Welcome to your daily dose of what’s going on in pro golf! Today we recap round 1 of the Bank of Utah Championship in Ivins Utah.
Thanks for the support! New episodes daily.
Instagram: @mitch_gw
X: @mitchwoodhead
TikTok: @mitchellGW
Looks like Jason Day may be drinking the Bryson dash to Shambo Kool-Aid based on the gear that he has in his bag this week. We’ll talk about it here on Golf with Mitch. All right, round one of the Bank of Utah Championship is done. Actually, it’s not quite done. Got paused for a light delay. Ran out of light. the afternoon group. Still, there are some people who are only through what 12 holes. So, still a lot of golf to be played here for the first round, but some low scores. Last year, the winner was 23 under par. So, you break that down, that’s about six under per round, roughly, right? So, uh, this first round we have one, two, three, four guys that are tied for first that each fired a six underpar today. One of those people is um Austin Cook, who is only through 13 holes and he’s 600. So, he very well could have the outright lead after the first round tomorrow morning early. We’ll see what he does. But four guys at six under, that’s really good golf and they got to do that four days in a row if they want to get to the point where uh the winner was last year. So, we’ll see how they do. With that being said, with how low the scores were last year, I think it’s safe to say that if you’re not within four or five strokes after this first round, you’re probably not in it. So, there are a few guys that really hate to see, but like Joel Damon, we knew that he is on the bubble for getting his full status for next year. He’s 103rd in the fall series rankings right now. So, there are only, I think, five events left for the fall PGA Tour. And after the first round in Utah, he’s tied for 98. He shot a two over. Granted, he is only through 16 holes with this uh the uh suspension due to light. He still has two more holes to play in the morning. So, we’ll see how he does there. But not the start that Joel wanted to see. Um some of other names that were surprising, Patrick Summer Hayes. He’s been getting a lot of hype. part of the the Summer Hayes family. Very well known in Utah as far as golf goes with Boyd being involved in Tony Fenau’s life is is one of his coaches. Um Daniel Summer Hayes as well, but Patrick currently uh I thought he was still going to ASU. I could be wrong. He may have turned pro because on here it doesn’t have his amateur uh mark here on the leaderboard. So, looks like he maybe went pro. He’s only through 12 holes. He was in the afternoon group as well, but he shot a five under so far in this first round. So, not the start that he wanted to see either. Bo Hustler, four over as well. So, some of those guys it was disappointing to see, but we have some people who are playing good golf. Another Utah native that I talked about a couple days ago, Zack Blair is three under through 15 holes. So, we’ll see what he does early in the morning. Um, I don’t know how the pros feel about these uh suspensions due to light when you’re in the afternoon group for the first round because that means in round two, they’re the morning group for their second round. So, they’re like Zach, for example, is going to go play 16, 17, 18 early in the morning and then turn around back to his first hole for round two and start the second round. Um, granted, there’ll be a little bit of time, probably a little bit of a break, but if he does well in those first three holes, I feel like that’s a huge momentum shift. You’re not playing an entire, you’re not playing two rounds. You’re not playing 36 holes, but you do have a couple extra holes to get into a groove. Um, granted, it all counts still. So, um, we’ll see see how some of these guys do early in the morning who didn’t quite finish the first round, but Jason Days three under as well. Sahit Gala three under. Harry Higgs is another popular name that has kind of fluctuated in and out of PJ tour events and cornfair events and things like that. He is four under after his first round, so he’s doing really good. Um, we have Ryan Gerard, recent PJ Tour winner towards the end of the regular season. He’s at five under par. Cameron Champ is five under par. Both one stroke off the lead. So, um there’s a a handful of other guys who are also 5 under par. So, good first day. Um some low scores. Again, those guys have to to keep up that same pace if they want to have a chance at winning at the end. Um and some of these other guys who are within a couple strokes definitely still have a shot. So, just proves that golf is so dang competitive and you got to have your stuff four days in a row in order to compete at the highest level. So, looking through, I mean, I was able to watch the broadcast a little bit today. Um, and something that was really interesting to me that I had heard about a little bit, but they really confirmed on the broadcast today was Jason Day’s equipment. He was doing really good, at least