Caddie Confidential: Gripes behind the scenes about Quail Hollow

BLAINE, Minn. – Cameron Champ isn’t scared of the bright lights of final-round contention on the PGA TOUR. The Texas A&M alum has won three times on TOUR, most recently at the 2021 3M Open, a title he’s set to defend this week at TPC Twin Cities. Champ, 27, has other matters at hand as he readies to compete in Minnesota. He stands No. 157 on the FedExCup standings with three events remaining in the regular season, currently on the outside looking in regarding a spot in the FedExCup Playoffs. The top-125 upon the conclusion of the regular season-ending Wyndham Championship will earn Playoffs berths. Champ suffered a wrist injury last fall and has struggled to find contention upon returning to competition in January. He recorded back-to-back top-10 finishes this spring at the Masters Tournament and Mexico Open at Vidanta, but he commences his 3M Open title defense on a string of five consecutive missed cuts. The California native, well regarded as one of the game’s longest hitters, leads the TOUR this season in driving distance and is No. 9 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. He ranks No. 181 for the season in Strokes Gained: Putting, as well as No. 115 in greens in regulation, but he believes he is turning a corner, while admitting he would understand those who meet this belief with skepticism. “If you want to look at my stats and how I’ve been playing, you would think I’m crazy,” Champ said. “I’ve had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life mixed in with me breaking my wrist in the fall. That was a whole unknown for quite a while, if it was going to be serious or if it was not serious. Luckily, it wasn’t too serious.” Champ spoke of the challenges of finding the proper work-life balance, investing adequate time in both his relationships and his craft. Feeling good about his personal life allows him to find the proper head space, he said, which in turn allows him to excel on the course. “When things are going good back home, it just calms you down, it makes you not have to stress about things,” Champ said. “You can just enjoy yourself, and out here it just gives me that extra drive and force to just want to continue to get better. The last 10 months were pretty rough for me personally, honestly. I had to get over a lot of things and get through some things, but like I said, now we’re on the up and up and we’re just going to get after it.” He’ll aim to channel that perspective into a late-season push for the Playoffs. Here’s a look at five players outside the top-125 on the FedExCup standings with three events remaining in the Regular Season – after the 3M Open, the TOUR proceeds to next week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit before the Wyndham Championship. Stephan Jaeger currently holds the all-important No. 125 spot with 318 points. Rickie Fowler (No. 129) Starts: 18 Cuts made: 11 Top-25 finishes: 3 Best finish: T3, THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT FedExCup points: 309 Fowler currently trails the No. 125 position by nine points, the equivalent of a solo 49th place-finish or better. Regardless of whether he qualifies for the Playoffs, the five-time TOUR winner is fully exempt through 2023 via the tournament winner category. He’ll aim to make amends, though, for a streak of 11 consecutive FedExCup Playoffs appearances, which ended last season after finishing No. 134 on the season-long standings. The Oklahoma State alum enters the 3M Open having made five cuts in his last six starts, including a T23 at the PGA Championship. Fowler was seen in a jovial mood early-week, chatting with Wesley Bryan as he practiced bunker shots on a windy Tuesday, and he’ll aim to carry those vibes into competition days at TPC Twin Cities. Martin Trainer (No. 139) Starts: 28 Cuts made: 10 Top-25 finishes: 3 Best finish: T5, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open FedExCup points: 267 Trainer currently trails the No. 125 position by 51 points, the equivalent of a solo 17th-place finish or better. His three top-25 finishes this season are all T11 or better, demonstrating a propensity for taking advantage of his hot weeks, and he’ll aim to produce that type of week down the final stretch of the regular season. The University of South California alum won the 2019 Puerto Rico Open as a rookie to earn a two-year TOUR exemption, which was extended a year due to COVID-19. Finishing outside the top-125 would require a return to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals (he would maintain some TOUR status regardless as a past champion), and he admitted at the Mexico Open at Vidanta (T11) that the top-125 bubble was very much on his mind as the season progressed. “It’s always on my mind, unfortunately,” Trainer said at the time. “It’s pretty unhealthy, actually. You think about it, but ultimately you do your best and just see what