Jarrod Lyle gets positive news in cancer fight

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Davis Love III and Zach Johnson, two of Sea Island’s esteemed veterans, share a podium with ease. The coastal Georgia community has steadily built a reputation as one of the TOUR’s leading locales, with double-digit residents competing at their hometown The RSM Classic this week. Love and Johnson have been central forces in the island community’s growth in the professional golf landscape, mentoring countless young pros through the ups and downs of the journey. Their career arcs have been further synchronized in recent months, as Johnson prepares to serve as U.S. Ryder Cup captain at next fall’s matches in Rome. Love served as winning U.S. Team captain at this year’s Presidents Cup in his native North Carolina, with Johnson serving as a captain’s assistant. The U.S. Team defeated the International Team by a 17.5-12.5 margin at Quail Hollow, withstanding a spirited International Team charge over the weekend. As Johnson prepares for his first captaincy in Rome, he’ll have a familiar face for counsel. Love and Johnson plan for a summit of sorts this coming Monday, hopefully after a weekend in contention at Sea Island GC. Considering the TOUR’s calendar year of FedExCup competition concludes in their adopted hometown, there’s no better place. Not that Johnson intends to rip up the script. “I’ll say the beauty of what’s been established … is that we have a system,” Johnson said Wednesday, alluding to the growing synergy between the United States’ Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup strategic preparations in recent years. “The system for Team USA is really, really good right now. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to win, but it’s good, and it can take on the personality year-in and year-out of that leader, so you can stay on the same road and just have a different bus driver.” So what does that entail for Johnson? The Iowa native has carved out a legacy for maximizing his talent through hard work and preparation. Never one of the game’s longest hitters, he maintained status in the game’s upper echelon as the Tiger-inspired wave of young “bomb-and-gouge” pros entered the TOUR in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Johnson, 46, has won 12 times on TOUR including the 2007 Masters and 2015 Open Championship. He might be on the back half of his TOUR career, but he has maintained a full schedule and spends ample time with prospective U.S. Ryder Cup team members across the TOUR calendar. He could be considered a bridge captain between generations. “Knowing that my peers want me to do this is everything to me,” Johnson said. “I’m a guy that, I can’t stand drama, so it’s going to be my goal to avoid that. It’s not always easy, it’s not always practical, it’s not always going to happen. That’s No. 1. “No. 2 would be, I just want to give the guys the ability to enter the most uncomfortable week in a very comfortable manner. The system’s already in place, I’m going to follow it, I’m going to nuance it to Zach and Kim Johnson and represent that team as best I can.” Johnson played in five Ryder Cups and has served as a captain’s assistant in the past two Ryder Cups. Love played in six Ryder Cups and has served as both a captain and captain’s assistant. Johnson played a crucial role for Love at this year’s Presidents Cup – “Zach and I had a not-so-fun Saturday making pairings,” Love said of attempting to hold off the International Team after a Saturday surge. (The attempt was successful.) How does Johnson project as a captain? Love is well-equipped to answer. “He’s really good at time management,” Love said. “He’s really good at using his team to set up a game plan. He hadn’t hardly been named captain and I got two phone calls from other people that he already talked to about helping him with food and travel and things like that … the practice round thing, he’s already thinking about that, how to get guys more used to the golf course. He’s on it. “Now we have somebody smart and organized that’s a captain, so we can move forward.” Love may downplay his strengths as a captain, but the results at Quail Hollow suggest otherwise. And he’ll aim to guide his fellow Sea Island cornerstone to a similar outcome.

