This past week, Chris Gotterup overcame a 5-shot deficit at the John Deere Classic and caught fire with a final-round 62, finishing the tournament at 20 under par for the win. He drove the ball to near-perfection on Sunday and backed that up by putting the dots off the ball. His putting for the week was +5.39 strokes gained on the greens.

Looking at Gotterup’s last calendar year with 4 wins, including defending his title this week at The Genesis Scottish Open, he made a particular change at last year’s U.S. Open, switching to the TaylorMade Spider Tour X1.

Gotterup has a particular style when it comes to rolling the rock; he favors having the toe down, with the heel raised a bit more at address. We have seen this style with Steve Stricker as well. 

“Initially that week we tested some different alignment lines and lie angles. With his toe down set up the long line, always looked a bit off. When we bent it upright to get it to sole flat his wrist position felt off” said TaylorMade Senior Tour Representative James Holley.

So, a little more testing and the correct putter has been chosen with alignment, player preference, and lie angle. Personally, I like the lead tape on the putter’s sole for additional weight as well.

“With the short alignment line, he was able to line the putter up while being toe down. The ulnar deviation created by the putter being toe down reduced the face rotation and allowed him to match the path and face angle of the Spider X more naturally,” said Holley.

The putter is rolling, and so is Gotterup’s play. He is defending his title this week in Scotland and is now up to 7th in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Just a couple of weeks ago at the Travelers Championship, Srixon launched its new lineup of drivers on tour, with the ZXi RKT family taking full flight.

Plenty of changes came with the new drivers, including a new sole makeup along with the new-looking material labeled “Acousticore,” which could be a different design structure internally, stepping away from the Star Frame that Srixon has used in the past. At the Travelers, Srixon showed off four different models: A core head, LS, Max, and LS+.

Now at the ISCO Championship, hosted at Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville, Kentucky, we have a first look at the new RKT fairway and hybrid lineup.

GolfWRX’s Tour Photographer Greg Moore was out earlier in the Bluegrass State to get first-hand images of the new clubs, which are posted here.

From what we can see from this week’s haul of images and a quick search on the USGA Confirming List, there is currently only one core model available. The ZXi RKT fairways come in 15, 18, and 21 degrees of loft, while the hybrids are 2- through 6-hybrids, ranging from 17 to 28 degrees.

Both fairways and hybrids feature a matte-style crown and a similar sole design to the drivers. The beam that runs front-to-back on the older generation ZXi woods is gone and has been replaced with a more streamlined design, narrowing to the rear of the driver head. There is also just the one forward and central adjustable weight on both the fairways and hybrids.

The i-Flex face pattern on the previous ZXi face is now replaced with a new face design called “RKT Face,” which we’ll have to wait and see how the tech works behind that. While the face of the woods seems to be shallow, the crown of the actual head looks to be raised higher than before, especially in the heel section.

Each club features the adjustable hosel, which was new to the previous ZXi woods and hybrid lineup.

ZXi RKT fairway wood

ZXi RKT Hybrid

Independence Week is officially a thing in the USA. I know this, thanks to our daughter. She works for an accounting firm, and the principles gave them Wednesday – Friday off, in anticipation of the holiday. In 2026, it’s even more impactful from one sea to the next, as the football World Cup plays out across North America. Team USA survived a solid effort from Bosnia-Herzegovina to advance deeper in the knockout stage, and will play again on Monday.

None of this celebration is lost on golf. The USGA held its Senior Men’s Open championship in America’s heartland of Columbus, Ohio. The PGA Tour moved deeper into the heartland, into the Quad Cities of Illinois. Across the Atlantic, the DP World Tour played its German Open in the heartland of Bavaria. The other major tours (LPGA, Korn Ferry, Americas) went on hiatus for the Independence weekend.

Let’s have a wee glance, then, at the three winners that emerged from Sunday play in Germany, Ohio, and Illinois. It’s Tour Tech Rundown time as we conclude the USA’s 250th birthday celebration. Thanks to GolfWRX, WITBHub, Golf Monthly, Today’s Golfer, and InsideTourGolf for initial equipment research.

PGA Tour Champions @ USGA Senior Open: Curneys for Tourneys? It’s Paddy once more

A curney is a sweet version of Irish soda bread, filled with raisins, sultanas, and currants, dried fruits all. We learned this because we could not use the expression horses for courses, as the USGA Senior Open changes its venue on the annual. Padraig Harrington, who is Irish and might be familiar with a curney or two, won this tournament for the third time in five years. He won for the second consecutive playing over Stewart Cink. Hence the expression curneys for tourneys was coined for him.

