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Brandt Snedeker made a bold pick for his U.S. Presidents Cup team (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

Give Brandt Snedeker a ton of credit for taking a chance and looking at the big picture as it comes to United States team play in both the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup.

It would have been easy for Snedeker — the U.S. captain — to go with a safe veteran pick on Tuesday when he filled out his 12-man U.S. roster for the Presidents Cup, which takes place Sept. 24-27 at Medinah against an International squad.

But Snedeker made the surprising move of picking 21-year-old Jackson Koivun, the recent Auburn star who won the 3M Open in late July in just his third PGA Tour start as a professional.

Back then, we advocated for Snedeker to take a chance on Koivun as a nod toward the future. Team USA needs to develop fresh young stars for international team competition and the talented young Koivun fits that narrative.

Nobody involved wants to admit that this is a chance for Koivun to gain valuable experience for next year’s Ryder Cup in Ireland — where the U.S. will be trying to win in Europe for the first time since 1993. But coming off of consecutive losses to a motivated and experienced European team, the Americans need to try something new.

Also in today’s DD …

• Daily Drive podcast featuring Bob Harig and Peter Kaufman discussing LIV

• Ryan Gerard’s worldwide odyssey continues in Switzerland

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Snedeker, however, said he isn’t thinking about next year. He wants to win this month, and that is more than fair. And he believes Koivun can help him do that.

The U.S. has dominated the Presidents Cup since its inception and will likely be a heavy favorite again when the four-day competition begins with five four-ball matches on Sept. 24. The International side has had its moments recently — it won more total holes two years ago in Montreal — and there is a sense that the International side is due.

The truth remains that the U.S. has won 10 in a row since it played to a tie in 2003 in South Africa. The only time the U.S. lost the Presidents Cup was in 1998 in Australia, back when Tiger Woods had a grand total of one major title to his name.

(Source: The Presidents Cup)

The U.S. can certainly still be a formidable team even with a very inexperienced Koivun, who just a few months ago was playing college golf and helped lead Auburn to its second NCAA team title in three years there. But nothing he experienced in NCAA singles matches in front of boutique crowds will have prepared him for what he’s about to face on a Presidents Cup stage.

But if he is to be a help for the U.S. team next year in Ireland, he needs this experience outside of Chicago.

“I think he’s a great young talent,” Snedeker said. “I think he’s proven himself to go out there and do what he did at 3M and stare Scottie Scheffler down on the back nine and not blink. That was very impressive.

“I spent a lot of time researching him. I spent a lot of time talking to people who know him and who coached him and have spent time with him. Every conversation I had, I came away more impressed.

“So I’m super excited to have him on the team. I’m super excited to see what he brings. I’m super excited for him to kind of show the world who he is. I think he brings a lot to our team room. He brings a lot to our pairings. Just super excited to have him on.”

Since Snedeker mentioned pairings, why not put Koivun with Scheffler?

The No. 1 player in the world — who gave Koivun a strong run on the final day of the 3M Open — hasn’t exactly lit it up in these team competitions over the past few years.

Finding a partner for him has proven problematic. He’s 1-6-2 overall in his last two Ryder Cups and went 0-2 with Russell Henley at Bethpage, so trotting out that pairing again would be a mistake. Even at the 2022 Presidents Cup, when Scheffler was paired with his buddy Sam Burns, they went 0-2-1.

Both Burns and Henley are on Snedeker’s team and are a good bet to qualify for the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Ireland next year. But Koivun is a more intriguing option to get placed with Scheffler as a mentor-rookie combination.

Snedeker didn’t bite on that speculation, noting that it’s important to find good partners for all of the players. It’s also fair to remember that the U.S. has been horrible in foursomes of late, including two years ago at the Presidents Cup when it was wiped out 5-0 on the second day before going 3-1 on Saturday. (The U.S. went 2-6 at the Ryder Cup in foursomes and can blame that format for falling behind so far it couldn’t catch up in singles.)

Finding a partner for Scheffler is hugely important. The best U.S. player needs to perform the best, and he’s not done that for two straight Ryder Cups and even a Presidents Cup.

Is Jackson Koivun a promising option to pair with Scottie Scheffler? (David Jensen/Getty Images)

Is Koivun the answer? Perhaps Scheffler becomes to Koivun what Seve Ballesteros was to José María Olazábal all those years ago when they melded into an unstoppable force for Europe. It’s worth at least exploring.

To pick Koivun, Snedeker bypassed two players who were on last year’s Ryder Cup

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LIV is sorting through the debris and picking up pieces after its hastened finale in Indy. (Chris Trotman/LIV Golf)

Many LIV Golf employees worked their final day as CEO Scott O’Neil took to LinkedIn on Monday to offer a message of thanks and hope, while attempting to put a positive spin on what appears to be an extremely tenuous situation.

LIV has more than 300 employees worldwide, with only a few retained as O’Neil tries to reformat the league from its flamboyant high-spending ways into a leaner “LIV 2.0” version that will have fewer events, smaller purses and — quite likely — a dearth of stars.

Amid all the chaos is the knowledge that numerous vendors and contractors have gone unpaid with the Financial Times reporting Monday that a bankruptcy filing is imminent.

O’Neil acknowledged that “the organization will look different. Change is never easy — particularly when it involves people you respect and care about.”

According to various sources, LIV employees have been paid and many will be paid for another month as there will be severance packages based on tenure with the five-year-old league.

Also in today’s DD …

• WTGL reveals the five-women rosters of its five inaugural teams

• Stray Shots on LIV’s reality and PGA Tour accolades

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O’Neil also thanked the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia in his post, which is probably all he can do as he hopes the sovereign wealth fund steps up and helps LIV bridge the gap between its excess of the past five years and the future.

LIV employed numerous contractors as part of its television contract, had to hire vendors for various marketing and promotional activities, and had those who traveled from event to event on a fee basis who have gone weeks and months without being paid.

How that can occur when the PIF promised it would fund the league through this year is a troubling aspect and one that should preclude anyone in golf from ever trusting the Saudis again.

After coming into the game with boastful claims of disruption — spending billions on players and tournament largesse — the PIF decided in April to pull the plug on the league. It reportedly wanted to shut down immediately but then later decided to finish out the year (two events, in New Orleans and Michigan, were cancelled).

While it was certainly within its rights to no longer throw money at LIV — various reports put the investment at more than $5 billion since it began in 2022 — many of the people still owed money for services performed well before the announcement that PIF would no longer continue as LIV’s bank.

While purses are being paid to golfers who have earned millions, those behind the scenes are being stiffed. That reality is going to always hang over the league, whether it is O’Neil’s fault or not. (It’s not his fault.)

Despite the PIF being worth close to $1 trillion, expenditures within the league always had to be approved, and always were delivered with a good bit of angst. Payroll was always met, players were always paid, but contractors have always been receiving fees in a slow manner.

As the transition process has played out this summer, O’Neil didn’t have a vast well of money to make things right. Every dollar and pound had to be signed off on by the PIF. It’s likely why the Michigan event didn’t happen last week. And why there are contractors waiting in line to get paid.

All of which complicates a transition to a new LIV, which will require new investment of at least $250 million. O’Neil said several weeks ago that he has prospective investors ready to prop up a LIV 2.0. But the bankruptcy is a business strategy that will allow it to pay out a pittance compared to what people are owed, including players.

According to the Financial Times report, the PIF is expected to fund a bankruptcy loan — which is known as “debtor-in-possession” financing — for approximately $100

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Scottie Scheffler has plenty to smile about after another stellar season (Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

On the day he passed Tiger Woods as the PGA Tour’s all-time official money winner — admittedly a poor comparison in any era — Scottie Scheffler was described in a way that reminds so much of the player who set so many unreal standards.

Scheffler won the Tour Championship on Sunday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, coming from three back of Viktor Hovland to defeat the Norwegian by three and win his second FedEx Cup title.

Hovland noted afterward a simple formula for Scheffler’s success.

“He knows where the ball’s going,” Hovland said. “I don’t think he’s trying to do too much with it. I think he knows that he’s got an edge on most guys out here. So he doesn’t have to do anything crazy. He can play smart and just kind of pick his spots, stay in it constantly.

“Today it wasn’t like anybody else really played all that great in contention, and that’s what you see, a lot of guys just gagging and throwing up, and that’s where he just kind of stays in it and shoots a nice score. That gets the job done.”

Sounds a lot like what they used to say about Tiger Woods.

Scheffler shot a Sunday-best final-round 66 at East Lake. After shooting 72, Hovland noted he needed only to shoot 1-under-par 69 to force a playoff. After getting to 15 under through three rounds, he couldn’t put together another strong one to win a second FedEx title to go with the one he captured in 2023.

Also in today’s DD …

• This week in golf: Joe Dean, Joe Dean, Joe Dean, Joe Deeeeeean

• The PGA Tour’s future in Atlanta

• Cantlay remains relevant through four-year victory drought

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Scheffler joined Rory McIlroy and Woods as the only players in the 20-year history of the FedEx Cup postseason system to win multiple titles.

Hovland’s description of Scheffler sounded eerily similar to the way Woods so often won. Sure, the 15-time major winner who is tied for the PGA Tour lead with 82 wins often was victorious in awe-inspiring fashion.

But he also won his share of tournaments by wearing everyone else down around him. He played steady … they didn’t … he won.

It’s a lot like Scheffler has been doing for the last four years in now racking up 22 PGA Tour wins, tying him for 29th all-time with Raymond Floyd, Johnny Ferrell and Jim Barnes.

And it’s amazing to consider some of the World Golf Hall of Fame players he’s already passed: Davis Love III (21), Lanny Wadkins (21), Hale Irwin (20) and Greg Norman (20) just to name a few.

He’s just three wins behind Johnny Miller and seven behind Lee Trevino.

Not that Scheffler was thinking about any of that history last week.

“I think just playing tournament golf, I think is a battle as a whole,” said Scheffler, who won for the third time this year and second time in three weeks. “I think that’s part of why I love it, too. I get to play against the course, myself. You have to learn how to handle your emotions, handle pressure, not take days off. That’s something I’m very proud of.

“I feel like I hold myself to a high standard, which I think sometimes can be good and bad. I feel like at times I probably could be a bit of a pain to be around when things aren’t going the way they should. I don’t feel like I take days off. I’m highly competitive, and I’m very proud of being able to have the consistent results I’ve had over the years.”

There’s no doubt that Scheffler showed a more grumpy side at times this year. Such as when he was finishing outside of the top 20 at both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship. When he put together three consecutive runner-up finishes. When he lost to Hovland in a playoff at the Travelers Championship. Scheffler actually missed a cut this year, at the Scottish Open — his first in nearly four years.

There were times when Scheffler was questioned about what was wrong ... when really nothing was, something to which Woods was often subjected and could relate. The standards simply were and are that high.

In 20 starts, along with the three wins, Scheffler had five runner-ups and five more third- or fourth-place finishes. That’s nothing worse than fourth in 65 percent of his starts in 2026. He’s doubled his lead over No. 2 McIlroy in the Official World Golf Ranking.

For the record, Scheffler now has earned $130,390,661 in official PGA Tour prize money after getting $10 million from the $40 million Tour Championship purse. Woods has been sitting on $120,999,166 since 2024.

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ATLANTA — In the span of less than a week, things went very bad, bad for Good Good Golf — which on Thursday stepped away from its sponsorship of a PGA Tour event this fall.

Just two weeks ago, Sports Business Journal wrote a profile on Good Good Golf in which CEO Matt Kendrick said “We want to be the biggest golf company in the world.”

The popular sports entertainment brand that started as a few young guys making trick-shot videos now has seven official YouTube channels and more than 2.1 million subscribers on its main channel alone while growing Good Good into an influential golf brand.

On Wednesday it was set to launch its highest profile mainstream mission yet, a relaunch of “The Big Break x Good Good” on Golf Channel in which the winner would earn a spot in the PGA Tour’s inaugural Good Good Championship this fall in Austin, Texas.

Then came the release last week of a promotional video for a Good Good co-branded Callaway driver in which company co-founder Garrett Clark runs over and shoves a woman to the ground when she reaches toward his clubs and looms over her saying threateningly “do not touch my new driver.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Adam Scott, 46, and the challenge of longevity

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This went south pretty quickly from there despite several half-hearted “apologies” for the inappropriate video. Just two hours before it was scheduled to premiere, Golf Channel postponed the start of “The Big Break” for a week to “allow for necessary production updates” after Golf Galaxy pulled its name from it as presenting sponsor.

Good Good merchandise also began disappearing from Golf Galaxy, Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods and PGA Tour Superstore marketplaces.

Golf Channel later cancelled airing the season since the grand prize of an exemption into the Good Good Championship no longer exists.

“With Good Good stepping away as title sponsor, the exemption no longer exists, which unfortunately makes the grand prize and competition moot,” Golf Channel said, noting it “will bring Big Break back in 2027.”

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp weighed in with his disapproval when asked if Good Good had taken enough accountability for the debacle.

“I think initially no. I think what we saw was concerning, is clearly not aligned with PGA Tour values,” Rolapp said on Tuesday at East Lake. “We take it very seriously. I think their initial response was disappointing. It was a bit defensive and late.

“But I think the responses are getting better. I think we’ve seen some things this morning, we’ve had some conversations with them, so we’ll continue to monitor and work with them going forward. But no, we were disappointed with what we saw.”

George McNeilly wrote an excellent piece for Golf One Media asking whether Good Good should remain as title sponsor of the PGA Tour event scheduled for Nov. 12-15 at Barton Creek in Austin — the penultimate event on the tour’s fall calendar with a $6 million purse. When McNeilly also asked Rolapp about it, the tour CEO called it a “fluid situation” and said the tour would continue to monitor ir to “see how it develops.”

That fluid flowed downhill quickly. On Thursday — two days after apologizing for its role in pushing out the video — Callaway stepped up the accountability by dropping its affiliation with Good Good effective immediately.

“Over the last several days, we have listened and reflected deeply on the hurt and disappointment caused by the video we reposted,” Callaway said in a statement. “We heard from individuals who shared personal experiences related to violence against women, and their stories were powerful reminders that this issue touches the lives of far too many people. Violence against women is unacceptable and should never be trivialized, normalized or used as entertainment.”

Callaway also admitted that its content review concerning the advertisement was “not comprehensive enough” and promised to strengthen its procedural process. It also pledged $1 million to support organizations working to prevent violence against women, provide resources to survivors and advance education and awareness.

“These actions do not undo the harm caused or excuse our role in it,” Callaway said. “We sincerely apologize to everyone who was hurt, disappointed or offended by this incident.”

A few hours later, what seemed inevitable occurred. Good Good announced it was pulling its sponsorship of the Austin tournament.

“After thoughtful discussions with the PGA Tour and careful reflection, we have decided to step away as sponsor of our event in Austin this fall,” Kendrick said in a statement. “We recognize that we have work to do as an organization, and our focus right now is on our team, our culture and ensuring we learn from this situation.

“We are grateful for our relationship with the PGA Tour and appreciate their partnership over the years. We remain committed to earning back trust, and we hope to work together again in the future.”

The tour statement said: “We agree with their decision to use this time to focus on their organization and the work ahead. The PGA Tour believes in golf’s ability to bring people together and create a welcoming environment for all.”

The PGA Tour said the event would go on as scheduled and that it would provide an update on sponsorship plans at a later date. The tour website already stripped the name off on the schedule page and temporarily listed it as the Austin Championship.

