Following an incident at the U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark has been suspended from Oakmont.

The club notified its members this week in a letter, referencing Clark’s damage to the locker room during the week of the national championship, which went viral on social media after a picture was taken of the damage. Golf Digest has obtained a copy of the letter, which reads as follows from club president John Lynch:

“Several of you have inquired about the situation involving Wyndham Clark and the steps being taken in response to his recent behaviour. Following multiple discussions with the USGA and the OCC Board, a decision has been made that Mr. Clark will no longer be permitted on OCC property.

“This decision will remain in effect unless formally reconsidered and approved by the Board.

“Reinstatement would be contingent upon Mr. Clark fulfilling a number of specific conditions, including full repayment for damages, a meaningful contribution to a charity of the Board’s choosing, and the successful completion of counselling and/or anger management sessions.

“Thank you for your understanding and continued support.”

Clark, who won the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club in 2023, apologised the following week at the Travelers Championship. He spoke again of the incident last week at the Genesis Scottish Open.

“Yeah, I mean, I made a mistake in a moment of rage with, you know, a bad year and everything coming together and it just was more than anything a good wake-up call for me to say, ‘Hey, you know what, let’s get back on track and things aren’t that bad,’” Clark said. “I live a great life and I’m not that far off from playing good golf, so I feel like I’ve turned a page and we’re now maybe on the right track of playing some good golf.”

Clark also had an incident at the 2025 PGA Championship, where a thrown club resulted in a damaged tee sign. Oakmont, which has been named an anchor site for the USGA as part of the organisation’s new strategy to create a rota for their flagship events, is set to host the U.S. Open again in 2033.

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J.J. Spaun, an avid Dodgers fan, got a taste of that feeling on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open.

 

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His “walk-off” birdie putt on the final green settled the week. No more tee shots, no more putts, no more drama. It was over.

But just how incredible was the 279th shot of Spaun’s week at Oakmont?

The answer, of course, is very, very incredible. So I dove into the numbers behind the moment to shine some light on the walk-off putt that won the 2025 U.S. Open.

The heroics for Spaun came after a 90-minute weather delay on Sunday. After changing clothes and coming back out, he made birdies on 12 and 14 and then hit, what then felt like, the shot of the week on the drivable, par-4 17th. A 310-yard drive that finished just 17 feet from the hole. He two-putted for birdie and regained the solo lead for the first time since the fourth hole on Saturday.

He had one hole to play. And he led by one shot.

With the tournament on the line, he hit this tee shot.

Straight. Down. The Middle. It finished 308 yards and left him just 190 yards to one of the hardest holes in the U.S. Open rota.

As Spaun played the 18th hole, only three of the 62 players who had played the hole had made birdie.

Just like Dustin Johnson in 2016, Spaun hit a 6-iron for his approach into the 72nd hole. However, unlike DJ, who hit his approach to four feet, Spaun’s ball finished 64 feet six inches from the hole.

His approach, albeit conservative, actually lost strokes to the field. The strokes gained approach value of his approach from 190 yards was -0.08.

Before Spaun got to his ball and began to study the putt, he got a fortuitous break. Viktor Hovland, playing alongside Spaun on Sunday, had missed the fairway and hit his approach to the left side of the green also. It came to rest 66 feet from the hole, on almost the identical line.

Spaun would get to see Hovland putt before attempting to win his first major championship. Worth noting, in eight previous major appearances, he had never finished in the top 20.

Hovland went first, narrowly missing the hole and coming to rest five feet beyond the hole. Now, it was Spaun’s turn.

The putt was 64 feet six inches. He had two putts to win. The probability of a PGA Tour two-putting from that distance is around 85 percent. Whilst those odds don’t factor in the pressure of the 72nd hole at a U.S. Open, the odds were certainly in his favour.

However, the probability that a pro would three-putt from that range is almost six times higher (12 percent) than the chances of them holing (two percent).

Consider this, Denny McCarthy, arguably the best putter on the PGA Tour for the last decade, ranking inside the top five in strokes gained putting five of the last six seasons, three-putted the 18th green on Sunday, from just 34 feet.

As Spaun looked over his putt, the graphic displayed on the broadcast told the story: “Two putts to win the U.S. Open”

Spaun hadn’t three-putted once over the weekend. His last three-putt came on the 15th green of Friday’s second round.

