Eight-time TOUR winner Billy Maxwell, a former Ryder Cup player, passes away

According to one estimate, some 500 million tweets fly through the Twittersphere daily. And those are just the ones sent by Phil Mickelson. OK, that’s not technically true, but sometimes it seems that way. Since jumping into social media with both feet on Aug. 22, 2018, Mickelson — who this week takes on a new role as host of The American Express tournament in Palm Desert, California — has been a high-volume, high-quality, must-follow in the world of golf and beyond. “I didn’t realize how powerful a tool it was,â€� Mickelson tells the PGA TOUR. He does now. How did Mickelson, who didn’t even have a Twitter account 18 months ago, become such a player amongst golf’s social media set? To borrow a phrase from the man himself, it’s a recent development. ’I’ve got this Twitter thing down’ Mickelson will turn 50 this summer, which means when he first joined the PGA TOUR, “socialâ€� meant you happened to get paired with Lee Trevino. When that began to change, he played on, leaving social media to younger players and veterans such as Stewart Cink, Ian Poulter and Bubba Watson, early adopters all. It didn’t last. When along came Mickelson’s big-money, winner-take-all match against Tiger Woods in November 2018, the popular lefthander, a 44-time TOUR winner, wanted a way to promote it. His inaugural tweet, a GIF of him winking while at the Presidents Cup, featured the copy, “I got this @Twitter thing down.â€� Well, yes and no. He had to get up to speed on a new platform, and a language spoken more fluently by his kids and players like Thomas and Rickie Fowler. No worries; Mickelson backed up his bravado. He was funny, zany and daring. He was also prolific. If his match with Tiger inspired the leap into social media, then Mickelson’s earlier Mizzen+Main commercial, a goofy spot for performance menswear in which he danced and did the worm, informed his style. The video went viral, not only opening his eyes to the power of social media but establishing his brand of self-effacing humor. This led to half-serious, half-mocking posts about his calves and thumbs. If you were following him on Twitter or Instagram recently, you would have seen him working out in the gym, skiing down a mountain, and taking a selfie with his coaches and caddie. The copy read, in part: “I am ready to work hard and play some great golf again.â€� #hitbombs #attackpins Says Henrik Stenson, who posts only intermittently, “It takes a lot of effort to be that active. Whether that’s because he thinks it’s a lot of fun or to raise his profile and gain more followers and give more value to his sponsors, I’m not sure.â€� The answer to the “whyâ€� question is multi-pronged, but in general Mickelson says he wants to provide a forum for stories that have gone untold, and for players whose personalities don’t always come across when they’re between the ropes. He also just wants to have fun because, well, he’s Mickelson. He ticks all those boxes with “Phireside with Phil,â€� talk-show style interviews with TOUR pros (Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, a shirtless Zach Johnson) and others (comedian Larry David). The setting: anywhere. The subject matter: anything. His one rule: Stories can’t denigrate anyone except, maybe, the person telling them. “I think everybody that watches those feels they’re getting the insight onto what’s going on on TOUR, and some funny little things that have happened,â€� Mickelson says. Some cringe-worthy things, too. Zach Johnson absent his shirt doesn’t even rate as cringe-worthy compared to a few other Mickelson moments, but it does beg for an explanation. “Well, if you know Zach, when we play in the team events, he walks around shirtless all the time,â€� Mickelson says. “So it’s just him, it’s just who he is. And I think it came to him, ‘Look, I’ll be on your show if I can be shirtless.’â€� The response has been unmistakable; people are watching, even if it’s through their fingers. Stenson, who beat Mickelson in an instant-classic duel at the 2016 Open Championship at Troon, has not been on yet but hasn’t ruled it out. “He asked me, but we were soaked in rain gear after one of the practice rounds at the British Open, so it never happened,â€� Stenson says. “Yeah, I’ll join him at the Phireside at some point when the timing is right.â€� Given the popularity of the Phireside concept, and the fact that Mickelson has 715,000 followers on Twitter alone – picking up north of 100,000 on day one – Gary Woodland sums it up nicely when he says of Lefty’s social media game, “I would say it’s pretty strong for a guy coming out of nowhere.