UPDATE: Just when you think it’s safe to move on, Good Good’s CEO Kendrick goes on an overnight social media bender and starts throwing stones at Callaway and in a series of replies to posts implies they might have been “set up,” is “down to boycott” Callaway and “not opposed” to suing them.

Kendrick tweeted: “Interesting that @CallawayGolf asks us to make an ad then approves it then asks us to take the fall then drops us in a coordinated media blitz and covers it up by giving a million dollars away thinking everyone will be ok with it. 30 for 39 will be legendary.”

Good Good will go down as a textbook case in how not to manage a crisis of its own making.

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Adam Scott shot 4-under 66 to start the Tour Championship (Andrew J. Clark/ISI Photos via Getty Images)

Rising to the challenge of longevity

Adam Scott’s first professional victory came more than 25 years ago. He won the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa, a co-sanctioned European Tour and Sunshine Tour event in January of 2001. Justin Rose finished a stroke back.

The duo were paired together during the first round of the Tour Championship at East Lake on Thursday, and Rose even acknowledged their history in a social media post, noting how they’ve got more than 50 years of combined pro experience.

That both made it to the Tour Championship is an underrated feat for a couple of guys who both turned 46 in July. Rose, it should be remembered, contended at the Masters again this year. He won the Farmers Insurance Open in January. It would be a mild surprise to not see him on Europe’s Ryder Cup team next year.

Scott remains resilient as well, despite not winning in six years. As hard as it might seem to believe, his last victory came at the 2020 Genesis Invitational, just before the COVID-19 shutdown.

And yet the 2013 Masters champion has managed to stretch his major championship streak to 101 starts in a row. And by making it to the Tour Championship, he’s pretty much assured himself of being in all four majors next year to roll that streak to at least 106 through the 2028 Masters.

Not that it is getting any easier to keep up with the unrelenting wave of young talent that keeps pouring into the professional ranks.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t think it was harder,” said Scott, whose opening-round 66 on Thursday at East Lake leaves tied for ninth four behind tournament leader Min Woo Lee, who shot 62. “I watch so many of the players on tour, and the standard is so deep. There are so many players with the potential to win any week.

“The learning curve is a lot quicker. I think they learn in college now. I think I came out, I didn’t know a lot. I didn’t learn a lot in college, in the classroom or on the golf course.

“Then there was like this apprenticeship you served as a tour pro, and it was at least five years before you really knew how to play. You’ve just seen over the last 10 to 15 years, from Jordan Spieth onwards, guys coming out of college so prepared.

“I’d say it’s much harder, and I probably took for granted those years where I was kind of cruising through out here. I feel like the moment I relax, I just plummet down rankings and leaderboards and everything. There’s no letting up out here.”

Scott’s assessment of the current situation in men’s professional golf and his own plight remains in keeping with his keen perspective. He won the Masters in 2013 and got to No. 1 in the world a year later.

To rise to those levels today, he believes, requires a player better than he was then.

“I think that No. 1 standard has improved since then,” Scott said. “I think the standard is always improving at every level. I think managing all the different disciplines you have to, physically and mentally, as a professional golfer and managing a life and balancing your priorities and keeping everything at peace is a lot more demanding and takes a lot more energy from me these days to do that, because the standard is higher.

“Even the standard I play at is I think I’m a better golfer. What I’m trying to say is putting it all together every week, that seems to be the biggest challenge for me. I work on my long game and I hit it great, but my short game suffers a bit. Finding the time to always keep bringing everything up to that top level is my biggest challenge.”

Scott, of course, is now married and has three kids. Although he is from Australia, he makes his home in Switzerland and thus has some travel demands.

Next month, he will play in the BMW PGA Championship on the DP World Tour at Wentworth and then head back stateside for the Presidents Cup at Medinah. It will be his 12th consecutive Presidents Cup as a player since his debut in 2003.

“I’d love to get back and win a tournament. Any tournament would do,” he said. “This one I’m playing in this week would be fantastic. To be a FedEx Cup champion is really one of those career milestones that I’d like to achieve still. I know time is really not on my side for that, but I’m off to a good start, and it could be three days away.”

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Gary Woodland is back at Tour Championship after seven-year absence (Logan Whitton/USGA)

ATLANTA — There is no better feel-good story at this week’s Tour Championship than Gary Woodland. If you don’t have a rooting interest .. well, the 2019 U.S. Open champion is a good player to get behind.

By now, most golf fans know of Woodland’s physical and mental struggles.

A brain tumor that led to surgery in the fall of 2023 was bad enough. But the aftermath has been just as difficult, as Woodland acknowledged earlier this year that he’s been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can be quite the challenge for someone trying to hit golf shots with numerous people in his space.

“At the end of the day — and I’ve told my wife this — I’m not going to let this thing beat me,” Woodland said Wednesday at East Lake Golf Club, where the Tour Championship begins Thursday. “I worked my tail off to get to the PGA Tour and to be a professional athlete. I’m not going to let that go for something that’s out of my hands.

“I have the ability to get up and fight every day, and I’m going to do that. I have a lot of fight left in me. I believe I have a big career left ahead of me, and I’m not going to let this thing win. At the end of the day, I truly believe I can beat this thing. It’s not easy, but I’ll keep fighting every day to do it.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Koepka joins TGL’s new Motor City franchise

• The layoffs are about to begin at LIV Golf

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Woodland, 42, made it to the Tour Championship for the first time in seven years on the strength of a victory at the Texas Children’s Houston Open and five other top-10 finishes, including last week’s BMW Championship where a tie for fourth moved him from outside of the top 30 in FedEx Cup points to 18th.

It means his first Tour Championship start since 2019, the year he won the U.S. Open.

“It’s special. There’s no doubt about it,” he said about getting back the East Lake — a course he barely recognizes after its extensive 2024 makeover by Andrew Green. “It’s something that looked a long ways away to start the year. I’m proud of the way I fought. I’m proud to be here. This is a tribute not only to me, but to my team that have been with me.

“I couldn’t have done this on my own. I’ve got a massive team behind me. This is all the hard work and dedication that they’ve given me and supported me that allowed me to be in this position right now. It’s awesome.”

Along the way, there have been some heavy moments, along with a few lighter ones.

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Brian Rolapp is fearlessly steering the tour in a new direction (Tracy Wilcox/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

ATLANTA — After a 21-year run that has seen various points iterations, bonus pool computations and starting-stroke schemes, the PGA Tour will scrap its current FedEx Cup postseason after next year in favor of a new three-week season-ending structure that will include a 90-player stroke-play finale followed by a two-week match-play tournament that will serve as the new Tour Championship.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has previously hinted at the change and made it official on Tuesday at East Lake Golf Club, where the tour’s season-ending event with 30 players beginning Thursday is going to look considerably different than the future.

Instead of three season-ending “playoff” tournaments that has been the structure since 2019 (there were originally four events going back to the FedEx Cup’s inception in 2007), there will be a PGA Tour Championship Series Finale — likely to be the BMW Championship — where the top 90 players on a season-long points list will qualify and determine the season-long winner.

The Championship Series Finale event will also set the field for the new stand-alone Tour Championship — a two-week match-play event that will pit the top 32 season-long points earners in round-robin group play the first week and send the top two players from all eight groups to a first-of-its-kind, four-round, match-play bracket Tour Championship finale the second week at a different venue.

All 16 players will compete in all four rounds, with players advancing through the bracket based on their win-loss record. The final two undefeated players will face each other with the winner crowned the Tour champion with player records across all four rounds determining the final championship standings.

Also in today’s DD …

• The clock is ticking for LIV golfers to make a move back to other tours

• McIlroy will come up short of a minimum standard that may soon change

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“Each week of the Tour Championship will be played at a different course,” Rolapp said. “This new format creates an exciting opportunity to showcase some of the most renowned venues in our sport, including places the modern tour has never been before.

“Since our announcement in June, we have received a tremendous level of interest from prospective host venues. As a result, multiple discussions are under way, site visits have begun, and we are encouraged by the enthusiasm we are seeing for the future of the Tour Championship.”

Rolapp didn’t disclose any venues, but speculation has centered around such places as Cypress Point, Bandon Dunes, Chicago Golf Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Pine Valley and other courses that might be willing and able to host a more intimate tournament with a small field and limited spectators.

He said an announcement on specifics would be forthcoming next February.

One thing appears clear: East Lake, the home to the Tour Championship every year since 2004, will no longer be an anchor and might only occasionally host the event.

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Commissioner Tim Finchem and Tiger Woods posed with a lot of trophies together and went into the World Golf Hall of Fame together as their career peaks coincided. (Stan Badz/PGA Tour)

ATLANTA — As is often noted when Tim Finchem’s tenure as PGA Tour commissioner is discussed, he was in the top chair when Tiger Woods came along and brought massive crowds, increased television ratings and the ensuing financial boon that enriched players and executives alike.

The general theme is that Finchem needed only to avoid disaster to enjoy a long run of success, which of course is overly simplistic. There were plenty of other difficult issues a leader had to navigate, including a serious recession in the 2008-09 timeframe that the commissioner handled without any financial harm to PGA Tour golfers and the circuit, never losing a sponsor or reducing a purse.

Global Golf Post on Monday published a letter written by Finchem’s wife, Holly, in which she revealed that Tim Finchem has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. GGP also reported that the Finchems donated $13 million to a new charitable initiative the PGA Tour is relaunching. It seems hard to believe that Finchem stepped down just 10 years ago after a 22-year run that saw plenty of growth and enhanced earnings for all players as Woods ascended in the game.

Perhaps less prominent was the role Finchem played early in his tenure, when he faced the threat of players leaving for a rival tour.

Sound familiar?

Also in today’s DD …

• BMW Championship expects to be a part of whatever new postseason comes

• Did DeChambeau play a key role in the Saudi PIF abandoning LIV?

• Stray Shots: Musings on POY and ROY candidates

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Well before LIV Golf there was the World Golf Tour, spearheaded by … Greg Norman.

It was Finchem who in 1994 thwarted Norman’s idea that was actually a mini version of what LIV has been for the past five years. And as LIV’s future is now in doubt after its last event concluded Sunday in Indianapolis, it is interesting to look back on what might have been nearly three decades sooner.

During his first full year as commissioner after succeeding Deane Beman, Finchem was immediately confronted with a threat of a rival big-money tour and guaranteed pay.

Norman was in the prime of his playing career, having won his second Open Championship in 1993. In 1994, he won the Players Championship and spent the season ranked either first or second in the Official World Golf Ranking.

The Shark had the backing of Fox Sports for an idea that would guarantee the top 30 players in the world a minimum of $290,000 a year and purses roughly double what they were playing for on the PGA Tour.

“This is about 30 years overdue,” Norman said at the time.

The idea was for there to be eight events in the United States, Canada, Scotland, Spain and Japan with 30 players taken from the world rankings and 10 others given exemptions.

Each event would have a $3 million purse — more than twice what as being offered for an average tour event at the time — with $600,000 going to the winner and $30,000 guaranteed for last place. The plan called for a $1 million bonus to the winner of a year-long individual competition. These money figures were considered huge for the time. (For a point of reference, a proposed Challenger Series event in 2028 — some 30-plus years later — would have a $4 million purse and $720,000 to the winner.)

“Everybody I’ve spoken to — Nick Price, Fred Couples, José María Olazábal — all the responses have been extremely positive,” Norman said then.

But Finchem made it clear that anyone who played for the World Golf Tour would be leaving the PGA Tour.

“If a new tour becomes a reality in 1995 or thereafter, our members will have to decide whether they want to continue to play on the PGA Tour or play on a new tour,” Finchem said, noting that the PGA Tour would enforce the “conflicting events” rules in place that required permission to play outside of the tour. He promised the tour would go to court to defend the rules.

Sound familiar?

“This is not dissimilar from the decision professional athletes in other sports were forced to make when competing leagues were formed,” Finchem said.

Norman was not prepared to fight the battle in court, as he didn’t have the backing of a sovereign wealth fund such as the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which supported LIV Golf starting in 2022 and decided it would no longer do so after this year. Later in 1994, at a player meeting, Arnold Palmer spoke up against the plan, effectively killing it.

So the Shark backed off — only to start a similar program some 30 years later as the commissioner of LIV Golf.

In 1997, Finchem announced the formation of the World Golf Championship events, which were to begin in 1999 and ended up running through 2022.

“I think it goes to show that I had the foresight, I had the knowledge of what makes the players tick, what makes the game of golf tick and what people are looking for,” said Norman, who called Finchem’s plan a “mirror image of what I proposed three years ago.”

While it wasn’t exactly the same — the WGCs were a series of three or four events within the PGA Tour schedule — Finchem did give Norman credit for his vision, even if the two mostly remained at odds for years.

The Presidents Cup, The First tee and the FedEx Cup were launched on Finchem’s watch. His legacy goes far beyond that 1994 showdown — as does Norman’s. But it remains an interesting point in Finchem’s time as a commissioner.

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A new postseason is coming

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp will have a news conference at the Tour Championship on Tuesday where he is expected to disclose more plans for the new model to begin in 2028 with the two-tiered Championship Series and Challenger Series format.

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Tim and Holly Finchem at his WGHOF induction in 2022 (Chris Condon/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

In a package of stories published in Monday’s Global Golf Post digital magazine, Holly Finchem — the wife of former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem — revealed in a letter that her husband is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

“For so many years, Tim stood with strength, clarity and conviction at the center of the PGA Tour family,” Holly wrote in GGP. “Today, our family wants to share something deeply personal: Tim has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It is a heartbreaking diagnosis, and one that has changed our lives in ways that are hard to put into words.

“Those who know Tim know the qualities that have always defined him: his quiet strength, his sharp mind, his deep loyalty and his belief that the PGA Tour could be a force for good far beyond the golf course. To watch him face this disease has been painful beyond measure. But even now, the essence of Tim remains present in the moments we treasure most – in his love for our family, his connection to the game and the enduring relationships that have meant so much to him throughout his life. …

“We are grateful for the love, prayers and kindness so many have already shown Tim and our family, and we ask for continued understanding and privacy as we navigate this tender chapter together. While this disease has brought sadness, we remain comforted by the life Tim has lived, the people he has touched and the opportunity to celebrate him in a way that reflects the very best of who he is.”

While the family deals with his heartbreaking diagnosis, it continues to give back to the PGA Tour. GGP also reported that the Finchem’s have given $13 million to PGA Tour Charities to help launch a new philanthropic chapter coinciding with the tour’s new competitive model that begins in 2028.

The mission of the relaunched PGA Tour Charities is to build on the most successful philanthropic model in sports, having generated more than $4.4 billion charitable dollars powered through local tournaments and benefitting more than 3,000 charities in communities that play host to PGA Tour events.

The $13 million gift to PGA Tour Charities carries special meaning for the Finchems.

“The PGA Tour has never been just a career for Tim, or just a chapter in our family’s life. It has been part of who we are,” Holly said in her letter. “For nearly three decades, including more than 20 years as commissioner, Tim poured himself into the tour and into the belief that golf could bring people together, strengthen communities and help those in need. That commitment to charity was never separate from his work — it was at the heart of it.

“That is why this gift to PGA Tour Charities means so much to our family. It is a way to honor Tim’s life, his values and the organization he loves so deeply. It is also a way to look forward — to help ensure that the good he believed in so strongly continues to grow, inspire others and reach more families and communities for generations to come.”

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is expected to officially annouce the Finchems’ gift and the relaunch of PGA Tour Charities on Tuesday in Atlanta ahead of the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake.

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PGA Tour Charities plans to build on that existing localized model and “enhance it with a coordinated, tour-wide platform that can raise and deploy resources, align priorities, engage partners and tell a clearer story of its impact.”

