14:36 - Sergio makes. Harrington does too and is the 136th Open Champion winner and the Champion Golfer of the Year.
14:35 - Sergio's birdie putt somehow misses high! It looked in from the get-go, but it slides just outside of Padraig's ball!! If Sergio misses, it's over. If he makes, Padraig must make to win outright.
14:34 - Harrington's par putt rolls three to four feet past the cup, right on Sergio's line.
The Adams Idea a3 Hybrid Irons are the latest offering intended to blend irons with hybrids in a seamless set. Adams Golf has been an innovator in the blended-iron/hybrid market for a few years. Their concepts have been ahead of industry trends.
While the general golfing public hasn't picked up on the usefulness of such sets I see the wisdom in seamlessly pairing irons and hybrids. The days of your average golfer carrying a 2-iron (or 3-iron, or 4-iron…) are officially over. It's become an anomaly to see a 2-iron in a professional's bag. Hybrids hit the ball longer and higher than similarly lofted irons. The biggest draw for the average golfer is that hybrids are much easier to hit than irons.
Adams Golf obviously sees the potential of blended sets for making golf easier for the average player. The Idea a3 Hybrid Irons are intended to fill this niché. See how well they do…
This week's article is a group effort, as your friendly Sand Trap staff gives you their take on the Open Championship. Although perhaps with no hope of any degree of accuracy beyond what you'd get with the dart board approach, we'll bring our knowledge and experience in golf to bear on predicting the winner and a few other things.
Read on to hear our thoughts, and feel free to add your own!
Jonathan Byrd wins and flies to Carnoustie, Se Ri Pak wins, and Phil loses in grand Lefty fashion at Loch Lomond. Also this week: Nike Tour pros hate the ball, Tadd Fujikawa turns pro, Carnicety(??), our Open Championship predictions, and more in this week's episode of Golf Talk.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed for our podcasts here or download Episode 065 as an MP4 file. For those who want to subscribe to us in iTunes, click here.
For this week's Show Notes - links to articles we discuss in the show and additional information - just read on.
One day I would love to have an extended conversation with somebody who works in an equipment van on the PGA Tour. I'm betting the stories of the tiniest tweaks they are asked to make week in and week out could fill months of Bag Drops.
In the absence of such juicy fodder, however, I'll continue where we left off last week with some of the things I've seen, heard, and read over many years playing the game. None of this may help you break 70 this year, but it may help you explain to your playing companions why you've suddenly been able to morph your standard 40 yard blocked banana into a sweet five-yard baby fade.
So here goes…
Jonathan Byrd fired a final-round 66 while Tim Clark threw away a three-shot lead on Sunday. Byrd's win makes him the winningest American under 30 and earned him a trip to Carnoustie for The Open Championship.
Earlier in the day, Phil Mickelson was up to his old tricks again by blocking his driver left on the 72nd hole as well as the first playoff hole at the Scottish Open in what cannot be a good tune-up leading up to this week's festivities.
This week we have a recap of the John Deere Classic, Woody Austin staying home, and Carnoustie might end up being a pushover (I'm not buying it).
Adams Golf has become known primarily for their presence on the Champions Tour and for making some of the most forgiving irons and hybrids in the game.
More recently they've leveraged their success in hybrids to pioneer integrated hybrid/iron sets as we wrote about here. That they're the leading hybrid brand on the combined PGA, Champions, and Nationwide Tours is extraordinary given their limited professional endorsements.
Given this background, I was somewhat surprised last fall when at a press gathering I was introduced to and hit their new forged iron, a true player's cavity back blade. I was impressed. That's why when the chance came to do a full review of these clubs I jumped at it. Here's what I found out…
The Erie area first heard about the golf course that would become Whispering Woods Golf Club in early 2002. In late 2005, a golf course began taking shape among the houses of the Whispering Woods residential development. Seeded in two phases during 2006, the semi-private course opened May 25, 2007 with less than the desired 100 members. A rate drop for both membership and public play only 11 days later lured the remaining members, necessitated a waiting list 70+ names long, and increased public play on the course dramatically.
The course, like so many others, lays claim to the title of "best in the area." I tested the assertion - is the course the best public course in the Erie area? Read on to find out…
Ian MacCallister, Titleist NXT-hater extraordinaire, recently registered the domain name "nxtube.com" and has launched an anti-NXT blog. Ian, the chairman and founder of Golf Designers Against Distance (GDAD), tells us that the site will feature a blog, persuasive video anti-technology rants from his mother's basement, and will spread the word about how easy the distance and feel of the new NXT Tour and NXT Extreme make the game of golf.
MacCallister has put a lot of energy into educating consumers about the dangerous golf balls from Titleist, but is apparently ramping up efforts in light of Titleist's new releases. The updated versions of Titleist's NXT duo will launch worldwide Monday, July 15.
