Author: staff

Butterfield Bermuda Championship: Austin Smotherman Wins in Monday Playoff

The week’s best finish came on a Monday morning. Austin Smotherman won the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in a sudden-death playoff, edging out Séamus Power, after wind at Port Royal Golf Course pushed the finish past Sunday. The official leaderboard shows Smotherman and Power tied at 16 under.

Three players sat two shots behind Power at 14 under: Taylor Moore, Ben Silverman and Corey Conners. When the wind was up, almost nothing separated the top of the board. Power gets the toughest break of the bunch. He finished a single shot short and then lost in the extra session.

If you’re curious what Smotherman had in the bag, Golf.com has his WITB breakdown. He leaned on a “mixed bag of tools” to handle the wind, and that’s the part I’d pay attention to if you play coastal courses. In the wind, the clubs you can hit low and control matter more than the ones with the biggest numbers on the box. I’ll leave the full list to the WITB, but read it before you start tinkering with your long irons and hybrids this fall.

BMW Ladies Championship: Yuri Yoshida Holds Off Hye-Jin Choi and Haeran Ryu

Yuri Yoshida won the LPGA Tour’s BMW Ladies Championship at 17 under par, one stroke clear of Hye-Jin Choi and Haeran Ryu, who tied for second at 16 under. With two players one shot back, Yoshida had to keep making birdies down the stretch. Anything less and it’s a playoff.

The chase pack stayed close. Minsol Kim and Hyo Joo Kim tied for fourth at 15 under, so four players finished within two shots of the winner. Scores in the high teens suggest the course was gettable, and the players who won it were the ones who kept pace on the greens.

DP World Tour Genesis Championship: Yuto Katsuragawa Wins by Two

On the DP World Tour, Yuto Katsuragawa took the Genesis Championship at 13 under par. Frederic LaCroix and Martin Couvra tied for second at 11 under, two shots back, and Filippo Celli and Jorge Campillo shared fourth at 10 under.

Two strokes was the biggest winning margin of the week across the four tours, so it was a clean result for Katsuragawa. The T4 pair finished three back. Nobody in that group ran away with it, but nobody caught him either.

PGA Tour Champions Stifel Charity Classic: Rory Sabbatini Edges Darren Clarke

On PGA Tour Champions, Rory Sabbatini won the Stifel Charity Classic at 14 under, one stroke ahead of Darren Clarke at 13 under. Steven Alker, Mario Tiziani and Henrik Stenson tied for third at 12 under, two back.

That’s a lot of big names stacked behind the winner. Clarke was closest, but Sabbatini held on by a stroke. With three more players at 12 under, he couldn’t coast on the way in.

Golf News This Week

Mexico Open Odds Lead With Wyndham Clark

Looking ahead, Wyndham Clark is the betting favorite at the 2026 VidantaWorld Mexico Open. The two-time U.S. Open champion, who won the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, tops the odds to start the week. A favorite is never a lock, as Bermuda just showed, but his major record explains why oddsmakers put him first.

Bermuda Purse and Playoff Viewing Details

If you want the money side of Smotherman’s win, Golf.com has the full purse and payout breakdown, including the winner’s share. It also posted the Monday TV and streaming details for the sudden-death finish, which is handy whenever a playoff spills into Monday.

Equipment and Industry Notes

A few gear items caught my eye this week.

Dream Putt from Jeffrey David Golf, LLC has opened Early Access for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, bringing a putting game to virtual reality. I haven’t tested it, so no verdict yet. A putting trainer lives or dies on how well it matches real green speeds and reads, and I’d want to see that before recommending it. If I get time with it, I’ll report back.

For the classic-club crowd, True Spec’s Retro Rebuild series reached Episode 4 with the Callaway Big Bertha driver. It starts by collecting baseline measurements, which is the right way to rebuild a club.

In industry news, VisionTroy named Eric Slack, CCM, PGA, strategic advisor for club development. He brings more than 25 years of private club leadership. Future Champions Golf expanded its partnership with the GPS Junior Tour in Thailand, creating pathways to the 2027 FCG Callaway World Championship and the inaugural FCG Global Games. And One More Roll Golf Media launched two new shows, “Different Lies” and “The Arena Game,” pairing PGA Professional Brendon Elliott with Division I golfer Bretton Mackiewicz.

What Golfers Are Talking About

Over on r/golf, the biggest thread of the week was about LIV Golf. A popular post points to court records showing LIV paid $15 million to retain executives before filing for bankruptcy. I’m only relaying the thread’s headline, so read the underlying records before drawing conclusions. People are clearly talking about it.

The feel-good story is a first-ever hole in one from a golfer who picked up the game a little over a year ago to lose weight. He’s down more than 100 pounds since May 2025, and the ace came from 110 yards with one bounce. Brilliant! The other thread worth a laugh asks what you’d do if your playing partner shows up with a leaf blower to find fall fairway lies. And if you want the full conversation, the Monday weekend recap thread is the place to start.

What to Watch Next

Four tours, four winners, and none of them won by more than two strokes. If you play in the wind, read Smotherman’s WITB before your next round. After that, keep an eye on the Mexico Open odds, where Wyndham Clark leads the market. More next week.

Buick LPGA Shanghai Results: Ruoning Yin Edges Hye-Jin Choi

The tightest finish of the week came on the LPGA Tour. Ruoning Yin won the Buick LPGA Shanghai at 11-under, one shot clear of Hye-Jin Choi at 10-under. With the winning number only 11 under, a single birdie or bogey anywhere in four rounds decided it.

Amy Yang finished third at 8-under, three back of the winner. Rio Takeda (-7) and Carlota Ciganda (-6) rounded out the top five. The course held its ground. Put the 11-under winning total here next to the 21-under number in the DP World Tour event below, and you can see which one asked more of the players.

DP World India Championship Results: Eugenio Chacarra Wins at 21-Under

This one wasn’t as close. Eugenio Chacarra took the DP World India Championship at 21-under, two shots ahead of Daniel Hillier at 19-under. The two of them left everyone else well behind.