GGP reported that Player Advisory Council chairman Lucas Glover volunteered to lead a select group of veteran players to help guide the new charitable arm of the tour.

“What I grew up with on the tour is the charity and giving back. The philanthropy arm was kind of the focus,” Glover told GGP. “I just feel like the last four or five years it’s been money, money, money in the players’ pockets — which is nice, don’t get me wrong — but I’d like to get some of the focus back on what the tour stands for and what it’s about, and that’s charitable giving and helping the communities that we play in and all those things. It’s not that we haven’t been doing that, it’s just the focus has been lost.”

Rolapp appointed 20-year PGA Tour communications veteran Laura Neal to serve as the tour’s executive vice president of strategic philanthropy.

“What you’re seeing here (with PGA Tour Charities) is not taking one thing and doing another — it’s the tour getting in the charitable game itself,” Neal told GGP. “That requires identifying priorities and establishing campaigns and funding them.

“There’s opportunities to amplify and incentivize the work that tournaments are already doing, but also invest from a national standpoint. So at the end of the day for everybody there’s a bigger lift, regardless of how it’s already working.”

Neal characterized the $13 million gift from her former boss’ family as a “catalyst” for the newly expanded charitable model.

“The ability to be building this and then have the Finchems decide that they trust what we’re building and recommitting to and want to be a part of it, I think is amazing,” she said. “We keep using the word catalyst as this really endorses or shows confidence in the fact that what we have been doing throughout our history and what Commissioner Finchem was a huge part of is what we’re going to build on and go forward in the future.

“We hope that this gives confidence to our fans and our partners and our players that not only are we building something, but we have this endorsement and this momentum built thanks to the Finchems’ generous gift.”

Tim Finchem went into the Hall of Fame alongside Tiger Woods in 2022 (Chris Condon/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

Finchem, 79, retired as commissioner 10 years ago having stewarded the tour through unprecedented growth during the Tiger Woods era. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2022 along with Woods.

Ron Green Jr. chronicles Finchem’s rise and success at the PGA Tour helm as well as how his friends and family are coping with his heartbreaking diagnosis.

“ALS is to the body like (Alzheimer’s) is to the brain,” Holly Finchem told Green. “It’s different in every person afflicted with it. It proceeds in a fashion no one can predict or plan for the pace or the effect. It is terribly sad to lose the person you knew and loved a little bit at a time.”

To help researchers develop treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, consider contributing to the Alzheimer’s Association.

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Wyndham Clark has come a long way since last summer (James Gilbert/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

In the aftermath of his victory on Sunday at the BMW Championship, Wyndham Clark was awarded an honorary membership at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, a fitting gesture and an ironic one when you consider just how far he has come in the last 15 months.

It wasn’t that long ago that Clark was still answering questions about his behavior last year at Oakmont Country Club, where he trashed a locker at the famed course following his missed cut at the 2025 U.S. Open, drawing a public rebuke from the membership that saw him banned from the premises and requiring restitution and a series of apologies that lasted into this year.

Now look at him.

Clark still might not be the most popular guy around, but he’s proving to be an excellent player who stood up to Rory McIlroy — again — on a day when he didn’t have his best stuff at Bellerive.

Also in today’s DD …

• Who’s in, who’s out at the Tour Championship?

• This week in golf: Toasting Jamieson, Yamashita and … La Sasso!

• Scheffler saddled with hand, foot and mouth disease at BMW

• Shaun Norris pays a harsh price for reflexive rules infraction

• Preston Stout’s upcoming senior year gets even more … stout

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The two-time U.S. Open champion who won that title for a second time earlier this year at Shinnecock Hills squandered a five-shot advantage to McIlroy in the first 10 holes, failing to make a birdie until the 16th hole. That gave him an advantage that McIlroy could never close and led to his sixth PGA Tour victory and third this year.

“I guess I’m making a habit of having a lead and then choking it away with after seven, eight holes,” said Clark, 32, after birdieing the final three holes for an even-par 70 and a three-shot victory over Patrick Cantlay, who qualified for the Tour Championship with his high finish. McIlroy, who was tied with three holes to go, finished four back in third.

“I guess I always try to build off of experiences. I had that lead at the U.S. Open, and quickly it was tied or I was only one up. I found myself in a similar position. You rely on previous tournaments that that’s happened. My first win at Quail Hollow that kind of happened. I had a two-shot lead and then quickly was tied with Xander (Schauffele).

“I just remember those moments going, ‘Hey, if I just stay in there, I’m going to start hitting the shots, start making the putts.’ And I think that’s where I matured mentally and in my game, that I didn’t let it get away from me. I wasn’t great, and the momentum was all on Rory’s side, but I knew that I just needed one little spark to get it on my side.”

Click here for complete BMW Championship scoreboard

Although it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was at Shinnecock — where Clark had a six-shot final-round advantage, held off Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler and dealt with a boorish crowd that openly rooted against him — he again had to face the prospect of playing alongside the more popular McIlroy.

McIlroy’s birdie at the par-3 11th tied things and he had excellent chances at the 14th and 15th holes to take the outright lead. Suddenly, he couldn’t get a putt to drop.

“I gave myself plenty of chances,” said McIlroy, who finished second to Clark at the 2023 U.S. Open played at Los Angeles Country Club. “I just couldn’t get a putt to drop there those final few holes. I always felt like I needed to just get my nose ahead to really try to put the pressure on Wyndham, and I couldn’t. We were tied there for a few holes, and then when he made that putt on 16 for 2 and I couldn’t answer, that was obviously a huge moment in the round and in the tournament.

“But overall encouraged with how I played this week compared to what it was last week, and certainly something to build ongoing into East Lake.”

A week ago, McIlroy was seemingly lost, lamenting how much work his swing needed after finishing 66th in a field of 69 players at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. That was just his seventh event since his Masters victory, and his results for much of the summer have been spotty. His third-place finish is his best since winning his second green jacket.

Clark struggled for most of last year and into this season before getting hot in May. After missing the cut at the PGA Championship, he won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, finished third at the Memorial, tied for 11th at the Canadian Open and then won his second U.S. Open.

He followed that with a tie for fifth at the Travelers and a tie for 13th at the Scottish Open before missing the cut at the Open Championship and again at the Rocket Classic. But he got back on track last week in Memphis, where he tied for fifth.

Now he’s won for a third time and put him squarely in the PGA Tour player-of-the-year conversation. Winning three times, including a major and a FedEx Cup playoff event, is part of a strong résumé.

“Obviously Scottie’s the best player in the world right now,” Clark said. “I don’t really know. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it coming off such a terrible year. Didn’t even think about player of the year. I was more just wanting to get back into contention, wanting to make it to East Lake. And then I win, and win a major and then it’s like, okay, now I want to make the Presidents Cup team.

“So, I mean, honestly, this has all come pretty quick. So hopefully that maybe is in the cards, but if not I’m just really pleased with how the year’s gone.”

As for that honorary membership? “I told the president of the club I’ll be your best member,” Clark said.

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Gary Woodland will be back at Tour Championship after seven-year absence (David Paul Morris/ANGC)

Who’s in and out at East Lake?

The BMW Championship saw three players play their way into the Tour Championship by earning enough points to move inside the top 30 in the season-long points race.

On the flip side, that means three players got bumped out.

Gary Woodland, who won earlier this year at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, will be returning to the Tour Championship for the first time since 2019 after tying for fourth and moving from 31st in the standings to 18th. An emotional Woodland, who had brain surgery in 2023, said: “I played beautifully today. So I’m glad this week’s over with, but I’m proud of where I’m going next week.”

Patrick Cantlay, who began the week 43rd in points, made the biggest rally, finishing second alone after a final-round 68 to jump 24 spots and into 19th place.

Scotland’s Robert MacIntrye, who withdrew from the FedEx St. Jude after an opening-round 82, bounced back nicely to tie for seventh and moved up 11 spots from 36th to 25th.

They will join the rest of the top 30 at East Lake in Atlanta, where the 72-hole event will determine the FedEx Cup champion and Tour Championship winner. The $40 million official purse will see $10 million go to the winner.

The three players who got bumped out were Kurt Kitayama (28th to 31st), Bud Cauley (29th to 34th) and Rickie Fowler (30th to 33rd).

Falling outside of the top 30 is particularly tough on someone such as Fowler, who could have assured himself a spot in the 2027 Masters by being in the top 30. Fowler has missed Augusta in five of the last six years. He can gain entry by being among the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking at the end of the year — which means he will likely need to play some fall events. He is currently No. 44.

Conversely, Woodland, who entered the week 47th in the OWGR, has effectively assured himself a spot in all of the majors next year.

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This week in golf …

• BMW Championship: Despite frittering away a five-shot lead in the first 10 holes to set up a head-to-head stretch duel with Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark finally made birdies at 16, 17 and 18 to survive at Bellerive and win by three shots over Patrick Cantlay. Clark’s birdie flourish to shoot even 70 avoided making him the first BMW winner to shoot over-par in the final round. McIlroy missed repeated chances to take the lead before making a mess of the par-5 17th hole to end the drama and finished third four back after walking to the 16th tee tied with Clark for the lead.

• Nexo Championship: Scotland’s Scott Jamieson collected his second DP World Tour victory 14 years after his first with a two-shot win over England’s Matthew Jordan at Trump International north of Aberdeen. “Fourteen years, that’s wild,” said an emotional Jamieson. “It’s just so tough, so hard to win.” The victory secures the 42-year-old’s card for two more years. “That grind’s worse more than trying to win. Trying to win’s enjoyable. But obviously the position I was in this year, you know, I was starting to get to the business end of the season and didn’t have a lot of points up. So yeah, to win and get a couple of years of free go is nice.”

• LIV Golf Indianapolis: Michael La Sasso, 22, hit his 50-yard wedge shot stone dead for a finishing birdie to climb from the relegation zone to his first professional victory at the Club at Chatham Hills. He withstood a furious charge from Jon Rahm, who shot a 7-under 63 — the low round of the day — but bogeyed his last hole to finish runner-up for the fourth time this season. Rahm’s Legion XIII team capped the abbreviated season by claiming the makeshift team title by six shots over the Phil Mickelson-free HyFlyers club that had languished all season in ninth place in the 13-team standings.

• CPKC Women’s Open: Japan’s Miyu Yamashita shot an opening 62 and coasted largely unchallenged the rest of the weekend in a wire-to-wire nine-shot victory in Edmonton, Alberta. Last year’s AIG Women’s Open winner now has four LPGA victories with her second of the summer. The 25-year-old also has 13 wins on the LPGA Japan Tour.

• AdventHealth Championship: A birdie-birdie-birdie finish by Japan’s Yuti Sigiura was just enough to overtake the clubhouse score posted by Austin Hitt’s storming 12-under 60 finish at Blue Hills GC in Kansas City, Mo., to win the Korn Ferry Tour event. Both players moved to just outside the top-20 bubble in the chase for a PGA Tour card.

• Rogers Charity Classic: New Zealand’s Steven Alker birdied the first playoff hole while Korea’s Y.E. Yang made bogey in Calgary, Alberta, to claim his 12th career PGA Tour Champions victory.

• U.S. Senior Women’s Open: Sweden’s Maria McBride hangs on to win at Barton Hills in Ann Arbor, Mich., to finish 6-under par and beat legends Annika Sørenstam by two shots and Karrie Webb by five. McBride’s 6-under 66 on Saturday provided the cushion she needed to avoid losing the 54-hole lead for the second straight year.

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Illness hampers Scheffler’s BMW defense

Scottie Scheffler got off to a rough start during the first round of the BMW Championship — he was 4-over par early in his round — and it turns out he was diagnosed with hand, foot & mouth disease. The contagious infection had him feeling lousy on Monday, the day after his eight-shot victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, and contributed to a lackluster week in his title defense at the BMW Championship.

“So you get blisters on your hands and in your throat and on your feet,” said Scheffler, who finished with a 68 Sunday to tie for 12th. “So to start the week it was pretty painful to grip the club. If I was smarter maybe I would have pulled out, but I was playing so good I felt like if I could knock it out quickly and just get through the first couple rounds I would still have a chance.

“But I think that’s part of my stubbornness, probably. That’s probably a strength of mine and a weakness at times. Like, I’ve never been one to ever pull out of a tournament, especially in the middle of it. That’s really frustrating for me. So I definitely didn’t want to do that going into this week, even though it was suggested. But I’m proud of how I fought. Feel like I’m starting to heal up. My throat is still bugging me pretty good. But my hands feel normal today.

“I actually almost caught myself shaking hands with Cam (Young) on 18. I would have felt really bad. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I almost forgot.’ So that’s good news, starting to feel better. Hopefully the throat will clear up the next couple days.”

Scheffler concluded the BMW as the leader in FedEx Cup points — which he had already secured a week ago. But none of that matters now, as the top 30 will head to Atlanta for the Tour Championship with a clean slate. The winner of the tournament at East Lake wins the FedEx Cup title.

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Golf’s rule book remains unrelenting

South Africa’s Shaun Norris suffered a tough but proper rules violation on Sunday during the final round of the Nexo Championship in Scotland. The third-round leader by two strokes, Norris, 44, was playing a pitch shot on the fifth hole when he felt something under his foot and kicked it away.

There was no intention to break rules, for sure. In fact, the move seemed rather reflexive: he was standing on something that could be moved and so he moved it.

The problem is what he kicked away was a replaced divot. It wasn’t a loose divot — which would make a difference.

The DP World Tour cited Rule 8.1 which describes the idea of “play the course as you find it” and gives examples of what a player cannot do. One of them lays out a two-shot penalty for “removing or pressing down divots that have already been replaced or other cut turf that is already in place.”

Instead of a par, Norris recorded a double-bogey 6 on the hole and never recovered. He ended up shooting a final-round 76 and dropped back to a tie for seventh, six shots behind winner Scott Jamieson.

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Pretty stout year ahead for Stout

Preston Stout’s senior year at Oklahoma State just keeps getting busier and more enviable.

The 22-year-old Texan won the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the leading male in the 2026 World Amateur Golf Ranking. That distinction earns Stout exemptions into next year’s U.S. Open and Open Championship, provided he remains an amateur. Stout already earned an invitation to the 2027 Masters as the winner of the 2026 MCAA individual championship,

That’s a lot of incentive for Stout to hold off turning professional through next summer considering that slate of majors he’s qualified for are being played at Augusta National, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews.

“Being named the McCormack Medal winner is a tremendous honor, and one I’ll never take for granted,” said Stout. “This recognition reflects not just my own work, but the support of everyone who has pushed me to get better along the way. It motivates me to keep raising my own bar and chasing what’s next. I’m grateful to be included among the players who have earned this honor.”

Stout inherited the top spot in the men’s WAGR from Jackson Koivun, climbing there thanks to a junior season at Oklahoma State in which he amassed five individual victories including the NCAA Division I Individual crown and the first-ever three-peat winner of the Big 12 championship.

Stout will kick of his final season at OSU by playing a second time for the U.S. team in next month’s Walker Cup at Lahinch in Ireland.

“Preston has shown that he’s a rising star in this game, and we’re delighted to see him receive this honor and all that comes with it,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA Chief Championships Officer. “Performing at such a high level so consistently speaks to the hard work and dedication Preston has brought to his craft as an elite amateur golfer. We’re excited to watch his career continue to flourish in the years to come.”

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Wyndham Clark might have a good argumentr for POY (James Gilbert/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

We may have a horse race for PGA Tour Player of the Year after all.

A few days after Rory McIlroy conceded the title to world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark would like to say “not so fast.”

