Shutdown is killing Trump’s golf game

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Cole Hammer would have been happy with pars in the cold and wind on Sea Island. He wound up with more birdies than he imagined Thursday for an 8-under 64 and the low score to par after one round of The RSM Classic. “It was really cool looking at the top (of the leaderboard) and seeing my last name there,” Hammer said. Cool applied more literally to the field, with temperatures in the 50s and feeling even colder with the wind off the ocean. This was a day for wool caps, layers of long sleeves and mittens. As usual at this tournament, that didn’t stop the low scoring. Hammer, who graduated from Texas in May, shared the low score with another Longhorn alum, Beau Hossler, whose 6-under 64 came at the host Seaside course, which played about two shots more difficult to par. “He’s making me look average,” Hossler said when he finished his round and Hammer already was 8 under with three holes to play. Hammer’s big run ended with a bad swing that sent him into the trees right of the par-5 eighth fairway. He took a penalty drop and wound up with a bogey. Callum Tarren of England also had a 64 at Seaside, while Ben Griffin had a 7-under 65 on the Plantation course. Griffin had a great chance at winning in Bermuda three weeks ago until a rough back nine. In the final official PGA TOUR event of 2022, he might get another. For Hammer, a good start was just what he needed. He has been on big stages before, qualifying for the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay as a 15-year-old. He missed the cut. He did fine in a few Korn Ferry Tour starts after getting out of Texas. The PGA TOUR was another matter, as Hammer found himself trying too hard and getting too impatient. The result was six consecutive missed cuts. He thought he was headed for another in the Cadence Bank Houston Open last week, his home tournament, when he opened with a 74. “I missed my first six in a row. It was a pretty dark period,” Hammer said. “I felt like my game was close enough. I was just putting so much pressure on myself early in the tournament. I did it in Houston again, and then came out with a 65 to make the cut. “That really spiked my confidence.” It carried over to The RSM Classic, where Hammer received a sponsor exemption. He only has conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour, so a good week could go a long way. Otherwise, it’s Monday qualifying or writing for sponsor exemptions. “Hopefully, my letter-writing skills will transfer over from my communications degree that I just finished up in May,” he said. For now, he wants to see what he can do over the next three days. Hossler is another player who first made himself known as a teenager in the U.S. Open. That was 10 years ago at Olympic Club, where at 17 he was within four shots of the lead going into the final round. He shot 76 on the last day, and didn’t even get low amateur. That went to another Texas teenager — Jordan Spieth. Hossler is now starting his sixth PGA TOUR season and still looking for his first win. The closest he came was losing to Ian Poulter in a playoff at the Houston Open as a rookie. Even more impressive than his 64 at Seaside in the cold and wind was keeping bogeys off his card, four times scrambling for pars. “It’s a tough course even with no wind and decent temperature,” Hossler said. “To shoot the number I did in these conditions was excellent.” Webb Simpson had a hole-in-one from 219 yards with a 4-hybrid at Plantation on his way to a 5-under 67. Harris English opened with a 4-under 68 at Plantation, a good start to an important week. English missed five months because of hip surgery. He is No. 52 in the world, and a big week could help secure top 50 by the end of the year for a Masters invitation.