happens.” Harry Higgs (No. 142) Starts: 27 Cuts made: 12 Top-25 finishes: 3 Best finish: T9, THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT FedExCup points: 257 Higgs trails the No. 125 position by 61 points, the equivalent of a two-way T12 or better. The affable Kansas City native is coming off a T11 finish at the Barracuda Championship, his best finish of the 2022 calendar year. He also finished T14 at the Masters. Higgs, 30, won the 2019 Price Cutter Charity Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour to cement his first TOUR card, and he found a quick knack for the TOUR level of competition, finishing top-70 on the FedExCup in each of his first two TOUR seasons. He doesn’t shy away from the knowledge that he’s fighting for his job over the closing stretch of the regular season, and he looks forward to putting his game to the test under the circumstances. “There comes a time when talk is cheap, and now you’re going to have to show it,” Higgs said at the Barracuda Championship. “More so to myself; I don’t really care to show it to anybody else. I feel like I’m way better than the position that I’m in, but that’s also the beauty of the game.” Cameron Champ (No. 157) Starts: 16 Cuts made: 6 Top-25 finishes: 2 Best finish: T6, Masters Tournament FedExCup points: 200 Champ trails the No. 125 position by 118 points, the equivalent of a two-way T4 or better. If he fails to gain Playoffs entry, though, he will remain fully exempt on the 2022-23 PGA TOUR due to his two-year tournament winner exemption. He’s confident he can make a push toward the Playoffs this week. “This is just one of those places where it doesn’t matter if I play good or bad, I’m just very comfortable with it,” Champ said of TPC Twin Cities. Scott Gutschewski (No. 179) Starts: 20 Cuts made: 7 Top-25 finishes: 2 Best finish: 5th, Barracuda Championship FedExCup points: 136 Gutschewski trails the No. 125 position by 182 points, the equivalent of a two-way T3 or better. The 45-year-old is trending upward, though, having jumped from No. 204 to No. 179 in the standings after a career-best, solo fifth place finish at last week’s Barracuda Championship. The Barracuda finish assured Gutschewski, a father of four, a top-200 position on the FedExCup, which ensures a spot in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals at minimum (another opportunity to regain TOUR status). Across the next three weeks, he’ll set his sights higher, on either a top-125 spot – to gain a FedExCup Playoffs berth and fully exempt 2022-23 TOUR status – or a top-150 position to ensure conditional TOUR status next season.

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Paging Pat Perez. Si Woo Kim is wondering when you might pay up. The young South Korean – he’s still just 26 years old — is one of the TOUR’s most enigmatic (read: fiery) talents, but Perez is indebted to him after Kim managed to keep it cool for the last eight months. Perhaps that will help Kim channel his best play more often, and help fans see the wicked sense of humor and infectious personality that Kim keeps hidden in competition. His talent is undeniable. He earned his TOUR card when he was just a teenager, and is the youngest to ever win THE PLAYERS after earning the title at age 21. Kim shot a 60 in his first victory, at the 2016 Wyndham Championship, as well. He is the defending champion of this week’s The American Express. But for all his incredible accomplishments, Kim can confound with his struggles. Forrest Gump’s famous saying about a box of chocolates also can apply to Kim’s game. You never know what you’re going to get. Last year, he shot the highest recorded score on a par-3 in TOUR history. He hit five balls in the water on TPC Southwind’s 11th hole and signed for a 13. The next week, he was in a playoff at the Wyndham Championship. His win at the 2021 American Express came just a year after he shot a first-round 87 in the same event and withdrew with a bad back. Since the start of the 2016-17 season, Kim has 37 rounds on TOUR of 5 over or worse. He has 49 rounds of 66 or better in the same time frame. Kim has snapped more clubs than he cares to remember, or count. But it is a source of great pride when he says he hasn’t broken one in over eight months. And that is where Perez comes in. Last April, Kim was in contention in the second round of the Masters Tournament when he snapped his putter in frustration on the 15th hole. He had to use his fairway wood on Augusta National’s famously slick putting surfaces the rest of the way, but still finished the round just three off the lead. Snapping sticks had become almost routine for Kim, and Perez wagered $100,000 that Kim couldn’t stop doing it. But he has, which begs the question: When does Perez have to pay up? Kim’s caddie, former TOUR player Brian Vranesh, figured the end date should have been the turn of the calendar. But the two players didn’t make it clear, so Perez is technically