Clark is doing to the 50-man field at the BMW Championship this week what Scheffler did to the 70-man field a week ago at the FedEx St. Jude Championship — which is leave everyone else seemingly playing for runner-up.

Despite a gruesome opening double bogey that included two bunkers and a cold top from one of them into the rough, Clark still managed to separate himself from the field with a 5-under 65 at the Bellerive Country Club. His first two 64s came bogey free on Thursday and Friday, but on Saturday he gave away three strokes on 1 and 18 but came back with six birdies and a eagle in between.

Click here for full BMW Championship leaderboard

Suddenly the conversation about who deserves to be POY doesn’t seem so clear cut in favor of the world No. 1. While Scheffler can tout his two wins and remarkable consistency with four runner-ups plus five more top-four finishes in 18 starts this season, he doesn’t have a major win.

So don’t sleep on Clark and his comeback-player-of-the-year season that includes beating Scheffler head-to-head on the last day to win the U.S. Open at Shinnecock and an epic Sunday charge to sail past Scheffler in his hometown and Si Woo Kim and win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

Also in today’s DD …

• Who’s projected to move in or out of the Tour Championship?

• Projected U.S. Presidents Cup standings on the eve of automatic six deadline

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If Clark is able to take care of business with a five-shot lead going into the final round of the BMW Championship, he and Scheffler might both be sporting dominant playoff wins as they head to East Lake and the Tour Championship next week. A win there to claim the FedEx Cup by either one of them might settle any debate.

“That I have not thought about,” Clark said this week regarding his POY case. “Obviously everyone says, you know, focus here on the moment. That would be amazing. I probably would have to get a win here or next week to I think really be considered. But I’m really focused on playing good this week and hopefully making the Presidents Cup team.”

It could come down to Scheffler and Clark at the Tour Championship (Jeff Haynes/USGA)

Of course, McIlroy will be paired with Clark in the final round at Bellerive and might have more juice in the POY debate than he’s willing to admit if his rallies to win and add that to his second consecutive green jacket. The three-time FedEx Cup champion and 30-time PGA Tour winner won the BMW once in 2012. It’s McIlroy’s 16th start in the BMW Championship, the most of any player since the FedEx Cup began in 2007.

“I’m in a good spot going into tomorrow in terms of where I’m at on the leaderboard, but it’s going to take a heroic effort from one of us to catch Wyndham,” McIlroy said.

McIlroy poo-pooed the notion of POY ahead of the BMW when he was asked “if a player’s won the Masters and the Tour Championship, is that a player-of-the-year résumé?”

“No, I’m not the player of the year. No chance. Scottie is,” McIlroy said. “Well, sorry, there’s two weeks to go, but I firsthand watched him for the first two days last week, and he if he keeps playing like that — if he gains nine strokes on the greens every week — we’re all f—d.”

There’s also Chris Gotterup, who sits tied for fourth this week and with a big Sunday could claim a tour-leading fourth win of the season.

“Frankly, it doesn’t totally matter,” Gotterup said. “I’m trying to play the best I can. If it works out, it works out. If not, I’ve had a pretty good year regardless. Really just trying to play well this week and see what happens. But, yeah, I haven’t really thought too much about it.”

Other guys are just trying to get to the Tour Championship next week, and that is shaping up to be a compelling subplot to Sunday’s final round.

As of now, three players are projected to move into the top 30: Gary Woodland (T4) from No. 31 to No. 19; Patrick Cantlay (T2) from No. 43 to No. 22; and Sungjae Im (7th) from No. 40 to right on the bubble at No. 30.

Players projected to fall out of the top 30 are: Kurt Kitayama (T33) from No. 28 to No. 31; Rickie Fowler (T35) from No. 30 to No. 32; and Bud Cauley (T43) from No. 29 to No. 33.

With the six automatic selections for the U.S. Presidents Cup team getting locked in after the BMW, here are the current projected standings.

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Jim Simons with a local Augusta National caddie at the 1980 Masters (Augusta National/Getty Images)

A caddie is expected to “show up, keep up and shut up” — an old cliché that retains some merit to a degree but isn’t going to be enough in today’s world of big-time golf. where much more than that is expected at the highest level.

From simply carrying the bag to becoming part data analyst, part sports psychologist, part swing coach, the role of a caddie has evolved considerably in the last 50 years.

Gone are the days where caddies packed into cars and drove from site to site, sleeping four to a room and counting their pennies while wondering if they could make it to the next tournament.

That certainly doesn’t exist at a tournament such as the BMW Championship, where $20 million is at stake for the players and a hefty payday is in store for every caddie in the field.

Also in today’s DD …

• Did Sergio Garcia’s Masters tee tantrum scuttle LIV Golf?

• Shout out to James Colgan’s feature on Old Barnwell’s Evans Scholarship recipient

• A passing of Tiger’s career money torch is pending

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Today, some caddies carry a level of celebrity themselves. Stevie Williams and Jim “Bones” Mackay were well known in their days working for Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, respectively. Ted Scott, who works for Scottie Scheffler, and Michael Greller, the longtime caddie for Jordan Spieth, are other big names in the caddie game.

Gone are the days when a local caddie might get a bag at a PGA Tour event or when players were far more apt to pick up someone along the way then employ a caddie on a near full-time basis.

And even after the era of professional caddies began to evolve, there were a couple of holdouts to the old ways. The Masters and the Western Open used to require that players use local caddies, prohibiting them from bringing their own caddie. It wasn’t until 1983 when Augusta National and the Western Golf Association finally yielded to the players’ pleas to use their own bagmen.

The BMW, formerly known as the Western Open, dates to 1899, when it quickly took up an important place in the golf landscape. That first year saw a couple of Scotsmen duel in a playoff, with Willie Smith defeating Laurie Auchterlonie.

Through the years, the Western Open’s fortunes rose as the game moved around the country. Chick Evans, the namesake of the Evans Scholars Foundation, won the Western in 1910, when it was played as a match play event. For a time, in the years prior to the emergence of the Masters, it was even viewed as a major.

Starting in 1962, the tournament became anchored in the Chicago area, a nod to the WGA’s roots and an understandable move given the great courses it could move to including Medinah, Beverly and Olympia Fields, to name just a few. For more than 40 years, the tournament never left the area.

And for years, the Western Open shared that unique distinction with only the Masters: it required players to use local caddies instead of those who had full-time jobs working for the pros.

Click here for full BMW Championship leaderboard

At the risk of dating myself considerably, I was one of the fortunate ones who got to take part in that caddie experience. The year was 1980, the Western Open was at Butler National in suburban Oak Brook, Ill. Somehow I was chosen along with a longtime friend (and future Evans Scholar at Indiana University like myself) Mark Riley from the Inverness Golf Club in Inverness, Ill., where we both caddied as teenagers.

In those days, PGA Tour events still had robust Monday qualifying on site (players who did so were called rabbits) and I drew the name of Marty Fleckman, whose claim to fame was leading the 1967 U.S. Open (won by Jack Nicklaus) through 54 holes as an amateur.

Fleckman failed to advance out of Monday qualifying to the tournament, but I did. A few days earlier, in bleachers behind Butler’s ninth green, some 100-plus caddies gathered to have their names drawn, allowing them to then pick a player of their choosing.

Among those in the field that week were Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite, Tom Weiskopf, Curtis Strange and Hubert Green. When my name was called — probably 40-some kids into the process — I picked Jim Simons, who had finished among the top 10 a year earlier and was a three-time PGA Tour winner, including the 1978 Memorial. Simons also had an amateur brush with the U.S. Open: in 1971, he led through 54 holes at Merion, where Lee Trevino would ultimately defeat Nicklaus in a playoff.

(Simons was also among the first players to use a metal wood along with Ron Streck. In 1982, Simons won at Pebble Beach, becoming the first player to win a televised 72-hole tournament with such a club.)

Simons got himself into contention in the Western with rounds of 73-69 and we drew a third-round tee time with Andy Bean and John Cook, a rookie out of Ohio State at the time. Simons would eventually tie for ninth while Scott Simpson captured his first PGA Tour victory.

Somewhere remains a photo of the check Simons wrote for my six days of caddying — $450. He made just more than $9,000 for the week and my cut seemed like a fortune.

Several years later, when I had moved on to my sports writing career, I ran into Simons at a tournament I was covering. It took a little prodding, but he remembered having this young kid on his bag all that time earlier. He could not have been nicer. (Sadly, Simons passed away at age 55 in 2005.)

Things change, and the move to having professional caddies full time was already in play. Given the money at stake, and the seriousness of the job, it is completely understandable. To think about how naïve I was to the intricacies of the game then makes me nervous all these years later.

But that experience is my ultimate tie to the tournament, a memory to last a lifetime. As a Chicago kid, I was sad when the event started to move around the country. But what a move that has turned out to be for the Evans Scholars program and the WGA. BMW’s sponsorship has enhanced the tournament as a FedEx Cup playoff event and having it at a place such as Bellerive this week is a home run for golf fans in Missouri and for the Western Golf Association.

The tournament has evolved. But it’s always embraced its history, with more being made every year.

A version of this story appeared on the WGA website celebrating the 125th anniversary or the organization in 2024.

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Another Evans Scholar dream come true

Golf’s James Colgan went to Old Barnwell in Aiken County, South Carolina, and wrote a lovely story about Daniella Penaloza, a remarkable 17-year-old caddie at the club who earned an Evans Scholarship to attend the University of South Carolina. The video above does a great job on encapsulating Penaloza’s story.

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Did Sergio’s Masters tee tantrum scuttle LIV Golf?

The Financial Times on Friday published a lengthy story titled “The Battle over Golf’s Future” in which it summarized the last several years, including the PGA Tour’s move to a for-profit model called PGA Tour Enterprises, the investment of $1.5 billion from the Strategic Sports Group, and the hiring of Brian Rolapp as CEO and future commissioner.

Along the way, the story highlights the back and forth between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf — it said negotiations broke down early last year because of the tour’s offer to run LIV for between $500 million and $700 million was viewed as too low by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund which had already poured some $4 billion into the league at that point.

The PIF decided in April to pull its funding from LIV after this year and Al-Rumayyan stepped down from his position as chairman on LIV’s board. The decision has led to considerable upheaval as LIV attempts to secure funding and streamline its business in order emerge next year as a smaller, less lucrative version of itself.

One anecdote the Financial Times highlighted is interesting, if not highly dubious. It centered around the incident during the final round of the 2026 Masters when LIV’s Sergo Garcia was given a warning by a rules official for his outburst on the second tee, where he slammed his club into the turf and broke it while whacking it against a trash bin.

According to the FT: “People familiar with the matter say Al-Rumayyan’s embarrassment at the sequence of events helped lead to his decision to pull the plug on PIF’s financing of the rival tour, as the fund focuses more on its huge domestic commitments in the kingdom.”

Call us skeptical on that even if the timing of PIF’s retreat happened almost immediately after the Masters. While Al-Rumayyan may not have liked what he saw from Garcia, it’s hard to believe he would find that, of all things, embarrassing given the lavish excess he might otherwise now feel sheepish about.

By the Sunday of the Masters, the decision was clearly in the works to end the financing. Two days later is when word began to spread that the Mexico City event that week was in doubt. While it played on amid much scrutiny, the PIF soon afterward announced that it will pulling out due to myriad factors.

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A word from our sponsor …

This this week’s Daily Drive newsletter is being brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors among its events the BMW Championship, which is being played this week at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which currently supports 1,310 students attending 28 universities.

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A passing of the career money title is on tap

With his victory at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, Scottie Scheffler pulled within $1,034,475 of Tiger Woods for No. 1 on the all-time PGA Tour money list.

There are a couple of ways to view this.

It is amazing to think that Scheffler has amassed almost $120 million in career earnings so quickly. He just turned 30 years old and first joined the PGA Tour for the 2019-20 season when there was still a wraparound schedule.

It is also amazing to think that in the era of escalating signature-event and major purses that nobody caught Woods sooner. The 15-time major winner who won 82 times on the PGA Tour has not added a dime to his total of $120,999,166 since the 2024 Masters, where he finished 60th and earned $44,400.

Woods first took over the carer money lead in 2000 — 26 years ago! — when he finished second at Torrey Pines after winning at Kapalua and Pebble Beach earlier that year. He passed Davis Love III, who held the top spot for two whole weeks after passing Greg Norman. At the time, Woods had made $12,821,129.

In 2007, Woods surpassed $50 million and reached $100 million in 2013. Only Scheffler and Rory McIlroy have surpassed $100 million since then. McIlroy has earned $116,964,411. Phil Mickelson, who has not played a PGA Tour event since 2022, has earned more than $94 million in official career money. It’s also notable that Mickelson NEVER won a single-season money title on the PGA Tour.

Scheffler can pass Woods this week in the $20 million BMW Championship if he wins, finishes in a seven-way tie for second or in a three-way tie for third. He’s all but assured to do it in the next two weeks since the Tour Championship is now official money with a $40 million purse.

It’s worth noting that official earnings do not count the nearly $50 million in FedEx Cup bonus money Scheffler has claimed through the years.

“Tiger did a lot for the game of golf and he put us in a position where we’re able to earn some pretty good stuff financially, so that’s something we’re very grateful for,” said Scheffler this week, noting that he’s just over one-fourth of the way with 21 wins to Woods’ record-tying total of 82. “Tiger’s contributions to the game, when you look at where the purses were at before he came out on tour to where they’re at now is a pretty stark difference and we’re very thankful for his contributions to the game and hopefully we’ll see him back out here competing again soon.”

Even if Tiger gets back to competing, sage to say he’ll never reclaim his money crown.

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Akshay Bhatia meet Evans Scholarship recipient Juliya Tabaka at her home caddie club, Bellerive (Courtesy WGA/ESF)

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Akshay Bhatia counts a handful of holes-in-one in his life, but never one that meant so much or had as much impact as the ace he made last year at the BMW Championship.

During the third round at Cave’s Valley in Maryland, Bhatia hit a 5-iron from 227 yards on the par-3 17th hole that rolled into the cup and propelled him into the top 30, helping him secure a spot in the following week’s Tour Championship.

It also meant the funding of an Evans Scholarship as part of a promotion that BMW has sponsored as part of the tournament.

The recipient of that caddie scholarship was Juliya Tabaka of Manchester, Missouri, who was granted an Evans Scholarship earlier this year and named the recipient of the BMW Hole in One Award recently.

It means that her four-year grant to the University of Missouri is being funded by BMW.

Bhatia and Tabaka met earlier this week at Bellerive Country Club, where she has been a caddie for several years and from where she earned the scholarship that will see her attend the Missouri beginning next week.

“I had no idea about it at the time,” Bhatia, 24, said earlier this week after posing for photos and Tabaka. “I didn’t know the extent of that shot. It’s a blessing for her and a blessing for me. It’s changing her life, helping her family. Just amazing. Just amazing what the Evans Scholarship is, these kids walking with us and it’s crazy, that one shot.

“Obviously it helped my season, which is such a small sample. It’s changing her life and the fact she’s a caddie here, too. Just awesome.”

Also in today’s DD …

• Woodland seeks first Tour Championship in seven long years

• A few stray shots scoring Scott O’Neil’s pep rally and LIV 2.0

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Bhatia finished tied for 26th last year at the BMW and then went on to tie for 13th at the Tour Championship.

He opened this year’s BMW with a 3-under-par 67 at Bellerive that included three birdies and 15 pars on the par-70 course.

Tabaka is the seventh recipient of the BMW Hole-in-One Scholarship, which awards a full tuition and housing grant to a deserving caddie in the name of the first player to record a hole-in-one during the BMW Championship.

