Prefer your golf crispy with a side of janky? This was your weekend.
Innisbrook and Sharon Heights offered up tight turf on the lean side and produced worthy champions. But not before some pressure-induced weirdness that any good golf fan must adore.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, LIV enjoyed an exciting finish on an otherwise soggy Seyn City course. And since The Quad last landed in your inboxes, there has been significant news in the Jon Rahm-Ryder Cup soap opera, and a veteran Sky commentator called out Keegan Bradley for not doing more last September at Bethpage. Oh, and we got confirmation of a pitiful-but-hardly surprising “notice” on the golf ball distance front. Fore, please…
Larry Packard’s Copperhead Course at Innisbrook is one of those places prone to offbeat, unpredictable finishes because it rewards a mix of playing styles, tends to bunch a leaderboard, and still rewards the skill of working the ball both ways even after losing a lot of trees in recent years. Throw in this year’s noticeably drought-aided gray turf with longtime super Ryan Stewart’s understanding of how far he can push the grass, and the Valspar delivered a worthy winner in Matt Fitzpatrick.
As third-round hopefuls Sungjae Im and Brandt Snedeker faded, it came down to late movers Fitzpatrick, David Lipsky and Jordan Smith. Smith and Fitzpatrick were Walker Cup teammates, and Lipsky won the Big 10 individual title at Northwestern. Fun fact: Fitzpatrick attended at least three or four classes there before deciding Chicago weather wasn’t his thing.
Fitzpatrick came to the last hole tied at -11 but made his first-ever birdie in his 12th try on the closing hole. Once Lipsky missed a chance to tie, the Englishman had his third PGA Tour title and serious momentum heading toward Augusta. Fitzpatrick’s win featured a weekend of bogey-free golf on a demanding, dry course. It’s a far cry from the state of his game a year ago when he fell to 69th in the world.
“I missed the cut at The Players, played really badly,” he said of 2025’s doldrums. “Had a change in my team on the caddie front. And then didn’t make the cut at Valero. And kind of scrambling my way around Augusta. Yeah, it was hard. I didn’t really know what was going to happen. It’s hard. That’s why, you know, I hate the game and I love the game.”
With the win, Fitzpatrick will move to sixth in the world on the strength of the Valspar win, last week’s second at The Players, and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship victory. He started this season off slowly, going T63-9-T14-T24-T41 before his strong Players play.
As for his Masters chances?
He ranked No. 1 in Strokes Gained Tee To Green for Valspar week (11.616) and No. 1 in Scrambling (17 of 20). Those are nice attributes to take down Magnolia Lane, particularly if he dials in his approach game. As for Augusta National, Fitzpatrick has gotten around the place better than you might think for a shorter driver and despite first-world griping about his irons in 2024 or a painful pairing in 2025 (Patrick Cantlay slow-playing a notorious fast player).
Fitzpatrick will be making his 12th Masters appearance this year. He has two top 10’s but only one missed cut. From Foremajorsgolf.com:
Also…
David Lipsky (2nd/-10) was seeking his first PGA Tour title in his 145th start. The 37-year-old from La Canada Flintridge came into the week ranked 154th in the world.
Jordan Smith (3rd/-9) began the final round seven strokes off the lead and nearly pulled off the tournament’s largest come-from-behind win. The two-time DP World Tour winner was coming off a Players MC.
Xander Schauffele (T4/-8) posted a final round 6-under 65.
54-hole leader Im (T4/-8) posted a 3-over 74 to finish three back, while Snedeker faded to a 76 and T18 finish.
Another great week for Kalshi: the final round prediction market generated $43.8 million in volume (just $168k in Polymarket volume).
Hyo Joo Kim is an eight-time LPGA Tour victor and winner of 14 titles on the KLPGA Tour. Her closest competitor, Nelly Korda, tied for the lead at one point on the back nine of Sunday’s Fortinet Founders Cup and is on her way to the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Yet the pressure induced by the demands of Sharon Heights Country Club seemed to take a toll on both. Kim three-putted in gobsmacking awful fashion at the 16th. Like, about the worst three-putt you’ll ever see, bad. Then Korda shoved a straight three-footer for par at the 17th that could have cut Kim’s lead to one heading to the reachable 18th.
Highlighting Kim and Korda’s yippiness is in no way meant to take away from the runaway contenders in this event’s first edition outside of Arizona. Instead, it’s a compliment to the Todd Eckenrode-remodeled course that was so impressively presented by the LPGA staff in conjunction with superintendent Chad Twaddle. The surprising March heat wave helped bake things out for a NorCal course hosting at a time of year when things could be very wet. But Sharon Heights presented its revamped bentgrass-almost-everywhere turf in true major championship fashion. Throw in the chance the week gave to watch players use some of the subtle embankments to feed balls to the hole, and Sharon Heights showed what can happen when the women are given quality venues.
