Fantasy golf: One & Done, U.S. Open

OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. – Former PGA TOUR player Jarrod Lyle is on track to beat cancer for a third time after announcing he is in remission on Friday. Lyle, 36, was recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia for the third time in his life having previously suffered as a 17-year-old and then again in 2012. But he took to his Facebook page to announce the happy news. “Had a doctor’s appointment today to get results and found out that I am in remission,â€� Lyle posted. “The first round of chemo has done a good job of getting rid of most of the bad stuff. Back into hospital next week to have another round of chemo to keep on top of it all. Couldn’t be happier with today’s news. Still a long way to go but heading the right direction.â€� He followed up the announcement with a Instagram post where he and wife Briony were all smiles. Lyle first beat the disease in 2000 after a two-year battle before embarking on his golf career. The Australian native played 121 times on the PGA TOUR between 2006 and 2016 with five top-10s and was also a two-time winner on the Web.com Tour. He was in the form of his career and coming off his career best T4 finish at the Genesis Open when he suffered a relapse in 2012 and fought for his life at the same time his first daughter, Lusi, was born. Having beaten cancer a second time, he returned to the TOUR in 2015 to use his medical exemption to win back a TOUR card but fell short. He has since returned to Australia to be permanently with Briony, Lusi and second daughter Jemma, born last year. The news was quickly well received by other players out on TOUR. “That’s awesome news. He’s always been a great fighter. Couldn’t be happier to hear that,â€� countryman Jason Day said as he prepared for his second round at THE NORTHERN TRUST. John Senden, whose son Jacob is currently battling brain cancer, was also quick to send well wishes. “Good luck Jarrod. We are always thinking of your battle with AML and your inspiration for others. As well as being a top bloke,â€� Senden tweeted.