For 2.5 rounds, George McNeill was the lead dog in the return to Scioto, the central Ohio course that gave us Jack Nicklaus. McNeill reached minus-six through 36 holes and began day three at minus-three past the seventh green. The Scioto rough made him pay with double bogey at eight, and he finished minus-one on the day, seven-deep for the tournament. Both Cink (-9) and Harrington (-8) surged past McNeill at the three-quarter pole. McNeill, the Cape Verde of this event, stood little chance against seasoned tour winners like Cink and Harrington. Sunday became a brief battle between numbers one and two.

Harrington burst from the gate on Sunday with two opening birdies. By the fourth tee, he had turned his one-shot deficit into a three-shot advantage, with help from Cink. A year after finishing runner-up in the U.S. Senior Open by one shot to Harrington, Cink made bogeys at two and three, for a flat open. After a bogey at five, Harrington added two more birdies through the turn, to pick up another shot on his only pursuer. Cink and Harrington played the inward half in minus-one, and Harrington’s fourth major title came by four shots over Cink. McNeill held on for solo third at minus-six, one stroke clear of Ian Poulter.

Paddy’s Pack

• Driver: Titleist TSR3
• Metal: TaylorMade Stealth2 3 and 5 metals
• Iron: Wilson Staff FG Tour V4
• Irons: Wilson Staff Model CB 5-PW
• Wedges: Wilson Staff Model Forged 52 and 56 degree
• Wedge: Wilson Staff Model HT 60 degree
• Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG 2-Ball

PGA Tour @ John Deere Classic: Gotterup gets it

There’s no denying that low is the only way to go on Sunday in Silvis, Illinois. If you hover near 70, you’ll need to pull into the right lane (or onto the shoulder) to avoid the track passing you on the left. Lucas Glover and Zac Blair had designs on a tour title, but neither one could sync the clutch and the stick to escape from first gear. Their scores of -2 and -1  brought them top-ten finishes (T3 and T9, respectively) but no more.

Chris Gotterup got ‘er up, all right. He slapped down a 62 on the counter, made up of nine birdies and bogeys each, and asked the field to track him down. At the time that Gotterup reached the scorer’s tent, he was tied with Ben Kohles on twenty-under par, but BK still had four holes left to play on the day. Max Homa was on a run of his own, at minus-six through sixteen, but needed a birdie-birdie finish to join the fray, but it was not today. He snagged the first one at 17, but could not complete the pair at the home hole.

For Ben Kohles, it was a day of nearly and learning and heartache. After his birdie at 14 brought him even with Gotterup, the stroke was immediately returned at 15 with a rough-to-rough bogey. Undeterred, Kohles ground out a birdie at 16 to regain the top spot, but could only make par at the attractive, par-five 17th. With all the glory on the line, Kohles found the fairway off the 18th tee, but the water with his tugged approach. One double bogey later, Kohles was T3 with Glover and Lee Hodges, Homa was solo second, and Gotterup had his maroon and black smoking jacket as a five-time PGA Tour winner.

• Full winning WITB

DP World Tour @ BMW International Open: Hollick holds off Hennie

This year’s edition of the BMWIO was anything but ordinary. Special invitee Brad Dalke, of Good Good YouTube fame, opened with 69-66 to move inside the top five. He closed with 75-73 to finish T30, a wonderful showing for a non-touring player. After three rounds, South Africa’s Michael Hollick, a 39-year-old tour rookie, held the lead. Not likely to preserve that lead was Hollick, and he did not.

His countryman, Hennie DuPlesis, erupted through fifteen holes with seven birdies, and he took a lead into the final three holes. One group ahead of the final triumvirate of Hollick, Bernd Wiesberger, and Carlos Ortiz, DuPlessis found himself in a battle for the top spot. He took three swings to reach the par-three 17th’s putting surface, and did well to hole from three feet for bogey. Needing birdie to separate from Hollick, DuPlessis found sand, then fairway, then green. Thirteen feet stood between him and a four, but his aim and read were off, and the putt came up inches short of the promised land.

Behind DuPlessis, bogey on the par-four 16th had hurt Hollick’s chances, but the unproven rookie came back with a dart on the par-three seventeenth, setting up a six-foot putt for birdie. He converted and moved to 18. For years to come, he’ll claim that he meant to hug the dogleg’s corner, and his ball danced along the razor’s edge of land and creek before finding terra firma. A monstrous, 240-plus second shot left him 20 feet for eagle. The nearly-forty year old rookie then did an unexpected thing: he made the putt and jumped to 18-under par. In the blink of an eye, Michael Hollick had metamorphosed into a tour champion, even if the metamorphosis took 39 years.

Hollick’s Pack

• Driver: Titleist GTS 3 10 degree
• Metals: Titleist GTS3 16.5 and 18 degree
• Iron: Titleist U505 4 iron
• Irons: Titleist T100 5-PW
• Wedges: Vokey Design SM10 (52 and 56 degree) and Vokey Design OM8 (60 degree)
• Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Style Squareback 2