Ryder Cup: Pairings, tee times, Day 2

SAVANNAH, Ga. – In one sense “Big Mike” Visacki isn’t so big anymore. Visacki, who will be one of 149 players teeing it up at the final stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament starting Thursday at The Landings Club, is working out and eating better. He’s down around 25 pounds since March, when he Monday qualified into the Valspar Championship and broke down in tears while calling to tell his father. A viral video of that moment introduced his story to fans, some of whom reached out via Venmo and other means to support the mini-tour grinder. Chief among his new benefactors is Justin Thomas, who wrote him a check to help him keep chasing the dream. Which is why, in another sense, Visacki is bigger than ever. As part of his preparation for final stage, which will determine the priority ranking for the start of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season, Visacki and Thomas played Michael Jordan’s exclusive Grove XXIII club last Friday. From Sarasota, Florida, where he lives, Visacki drove three hours to Hobe Sound, where upon piling out of the car he found himself 30 yards from Jordan himself. Then he shot 5 under to clip Thomas by two. “He had one bad hole, but he birdied the last four,” Visacki said of Thomas during an interview at The Landings, where his dad, Mike, Sr., will be his caddie for final stage. (Top 40 and ties are guaranteed entry into the first eight events of the upcoming Korn Ferry Tour season.) “It’s not how you start,” he added. “It’s how you finish.” Rickie Fowler joined them on the 12th hole. Mike, Sr., whose home in Yugoslavia was made of mud and hay, and who came to New York with his parents when he was 14, tagged along, too. He’s more of a soccer fan – he started playing golf at 42 and was taught by a Hungarian trapeze performer – but relished talking to Thomas’ father, also Mike, whom he calls, “A really great guy.” Big Mike’s day with the stars was just the latest example of how much things have changed for him. It also opened Thomas’ eyes. “I was really impressed,” Thomas said from Mexico, where he’s playing the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. “He drives the ball really well, hits his irons really solid. You can tell he’s the kind of guy to where if his wedges and chipping and putting are good, then he’s got a chance to really have a good career, professional career. “I’m obviously pulling for him,” Thomas continued. “I went through Q-School, I went through all that, it’s very stressful and it’s pressure-filled.” Doing the work After missing the cut at the Valspar and Charles Schwab Challenge, which he played on a sponsor’s exemption given by Schwab himself, Visacki went home and regrouped. His two PGA TOUR starts had made him semi-famous, but now he began to quietly remake himself with the cameras off. In addition to his new private benefactors, he found an ally in GolfTec, which provides custom club-fitting and instruction nationwide and now sponsors him. Meanwhile, nudged by his swing coach and one of his new private backers, he got serious about his weight. He looks different now; you can see it in his face. Just as importantly, he took his silver 2010 Honda Accord (211,000 miles) on a barnstorming tour that included state opens and other small tournaments, all funded by Thomas and others. “In six or seven weeks I put on 6,500 miles,” Visacki said. His itinerary was like that old Johnny Cash song, I’ve Been Everywhere: Sarasota, St. Louis, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado. The most significant moment: his victory at the Waterloo (Iowa) Open in July, worth $50,000. It was his biggest payday as a professional, and he texted Thomas the good news. “I just wanted to say thanks for all he’d done, allowing me to chase state opens where before I wouldn’t have able to,” Visacki said. “He gave me the chance that led to my biggest win.” Thomas, who calls Visacki a fighter, was delighted, telling him to keep going and use it as a stepping-stone. “The hard part about this game is that things don’t happen just because you think they should,” he said. Hard work and a cool backstory go only so far. “Golf doesn’t really care,” Thomas added. “Sports, that’s not how it works. It might work out in the end if you do play well.” Visacki continues to do his part. Regarding his other benefactors, he said, “They just looked me up and found me. Someone from Boston. A gentleman from Texas. I was at the golf course when I got a Venmo for 2,500 bucks; I didn’t even know who it was. I reached out on Venmo and said, ‘Do you mind if you send me your number? I want to get in contact with you.’ “We ended up talking,” he continued, “and he felt my story and he ended up sending me some more. It helped me get rid of my credit card debt.” Someone else offered to pay his membership fees at the Founders Golf Club in Sarasota. The Big Mike caravan was gaining passengers and picking up speed, and continues to do so today. Seizing the moment His barnstorming tour might not have meant quite so much had Visacki not made it through KFT Q-School’s perilous second stage two weeks ago at South Florida’s Plantation Preserve. Get through second stage and you’ve got a place to play; wash out and you’re back to the fringes. On the bubble at second stage two years ago, Visacki lost his ball in a tree on his second-to-last hole and made double bogey, then missed a birdie putt on 18 to miss by one agonizing shot. History threatened to repeat itself after Visacki shot a nervous 4-over front nine on the final day at Plantation Preserve. Tyler Beasley, a GolfTec instructor who coaches Visacki and was his caddie at first and second stage, got in his man’s ear on the long walk to the 10th tee. “He basically wasn’t turning through the ball like he needs to,” said Beasley, a former long-drive competitor. “And there’d been a rain delay, and he doubled nine, but he was focused and resilient. It was a long walk to the back nine. We walked right by his car. We got to 10 and did a fist bump and I said, ‘You can do this. Let’s go play the best nine holes of our life.’” Visacki eagled the 10th hole. He birdied 11 and 12. After three pars he birdied again at 16. He found the water on his second shot at the par-5 18th but got up and down from 160 yards, holing a putt from 12 feet to save a crucial par. It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish. On another FaceTime call with his dad, he wasn’t sure if he’d done enough. When it became official that he had, on the number without a shot to spare, Visacki got a congratulatory call he won’t soon forget. “It was so funny,” he said. “We were having a quick bite to eat before going home, and Tyler said, ‘Has J.T. reached out?’ I said, ‘No, not yet.’ And he called 30 seconds later, almost like he’d heard me. The first thing he said was, ‘You don’t like to make it easy on yourself, do you, bud?’ [Laughs] I was like, ‘No, I like to give people a show.’ [Laughs] You know, going 4 over on the front, 5 under on the back. It definitely made it interesting. “It felt good, after what happened two years ago,” he continued. “This time it was the easiest putt I had had all day, right edge. I backed my caddie off from over-reading it, and poured it in. I feel like maybe it wasn’t my time back then, and now it is.” He’s an overnight success, years in the making. Credit Beasley. (Visacki had been coached by his dad.) Credit his improved diet and stamina and mobility. The catalyst, though, was that viral video at the Valspar. Letting his guard down lifted him up in ways he couldn’t have predicted. The old Honda is still around, but Visacki has bought himself another ride. It’s a 2019 Ford GT Mustang, low mileage. “I call it midnight blue,” he said. “I got a great deal on it.” The trunk easily fits his slim Sun Mountain carry bag. As for his bulkier staff bag, that might be tougher. “I’m waiting on a bag from Titleist to come,” he said, “but they were a little backordered.” A little backordered. Crisscrossing the country, playing just to cover expenses and for the chance to keep going, Visacki once could have said the same about his career. But after a wild eight months he’s on the verge of a full Korn Ferry Tour season and his best chance at achieving his dream: “Getting that PGA TOUR card so I can play with J.T. in final rounds,” he said. He’ll have a lot of people pulling for him.

Click here to read the full article…

Scott Harrington was in kindergarten when he started playing the piano. Either the keyboards or the band, it was his choice - his parents just wanted him and his brother Adam to broaden their horizons and get involved in music of some kind. So, for the next 11 years, Harrington would get up early and practice the piano for an hour or so before he went to school. That way, he'd still be free to head to the golf course or the gym when the final bell sounded each afternoon. "It’s something for sure I’d love my future kids to do," Harrington says. "I think it teaches you so much, especially at such a young age, about patience and working towards a goal. I mean, it would take months to perfect a piece." Harrington and his brother Adam took piano lessons from one of the best teachers in Oregon, the kind of instructor who nurtured students who went to Julliard. He remembers performing holiday concerts each year at a local department store, playing duets and four-handed piano pieces. "That was probably the coolest memory I have from doing it, because that was really fun," Harrington says. "Everybody was packed in this mall, and people stop, and everybody would watch a bunch of kids who are playing this insanely good Christmas music." Harrington and his brother competed, too, playing Beethoven and Bach and Chopin with hundreds of other aspiring pianists. "I was always relieved when the competitions were over," Harrington recalls. "I’d be so nervous for those things, but I would always do well. But I couldn’t quite hang with the people who are now doing it for a living. Those kids had talent and work ethic. … They would practice five, six hours a day. "It’s kind of the way I was with golf. That was their passion." Of course, those piano prodigies couldn't hang with Harrington on the golf course. The PGA TOUR rookie, who earned a scholarship to Northwestern, is ranked 94th in the FedExCup and playing in THE NORTHERN TRUST this week. Harrington sees the hard work and patience needed to learn a piece of music as similar to the discipline and dedication required to play golf at the highest level. He was never the kind of musician who could sit down and just jam. He was analytical, memorizing the piece and then performing it, just as he did while perfecting shots on the golf course. "No question," Harrington said. "We’re so rarely truly happy out here. Even when we play well, you know you can do better. There’s always something you want to improve on, and you have to be so patient. And when you go through a down stretch out here, maybe you’re not playing very well, and you kind of have to dig it out the dirt a little bit and just grind your way out. There’s no other way to do it. "And piano, I think, man it is frustrating. When you’re first learning a piece, I mean, you are starting at nothing, and just gradually improving week by week on a piece and grinding it to perfection. Because in piano, you truly are working towards perfection, where you don’t screw anything up. And there are so many little intricacies of pieces that there’s no doubt in my mind that it taught me a lot. … "There’s no question. You can’t really be halfway in on the keyboard, on piano, and kind of accomplish your goal. … It would help in a number of things, whether it’s in school or anything, any work of life that you go into. But yeah, golf for sure. There’s a lot of parallels." Harrington got the OK from his parents, who both played golf collegiately, to step back from the piano after his junior year in high school as the recruiting process ramped up. There were tournaments to play and college visits to take, and he knew he wouldn't be able to give music the attention his teacher required. "I was kind of relieved when I stopped, because I had a lot on my plate and things in golf was progressing really well, and I could put more time into that," Harrington recalls. "But I have nothing but good memories." Harrington doesn't have a piano in his home in Scottsdale. But when he visits his parents in Oregon, he'll occasionally sit down at theirs, although the 39-year-old says it can be frustrating because his skills have deteriorated. Maybe someday, though, he'll have time to devote to music again. "There's so much to learn from playing the piano in terms of responsibility and hard work and being patient and just seeing something through to fruition," Harrington says. "… Looking back, it’s something I’m really glad I did, an experience that I’ll certainly cherish.