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The fall portion of this PGA TOUR season was not without its share of milestones, drama or interesting finishes. Strong fields dotted the schedule. Seven of the nine winners had already laid claim to a PGA TOUR victory in their careers. The roster of champions included established names like Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama and Max Homa, along with rising stars such as Sam Burns, Sungjae Im and Viktor Hovland. Players went remarkably low to get to those trophies: the final-round scoring average for the winners this fall was 65.6. Over the previous five PGA TOUR seasons, winners have averaged 67.2 on Sundays. Here are the top numbers to know from the fall portion of the season: RELATED CONTENT: Five things from the fall season | Talor Gooch wins RSM to take FedExCup lead | Twenty First Group 62 At the Shriners Children’s Open, Sungjae Im put on a stellar display of approach play, hitting 62 of 72 greens in regulation on his way to a four-shot victory. Since 1990, only 4% of PGA TOUR winners have hit at least 86% of their greens in regulation for the week. Incredibly, it was the second week in a row that it happened! The previous week, Sam Burns lit up the Country Club of Jackson with 63 of 72 greens hit as he picked up his second PGA TOUR title. +1.78 Speaking of Burns, he careens into the new year sitting in second place in the FedExCup standings. Burns is averaging a whopping 1.78 Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (combining performance off-the-tee and on approach), a full quarter-of-a-stroke better than anyone else with at least eight measured rounds this fall. Now in the top 15 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in his young career, Burns has not finished worse than T-21 in any event around the world since July 19. 68.85 With four consecutive top-20 finishes, another young star positioning himself for a successful 2022 is Matthew Wolff. The 22-year-old Oklahoma State product leads the PGA TOUR in scoring average and ranks fourth in Strokes Gained: Total. One intriguing figure within Wolff’s stat sheet is his increased club head speed. At 125.11 MPH, Wolff led all measured players this fall, and sits nearly 11 MPH above the TOUR average. 20 At THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT, Rory McIlroy made two eagles and 13 birdies on the weekend to win by one stroke over a surging Collin Morikawa. At age 32, the victory was McIlroy’s 20th on the PGA TOUR, making him the second-youngest player born outside the United States to achieve this milestone. Harry Cooper, born in England in 1904, is credited with his 20th PGA TOUR title at age 31. Since 1960, McIlroy is one of just seven players to reach 20 official PGA TOUR titles before age 33. The others are a list of historical luminaries: Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. 1 McIlroy found the winner’s circle in an unconventional manner for him: with an incredible week on the greens. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week, just the second time in his career he has done that over the entirety of a PGA TOUR event. The other instance came at the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, which he also won. It was just the seventh time McIlroy finished a PGA TOUR event ranked in the top five in the statistic; he’s won four of those seven instances, and never finished outside the top five when ranking in the top five in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week. -3.58 McIlroy’s terrific putting and usual stellar performance off the tee masked a below-average statistical performance with his approach play at Summit Club. For the week, McIlroy wound up with -3.58 Strokes Gained: Approach, ranking 67th of 77 players in the field. Of the nearly 700 PGA TOUR events officially tracked by ShotLink all-time, it is the worst Strokes Gained: Approach performance by a player in a victory. 3 At the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, Viktor Hovland became the first player to successfully defend a title on the PGA TOUR since Brooks Koepka won back-to-back PGA Championships in 2018 and 2019. Hovland picked up his third TOUR win at 24 years, 1 month, 20 days old, making him just the fourth international player in the last 40 years to win three times that young. The others: McIlroy, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott. Hovland capped off his 2021 with an unofficial win at the Hero World Challenge last week to rise to a career-best seventh in the Official World Golf Ranking. He’s now the second-ranked European in the world, behind only No. 1 Jon Rahm. 31.8 Was this the most impressive collection of PGA TOUR winners we have ever seen in the fall? The numbers suggest so. The average World Ranking of the nine official tournament winners this fall was 31.8, by far the best since wrap-around scheduling began in 2013-14. For comparison’s sake, the average World Ranking of winners in fall 2020 was 169.8! Every winner this fall was ranked in the top 60 of the OWGR at the time of his victory. Only one other fall stretch can even boast an average under 60 (2013, 53.2). 19 The United States trounced Europe at the Ryder Cup, posting the largest margin of victory (19-9, 10 points) by either side in the modern era. The Americans dominated the par-5s for the week, winning 34 holes to Europe’s 14. Every American player won at least one match before Singles even began. Dustin Johnson was a flawless 5-0-0, becoming the first American since Larry Nelson in 1979 to win five matches in a single Ryder Cup. U.S. rookies posted a combined record of 14-4-3, the highest points per match average (0.74) for any group of rookies in the modern era.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas is still without his regular caddie at this week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Thomas will go with his coach Matt Killen on the bag while Jimmy Johnson continues to rest at home. The veteran caddie had a right foot injury and was forced out of action midway through the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua earlier this month. Thomas went the rest of the way with his dad, Mike, on the bag. Jim (Bones) Mackay, who caddied for Phil Mickelson before the two went separate ways last summer, took Thomas’ bag at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Thomas is coming back from a two-week break at the Waste Management.  “He’s doing better,� he said of Johnson, who began suffering the effects of plantar fasciitis at the CIMB Classic in October. “I talked to him yesterday. He said he probably could have gone this week, but he didn’t have an option. I told him he wasn’t allowed to caddie this week, just because I want him back to 100 percent starting whenever he starts. “I told him whether it’s L.A., or if it’s Match Play, or Masters, whatever it is, I just, I don’t want him coming back too soon and then having to take another month off. I think he has his boot off, he had a cortisone shot, so he said that was really fun, and he’s just going through therapy every day. He’s just kind of doing exercises and stretches for it. It sounds like he’s going to be good to go for [the Genesis Open in] L.A., so [it will] be good to have the man back.� Thomas and Killen have known each other since they were boys, and Killen caddied for Thomas when he tied for fifth at the 2015 John Deere Classic. Given all that, and given the fact that Jason Day won the Farmers Insurance Open with boyhood friend Rika Batibasaga on the bag on Monday, could having a new caddie on the bag wind up being a refreshing change? “I’ll let you know at the end of the week,� Thomas said, setting off laughter in the interview room. Although Mackay is a seasoned pro, Thomas added, it took some time for them to get used to working together. That’s to be expected, he said, when changing dance partners on the PGA TOUR. As for Killen, Thomas added, he’s not especially worried. “He’s know me since I was about 8 years old,� Thomas said, “and kind of watched me growing up and playing a lot of golf, so he knows my game pretty well.�   

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