This week, the Tour heads to Southport, England, for The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. 

• Date: July 16-19, 2026
• Location: Southport, England
• Course: Royal Birkdale Golf Club
• How to watch: NBC, USA, Peacock
• Purse: $17,000,000
• Defending champ: Scottie Scheffler

Which skills the course rewards

Royal Birkdale was founded in 1889 and primarily designed by Frederick G. Hawtree and J.H. Taylor. Mackenzie & Ebert, the firm that has worked on all Open rota courses, did a significant renovation in 2023 to prepare for this year’s Open Championship.

It will play as a par 70 at more than 7,200 yards, making it a longer course for Open Championship standards. Both par 5’s are on the back nine and very gettable, while the course has a diverse set of par 3s and plenty of difficult par 4s. 

The difficulty of Opens at Birkdale have largely been dependent on weather, but it’s still one of the toughest tests in the Open rota. Jordan Spieth reached 12-under in 2017 with fairly easy conditions and a third round that gave up a record-breaking 62 from Brendan Grace. Padraig Harrington won at 3-over in 2008 by four shots during a week that saw terrible weather and brutal conditions. Mark O’Meara also only managed even-par in 1998. 

This week, we should expect an extremely firm and fast golf course due to the hot and dry weather in England over the past few weeks. But winds are expected to be fairly tame, which should overall create a fair but difficult challenge for the world’s best. 

At Birkdale, I’m primarily looking at strong, accurate drivers of the ball and elite short-grass scramblers, along with the usual preference of elite iron play. Birkdale’s fairways can be tough to hit and feature narrowing short grass around the yardage many players hit their driver. Those who can be aggressive can cut off the distance on a lot of these par 4’s, but the firm conditions will make it tough to do so accurately. Birkdale has favored accuracy off the tee, so any players who can combine distance with that will obviously have a great advantage. 

Birkdale also has very tricky green complexes with short-grass runoffs all around them. It should come as no surprise then that Spieth and Harrington took down the last two Opens here, considering they were possibly the best in the game at the time at creative scrambling. 

With firm conditions expected, players who can flight their ball multiple ways and work it in both high and low should be at an advantage. The R&A will be able to cut the greens a little shorter than many years due to the expected low winds. 

How the model works

The weighted model this week over the last 36 rounds is 20% SG: Approach, 15% SG: Off the Tee, 15% SG: Total (Links), 10% SG: Around the Green, 10% scrambling (short grass), 10% greens in regulation %, 10% distance from edge of fairway, and 10% SG: Putting.

Power rankings

(DraftKings odds—winner/top 5/top 10 with favorite picks in bold)

10. Tom Kim (+5900, +880, +405)

Model rank: 16^th

This checks all the boxes. Kim won last week in Scotland, which makes it five straight top-17 finishes in that tournament. He was 3^rd at the U.S. Open, and he also finished runner-up in the 2023 Open Championship. Kim has been trending upward for a while now, and he always seems to enjoy links golf. His iron play has been elite lately, and the scrambling is also superb. Ranks 2^nd in SG: APP. 

9. Russell Henley (+5200, +750, +340)

Model rank: 11^th

Henley has been struggling with his short game for whatever reason as of late, but I’d expect that to turn around soon. He’s always been great scrambling from short grass, and Henley is a very accurate driver of the ball who can get scorching hot with his irons at any moment. He’s finished 5^th and T10 at the last two Opens. Ranks 4^th in DFEF. 

8. Jon Rahm (+1850, +345, +174)

Model rank: 5^th

I’m struggling with how to grade Rahm this week. At a quick look, he checks the boxes statistically and is one of the best players in the world. But the recent form is not ideal—especially the irons last week in Scotland in a rare chance to tee it up with PGA Tour players. He also missed the cut at Shinnecock. But Rahm has been in the mix consistently at The Open and could surely contend again. Ranks 4^th in SG: OTT. 

7. Xander Schauffele (+2500, +445, +220)

Model rank: 3^rd

Schauffele is another top player coming in poor form after struggling at the Travelers and Scottish Open. His iron play was a disaster in both starts, as was much of the bag. But Schauffele tends to always bring it for major championships, and The Open has been no different. He won in 2024 and defended with a solid T7 last year. He also had a valuable T20 at Birkdale as a debutant in 2017. Ranks 1^st in SG: TOT (Links). 

6. Tyrrell Hatton (+3600, +590, +285)

Model rank: 8^th

Hatton has a pair of great runs at majors this year, with a T3 at the Masters and T7 at the U.S. Open. He didn’t hit it well at the Scottish last week but had a hot putter to manage a T17. I’ve always felt like Hatton would win an Open, as he’s been solid here throughout his career. Birkdale is the type of fair test that will fit better with his temperament as well. Ranks 9^th in SG: APP. 

5. Cameron Young (+3100, +530, +260)

Model rank: 7^th

Young hasn’t exactly had his best stuff since that incredible stretch through the Cadillac Championship in May. The putter has completely cooled off, which was always expected, but maybe not this drastically. His ball striking has also cooled down as well but not in a concerning way. Young started his Open career with a runner-up and a T8 in 2023 but missed the cut at Royal Portrush last year. Ranks 12^th in SG: OTT. 

4. Matt Fitzpatrick (+1850, +335, +166)

Model rank: 9^th

Shockingly, Fitzpatrick managed his first finish better than 20^th at The Open last year with a T4 at Portrush. It’s a bit concerning that he hasn’t managed much in this championship, but it doesn’t make any sense. I expect Fitzpatrick to find his way in the mix more often now at The Open, and Birkdale seems like the right spot considering he’s been one of the game’s top few players throughout 2026. Ranks 2^nd in SG: ARG. 

3. Tommy Fleetwood (+1800, +325, +160)

Model rank: 4^th

It could be a magical week for Fleetwood in his hometown. The Southport native played decently here in 2017, but he’s added three top-10’s in the Open since, and he’s coming in with fantastic form of five straight finishes of T14 or better. Fleetwood is one of the most balanced players on Tour and should be in the mix if his iron play is strong. Ranks 11^th in SG: ARG. 

