The Stroke Index ⛳ Thursday April 24 2025
Women head to Texas for first major of the year / Thomas finally wins again / R&A executive calls out handicap "cheats" / Tributes to Jay Sigel / Fabulous Vilamoura
Good morning, and welcome to the second edition of The Stroke Index - a digest of some of this week’s best golf content brought together by journalist Simon Payne.
One of golf’s great values is the ability to police itself with the same rules applying throughout the game. Yet ‘integrity’ has been a buzzword this week with the R&A reminding golf clubs and handicap golfers of their responsibility to avoid manipulating scores when submitting them to the World Handicapping System.There will always be players who don’t play by the rules, and hopefully it really is just a small minority who break the common trust. Tom Watson has been quoted as saying: “Golf is a game of ego, but it is also a game of integrity: the most important thing is you do what is right when no one is looking.” Justin Thomas epitomised that philosophy in the RBC Heritage at the weekend when he called a shot on himself after seeing his ball move fractionally while removing debris in a waste bunker.
The stroke penalty could have been severe as Thomas ultimately needed a play-off victory over Andrew Novak to claim his first PGA title in nearly three years. Golfing karma indeed.
View From the Tee - The Weekend Ahead
⛳ The first women’s major of the year tees off with The Chevron Championship at The Club at Carlton Woods, near Houston, in Texas. Nelly Korda defends her title among a stacked field aiming to lift the Dinah Shore Trophy. Amy Rogers at lpga.com has the lowdown.
⛳ Rory McIlroy returns to action this weekend, teaming up with his old buddy Shane Lowry in defence of their Zurich Classic of New Orleans title. Rob Bolton at pgatour.com gives an expert analysis of the pairings to look out for and the playing formats used on each day of this unique tournament.
⛳ The DP World Tour racks up its 50th event in China with the Hainan Classic, which marks the end of the Tour’s Asian Swing. Here are five things you need to know about the tournament from europeantour.com.
⛳ LIV Golf is back with its sixth tournament of the season in Mexico City. Mike McAllister at livgolf.com has all the key information, while Ross Kilvington at Golf Today highlights five talking points, and livgolfweekly.com takes a closer look at Club de Golf Chapultepec.
Results Round-up
⛳ Paul Hodowanic at pga.com reports on how Justin Thomas’ play-off victory in the RBC Heritage broke a 1,064-day winless drought. Thomas posted a course record-equalling round of 61 on Day One at Harbour Town (see highlights video below), and sunk a 21-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole on Day Four partly thanks to one of his Ryder Cup teammates, according to Mark Townsend at golf365.com. The win was also a nice pay day for temporary caddie Joe Greiner, although John Turnbull at Bunkered writes the winning partnership is set to remain short-lived. Click here to see the latest FedExCup standings.
⛳ Fraser Watson, in The Express, reports on how US golfer Joel Dahmen let victory, and a few hundred thousand dollars, slip from his grasp at the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship, in the Dominican Republic, when he bogeyed the final two holes to finish tied-fifth. Garrick Higgo, of South Africa, claimed the title and £543,000 winner’s cheque.
⛳ Sweden’s Ingrid Lindblad said winning her first tournament so soon after beginning her LPGA career was “just kind of crazy”, as she claimed the JM Eagle LA Championship by a stroke over fellow rookie Akie Iwai, who bogeyed the final hole at El Caballero Country Club, in Los Angeles.
⛳ Five birdies over the closing nine holes helped China’s Ashun Wu to win his fifth title on the DP World Tour at the Volvo China Open. The 39-year-old, who had previously lifted the trophy in 2015, was a popular winner at Enhance Anting Golf Club, Shanghai, as his -14 score saw him beat Englishman Jordan Smith by a stroke.
⤷ The win saw Wu leap 156 places to 22 in the Race to Dubai rankings.
⛳ You can find where your favourite male and female players currently rank in the world by visiting the Official World Golf Ranking and Rolex Rankings.
Other News
⛳ The BBC’s Iain Carter asks whether it is now time for England to host the Solheim Cup as the nation’s Mel Reid and Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall are named vice-captains to Anna Nordqvist ahead of the 2026 tournament at Bernardus Golf, in the Netherlands.
