Golf’s major championships have always stood out from the crowd, but perhaps now more than ever.
Just as a relatively stable status quo seemed to have been established in the men’s professional game, Tuesday’s announcement of a peace deal between golf’s warring factions ironically plunged it back into turmoil.
Rory McIlroy admitted he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” and still “hated” LIV Golf, stressing that those players who he felt had done irreparable harm to the PGA Tour and started litigation against it would not be welcomed back with open arms.
On the other side of the coin, some of the players who pocketed eye-watering sums of money to join the breakaway understandably gloated on social media as it looked like they would be able to have their cake and eat it after all.
Exactly how the shock merger of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour’s commercial operations with those of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls LIV, shakes out remains to be seen.
But for now, the Masters, US PGA Championship, US Open and The Open potentially offer welcome refuge from the world of secretive deals and morally questionable sources of money which threaten to permanently taint the world’s biggest Tours.
Which brings us to the 123rd US Open at Los Angeles Country Club, a largely unknown venue in professional golf which staged the Los Angeles Open five times, most recently in 1940.
The North Course did also host the Walker Cup in 2017 as a United States team featuring current world number one Scottie Scheffler, two-time major champion Collin Morikawa and PGA Tour winners Will Zalatoris and Cameron Champ thrashed Great Britain and Ireland 19-7.
Six years on, Scheffler will contest the first US Open in Los Angeles since 1948 on a remarkable run of form as he bids to claim a second major title following his Masters triumph in 2022.
As well as winning the prestigious Players Championship and defending his title in the WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler has finished runner-up in the US PGA Championship and been no worse than 12th in 13 events in 2023, despite being hampered by a decidedly misfiring putter.
Third place in the Memorial Tournament was achieved on the back of gaining 20.74 strokes from tee to green, the second-best performance since the PGA Tour began tracking such data 20 years ago.
And his ball striking needed to be outstanding because Scheffler lost 8.58 strokes to the field on the greens, ranking him dead last of those to make the cut at Muirfield Village.
“I feel like I’m making progress,” Scheffler insisted after his closing 67. “I can start feeling the ball coming off the blade again, which is good. Even today, I just go through my round and I’m like ‘how did some of these putts not go in?'”
If Scheffler finds the answer to that question he will be a hard man to beat, but he faces stiff competition from the likes of US PGA winner Brooks Koepka and Masters champion Jon Rahm, perhaps along with the likes of course record holder Max Homa and defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick.
A fit-again Koepka bounced back from the disappointment of failing to convert a 54-hole lead at Augusta National to win his fifth major title at Oak Hill, looking every inch the player who won the US Open in 2017 and 2018.
Afterwards, Koepka was more concerned about his own achievement than the implications of becoming the first LIV player to win a major, and just 16 days later that debate was seemingly rendered moot by news of the shock merger.
As for what happens next, all bets are off.
Lauren Coughlin holds first-round lead at the Chevron Championship
After shooting an opening 66 at the Chevron Championship in Texas on Thursday, American golfer Lauren Coughlin has a first-round lead for just the second time in her career.
Coughlin went bogey-free with three birdies on the front nine and three on the back nine on the first day of the tournament.
She hit 14 of 18 greens, recorded 10 one-putts and needed just 26 putts overall to get through her first round.
“I think my husband and I had a really good game plan, and I wasn’t trying to be too aggressive out there. Just trying to take a 30-footer or, I might have a chip here or there, just knowing that that’s the appropriate place to be,” she said.
Her husband, John Pond, recently started caddying for her.
She added: “Not trying to be too aggressive in certain spots and taking what, certainly there’s some holes, good pins and stuff that you can go at stuff, but overall, I was just trying to take what it would give me and not trying to force anything.”
Coughlin is making her 11th appearance in an LPGA Tour major championship this week. The American has made the cut in just two of her 10 previous starts in majors, but finished T15 and T16, respectively, in the 2023 and 2022 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Two strokes behind Coughlin are two-time LPGA Tour winner Marina Alex, eight-time JLPGA winner Minami Katsu and major champion Nelly Korda, who is chasing her fifth win in as many consecutive starts on Tour.
Defending champion Lilia Vu withdrew from the Chevron Championship moments before her first-round tee-off on Thursday due to a back injury.