2. Rory McIlroy (+850, +184, -104)

Model rank: 2^nd

McIlroy had a nice prep week in Scotland with a T7 finish despite struggling with his approach play. The driver could be a real weapon at Birkdale if he’s hitting it straight, as he could cut off a ton of distance on some of the par-4’s and give himself more wedges than most. He was T4 here in 2017 and would surely like to add another Open after winning his last in 2014. 

1. Scottie Scheffler (+620, +132, -146)

Model rank: 1^st

I’m still not panicking. Scheffler missed his first cut since 2022 last week at the Scottish Open. I almost think it may have been a good thing for the defending champion. Scheffler got to Birkdale earlier than expected to work on his game, and perhaps it could help him manage a better start than he’s had in most tournaments this year. Scheffler still easily grades out No. 1 in the model, and he’s finished 2^nd, T14 and T4 at the three majors this year. Ranks 1^st in SG: APP.

Top Photo Caption: Royal Birkdale is ready for the Open Championship. (GETTY IMAGES/Michael Reaves)

The post The Open Championship: Power Rankings, Gambling Odds And Favorite Bets appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Why the quick turn

When Titleist built the GT280, it zagged. While most of the category clustered around 300cc (and Callaway went all the way to 340), Titleist went small on purpose, betting that a genuinely compact mini, one you could hit more easily off the deck, was the version of the club the market was missing.

It wasn’t wrong. The 280 has fans and it still does a specific job better than most. But “compact and versatile” and “what the PGA Tour wants” turned out to be two different conversations.

“We loved the 280. We did this for a reason,” Titleist’s Tom Fisher told us when we sat down with the metalwoods team. “Launch and spin was pretty good, where we wanted it. We loved the versatility of it. But feedback was, ‘Can we go a little bit bigger to get more inertia? [But] not too big to make it that it’s not good off the ground.’”

Two of the louder voices in that feedback loop belonged to Justin Thomas and Cameron Young. “Both those players were really excited about GT280 and also had some commentary about potential performance improvements,” said JJ Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist’s Senior Director of Club Promotions. The read between the lines: the small head was a good start; now make it more forgiving without wrecking what made it playable.

What’s bigger and what isn’t

The GTS300 grows to 305cc, a 25cc bump over the 280. Written down, that reads almost trivial. In practice, a bigger footprint and a deeper center of gravity buy meaningfully more MOI which is the whole point.

“The main goal in development was to make GTS300 a more forgiving mini driver,” said Stephanie Luttrell, Titleist’s Senior Director of Metalwood Development. “The increase in volume and shift in CG gave us approximately 15 to 20 percent greater inertia to do just that. At the same time, we’re still putting a premium on versatility and performance off the turf with this club.”

That last part is the tell. The one number Titleist deliberately left alone is face height. The 300 carries a larger footprint but sits the same off the ground as the 280 and that’s by design. Go too deep, Fisher notes, and the thing “falls off a tightly mown fairway” which is death for confidence on the exact shot a mini is supposed to make easier.

The face is carried over in philosophy from the GTS fairways: a forged L-Cup design with a high-strength ATI 425 steel insert that wraps under the leading edge. It’s fairway-wood DNA, built to hold ball speed on the low-face strikes you’re going to catch swinging a mini off the turf. A composite crown frees up discretionary weight which is how the engineers got the CG where they wanted it in the first place.

Don’t sleep on the fitting

Here’s the part most people will skip past and shouldn’t.

Yes, there’s the Fairway SureFit hosel for loft and lie. Yes, there’s a dual-weight system: an 11-gram and a three-gram flat weight you can run heavy-back for a higher, more stable flight or flip heavy-forward for a lower, flatter, lower-spin one. Standard stuff.

But the weights aren’t just a front-to-back switch. Titleist offers them in a range (down to minus-six and up to plus-six grams), which means a good fitter can also dial the head’s overall weight up or down to land you where you actually perform. That matters more on a mini than most clubs because a mini can be a driver replacement, a 3-wood replacement or a situational 15th club depending on who’s holding it and each of those wants something a little different.

The catch is that almost nobody gets fitted for a mini driver. If you’re going to spend the money, spend the extra 20 minutes, too. (One SureFit note worth filing away: because the GTS300 hosel is longer, a 43-inch fairway shaft plugs in and plays 43.5.)

Still a Tour idea, mostly

None of this rewrites the math of the category. The mini is, at its core, a solution that trickled down from the Tour, where the 3-wood off the deck is basically extinct and the best players want something between driver and fairway when the big dog is too much club. For a lot of amateurs, the honest answer is you’d be fine letting the driver hunt. For some (the ones who genuinely can’t keep it between the stakes or who never hit 3-wood off the ground anyway), a mini is a legitimately good idea.

What’s no longer up for debate is whether the category sticks around. Every mainstream OEM but PING now sells one and several are three-plus generations deep into what qualifies as their modern minis. That’s not a fad. That’s a shelf.

My take on 280 versus 300

I haven’t spent real time with the GTS300 yet so file this under “first impressions.” I like the larger footprint off the tee and the forgiveness story makes sense. I also still think Titleist was onto something with the smaller 280 even if the Tour and the broader market have made it clear they’d take a touch more size.

For most golfers, the move up won’t cost much. If you’re comfortable hitting the 280 off the deck, odds are you’ll be fine with the 300. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a strong secondhand market build up around the 280 because the people who bought it small bought it small on purpose. If that’s you, note that Titleist has dropped the 280 to $399 which turns the club that might already be the right one for you into a genuine bargain.

Specs, pricing and availability

The Titleist GTS300 comes in a single 13-degree loft, right- and left-handed, at 305cc. Standard length is 43.5 inches (men’s) with 42.5-inch (women’s) and 41.5-inch (junior) builds available. Standard lie is 56 degrees.

