Playing for Tiger, the U.S. refuses to lose

Each week during the fall, PGATOUR.COM will highlight one of the rookies playing on the PGA TOUR during the 2019-20 season. This week: Kristoffer Ventura, who’s in this week’s field at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Age: 24 Birthplace: Puebla, Mexico Resides: Norway; Palm Beach Gardens, Florida College: Oklahoma State TOUR card gained by: Finishing 8th in the Korn Ferry Tour regular season standings. TOUR starts/Best finish: 9 (including five this season). Best finish was T18 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open this fall. Has made three of five cuts this season. Pro highlights: Began last season with no status on Korn Ferry Tour but got sponsor exemption and finished T3 at BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation. … Shot a final-round 65 and beat Joshua Creel on third playoff hole at last season’s Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank, his first victory on the Korn Ferry Tour. … After two straight missed cuts, notched second victory at the Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Chevrolet, giving him two wins in just four weeks and his PGA TOUR card for this season. … Followed Pinnacle Bank win with a solo third at WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by KraftHeinz. … His first top-20 of his career was a T18 this fall at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, as he shot four rounds in the 60s to finish at 15 under. Amateur highlights: Along with fellow newly minted TOUR pros Matthew Wolfe and Viktor Hovland, Ventura was a member of the Oklahoma State team that won the 2018 NCAA national championship. … Played for losing European team in the Junior Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in 2010, when Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas played for the U.S. squad. Interesting tidbits: Started playing golf at age 2 when he received a set of plastic clubs for Christmas. … Estimates he won 25 consecutive junior events from age 6-11 in Mexico. … Father is Mexican, mother is Norwegian, and the family moved from Mexico to Norway when he was 12 to help with his golf development. … When he broke through at the Utah Championship, it was only his fifth career start on the Korn Ferry Tour and third of 2019. … Needed appendectomy just days before Q School last fall and wound up missing his Korn Ferry Tour card, necessitating Monday qualifiers. … Speaks three languages fluently (English, Spanish, Norwegian). Ventura says: “Everything we did in Mexico came out of my parents’ own pockets. They really sacrificed a lot. In Norway, those supporting me took me under their wing and I was able to travel the world and develop. Without that, I wouldn’t have played college golf. I wouldn’t be here.� For more on Kristoffer Ventura, click here.

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The most common question I fielded during the week of the PGA Championship was if Tiger Woods’ break since the Masters was an issue. Well, he missed the cut at Bethpage, so he proved me wrong. Regrouping for this week’s Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide where Woods is a five-time winner, he makes more sense for One & Doners in pursuit than for front-runners. With Pebble Beach on deck in two weeks and with more FedExCup points and the heftiest prize fund waiting at the U.S. Open, leaders can slow-play the 43-year-old. Like all things fantasy sports, holstering a haymaker is relative. If you’re pacing, it doesn’t mean that you should ease up on your opposition at Muirfield Village. Everything but. RELATED: Watch on PGA TOUR LIVE | Power Rankings | Expert Picks | Sleepers | Fantasy Insider This field is as stacked as any to which we’ve been treated all season. Your first thought should for which talent on the top shelf you reach. Everyone else available will remain there, anyway. Matt Kuchar earned the perch atop my Power Rankings. He’s a former champion (2013) who also happens to sit No. 1 in the FedExCup standings. Oh, and look, the Memorial is No. 1 on his bevy of Future Possibilities because of his phenomenal record overall in the tournament. The only reason you consider pivoting is if you’re chasing. Then give surging Patrick Cantlay the longest look. The best endorsement that I can attach is that you can’t provide a reason why you shouldn’t burn him right now. Given that we’re deep into the season, usage is thinning, so turn to Tony Finau, if necessary. He found something with his putting for a mini-slump-busting solo second at Colonial. For the record, Kuchar, Cantlay and Finau all are available to me, and my confidence is equally strong with each, but my position dictated my decision. Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose and Hideki Matsuyama will contribute, but only McIlroy should be considered and only if you have to swing for the fence. Don’t waste any more time. Each of the other three will present as strongly at least once later. The sneakiest play on the board is Justin Thomas for chasers. League leaders won’t touch him in the wake of his injured right wrist, and that makes him even more dangerous to make a dent into deficits. Trust in his decision to return now. If you wait, you’ll miss this window of a precious opportunity. Adam Scott presents similarly to post a crooked number given recent form, so if JT is gone, go all-in on the Aussie. Phil Mickelson and Jordan Spieth also are in the field, but both will look even better at Pebble Beach in two weeks. Two-man gamers need to get on Rory Sabbatini’s bandwagon at Muirfield Village. Look into seats for Emiliano Grillo, Peter Uihlein and Byeong Hun An as well. 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. Byeong Hun An … Memorial (1) Keegan Bradley … Memorial (5); Travelers (4) Rafa Cabrera Bello … Wyndham (4) Patrick Cantlay … Memorial (3) Jason Day … U.S. Open (10); Open Championship (9) Bryson DeChambeau … Travelers (4); John Deere (7) Jason Dufner … Memorial (5); U.S. Open (2); Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (10) Tony Finau … Memorial (2) Rickie Fowler … Memorial (5); U.S. Open (10) Branden Grace … U.S. Open (4) Bill Haas … Wyndham (6) Adam Hadwin … John Deere (5) Brian Harman … Travelers (5); John Deere (4) Charley Hoffman … Travelers (1) Billy Horschel … Wyndham (6); TOUR Championship (1) Kevin Kisner … Memorial (6) Matt Kuchar … Memorial (1); Open Championship (8) Marc Leishman … Memorial (4); Travelers (3); Open Championship (8) Hideki Matsuyama … Memorial (8); U.S. Open (14); Wyndham (7); TOUR Championship (5) Rory McIlroy … Memorial (5); Travelers (8); Open Championship (1); TOUR Championship (6) Phil Mickelson … U.S. Open (6); Open Championship (9); WGC-St. Jude (3) Ryan Moore … Memorial (11); Travelers (6); John Deere (8); Wyndham (2); TOUR Championship (9) Justin Rose … Memorial (4); Open Championship (8); TOUR Championship (2) Xander Schauffele … Open Championship (4); TOUR Championship (1) Adam Scott … U.S. Open (9); Open Championship (7); TOUR Championship (3) Cameron Smith … Wyndham (3) Jordan Spieth … Memorial (13); U.S. Open (4); Travelers (9); Open Championship (6); TOUR Championship (8) Henrik Stenson … Open Championship (6); Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (7) Kevin Streelman … Memorial (4); Travelers (7) Justin Thomas … Memorial (8); TOUR Championship (3) Gary Woodland … Memorial (4) Tiger Woods … Memorial (4); THE NORTHERN TRUST (7); TOUR Championship (5; defending)

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Ryan Palmer had been checking his smart phone all day, sneaking glances between shots during the RBC Canadian Open Pro-Am last year to see if his wife Jennifer had called. She was back home in Texas, waiting for the results of a biopsy. A mammogram the previous week had uncovered an abnormality that doctors felt warranted a closer examination. Not until that evening, when Ryan was having dinner with his caddie James Edmondson and some friends, did Jennifer finally reach him. He stepped outside the restaurant to take the call. The news was not good. Jennifer had stage 2A invasive ductal carcinoma. “It just hits you in the gut,â€� Ryan recalls, the memory clearly still fresh. Ryan’s fellow PGA TOUR pro, Stewart Cink, also knows what it’s like to get that sucker punch. Only he was at home in Atlanta after forgetting to commit to the Zurich Classic last year, his first such gaffe in 20 years on TOUR. His wife Lisa delivered the news to him in person. “Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, that was God’s hand,â€� Lisa now says. She had gone in for a follow-up appointment early that week. She hadn’t felt a lump in her breast. She just thought something wasn’t “right.â€� The doctors agreed – in fact, Lisa had a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy all in one day. “She told me afterwards that the mood in there was really serious and somber and not very upbeat at all,â€� Stewart said. The next day, the phone rang. Stewart and Lisa were meeting with the staff of their charitable foundation. This time, it was Lisa who stepped outside. Within seconds, Stewart followed her onto the front porch. Lisa had written some things in a notebook, and then she looked up at her husband, clutching the phone to her chest. “She said, I want to know my grandchildren,â€� Stewart recalls. “And there was not a lot more for her to say. I knew what that meant.â€� Lisa, who had led an extremely healthy lifestyle, has stage 4 invasive ductal carcinoma. The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and was metastatic. With those two diagnoses, life for the Cinks and Palmers has changed forever. Stewart and Lisa met in high school. He was going out with a girl she played softball with – “He dated a lot of my friends, actually, which was interesting,â€� Lisa says – and the two eventually ended up in a class together where they became better acquainted. Their friendship blossomed into romance at Georgia Tech, and the two married at age 20. They have one son, Connor, who was born while the couple was still in college, and another Reagan, who is two years younger. Stewart and Lisa are empty nesters now. Connor graduated from Clemson last year while Reagan has followed in his parents’ footsteps and attends Georgia Tech. He’ll be a junior in the fall. “Do the math – we’ve been married over half our lives,â€� says Stewart, who’s now 43, as is his wife. “I feel like she’s been my soulmate before we ever met in 10th grade. She’s been part of me since birth, I feel like.â€� Ryan and Jennifer also met in high school in their hometown of Amarillo. But it wasn’t until the summer before her senior year at Texas A&M — Ryan was a year behind — that they began dating. “I saw him out at a party or something, and then he called me and said, hey, let’s go have dinner and play some golf,â€� Jennifer remembers. “I’m actually a terrible golfer, so I mainly just sat in the cart but that’s pretty much how it all began.â€� Jennifer was first attracted to Ryan’s smile – “He just lights up a room,â€� she says – and his positive attitude. He didn’t dwell on a bad round. He didn’t blame it on his clubs, either. Ryan was motivated, too. “It was never an option for him not to be a professional,â€� she says. “You know what I’m saying? That was his goal.â€� Jennifer had goals of her own, too, though. She graduated from A&M in 1998 and went to dental school, getting her degree in 2003. She practiced in Colleyville, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, for a while and still keeps her license current. Ryan finally got his TOUR card for the 2004 campaign, and he asked Jennifer to come to Pebble Beach with him. The couple married in June of that year. “After that week, he just said, ‘hey, do you want to try this full time?’â€� she remembers. “We didn’t really know what the future was going to hold golf-wise. So, we basically took a leap of faith.â€� Although they are similar in age, Stewart and Ryan were at different stages of life last year when their wives were diagnosed with cancer three months apart. While the Cinks’ boys are grown and living on their own, Jennifer and Ryan have two young children. Mason is 10, a huge hockey fan, while Madelyn turns 8 in August. After Ryan got that life-changing phone call from Jennifer, he wanted to come home immediately. She convinced him to stay in Canada, though. After all, there was nothing he could do; it wasn’t like she was having surgery the next day, and RBC, after all, is one of Ryan’s sponsors. It just hits you in the gut. The couple went to the PGA Championship where Ryan finished 42nd and then returned home where Jennifer had a lumpectomy. A week later, while Ryan was playing The Barclays (now called THE NORTHERN TRUST), they got the news that the cancer, already invasive in the breast, had spread into the lymph nodes. So Jennifer started chemotherapy on Sept. 19, the week after Ryan was eliminated from the FedExCup Playoffs at the BMW Championship despite a tie for fourth at Crooked Stick. It was also his 40th birthday. “He still got to have a fun little party the weekend before,â€� Jennifer says. “We had it in the works for several months so we went ahead and had the party.â€� Had Ryan made it to the TOUR Championship, Jennifer said she likely would have waited to start the chemo. At that point, though, Ryan announced on the Ryan Palmer Foundation Facebook page that he was taking time off to be with Jennifer and their kids. “He has a lot of family and friends and supporters who follow that so he just felt like that would be a good way for us to get prayer,â€� Jennifer says. Ryan did not play on TOUR again for four months, returning to competition at the Sony Open in Hawaii earlier this year. Mr. Mom did a “fabulousâ€� job, Jennifer says. He got the kids ready in the morning, often making Mason’s favorite, an omelet, for breakfast and took the kids to school. Although friends put together a meal train three nights a week, Ryan was more than happy to throw a few steaks on the grill, which is his specialty. While he did take time to play some golf, hoping to stay sharp for his return, Ryan also pitched in and did some light housework, helping Jennifer’s mom — who lives nearby — keep things tidy when the chemo took its toll. Turns out he’s a rare bird who actually likes to do laundry, too. “That’s what I needed to do,â€� Ryan says. “I was blessed that I was able to stay home the whole time.â€� “There were times when I said just go play this week, you should go get some competitive rounds in and he said, no, this is where I need to be, this is where I want to be,â€� adds Jennifer. “… It was something he really wanted to do for our family.â€� Stewart and Lisa had been looking forward to this time in their lives. With both sons essentially on their own, the couple was planning to travel the world as Stewart, the 2009 Open Championship winner, played golf. Turns out, that’s exactly what they’ve done, although always on Lisa’s schedule. “There’s not a lot I want to do without her,â€� Cink says. The first week of chemo – she had nine rounds administered through a port in her chest – is usually the worst. The second was a “maybe,â€� Stewart says, and by the third, Lisa usually felt like her old self. The first treatment was May 9, 2016. Three weeks later – “We kind of went to three-week months,â€� Stewart notes – he decided to play at the DEAN & DELUCA Invitational. Lisa had friends visiting in Atlanta and family, including the boys, nearby. So he went to Fort Worth by himself. He shot rounds of 72-75 and missed the cut. “I learned really fast that I wasn’t ready to be out there,â€� says Stewart, who purposely arrived on Wednesday so he could avoid some of the inevitable, albeit well-meaning, questions from his peers. He admits both he and Lisa were “emotionally wrecked.â€� Two weeks later, though, Lisa felt well enough to go with her husband to the FedEx St. Jude Classic. The change of scene was good for them both, and Lisa has made new friends as well as connected with the old. “I just don’t think the house would be a good place to be for a long, long time when you’re going through something like this,â€� Stewart says. “Those four walls start to close pretty fast.â€� In an interview with PGA TOUR Entertainment for a special on the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston where her doctors are based, Lisa said she wasn’t surprised her husband put his golf on hold to focus on her. “That’s who he is, and it’s the relationship we’ve been blessed with,â€� Lisa explained. “And of course, it meant everything to me. I don’t know how people do it alone.â€� The weeks at home allowed Stewart to go with Lisa to her various appointments and treatments. Understanding what is about to happen gives him some semblance of control. “Sometimes when she’s emotional, it’s hard to hear correctly, decipher what the doctor is saying,â€� Stewart explains. “So my role is to take down notes and ask questions and get facts straight so that later on, when she sort of takes deep breaths and can understand it, we can have a conversation and I can kind of spit it back the right way.â€� Lisa says her husband was a great “filterâ€� for what he calls a “firehose of information.â€� She was told not to Google treatments or symptoms, which she thinks is great advice. “But he was so good about hearing the information, researching the information, and giving it to me as I asked or he thought I needed it,â€� she says. Long walks through the old neighborhood near the Rice University campus helped the couple “sort through all this immense amount of terrible information we were getting,â€� Lisa says. Also helpful was mindless entertainment like the shows on HGTV that they both like to watch, and the family and friends who gathered in Houston to lend support. “We had every stool, bench, chair (occupied),â€� she says. A year later, as the couple lives with the disease, Stewart has become the de facto spokesman for the family. There are many times when he feels helpless — “Hence, the faith,â€� Stewart says, adding that he has a list of Bible verses to rely on – and he finds it therapeutic to talk about Lisa’s situation. “It makes me feel like you care about it, for one thing,â€� Stewart says. “That’s a good feeling. You find that when you’re discussing it, you’re not thinking about the future, you kind of talk about what you already know. “It kind of keeps me a little bit grounded in the present.â€� Like Lisa, Jennifer had chemo, six rounds in her case, once every three weeks. Ryan and her friend, Jennifer Hill, who came up from San Antonio, went to every treatment. They weren’t just there for moral support, though – the two had a mission. So that she wouldn’t lose her long dark hair, Jennifer opted to use cold caps to try to cool the scalp during the chemotherapy. It wasn’t that she was vain. She was worried about Mason. “Mason got a little upset thinking about it,â€� Ryan says. “She did the hair preservation for him. So, that was pretty special.