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Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we’re still licking our wounds from playing in a qualifier for the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Public Links Championship. On the bright side, my struggles were great for content, and I’m a content guy at heart.
So please read about all the mistakes I made out there so that you can avoid making the same ones the next time you tee it up. But you know who is also going to be licking their wounds for a while? The NBA’s Eastern Conference after the New York Knicks’ insanely—and historically—dominant run to the Finals, a place they last got to when I was still in high school and Tiger Woods was still stuck on one major title. Admittedly, it’s a bit hard to concentrate on anything else right now, but I’m going to try. So, let’s go Knicks! And let’s get into what’s happening in golf.
WE’RE BUYING
Wyndham Clark: And just like that, Wyndham is back to WINdham. The guy hadn’t had an official top 10 in nearly a year, but he got rolling at TPC Craig Ranch to claim the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, shooting a final-round 60 (including a back-nine 28!) and finishing a ridiculous 30 under par:
Mike Mulholland
For a guy with a major and two signature victories previously, this is actually on paper the least-big win of his PGA Tour career. But after the struggles he’s been through—yes, partially self-inflicted with that whole Oakmont locker-room incident—this might feel the best. Clark reminded everyone that he also can tear up golf courses in a good way, especially when his putter gets hot.
For the week, he gained 3.14 per round on the greens, nearly a full stroke better than anyone else. He cooked almost as much as the Knicks from long range.
Blades Brown: A few days after turning 19, Blades finished T-14 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson to earn PGA Tour special temporary membership for the rest of the season. We’ll get more into that later, but it was the latest impressive showing by the young man who has nine top-25s and four top-10s already in 2026 if you combine his PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour efforts.
Stacy Revere
Blades is like golf’s version of Tyler Kolek, the Knicks fourth-string point guard who split his time between the G-League’s Westchester Knicks and the big club, even playing for both squads in the same day. Why do I bring this up? Because I can’t stop thinking about the Knicks, but also because Blades’ mom, Rhonda, played in the WNBA, so I’m guessing she and Blades would appreciate the comp. Of course, at 19, Blades has a lot more upside than Tyler. Anyway, moving on … and speaking of moving on …
Bouncing back: No, I'm not going to talk about how the Knicks bounced back from losing in the Eastern Conference Finals last year to winning this year, but, yes, that was also an example of bouncing back. Anyway, the day after struggling at Hudson Hills in that MGA qualifier, I played as well as I have so far this season at the Brooklawn Country Club member-guest. In fact, our team cruised to a win in the gross division:
Yes, I had a little help from my (Golf Digest) friends in host Joel Beall, Drew Powell and Pat Andrews. But still, that felt really good. And it felt so much easier playing that day than it did playing a tournament round. And, well, that’s the point.
WE’RE SELLING
Lanny Wadkins’ redesign: The jokes were flying on Golf Twitter Sunday evening at my fellow Wake Forest Demon Deacons’ expense. After TPC Craig Ranch spent $25 million and enlisted Lanny to make sure the winning score at the CJ Cup wouldn’t be 31 under par again, the winning score wound up being 30 under instead.
To be clear, I’m sure TPC Craig Ranch is a great golf course and the changes made it even better for the rest of the year. It’s just funny they spent all that money and got essentially the same result (perfect scoring conditions helped) with the PGA Tour event it hosts this one week. So, yeah … Lanny … congrats on a job, um, done.
PGA Tour Special Temporary Membership: Young Blades did a great job to earn this and it certainly can be beneficial, but it’s a bit overrated. Monday Q Info’s Ryan French went into great detail on the topic by breaking down Brown’s best path forward to full-time PGA Tour status next season.
Essentially, he still might be better off playing predominantly Korn Ferry Tour events the rest of the year. (By the way, how polished is this young man with the media?!) Anyway, it’s still a good problem to have, but it’s not like the kid’s future is (quite) set yet.
Jean Van de Velde: Like me, the Frenchman teed it up officially for the first time this year last week. And like me, he shot something in the mid-80s.
And, yes, with that quadruple bogey, Van de Velde went full, well, Van de Velde at that PGA Tour Champions event. You hate to see it. Especially because he seems like such a sweet man. Just like the entire Knicks team, but especially Karl-Anthony Towns, AKA KAT. I wrote about the long-shooting and long-hitting big man right around when he first got traded to New York. Sorry, couldn't help mentioning.