“He doesn’t need to make it. Two putts,” said Dan Hicks on NBC, as Spaun sent his putt rolling across the green.

“HOW. ABOUT. ONE?!”

That was Hick’s call as Spaun’s ball disappeared into the hole. He had won the U.S. Open. A walk-off, 64-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole.

It was the longest putt holed on the 18th green all week. Tyrrell Hatton had holed a 52-foot par putt on 18 in round two, but even he could only watch on as Spaun sent the Oakmont crowd into pandemonium.

Amazingly, Spaun hadn’t holed a putt longer than 35 feet all season on the PGA Tour. Spaun has played nearly 1,000 holes on Tour in 2025 (972) and this was his first made putt over 35 feet. And it was nearly double that length.

To put it in context, Spaun’s birdie putt gained +1.24 shots on the field. Sam Burns leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting in 2025, gaining +1.03 shots per round. In fact, only one player since 2004, has gained on average more than one shot per round on the greens (Jason Day in 2016). Spaun did better than that, with one stroke.

Gaining over a stroke on the field in one shot is extremely rare. Consider how incredible Bryson’s bunker shot on the 72nd hole was at Pinehurst last year. It gained +0.94 shots.

It seems the U.S. Open is getting used to drama on the 72nd hole. This year, it was a walk-off.

RELATED: The clubs J.J. Spaun used to win the U.S. Open at Oakmont

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How does a guy go from the pinnacle of professional fulfilment to the petulant, club-throwing, tee marker-smashing anger ball that’s been stomping around Oakmont Country Club the last two days?

Rory, who won the Masters two months ago and completed the career Grand Slam, recovered from two early double bogeys to shoot a respectable two-over 72 Friday in the second round of the U.S. Open. He capped his rally from outside the cutline with a five-foot birdie putt on 18 after unleashing a ridiculous 373-yard drive.

He must have been proud of that effort, getting to the house at six-over 146 and making the cut for the seventh straight time after a desultory run of three straight two-round visits from 2016-18. It showed heart and the high level of talent he can muster when he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Of course, we have no idea what he’s thinking because he declined all interview requests from the media. That makes six straight major rounds that the reigning Masters champion has blown off the Fourth Estate after completing play.

When a USGA official approached him about his availability, he walked from the scorer’s room to the clubhouse without stopping, saying merely, “No, I’m good.”

Dude, you are far from good.

MORE: Rory McIlroy remains the most unpredictable golfer in the universe at Oakmont

In contrast, Rory’s fellow Irishman and friend Shane Lowry granted an interview after going around Oakmont in 17-over 157. His second-round 78 included a mindless penalty when he picked up his ball on the 14th green before he had marked it. “It’s probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done,” said the former British Open winner.

Asked about the negative energy of the group that also included Justin Rose, the victim of McIlroy’s playoff victory at Augusta, Lowry alluded to McIlroy’s play, saying, “You look at, like Rory’s finished on six over. It’s not like two 73s [Rory went 74-72] out there … it’s not bad golf. It’s so hard.”

It’s not fair to speculate on what’s going on with the No. 2 golfer in the world away from the golf course, but we know what’s happening on it.

His disgusted overhand club toss on the par-5 12th hole after pulling an approach into the rough well short of the green makes him 2-for-2 in that department, having also pitched a club at the PGA—though, notably, with a less elan than his effort at Oakmont.

Later, at the drivable par-4 17th, McIlroy sent his fairway metal tee shot left of the putting surface and angrily spun around and splintered the white tee marker on the left side of the teeing ground.

His suddenly taciturn behaviour after play—including his two rounds at the Canadian Open—defies explanation. Said one observer who watched McIlroy hurry past the media and up the stairs to Oakmont’s storied clubhouse, “This is the strangest turn of events.”

Another curious move was his decision to skip the Memorial Tournament, hosted by Jack Nicklaus, whom has been a friend and a mentor and offered sage advice in the days leading up to McIlroy’s conquering moment on the 18th green at Augusta National Golf Club. Also, the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland never gave Nicklaus the courtesy of letting him know he would not be in attendance at Muirfield Village Golf Club in suburban Columbus, Ohio.