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With one more win, Tiger Woods will tie Sam Snead for most career PGA TOUR victories at 82. Each time Tiger tees it up, we’ll take a look at his chances for that particular week. Here’s a CHASING 82 preview entering this week’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush. RECENT FORM Difficult to say what his form is, given the fact that his last competitive start was the U.S. Open. From that final round to Thursday’s first round at Royal Portrush, 32 days will have passed. And in the 95 days since winning the Masters in mid-April, he has played just 10 competitive rounds – a missed cut at the PGA Championship, a T-9 at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, and a T-21 at the U.S. Open. NBA players could learn a lesson from Woods about load management. But that’s not to say Woods has avoided preparing for the Open. Earlier this month, Nike posted a video in which Woods discusses waking up at 1 a.m. ET in order to prep for the time change for the Open, which is five hours ahead. “If you want to succeed, if you want to get better, if you want to win, if you want to accomplish your goals, it all starts with getting up early in the morning,â€� Woods explained in the video. Although Woods has never played a competitive event in Northern Ireland, he has played practice rounds there while prepping for previous Opens. But this will be the first time he’s seen Royal Portrush. “I’ve only played (Royal) County Down, I’ve never been up to Portrush and I’m looking forward to getting up there and taking a look at the golf course and trying to figure it out,” Woods said. “I’ll get there early and do a little bit of homework – see if the golf course is going to be dry, fast or not. “Hopefully I’ll get practice rounds with different winds to try and get a feel for the golf course.â€� TOURNAMENT HISTORY Woods is making his 21st start in the Open Championship and has won three times: 2000 – At St. Andrews, Woods won with a final score of 19 under, eight strokes ahead of Thomas Bjorn and Ernie Els. The 19 under was the lowest score, in relation to par, of any major winner (eventually surpassed by Jason Day at 21 under at the 2015 PGA Championship). Woods’ win also completed the career Grand Slam. “It may be years before I fully appreciate it, but I’m inclined to believe that winning the Open at the Home of Golf is the ultimate achievement in the sport,â€� Woods said. 2005 – At St. Andrews, Woods won by five strokes over Colin Montgomerie, leading wire to wire. It was the 10th major win of his career. “When I first started playing the Tour, I didn’t think I’d have this many majors before the age of 30,â€� said the then-29-year-old Woods. “ There’s no way. No one ever has.â€�  2006 – At Royal Liverpool, Woods won by two strokes over Chris DiMarco, an emotional victory as it was his first major win after the death of his father Earl two months earlier. “To win your first tournament after my father had passed away, and for it to be a major championship, it makes it that much more special,â€� Woods said. “And mom was watching, I’m sure she was bawling her eyes out.â€� It was the first time a player had won consecutive Opens since Tom Watson in 1982-83. Since his last win, Woods’ best finish was a T-3 at Royal Lytham in 2012. Last year at Carnoustie, he was in contention midway through the final round until a double bogey-bogey stretch on his back nine, eventually finishing T-6. TEE TIMES Tee times for the Open can be found here.

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The game has changed. Monday’s announcement may be the most important acknowledgement yet. For the first time, players can earn status on PGA TOUR-sanctioned circuits based on their performance in amateur events. They can do so through PGA TOUR University, which will reward the top college seniors with status on the Korn Ferry Tour and the TOUR’s other international circuits (Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, PGA TOUR China Series). RELATED: PGA TOUR U: How it works Before Monday, a player’s amateur resume was rendered moot the moment he turned pro. Sure, winning a U.S. Amateur or NCAA Championship may garner a few extra sponsor exemptions or allow a player to bypass one of Q-School’s many stages, but that was about it. Professionals were always slow to recognize amateur accomplishments because playing for money is a whole new ballgame. Some players shine when the stakes are highest. Others wilt when they need to make a putt to pay their mortgage. Pros used to be dismissive of schoolboy golf, where chemistry midterms are a player’s biggest concern and the difference between one stroke is often of little consequence. No one remembers if you finished sixth or seventh in the Southwestern Intercollegiate five years ago. College players can return to the comfort of campus after a poor showing. Contrast that to pro golf, where a missed 6-footer may be the margin by which you lose your card. A missed cut stings more when you have mouths to feed. That’s why even Tiger Woods was met with skepticism when he turned pro. Grizzled veterans, hardened by years of lip-outs and tough losses, questioned whether he could live up to the hype that followed his U.S. Amateur three-peat. He did, of course, and the game would never be the same. Technology has only quickened players’ transition to the pro game. Now, no one can deny that today’s college players are more prepared than ever to thrive in the pro game. “There’s hardly any need for an apprenticeship anymore. They hit the ground like veterans,� Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee said earlier this year. “I think having (a smartphone) is like having Butch Harmon or Harvey Penick in your pocket. You have access to the best teaching and a library of video.