Nearing 50, Brian Gay prepares to defend in Bermuda

OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. – Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler will begin the 2017 FedExCup Playoffs this week as the top five players in the standings. History tells us three of those players will not finish in the top five once the Playoffs end next month at the TOUR Championship. History also suggests it’s unlikely one of those five players – who have combined for 14 wins on the PGA TOUR this season — will emerge at the FedExCup champion. Since 2009, when the last drastic change was made to the FedExCup Playoffs points system, just three players who began the Playoffs inside the top five in points claimed the FedExCup – Tiger Woods, who started No. 1 in 2009; Jim Furyk, who started No. 3 in 2010; and Jordan Spieth, who started No. 1 in 2015. That’s a 37.5 percent success rate. (To be fair, Tiger Woods also won his first FedExCup in 2007 after starting the Playoffs at No. 1. But that was under previous points systems when points were reset at the start of the Playoffs instead of after the third Playoffs event.) On the flipside, there’s a 60 percent rate of turnover in the top five from the start of the Playoffs to the finish. Of the 40 top-five players in those last eight years, just 16 finished inside the top five. Consider that the delicate balance of regular season success versus Playoffs performance versus control-your-own-destiny finale. You play well enough in the regular season to start the Playoffs inside the top five. You play well enough to remain in the top five and enter the TOUR Championship with a guarantee to win the FedExCup with a tournament victory. But if you don’t win at East Lake, you open the door for somebody else to claim the PGA TOUR’s biggest prize. Matsuyama has completed the first leg, winning three events – including two World Golf Championships – to enter as No. 1. His consistency has been rewarded. But now comes the hard part starting this week at THE NORTHERN TRUST, which will be played for the first time at Glen Oaks Club. He’ll tee off Thursday with the biggest target on his back. “Of course I want to be in the top five going into the TOUR Championship,â€� Matsuyama said. “That’s my goal. But reaching my goals, the best way to do that is just to play well. So I won’t worry about where I stand in the FedExCup standings until after probably BMW and heading into THE TOUR Championship. “I found that if I play well, everything will take care of itself and I won’t have to check the standings too much.â€� But as we’ve found out, when you play well can be more important than simply playing well. In each of the last five years, a single player has won two Playoffs events, riding momentum against an ever-decreasing field size. Just three times did that player win the FedExCup. In 2012, Rory McIlroy won the middle two events of the Playoffs and entered East Lake as No. 1. But he finished tied for 10th, allowing Brandt Snedeker to win the TOUR Championship and the FedExCup. Snedeker had started the Playoffs ranked 19th but moved inside the top five thanks to a solo second and a solo sixth in the first two events. Two years ago, Jason Day also won two Playoffs events and was No. 1 going into East Lake. Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth had not done much in those first three events, with a couple of missed cuts and a tie for 13th. But Spieth benefitted from a spectacular regular season, started the Playoffs with 1,710-point lead (as a comparison, Day had a 36-point lead over Dustin Johnson entering last year’s Playoffs; Matsuyama has a 180-point lead over Thomas). That generous cushion allowed Spieth to limit the damage from those so-so results prior to reaching the TOUR Championship. He only dropped to No. 2, then won at East Lake to claim the FedExCup. Day wasn’t the only one burned by Spieth’s win in the finale. Henrik Stenson, the 2013 FedExCup champ, had three runner-up finishes in his four Playoffs starts that season (and tied for 10th in the other). Had Spieth not found his game, Stenson might very well have joined Tiger as the only multiple FedExCup winners. “Because Jordan Spieth made 50-foot bombs when he shouldn’t have,â€� a smiling Stenson said when asked why Tiger’s the only two-time winner. “Next question.