Adrian Meronk and Angel Hidalgo tied for third at 15-under, four behind Hillier and six behind Chacarra. Gregorio De Leo was fifth at 13-under. With the top two at 19 and 21 under and third place at 15, Chacarra had to keep making birdies through the final round to hold off Hillier. If you like watching someone go low and stay there, this was the leaderboard to follow.

SAS Championship Results: Vijay Singh Wins on PGA Tour Champions

On the senior circuit, Vijay Singh won the SAS Championship at 9-under, two clear of Ernie Els at 7-under. Alex Cejka and Tag Ridings tied for third at 6-under, and Mario Tiziani was alone in fifth at 5-under.

The 63 year-old Singh finished three ahead of the third-place pair, and Els was the only player within two of him. Nine under isn’t flashy, but it was enough for a two-shot cushion over a guy who has been near the top of this tour’s leaderboards for years.

Golf News: Charley Hull, Rules Guy and Butterfield Bermuda

Off the course, Charley Hull told Golfweek the story of her first tattoo. The headline gives you the flavor: she calls it a drunken mishap and asks, “What? I got a tattoo?” It’s a light read, and Hull is one of the more entertaining LPGA players to hear from.

For the rules nerds, Rules Guy takes on the ball sitting on the edge of the cup. The short version from the rulebook: you get a reasonable amount of time to walk to the hole, then up to 10 more seconds to see if it drops. Worth knowing before your next playing partner starts a staring contest with a lip-out.

If you want to lower your scores, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Kellie Stenzel walks through five tricky lies and how to handle each one. Those shots cost most of us strokes, so a few minutes of reading before your next round is time well spent.

Looking ahead, the PGA Tour heads to Bermuda. Golf.com has the full TV schedule, streaming details and tee times for the 2026 Butterfield Bermuda Championship, so you can plan your viewing.

And if your bag is falling apart, Golf.com picked five golf bags it would buy right now. Your bag hauls 14 clubs, a rangefinder, a rain jacket and your snacks every round, so it deserves more thought than most of us give it.

Golf Equipment News: JumboMax, WMX, TRUE linkswear and PROTOCONCEPT

The most interesting item this week is a grip. JumboMax Golf Grips introduced the JMX UltraLong, a 15-inch grip that the company says offers three points of contact for control, consistency and comfort. That length seems aimed at players who want a longer hand platform, but I’d want to try it before offering a verdict. I haven’t hit it yet and I don’t have pricing in front of me, so I’ll report back if I get one in my hands.

On the putter side, WMX Grips added MXS Pink and Dark Navy to its ANERO putter grip lineup. It’s just a color update, so if you already like the ANERO, you now have two more choices.

For apparel and footwear fans, October means TRUE linkswear’s annual Dead Golfer collection is back with a new lineup of footwear, apparel and accessories.

On the access side, Future Golf is the first partner of Access Powered by Troon, connecting Future Golf members to more than 60 participating U.S. locations. If you want to play more courses without joining a dozen clubs, it’s worth a look.

Finally, PROTOCONCEPT Golf’s RR Wedges were in play for a second-place finish at the Japan Open, and the company’s prototype irons added a top-five finish on the Japan Senior Tour. Tour results make a fine talking point, but I’d still want numbers from my own testing before recommending a wedge.

What r/golf Was Talking About

The Monday weekend recap thread is still the best place to see what everyone shot. One user posted about a first international round at Rondebosch in Cape Town, South Africa, calling it an average course but a very scenic one, with plenty of birds. Another thread asked what you eat before an early tee time, or whether you skip breakfast altogether. And one post pleaded for Zyn users to stop doing this in the club washer. That one needs no commentary: clean up after yourself.

What to Watch Next

The PGA Tour is in Bermuda this week. Check the tee times and set a reminder. And if you need a new bag or want to read up on tricky lies before the weekend, the links above are worth a click.

PGA Tour: Baycurrent Classic

Michael Brennan won the Baycurrent Classic. The full leaderboard didn’t come through in my data this week, so I won’t guess at a winning score or list runners-up I can’t verify. The final numbers are on the PGA Tour leaderboard at ESPN. For anyone who cares about equipment, though, Brennan’s win is the story of the week. More on that below.

It also kept a quirky streak going. Softspikes says the Baycurrent Classic victory extends its record of a PGA Tour win in every week of 2026. Nobody buys cleats because of a streak, but it’s a fun reminder that what’s under your feet ends up on the biggest stages too.

Michael Brennan Details Titleist’s Prototype GTS 3-Wood

This is the one I’m most curious about. After the Baycurrent Classic, Brennan talked about the prototype Titleist GTS fairway wood he’s been playing. When a tour winner puts an unreleased 3-wood in the bag and then discusses it openly, Titleist probably has something good.

I haven’t hit this club, and the summary I have doesn’t include specs, so I won’t guess at head volume, loft or shaft options. Here’s why you should care anyway: fairway woods are where a lot of golfers quietly lose strokes, and a 3-wood that works off the tee and the deck is worth paying for. Once there’s a price, a release date and some numbers, I’ll pass them along.

DP World Tour Bans LIV Golf Players for 2027, Ending Ryder Cup Eligibility

This is the biggest news of the week. DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings told BBC Sport that players who participate in LIV Golf 2.0 won’t be allowed to play on the European circuit in 2027, which ends their Ryder Cup eligibility.

The Ryder Cup part is what gives the ban teeth. Players could point to it as a reason to keep a foot in both worlds, and for anyone staying with LIV, that door now looks shut. On Reddit, the r/golf thread on the ban is already speculating that Niemann and Hatton will leave, and wondering where Dustin Johnson and Cam Smith, who is reportedly seeking a contract release, end up. That’s fan chatter, not reporting. Still, it shows where the conversation is going.

Can LIV Golf Survive Without Jon Rahm?

The timing is rough for LIV. This week’s Tour Confidential asks whether LIV Golf can survive without Jon Rahm and what his departure means for his PGA Tour prospects. Add the DP World Tour ban and LIV has a talent problem and an access problem at once.

