Tiger awarded Medal of Freedom at White House

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – The last time Russell Knox came to Carnoustie for an Open Championship, he was a teenaged fan trying to get a souvenir from one of the game’s best players. Now he will play alongside Tiger Woods just hours from his boyhood home. Knox was 14 years old when he attended the 1999 Open with boyhood friend Duncan McRae. They were sitting behind Carnoustie’s sixth green when Sergio Garcia’s caddie rolled a ball their way. “We wrestled and Duncan got the ball,� Knox said. “I was kind of annoyed.� Now, as the leading hope of the home country, Knox has earned a tee time with Tiger (and Hideki Matsuyama) at Carnoustie. It will be Knox’s first time playing with Woods. “Getting to play with (Tiger), that was a huge goal of mine in my career,� Knox said. “To get to play with him at a major, an Open, in Scotland, is kind of a pinch yourself moment.� Less than three weeks ago, Knox didn’t even have a spot in The Open. The undersized Scotsman has regained the form that made him a top-20 player in a game dominated by power, though. He qualified for the U.S. Open and finished T12 at Shinnecock Hills. He followed with a second-place finish in the French Open, then won the Irish Open with a pair of 40-foot putts. It was his first victory in more than two years. He also contended at last week’s Scottish Open – he started Sunday two shots off the lead – before fading with a final-round 75. “He’s never been in better form heading into The Open,� said his sister, Diane, who is working this week for BBC Radio. A firm and fast Carnoustie could benefit Knox, who is one of the TOUR’s shortest, but straightest, hitters. He ranks 144th in driving distance but 23rd in driving accuracy and sixth in greens hit. Carnoustie has been kind to its countrymen, as well. Two of the last three Scottish-born winners of The Open hoisted the Claret Jug at Carnoustie. Paul Lawrie, who won the 1999 Open, is the last Scot to win golf’s oldest championship. “It’s a hard links course. It takes experience playing links golf to win here,� Knox said. “Padraig (Harrington, who won here in 2007) has played a ton of links. Paul Lawrie played a ton of links. “If you’ve won this tournament here, you really know how to play links golf. There’s a lot of angles off the tee, angles coming into the green. It is going to take a lot of experience here. There won’t be someone who comes out of the woodwork who wins here.� Knox’s Irish Open win came on a links course, Ballyliffin. Returning to the slower greens that he grew up on has helped Knox, who had been struggling with his putting. “Once you start seeing them go in, you can hole putts. Everything kind of snowballed. It’s not like everything changed or I found a magic formula,� he said. “I have been this good before.� Knox won the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions and Travelers Championship in the 2015-16 season to finish 10th in the FedExCup and crack the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking.  He was 30 years old, and making his 93rd TOUR start, when he won his first event. His second win came just 17 starts later. That rapid ascension to the game’s elite level led to a common pratfall for a player whose career has been defined by slow and steady progress. “I tried to get better too quickly,� he said. “I think I got to the point where I was really close to being right where I wanted to be, top-10 in the world, and I just pushed too hard and I got worse. “I worked hard to get back to where I am now, so it’s nice to get rewarded with a win.� And a tee time with Woods.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – After signing for a 5-under 66 in the final round of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship, Justin Suh made a beeline for the 18th green at The Ohio State University GC (Scarlet). Suh’s longtime friend Joseph Bramlett was finishing up a final-round 68 for a T6 finish in central Ohio, plenty to secure a PGA TOUR return via the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Suh is nine years younger than Bramlett, but the two met when Suh was a sixth grader in the San Jose metroplex and Bramlett was a college student at Stanford. Both grew up in the region and practiced regularly at San Jose Country Club. Suh, 25, had cemented his first TOUR card via the Regular Season Points List. After finishing outside the top 150 on the FedExCup, Bramlett needed to show out in the Finals to cement a TOUR return and join Suh for his rookie season. With back-to-back top-20s to begin the Finals, Bramlett did just that, marking the third consecutive year he will earn a TOUR card via The Finals 25. Suh was there to share the moment. He provided a heartfelt hug and shoulder massage and dialed up a friend for a congratulatory message as Bramlett exited the 18th green and headed to sign his card and make it official. “It will be nice to have a big brother as a practice partner,” reflected Suh upon learning that Bramlett was officially #TOURBound. “It will be a fun year. We played a bunch of practice rounds when he first came out of college; I’m just happy for him that he got his card back, and we’ll be traveling together and playing a lot of practice rounds.” These moments provide the heartbeat of the Korn Ferry Tour, friends being there for each other as they achieve their dreams. Suh knows how hard Bramlett has worked to ensure that he can continue to compete at golf’s highest level, after years of injury and uncertainty where Bramlett wasn’t sure if he could ever play competitive golf again, let alone on the PGA TOUR. After signing his scorecard Sunday in central Ohio, Bramlett grew reflective and emotional. He thought of what it means to compete on TOUR, as well as the challenges of constantly honing all aspects of the game. In recent years, Bramlett said he perhaps spent too much time on his long game, at the expense of chipping practice. He has re-emphasized the short game in recent months, implementing a series of intentional drills that foster a competitive streak. Throughout the week at the Scarlet Course, Bramlett’s short game was on point, particularly in a final-round 68 where he rebounded from a double bogey at No. 4 and didn’t record a score worse than par from then on. Now the 34-year-old is set for his fifth TOUR season, beginning at next month’s Fortinet Championship in California – not far from where he and Suh grew up, honed their games and commenced the pursuit of their professional golf dreams. “That’s Q-School on steroids,” Bramlett described the Finals. “It’s three weeks of Q-School. Last week was incredibly stressful, this week’s incredibly stressful and next week’s going to be the same. I’m very fortunate that I at least know where I’ll be heading next year. “That’s the part of this job, nothing’s guaranteed. That’s the beauty of sport and beauty of competition and what makes the PGA TOUR so great, is that you have to back it up each and every week. This year I didn’t do a great job of that. I competed, I gave it everything I have, but my results just didn’t get me far enough. “It’s humbling, especially going from fully exempt this year in my own category to not even having (conditional) 126-to-150 category next year and basically just having Korn Ferry Tour status. Very humbling, but that’s the beauty of what we do … Never felt more alive than I do when I’m coming down the stretch with a lot on the line. You know, it’s a beautiful place to be, it’s what we train for. It’s scary, it’s stressful, you never know what’s going to happen, but see it through.” Two players – Will Gordon and Philip Knowles – crossed the fail-safe threshold to earn a TOUR card via The Finals 25 at last week’s Finals-opening Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. The Korn Ferry Tour utilized a fail-safe threshold of 220 points to declare #TOURBound status after Boise. Based on a large contingent of players from The 25 playing well in Columbus, the Korn Ferry Tour has moved the threshold to 210 points at the conclusion of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. In addition to Bramlett, players to secure a spot in The Finals 25 at The Ohio State University GC (Scarlet) included winner David Lingmerth, Michael Gligic, Austin Cook, Dean Burmester and Henrik Norlander. Here’s a capsule look at the six players who cemented spots in The Finals 25 this week in central Ohio. David Lingmerth Age: 35 Hometown: Tranas, Sweden College: University of Arkansas Nationwide Children’s result: Win The Finals 25 rank: No. 2 (1,000 points) PGA TOUR starts: 198 PGA TOUR cuts made: 113 Best PGA TOUR finish: Win, 2015 Memorial Tournament presented by Workday Lingmerth played the 2021-22 TOUR season in the Past Champion category, making just 14 TOUR starts in addition to four Korn Ferry Tour starts before the Finals. He finished No. 193 on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to earn a Finals berth, and he took advantage. The Sweden native had battled various doubts and injuries in recent years – he even dealt with lower back pain in recent weeks – and was without a TOUR-sanctioned top-10 finish since 2017. All he did was go wire-to-wire at the Scarlet Course for a 17-under total and two-stroke victory over Paul Haley. Lingmerth, 35, now knows that he can plan a full TOUR schedule this coming season, no longer needing to closely monitor alternate lists on a week-to-week basis. “It’s stuff that’s hard for fans, or even friends maybe that you’re kind of close with, to know some of the struggles we might be going through at times,” reflected Lingmerth after his second TOUR-sanctioned victory in central Ohio, adding to his 2015 title at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “I was struggling pretty good for a while there a few years back. It’s been a long climb up the mountain to reach this point again. “I feel like if I’m in this spot and I have a chance, I try to dig in and hang on there, and I did a great job of that this week.” Michael Gligic Age: 32 Hometown: Burlington, Ontario, Canada Nationwide Children’s result: Fourth The Finals 25 rank: No. 4 (277.8 points) PGA TOUR starts: 75 PGA TOUR cuts made: 39 Best PGA TOUR finish: T4; 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship The proud Canadian earned his first TOUR card via the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season, highlighted by an emotional victory at The Panama Championship. Gligic, 32, finished No. 135 on this year’s FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to necessitate a return to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals; he was assured conditional TOUR status next season at minimum, but he wanted more. Gligic took care of business with a solo fourth in Columbus, carding four rounds in the 60s to finish 12-under total at the Scarlet Course. The 14-year pro spent a good deal of time on PGA TOUR Canada before breaking through on the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour, and he’s now set for his fourth PGA TOUR season; he finished No. 145 on last year’s FedExCup but proceeded to improve his status via The Finals 25. A year later, the savvy veteran did it again. Joseph Bramlett Age: 34 Hometown: San Jose, California College: Stanford University