Former LIV Pro Player Finds New Home (And 9 Other Stories!)

Welcome back to the finish line Monday, where it’s always golf season, no matter what the USGA says. Golf news!

10 golf stories of the week

We have a one-handed putter. Chipper with crossed hands. A Lambo. A person who leaves LIV. A group of guys play on the PGA Tour. We’re already at the end of two seasons (shout out Stuart Zink) and two more coming this week. We have content, disputes and content disputes. Here are 10 golf stories from this week.

1. Pushing the knife with both hands is dead.

story: Well, that’s a dramatic title. but Adam Schenk He won his first PGA Tour event, the always chaotic Butterfield Bermuda Open, in particularly dramatic fashion.

This win was huge for Schenck’s career. He stood up to the changing, blustery conditions and survived all of Port Royal’s glorious and wacky challenges to win by one stroke. Schenck was proud of his victory, but also relieved that he could plan his next two years as an exempt member of the PGA Tour instead of planning Q-school. It’s all great.

But in the grand scheme of the golf world, the craziest thing about Schenck’s victory is that he was just developing his putting strategy as he went, finding something new every night in his hotel room. When the wind wasn’t too strong, he putted with one hand. He placed his left hand on the edge of the shaft just below his grip and completed his five-foot winner. I found the whole thing oddly inspiring and self-aware; when asked about his putt on the 72nd hole, he attributed it to his hotel room (“When I pushed toward the window, it was kind of left to right”) and shared his process:

“I was just practicing with one hand in the hotel room. I thought, ‘One hand isn’t going to work because it has the wind sign on the Weather Channel app. It’s already windy here and it’s going to be real It’s windy.

“So I kept my left hand on it. The only thing you can do is align it, bring it back smoothly, then release it and hit it off the center of the putt. If it goes in, it goes in, awesome. The last hole was windy and I did the same process… If you’re going to miss it, you’re going to miss it pretty quickly, but don’t sit there and think about it forever.”

what does that mean: We’re not just in the age of the mallet putter, but we’re also in the age of the broom putter, the arbitrary-grip age, the one-handed putter. The questions “Are you willing to look stupid” and “Will you make more putts” seem to have increasingly intertwined answers.

2. Rory does it all.

story: Rory McIlroy He lost in a playoff at the DP World Tour Championship this weekend, but his runner-up finish was enough to earn him the big prize: his seventh Dubai title and his fourth in a row. This puts him seventh in the career rankings, one point ahead of Seve Ballesteros and one point behind Colin Montgomerie.

what does that mean: McIlroy won everything he wanted this year. Well that’s not quite Literally true. What he hopes most is to win the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. But McIlroy has made it clear what matters most at this point in his career, and that’s winning majors, winning at iconic venues, winning meaningful tournaments and winning the Ryder Cup – especially on foreign soil. He also talked about wanting to catch Montgomerie as the greatest European golfer in modern history.

So this year’s haul – the Hedge at Pebble Beach, The Players Championship, the Masters to complete a major, the Irish Open at home, the Ryder Cup on the road and the Battle of Dubai – checks a lot of boxes.

“When you’re still playing, doing too much can be detrimental. But yeah, sometimes I find myself thinking about where I am in the game and where it’s going to end up,” he said after the game. “Again, as a 36-year-old guy who hopefully has a lot of years left in him, I don’t think too much about it. But yeah, you can appreciate that, it’s been a pretty good run so far.”

3. Matt Fitzpatrick turned things around.

story: Matt Fitzpatrick Not underperforming in the men’s division every week, but his performances fell well below his lofty standards earlier this year. He parted ways with his longtime caddy, dropped out of the top 100 in DataGolf’s rankings, and is in doubt as to whether he will make the European Ryder Cup team. But when summer arrived, Fitzpatrick did just that: He had eight eighth-place or better finishes in 12 races starting in the last week of June, ending with Sunday’s playoff victory.

what does that mean: It means Fitzpatrick’s hard work continues to pay off and he’s leaving no stone unturned in his constant pursuit of low numbers. It’s also fitting that Schenck’s breakout came the same week as his signature cross-hand cutter, which he won during an up-and-down postseason run. Golf is about a lot of things, but the most important thing is to work hard until you find what really works.

“This is the lowest level I’ve ever experienced on a golf course and obviously when that happens you feel like things have to change,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s easier said than done now, the only way is up from there, but easier said than done.

