Monday Scramble: Tale of two Sundays on two very different tours

More PGA Tour cards are handed out, Dustin Johnson pops some champagne, the Presidents Cup captains ready for their picks, the BMW PGA moves into the spotlight and more in this week’s edition of Monday Scramble:

You’d be hard-pressed to find two more contrasting Sundays than what unfolded at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and the LIV Boston event.

The former was about consequence, not the relatively measly check. Twenty-five more PGA Tour cards were handed out. That’s why there was such an outpouring of emotion.

There was Brent Grant, who barely missed his Tour card three weeks ago, then cashed in with an 11th-place showing in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship:

There was Kyle Westmoreland, who served as captain during his five years with the U.S. Air Force and earned his first card with a top-10 in the season finale:

There was the mustachioed Carson Young, who said he nearly quit the game but punched his ticket to the Tour with another top-20 finish in the Finals:

There was Justin Suh, the other Class of 2019er who won the KFT finale to earn the best status for next season. There was Eric Cole, a 34-year-old mini-tour legend making it to the big time. And there was Austin Eckroat and Thomas Detry and Matti Schmid – impressive young studs, all of them – who will be Tour members for the first time next week.

It was a day of triumph and tears, because it mattered.

And then ... well, and then there was the latter event.

Fifty-four holes weren’t enough, with a top name – finally – walking away with the $4 million prize. Dustin Johnson rammed home a 50-footer for eagle on the first playoff hole to deny Joaquin Niemann and Anirban Lahiri, both of whom were making their LIV debuts in Boston.

Afterward, Niemann, doing his best Talor Gooch impression, claimed that it was the best experience he’s ever had on the course.

“By far,” he said.

And to think, earlier this year, after winning at Riviera and being presented the trophy by Tiger Woods, he didn’t know how it could get any better.

As fans, we’re being constantly reminded how different and better this product is. Shorts! Music! A younger, livelier crowd!

But it’s still – for now – meaningless golf. Without world-ranking points (for at least a year, and perhaps forever), it has no historical implications, no meaning, no context within a larger structure. Not every PGA Tour event is newsworthy and consequential, of course, but at least each tournament and performance can be viewed through a historical lens, both the Tour’s and a player’s own.

LIV, for all of its bluster, can’t create that overnight.

That’s why LIV officials would be wise to abandon any pretense of an individual competition and focus solely on the team aspect. That’s the future of this league. It’s compelling. It has potential. Lean into it. Own it. That’s how it can differentiate itself from the Tour – and how, maybe, someday, it could provide a suitable option to coexist.

The Presidents Cup teams will be finalized this week, with International captain Trevor Immelman (Tuesday) and U.S. skipper Davis Love III (Wednesday) poised to announce their six captain’s picks.

(Immelman, of course, was only supposed to make four wildcard choices, but the departures last week of Cameron Smith and Niemann left him with even more holes to fill.)

Let’s take a look at how these captains could (should?) round out their 12-man teams for the Sept. 22-25 matches at Quail Hollow:

INTERNATIONALS

Automatic qualifiers: Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim, Corey Conners, Mito Pereira, Adam Scott

Who Immelman should pick: K.H. Lee, Adam Hadwin, Ryan Fox, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Lucas Herbert, Taylor Pendrith

Why: Fox has flashed this summer on the European circuit and has the type of brawny game that should play well at Quail Hollow … Herbert has three top-15s in his last five starts. … Pendrith missed four months this year but absolutely must be on the roster – upon returning he ripped off seven top-15s in eight starts. … Despite being high in the points standings, Immelman should leave off Van Rooyen, who has missed five straight cuts and hasn’t played since the Scottish.

UNITED STATES

Automatic qualifiers: Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau

Who Love should pick: Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Cameron Young, J.T. Poston

Why: A reminder that Will Zalatoris will miss the event because of a back injury ... Love’s job was made easier this year, not just because the Americans who did bolt for LIV (DJ, Brooks, Bryson) weren’t guaranteed to even make this stacked team, but because five of his picks are so obvious. … Billy Horschel didn’t play great the final few months of the season but he deserves to make his first cup team. And Cam Young, duh. … And as much as we’d love to see Love get creative with his final pick and pick Poston, the Deere winner who has five top-20s in his last eight starts, or Sahith Theegala, the talented, fun-loving rookie who nearly won twice this season, “creative” isn’t really Love’s forte. It’d be stunning if he didn’t choose Kevin Kisner, a proven match-play winner who remains a top-tier putter and is well-liked (and known) in the team room.

All eyes this week will be on the BMW PGA Championship, where 18 LIV members will be in the field at the DP World Tour’s flagship event along with Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and a host of other marquee players.

Already, DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley has signaled that it’ll be an awkward event at HQ, writing in a memo to the membership that although the LIVers won’t necessarily be marginalized, well, they also aren’t really welcome here. Mentioning that they won’t be placed in featured groups for TV, Pelley also kindly asked players if they could refrain from wearing LIV-related gear during tournament rounds, as is apparently mandated in many of their contracts, and added that they’ll be excluded from the pro-am rounds, as if, um, that’s some sort of punishment.

