Willie Mack captures Butterfield Bermuda APGA title in playoff; Korn Ferry Tour Q-School opportunity next

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – For years, Rory McIlroy has dreamt of walking down Royal Portrush’s 18th hole to a standing ovation. He received one, but two days earlier than he hoped. The fans cheered McIlroy for fighting to make the cut at a tournament that he won five years earlier. McIlroy’s Open Championship dreams were dashed from the start after his first tee shot went out-of-bounds. The fans still showed up Friday to support the local boy, even after his 79. “I didn’t know how people were going to react yesterday, how many people were going to be on the first tee,â€� McIlroy said. “To have that many people out there following me, supporting me, cheering my name, it meant the world to me. I’m glad, to some degree, I gave them something to cheer about today.â€� It looked like McIlroy would need another course record Friday just to make the cut. He shot 61 at Royal Portrush when he was 16, but the track has been toughened since then. Related: Leaderboard | Englishmen in contention | Spieth, Koepka bringing their best to another major | Tiger cards 1-under 70 His second-round 65 at The Open tied the low score of the tournament and riveted the fans at Royal Portrush who stuck around on a cold and cloudy afternoon. It was around 8 p.m. when McIlroy signed his scorecard. The support from his countrymen clearly had an impact on McIlroy, who struggled for words during his post-round interviews. “As much as I came here at the start of the week saying I wanted to do it for me, you know, by the end of the round there today I was doing it just as much for them as I was for me,â€� McIlroy said. “I wanted to be here for the weekend. Selfishly I wanted to feel that support for two more days. “To play in front of those crowds today and to feel that momentum and really dig in, it’s going to be a tough one to get over.â€� The weekend still seemed far away after McIlroy made two birdies on Friday’s front nine. He produced a riveting display on the back nine, though. He birdied Nos. 10-12 before making bogey on the par-3 13th after hitting into a bunker. He bounced back with another birdie on the 14th hole before saving par from another bunker on the 15th. Royal Portrush’s 16th hole is named Calamity Corner for good reason. The 230-yard hole has a steep drop-off right of the green. McIlroy lasered a long-iron to 10 feet and made the putt on the course’s third-hardest hole. He needed one more birdie on the last two holes to keep his hopes alive. He drove into the rough on 17, but played a deft wedge shot that landed just over a bunker and rolled to 12 feet. He just missed the birdie putt. On the last hole, his aggressive approach was a hair too far to the left, rolling down a hill. His fate was sealed when his chip failed to fall. “The last week has been a real eye-opener for me,â€� McIlroy said. “Sometimes you’re so far away and you forget about all the people that are cheering you on back home. And then you come and play in front of them. It definitely hit me like a ton of bricks today.â€� He wasn’t the only big name to miss the cut by a shot. Brandt Snedeker, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston and Brian Harman, who got in the field as an alternate, all finished at 2 over. Day bogeyed five of his last six holes to shoot 74 and miss the cut by a stroke. It was his first missed cut in nine starts in this championship. This Open was always going to be historic. It was the tournament’s first visit to Royal Portrush in nearly 70 years. But a more ignominious piece of history was made Friday: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the same major for the first time. Woods shot 78-70, the second-highest 36-hole score of his career in this event. After winning the Masters, he played the final three majors of the year in 9 over par. It was the first time since 2015 that he missed multiple cuts in majors. “You can’t compare the two,â€� Woods said. “Those were some of the lowest times of my life. This is not. This is just me not playing well and not scoring well, and adds up to high scores.â€� Woods and Mickelson have both missed the cut in just three other PGA TOUR events: the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open, 2012 A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier and 1993 AT&T Byron Nelson. Mickelson played alongside 36-hole co-leader Shane Lowry. Lowry beat him by 16 shots over 36 holes. Mickelson’s last top-10 in a major came in his famous duel with Henrik Stenson in the 2016 Open at Royal Troon. Mickelson’s best finish in a major since then is T18. U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, who played alongside McIlroy, also missed the cut after shooting 74-71. This was Woodland’s first missed cut in eight Open starts. Zach Johnson, the 2015 Open champion, missed the cut for the first time since 2006, ending a streak of 12 consecutive cuts made in this event. He’d finished in the top 25 in seven of the past eight Opens. McIlroy wasn’t the only player from Northern Ireland with a heartbreaking finish. Darren Clarke, the 2011 Open champion, triple-bogeyed the last hole to finish at 3 over par, missing the cut by two shots. Clarke is a member at Royal Portrush and hit the first tee shot of the tournament. He quickly rushed off the green after his difficult finish. Bryson DeChambeau finished at 5-over 147. Since the start of 2017, his best finish in a major is T25. Marc Leishman shot 8-over 150. He’d made five consecutive cuts in The Open, including three top-6 finishes. McIlroy wasn’t the only former Open champion with an impressive finish. David Duval never threatened to make the cut, but his determination to play to the end was admirable. He shot 20-over 91 in the first round, including a 14 on the par-5 seventh hole. He was 8 over par on his first nine holes Friday, as well. He still played hard, shooting 1 under on his back nine.