� That’s right. That oversized iPhone is for more than posting TikToks. Today’s players have grown up with immediate access to the best swing theories out there. Throw in the use of TrackMan to make sure players’ clubs are optimized and their distances are dialed in, and it’s no surprise that young players are having so much early success. ShotLink and Strokes Gained allow players to better understand their games and how to approach courses they’ve never seen before. “What you had to figure out on your own took so much longer,� said 34-year-old Webb Simpson, once a top-ranked amateur and member of the vaunted 2007 Walker Cup team. “Now we have so much at our fingertips on our phone or on TrackMan. That’s one of the main reasons guys are improving a lot faster and they come out here and they’re ready to win. They understand their games more than I did even out of college.� Nothing illustrates college players’ increasing readiness to compete than the fact that PGA TOUR University was approved by the very men these new pros will be playing against. Pros would rather leave home without their putter than give up spots in tournament fields. And they wouldn’t make the path to a PGA TOUR card easier than the one they had to trod unless they knew that this new generation was deserving. The numbers speak for themselves, especially after last year’s unprecedented performance by the triumvirate of Matthew Wolff, Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland. No one can recall a trio of players in the modern era who won so quickly after turning pro. Add in Sungjae Im and Joaquin Niemann and we’ve had five players under the age of 23 win on TOUR since July. That’s one more than we had from 1985 to 2000. Only Morikawa would have been eligible for PGA TOUR University, and none of them would have needed the assistance that it offers. But they prove that today’s young players are up to the challenge. Here’s more proof: Of the nine members of the 2017 U.S. Walker Cup team who turned pro, six had a PGA TOUR card within two years of their dominant victory at Los Angeles Country Club. And two members of that team, Cameron Champ and Morikawa, are already TOUR winners. PGA TOUR University creates a pipeline to the pro game. Starting in 2021, the top five players on the PGA TOUR University rankings after the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship will earn Korn Ferry Tour status for the remainder of the regular season. This will give them starts into all open events. From there, they’ll try to play their way into the Korn Ferry Tour Finals and play for one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards up for grabs. Now a good summer means a college star can be on the PGA TOUR in a matter of months. And if he can’t make it to the big TOUR, his high standing on the PGA TOUR University Rankings will earn him an exemption straight into the final stage of Q-School, guaranteeing him Korn Ferry Tour status for the following season. Nos. 6-15 on the PGA TOUR University rankings can choose to take status on either the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica or PGA TOUR China. Players must spend four years at a Division I university to be eligible for the benefits. This will encourage them to get an education, and help them develop the physical, emotional and mental skills necessary for the pro game. In today’s data-driven society, the words “sample size� are bandied about too often, but that’s the biggest benefit of PGA TOUR University. It gives the best college players more opportunities to prove themselves. Before PGA TOUR University, new pros cobbled together a schedule with sponsor exemptions and Monday qualifiers. Invitations into PGA TOUR events are always on short supply and often come at the last minute. The 18-hole Monday qualifiers offer little chance of success. So, unless a player caught lightning in a bottle, he was destined for Q-School, where one bad week would leave him empty-handed for an entire year. Take the case of Vanderbilt’s Will Gordon, the 2019 SEC Player of the Year. You can be forgiven if you don’t recognize the name. It’s a fairly standard one, the type that would return its fair share of listings in the phone book. It doesn’t quite leap off the page like the howl-inducing surname of Wolff or have the punchy pronunciation of Morikawa or even the Nordic mystique of Hovland. But Gordon has plenty of game. Top-25s in half his starts during this interrupted PGA TOUR season prove that. He turned pro last year, too, but there are only so many sponsor exemptions to go around. With 2019’s Big Three taking up most of them, he headed north of the border last year to play PGA TOUR Canada. He shot a 60 in his second event, started another one with back-to-back 64s and fired a 61 two weeks later. He finished 21st on the Mackenzie Tour’s Order of Merit, good for an exemption into Q-School’s second stage. That’s where, like so many young players, he hit a speed bump. There was no dramatic flame-out, one that would add to that tournament’s long and gory lore. Gordon broke par in all four rounds. He shot 8 under par. His scores just happened to be two strokes too high. Without Korn Ferry Tour status, Gordon has made just a half-dozen PGA TOUR starts via sponsor exemptions, Monday qualifiers and some strong play. He finished 10th at The RSM Classic. He tied Morikawa and Wolff for 21st place in the star-studded field that gathers annually at the Farmers Insurance Open. Then he earned his place in the Puerto Rico Open the hard way, making it through the Monday qualifier before finishing 20th. But now, he’s a man with no tour. And with the professional golf world thrown into flux, he doesn’t know where his next start will be. He would’ve had Korn Ferry Tour status if PGA TOUR University had been in place. It will also be helpful for the Class of 2021, which includes many players who returned to campus for a fifth season after coronavirus canceled the NCAA Championship. PGA TOUR University will help bring some security as a backlog of talented players turn pro next year. It’s about time. The game has been changed forever.

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