These are not the exemplary actions of one of golf’s biggest stars, a veteran player who has been a flag bearer for the PGA Tour, who is rock-solid, certain-as-death-and-taxes pick for the Hall of Fame with his five majors and 40 combined career wins.

The past two months could have been a sweet honeymoon period for Rory after such a scintillating and inspiring Masters victory, the win he had been dreaming of nearly his whole life. For some reason, he is choosing to miss out on what should be a golden moment in his life and career.

It’s odd and perplexing and actually quite sad.

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Did you think the collapse at Pinehurst last year might, at long last, after a decade of near-misses, break him? Wrong! He began working harder than ever, won at Pebble Beach and the Players, then grabbed the career slam at one of the most dramatic majors we’ve ever seen.

Did you think winning the Masters would free his soul, and that, unfettered, he’d unleash an epic run and leave his contemporaries in the dust as he raced to ten majors? Wrong! Starting at the PGA Championship at his favourite course in the world, Quail Hollow, he didn’t even seem happy, much less play well. He and his team executed an unbelievably bad strategy to let what should have been a dud of a story—his non-conforming driver—blossom into something annoying. The bad play continued at the Canadian Open, where he missed the cut with a Friday 78, and in a practice round at Oakmont, where he admitted to shooting an 81.

MORE: Who are the DP World Tour players in the 2025 U.S. Open?

Did you think all of that weirdness meant he’d flame out Thursday in his first round? Wrong! He shot a two-under 33 on the front nine and stood in second place heading to the turn.

Did you think that meant he was back, the driver issues were fixed, and he’d be a serious contender at the U.S. Open? Wrong! He turned in a 41 on the back to finish with a four-over 74 and could be eight to 10 shots off the lead by day’s end.

It is all, truly, head-spinning stuff, and it’s hard to know what to say after following that gruesome back nine, where the glacial pace—the round took approximately five hours, 40 minutes—must have contributed to his irritation. The trouble began on Hole 1 (McIlroy played the back nine first), when a gorgeous 378-yard drive put him 106 yards to the pin, but he left his approach woefully short and three-putted. He crossed the bridge over the interstate on Hulton Road, his tan pants and light yellow shirt almost blending with the air, made a pair of pars, and then lost his purchase on red numbers permanently on 4.

Warren Little

That’s where his driver, brilliant to that point, began to revolt. His tee shot sailed away from the church pews and all the way to the native area on the right of the fairway. By the time he made the 309-yard walk, a dozen people had begun the search, which bore fruit shortly after he arrived. But Oakmont, which had bided its time, now came alive. His next shot went 64 feet to the grassy front face of a bunker, and the one after didn’t even make it half that distance. A lone laugh, more like a cackle, rang out cruelly after that one, but undeterred, he punched out to the fairway and made a heroic up-and-down from 178 yards to save bogey.

Unfortunately, the trouble had just begun. On the tee of the par-3 sixth, the only sound breaking up the hum of a nearby generator was the occasional cheer from afar, or a drone racing 15 feet above our heads. He yanked his tee shot, and despite a nice chip to five feet, his par putt sailed by on the right.

“Remember that in New York, baby!” a fan in the grandstand shouted, giving a hint of the decorum we can expect at the Ryder Cup.

At that point, a slow day somehow became slower, although a slight breeze rippling through the red fescue granted a brief reprieve from the heat. The sound of the traffic from the Pennsylvania Turnpike was audible now, and a whistle from a train on the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad pierced that hum. He suffered another three-putt on seven to drop to two over, and finally, on the obscenely long par-3 eighth, the coup de grace: his second shot right of the green got caught in the bedeviling rough, and a failure to go up and down led to his only double bogey of the day, and his final margin of four over.

The ninth green is a strange scene, with the back half of the green reserved for practice, and as he made his way up to the green for a concluding par, a dozen or more faces glanced over, from Rahm to Spieth to DJ to Morikawa. They saw him walk off, face more or less emotionless despite whatever was happening in his thoughts.

As for that, we’ll have to guess, because after signing his card, he glanced at the pack of journalists on his walk to the clubhouse, perhaps mouthed the word “no” to a USGA official, and apparently left out the back. This was not unexpected—skipping post-round media is standard practice for him right now, and as he has become fond of saying, until it’s andatory, it’s going to keep happening.