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WILMINGTON, N.C. — Six weeks away from competition didn’t keep Dustin Johnson from extending one streak Thursday, with hopes of adding to another. Johnson showed more game than rust at the Wells Fargo Championship, where he missed only two greens — and plenty of putts — for a 2-under 70 that left him four shots behind leader Francesco Molinari at blustery Eagle Point Golf Club. It was Johnson’s 13th consecutive round at par or better. Johnson wasn’t as flawless as he looked while winning three straight tournaments, though he had few complaints under the circumstances. It was his first time playing since he slipped in his socks down the stairs at his rental house in Augusta, hurting his back and knocking him out of the Masters. “Since I hadn’t played in so long, I’m happy with the way I played,” Johnson said. “I didn’t score that great, didn’t really hole that many putts, but other than that, I played really well. I think I hit 16 greens and I hit the ball great.” No one was sure what to expect at Eagle Point, where the Wells Fargo Championship moved this year because its traditional venue, Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, is hosting the PGA Championship in August. On greens that were slightly softer and as pure as can be, Molinari ran off five birdies in a seven-hole stretch on the front nine and closed out his round with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th. That gave him a one-shot lead over Alex Noren of Sweden, J.B. Holmes, Grayson Murray and Brian Campbell. Murray was the only player to reach 7 under until he finished with back-to-back bogeys. Campbell, playing with Murray, also was tied for the lead until he found the left bunker on the par-5 ninth and failed to get up-and-down. Holmes birdied his last three holes for a 67. He played with Phil Mickelson, who shot 71 in his first time out since the Masters. Just over half the 156-man field was at par or better. Johnson started well enough to act as though nothing has happened since he last played March 26 at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, his third straight victory, which strengthened his hold at No. 1 in the world. He was rarely in trouble, made only one putt longer than 10 feet and still shot 70. It was a reasonable start in resuming his quest for a fourth straight PGA TOUR victory, which would be the longest streak since Tiger Woods won five in a row at the end of the 2007 season and the start of 2008. “I played a lot better than my score,” Johnson said. He didn’t miss a green until a gust knocked down his tee shot on the par-3 second hole (his 11th of the round) and sent it down a slope short of the green. He chipped weakly up the hill to 12 feet and made his first bogey. He closed out his round by pulling a drive on the par-4 ninth hole, punching under tree limbs to short of the green and again pitching it short. He started walking as soon as he hit his 10-foot par putt, knowing it was off to the right. “All in all, I’m very pleased with the day,” Johnson said. There were no issues with the deep bruise he suffered in his lower left back, which ranks among the top freak accidents in golf under the circumstances. Johnson was playing the best golf of his life — those three victories were against the three strongest fields of the year — when he hustled downstairs to move his car in the rain because his 2-year-old son was on his way home from day care. He slipped at the bottom of the stairs, crashing onto his back and left elbow, and Johnson couldn’t swing well enough to compete at the Masters. Whatever rust he showed in the pro-am Wednesday was gone, at least on the back nine when he started. He hit a sand wedge to the back tier on the par-5 12th to 4 feet for birdie. He holed a putt just inside 10 feet for birdie on the par-5 15th, smashed another drive down the 16th and hit a wedge to 2 feet. That put him at 3 under through eight holes, at the time tied for the lead, and he hammered another drive on the par-5 18th. With the wind in his face and water on the right, Johnson elected to lay up. His lob wedge was 20 feet right of the pin, and there were other short irons that a month ago he would have expected to get within 10 feet. The few times he did, Johnson missed the putts. “I knew I wasn’t going to play as good,” Johnson said. “I maybe played a little more conservatively. But anything under par was going to be a good score.”

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While our goal is to soar into the holiday break with a seriously crooked number on the board at The RSM Classic, the promise of the restart in early January and another 38 tournaments reminds us not to get bent out of shape no matter what happens at Sea Island. Time is on our side, and that’s a good thing in the absence of an automatic selection in the Golden Isles. The smattering of exciting possibilities and the fact that the last four winners of the tournament were first-timers just about begs you to throw a dart on purpose. J.J. Spaun doesn’t care that he’s the focal point of this week’s converging trends, but we do. He won’t be missed, so he’s about as much of a don’t-overthink-it as it gets in the field of 156 on the Seaside and Plantation Courses. While his strength is tee-to-green, he stroked the lights out on the bermuda greens a year ago. Just as impressive as his putting was the fact that he co-led the field in par-5 scoring. Confident? Oh, yes. C.T. Pan is a close second. He profiles similarly as a ball-striker and non-winner. You won’t miss him, either. It makes this weapon of choice proper if you’re in pursuit. Bud Cauley, also winless, sets up not so much as a swing for the fence as a sacrifice fly. However, even if you play every tournament like my little league, you’re not going to be compelled to bypass Spaun or Pan. Stick with two-man considerations here. Then there’s the stable of proud veterans smiling in your direction with chests puffed. Webb Simpson, Charles Howell III, Jim Furyk, Brian Gay, Lucas Glover and 2015 champ Kevin Kisner all look tantalizing in varied degrees, but winds of time dull our anticipation for something special. Sure, if this tournament was contested, say, in June or July, chalk matters for front-runners, but who wants fruitcake when you can have a handful of sugar plums with winter’s chill settling in? Of the bunch, Kisner is the most sensible if you must. Save Simpson for the Wyndham Championship, obviously. Hold your breath that CH3 locks in during the West Coast Swing. Furyk, Gay and Glover are safe tandems with Spaun or Pan in two-man situations. Whatever your persuasion, enjoy the tournament, and then have an even better holiday season, gang! FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018-19. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Jason Dufner … Desert Classic (9); Honda (3); PLAYERS (7); Valspar (4); New Orleans (1); Charles Schwab (6); Memorial (5); U.S. Open (2); Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (10) Bill Haas … RSM (7); Desert Classic (1); Genesis (3); WGC-Match Play (8); Heritage (4); Charles Schwab (2); Wyndham (6) Brian Harman … RSM (6); Sony (2); Desert Classic (3); Arnold Palmer (7); Charles Schwab (1); Travelers (5); John Deere (4) Russell Henley … RSM (1); Sony (2); Honda (4); Masters (3) Charles Howell III … RSM (6); Sony (3); Desert Classic (4); Farmers (1) Zach Johnson … Sony (3); Waste Management (6); Arnold Palmer (7); Valero (4); Charles Schwab (5); John Deere (1); Open Championship (2); TOUR Championship (8) Chris Kirk … RSM (1); Sony (4); Valero (3); PLAYERS (5); Charles Schwab (2) Kevin Kisner … RSM (1); Sony (4); Heritage (3); New Orleans (5); Charles Schwab (2); Memorial (6) Webb Simpson … Sony (3); Desert Classic (11); Waste Management (2); Honda (10); PLAYERS (5; defending); Heritage (6); Wells Fargo (7); Charles Schwab (8); Travelers (9); Wyndham (1) Kevin Streelman … Desert Classic (8); Pebble Beach (1); Valero (9); Heritage (5); Memorial (4); Travelers (7)

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