Round 3: THE PLAYERS
May 12 2012
4:03 pm
Winning in back-to-back weeks
Watch: Fowler's long birdie putt
Rickie Fowler drains a 33-foot putt at the par-4 10th during Saturday's third round.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Rickie Fowler has made a big move in Saturday’s third round – and that’s put him into position to join a rare group of players.
Just three times in the history of THE PLAYERS Championship has the eventual champion also won the previous week on the PGA TOUR.
Fowler, fresh off Sunday’s win at the Wells Fargo Championship – the first TOUR win of his career – could make it two straight if he can complete the deal on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass.
PLAYERS CHAMPS WHO WON PREVIOUS WEEK
| Player | Year | Week prior to PLAYERS | THE PLAYERS victory |
| Tiger Woods | 2001 | Won Bay Hill Invitational | Won by one stroke at TPC Sawgrass |
| Tom Kite | 1989 | Won Nestle Invitational | Won by one stroke at TPC Sawgrass |
| Raymond Floyd | 1981 | Won Doral-Eastern Open | Won playoff at Sawgrass CC |
Round 2: THE PLAYERS
May 11 2012
9:00 pm
Can Fowler win two in a row?
By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — After missing the cut in two previous appearances at THE PLAYERS Championship, Rickie Fowler’s main goal was to make it to the weekend.
Mission accomplished; now he’ll try to win for the second time in as many weeks.
Fowler shot a 3-under 69 Friday and enters the weekend just five shots off the lead.
Three years ago, that was the deficit facing Henrik Stenson going into the final round. He shot 66 and won. Fowler still has two rounds to play, and he seems to be riding the momentum of his first career PGA TOUR win a week ago at the Wells Fargo Championship.
“The game is good and I’ve been swinging well,” Fowler said. “It was fun playing with Tiger and kind of going back and forth like we did and feeding off each other to help get some rounds together.”
Fowler did that with four straight birdies in the middle of his round to match Woods, starting on the par-5 ninth hole, where he laid up and hit a wedge to 10 feet.
Over the next three holes, Fowler hit every approach inside that distance.
Then things got, uh, interesting.
Fowler followed with bogeys on Nos. 13 and 14 before bouncing back with a birdie on the par-5 16th and another on the iconic par-3 17th, where he hit pitching wedge to 8 feet before making the putt.
A bogey on the final hole, where Fowler missed a 6-footer for par, put a damper on an otherwise good round. But Fowler still left with a tee time on the weekend here for the first time in his career.
“It was nice to kind of get into a rhythm and get some momentum going there on the back nine,” said Fowler, who missed just three greens in regulation. “I’ve been driving it well all year and am finally getting some iron shots closer to the hole and making some birdies.
“I was focusing on the back nine making sure we were going to give ourselves a chance this weekend.”
He certainly has that.
Round 1: THE PLAYERS
May 10 2012
10:45 am
Early highlights: Fowler, Simpson
Fowler birdies No. 10
Rickie Fowler hits his approach shot on the par-4 10th to 39 feet then makes the putt for birdie.
Simpson birdies No. 10
Webb Simpson hits his approach on the par-4 10th to 16 feet then makes the putt for birdie.
News: Equipment notes
May 9 2012
10:46 am
Inside TaylorMade’s new fitting lab
By John Schwarb, PGATOUR.COM
With the getup Sergio Garcia wore, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a video game shoot or a Hollywood special effects studio.
Instead, he was in a clubfitting bay. But no ordinary one.
Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass, TaylorMade Golf officially opened its “TaylorMade Performance Lab” on the west end of the range in a building shared with the TOUR Academy, one of just a handful of flagship fitting facilities nationwide, with dazzling capabilities.
In a two-and-half-hour full fitting session, players can go through a putter fitting in a special room equipped with six cameras, tracking every nuance of a stroke, and a full-swing session in a bay where the swing is turned into a 3D image.
That’s what the 2008 PLAYERS champion went through Tuesday, wearing 34 reflective pins all over his body that were picked up by the cameras to build his 3D doppelganger. The pins were fitted on shoe coverings, knee pads, around the waist on what looked like a weight belt, around the chest, on Garcia’s elbows and hat and – weirdest of all to him – on a wristwatch-like band.
Garcia doesn’t wear a watch when he plays.
With just a few swings of a generic wedge, 6-iron and driver, computers build a 3D image and measure all the usual clubfitting data – clubhead speed, launch angle, yardages – plus a few new ones like hand speed, which can help determine the right shaft.
In this type of fitting, there’s no sampling of club after club, tweaking lofts and shafts and other elements. The computer determines every facet of the stick you should be hitting – naturally, recommending TaylorMade clubs and balls (eventually it will even recommend shoes, based on footwork) – and a session outside on the grass is used to confirm the computer’s finding.
“The feel is important, but sometimes you can feel something you can’t see,” Garcia said. “This (system) tells you what’s going on.”
The computer had Garcia’s swing circa-2003 saved, and the move Garcia made Tuesday was laid directly over it for a comparison.
“I can totally see how the swing has the same signature move, but it’s gotten tighter, not as much movement,” Garcia said, satisfied.
Amateurs that go through the fitting can have their own swing put on top of Garcia, Dustin Johnson and several other TOUR pros from the Nationwide, Champions and PGA TOUR.
A full fitting costs $350, and TaylorMade officials say that amateurs that go through the fitting then buy an average of $900 worth of clubs, which are also built at the facility with all the same equipment used in traveling vans that follow the PGA TOUR.
As TaylorMade’s director of global business development Todd Fraser said, it’s “instant gratification.”
