Fowler, Rahm ready for Sunday chase

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – In recognition of his character, sportsmanship and commitment to charitable giving, Billy Andrade, who has enjoyed a 35-year career on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions, has been named the 2022 recipient of the PGA TOUR’s Payne Stewart Award presented by Southern Company. Andrade will be honored on Tuesday, August 23, at the Payne Stewart Award Ceremony in conjunction with the TOUR Championship. The ceremony will be televised live on Golf Channel as part of a “Golf Central” special from 7-8 p.m. ET at the Southern Exchange in downtown Atlanta. The Payne Stewart Award is presented annually by the PGA TOUR to a professional golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s steadfast values of character, charity and sportsmanship. Stewart, an 11-time winner on the PGA TOUR and World Golf Hall of Fame member, died tragically 23 years ago during the week of the TOUR Championship in 1999. Southern Company, the “Official Energy Company of the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions,” was the TOUR Championship presenting sponsor the year of Stewart’s passing. A year later, the PGA TOUR created the Payne Stewart Award in his honor, and Southern Company has supported the annual presentation since its inception. Previous recipients have all distinguished themselves through their respect for the game, the TOUR’s tradition of charity and their ability to make a positive impact in the lives of others. “It’s very special. Payne was unbelievable to me and I got to know him very well. I’m speechless really, to think that now I’m part of this elite group of past recipients who have all done it the right way,” Andrade said. “It’s really nice to see that people have watched and seen that I can inspire others, and I can’t thank Southern Company, the TOUR and Jay Monahan enough to now call myself a Payne Stewart Award recipient.” Andrade, 58, was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, but has called Atlanta home since 1988 when he first joined the PGA TOUR. As an Atlanta resident, Andrade developed an affinity for the history of East Lake Golf Club, which will soon add his name next to the other Payne Stewart Award recipients on a plaque located in the clubhouse’s Great Hall. Since joining the PGA TOUR, Andrade used his platform to give back to charitable causes close to his heart, and has continued that commitment over three decades of playing on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions. He and his wife, Jody, have two children: Cameron and Grace. “Billy Andrade is an ideal representation of a Payne Stewart Award recipient,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “As someone who exudes kindness and respect, Billy is a stranger to no one, and has spent his career fostering meaningful relationships. “Those relationships have helped fuel his chartiable endeavors, which have spanned more than three decades. That unwavering commitment to helping others is what draws so many people to Billy, and what would certainly make Payne proud.”

