B. Watson snaps driver, still near top of Travelers

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He’s known about the induction for nearly 18 months. He even visited the World Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida, to get ideas for his exhibit and the locker that will be there in perpetuity. But Monday night, the magnitude of what he’s accomplished really hit home for Davis Love III. There he was, with fellow inductees Lorena Ochoa Reyes, Meg Mallon and Ian Woosnam, at a dinner at One World Observatory, a stunning venue with sweeping views of New York City that is nestled atop the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. A host of other Hall of Famers were there to welcome them into the exclusive club. “It was like the ultimate class reunion,â€� Love said. His son Drew got to talk fitness with Gary Player, who toasted the incoming Hall of Famers, while Chi Chi Rodriguez gave the 23-year-old advice on his swing. Many pictures – the cell phone variety and other more official ones – were taken during the convivial evening of good cheer. “My wife, Robin, said, ‘You know, we’re going to get to do this every year,’â€� Love said. “To have that kind of setting that we’re going to be part of this class, this group, this club, for the rest of our lives. “It was an incredible night.â€� Tuesday night’s induction at the Cipriani Wall Street provided a more formal recognition of the class of five that also includes the late British journalist and broadcaster, Henry Longhurst. During the morning’s teleconference, Love, Mallon, Ochoa and Woosnam reflected on some of the highlights of their careers. Love first saw the World Golf Hall of Fame when it was housed in a building behind the fourth green at Pinehurst No. 2. He noticed it while he was playing the course as a kid but he never went in until recently in St. Augustine, where the Hall relocated and reopened in 1998.  And even as he was compiling a resume that includes 21 PGA TOUR victories, among them the 1997 PGA Championship and two PLAYERS Championships, Love didn’t get ahead of himself. It wasn’t until his good friend Fred Couples was inducted in 2013 that Love started thinking he might be Hall of Fame material, too.  “I guess I really thought I might get in, or it was actually a goal after Freddie Couples’ induction ceremony,â€� Love said. “I always looked up to Freddie and tried to hit it as far as him and be as cool as him but it never worked. “To think when he got in and he gave his speech and he mentioned me a few times — we’re basically the same year and did the same things in the game, and that’s when I realized I might actually get in.â€� Love has been a mainstay of the U.S. in international team competition – playing on six Presidents Cup and six Ryder Cup teams. He will spend the rest of the week at nearby Liberty National working as an assistant to Steve Stricker for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, his second such stint, and has captained two of the last three American Ryder Cup squads. A year ago, Love made the difficult decision to leave Bubba Watson, then ranked seventh in the world but not playing his best golf at the time, off his victorious U.S. squad at Hazeltine National. Watson was disappointed by wanted to contribute, asking if he could be an assistant, and Love gladly accepted. “He said, ‘(I) want to be in the Hall of Fame and I want to be a Ryder Cup captain. They are really the same thing,’â€� Love recalled. “And to think that I have done that over the last few years is just an incredible blessing. I just hope this class can carry forward what the classes behind us have done and grow the Hall of Fame.â€� Ochoa Reyes, who started playing golf at the age of 5 in Guadalajara, Mexico, accomplished a great deal in an abbreviated career. She won 27 times, including two majors, in seven years before retiring in 2010 to start a family and continue her charitable works at the age of 28.  She spent 158 weeks as No. 1 in the world, including the week she retired. “It’s great to see the change in the game,â€� Ochoa Ryes said. “Today in my country, there are many, many boys and girls playing. More than a hundred players are playing in the different schools. They have a scholarship in the States. I think we are going in the right direction, and so it’s great to be able to help in that way and make a change and have more golfers representing México in the different tours.â€� Woosnam, who won the 1991 Masters and played on eight European Ryder Cup teams, has been in New York City since Friday, doing a little sightseeing before the festivities began. He won 42 times around the world and twice on the PGA TOUR. The Welshman was part of a stellar group of five European golfers all born within 12 months of each other – joining Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer and Seve Ballesteros. Now they are all in the World Golf Hall of Fame. “(I am) very excited and very emotional the closer we get to being inducted into the Hall of Game with the greatest players ever,â€� the diminutive Welshman said. “It’s a big deal.â€� Mallon retired the same year as Ochoa Reyes but had played the LPGA Tour for 23 years. She won 18 times, including four major championships, two of which were U.S. Opens captured 13 years apart. She played on eight Solheim Cups and captained the team in 2013. Among Mallon’s favorite memories is the birdie putt she made on the 72nd hole of the 1991 LPGA Championship. It was her first major title, two weeks before she won her second, and Mallon converted when Pat Bradley and Ayako Oakamoto, who joined her in the final group that day, couldn’t. “It was the storybook where all three of us had a chance to win a major and I was the last one to putt,â€� Mallon recalled. “… It was a 10-footer to win a major, and you know, when you make the putt like that and you get to jump into your caddie’s arms and have that moment, it was really cool.â€� Monday’s dinner and Tuesday’s induction were, too.