Despite the temptation, though, we won’t try to guess what he’s thinking or doing. There’s been plenty of that in the last year, and even the last decade, and with someone this volatile, this inscrutable, and this unpredictable, those guesses aren’t worth a plugged nickel. And like the proverbial weather, if you don’t like what you’re seeing from him, just wait a few minutes.

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By Joel Beall
ORLANDO — Listen to the bell, all heinous sandbaggers. It tolls for thee.

Like communism, golf’s handicap system is rooted in good intentions, but is an infrastructure that is easily falsified and exploited. What was supposed to create a level playing field for sticks and hacks often tips the scales in the latter’s direction, with better players penalised for, uh, being good. If this sounds dramatic, well, clearly you’ve never been on the business end of a 12-handicap “magically” shooting 75.

Yet those days of gaming the system are coming to an end, thanks to Cap Patrol.

Developed by George Thurner of Covington, Ky., Cap Patrol is a computer operation that polices the scores of a golf club’s membership, monitoring those who aren’t keeping the sport’s gentleman’s ethos at heart.

“I’ve held every position at my club [Hyde Park Country Club], and have heard every handicap-related nightmare you can imagine,” Thurner said Wednesday at the PGA Merchandise Show. “They all end in the same way, which is an aggrieved party demanding justice. But there was no clear-cut way to determine if someone was sandbagging.

“And that’s not counting the effect it had on [a club’s] morale. No one wants to deal with the fallout of having someone cheating a tournament or his fellow members. That’s why I went to work.”

Thurner is a sports statistician by trade, previously creating “Statzhub” to provide statistics, game stories, photos and videos for any high school competition. Playing around with algorithms and past GHIN data, Thurner—with consultation from the USGA—was able to identify five key areas that sandbaggers use to manipulate their handicap. (At the moment, those areas are proprietary, and private.)

The result: A program that generates a report allowing clubs to easily follow every player to determine if their handicap reflects their true performance and potential. Using past scores and a course’s rating and slope, the report features odds and probability to determine if the score in question should be flagged.

For example, if a 10-handicap turns in a 74, the system says this is a round that should happen once every 42 years. Which, hey, happens … but the odds of it coinciding at the member-guest raise an eyebrow.

“If you are going to accuse someone of cheating, you need the evidence to support the claim,” Thurner said. “This system puts a numerical value to the question of a player’s handicap looking fishy.”

The equation then provides a club the data and recommendation to support any adjustment a committee or pro deems necessary. And the system has been refined to account for the new World Handicap System that went into effect in the United States on Jan. 1.

But Cap Patrol does more than just monitor inputted scores. It pairs with a club’s tee sheet to confirm scores from each round are submitted. That way, golfers—those on the sandbagging and vanity end—aren’t withholding a score that could unfavourably alter their handicap.

However, as anyone who’s been a member of a club or public league knows, politics can be very much at play in such matters. To ensure fairness—and frankly, civility—a person’s name is hidden from the report. Cap Patrol assigns each player/member a number, with the coinciding list known only by the club pro. That way if someone is flagged, their identity is hidden to all but one before a ruling is made.

“It minimises confrontations, both on the tee and in the board rooms,” Thurner said.

Released 90 days ago, Cap Patrol has already signed up 150 properties, including Oakmont, for its program. Although the algorithm is sold only to clubs/courses, there is an application for players to monitor the system’s data. The app gives analytics like “Hot Index” and “Clutch performance,” while tracking all your personal rounds and progression. It also gives light to how others are playing, and recommends how games in your foursome should be set up with each player’s true handicap.

Thurner understands the apprehension that comes with an outside force playing judge in these sensitive matters. Yet his hope is the idea of an honest playing environment brings back those that have been jaded by past sandbagging incidents, and provides a solution for a problem that’s plagued golf for far too long.

And more important, serves as a warning to those bastard sandbaggers.

“Their day of reckoning is here,” Thurner says.

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By John Feinstein
Mike Davis, the CEO of the United States Golf Association, has heard all the rumours, reports and speculation about the changes that are coming to the U.S. Open specifically in the selection of venues.

“Some of them are simply untrue,” Davis says. “Some, I understand where they came from, even if they’re inaccurate. And some might happen down the road, but probably not while I’m still on the job.”