Scottie Scheffler out to win at Hilton Head after clinching second Masters title
Scottie Scheffler insists he will not be taking things easy in the RBC Heritage in the wake of his second Masters title in three years.
Scheffler justified his billing as pre-tournament favourite with a four-shot victory at Augusta National on Sunday, after which he made a brief trip home to Dallas before heading to Hilton Head.
It was the world number one’s third victory in his last four starts and increased his lead over Rory McIlroy at the top of the rankings to more than six points, but the 27-year-old has no intention of just making up the numbers this week.
“I won the tournament last week and now we’re here and it’s Wednesday and we’re all even par again,” Scheffler told a pre-tournament press conference.
“It seems like to me in my head that everything starts over each week, so it doesn’t matter what I’m ranked going into the week. It only really matters kind of where you sit at the end of the week.
“So going into this week it’ll be a bit more challenging than it was last week just because I think playing in contention at majors and especially winning takes a lot out of you.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on after the Masters on Sunday and you get home very late and emotionally I think I’m a bit drained.
“But we’re starting at even par, so I’m going to go home this afternoon and get as much rest and recovery as possible and show up tomorrow ready to play.
“I was on a radio show earlier today and Colt [Knost] asked me if I thought about withdrawing and I said, no, I committed to this tournament and I’m not showing up here just to walk around and play a little golf.
“I left my pregnant wife at home to come here and play in a golf tournament. I am here to play and hopefully play well. I’m not here just for fun.”
Scheffler stressed how keen he was to get home to his wife Meredith during his post-victory media duties, so much so that a picture of him wearing the green jacket at a bar in Dallas on Sunday evening warranted an explanation.
“I don’t know if I’d actually been to that place before,” Scheffler said.
“There was another tavern around the corner that I’d been to a few times and it’s a nice place but shockingly it wasn’t open Sunday at 1:30 in the morning. This place was open.
“On the plane ride home I was with my manager Blake and my coach Randy and then I had four of my good buddies with me, and I don’t remember who suggested it but it seemed like a good idea.
“When Meredith picked us up at the airport it still seemed like a good idea and Meredith was down so we went for probably 20 minutes and went home.
“Took a few photos, had a drink and then went home and went to bed.”
Nelly Korda looking to add major to winning streak at Chevron Championship
World number one Nelly Korda insists she is taking nothing for granted as she bids to secure a remarkable fifth straight win and second major title in the Chevron Championship.
Korda took a seven-week break after winning her first title of the year, the LPGA Drive On Championship, in January, and returned to win three events in the space of three weeks, including beating Ireland’s Leona Maguire in the final of the T-Mobile Match Play.
The 25-year-old is the first woman to win on four consecutive starts since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 and is also the first to enter a major on such a streak since Annika Sorenstam.
View this post on InstagramSorenstam’s run came between the end of the 2004 season and the start of 2005 and the Swedish star went on to win the Kraft Nabisco by eight shots.“In 2021 I went on a run, and then in 2022 and 2023 golf really humbled me,” admitted Korda, who won four times in 2021, including her sole major title to date in the Women’s PGA Championship.
“There are ups and downs. Every athlete goes through the rollercoaster, and that is what makes the sport so great. You mature and grow so much and learn more about yourself.
“You never take these weeks for granted. You always try to appreciate and become very grateful for them.
“It makes just all the hard work so worth it. But I think I’ve learned so much about myself even through the losses.”
Korda has had one week since her last victory to recharge the batteries ahead of the first women’s major of the season at Carlton Woods in Texas, where she finished a shot outside the play-off won by Lilia Vu last year.
“Last week I was so tired,” Korda added. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that tired. I would wake up and I was ready to go back to bed but I couldn’t. It’s almost to the point where you just can’t sleep, you’re just overly tired.
“I made sure to prioritise any rest. My parents are on top of me to not overdo it.
“I always want to practice more, do more to be better. So made sure to prioritize my rest and making sure to go to sleep early and sleeping a lot, too. That’s the number one thing for recovery. Overall this week I feel really good.”
Korda and Vu have been drawn together for the first two rounds alongside Australia’s Minjee Lee, while English amateur Lottie Woad, winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur earlier this month, is in a group with Madelene Sagstrom and Gabriela Ruffels.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