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The 18th of 24 contributing events for PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO is this week’s DICK’S Sporting Goods Open. It begins on Friday. Scroll for tournament notes, 17 notables and five wild cards from the field of 78 in Endicott, New York. Unlike the RBC Heritage, the Travelers Championship and the RBC Canadian Open – the first three stops following majors this season – this week’s Wyndham Championship isn’t as much of a soft landing as it’s a potential launching pad into the FedExCup Playoffs. As some of my fellow little leaguers note, it’s easy to get caught up in the motivation to succeed right now. Certainly, some guys perform best under pressure, but Sergio Garcia, to name one, is chasing both a berth in the Playoffs (he’s 131st in points) and a spot on Europe’s Ryder Cup team. Both are enormous achievements given the absence of current form and positions in both races. It’s not the kind of situation that front-running One & Doners covet despite his cachet because the Wyndham also happens to be his 15th start of the 2017-18 season. It eliminates both the concern over losing voting rights as a member and the need for the Ryder Cup to count as his 15th to retain those rights and, therefore, membership. Put it all together and it’s not the conversation we expected to have just 16 months after he broke through at the Masters. Instead, as Sedgefield Country Club hosts the final stop before the Playoffs, the smartest angle is to invest in a golfer who wants to be here but doesn’t have to be. Course history establishes reasoning for tiebreakers in a field with only a handful of strong alternatives. For most intents and purposes, Webb Simpson should have been holstered for this tournament. He’s a former winner (2011) and sits second in all-time earnings. At 12th in the FedExCup standings, he’s the only representative of the top 25 in the field. Ryan Moore (59th in the FedExCup) and Brandt Snedeker (80th) also have solid history at Sedgefield. Moore prevailed in 2009 while Sneds has four top 10s. (His victory in the Wyndham occurred at Forest Oaks Country Club in 2007.) They are the easy 1a’s to Simpson. Defending champion Henrik Stenson was in my Power Rankings, but barely at No. 15. That was a nod to the doubt of the severity of the discomfort in his elbow, but it’s fair to wonder if he’d even appear if he wasn’t defending. He’s 50th in the FedExCup in 13 starts, so there’s no concern about him falling short of the membership minimum. Still, he’s advisable only if you’re trailing by a wide margin. The doubt is your friend when you have nothing to lose. Hideki Matsuyama’s middling season slots him just 88th in the FedExCup standings (in 16 starts). The encouraging news is that he was a late entry into the Wyndham, meaning he didn’t commit until after the original deadline on Friday and before the secondary deadline 30 minutes after the conclusion of play that same day. He also has good feels at Sedgefield, most recently with a T3 in 2016. Given that he hasn’t exactly lit up in the Playoffs, consider the stars aligned to plug him in now if available. Elsewhere, both Rafa Cabrera Bello and Shane Lowry present as saviors with the finish line in view. The concern of Lowry at 139th in the FedExCup is secondary since his home circuit is the European Tour and the Playoffs could be construed as a bonus in one context. Two-man gamers who have options should align either as the tail of your tandem. From the macro point of view, if you play PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO, the Wyndham Championship is the last