Click here to read the full article…

Here are nine tidbits from the final round of the AT&T Byron Nelson that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road. Trinity Forest Golf Club just south of Dallas hosts for the first time and plays 7,380 yards to a Par-71. Wise Won 21-year old Aaron Wise fired a final-round 65 to post 23-under-par 261. He defeated Marc Leishman by three shots to win for the first time in his 26th career start on TOUR. The rookie joins Austin Cook and Satoshi Kodaira as the only rookies to collect the biggest check this season. After finishing T2 at the Wells Fargo Championship two weeks ago, I don’t need to detail his story again but he checks off a major box in fantasy golf: He’s a winner. He won in college, on the MacKenzie Tour and last year on the Web.com Tour. Guys like him have closed the deal enough times to know what it takes to slam the door shut. His stellar play included leading the field in SG: approach the green and GIR as he found 66 of 72. He was second in SG: off the tee and tee to green, plus was T2 with 25 birdies. He was a slacker off the tee as he hit just 50 of 56 fairways, just good enough for T6. I think we learned plenty from the former Oregon Duck this week. I’ve seen plenty of guys finish T2, take a week off and then disappear. Instead he was in the final pairing on Sunday, tied with Marc Leishman, and beat him by three shots. Moving forward gamers have to pay attention as his two best finishes were on a very difficult Quail Hollow Club track and a brand new layout at Trinity Forest. His flexibility to play well on both of those tracks shows how special his game is and can be. PGA TOUR Fantasy Game presented by SERVPRO top selections: So much for Jordan Spieth and his 45 previous rounds on this course! I thought he’d have a distinct advantage this week, especially on the greens, but that was hardly the case. He knocked the cover off the ball but couldn’t get it in the hole as his trusty short game, both chipping AND putting, let him down. He rakes at Colonial so he goes right back into the lineup for me next week. PGA TOUR One & Done presented by SERVPRO top selections: Jimmy Walker doubled No. 18 Saturday and added another bogey on Sunday but after a high-pressure T2 last week at THE PLAYERS, I’m not sure any of us can complain. This is the latest in the season I’ve EVER used him in One & Done games so I’m down with a top 10! It’s great to see him approaching full health as well moving forward. Forest without Trees Trinity Forest played three different styles this week and two of them led to premium scoring conditions. The first two rounds the wind wasn’t in play and Leishman set the low round of the week with 61. After the wind picked up Saturday, the scores went up and the players had to adjust to the cross winds and slicker greens. Finally on Sunday, after a four-hour rain delay, they saw zero wind and optimum scoring conditions including the numbers above in the final round. Of the top 31 players on Sunday, 29 of them were UNDER par. Sunday 62, Again Spieth likened this place to Royal Birkdale before the week started. I opined maybe even similar to Chambers Bay in my preview. Branden Grace has now raked at all three tracks mentioned above. He was leading the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay late on Sunday before one errant tee shot found the train tracks. He is the only player to shoot 62 in a major championship and he did that at Royal Birkdale last summer. His 62 today, with a bogey, on his birthday reinforced his class and a bit of #NappyFactor as he missed the Zurich Classic for the birth of his son. Rounding Off the Podium Keith Mitchell and J.J. Spaun both began the day on 11-under T7. Both finished the day T3 with Grace after firing matching 63’s. This is Mitchell’s third top-10 finish in his last seven events on his own ball. Spaun, who missed time earlier this spring due to a nerve issue in his elbow, picks up his first podium since his solo second at The RSM Classic last November. Spaun opened with 64 so don’t think this is a “one-round wonder”. Open for Business? Most accounts suggested that Adam Scott needed a top-10 finish this week to move into the OWGR top 60 Monday and qualify for the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills next month. With a bogey-free 65 to close, the Aussie finished T9. Since he’s returned to his driver from 2010 and went back to his broomstick putter, he’s cashed T11 and T9 the last two weeks. If he’s No. 61 when it all shakes out on Monday, the former champion at Colonial is in the field this coming week at the Ft. Worth Invitational. Sunday Noise Usually in this section I stick in the contenders that didn’t fire in the final round but with almost the entire field firing under-par scores on Sunday, I’ve chosen a few who might have slipped through the cracks for gamers. Playing on the opposite side of the course, Fabian Gomez, Nate Lashley, Robert Streb and member Beau Hossler all shot 64. They all moved up plenty but there was also a reason they were playing on the other side of the course. … Oh, look, Charles Howell III fired 65-66 on the weekend to claim T9. Study Hall The final round scoring average was 68.253 (-2.747), the easiest of the week and that’s not surprising after the weather delay. … The scoring average for the week was 69.435 (-1.565) as the wind only blew one round of the four. … Ryan Blaum led the field with 26 birdies. … Hideki Matsuyama (T16) beat Spieth this week but I’d take a look at his ball-striking numbers before running him back into the lineup. … Spieth’s longest putt made this week was 12 feet, 11 inches.

