Englishman with no status on DP World Tour wins in just sixth(!) pro start, now is playing in 2023 Open

Patrick Reed was fully exonerated by the DP World Tour following a rules incident during Sunday’s third round of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. Among a jury of his peers, however, it's not such an open-and-shut case. A pair of tour pros, Mike Lorenzo-Vera and Ben An, posted tweets...

PEBBLE BEACH — This week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am coincides with the Saudi International, an Asian Tour event that is notably sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the primary backer of LIV Golf. The Saudi-backed circuit has spurred a schism in the professional game, leading to hurt feelings and contentious views on both sides of the feud, yet one defector who seemingly remains in good standing with his former peers is Dustin Johnson. This week Johnson’s absence especially rings true, as Johnson is a two-time Pebble winner and boasted eight top-10s in 13 appearances.

Shane Lowry and caddie Brian "Bo" Martin have parted ways ahead of a busy stretch of golf for the 2019 Open champ. In a move first reported by The Irish Independent, the tandem had lost their "spark" or "chemistry" after a four-and-a-half-year run. And while it may not have been as long as some of the game's other famous caddie-player relationships, the Lowry-Martin pairing was quite successful.

Phil Mickelson has done a lot of talking and tweeting in the last week. It started with some ribbing of Sam Ryder’s jogger pants in the Farmers Insurance Open and continued when he got to the Middle East to compete in the Saudi International on the Asian Tour. Down to what he says is his “college weight,” he delivered some jabs like a bantamweight, including an assertion that it’s harder to win in LIV Golf than the PGA Tour. (His sample size: 45 wins in 658 starts on the PGA Tour; no wins and one top-10 finish in eight appearances in LIV’s maiden 2022 season.)

The LIV golfers competing in this week's Saudi International should feel right at home after the Asian Tour relaxed a longstanding rule about long pants. Starting this week, Asian Tour players are allowed to wear shorts during tournament rounds. And it's a move that was directly affected by LIV Golf's decision to do the same last September.

PEBBLE BEACH — He is most comfortable when he’s uncomfortable. Jordan Spieth’s words, not ours, about himself and his game, although the man took that motto to the extreme in Monterey last season. For those who missed it—and if you have, we direct you to the video—Spieth defied science and gravity and mortality in hitting an approach off a bluff at Pebble Beach’s eighth hole, a sentence that may be wild to the uninitiated, yet perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Spieth play golf.

The Augusta National Women’s Amateur will have the strongest field in its four-year history. Rose Zhang, No. 1 in the world, and 2022 champion Anna Davis are among the top-45-ranked female amateurs to accept invitations. Zhang, a Stanford sophomore, will be competing for the fourth time. She finished T-3 in 2021 and T-12 last year. Davis, 16, shot a final-round 69 in 2022 to win by a shot. She’s the first champion to attempt to defend her title.

Bryson DeChambeau’s prowess off the tee has largely defined his golf career, so any time the former U.S. Open champ and current LIV golfer changes drivers, it’s a big deal. And that’s particularly the case when the switch is to a club from a company other than Cobra, who DeChambeau has represented during his entire professional career.

Editor's note: Data insights exclusively provided by Golf Digest-partner Arccos, golf’s No. 1 on-course performance-tracking system. You can learn more, and purchase your own Arccos system, right here. Most golfers won't play in the Masters. They won't win a major, drive the ball 300 yards or ever shoot under...

PEBBLE BEACH — A caddie collapsed at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Friday. The caddie, whose name is currently being withheld due to privacy concerns, was working for one of the amateurs, Lukas Nelson, in this week’s tournament. The amateur was paired with PGA Tour players Beau Hossler and Max McGreevy.

Hank Lebioda’s timing couldn’t have been better—in regard to both what he shot Thursday in the opening round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and when he shot it. Having missed the cut in all five starts this season and seven straight overall, and ranked 420th in the world, Lebioda carded an eight-under 63 at Monterey Peninsula’s Shore Course to stake himself to a one-stroke lead in Pebble Beach, Calif. The left-hander from Florida completed his round of nine birdies and one bogey just a few minutes before the weather changed on the Monterey Peninsula and gusting winds kicked up.

PEBBLE BEACH — Weeks after Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills suffered cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game, a similar scene unfolded Friday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. A caddie working for one of the amateurs competing in this week’s event collapsed on the Pebble Beach Golf Links' 11th fairway during the second round. The caddie, whose name is being withheld due to privacy concerns, received immediate CPR and attention from medical professionals on site. The man was eventually put on a stretcher, placed in an ambulance and taken for further evaluation to Montage Health In nearby Monterey.

All right, so listen, I have an obligation to tell you that if you're serious about getting better around the greens this season, you should probably leave any attempts at hitting this shot. Go for a safe and no-nonsense shot, like a bump-and-run. But if you're looking for something that...

The sun is out today on the lovely Monterey Peninsula, making for a beautiful day at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. It's a tad chilly, sure, but compared to the frigid temperatures in the Northeast and other places, it's hard to complain about a high of 60 degrees on Feb. 2. Seriously, we don't want to hear any complaining.

It was less than a year ago when Viktor Hovland charmed golf fans and media with an answer about turning pro and having some real money in his pocket for the first time. He wasn't thinking about buying flashy cars or flying private planes, but rather being able to splurge on . . . Chipotle. Yep, Chipotle.

Growing up as a golfer in Japan, it's fair to assume that Hideki Matsuyama was Ryo Hisatsune's idol. After seeing this highlight of the 20-year-old at the DP World Tour's Ras Al Khamiah Championship, it appears those assumptions are correct. In fact, after watching the video below, I actually thought...

Phil Mickelson has awoken from his social-media slumber, and any hopes that he had learned his lesson about talking first and asking questions later are as wayward as his final drive at Winged Foot in 2006. To those not on Twitter because they are busy living life, a golf account...

In golf, as in life, you take your victories where you can find them. Enter Mark Baldwin, play-the-world touring pro. Enter his entourage, on this particular Saturday, at Pebble Beach, one year ago. Baldwin’s friend and caddie, Ryan French, patron saint of Monday qualifiers wherever they may be. Peter...

How do we know that this isn’t now all scripted and acted out? @EatandSleepGolf. What I love about this question is that it can mean so many things! Is it good guy Max Homa becoming the star next door that the PGA Tour desperately needs? Rory McIlroy’s walk-off putt in Dubai to end a melodramatic week? Brandel Chamblee’s Zapruder-like recreation of Patrick Reed’s rules issue? I agree that all of this is a little too on-the-nose for the current moment. I thought 2022 was an insane year for golf that could never really be topped but ’23 is certainly off to a flying start.

Golf, at the moment, continues to have an obsession with distance and, in many ways, for good reason. With the rise of advanced statistics on the PGA Tour, we've found that more distance is one of the most beneficial things professional players can do for their game. It's a stable skill that doesn't vary much from year to year, and even if it comes at the expense of hitting more fairways, it's usually worth it.