Take a scroll through our favorite outfits of the week.
The Honda Classic wrapped up on Sunday and in Palm Beach, Florida, fashion, the players dressed for sunny skies, palm trees and bright green fairways. Vibrant colors and eye-catching patterns took the stage this year as players are expanding their comfort zone.
Sam Ryder’s Palm Beach tan was accentuated by purple tones. Rory Sabbatini gave off an island vibe with his tropical printed polo and fedora. Chase Seiffert’s polo had a touch of the morning sky with light hues of pale pinks, whites and blooming greens. Kurt Kitayama stayed true to the Palm Beach ocean forecast with his Prince Blue colored pants and complimentary belt.
Take a closer look at our favorite ‘fits of the week.
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A rookie and a vet got the party started early on Thursday at PGA National.
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Rookie Kurt Kitayama missed his last five cuts and seven of his last nine heading into the Honda Classic.
Veteran Rory Sabbatini said his days of going toe-to-toe with the game’s most powerful players are over, that he has to pick and choose his spots to be successful.
So of course the two are at the top of the leaderboard after tangling with the difficult Champion Course at PGA National Resort in Thursday’s first round of the Honda Classic.
Kitayama, ranked No. 289 in the world, began his round with three consecutive birdies and then strung together four in a row on his inward nine to come home with a 6-under-par 64. Sabbatini, the silver medalist in the Tokyo Olympics, shot his first bogey-free round in the tournament and shot 65.
Among other early finishers, three players were at 3 under.
Kitayama, who has two wins on the DP World Tour, hasn’t gotten off to a good start in his first year as a member of the PGA Tour. This season he’s missed six cuts and finished in ties for 45th and 65th. His best finish of late was a tie for 11th in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship last September.
“I felt like I’ve been playing well, and I’ve started to figure out my putting to kind of find this kind of round,” Kitayama said. “I think when you’re struggling, I think just that self-motivation to keep getting better and finding a way to figure it out. It’s kind of how you’ve got to keep going.
“I drove it well, hit 14 greens. I think that’s really important out here. Then my putter was pretty hot in those birdie stretches. Everything felt really solid.”
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Sabbatini, ranked No. 123 in the world, was the tournament in 2011, the most recent of his six PGA Tour titles. The 45-year-old, who knew he had posted his first bogey-free round on the Champion Course in 37 attempts, said he can’t keep up with today’s firepower in the game and he has to rely on experience.
“I’m getting to that point in my game where I think I’ve gotten past where I feel like, I hate to say it, truly competitive out here,” he said. “There are too many guys out here that have much more firepower, so I’ve just got to kind of pick and choose my way around the golf course, so to me it’s become more of a chess game and less about throwing some darts out there. I think I’ve just learned to maximize what my abilities are and stay away from my inabilities.
“It’s been quite a rapid transition over the last two years. When you’re playing with two guys in your group and their combined age is less than yours, you’re thinking, wow, this is not my sport anymore.”
It was on Thursday, however.
“Every time I missed, I missed it in the right spot, so I kept the stress to a minimum,” he said. “But this golf course isn’t going to let you get away with three more rounds like that, so I’ve got a lot of cleaning up between today and tomorrow and going forward.”
Sabbatini said the silver medal “is somewhere safe” and winning it “was like putting sprinkles on top of ice cream.”
“It was that little added bonus at the end,” he said. “When I’m out here I’ll keep running the course as long as I can, but it’s kind of like, it’s getting to that time where it’s getting close to me being bucked off and I’ve got to go find something else to do.”
Some rules violations hit harder than others, while others just make you scratch your head.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all on the golf course, something else comes along to baffle fans, players, and rules officials alike.
The rules of golf can come up and bite you (pun intended: see fire ants below), if you’re not paying attention. Other times, weird things just happen. Further still, sometimes golfers simply don’t know a particular rule.
New rules of golf were rolled out on Jan. 1, 2019, but most of what trips golfers up continues to be of the tried-and-true variety.
As we get set to close out the year that was 2021, here’s a rundown of some of the memorable moments that involved rules violations.
Golfweek’s Steve DiMeglio, Beth Ann Nichols, Adam Schupak and Adam Woodard contributed to this article.
We called on our Rules Guru, Ron Gaines, to give us a little more clarity.
