A rundown of custom Ryder Cup items you can buy

In the final round of the 2017 CIMB Classic, self-described “late-bloomerâ€� Pat Perez, 41, shoots a 3-under-par 69 for a four-shot victory over Keegan Bradley (67) at TPC Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, newly minted Rookie of the Year Xander Schauffele (72) runs out of gas but still ties Sung Kang for third, suggesting last season was no fluke.   Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Perez, coming off his first-ever appearance in the TOUR Championship, kept rolling with his second victory in just over 12 months, and his third overall. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Perez won’t go changing. The winner cited his team, and their hard work, as a key to victory. He said the greens at TPC Kuala Lumpur reminded him of the greens when he won the OHL Classic at Mayakoba last November, and emphasized how much fun he’s having. Working out and eating right? Nah. Although he was pretty sure he lost a few pounds in the sweltering heat some 200 miles from the equator. Perez also punched his ticket to the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, Maui. As a late-bloomer Perez has benefited from hard-won maturity, but he is still young enough to enjoy the perks of the job. One of his favorites from CIMB week, he said, is the air-conditioned, fast-moving police escort through thick city traffic between the hotel and the golf course. “It’s actually cool because I’ve probably been to this course 50 times and I’ve never gone the same direction ever to get there or back,â€� Perez said. “So, I get to see kind of the whole city every time we go there or back, so it seems pretty cool. I haven’t really ventured outside, but it’s just fun to come here. It’s a nice change to come here.â€� 2. Keegan Bradley is rejoining the party. Bradley, 31, and his wife, Jillian, are expecting their first child, Nov. 18. Meanwhile, it seems like only a matter of time before they’re celebrating Keegan’s career rebirth with a win, even if Perez prevented that from happening with his stellar play at TPC Kuala Lumpur. “For the last two days, every time I made a birdie, he did, too,â€� Bradley said after finishing second at 20 under. “I played really well this weekend.â€� His second-place finish was his best result since a runner-up at the 2014 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. Bradley made three straight trips to the TOUR Championship from 2011-2013, barely missed out the next year (33rd in the FedExCup), then started sliding. He was 60th in 2015, 103rd in 2016. Last season things finally started looking up again as Bradley came to the BMW Championship with a chance to play his way to East Lake and the TOUR Championship for the first time since 2013. He didn’t quite get there, finishing the season 47th in the FedExCup, but he’s on the verge. “I’m really proud of this week,â€� he said. 3. The heat took a toll. Two-time defending champion Justin Thomas admitted he was already “a little bit tiredâ€� when he got to hot Malaysia for his eighth tournament in a span of 10 weeks. Perhaps predictably, Thomas never got much going until shooting a 5-under 66 in the last round to finish T17 at 11 under par. In his first start since becoming the first rookie to win the TOUR Championship, Xander Schauffele went the opposite direction, starting well but finishing poorly. After shooting an even-par 72, Schauffele said, “Maybe next year I can try some other things to stay fresh.â€� It was only 90 degrees at its hottest for the final round, but the humidity wrapped everyone up a stifling blanket. “I was just hoping to kind of stay alive,â€� Perez said. Did he feel cooler once he’d won? “No,â€� he said. “I’m still fighting for my life.â€� 4. Schauffele is here to stay. Aside from Boise State beating his favored alma mater, San Diego State, in a Mountain West football game over the weekend, the newly minted Rookie of the Year didn’t have much to complain about. Even with an even-par72 in the final round, he tied for third in his first CIMB. What’s more, he had gotten to experience a new culture. “I like the food, personally,â€� he said. “I know some guys don’t, but I do.â€� Schauffele was born in La Jolla, California, but his father is half French, half German, and his mother is Taiwanese but grew up in Japan. It was somewhat surprising, then, to hear Xander admit he hadn’t traveled much and was looking forward to the PGA TOUR’s three-week Asian swing, which continues this week with THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in Seoul, South Korea. “I’m definitely looking forward to coming back,â€� Schauffele said of the CIMB and Malaysia. 5. Lahiri’s top-10 more bitter than sweet. Anirban Lahiri had an outside chance at the CIMB, but shot only a 1-under 71 in the final round. He tied for 10th, but made no pretense of being satisfied with the result. “You make it sound so much nicer than it feels,â€� he said, when he was asked if it was something he could be proud of. “No, I’m very disappointed with the way I played today. There were a couple technical things I was working out. I think I went out on the golf course carrying that. I think my mindset wasn’t where it needed to be, so that’s another lesson learned the hard way.â€� Last year, Lahiri entered the final round of the CIMB with a four-shot lead. Justin Thomas won. This year, Lahiri was trying to tame a suddenly wayward driver. “This has been one of my worst driving weeks all year,â€� he said. “I really had no control with the driver.â€� Lahiri hit 71.43 percent of the fairways, which was T25 in the field. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Greens in regulation continues to be one of the most telling stats in golf. Perez’s 86.11 percent GIR number was tied for first in the field with Hideki Matsuyama (T5). Perez also ranked T13 in driving accuracy and T9 in putts. 2. A week after winning the Safeway Open, Brendan Steele finished T13 at the CIMB and leads the FedExCup standings. 3. Paul Casey, who shot a final-round 65 to tie for seventh, his best result in four starts at the CIMB, opened with a 77 before roaring back with a second-round 63. Grayson Murray (82-74-64-73) saw an even more extreme fluctuation of 18 shots between his first and third rounds. 4. Whee Kim aced the 208-yard, par-3 15th hole in the third round to win a BMW 740 Le xDrive Hybrid. It marked the fourth straight year in which a player has made an ace at the CIMB. 5. Justin Thomas, who last season became the first since Jimmy Walker in 2014 to rank inside the top 10 in the FedExCup standings every week of a single season, picked up 48 FedExCup points for his T17 at the CIMB. He is tied for 33rd in this season’s race for the FedExCup. TOP 3 VIDEOS 1. Kim aces and poses 2. JT’s brilliant eagle 3. Defiant Perez not changing