My take: a league that leans on a handful of marquee names gets hurt badly when one walks, and worse when other tours start closing doors. I’d be surprised if we don’t see more movement and exits at LIV before 2027 starts.

Cole Hammer Misses Out on a 2027 PGA Tour Card

Golf is cruel, and Cole Hammer’s week is a good example. He had one hand on a 2027 PGA Tour card before a poor final round at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and late bogeys left him “dejected.” Fair word for it. One bad Sunday kept him off the big tour. Anyone who has bogeyed the last two holes to miss a number knows the feeling, just at much higher stakes. Hammer is young, so this won’t be the end of his story.

Your Golf Shoes May Be Costing You Speed

This one you can act on today. Johnny Wunder visited the FootJoy Lab at the Titleist Performance Center and came away convinced that finding the right golf shoe matters more than you think. I agree. Most golfers will spend $600 on a driver without blinking, then grab whatever shoes are on sale. Your feet are your connection to the ground, and if you slip or slide in the swing, you’re losing speed. Get fit for shoes the way you’d get fit for a shaft.

More Headlines From the Week

LPGA in Los Angeles: The JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro returns to Wilshire Country Club in 2027, and the entire LPGA field will get complimentary lodging for tournament week. That’s a real perk for the players, and the kind of thing that helps a stop draw a strong field. Volunteer registration is open now at the tournament website.

GCSAA gift: The Kendrick B. Melrose Family Foundation is marking the GCSAA Centennial with a $2 million donation, the largest single gift in GCSAA Foundation history. Superintendents are the reason you get decent turf to play on, so it’s good to see that support.

Jeremy Ranch: Landscapes Golf Management has earned a multi-year extension to operate Jeremy Ranch Golf & Country Club in Park City, Utah, a private club that used to host a tour event.

Texas holiday golf: Horseshoe Bay Resort has announced its “Big & Bright: A Hill Country Holiday” lineup, which includes a 50-foot tree lighting and the first Holiday Pickleball Classic. Worth a look if you’re planning a family golf trip.

From the r/golf Crowd

For the lighter side, the Monday weekend recap thread is where r/golf members swap stories from their own rounds. My favorite this week was a golfer who rolled in a long walk-off putt in front of a wedding party while racing sunset on a nicer course than his usual muni. Not gonna lie, that sounds pretty great.

What to Watch Next Week

Keep an eye on LIV roster moves, since the DP World Tour ban could force decisions quickly. I’m also watching for more on Brennan’s GTS 3-wood. If Titleist puts a price and date on it, you’ll hear it here first.

PGA Tour: Austin Smotherman Wins the Bank of Utah Championship

Austin Smotherman won the Bank of Utah Championship, the second event of the PGA Tour’s fall schedule, and with it his first career PGA Tour title. I don’t have the final scoreboard in front of me this week, so I won’t quote a winning number or margin. You can check the full results on the PGA Tour leaderboard. Here’s why this one is worth your attention anyway.

Golf.com’s recap of the week points out that Smotherman wasn’t the only winner at Bank of Utah. The fall events mean different things to different players. Some guys are chasing a first trophy, some are protecting status, and some just want momentum before the new season. A first win beats all of those, and Smotherman got it.

Smotherman’s Gear: L.A.B. Golf VZN.1i Putter and a 7-Year-Old Hybrid

This is the part I like best, because it’s about equipment. Smotherman’s win was the first PGA Tour victory for L.A.B. Golf’s VZN.1i putter, the company’s newest mallet. A new putter getting a tour win this quickly is what a marketing department dreams about. I’m staying measured, though. One week doesn’t tell you whether a putter will fit your stroke, and I don’t have pricing or availability details for the VZN.1i yet. If you’re a mallet player who has been curious about L.A.B.’s approach, put it on your list for a fitting. Just don’t buy it because of a leaderboard.

The other note comes from his winning WITB. Smotherman carries a 7-year-old hybrid. That’s a long time in this industry, and the equipment companies would love for you to believe a club is obsolete after two seasons. Yet a tour winner still trusts a hybrid that old. If you have one you hit well, don’t let a launch event talk you out of it.

DP World Tour, LIV Golf, LPGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions

I don’t have verified results for the other four tours this week, and I’m not going to guess. For the latest, try the official sources: the DP World Tour leaderboard, the LIV Golf leaderboard, the LPGA tournaments page and the PGA Tour Champions leaderboard. Once the final numbers are confirmed, I’ll come back with winners and context.

Tom Kim Wins at the Asian Games

The biggest non-tour story of the week is Tom Kim’s win at the Asian Games. Golf.com’s writers called it life-altering in the latest Tour Confidential. I won’t speculate on what it changes for him, since I don’t have details beyond that framing. Golf rarely gets this kind of national-pride stage, so a win here carries real weight. The same discussion also wrapped up the 2026 Presidents Cup, so it’s worth a read if you want the leftover storylines from that event.

TGL Signs Jackson Koivun to Motor City Golf Club

TGL made an offseason move you may have missed. It signed Jackson Koivun, who won the 3M Open in his third pro start, to Motor City Golf Club, and Golf.com explains why the signing matters. The league has put its energy into landing young talent with name recognition, and Koivun fits that. Whether you love the indoor format or not, the roster decisions will tell you if it has staying power. I’ll be watching how the teams use him.

Equipment and Industry News

Club Champion at Kiawah Island. Club Champion is expanding to Kiawah Island, South Carolina, with a new mobile fitting studio. If you’re headed to Kiawah for a golf trip, a fitting is a smart way to use some downtime. It’s the best money you can spend in golf, and it beats guessing off a rack.

USGA GHIN app upgrade. The USGA has unveiled an upgraded GHIN mobile app with an easier interface. It’s pitched as a companion for before, during and after every round. If you post scores you’ll be using it anyway, so take a look at what’s changed.