“To end the year and win this race is very special and I really want to make sure I thoroughly enjoy it.”

4. Lynn Grant is happy and winning. It’s unclear which came first

story: Lynn Grant Winning Annika was especially cool because she and host Sorenstam are both Swedish. It was her second win on the LPGA Tour and first in what she calls a “rollercoaster” year.

what does that mean: Which means Grant has, for at least a week, found the answer to a vexing riddle in the life of a professional golfer. When asked how she bounced back from the multiple missed cuts this season, she cited the pursuit of herself and herself, which I found interesting:

“To be fair, I don’t know,” she said. “Golf and this lifestyle is always a roller coaster, trying to figure out how to get better. Sometimes it just takes a step back and looking at yourself and asking, ‘Am I happy? Are the decisions I’m making making me happy?’

“That’s what makes golf easier sometimes. You have to be strong and confident in those decisions to be able to say, maybe I’m not playing this week because I’m not feeling it, because it doesn’t make me happy, or just change your plans or how you do things more to be true to yourself.

“For me, I think that’s been really important this year. Like I’ve had to change a lot of things in my daily life, and I think these things are just good things to do because other people are doing them, as opposed to thinking, ‘What do I really believe in? What do I think will make me a better person and a better player?'”

5. The LPGA pro played an ace and won a Lamborghini — and more.

story: Brooke Matthews Let her first career ace really count. She hit the 143 9-iron on the 12th hole at Pelican Golf Club to secure a two-year lease on a Lamborghini Urus and donate $20,000 to charity. This also placed her among the top 60 in the CME Globe competition, qualifying her for the season-ending championship for the first time.

what does that mean: Sometimes golf is about inner contentment, sometimes golf is about shiny expensive cars, and sometimes it’s both.

“It’s crazy. All week I was thinking, ‘I want to win a Lamborghini,'” Matthews said. “I still can’t believe it. I went black. I can’t wait to watch it on film because I still can’t remember it.”

Here you go, Brooke:

6. The PGA Tour just welcomed 10 new faces, including a former player with liver disease

story: After the DP World Tour season ended, the 10 professional players who just received PGA Tour cards for the 2026 season were finally determined. Here’s an interesting list that includes the No. 2 team Laurie KanterWinning the DP World Tour title for the second consecutive season and enjoying some post-LIV success; he will now become the first former LIV golfer to earn full-time PGA Tour status. Sean Zucker And more:

what does that mean: Returning to the PGA Tour from LIV is easier if you’re starting from scratch; because Kanter wasn’t a PGA Tour member to begin with, he didn’t suffer the same level of nasty suspension.

Plus, a few others look really good too – including Rasmus Nergaard-Petersenhe tied for 3rd and finished ninth with an eagle-birdie-par-birdie-birdie score.

7. Henrik Stenson is back

story: Back to the DP World Tour, that’s it. The Swedish Grand Slam champion was demoted from LIV Golf and the Majesticks, a team he captained. According to good reports from Bunkered, he has paid the outstanding fine (or LIV paid the fine on his behalf) and he will be excluded from the “Legend” category. He will plan to play on Tour for the first time since resigning his membership in 2023.

what does that mean: Stenson is expected to captain the 2022 European Ryder Cup. It’s astounding to think of the sliding door moment that occurred when he turned down the LIV captaincy; what happened next was Luke Donald took his place, leading the team to victories in Rome and New York, propelling him into a new respectable stratosphere in the golf world, and undoubtedly making a fortune in the process.

I wouldn’t dare speculate on how Stenson feels now about his decision to leave; I’m sure the situation was complicated at the time, and remains so. But it will be interesting to hear him reflect on the process if we see and hear more from him at his old track in the coming months.

8. One LPGA rookie announced her arrival, while two others announced their departures.

story: It’s that time of year of endings and new beginnings. So even if you are 24 years old Miyu Yamashita Won the LPGA Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year Award, Elizabeth Sokol and Caroline Inglis The two announced their retirement at the ages of 30 and 31 respectively, bidding a fond farewell to the tour.

what does that mean: The NFL may be king, but NFL players are obsessed with golf. We are in a great place in this corner of the world.

News from Seattle

Headquarters completed on Monday.

It’s official: As a Washington resident, my official handicaps are closed for the season. While I didn’t really have an offseason training plan to reverse years of steady decline, I was eager to develop one. stay tuned.

See you next week!

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.

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