Chris Gotterup loves links golf. He’s pretty good at it, too.
Gotterup opens defense of his Scottish Open title tomorrow at the Renaissance Club just south of Edinburgh. A week later, he’ll go gunning for his first major when the Open Championship tees off at Royal Birkdale in England.
After winning last week at the John Deere, you’d probably get pretty long odds on a Gotterup trifecta. But the former Oklahoma Sooner/Rutgers Scarlet Knight has an ace up his sleeve that happens to be white, dimpled and marked with a “B.”
Does Gotterup’s Bridgestone golf ball make him a favorite?
Well, his recent stellar play certainly does. However, Gotterup’s success over the past 12 months might be the byproduct of a perfect match between player and golf ball. Dating back to last year’s Scottish Open, no one has more PGA Tour wins than Gotterup (’25 Scottish Open, ’26 Sony Open, WM Phoenix Open, John Deere Classic). Scottie Scheffler also has four. Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick have three.
In each of Gotterup’s wins, he’s used the new Bridgestone Tour B X.
“There’s no bigger test than winning on the PGA Tour,” Bridgestone Marketing Director David Vogrin tells MyGolfSpy. “A lot of the guys that come to our team come to us looking for solutions.”
Gotterup turned pro in 2022 after a stellar college career at Rutgers and Oklahoma. The solution he was looking for was a ball that performed in the wind.
“He came here with his agent,” remembers Bridgestone Senior Golf Ball Marketing Manager Adam Rehberg. “It was a freezing cold day and he’s hitting stingers into a 15-mile-an-hour wind out on our range with the ball he had been using.”
According to Rehberg, each shot he hit went out, hit a wall, climbed and then fell like rock. When he hit that year’s Tour B X, the ball went out and climbed but penetrated the wind and kept going.
“The ball he had been playing ballooned and he didn’t have control of it,” says Rehberg. “Ours went where he wanted to hit it. I told our Tour rep, ‘I don’t know if we’re going to end up signing this guy but I can tell you one thing: he’s not going to play his old ball again.’”
Gotterup, of course, did wind up signing with Bridgestone and has been on staff since turning pro.
Why the Bridgestone Tour B X fits Chris Gotterup
Golf balls matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re Chris Gotterup or John Barba, there is a performance difference.
“Chris is a lower-launching player who likes a bit of spin,” explains Rehberg. “His previous ball was a higher-spinning ball. When he’d hit those little pull cuts he likes, the ball would just kind of hit a wall.
“For Chris it’s all about hitting that peak window. His previous ball wasn’t rolling through that peak trajectory and coming out the other side. He kept saying it felt like the ball hit a wall and would literally open a parachute and fall straight down.”
Not a big deal, unless of course you wind up landing short of the green and it plugs into a front bunker.
“With Chris, we’re looking at landing angle when the ball comes out of the backside of peak trajectory,” adds Rehberg. “Six-iron was a sticking point for him. Mid-irons are his bread-and-butter shots so after hitting peak trajectory, it was making sure that the rollover number coming out of that peak was still coming into the green while also making sure the spin was still there.
“The aerodynamic package with the dual dimples just works so well for him. It allows him to cut through the wind to keep his spin up.”
That sure sounds like links golf, doesn’t it?
Gotterup played at Rutgers from 2017 to 2021 where he was Big 10 Player of the Year. He transferred to Oklahoma for his final season in 2022. He won the Haskins Award and Jack Nicklaus award as the top golfer in the nation.
“We tested him a bunch in Oklahoma,” says Rehberg. “It’s wide open, not a lot of trees and it’s pretty windy. He talks about how you have to flight the ball down out there, even though it looks wide open. If you put the ball up in the air, it’s going to get blown around.”
Gotterup started playing the ’26 Bridgestone Tour B X prototype last summer. He used it to win the Scottish Open and to finish third in the Open Championship. He clearly has the style of play to be considered a favorite this weekend, at least.
Currently, Gotterup is +2800 to +3000 for the Scottish Open. That puts him approximately eighth among betting favorites. Scheffler, McIlroy and Jon Rahm are the top three followed by Matt Fitzpatrick, Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood and Ludvig Aberg. Gotterup’s strengths and playing style, however, put him in a prime position to repeat and maybe capture his first major.
“He loves flighting the ball down and chasing it,” Rehberg explains. “You saw it on the 72nd hole at the John Deere. He hit that low drive off the tee with maybe a 45-foot apex. He just squeezed it out there.
“That’s the creative style of golf he likes to play.”
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