Skechers World Champions Cup. Captains Darren Clarke, Retief Goosen and Justin Leonard have revealed their teams for the Skechers World Champions Cup, which supports Shriners Children’s. Major champions and World Golf Hall of Fame members headline the three squads, and Leonard is among the new Skechers brand ambassadors.

Club culture and apparel. One piece for club managers and members looks at how racquet sports can grow club culture and memberships, using North Carolina’s Hope Valley Country Club as the model. On the apparel side, Johnnie-O has debuted its 2026 Lodge Collection, with new fall colorways aimed at easy layering.

What r/golf Is Talking About

This week’s Monday weekend recap thread is the place to see how everyday golfers spent their weekends. Two other threads stood out. One poster described a bad experience at a 27-hole public course, even though the staff there is usually pleasant. Another golfer is planning a first vacation in several years to Maui and wants at least three rounds if the weather cooperates. My answer to that one is simple: book the rounds early and don’t overthink it!

The Takeaway

If you’re deciding what to do with your own bag, Smotherman’s week gives you two answers. A new putter is worth a fitting if you’ve been struggling on the greens, and an old hybrid is worth keeping if it works. I’ll be back next week with confirmed results from the tours I couldn’t cover here.

It was one of those Presidents Cup finales you’re going to be talking about for a long time. Team USA came from three points down on Sunday at Medinah Country Club to win by four, and the Internationals, still chasing their first win in a dozen editions of this event, will be replaying the back half of singles for a while. They had the lead and the momentum going into Sunday, and then the red numbers started going up all over the board. I’ve watched a lot of these team events over the years, and a turnaround that big doesn’t come down to one bad putt. What makes it sting even more for the Internationals is that the best player on the property this week was wearing their colors.

Presidents Cup: Team USA’s Sunday Comeback at Medinah

Tom Kim was absolutely the story of this Presidents Cup, even from the losing side. He led all players with four points for the Internationals, going 3-1-0 alongside Si Woo Kim in the team sessions and then taking down an in-form Wyndham Clark in the second singles match on Sunday. He was 1 down through seven and 3 up by the 14th. Then he left before the trophy ceremony to catch a flight to Japan for the Asian Games, where a gold medal would earn him an exemption from South Korea’s mandatory military service. That’s the kind of week Tom Kim had. Four points in a losing Presidents Cup effort, and he’s already on his way to the next team event with even more on the line. The guy is something else, and if you haven’t been paying close enough attention to what he’s been doing on tour, this week should have fixed that.

The Internationals’ collapse in singles was painful to watch if you were rooting for them. Seven tipping-point moments in those final singles matches cost them a win they looked like they had in hand. That’s the thing about team golf — one or two matches going the wrong way can trigger a cascade, and once the momentum shifts in a venue like Medinah, it is very hard to get it back. The Internationals will be frustrated with this one for a while, and rightfully so.

One of the better moments of the week came from Scottie Scheffler, who conceded a 32-foot putt to Nico Echavarria to halve the hole after a fan yelled during Nico’s backswing. That’s sportsmanship that actually means something. A 32-footer is not a gimme by any definition, and Scheffler didn’t have to do that. The fact that he did says something about how these players approach the game when the cameras are rolling and when they aren’t. I’ve long believed that how you behave on a golf course mirrors a lot about who you actually are, and Scheffler came out of this one looking very good.

If you want to know what putters were doing the heavy lifting for Team USA’s Sunday charge, Golf.com has a good breakdown of the flatsticks that showed up when it mattered most. Worth a look if you’re in the market, because there’s nothing quite like seeing what tour players are actually gaming under that kind of pressure.

Tournament Leaderboards

Full results from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LIV Golf, LPGA Tour, and PGA Tour Champions were not available at time of publishing this week. Check those links directly for the latest finishes and we’ll have full coverage up as results come in.

Equipment & Gear: BirdiLens GV1 Smart Glasses Are Interesting

The piece of gear news that actually caught my attention this week was the BirdiLens GV1 Golf Smart Glasses. The concept is simple: augmented reality glasses that project hole maps, yardages, hazard information, and AI-assisted putting guidance right in front of you on the course. No looking down at a watch, no pulling out a rangefinder, no fumbling with a phone. The data is just there in your field of vision as you walk up to your shot.

I’ll be honest — I’m skeptical of anything that promises to fix your game through a heads-up display until I’ve actually hit shots with it. The idea has been floated in various forms for years, and the execution usually falls short of the pitch. But the BirdiLens GV1 looks like it might be further along than most of those earlier attempts. We’re going to try to get a pair for testing and I’ll report back with actual on-course numbers. If the yardages are accurate and the interface doesn’t distract more than it helps, this could be genuinely useful for a certain kind of player. Stay tuned.

Rules Corner: Do You Have to Search for Your Ball?

Here’s a rules question that comes up more often than it should: are you actually required to search for your original ball if you’ve already hit a provisional? The short answer is no. The rules give you three minutes to search if you choose to, but there’s no obligation. If you’d rather play your provisional and move on, that’s your right. The ball only becomes the ball in play if you find your original before the three-minute clock runs out. If you’d prefer not to find it, just don’t look very hard. This comes up constantly in casual rounds and even in competition, and it’s worth knowing cold before you’re standing in the rough trying to remember it.

Bridges Cup Gear at Trump Turnberry

The Bridges Cup is coming up at Trump Turnberry, and the team gear for both the U.S. and International sides looks legitimately good. Team events always produce interesting kit because the budget is different and the designers tend to have more fun with it than they would on a standard retail line. Three days of match play at Turnberry with swag like that — not a bad week.

New Brand Alert: Ugly Rabbit Golf

Ugly Rabbit Golf just launched with a simple message: play ugly, have fun. It’s a golf lifestyle brand aimed squarely at everyday golfers who aren’t grinding the range for three hours before a round and aren’t particularly concerned with what their swing looks like on video. The market for that kind of brand is bigger than the equipment companies tend to acknowledge, and there’s room for a label that leans into the reality of recreational golf rather than the aspirational version. I don’t have pricing details yet, but I’ll keep an eye on what they’re doing.

