🏌🏻Why Did JT Change His Gear?

Good morning! Round 1 of the Memorial is underway at Muirfield Village Golf Course - you can watch all the live action on Golf Channel.

Tee Times of Key Players (ET):
🏌‍♀10:05 am: Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay
🏌‍♀10:20 am: Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland
🏌‍♀10:30 am: Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg

Today's Trivia: Who's the most successful player at the Memorial Tournament? Answer at the end of the mail.

⛳ This day in history: On this date in 1936, Tony Manero won the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in New Jersey. He was the surprise winner, by two shots over Harry Cooper.

19th Hole
Clubhouse Conversations

ALBATROSS
Amateur Inspires Justin Thomas To Change Gear For Memorial

Justin Thomas will use a new Scotty Cameron prototype putter at the 2024 Memorial Tournament after meeting up with Gordon Sargent – the No 1 ranked amateur golfer in the world – at a local gas station.

Here's how it all transpired.

📌 Why the Change? Thomas is currently ranked 159th in Strokes Gained: Putting on the PGA TOUR and felt it was time for a change.

After hearing Thomas' requirements, Paul Vizanko (Director of Scotty Cameron Putter Fitting and Player Development) suggested him to discuss a possible solution with Sargent.

📌 Who is Gordon Sargent? Sargent is entering his Senior year at Vanderbilt University and is currently the No 1-ranked Men’s amateur golfer in the world. He’s already competed in four PGA TOUR events, including the 2023 Masters and the 2023 US Open.

📌 The First Meeting: Sargent and Thomas live within driving distance to each other in Alabama, they met up at a local gas station. Since Sargent doesn't need his putter right now, he handed it over to Thomas for this week's Memorial Tournament.

📌 What makes Sargent's Putter Unique? The alignment marks, which feature a single dot nearest the golf ball at address, plus a line running parallel to the topline are the unique features in this putter.

While on-site at the Memorial for his practice rounds and testing sessions, Thomas eventually had a new prototype putter built, inspired by the shape and alignment features of Sargent’s putter.

Thomas will keep Sargent’s putter around as his backup, and give it a go this week at the Memorial with the newly-made Scotty Cameron G.S.S. (German Stainless Steel) prototype.

TWEET
Worth Mentioning

EAGLE
This Is How DeChambeau Plans To Improve Ball Striking

Bryson DeChambeau has become one of the most polarizing figures in golf thanks to his unorthodox method of looking at how to play the game. He has focused on physics, weight training, and analytics to improve his game, and it has culminated in a Major Championship, and so far this year, two great performances at The Masters and the PGA Championship.

He intends to further improve his ball-striking (the strongest part of his game) with this unique drill - here's how it goes.

🚀 The method requires players to learn the feel of their club without using their eyes.

🚀 With your eyes shut, you will have to rely on your instincts and swing to feel the center of the clubface, which will then lead to better contact.

🚀 This will help you get on plane and result in better ball striking metrics, leading to more distance, less dispersion, and lower scores.

Click here to watch the full video.

LOCKER ROOM
What else is making news

Olympics: Mixed team golf competition likely to be added as an event at Los Angeles 2028.

Sponsors’ Corner: The PGA TOUR announced that ISCO Industries, a total piping solutions provider, will assume title sponsorship through 2027 of the ISCO Championship, which will be played at Champions at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, July 8-14.

LPGA Tour: Karrie Webb returns to the LPGA this week for the first time in two years for one big reason - to prepare for the British Open at St. Andrews.

Merger Timeline: Rory McIlroy believes that men's pro golf could return to some sort of equilibrium from 2026.

TV Ratings: The final round of the US Women's Open broadcast drew 943,000 viewers on NBC, a huge drop of 637,000 from last year’s 1.580 million. Final round of the PGA Tour's RBC Canadian Open earned a 1.4 rating and 2.07 million viewers on CBS, down 7% in ratings and 8% in viewership from last year.

BIRDIE
These USGA Championship Stats Are Unbelievable

When the USGA holds the 2024 US Open next week at Pinehurst No 2, it will be the 124th time the governing body has conducted its marquee event and the 1,000th championship overall that the USGA has held - take a look at these remarkable stats from the first 999.

⛳️ Winners: 738 golfers have won a USGA Championship. 161 players have won multiple titles - most recently Yuka Saso claiming her second US Women’s Open victory last Sunday.

⛳️ US Open Entries: The official tally stands at 438,684. Since 2011, the number of entries for the US Open has exceeded 9,000 every year, with 10,052 filing an application to try to play at Pinehurst, just shy of the record 10,187 in 2023.

⛳️ Most Wins: Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods hold the record of winning the most number of USGA Championship titles - 9. Behind Jones and Woods, two golfers have claimed eight USGA titles—Joanna Gunderson Carner and Jack Nicklaus.

⛳️ Most Appearances: Carol Semple Thompson, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and a seven-time USGA winner, holds a record unlikely to be broken - she has played in 121 USGA events till date.

Following the US Open at Pinehurst, the Pennsylvania native will have played in 12.1 percent of all USGA championships.

⛳️ Lowest 18-hole Score: A year ago Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele made headlines by shooting 62s less than an hour after each other at Los Angeles Country Club to set the all-time scoring record in a US Open.

But the lowest score ever shot as part of a USGA championship belongs to Billy Horschel when he shot a 60 at Chaska (Minn.) Town Course during the first round of stroke play at the 2006 US Amateur.

Read the full article.

DRIVING RANGE
How To Stop Hanging Back

In today's video, we show you how to stop hanging back and get through the golf ball at impact for the perfect follow through.

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