It’s a moment that only happens once in a player’s career, if it happens at all—that transitional day, or week, or month, when he steps out of the shadow of relative anonymity and becomes Somebody You Know. If you’re a serious golf fan, 24-year-old Will Zalatoris has been on your radar for a while now.
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1:07 AM ET Associated Press KAPOLEI, Hawaii — Fast finishes put Yuka Saso and Brittany Altomare at the top of the Lotte Championship leaderboard Wednesday morning with rounds of 8-under 64. No one caught them in ideal afternoon conditions at Kapolei Golf Club. Fourth-ranked Nelly Korda came closest, shooting a 65 that left her tied
The putts weren’t falling on Brittany Altomare’s front nine on Wednesday in the opening round of the LPGA Tour’s LOTTE Championship in Hawaii. She decided it was time for a mid-round analysis and had her caddie, Charlie Ryan, read the first couple of putts after the turn as she played the front nine at Kapolei
A fascinating detail emerged from Hilton Head earlier this week when an operations worker at the RBC Heritage tweeted out a photo of the back side of the driving range at Harbour Town, where a secondary net supported by two boom lifts rose above the regular net at the back of the range, jutting out
11:04 AM ET The PGA Tour is putting a retail sportsbook at TPC Scottsdale, one of golf’s most raucous environments. The PGA Tour announced Tuesday that DraftKings will operate the first-of-its-kind sportsbook at TPC Scottsdale and become the exclusive sports betting partner of the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Three locations at TPC Scottsdale are being
Because as challenging as closing the deal on becoming the first Japanese-born male golfer to win a major championship clearly was during Sunday’s frenetic finish, now the shy, workman-like Matsuyama stands at the forefront of what one long-time Japanese golf business observer called “an epoch-making event.” Japan may comfortably stand as the world’s second largest
8:33 PM ET AUGUSTA, Ga. — Xander Schauffele, perhaps the best golfer on the planet without a major championship victory, stood on the tee box at the par-3 16th in Sunday’s final round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. Schauffele had just made four consecutive birdies to cut Hideki Matsuyama‘s lead to 2
Brooke Henderson was flying higher than a flock of Canadian geese at the end of 2019. She had just set the record for the most LPGA wins (nine) by a Canadian in only five years on tour and polished off her fourth straight season with multiple victories. At 22, her career trajectory was as high
Juli Inkster is a two-time U.S. Women’s Open winner (1999, 2002) who has played in the USGA’s signature women’s championship 35 times during her Hall of Fame career, the last in 2014. However, she’s hoping to make it 36. The 60-year-old has signed up to compete in a 36-hole qualifier at Half Moon Bay Golf
1:54 PM ET The PGA Tour will no longer require players and caddies who are fully vaccinated to take weekly COVID-19 tests at tournament sites as a condition of competition. The Tour sent a memo to players that was obtained by ESPN that lays out the broad details, with more information to come. “As the
Hideki Matsuyama’s Masters triumph gave the golf-loving country of Japan its first-ever men’s major title. And the 29-year-old joined Y.E. Yang as the only Asian-born players to win a major. Though Matsuyama has been one of the best players in the world for a while, becoming a Masters champion will vault him into higher echelons
12:54 AM ET Associated Press TOKYO — Led by Japan’s prime minister, the country celebrated golfer Hideki Matsuyama‘s victory in the Masters — the first Japanese player to win at Augusta National and pull on the famous green jacket. “It was really wonderful,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said with his country struggling to pull off
You’re forgiven if you have a bit of a Masters hangover after last week. So will some of the players as they arrive at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, S.C.—a favorite stop of many on the PGA Tour. The field is stacked, despite Bryson DeChambeau withdrawing on Monday, with five of the
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Japan, rejoice. Hideki Matsuyama satisfied the cravings of a golf-mad nation by winning the Masters, becoming the first man from the Land of the Rising Sun to win a major championship. That will be the enduring memory from the 2021 Masters. But, as always, a golf tournament is about so much more
6:39 AM ET The Masters came upon us quickly in 2021, with the previous installment having just ended only five months earlier and without another major championship between them. Dustin Johnson’s time with the green jacket was short, and Hideki Matsuyama lifted up a nation in winning this one. Here are a few things we
AUGUSTA, Ga.—You can’t really know if the bravado’s legit until the rubber meets the road. Or, in this case, the driver meets the ball. Will Zalatoris said the right things all week. How he belongs out here, how he’s playing with house money, how he’s “stupid enough to think I can win.” But Masters Sunday
9:14 PM ET AUGUSTA, Ga. — Hideki Matsuyama smiled as he walked from the front nine to the back on Sunday, never looking toward the giant scoreboard to his right. He held a three-shot lead in the Masters, going out in 2 under. Nine holes remained between him and a major championship, the first ever
Until Hideki Matsuyama gave Japan its first major championship in the men’s game with his one-stroke victory Sunday in the 85th Masters, Isao Aoki had come the closest to winning a major title, finishing second in a duel with Jack Nicklaus in the 1980 U.S. Open at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. The first