That’s the week. The Presidents Cup delivered exactly the kind of Sunday drama that makes team golf worth watching, Tom Kim is playing out of his mind, and there’s some genuinely interesting gear news coming up as we head into fall. Check back for full tournament results and we’ll have more testing updates shortly.

It was a busy week in professional golf, and if you pay any attention to equipment — which, if you’re reading this site, you almost certainly do — then Jacob Bridgeman’s two-stroke victory at the Biltmore Championship is the story you need to hear about first. Bridgeman is putting together a legitimate season, and what he had in his hands when he ran away from the field on Sunday is worth knowing about. There’s also a genuinely ugly rules situation out of the DP World Tour that’s worth your time, a heartwarming moment out at Pebble Beach, and the Presidents Cup at Medinah is right around the corner. Let’s get into it.

PGA Tour: Biltmore Championship

Jacob Bridgeman picked up his second win of the 2026 season at the Biltmore Championship, pulling away on Sunday for a two-stroke victory. Two wins in a season is a strong campaign, and he’s clearly playing the best golf of his career right now. But the gear detail you’ll want to know is that Bridgeman did it with a new TaylorMade driver in the bag — you can dig into the full Jacob Bridgeman WITB breakdown over at Golf.com for everything he was playing. On the green, he had a SuperStroke Zenergy 2.0 PT putter grip underneath his hands, and SuperStroke was quick to flag the win — as they should be. If you’re shopping for a putter grip and want to know what a Tour winner is holding on a Sunday back nine, now you know.

Two wins gets you into some real conversations about who’s playing the best golf on Tour right now. Bridgeman should be in the Presidents Cup discussion for future cycles if he keeps this up.

DP World Tour: BMW PGA Championship

The big talking point out of the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship this week had nothing to do with the winning score — it was Robert MacIntyre absolutely unloading on a rules decision he received on Sunday. MacIntyre was hit with an embedded-ball ruling that he called flat-out “ridiculous,” and from the sound of it, he believes it cost him dearly in the final round. According to Golf.com’s coverage of the incident, the ruling sent him spiraling at a critical moment in the tournament.

I have long thought that the embedded ball rule is one of the more frustrating in the game, because the outcome can hinge on a matter of millimeters and a referee’s judgment call on a golf ball sitting in turf conditions the player had absolutely no control over. MacIntyre isn’t wrong to be frustrated. Whether the rule itself needs a look is a longer conversation, but when a Tour-level player at a marquee event is that openly upset about a decision, it’s worth paying attention to. The R&A and USGA have made strides on rules simplification in recent years, but stuff like this is a reminder there’s still work to do.

PGA Tour Champions: PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach

Out at Pebble Beach, the 2026 PURE Insurance Championship wrapped up and produced one of the better stories you’ll hear out of a golf tournament all year. Vaughn Taylor was paired with a teenage amateur who was struggling early in the week, and before their round Taylor offered her a lesson. That’s a classy move by itself. Then, as Golf.com reported, she went out and made a hole-in-one. You can’t write that. Good on Taylor for taking the time — that’s what this event is supposed to be about.

On the pro-junior competition side, Naomi Raymundo of First Tee – Monterey County and Charlie Haney of First Tee – Manhattan took home the pro-junior titles, paired with Stewart Cink and Rory Sabbatini respectively, according to The Golf Wire’s event recap. The PURE Insurance Championship does a good job of putting young players in real competitive situations alongside Tour professionals, and the Vaughn Taylor story is a pretty good illustration of why that format works.

Looking Ahead: 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club

If you haven’t started paying attention to the 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club in Chicago yet, now is the time. The rosters are set, the TV schedule is out, and you can get all the streaming and broadcast details through Golf.com’s Presidents Cup hub. Medinah hosted the 2012 Ryder Cup, so the venue knows how to handle a team competition, and this one should be good. The Tour Confidential Presidents Cup preview is worth reading if you want some informed takes on how the matchups might shake out.

The International Team has been competitive in recent editions and has some real weapons in the lineup. Clear your schedule for Medinah.

Quick Hits

A couple of other things worth flagging this week: Callaway fairway woods are on clearance at Golf Town in Canada right now, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to know if you’re north of the border and have been thinking about a 3-wood or 5-wood upgrade. Don’t sleep on it if the timing works. And for anyone putting together a golf travel itinerary, the 6th Sheraton Mallorca Golf Tournament is a stay-and-play package getting some attention — Mediterranean-setting golf with a competitive amateur format attached. The Mallorca region has solid course options, and if Europe is on your radar for 2027, it’s worth a look.

That’s the week. Bridgeman is the story — two wins, a new TaylorMade driver, and a SuperStroke grip doing the work on the greens. Get your Presidents Cup calendar cleared for Medinah, and keep watching the MacIntyre embedded-ball situation on the DP World Tour. More gear coverage coming this week.

It was a week that delivered drama on both sides of the Atlantic. Shane Lowry put on one of the most dominant performances you’ll see anywhere on tour, and Europe’s women pulled off a remarkable comeback to lift the Solheim Cup. There’s plenty to get into, so let’s cover it all.

DP World Tour: Shane Lowry Wins the Amgen Irish Open

If you didn’t watch the Amgen Irish Open, you missed something genuinely special. Shane Lowry went out and shot rounds of 67, 62, 65, and 63 to win by a staggering 11 shots, with that second-round 62 setting a course record. Eleven shots. Let that sink in for a moment, because margins like that don’t happen very often at the professional level, and they certainly don’t happen because someone got lucky — Lowry was simply operating in a different stratosphere from the rest of the field all week.

For an Irishman to win his home Open, played in front of his home crowd, is always a story. But to win it this way — four rounds in the 60s, a course-record 62, nearly a dozen shots clear of the field — that’s something else entirely. Lowry has always been one of the most naturally talented ball-strikers on tour, and when his irons are on like they were this week, he’s almost impossible to stop. People will be talking about this one for years.