through his first few holes with his ball striking and his his iron game was money. and they started talking about his clubs and he went full Bryson to Shambo mode with that same company that Bryson used um to build his own set of irons with those curved faces, which is super interesting to me. It’s it’s an cool concept. You look at your driver head and it’s similar, right, where it’s not perfectly flat. There’s a little bit of an arc to it, but they’re doing that with irons, too, to improve the sid spin for m hits, which makes sense, right? If you’re off center of your club face, if you’re not hitting the sweet spot, that’s where you get the sid spin. A lot of players really like that, especially when you’re playing with blades because then you get more of the control if you’re trying to play more draws or fade the ball more, control that sid spin. A lot of players like that, but this is the idea of having more forgiveness on the sid spin for those mishits. So, if you are off center, then it’s not going to snap hook, right? if you’re hitting if you hit a bad toe shot, it’s not going to have that hard sid spin. So, accuracy off those clubs was a point of topic today on the broadcast, which was super interesting to hear about with him going to those irons for the first time. Now, Jason Day has a YouTube channel. I don’t watch every video. Every now and again, I’ll look at what he’s doing, but he may have talked about that on his channel. I’ll have to go look and see. But that’s something that I just noticed from the broadcast today. They also talked about his shafts going full uh or he’s not going with steel shafts. He’s got the um the KBS shafts in those clubs with the jumbo grips. So, graphite jumbo grips just really nerding out about the the very nitty-gritty details of his golf game and getting more creative with it. We’re not seeing a lot of guys do that. um most are really tied to their contracts with their sponsors and things like that. But for the guys like Bryson Desambo, Jason Day who who don’t necessarily need to be tied down financially to one specific brand or club manufacturer. They can get a little more creative with designing their own things or working with whatever brands they want. And that’s what they’re doing. And they’re trying to find ways to make them the most competitive golfers available. So, really interesting to see. We’ll see how Jason does. Like I said, he’s doing pretty good. Looking at the leaderboard, round one was great for him. So, we’ll see how he fares in Utah for the the next few days. Um, speaking of that, looking at the stats at this tournament, always got to remember playing in Utah, they’re in altitude, so some of the driving stats are very much inflated. and really is an interesting point of me at least thinking of those conversations with caddies and things like that. Playing across the country is something that these pros are very good at and they get to have a practice round at each of these courses for a few days prior to the event starting. So, they definitely can get time to dial in their clubs and their distances, but there’s so many more factors than that, too. Moving from Utah to North Carolina, you get things like uh different grass types. Like here we’re playing on Bermuda grass, which is very different than anything Utah has. Utah actually, it’s outlawed. It’s illegal to have Bermuda Bermuda grass because it’s considered a an invasive plant. Um which is super interesting out here. Everyone’s not everyone’s, but most people’s lawns are Bermuda. most of the golf courses are and it’s a very uh a very drought resistant uh grass. Um so I think a lot of people like that because they don’t need to have irrigation or watering. And the golf courses out here in North Carolina are awesome because they’re so green. Granted, get a lot more rain compared to the desert in Utah, but um they’re always green, but Bermuda is very grainy. So, if you’re chipping just greenside, you really got to figure out what your club does, what your wedges do, whether they dig into the grain or if you’re hitting with the grain, if it’s going to bounce, whether the ball is bouncing on the grain, if it’s going to die because it’s going into the grain, so on so forth. There’s all these little nuances with just the type of grass putting. For example, if you’re putting on Bermuda greens out here in North Carolina, if it’s Bermuda, you can look at the cup and see if there’s a burned edge on one side, and that’s usually where the grain is pulling the ball. And that could be opposite from the direction that the hill is. And so, they could counteract each other if it’s a very minor slope, and the grain is kind of holding that ball up the hill. Um, so between grass types, uh, changes in altitude and how that affects the distance the ball travels, uh, these pros really have to know their game inside and out, and their game has to travel well. And so that’s something that I find very interesting seeing them play in these different locations. And