#tee-to-green-analysis

#tee-to-green-analysis

Amber Lee from San Diego is competing in the Drive, Chip and Putt finals at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament.

Driving distance matters because bombers can reach all four par-5s in two shots and hit shorter irons into greens. Approach play from 150 yards and beyond is arguably the single most important skill, with nine of the past ten winners finishing in the top six in Strokes Gained: Approach for the week.

Memorial Park allows players to swing aggressively without much penalty. Lee can not only take advantage of that but create separation with it. His distance and controlled speed give him easier looks into greens, which raises both his ceiling and his floor.

Scottie Scheffler opens at +350 on DraftKings, making him the heavy favorite by a wide margin. That kind of number reflects what we have all watched over the past two seasons - a player operating at a level that is simply different from everyone else in the field.

In the buildup to the Masters last year, I was eating a lot of elk. I got this big shipment of elk and I was eating a lot of that. I didn't want elk to be the main course because I didn't know if everyone would like that. So I incorporated that into the appetisers.

This is what I want to do now. Yes, winning the Players would have been brilliant. I won the Scottish Open, which was my main goal in life apart from a major. Now, for me, it is about winning majors. With the way I am playing, the consistency and the level I know I can play at – I don't see why not.

Each year, the PGA Tour underpins prize funds on the DP World, formerly European, Tour. The fee is listed in the European Tour Group's accounts as an annual investment payment. In 2024, it rose by almost 10%, to 21.5m. The likelihood is the figure increased again in 2025. The mistake would be to regard this as chump change for the PGA Tour; the subsidy is turning heads within an organisation that now has private equity and the Strategic Sports Group to answer to.

Bay Hill is long, demanding, the rough is thick and if your long irons aren't sharp, you're going to feel it by Saturday. The par 3s are no joke -- 200-plus yards -- on a course where a birdie fest is subdued. It's more about controlled tee shots, strong iron play and guys who survive missed greens.

If PGA National rewards touch, patience and precision over power, that's exactly Bezuidenhout's lane. He's one of the better short-game players in the field, ranked fourth in strokes gained around the green and second best in the field in putting, with strong Bermuda splits to back it up. His strength is his ability to convert mid-range putts and save par when greens are misses.

He's teaching me about the grain and how it works. I mean, I kind of knew common sense about the grain, but I think now that I'm in the 2.8 range, knowing the grain will probably get me down to - my goal is to get to scratch.

The American Express is a unique format: three courses with short, scorable desert tracks at PGA West Stadium Course, plus La Quinta and the Nicklaus Tournament Course in the rotation. The winning score is pretty much pre-written at 20-under or better. This is a green light event, where fairways are wide, pins are attackable and birdies are plentiful. Power and distance isn't required. Instead, what matters is who can create chances with wedges and short irons, and actually convert when scoring is easy.

Akshay Bhatia did enough early with six birdies in seven holes that carried him to a 4-under 68 and a two-shot lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. But the worst might still be to come. Starting times were moved up one hour for the final round with a forecast of big wind and rain, a time for players to hang on by the seat of their rain pants.