LPGA Tour / Women’s Golf: Europe Wins the Solheim Cup

The Solheim Cup ended in heartbreak for the Americans, and it came down to Sunday singles in about as dramatic a fashion as this event can deliver. The U.S. team was in a good position heading into the final day — apparently feeling good enough about things that they were sharing beers after Saturday’s session — and then Europe came out in singles and dismantled them. It’s a script the Solheim has produced before, and it never gets any less painful for the losing side.

U.S. captain Angela Stanford came out after the loss and admitted she made at least one tactical error in her singles lineup decisions, saying “I’m kicking myself” and “frustrated with myself.” That kind of honesty from a captain after a loss is worth something, and you have to respect it. Captaincy decisions in team events are always second-guessed, but standing up publicly and saying you’d do it differently — that takes real accountability. A full breakdown of all 24 players and both captains has been graded at Golf.com if you want to go deep on who stepped up and who didn’t deliver across the week.

The bottom line is that Europe played better when it mattered most. Sunday singles in team events is where matches are won and lost, and the European side simply produced more in those head-to-head situations. Congratulations to the European team and their captain — that’s a well-earned cup.

ANNIKA Women’s All Pro Tour: Emma Bunch Wins Heritage Classic and Season Title

Down in Wichita, Kansas, Emma Bunch ground out a final-round 3-over 72 to win the Heritage Classic and, in doing so, claimed the ANNIKA WAPT season title — her fourth win in just five starts. Four wins in five starts is an absurd run by any measure. The final round wasn’t her cleanest, but she had enough cushion and composure to close it out. When you’re winning at that clip on a developmental tour, something is clearly clicking, and Bunch has had a remarkable season. She’s a name worth remembering.

PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and PGA Tour Champions

Official results from the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and PGA Tour Champions weren’t confirmed at time of writing. We’ll update as those numbers come in. On the Champions Tour side, it’s worth noting that tickets for the 2026 Skechers World Champions Cup go on sale September 14 — that event runs December 3–6 at Feather Sound Country Club and benefits Shriners Children’s, so if you’re in the Tampa area and want to see some of the best senior tour players in action for a good cause, that’s worth putting on the calendar.

Golf News: Cabot Is Going Bigger in Nova Scotia

If you’ve played Cabot Cape Breton, you already know what this developer does when they decide to build something — they build it right. The news this week is that Cabot is developing a second golf resort in Nova Scotia, doubling down on the province where the whole brand started. Details on the new property — being called Cabot Wilds — are starting to come out, and early indications are that it’s going to be every bit as ambitious as what they’ve already built in Inverness.

Nova Scotia is genuinely one of the most underrated golf destinations in North America. The coastline, the conditions, the overall experience at Cabot Cape Breton already puts it in the conversation with any destination on the continent. A second resort in the same province is a significant bet, but given what Cabot has produced so far, I don’t think it’s a bad one. I’ll be watching this project closely and will have more coverage as specifics are confirmed — design team, opening dates, and pricing will all tell us a lot about what to expect.

Around the Community: LIV Golf’s Future in Question

The Golf.com Tour Confidential this week touched on LIV Golf’s future in the context of broader league developments and a reported bankruptcy filing. It’s a developing story, and I’d rather wait for more confirmed details before offering a full take — but as we noted when the Saudi PIF announced it was pulling funding, it’s clearly something that will have real implications for where a number of players find themselves in 2027 and beyond. More on that as it becomes clearer.

And if you haven’t seen the Reddit thread going around with a copy of Links LS 2000 featuring Arnold Palmer on the cover — that’s a nice slice of golf history for anyone who grew up playing that game. Some things age better than others, and Palmer on a game cover is one of them.

That’s the week. Lowry’s Irish Open performance alone was worth the price of admission, and the Solheim Cup gave us the kind of Sunday drama that makes team golf worth every bit of the attention it gets. More results and updates as they’re confirmed — check back here and we’ll have you covered.

Tournament leaderboard data from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LIV Golf, LPGA Tour, and PGA Tour Champions wasn’t pulling cleanly as of publication time this Monday morning, and I’m not going to sit here and make up results. We’ll get those updated as the data firms up. What I can tell you is that the biggest story in golf this weekend didn’t happen on the professional tours anyway — it happened on the west coast of Ireland, and it’s the kind of thing you’ll be talking about for a while.

Walker Cup: GB&I Pull Off One of the Great Comebacks at Lahinch

If you weren’t watching the Walker Cup at Lahinch this weekend, you missed something special. GB&I pulled off a historic comeback against a Team USA side that looked like they had the match firmly in hand heading into Sunday. The final singles sessions flipped the script entirely, and the home crowd at Lahinch got exactly the moment they came to see.

The name you need to know out of this one is Stuart Grehan. According to Golf.com’s coverage, Grehan’s weekend-long battle against Preston Stout was at the center of the whole thing — the kind of individual matchup within a team event that ends up defining the entire result. Stout played well enough; Grehan just played better when it counted. That’s Walker Cup golf.

What I find interesting about the aftermath is how Team USA handled the loss. I’ve always thought that how you carry yourself after a tough result says something real about character. The American side responded with class. That matters. These are amateurs playing for nothing but pride and a shirt, and how they handle defeat says everything.

Next up on the team golf calendar: the Solheim Cup in the Netherlands. The editors at Golf.com are already previewing what looks like a compelling match, and after what we just saw at Lahinch, the appetite for team golf right now is real. I’ll have more on the Solheim Cup buildup as we get closer.

Cleveland RTZ2 Wedges: Real-World Test Results from Pinehurst

On the gear side, the story I’m most interested in this week is the Cleveland RTZ2 wedge real-world test at Pinehurst. Johnny Wunder and Jake Morrow took these out for what they’re calling a “game-time” test, and that’s the right approach. It’s one thing to hit wedges off a mat into a simulator; it’s another to put them through actual turf conditions at a course that challenges every part of your short game.