Nationwide Children’s result: T6 The Finals 25 rank: No. 5 (267.458 points) PGA TOUR starts: 104 PGA TOUR cuts made: 53 Best PGA TOUR finish: T7; 2021 AT&T Byron Nelson For the third consecutive Finals iteration, Bramlett has earned a spot in The Finals 25, demonstrating a propensity for raising his level of play when he needs it most. The California native earned his first TOUR card via Q-School in fall 2010, but he finished a distant No. 199 on the FedExCup as a rookie and returned to the Korn Ferry Tour. Bramlett dealt with severe back injuries for the better part of five years, seeing countless surgeons in the process, but opted not for surgery in order to maintain the best chance of returning to the highest level of the game. His self-belief was validated at the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Finals, as he recorded three consecutive top-30 finishes to earn a TOUR return. He finished No. 146 on the 2021 FedExCup to require a return to the Finals; he didn’t miss a beat, winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship at Victoria National to earn the No. 1 spot on The Finals 25 and fully exempt TOUR status for 2021-22. Bramlett finished No. 162 on the 2022 FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to lose his TOUR status. He needed to place inside The Finals 25 to earn back his TOUR card. With back-to-back top-20 finishes – T18 in Boise and T6 in Columbus – Bramlett has done just that. He’s headed back to the TOUR. Austin Cook Age: 31 Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas College: University of Arkansas Nationwide Children’s result: T34 The Finals 25 rank: No. 6 (233 points) PGA TOUR starts: 136 PGA TOUR cuts made: 76 Best PGA TOUR finish: Win; 2017 The RSM Classic The spunky Arkansas native gained a quick following in golf circles with five top-25s in seven TOUR starts as a non-member in 2015, and he proceeded onto the Korn Ferry Tour, eventually earning his TOUR card via the 2017 Korn Ferry Tour. He didn’t waste any time making an impact on TOUR, securing his first title at The RSM Classic that fall. After finishing 136th on the 2021 FedExCup, Cook successfully navigated the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to earn back strong status, but he again finished outside the top 125 this season (No. 149 on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List) to require another trip to the Finals. He didn’t miss a beat, following up a T4 at last week’s Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron with a T34 in Columbus, rebounding from a Saturday 74 with a final-round, 2-under 69 to cross the fail-safe threshold for a spot in The Finals 25. Cook had been assured conditional TOUR status at minimum. Now he’ll have a better sense of his schedule moving forward. Dean Burmester Age: 33 Hometown: Bloemfontein, South Africa Nationwide Children’s result: T46 The Finals 25 rank: No. 7 (218 points) PGA TOUR starts: 12 PGA TOUR cuts made: 8 Best PGA TOUR finish: T10, 2022 Genesis Scottish Open With back-to-back top-11 finishes at the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship, the accomplished DP World Tour pro accrued enough non-member FedExCup points to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. The married father-of-two has long held aspirations of competing at the PGA TOUR level, and with strong play across the last two weeks, the 33-year-old has made that dream a reality. Burmester opened the Finals with a T4 last week in Boise, and he recalls walking off the 18th green on Sunday in upbeat spirits, almost like he had won the tournament, despite finishing one stroke shy of a playoff. He knew he was on the verge of a dream. With a made cut in Ohio, final-round 69 and T46 finish, he has cemented his spot in The Finals 25. Burmester comes from an athletic family; his dad played professional cricket and his mom was a highly accomplished amateur golfer. He began dabbling in golf as an elementary schooler but didn’t start to consider it a realistic career pursuit until age 17, when he won the first tournament he entered, breaking 70 to do so. He turned pro at age 20, earned Sunshine Tour status through Q-School and commenced a steady upward progression. Now he’s headed to the PGA TOUR. “Man, it’s a long road from where I came from,” reflected Burmester after the final round in Columbus. “A junior taking up the game fairly late; always played when I was younger, and my parents just dragged me to the golf course on holidays, playing 72 holes a day. Now I get goosebumps thinking about where I’m headed to, No. 1 tour in the world and best job in the world. I’m just excited.” Henrik Norlander Age: 35 Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden College: Augusta University Nationwide Children’s result: T6 The Finals 25 rank: No. 8 (210.102 points) PGA TOUR starts: 130 PGA TOUR cuts made: 75 Best PGA TOUR finish: T2; 2016 The RSM Classic, 2021 Farmers Insurance Open Norlander joins Lingmerth as Swedes to cement a spot in The Finals 25 this week in Ohio. The 35-year-old has spent five full seasons on TOUR, but after a No. 144 finish on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List, he was faced with a trip to the Finals to improve upon conditional status. He started the Finals strong with a T37 in Boise, and he maintained the momentum with a T6 at the Scarlet Course, closing with a 4-under 67 to cross the fail-safe threshold and secure a spot in The Finals 25. With two runner-up finishes on TOUR, Norlander has proved the ability to contend at the highest level. Now the two-time Korn Ferry Tour winner will have plenty of opportunities to chase his first TOUR title.

