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This 6-time major winning caddie is on an amateur's bag at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

This 6-time major winning caddie is on an amateur's bag at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Yahoo30-01-2025

Jimmy Dunne, a man who has been called golf's ultimate power broker, made one of the more eyebrow-raising flexes on the first tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Club on Thursday morning as the 2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am started.
Dunne, 67, is the vice chairman and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler, an investment bank and financial services company. Last October, the resident of West Palm Beach, Florida, was named to the board of Troon Golf, a company that manages about 1,000 golf clubs around the world, but he's also a member of the Augusta National Golf Club and the president of the top-ranked private course in Florida, Seminole Golf Club.
So, it's fair to say Dunne is used to playing with powerful, influential people. Competing in the same group as Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Aberg on Thursday and Friday won't phase him, but to help Dunne navigate Spyglass Hill and then take on Pebble Beach Golf Links come Friday, Dunne has Jim "Bones" Mackay as his caddie this week.
Mackay, as golf fans know, was on the bag for Phil Mickelson for five of his major championships and caddied for Justin Thomas when he won the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Golf Club. These days, Mackay has been working as an on-course analyst for NBC Sports.
Mackay caddied for Mickelson for 25 years, and after the pair parted ways, he joined NBC/Golf Channel in 2017 and began walking with the final groups during television broadcasts, lending insights to viewers. In early 2018 he caddied for one week at the Sony Open for Justin Thomas when Jimmy Johnson, Thomas' caddie, was injured. In 2021, started to caddie full-time for Thomas, but the pair parted ways before the start of the 2024 Masters.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: An amateur at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am has a major winning caddie

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Everything a classic U.S. Open asks, Oakmont delivered to perfection
Everything a classic U.S. Open asks, Oakmont delivered to perfection