What looked like a runaway ended up a hard-fought win for Kim, a one-time major winner who has been at it on the LPGA Tour since 2014. The 30-year-old went wire-to-wire to post a 16-under-par 272 total, one better than Korda, making her second start after winning January’s weather-shortened Hilton Grand Vacations TofC.
Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club was originally a Jack Fleming 1963 design overhauled by Eckenrode’s Origins Golf Design in 2023-24. It deservedly received rave reviews from players. Fleming was a shaper for the Dr., so Eckenrode employed MacKenzie-style bunkering cut artfully tight to greens featuring clever shapes and just enough contour to keep things lively. Despite the tight property, there are still some conjoined fairways, no intermediate cuts, and enticing tight-mow approaches that players used to feed balls to the hole. It all played beautifully, especially for a course reopened less than two years ago.
The event also showed off the LPGA’s push (with help from a sponsor) to beef up Golf Channel telecasts that had been getting few bells, whistles or help from the brass. With more scene-setting drone shots, additional graphics, ample tracing, and key Trackman data, the change in presentation took a compelling final nine duel between elite talents at a golf course playing magnificently, and made the Fortinet bigger.
PS – Oh, to have those heat maps (lower left) accompanying a drone shot on more golf telecasts. Superimposed over the green would be fun, too. I know, no chance!
Bryson DeChambeau defeated Jon Rahm on the first hole of sudden death to win LIV Golf South Africa. The 26-under-par win marked DeChambeau’s second straight victory.
Rahm closed with a 63 to DeChambeau’s 66. But on the first crack at the 18th in sudden-death, DeChambeau received relief from mud off the fairway, then struck an incredible 3-wood from 285 yards to 12 feet, setting up the win after Rahm missed a 15-footer for birdie.
DeChambeau’s strong final round allowed his Soul Crushers to hold off the home country Security Guards for the team title.
“I’m super proud of the guys,” DeChambeau said. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to have these guys a part of the team. I think that’s nine team wins now. This is my fifth LIV individual win. I’m still pulling that dang driver. I’ve got to fix that.”
DeChambeau hit just 35 of 56 fairways in winning at the pillowish Jack Nicklaus-designed Club at Steyn City.
LIV’s as-unwatchable-as-ever broadcasts continue to feature a microphone placed to conveniently pick up the on-site DJ’s work in hopes of reaching the coveted demo (who got into some really, really embarrassing drunken fights on the Seyn City grounds). Sources say the music is just loud enough to be classified by the UN as torture that can be charged as a war crime.
If you were one of the few thousand who dared to listen long enough to hear the cackling crew’s constant raves about the South Africa turnout reaching 100,000 people, you’d think they were playing the main stage at Glastonbury.
“Just got to say I love everybody, thank you for supporting,” DeChambeau said. “South Africa was unbelievable. I mean, got to be the best LIV event we’ve ever had.”
Other notables headed to Augusta this April included Sergio Garcia (-16/T17), Cameron Smith (-16/T17), Tom McKibbin (-14/T24), Charl Schwartzel (-14/T24), Dustin Johnson (-12/T31), Tyrrell Hatton (-10/T38), Bubba Watson (-10/T38), and Phil Mickelson (-7/T48) returning from a family health scare he would not address in Steyn City.
According to Golf.com’s Sean Zak, Jon Rahm dropped his appeal of DP World Tour’s fines he’d been contesting since leaving for LIV Golf. But he also won’t be paying the fines that LIV is reportedly on the hook for. The move means no DP World Tour appearances in the near future and leaves his 2027 Ryder Cup status in serious doubt.
Zak notes that Rahm has not resigned his membership and remains hopeful of playing the Spanish Open this fall, even as he will rack up more fines playing LIV events throughout the 2026 season.
Rahm dropped the appeal on March 10 and would have to pay a tab over $3 million to play a DP World Tour event now that the appeal has been dropped.
A winner of 10.5 points in four Ryder Cup appearances dating to 2018, Rahm insists he would comply with settlement terms accepted by eight other players as long as the DP World Tour reduced the number of mandatory appearances from six to four (two of the Tour’s choosing).
“I did tell them, funny enough, lower that to four events, like the minimum says, and I’ll sign tonight,” Rahm said in Hong Kong. “They haven’t agreed to that. I just refuse to play six events. I don’t want to, and that’s not what the rules say.”