Rory Sabbatini was disqualified from the RSM Classic this week, due to a reflective sticker on his club. Sabbatini had started the tournament with a 68 on Thursday, but was sent packing from St. Simons Island, Georgia, after a discussion with PGA Tour official John Mutch.
Under Rule 4.1 of the Rules of Golf, Sabbatini was DQ’d for having a non-conforming external attachment on one of his fairway woods. Mutch, senior tournament director equipment standards, said Sabbatini had non-conforming stickers on the face of the club.
Some players use reflective dots (stickers) and a launch monitor to track clubhead speed and distance. Sabbatini likely just forgot he had them on the fairway wood.
And while that assessment is mostly correct, we called on our Rules Guru, Ron Gaines, to give us a little more clarity.
Gaines, Golfweek’s Director of Rules and Competition and the President Emeritus of the Golf Association of Michigan, explained that while a sticker was the issue, it wasn’t technically the violation.
“The reflective sticker causes the club to become non-conforming,” Gaines explained.
To further illustrate the point, here is a statement from Carter Rich, Senior Director of Equipment Rules and Conformance at the USGA. This wasn’t issued specifically on the Sabbatini case, but explains the violation.
“Under the Equipment Rules, such attachments to the face are considered to be external attachments that are not permitted (see Part 2, Section 1a of the Equipment Rules). As a result, they render the club non-conforming when playing a round under the Rules of Golf (see Rule 4.1a of the Rules of Golf). In essence, while certain attachments to the head are permissible provided they meet the criteria provided in the interpretation of Part 2, Section 1a, attachments to the face are not permitted.”
What was the sticker for? For that, we return to DiMeglio’s story:
Some players use reflective dots (stickers) and a launch monitor to track clubhead speed and distance. Sabbatini likely just forgot he had them on the fairway wood.
OK, but how do pros know this is the case?
“In the past when new players came onto the Tour, that was discussed in orientation,” Gaines said via text. “Especially on the LPGA.”
For Sabbatini, the gaffe was a costly one. While he does have a T-3 finish at the Shriners Children’s Open, the South African had missed the cut in the other two Tour events he played in this season.
He was disqualified for having a non-conforming external attachment on one of his fairway woods.
SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Olympic silver medalist Rory Sabbatini just didn’t feel right about something after he left the Sea Island Golf Club following his 4-under-par 68 on the Plantation Course in Thursday’s first round of the RSM Classic.
So he called PGA Tour official John Mutch.
The call ended with Sabbatini being disqualified.
Under Rule 4.1 of the Rules of Golf, Sabbatini was disqualified for having a non-conforming external attachment on one of his fairway woods. John Mutch, senior tournament director equipment standards, said Sabbatini had non-conforming stickers on the face of the club.
Some players use reflective dots (stickers) and a launch monitor to track clubhead speed and distance. Sabbatini likely just forgot he had them on the fairway wood.
Sabbatini, who fell one shot short of winning the gold medal in the Summer Games in Tokyo, is ranked 105th in the world. In his three previous starts of the new season, he missed two cuts and tied for third in the Shriners Children’s Open.
“It’s really hard to put it into words. It was an overwhelming experience, the entirety of everything with the Olympics.”
GREENSBORO, N.C. — From elation on the Olympic medal stand in Tokyo and an outpouring of appreciation in Slovakia, to back to the grind of the PGA Tour for Rory Sabbatini.
His self-described love-hate relationship with his game returned a 4-under 66 during Thursday’s opening round of the Wyndham Championship, leaving him four shots behind tournament leader Russell Henley and in a particularly palatable position considering some of the hiccups he has experienced this year.
More recently, a trip around the world and perhaps the journey of Sabbatini’s golf career delivered him here to Sedgefield Country Club, where he birdied three of his last five holes in the first round while playing in the heat of the afternoon wave.
Sabbatini had missed the cut in 10 of his previous 15 events on Tour before firing an Olympic-record 61 during the final round of the men’s competition to finish one shot shy of Xander Schauffele and claim the silver medal.
“It’s really hard to put it into words,” Sabbatini said at the Wyndham. “It was an overwhelming experience, the entirety of everything with the Olympics. Obviously watching as many as I’ve had, you really don’t truly grasp how amazing the experience is until you’re there. It was incredible. Every which way, every part of it was amazing.”
The 45-year-old Sabbatini is from South Africa, but in the Olympics he represented Slovakia, the home country of his wife, Martina, and stepson.
His wife’s cousin, Rastislav Antal, was vice president of the Slovak Golf Association when the idea was born for Sabbatini to become a naturalized citizen and help grow interest in golf for a nation that only has about 30 courses. He completed the citizenship changed in December 2018. He’s now listed as hailing from Bratislava, Slovakia, on the PGA Tour player roster.
Rory Sabbatini (SVK) celebrates on the podium after winning the silver medal in the men’s golf competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Kasumigaseki Country Club. Photo by Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
His wife caddied for him during the Olympics. He said after the medal ceremony they returned to the Olympic Village around 11 p.m. Tokyo time, with their flight to Slovakia departing at 7 a.m. the next morning.
“We did, should I say, a slight overplaying of celebratory features,” Sabbatini said. “It was a long night. There was not much sleep, not much memory, but at least had an 11 ½ flight to recover.”
Then, back in Slovakia, Sabbatini said the welcome was breathtaking.
“It was absolutely overwhelming,” he said. “People stopping us in the street everywhere, people pulling their car over on the side of the road to stop to congratulate us. It was incredible. You could really feel the support, the appreciation and just all the emotion from the people.
“Just the excitement of all these junior golfers and all these new junior golfers, it is what we hoped for. Just plant that seed, create future generations of golfers, of hopefully professional golfers on all different stages around the world and hopefully future Olympic competitors.”
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Sabbatini has compiled three top-10 finishes across his eight Wyndham starts. At No. 141 in the FedEx Cup standings, he said he figures to need a finish among the top 10 at Sedgefield in the Tour’s regular-season finale to have a chance at reaching golf’s postseason.
“It’s been a very frustrating year for me,” he said. “I felt like I’ve been on the cusp of getting my game cleaned up and going in the direction I wanted to go. It’s been kind of a love-hate relationship with my golf game this year.”
The top 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings advance to The Northern Trust next week, the playoff opener, thus making the Wyndham the final decider for postseason positioning.
“I know I’ve got a tough job,” Sabbatini said. “It’s a good field, a lot of good players, so I’ve just got to keep my head down and keep trying to move forward and hopefully make it to next week.”
Golfers are generally notorious for not giving us much personality. But thanks to the extra cameras on the green at TPC Sawgrass for The Players Championship this weekend, we got a bit more.
We saw that on full blast this Saturday when cameras caught Jordan Spieth hitting a tee shot at the 11th hole. It seemed to be your regular, routine shot. But it turns out that the ball nearly nailed Rory Sabbatini, who was about to tee off in front of him.
It was pretty incredible to watch and pretty funny. But it was also a bit scary because it was seriously a close call.
What makes this even better, though, is the conversation Spieth has with his caddies after he sees Sabbatani throw his hands up. Sabbatini’s next shot wasn’t good and Spieth just knew it was because of him.
“I’m the reason he hit a bad shot…The good news is that he likes me. I’m one of the few people he likes,” Sabbatini said.
Absolutely hilarious. What a moment. More of this, please.
Golfers are generally notorious for not giving us much personality. But thanks to the extra cameras on the green at TPC Sawgrass for The Players Championship this weekend, we got a bit more.
We saw that on full blast this Saturday when cameras caught Jordan Spieth hitting a tee shot at the 11th hole. It seemed to be your regular, routine shot. But it turns out that the ball nearly nailed Rory Sabbatini, who was about to tee off in front of him.
It was pretty incredible to watch and pretty funny. But it was also a bit scary because it was seriously a close call.
This video will be the focus of our entire podcast tonight
What makes this even better, though, is the conversation Spieth has with his caddies after he sees Sabbatani throw his hands up. Sabbatini’s next shot wasn’t good and Spieth just knew it was because of him.
“I’m the reason he hit a bad shot…The good news is that he likes me. I’m one of the few people he likes”
Absolutely hilarious. What a moment. More of this, please.
The QBE Shootout will feature 12 two-man teams competing in a different format each day: scramble, modified alternate shot and four-ball.
Last week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic marked the final full-field PGA Tour event of 2020, but now it’s time to have a little fun. This week’s QBE Shootout at Tiburon Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, will feature 12 two-man teams competing over three days with a different format each day: scramble, modified alternate shot and four-ball.
