Latest news with #TomHoge
National Post
16-05-2025
- Sport
- National Post
Taylor Pendrith in hunt at PGA Championship after painful 'up-and-down journey'
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Watching Taylor Pendrith drive a ball is one of those moments where recreational golfers realize just what a different game it is for players with their name on their bag. Article content Article content The distance looks effortless, powered by the large, but not overly muscular frame, of a man seemingly built to propel golf balls great distances. Article content Over 36 holes at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, Pendrith routinely was outdriving his playing partners Matthieu Pavon and Tom Hoge by 10 or 20 yards. Article content 'It's the second major of the year and I'm playing good golf,' he told Postmedia after his round on Friday. 'Anytime you're in the top 20 of a major going into the weekend is a really good place to be.' Article content On Friday, Pendrith followed up Thursday's 69 with a 70 to head to the weekend firmly in the mix at the season's second major at three-under par. He is near the top of the field in strokes-gained off the tee this week, including one drive that travelled 359 yards. Article content Article content 'Driver feels really good and I've been putting it in play nicely, and you've got to hit fairways around here to score,' he said. 'It's been pretty clean, I really haven't made a ton of mistakes. I feel like I've hit a lot of greens and my speed has been good. I haven't really had to grind for too many pars.' Article content It has been a frustrating couple of months for the Richmond Hill, Ont., native. After top-ten PGA Tour finishes at Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach in February, Pendrith has missed four cuts and finished inside the top 35 just one time. Article content 'Honestly, I felt like I've had some really nice days over the past month where I've hit it really good and been driving it really good all year,' he said. 'I just kind of just haven't had the results and it's been more of a mental frustration having to stay patient and trust what I'm doing.' Article content Swing coach Derek Ingram said much the same thing, catching up with Postmedia while keeping tabs on his player during Thursday's opening round. Ingram said that Pendrith's game largely has been good, but sometimes knowing your form is solid can cause a player to push harder than they should in a sport that rewards patience. Article content Article content The Winnipeg-based coach pointed to last week's Truist Championship, where Pendrith opened with 66-70 before falling nearly all the way to the bottom of the leaderboard over the weekend. Article content 'Obviously, last week I got off to a good start and had a sloppy finish, and it was really frustrating,' Pendrith said. 'It feels good to play two solid rounds here and keep my head down and keep it going.'
USA Today
10-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
How many holes-in-one were recorded during the 2025 Par 3 Contest? And who made them?
How many holes-in-one were recorded during the 2025 Par 3 Contest? And who made them? The Par 3 Contest is in the books and history will show that just three holes-in-one were recorded in 2025. Keegan Bradley got the fun started with an ace on No. 6. Tom Hoge later made one on No. 4. Later in the day, Brooks Koepka made one on No. 6 as well, his shot seemingly having gone too far, but it checked, rolled back and went in. These three holes-in-one bring to 115 the total of aces in the Par 3 Contest since it started in 1960. It's the 49th time there as at least one ace. The ninth hole has the most aces over the years with 26. The sixth had just six all-time, although three hit there a year ago. Gary Player has the most career aces in the Par 3 with four. He's also the oldest to do it, having made one in 2016 at age 80. Who was closest to the pin on each hole during the 2025 Par 3 Contest? Hole Player Distance 1 Adam Schenk 7 inches 2 Noah Kent 25 inches 3 J.J. Spaun 18 inches 4 Tom Hoge Hole-in-one 5 Davis Riley 3 inches 6 Keegan Bradley, Brooks Koepka Hole-in-one 7 Larry Mize 15 inches 8 Bryson DeChambeau 5 inches 9 N. Hojgaard 49 inches Nico Echavarria won the Par 3 Contest, but history shows that no Par 3 winner has ever gone on to win the Masters in the same week. What do players get for closest-to-the-pin? According to tournament officials:
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Tom Hoge had the perfect pedigree for Saturday's windy round at Valero Texas Open