Stock shafts include the Project X Titan Black and Mitsubishi’s Tensei 1K in White (low), Blue (mid) and Red (high) with Rip Technology. Premium options bring the Graphite Design Tour AD DI, VF and FI.

MSRP is $549 or $749 with a premium shaft. The GTS300 reaches golf shops worldwide beginning July 23.

For more information, visit Titleist.com.

The post Titleist GTS300 Mini Driver: The Case For Going Bigger appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: zero-torque putters are not magic. But results like this should make you stop and think.

Every buying guide at MyGolfSpy is informed by independent testing and millions of equipment data points, helping golfers separate marketing claims from measurable performance.

The numbers nobody wants to own

Across our Blade, Mallet and Zero-Torque tests, 17 testers played all three categories. On blades, the pool averaged a -2.47 PV handicap. On mallets, -3.80. One tester’s blade average was +4.55. His mallet average was +3.98. He is the only tester in that group of 17 with a positive handicap in either category, meaning by our measure he was worse than scratch on both.

Then we handed him a zero-torque putter

His zero-torque average came out to -0.97, a swing of more than 5 1/2 strokes from his mallet number alone. Saving five shots with a club change is huge.

But I want to be careful with what that number does and does not mean.

A -0.97 is not this tester climbing to the top of our leaderboard. The 17-tester Zero Torque average was -6.57 so he was likely still below the pack even at his best. Zero-torque does not make him elite. However, we can see that whatever was breaking down in his stroke on a blade or a heavier mallet largely disappeared once his putter stopped twisting through impact.

What the distance data shows

On mallets, his medium-range putts, the eight- to 15-foot zone that decides more rounds than most golfers want to admit, cost him 8.82 strokes above the field average. With zero-torque, that same zone cost him 2.28. Short and long putts improved, too, but the medium-range gap is where decisions about switching putters should be made.

His best in each category

The numbers we’ve been looking at up to this point have been averages. It’s also interesting to break down his best putter in each category. I like seeing the Scotty Cameron putts show up on this list twice. The Cameron name has always been associated with better players but you can see here that the SS Newport 2 and Phantom 11 OC were top performers for a golfer who needs some help on the greens.

What this means for your own fitting

What a zero-torque head is engineered to do is keep the face square through impact without your hands correcting for it. For this golfer, it fixed something that helped him save strokes instantly. Have you tried a zero-torque putter yet?

The post What Happened When the Worst Putter in Our Testing Tried a Zero-Torque Putter (Data-Backed Results) appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

As you can see, golf jargon is expansive. And, for the most part, golf is a game with plenty of fun lingo.

Albatross. Sandbagger. Waggle.

However, golf’s lexicon has a few stragglers as well. These are the terms I hate to hear. Quite frankly, they make me wince like I just three-putted from 10 feet.

For one reason or another, here are the 10 golf terms that make me cringe.

(And, yes, I am the old man yelling at the cloud.)

1. Golfing

Look, I’m not here to be the grammar police but the term golfing just doesn’t make sense.

You don’t add “-ing” to any other major sport in this context. Tennising? Baseballing? Basketballling? I’m not sure how golf got roped into this racket.

This is one of those little things where you can tell the ballknowers from the novices. If someone says they are golfing rather than playing golf, the chances are high that they are new to the game or don’t play much.

Does it matter? Not at all. Does it make me cringe? It sure does.

2. Pin

I’m not sure who is doing PR for the word “pin” in golf but they must be the same people who turned Brussels sprouts around.

Pins exist in bowling alleys, ATM machines and bulletin boards. Flagsticks exist on golf courses. That is how the USGA defines it and that word makes a lot more sense given how there is, you know, a flag involved. Flagstick is a cool term unique to golf while pin is definitely not.

But somehow we’ve decided to incorporate pin (pin high, pin seeking, etc.) into virtually every reference to the flagstick.

Make the flagstick great again.

3. Playing through

Taking things in a slightly different direction here, I cringe at “playing through” for a different reason than the first two.

First of all, I now associate “playing through” with TV coverage when they give us 18 percent of the screen for the golf while a commercial plays on the rest. I would rather just get straight commercials and then see the shots on tape delay.

And then we have one of the most awkward encounters in golf: playing through a group (or having a group play through you).

It’s weird either way. If you are playing through someone, you inevitably rush while the group watches you finish the hole. If someone is playing through you, that means they were on your ass and you have to take a forced break.

No matter how you slice it, playing through isn’t ideal.

4. Gimme

If you’ve followed my writing, you know my feelings on gimmes. We should just cancel them and everyone can finish out the hole instead of negotiating their score.

Gimmes are one of the oddest things in golf. Within a certain circle—and nobody can fully agree on what that circle is—golfers are expected to say “that’s good” so their playing partners don’t have to hole out.

I’m also just against the term “gimme” in the first place. Hey, I want that putt, gimme it.

Is this actually serious in a fun game of golf? Not really but it grinds my gears.

5. Shank

The dreaded S-word.

Shank is a full-on cringe but for much different reasons than the previous four terms listed here.

Everyone who has played golf has hit a shank at some point. It’s the most embarrassing shot in golf and it can be a recurring sickness that rears its ugly head at the most inopportune times.

You wouldn’t wish the shanks on your worst enemy. You would rather have just about any other swing problem.

The only exception is…

6. The yips

While the term of “the yips” or “being yippy” extends into other sports—like when a second baseman can’t throw to first all of a sudden—the word is synonymous with golf.

Shanks and yips can sometimes overlap but the biggest difference is that the yips are purely mental.

A golfer gets over the ball and can’t take the club back. Or their mind goes completely blank once the downswing starts.

Usually, it’s a talented golfer who has the physical ability but is struggling with a mental burden. He or she has become infected and needs to visit a sports psychologist.

Some golfers never recover.