NBC Sports

time16 minutes ago

  • NBC Sports

Everything a classic U.S. Open asks, Oakmont delivered to perfection

Rex Hoggard and Ryan Lavner join Golf Today to recap J.J. Spaun's Father's Day win at Oakmont Country Club, sharing how he reset after a long rain delay and why his finish was "arguably the best in U.S. Open history." OAKMONT, Pa. – The other three majors occupy their own lanes. The Masters is built on pageantry and drama. The PGA is renowned for its deep field and no-frills setup. The Open is unique in its variability and shot-making. But the U.S. Open, in its best and purest form, has always been about savagery. A steady diet of fairways and greens and must-make 6-footers. A test of patience and grit and poise. Setup and conditions designed to push players to the brink. J.J. Spaun's 64-footer on the 72nd hole Sunday will be looped on highlight reels for ages, but his was the rare flourish on a day that devolved into a war of attrition – like any classic U.S. Open. It was beautifully chaotic, challenging, maddening. It was U.S. Open perfection. 'It's one of the hardest courses in the world, and you're going to face adversity, you're going to get bad breaks, you're going to get screwed, you're going to have some things go wrong,' said Spaun's performance coach, Josh Gregory. 'So are you going to react, or are you going to respond? Let's go forward and find out.' Along the way, a few of the dozen Open contenders irrevocably lost because of the conditions. Sunday at Oakmont featured the strongest winds of the week, 'only' 15 mph, that turned an already ferocious test into an exacting examination of precision and pace. Then came the late-afternoon downpours, sudden and strong, that created indecision with the strike in the saturated fairways and guesswork through the rapidly forming puddles on the greens. Some griped at that added variable. Cameron Young's even-par 70 was the second-best score among the last 17 pairings – and yet he was understandably grumpy afterward, pointing to his three bogeys in a four-hole span on the front nine during the worst of the weather. 'It's not fun waiting for squeegeeing,' Young said, 'and there's really not much rhythm to be had out there.' Two shots behind at the time, Adam Scott figured he was in a rare position to attack, just 130 yards away in the 11th fairway. But too much water between the ball and clubface created a flyer effect and caused the shot to sail the green by a whopping 24 yards. From deep fescue behind the green, he did well just to escape with bogey. It was the most head-scratching moment during his back-nine 41. 'It was borderline unplayable,' Scott said after his Sunday 79. 'The water was so close to the surface.' But soldier on they did, much to the dismay of 54-hole leader Sam Burns, who, when he didn't miss fairways, received cruel breaks by twice rolling into a divot in the fairway and twice being denied relief for casual water. His major bid was officially doomed once he was told by two officials to play on from the waterlogged right edge of the 15th fairway. After disagreeing with their interpretation of the rule – and suggesting that it likely needed to be amended in the future – he splashed a double-crossed iron left of the green, taking a few angry swipes at the turf as he trudged through the puddles toward the green. Afterward, Burns didn't make excuses for his final-round 78. 'The conditions were extremely difficult,' he said, 'and I clearly didn't have my best stuff today.' Others were undone by the course itself. Oakmont is often too much to handle on a benign day, during member play, and the USGA only ratcheted up the difficulty for the game's best players by growing the rough to a uniform five inches in length. Because of the unique thatch of Kentucky bluegrass mixed with ryegrass, even the strongest players with the steepest angles of descent couldn't routinely advance their shots onto the green, often opting for the 60-degree wedge, a pitch-out and a longer third shot. That severe punishment was a stark departure from most weeks on Tour, when distance is rewarded while accuracy is often disregarded. There's a reason why golf's governing bodies are set to roll back the ball for the professionals in 2028, with an increased focus on driver heads next; off-center hits aren't properly punished and some of the game's inherent skill has been reduced. But this Open's binary outcome off the tee – hit the fairway, or miss and hack out – was a throwback to a bygone era and enough to vex even the game's best driver. For the week, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler hit just 52% of the fairways – well down from his season average of 63% – and lost strokes off the tee for the first time in four months. And yet, because of all the carnage unfolding around him, Scheffler still had a chance to post the clubhouse lead when he stepped onto the 18th tee – all he had to do was find the fairway. With his tournament hanging in the balance, the Tour's driving leader fanned his shot into the right rough and found, what he said later, was his gnarliest lie of the week. The hero shot from 211 yards out wasn't even an option; he angled himself 45 degrees away from the flag and slashed it 60 yards across the width of the fairway. 'That's why you hit the ball in the fairway, so you don't have to deal with that stuff,' Scheffler said. 