Patrick Reed’s latest controversy and the other things in golf that matter right now

Tiger Woods said he will skip his hometown Honda Classic next week and has committed to the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship.

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It’s impossible not to be moved by photographs and video of the catastrophic damage suffered when Hurricane Dorian descended upon the Bahamas last month. Home after home after home reduced to rubble. Trees snapped in two like they were a child’s pick-up sticks. Cars, even shipping containers bigger than semi-trucks, upended, coated in sand and mud. Most importantly, so many lives lost and so many others that will never be the same. For Rafael Campos, the devastation hits very close to home. Campos picked up his first win at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club last January. He’s also a Puerto Rican, and before Dorian there was Maria, another vicious Category 5 storm, that hit his homeland two years ago, killing nearly 3,000 and leveling entire neighborhoods, as well. So, Campos has a unique perspective and followed the frequently changing weather reports carefully. He actually spoke with Brian Shaver, the director of golf at The Abaco Club, when the hurricane was battering the island. They have known each other since Campos’ junior golf days, and he has spent a good deal of time in the Bahamas over the last few years. “They said, hey, everything underneath them was completely destroyed,â€� Campos recalls. “So, it is really sad to know what they had to go through, and I know that lives got lost because of Mother Nature.â€� Shaver actually rode out the storm at the resort, where Darren Clarke and Thomas Aiken have homes, along with several other employees and posted videos of the winds whipping across the island on his Facebook page. When the hurricane – which battered Great Abaco with winds in excess of 185 miles an hour for nearly two days – finally exited, worst fears were realized. Campos acted quickly and pledged $100 for every birdie he made in his first start as a PGA TOUR member at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier to the relief effort. Several of his friends followed suit and a total of $6,400 was raised. There have been several other fundraisers initiated by TOUR players to help the relief effort, as well. Justin Thomas, who has often vacationed in the Bahamas, is pledging $1,000 for each birdie he makes in the four tournaments he plays this fall. “It truly is my happy place,â€� Thomas says. “When I need to go clear my mind and I need to go get away from everything in the world, that’s where I would go.â€� Tiger Woods, who hosts the Hero World Challenge at Albany on the Bahamian island of New Providence, has partnered with entertainer Justin Timberlake, among others, to create the ONE Bahamas Fund. The group has made a challenge gift of $6 million and will match dollar-for-dollar the next $6 million raised. “It’s horrifying to see the videos and hear the stories about the effects of Hurricane Dorian,” Woods said in a statement. “The need in The Bahamas is very real.” And Justin Leonard, who is a member at Bakers Bay on the island of Great Guana Cay, Brad Faxon and PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh have organized the Bahamas Strong Pro-Am. The tournament will be played Oct. 8 at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Campos is well-aware that at one point, Dorian appeared headed for Puerto Rico, which had taken that disastrous direct hit from Maria two years earlier. Soon, though, the Bahamas were in the storm’s crosshairs and the storm appeared to stall over the islands with gusts reaching 220 mph. “I can’t imagine what they went through because we (in Puerto Rico) had it for 12 hours,â€� Campos said. “They had it for 20 some, 30 hours, you know, in those constant, in that constant weather.â€� When Maria hit Puerto Rico in September of 2017, Campos was in the midst of what is now known as the Korn Ferry Tour finals. He had access to a private plane – commercial flights were canceled — and wanted to come to see how he could help in the days afterwards. But his mother advised him to stay away. “My mom was like, don’t even think about coming here,â€� he recalls. “There’s absolutely nothing to look for here. You won’t be able to practice. You won’t be able to do anything. It’s actually a burden if people come in.â€� So, Campos went to the Dominican Republic for three months and finally returned home in December of 2017. While his penthouse apartment weathered the storm with little damage and his folks, who live at the bottom of a hill, escaped the flooding, he still saw damage everywhere he looked. “It’s really sad,â€� he recalls. “It took us a year, a little bit more than a year to kind of get back at normal, you know. And I honestly cannot imagine what Abaco will, how long Abaco will take because it’s a tougher thing. So, yes, absolutely horrendous. They need help. They really do. “And we have to find a way to get supplies over there. The essentials, you know, water. I mean just anything would help.â€�

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GUYANCOURT, France – Rickie Fowler was the last player to leave after another losing Ryder Cup press conference in Europe. Unfortunately, the cart he was driving would not start. With a coffee cup in his left hand – champagne glasses are reserved for winners – Fowler stretched his hand under the dash, fiddled with the switch, then stepped lightly on the gas. Finally, the ignition came on, and Fowler was on his way, back to the team room to join his fellow Americans in licking their wounds after being thrashed by the Europeans. It was a fitting goodbye for a 17.5 to 10.5 defeat that becomes the third worst for the U.S. in Ryder Cup history. Only the defeats in 2004 and 2006 were more decisive – and if you consider that the U.S. won the first three matches on Friday, that means they were outscored 17.5 to 7.5 the rest of the way. In fact, Sunday’s result was worse than the 5-point loss the U.S. suffered four years ago at Gleneagles. It was during that losing press conference that Phil Mickelson criticized the way Captain Tom Watson handled the team, and a task force soon emerged to help the Americans solve their Ryder Cup problems. It worked two years ago. But the Americans clearly still have issues – mainly, that they cannot win on European soil. It’s been 25 years now, and the problem is getting worse. Beating Europe in the U.S.? That’s not the issue. Hazeltine showed us that. Beating Europe on the road? Maybe it’s time for another task force. That’s where the focus should be. Four years from now, the Ryder Cup is scheduled for the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome. Europe’s best player that week may very well be its best player this week – Italian Francesco Molinari, who became the first Euro to go undefeated in a single Ryder Cup. He will be 39 years old then and surrounded by 11 other players who will share a singular goal and purpose. Let’s go ahead and make the Europeans the favorite right now. Yes, the knee-jerk reaction to Sunday’s loss is to focus on how to win back the Ryder Cup in two years at Whistling Straits. But the real question becomes: What will they do between now and 2022 to win in Italy? Jim Furyk – who stands to garner most of the criticism, as Captains generally do when their teams lose – said he will work with the PGA of America and the Ryder Cup committee to improve on areas that were lacking for this week. “I’ll definitely go through things that are in my head,� said Furyk, who did not reveal the specifics of those things. One of the obvious things is making sure the Americans are acquainted with the course – and perhaps making sure the American players are best suited to play that course. The fear entering Friday’s first day was that the tight, driver-unfriendly Le Golf National would pose issues for big American bombers. That seemed to play itself out, as the U.S. found more trouble off the tee than its counterparts. The best American player this week was Justin Thomas, who just happened to be the only American who played the French Open at Le Golf National this summer. Others came for practice rounds before The Open Championship, but it was clear that the Europeans – each of whom had played in at least one French Open, and had a combined 236 tournament rounds to 8 for the Americans – were a better fit. “We thought this course suit us and our style of play,� said Rory McIlroy, the PGA TOUR’s driving distance leader who may have been the only European to feel at a disadvantage. He still won two points. Furyk, however, denied that lopsided course experience played a big part in the outcome. “I offered the invite and I had more players show up for that practice round than I could have hoped for,� Furyk said. “We were prepared. I feel like we played our practice rounds and we understood the golf course. We got outplayed.� Furyk, to his credit, took the blame for the loss, saying he would gladly take the same 12 players into battle once again. He knows he will be second-guessed for decisions such as breaking up the Jordan Spieth/Patrick Reed pairing, or picking Phil Mickelson to play a tight course in which he ranked second-to-last on the PGA TOUR in driving accuracy. Everything was done with reason, input, thought through. Then it’s up to us to execute, and we just didn’t quite execute. “Some of you might question some of the decisions,� Mickelson said, “but everything was done with reason, input, thought through. Then it’s up to us to execute, and we just didn’t quite execute.� Certainly the two most decorated American players didn’t execute. Mickelson and Tiger Woods were a combined 0-6-0 this week, with both players losing their Singles matches Sunday. Woods had a key 2 and 1 loss to Jon Rahm in the fourth match when the Americans needed every single early part to shake the European confidence. “Obviously very disappointing,� said Woods, whose 0-4-0 record is his worst Ryder Cup performance, surpassing his 1/2-point effort in 2012. “Those are four points that aren’t going towards our site. It’s going towards their side. … It doesn’t feel very good because I didn’t help my teammates earn any points.� Woods may get another chance. Mickelson may not. He will be 50 when the next Ryder Cup is played. “This could very well, realistically, be my last one,� he said. If it is, his final shot won’t exactly be one worth remembering. Trailing the entire match to Molinari, Mickelson was 3 down going to the par-3 16th. Another halved hole would end the match, so after Molinari found the green with his tee shot, Mickelson went for broke … and found the water. He quickly took off his cap and extended his hand to Molinari, conceded both the hole and the match. It was a bitter ending for the most experienced player in Ryder Cup history. Can he get one more shot? “I’m motivated now to work hard, to not go out on this note, and I’m motivated to play well these next two years to get back to Whistling Straits and show what I can do in these events, because this week was not my best,� Mickelson said. This week was not America’s best. No one will be surprised if they bounce back two years from now. The reasons that the Americans were favored this week – incredible talent and depth – are not going away. The young core remains. They will only get better. And if the course is set up in their favor – as it was for the Europeans this week – all the more reason for optimism. But it’s 2022 that the U.S. should be worried about. By then, it will be 29 years since the last time the U.S. Ryder Cup team has won on enemy territory. “We want to be successful in this event,� Furyk said. “We want to grow and we want to get better, but we want to do it here in Europe. That will be the goal four years from now.� Four years seems far away, but it’s never too early to start finding solutions. Perhaps the first order of business is finding golf carts that are easier to start.

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