It’s a clever way to bring attention and awareness to the Evans Scholars program, which is the beneficiary of tournament proceeds this week. The scholarship program, which started modestly in 1930, has seen more than 12,000 caddies go through the program, with more than 1,300 currently attending 28 universities.

Tabaka will join them next week at Missouri, where she plans to major in animal sciences. She began caddying at a nearby club when she was 14 and for the past three years has worked at Bellerive.

“I found out about a month ago that the scholarship I’m getting is in Akshay’s name,” said Tabaka, who also played golf at her Westminster high school. “It was just so nice to meet him, to be out here watching him and to take part in caddying in the pro-am.”

Things worked out pretty well for Bhatia, too. The winner of this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Bhatia’s ace also came with a new BMW, which he gave to his sister.

BMW became the title sponsor in 2007 of the tournament — which used to be known as the Western Open — when it became a FedEx Cup playoff event. The event dates to 1899 and has long been a fundraising vehicle for the Evans Scholars Foundation. The BMW Championship has raised $63 million for the foundation since 2007, which has helped send more than 4,860 caddies to college.

Previous BMW Hole-in-One Scholarship recipients were:

• Diana Llamas (2022): Named in honor of Viktor Hovland, who aced the second hole during the final round of the 2022 BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware.

• Brooklyn Gabriel (2017): Named in honor of Jason Day, who aced the 17th hole during the second round of the 2017 BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois.

• Hayden Bauschka (2015): Named in honor of Jordan Spieth, who aced the second hole during the first round of the 2015 BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois.

• Melyzjah Smith (2013): Named in honor of Hunter Mahan, who aced the par-3 17th hole during the third round of the 2013 BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois.

• Mark Abtahi (2012): Named in honor of Steve Stricker, who aced the par-3 sixth hole during the second round of the 2012 BMW Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana.

• Haelena Schwemmer (2010): Named in honor of Sean O’Hair, who aced the par-3 second hole during the second round of the 2010 BMW Championship at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Illinois.

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A word from our sponsor …

This this week’s Daily Drive newsletter is being brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors among its events the BMW Championship, which is being played this week at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which currently supports 1,310 students attending 28 universities.

Since 1930, more than 12,870 student caddies have graduated from college as Evans Scholars.

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Gary Woodland has been more comfortable since sharing his PTSD issues (Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

Woodland stalks Tour Championship invite

Gary Woodland is on the verge of making next week’s Tour Championship, a thought that barely entered his mind at the start of the year.

The 2019 U.S. Open champion has not made it to the 30-player season-ending event since the year of his major title, much of the focus of late on the surgery he had in September of 2023 to remove tumor in his brain.

In March, Woodland produced one of the best stories of the year, winning the Texas Children’s Houston Open just a short time after revealing he had been dealing with PTSD following his brain surgery. The meant qualifying for the Masters.

“I got a lot of relief from that,” Woodland said Thursday after shooting 6-under 64 to share the first-round lead of the BMW Championship with four others including Rory McIlroy. “I still battle the same things now that I was battling then, but I feel the love and support, I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything. I have more energy and that’s the big deal. I was wasting energy hiding that and I’m not wasting the energy anymore.”

Woodland entered the BMW 31st in the FedEx Cup standings after he finished tied for 42nd last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. In each of the past two years, Woodland, 42, had failed to make the playoffs and he hasn’t made it back to East Lake since 2019.

His Houston victory propelled him up the points list and he added four more top-10 finishes, including a tie for seventh at the U.S. Open.

On Thursday, he made an eagle, five birdies and a single bogey on his final hole and ended up in a five-way tie for the lead with McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, J.J. Spaun and Chris Gotterup.

He is projected to be 17th in the FedEx Cup standings if he wins, but any kind of finish in the top half of the 50-man field at Bellerive would more than likely be enough to move up into the top 30 as only 3 points separate the four players coming in the week from 28th to 31st in the standings — Kurt Kitayama (1,259), Bud Cauley (1.258), Rickie Fowler (1,258) and Woodland (1,256) — and that many points to get in the top 30 are attainable for as low as T48.

“I’m proud of where I’m at right now,” Woodland said. “I can promise you East Lake wasn’t on my mind to start the year. It’s a goal, I think you write it down, but it seemed far, far away. The game’s just continued to grind.”

Click here for BMW Championship scores

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LIV or die? Scoring O’Neil’s pep rally, er, presser

By Peter Kaufman

A few notes regarding LIV Golf after CEO Scott O’Neil’s press conference performance on Wednesday ahead of the league’s 2026 season finale in Indianapolis:

1. Almost the first third of O’Neil’s news conference in Indy can be seen as eulogizing LIV 1.0 and all those who toiled hard to contribute to it being a failure. Which sort of makes sense, because if there is a LIV 2.0, it will be leaner, meaner and with lower fixed costs than the original.

2. BC Partners, the mystery investor who has supposedly signed a term sheet to fund LIV 2.0, is run by Ted Goldthorpe. He is a veteran of both high-level Wall Street finance (Goldman Sachs is on his résumé) and also distressed investing. He is a very sophisticated lender. He is definitely not a financial Santa Claus like the Public Investment Fund, which backed LIV Golf to the tune of roughly $6 billion until earlier this year, when it decided to pull its funding. BC Partners has investors, who expect their money to actually make money. If Goldthorpe does lead a deal here, that will be the expectation.

3. With deep experience in bankruptcy, Goldthorpe is likely prepared to flush the many LIV vendors owed money through a bankruptcy. Ditto all the players contracts, absent all (or enough) of them agreeing to take less money and amend their contracts outside of a Chapter 11 filing. In turn, the supposed speed of LIV 2.0 taking place would auger a Chapter 11 filing (pre-packaged, pre-negotiated, 363 sale), there would seem to be too many parties needing to agree to terms outside of Chapter 11. Not impossible, just unlikely. Unless, of course, the PIF is good for all the money owed to all such parties.

4. Finally, moving past all the pretty O’Neil words about the golf world having enough room for LIV 2.0 — is there really a reason for it to exist? Personally, I don’t believe so. Despite its claims, Classic LIV failed to “grow the game” and nothing that has been said about 2.0 portends a different outcome.

5. This much can also be true: the worm has really turned since the PGA Tour now no longer fears LIV. Because if the PGA Tour did fear LIV 2.0, it would make it much easier for LIV alums/defectors to return to the Mother Ship — and immediately, without penalty. The more LIV loses its big-name talent to the PGA Tour, the less likely it is that there will be a LIV 2.0. Presumptive new money here wants to back marquee names (Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, etc.) and not the great unheralded who comprise most of the LIV roster.

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Rory McIlroy and Scott O’Neil (Alex Slitz/Getty Images and Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf)

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — At nearly the same time that Scott O’Neil was laying out his optimistic plan for the future of LIV Golf at a news conference in Indianapolis, Rory McIlroy was asked a question at Bellerive Country Club about the possibility of LIV players coming back to the PGA Tour and whether they bring value.

“I would argue, have they brought value to LIV? You know?” McIlroy said. “I think the PGA Tour’s in a really good spot.”

McIlroy is at Bellerive for this week’s $20 million BMW Championship, the second of three FedEx Cup playoff events. The six-time major champion has often been asked his opinion of LIV Golf and its players, and he’s had no shortage of opinions.

But that blunt assessment is a snapshot of the PGA Tour’s confidence level at this moment as LIV Golf’s future is in doubt. The Indianapolis event is the final tournament on the truncated 2026 LIV schedule after next week’s scheduled team event in Michigan was cancelled (the second U.S. event cancelled on LIV this season).

O’Neil is attempting to balance touting a promised new investor with the negativity surrounding the end of this season in the aftermath of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund pulling its funding beyond 2026 and leaving LIV with unpaid vendors and several lawsuits hovering over the league as it considers possible bankruptcy.

Although O’Neil did not say the tentative investment source by name, it is widely reported to be BC Partners.

“This is a bit of a compressed process, for those of you (who haven’t) been in and around fundraising or in and around processes to raise this kind of money, it’s typically quite long, and the fact that we’re at this point in a couple months is pretty incredible,” O’Neil said on Wednesday in Indianapolis. “We’re fortunate to have a lead with the kind of vision and confidence and relationships to make this a really fun and exciting future for all of us.”

O’Neil added that “we have a very compressed timeline to get the deal done. I’m not going to share that here. But I can tell you we’re well on our way to a transaction. Very excited about the future.”

Also in today’s DD …

• More nuggets from Scott O’Neil’s press conference

• A little more Rory McIlroy as well

• Caddies raise big money for college scholarships

• How the Presidents Cup qualifying stands in the stretch run

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That future, he said, would include five international events and five U.S.-based events around the major championships to better give an LIV players who are eligible for majors the ability to prepare for them.

He also stressed his desire for the various golf entities to get along.

“I heard a real appetite to put the parochial friction of the past behind us,” he said. “I want to be crystal clear; that’s what LIV Golf wants.

“The philosophy is simple, if you’ve been around me before, you’ve heard it: It’s complete, not compete. Golf doesn’t need one tour to win and everyone else to lose. There are great tours around the world. They serve different markets, different fans and have different purposes. We believe players should have the flexibility to compete across these platforms when they are good enough and enhance the fields.

“We shouldn’t live in a world where one group of golfers is uniquely restricted from playing elsewhere. Our goal isn’t to replace or restrict any tour. Our mission is to bring something distinctive to the ecosystem that elevates it and makes the whole game better. More markets, younger, next-gen global fans, more sponsors, more opportunities for players, more great golf, and of course, a lot more fun.”

But when asked if he’d spoken with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, O’Neil said: “I’m not going to comment on my conversations with members of the golf stewardship, but that’s not who I was referring to.”

The PGA Tour, so far, has not shown much inclination to extend any olive branches to LIV golfers. It has maintained that LIV Golf is unauthorized competition and has barred its players from competing in PGA Tour events.

Even players in good standing with the PGA Tour have been required to sit out a year, with Brooks Koepka the lone exception. He was offered a path back this year under a limited-time offer called the “Returning Member Program” because he had remaining status on the PGA Tour as a recent major champion.

“I’m not part of these discussions, but I’m pretty sure they’re not going to be welcomed back straight away,” McIlroy said of those who might leave LIV after this year. “If they were offered this returning member program back in (January), the one that Brooks took, then, yeah, maybe. But that has sort of come and gone. And I think it was said at the time that the deal that they might get going forward, if they do decide to come back, isn’t going to be as good as the one that Brooks got. So, yeah, I would say it’s going to be a tough, tough road back.”

And that is the great debate. There is a good bit of chatter these days that Jon Rahm wants to return to the PGA Tour after this LIV season, despite still being under contract to the league.

Nobody on either side of that issue is talking and most of what is out there is conjecture. Would McIlory really be opposed to his Ryder Cup teammate returning straightaway if the Spanish golfer does decide to leave? As Sergio Garcia said this week, “we’ll see.”

There is so much still to come.

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LIV CEO Scott O’Neil paints a very rosy picture of his distressed asset (Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf)

More nuggets from O’Neil

The LIV CEO was asked numerous questions on Wednesday at an Indianapolis news conference. Buckle up. There was a lot to unpack.

On his confidence about the future of LIV Golf:

“My confidence level is high because the facts are good. So when the facts are good, it usually leads to a good outcome.

“For me, the facts are, can you have a lead investor, will limited partners come behind them, will players play in this league, do we have support from the stewards of this game, do we have broadcast partners that want this content, are our sponsors running for the hills, or are they double clicking? And they’re double clicking.

“The facts are good. Our pattern of performance over the last two seasons, and that’s all I can speak to, has been really good, in the face of all this. When you see ticket numbers — we’ll have two fewer events this year and still set an all-time attendance record. That’s impossible in any other sport.

“I don’t know — our facts are good. We have work to do. We have things we have to accomplish. There are hurdles we have to jump over. It’s a very complex transaction we’ll have to deliver. But man, I wouldn’t bet against us.”

On a meeting the players had with the new investor LIV hopes to bring on board:

“It was everything I hoped it would be. You have a visionary, charismatic, driven, well-connected leader, investor, businessman who answered questions with grace, shared his vision, and I think was able to convey a lot of the things that players and GMs and my colleagues wanted to hear. It was a fantastic meeting.”

On reports that vendors are owed money:

“Look, I come from a family of entrepreneurs, a family of small business entrepreneurs and know the challenge that that is. So what I would say to them is we’re doing everything we can to make sure we can do right by them and the work they committed, and I hope we can. For the next generation, it will certainly be a different business with a different process.”

On the possibility of declaring bankruptcy:

“I don’t think we would rule out any option. I mean, the whole focus is on transaction, transaction, transaction. We’re spending all our time thinking about how we best land this plane and have it landed so we can take off again. All our focus is in that direction.”

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Rory McIlroy says he doesn’t take satisfaction in LIV’s downfall (James Gilbert/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

And a little more from Rory, too

On if he takes any personal satisfaction from having helped “win the battle” against LIV:

“It’s a hard one,” McIlroy said. “Like, I think I feel like I’ve kept my position consistent that LIV has never been a good thing for the game. So — and whatever 2.0 looks like, if it even happens, you know — they say they’re trying to be more collaborative and all that. But … (the PGA Tour) is the best platform for the top professional golfers in the world.

“Yeah, were there some things at the start of LIV that the PGA Tour could have done better? Sure. But I think that, you know, the guys that went … you think back to the start with, like, say, Phil (Mickelson) was unhappy with some stuff or whatever it was. Like, surely that just warranted a conversation instead of blowing the entire professional game up and doing something else.

“So I don’t take any personal satisfaction of people like losing jobs. Like … that doesn’t seem right. I’ve always felt like this is the best place to play professional golf. And I’m pretty sure if the PGA Tour were handed $6 billion it would have done a better job with it.”

On what makes the PGA Tour’s position in golf so great:

“People tune into the PGA Tour because they want to see elite competition. And they want to see things that are meaningful and things that matter. I think with the creation of the 2028 schedule and things that the (future competition committee) are doing, with Brian (Rolapp) and the rest of the team, I think like the weeks will be more meaningful and they will feel like they matter more.

“I think also the closer collaboration with the DP World Tour, obviously the Asian Tour is now being brought back into the fold. I think everyone’s started to work together a little more closely. Yeah, I think, I just think they’re in a really good spot.”

On whether having Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and other select players back on the PGA Tour would make it stronger heading into the next media rights negotiation:

“Eventually, yeah, maybe.”

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A word from our sponsor …

This this week’s Daily Drive newsletter is being brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors among its events the BMW Championship, which is being played this week at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which now supports 1,310 students attending 28 universities.

On Wednesday, current Evans Scholars and alums caddied for amateurs in the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am and donated their fees back to the Evans Scholars Foundation in one of its biggest fundraising events of the year.

This is the 20th year of the partnership between the BMW and the WGA/ESF, a deal that began in 2007 when the event became part of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Since then, the tournament has raised $63 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation, which is the event’s sole charity, and helped put more than 4,850 caddies in college.

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Presidents Cup qualifying update

Qualifying for the automatic spots for Team USA ends after this week. The subject hasn’t gotten a lot of attention but the top six American players in Presidents Cup points following the BMW Championship will make the team that will take on an International squad next month at Medinah. U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker will then make six at-large selections after the Tour Championship.