After the success of this year’s Open at Pebble Beach, the rumours began:

• The USGA was thinking of establishing a regular rotation of courses, much like the rota that the R&A has used for years to pick Open Championship sites.
• The USGA was thinking of going into business with a handful of clubs, even establishing an LLC with some of those clubs.
• The USGA was done looking for new golf courses for future Opens.

As with most rumours, there is a degree of truth in some, if not all, of what was being said.

According to Davis, there will be no rota, but, as the schedule from now through 2027 makes clear, there are a handful of courses the USGA will return to on a frequent basis.

“It’s pretty clear that we love Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, Oakmont and Shinnecock,” Davis says. “Those four meet all our criteria: They’re great tests of golf, they set up logistically either very well or well enough, and—being honest—we’re going to make money when we go there. We’re a nonprofit, but the U.S. Open financially supports everything else we do—all our other championships and all the golf programs we sponsor—among other things.”

Photo by Dom Furore
An aerial view of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

Davis concedes that the logistics at Shinnecock Hills—notably the traffic that plagued the 2018 event—aren’t perfect. “But the golf course is such a wonderful test, we think it’s worth that inconvenience,” he says. “We know it’s very tough getting there and leaving there, but once you’re there, it’s spectacular.”

The Open is scheduled to go back to Pinehurst in 2024, Oakmont in 2025, Shinnecock in 2026 and Pebble Beach in 2027. That means it will be 10 years between visits to Pinehurst, nine years since the 2016 Open at Oakmont, and an eight-year gap for Shinnecock and Pebble.

Davis thinks Winged Foot has the potential to join the core four, depending on how the Open fares there next year.

“Again, it’s not just the golf course,” he says. “We haven’t been at Winged Foot since 2006. A lot has changed around there since then. If all goes well with traffic, with the neighbourhood, with how the club likes having us there, with how we like being there again, Winged Foot could move into that category.”

But a rota of, say, five courses? No.

“I remember when I first got to the USGA [in 1990], we had constant discussion about things like, ‘How often do we go to Pebble Beach? What about Oakmont?’ We still talk about things like that. At private clubs, there’s always the question, ‘How often do they want us?’

“I also remember P.J. Boatwright [former USGA executive director of rules and competitions] saying back then we couldn’t possibly go to Pinehurst because there was no way to keep the grasses alive in the June heat down there. Now, with all the advances that have been made in grass technology, that’s not a problem for us anymore. We’ve even been able to hold the Amateur there in August.

“There are also some courses where we regularly took the Open in the past where we don’t go anymore. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever go there again, but, in recent years, we’ve gone in different directions.”

Dom Furore
The church pew bunker between the third and fourth holes at Oakmont Country Club.

Much of that different direction came from David Fay, Davis’ predecessor. It was Fay who championed the notion of taking the Open to Bethpage Black, clearing the way to go to other truly public golf courses: Torrey Pines, Chambers Bay and Erin Hills. Torrey Pines worked in 2008 (and will host the Open again in 2021); Chambers Bay and Erin Hills, not so much.

“I think we made a mistake going to two new venues that were also relatively new golf courses in three years,” Davis says of Chambers Bay (2015) and Erin Hills (2017). “The first time you go to a venue, there are almost certainly going to be issues. When the golf courses are almost new, that can add to the problems.”

Bethpage Black—which was not a new golf course—was a big success in 2002, so much so that the USGA returned seven years later. That Open didn’t go as well, drowned by constant rain. But that’s not why the USGA hasn’t returned.

“We wanted to go back,” Davis says, “but the state of New York had basically said it was going to cut funding to maintain the golf course without a hard-and-fast commitment to go back again very soon. We just didn’t feel we could make that kind of commitment. When we hesitated, they went to the [PGA] tour and the PGA [of America], both of whom were willing to commit right away,” for FedEx Cup events, the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup.

As for the rumours of going into business with perhaps four or five courses? “Let me be honest: We don’t have to go into business with anyone,” Davis says. “We want to play the Open on the best possible golf courses, but there are very few places that might turn us away. We will always have options.”