Memorial Day Weekend weather: KAT was too busy to play golf this past weekend, but he’ll have more than a week before the NBA Finals starts (Let me know, big guy). In the meantime, my friends secured a 6:34 tee time on Monday, but after two straight rainy days it rained exactly during our playing window:
HOWEVAH, we did finish the round. Despite about half the cups being completely filled with water (I will never forget the 10-foot putt I hit as hard as I could and somehow it went in):
Who says golfers aren’t gritty? Even Josh Hart would have been impressed.
ON TAP
The PGA Tour continues its Texas Swing with the Charles Schwab Championship, AKA the Colonial, AKA that one Ben Hogan won a bunch of times. Another Texas native, Jordan Spieth, won here in 2016, but he’s not in the field this week after a T-19 down the road at TPC Craig Ranch, where a Saturday 73 took him out of contention. That wouldn’t have been a problem in the HGGA Championship, AKA my annual buddies trip, because you get to drop your worst round. Jordan, you should come. You would dominate. Like the Knicks. Sorry. Meanwhile, the LPGA is in Atlantic City and LIV is in South Korea, where there's no way they show as many Bibigo commercials as golf fans saw last week during the CJ Cup.
Random tournament fact: Ben Griffin held off Matti Schmid by one shot here last year. People obviously forgot about that when Matti had the back-nine lead on Sunday at the PGA and no one knew who he was.
RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK
—The winner will shoot 30 under this week: 1 MILLION-to-1 odds
—Garrick Higgo will win this week: 200-to-1 odds
—Garrick Higgo will be on time for his first-round tee time this week: LOCK
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Trevor Immelman had the perfect response to a Golf Twitter heckler:
If you’re going to troll, at least have the right person.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Roy Williams gets to use Michael Jordan’s golf cart when he’s not at Shadow Creek. And it’s a beaut:
I still owe Roy a milkshake from when I made my hole-in-one at a 2024 Coaches vs. Cancer golf outing, but I think he’s doing OK.
VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Doc Redman won his second Korn Ferry Title in dramatic fashion with a (delayed) walk-off eagle at the Visit Knoxville Open that barely dripped into the cup. But this slow-mo video from a low angle made it even better:
Absolute cinema right there.
THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
A couple months ago, Wyndham Clark was comparing finding the right woman to finding a good driver. Well, apparently he’s found both since. Congrats to Wyndham and girlfriend Emily Tanner on their first PGA Tour victory together:
I’m not a big fan of the cowboy hat look, but Wyndham pulls it off well.
THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION AWKWARDNESS
This is tough to watch:
There’s DJ being DJ and then there’s cringe. And this is the latter.
THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS
LeBron James continued his offseason golf onslaught at another beautiful track. And it looks like the King is getting better!
Now that’s someone who watches a lot of golf.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Yeah, it was definitely a calm zone, like I never … yeah, it was weird. I've been in the zone before. Like at Pebble, that was a crazy zone, just simply because that golf course and the putts I was making was almost like out of this world just because those greens are so difficult. Here it just almost felt like I was playing at home, and every hole was a new hole. I didn't worry that I just made six birdies or that I needed to make more. I just was like, all right, I have this 20-footer. I see it left edge, and I'd hit it, and it would go in. It was a different zone than I've been in before, that's for sure.” —Wyndham Clark. Take me to that zone, Wyndham. Please.
THIS AND THAT
Si Woo Kim shot a 60 on Friday and 27 under for the week and had to come away feeling disappointed because he bogeyed the last hole on Friday to miss shooting 59 and he lost by three to Wyndham Clark after holding a five-shot lead. That’s tough. … Speaking of sparkling scores, I love that Ben Kern posted his scores from the PGA Championship:
Not surprisingly, his Handicap Index dropped. … Also not surprisingly, Jackson Koivun won the 2026 Ben Hogan Award as the nation’s best college golfer. And the Auburn junior is just the third player to win it twice. What a stud. … Speaking of college golfers, congrats to Texas junior Farah O’Keefe for winning the NCAA individual championship. Not bad for a former walk-on! … And, finally, with all the rain, the most exciting thing we did with the kids (and their grandparents) was to go see ‘The Sheep Detectives’:
And there must have been someone cutting onions in the theater because my eyes were getting watery. Weird.
RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER
What’s the worst weather you’ve ever played golf in?
What’s the best PG-rated movie ever?
How ‘bout those New York Knicks?!
Continue reading...