I haven’t had the RTZ2 in my own hands yet, but I’ve been watching this release closely. The RTZ (Return to Zero) concept from Cleveland is built around groove geometry and turf interaction — the idea being that consistent contact from a variety of lies is more valuable than optimized performance from a perfect lie you rarely get. That’s a smart design philosophy. Most amateurs — and plenty of low-handicappers — lose spin and distance control not off tight fairway lies but out of rough, divots, and tight slopes. If the RTZ2 delivers more consistent results from those scenarios, it’s worth a serious look. I’ll have my own testing numbers once I get enough rounds with a set.

Honma’s New Simplified Wedge

There’s also a new wedge from Honma worth mentioning. The pitch is soft stainless steel construction that’s supposed to deliver both rust resistance and a soft feel — which, if you’ve spent any time with raw carbon steel wedges that look great in September and look like an anchor by April, is a real selling point. The other angle Honma is pushing is a simplified selection process that guides golfers toward the right loft and grind without drowning them in options. Whether it actually delivers on that promise is something I want to find out. More to come.

Elite Grips Expanding Through Worldwide Golf Shops

One piece of news that didn’t make a lot of noise this week but is worth flagging for anyone curious about Elite Grips: they’re expanding their U.S. retail presence through Worldwide Golf Shops, with Roger Dunn Golf Shops in Santa Ana and The Golf Mart in South San Francisco leading the rollout. If you’re in Southern California or the Bay Area, you’ll now be able to get your hands on these in person rather than ordering blind online. Grip feel is one of those things where you really want to hold it before you commit, so retail availability matters more than people give it credit for.

From the Reddit Community: A Few Things Worth Your Time

Over on r/golf this week, there’s a thread making the rounds about whether scratch players are hitting long irons into greens all day. The poster is a 9-handicap hitting 245 yards of carry off the tee and wondering if distance is really the limiting factor at his level. The short answer: not usually. At scratch, the game is won and lost in the 100-175 yard range, around the greens, and on the putting surface. If you’re a 9 and you’re hitting 245 in the air, you’ve got enough club to play to a much lower number — the question is what you’re doing with it.

There’s also a fun restoration post floating around featuring a set of Ping Zing Blonde and Black Woods — driver, 3-wood, 5-wood, 7-wood — from the early 90s. The person who posted it actually gamed the blonde set as their first new clubs back in the day. I love seeing this kind of thing. The Ping Zing era produced some genuinely excellent equipment, and a restored set in good shape still has character that a lot of modern gear doesn’t. Purely nostalgic, but worth a look if you remember those clubs.

Looking Ahead

The Solheim Cup is the headline event on the horizon, and I’ll be covering the buildup and results right here. On the gear front, I’m working on getting Cleveland RTZ2 wedges into a proper testing rotation, and the Honma wedge is on my radar as well. If you’ve got questions about either of those clubs or anything else you’ve been thinking about adding to the bag, drop them in the comments.

PGA Tour: Scottie Scheffler Wins the Tour Championship

In case you had any doubt about who the best player in the world is right now, Scottie Scheffler went ahead and put a bow on the 2026 PGA Tour season in the most Scheffler way imaginable. He won the Tour Championship at East Lake in clinical fashion — his 22nd PGA Tour victory, a number that should stop you in your tracks for a second. Twenty-two wins. He’s not even 31 years old. Sunday’s result also handed him the FedEx Cup title, which means he had a season that most tour players would trade their entire career for. The guy just doesn’t lose when it matters most, and at this point that’s not a hot take, it’s just a fact.

Reddit had plenty of takes on Scheffler’s coronation, and while a lot of the praise was well-deserved, one thread that stood out was the love shown for Alex Fitzpatrick, who tied for fourth at the Tour Championship. That’s a serious result at a serious event, and it’s a sign that Fitzpatrick is building something real on tour. Keep an eye on him heading into 2027. And yes, for what it’s worth, Scheffler reportedly skipped the grape juice post-round and went straight to a well-earned beer. Fair enough after a season like that.

LPGA Tour: Ruoning Yin Wins FM Championship; Rose Zhang Secures Solheim Cup Spot

Over on the LPGA side, the FM Championship in Boston produced one of the more emotional winners you’ll see all year. Ruoning Yin returned to the winner’s circle after two years without a victory, and by all accounts it hit her hard. Two years is a long time when you’re a young player who burst onto the scene the way Yin did. A win like this — at a high-profile event, in a market like Boston — can absolutely reset a career. If you’ve been following the LPGA at all, you know how talented Yin is, and it’s good to see that talent translate back to a trophy.

The other compelling storyline out of the FM Championship involves Rose Zhang, who didn’t win but answered the one question that had been following her all season — whether she’d done enough to earn her spot on the Solheim Cup team. She has. Whatever she did at the FM Championship, it was apparently enough to settle that conversation, and frankly, you want Rose Zhang on your team. She’s one of the more composed players the LPGA has produced in years.

DP World Tour, LIV Golf, and PGA Tour Champions

Full results from the DP World Tour, LIV Golf, and PGA Tour Champions weren’t available at time of publishing. We’ll update once official results are confirmed. Stay tuned.

Scheffler’s Gear: New Driver, 22nd Win, FedEx Cup Title

Here’s the gear angle that I know a lot of you are interested in. Scheffler’s WITB at the Tour Championship featured a new driver that he’s now won two events with — including a FedEx Cup title. We don’t have the full spec breakdown confirmed at this writing, but the fact that the best player in the world switched drivers mid-season and immediately started winning with it tells you something. A driver change at that level isn’t taken lightly. When I get the full specs — loft, shaft, head volume — I’ll have more to say about it. What I can tell you right now is that if it’s good enough for Scheffler to win his 22nd tour title, it’s probably worth paying attention to when it eventually filters down to retail.

The Tour Confidential this week also tackled the Good Good ad controversy, which has been making the rounds. I’m not going to weigh in heavily on the content creator side of golf here — that’s not really what this site is about — but the debate around what’s appropriate in golf media is real, and it’s not going away. The game is growing, new audiences are coming in, and not everyone agrees on where the lines are. Reasonable people can disagree on this one.

