The Card – Volume LI
18 observations, thoughts and predictions for the week in golf…
- Lauren Coughlin is one of the great stories in professional golf this year. At 31 she has taken the longer road to success and winning on the LPGA and her recent burst of winning two events in the last three starts. Lauren is a lock for the USA Solheim Cup team and her break out year reflects perseverance and belief. Coughlin has not only won twice but she has seven top 10’s this season. In her career coming into 2024 she only had three. Coughlin’s win at the ISPS Handa Scottish Open was complete and she is a true favorite this coming week at the Old Course and the Women’s Open.
- Esther Henseleit of Germany backed up her silver medal at the Olympics with a solo second at the Women’s Scottish Open and her odds at the Women’s Open will also get shorter. Henseleit is also a lock for the European Solheim Cup team. Esther played well in three majors, won the silver in the Olympics and very quickly has become a viable piece to Suzann Pettersen’s European Solheim Cup team.
- The news this week that the 2028 Solheim Cup will be contested at Valhalla was met with a great deal of indifference and a healthy dose of criticism. While I think it is a proper course for the club to go in this direction because men’s major championship golf is not going back there for the foreseeable future the question is why would the LPGA make the choice to go there? Every event there has been eventful, it can build whatever footprint is needed for the Solheim Cup and you have a market and a region that will support the event. Reasonable mindset but the LPGA had an opportunity at a time that more elite old and new clubs are being more welcoming to the idea of a “one off” event, especially one with 24 players and a match play format. The entire country is in play for a September event and while the decision to go to Valhalla will ultimately make sense the choice not to stage the event at a classic venue currently out of the spotlight or at a new location with a lot of buzz would have been a much more pragmatic decision.
- Jordan Spieth completed his season at Memphis and his result reflected a season lost. His left wrist will be operated on, and he spoke after his final round about being a little scared with the uncertainty of any surgical procedure but that it is necessary. His strokes gained approach for the week in Memphis was dead last which has been the story of his year. Jordan shared that the recovery period will be 12 weeks and he may seek a sponsor exemption for Tiger’s event in December and not being exempt for the Sentry event at Kapalua may mean that Jordan’s next official start on the PGA Tour will be the Sony Open in mid-January. Spieth is still a big name but 2025 will be a critical year to re-establish himself as a viable winner on tour and whether he’s a reliable candidate for the USA Ryder Cup team at Bethpage.
- National Golf Links has always been the happiest place for golf that I’ve experienced and that’s in large measure to an annual event I’ve attended for the last ten years. It’s 24 hours and it’s 36 guys playing golf and renewing friendships that, for some, are almost confined to those 24 hours for the entire year. Time passes and conversations evolve but at the core of this trip is the time itself. The value of laughing, thinking, sharing and even crying makes the annual 24 hours at National the best 24 hours in golf for me every year. Those holes, the stories, the setting and the people sum up my and our mantra at 5 Clubs. It’s the time, not the score.
- The transition to the next generation of Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup leadership will be complete after Jim Furyk captain’s the USA in Montreal after failing to win the Ryder Cup in 2018 in Paris. Furyk is a consummate professional and his team certainly admired him but the generation of players who achieved the most individually but failed collectively the most in the Ryder Cup for the USA. Expect Keegan Bradley to fill out his leadership team with younger guys and that could include a few without any Ryder Cup experience like Kevin Kisner, Lucas Glover and Billy Horschel. The next 14 months will usher in a whole new system of USA captaincy. The interesting development will come in 2027 when Tiger captain’s the team in Ireland and who will be his trusted staff.
- The final major of the year in professional golf is this week at the Old Course with the Women’s Open. We will get to see the Old Course again in October during the Dunhill Links when it will be downright cold. The Dunhill should be made a co-sanctioned event. It’s a phase of the DP World Tour schedule that members are looking to fortify their position for the final series and 2025 but the ability to entice some top Americans to venture over will help both tours. It could also see other Americans use the terrific events in the fall in Europe to augment their autumn schedules. If the two tours are going to have an alliance the PGA Tour members both American and European can make the fields deeper by realizing critical fall points for the following season.
