Hatton jumps to LIV Golf, teams up with Rahm

SCHEFFLER’S SECOND WIN IN THREE STARTS; BREHM REMARKABLE IN PUERTO RICO It was a historically demanding weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, with firm, windy conditions testing an elite field at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, just as Arnold Palmer envisioned. Scottie Scheffler held tough down the stretch to secure a one-stroke win at 5-under total, two-putting from 69 feet for par at the closing hole and watching Florida native Billy Horschel narrowly miss a 29-footer to tie in the final group. On a day where the scoring average approached 76, it was fitting that Scheffler’s defining moment came via a par-save, getting up and down from 67 yards at the par-5 16th to maintain mojo into the water-logged closing stretch. Scheffler has now won twice in his last three PGA TOUR starts (WM Phoenix Open) to complement two Korn Ferry Tour titles in a 2019 Player of the Year-winning season, and he’ll proceed across Florida to THE PLAYERS Championship holding the No. 1 spot on the season-long FedExCup standings, 550 points accrued for his victory in Orlando. After going winless in his first 70 TOUR events, the University of Texas alum might just be scratching the surface. Scheffler has recorded seven top-25s in 10 starts this season, and he joins Hideki Matsuyama as the first two-time winners of the 2021-22 TOUR campaign. Ryan Brehm, 35, arrived at the Puerto Rico Open yet to record a top-10 finish on the PGA TOUR, but he began the week with a concrete scenario. Playing on the final start of a minor medical extension, the former Michigan State men’s golf coach needed a win to earn full TOUR status, or a solo second to maintain conditional status. Otherwise, he was headed back to the Korn Ferry Tour, on which he had previously made four starts in early 2022. In a story that embodies the beauty of sports, Brehm’s game coalesced when he needed it most at Grand Reserve GC, carding a four-round total of 20-under to finish six strokes clear of Max McGreevy. After slating the Puerto Rico Open into his schedule due to a three-week Korn Ferry Tour hiatus, Brehm now re-routes his travel plans to include THE PLAYERS Championship. Making the victory even sweeter: Brehm’s wife Chelsey was on the bag, marking the first husband/wife, player/caddie duo to win on TOUR since Patrick and Justine Reed at the 2013 Wyndham Championship. Brehm earns 300 FedExCup points, moving to No. 55 in the season-long standings, and provides further proof that in golf and life, there’s always a chance. STAY GOLD TPC Sawgrass, and its iconic island green, welcomes the strongest field in golf to Northeast Florida for THE PLAYERS Championship. Justin Thomas will need to hold off a who’s who of top pros if he wants to become the first player to go back-to-back at the Stadium Course. The entire top 30 in the FedExCup standings (including JT) is set to tee it up with world No. 1 Jon Rahm, 2019 PLAYERS champion Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa highlighting a stellar field with representation from 25 countries. Reigning FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay is surely keen to add the Goldman to his trophy case and comes in red hot with four top-10s in five starts this season. Whoever takes the title and the 600 FedExCup points will not only be up against their peers, but also one of golf’s toughest tests in Pete Dye’s Stadium Course. Built in 1980, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass first hosted THE PLAYERS two years later when it was punctuated with one of the best celebrations you’ll ever see. VIDEO OF THE WEEK Max Homa holed his first career ace on TOUR with an incredible shot on the par-3 14th at Bay Hill MIC CHECK “Our goal coming into this week was just to improve every day, every shot, every round, every hole … It was great having Chels up there with me caddying. It was a special week. I don’t know, there was just something special about it from the moment we landed.” – Ryan Brehm on winning with his wife Chelsey on the bag in Puerto Rico BY THE NUMBERS 4 – Four of the biggest names in golf history will be enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame this week. Tiger Woods highlights the class that also features Tim Finchem, Susie Maxwell-Berning and Marion Hollins. 8 – Retief Goosen carded the best round of the day at the Hoag Classic with an 8-under 63. He won by four to claim his second PGA TOUR Champions title. 2/22/22 – Fred Couples married longtime girlfriend Suzanne Hannemann on February 22, 2022 before breaking the news at the Hoag Classic this past week. 2023 – Zach Johnson was announced as the United States captain for the 2023 Ryder Cup to be held at Marco Simone G&CC in Rome, Italy. COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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A new year for the PGA TOUR begins in style Thursday on the island of Maui, with 17 of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking teeing it up in the limited-field Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Resort’s rollicking Plantation Course. It will be a strong first act to set the tone for what promises to be a robust opening month of golf. Eight of the top 10 players in the world, including last year’s Sentry runner-up, Jon Rahm, will