Among the 12 teams are 16 golfers ranked in the top 50 in the world. As a group, they own dozens of worldwide titles and three majors – though the majors belong to Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen, who are competing on the same team.
Take a look at the teams and how their resumes stack up:
Rory Sabbatini — Kevin Tway
(Combined seven PGA Tour wins and 2019 QBE Shootout)
Sabbatini will be playing in his 11th Shootout and Tway in his second. In addition to his win, Sabbatini finished runner-up in both 2011 and 2012 with two different partners. They will attempt to become the first team since 2004 to successfully defend its QBE Shootout title.
Louis Oosthuizen — Bubba Watson
(26 worldwide wins including three major championships)
The South African will be playing in his first Shootout, while Watson will be making his sixth appearance. Watson defeated Oosthuizen in a playoff to win the first of his two Masters in 2012.
The only time these two faced each other in a Presidents Cup was 2015 when Oosthuizen and Branden Grace defeated Watson and J.B. Holmes in four-ball.
Harris English — Matt Kuchar
(11 PGA Tour wins and two QBE Shootout wins as a team)
Playing together for the first time since 2017, Kuchar and English will partner for the sixth time. One of the most successful pairings in Shootout history, this team has won twice (2013, 2016) and also has two runner-up finishes (2014, 2015). The duo holds the Tournament record for largest margin of victory, which was seven strokes when they won in 2013.
Daniel Berger — Steve Stricker
(15 PGA Tour wins and two QBE Shootout wins)
Paired together for the first time. Stricker won the 2011 Shootout with Jerry Kelly and the 2017 title with Sean O’Hair. Stricker, the current U.S. Ryder Cup Captain, snapped a streak of 11 consecutive appearances from 2008 through 2018 last year when he served as assistant captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup team. Berger is making his fourth start and first since 2017 when he and Gary Woodland finished tied for fourth.
Sebastian Munoz — Joaquin Niemann
(Both secured first PGA Tour title in 2019)
This pairing marks the first Latin American team in Shootout history; Muñoz representing Colombia and Niemann representing Chile. One of the young gun teams this year, both are in their 20s. The last time a rookie team won the Shootout was Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele in 2011.
Abraham Ancer — Matthew Wolff
(Two worldwide wins)
Ancer, age 27 and Wolff, 21, is the youngest team in the Shootout and they also boast the highest combined world ranking in the field (Wolff, 14th; Ancer, 23rd). This will be Ancer’s first appearance while Wolff returns after finishing sixth last year with Viktor Hovland. Ancer was the first Mexican player to crack the top 50 in the world in 2019 and the first Mexican player to participate in the Presidents Cup.
Billy Horschel — Brendon Todd
(Eight PGA Tour wins)
This team tied for third last year. Horschel will be making his eighth consecutive start and Todd his second. Both players qualified for the Tour Championship in September. During the 2019-2020 season, they combined for 10 top-10 finishes.
Ryan Palmer — Harold Varner III
(Five worldwide wins)
Playing together for the second straight year, having tied for third last year. Both are making their third start in the QBE Shootout. Palmer has skyrocketed up the World Golf Rankings in 2020 from No. 91 to start the year to currently No. 30.
Marc Leishman — Cameron Smith
(16 worldwide wins)
This Australian duo is another rookie team in the Shootout. It is also the first all-Australian team since 2005 when Steve Elkington and Greg Norman played together. Ten years separate these two with Leishman, 37 and Smith, 27. Smith tied for second in the Masters last month.
Cameron Champ — Tony Finau
(Three PGA Tour wins)
Regarded as two of the longest hitters on Tour, Champ and Finau are back at the QBE Shootout after missing the 2019 event, and will be paired together for the first time. Both finished in the top 10 at the PGA Championship and by season’s end were qualified for the Tour Championship.
Lanto Griffin — Mackenzie Hughes
(Two PGA Tour wins)
Another rookie team to the Shootout. Hughes was the first rookie in 20 years to win wire-to-wire when he won the 2016 RSM Classic, in only his fifth PGA Tour start. Griffin earned his first Tour victory at the 2019 Houston Open in his 33rd start.