You must be registered for see images attach
So please read about all the mistakes I made out there so that you can avoid making the same ones the next time you tee it up. But you know who is also going to be licking their wounds for a while? The NBA’s Eastern Conference after the New York Knicks’ insanely—and historically—dominant run to the Finals, a place they last got to when I was still in high school and Tiger Woods was still stuck on one major title. Admittedly, it’s a bit hard to concentrate on anything else right now, but I’m going to try. So, let’s go Knicks! And let’s get into what’s happening in golf.
WE’RE BUYING
Wyndham Clark: And just like that, Wyndham is back to WINdham. The guy hadn’t had an official top 10 in nearly a year, but he got rolling at TPC Craig Ranch to claim the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, shooting a final-round 60 (including a back-nine 28!) and finishing a ridiculous 30 under par:
You must be registered for see images attach
Mike Mulholland
For a guy with a major and two signature victories previously, this is actually on paper the least-big win of his PGA Tour career. But after the struggles he’s been through—yes, partially self-inflicted with that whole Oakmont locker-room incident—this might feel the best. Clark reminded everyone that he also can tear up golf courses in a good way, especially when his putter gets hot.
For the week, he gained 3.14 per round on the greens, nearly a full stroke better than anyone else. He cooked almost as much as the Knicks from long range.
Blades Brown: A few days after turning 19, Blades finished T-14 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson to earn PGA Tour special temporary membership for the rest of the season. We’ll get more into that later, but it was the latest impressive showing by the young man who has nine top-25s and four top-10s already in 2026 if you combine his PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour efforts.
You must be registered for see images attach
Stacy Revere
Blades is like golf’s version of Tyler Kolek, the Knicks fourth-string point guard who split his time between the G-League’s Westchester Knicks and the big club, even playing for both squads in the same day. Why do I bring this up? Because I can’t stop thinking about the Knicks, but also because Blades’ mom, Rhonda, played in the WNBA, so I’m guessing she and Blades would appreciate the comp. Of course, at 19, Blades has a lot more upside than Tyler. Anyway, moving on … and speaking of moving on …
Bouncing back: No, I'm not going to talk about how the Knicks bounced back from losing in the Eastern Conference Finals last year to winning this year, but, yes, that was also an example of bouncing back. Anyway, the day after struggling at Hudson Hills in that MGA qualifier, I played as well as I have so far this season at the Brooklawn Country Club member-guest. In fact, our team cruised to a win in the gross division:
You must be registered for see images attach
Yes, I had a little help from my (Golf Digest) friends in host Joel Beall, Drew Powell and Pat Andrews. But still, that felt really good. And it felt so much easier playing that day than it did playing a tournament round. And, well, that’s the point.
WE’RE SELLING
Lanny Wadkins’ redesign: The jokes were flying on Golf Twitter Sunday evening at my fellow Wake Forest Demon Deacons’ expense. After TPC Craig Ranch spent $25 million and enlisted Lanny to make sure the winning score at the CJ Cup wouldn’t be 31 under par again, the winning score wound up being 30 under instead.
To be clear, I’m sure TPC Craig Ranch is a great golf course and the changes made it even better for the rest of the year. It’s just funny they spent all that money and got essentially the same result (perfect scoring conditions helped) with the PGA Tour event it hosts this one week. So, yeah … Lanny … congrats on a job, um, done.
PGA Tour Special Temporary Membership: Young Blades did a great job to earn this and it certainly can be beneficial, but it’s a bit overrated. Monday Q Info’s Ryan French went into great detail on the topic by breaking down Brown’s best path forward to full-time PGA Tour status next season.
Essentially, he still might be better off playing predominantly Korn Ferry Tour events the rest of the year. (By the way, how polished is this young man with the media?!) Anyway, it’s still a good problem to have, but it’s not like the kid’s future is (quite) set yet.
Jean Van de Velde: Like me, the Frenchman teed it up officially for the first time this year last week. And like me, he shot something in the mid-80s.
You must be registered for see images attach
And, yes, with that quadruple bogey, Van de Velde went full, well, Van de Velde at that PGA Tour Champions event. You hate to see it. Especially because he seems like such a sweet man. Just like the entire Knicks team, but especially Karl-Anthony Towns, AKA KAT. I wrote about the long-shooting and long-hitting big man right around when he first got traded to New York. Sorry, couldn't help mentioning.