'Typically, I'm good at it. This week I wasn't as good as normal, and I paid the price for it.' Added Ryan Fox, whose best score of the week (69) came on a day when he found four more fairways: 'You feel under pressure on the tee the whole time, because if you don't drive it on the fairway, you're dead, basically.' Tyrrell Hatton found that out the hard way. Chasing Bob MacIntyre's 1-over 281 total, the fiery Englishman was stalking a final birdie on the 17th that would have put him in prime position. When he pushed his tee shot slightly on the drivable par 4, Hatton assumed his ball had settled in an ideal position, at the bottom of the deep greenside bunker (nicknamed 'Big Mouth'), leaving him a straightforward sand shot for an up-and-down birdie. Imagine his surprise, then, to see his ball not in the sand but rather in the thick rough on a severe downslope leading into the bunker. With no way to put enough height and spin on his pitch shot, he flubbed it into the steep bank in front of him, stubbed it again on the other side, and walked off with a momentum-killing bogey. Afterward, Hatton wanted to pin the mistake on lousy luck: 'I feel I've missed it in the right spot and got punished, which, ultimately, I don't think ends up being fair.' But what he had said just seconds before was more accurate: 'I've hit a decent – well, obviously not a decent tee shot, or that would have been on the green.' Indeed. The first of two full shots that won Spaun this U.S. Open wasn't 'decent'. It was, in a word, perfect: His drive on 17 – 309 yards in length, 104 feet high through a steady rain, and with 16 yards of left-to-right slide – landed in the narrow throat to the green and ran 15 feet past the cup to set up a stress-free birdie, a stunning strike from a player who, hours earlier, had appeared to squander his opportunity – again. A 34-year-old everyman, Spaun had never finished inside the top 20 in a major and was on the verge of losing his card altogether last summer. And at the time, he was OK with it. He had played eight years on Tour, banked $12 million, made plenty of lifelong friends. It was time for the next chapter, with a young, growing family he hadn't much seen while he toiled on the road. For years he'd been playing tentatively, afraid of the big moment, scarred from previous experiences when he'd had a chance to win and failed, spectacularly. Figuring his playing days were numbered, he vowed to change his attitude for the final few weeks. 'If this is how I go out,' he said, 'then I might as well go down swinging.' Spaun rallied to save his card last summer and now is playing the best golf of his life. He didn't back down during close calls earlier this year in Hawaii and Palm Beach. And he didn't quake under the final-round pressure at The Players either, nor in the head-to-head playoff with Rory McIlroy; he went right at the flag on the island 17th, undone by an unexpected gust of wind. Now, all of those prior experiences seemed to fortify him heading into golf's toughest test. 'He just believes now that he's one of the best players,' said his caddie, Mark Carens. Spaun appeared intent to show it at Oakmont, where in the opening round he carded just the second bogey-free score in the past two U.S. Opens there. He hung around amid changing conditions the next two days, relying on sublime scrambling and lights-out putting after recently linking up with Gregory, a short-game and performance coach. (The U.S. Open was their first full week working together; Gregory asked Spaun with a laugh on Friday: 'So, how do you like to warm up?') Because of the Open's unique demands, Spaun realized he needed some outside help. Gregory gave Spaun tips how to read the lies in the rough and then the proper technique to save himself when he was out of position. 'He's not afraid to have the best year of his career and to reach out and say, 'I want to be elite, and I need some help,'' Gregory said. 'He said, 'I want the ball; I just need the tools.' That shows the kind of person he is. He didn't want to settle for just being great.' But in the penultimate group on Sunday, Spaun's chances appeared to be dwindling. He chopped his way up the opening hole and made bogey. He dropped shots on four of the next five holes, too, with bad breaks (caroms off the flagstick and rake) and poor club selection, his win probability plunging to just 1%, according to Data Golf. When the horn sounded to suspend play, Spaun was seething – and also grateful. Granted an opportunity to decompress and start anew, he headed to the clubhouse, where he swapped out his solid navy polo in favor of a patterned one, and regrouped with his team. 'He was pissed off – and he should have been,' Gregory said. 'And that's a great thing, because anger can lead to motivation. He was like, 'This is bulls---, I can go win this thing, and I just need one thing to go my way.'' That happened on the 12th hole, when Spaun's second shot in the heavy rain dove into the native area down the right side. Except, for once, he was relieved to see it somewhat sitting up in the hay, allowing him to put a wedge on the back of the ball and trundle it onto the green, 40 feet away. He canned that putt for an unlikely birdie – and then he was off, hardly missing a shot down the stretch and saving his best stuff for the final 30 minutes of the longest day of his life. The tee shot on 17 set up the go-ahead birdie, and all that was left was to pass the U.S. Open's final test: No. 18 ... 509 yards ... bunkers and rough left ... hack-out rough right ... and a hard-sloping, sopping-wet fairway ... And Spaun hit a 308-yard seed that split the fairway. He scooped up his tee before his ball had even begun its descent. 'It's just do-or-die, right?' Carens said. 'You've got to sack up and hit the shot. And he did.' And it was the perfect encapsulation of a championship that, after a few wayward years, finally returned to its roots. Challenging conditions that emphasized the importance of clean, crisp, center-face contact. A setup so demanding that it prompted a former champion to trash his locker. And a steely competitor, coming into his own after years of perseverance, who met the challenge with perhaps the most clutch final two holes in the tournament's 125-year history. Six macho shots, for glory. 'It's the hardest course I've ever seen, the ultimate test,' Gregory said, 'and J.J. wasn't afraid.' The quintessential U.S. Open venue – and an archetypal champ. Watch the 71st hole which flipped the U.S. Open on its head for eventual winner J.J. Spaun, starting with the drive of a lifetime that set up a two-putt birdie to take the outright lead at Oakmont Country Club.

Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second
Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second

OAKMONT, Pa. — Twenty-odd years ago, I sat with Ian Woosnam on a golf cart at Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Woosie is the practically-minded son of a Welsh farmer and not given to deep reflection, but on one question he was. He told me he could pinpoint exactly — to the day — when his career decline began. It was April 14, 1991, the day he won the Masters. Advertisement Woosnam had two goals in his golfing life, other than making a living (his autobiography, Woosie, ends every chapter with a summary of his earnings per season). One dream was to win a major championship. The other was to be the best in the world. On April 8, six days before winning at Augusta National, he reached No. 1 in the official world golf ranking. Two dreams checked off in one week. 'Other people go looking for another mountain to climb,' he told me that day at Kiawah Island. 'I just slid down the other side.' There were 11 more wins on the European Tour, but only one real shot at another major, a decade later in the Open at Royal Lytham, when two drivers in the bag doomed him to a penalty and a tie for 3rd. But the fire that took a diminutive blue-collar guy from hitting balls during winter in his dad's barn to the pinnacle of a white collar sport was extinguished. I thought back to that conversation these past two weeks, listening to Rory McIlroy. Thirty-four years after Woosnam, McIlroy achieved his lifetime dream and completed the career grand slam. The emotion that drained from him on the 18th green and on the walk to the clubhouse — so poignant as to keep the CBS announce team respectfully silent — spoke volumes about what it meant. Advertisement Shortly afterward, an elated McIlroy opened his press conference with a question that poked fun at the previous decade of inquiries about whether he would win a green jacket: 'What are we all going to talk about next year?' The answer, it turns out, was this: What else ya got? And when ya got it? Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland walks off the seventh tee during the third round of the 125th U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club on June 14, 2025 in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. McIlroy never took time to fully process that seismic accomplishment. Ten days later, he was at the Zurich Classic playing with Shane Lowry, having made a trip to London and Northern Ireland in between. Then it was on to the Truist Championship and straight into another major at the PGA Championship. By comparison, when Tiger Woods won the Masters in '97, and also in '19, he did not make a competitive appearance for five weeks. Advertisement McIlroy has been asked what comes next several times since the Masters,. Even earlier this week at Oakmont, he was asked what his plan is for the coming years. 'I don't have one. I have no idea,' he said. 'I'm sort of just taking it tournament by tournament at this point. Yeah, I have no idea.' It was disarmingly honest, but alarming for those who fetishize the mentality epitomized by Tiger Woods, a single-mindedness that moves shark-like between feasts without enjoyment or even digestion. It's a sentiment that celebrates racking up accomplishments, but not of taking actual pleasure in those victories. Earlier this year, McIlroy said one of his goals for '25 was to have more fun. It's why he went to a soccer game in Bilbao with friends, why he wants to play in India and Australia later this year. Yet somewhere along the way, he denied himself the time to have fun celebrating the greatest achievement of his career. Now, a minor hangover of sorts has kicked in. "You dream about the final putt going in at the Masters, but you don't think about what comes next,' he said a few days ago. 'I think I've always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you've just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you've achieved a goal. Chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I'm allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit.' The schedule doesn't allow much time for relaxation or reflection, even if he had been minded to pursue it. Two majors have passed with not much of an impact, a tie for 47th at Quail Hollow and lingering around the top 25 at Oakmont as the final round wound down. Advertisement In a casual conversation a few months back, he summarized his objectives for the year: win the Masters, win the Open at Royal Portrush, win an away Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. As he prepared to leave Pittsburgh, McIlroy acknowledged fresh motivation is on the horizon for the second item on that list. 'If I can't get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don't know what can motivate me,' he said. 'I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven't been there the last few weeks. But as I said, getting home and having a couple weeks off before that, hopefully feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, will get me in the right place again.' Just 63 days have passed since that victorious evening at Augusta National. Only 32 remain until balls are in the air at the 153rd Open. Maybe that hasn't been enough time to celebrate realizing a dream 30 years in the making, but it's probably enough to narrow the focus to knocking off the second item on his target list for '25. This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: Rory McIlroy won the Masters, his first goal. What's next?