7. Foot wedge

“Foot wedge” is a term used for when golfers move their ball into a better position. It can be said for a golfer moving their ball away from a root during a casual game or a serial cheater improving their lie while nobody is looking.

Similar to gimme, my issue with the term is two-fold:

• If you are playing golf for score, you might as well play the ball as it lies and see what your real score is rather than negotiating with yourself. You can’t brag about shooting 78 if you use the foot wedge liberally.

• If you are playing golf for fun and score is irrelevant, just do whatever you want. There doesn’t need to be any pomp and circumstance around “taking a foot wedge” to give yourself a better lie. That makes it sound like you are doing something wrong. You can do it on virtually every shot where you don’t have a perfect lie. Honestly, it’s a nice way for beginners to learn the game.

The term is also just kind of a dad joke that isn’t funny.

8. Fore

After playing a lot of competitive junior golf, I have PTSD from the word “fore.”

There is no good news when that word is heard on a golf course. Either you hit a bad tee shot that is headed toward another group or someone hit an errant tee shot in your direction.

As bad as it is to hear the word, not hearing someone yell it is almost more cringey. Hitting into someone and not even warning them is even worse.

9. Provisional

Interestingly enough, I think I’ve only heard the word “provisional” in a competitive golf context.

Similar to fore, there is no good time for a provisional to be played.

First, you hit a ball that might have gone out of bounds or been lost. Next, you have to declare your provisional. Then you have to make another swing, often with the uncertainty of knowing whether the original ball is still in play.

Sometimes you are better off playing the provisional rather than finding the original ball in an unsavory location.

So, yeah, provisional is a tough word to hear.

10. Skull

Another word unique to golf in this context, skull is a brutal word.

There are many humiliating shots that can be hit in golf but skulling a short game shot might take the cake in the non-shank division.

That feeling of hitting the equator of the ball and seeing it fly past the hole—often ending up in a much worse position than where you came from—is one of the most deflating feelings in the world.

The “skull” must stand for “skull and crossbones” because you are dead in that scenario.

That is my list. What are your most cringey golf words? Let me know below in the comments.

The post These 10 Golf Terms Make Me Cringe appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Today, we’re going to dive into a story that’s fascinated me for a long time. It’s the story of how the NIKE Tour Accuracy, the ball that fueled Tiger’s incredible run of four straight majors in 2000-2001, came to be. It’s also the story of how two huge companies, NIKE and Bridgestone, worked together to create that ball.

This story also has a few interesting twists and turns, just to keep you on your toes.

How ‘bout it, history junkies, shall we get started?

History’s Mysteries: The story of the NIKE Tour Accuracy

Many of you probably know this already but the original Tour Accuracy was a collaboration between NIKE and Bridgestone. NIKE’s part was that they had Tiger Woods. Bridgestone’s part was a bit more substantial.

However, here’s something that maybe you didn’t know. Every NIKE ball that Tiger played, from May of 2000 when he switched from the Titleist Professional, until the day NIKE shut down its golf equipment division in 2016, was also made by Bridgestone. That would include not only the original Tour Accuracy but also the TW models of the NIKE ONE, NIKE ONE Platinum, NIKE ONE Tour and NIKE ONE Tour D.

I didn’t know that, either.

“We OEM’d those balls for them,” Bridgestone Marketing Director David Vogrin tells MyGolfSpy. “Their success was our success. Even now, when we assume everyone knows, we do focus groups and people don’t realize that we made the balls Tiger used for 67 of his 82 PGA wins and for 13 of his 15 majors.

“It’s really fun to tell people that story.”

The seeds of the solid-core revolution

The solid-core golf ball officially dates back to 1972 and the Spalding Top-Flite. It was a two-piece solid-core ball with a Surlyn cover. The Top-Flite was firm (“Rock-Flite, anyone?) and more durable than the liquid-center, balata-covered balls that dominated golf at the time. It was also lower spinning and noticeably longer than balata balls.

Bridgestone opened its North American manufacturing facility in Covington, Ga., in 1990 (it’s in the process of closing down now). One of its earliest solid-core balls was the Precept EV Extra Spin. It was a two-piece, Surlyn-covered ball. What makes it significant is that Nick Price won two majors in 1994 with that ball, likely making him the first golfer to win a major with a solid-core ball.

In 1996, Spalding came out with the Top-Flite Strata, widely considered the first multi-layer, solid-core urethane ball. Mark O’Meara rode the Stata Tour to his greatest season ever in 1998, winning the Masters and the Open Championship.

This is where Tiger enters the chat.

By late 1998, Tiger had won seven pro tournaments including the 1997 Masters. He was 22 years old with a five-year, $40-million apparel deal with NIKE and a five-year, $20-million equipment deal with Titleist in his pocket. But he wasn’t Tiger. Not yet.

Then came a fateful practice round with O’Meara.

“It’s the ball”

During that practice round, Tiger was using his gamer, the Titleist Tour Professional. It was a traditional wound ball with a urethane, rather than balata, cover. Tiger noticed that O’Meara was getting significantly more spin and check on his pitch shots and asked O’Meara how he was doing it. O’Meara joked that it was his technique.

The legend goes that Tiger watched more closely for a few holes and eventually said, “It’s the ball.”

The Strata had seemingly contradictory characteristics for the time. It was low spin off the driver but offered plenty of spin around the green. It was more durable than a wound balata and was considerably more consistent in the wind. That planted a seed with Tiger that, despite all his talent, he was at an equipment disadvantage.

Tiger had a phenomenal 1999 using the Tour Professional, winning eight tournaments and his second major at the PGA Championship.

“At that point in his career, he was seeing things change out there,” says Vogrin. “He had friends who were exploring solid-core golf balls.”

Here’s another fact people tend to forget. The Strata was the first multi-layer, solid-core urethane golf ball. But did you know the second one on the market was actually from Bridgestone? Yep, in January of 2000, Bridgestone launched the Precept MC Tour Premium. Behind the scenes, however, Bridgestone and NIKE were working on a joint venture to create a solid-core ball just for Tiger.

