By Dave Shedloski
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.—Patrick Cantlay said Tuesday at Pebble Beach that “there are two sides to every coin,” when asked about the simmering battle between the PGA Tour and any rival super league that might be created. And, well, he might have conjured an overused cliché, but, still, it did seem apropos.

Because the whole issue is about coin. And the two choices seem to be a lot on one side and even more, perhaps, on the other.

Cantlay is one of just nine players among the top 50 in the world playing this week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am while a number of big names accepted various amounts of appearance money to play in the PIF Saudi International in Saudi Arabia, an Asian Tour stop put on by the group, led by Greg Norman, that hopes to attract the world’s best players to its start-up league. The California native is the highest ranked player at Pebble at No. 4 in the world and has a natural affinity for golf on the Monterey Peninsula, given his roots. “It’s one of my favorite places in the world,” he said.

With that in mind, it seemed logical to ask him if he might have been tempted to join Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson and others in the Middle East.

“I think with the amount of money they’re talking about it’s always very tempting. I think it’s tempting for everybody. And to deny that would be, you know, maybe not true,” said the reigning FedEx Cup champion, who has posted top-10 finishes in his first two starts of the year and was T-3 last year when amateurs weren’t part of the event due to the pandemic. “But I’m really glad that I’m here this week and I love Pebble Beach, and so that definitely factored into my decision.”

You get that from Cantlay, an unvarnished response.

As to whether he had formulated an opinion about rival golf tours and potential bidding wars for the game’s best players, he couldn’t help but hedge a bit, saying, “It’s a complicated thing, and I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

“I think there’s two sides to every coin, and if people want to be more interested in golf and want to put more money into golf, I think that’s a good thing,” Cantlay, 29, a UCLA product, continued. “I think it’s tricky because it’s not always in the fashion that people would have expected or wanted, and I would say at this point I’m definitely a curious observer as to see what happens and who decides to play.”

You’d be curious, too, if you were among the players being courted, and Cantlay’s star is truly on the rise after his four-win season, the FedEx Cup title and a strong Ryder Cup for Team USA last fall. And while he relishes his career and is “grateful” for the opportunities that he and others have enjoyed on the PGA Tour, that’s not to say there isn’t room for greater rewards.

“It’s an interesting stance to say there is too much money in golf,” he said.

In sports, and maybe golf is head in this direction, the coin of the realm defines the realm.

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By Brian Wacker
Phil Mickelson turned 49 years old on Sunday at Pebble Beach, where he was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” all around the Monterey Peninsula. He also left disappointed again, though, failing to win an elusive first U.S. Open to complete the career Grand Slam after finishing in a tie for 52nd.

A few days removed from the festivities, the reality of another missed opportunity seemed to have sunk in.

“I really don’t have many more chances,” Mickelson said Wednesday from the Travelers Championship, where he is playing for the first time in 16 years. “I probably have to come to the realisation that I’m not going to win a U.S. Open.”

Which begs the question, where does Mickelson go from here?

In a literal sense, he is back at TPC River Highlands, where he won in 2001 and 2002. Next, he’ll play the 3M Championship in Minnesota in two weeks before making his way to Northern Ireland for next month’s Open at Portrush.

In a larger sense, the answer is much murkier.

Mickelson, who has played in 26 U.S. Opens and finished runner-up a record six times, won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this year, and following 43-year-old Tiger Woods’ victory at the Masters in April, it’s easy to think each will continue to contend in major championships this year and beyond.

But Woods hasn’t looked the same since his victory at Augusta National and Mickelson, a year away from being eligible for PGA Tour Champions, has struggled to find consistency with four missed cuts in his last seven stroke-play starts on the PGA Tour.

Entertaining? Always. A legitimate threat to win another major?

Phil-philes will argue his last, best chance could come at next year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where he famously kicked away a chance in 2006. History, though, suggests otherwise — the oldest player to win a U.S. Open was Hale Irwin, who was 45 when he hoisted the trophy at Medinah.

Still, Mickelson, already a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame with 44 victories on tour (ninth-best all-time) and five career majors, isn’t giving up total hope.

“When I do play well, I’m able to play at a comparable level to what I played like at the height of my career and I’m able to pick off wins,” he said. “I’m just not having as many opportunities. That’s been the hardest thing for me is having the energy levels and recovering and being focused for each shot in four rounds.

“But I’m not going to stop trying. You never know.”

Mickelson, who has played in 26 U.S. Opens and finished runner-up a record six times, won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this year, and following 43-year-old Tiger Woods’ victory at the Masters in April, it’s easy to think each will continue to contend in major championships this year and beyond.