still alive in the wager. That hasn’t stopped Kim from reminding the veteran Perez, always with a big smile, that he hasn’t forgotten about the $100K. Kim says his days of snapping clubs are behind him; he’s trying to mellow out. One settling influence has been age. Another has been his relationship with Ji Hyun Oh, a Korean LPGA Tour winner. He arrives for this week’s title defense ranked 39th in the FedExCup thanks to four top-25s in seven starts, and the importance of his performances is magnified with this being a Presidents Cup year. Kim’s lone appearance on the team came five years ago, but a full-strength Si Woo would undoubtedly be a boon to Trevor Immelman’s squad. Kim’s resolve continues to be tested, but he’s also shown he can compete with the best. His performance in the final two weeks of last year’s regular season is Exhibit A. How else do you explain a player setting an unfortunate scoring record one week and finishing runner-up the next? It helped that Kim was able to have fun with the moment, as an opportunity to show off his sense of humor. He was reliving the drama with Kevin Na while they flew from Memphis to Greensboro, North Carolina, for the Wyndham Championship, when they turned Kim’s misfortune – and Na’s 16 a few years earlier at the Valero Texas Open – into a fun piece of content on social media. “He was telling me about the 13 and I was like, ‘Is that a record?’ and turns out it was, so of course now he has that record and I have the record for (highest score on) par-4s,” Na said. The pair posed for a photo and posted it on social media, with Kim holding up three fingers and Na four. “Highest par3 score ever by me. 13 today. Highest par4 ever score 16 by @kevinna915. Record breakers here!!😂 and finish(ed) with 14 club(s) 👏👏,” Kim posted to Instagram clearly proud of his restraint. On Korean social media he added, “I set a new record for the most at-bats on a par-3 today and Kevin Na, the record holder for the most at-bats on a par 4, is next to me.” They said they’ve turned their ‘disasters’ into a ‘memory’ with wide smiles. “It’s just his character and my character,” Na said. “I can make fun of myself and I’m OK with it and he is the same way. He’s got a great sense of humor and I know his English isn’t perfect, but you’d be surprised how much he understands and what he says. He has some great one-liners that he delivers in English, let me tell you.” Na, who has become something of a mentor to Kim, believes the heretofore hot-and-cold Kim’s budding maturity will translate to lower scores, and greater consistency, going forward. “He’s fearless,” Na said. “As a player he is very aggressive and that’s why he is a little bit up and down. When he is hot and aggressive, he’s going to make a ton of birdies and that’s how he wins. He gets in the zone and he is just dangerous. Dangerously good. And he can blow fields away. “But sometimes he plays too aggressive,” Na continued. “I’ve seen that, and it can go the wrong way. And it’s been his composure. He tends to get hot, and it costs him strokes out there. But he’s young and working on that. He has all the talent in the world and I keep telling him how good he is and he has a lot of good years ahead of him.” Kim has always been precocious. The son of a scratch golfer, he got started in the game by tagging along with his father to the driving range. Si Woo made his mind up at 8 that he would play professionally, and won four national titles before making the Korean national team at 16. He was 17 years, 5 months and 6 days old when he made it through the final PGA TOUR Q-School in 2012, making him the youngest-ever to earn a TOUR card through the qualifying tournament. But regulations meant he couldn’t play on TOUR until he turned 18 in late June of 2013, leaving him with just six starts to keep his card. He missed the cut in all of them. Back on the Korn Ferry Tour for two seasons, he won in 2015 to graduate back to the big stage. He wasted little time in collecting his first TOUR win, at the Wyndham in August of 2016. “People forget he got his TOUR card at 17 and he’s now only 26 years old,” Vranesh says. “I was fortunate enough to play out here for one year and I didn’t get here until I was 31. I couldn’t even imagine what he’s done at his age. At 26 I was trying to find $1,000 to play on the Gateway Tour and he’s a veteran playing for millions every week. And look, maturity takes time no matter how good you are. But Si Woo is taking important steps in life, and I think the growth will continue. “We had some issues last year and he took a look in the mirror after some of those and now he knows he’s a top player and he’s on TV a lot and you have to act the right way at times.” A win followed at the following year’s PLAYERS. He was two back starting the final round but won by three after an impressive short-game performance. That win, at the site of countryman K.J. Choi’s biggest victory, earned him a spot