Gary Player celebrates 85th birthday by raising funds for Golf Fights Cancer

Tiger Woods returns for the first time in five years. Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy will sit out at least one week. Jordan Spieth has work to do. Here’s a full rundown.

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The final piece of the puzzle is upon us. On Aug. 18, the last day of the BMW Championship, we learned the identities of the 16 players – eight and eight – who had qualified on points for the U.S. and International Presidents Cup Teams that will play at Royal Melbourne, Dec. 12-15. Eight more (four and four) will be added at the discretion of the captains (Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, respectively) next week, making the World Golf Championships – HSBC Champions and Bermuda Championship the last chance to make an impression. This year, though, there’s a twist: It’s possible, given Brooks Koepka’s knee injury, that he won’t be able to play, in which case Woods would get five captain’s picks. Someone could still come out of nowhere with a dominant performance this week, but absent that, here are the most likely players to get the call, plus a few longshots. U.S. TEAM Tiger Woods A lock. (He knows the captain personally!) Looked like he might make the team on merit after he won the Masters Tournament, but he missed the top eight. Healthy again, won the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Gary Woodland spoke for many when he said Woods would be “dumb� not to pick himself. Woods is 24-15-1 in eight Presidents Cup appearances. Gary Woodland Great chance. Strange to think this 35-year-old hasn’t played on a Presidents or Ryder Cup team, but he will likely rectify that after a solo fifth at the ZOZO, where he played the final 36 holes with Captain Woods. “I feel pretty good about my chances,� said Woodland, who was coming off a T3 finish at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES the previous week. Rickie Fowler Good chance. Terrific player, great teammate, popular guy, and has been a fixture on U.S. teams for years. Hasn’t played much this fall as he was busy getting married on the beach, but it’s almost impossible to imagine him not making the team. Tony Finau Good chance. Only T59 at ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, but a T9 at Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he shot a third-round 62, was probably enough. Went 2-1-0 as a captain’s pick, including a 6-and-4 thumping of Tommy Fleetwood, at 2018 Ryder Cup. Given what a rough week it was for the Americans, that performance stands out. Patrick Reed Good chance. Didn’t play well at 2018 Ryder Cup, but it wasn’t a good course for him and he wasn’t on form. Traditionally beyond tough to beat in team golf, he won THE NORTHERN TRUST in August and finished a respectable T17 at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Could do himself a big favor with a solid result at WGC-HSBC Champions this week. Kevin Na Decent chance. He would be a rookie, and a T46 at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP and T20 at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES didn’t help his cause, but the fact remains he’s one of the hotter players in the game. When he won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open it was his third victory in a span of just 30 starts, but he may need Woods to get that fifth captain’s pick. Phil Mickelson, Kevin Kisner, Chez Reavie Longshots. Kisner would probably have to win HSBC this week, although his WGC history is strong as the Dell Technologies Match Play champion. Reavie also finished in the top 15 in points, and also could make things interesting with a win at HSBC. Mickelson, Kisner’s partner at Liberty National two years ago, has played on every U.S. Presidents and Ryder Cup team since 1994, but even he admits he hasn’t done enough to justify a pick. And even winning the HSBC might not help him now. Now whether he winds up in Melbourne as an assistant captain …   INTERNATIONAL TEAM Jason Day Great chance. He’s easily the biggest name not to qualify on merit for the International Team, and the odds that he will be left out are remote. Hasn’t showed much form, but a victory in the star-studded MGM Resorts The Challenge: Japan Skins (Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama) prior to the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP was at least something.  Sungjae Im Great chance. The PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year last season, Im is tireless (35 starts last season), so if he gets hot, he could play every session. His short game is streaky, which may be why he hasn’t won, but consistency from tee to green yields results (seven top-10s, 16 top-25s last season) and makes him an attractive pick. What’s more, Im, 21, has a T3 (ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP) and solo second (Sanderson Farms Championship) already this season. Joaquin Niemann Great chance. Like Im, Niemann, 20, who won A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier to open the new season, will figure prominently into the International Team’s future and present. The first TOUR winner from Chile looks like a great bet to start learning the nuances of team golf at Royal Melbourne in December. Adam Hadwin Decent chance. The man from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, finished T4 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, and backed it up with a solo second at the Safeway Open, his best finish on the PGA TOUR since winning the 2017 Valspar Championship. “I feel like I’m continuing some of the momentum coming from last year,� Hadwin, 10th in the FedExCup, said at the Safeway, where he made eight birdies in the final round. Byeong Hun An Decent chance. An is a big talent who probably should have won by now, given how often he’s flirted with victory, but the fact remains he’s in form. He’ll be hard to ignore after a third-place finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship and two more top-10s at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, in his native South Korea, and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Branden Grace Sliver of a chance. Went 4-0-0 (largely with partner Louis Oosthuizen) at the 2015 Presidents Cup in South Korea. Also went 1-2-2 at the 2017 Presidents Cup, one of the better records amongst the International Team as they struggled mightily. Alas, Grace just isn’t in form and may have to win this week’s Bermuda Championship to justify a pick. Ryo Ishikawa, Jazz Janewattananond, Erik Van Rooyen, Justin Harding Longshots. A resurgent Ishikawa might have the best chance, as he’s won twice on the Japan Golf Tour this year and has played on two Presidents Cup teams. Realistically, though, all would probably have to win this week in Shanghai, or come darn close, to find their way to Melbourne.