- Sam Saunders didn’t have the name PALMER on the bag, but everyone knew the Arnold Palmer was and is Sam’s grandfather. This past week Sam announced his retirement from professional golf competition. 320 starts on the various Tour sanctioned circuits spanning 15 years produced one runner up on the PGA Tour and three more on the Korn Ferry Tour. At 37, Sam can make a pivot in his professional life and whoever has the good fortune of working with and around Sam Saunders will be better for it. He possesses many of the things his grandfather valued, starting with being a very solid citizen.
- Tom Kim’s 6-6-6 final 3 holes Sunday to finish 51st and out of the playoffs is the devil’s scorecard.
- Max Homa finished last at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and will need a very good week just to make it to East Lake for the Tour Championship. His last top 10 was on May 12th at the Wells Fargo and his position on the Presidents Cup team is far more precarious than you would have thought it would ever be. In June of 2023 Max was asked if he was in a mini slump because he had a couple very flat starts in a row and he whistled past it explaining how it was a few starts. In this case its eight starts and the best finish is a T22. Max finished with his best result in a major with his T3 at the Masters but his year went sideways by a top players standards after that. He will make the Presidents Cup team partly because of his own performance in the last two team events but also because there are few “hot” Americans down the list.
- Rory McIlroy had a dreadful week in Memphis off his T5 at the Olympics. Among the events he played the weekend in 2024 his T68 at FedEx was his worst result of the year. Beyond the next two playoff events, Rory has several overseas commitments on the DP World Tour from September on, but you can feel people have turned the page to 2025 for Rory. He’s a two-time winner this year, one with Shane Lowry, but he is miles from the performance level of Scheffler and Schauffele’s two major wins which makes Rory truly feel like a distant third in the pecking order.
- Eric Cole shot 63 for the second straight Sunday and overcame driving it in the water on 18 to salvage a bogey and sneak inside the top 50 and advanced to the BMW. Cole plays more than anyone and him making it deeper into the playoffs and the bonuses associated with it tickles me. Cole was the rookie of the year last year and although his season in 2024 wasn’t quite as good as 2023 I admire his persistence to keep his dream alive into his mid 30’s and he’s now raking massive checks after playing for peanuts for over a decade. Rake that bonus, Eric.
- The U.S. Amateur champion Jose Luis Ballester is a protégé of Sergio Garcia and is coached by Sergio’s Dad. As an Arizona State Sun Devil, he has also spent time with Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson. Ballester emerged during a week when many of the top amateurs struggled to make deep runs in match play including Preston Summerhays, Gordon Sargent, Ben James, and Luke Clanton. Will Ballester defend next August when the amateur returns to the revamped Olympic Club? Following the work of Gil Hanse and team Olympic, it returns to the main stage over the next eight years with the Amateur, then the PGA in 2028 and the Ryder Cup in 2033.
- Nick Dunlap started 2024 in college at Alabama. He won as an amateur and received no points. He turned pro and started at 0 and won again mixed in with some missed cuts. He showed up in Memphis needing a top 5 simply to make it to the BMW and secure a schedule including all the Signature series events in 2025. Mission accomplished. Kids.
- Scottie Scheffler racked up his 15th top 10 in 17 starts this season. He made zero putts on Saturday and a long putt on the last altered his putting stats on Sunday and for the week. He was average by his standards. He finished 4th.
- Xander Schauffele shot 63 on Sunday and put the late heat on Hideki Matsuyama and he picked up his 13th top 10 in 19 starts and his third runner up finish. A phenomenal display of production for an entire season and this is more than a run, he will have ebbs but this is who he is.
- Hideki Matsuyama has now won 10 PGA Tour events. He wins big events and he’s been the face of a golf crazy nation in Japan for a decade. He’s a dignified and respectful champion and he’s a mortal lock for the hall of fame. His birdie-birdie finish to halt an epic meltdown was built on big time stones.
- The International at Castle Pines was a very cool event and when it left the schedule it left a void. Castle Pines showed beautifully on analog television and the style of play at altitude was dynamic. Castle Pines returns to the stage this week and with drones and the power in the game now, it should be a great show. A long time coming back, I hope they have a great week.