Around the Greens
🕳 The manipulation of scorecards has been on the agenda this week after the R&A's executive director of governance, Grant Moir, called out a small minority of players “cheating” the World Handicapping System (WHS). Moir told the BBC: "The rules of golf and handicapping rely on the integrity of players.
⤷And we all need to be prepared to challenge any behaviour that lacks that integrity.” Rob McGarr, at Today’s Golfer, has taken a closer look at the issue and concludes, “ultimately, it’s our game – and it’s our duty to protect it”, as the R&A launches a spring offensive with a ‘social media and e-newsletter campaign’.
“We know that it is very, very rare for people to seek to play other than in accordance with the rules of golf and we need people to view the rules of handicapping in exactly the same way.” - Grant Moir
🕳 Matt Holbrook wonders in his golfshake.com article if he is ‘turning into a golf snob’ by asking if the game is growing too much thanks to WHS and advancements in technology.
🕳 Golf News meets the Pitch Golf co-founders who could barely have imagined where their careers would take them when they met as juniors at South Beds Golf Club in 1999.
🕳 The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster writes about the ‘Drive’ scheme launched by St Andrews Links Trust that will allow some fortunate Scots the opportunity to play iconic courses this year, including St Andrews’ Old Course, without having to pay an arm and a leg in green fees.
🕳 This year’s 153rd Open at Royal Portrush, in Northern Ireland, will be the largest ever outside St Andrews, reports Golf News, with 278,000 fans expected to head to the Antrim coast. The attendance will smash the 237,750 who watched Shane Lowry win the Claret Jug on the course in 2019.
⤷The new R&A chief executive Mark Darbon has also said a feasibility survey has been commissioned to see if the Open can ever be staged again at Donald Trump’s Turnberry, according to the BBC.
🕳 Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are returning to North Carolina with the design of Pinehurst No.11. Golf Monthly’s Mike Hall writes the new course will be on the same site as Pinehurst No.10 and is expected to open in the autumn of 2027. Coore and Crenshaw are no strangers to the area having been involved in the redesign of Pinehurst No.2.
🕳 The death of US amateur legend Jay Sigel has been widely reported, including by John Strege at Golf Digest. Pennsylvanian Sigel died aged 81 from pancreatic cancer just a few days after Europe lost one of its very own best amateur players in Peter McEvoy.
⤷Of all his achievements, Sigel was also low amateur at the Masters (three times), the US Open and The Open.
🕳 Bunkers have been the main focus of attention in a £1.5million refurbishment at North Hants Golf Club, in Hampshire, reports Golf News. On-course sand may have been reduced by 18%, but the strategic challenge has been enhanced by the introduction of seven new traps.
Fairway Fact
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Rusbridge, from Colne Valley, last week became the first English golfer to win the French Boys’ Amateur Golf Championship since James Cook in 1988, after an epic 41-hole final against Czech Matous Zach.
Clubhouse Chat
☕ Bunkered, in partnership with The R&A World Golf Museum, writes about the museum’s Bunker Shots: Stories of Golf and Conflict exhibition. If you like your golf history, are thinking of heading to St Andrews any time soon or live nearby, it appears to be worth a visit.
☕ The PGA Tour began a six-month trial to improve the speed of play at the RBC Heritage last weekend, allowing rangefinders to be used, which appeared to gain approval from 2023 Open champion Brian Harmon, writes Tom Blow in The Express. Archie Starkey at golf365.com used the opportunity to review some of the most affordable rangefinders on the market that could help amateur golfers go the distance.
☕ With “five headline courses, each offering a unique challenge”, golftoday.co.uk’s Jack Lumb describes why Portugal’s Vilamoura is a “no-brainer for a golf getaway”.
☕ Finishing with a bit of nostalgia, one of my first memories of watching golf was seeing Bernhard Langer climb a tree to play a shot after his ball was lodged in the trunk. It was during the 1981 Benson & Hedges International Open, at Fulford Golf Club, where the famous Ash still stands by the 17th green. Get in touch and share your earliest golf memories.
Thanks for reading edition number 2 of The Stroke Index. It will return next week with more of the best golf content all in one place to keep you in the swing. This newsletter remains independent, ad-free and free to subscribers.
Thanks for your memory John. The skill, imagination, and nerve to execute the toughest shots when they really matter is certainly what separates the very best players from the rest.
My earliest memory is Gary Player playing a left-handed chip on to the green from beside the clubhouse wall on his way to winning the 1974 Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes.