Leaderboard: Three teams tied at QBE Shootout

PARAMUS, N.J. – The question was a simple one, and it was put to contestants at THE NORTHERN TRUST at Ridgewood Country Club, the first stop of the highly anticipated FedExCup Playoffs: Is the PGA TOUR Player of the Year race already over? FedExCup No. 3 Brooks Koepka has two majors (U.S. Open, PGA Championship) and two runner-up finishes. Clearly, he’s in pole position. “You win two majors, you’ve got it,â€� 11-time PGA TOUR Player of the Year Tiger Woods said in his press conference at Ridgewood on Tuesday. “It’s not real complicated.â€� Well, yes and no. Since the 1990 inception of the PGA TOUR Player of the Year Award, Nick Price (1994), Mark O’Meara (1998), Woods (four times), Padraig Harrington (2008), Rory McIlroy (2014) and Jordan Spieth (2015) have had multiple-major-winning seasons and won POY. The only player to win two majors and not win it was Nick Faldo in 1990. Although he easily could’ve cited himself as Exhibit A, B, C and D, Woods went back to the example of Mark O’Meara, who won the Masters and Open Championship in 1998. “It was very similar to what DD (David Duval) went through in ’98,â€� Woods said, “with Marco (Mark O’Meara) winning two major championships. I think that trumps — what, DD won four times that year? (He did.) I think two majors trumps it.â€� The big difference, though, is that was before the FedExCup Playoffs were born in 2007. And that’s why most of the players interviewed at Ridgewood refused to call the POY race early. What if a guy gets hot like Billy Horschel did in 2014, or Camilo Villegas in 2008? Three-time winners Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson could make it interesting if they add to their totals at THE NORTHERN TRUST, Dell Technologies Championship, BMW Championship and TOUR Championship, the four corners of TOUR’s post-season. Then there’s Francesco Molinari (Open Championship, Quicken Loans National), with whom Woods went head-to-head at The Open at Carnoustie, and Masters champ Patrick Reed. Spieth, the 2015 PGA TOUR POY, agreed with Woods that Koepka has already wrapped it up, no matter what the Playoffs have in store for chasers like his friend Thomas. “I think he would tell you the same thing,â€� Spieth said. (Actually, no, but more on that later.) Keegan Bradley admitted that Koepka probably has it wrapped up, but added a caveat: The right player, someone immediately behind Koepka, could get red-hot in the Playoffs. “They’d have to win a couple,â€� Bradley said. “Two, I think.â€� Tommy Fleetwood and Jamie Lovemark seconded that. “Two majors out-weighs three wins,â€� Fleetwood said, “but one of them could win the next four.â€� “Maybe Patrick Reed wins the next three,â€� Lovemark said with a laugh. Even realistically, some maintained the POY race remains undecided. “It’s not over,â€� James Hahn said. “Three tournament wins versus two majors? I’ll take the two majors. But four or five tournaments plus the FedExCup? I’ll take that guy.â€� Others echoed that sentiment. “I would go with five wins and a FedExCup,â€� said Jason Kokrak, “because that’s technically six trophies and a lot more money. I don’t think it’s over.â€� Marc Leishman agreed. “I don’t think it’s over,â€� he said. “There’s a lot of golf left, and big tournaments, too.â€� Talk to enough players and you’ll hear all sorts of different opinions, which was how it came out that a small minority wouldn’t give the POY Award to Koepka even if the season ended today. “Right now I’d go with Dustin Johnson, because he’s averaging $430,000 a start, so throw that in your mix,â€� Ryan Palmer said. “Somebody did the math and told me.â€� Palmer’s source corrected him: It’s $460,000 a start after Johnson’s recent win at the RBC Canadian Open. Three total wins. Two seconds. Two thirds. FedExCup No. 1. And $7.3 million. So it’s Dustin, then. Or is it Justin? Anirban Lahiri said he would give the nod to Thomas, who is a scant 83 points behind Johnson in his bid to become the first repeat FedExCup winner since its inception in 2007. Lahiri’s reasoning: Thomas’ ability as a front-runner, plus his excellence on different types of courses, from Firestone South to PGA National to Nine Bridges. “I’m not saying Brooks is a one-dimensional player,â€� Lahiri said. “He’s not. But I can’t give a guy Player of the Year based only on his performances at 7,600-yard courses.â€� (Koepka finished second at the Charles Schwab Challenge at smallish Colonial Country Club.) Ryan Armour was succinct in explaining how Koepka could be caught. “One of the multiple-tournament winners has to go on and win the FedExCup to have any sort of legitimate argument,â€� Armour said. “It would be a toss-up at that point, but I think if Francesco got hot and won the Cup, it would maybe lean his way.â€� Finally, the question was put to defending FedExCup champion Thomas as he made his way from the practice putting green to the short-game area at Ridgewood. Is the Player of the Year race already over? Thomas stopped, furrowed his brow. “It’s not over, no,â€� he said. “Why would it be over?â€�

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Justin Thomas is the top seed remaining in the Dell Technologies Match Play and performing like one after a dominating 6-and-5 victory over Si Woo Kim in the quarterfinals.