The NIKE-Bridgestone partnership

NIKE signed Tiger to that huge five-year deal in 1996. With eyes set on a bigger deal in 2001, it started the process of getting into the equipment business.

One problem. Even though NIKE had Tiger, it didn’t have the equipment expertise to make it happen. Bridgestone, on the other hand, had technical expertise but had not yet started marketing anything under its own name. It was only selling balls under the Precept brand (it wouldn’t sell a Bridgestone-branded ball until 2004).

Bridgestone also had an ace in the hole, a golf ball engineer named Rock Ishii. Ishii had been with Bridgestone since the late ‘80s and had worked on its earlier solid-core balls. Not long after Tiger’s practice round with O’Meara, NIKE started looking for ways to make a ball for Tiger. That led to Bridgestone and to Ishii, who became the point man between the two companies.

Ironically, Ishii would leave Bridgestone in 2002 to become NIKE’s Senior Director of Golf Ball Innovation.

“Ishii started working with Tiger right away, listening to his feedback and what he wanted in a solid core ball,” says Bridgestone Senior Marketing Manager Adam Rehberg. “The biggest thing he didn’t want was firm. He loved that balata feel.”

“At the time, Tiger was used to launching his driver at about eight degrees with 3,500 rpm of spin,” adds Vogrin. “Back then, eight degrees and 3,500 rpm was where everyone lived with wound balls.”

When Tiger started testing Bridgestone’s solid-core prototypes, however, he immediately saw launch increase to 12 degrees and spin drop to around 2,200 rpm.

“Can you imagine knocking 1,300 rpm off your spin while also launching the ball 50 percent higher instantly, just by changing golf balls?” says Vogrin. “The ball was going 50 yards farther on mathematics alone.

Making the switch

All of a sudden, a guy who already won 15 tournaments and two majors, who was about to turn 24 and who was the most athletic, high clubhead speed guy the game had ever seen, was about to get even more out of his golf ball.

Ishii travelled between Japan and Florida regularly in 1999, delivering prototypes for Tiger to try. Bridgestone was trying to match Tiger’s launch, shot shape and trajectory preferences. By early 2000, they had it. Both Bridgestone and NIKE figured Tiger would wait until the offseason to put the ball in play but he surprised everyone when he put the new Tour Accuracy in play at the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open in Germany that May. He finished third. A week later, he used the Tour Accuracy to win the Memorial. His next start would be the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

In case you missed it, he won by 15 strokes.

A month later, Tiger won the Open Championship at St Andrews by eight strokes. In August, he won the PGA in a playoff over Bob May and, the following April, he completed the Tiger Slam with a two-stroke victory over David Duval at the Masters.

It was the first and, so far, only time one man has held all four major championship trophies at once. By the 2001 Masters, however, Titleist had finally launched the Pro V1. Tiger’s win at Pebble put the wound balata on life support. The fact that Titleist staffers, who had been clamoring for a ball equal to Tiger’s for months, switched wholesale to the Pro V1 ultimately pulled the plug.

The wound golf ball was dead.

It wasn’t just the distance

While Tiger’s distance with the new Tour Accuracy was substantial, Vogrin and Rehberg say Tiger was most impressed with what it could do with his irons.

“He made a career on knowing that his ball is going to launch lower with enough spin to stop instantly,” explains Vogrin. “He likes to control distance with spin and trajectory rather than launch and spin. Then, as now, he’s all about hitting his windows.”

“We did a Walk ‘n Talk video with Tiger about the transition earlier this year,” says Rehberg. “I thought for sure he’d say the biggest difference was distance. Part of it was but he said it was really about control and knowing where the ball was going to end up.

“He said with wound balls, they had to play for drift. When they hit their peak, they’d just move so much. If you wanted to hit a left pin through a right-to-left wind, you’d have to aim for the bunker to the right of the green to have any hope of getting close. He said with his new ball, he could just take dead aim.”

Think about that for a second. Giving Tiger Woods, the most prolific ball striker of his or maybe any era, the ability to take dead aim on any pin?

“That should send shivers down anyone’s back,” says Rehberg.

“The ball allowed him to play aggressively safe,” adds Vogrin. “He didn’t have to throw his ball 40 feet to the left and worry about it drifting 50 feet to the right and off the green. He could aim 25 feet left of the pin and if the wind did move it, it wouldn’t move it to the right of the pin.”

History’s Mysteries: Bridgestone and the Tour Accuracy legacy

When Tiger put the Tour Accuracy in play in May of 2000, about 80 percent of the field was still playing a wound ball. The sea changed almost immediately. In 2001, not a single golfer on the PGA Tour posted a win with a wound ball.

Not one.

No one on the LPGA, Seniors, European, Canadian, Buy.com or Japan golf tours did, either.

“Tiger told us during that Walk ‘n Talk that he felt the ball was a huge advantage,” says Rehberg. “He was already the best player in the world but in 2000, he knew he had a competitive advantage thanks to his golf ball.”

There was one nagging question I had for Vogrin and Rehberg. Just how different, really, was the Tour Accuracy from the Precept MC Tour Premium that Bridgestone had already launched that January?

“There were some differences, primarily cosmetically,” says Vogrin. “There weren’t going to be any patent infringement issues because we were helping NIKE make a golf ball. The key technologies, like the seamless cover, the injection-molded urethane and the gradational core, were all ours.”

“Gradational cores [where the core is soft in the center and gradually gets firmer toward the outside] weren’t even a thing back then,” adds Rehberg. “Cores were little rubber balls with rubber bands around them until we made a gradational core.”

History’s Mysteries’ parting thoughts

When NIKE exited golf equipment in 2016, Tiger’s return to Bridgestone was really a fait accompli for one simple reason: since 2000, he’d always played a Bridgestone-made golf ball.