SAN ANTONIO — For those familiar with the resume of Tom Hoge, it's not a huge surprise that the 35-year-old would pull out of the pack Saturday on a wicked day at the Valero Texas Open. After two days of balmy temperatures, Saturday had a completely different feel at TPC San Antonio, winds whipping and temps about 30 degrees cooler than they were before the event's cut. With slow greens and gnarly rough, those who bombed their way to the top in the first few days had to play a different style of game in the third round. Enter Hoge. Raised in North Dakota and a former member of the PGA Tour Canada, Hoge's game is based more on feel and accuracy than sheer distance, where he lags near the bottom of the Tour statistically. And although he's comfortable with playing in uncomfortable weather, Hoge also has plenty of Texas pedigree, as he resides in Fort Worth after a successful collegiate career at Texas Christian University. On Saturday, it took a bit, but Hoge hung tough through the front nine with nine straight pars and then got hot down the stretch, posting four birdies and no bogeys on the back to catapult himself near the top of the leaderboard after 54 holes. "It was tough. Totally opposite wind than we've had the last two days, so made a little more thought off the tees to figure out the new golf course, so to speak," Hoge said. "Even the downwind holes, they were a challenge because the ball was bouncing out so much. You know, I just tried to battle and fight and knew I had to make a lot of those six-, seven-foot par putts in there, which I did off the start, and that kind of kept me in things." Although he's still behind Andrew Novak and Brian Harman, Hoge will play in the final few pairings on Sunday and he's hoping to do something similar to what he did in his last start at TPC Sawgrass when he jumped into a T-3 finish by virtue of a 66 in the final round of The Players Championship. And things are going to turn even chillier on Sunday, as wind chills could be in the 20s at the beginning of play. His recent practice has helped prepare Hoge for just such an opportunity. "I just think that I've played in a lot of wind," he said. "I've been at home in Fort Worth, Texas, the last few weeks here, it's been really windy, so I certainly felt comfortable in these conditions. "Just know everyone's going struggle with it, so just hang in there the best I can." This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Tom Hoge stars on windy day at 2025 Valero Texas Open
USA Today
05-04-2025
- Climate
- USA Today
Tom Hoge had the perfect pedigree for Saturday's windy round at Valero Texas Open
AI-assisted summary Tom Hoge, known for his accuracy over distance, excelled in tough conditions at the Valero Texas Open. Hoge's steady play, including nine straight pars, kept him in contention despite the challenging weather. He capitalized on the back nine with four birdies, propelling him near the top of the leaderboard. Hoge's experience playing in windy conditions in Fort Worth prepared him for the challenging weather at TPC San Antonio. SAN ANTONIO — For those familiar with the resume of Tom Hoge, it's not a huge surprise that the 35-year-old would pull out of the pack Saturday on a wicked day at the Valero Texas Open. After two days of balmy temperatures, Saturday had a completely different feel at TPC San Antonio, winds whipping and temps about 30 degrees cooler than they were before the event's cut. With slow greens and gnarly rough, those who bombed their way to the top in the first few days had to play a different style of game in the third round. Enter Hoge. Raised in North Dakota and a former member of the PGA Tour Canada, Hoge's game is based more on feel and accuracy than sheer distance, where he lags near the bottom of the Tour statistically. And although he's comfortable with playing in uncomfortable weather, Hoge also has plenty of Texas pedigree, as he resides in Fort Worth after a successful collegiate career at Texas Christian University. On Saturday, it took a bit, but Hoge hung tough through the front nine with nine straight pars and then got hot down the stretch, posting four birdies and no bogeys on the back to catapult himself near the top of the leaderboard after 54 holes. "It was tough. Totally opposite wind than we've had the last two days, so made a little more thought off the tees to figure out the new golf course, so to speak," Hoge said. "Even the downwind holes, they were a challenge because the ball was bouncing out so much. You know, I just tried to battle and fight and knew I had to make a lot of those six-, seven-foot par putts in there, which I did off the start, and that kind of kept me in things." Although he's still behind Andrew Novak and Brian Harman, Hoge will play in the final few pairings on Sunday and he's hoping to do something similar to what he did in his last start at TPC Sawgrass when he jumped into a T-3 finish by virtue of a 66 in the final round of The Players Championship. And things are going to turn even chillier on Sunday, as wind chills could be in the 20s at the beginning of play. His recent practice has helped prepare Hoge for just such an opportunity. "I just think that I've played in a lot of wind," he said. "I've been at home in Fort Worth, Texas, the last few weeks here, it's been really windy, so I certainly felt comfortable in these conditions. "Just know everyone's going struggle with it, so just hang in there the best I can."