Earlier this summer, the Scottish Open went off without an incident even though a few LIV players, including Ian Poulter, were granted a stay to compete. This will be similarly anticlimactic, even if frustrations simmer.

Rory McIlroy likely spoke for many when he said it’d be “hard to stomach” the sight of so many LIV members teeing it up at Wentworth, but there’s not much that can be done by Pelley and Co. The European circuit doesn’t follow the same rules and regulations as the PGA Tour. All those players can receive is a fine, not a suspension, and LIV is even picking up that tab. It’s a loophole that’ll keep them semi-relevant and afloat with European Ryder Cup qualifying beginning this week.

THIS WEEK’S AWARD WINNERS ...

Out of Nowhere: Oliver Wilson. Nearly eight years removed from his lone DP World Tour title, the soon-to-be 42-year-old and one-time Ryder Cupper canned not one but TWO 65-foot putts on the back nine to steal the Made in HimmerLand event from Ewen Ferguson, who was trying to notch his third victory of the season. Wilson had not recorded a top-10 on tour since late 2019 and had dropped to 745th in the world, but he returned to the winner’s circle in improbable fashion. Afterward, in a teary interview, he reflected on his recent struggles: “Everything I’ve done to this point to rebuild my game – I knew I could do it. It’s pretty special.”

Storming From Behind: Gaby Lopez. The Mexican star nailed down her third LPGA title, going 14 under for her last 32 holes and posting a final-round 63 for a one-shot victory at the Dana Open. Falling into a tie for fourth place was 54-hole leader Lucy Li, the former child prodigy who is 19 and, with two Epson Tour titles this season, already tour-bound for 2023. That’s now back-to-back top-10s on the big tour, too.

Not Now: PGA Tour’s international fall series. ESPN reported last week that the Tour’s plans to stage at least three international, limited-field events with $20 million purses have been tabled for now as the Tour shifts its focus to maximizing its 13 elevated events that will be rolled out in 2023. The Tour’s Europe-Middle East-Asia swing for roughly the top 50 players, which could have begun in fall 2023, felt unimaginative and uninteresting, crammed into a time of year when few fans are watching and the top players have been begging for time off. Say it with us now: Less. Is. More.

When You’re Moving On, But, OK, Not Really: Phil Mickelson. Listen to Mickelson, and he’ll tell you that he’s in a great place. That he’s the happiest he’s ever been. That LIV is the best spot for his final stage. And he’ll also tell you that he’s “moving on” from the PGA Tour, even though, of course, that is exactly what he isn’t doing. Though he declined to take a victory lap in a long interview with Sports Illustrated, he did seem to arrogantly address some topics here post-round and remains one of the two biggest names attached to the antitrust lawsuit involving the Tour, a case that’ll extend into at least 2024, which ensures that indeed won’t be “moving on” anytime soon. Oh, and in Boston, he tied for 40th. Out of 48.

Win Some, Lose Some: 11th-hour promotions. The latest wave of LIV defectors allowed six players (Matt Wallace, Austin Smotherman, Justin Lower, Doc Redman, Danny Willett and Kelly Kraft) to slide into the top 125 of last season’s FedExCup standings, meaning they now are full members for the upcoming season. That’s great news for them! Not as fortunate was the crew that wound up just outside the top 200 in points, but who would have moved inside and qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals (where another 25 Tour cards were up for grabs) had those players been removed from the points standings before the start of that series. It’s too late now. Ouch.

Tell Us How You Really Feel: Gary Player. The Golf Saudi ambassador didn’t hold back, opining that LIV will never rival the PGA Tour because it’s merely a circuit for those who “don’t have confidence in their futures”; criticizing Cam Smith as a potential superstar who’s receiving bad advice; and taking a swipe at Henrik Stenson, for needing the guaranteed payday after “having no money.” It’s hard to disagree, actually, with anything that the 86-year-old Player said. It’s just surprising, given his ties to the region, that he’d so openly blast the Saudi-backed league.

What Sophomore Slump?: Rose Zhang. The summer break didn’t slow down the world No. 1, who shot the women’s competitive course record at Pebble Beach with a 9-under 63 in Stanford’s first event of the new season. She blew away the field by five shots, signaling that last year’s best player is this year’s best player, too. What a baller.

Bummer: Pierceson Coody. The former Texas star, who turned down a lucrative offer to join LIV and won in just his third Korn Ferry start, withdrew from the final leg of the Finals and now will be resigned to a year in the minors next year. It seems like an unfair outcome for a kid who came out of school and immediately contended; had he played an entire regular season, he easily would have locked up his Tour card for 2022-23. The Tour needs to do a better job of getting these guys guaranteed looks at the top level, faster, or they’re going to be tempted to look elsewhere.