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Coming off a dominant performance in 2017, the United States is heavily favored in this Presidents Cup. Eleven U.S. players, including all four captain’s picks, are ahead of the Internationals’ top player, Adam Scott, in the world ranking. The challenge for International Team Captain Ernie Els, who announced his four captain’s picks Wednesday, was constructing a roster that is greater than the sum of its parts. Analytics aided his decision-making process, and it looks like putting may have been a determining factor in selections. Related: Els makes his captain’s picks | International youth movement at Presidents Cup His four picks – Jason Day, Sungjae Im, Adam Hadwin and Joaquin Niemann – all are superior in that area to the two players who narrowly missed making the team, Byeong Hun An and Corey Conners. “I wanted good driving, good ball-striking obviously, but putting is very important,â€� Els said Wednesday. “In my experience in these Cups, it comes down to pressure putting in a lot of instances. “Putting is a pivotal attribute that you need, especially in what we play. Putting was very important to me.â€� Looking at the Strokes Gained statistics, there were two areas where the four captain’s picks outranked the eight players who automatically qualified for the International Team: off the tee and on the green. The average Strokes Gained: Putting rank for the four captain’s picks is a bit misleading and may not accurately represent the putting prowess of those players. Day, Im and Hadwin all rank in the top 50 of that category. Niemann inflated that number by finishing 141st in Strokes Gained: Putting last season, but he’s improved drastically since May. Niemann ranked 203rd (out of 208 players) in Strokes Gained: Putting through the Charles Schwab Challenge, losing -0.67 strokes per round on the greens. Since then, his average Strokes Gained: Putting per round has improved by more than a stroke per round. Niemann led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting when he won A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. An and Conners assembled strong Presidents Cup candidacies, but putting was the glaring weakness for both players. Conners was one of just two players to rank in the top 10 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Approach-the Green last season (Paul Casey was the other). An led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green while posting solid performances in the two ball-striking stats. Both players had shown good form before Els made his picks. Conners, who won this year’s Valero Texas Open, posted four consecutive top-20 finishes, including a T6 at the ZOZO Championship. An had two third-place finishes since August and finished T6-T8-T14 in the three TOUR events in Asia. Conners and An ranked 181st and 182 in Strokes Gained: Putting, respectively, in 2019. Assembling teams with complementary skills is especially important in Foursomes (or alternate-shot), the format that has hexed the International Team. The U.S. and International teams have been basically even in Four-ball competition, but the Internationals own a winning percentage of approximately 37% in Foursomes. It’s likely why Els chose to begin this year’s Presidents Cup with Four-Ball. It’s just the third time (1994, 2013) that the Presidents Cup has started with Four-Balls.

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It has been one year since the Tiger Woods-led United States Team lifted the Presidents Cup at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club after one of the most memorable matches in history. It took a valiant comeback on Sunday for the U.S. to catch an underdog International Team, which was comprised of a record seven Presidents Cup first-timers. One of those rookies, Abraham Ancer of Mexico, made plenty of noise Down Under as the 28-year-old earned 3.5 points to lead the International Team. While his memorable play at Royal Melbourne is in the rearview mirror, Ancer's charitable impact from the 2019 Presidents Cup is just beginning to be felt. As is tradition at the Presidents Cup, players and captains are not paid for their participation. Instead, each is granted a specific charitable allocation to donate to organizations of their choice. Ancer, who holds dual citizenship in Mexico and the United States, calls San Antonio home and designated the First Tee of Greater San Antonio to receive a portion of his Presidents Cup charitable funds. As of this past weekend, the effect of that donation was on full display at TPC San Antonio. The inaugural "Game Changer Texas Shootout," a Presidents Cup-style event organized by First Tee Greater San Antonio, featured the top eight First Tee Greater San Antonio youth golfers against the top eight players from First Tee Greater Austin. The two-day tournament took place Dec. 12-13 at TPC San Antonio. These golfers not only qualified by their golf skills but by maintaining an A/B Honor roll and accumulating over 800 volunteer hours amongst them. "We were extremely excited to launch this inaugural tournament as a result of the funds we have received from Abraham Ancer & the Presidents Cup," said Carrie Kimbell, Executive Director of First Tee Greater San Antonio. "Through his generosity, First Tee Greater San Antonio is able to provide even more local opportunities for these amazing kids." With Ancer competing overseas, the Greater San Antonio team was captained by Ancer's friend and Korn Ferry Tour member Roberto Diaz, while two-time PGA TOUR winner Andrew Landry captained the Austin team. What ensued on the golf course created lasting memories for the youth and their professional captains. During Saturday morning 9-hole Four-ball matches, Captain Landry consulted Austin's Meredith Speer on club selection at the very challenging third hole, and Meredith responded by carding her first hole-in-one from 159 yards. Luck almost struck twice in the same family as her brother Nicolas in the group following Meredith put his shot to two inches. With San Antonio leading 7-5 entering Sunday afternoon's Singles matches, it came down to the final two matches, with San Antonio's Lindsay Lee taking a 2-up lead to the 17th hole and securing the deciding ½ point for her team. Final Score: San Antonio 11, Austin, 9. As the memories from a historic conclusion in 2019 at Royal Melbourne slowly fade, the charitable mission of the Presidents Cup is still hard at work around the world. This time, the symbol of its impact was brought to life through fist pumps, high fives and plenty of smiles.

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