Scottie Scheffler, Cam Young, Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Ben Griffin and Collin Morikawa currently hold the top six spots, with Wyndham Clark, Chris Gotterup, Xander Schauffele and J.J. Spaun filling out the rest of the top 10. After that, Justin Thomas and Jacob Bridgemen sit 11th and 12th while just outside the top 12 are Akshay Bhatia, Harris English and Ryan Gerard. U.S. team event veteran Patrick Cantlay has ridden some recent form up to 16th.

The International team is determined via Official World Golf Ranking points with the top six decided after the Tour Championship. International captain Geoff Ogilivy will make six picks of his own to fill out the roster.

Currently, the top six in the International Team standings are Si Woo Kim, Ryan Fox, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee, Tom Kim and Adam Scott.

The rest of the top 15 on the International points list are (in order based on OWGR points accrued): Corey Conners, Nico Echavarria, Sungjae Im, Jason Day, Casey Jarvis, Ryo Hisatsune, Nick Taylor, Aldrich Potgieter and Jayden Schaper.

Chile’s Joaquin Niemann and Australia’s Lucas Herbert — despite being ranked Nos. 43 and 50 in the current OWGR and ahead Adam Scott — are not eligible to play for the International team because they are LIV golfers.

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Viktor Hovland celebrated Travelers win doing Viking row with Norway fans (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Viktor Hovland is all smiles, even amidst his various struggles. The video that will often emerge from his homeland in Norway of Hovland simply having a ball with his friends on a local muni says a lot about his personality, and how much he loves the game.

His candor is refreshing as well. Hovland admits that he is rarely satisfied. Even in victory, he can amazingly find something to fault. It’s funny in a way, and he acknowledges as much, but says he wouldn’t be as successful if he was satisfied with what he knows is not his best.

Hovland, 28, is already an eight-time PGA Tour winner. He won the FedEx Cup in 2023 and parted with his coach not long after. He won the Valspar Championship last year and complained about his swing. He took down Scottie Scheffler earlier this year in a playoff at the Travelers Championship and fretted about what he did wrong.

He enters this week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club searching for something he recognizes that he might not ever attain.

“I think being really hard on myself is one of the reasons why I’m here,” said Hovland, who is ranked No. 14 in the Official World Golf Ranking. “It’s just I’m always pushing like I remember even in junior tournaments in Norway and I like shoot 1-under par and win, be super exciting, but I would always think like, ‘Okay, if I played an amateur tournament would I have won? What would I have needed to do better today in order to win the next time around?’

“So it’s like you’re always thinking like how can this get better and better and better. And if I hit a terrible shot and get lucky and make a birdie, it’s like, ‘Okay, well the next time, if I’m not lucky … you know.’ You always got to think that way. Especially when I know how good it can be, it’s even more frustrating when you don’t execute the way you want to.”

Also in today’s DD …

• LIV drama doesn’t end even if season will this week in Indy

• The ‘Western’ goes east, west and everywhere in between

• Reed will retain focus on DPWT even though he’s now PGA Tour eligible

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Hovland enters this week 22nd in the FedEx Cup standings, which means he is virtually assured of making it to East Lake next week for the Tour Championship.

It was three years ago that Hovland went on an epic run, winning the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields then capturing the Tour Championship the following week to win the FedEx Cup. Throw in his victory earlier in 2023 at the Memorial, a tie for third at the Players Championship, top-10s at the Masters and PGA Championship and a tie for 13th at the Open Championship, and it was an amazing year. And that doesn’t include a starring role for Europe at the Ryder Cup in Rome.

Then he changed coaches and his swing and it took 18 months for Hovland to win again.

“Looking back I would say that it was more I was content with my game my whole career up until 2023 in terms of my ball striking,” Hovland said. “But it was always trying to nitpick and trying to find places where I can improve. Now with kind of the struggles that I’ve had the last. I would say three years, where my ball striking has just been drastically worse you take a little bit for granted how good it was before. But I do think like without having that mindset of trying to improve, I wouldn’t have gotten out here. I wouldn’t have had the career that I’ve had up to this point.

“Obviously I would like to play like I played in 2023 every single year, but it’s not like you can just put it in neutral and keep playing like that the rest of your life. Like you’re always fighting entropy, there’s always stuff that’s going to be tossed at you and you got to deal with those problems. So I’m feeling pretty confident that we’re going to get to that point, it’s just I need to also give myself some time to work on the right things and then get back to playing the golf that I know I can.”

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LIV drama never ends, though season will in Indy

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil is scheduled to speak to the media on Wednesday in Indianapolis and he’s got some big questions to answer in addition to any update he gives about the future of the league.

Sports Business Journal reported Tuesday that LIV has yet to pay players prize money from the LIV Golf New York event that concluded on Aug. 9. Typically players would have received funds on the Tuesday or Wednesday following the tournament.

And Front Office Sports reported that among several entities that are owed money by LIV Golf is a production company that put on its season preview event that featured all the teams and players.

Meanwhile, what is now the season-ending event in Indianapolis this week has a new twist. Instead of the usual purse of $30 million which includes $20 million for the individual portion and $10 million for the team part of the competition, LIV is taking the $40 million purse that was supposed to be used next week in Michigan — officially canceled on Monday — and making that the purse this week.

But the payout is different. Only $10 million will be paid as part of the individual competition with $30 million going to the 13 teams simply based on the order they finish in Indy. The winner of the team competition this week will be declared the season-long team winner. Jon Rahm already clinched the individual title last week, yet he was not pictured in a social media post hyping the event this week.

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A word from our sponsor . . .

This this week’s Daily Drive newsletter is being brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors among its events the BMW Championship, which is being played this week at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which now supports 1,310 students attending 28 universities.

The tournament has a long history and was known for years as the Western Open. It began in 1899 and for approximately five decades was viewed as a “major” tournament, moving around the country similar to the U.S. Open. For a time, the Western Golf Association was its own rules-making body and a rival to the United States Golf Association, eventually shifting its focus to its caddie scholarship program.

In the early 1960s, the Western anchored itself in Chicago, playing at such venerable courses as Medinah (site of this year’s Presidents Cup), Olympia Fields and Beverly.

Starting in 1974, the tournament made its home at Butler National Golf Club outside of Chicago before moving to Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in 1991.

When the tournament was rebranded the BMW Championship as part of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the idea was to take it out of the Chicago area — a move that has proved to be successful. The first time it did so was in 2008 when it came to Bellerive and since has gone to Indianapolis, Denver, Baltimore, Wilmington, Del., and next year to New York at Liberty National.

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Patrick Reed will make his first start on DPWT this week since the Open (Charlie Crowhurst/R&A via Getty Images)

PGA Tour-eligible Reed’s wild year and fall plans

The new year started off innocently enough for Patrick Reed. He headed to Florida in January for LIV Golf’s annual “Teams” week where he was required to be in attendance for media obligations. From there he headed straight to the Dubai Invitational in the Middle East, with plans to play two DP World Tour events before the season-opening LIV event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Within days, Reed’s plans had changed. After Brooks Koepka’s announced plan to return to the PGA Tour, Reed opted to forge his own path back that would require him to remain suspended most of this year. He’d be allowed back on the PGA Tour after August but only as a non-member with sponsor invites. He could take up membership again in January 2027.

Reed had a nice back-up plan with the DP World Tour, and he’s taken full advantage of it. He won twice early in the year and lost in a playoff in a three-week span in Dubai and Qatar. That vaulted him to the top of the Race to Dubai standings, where he has remained all season.

That is Reed’s ticket back to the PGA Tour full-time in 2027. He will easily secure one of the top 10 spots on the European circuit that will allow full status on the PGA Tour.

“I kind of left it all up to the golf game,” said Reed, who his playing in this week’s Nexo Championship in Scotland. “I was fortunate that the DP World Tour allowed me to play the whole time and not have any suspensions for fines or anything like that (Reed had his fines paid for by LIV Golf through 2025). So to be able to play starting in January onwards, playing some solid golf in order to secure what is possible on the PGA Tour next year.”

While he can accept sponsor invites this fall — he said he has received offers but would not disclose which tournaments — Reed is likely to purse the DP World Tour schedule through the DP World Tour Championship.

To date, it has been an odd schedule for the 2018 Masters champion. After the Masters, he didn’t play again until the PGA Championship, where he tied for 10th. After the PGA, he didn’t play again until the U.S. Open, where he missed the cut.

He then played DPWT events in Italy, Germany and Scotland prior to the Open Championship, where he tied for 46th.

The DP World Tour then took a three-week break after the Open and Reed skipped last week’s tournament in Denmark.

But he’s back in action this week to begin a stretch of five consecutive weeks of golf including the British Masters, European Masters in Switzerland, the Irish Open and the DPWT’s flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. That coincides with the PGA Tour’s first FedEx Fall event (the Biltmore Championship Asheville in North Carolina).

The following week is the Presidents Cup and Reed would be eligible, although his form of late has not been to the level it was earlier in the year to warrant a captain’s pick.

If Reed is to take a sponsor’s invite on the PGA Tour, there are a few conflicts with DP World Tour events: the Dunhill Links is the same week as the Bank of Utah Championship; the Open de España is the same week as the Baycurrent Classic in Japan; and the DPWT’s season-ending events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai go up against consecutive PGA Tour events in Mexico.

Reed leads Rory McIlroy in the Race to Dubai standings and seems intent on trying to achieve that accomplishment.

“It would mean a lot to me,” he said. “That would be awesome and it’s obviously a goal. This year I have the opportunity to make that happen.”

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Sungjae Im was lone player to move up in Memphis to advance to St. Louis. (Tracy Wilcox/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

Only one player moved into the top 50 of the season-long standings and thus advanced to this week’s BMW Championship and Scottie Scheffler has already locked up the $23 million in bonus money that goes to the points leader prior to the Tour Championship.

In case you were wondering why the FedEx Cup “playoff” system is set to be blown up and potentially (hopefully?) simplified, see the above sentence.

“I talked about it the last few years, I think it’s silly,” Scheffler said during a news conference two years ago of the starting strokes and the whole playoff system. “You can’t call it a season-long race and have it come down to one tournament.”

It seems every time the PGA Tour has tried to rectify one problem or another with its postseason, it only creates a new one.

The “starting strokes” format that was implemented from 2019-24 — giving the points leaders various stroke advantages at the start of the Tour Championship — was scrapped because it ultimately proved to be unpopular with players and fans, even if its intentions were sound. Nobody liked (or saw the fairness) seeing the best player in the world get a 10-stroke advantage on the bottom of the 30-man field before anyone teed off.

In its place starting last year, the decision was made to make the Tour Championship a standalone tournament with a $40 million purse and the FedEx Cup trophy (and $10 million) going to the winner at East Lake. It was the simplest solution.

But in doing so, the tour needed to put an emphasis on the points accumulated all season leading up to the Tour Championship. So it decided to pay out the big bonus money following the BMW Championship, the penultimate event of the season which this week is being waged at Bellerive Country Club outside of St. Louis.

Also in today’s DD …

• Is less really more or just less for Rory McIlroy?

• The Chick who inspired the Evans Scholars Foundation

• The LIV Golf soap opera will awkwardly conclude 2026 (at least) in Indy this week

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That required altering the volatility it had built into the playoff points system to try to create drama. Instead of a massive points boost at each of the first two playoff events as had been the norm (2,000 points to the winner as opposed to 500 for a regular event and 750 for a signature events and majors) it kept the points at signature-event levels, meaning the chance for movement from the bottom 20 spots into the top 50 or 30 would be far lower.

That might not create excitement but it came down to the issue of fairness over flashiness. Otherwise, you are penalizing someone at the top like Scheffler — who had a lead in the points for most of the year but could potentially get passed because someone has a hot week or two at the right time.

It’s why the plan to create a playoff system for the PGA Tour has always had holes.

Scott Scheffler already clinched $23 million bonus (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

The latest tweaks led to what occurred last weekend in Memphis. Scheffler already wrapped up the points title with a commanding 1,447-point lead over second-place Matt Fitzpatrick. And only Sungjae Im moved from outside (53rd) to inside (40th) the top 50 with his T5 finish in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Consequently, only Keith Mitchell was bumped out (from 49th to 51st) after his T34 wasn’t good enough.

This week’s BMW Championship will determine the top 30 who advance to East Lake next week. Notably, only two players moved up into the top 30 after Memphis, with Bud Cauley (34th to 29th) and Kurt Kitayama (33rd to 28th) pushing out Gary Woodland (31st from 27th) and J.T. Poston (32nd from 30th).

Making that top 30 is certainly a big deal. Anyone who reaches the Tour Championship is essentially exempt for all the major championships in 2027 (only Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship reserve automatic spots for the top 30, but nobody that high ever gets left out of the PGA either). They also get to compete for the largest one-week individual purse in golf and a $10 million first prize.

Ask Tommy Fleetwood how he liked the new format last year. The Englishman won the 2025 Tour Championship and thus the FedEx Cup title along with his first PGA Tour victory. No issues there. It’s all fair and square. But the system has long cried for something better to crown a season-long champion.

An example of something better? Take Rory McIlroy at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The Masters champion admittedly came to Memphis to chip off the rust from a game that had been idle for three weeks since the Open Championship.

After skipping the first playoff event last year, McIlroy played last week and finished 66th out of 69 players who teed it up. He dropped one spot from 12th to 13th in the standings. He’s assured of getting to the Tour Championship and could have skipped the tournament and not fared any worse.

McIlroy knows how the system works and did nothing wrong either when he skipped or when he played. But the format would arguably be far better and have more actual playoff intensity if it simply scrapped the points at the end of the regular season and started from scratch in the playoffs, with only the top 50 finishers in Memphis advancing to the BMW. And then do the same this week, with only the top 30 finishers at Bellerive advancing to Atlanta.

Why don’t they do it that way? Well, because there is risk of a marquee player like McIlroy finishing 66th and getting eliminated. The PGA Tour and its sponsors are averse to that risk. They want the top players to advance, understandably.

Had a true elimination playoff system been in place, you can be assured that McIlroy would have arrived in Memphis far more ready to compete to make sure he moved on. You don’t see Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes sitting out a divisional playoff game to be rested for the Super Bowl because a wild-card team could knock them out any given postseason week.

Rory McIlroy solo 66th in Memphis was no better than a DNP in 2025 (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

But McIlroy faced no such risk, so he wasn’t required to either play or be at his sharpest. But if he had to finish top 50 to advance, he’d have been better prepared and would have competed in every round with a far different intensity trying to survive and advance. The same goes for Open champion Ryan Fox who finished T58 but still remains in the top 30. Or Robert MacIntyre, who bailed after a bad first round (82) but still made it to St. Louis this week.

It’s unclear if the PGA Tour will make any changes to its postseason format for 2027, which is the last year of the umbrella sponsorship by FedEx. But the tour has already signaled things will be different in 2028 under its new two-tiered competitive model split into a Championship Series and Challenger Series.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has made a point to say that the regular-season Championship Series points champion — basically ignored now — will be recognized for his season-long accomplishment. That suggests a bonus following the last event, which during the 20 years of the FedEx Cup has been the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. Then a new playoff series will be implemented — with the possibility of some kind of match play floated as part of the format — creating more of a true playoff element for those who qualify.

It’s possible we will get more details from Rolapp next week at the Tour Championship, though they still have another year before the new competitive model launches in 2028 and two years before we reach that postseason. In the meantime, it’s important to remember the overall goal of the playoffs when the FedEx Cup was first instituted in 2007 — to have some meaningful golf at the end of the PGA Tour season without it limping into the fall.

By and large, the FedEx Cup — warts and all — has done just that.

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Is less more or just less for McIlroy?

Rory McIlroy has clearly been trying a less-is-more approach to his golf this season. While it worked well leading into the Masters — where he became just the fourth player to successfully defend the green jacket — it hasn’t fared particularly well since.

McIlroy has played only seven times in 18 weeks since winning his second green jacket in April, and he’s really not been a final-day contender in any of those seven starts. His performance in the subsequent majors (T7, T32 and T40) was particularly disappointing given that he certainly showed the ability to win more of them.

After the Open Championship, where McIlroy tied for 40th, he put the clubs away for a few weeks and obviously was using last week’s FedEx St Jude Championship as a way to sharpen his game again leading into this week’s BMW Championship and next week’s Tour Championship.

But even McIlroy admitted something was amiss.

“Obviously didn’t come in here with a ton of reps, almost felt like the more the week went on, the more I felt lost with my golf swing a little bit,” he said Sunday after failing to break par all we and finishing 66th of 69 players at 8-over par. “I figured it out a little bit the last few holes, I think. I just sort of — swing wasn’t in sync and obviously didn’t do a ton of practice coming in here.

“I guess nice to shake the rust off a little bit, but I’m going to have to work pretty hard between now and next Thursday to feel like I have any sort of golf game to compete (at Bellerive).”

That’s a bit of an ominous sign for the three-time FedEx Cup champion who still has a good bit of golf to play this fall.

“To me it’s more about obviously the execution of what I’m doing right now, and the execution wasn’t there this week,” McIlroy said. “As I said, I’m going to have to sort of put the head down and grind from now until Thursday to try to feel like I have any sort of chance (this) week.”

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A word from our sponsor …

This week’s Daily Drive newsletter will be brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors six golf tournaments, including this week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which now has 1,310 students attending 28 universities.

The scholarship’s namesake is Charles “Chick” Evans Jr., who won the 1910 Western Open at Beverly Country Club, defeating George Simpson 6 and 5 when the event was contested as match play.

The Western Open was first played in 1899 and went through 2006 with that name (CBS’ broadcaster Trevor Immelman won the final Western Open that year) before it became the BMW Championship in 2007.

Evans became the first player in 1916 to win the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open in the same year. He also won the U.S. Amateur in 1920 and played in the oldest American golf championship a record 50 consecutive years. Evans won the Western Amateur, which is also administered by the WGA, eight times.

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As the LIV Golf world turns

On Monday we asked a few questions concerning LIV Golf’s rocky end to the season, a few of which were answered in advance of this week’s LIV Golf Indianapolis tournament.

This week’s tournament will — as predicted — be the season-ending event and will see individual stroke play for 72 holes with the usual podium acknowledgement for the top three finishers. Jon Rahm already sewed up the individual season championship a week ago in New Jersey.

Since the previously scheduled season-ending Team Championship in Michigan was — finally — canceled on Monday (the golf world knew for weeks that the event would not be played, but it took until Monday to be official), LIV will declare the winner of this week’s team scoring (all four players count every day) in Indianapolis as the official 2026 team winner.

So even though the 4 Aces team leads Ripper, Legion XIII and the Crushers in a pretty tight four-way points battle in the season-long standings, if the moribund Majesticks or Korean GC at the bottom of the standings manages some kind of inspired week in Indy, they’ll claim the season crown.

UPDATE: It turns out that 75 percent of the $40.1 million purse this week will be divvied up by the teams, with only $10.1 million for the individual pot. So the winning team will split $8.4 million each way while the winning player will get $2.02 million instead of the usual $4 million. There’s another $10 million to pay the top three spots in the season-long individual standings, with Rahm already securing the top prize of $6 million.

Golf.com reported earlier Monday that LIV Golf held off on announcing the cancelation of the Michigan event to avoid “additional media flags,” according to a memo website cited.

Later, Front Office Sports reported that several vendors and contractors are still owed funds, including some who have worked with LIV Golf since it began in 2022. The amounts owed vary from a few thousand dollars to as much as $100,000.

LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has been scrambling to put together funding to keep the league going beyond this year, but the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — which has backed LIV since the beginning but is pulling out after this year — had pledged to fund LIV through 2026. That claim appears to be dubious.

“The PIF is extremely difficult to work for,” a source told FOS. “And to get money from them is a huge pain in the ass.”

There is still a lot at stake this week for players who face relegation — assuming LIV Golf still exists next year — by not finishing among the top 46 in LIV’s season-long points standings.

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Scottie Scheffler’s 8-shot margin of victory is the largest of his career (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)

Order is restored. Scottie Scheffler is a PGA Tour winner again, and a seventh-month odyssey is complete. The No. 1-ranked player in the world by a mile just cleaned up in Memphis and all is right in pro golf’s hierarchy.

Scheffler, 30, shot a final-round 66 at TPC Southwind to win the FedEx St. Jude Championship by a whopping eight shots over Si Woo Kim, marking his first victory since January’s American Express Championship in his first start of the year.

It was the largest victory margin of Scheffler’s career and ended an odd stretch of incredible golf that saw Scheffler finish runner-up five times and third twice more.

For anyone else, that is a career year. For Scheffler, it led to questions about what was wrong, a clear indication of the lofty standards he’s set since winning his first PGA Tour event in February of 2022 at the WM Phoenix Open. He now has 21 PGA Tour titles. Only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods got to 21 victories quicker than Scheffler.

Also in today’s DD …

• Whaley beats Leng at Merion, but both come away from U.S. Am big winners

• This week in golf: Winther, Thitikul, Steelman and Cink

• Ryan Fox returns to action after measuring the depth of the claret jug

• LIV’s season will come to an abrupt premature end this week in Indianapolis

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“It’s not easy to win out here. I felt like this year, the year that I’ve had kind of shows that, how difficult it is,” Scheffler said after finishing at 17-under par at TPC Southwind. “We have a lot of talented guys, and I played some really solid golf over the course of this year, but I hadn’t played much kind of great golf.

“Like I said, I had my close calls and lost a couple playoffs. So it was nice coming into a day in which I had the lead and be able to hold that lead and really kind of build on it as the round went on.

“I felt like a week like this was coming. I felt like I was on repeat all year just being like, hey, I’m playing solid. I’m close. It feels good to be answering some different questions at the end of this week.”

A victory was only in doubt for a short time when Scheffler’s bunker shot on the par-5 third hole landed on a sprinkler head, took a big hop and rolled through the green and into the water. It was likely to be within birdie-putt range, instead Scheffler had to scramble for a bogey.

“I was like, ‘Man, when is this going to stop happening?”’ Scheffler said.

But he quickly bounced back with consecutive birdies on the fifth and sixth holes. His playing partner and friend, Sam Burns, had no answers.

“I think everyone knew that coming into the day. I knew he was going to put a solid round together,” said Burns, who shot 73 and tied for third. “Honestly it was going to be really difficult — what did he finish, at 17 (under)?

“I would have had to play pretty much a perfect round of golf to have a chance today, and I didn’t come close to that. Yeah, he played exactly how I expected him to.”

Scheffler was aided by a second-round 61 in which he made 11 birdies on Friday.

The win was worth $3.6 million from the $20 million purse and enough FedEx Cup points to clinch a $23 million bonus that goes to the leader through next week’s BMW Championship. Nobody else can catch Scheffler, and he’ll be playing for pride at an event he won last year.

The FedEx St. Jude saw just one player move into the top 50 to qualify for next week’s BMW Championship (Sungjae Im) and one player fall out (Keith Mitchell). For the third straight year, Jordan Spieth failed to make it past the first playoff event, finishing 52nd in points after taking a share of the first-round lead on Thursday. He ended up in a tie for 19th.

Those who are headed to Bellerive next week are also now eligible for the nine signature events on the PGA Tour schedule in 2027. The top 30 players after the BMW advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake where the FedEx Cup title will go to the winner of the event.

With a second victory, Scheffler will undoubtedly now be in the conversation again for PGA Tour Player of the Year due to his amazing consistency.

“This is a lot better feeling than having a good statistical week,” he said.

The victory tied him with Davis Love III, Lanny Wadkins and Craig Wood for 32nd on the all-time PGA Tour victory list. Next up at 22 wins: Raymond Floyd, Jim Barnes and Johnny Ferrell.

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A word from our sponsor …

The rest of this week’s Daily Drive newsletter will be brought to you by the Western Golf Association and the Evans Scholars Foundation, which has been sending caddies to college since 1930 — including one whose byline is atop this newsletter.

The WGA, which was founded in 1899, sponsors six golf tournaments, including this week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis. The proceeds from the tournament benefit the foundation, which now sees more than 1,100 students attending 28 universities.

The tournament originated as the Western Open back in 1899, which was played the week prior to the U.S. Open and was won by Scotland’s Willie Smith at the Glen View Club in, appropriately, Golf, Illinois. In 2007 it became part of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs and was rebranded the BMW Championship.

Scottie Scheffler won last year’s tournament at Cave’s Valley in Maryland and will be part of the 50-player field that will play for $20 million, with the top 30 in points at the end advancing to next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake.

The Daily Drive will have on-site coverage from Bellerive this week as well as other news in the golf world including some WGA-specific content thanks to our sponsor.

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England’s Jack Whaley wins the U.S. Amateur 4 and 3 over Jay Leng Jr. (Dustin Satloff/USGA)

This week in golf …

• FedEx St Jude Championship: Scottie Scheffler shot a 4-under 66 on Sunday at TPC Southwind to finish 17-under par and eight shots better than runner-up Si Woo Kim, tying the largest victory margin in Scheffler’s tour career. It was Scheffler’s first win since his first start of the season at The American Express but the 21st of his career. Only Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus reached 21 wins quicker.

• U.S. Amateur: England’s Jack Whaley rallied from a 2-down deficit at the lunch break to beat American Jay Leng Jr., 4 and 3, in the 36-hole final at Merion Golf Club. Whaley won holes 2-5 after lunch to go 2 up and built the lead to 3 up with birdies on 8 and 10. Whaley locks up a spot on the Great Britian & Ireland Walker Cup team while Leng got picked to join the U.S. team that defends its title next month at Lahinch in Ireland. Both earned invites to next year’s Masters.

• Danish Golf Championship: Jeff Winther won his national tournament by shooting a 5-under 67 on Sunday to win by three strokes over a handful of guys including over fellow Dane Rasmus Højgaard. Højgaard chipped in for an eagle at the 17th hole to briefly tie him atop the leaderboard before Winther responded by making an eagle putt at the par-4 16th to move two shots ahead. Winther, 38, received a standing ovation as he played the par-3 18th where he secured his second win on the DP World Tour.

• The Standard Portland Classic: World No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand rallied with an 8-under 64 on Sunday at Columbia Edgewater CC to win by a shot over 54-hole leader Arpichaya Yubol and Chanettee Wannasaen. Thitikul stormed to the front playing the first 10 holes in 7-under including an eagle on No. 10 to take the lead.

• Albertsons Boise Open: Ross Steelman shot his third straight 64 on Sunday to win for the first time on the Korn Ferry Tour, finishing 27-under par for the week and three shots better than Robby Shelton and Davis Shore. The win moved Steelman two spots to the top of the KFT points list and locked up his PGA Tour card for 2027 season.

• Boeing Classic: Stewart Cink made birdie on the first playoff hole to beat Miguel Angel Jimenez at Snoqualmie Ridge to win for the fifth time on PGA Tour Champions in 2026.

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Winner Jack Whaley (right) and runner-up Jay Leng Jr. will both get invites to next year’s Masters (Dustin Satloff/USGA)

Whaley cools down Leng to win U.S. Amateur

There were no losers on Sunday in the U.S. Amateur championship match at Merion Golf Club. Well, technically England’s Jack Whaley beat American Jay Leng Jr., 4 and 3, to put his name on the trophy of the oldest championship in American golf, but they were both playing with house money in the rain on Sunday.

The real pressure was on display Saturday in the semifinals, when they were all playing not just for the right to advance to the championship match but for an invitation to the Masters next April. Augusta National traditionally honors the finalists with an invite, provided they remain amateurs.

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Telegraph report says Jon Rahm is heading to a breakup with LIV Golf (Jon Ferrey/LIV Golf)

What appears to be an ultimatum put forth to LIV Golf players who also want to maintain membership on the DP World Tour doesn’t have to be one at all. It simply will require LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil to do a work-around to achieve his goal of a global golf calendar.

The issue at hand is the revelation that the DP World Tour is not likely to extend beyond this year its waiver for conflicting events.

The Daily Drive reported on Tuesday that the deal the DP World Tour made with eight LIV golfers in February — and later with Jon Rahm — only extended through this year and the DP World Tour reiterated that it was not intended to be precedent-setting.

The Athletic took it farther on Wednesday, reporting that players and their representatives have been advised by the DP World Tour that the freedom to play LIV Golf without sanctions might not exist in 2027 as part of a LIV Golf 2.0.

Having to workaround this issue is probably not something O’Niel envisioned dealing with as he tries to secure funding and buy-in from players for LIV’s future, but the possibility of making it work does exist if he can first get so many of the other parts of his business in order.

Those are numerous, but this DPWT issue is a key one, too. LIV already runs the risk of losing Jon Rahm, who The Telegraph reported on Thursday appears to be working toward leaving.

Also in today’s DD …

• Spieth’s promised improvement picks a timely moment to show up

• Leng dumps Watts, Cowan bounced as U.S. Amateur reaches quarterfinals

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But keeping Rahm and the other DP World Tour players who made a deal with earlier this year — Tyrrell Hatton, Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie — happy and in the fold seems imperative to LIV’s future.

There are a couple of ways to view this.

Those on the LIV side see it as a potential threat as they run the risk of getting fined by the DP World Tour if they continue to play LIV events without releases.

Those on the DP World Tour side see it as business, protecting its events which would not have any ability to draw LIV players if there is a conflicting tournament as healthy LIV players are required to play every event.

All of this comes in the aftermath of O’Neil announcing last week that the league had “reached an agreement” with a lead investor (later learned to be BC Partners) with the hopes of continuing operations beyond this year. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund announced in April it was ending its financial support of the league, thus the need for new capital. Reports have stated that the investment is contingent upon LIV retaining its top stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Rahm.

Details were scarce and O’Neil said much would remain private, with the hope of wrapping it up next month.

At the same news conference last week at the LIV Golf New York event, O’Neil expressed a desire to work with the other tours to create a “global” golf calendar. LIV Golf would not comment on whether or not O’Neil had been given a heads up on the pending DP World Tour stance about conflicting releases.

“As we go through this next phase, this next five years, I’m very much looking forward to an era of openness, an era of free agency for our players, an era of cooperation, an era where we work together with the tours to make sure that there’s quite an incredible future for the game of golf and that the pipeline of fans that we’re building and driving that can be additive around the world to all the tours,” O’Neil said.

Unfortunately for O’Neil, that belief does not appear to be shared by the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. The PGA Tour has shown no inclination to budge from its stance of viewing LIV as unauthorized competing events, with suspensions

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Rory McIlroy is back in Memphis for playoff opener after skipping last season (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

World No. 2 Rory McIlroy is in the field for this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, which was not always a certainty even though he was never in doubt of qualifying for the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events.

McIlroy skipped the Memphis tournament last year, which undoubtedly caused some consternation at PGA Tour headquarters. FedEx is the tour’s umbrella sponsor and the Masters champion skipping one of the marquee season-ending events isn’t ever going to sit well.

And yet, McIlroy has the kind of clout to say ‘no’ given his stature and popularity. He wasn’t required to play and his rank in the FedEx Cup standings was unlikely to change much, as he cited the year prior when he tied for 68th in Memphis and barely moved in the standings.