â€� Phil Mickelson won the TOUR Championship in 2009 but did not win the FedExCup. He remains the last player to claim that divided prize. Woods had won the previous event, the BMW Championship, and had a tie for second and a tie for 11th in the first two events. Meanwhile, Mickelson did not contend in that stretch, failing to finish inside the top 25 for those three events. Thus, Mickelson was 14th in points entering East Lake. His win wasn’t enough to offset Tiger’s solo second finish that led to his second FedExCup win. While consistent play throughout the Playoffs has its rewards – Stenson, Padraig Harrington in 2009, Dustin Johnson in 2012 and Adam Scott in 2016 are the only players in the last eight years to finish in the top 10 in every event in a single Playoffs – there’s nothing like winning to maintain or acquire that coveted top-five spot entering East Lake. Since 2009, every winner of one of the first three Playoffs events has arrived at the TOUR Championship inside the top-five in points – with one exception. It happened last year. Rory McIlroy won at TPC Boston to climb to fourth in the standings but dropped back to sixth after a T-42 finish at the BMW Championship. Of course, he then won a three-man playoff at East Lake to win the FedExCup. There are many paths to the FedExCup, and it’s why the top five starting this week will likely look different than the top five a month from now. “There’s not a right way and a wrong way,â€� Stenson said. “It’s all about getting enough points to be in the top five and hopefully win the last one.â€�

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Charlie Rymer wasn’t sure he could swing a golf club with that port imbedded in his chest near his collarbone. Not to mention, the chemotherapy it delivered into his body made his hands shake so badly he joked that he might take a divot with his putter. But last Wednesday, he was hitting balls and getting ready for a member-guest – barely four months after doctors had resected a foot of his colon and 14 days after ringing the bell at M.D. Anderson in Houston to signal his last infusion of those life-saving drugs. “There’s no chance I can break 85, but I’m going to be out there with my buddies, having a good time and enjoying every minute of it,” Rymer said. The last two years haven’t been much fun for the former PGA TOUR pro turned broadcaster, though, after doctors discovered a polyp during a routine colonoscopy. At first, doctors decided to monitor it. But after six months, and then three more months, his physician was still concerned. So Rymer went to a specialist who twice performed an advanced polypectomy in hopes of avoiding the resection. Neither was successful. So, Rymer had the right hemicolectomy on March 10 and 12 inches of his colon were removed. All the previous biopsies had revealed no cancer but when the pathology was done on the full section the news was not good. Rymer had stage 3 colon cancer. And the cancer had spread to the 54-year-old’s lymph nodes. “And I’m like, what? I had no idea that that was coming,” he recalls. “I was just expecting, the surgery was successful. You’re good to go. You don’t have to worry about this.” Within six weeks, Rymer had started chemotherapy at M.D. Anderson. He’d have the infusion, which generally lasted three hours, and then begin a two-week regimen of chemo by pill, four of them, twice a day. And that didn’t count the drugs he was prescribed for the side effects – nausea, anxiety, insomnia – that made Rymer feel like a “walking pharmacist.” Mercifully, he was able to take a week off before beginning the process again. After four cycles of the dual chemotherapy, Rymer is cancer-free and now in surveillance mode where he’ll undergo body scans every six months and advanced blood work every three. He says the highest chance of recurrence is in the first year. “And because I’ve had the surgery — surgery alone gave me about a 50% chance of recurrence in year one and the chemo reduces that to about a 25% chance of recurrence in year one,” Rymer says. “Year two, that’s halved. Year three, it’s halved. “So, if you get through the first three years, you’re good to go without getting any further treatment. … If it does come back, they say it’ll come back somewhere other than my colon, but … we can get after that early. So, I hope I don’t have to go down that road, but that’s sort of what the situation is.” Rymer had kept his diagnosis relatively private, the news mostly confined to family and friends. When he felt well enough, he continued his work as an ambassador for Myrtle Beach golf and as executive vice president of McLemore Club, a resort in northern Georgia. He was also able to film parts of the second season of “The Charlie Rymer Golf Show” on ESPN2 during his off weeks from the chemo. He did discuss his cancer struggle on one episode, but it hasn’t aired yet. When he finished his last chemotherapy treatment on June 6, though, Rymer decided to tweet a video of him ringing the bell. The reaction was swift, and a little overwhelming. The tweet got more than 7,000 likes and 433 comments, many from people asking about his