Four days wasn’t enough to produce a winner last year at the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions.
The playoff between Gabby Lopez, Nasa Hataoka and Inbee Park spilled over into Monday and went seven holes before Lopez took the victory.
The LPGA Tour is back in action this week with the 2021 playing of the Tour’s Winners-Only event at the Four Seasons Golf and Sports Club in Lake Buena Vista outside Orlando. There are only 25 players in the field and 50 celebrities and one of those celebs is Annika Sorenstam. This event is a good one — it carries a $1.2 million purse with an additional $500,000 for the celebrity competition.
Highest-ranked player in the field is Nelly Korda, currently fourth in the world. Danielle Kang is playing and is a slot lower at No. 5. Brooke Henderson finished tied for fourth last year and the Canadian star will be out to improve that finish.
Other familiar names in this season-opener include Jessica Korda, Sophia Popov, Stacy Lewis and Brittany Lincicome. Not in the field are the world’s top two and most dominant stars — Jin Young Ko and Sei Young Kim.
Play begins on Thursday.
Butch Harmon Finally Admits He Took A Look At Jordan Spieth:
Butch Harmon denied he was “coaching” Jordan Spieth recently when in fact, Butchie actually did spend some quality practice range time to look at Spieth’s swing — which basically sounds like the good old “Second Opinion” sort of stuff.
Butch was on former Golf Channel star instructor Michael Breed’s radio show on PGA Tour Radio (SiriusXM), and confirmed that he did indeed spend time with Jordy.
“I thought I was going to have to change his club face at the top of his swing because you know how open that gets because he has a very weak left-hand grip,” Harmon told Breed. “But they had worked beautifully on that — the clubface was good.”
But Butchie did have one key observation for Spieth. During their session, Harmon told Spieth he “didn’t think that he was turning enough.
“I thought the club would get in a little too deep, and he would lift, and he wasn’t getting any rotation in his body, which didn’t allow him to unwind into it,” Harmon said. “As you know, if you don’t wind something up, you can’t unwind it. And so he was kind of hanging and getting a little inside, so we worked a lot on the takeaway, worked a lot on getting a turn and then after I got a little width in his backswing. I wanted a little more width through the through swing.”
So instead of that “This is not true and I have no idea who said this” denial by Harmon on the Golf Digest report, the truth finally comes out.
“All I did was give him my opinion,” Harmon added. “Which a lot of guys come for.”
5 Comments
baxter cepeda
All I can say about the lpga opener is please don’t make us watch a bunch of D-listers all week.
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Nice that the truth is finally out about JS and coach meeting the goat.
The turn thing makes so much sense.
Part of what has derailed Jordan is seeking distance.
Personally been focusing on making big (but reasonable) turns with the longer clubs for a while now and It produces shots further and more consistently then ever.
If Butch says spieth isn’t making enough of a turn, that really explains everything. Imo.
This visit could really be the missing link to not only get Jordan’s game back on the rails, but possibly stronger than ever.
Tom Edrington
Bax: One of my best friends is a PGA Professional, good teacher….he always points to Spieth’s grip which we believe has gotten weaker than it used to be and to quote Dave: “I have a weak grip and it’s always been the source of any problems that show up”……In addition to that grip, another friend (PGA Professional) describes Spieth’s grip looking “Like he’s wearing over mitts” It does look like he has not a single overlap grip but a double overlap grip…just the way it looks…..so let’s see if Spieth makes progress this season….as for the LPGA winner’s only — the D-listers outnumber the LPGA players 2-to-1…..only “A” lister among celebs is Annika, they will probably focus on her, hopefully
baxter cepeda
I don’t mind spieths weak grip. He did well with it. I don’t know about it getting weaker.
My youngest has a weak grip and hits some towering straight balls with her irons. I think coaches teach too many players away from weak grips, which Jordan has shown us can clearly work.
Double overlap works well for Jim Furyk. But I don’t think Jordan does that.
All that being said imo Jordan’s main issue is he doesn’t manage his way around like he did at his best. When he won the Open over kuchar it took him 30 min but he made the right decision. He hasn’t been doing stuff like that. A lot of terrible misses; nothing like the genuine course manager he was at his best.
Golf is a game of misses Jordan had mastered. Cameron McCormick has had some great specials on tv where
He Shows that great course management Jordan learned from him. Jordan just needs to refind that management more than anything; as that was a huge part of his success. Otherwise it really doesn’t matter what he does with the swing itself.
Tom Edrington
Bax: Jordy start downhill once the two-way miss became a factor in his game….spell death for any tour player.
baxter cepeda
Yea.
I think if a player tries to hit it farther without making a bigger turn, as it appears Jordan has, the player is sure to start missing both ways.
Again I’m hopeful the Goat gave them the proper Fix. It’s an overused term for many players but golf really is better with Spieth doing well.