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Dylan Frittelli took something of a busman’s holiday last week. The personable South African didn’t make the field of 64 for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. Even so, Frittelli still found himself inside the ropes during the first two days of competition at Austin Country Club. But Frittelli had traded his golf clubs in for a microphone so he could call the action for PGA TOUR LIVE. “It was a fun, fun gig, just being out there in the moment and seeing everything,” he says. Frittelli worked the first-round match between Jordan Spieth and Keegan Bradley on Wednesday, as well as Thursday’s tilt that pitted Sergio Garcia against Collin Morikawa. He kept the weekend open to prepare for this week’s Valero Texas Open. After all, playing, not commentating on, the PGA TOUR is Frittelli’s regular job. The 31-year-old has done well at his chosen profession, too, winning the 2019 John Deere Classic and making the FedExCup Playoffs each of the last three seasons. But Frittelli wants to expand his media footprint. He has done some studio work at events in South Africa, as well as at a professional soccer game in Austin, Texas, where he went to college and now makes his home. He knows on-course reporting is the logical starting point, though, and the opportunity presented itself last week. “I’m just getting my feet wet,” explains Frittelli, who is also starting a podcast. “I obviously am focused on playing and I want to play for another 10, maybe 15 years. Who knows, but ideally, I’d just like to give it a go and see if I enjoy it. … “It’s interesting. Obviously, I have the expertise to know what I’m talking about and having a foreign accent helps, too. But right now, it’s just a little thing to get on my resume and my CV, if I ever want to go into it.” Frittelli says he showed up “pretty green” on Wednesday of last week. In fact, he didn’t even think to bring a yardage book because he knows Austin Country Club so well. But he has insight on the players from competing against them regularly, and he says he learned a lot from Colin Swatton, a PGA TOUR LIVE mainstay who once caddied for Jason Day. “You just give a little bit of color,” says Frittelli, who called Spieth’s shots while Swatton handled Bradley. “You tell them what the lie is like. You tell them what things you’d be looking for as a player, any special features on the green or wind conditions or maybe the lie’s a little iffy.” Frittelli says it was easy to converse with the hosts. But it was a “very multitasking-based skill” to learn how to artfully finish a thought and hand it back to the studio when a producer was counting down to a break in his ear. He was careful with the microphone — he had to toggle between one line that connected him with the producer and the other one that was live. “I was very pedantic about that,” Frittelli says. “You don’t want to leave it on and then you start having a conversation, but you get used to it eventually.” The Spieth-Bradley match was a comfortable one for Frittelli to call in his debut. Spieth was a freshman at Texas in 2012 when Frittelli was a senior. The South African made the winning putt that year when the Longhorns beat Alabama for the NCAA title, ending a 40-year drought. Frittelli didn’t get a chance to tell Spieth that he’d be on the call, though. He had planned to go to the range and give caddie Michael Greller the head’s up but “I think it was a bit of a surprise,” he says. When Spieth drove into a hazard on the ninth hole, Frittelli could see a ball in a good lie on a rock face. So, he picked his way about 50 feet down the hillside to see if it belonged to his former teammate. Turns out, it didn’t. “I’d never been down there before, but I knew that that cliff was pretty stable,” Frittelli says, noting that the LIVE cameras caught the South African’s descent. “I had a couple of people screenshot it and send it to me.” Frittelli’s next venture, which is called the “On Tour” podcast, will launch within a month. He is working on the project with Erik Anders Lang and randomgolfclub.com. Lang is the host and director for SkratchTV’s documentary series “Adventures in Golf.” Frittelli already has done interviews with several players for the podcast, and he hopes to collect more this week in San Antonio. He’s not sure who will be the first guest yet, but he wants to make sure the podcast launches with a “bit of a splash.” While golf is his priority right now, Frittelli is excited about his new endeavors. He’s building toward the future, and he likes to keep busy. “I don’t want to be to a point where either I’ve fallen off TOUR or chose to stop playing on TOUR and then go, what am I going to do now and sit around for a year or two, trying to figure it out,” Frittelli says. “I would rather have a couple different avenues that I can go into straightaway because I don’t like just sitting around doing nothing.”

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