DeChambeau flattered by role in regulation talk

The City of San Francisco and the PGA of America today announced that the 2020 PGA Championship, in which two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka aims for a historic three-peat, will be contested without spectators on-site, August 3-9 at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. The decision to play golf’s first men’s major championship of 2020 without spectators was made in coordination with the state of California and city and county of San Francisco, with the health and well-being of all involved as the top priority. “We are thrilled to welcome the PGA Championship to San Francisco,” said San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed. “We are able to safely take this step toward reopening because of the ongoing sacrifices of our citizens, the continued committed work of our healthcare workers and the early action we took to battle COVID-19.” The PGA of America will continue to monitor COVID-19 developments and work in concert with the state of California and San Francisco city and county public health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention through Championship Week. “We are both inspired and honored to ‘play on,’” said PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh. “In doing so, we will spotlight not only the beauty of TPC Harding Park, but the fortitude of San Francisco and its remarkable people. We’d like to thank the state of California and the city and county of San Francisco for being terrific partners in helping us get to this place. While the local community cannot be with us physically on-site, we will certainly carry their spirit of resilience and unity with us as we stage our major championship, on their behalf, for all the world to see and enjoy.” Many of golf’s greatest champions, from Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, to Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka, have had their names inscribed on the famed Wanamaker Trophy. “It has been gratifying for our PGA Professionals to play a meaningful role in helping people find healthy, outdoor recreation during the various phases of reopening golf,” noted PGA of America President Suzy Whaley. “It’s been encouraging to see our entire country and such a wide diversity of people embrace golf as a responsible, yet fun, activity to share with family and friends. We also look forward to returning to San Francisco and The Olympic Club for the PGA Championship in 2028 and the Ryder Cup in 2032, when we will again share this great game with the people of the Bay Area.” In the coming days, those who purchased tickets directly from the PGA of America will be contacted to facilitate refunds. Updates will be posted at pgachampionship.com and on social media @PGAChampionship. Those who purchased tickets from a secondary market platform other than pgachampionship.com should contact that site directly. The PGA of America will be unable to process refunds for those tickets. The 2020 PGA Championship – the first in the PGA of America’s landmark 11-year media rights agreement with CBS and ESPN – will feature CBS Sports, ESPN and ESPN+ combining to deliver an unprecedented amount of broadcast and digital coverage. Globally, the PGA Championship will be broadcast in 164 countries and territories reaching more than a half-billion households. “Welcoming the PGA Championship to San Francisco is the high point of a very unusual year. We are looking forward to sharing the beauty of TPC Harding Park and San Francisco with the players, the media and viewers all over the world,” said Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association, the official destination marketing organization. TPC Harding Park, which is managed by the City’s Recreation and Park Department, is the fourth municipal golf course to host the PGA Championship. Seven of the past 10 winners of the PGA Championship went on to become No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, including Koepka, who won his second consecutive PGA Championship in May 2019 at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York. The two-time defending PGA Champion will use the season’s initial men’s major championship to bid for history, as he’ll seek to become the first player to win the same major three consecutive times since Australia’s Peter Thomson claimed three straight Open Championships from 1954-56. The field also will once again include the top 20 PGA Club Professionals, who will qualify during the PGA Professional Championship to be played in late July at Omni Barton Creek Resort in Austin, Texas. Prior to its postponement on March 17, the PGA Championship was originally scheduled for play May 14-17.