â€� The caps are housed in dry ice and cooled to between minus-15 to minus-40 degrees below zero, measured by an infrared thermometer. The caps have to be handled with gloves and changed every 30 minutes – for eight hours straight. That’s where Ryan and Hill came in. “They had to knead them with their hands to make sure all the gel was evenly distributed, and get them to the right temperature,â€� Jennifer says. “Then they’d have a timer and they’d take that one off and put the new one on.â€� It worked. With the exception of a few bald spots under her hair, Jennifer says you’d never know she was a breast cancer survivor. Most importantly, Mason was reassured. No matter how weak or nauseous Jennifer felt while undergoing the chemo or radiation, she got up and got dressed every day. She even made sure she put makeup on. “If you can, you want to try and be as normal as possible for your kids,â€� she said. “You don’t want them to feel like you’re sick. It’s just a difficult subject for a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old to grasp. “My son wanted very concrete answers. He wanted it to be black and white, not gray, and so when we couldn’t give him an exact reason as to why I had it, it was very hard for him.â€� Ryan was amazed at his wife’s strength. “She did more things than I could imagine her doing,â€� he says. And he was glad he could be there to reassure the kids. “In case they had questions, we were there to talk about it together,â€� he adds. “Of course, their fears were the worst. Obviously, Mason’s was. But the main thing is just letting them know nothing is going to happen. “Don’t think the worst because it’s going to be OK.â€� Last fall, Jennifer was able to go with Ryan and their families to see him inducted into the Texas A&M Sports Hall of Fame. She also took a three-day trip to New York City after Christmas and before her final chemo treatment on January 3. “It was kind of like a let’s celebrate that we’re through this one step,â€� Jennifer says. “(It was) a lot of walking, but I kept up with it.â€� When Stewart didn’t qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs last year, he and Lisa went to Switzerland on a busman’s holiday of sorts when he played in a European Tour event. “And I could not believe that in the middle of chemo, I’m getting to go to Switzerland and see this beautiful, just breathtaking place,â€� Lisa said. “And meet these kind, wonderful people that we got to meet and it was such a blessing.â€� Stewart and Ryan played together at the CareerBuilder Challenge and picked each other’s brains about life with cancer. Their wives have been in contact, too, texting prayers and positive thoughts. “I think they’ve been great for each other,â€� Ryan said. And at times, the support the couples have felt from friends on the PGA TOUR has been overwhelming. Flowers, cards, texts and phone calls have helped make the journey easier. Meagan Laird, Martin’s wife, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, even arranged dinners for the Palmer’s meal train. “She’s doing all this from out of town,â€� Jennifer says. “Isn’t that crazy?â€� Zach Johnson’s wife, Kim, had a quilt made with a small pocket in the back where friends of Stewart and Lisa left spiritual messages. Lisa took the quilt with her to PET scans and was able to “know that these people have prayed for me.â€� And when Lisa went out to Memphis, her first tournament since being diagnosed, the PGA TOUR Wives Association had a special surprise at their annual event at the St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The kids at the hospital had made cards and posters for her. “I just couldn’t imagine why these children, there are having to suffer, they’re pouring out love on me,â€� Lisa says. “And it was such a gift and it was such an encouragement to know how strong these children were. “It gave me a lot of encouragement that I can do this, too.â€� There has been good news of late. Jennifer’s latest mammogram was clear, Ryan reported, and her treatments, which included radiation, will be done in August. Stewart wrote this in his blog on May 8: Amen! PET scan results looked good again today, basically unchanged from the past two, from November and February. Lisa is now in what the doctor called “sustained remission.â€� Cink and Palmer are in the field this week at Colonial. After an emotionally draining year for both men, their wives and their families, a few hours on the golf course each day now offers a chance to step back into their old lives. Their thoughts, however, will never stray far from Lisa and Jennifer and the battle against the toughest of foes.

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