“Believe it or not, Tiger plays a stock Bridgestone golf ball,” says Vogrin. “When he signed with us, he played the B330-S. He liked the softer, spinnier version of our tour balls.”

This year, however, Tiger switched to the new, firmer Tour B X.

“Everything for him is about those nine windows,” says Rehberg. “Once he was able to put the X through those windows and once the short-game performance was there and the sound was there, the X provided him with a little more distance.”

Of course, Tiger’s not playing now. We don’t know when, or even if, he’ll ever play again. But when he did play, he did things with a golf ball that few of us had ever seen before and might never see again.

And because this is History’s Mysteries, it’s important to know that regardless of the brand name on the ball, he was doing it with a Bridgestone. That has to count for something.

We hope you enjoyed this latest edition of History’s Mysteries. As always, we’re interested in what you have to say. Tiger is up there with Hogan and Nicklaus as the best the game has ever seen so please share your memories of Tiger the player.

As for the rest, well, let’s choose to be grown-ups today and keep it on topic.

The post History’s Mysteries: How A Tiger, A Rock And Bridgestone Created The NIKE Tour Accuracy appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Here is the short version: set up a hybrid like a long iron.

Our instruction content combines insights from equipment testing, data analysis, and golf experts to help golfers improve with evidence-based advice.

The base rule: Treat it like a long iron

Hybrids were built to replace the long irons golfers struggle with most: the 2-, 3- and 4-irons that have a small face and not much forgiveness. Your setup should follow the long-iron logic because that’s the club the hybrid is replacing.

Ball position. Center to slightly forward in your stance, similar to where you would play a 4- or 5-iron. Not forward off the lead heel like you would with a driver.

Handle position. Set the handle slightly ahead of the clubhead before you take your grip, roughly level with or just ahead of the ball. That small adjustment does more to prevent topped shots than people realize and it fixes the ball position problem and the grip problem at the same time.

Weight distribution. Fairly neutral at address. A fairway wood swing tends to favor the back foot to help you sweep the ball off the turf. A hybrid does not need that.

Distance from the ball. Set up the way you would for a long iron and then adjust slightly if your hybrid’s shaft is noticeably longer than the iron it replaced.

The mental image. You want to hit down and through the ball, not scoop it. A shallow divot after the ball is normal and it is a sign you are doing it right. The same concept you should have in mind when hitting an iron.

Why iron rules apply even though it looks like a wood

The hybrid head looks like a shrunken fairway wood which is exactly why so many golfers set up to it that way. But the design underneath tells a different story. Hybrids carry a flatter sole and a lie angle much closer to an iron than to a wood.

Some hybrids are true hybrids, built with a hollow, wood-like head and a shallow face. Others are closer to an iron with a slightly bulging back.

The one exception

The basics for how to set up to hit a hybrid shot are pretty simple but they can change based on the lie.

Good lie, ball sitting up. You can shift the ball slightly forward and let the club sweep through more like a wood. A good lie gives you room to catch the ball cleaner without much resistance from the turf.

Tight or poor lie. Move the ball back in your stance and lean your weight toward your lead foot. This steepens your angle of attack so you catch the ball first instead of catching grass or a bad lie before it.

Final thoughts

Default to an iron setup every time you pull a hybrid: ball position centered to slightly forward, neutral weight, commitment to a descending strike. Then let your lie make the small adjustment: forward and sweeping on a good lie, back and steeper on a bad one.

The post Hybrid Ball Position: How To Set Up At Address appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

For 2026, we tested 14 game-improvement iron models. Accuracy remains the most important scoring category in our iron testing.

In simple terms, accuracy is about hitting more greens and finishing closer to the hole. In our testing, that means looking at things like greens in regulation, proximity and, ultimately, Strokes Gained.

These are the three most accurate game-improvement irons of 2026.

Every buying guide at MyGolfSpy is informed by independent testing and millions of equipment data points, helping golfers separate marketing claims from measurable performance.

How We Test

MyGolfSpy’s Most Wanted Testing is powered by:

UNRL Apparel – The official staff apparel partner of MyGolfSpy. We rely on UNRL to keep staff comfortable and focused while providing world-class testing.

Titleist Pro V1 golf balls are a key component in testing. Every shot hit in Most Wanted utilizes these golf balls. They have long been the non plus ultra in golf ball quality and the only ball we trust in Most Wanted testing.

Foresight GC Quad – Foresight is the gold standard in camera-based launch monitor technology because it produces data we can rely on with every shot hit.

The Indoor Golf Shop’s SIGPRO Premium – All of our testing is done indoors at our HQ in Yorktown, Va. With each test, our screens take an absolute beating. We need high-quality, durable impact screens to handle the workload. SIGPRO Premium meets our expectations.

Takomo Iron 101 MKII

The Takomo Iron 101 MKII was the most accurate game-improvement iron in our 2026 test.

What stood out most was how controlled it was. It produced the highest Straight Shot percentage in the category and also had the best Strokes Gained performance. It kept shots on a tighter line.

The Takomo was also strong in yards from center, a simple but important way to look at accuracy. If your misses are staying closer to your intended target line, you are going to have more birdie looks, more easy pars and fewer recovery shots.

The tradeoff is distance.

The 101 MKII was not one of the longest irons in the test. It was below the category average in carry distance so golfers looking for maximum ball speed and extra yards may find better options elsewhere.

If your current irons go far enough but miss too often, this is the one that should get your attention. It’s also a fraction of the price of the next two irons on this list.

ONOFF Iron A.K.A.

The ONOFF Iron A.K.A. finished second for accuracy and gave us one of the best proximity performances in the entire test.

The ONOFF was the best of the group in proximity to the hole, exactly what golfers should care about when comparing accurate irons. It also had a strong Straight Shot percentage and no penalty shots in our testing.