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Sergio Garcia closed out 2017 as an equipment free agent. When the calendar turns to 2018, the reigning Masters champion should be unveiled as the newest member of Callaway’s Tour staff once new equipment contracts go into effect on Jan. 1.  Garcia has remained coy about his status since he parted ways with TaylorMade after 15 years. Just last month in Italy, Garcia said he would “probably start testing some new things and see what’s kind of out there that drives me and go from there. Then at the end of the year, we’ll make a decision and move forward.” Since the Dell Technologies Championship, Garcia has slowly added new Callaway products, including a Toulon Design putter and Callaway prototype wedge. In a surprise move, he accelerated the equipment transition process last week at the DP World Tour Championship with a new Callaway GBB Epic driver and Apex MB prototype irons that were spotted in the bag for the first time. While the driver appeared to be a stock GBB Epic head, Garcia’s irons were stamped with his personal logo on the toe.  If that wasn’t enough evidence to confirm Garcia’s pending arrival, he also tagged Callaway’s Twitter account in a tweet that included that rest of his current sponsors, following a T4 finish in Dubai.  Garcia and Callaway will have to wait until the beginning of the year to make things official, but it would appear his landing spot is all but assured.  TaylorMade Hi-Toe wedge makes appearance: Dustin Johnson had equipment forums buzzing several weeks ago when he let slip he was testing a new high toe wedge from TaylorMade. Based on his glowing review, many were surprised when Johnson opted to keep the wedge in the locker and stick with his usual Milled Grind setup.  Instead of Johnson getting to do the unveiling honors, Jon Rahm and Justin Rose became the first two staffers to break in the new wedge at the DP World Tour Championship. Based on the wedge photo posted on social media by Rose, the Milled Grind “Hi-Toe” has a distinct high toe that’s reminiscent of the classic Ping Eye 2 and, more recently, Callaway’s Mack Daddy PM Grind popularized by Phil Mickelson.  The three openings in the back of the head likely remove weight that’s repositioned in the toe, shifting the center of gravity even higher in the head for open-face shots.  Cook stretches fairway wood: The rise in popularity of larger-headed fairway woods has seen TOUR players embrace the technology in recent years. Austin Cook became the latest winner to have one in the bag at the RSM Classic. The TOUR rookie is one of four PING staffers using the company’s G400 Stretch 3-wood. With 13 degrees of loft, the fairway wood features a slightly larger overall head shape — 193cc vs. 184cc — for those who primarily use a fairway wood off the tee. Compared to the standard 3-wood, the CG weight was repositioned towards the back of the head to produce low-spin characteristics. For Cook, the club gives him another option to use off the tee on tight driving holes where driver isn’t necessarily the play. The club came in handy at Sea Island, where Cook won by four shots and ranked 12th in Strokes Gained: Off the tee (plus 2.325). Kirk’s strong finish sans gear contract: Along with Brooks Koepka’s nine-shot win at the Dunlop Phoenix Open, Chris Kirk put together a strong week on the course without an equipment contract. Kirk split from PXG at the beginning of the 2017-18 TOUR season to play a mixed bag of equipment.  His T-4 finish at the RSM Classic was his best showing since a T2 at the 2016 Sanderson Farms Championship. During the fall portion of the TOUR season, Kirk made four cuts in five starts. The only noticeable change he made at Sea Island was a driver swap from Callaway’s GBB Epic to TaylorMade’s M1 2017. 

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