treatment – and most importantly telling Rymer they were scheduling their colonoscopy immediately. “It means the world. It really does,” Rymer says, his voice halting. “… I don’t normally read a lot of remarks on Twitter, but just the folks out there that had either, most of them I hadn’t ever met, but had either watched me play or do TV over the years, just the supportive comments that came in were just incredible. “One of the reasons I was hesitant to put it out was like, nobody cares that somebody’s going through this, but then you find out they do care.” Rymer says fellow broadcasters Mark Rolfing and Paul Azinger, both of whom are cancer survivors, have frequently called to check up on him. Judy Rankin has reached out, as well, along with many others in the golf business. He’s heard from friends in the entertainment industry like Colt Ford and Vince Gill. He’s even reconnected with his best friend from high school. Rymer, who describes himself as a “church-going person,” says the prayers and support are incredibly impactful. “I just would encourage folks when they have friends that are going through this or another severe health challenge, if you’re on the fence of whether I ought to drop a text or call, go ahead and drop it because it’s going to mean a lot more than what you think,” Rymer says, pausing before finishing his thought. “I hate to break down crying on you, but these this last six months I’ve cried more than I ever thought I was capable of crying. So, it makes you sort of look at things a little, a lot differently.” Until last week, Rymer had only played golf twice this year – both times before the surgery – which was the longest break he’d taken from the game since he was 4 years old. And the operation set him back when he developed ileus, where his digestive system didn’t reset for nine days, and he lost 22 pounds. Once he recovered, Rymer started thinking about playing again. He ordered a new set of clubs and once he finished chemo, he started hitting balls again. He thinks it will take about a month to get all the medications out of his system to steady his hands. He’s also dealing with neuropathy. “I haven’t felt my toes in three months. And then the other thing is weight gain with this stuff. So not only have I not felt my toes in three months, hell, I haven’t seen my toes in three months,” says Rymer, proving his trademark sense of humor is still in tact. He also jokes about holding a carton of ice cream with oven mitts because the nerve endings in his hands couldn’t handle anything that wasn’t room temperature or warmer. And the disappointment of finding out that the side effects of both medications was weight gain. “I’m like, really?” Rymer says with a wry laugh. “Plus they put you on steroids too, so, I feel like I stepped on air hose.” Rymer says he couldn’t have survived the last two years without the support of Carol, his wife of 31 years, who also happens to be a registered nurse, and in his words an “absolute superstar.” He says the cancer ordeal has made the couple and their two sons grow closer. “Listen, I’m 54, and my life’s been a blessing,” Rymer says. “I’ve been fortunate to see and do things and have experiences that some folks take 20 lives to do. And then because of my faith, I don’t live my life with fear. But I’m hoping the big man has some more plans for me here.” One of the things Rymer wants to do is encourage everyone to take their health seriously and get a colonoscopy along with other cancer screenings. He can’t help but think about a friend who wouldn’t – “He almost bragged about it,” Rymer says – who has passed away. “When I was out in Houston and I got a chance to ring the bell, I thought you know what I’m going to put that on (Twitter) and just let people know what I’ve been going through,” Rymer says. “And the more I think about it — and I’m hoping this is the case — it seems like mine is rather than being life and death is just terribly, horribly inconvenient. “And I almost feel obligated to sort of share the experience and say, yeah, I’ve had a tough go with this, but if I hadn’t had a colonoscopy, two or three years down the road from now my stomach would be hurting or I’d have some other symptom and I’d go to the doctor and it would be, you’ve got six months, get your affairs in order.” Thankfully, Rymer didn’t wait. And neither should the rest of us.

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After playing in 34 tournaments in 15 months, golfer Rory McIlroy says he’s physically and mentally exhausted. McIlroy says he has been struggling to find balance between playing golf and being a new father. He plans a two-week break before the Ryder Cup.

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