Whoa… it’s July. The last week in June was a busy one in the golf world. Nate Lashley stole the show with a six-shot victory in Detroit, but there was drama at every level of professional golf this weekend.

 

Lashing Out

#LiveUnderPar is not just a suggestion, ladies and gentlemen. The inaugural Rocket Mortgage Classic brought birdies aplenty with Nate Lashley emerging as the champion. Lashley got into the event as an alternate and made just three bogeys in 72 holes on his way to a six-shot win. Leaderboard

Nate Lashley has a poignant backstory that we covered in this newsletter last Friday and that Will Knights discussed in his article on developmental tours for our website last year. Suffice it to say that this is a big win for a guy who has spent years facing adversity and paying his dues.

Notes

  • The Rocket Mortgage Classic was also a life-changing week for Doc Redman. The 2018 U.S. Amateur champion shot rounds of 68-67-67-67 to finish second at Detroit Golf Club. Redman Monday-qualified for the event, and the runner-up earns him enough FedExCup points for temporary membership on the PGA Tour (plus $800k).
  • Both Lashley and Redman earned spots in the 2019 Open Championship with their performances. 
  • The pride of Bratislava, Rory Sabbatini, earned his fifth top 10 of the year with a T-3 in Detroit. Three of his last five events have resulted in top-six finishes. There is still plenty of time before the 2020 Olympics, but Sabbatini might actually snake his way into the Tokyo games.
  • Wes Roach tied for third with Sabbatini after shooting rounds of 67-68-67-68. This is his first top 10 on the PGA Tour since 2014.
  • Brandt Snedeker, Patrick Reed, Brian Stuard, Joaquin Niemann, and Cameron Tringale rounded out the top 10.
  • Viktor Hovland shot 64 on Sunday to vault up into a T-14 finish. The Oklahoma State standout has now made the cut in his first two PGA Tour events as a professional. He also made cuts at the Masters and U.S. Open this year.
  • After starting the week with rounds of 66-65, Cameron Champ shot 75-73 over the weekend to plummet to T-46. Champ has gone more than four months without a top-40 finish.

 

Senior U.S. Open

It appears that the Champions Tour is Steve Stricker’s territory now. Captain Stricker shot rounds of 62-64-66-69 at Warren Golf Course at Notre Dame, winning the U.S. Senior Open by six shots over David Toms and Jerry Kelly. Stricker also took the first major of the season, The Tradition, by six shots. He is the first Champions Tour player ever to capture two majors in the same season by six shots or more (h/t Justin Ray). Leaderboard

 

Utes

The Korn Ferry Tour was a bunched affair in Utah this weekend. Nearly a dozen players were in contention down the stretch, but it was Kristoffer Ventura who emerged the champion. First-time winner Ventura defeated Joshua Creel in a three-hole playoff. Ryan Brehm, Charlie Saxon, and Kevin Dougherty all missed the playoff by one shot. Utah Championship Leaderboard

 

Quick hooks

Sung Hyun Park shot a final-round 66 to clip a trio of players and win the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. Leaderboard

To complement Lashley’s and Stricker’s six-shot victories, Christiaan Bezuidenhout won the Andalucía Masters on the European Tour by… well, six! Jon Rahm, Adri Anraus, and Alvaro Quiros were among those closest to Bezuidenhout. Leaderboard

 

On the links

A roundup of some of the golf journalism that caught our eye in the past week… 

My Shot: Slugger White (Guy Yocom, Golfworld)

→ Yocom’s “My Shot” features are almost always must-reads, and this one with Slugger White provides striking insight into the mind of a rules official on today’s ultra-player-oriented PGA Tour.

LPGA has an abundance of stars but scarcely a stage (Karen Crouse, New York Times)

→ Crouse criticizes the LPGA’s lack of significant and sustained media exposure. 

Gay men are nearly invisible in golf, but we’re not non-existent (Eamon Lynch, Golfweek)

→ Week in, week out, Lynch’s columns are among the wittiest and most original in the business, and this one wraps up Pride Month with a reflection on the invisibility of gay men in the golf world.

 

The Latest

Shotgun Start: The Lashley story, the false advertising of Cam Champ, and FedExCup point problems

After a full weekend of golf we begin in the obvious starting point: Zach Johnson’s tumble out of the top 100 in the world rankings and if his Kaboom Baby! equipment is to blame. Rory Sabbatini’s top-five finish in Detroit then leads to a serious take about how his switch in nationality has screwed the International team at the Presidents Cup. Then we get to Nate Lashley winning the Rocket Mortgage Classic, an event that was an unqualified success in a market that deserved a tournament. Lashley’s win and his incredible story also provokes a take about the Tour’s forced and overdone marketing being borne out of insecurity about its product. Then we get to someone who’s been the beneficiary of that forced marketing: Cam Champ. We discuss his backboarding attempt on Saturday, the Tiger-esque coverage treatment, and how it’s all a bit unfair to him. Doc Redman’s big week is reviewed, but not without a rant on how FedExCup points are mis-allocated. We finish by ripping through Steve Stricker’s dominant major win, the Andalucía Masters, the LPGA’s Arkansas party, and a glimmer of hope for the “Methheads” in Utah.

 

Pro Shop

Did the ever-present grandstands at Detroit Golf Club this past weekend have you yearning for the strategic and aesthetic pleasures of wide golf courses? We have just the t-shirt for you. Check out our official “Width & Angles” t-shirt (in both heather and vintage navy) in The Fried Egg Pro Shop.