Photo by Dom Furore
The 17th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

There have been difficult negotiations in the past. After the 2004 debacle with final-day course conditions at Shinnecock, club members were so upset that they wouldn’t even discuss hosting another Open for several years. When Mike Butz, who was Fay’s No. 2 man at the time (and had the same role with Davis) finally began to negotiate with the club, its opening gambit was: Give us a share of your television revenue, and we can talk. That shut down negotiations for another few years until the deal for 2018 was worked out. The club did not get any TV revenue.

Fay also walked away from The Country Club in Chestnut Hill, Mass., while trying to make a deal for 2013—the 100th anniversary of Francis Ouimet’s historic Open victory there. In the end, the USGA went to another historic club—Merion—that year.

The relationship with The Country Club also has been repaired, and the club will host the Open in 2022—34 years after Curtis Strange beat Nick Faldo in a playoff, the last time it hosted an Open.

As for the rumours about setting up an LLC, Davis said there was a bit of truth in that. “There have been times in the past when we thought we needed a nearby piece of land for something logistical, and we’ve talked to clubs about perhaps buying the land together,” he said. “That probably would have involved setting up an LLC. But it’s never actually happened.”

Here’s what is probably a certainty: As long as Davis, who is 54, is in charge, the Open will go to the core four every seven to 10 years, and Winged Foot could make it a core five. Other golf courses will be considered—just less often. Los Angeles Country Club will be a new venue in 2023. Merion is likely to get the Open in 2030, the 100th anniversary of Bob Jones’ U.S. Amateur win there to conclude the Grand Slam.

Dom Furore
The 7th hole at Pinehurt No. 2.

Davis recently made a trip to Erin Hills, because giving the course another try isn’t out of the question. The same is true for Chambers Bay. If the chance to return to Bethpage Black comes up, that, too, might be a possibility.

“Ten or 15 years down the road, when there’s new leadership, the approach might be completely different,” Davis says. “Again, go back 25 or 30 years and look at all the courses that we went to that we don’t go to anymore. What we do is always evolving. But I don’t ever see a day when we limit ourselves to a handful of courses on a permanent basis, no matter how much we love them. I think that would be a mistake.”

Lee Janzen, a two-time U.S. Open champion, sat in the locker room at Shinnecock in 1995 after seeing the golf course for the first time and said this: “The USGA ought to go to Pebble Beach one year and here the next year. Period.”

It wasn’t a bad thought then—or now. But it isn’t going to happen.

• • •

FUTURE U.S. OPEN SITES
2020: Winged Foot G.C. (West), Mamaroneck, N.Y.
2021: Torrey Pines G. Cse. (South), La Jolla, Calif.
2022: The Country Club, Chestnut Hill, Mass.
2023: L.A.C.C. (North)
2024: Pinehurst (N.C.) Resort & C.C. (No. 2)
2025: Oakmont (Pa.) C.C.
2026: Shinnecock Hills G.C., Southampton, N.Y.
2027: Pebble Beach G. Links

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By Christopher Powers
Following a T-55 finish in the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, Ernie Els knew that he may have just competed for the final time in the event. Despite winning two U.S. Opens, one in 1994 at Oakmont and another in 1997 at Congressional, the Big Easy was still out of luck, because the USGA does not give out lifetime exemptions to those who pass golf’s toughest test. Winners get exemptions into the next 10 Opens, though Els played in the next 20 thanks to qualifying in a number of different categories during that span.

But he finally ran out of exemptions in 2017, the final year of his five-year exemption he earned via his 2012 Open Championship win at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Erin Hills was his 24th U.S. Open appearance, cutting him one short of 25, though he was able to reach that milestone when the USGA awarded him with a special exemption last year at Shinnecock Hills. Els missed the cut, shooting rounds of 78 and 79.

Fortunately for Els, he’ll get another crack this year, as the USGA announced on Thursday that they’d award Els with another special exemption for the 119th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach this June. It will mark Els’ 27th consecutive appearance in the event, which has included his two victories, eight top 10s and five finishes inside the top five, the most recent coming in 2013 at Merion.

One of those top five finishes also came the last time the U.S. Open was held at Pebble Beach in 2010 when Els finished in solo third. Entering the final round he trailed Dustin Johnson by six shots, and when Johnson began to falter on Sunday Els was suddenly back in the mix. Through 13 holes on Sunday, he was at even par for the week, which would have been good enough to get into a playoff with eventual winner Graeme McDowell, but bogeys at the 14th and 17th holes ended his chances at a third U.S. Open triumph.

