The tour said India is suspended from PGA Tour-sanctioned competition for six months, with the suspension having begun on September 18, 2023. Staiano is banned from PGA Tour-sanctioned tournaments for three months, with his suspension starting on September 11, 2023.

The tour said it will have no further comment on the suspensions at this time.

Vince India hits a shot during the 2023 Simmons Bank Open. Alex Slitz

India, 34, is a University of Iowa alum who has played full-time on the KFT since 2019 and has career KFT earnings of $569,844. He had eight top-10 finishes from 2019-23 but didn’t post a top-10 this season in 22 starts, while making half the cuts. He has three career PGA Tour starts without making a cut.

Staiano, 26, has played in 17 total events on the KFT over the past two seasons, with the Colorado State product earning $30,910 in the six cuts he’s made. He played eight times in 2023 and made three cuts, with one top-25 finish. Staiano has not played on the PGA Tour.

The tour’s Integrity Programme manual, which was last updated in September 2021, states that its primary purpose is “preventing betting-related corruption in PGA TOUR competitions.”

Among the prohibited actions in the manual is “Betting on Professional Golf Events.” The text of the rules read: “Any Covered Person, directly or indirectly, Betting on the outcome or any other aspect of any PGA Tour event, any other professional golf competition or any elite amateur golf competition (including Olympic Golf) anywhere in the world (“Professional Golf Event”). In this manual, “betting” means (A) placing any money or other thing of value on the occurrence of an uncertain outcome with the expectation of return or (B) participating in any fantasy or other game that awards a prize of value, including any free-to-play, paid or daily fantasy game, unless expressly approved by the PGA Tour.”

Main image: Jake Staiano hits a shot during the 2022 BMW Charity Pro-Am. Eakin Howard

The post Two players from Korn Ferry Tour suspended for betting on PGA Tour events appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Didn’t like those? Go eat cake.

“I would say I was honestly dead equal at that age,” the now-27-year-old Johnson said recently of his devotions. “I played both games religiously.”

To this day, Johnson listens to Harry Potter books while he practises golf, but that’s the hint right there about which has been more ultimately meaningful in his life. A young wizard at Hogwarts has provided hours of fantasy escape, but with Woods as his idol, Johnson went all in to be a professional golfer years ago, and he’s already had real-life experiences to surpass any video game.

In a breakthrough 2023 campaign, Johnson has won three times and finished second twice in the last five events held on the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA) tour, the circuit that affords mostly minority golfers the opportunity to compete and grow at the professional level. In all, he’s nine-for-nine this season in top-5 results.

The victories followed another significant triumph in June, when the Kent State alum captured the John Shippen Invitational for Black golfers, earning him a sponsor’s exemption into the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. And in only his second tour start, Johnson opened with two 70s to make the cut and shot 68 on Saturday, before fading with a 73 on Sunday to tie for 64th.

Thanks to his September APGA Farmers Insurance Fall Series win at Cincinnati, Johnson got another PGA Tour exemption, which comes early next month at the World Wide Technology in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And at least three more big opportunities await on the APGA for the West Palm Beach, Florida, resident: the Billy Horschel Invitational starting on Wednesday at Concession Golf Club, the Fall Series closer in Tustin, California, where Johnson can secure the three-event title, and the Bermuda tournament in late October, with the champion getting into the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship.

Johnson’s long and successful string is tinged with one recent setback. Last week in the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School, he missed advancing by four shots after being inside the bubble through 36 holes. The result means that, barring a top finish in his late-season PGA Tour opportunities, Johnson likely faces more Monday qualifiers and plenty of starts on the APGA in 2024.

“It will make him stronger,” Kyle VanHise, Johnson’s Miami-based instructor and mentor, texted in the immediate aftermath. “He had six hours to cry in his beer. No excuses. It’s only one path to many of his goals.”

VanHise became a devout believer in Johnson over the last 18 months as they started to work more together on what became a complete examination of the golfer’s game. With what VanHise describes as an unorthodox swing that produced a consistent 48-yard draw/hook, Johnson still managed to earn his Korn Ferry card for the 2020 season that extended into ’21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mel and Chase Johnson pose outside the clubhouse at the Pinehurst Resort. (Johnson family photo)

In his second start, Johnson held the Sunday clubhouse lead in Colorado, only to be overtaken late by none other than a junior golf rival of the same age, Will Zalatoris, who parlayed the victory into a US Open start at Winged Foot, where the new tour sensation made an ace and tied for sixth.

Johnson’s year went in the opposite direction, with only nine cuts made in 32 starts — results that caused him to examine every part of what he was doing. “Even when I was out there, I felt raw,” Johnson said of the KFT experience. “There were shots I knew I didn’t have. I felt like I had to play perfect golf in order to score. It was gritty golf.”

When VanHise first saw Johnson hit balls on the range, the instructor said he could only take in a few shots before walking away. His assessment to the player’s face was rather brutal: “I can’t watch because I’ll throw up in my mouth,” he needled.

What Johnson and VanHise eventually worked on was to make him what they call “Chase Perfect”. They eliminated the big draw and got him fitted out of clubs that only exacerbated his swing issues. With the diagnostic help of his fiancée, Katie Howarth, who has two masters degrees, including one in physical training, Johnson addressed issues with his hips and shoulders. In the end, he came to fully understand how his swing worked. “I turned the Trackman numbers into feel,” he said.

When Johnson heard from friends that he should give the APGA tour a shot in 2023 because of its considerable prize money and quality venues, he felt fully prepared, physically and mentally. Johnson, who hadn’t won a significant tournament since the 2015 Northern Amateur, saw his patience tested early when he posted three seconds and a fifth before his first APGA win. “I was asking if they had a record for second-place finishes,” Johnson joked. After the breakthrough victory, he went second-first-second-first and now leads the season-long race that would earn him a $25,000 bonus for finishing on top.

Johnson has shot 66 or better six times on the APGA this season, including two 63s and back-to-back 65s at TPC Scottsdale that didn’t even earn him a win because Kamaiu Johnson scorched the WM Phoenix Open course with 61-65. There’s a budding rivalry for Johnson with Marcus Byrd, who claimed three APGA wins early in the season and advanced out of the KFT First Stage qualifier where Johnson missed out.

“It’s a been a blast,” Johnson said. “I’m really glad I built my schedule around the APGA. Getting to know the players out there, it’s been awesome.”

VanHise said he believes the APGA performances are exactly in line with Johnson’s budding potential, and that he’s only beginning to see what his upside can be.

“Winning is huge. It validates him,” VanHise said. “I’ve told him he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. This isn’t the PGA Tour. His talent level is good enough to beat PGA Tour players, without question. I know he’s going to win on the [PGA] tour. I just don’t how many or by how much. If he’s ‘Chase Perfect’, you can’t stop him from winning.”

If Johnson has become something of a competitive menace on the APGA, he is almost impossible to dislike in the clubhouse. An only child who is good-natured, personable, and well-spoken, he seems to be a man who could befriend almost anybody. “I was a golf nerd, a gaming nerd, a sports nerd. I’m a mutt,” Johnson said with a laugh. “In high school I was part of every clique. I could literally communicate with every single person.”

From a young age, Chase Johnson wanted to swing and compete like Tiger Woods. (Johnson family photo)

His father, Mel Johnson, falls solidly into the golf geek category. As a high school football player, Mel once tried hitting a golf ball on a bet and failed so badly he didn’t think about the game for another decade. Then he heard some guys at work talk about reading greens and became intrigued. He taught himself through books, spending a year on the range before getting on the course, and by the time Chase was born, Dad was fully hooked.

They both tell the stories of Mel handing his son a club before he could walk, and when the father came home from work at a company that makes wheels for 18-wheel trucks, he changed into a golf outfit, whether he was playing or not. The ensemble always included a glove hanging out of Mel’s back pocket. “They called me the man with the third hand,” Mel says now with a laugh. “I was always ready to swing a club.”

Said Chase: “How obsessed are humans with breathing? He literally eats, sleeps and breathes golf. I can’t say it any more accurately than that.”

Chase had the genes to be a natural athlete, with his mum Cheryl having played numerous sports, and when the boy was four, Mel sought out lessons for him. Instructors refused to accept such a young kid, however, and those included a legend of the women’s game, Renee Powell. Mel, though, does says that Renee’s father, William Powell — the first Black owner of a golf course in America — took an instant interest in Chase and followed them for nine holes at the Powells’ course in Canton, Ohio.

Chase Johnson’s mom Cheryl is a former athlete and was the family organizer during Chase’s youth career. (Johnson family photo)

In truth, as Johnson worked his way through The First Tee Akron programme, the biggest influence on the Johnsons came from Earl and Tiger Woods. The family bought the movie “The Tiger Woods Story”, and Chase wore it out. “The amount of facts I know about Tiger Woods is ridiculous,” Chase said. “I have so many of his shots memorised and I’ve watched all of his 82 wins on YouTube. I was focused and determined and all of it stuck.”

Mel took some pages from Earl Woods’ book of coaching by having Chase shape shots around obstacles. He squirted his son with water if rain was forecast for a tournament, and said he once paid kids to watch Chase play to give him a sense of performing in front of a gallery. At home, Mel conducted “interviews” with Chase at a podium, the boy’s stuffed animals serving as reporters.