Click here to read the full article…

For years Bernhard Langer held a bible study every Monday night with six or seven guys from around his neighborhood in Boca Raton, Florida. It didn’t matter what far-flung destination from which he was coming back to his home after a tournament on PGA TOUR Champions — even a victory — Langer would be there, on time, ready to go. They’d study hard for an hour; Langer, 64, is serious about his Christian faith and very organized when it comes to interpreting Bible passages with his group. There were study guides and homework and spirited discussion. Then it would be time to unwind with some ping-pong. “Unwind” might be a misnomer. Langer is almost as serious at the ping-pong table as he is standing over an 8-footer to win a golf tournament. “There would be six or seven of us guys, and we’d all play at once,” said Rod Rice, 54, a neighbor and medical equipment salesman who befriended Langer about 15 years ago when lending him a laser to help with a wrist injury. Within weeks Langer had invited Rice to join his Bible study group. “Literally we’d all be around the table in a circle, and you hit a shot then started around the circle until someone missed and was eliminated. When it starts with seven or eight of us, it’s not so bad. But when you get down to three or four you’re really running around that table. “You kept going around until there were only two guys left standing. Almost always one of them was Bernhard.” Langer didn’t miss his calling in golf, obviously. But whether it’s ping-pong, skiing, cards, or tiddlywinks, if it’s a game in which there is a winner then Langer is going to try to be it. It’s just his nature. Most high-level athletes are highly competitive; Langer is one of that handful whose competitiveness regularly scales Everest. It’s why, at an age when most golfers are barely hanging around on PGA TOUR Champions, he is on the verge of winning his sixth Charles Schwab Cup. He won the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, the first tournament of the three-event playoff, becoming the oldest player to win on the Champions Tour and pushing his Schwab Cup lead to more than 500,000 points over Jim Furyk. The part of Langer that most people didn’t know about until his recent forays into social media, though, is that he’s genuinely funny. The stoic German machine of the 1980s and 1990s has given way to the jovial grandpa who recently went undercover as a bumbling groundskeeper at the Constellation Furyk & Friends tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. Actually, that’s not fair to say. It hasn’t given way. His fellow pros will tell you it was always there, Langer just never put it on display publically. “I’ve known Bernhard forever, and he’s always been funny,” said Mark Calcavecchia, 61, who has had many an on-course duel with Langer over the past 30-plus years. “We used to stay together at (IMG founder) Mark McCormack’s house when we’d play Bay Hill in the early 1990s, and he was funny then. “Look, he’s all business on the course. But away from the course he has a great personality. You’ve seen his workout videos where he jumps in his pool? He’s a very funny man. And you don’t have to be uptight with him. He doesn’t swear, but when we’re all in the fitness trailer getting stretched you’ll hear some ‘F-bombs’ fly, and it doesn’t bother him. He shrugs it off. He’s just one of the coolest guys out there.” Shecky Langer. Who would have believed it? “It’s been great to see him engage more on social media,” said Jason Langer, 21, his youngest child. “I think it allows the public to get a glimpse of the more relaxed, fun side of him that presents a sharp contrast to his stoic, machine-like appearance while competing. “I thought the undercover greenskeeper pranks he did a few weeks ago at the Furyk & Friends event were fantastic.” “He has always been funny and personable, it’s just that most people see him when he is at work,” daughter Christina De Jong, 28, said. “When he is at work he is the most focused individual you will ever meet. I do think he has dropped his guard a little and let more people in. I love hearing people say that they didn’t know he was funny because he always has been, you just have to get to know him.” Neighbor Jeff Shavitz met Langer at the golf club in which they’re both members about 15 years ago after Langer had put on a clinic at the club. “He shared golf stories, performed trick shots, etc. and I said hello and thank you for the clinic,” said Shavitz, 55, the CEO of ToolBox Payment and co-owner of clickitgolf.com. “And then for some reason I said in a joking fashion, ‘I would like to play you in a sport to see who is a better athlete; however, it cannot be golf because I’m assuming you are better than me.’ His quick response was, ‘OK, how about ping-pong later this afternoon and come over to my house as I have a table set up.’ “I was in shock. Did a two-time Masters champion just invite me to his home? I don’t even know him. What do I wear for my blind ping pong date? … He seems so serious watching him on tv and he approached the ping-pong with the same intensity and desire to win. Shavitz got waxed at the ping-pong table. But it was the start of a friendship that has gone on for more than 15 years now. “We have become incredibly close friends, play a lot of ping-pong together,” Shavitz said. “Years into our ping-pong matches, I bought him a $5 dollar plastic ping-pong trophy as a gag gift. We now play our matches and the winner takes home the trophy similar to the Ryder Cup trophy, and only slightly less prestigious.” Jason Langer can verify that his father is both very good and very competitive about ping-pong. “We played often when I was growing up and it took me until around age 16 to beat him,” said Jason, who teamed with his dad to win the PNC Championship in 2014 and ’19. “He and I are pretty even in ping-pong skill these days, so the game always makes for some excitement when I’m home. I’d love to see my dad play against Matt Kuchar as Kuch’s talent has been rumored.” Rice said he simply doesn’t have the talent to match Bernhard at the ping-pong table but has on occasion one-upped his friend on the putting green. “If you do win $5 off him he won’t sign it,” Rice said. “I said, ‘Bernhard, will you sign that $5?’ and he says, ‘Absolutely not. If I do that you’ll hang it by your front door and every time I walk in I’m gonna have to see it.’” Somehow, Langer balances being the best golfer on the planet over the age of 50 with family and his growing following on social media (plus 25K). His children (Jackie, 35; Stefan, 31; Christina and Jason) adore him. Both of the girls and Stefan are married; each has had their first child since the start of 2020. “His name is Opa, which is Grandpa in German,” De Jong said. “Dad has always been great with kids. If there were kids around he was on the floor playing with them. Even now that is how he is. He is down on the floor with his two grandsons and granddaughter playing at their level. There is a sparkle in his eye when he talks about them or is with them. It’s the sweetest thing.” “I think I’m most proud of him for a combination of his character and dedication to his family,” Jason Langer said. “He is the ultimate sportsman who embodies values of integrity, respect and grit. And while competing requires him to travel often, he always made an effort to spend time with me and the rest of my family, which was incredibly meaningful growing up.”

Click here to read the full article…