ARNIE’S ARSENAL: In a special exhibition at last week’s Insperity Championship on the Champions Tour, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player teamed up in an 18-hole scramble. Palmer put an exclamation point on the day with a 25-foot birdie putt at 18, using an original Odyssey White Hot 2-ball putter.
GoLo TIME: Rickie Fowler scored a long-awaited first win on TOUR at the Wells Fargo Championship with a rather mixed bag (see below), plus a putter that has only been in the bag for three months.
Fowler visited the Scotty Cameron Putter Studio in California before the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in February and switched to a Cameron Select GoLo putter, believing it helped his aim on putts inside 15 feet and allowed him to just “aim and fire”, as he told Titleist reps.
At Quail Hollow, he tied for 21st in putts per green in regulation.
WINNER’S BAG: Fowler at the Wells Fargo Championship:
Driver: Cobra AMP (Mitsubishi Diamana Whiteboard shaft, 9.5 degrees)
Fairway wood: Ping i20 (15 degrees)
Hybrid: Adams 9031 Pro Black (20 degrees)
Irons: Cobra AMP Pro Prototype (4-9)
Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design Spin Milled (PW, 50, 55, 59 degrees)
Putter: Titleist Scotty Cameron GoLo
Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
News: THE PLAYERS
May 8 2012
8:00 pm
Watch: Fowler interview
Interview: Rickie Fowler
Rickie Fowler talks about his first victory and his thoughts on competing in his third PLAYERS.
10:49 am
Tip from Travis: Get Funk’s address
As excited as I am regarding Rickie Fowler’s win at the Wells Fargo Championship, I am even more ecstatic about Fred Funk winning for the first time in two years on the Champions Tour at the Insperity Championship. Now of course I am a bit biased, being that Fred has been a student of mine for the last year. However, understanding everything that Fred has went through to get back into the winner’s circle, it truly is an amazing story.
So to you, Rickie, I apologize for this week’s blog but look forward to writing about many more wins to come – perhaps at this year’s PLAYERS Championship.
Like so many here in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., we all watched in anticipation as Funk birdied four of the last five to win by one over Tom Lehman. Over the last year, Fred has worked really hard to get his game back to the highest level. One of the keys to his game was to create an environment with all shots where he could find the bottom of the swing more instinctively.
With putting and his short game, the importance lied in the address position where with the full swing it came into understanding his body motion.
TRAVIS’ TIP
Putting – Many times over the years I have discussed the relevance of the right forearm at address. What’s important is keeping the right forearm is on the same plane angle as the putter shaft. When this occurs, the putterhead has a much better chance to move on a natural arc with the bottom occurring at impact.
Short game – One of the keys to the bottom of the arc in short game is to get the sternum over the golf ball. Like many players, Fred has a tendency to get the sternum behind the ball, which can lead to some inconsistency. With the sternum more over the ball, the clubhead bottoms out consistently past the ball, leading to more instincts around the green.
Full swing – One of the keys for Fred is to keep his head centered during the swing. One of the most common errors for better players is their head moves too much off the ball (righthanded golfer – to the right). Therefore, the key is to feel the lead shoulder move on a steeper angle and/or the feeling as if the spine leans a bit towards the target. This keeps the head more centered and allows once again a more repeatable divot through impact.
This full-swing thought is something you are seeing a lot in today’s game. Much of this comes from the study of biomechanics in the golf swing. Leaders in biomechanics in our industry include Dr. Phil Cheetham, Dr. Rob Neal, Andy Plummer, Mike Bennett and others that have done a great job in enhancing how the pivot is taught. Although the pivot is not everything, it has great value when controlling the bottom of the swing arc.
Travis Fulton is the Director of Instruction at the TOUR Academies at TPC Sawgrass and the World Golf Village. For more information on the TOUR Academy, click here.
News: TOUR Notes
May 7 2012
2:47 pm
Shots of the Week
Wells Fargo, Insperity Championship
Check out the top five shots of the week from the Wells Fargo Championship and the Insperity Championship featuring highlights from Steve Flesch, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Arnold Palmer, and Webb Simpson.
1:19 pm
Caption this: McIlroy, Fowler
What is going on the 18th green during the Wells Fargo Championship playoff? Leave your captions for this image in our comments section below, and please, keep it clean!
To see the best photos from last week, click here.
12:57 pm
Matchups set for THE PLAYERS
The pairings have been unveiled for this week’s PGA TOUR Matchups Game on Facebook. You can check out the Matchups for the THE PLAYERS Championship below, or on the PGA TOUR’s Facebook page.
Participants have until 6 a.m. ET Thursday to make their picks. Log on to the PGA TOUR Facebook page and click the Matchups link to make your picks for this week, or to sign up.
GO TO FACEBOOK PAGE TO PLAY MATCHUPS GAME
| Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson | In dozens of starts, have just one PLAYERS win each |
| Rory McIlroy vs. Rickie Fowler | Rematch of last week’s epic playoff at Wells Fargo |
| K.J. Choi vs. Sergio Garcia | Two former champs each won title in a playoff |
| Hunter Mahan vs. Ben Crane | Close friends both have game for TPC Sawgrass |
| Vijay Singh vs. Davis Love III | Love III has two titles here. Singh looking for first. |
9:15 am
Live interview schedule
Tuesday, May 8
Rory McIlroy: 10 a.m. ET
Tiger Woods: 2 p.m. ET
K.J. Choi: 2:45 p.m. ET
Phil Mickelson: 3 p.m. ET
Hunter Mahan: 3:30 p.m. ET
Rickie Fowler: 4 p.m. ET
Wednesday, May 9
Luke Donald, 9 a.m. ET
David Toms, 1 p.m. ET
PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem, 2:30 p.m. ET
Davis Love III, TBD
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