Kevin Na — Sean O’Hair
(Eight PGA Tour wins and two QBE Shootout wins)
O’Hair, a two-time champion, returns for his 10th consecutive appearance. O’Hair has won at Tiburón with two different partners so it could be a good sign for Na, who is making his second appearance. Na tied for third in 2018 with Bryson
Stewart Cink ended an 11-year winless streak at the Safeway Open and he’s not alone in getting off the schneid during the 2020-21 season.
That winning feeling never grows old.
Robert Streb, 33, was the most recent PGA Tour winner, nearly holing out his approach to win a playoff over Kevin Kisner at the RSM Classic at Sea Island Resort. It was his first victory in six years and 165 starts. … since the 2014 RSM Classic, or what was then known as the McGladrey Classic.
It continued a current trend of Tour winners finding the winner’s circle after a long dry spell.
Streb’s victory drought was nothing compared to Stewart Cink, who was ranked No. 319 in the world when he claimed the season opener at the Safeway Open. Cink was the first and Streb the latest of five players in the first nine tournaments of the wrap-around season who were ranked outside the top 300 in the world at the time of their victory and hadn’t tasted victory in several years.
For Cink it had been 11 long years since he had won the 2009 British Open, while Martin Laird and Brian Gay had waited seven years respectively between wins (Laird at the Shriners Hospitals to 2013 Valero Texas Open and Gay at the Bermuda Championship to 2013 Humana Challenge). That itch for victory can make the reward even more gratifying, even if the payoff for all the hard work took only half the time for Hudson Swafford, who won the Corales Puntacana Open (2017 American Express) and Sergio Garcia, Sanderson Farms (2017 Masters).
Stewart Cink celebrates with the trophy after winning the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort on September 13, 2020 in Napa, California. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
“We’re all so close out here,” Cink said. “If you just elevate a couple of little areas in your game and just get a little bit better, then you find yourself in contention or winning. If you go the other way, you find yourself on the outside of the cut or having a bunch of 50th-place finishes. It’s just that close.”
40-somethings
Early-season winners also feature the 40-something brigade. Garcia (40), Cink (47) and Gay (48) turning back the clocks could be just the inspiration these golfers need to get over the hump and hoist another trophy:
Lucas Glover (41), last win: 2011 Wells Fargo Championship
Luke Donald, (42), last win: 2012 Transitions Championship
Kevin Streelman (42), last win: 2014 Travelers Championship
Rory Sabbatini (44), last win: 2011 Honda Classic
“It would be huge,” Sabbatini said of what win No. 7 would mean to him at this stage in his career. “I’m in that dwindling stage of my career. To be out here and still be able to compete is something I’m very happy about.”
A quartet of late 30-somethings also are trying to knock on victory’s door again. Hunter Mahan (38), a six-time Tour winner who reached No. 4 in the world in April 2012, hasn’t won since the 2014 Barclays while Camilo Villegas (38), has suffered a similar drought (2014 Wyndham Championship) and would be the sentimental choice after losing his daughter to cancer in July.
Has it really been since the 2012 Barclays that Nick Watney (39) has KO’d a field? And yet his time without a victory is eclipsed in this week’s Mayakoba field by K.J. Choi (50 – 2011 Players Championship), Bo Van Pelt (45), whose only title was at the long-defunct 2009 U.S. Bank Championship, and D.J. Trahan (39), who won so long ago that Bob Hope’s name still adorned the tournament title: 2008 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
Martin Laird celebrates with the trophy after winning the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open at TPC Summerlin on October 11, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada to end his seven-year winless drought. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
What pro may have the best chance to get off the schneid this week at the Mayakoba Golf Classic?
How about Harris English (31), who will try to pull a Robert Streb and win at the same tournament he last won only seven years later to top Streb’s six-year wait. It was at the 2013 Mayakoba where English captured his second Tour title and the world seemed like his oyster. The only other player 25 years old or younger at the time with two Tour titles was Rory McIlroy. English, however, took a step back as he went through a myriad of swing instructors looking for a quick fix. He revived his career last year and recorded his fifth top-10 finish in the past 12 months at the RSM Classic (T-6) since finishing fifth at Mayakoba a year ago. He’s surged to No. 33 in the world, which is counter to the trend of world No. 300 and above winning, but all that’s left for him to achieve is that elusive victory.
“If I keep getting myself in these positions, it’s going to happen,” English said.
Maybe even this week and at the site of his last triumph.