Distance was solid, too. The ONOFF was one of the faster irons in the category and produced carry numbers above the test average. That makes it a good blend of speed and control, not always easy to find in a game-improvement iron.

The downside is that it was not quite as strong in greens in regulation or overall playability as the other top accuracy performers. It was still very accurate but its misses were not always as consistently useful as the best in the test.

The ONOFF Iron A.K.A. is a good fit for golfers who want accuracy without giving up much speed.

Callaway Ti Fusion 250

The Callaway Ti Fusion 250 was the third-most accurate game-improvement iron in our 2026 test.

Its biggest strength was the combination of accuracy and speed. The Ti Fusion 250 was among the leaders in ball speed and carry distance while still finishing near the top of the accuracy category. The Callaway gives you accuracy with more pop.

The miss pattern was not quite as tight as the Takomo but it wasn’t a major concern. It also was runner-up for best game- improvement iron of 2026.

Who is it for? The Callaway Ti Fusion 250 is best for the golfer who wants accuracy while keeping distance in the equation.

Final thoughts

The Takomo 101 MKII had a strong showing in 2026. If you’ve been on the fence about the Takomo brand, it’s worth taking a look. Here are the complete iron test results from 2026: Best Game-Improvement Irons 2026.

The post Top 3 Most Accurate Game-Improvement Irons of 2026 appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Last month, I chose these five top players to not claim victory at Shinnecock. Here is where they finished.

• Bryson DeChambeau (MC)

• Ludvig Aberg (T17)

• Xander Schauffele (T11)

• Tommy Fleetwood (T11)

• Brooks Koepka (MC)

Fly the banner! Not a single top-10 finish and two missed cuts. That makes up for me saying Rory wasn’t going to win the Masters.

Now we’re headed to the last major of the year. The pressure is on, baby.

1. Scottie Scheffler (+700)

Go big or go home.

Scheffler is either the No. 1 or No. 2 name on the board depending on where you check but I’m off him this week.

Look, it’s just been one of those years for the world’s top-ranked player. Despite only winning one time, he’s actually been the best player on a week-to-week basis given his consistency (nine top-five finishes). For whatever reason, the wins haven’t been coming. And, given his stature, that is a failure of a season for him.

After seeing him miss the cut at the Scottish Open—his first missed cut in almost four years—it doesn’t seem like the vibes are right for Scheffler to salvage his year with a major victory.

My sense? Expect Scheffler to come back hungry with multiple major wins in 2027.

2. Tommy Fleetwood (+1400)

The home-game models are buzzing this week as Fleetwood has immense local knowledge of Birkdale. The crowds will be cheering him on more than any other player in the field.

I’m just not buying stock.

First off, that’s a lot of pressure. Players rarely perform well in that type of environment as we’ve seen with McIlroy struggling at Royal Portrush in the past.

Secondly, Fleetwood has been a little uninspiring this year. No victories and his major championship results are T33-MC-T11.

He’s been gobbling up top-15 results (nine of them) but you could argue he hasn’t put himself in contention a single time the entire season. He’s had some great finishes in The Open (runner-up in 2019, T4 in 2022) but was never really a threat to win either of those given how far back he was of the eventual champion.

I’ll be rooting for him because I’m a huge fan and it would be a great story but I don’t feel like this one is happening.

3. Ludvig Aberg (+2200)

Nope, we’re not doing this again.

I love Aberg. I covered him while he was at Texas Tech. Incredibly kind and chill dude. I always root for him.

But let’s be honest—he is still learning how to close off tournaments, his short game is unreliable and he has no evidence of success in two starts at The Open (MC-T23).

Aberg’s last victory was 17 months ago. He has a handful of top-five finishes this season but there is definitely some scar tissue when it comes to meaningful golf on Sunday. We’ve seen that repeatedly.

I still believe in him. I think his game will evolve over time.

It’s just not going to be this week.

4. Collin Morikawa (+2700)

Morikawa won the 2021 Open Championship in benign conditions on a course that is the least linksy of the Open rota.

Since then, he has gone MC-MC-T16-MC at The Open.

Despite being in solid form this year, I still don’t fully trust him when conditions become a factor.

For that reason, I am out on Morikawa.

5. Cameron Young (+3000)

This is a bit of a risky pick given how Young has broken out this season with two huge victories and a T3 in the Masters.

I’ll also note that Young has some solid results in Open Championships. He came close in 2022 at St Andrews and had a T8 in 2023 as well.

But I’m looking at how his summer has gone so far … and I’m not liking what I’m seeing (T26-T46-T43-T47). He also decided to skip the Scottish Open, a move I’m not in love with.

Young has shown to be incredibly streaky the past few years. He’ll go nuclear for a stretch and then cool off for a stretch.

I’m betting on him to stay cold this week.

Five players I do like this week

Someone mentioned in a previous post like this that I have to give a few names I like.

Fair enough!

Here are five players I am backing this week.

• Matthew Fitzpatrick (+1500) — He’s playing outstanding golf this season (No. 4 in Data Golf). He feels like a two-major player. Also coming off a T4 at last year’s Open Championship.

• Rory McIlroy (+700) — No big splash here but McIlroy turned his play around at the Scottish Open and I feel like he is highly motivated to add to his major record while he is still in this window of prime golf.

• Sam Burns (+4000) — A bit of a flyer here since Burns has a horrid Open Championship record. He’s up to No. 6 in Data Golf, almost won the U.S. Open and is starting to show himself as a player who isn’t afraid of majors.

• Justin Rose (+2700) — I would die and go to heaven. Birkdale is where Rose came onto the scene as young lad back in 1998. What a story this would be for him to come back nearly 30 years later and win a Claret Jug. He’s been involved in all three majors this year (T3-T10-T11).

• Xander Schauffele (+2000) — While it’s not sexy, Schauffele has proven over and over that he can show up to majors (T9-T7-T11) this year. His Open Championship record is stellar. The prudent bet would be for a top-five or top-10 finish.