be on hand at Kapalua as the tournament celebrates its 25th anniversary on the island. The elite field is limited to tournament winners from the 2021-22 season and those finishing among the top 30 in the last season’s FedExCup. There are 39 players at Kapalua vying for a purse of $15 million, with the winner taking home $2.7 million. The Sentry Tournament of Champions will mark the first of 13 designated events (excluding majors) that will offer a minimum purse of $15 million in 2023 as the TOUR embarks on a new era. Most of the designated events feature purses of $20 million, with the purse at THE PLAYERS Championship in March standing at $25 million. But there is great strength amid other tournament weeks, too. After Sentry, the TOUR will move over to Oahu, a puddle-jump flight, to Honolulu for the Sony Open in Hawaii (Jan. 12-15), where defending champion Hideki Matsuyama headlines a field that includes Billy Horschel and Jordan Spieth. Last January, Matsuyama provided one of the shots of the year at Waialae Country Club, hitting a 3-wood into a bright setting sun to 3 feet to set up a winning eagle against Russell Henley on the first hole of a playoff. Horschel is coming off a season in which he won the Memorial presented by Workday and twice was a runner-up. At 36, he made his long-awaited first U.S. team as a professional, competing on the winning side at the Presidents Cup. Spieth, a winner at the 2022 Valero Texas Open, will be playing Sony for the first time since 2019; in 2017, he tied for third. Waialae is one of the TOUR’s true old-school gems, short by today’s standards (7,044 yards, but a par 70), but always offering a stern test, especially when the island winds stir. The TOUR reaches California and the mainland to open the ‘West Coast Swing’ with the 64th edition of The American Express (Jan. 19-22) at PGA WEST’s Stadium Course and La Quinta Country Club. On the 50th anniversary of Arnold Palmer earning the 62nd and final victory of his legendary career at this event, the field will boast some stout star power of its own, as evidenced by an accomplished quartet of early tournament commitments: Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, the reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year, as well as Tony Finau, a three-time winner last year, and the close-knit pair of Californians, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. All four not only were tournament winners in 2022 but also part of the U.S. Team’s winning Presidents Cup squad at Quail Hollow Club in September. Schauffele made his professional debut at The American Express in 2016, and a year later would win the TOUR Championship; Scheffler, ranked second in the world, tied for third in the desert in 2020; Cantlay finished ninth in 2020 and 2022, opening with 62 last year; and Finau, twice a winner in 2022 (3M Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic), has a top finish of 14th at the AmEx in four starts. January on the PGA TOUR finishes strong with the Farmers Insurance Open (Jan. 25-28) at Torrey Pines Golf Course’s North and South tracks. The South, which hosts weekend play, is the site of two U.S. Open Championships as well as San Diego’s longstanding PGA TOUR stop, which turns 70 this year. One U.S. Open winner at Torrey was Tiger Woods (2008); the other was Rahm, who not only broke through to win his first major at Torrey in 2021 but also captured his first PGA TOUR title there, as well. The place is so special to Rahm that he even proposed to his wife at Torrey. Needless to say, Rahm will be part of the Farmers field. Only once in his six Farmers starts has Rahm finished worse than seventh. Among those joining Rahm are two Americans coming off big seasons in 2021-22: Max Homa, already a winner this season (Fortinet Championship), and Cameron Young, who did everything but win last year. Young, 25, was a five-time runner-up last season, contending in two majors (runner-up at the Open Championship), but didn’t finish the year empty-handed. He made the U.S. team that won the Presidents Cup and in late October, was voted the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year, taking home the Arnold Palmer Trophy. At the TOUR Championship in August, PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that 13 events beyond the four major championships would be “elevated” with larger purses on the 2022-23 TOUR schedule – these include the four majors, three FedExCup Playoff events, THE PLAYERS, WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Sentry Tournament of Champions, and three invitationals (Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, the Memorial presented by Workday). Four more designated events were later added: WM Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers Championship. The new schedule means that top players will have 17 designated events where the best in the world will gather and compete, as well as a minimum of three other tournaments of their choosing. If January is any sign of things to come, the 2022-23 season will consist of great fields and exciting tournaments week in and week out.

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Brendon Todd outlasts Vaughn Taylor to win his second straight tournament, the rain-delayed Mayakoba Golf Classic.

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