Click here to read the full article…

Si Woo Kim learned the bad news shortly after becoming the youngest winner of THE PLAYERS Championship: no one has ever gone back-to-back at TPC Sawgrass. The strongest field in golf and the penal Stadium Course make it tough to win the event more than once. Kim’s game is trending in the right direction after enlisting two of the game’s top coaches, though. He began working with Josh Gregory in February and Andrew Getson a month later.  They helped Kim have success at two other Pete Dye courses, Harbour Town Golf Links and Austin Country Club. Now Kim’s focus is on Dye’s groundbreaking design in northeast Florida. “I’ve noticed a lot of champions that come back don’t play well,â€� Kim, 22, said. “I would like to change that.â€� Gregory, who also coaches Masters champion Patrick Reed, has focused on Kim’s short game and serves as his “performance coachâ€�, helping him devise training regimens that bring out his best. Getson, the coach of 2007 PLAYERS champion Phil Mickelson, has helped Kim with his full swing. “After winning THE PLAYERS last year, I think I set a high expectation for myself, which kind of hindered me for the rest of the season and into this year,â€� said Kim, who also won the 2017 Wyndham Championship. The self-imposed pressure showed in his early-season results. He was 27 over par in his first 12 rounds of 2017-18. Even with a third-place finish in the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, he was 59th in the FedExCup after missing the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Things started to turn around in his next start. Kim made the Round of 16 at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and finished T24 at the Masters. Then he was runner-up at the RBC Heritage. Since Bay Hill, Kim has leapt 31 positions in the FedExCup. Getson, who prefers to keep his instruction simple, said most of their work has focused on Kim’s posture at address. “He was twisted up like a pretzel,â€� Getson said. “His weight was a little on his left side, his shoulders were a little open. We got him into a more athletic position.â€� When Kim was misaligned, he used his hands to take the club back. The club got inside too quickly and his weight stayed on his left side. That caused his club to get too steep on the downswing. Getting into the proper address position has helped him rotate properly throughout the swing. They’ve also worked to keep his chin up so that it doesn’t inhibit his shoulder turn. Now Kim is taking the clubhead back on the proper path and shifting to his right side. “Once he gets set up correctly, he turns beautifully,â€� Getson said. “He’s extremely talented. When I ask him to do something, he does it within two swings.â€� Kim ranks 23rd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+0.59) after ranking second (+1.36) in that statistic at last year’s PLAYERS. The short game also was key to Kim’s PLAYERS win. He was third in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green (+1.23) at TPC Sawgrass; he ranks 32nd (+0.29) in that statistic this season. Gregory has improved Kim’s putting and helped him develop a wider array of short-game shots. They’ve done it through technical changes and drills. Kim made only one bogey in THE PLAYERS’ last two rounds despite hitting just 19 of 36 greens in regulation. He needed just 49 putts in the final two rounds. This season, Kim ranks 201st in Strokes Gained: Putting despite a recent improvement. He lost strokes in the first six events where the statistic was measured, from The RSM Classic to the Genesis Open. Kim has gained strokes in three of his last five stroke-play starts. His putter cost him down the stretch at the RBC Heritage, but he still gained strokes on the greens that week. He was second-worst on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting when he arrived at Harbour Town. The problem? Kim’s was lifting his left shoulder through impact. “He’d lift that shoulder and that would keep the face open,â€� Gregory said. Gregory also changed Kim’s swing on short-game shots. “His face was too shut on the backswing and he was cutting across the ball. Now the face is more open and he feels like he’s hitting a bit more of a draw,â€� Gregory said. “The swing is a little more rounded. We’re trying to give him more shots around the green, especially some higher, softer ones.â€� Gregory also designs drills that make it easier for his players to take their improvements onto the course. For example, Gregory will have Kim hit three chip shots to the same flag. Each shot must have a different trajectory, though. “You need three short-game shots: the low, drawing, running shot, the medium spinner and the high, soft shot,â€� Gregory said. “They’re all done with the same swing. It’s just about changing the clubface.â€� Kim also will chip or putt to one hole but move 10 feet farther back each time. “The more you can randomize practice, the easier it is to transfer to the course,â€� Gregory said. He also has Kim place five balls around a hole on the putting green. Instead of placing the balls in a circle, Gregory will put each ball at a different distance ranging from 4-12 feet. This forces Kim to hit putts with different breaks from different distances. Kim was leaving too many of his putts from 8-15 feet short and on the low side. That was the problem down the stretch at RBC Heritage, where he missed several short putts to fall into a playoff with Satoshi Kodaira. Now Kim can combine these physical improvements with what Getson considers his strongest attribute. “His mind is his biggest asset. He’s not scared,â€� Getson said. “He’s not scared to stand there and hit the shot he needs to hit. TPC Sawgrass requires you to produce the right shot at the right time, and he can do that.â€� Kim has put in the work. Now it’s time to see if he can make history.

Click here to read the full article…