The Tiger Woods video game awarded trophy balls, and Mel came up with “Daddy Trophy Balls” to motivate Chase. It worked masterfully. Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards were the treasured prize — at least until tournament trophies were available. “I remember when I won my first medal. Then I was obsessed with winning stuff,” Chase said.

In more than 20 years rooting for Woods, there is one indelible disappointment for Chase. Every year, he and Mel attended the PGA Tour’s World Golf Championships event at Firestone Country Club in Akron, where Woods won eight times. One year, Chase — decked out in Nike gear and looking like a mini Tiger — stood against a short fence near a walkway the players used. Just as Woods came by and reached to sign his hat, the crowd surged from the back and pushed hard enough to topple the barrier. Chase remembers Tiger scampering back, and then he was gone. “I was so mad at every person behind me,” Chase recalled. “I thought it just wasn’t meant to be.

“That fence still haunts me,” he added. “I have these very lucid dreams that I finally get Tiger’s autograph, and then I wake up and think I’ve misplaced it. And I realise it was just a dream.”

There are our dreams that come in our sleep and others we concoct with our eyes wide open. Chase Johnson says his mission became clear when his first-grade class was asked what they’d like to be when they grew up. “I said a professional golfer,” Chase recalled, “and the teacher came up to me and said: ‘You don’t have to be what your parents want you to be.’ And I said: ‘Mrs Dvorak, I want to be a professional golfer.’ And that has never wavered.”

Fans of Chase Johnson expect big things of him, both on and off the course. James Gilbert

A lifetime of sweat and ambition melded on June 29, 2023, when Johnson teed off in the final grouping on Thursday of the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. “It felt completely different being out there,” Johnson said. “This whole year, mentally and physically, felt completely different than any of other I played.”

In the Detroit gallery, Chase’s parents marvelled at his every shot. “You can’t help but cry,” Mel Johnson said, his voice quavering. “That was the goal we worked on from the age of one. So, from then until now, when he got into the Rocket Mortgage … I went back and looked at those videos [of a toddler] and, my god, I can’t express the words I have for it.”

The father got a kick out of seeing the crowd respond to Chase, though he’d like his son to be more “dramatic”. “I’ve told him to always look at those people who come out to see you. Don’t disappoint them,” Mel said.

At 27, Johnson is playing against the clock to reach the PGA Tour. Zalatoris’ success before his back surgery this year served as motivation, but there aren’t a lot of rookies on the PGA Tour in their late 20s, and there’s still the talented Korn Ferry crowd to wrestle once he gets back there. The life, Johnson said “is not for the faint of heart”.

There is strong belief in the Johnson camp that Chase will become a prominent PGA Tour player. VanHise, the instructor, is as no-nonsense as they come and not one to gush with platitudes. Yet, he’s sold on Johnson’s future. “He’s going to be on the tour. It’s not if, but when. I have the faith,” VanHise said.

More than a desire to see Johnson compete against the best. VanHise has a grander vision for what the “nerd” who can manage his way through any clique could do for the game. “I want to see what he does with this platform,” he said. “The amount of people he’s going to help and influence will be incredible. Who is the one kid that, because he met you, his life was changed forever?”

Main image: Buda Mendes

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Yet before signing his scorecard, the tour pro in his third season on the Korn Ferry Tour was informed that the something was amiss with that birdie on the 15th. After Tuten’s drive found thick rough left, he hacked out his second shot back into the fairway. Standing inside 120 yards with his third shot, Tuten picked up his ball, which wasn’t the issue given that the final round in Newburgh, Indiana, was being played under the lift, clean and place local rule because of wet conditions that lingered from earlier in the week.

Tuten proceeded to place his ball back in the fairway, only for it move ever so slightly forward. He then picked the ball back up and placed it again, only this time a few inches to the right.

And that would cost him his PGA Tour card.

According to Jim Duncan, the Korn Ferry Tour VP of rules, competitions and administration and the chief referee of the tournament, the local rule required that a player whose ball moves after being placed replace the ball on the same spot. “Then if it won’t stay at rest, that’s when you find the nearest place that you do, just like any other rule that requires placing,” Duncan said. “When he did not try to place that ball right back on the same spot [Rule 14.2e], that’s when he was under penalty, two shots for playing from the wrong place.”

So Tuten’s birdie — he just missed the green with his approach but rolled in a 14-footer — became a bogey, his two-over 74 became a 76 and instead of being in 30th place on the points list, he fell two spots to 32nd. (He started the week 29th in points.) The penalty allowed Rafael Campos to slide up from 31st to 30th and claim the final spot.

