them.”

Port is thrilled to see an historic organization like the LNGA get behind this sector of women’s golf. The first TRANS Amateur was played in 1927 at Blue Hills Country Club in Kansas City, Missouri. Names like Patty Berg, Babe Zaharias and Betsy Rawls dot the early pages of the organization’s history books.

Now it’s evolving to meet the current needs of women’s golfers.

“If we could just four or five reoccurring awesome events so that mid-ams coming out of college and people can say, ‘Gosh I’ve got something I could work for,’” Port said. “Because you can’t take the competitiveness out of a person, they want to keep competing.”

Add the LNGA Mid-Am Senior to a lineup that includes fall USGA events – the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur – plus the Amateur Golf Alliance Women’s Amateur, a tournament open to female amateurs age 23 and over that was played for the first time in 2020, and the North & South Women’s Senior Amateur.

The World Amateur Golf Ranking points on offer at the LNGA’s new event makes it perhaps even more attractive.

“We realized that the USGA was looking for a few high-level playing events that are WAGR events,” LNGA President Joanne Walker said. “So this championship, having the inaugural mid-amateur and senior, is offering another WAGR event to those two age groups. There’s just not that many out there so we felt like this was a good fit for the players and for the organization to provide that opportunity.”

Sue Ewart, a former women’s college golf coach at Long Beach State who sits on the LNGA’s Board of Directors, said the LNGA Mid-Am Senior Championship grew from feedback that came from a handful of seniors who played in the LNGA Amateur at Tennessee Grasslands in Gallatin, Tennessee, in July 2020.

“We were picking their brains and they said we love this championship but we’re not competitive with these kids anymore. Is there any way we can get a second set of tees?” Ewart remembered.

When the LNGA added the new Mid-Am and Senior Championship to the schedule, it retired the Senior Four-ball. There’s a cap of 120 players for the LNGA Mid-Am Senior Championship, and ideally that will include half seniors, half mid-ams. The mid-amateurs will play the tournament at roughly 6,250 yards while the seniors will play it at about 5,900 yards.

“I remember when I was a mid-am player, I was looking for things to play in,” said Ewart, who was a member of the USGA Women’s Committee from 1994-2004 and the Rules of Golf Committee from 2005-2008. “You’re kind of caught – it’s too hard to compete with the college players or the young juniors and you’re not old enough to play with the seniors.

“It’ll catch on.”

The tournament schedule isn’t the only thing changing at the LNGA. The St. Louis-based Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association has stepped in as the administrative body of the LNGA, an organization that didn’t have any real physical space. In fact, before MAGA stepped in, the outgoing LNGA president would ship boxes of equipment – trophies, banners, tournament operations gear – to the incoming president. MAGA officials can also help with tournament software and logistics.

Meghan Stasi during the 2015 South Atlantic Amateur (Sally) in Ormond Beach, Fla.

The LNGA Mid-Am Senior Championship’s spot on the schedule is a big bonus – and important if its going to draw a strong field.

For Megan Stasi, a four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champ who competes frequently not just in her home state of Florida but nationally and internationally, it’s nice to not have to have to make a decision about what to play because two major events overlap.

“During the summertime, everything just goes into overload,” Stasi said. “A few weeks in July are always overlapping with four or five different tournaments. You can only pick one. If it’s the North and South, if it’s the Florida Am, they always seem to overlap and you can never really play in more than one.

“I think it’s a great idea to do April. There’s nothing really else to play in for the mid-ams and seniors except maybe locally.”

Now, Port notes, it’s time for players to throw their support behind the event.

“Now it’s it up to us,” Port said. “If we don’t play in it, it will go by the wayside. . . . The next three or four years are going to be important.”

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No, Canada: COVID concerns lead officials to nix RBC Canadian Open for second straight year

No, Canada: COVID concerns lead officials to nix RBC Canadian Open for second straight year

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
No, Canada: COVID concerns lead officials to nix RBC Canadian Open for second straight year https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Lingering concerns with the border tied into COVID-19 have forced PGA Tour officials and organizers of the RBC Canadian Open to cancel the event for the second straight year.

The event, which was established in 1904, is currently the third-oldest national championship in golf behind The Open Championship and the U.S. Open.

“Even with an extensive health and safety plan in place, we faced a number of significant logistical challenges that led us to this decision,” said PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis. “While we are disappointed to cancel Canada’s National Championship, we are thankful to our partners RBC and Golf Canada – along with our Canadian fans — for their unwavering support and cooperation throughout this process. We look forward to the RBC Canadian Open returning to our schedule next year.”

The most recent Canadian Open was held in 2019 at Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Ontario, when Rory McIlroy won in his debut there. This year’s event had been scheduled for June 7-12 at St. George’s Golf & Country Club in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke.

While organizers of the event were working on a comprehensive plan to revive the event for this year, current quarantine restrictions and other logistical issues made the tournament’s completion uncertain.

“Together with RBC and the PGA Tour, we set a decision timeline based on the most up-to-date travel and quarantine restrictions in effect along with consideration for the Tour’s ability to pivot and successfully fill a significant date on the schedule,” said Golf Canada CEO Laurence Applebaum. “It was also important to be respectful partners to the health leaders and government officials who have helped inform our operation protocols and provided great direction on this journey. The timing simply did not align for us and we are deeply disappointed that the celebrated return of the RBC Canadian Open will have to wait another year.”

The PGA Tour will host a separate FedEx Cup-official event for this year, the details of which are expected in a few weeks.

The 10 PGA Tour events that were canceled in 2020

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Check the yardage book: TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course

Check the yardage book: TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course

Golfsolutions March 09, 2021
Check the yardage book: TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Each year the golf world gets a close look at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, during the Players Championship, but how well do you really know the layout?

For example, what’s the carry distance to the front of the green at the famed island-green No. 17, or the distance from the tee to the back of the green?

With Puttview’s detailed yardage books, you can see such details for all 18 holes of the Pete Dye masterpiece that ranks No. 1 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list, No. 11 for all resort courses in the United States and No. 22 in the U.S. for all Modern Courses built in or after 1960.

Thanks to fairway maps provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players face in this week’s Players Championship. Check out each hole below.

from Golfweek https://ift.tt/3rICs4c