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Your 54-hole leader or co-leaders at this week’s Barbasol Championship and Open Championship will be asked a lot of questions, many of them predictable. What would it mean to win? What’s going right this week? Think you’ll sleep much? The next day, he/they will wake up and knock around their rental house/hotel room. They’ll eat, watch TV, check the phone. Finally, they will go to the course, and not win. Not if form holds, anyway. Through the John Deere Classic, just nine players have converted a 54-hole lead into a win this season on the PGA TOUR. Two of those, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, had done it twice, meaning 11 of 36 tournaments have been won by a third-round leader/co-leader, with 11 remaining on the schedule. This year’s third-round leaders are converting 31% of the time, which is way lower than the gold standard in this category, Tiger Woods (92%). It’s lower, too, than the win-conversion rate for this year’s second-round leaders (16 of 36, 44%), despite second-round leaders being further from the goal line. Depending on what happens from here to the season-ending TOUR Championship at East Lake, Sept. 21-24, this could be the worst season for 54-hole leaders in at least a decade—even worse than 2012 and 2007, when the win-conversion rate was just 16 of 44, or 36%. What exactly is happening here? Here are five theories. THE MARKED MAN PROBLEM Some leads are blown, some are lost. Patrick Rodgers summoned admirable touch under pressure as he barely missed chipping in from behind the 18th green at the John Deere Classic, a chip he had to make. He shot a 1-under 70 to lose to Bryson DeChambeau (65) by one. Rodgers didn’t so much lose as DeChambeau won. “You’ve got to just keep making birdies,â€� says Troy Merritt, who cites the 2015 RBC Heritage, where he shot a final-round 69 only to have his doors blown off by Jim Furyk (63) and Kevin Kisner (64). “Any of the guys out here are very capable of shooting a low number.â€� Steve Stricker has never lost after entering the last round with the solo lead, going seven for seven. (He did finish T3 after taking the lead into the last round of the 90-hole CareerBuilder Challenge in 2009.) And yet even Stricker appreciates how hard it is to close on TOUR. “You go to bed as a marked man,â€� he says. “You kind of feel like you should win, you expect to win, and always the last day there’s a few challenges. The wind will change, or it’s a tougher day. It’s just hard. You’re the guy that everybody is chasing. They can come out free-wheeling and you’re kind of protecting, and it’s hard to protect.â€� But to chase? That’s way more fun. Said Jon Rahm after he came from behind to win the Farmers Insurance Open for his first TOUR victory, in January: “I knew I had to go get it.â€� TOO MUCH TIME TO THINK “How did you sleep last night?â€� NBC’s Bob Costas asked third-round leader Paul Goydos on Sunday morning at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2008. “On my back,â€� Goydos deadpanned. It was a funny line, and Goydos held up well before falling to Sergio Garcia in a sudden-death playoff. Still, you knew what Costas was hinting at. “Fitfully,â€� the leader might’ve said. Justin Thomas shot a 9-under 63 in the third round of the U.S. Open at Erin Hills last month. While not leading—he was one behind Brian Harman—Thomas had commanded so much attention he may as well have been. Then he shot a final-round 75 to tie for ninth. “I’d never teed off this late before,â€� Thomas said, “so that was different. Teeing off at almost 3 o’clock Central Time is just bizarre for me, because I wake up pretty early. So, it was a lot of kind of laying around and just trying to stay off the phone and try to stay away from reading stuff just because there are so many things out there that are being said or written. “I just tried to stay away from it, but, yeah, it was hard to. But I would like to think that’s not why I played how I did today. I just didn’t play well.â€� Sports psychologists tell us to stay in the now, but it’s easier said than done. Sometimes the overactive mind can’t help but race ahead to all those FedExCup points and Presidents/Ryder Cup points on offer, not to mention the mountains of money and accolades and exemptions. “That’s all you think about,â€� Stricker says. “You sit in your room and have breakfast but all you do is think about it—that tee time can’t come quick enough. It’s just a challenge.â€� MICROPHONE FATIGUE In cycling, the wind in the leader’s face is literal. In golf, it’s figurative. There are airwaves to fill and stories to file, which means the leader spends a lot of time yapping. Take David Lingmerth and Sebastian Munoz, who recently led after each of the first three rounds, Lingmerth at the Quicken Loans National and Munoz at The Greenbrier Classic. Each met the media for three straight days to answer various questions, inevitably addressing something he might have rather not addressed: winning. Munoz said he was watching 1980s movies like Ferris Buehler’s Day Off to take his mind off things. Lingmerth, a squat, 29-year-old Swede who had already won the 2015 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, seemed to try and psych himself up, saying he didn’t anticipate capturing just a half-dozen tournaments or so in his career. “I envision winning a lot more than that,â€� he said. Not surprisingly, given the tenor of the season, each lost. “It was just a new experience for me,â€� Munoz says. “I had no memories to draw on, so that’s what made it tough. And I got off to a tough start Sunday. But I was proud of how I steadied after that.