Who do you like this week? Who do you hate? Let me know below in the comments.

The post Why These Five Players Won’t Win The Open Championship appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Earlier this year, Alex Fitzpatrick had a TaylorMade Qi35 9-wood at 24 degrees in the bag when he and Matt Fitzpatrick won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. If a 9-wood was not on your radar before, maybe it should be now.

For a lot of golfers, the 9-wood can be a much easier way to fill the top end of the bag than forcing a long iron or hybrid that does not launch high enough, stop quickly or produce consistent contact from the turf.

Every buying guide at MyGolfSpy is informed by independent testing and millions of equipment data points, helping golfers separate marketing claims from measurable performance.

What loft is a 9-wood?

Most 9-woods are around 24 degrees of loft but there is no universal standard.

That is the important part to understand. Some brands list their 9-wood at 24 degrees. Others are 24.5 or 25 degrees. Adjustable models can move even more than that.

When comparing 9-woods, look at the stated loft, shaft length and whether the hosel is adjustable.

What golf brands make 9-woods?

Here are some options for current 9-woods in 2026.

How far can you hit a 9-wood?

How far you hit a 9-wood depends on more than handicap. Swing speed, strike, launch and spin all matter. A golfer who finds the center of the face with a little less speed may hit a 9-wood farther than a faster player who catches it low on the face or adds too much spin.

Distance charts are helpful but they are not always accurate.

Shot Scope-based estimates put a 15-handicap golfer around 160 yards with a 9-wood and a 25-handicap golfer around 150 yards. That is a useful starting point, not a rule.

Final thoughts

More golf brands are making 9-woods and more good players are willing to use them. Should you have one?

The post What Golf Brands Make 9-Woods? appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Arccos has officially teamed up with Meta to bring full Arccos on-course functionality to your Meta AI smart glasses. When you’re on the course, you ask your Meta glasses questions and your Meta glasses, by connecting to your Arccos app, give you the answers.

It’s like having a somewhat impersonal personal caddie in your head.

Well, not in your head, but certainly on your head.

Let’s dive in to see what this is all about.

Arccos x Meta AI glasses

In the big picture, this is a very simple development. Meta and Arccos have teamed up to create a pathway for you, the golfer, to ask Arccos questions on the golf course and for Arccos, through the Meta glasses, to give you info.

By linking the Meta AI app to the Arccos app, the two platforms communicate.

For example, you’re in the fairway and you want the distance to the green. While wearing your glasses, you simply say, “Hey, Meta, how far to the green?” Meta immediately accesses info from the Arccos app and tells you through the glasses’ internal audio headphones.

Since Meta has access to all your Arccos data and Arccos’ AI-assisted strategy, you can ask what club you should use, or even what the smart play on a particular hole might be. According to Meta and Arccos, all those recommendations are based on your historical performance. You can also get weather-adjusted and slope-adjusted “plays like” distances, post-round analytics and a voice-activated score entry.

“Hey, Meta, put me down for a one putt double bogey.”

There’s no word on whether it’ll yell “Liar, liar, pants on fire” when you pick up after butchering a hole and say, “Hey, Meta. Put me down for a five.”

The new element here is that Arccos functionality is now voice-first instead of phone-first. You can now access all the information Arccos can provide in-round without pulling out your phone. The only thing you won’t see is the hole layout. You can, however, ask it how far to carry that bunker on the left or whether the water on the left is in play.

Revolutionary or evolutionary?

It’s really a little of both.

Let’s make sure we fully understand what Meta and Arccos are doing here. While we call Meta AI glasses “smart” glasses, they’re not really all that smart. Not on their own, at least. Something has to tell them what to do. That something is Arccos.

The revolutionary part is that this partnership (along with Meta integration with 18Birdies) is a first. It leverages Meta’s capabilities with Arccos’ data to provide real-time, context-specific, in-play assistance for any sport.

Nothing will be projected inside the glasses so you won’t see any text or hole layout. We did see a company at the PGA Show called Birdielens that’s coming out with just that technology. We hope to get a sample of those glasses to test soon.

This does qualify as “revolutionary” simply because it is a first. It’s also a first step. The mind can only imagine where this technology can go next. Will you be able to target a landmark, like the pin or a specific bunker and ask the distance? When faced with a blind shot to a green, will you be able to ask the glasses where you should aim?

The possibilities are fascinating.

In practice, however, this is more evolutionary than anything else. Stripped of the “wow” factory, this can be considered a new way of delivering information that you already have access to if you’re an Arccos user. If you already use Arccos and have Meta AI glasses, this is a great way to get more use out of the glasses. If you don’t have either, I’m not 100 percent certain this would prompt you to go out and buy both.

However, it is pretty cool.

What you need to know

You do need an Arccos account and either Arccos Air or Smart Sensors for game tracking to use this system. You’ll also need an active data connection for your phone. If you’re in a low-signal area, the technology might struggle.

And although you don’t need your phone out to use the system, you will need to be within Bluetooth range. If it’s cart path only, you won’t be able to leave your phone in the cart while you walk across the fairway to your ball.

But, hey, that’s life in the big city. Nothing’s perfect.

Both Meta and Arccos say any active use of Meta glasses will consume more battery life than passive wear and use. You should start each round with a full charge on your glasses.

Finally, there’s the question of wearing sunglasses when you play. I’ll wear shades between shots but usually don’t like to wear them while hitting the ball. When you take the Meta glasses off, don’t fold them up, as that kills the Bluetooth connection.

Obviously, you wouldn’t use this Meta–Arccos connection during competition unless the tournament committee approves.

Meta and Arccos are in the middle of a soft launch right now so it’s only available in the U.S. and Canada. They hope to roll it out globally soon.

We have a round planned for this weekend. We’ll give it a whirl and report back.

For more information, check out the Arccos website.

The post Arccos Is Integrating With Meta AI Glasses: Is This A Good Thing? appeared first on MyGolfSpy.