on the International Team for the 2017 Presidents Cup. “At first he was pretty quiet and stayed in the background a little but as the week went on you could see his personality grow,” teammate Marc Leishman says. “He certainly wasn’t short on confidence, and I say that in a good way. It was a little surprising but good to see his passion.” Kim went 1-2-0 but also authored one of the International Team’s most memorable moments, when he tried to emulate Patrick Reed’s famous shush in the midst of the United States’ record rout. Few would dare such a gesture during such a lopsided competition. It takes a certain amount of gall. Two down on the 11th, Kim watched Daniel Berger chip in from off the green to seemingly go 3 up. But he calmly knocked in his birdie putt before giving the raucous New York crowd the shush sign. While he was unable to find his way back to the team that nearly pulled off the upset in Australia in 2019, Kim is intent on catching the eye of 2022 International Team captain Trevor Immelman. “I hope I can get back on the team,” Kim says. “I want to compete with the best players in the world and we have a little unfinished business there. I need to focus on consistent results to get back there. I need to be more consistent for sure. Some weeks I am really good, and others really bad, and I can’t keep doing that. I’m working on it.” That’s music to Immelman’s ears. “Sometimes I think the problem with Si Woo is he hits the ball so effortlessly perfect a lot of the time that he holds himself to that standard almost all of the time,” Immelman says. “It’s pretty hard to hit that mark repeatedly. “But as he gains experience and finds ways to work around his tough times, he becomes a player to watch for sure. Anyone who wins THE PLAYERS has the skills to beat anyone on their day.”

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NOTE: If you play PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO, the Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship begins on Friday. For my recommendations among notables in the field, scroll to the bottom of the page. With only the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship remaining in 2016-17, it would probably be easier to conduct a Q&A session to review your possibilities. Of course, you know I’m happy to do just that in the thread below, on Twitter (public or private) and via email (to [email protected]), but that’s the irony of the season. You need less advice and direction as your league championship hangs in the balance for you’ve likely whittled your choices accordingly. Still, simple reminders never hurt. For starters, make sure you have at least one guy available to burn at the TOUR Championship. The current points structure took hold in 2015 when points distributed in the Playoffs were reduced by 20 percent, but all of the top 21 in the FedExCup standings entering the BMW Championship advanced in all of the first 10 editions of the Playoffs. It’s not a guarantee for the top 21, mind you, but you need to draw the line somewhere to establish a plan. Reviewing the golfers in Future Possibilities below beside whom the TOUR Championship appears, only Jordan Spieth (1), Dustin Johnson (3), Paul Casey (8) and Justin Rose (17) are currently inside the top 21 in points. Conveniently, each has a terrific record at East Lake. Of course, if any are still available to you because you’ve mapped it out that way, then you already knew this, but anxiety still must be replaced by execution to pay it off. Others worthy of a look next week include Daniel Berger (11) and Kevin Kisner (14) for the sole reason that both will be putting on Bermudagrass. Once you’ve worked backward and selected your charge for the finale, the BMW presents like any other tournament. Both previous champions at Conway Farms don’t line up as favorably as we would have hoped. Zach Johnson (2013) and Jason Day (2015) are worthy finds in mid-September, but it’s likely that your opposition in pursuit will be on board more than front-runners. Both are in that rare positions as contrarians given all of the current variables. I shifted Day from this event to THE NORTHERN TRUST because I didn’t want him on the bubble at the BMW. It may prove to be the turning point of my season as he yielded a T6 at Glen Oaks but now sits 28th in points, while it also opened the door to slide Justin Thomas into place at Conway Farms. Thomas is fresh off victory at the Dell Technologies Championship. He won the PGA Championship and placed T6 at THE NORTHERN TRUST before that. While One & Doners often prefer not to choose the winner of the previous tournament, if you’re going to buck tradition, you want to do it during the Playoffs when there’s precedent for momentum. There have been five occurrences of a golfer winning consecutive tournaments in Playoffs history. Billy Horschel was the last in 2014. If you’re also chasing, it could be worth ignoring my advice of holstering Spieth, DJ and Casey in favor of a burning any of the three right now. (Rose would be your guy at East Lake.) Not unlike the ninth frame in bowling, your game can be determined in your penultimate performance. Positioning won’t mean anything unless you convert and put a mark on the board now. Two-man gamers who can still build a threatening lineup deserve the annual golf clap. Depending on your flexibility, you’re likely forced into reserving at least one of your spots for a long shot to advance. Snagging one from the likes of Patrick Cantlay (41), Charl Schwartzel (43), Chez Reavie (46), Keegan Bradley (48), Jamie Lovemark (58), Rafa Cabrera Bello (60) and Bud Cauley (68) would be timely. 