Cop disciplined for not recording Scheffler arrest

In a Hall of Fame career where he has found success at venues all over the world, Phil Mickelson has found a surprising fit in Memphis, Tennessee. This week will mark the tenth career start at TPC Southwind for Mickelson, and the ninth time he’s teed it up here since 2013. In those previous eight starts, he’s finished in the top-three four times and finished worse than 12th only once. Mickelson has played eight or more rounds on more than 25 PGA TOUR courses since 2013. In that span, his best scoring average (68.47) and Strokes Gained: Total per round (+1.92) have come at TPC Southwind. So what is it about this course that brings out the best in the reigning PGA Champion? THE BENEFIT OF BOMBS We all know Lefty’s love of hitting – in his words – both bombs and hellacious seeds. That can be a good thing when playing in Memphis: aggressive choices off the tee have been beneficial to players at TPC Southwind over the years. Distance has proven to be more valuable than hitting the fairway at TPC Southwind. Over the last six years, players who hit one more driver off the tee than normal gain about two-tenths of a stroke on the field. In the last eight years, Mickelson has averaged just over three misses left per round with his tee shots at TPC Southwind, and just over two misses right per round. Both of those averages are more than what he’s done on every other PGA TOUR course in that span. Despite that, his Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee numbers are almost identical – 0.35 per round on this course, 0.37 everywhere else. Mickelson’s aggressive play is unlikely to come back to bite him at TPC Southwind – in fact, it’s helping him succeed. SIGNIFICANCE OF APPROACH PLAY Since 2013, Mickelson gains about twice as many strokes per round on approach at TPC Southwind (+0.57) than he does on all other courses in that span (+0.29). That is important on a golf course that rewards strong approach play more than normal. Traditionally, the greens in regulation rate by the field at this course are between 3-6 percent lower than the PGA TOUR average that given season. Since 2010, players who have won at TPC Southwind rank about 29 percent better in Strokes Gained: Approach than the average PGA TOUR winner during that same span. Four of the previous six winners at TPC Southwind ranked either first or second that week in Strokes Gained: Approach. Mickelson has had positive Strokes Gained: Approach in 68.8 percent of his rounds at TPC Southwind since 2013. Everywhere else in that span, it’s a rate of 57.3 percent. PUTTING NUMBERS SKYROCKET “I think it’s (TPC Southwind) the most underrated course we have on TOUR,” Mickelson said in 2015. “It’s such a straightforward, fun test of golf. And if you hit good shots you get rewarded with good putts and birdies.” Mickelson would know – he’s made a ton of birdies at TPC Southwind. He’s averaged 4.41 birdies-or-better per round, in fact, since 2013, the third-highest average among players in that span. And while his performance through the bag has been stellar at this course over the years, it’s his putting that really takes off when he gets to Memphis. Mickelson consistently makes more short to mid-range putts at TPC Southwind. From four to eight feet, Mickelson has made 82.3 percent of his attempts since 2013 at this course. Everywhere else, it’s 70.1 percent. From five to ten feet, it’s an improvement of 12 percent. From ten to fifteen feet, his make rate jumps 5.1 percent. The strokes really add up over the course of the week. Since 2013, Mickelson has averaged 0.92 Strokes Gained: Putting per round at this course, the second-highest average of any player in that span with a dozen or more rounds played. That is more than three-and-a-half times more Strokes Gained per round on the greens than he’s racked up on all other PGA TOUR courses during that same stretch (+0.24 per round). There are 193 players with ten or more PGA TOUR rounds at TPC Southwind since 2010 – the summer Mickelson turned 40 years old. Of that group, only three players have a better scoring average than Mickelson (68.5). Less than 13 percent of those players have averaged a full stroke or more gained tee-to-green per round at TPC Southwind in that span – Mickelson is one of them. Aggressive tee shots and agreeable putting surfaces have made Mickelson and Memphis a perfect match.

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J.T. Poston returns to the Barbasol Championship to try to avenge a six-hole playoff loss to Seamus Power a season ago. In order to do it he’ll have to top an field with international flare, as 2022 marks the first season the Barbasol Championship will be co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour. FIELD NOTES: Past winners including Jim Herman, Grayson Murray, and Aaron Baddeley are teeing it up… J.T. Poston, who held the 36-hole lead at the John Deere Classic, will be back in Kentucky looking to take the Barbasol Championship across the finish line after last season’s late Sunday stumble. Poston is the highest-ranked golfer in the field… Local legend Josh Teater, a Kentucky native who is from about 40 minutes away from Keene Trace, is in the field on a Sponsor Exemption… Teater is one of six golfers who have Kentucky ties – whether it be high school or otherwise – who are teeing it up… There will be 50 places available for DP World Tour members to kick it over to Kentucky. Those places go to the top 50 available players from the DP World Tour category ranking to a floor of Category 17… Chase Hanna, an All-American in 2016 at Kansas, will make his PGA TOUR debut. He’s currently ranked 35th on the DP World Tour… If Taylor Pendrith didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. After notching a solid T13 at THE PLAYERS Championship it was discovered he had broken his rib. Pendrith was ramping up to return at the John Deere Classic last week but tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw. He’s set to (finally) make his return at Keene Trace. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points. COURSE: Keene Trace Golf Club (Champions), 7,328 yards, par 72. The 1987 Arthur Hills layout will host the PGA TOUR for the fourth time. Located just south of Lexington, Kentucky, Keene Trace is one of the top-ranked courses in the state. Laid out through the rolling hills of Central Kentucky, the drama of Keene Trace hits its apex on the par-4 finisher, a dramatic closer that’s built around the edge of a lake. Seventy-six bunkers will challenge some of the TOUR’s best, while big greens will place less of an emphasis on ball-striking and more on putting. STORYLINES: The winner of the Barbasol Championship, if he is not already qualified, will earn the final spot in The Open Championship… For the first time, the Barbasol Championship will be played as a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour. While plenty of TOUR winners – including two past FedExCup champions in Brandt Snedeker and Bill Haas – will be teeing it up, keep an eye out for the international star power that has come across the pond to play the PGA TOUR this week… With only four events left in the PGA TOUR’s 2021-22 season after the Barbasol Championship, this is a key time for guys on the FedExCup bubble earn some valuable FedExCup points. Max McGreevy is one of those golfers – he sits 126th on the FedExCup standings, just one point behind No. 125. 72-HOLE RECORD: 262, Jim Herman (2019) 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Kelly Kraft (3rd round, 2019) LAST TIME: Seamus Power captured his first PGA TOUR title in a six-hole playoff. Poston was in the driver’s seat through most of Sunday’s finale in Kentucky until he made a double bogey on the par-5 15th and followed that up with a three-putt bogey on the very next hole. Power shot a 5-under 67 in the final round to Poston’s 2-under 70. The pair played No. 18 four times and No. 9 twice in the playoff, but Poston launched his drive on the sixth extra hole into the water and couldn’t scramble to match Power’s par. Anirban Lahiri and Sam Ryder shot the rounds of the day Sunday, 7-under 65, and fell just one shot short of the playoff. They finished tied for third. Six golfers finished tied for fifth including Mito Pereira in just his third TOUR start since earning PGA TOUR status via a Three-Win Promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Saturday, 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Sunday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (Golf Channel).