AMD pops, Sarepta tanks, EchoStar & Trump: Trending Tickers
AMD pops, Sarepta tanks, EchoStar & Trump: Trending Tickers

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

AMD pops, Sarepta tanks, EchoStar & Trump: Trending Tickers

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock is on the rise after Piper Sandler analysts lifted their price target for the stock to $140. Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) stock plunges after the company reported a second patient death from its experimental gene therapy trial. EchoStar (SATS) stock skyrockets and sees price hikes as US President Trump urges the company and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to settle a dispute in an ongoing wireless spectrum licensing investigation. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here. Let's get to some of today's trending tickers we're watching: Advanced Micro Devices, Sarepta Therapeutics, and EchoStar. First up, we've got AMD. It is seeing its share price rise after a price target increase from Piper Sandler, which cited a GPU snapback. The investment bank highlighting enthusiasm about recent product announcements as quote "pivotal" for growth in the GPU industry. Piper Sandler also noting that AMD is working through its China related issues and its fourth quarter looks promising following Friday, Friday's pre-quarter close call. Harsh Kumar, the analyst on this. What's interesting about this, Josh is AMD did come out with some product announcements last week. And the market was largely unimpressed. And now he comes in and sort of takes another look and kind of level sets and the market comes back in. Yeah, Harsh is enthusiastic, he's positive what he saw there. I also see analyst at BNP Parabos cited saying, call AMD held Friday with analyst. They say it sent a reassuring message headed into results next month. You look at the stock, even with the pop today, you know, it's up single digits so far in 2025, but this is one of those names where the street is just overwhelmingly bullish. Yes, they are. I mean we've seen it underperform in video too, but by a let, by a smaller margin than it had been, because Nvidia hasn't been doing spectacularly well either. All right, we're also watching Sarepta Therapeutics, seeing shares and plunging after announcing another death related to one of the company's gene therapy drugs. So stock under pressure here, Julie, reported a second patient died of acute liver failure. It sounds like while being treated with this gene therapy for for what is a rare muscle disorder. Company did suspend 2025 revenue guidance. I do see analyst at Cantor cited saying second death is going to dramatically impact physician, caregiver and patient decisions going forward. Right. So this disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy. About 15,000 Americans have it. It mostly affects young boys and causes muscle wasting because of a lack of a certain kind of protein. There is a very active parent community who has lobbied for years to push forward the development of experimental drugs. And so this drug was approved even though there were some questions about its efficacy. And now you see the second death. There are now questions about whether the FDA will add some sort of label to it. Analysts seem to be playing down the possibility that the FDA would actually pull its approval for this drug, but nonetheless, it is something to watch very closely. And it's also a very expensive therapy, $3.2 million is what we're talking about here. And finally, let's talk about EchoStar. It's seeing price hikes today following President Trump's urging to settle an ongoing dispute between the company and the FCC. According to Bloomberg, the company behind Boost Mobile and Dish feuding with the FCC over the company's wireless spectrum licenses. Back in May, the FCC started an investigation into Echostar's compliance with federal requirements surrounding the construction of a nationwide FG network, 5G, 5G network. And Bloomberg reporting late Friday that there had been some meetings between Charlie Ergen, who's the head of the company and President Trump, and then also Brendan Carr of the FCC and that they're all sort of getting closer to some sort of an agreement. Yeah. So Bloomberg reported, I also did see Bloomberg analysts who follow the name, they were weighing in saying EchoStar may be forced to sell or share its exclusive rights to mobile satellite service spectrum to ease pressure. They're talking about from the FCC. They talked about which is threatening to revoke some licenses. They say Trump is urging resolution, but they were arguing results, resulting deal could actually favor Starlink and they say AST Space Mobile, disadvantage EchoStar. But you see that stock up about 50%. Yeah, and one more thing to mention when you look at how much the stock is up, the company had warned that it might have to file for bankruptcy if it wasn't able to get this deal done. And some analysts are saying that wasn't a financial consideration, it was purely a political one if it wasn't able to get this through. And President Trump reportedly saying he doesn't want a big American company like this to go under. So that was part of what prompted these discussions. So we'll see what happens. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

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