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
From ‘normal' to ‘really terrible': 5 years since the pandemic shut down golf at The Players
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – 'It felt like a normal tournament.' That the 2020 Players Championship was anything but 'normal' is a matter of historical fact, but as Tom Hoge recalled, the week began with a business-as-usual vibe. Wednesday will mark the five-year anniversary of the most surreal day in golf history — one of the most surreal in the history of the modern world — when the PGA Tour declared a full stop as a pandemic consumed the globe. But the journey from 'normal' to anything but was as dramatic and unexpected as the circumstances. Even as the storm clouds built in March 2020, the Tour pushed ahead to play its flagship event at TPC Sawgrass. 'Everybody was still kind of confused trying to figure out what was going on around the world,' recalled Lucas Glover. Two days before the circuit halted play, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told the media, 'Suffice it to say, it's a very dynamic situation, but I'm really proud of the amount of effort and thought that's going into not only where we stand today but the commitment to continue to gain as much information as we can, and candidly, the contingency plan for a lot of different scenarios, given that this is an unprecedented situation.' Even on Thursday as other sports leagues began shuttering operations amid warnings from local and federal governments, the Tour teed off for the opening round on schedule, although with a limited crowd on the Stadium Course and an uneasy vibe. 'I actually didn't take it too seriously but on Wednesday when some of the other leagues shut down, it was the first time I thought this was quite odd,' Adam Scott said. 'I started thinking it might be tough for us to play this week. The pressure was building but generally the PGA Tour doesn't call anything off.' Following the first round, Rory McIlroy was asked what the Tour should do if a player or caddie were to test positive for COVID-19. 'We need to shut it down then. Yeah, one, I mean, and that's the thing, more than anything else, we need everyone to get tested,' he said. As the day wore on, the situation across the nation became more dire and at 4 p.m. ET Major League Baseball announced the cancelation of all spring training games and pushed back the start of the regular season by two weeks. As the Tour scrambled to respond to a rapidly evolving crisis, Hideki Matsuyama posted a 9-under 63 to tie the course record and take a two-shot lead. It was an impressive round that became an eventual footnote largely forgotten in the chaos that followed. The Tour initially announced play would continue Friday without fans on property and a dramatically reduced footprint, but before most players went to sleep on March 12, the rug was pulled out from under their feet. At 9:50 p.m. ET, players were informed via text that the tournament had been scrapped because of the 'rapidly changing situation' regarding COVID-19. In a follow-up text, the Tour said that the next three events (Valspar Championship, WGC-Dell Match Play and Valero Texas Open) were also canceled. 'They normally send us a message after we finish with our tee time, and that day they sent us, 'Adam Scott, 2 under, T-9, $400,000 payout.' They paid out after the first round and I remember thinking, 'Hideki just got a text message [saying he won] $2.4 million for the one round,'' Scott laughed. 'And then after another minute, the next message came: scrap the last message — no payout. Everyone was probably excited and then the next message came.' There was the inevitable and understandable second-guessing following the Tour's decision to reverse course. 'I thought it was a day too late,' Glover said. 'With everything else going on I didn't think we should have played on Thursday.' But eventually golf, like the rest of the world, began to adapt to a rapidly changing world. 'I was on my own,' said Glover, who drove home to South Florida from TPC Sawgrass. 'I remember stopping at Walgreens in Port Orange [Florida] looking for paper towels and toilet paper and stuff like that thinking it was going to be like a snowstorm in Alabama and everything was going to be gone. And there wasn't anything, it was gone and no one knew what to do — bizarro world.' Hoge managed to get his family on a flight home to Texas but Scott, who owns homes in Europe and the Bahamas but is from Australia, had a much more difficult choice to make. 'I think we quickly knew [Friday] that [the shutdown] wasn't going to be a quick thing and I started making the best plans I could,' said Scott, who opted to take his family home to Australia despite the global uncertainty. 'They were shutting down quick and my wife was pregnant at the time, so if they were really stuck, I wanted her to be there.' It would be nearly three months before the Tour would begin to play again at the Charlies Schwab Challenge in June, albeit with no fans and a mountain of protocols and testing. Lost in the politics of professional golf at the moment is how deftly the Tour navigated the uncertainty of the pandemic and returned to action. 'I feel like it's one of the few proactive things the Tour has done coming back from that,' Glover said. 'Kudos to them. I've said it for years, that it was pretty impressive we were the first sport to really come back. The logistics that went into that were impressive.' Circumstances and an unprecedented threat to the Tour from the Saudi-funded LIV Golf league have caused those memories to fade, but for those who lived through the most surreal episode in the history of the Tour, it is something they will never forget. 'It was like an apocalyptic-type world we were living in,' Mackenzie Hughes said. 'Thinking back to where we were, it makes you really appreciate where we are now. It was really terrible.'