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MAMARONECK, N.Y. (AP) — Mike Davis spent the last decade running the USGA, where he set up golf courses to provide an extreme test for elite players and searched for solutions to increasing distance. Now he wants to build golf courses, a lifelong passion. Davis announced Tuesday he will retire as CEO at the end of 2021, ending a 32-year career with the USGA that began with him overseeing ticket sales and transportation. He became the seventh executive director in 2011 and the USGA’s first CEO after an organizational shakeup in 2016. Davis, whose love of golf course architecture dates to when he was a junior golfer and would doodle holes on a piece of paper, said he will join Tom Fazio II in a new golf architecture firm called Fazio & Davis Golf Design. “One of the wonderful things these 32 years afforded me was I’ve gone out of my way to see most of the world’s great courses,” Davis said. “I’ve played them, studied them, read about them, taken pictures of them. I’ve read all the architecture books. I get as giddy with some architects as I do being around Jack, Arnold, Byron Nelson and Mickey Wright.” The announcement comes two days after Bryson DeChambeau crushed the notion that accuracy is tantamount to U.S. Open success. DeChambeau said he would hit driver as often as he could, even if it went into Winged Foot’s notorious rough, and he won by six shots by becoming the only player at par or better all four rounds of a U.S. Open at Winged Foot. The retirement, however, was in the works for several years. Davis had planned to announce it in September when the 2020 USGA championship season was over, so a successor could be found. Instead, the coronavirus pandemic forced the U.S. Open to be postponed from June until last week, with the U.S. Women’s Open in Houston still to come in December. Davis said he told his wife when he was appointed executive director in 2011 that he would do the job for 10 years. He told the USGA board more than three years ago that he would work through 2021 so he could try his hand at building courses. “I knew I would regret it if I didn’t try,” he said. His one regret was not seeing through the conclusion of the “Distance Insights Project.” A summary in February suggested it was time to stop increases in distance at all levels, highlighting an average gain of 25 yards over the last 30 years for elite players. The feedback process and next step have been delayed by the pandemic. “I think something is going to happen,” Davis said. “When is it going to be done? How is it going to be done? How will we introduce it? It’s a multiyear process. I’d have to stay many years to see this thing through. I’m just happy that for the first in over 100 years, we’re finally doing something. I pushed at it with the R&A, I pushed it with our own group. “I will look back saying that is one thing I am very proud of, because I just know it’s in the best interest in the game.” His last U.S. Open will be at Torrey Pines next summer. Meanwhile, Davis stays on to guide the USGA through the COVID-19 pandemic, setting up what amounts to a satellite office and a new testing center in Pinehurst, North Carolina, advancing the distance project and working with his successor. USGA President Stu Francis said a search would begin immediately, with hopes of having the next CEO hired by the U.S. Open next summer. Davis first took over setting up U.S. Open courses at Winged Foot in 2006, and he introduced the concept of graduated rough that grew longer the farther away from the fairway. That was from his first U.S. Open experience at Baltusrol in 1980, which he attended with his father. Davis recalls thinking it was unfair that someone who missed the fairway by a little was punished more than someone who missed by a lot. He has been criticized for some setup decisions, most recently at Shinnecock Hills, though that was to be expected. His predecessor, Tom Meeks, predicted in 2009 that Davis would make a mistake at some point. “It doesn’t happen by design. It happens because it’s the U.S. Open,” Meeks said. There was so much more to the job, especially as CEO. Davis was part of the most significant overhaul of the Rules of Golf that took effect in 2019, and he signed off on a decision to ban the anchored stroke used for long putters a few years earlier. He also was executive director when the USGA signed a 12-year broadcast deal with Fox worth about $1 billion, a deal that NBC took over again earlier this year. Part of Davis already is looking ahead. He doesn’t want to design golf courses on paper. He wants to build them, and he said he would spend time on the construction crews of architects Bill Coore and Gil Hanse to learn that end of it. “I can’t wait to get my hands dirty,” Davis said, chuckling like someone who has been wanting to do this for a long time.

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