On Friday morning at the Irish Open, Richard Mansell bounced back from opening-round 76 with a Doonbeg-course-record 63. The 13-shot turnaround helped Mansell make the cut and put him in the driver's for the $30,000 low-round-of-week bonus, but the latter didn't stick. Just a few hours later, Shane Lowry one-upped Mansell (literally), firing a 62 to put his name at the top of not only the leaderboard, but the Doonbeg record books.

The native Irishman now sits at 11-under heading into the weekend, three strokes clear of Haotong Li and Jacob Olesen in second. Mansell, meanwhile, find himself at one-under par, 10 strokes back of Lowry in a tie for 36th.

The 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 is an opportunity to revisit some of Golf Digest’s journalism covering  the event and its aftermath. Among those stories is the late Tim Rosaforte and Bill Fields’ profile of Jimmy Dunne, then a relatively unknown Wall Street financier who survived the attacks when most of his colleagues perished, and is now considered one of the most influential figures in the game.

The six-time major champ has hit countless great shots and made plenty of eagles in his illustrious career, but this moment from Friday's second round at the Irish Open was particularly pleasing to watch as McIlroy launched a perfect fairway wood from about 270 yards away on Doonbeg's par-5 eighth hole. The beautiful background. The beautiful swing. The great camerawork. The even better result. Enjoy. 

There, we sat down with Frederick Waddell, director of golf ball product management, to talk through how golfers should actually go about testing balls, what it takes to bring Pro V1 to market, and the ball that's had everyone talking—Pro V1x Double Dot—and its potential to complicate an impending rollback. Listen to the full episode here.

After a stretch with various mallet offerings in the bag this season, Koepka returned to a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Teryllium that looked eerily familiar. It's his first start with a blade putter since the Farmers Insurance Open, but the head isn't the T10 Select Newport 2 that carried him to four major titles in two years (2017-19). This is the updated Teryllium TNP2, the version that was in his bag when he won the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

The distinction matters because Koepka doesn't appear to be chasing nostalgia by reinserting the exact putter from his major run; he's going back to the last blade that actually worked. Unfortunately, his opening-round 75 didn't provide any warm fuzzies.

You're actually going to have to see this one to believe it. The 2017 Masters champ managed to miss a tap-in for par on the 16th hole during the first round of the Irish Open. See for yourself:

Ouch. The DP World Tour's AI shot commentary had that one at two feet, but that couldn't have been more than 15 inches. Anyway, it was all part of a rough day for Garcia, who shot a five-over-par 75 and is 10 strokes off the lead set by fellow (former?) LIV player Joaquin Niemann. 

and take over for the retiring Bruce Heppler as men’s head coach at Georgia Tech sent shock waves through the college golf world. Hybl had been with the Sooners for 17 years, winning 51 tournaments there including the 2017 NCAA Championship. (Oh, and there was the little fact he was an All-American at the Tech’s biggest rival, Georgia.) But the move paid immediate dividends for Hybl and the Yellow Jackets. On Wednesday in the first event of its 2026-27 season, Georgia Tech beat Notre Dame and Texas by five shots at the Folds of Honor Collegiate. Tech freshman Max Emberson won medalist honors after shooting a final-round 67 at American Dunes Golf Club in Grand Haven, Mich. “Just so thankful for all these guys buying in,” Hybl told Golfweek. “Since June 4, our missing has been to build something that is long lasting.” 

He’s one of nearly a dozen LIV golfers playing in this week’s DP World Tour event in Doonbeg, Niemann specifically competing on a sponsor’s exemption. That’s important because should LIV’s all-time victory leader be contemplating a way out of the league as it goes through bankruptcy proceedings, he has a few more hurdles to climb than some of his fellow LIV compatriots. Unlike Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and a handful of others, Niemann didn’t play the minimum number of events last year to be a member in 2026. Should he win this week, however, Niemann would be eligible for DP World Tour membership in 2027. Otherwise, to play in DP World Tour events, he’ll need more sponsor’s exemptions.

Boy do we have a doozy for you. On Wednesday, Bryson DeChambeau, one of the most polarizing figures in all of golf, dropped a new YouTube video starring one of the most polarizing figures in all of television, Stephen A. Smith, filling in as his caddie. Needless to say, if you're a fan of hate watches, this is the best thing since the 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.'

In fairness to both DeChambeau and Smith, both have plenty of genuine fans, but neither's appeal would be as big it is without the army of haters they have courted over the years. Both understand the engagement game on a sub-atomic level, and play into it at every available opportunity. So what happens when they join forces? Will it be golf content gold or the equivalent of two nuclear warheads colliding in space? You'll just have to watch and find out. That's half the fun, after all.

The first obvious answer is score, and after that, most golfers will talk about greens in regulation. But even that can be an uneven gauge for certain players (assuming you even understand what it means—Shane Ryan explains how that can happen). The other day, after playing one of my best rounds of the year, I realized in hindsight I still didn’t hit many greens in regulation. But what I did do well, however, is give myself a lot of opportunities to save par. And that’s because I was successful in the stat I devised a few years ago— “greenside in regulation”. The metric is exactly as it sounds. You're either on the green, or you’re at least close enough to chip it on and potentially save par. For mid-handicappers like me who don’t count on a lot of birdie putts, it’s probably the best indicator of a decent score, and in my case, it was.