2026 phoenix wasted open: 2nd round update
michael kim (
65, tied for 10th): after reading yesterday's monster post re: his failure to properly account for the north scottsdale downtown phoenix pull (grain) on his putt reads in the 1st round, michael went thru his 1st round last nite & realized that schulzy wuz rite & made the adjustment pre round on the putting green
just a
FANTASTIC round of golf rolling in
8 BIRDIE putts (with shocks screaming "let's go michael, let's do this, go bears!!") like a boss man!!
and luv michael's 2 year strategy on the par 4 18th hole of bombing driver/aiming way the **** right into the grandstands (worst case scenario results in a free drop in the trampled down non overseeded rough) to the right (eliminating the miss left into the lake/church pew bunker) which worked again in hitting the cart path for extra yardage & a gap wedge flip to to the green on the 442 yard finishing hole
yeah michael is representing berkeley for
FREE with the large cal script on his golf bag
hot dogs at the phx open are 9 bucks, getting coached up by shocky is priceless!!
max homa (
68, tied for 19th): max is in total control of his golf ball, just a bunch of burned edges today en route a mediocre 54 feet in putts made...homa is adored by the local supporting crowd despite yesterday wearing tricked out golf kicks made by puma with la dodger lettering...fully expecting a strong weekend finish for maxamillion as he climbs the leaderboard!!
and most importantly max is smiling & having
FUN playing golf (and that's a ******* beautiful thing!!)
collin morikawa (
69, tied for 62nd): shocky bumped into collin at the crosswalk to his opening tee box from the practice facility & encouraged him to bring in his experienced caddie mark urbanek on greens reading (that's what
teamwork is all about, no need to be the lone ******* ranger dano)
so on his opening hole morikawa stuffs a wedge to 3 feet for a tap in birdie & then on his next hole brings in urbanek (who does aim point too like his player) for a tricky left to right slippery 10 footer racing towards downtown for another birdie which is
DRAINED!!this **** is getting live!!
wrong (sigh)
and then morikawa only brings in urbanek once or twice more to help read greens (which results in another 10 footer par save on the par 4 1st hole) & continues his 1st round/2nd round putting woes by missing 90% of his putts on the downtown phx side & leaving an eagle putt 5 feet short (the birdie putt wuz missed too) putting directly into the grain on the par 5 island green 15th hole
real talk: with morikawa going thru 5 caddies last season, there is nobody (other than maybe his longtime coach rick sussinghaus) on planet earth that has watched in person collin hit more putts in his professional golf career than me & i can honestly tell you he's arguably the worst greens reader on the pga/gpa tour
all 6 of morikawa's professional victories have been on relatively flat vanilla greens with minimal internal contouring: harding park, royal st georges, narashino (japan) & 3 nicklaus designed courses (montreux, the concession & muirfield village)
collin may not wanna listen to shocky now but that's not gonna stop me from continuing to support my fellow hopa/hopa (we both got tiger moms) poly, same height/weight, culinary foodie, animal rescue facility supporter & high gpa haas biz ad grad!!
https://instagr.am/p/DUb1Pogj35Bhttps://instagr.am/p/DPw4NsRkWYtlife is NOT ******* linear (and everybody gotta different learning curve working with the monster, thx goodness my yoga brah jaylen brown wuz not as stubborn as **** as collin)#