This year, he’s back but pushing the tour’s boundaries in another area — he’s unlikely to fulfill the 15 tournament minimum requirement for PGA Tour membership. Even playing all three playoff events, McIlroy will only reach 14 PGA Tour starts. This week is just his first start since the Open at Royal Birkdale and only his sixth since winning the Masters for the second consecutive year in April.

Also in today’s DD …

• Viewership numbers reveal why PGA Tour is abandoning January

• Can ratings help shape when Championship Series should schedule bye weeks?

• Cowan outlasts Russell in U.S. Am’s heavyweight Round of 64 match at Merion

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This angle was covered shortly after the U.S. Open when it became apparent that McIlroy was going to come up short this year — and he wasn’t too concerned about it. There was an insinuation that things have been worked out with PGA Tour leadership including CEO Brian Rolapp, although nothing official has been disclosed.

“The PGA Tour and I are in constant dialogue,” McIlroy said last month at the Scottish Open. “I speak to Brian and his team a lot. Not just about that but about everything else. We’ll figure it out. I made them aware that this could happen at the end of last year. They know.”

McIlroy has made it clear in recent years that he wants to cut back on his schedule. And even though he’ll play just 14 times on the PGA Tour — including the major championships and the Players — he’s got a busy fall planned on the DP World Tour, with events including the Irish Open, BMW PGA Championship, DP World India Championship and Australian Open in addition to any Race to Dubai season-ending events.

The reason this is even an issue is because of McIlroy’s membership situation with the DP World Tour. That is considered his “home tour” by the PGA Tour and he is allowed to play unlimited events in Europe and the Middle East without seeking a conflicting event release.

The tradeoff: you are required to play the 15 on the PGA Tour. Typically, there are no exceptions. For example, would Shane Lowry, who is from Ireland, get a pass? What about England’s Tommy Fleetwood? Probably not, unless there was an extenuating circumstance such as an injury or family matter.

For McIlroy, his only defense is … he’s Rory McIlroy. To deny him membership next year over one missed tournament would actually hurt the tour more than it would hurt him. He could accept sponsor invites, but not to the signature events. He’d miss more of the big events than just the single tournament he is short this year.

Precedent? Sure, it’s probably not great. But if you’re the tour, you can say to anyone who complains “win the career slam and three FedEx Cup titles and get back to us.”

It is also quite possible that McIlroy made a deal with the PGA Tour to show up at TPC Southwind this week. After skipping the Memphis event last year, it was certainly possible he’d do so again. In fact, had there not been three events between the Open and the first playoff event, McIlroy might have passed again.

“A few different things went into that decision,” McIlroy said Wednesday following the pro-am at TPC Southwind. “I think having four weeks off going into the last two events of the year was probably going to be a little too much for me in terms of wanting to be competitive. So this is a good week — obviously I want to play well, but it’s also a good week to just see where my game is, do a lot of practice, or as much as I can in the heat.

“I think it’s important to be here. It’s the tour’s playoffs, and I think it’s important for all the players to be here. I’ve had some good conversations with Brian Rolapp over the last couple weeks. I think it’s important for me to be here and show support and looking forward to teeing it up.”

Give McIlroy credit for being diplomatic. He’s commented previously that the new Tour Championship format — where all 30 players who get to East Lake in two weeks start with the same chance to win the FedEx Cup — doesn’t provide much inventive to move up in the standings when a top-30 spot is assured. Sure, there’s bonus money at stake, but it’s probably money he doesn’t need.

McIlroy didn’t go down that road on Wednesday. And we’ll see how inspired he is throughout the weekend.

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The reason January golf is going away

If you’re wondering why the PGA Tour nixed the Hawaii tournaments and seems intent on eliminating tour events in January altogether, look no further than the final-round TV viewership numbers from 2026.

The Sports Business Journal compiled a chart of the final-round figures, and the only two tournaments that ended in Jan. 2026 barely drew flies compared to the rest of the PGA Tour schedule. Granted, the Sony Open in Hawaii (106,000 viewers) and The American Express (617,000) were the only tour events shown exclusively on cable’s Golf Channel, but compared to the third least watch event of the season (the Scottish Open, 1.944 million) they looked like Sham and Co. falling behind Secretariat at the Belmont.

Or worse, they stand out like a LIV event — even with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and three-time 2026 winner Chris Gotterup as winners.

Golf can’t compete with the NFL playoffs, especially when it’s not even broadcast on a major network as they’re all tied up focusing on the professional football behemoth. So tour CEO Brian Rolapp, a former NFL executive, is not even going to try to put his new Championship Series up against the NFL playoffs come 2028.

Consider: the NFL drew more eyeballs to one game on Super Bowl Sunday (125.6 million viewers) than the PGA Tour has drawn in all of its 30 Sundays so far in 2026 combined (102.04 million).

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Brooks Koepka will reevaluate after self-described “pathetic” first season back on PGA Tour (Jeff Haynes/USGA)

The FedEx Cup playoffs begin Thursday in Memphis, Tenn., with the top 70 in the season-long standings (minus Daniel Berger, who elected not to play) playing a $20 million tournament without a cut and an opportunity to advance to another $20 million event next week.

The possible riches are impressive, even for those who fail to make it from the FedEx St. Jude Championship to next week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive in St. Louis.

But while they fight it out for all the cash on offer, a group of players will undoubtedly be doing some soul-searching as they sit out this three-event playoff run. Brooks Koepka said so himself on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship after failing to advance. “Just need to go home and completely reevaluate everything,” he said.

He’s not oalone. Anyone who missed out on the playoffs is wondering what he needs to do to improve his position next year.

Also in today’s DD …

• Transition to pros isn’t always as easy as some young stars make it seem

• ESPN will offer some bonus coverage of first two rounds in Memphis

• Ryan medals, Watts and Russell advance to U.S. Amateur match play at Merion

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We identified nine players who would be considered surprises or disappointments based on their final regular-season FedEx Cup points finish.

• Keegan Bradley (74th) — The 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain began the year ranked No. 16 in the world (now 48th), had access to all of the signature events and had zero top-10 finishes, his best a tie for 12th at the RBC Heritage.

• Davis Thompson (77th) — A year after finishing 71st and just missing the playoffs, Thompson had two top-10s and a tie for 14th in his last three events, but couldn’t quite finish well enough at any of them to climb inside the top 70.

• Jason Day (82nd) — Injuries again got the best of Day, who barely played even when his playoff status was on the line. He lamented his physical struggles after missing the cut at the Wyndham. He played just five times in the last 10 weeks dating to the Memorial, with three missed cuts and a withdrawal.

• Brooks Koepka (94th) — The five-time major champion’s return to the PGA Tour after four years with LIV Golf was a huge disappointment, as he posted just a single top-10 and traced a lot of his woes to poor putting.

• Tony Finau (98th) — Finau’s issues date to last year, when he was No. 54 in the world following the FedEx St. Jude and has kept dropping since. Finau had one top-10 … and zero major championship appearances in 2026. He is exempt through 2027 due to past wins.

• Billy Horschel (100th) — Slow to recover from 2025 hip surgery, Horschel has dropped 100 spots to 53rd in the OWGR. He will need to play this fall in order to remain fully exempt next season by staying in the top 100.

• Lucas Glover (101st) — Glover had his chances a few times this summer and now will need to play well this fall in order to remain in the top 100.

• Chris Kirk (128th) — The six-time PGA Tour winner is also having to fight for his fully exempt status after missing eight cuts in 2026 and posting just a single top-10.

• Luke Clanton (147th) — The former Florida State star who had a great run in PGA Tour events as an amateur had a shockingly poor year, making just nine of 19 cuts and putting himself in great peril for next year. He’ll need to at least move into the top 125 in the fall in order to have some status next year.

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2025 PGA Tour U grad David Ford was among young stars who didn’t ignite in 2026 (Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

Golf is hard, even for young phenoms

One might get the impression that it’s a piece of cake transitioning from collegiate and amateur excellence to PGA Tour success watching the last few weeks. Highly touted young players Jackson Koivun, 21, Michael Thorbjornsen, 24, and Michael Brennan, 24, won each of the last three tour events while the latest PGA Tour University graduate Ben James has posted a slew of high finishes since turning pro this summer.

Well, it’s not always as easy as they’ve made it look.

Luke Clanton, 22, isn’t alone among recently highly touted collegiate stars who struggled as “sophomores” on the PGA Tour.

Former PGA Tour University Accelerated graduate Gordon Sargent, 23, is 134th in the FedEx Cup standings and will be fighting for his status this fall along with Clanton (147th). David Ford, 23, took up his card after topping the PGA Tour U list in 2025 and finished his first full regular season on tour at 154th and will also be fighting for his card in the fall.

And while Nick Dunlap, 22, doesn’t have to worry about his status for another year in 2027 because he won two PGA Tour events in 2024, he has a lot to worry about his game that left him 167th in points this season.

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ESPN on board with early FedEx package

A development on the TV front this week has ESPN providing two hours of coverage of the FedEx St. Jude Championship both Thursday and Friday.

ESPN still has streaming coverage via PGA Tour Live but will provide regular broadcast coverage on ESPN from 9-11 a.m for the first two rounds. How this works with Golf Channel’s exclusive cable rights is an interesting sidenote.

The ESPN+ streaming coverage begins at 7:45 a.m. and will continue. Golf Channel has its traditional time shot Thursday and Friday from 2-6 p.m., then 1-3 p.m. on Saturday and Noon-2 p.m. on Sunday. CBS has weekend coverage from 3-6 p.m. on Saturday and 2-6 p.m. on Sunday.

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2026 medalist Joshua Ryan grew up 10 miles away from Merion (Ishika Samant/USGA)

Local star Ryan claims U.S. Am medalist honors

Current Pennsylvania Amateur champion from nearby Norristown, Pa., Joshua Ryan, posted a 36-hole score of 8-under 132 to earn medalist honors over the 311-player field in the U.S. Amateur at Merion and Philadelphia Country Club.

Ryan, 22, followed up Monday’s 3-under 67 at stroke-play co-host Philadelphia CC with a 5-under 65 at Merion on Tuesday to beat U.S. Walker Cup selection Tyler Watts by two strokes.

He also becomes the first “local” medalist in the U.S. Amateur since Mark Goetz in 2021 at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh.

Miles Russell — the top-ranked junior and No. 4 WAGR player who tied for 39th in this year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, shared medalist at last month’s U.S. Junior Amateur before losing in the championship match and finished third at the Western Amateur after being medlaist — was among a crowd tied for fifth at 3-under and easily advances to the match play.

Play was suspended for darkness at 8:09 p.m. with a handful of competitors still on the course at Merion.

Among those guaranteed to make it through to match play are past U.S. Mid-Amateur champions Stewart Hagestad and Evan Beck, who are both finished and tied for 33rd at 1-over.

The cut line will be at 2-over par. With 17 players currently tied for 54th on that number, there will be a playoff to whittle it down to complete the 64-player match-play bracket before the Round of 64 can start Wednesday at Merion East. Among those players finished at 2-over: WAGR No. 5 Luke Poulter, the son of Ian Poulter; No. 6 William Jennings; No. 8 Ryder Cowan, co-low amateur at the 2026 U.S. Open; No. 11 Kihei Akina; and Fifa Laopakdee, last year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur champion.

Notables who failed to advance to match play are WAGR No. 1 and reigning NCAA champion Preston Stout (who was medalist in last year’s U.S. Amateur), 2025 Amateur champion and WAGR No. 9 Ethan Fang, 2025 U.S. Amateur winner Mason Howell and reigning Latin America Amateur champion Mateo Pulcini.

Television coverage from Merion will begin with the Round of 64 match play today on Peacock and NBC Sports Network from 3-6 p.m., with the Round of 16 and quarterfinals scheduled to be shown in the same 3-6 p.m. window on both platforms Thursday and Friday.

Saturday’s semifinals and the end of Sunday’s 36-hole championship match will be streamed on Peacock from 3-6 p.m. with NBC broadcast coverage scheduled from 4-6 p.m. after the first hour runs on NBC Sports Network both days.

Click here for full U.S. Amateur scoring and coverage.

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Bryson DeChambeau has drenched himself in LIV Golf’s culture and future (Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf)

There’s been a good bit to unpack in recent days with the LIV Golf drama that continues to unfold as it heads to — apparently — its last tournament of the season in Indianapolis next week.

But one aspect seems obvious — the league really needs Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm to buy in to LIV 2.0.

DeChambeau’s commitment appears unwavering. Rahm. .. well, not so much.

Following the LIV Golf New York event on Sunday — where earlier in the week league CEO Scott O’Neil unveiled an agreement with an undisclosed investor that would help secure LIV’s future into next week and beyond — DeChambeau described it as “a new and fresh vision for this product.”

“It won’t be changing too much, but it’ll be changing in the right ways,” DeChambeau said.

The two-time U.S. Open champion has seemingly bought into the idea of a LIV future, saying he’s been involved in investor discussions and is actively trying to bring potential new money to the table in order to survive beyond the Public Investment Fund’s departure. DeChambeau may have even facilitated a meeting between his agency (GSE Worldwide) and BC Partners, which is reportedly the unnamed investor.

Rahm, meanwhile, has kept his comments far more reserved. He wasn’t asked about the new investment in LIV following his clinching the league’s individual title for the third consecutive year, and his responses to questions on the matter over the previous months have been non-committal.

“I’m not going to share anything that I can’t share with you guys right now,” Rahm said two weeks ago at the LIV Golf UK event.

Jon Rahm doesn’t project himself as “all in” for LIV 2.0 (Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf)

Rahm and other DP World Tour members might have another hurdle as it relates to a future LIV Golf commitment — there is no guarantee that the DP World Tour will not resume fining and suspending its members for competing in conflicting LIV Golf events after this season. And next year’s Ryder Cup gives the circuit quite a heavy hammer to wield if it wants.

It was perhaps a small clue to Rahm’s future intentions when in May — after saying for months that he would not pay fines to the DP World Tour that had been levied for the first two years for playing in conflicting events without a release — he reached an agreement with the circuit.

In February, the DP World Tour announced that eight members had been granted conditional releases upon the basis of agreeing to certain terms: Tyrrell Hatton, Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie.

Rahm was noticeably absent from the list and vowed to fight on.

Also in today’s DD …

• U.S. Amateur tees off at Merion: Russell stays hot; Stout not so much

• Stray Shots from the regular-season ending Wyndham Championship

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In return, those players agreed to settle all previous fines, drop any appeals and add additional stipulated DP World Tour events — believed to be two or three — to their schedules which have required a minimum of four events.

“The conditions these members have accepted will provide additional value to the DP World Tour and benefit to the entire membership,” the tour statement said. “Provided each member satisfies the conditions of their individual releases, no disciplinary action under the Regulations will be taken against them for playing in conflicting tournaments on LIV Golf in 2026 and they will retain their membership status.

“The releases apply for the 2026 season only and they are not precedent-setting. Requests for releases will continue to be considered on their individual merits in accordance with the Regulations that all members agree to abide by.”

The European tour can make life difficult on prospective LIV players in 2027 if it chooses. Fining them for conflicting events — sometimes believed to be as much as $100,000 per tournament — can get expensive, especially when LIV’s purses are likely to be far lower than the $30 million being offered now.

For players with Ryder Cup aspirations, such as Rahm and Hatton specifically, the hassle might not be worth it. It might be easier to simply break off from LIV Golf and move on.

That is but one of myriad issues O’Neil and LIV face in trying to keep the league afloat.

DeChambeau doesn’t appear to be concerned. A path for him back to the PGA Tour

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