Els, who will captain the International team at this year’s Presidents Cup, has shown flashes of his former self in 2019. He’s made eight of 10 cuts on the PGA Tour for the season, with a high finish of T-20 coming at the Honda Classic. Over on the European Tour, Els has a pair of top 15 finishes in just three starts in 2019, including a T-7 at the Maybank Championship.

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PGA Tour pro Zac Blair, with the help of his buddy Andy Johnson at Fried Egg Golf, a website that covers golf-course design and contributes intelligent debate to other topics in golf, polled their social-media followers to determine the best logo in golf. The winner? Merion Golf Club.

https://twitter.com/z_blair/status/969598555190013958

Most serious golfers know Merion’s iconic wicker-basket flagsticks, showcased in its logo, serve as pins at the East Course, whose rich history most famously includes Bobby Jones clinching the Grand Slam on its 11th hole at the 1930 U.S. Amateur. And they’ve done so since 1915, when designer William Flynn, who helped Philadelphia’s Hugh Wilson lay out the 126-acre design on the Main Line of Philadelphia, patented them. The USGA swapped out the wicker baskets for conventional flagsticks in 1950, but has known better not to mess with Merion’s trademark since.

It was probably not an upset for Merion to win this inaugural “Logo Madness,” as Blair dubbed it, as Merion has been known for its logo for almost 100 years. But Merion beat some of golf’s other legendary seals—eventually taking down another Northeast powerhouse, Winged Foot Golf Club, and its ultra clever but classy logo in the finals.

Winged Foot also has a rich championship history that links the legends of the game to its club. And its logo is equally as synonymous with the club as Merion’s is, although the club’s winged-foot emblem is an adaptation from the New York Athletic Club.

The Final Four included two other classics: Alister MacKenzie’s Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz, Calif., a public-access facility, and Sleepy Hollow Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., designed by C.B. MacDonald and Seth Raynor in 1914, then worked on by A.W. Tillinghast, which edged out another tremendous seal—the whale of Maidstone.

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Here’s Maidstone’s logo … how great is that? Deserving of its No. 1 seed in this bracket, but getting taken down by another history-laden New York layout in Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman.

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Some other fantastic logos that might not have gotten their due in this contest: McArthur Golf Club’s milkjug logo, Chicago Golf Club’s famous Far & Sure logo and Olympic Club’s winged logo.

Some of our favourites:

Boston Golf Club, with an ode to its city’s history, got the boot after the round of 32—after its unfortunate match-up against Olympic Club’s also awesome logo.

Olympic Club, with an obvious connection to its athletic-club history.

Chicago Golf Club also suffered a tough fate—losing to The Golf Club in Ohio’s logo in the first round. We think it’s one of the most recognizable and historic emblems in golf.

Los Angeles Country Club’s logo is pretty unique within golf. But its spot in the bracket meant an early exit after a defeat by Sleepy Hollow in the second round.

The aforementioned McArthur Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla.

And how about Castle Pines—the 100 Greatest club in Colorado didn’t even make this 64-logo field! Those birds belonged in the field, for sure.

The post Does Merion Golf Club have the best logo in golf? This poll declares it the winner appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Kindred

Justin Thomas “smoked” that 3-wood and he “nuked” it, as he also said, and he called it “pretty sweet,” and it was 293 yards to the front of the 18th, 310 to the hole cut in a treacherous spot, and by the time the little guy’s body came unwound from his wicked lash at the ball, he saw the thing in flight and he knew he’d done it, and he said to his caddie, Jimmy Johnson, “Oh, gosh, Jimmy,” and he spoke as well to the ball disappearing in the distance, “Be good.” Here the caddie asked a silly question, “Did you hit it?”

Did he hit it?

Hey, dude. He crushed pured smoked busted nuked nailed and launched it.

A butterfly alighting on a flower, the ball touched down a couple steps short of the flagstick and rolled to a stop eight feet and an inch behind the hole, leaving Thomas a putt that if it weren’t dead-straight, it was only a tiny bit downhill, moving only a tiny bit left to right. Easy putt. Most times.