again, looking at these driving stats, the the average uh the average drive for the PJ tour, I I guarantee is going up because some of these guys who hit it over 300 yards often, but not on average, are just pounding the ball in Utah, just way past 300 yards almost every time. So, interesting to see. Makes you appreciate the skill that these guys have and how dialed in their game is. Um, the last thing I want to talk about is a funny tweet that I saw from Maxoma. Uh, it’s been going around on different social media accounts, so I’m sure a lot of people have seen it, but someone asked him about whether or not they think you should move the ball out of divots if you’re in the fairway. And his response was, “If you are a casual golfer not playing tournaments and and I can’t stress this enough, do whatever you want. The game sucks and is impossible. just have fun. And I couldn’t agree more. Granted, if you are trying to play in tournament golf, and he did say that if you’re trying to be competitive, if you’re trying to post on your Gin app to get a legit certified handicap, you do kind of have to follow the standard set of rules. If you’re a casual golfer, like Max said, though, do whatever you want. I don’t care. when you play with buddies and you’re not worried about tracking a score, if it’s a practice round, whatever, who cares? Unless, of course, you’ve got bets going on with your buddies, things like that. But interesting to hear pros talk about that. It’s like, yeah, it doesn’t matter. Just go out and have fun. Uh, playing with my young boys, too. I feel like that’s a huge part of golf right now is trying to make it as fun as possible and not super competitive. Although my oldest son is very very competitive, so it is fun to see him try to beat his record in keeping a real score. He’s only starting from 25 yards off the green right now. He’s 6 years old and he’s trying to score 36 on nine holes starting from just 25 yards out. So, we’re really trying to practice the short game, but he’s competitive, so he tries hard and wants to do good, but we’re trying to make it a place where he can just have fun and enjoy going. So it’s not like a stressful place for him to be. Granted, we also bribe our boys every time we go golfing with some sort of treat and they know that’s their tradition. So it’s like, “Hey, let’s go golf and then we’ll get ice cream after.” So trying to uh hit him with the the Pavlov experiment with the the bell and the dog salivating, right? We say, “Hey, we’re going to go golf.” And first thing they think about is treats. But hey, if it works, it works. Um, but between Max Homeless’s tweet and then uh either yesterday or the day before, Dan Rapaort posted um on his podcast and on his socials talking about gimme putts and how gim putts are more of an American thing compared to golf over in Europe, which I thought was really interesting. And he said, and his point was that we should just get rid of gimmies altogether and that you should putt everything out. That’s essentially what the whole game is is to try to get the ball in the hole and so that very last stroke still matters and so should get rid of gimmies. I agree again if you are trying to play real golf or you have are trying to post a score like if you’re posting a score on the the Gin app or the Jin app, however you say it, uh you probably should put everything out. I definitely have taken gimmies, too, and still posted the score. But, um, after hearing Dan Dan’s take on it, I’m like, “Yeah, I probably should putt everything out. That’s what the game is. That’s how we play the game.” Um, and then watching the broadcast today, Billy Horchel I saw missed what would have been probably in any group of friends, anyone playing golf would have probably called his putt that he had a gimme. And it lipped out hard and came back probably further than what his original putt was. and he stepped up and quickly made that next putt no problem. But he’s playing a tournament. That stroke counts just as much as a 300yard drive counts on the scorecard. So, um, makes you think, right, if you’re playing for money or if you’re playing with buddies, uh, whether or not gimm should count. It’s an interesting topic. I’m leaning more and more every day to the point of just putting everything out. Don’t have any gimmies. ball inhole. And if it’s a matter of taking too much time, that shouldn’t be what the factor is in gimmies. You should be able to step up and putt it. Um, it shouldn’t take too much more time. It shouldn’t slow down your pace of play. Um, but anyway, I just thought of that after seeing Billy Horschel lip out a hard putt today. So, um, those are the things that stuck out to me today with the, uh, the Bank of America Championship. We’ll see how round two goes tomorrow and how these guys finish up their round one who haven’t finished yet. Um, we’ll talk more about it tomorrow and see uh see who makes the cut and who makes to the weekend. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