tournament before FedExCup points are quadrupled. If that introduces pause, fuhgeddaboudit. There isn’t anyone in the field who you are going to miss during the final four events. With total prize money of $6 million, the Wyndham also is the least lucrative of the last five. Each of the Playoffs events will distribute $9 million. So, the approach for earnings-based gamers is the same. In a recent preview, I tossed out the possibility that Patrick Reed could line up well at Sedgefield, but he didn’t commit. It’s not surprising given that the PGA Championship marked his fifth consecutive road trip. So, looking ahead, he’s now on my short list for THE NORTHERN TRUST. I have Jason Day penciled in for the Dell Technologies Championship where I suspect Ben also will burn his fellow Aussie. I’m the only Expert who hasn’t played Justin Rose, so he’s locked in for the TOUR Championship. Similarly, only I can play Tommy Fleetwood, so he might be my choice at THE NORTHERN TRUST. That would shift Reed to the BMW Championship where he’d compete with Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and others. Of course, nothing is set in stone until the week of, but it’s always important to remain fluid while constructing the grand plan. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Jason Dufner … Wyndham (6); TOUR Championship (7) Sergio Garcia … TOUR Championship (4) Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Billy Horschel … TOUR Championship (4) Ryan Moore … TOUR Championship (6) Webb Simpson … Wyndham (1) Brandt Snedeker … Wyndham (4) Henrik Stenson … Wyndham (8; defending); Dell Technologies (9); TOUR Championship (2) CHAMPIONS ONE & DONE DICK’S Sporting Goods Open This is the 12th edition of the tournament. All have been contested at En-Joie Golf Club in Endicott, New York. The course hosted the B.C. Open on the PGA TOUR from 1971-2005, although the official inaugural was in 1973. En-Joie tips at a tournament-record 6,994 yards. It’s a stock par 72, but three of the par 5s are on the front side, so the respective pars are 37 and 35. There have been 11 different champions. Amazingly, Scott McCarron is attempting to become the first to record a top 10 in his title defense. Each of the last seven winners is committed to play, as are eight of the winners of the B.C. Open. None of the winners of the DICK’S also won the B.C. Bernhard Langer, the 2014 champ, is the all-time earnings leader of the DICK’S with $485K, but Joey Sindelar is only $4K behind without a victory. He’s finished T3 twice and fourth twice. Total prize money is up $50K this year to $2.05 million. The winner will receive $307,500. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Stephen Ames … Boeing (2); Shaw (7) Joe Durant … DICK’S (12); Boeing (10); Shaw (11); PURE (3); SAS (13) David Frost … Boeing (5); Shaw (8); PURE (1) Fred Funk … Boeing (6); PURE (5) Doug Garwood … SAS (1) Paul Goydos … 3M (1; defending); DICK’S (3); SAS (5) Miguel Angel Jiménez … Shaw (7); SAS (12) Bernhard Langer … Usable everywhere. Defending five titles. Jeff Maggert … Shaw (5) Billy Mayfair … Boeing (2); PURE (1) Scott McCarron … DICK’S (4; defending); Shaw (5; defending); PURE (8) Colin Montgomerie … Shaw (4); PURE (7); SAS (3; defending) Kenny Perry … DICK’S (11); SAS (2) Gene Sauers … Boeing (1) Kevin Sutherland … Usable everywhere. David Toms … Boeing (2); SAS (4) Duffy Waldorf … Shaw (5) WILD CARDS (short list of golfers not included above but on the rise or still building portfolios after recently turning 50): Paul Broadhurst; Bob Estes; Steve Flesch; Scott Parel; Wes Short, Jr.

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