Except, walking to the green, Thomas knew what awaited.

To his caddie he said, “Let’s try to become part of history here.”

“Yeah,” Johnson said, “let’s do it.”

Make the putt, it’s an eagle on the 667-yard 18th. Make it, he goes nine under par for the round. In the previous 116 U.S. Opens, no one had ever gone so low. Make the putt, it’s for 63, matching four other 63s including Johnny Miller’s eight under round that won the 1973 Open at Oakmont.

Then he had to wait. His playing partner was away. Then he waited more. He sat on his golf bag. He held his arms straight out and shook them because, he said later, he was hungry and he’d been shaky and it was time to make some history, and he didn’t want to get all quivery over a putt he could kick in if, say, he was on vacation in the Bahamas hanging out with his bros Jordan Spieth and Smylie Kaufman and Rickie Fowler, Fowler famous there for his T-shirt reading, “Hope Your Day Is As Nice As Your Butt.”

Time to putt, Thomas barely breathed on the thing and it rolled into history.

He’d made nine birdies and the eagle. He was 11 under for three rounds and, at the moment, the tournament leader by two shots.

“Fun,” he said.

“An awesome day,” he said.

It hadn’t sunk in, the significance of all this history stuff. He said, “But I’m just so excited to give myself a great chance to win this golf tournament.”

By day’s end, Thomas, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, was a shot behind the leader, Brian Harman, one of a dozen players that blitzed Erin Hills with rounds in the 60s on a shootout kind of day following overnight rain that left the course soft with only its 7,818 yards as its defense – and even Thomas, the smallest of bombers at 5-foot-10 and 145 pounds, said, “You can’t make courses more difficult today by making them longer. They have to have firm greens, narrow fairways and thick rough.”

Harman is a 5-foot-7, 150-pound left-hander who has won twice on tour. At age 30, he is the oldest of the five players within two shots of the lead. Thomas is 24, Brooks Koepka 27, Tommy Fleetwood 26, and Fowler 28—causing Fowler to say, “It’s going to be a really cool day for someone tomorrow. I’m looking forward to my shot at it.” He saw a leader board he liked: “A lot of young guys, lot of great players—someone has a very good chance of ending up with their first major tomorrow.” (That is a near-certainty. Of the first 25 players only Louis Oosthuizen, eight shots behind, is a major champion.)

Though Harman’s 67 and 68s by Koepka, Fleetwood, Fowler and Si Woo Kim were extraordinary efforts on an Open Saturday, it was Thomas’s 63 that electrified the Erin Hills galleries. “I was blown away by the support that I got today,” Thomas said. “It was really cool, to be honest.”

He earned it the hard way. A 6-iron off a sidehill lie above his feet at the third, 204 yards off a wind from the left, saved a par. It did another thing, too, perhaps more important. “Something about that shot kind of calmed me, and it made me very comfortable.” Then, at the fifth, his ball sitting in the first cut off a steeply pitched green, he invented a birdie putt that only the most creative of magicians might have imagined. He putted away from the cup, on a line parallel to the hole, moving the ball two feet and allowing gravity to turn it 90 degrees right, down the incline, into the cup.

If Thomas thought he had an awesome day, he was not alone in the thinking.

A Charlie Riedel

His Bahamas bro, Fowler, playing two hours behind Thomas, said, “I saw J.T. going 5 under, 6, 7, 9, 11.” Still, he hadn’t expected a 63, for who expects such a thing? “But that was cool to see. Definitely inspiring to see him get off to a good start and motivating to want to get myself to go out and play well.”

Once upon a Hogan-Snead-Nelson time, pros shared car rides bouncing around America. The encyclopedia of golf, a.k.a. Dan Jenkins, remembers the pro Johnny Bulla, a pilot, flying six or seven players to the next stop. “They said, ‘If that plane goes down, they’ll have to close down the tour,’ ” Jenkins said. Now, it turns out, the Bahamas bros not only do vacations, they room together—sort of.

Here Fowler and Thomas are sharing a rental house, Thomas upstairs, Fowler in what he called the basement area.

And how might they celebrate tonight?

Fowler smiled brightly. “We’ll have a good time,” he said. “I think we’ll be able to sit back, relax.”

The post Justin Thomas takes a swing at history, and he nails it appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.