â€� (Munoz ultimately signed for a final-round 72 to finish T3.) Even players who lead after just one round, the third, often struggle. “What happens is, let’s say a guy shoots 7-under on Saturday and he takes the lead,â€� says Bubba Watson, who is three of 10 at converting third-round leads/co-leads into victories. “But [the media] weren’t talking to him on the first two days. Right? “Well, guess what? Now all the media attention comes, and it puts thoughts in your head: ‘Can you win?’ ‘You haven’t won yet.’ ‘You’ve only won nine; you need to win a 10th.’ ‘You’ve never won a major.’ The media attention makes it worse, but it’s still there.â€� NOT JUST A ROOKIE THING One of the commonly held beliefs about closing is that untested players like Munoz have problems with it, but once they “get over the hump,â€� they’re fine. It’s not true. Zach Johnson admitted he stopped making birdies when he got near the lead at the Deere. Phil Mickelson said he flat-out panicked when he saw his name atop the leaderboard at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, promptly making a triple-bogey to plummet down the board. Consider Martin Kaymer at the 2014 U.S. Open. He already had won one major, and yet Kaymer, who led after every round at Pinehurst No. 2, told his caddie Craig Connelly on the morning of the final round that it would be the toughest 18 holes they’d ever played. Jordan Spieth calls it “chasing the ghostâ€�—the feeling you get when there’s no one ahead of you on the leaderboard. And it’s not easy. Having led after each of the first three rounds at the recent Travelers Championship, Spieth had to fight hard to win. (He holed out from a bunker to beat Daniel Berger in a sudden-death playoff.) The finish was in stark contrast to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, where he’d held a six-shot lead through 54 holes. “You’ve got to keep resetting goals,â€� Spieth said. You also have to not panic when you’re caught. That’s where the caddie comes in, and Spieth praised his man Michael Greller’s well-timed exhortations at the Travelers. “He’s a closer,â€� Greller said afterward. “And that’s what I kept telling him. ‘Dude, you’re a closer. You know how to close and you’ve got a killer instinct.’â€� He was right. The Travelers marked the 13th time Spieth had led or co-led through three rounds on TOUR, and the eighth time he’d won. He’s converting at a spiffy 62%. ‘IN CONTENTION’ NEEDS REDEFINING A lot can happen in one hole, but 18 of them? Forget it. There are too many variables to anoint anyone the top contender a day or even five hours before the trophy ceremony. That’s why Dr. Morris Pickens, a sports psychologist who works with Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink and others out of the Sea Island (Georgia) Golf Performance Center, believes the entire concept of the 54-hole leader/leaders is grossly overhyped. “You might think that you’re in contention because of the way people talk on TV,â€� Pickens says. “But I tell my guys ‘contention’ doesn’t exist until there are three or four holes left. “Let’s say you’re at THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass,â€� he adds, “and you’re looking at your second shot on 16. That’s when you’d need to take into account where you are in relation to everyone else, but I tell my guys to keep your head down until then.â€� Maybe Pickens is right. How many times have we trained our eyes on the third-round leader/s only to watch everything get turned upside-down Sunday afternoon? The most indelible example: Retief Goosen and Jason Gore played their way into the last group at the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, but shot 81 and 84, respectively. Michael Campbell won. It happens on the other side of the Atlantic, too. Of the last 20 Open Championships, 10 have been won by someone other than the guy/s who held the 54-hole lead and were ushered into the media room to talk about it. Someone other than the guy whose cell phone lights up with messages from his friends and family Saturday night, as if he’s already almost won something. “That’s the way people are raised,â€� Pickens says. “It’s the way tournaments are framed. But it’s the player’s choice if they want to buy into it.â€�

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The Mexico Open has a storied if somewhat disjointed history since it was first played at Club de Golf Chapultepec in 1944. Ben Crenshaw, Billy Casper and Lee Trevino helped put it on the map with victories, and Al Espinosa, a California native of Mexican descent, won it from 1944-47 before the tournament took its first hiatus, in 1948. It was a harbinger of things to come. World events, politics, disinterest, and/or the pandemic shuttered the event 19 times between 1944 and today. The longest drought was from 1985-89, and that’s when Jim Cook, the father of PGA TOUR Champions veteran and 10-time PGA TOUR winner John Cook, got involved. Jim had established Championship Management and was running three TOUR events – the San Diego Open, Las Vegas Invitational and NEC World Series of Golf, which later became the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone. The iconic Akron, Ohio course was a particular favorite of many top TOUR players, and it’s where many got to know Jim Cook. He built the NEC World Series of Golf into a monster because it offered one of golf’s biggest purses. When the field expanded in 1976 from just the four major winners, the winner’s check was $100,000. The highest payout for a major in 1976 was the PGA Championship, at $45,000. Cook, who is 88 now and makes his home in Ashville, Ohio, just south of Columbus, says it was 1988 when he first was approached about reviving the Mexico Open. “I was at the Masters that year watching my son play,” he recalled. “Seve Ballesteros had been enlisted to introduce me to Francisco Lavat, who then was the president of the Mexican Golf Federation. Now of course I knew Seve pretty well from the World Series of Golf. Just a great guy. And he introduced me to Francisco, and we hit it off.” Lavat got Cook to believe the event could be a success if they put the event in the PGA TOUR offseason and lured some of the better U.S. players to come. Cook, who had proven himself a powerhouse in securing sponsors for the other events he ran, immediately went to work on some big companies in Mexico to get the ball rolling. “I got Corona, which was a very big deal,” he said. “AeroMexico and Porsche/Audi, which had a big plant in Mexico City.” With those companies aboard it was time to appeal to top players. The reimagined event would be played in November 1990, and Cook used his son, who by then had racked up three TOUR wins, to help him attract a solid field. The winner’s share of the purse, $100,000 – the rival of any event in golf at the time – helped with buy-in. “The first time I went, I won,” said Jay Haas, the 1991 Mexico Open champion. “That was at Chapultepec. It was a great course – kikuyu fairways and bent greens. The ball went a long way because of the elevation. It was a pretty good challenge distance-wise. “I remember you had to make a lot of up-and-downs at Chapultepec,” he continued. “I made a nice par on 18 to tie Ed Fiori and won on the third playoff hole with a birdie.” How exactly Haas ended up playing in the first place can be traced directly back to Jim Cook. “I knew it would be run right,” Haas said. “Jim was doing all of the fundraising. Purses weren’t that high even on the PGA TOUR. I had a great week. It was a very fun time.” Asked about his winner’s check, Haas didn’t remember it being that large. Nor did the 1993 winner Fred Funk and 1995 winner – one John Cook – recall exactly what they’d won. Funk said he thought it was $30,000. Haas and John Cook believed it was $50,000. When informed Jim Cook said it was $100,000, Haas said he would research it. He later confirmed via text that he indeed made $100,000, which he said was another good reason to have played. “That and the cerveza!” Haas said. Jim Cook said the purse was his biggest selling point in year two. He also was paying the players a small appearance fee – $5,000 to $10,000 – and covering their expenses. “I was astonished at how great the golf courses were,” said Funk, who beat Donnie Hammond at La Hacienda. “I wasn’t really an established player on TOUR (Funk had won for the first time at the Shell Houston Open in 1992). The field didn’t have all of the studs in it. I was just trying to make some money.” Another selling point for Cook, as if he needed it, was that the event didn’t have a cut. The field also had fewer than 100 players, about half of whom were U.S. players. The pitch: Come to Mexico for free and play in a no-cut event for a shot at a hundred grand. John Cook’s job recruiting players was a lot easier than his dad’s job had been. “The guys went down for money and a good time,” John Cook said. “It was the off-season, and it was a nice getaway. And we played a number of good golf courses. The courses were unreal. It was like Riviera light. Every course looked like Riviera.” Jim Cook split with the tournament after 2000. Lavat had been succeeded as president of the Mexican Golf Federation, and new leaders had new ideas. They wanted the tournament to be played throughout the country instead of just around Mexico City. The tournament wasn’t played in 2001, but it trudged on and in 2013 it was moved to March and became an official event for PGA Tour Latinoamérica. Now it’s making its PGA TOUR debut. “I’m glad it’s still around,” Jim Cook said. “I have a lot of fond memories of Mexico. I hope it has a long, successful life.”

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