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 2016-17. All are pending golfer commitment. Daniel Berger … BMW Paul Casey … TOUR Championship Jason Day … BMW; TOUR Championship Jason Dufner … TOUR Championship Rickie Fowler … BMW Sergio Garcia … TOUR Championship Billy Horschel … TOUR Championship Dustin Johnson … BMW (defending on a different course); TOUR Championship Zach Johnson … BMW; TOUR Championship Hideki Matsuyama … BMW Rory McIlroy … BMW; TOUR Championship (defending) Ryan Moore … TOUR Championship Justin Rose … TOUR Championship Charl Schwartzel … BMW Jordan Spieth … TOUR Championship Henrik Stenson … TOUR Championship Gary Woodland … TOUR Championship CHAMPIONS ONE & DONE NOTABLES Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship After its debut in 2016, Bear Mountain Resort’s Mountain Course in Victoria, British Columbia, is hosting again. It’s a par 71 with four par 5s (three on the inward side) and five par 3s, and it tips at 6,881 yards. The total prize money is $2.5 million, highest of the three remaining events in PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO. Golfers listed alphabetically. Rob’s serious considerations in bold. Stephen Ames … Lives in Vancouver, but he finished T54 last year. T19 at the Shaw in Calgary two weeks ago was one of four straight top 20s. Tenth in earnings with seven top 10s. Marco Dawson … Sneaky but inconsistent. Two top 10s in his last four starts but they’re also his only top 20s in his last eight. Tied for seventh here last year. Scott Dunlap … Disappointed us last week with a T44 at Narita, but worth the plunge again. He connected six top 20s prior to the trip to Japan and landed a T3 at Bear Mountain last year. Joe Durant … Stumbled to a T34 in Japan, but figures to rebound despite a T28 here last year when he settled for an even-par 71 in the final round. Bob Estes … Took last week off after a T10 at the Shaw. Timely wild card no matter your position. Steve Flesch … A T15 at the JAPAN AIRLINES Championship extended his top-20 streak to eight in a row. Has nine in 11 starts since turning 50 in May. Doug Garwood … A rare inclusion here but worth your attention after a T3 at Bear Mountain last year. Nine top 25s this season, including a T22 in Japan. Sits 37th in earnings. Todd Hamilton … Was poised to deliver on the Japan connection but drifted to T9 in the finale. However, he’s connected top 10s for the first time in his PGA TOUR Champions career. Lee Janzen … Loves himself par 3s but he’s just off the radar to warrant even a flier at Bear Mountain where he finished a steady T28 last year. Jerry Kelly … Answered his breakthrough at the Boeing with a T6 at the Shaw. Top 25s in 12 of his 14 starts. A brilliant option this late if you have the means. Bernhard Langer … Given the purse, if you’ve yet to burn him, it’s time. Shared seventh place last year, albeit needing a closing 63. Four-time winner this season. No. 1 in earnings. Tom Lehman … Bear Mountain debut, but he’s been in a funk in recent starts. After nine straight top 20s, he’s gone four straight without one. Scott McCarron … Opened last year’s P2 with a 62. Thrice a winner in his last seven starts entering this week. T2 at the JAPAN AIRLINES Championship. Colin Montgomerie … No-brainer. Prevailed in a playoff over Scott McCarron at Bear Mountain last year and beat McCarron and Billy Mayfair by one for victory in Japan last week. Scott Parel … Coming on a bit in the last month with four straight top 20s. T9 in Japan last week. Closed out a T12 here last year with a 7-under, 35-29=64. Corey Pavin … Sets up well for his debut at Bear Mountain and placed T9 last week in Japan. So hit and miss, though. Best suited for front-runners. Jeff Sluman … Continues to produce. T15 in Japan marked his 12th top 25 of 2017. T3 at Bear Mountain last year. Turned 60 years of age on Monday. David Toms … His T6 at the Boeing Classic is his only top 20 since May. Scott Verplank … Poor showings in his last two starts and a T57 last year. We need more promise at this point. Duffy Waldorf … T12 here last year, but rapidly falling out of favor for a spot with only one finish better than a T20 in his last 10 starts.

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