Golf News

    You are not far off the green, but perhaps too far away to use your putter due to unpredictable fringe that might slam on the brakes if your rolling ball gets caught up in it. But maybe the feel and confidence in your chipping game is a little off today; chunking or thinning a chip is not the scoring shot you are after. What to do? Why not combine your more reliable putting stroke with a more lofted chipping club that will get the ball up off the ground and then rolling to the pin. It’s the best of both worlds. Michele Trimarche, a PGA/LPGA teaching professional at Alpine Country Club in Demarest, N.J., provides five helpful tips utilize your putting stroke with irons to improve your scoring chances from off the green. When the ball is off the green, sometimes you don’t know whether to chip or putt. I like to teach my students to combine the two by putting with an iron — either a pitching wedge...

TaylorMade R15 driver TaylorMade executives must have been giddy at the close of the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club near Los Angeles this February. A three-man playoff dwindled to two players after the second hole. Left standing were James Hahn and Dustin Johnson, both sporting their TaylorMade R15 hats. It was an ideal win-win situation — for the company at least. Hahn, the eventual champion, and the runner-up Johnson generated more beneficial headline and headwear publicity for TaylorMade’s newly released R15 driver than the company could have ever paid for in advertisements. Sales surely spiked at the end of the tournament as the winning images beamed into millions of homes of the consuming golf public. If the R15 driver (and hat) is good enough for these skilled professional players then it should certainly do wonders for my game is the logical buying psychology. TaylorMade executives, in...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) -- In his eighth year on the PGA Tour, Jason Day reached a major pinnacle of his career by winning the PGA Championship. And he could be sure that Tiger Woods was watching. ''Game over, very happy for Jason. Great dude and well deserved. Hats off to Jordan, incredible season. Calling it early,'' Woods tweeted, adding in another tweet that he was watching from his new restaurant in South Florida. Always a commercial plug. Day and Woods have become good friends on the golf course, but the fact Woods tuned in to the final round at Whistling Straits brought to mind Day's rookie season when he was filled with big talent, big goals and some big talk. Going into the year, he was asked during a conference call with Australian writers if he thought Woods was aware of him. ''I can't say for sure, but I think he is,'' a 20-year-old Day said. ''If I was him, I would be. I watch everyone. He wat...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Australia's sporting fraternity saluted Jason Day 's victory in the PGA Championship as a triumph over adversity. Day is the fifth Australian to win the PGA title and the 12th to win a major championship - the first since Adam Scott in the 2013 Masters. After Day closed with a 5-under 67 at Whistling Straits for a three-shot victory and a majors-record 20-under total, Australian tennis and cricket players and racing drivers were among those quick to congratulate Day. Growing up in the regional Queensland state towns of Beaudesert and Rockhampton, Day lost his father, Alvin, to cancer when he was 12 and battled alcohol and aggression at a young age. It was Alvin who enrolled Day as a junior member at Beaudesert Golf Club at age six and gave him his first golf club, but it was mother, Philippines-born Dening, who - worried at her son's increasing waywardness - later scraped together the money to send Day a few ho...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) -- The Latest from the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits (all times local): 6:11 p.m. Jason Day led wire-to-wire Sunday at Whistling Straits to close out a record-setting PGA Championship and capture his first major title. The 27-year-old Australian finished at 20-under 268 to beat Jordan Spieth by three shots. Day is the first player to finish at 20 under in a major. Day shot 5-under 67, and never let Spieth get closer than two shots. Branden Grace finished third and Justin Rose was fourth. A nice ending to the major season for a player who has endured some close calls and his share of heartache. At the U.S. Open in June, he fell while walking during the second round. He had vertigo symptoms. But he played through the weekend and actually held a share of the lead after 54 holes before fading on Sunday. At the British Open, he also was in the lead after 54 holes but ended up one shot out of a playoff. ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) -- The Latest from the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits (all times local): 1:03 p.m. Lefty's putter isn't quite so friendly today. Phil Mickelson missed two birdie putts inside of 10 feet on the second and third holes and is even par for the day. Mickelson made a few long ones Saturday during a round of 6-under 66. He is too far out of the lead - 10 behind Jason Day - to contend, but needs a strong finish to improve his ranking on the Presidents Cup list. View gallery Jason Day, of Australia, reacts to a missed birdie putt on the 18th hole during the third round of t … --- 12:20 p.m. Well, if this doesn't work out, there's always 2016. Spotted on the course: A band of fans handing out T-shirts that read 'Spieth f...

The family business, at least on the athletic side of the Finau family, was pro football or basketball. Tony Finau, all 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds of him, was determined to play golf. So if nothing else, his play Saturday was further validation of a story that begins with two poor kids learning to play the game by banging balls against a mattress in their garage and one of them winding up with a shot at a major title on the final day of the PGA Championship. "It was a tough finish, I've got to be sharper," Finau (FEE-now) said after bogeying the final two holes at Whistling Straits for a 69 that left him at 10 under, five strokes off the pace set by leader Jason Day. "But I also learned a lot. "I learned I can play in this kind of environment, that I can control my emotions in contention at a major. ... I'm five shots back and a lot of really good guys ahead of me. But at least," he added, brightening, "I'm still in the convers...