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FORT WORTH, Texas – First, Daniel Berger put on the plaid jacket that has been awarded to each winner at Colonial since the early 1950s. Then he received a belt buckle, befitting this city’s motto as “Where the West Begins.â€� Then the big check, of course. And finally the Leonard Trophy, the 42-inch, 55-pound piece of hardware that probably requires a remodel of every recipient’s trophy case. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag Berger stood on the 18th green at Colonial on Sunday afternoon, the newest champion of the Charles Schwab Challenge thanks to his one-hole playoff win over Collin Morikawa. He held the trophy high in the air. A handful of photographers snapped his picture. Near the clubhouse, a couple of people clapped. Other than that … well, it’s how it will be for a few weeks now. While the taste of victory is always sweet, this one Sunday was definitely a unique flavor. “A little different for sure,â€� Berger said, “but in the end, I was holding the trophy – and that’s all that matters to me.â€� In this most unusual of weeks for the PGA TOUR and its return to golf, Colonial found a winner who somehow managed to stay hot during the three-month long suspension of this season. Berger’s last three starts before the conoravirus pandemic changed everything? A T-9 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, a T-5 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and a T-4 at The Honda Classic. Scoring-wise, he rolled into Cowtown with 24 consecutive rounds under par. In retrospect, we should’ve seen this coming, but given a field with so many big names, including the world’s top-five ranked players, it might’ve been easy to overlook a guy who ranked 107th in the world and 45th in the FedExCup, and whose last TOUR win came three years ago – prior to a wrist injury that developed in 2018 and eventually put him on a Major Medical Extension entering this season. But he obviously found something before the break, and he didn’t lose it while back home in Jupiter, Florida. Entering the day two shots off the lead, he made his move with three birdies in his first eight holes, including both par 3s on the front side. He never wavered from his mindset starting out Sunday. “I just kept telling myself, why not me today?â€� Berger said. Despite the new environment, the testing protocols, the social distancing rules and the lack of fans due to safety and health concerns, Berger never felt really out of sorts this week. He had rented a house in the neighborhood and could basically walk to the course. His uncle came into town and cooked his breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. He did not venture out anywhere else. If he wasn’t at the course, he was at the house. Nowhere else. “I thought about the virus very few times this week,â€� he said. “You know, it’s been such a big part of our lives for the last two months, and I feel like I just tried to do everything I can to be safe, and that’s all you really can do. You wash your hands, you don’t touch your face, you wear a mask when you can, you social distance, and obviously we got tested early in the week, so I knew I was healthy before I got here. “We had the temperature readings before we got on-site every single day. I knew that all of the employees and staff that were here were doing the same thing. I felt completely safe.â€� His game was completely safe, too – especially after his one hiccup of the day at the par-4 ninth when he found a greenside bunker and couldn’t get up-and-down. Once the back nine, Berger was bogey-free while sprinkling in a couple of birdies … including the pivotal one at the par-4 18th with a 10-1/2 foot putt. On-site to watch it was the group scorer, sitting in a white foldable chair that was the only one at the hole (wonder how much that seat would’ve gone for on the secondary market?). There was also the cameraman up in the tower behind the green, along with a few people around the perimeter. Oh, and Jim Nantz flying solo in the CBS booth. Berger had just gone to 15 under with a final-round 66 and was now the man to beat with six players still on the course. You could’ve heard a pin drop. But then, Berger isn’t one likely to hear his name chanted anyway, even though it should be, considering he’s a two-time TOUR winner and played on the U.S. Team that steamrolled the International Team in the 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National. Sunday’s win comes against the deepest field in tournament history – and it sends a message that Berger is healthy now and ready to get reclaim some of the territory he had carved out on golf’s landscape before his wrist problems. “There was so many times today where I could have given it up or let the pressure get to me,â€� Berger said, “but I hung in there and I played practically some of the best golf I’ve played the last six years the last five holes today.â€� He still had to win a playoff, though, after Morikawa failed to convert a 6-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole that could’ve won the tournament. Berger had lost each of his first two playoffs, including the 2017 Travelers Championship when Jordan Spieth holed a shot from the bunker. It’s the kind of scar tissue that can pay dividends in these situations, especially against a youngster such as Morikawa, making just his 21st TOUR start since turning pro. Morikawa started the playoff at the par-4 17th with an errant drive that finished under a tree, forcing him to hit a low runner with his approach. Berger went from the fairway to just over the green. In the end, each had short par putts to convert. After his chip shot, Berger wanted to putt out and put the pressure on Morikawa to keep the playoff alive. He checked with Mark Russell, the TOUR’s Vice President of Rules and Competition, to make sure he can go ahead and finish. “I was just curious whether could I finish out or did I have to wait for Collin to go ahead because I wanted to knock that one in before Collin had that 3-footer coming up,â€� Berger said. “I just wanted to clarify before I did do that, and Mark said it was OK, so I went ahead and did that.â€� When Morikawa missed, Berger shook his caddie’s hand – OK, it’s not proper social distancing but you can forgive them this one time – and drew a sigh of relief. It had taken a while to get back in the winner’s circle, and it certainly wasn’t the kind of celebration he expected once he did, but he’s back now. “The atmosphere in my opinion was fantastic, even though there weren’t any fans out there,â€� Berger said. “You knew that millions of people were watching at home, and that was just enough for me.â€� More than enough, as it turned out.

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