â€� Legendary Tweet-storms The most popular athletes on Instagram are soccer players, and they start at 200 million followers (Cristiano Ronaldo). But Mickelson holds his own in the golf space with 716,000, between Ian Poulter (423,000) and Bubba Watson (791,000). If nothing else, Mickelson has proven that golf Twitter and golf Instagram are not just the domain of the young. World Golf Hall of Famer Gary Player calls Mickelson a great follow. So does PGA TOUR Champions player Brad Faxon. “He’s hysterical,â€� Faxon says. “Almost like you want to shut your eyes and not watch some of the stuff he does. Childlike enthusiasm. Talk about no inhibitions. I admire it. Hope he plays great this year but really hope he gets me on his phireside chat.â€� Adds Player, “Phil gets it right. His personality shines through. He is engaging, funny and authentic.â€� No doubt, Mickelson has cultivated a loyal following. Whom does he follow back? On Twitter, his tastes run toward fellow TOUR pros and LPGA stars, but also the NFL (Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Antonio Gates of the L.A. Chargers). He follows golf media (NBC’s Dan Hicks, David Feherty, Peter Jacobsen) and even some of the parody accounts that have taken an interest in him. Few of these accounts, though, are as active, and as goofy, as Mickelson’s. When he didn’t make the season-ending TOUR Championship last August, he spent the night before the first round firing off 180 tweets over roughly four hours. Census takers are still trying to find just one person he didn’t tweet to. “I just want you to know that my life would be complete if you won a U.S. Open,â€� someone tweeted. “Mine too,â€� Mickelson responded. And so on. One of the better exchanges: Barstool Sports tweeted a photo of him swimming, with, “Since When Does Phil Mickelson Have The Body of a Greek God?â€� Replied Mickelson, who has radically altered his diet, “It’s a recent development.â€� Absent much to post about in the way of good results last season, other than his AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am victory, and in between Phiresides, his newfound obliques and legendary calves have been a popular fallback in his postings. The best of these may have come last September, when Brady was battling a calf injury and declared limited for a New England Patriots practice. Mickelson jumped all over it. “I’m on standby for a flight to Boston,â€� he tweeted. “Let’s not let inadequate calves hold us back.â€� Replied Brady: “The Phil Mickelson Method … for jacked calves? Sign me up.â€� Younger players are among those who have watched with an air of bemusement. “He’s kind of fallen in love with it,â€� Fowler says. “People love the tips and things like that, the Phireside stuff. Not sure how I feel about the name; it’s kind of a little corny. But he’s having fun with it, and I think people are getting to see his character and his playfulness. It’s definitely entertaining.â€� Adds Thomas, a friend who lost a playoff to Mickelson at the 2018 World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, “He’s not faking anything. He’s just being himself. People are like, ‘It’s not him,’ but I’m like, ‘Trust me, it’s him. It’s Phil.’ He’s not acting any differently. People are just seeing the side that we see every week.â€� The Phuture of Phireside Now that he’s a year and a half into it, Mickelson the social media maven has learned a few things, and has a good idea where he wants to go next. “It’s really struck me what a unique opportunity this is to engage and develop a much closer, more emotional relationship with the fans,â€� he says. “And so I want to continue to do that but really from my angle as opposed to a younger guy. “Me being somebody that’s almost 50 now,â€� he continues, “I want to use it as a way of telling the stories that have already happened that people haven’t heard about as opposed to posting what’s going on in the here and now.â€� He plans on having some caddies on the Phireside, “because they have some unique stories,â€� he says. But, he adds, he’s leery of his brother. Tim Mickelson once told this reporter a story about playing poker with Phil on a houseboat; Phil stacked the deck when Tim went to the bathroom and never told him. Perhaps wisely, Phil seems to have opted not to open himself up to further such yarns. Asked if he would go on the show, Fowler says, “I would have to figure out what we’d talk about.â€� Mickelson’s second interview with Thomas, recorded in the locker room at the BMW Championship last fall, hasn’t aired yet. “He just asked if you want to do a story,â€� Thomas says of how it all came to be. “And I brought a couple up and he was like, ‘Yeah, it sounds good.’â€� Could he see himself doing so much social media at 50? Thomas shakes his head. “I don’t think enough people will care what I’ll think at that age,â€� he says with a laugh. “But Phil will always be relevant.â€�

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With only 10 events left before the FedExCup Playoffs begin, players will look to make a move in the standings at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. David Lingmerth continues to lead after Round 2 at Quicken Loans National. Round 4 tee times Round 4 leaderboard HOW TO WATCH PGA TOUR LIVE: Featured Groups – (11 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. ET), CBS Simulcast – (2:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. ET) Telecast: Golf Channel (1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET), CBS (3 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. ET) Listen: Free coverage on PGA TOUR Radio: (1 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET) NOTABLE PAIRINGS Peter Malnati, Patrick Reed 11:25 a.m. ET Rickie Fowler, Brian Gay 12:25 p.m. ET Ricky Barnes, Harris English 12:55 p.m. ET David Lingmerth, Daniel Summerhays 2:05 p.m. ET (Final pairing)

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JACKSON, Miss. — Sam Burns ran off four birdies in a six-hole stretch to start the back nine and pulled away for a 5-under 67 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship on Sunday for his second PGA TOUR victory this year. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Sam Burns, Sanderson Farms Championship Against a list of contenders looking for their first win, Burns showed what it takes at the Country Club of Jackson by playing flawlessly on the back nine until it didn’t matter. He seized control with a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-3 13th, a 5-iron to 15 feet that set up a two-putt birdie on the next hole and then a perfect pitch from behind the green on the reachable par-4 15th for a tap-in birdie. Staked to a two-shot lead going down the 18th, he took a safe bogey from the greenside bunker to secure a one-shot win over resurgent Nick Watney and PGA TOUR rookie Cameron Young. Watney, coming off his worst season in more than a decade, closed with a 65 and had his best finish in more than three years. Young’s hopes began to fade on the 14th with a clunker out of the rough into a fairway bunker that led to him having to make a 4-footer for bogey. Still, he made a slick up-and-down from off the 18th green for par that gave him a 68 and a share of second, which sets him up well for the season. That starts with playing next week in Las Vegas instead of having to go through Monday qualifying. “I love being in contention, I love feeling the nerves, so it was fun today. I enjoyed it, even though it might not have looked like it,” Young said. “I knew Sam was ahead of me and I had to make a couple and just didn’t, but I will another time.” Sahith Theegala, the California rookie who began the final round with a one-shot lead, had control of the final round until he reached the back nine. He failed to get up-and-down from a greenside bunker on the par-3 10th, missing a 7-foot putt. With a 7-iron in his hand for his second to the par-5 11th, he leaked the shot to the right and into the water, and missed a 4-foot putt to take bogey. Two holes later, he three-putted from 18 feet for bogey. From there, it was about limiting the damage. He played the final five holes in 1 under for a 71. Theegala tied for eighth, which gets him into the field next week in Las Vegas. For Burns, the 25-year-old from Louisiana is just starting to cash in. He won the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook in the spring and has had more chances than that throughout the year, losing a playoff in Memphis in August and coming up one shot away from a playoff at Riviera in February. Burns did well enough to earn some serious consideration from Steve Stricker as a captain’s pick for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. And now with his second win of the year — in his first start of the new season — Burns moves into the top 20 in the world ranking for the first time. He ended a trend in which six of the last seven winners of the Sanderson Farms Championship captured their first PGA TOUR title. Burns was among the few who had winning experience. Six players in contention at the start of the final round had recently earned PGA TOUR cards through the Korn Ferry Tour. Among the exceptions was Watney, first slowed by a lower back injury and then by a loss in confidence. He went back to working with Butch Harmon in the summer, and then put together a superb week with his putter, leading the field in the key putting statistic. “There was definitely some lean times, especially last year, but I’m not trying to think about that any more,” Watney said. “I’m trying to continue to get better and this was a great step this week. I’m ready.”

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