But Woods hasn’t looked the same since his victory at Augusta National and Mickelson, a year away from being eligible for PGA Tour Champions, has struggled to find consistency with four missed cuts in his last seven stroke-play starts on the PGA Tour.

Entertaining? Always. A legitimate threat to win another major?

Phil-philes will argue his last, best chance could come at next year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where he famously kicked away a chance in 2006. History, though, suggests otherwise — the oldest player to win a U.S. Open was Hale Irwin, who was 45 when he hoisted the trophy at Medinah.

Still, Mickelson, already a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame with 44 victories on tour (ninth-best all-time) and five career majors, isn’t giving up total hope.

“When I do play well, I’m able to play at a comparable level to what I played like at the height of my career and I’m able to pick off wins,” he said. “I’m just not having as many opportunities. That’s been the hardest thing for me is having the energy levels and recovering and being focused for each shot in four rounds.

“But I’m not going to stop trying. You never know.”

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By John Huggan
This time he was all smiles, almost a grimace-free zone. One week on from being told to “grow up” and labelled “a disgrace” by former European Tour professional Gary Evans, Tyrrell Hatton strolled to victory—for the second straight year—in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews.

Five strokes ahead with 18 holes to play in the European Tour’s nod to the AT&T Pebble Beach-style pro-am, the 25-year-old Englishman all but ended any doubt as to the destination of the first-place cheque of €676,133 with a run of four straight birdies from the second hole. Out in 31, five under par and by then seven strokes clear, Hatton, the tournament’s first repeat winner, could afford the steady back-nine that saw him cruise in with a six-under 66, took him to a tournament-record 24 under par and reduced the final margin of victory to three strokes on the way back into the Auld Grey Toon.

Former Ryder Cup player Ross Fisher’s course-record 11-under-par 61, which included three-putts from just off the green for a closing par on the 18th, carried him into second place for the second year in a row. No one else was within seven shots of the now two-time champion.

RELATED: Ross Fisher breaks Old Course scoring record … in disappointing fashion

Indeed, on a day of little or no wind and with more accessible pin positions than one might see in an Open Championship, the relatively soft Old Course was all but defense-less. By way of illustration, the leading 11 finishers were a cumulative 62 under par for their final rounds. It wasn’t quite pitch-and-putt, but it wasn’t far off.

None of which should diminish the sometimes temperamental Hatton’s achievement. All in all, his was a remarkable performance, one containing 26 birdies. Only twice, both on the opening day at the Old Course, did he drop shots over the 72 holes that combined two rounds at the Home of Golf with one each at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

“This week was the first time I had ever defended a title or had the challenge to try and do it,” Hatton said. “It felt like it was a lot harder today than it was last year. I’m so happy that I managed to get over the line. I didn’t see a leader board on the back nine until the 16th green, when I saw Ross was at 21 under. The 15-minute wait on the 17th tee certainly made the drive seem harder than I wanted it to be. But fair play to Ross. It was an incredible round of golf, and he certainly did push me all the way.”

For Hatton this win, his second on the European Tour, represents the highlight of a disappointing season in which he missed the halfway cut in all four major championships. After a T-4 finish at the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in March lifted him as high as No. 14 in the world, Hatton slumped badly. At one point he failed to qualify for the weekend in eight of nine successive events. His best effort anywhere before a T-3 finish at last month’s European Masters was as long ago as April, a lowly T-29 in the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage.

All of which saw Hatton’s world ranking fall to 29 before a promising although ultimately disappointing T-8 finish at last week’s British Masters. Leading at the halfway stage, Hatton fell away badly in a final round marked by petulance and poor body language, which provoked Evans’ public criticism.

“I listened to too many opinions and just got on a bad run,” said Hatton of his summer of discontent. “If you’re not holing putts and hitting a few bad shots, you feel like you can’t score any worse. That’s the sort of phase I went through. My swing feels good now though.”

Elsewhere—and a long way down the leader board—Rory McIlroy completed his final tournament of 2017 with a even-par 72 that left the four-time major champion in a tie for 63rd place, 20 strokes back of Hatton.

“I think my last round of 2017 sort of summed up all of 2017,” said the Northern Irishman, who will not play again competitively until the Abu Dhabi Championship next January. “Not much happening, good or bad. Just sort of stuck in neutral. It hasn’t been the year I wanted on the golf course. I think there’s a lot of areas of my game that need sharpening. Wedge play and putting would be the two main areas that I need to get better.

But I see no reason why I can’t be better in the next 10 years. That’s why I feel like these next three months are important for me to put some really good things in place, step away and reassess where I’m at and where I need to be.”

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