Memorial Day Weekend weather: KAT was too busy to play golf this past weekend, but he’ll have more than a week before the NBA Finals starts (Let me know, big guy). In the meantime, my friends secured a 6:34 tee time on Monday, but after two straight rainy days it rained exactly during our playing window:
You must be registered for see images attach
HOWEVAH, we did finish the round. Despite about half the cups being completely filled with water (I will never forget the 10-foot putt I hit as hard as I could and somehow it went in):
You must be registered for see images attach
Who says golfers aren’t gritty? Even Josh Hart would have been impressed.
ON TAP
The PGA Tour continues its Texas Swing with the Charles Schwab Championship, AKA the Colonial, AKA that one Ben Hogan won a bunch of times. Another Texas native, Jordan Spieth, won here in 2016, but he’s not in the field this week after a T-19 down the road at TPC Craig Ranch, where a Saturday 73 took him out of contention. That wouldn’t have been a problem in the HGGA Championship, AKA my annual buddies trip, because you get to drop your worst round. Jordan, you should come. You would dominate. Like the Knicks. Sorry. Meanwhile, the LPGA is in Atlantic City and LIV is in South Korea, where there's no way they show as many Bibigo commercials as golf fans saw last week during the CJ Cup.
Random tournament fact: Ben Griffin held off Matti Schmid by one shot here last year. People obviously forgot about that when Matti had the back-nine lead on Sunday at the PGA and no one knew who he was.
RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK
—The winner will shoot 30 under this week: 1 MILLION-to-1 odds
—Garrick Higgo will win this week: 200-to-1 odds
—Garrick Higgo will be on time for his first-round tee time this week: LOCK
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Trevor Immelman had the perfect response to a Golf Twitter heckler:
If you’re going to troll, at least have the right person.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Roy Williams gets to use Michael Jordan’s golf cart when he’s not at Shadow Creek. And it’s a beaut:
I still owe Roy a milkshake from when I made my hole-in-one at a 2024 Coaches vs. Cancer golf outing, but I think he’s doing OK.
VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Doc Redman won his second Korn Ferry Title in dramatic fashion with a (delayed) walk-off eagle at the Visit Knoxville Open that barely dripped into the cup. But this slow-mo video from a low angle made it even better:
Absolute cinema right there.
THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
A couple months ago, Wyndham Clark was comparing finding the right woman to finding a good driver. Well, apparently he’s found both since. Congrats to Wyndham and girlfriend Emily Tanner on their first PGA Tour victory together:
You must be registered for see images attach
I’m not a big fan of the cowboy hat look, but Wyndham pulls it off well.
THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION AWKWARDNESS
This is tough to watch:
There’s DJ being DJ and then there’s cringe. And this is the latter.
THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS
LeBron James continued his offseason golf onslaught at another beautiful track. And it looks like the King is getting better!
Now that’s someone who watches a lot of golf.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Yeah, it was definitely a calm zone, like I never … yeah, it was weird. I've been in the zone before. Like at Pebble, that was a crazy zone, just simply because that golf course and the putts I was making was almost like out of this world just because those greens are so difficult. Here it just almost felt like I was playing at home, and every hole was a new hole. I didn't worry that I just made six birdies or that I needed to make more. I just was like, all right, I have this 20-footer. I see it left edge, and I'd hit it, and it would go in. It was a different zone than I've been in before, that's for sure.” —Wyndham Clark. Take me to that zone, Wyndham. Please.
THIS AND THAT
Si Woo Kim shot a 60 on Friday and 27 under for the week and had to come away feeling disappointed because he bogeyed the last hole on Friday to miss shooting 59 and he lost by three to Wyndham Clark after holding a five-shot lead. That’s tough. … Speaking of sparkling scores, I love that Ben Kern posted his scores from the PGA Championship:
Not surprisingly, his Handicap Index dropped. … Also not surprisingly, Jackson Koivun won the 2026 Ben Hogan Award as the nation’s best college golfer. And the Auburn junior is just the third player to win it twice. What a stud. … Speaking of college golfers, congrats to Texas junior Farah O’Keefe for winning the NCAA individual championship. Not bad for a former walk-on! … And, finally, with all the rain, the most exciting thing we did with the kids (and their grandparents) was to go see ‘The Sheep Detectives’:
You must be registered for see images attach
And there must have been someone cutting onions in the theater because my eyes were getting watery. Weird.
RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER
What’s the worst weather you’ve ever played golf in?
What’s the best PG-rated movie ever?
How ‘bout those New York Knicks?!
Continue reading...