Equipment News: Hireko Golf Acer SR1 Titanium Mini Driver

On the gear side, Hireko Golf has expanded the Acer SR1 series with a new Titanium Mini Driver, positioned as a compact alternative for golfers who want more confidence off the tee without swinging a full 460cc head. I’ve always had a soft spot for mini drivers as a concept — you’ll remember TaylorMade’s SLDR Mini was one of the more genuinely useful clubs I tested in years, and the category has only gotten more interesting since. The Acer SR1 Titanium is going after a specific player: someone who struggles to keep the big driver in play and needs something they can actually control. If that’s you, this is worth a look.

We haven’t had the Acer SR1 in hand yet, so I’m not going to throw numbers at you that I don’t have. What I will say is that Hireko builds solid, value-oriented gear, and the mini driver space is one where you don’t need to spend $600 to get a genuinely playable club.

Final Thoughts

This was a big week for the game. Scheffler closing out the FedEx Cup is the headline — his dominance over the last two-plus seasons is something we’re going to be talking about for a long time — but Ruoning Yin’s win at the FM Championship is the story with the most emotion attached to it. Two years between wins at that level is genuinely difficult, and getting back to the top is something every competitive golfer can appreciate. If you’re heading into fall golf, the Solheim Cup is right around the corner and Rose Zhang’s participation is now confirmed, which makes that team a lot more interesting to watch. More gear coverage and fall equipment testing coming up in the next few weeks, so keep checking back.

There are weeks in golf where the leaderboard tells one story and everything swirling around it tells another. This was one of those weeks. Wyndham Clark stood atop Bellerive with a sixth career title in hand, Scottie Scheffler quietly revealed he’d been battling illness the whole time, LIV Golf closed its season in a fog of uncertainty, and somewhere in Indiana, Harold Varner III got asked to leave a golf course. August has a way of making things complicated.

PGA Tour: BMW Championship

Wyndham Clark has a habit of arriving at the right moment. At Bellerive Golf Course in St. Louis, with $20 million and 2,000 FedEx Cup points on the line, he did it again. Clark’s victory at the 2026 BMW Championship was his sixth career win on the PGA Tour and, perhaps more remarkably, his third using the same Ping Ally Blue Onset putter — a club that seems to locate something steady in him when the pressure builds.

Clark isn’t a player who blends into a field. He has a boldness to his game, an attacking quality that can feel almost reckless until it suddenly looks inevitable. At Bellerive, that willingness to commit — to trust the line, to trust the putter — was the difference. The BMW Championship tends to separate players who are still figuring out who they are from those who have already decided. Clark has clearly decided.

What lingered after the trophy presentation was what Scottie Scheffler quietly disclosed in its aftermath. The world’s best player had been dealing with an illness throughout the week and admitted it might have been a poor decision to play at all. There’s a particular kind of competitor who shows up sick and says nothing until it’s over — and even then says it almost apologetically, as if the struggle itself is something to be ashamed of. Scheffler isn’t one for drama. He simply shows up, competes, and reflects honestly after the fact.

LIV Golf: Season Finale

On the other side of the golf world, Michael La Sasso won LIV Golf’s season-ending event, a result that deserved more attention than it received. La Sasso played well enough to win and did exactly that — but his victory was quickly overshadowed by larger questions about what comes next for the league.

LIV heading into an uncertain offseason has become a familiar story, but this one feels heavier than previous versions. The questions about the league’s future, the ongoing negotiations, the unresolved structure of professional golf — none of it has gotten any cleaner. La Sasso won. The season ended. That’s not his burden to carry, but it does color the moment in ways that feel unfair to a player who simply went out and played his best golf when it counted.

LPGA Future?

Away from the marquee stages, Emma Bunch was doing something genuinely remarkable. Bunch closed with a final-round 68 at the Colorado Championship on the ANNIKA Women’s All Pro Tour, forcing a playoff with Tiffany Le before outlasting her over five holes to claim her third title of the season. Three wins in one season is a serious run by any measure.

Five holes is a long time to stay locked in during a playoff. The fact that she did — and closed it out — says a lot about where her game is right now. She’s worth tracking closely as the calendar moves into fall.

Golf News: The Stories Beneath the Scores

Beyond the ropes, a handful of stories this week cut through in ways worth noting.

In Michigan, Rustic Glen Golf Club’s new owners — data-center developer Related Digital — announced plans to build a $16 billion data center on the adjacent land. They’ve promised to keep the rural course open. That promise will be tested, but for now it’s an unusual pairing: a golf course sitting alongside one of the largest infrastructure investments of the modern era. The fairways and the fiber, the sand traps and the server farms. Whether the course survives intact long-term is a story worth following.

Then there was Harold Varner III. According to widely circulated reports this week, Varner and his group were removed from an Indiana golf course, with the club subsequently calling them out publicly. The details are still murky, but the incident landed hard given Varner’s profile and the conversations that tend to follow whenever a Black professional golfer and a private club find themselves at odds. Golf has made real progress on access and inclusion, but there’s still a gap between where the game is and where it ought to be. The golf community took notice, and rightly so.

On the equipment front, PUMA Golf and Realtree unveiled their “Precision in the Wild” capsule collection, a collaboration that pulls four decades of Realtree’s outdoor identity through performance fabrics built for the course. It’s a niche collaboration, but an interesting one. Golf apparel keeps moving toward golfers who don’t feel the need to leave the rest of their life at the bag drop.

And quietly, in Idaho, Kal Zaranec at Circling Raven Golf Club completed a certification program through the GCSAA. It won’t make headlines anywhere else. But as a former greenskeeper myself, I think the people who maintain these courses, who get up before the sun to make sure the game is playable, fair, and worth showing up for, deserve the acknowledgment.

Looking Ahead

The FedEx Cup Playoffs are tightening. Clark has positioned himself well. Scheffler, illness and all, will regroup — that much you can count on. LIV heads into the offseason with more questions than answers. And Emma Bunch is probably already thinking about number four.