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PXG (Parsons Xtreme Golf), founded by billionaire-entrepreneur Bob Parsons, made an immediate mark in the golf industry by offering golf clubs that sold for relatively enormous prices in the domestic golf market. The barrier to entry for becoming a PXG customer, however, is shifting. Parsons has described the company’s products as the “Ferrariâ€� of golf clubs, and its prices have reflected that. PXG’s original 0311 irons sold for $300 per iron, and its 0811 drivers sold for $850. The company’s newest Gen2 0311 irons, released in March 2018, upped the ante even more, selling for $400 apiece. The new Gen2 drivers, however, which released in January 2019, came with a reduced price of $575 each because Parsons said the company was able to reduce manufacturing costs through scaling. Now, PXG is bringing a drastically lower-priced set of irons to retail with its 0211 irons that are priced at $195 per club with steel shafts, and $210 with graphite shafts. PXG recently tested the theory of making more affordable irons available to the public, and it passed. “After we introduced our Gen2 irons and pretty much sold through our Gen1s, we did a test,â€� Parsons told PGATOUR.COM. “What we did was we ordered a new run of our Gen1 irons and didn’t have the R&D that we needed to recover, so we were able to sell those at a lesser price. What we learned was there’s a big demand for that, especially from our brand, and sales of that were very well received.â€� The price difference between the Gen2 0311 irons (at $400 per iron) and the 0211 irons (at $195 per iron) comes from the different constructions, and the cost of making the clubs. PXG’s recently released Gen 0311 irons are triple-forged from 8620 carbon and feature the company’s trademark weight ports around the perimeter. The 0211 irons, on the other hand, are investment cast from 431 stainless steel, and they do not feature PXG’s traditional screw weights. The investment casting process is less expensive than the forging process. The new 0211 irons do, however, feature the company’s new COR2 material – a “proprietary high-speed polymerâ€� – in the space between the HT 1770M faces and the 431 stainless steel bodies. This design allows the faces to be constructed thinner for more ball speed without sacrificing feel, sound and durability. “What we did was we took our Gen2 technology, which we already have the R&D paid for with the Gen2 irons, and we put that in [the 0211 irons] as much as we could,â€� Parsons said. “We used a less expensive manufacturing process, but still, the way we do it, these irons cost us more to make than other companies pay for their forged irons.â€� Parsons also says that because they have the same COR2 technology that was introduced in the Gen2 irons, the new 0211 irons perform better than the forged Gen1 irons that did not have this material. “Our 0211s, when it comes to our Gen1 irons, they outperform them considerably,â€� Parsons said. “They’re longer, they have faster ball speeds, launch higher, got a higher peak height, steeper landing angle and they’re more accurate. So we made these as good as we could.â€� While PXG’s flagship Gen2 0311 family of irons consists of four different head models (0311T, 0311P, 0311 XF and 0311 SGI), the 0211 line has just one head model. The 0211 irons (4-PW, SW, GW, LW) have a progressive makeup where the short irons have less offset and smaller profiles and the long irons have more offset and larger profiles. Also, the Gen2 0311 irons have a slew of shafts available at no upcharge, but the 0211 shaft options are more limited; they come stock with True Tempers Elevate steel shafts, and Mitsubishi’s MMT steel or graphite shafts, with other shafts coming with an additional upcharge. For those who may question the relatively cheaper price tag of the 0211 compared to its previous iron releases, Parsons had this to say: “While these irons are significantly less compared to our 0311s — our forged irons, our flagship products — when you compare them to other investment cast products [they’re] pretty expensive,â€� Parsons said. “$195 for a casted product, that’s pricey. That’s still in that upper price range. But for the performance that you get, the value is totally there.â€� PXG’s new 0211 irons, which come with a chrome finish, will be available everywhere that PXG’s current 0311 Gen2 irons are sold, including its website.

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