Shad Tuten was assessed a two-stroke penalty on hole No. 15 under preferred lies local rule E-3, turning a 2-over 74 into a 4-over 76. Tuten also fell from projected No. 30 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List to No. 32.

Chief referee Jim Duncan provided context on the ruling. pic.twitter.com/a5qXcqJLFC

— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) October 8, 2023

Tuten had played in 23 KFT events in 2023 prior to the Tour Championship. Despite missing nine cuts, and with one withdrawal, he had five top-10 finishes on the season, including a T-2 finish at the Club Car Championship in March. Tuten came into the week 29th on the points list, knowing a card was on the line.

“If you told me I was 29th coming in here, I would tell you I’m very happy,” Tuten said earlier in the week. “I’ve played the best golf I have my entire career, without winning, which, you know, obviously is what we work for. But you know I’ve played really, really, really good golf for an extended period of time.”

"I know that I'm ready."

Entering @tourchampulf 29th on the points list, Shad Tuten knows he's one solid week away from finishing inside the top 30 and becoming #TOURBound pic.twitter.com/YaIC7hQzmj

— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) October 4, 2023

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Former US Amateur champ Curtis Luck was disqualified for missing his first-round tee time at a Korn Ferry Tour Finals event on Thursday. And it could wind up costing the 27-year-old Aussie his PGA Tour card.

Luck was in the field at this week’s Albertsons Boise Open. And he was at the golf course Thursday morning, but didn’t get to the first tee at Hillcrest Country Club for a 7.45am tee time.

Luck, who entered the week No. 59 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list, was replaced in the field by James Nicholas.

Curtis Luck missed his first-round tee time (7:45 a.m.) and did not arrive within the five additional minutes allotted under Rule 5.3a, and was subsequently disqualified. Luck did not meet any of the three exceptions within Rule 5.3a.

— Korn Ferry Tour Communications (@KFTComms) August 24, 2023

When reached by Golf Digest, Luck said he mistakenly thought his tee time was 10 minutes later.

“I just flat-out misread my tee time,” said Luck, who was also using a replacement caddie this week. “I thought I was off at 7.55am and I was just on the range finishing my warm-up. I actually started walking to the tee at 7.46am.”

Last man in field, last chance to earn starts. ?@_james_nicholas goes from first alternate to last man in the field after fellow competitor’s disqualification for missing tee time. pic.twitter.com/QA69SJHih6

— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) August 25, 2023

Had Luck arrived within a five-minute grace period, he would have only received a two-stroke penalty.

“It is very unfortunate that I was on site and didn’t make it,” Luck added.

The Albertsons Boise Open is the first of four events in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, which will conclude at next month’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship. The top 30 in points after that event will earn a PGA Tour card for next season.

That means Luck lost a vital opportunity to improve his position and guarantee his place in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, where only the top 75 players get a spot. On the bright side, by finishing in the top 75 on the regular season points list, he has already guaranteed his Korn Ferry Tour card for next season.

Luck played one full season on the PGA Tour in 2018-19. He’s a past Korn Ferry Tour winner having claimed the 2020 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

“I’ll just show up in Nashville and then Columbus and keep throwing everything I’ve got at the playoffs,” Luck said. “Columbus is my favourite on the Korn Ferry Tour [having won it in 2020]. So I just have to keep pressing on.”

The post Bad Luck: Past US Amateur champ disqualified from Korn Ferry Tour Finals event after missing tee time appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

In our humble opinion, neither Rahm nor Irwin have anything on Korn Ferry Tour pro Tom Whitney, who missed what has to be the shortest putt in the history of televised golf. That’s a moniker we’re comfortable putting on this one. The shortest miss in the history of televised golf. Apologies to the Irwin stans out there:

Think we just saw the shortest miss in golf history, and the guys in the booth can’t believe it @NV5Invite @KornFerryTour https://t.co/QwubmF3m2d | #BarstoolNV5 pic.twitter.com/gVrQANltUs

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) July 28, 2023

My goodness. That could not have been more than three or four inches. It definitely was not nine inches as our old friend Dan Rapaport surmised. But who knows. The Korn Ferry Tour does not have the proper shot tracker technology, so we’re left to guess. We’re saying maybe four inches. Brutal.

You know it’s really, really bad when you notice that Whitney was reaching down into the hole to grab his ball before he even realised it violently lipped out and nearly hit him in his own foot, which, under the new rules, could have been deemed accidental and would not be a penalty. We doubt that would have made Whitney feel any better had it happened, though.

Another angle shows just how nonchalantly Whitney hit the short par-saver after missing on the low side for birdie:

You absolutely HATE to see that. One of the shortest missed putts EVER.

“If that’s what 9 inches look like… I’m pretty happy with that” –@RiggsBarstool pic.twitter.com/Wngu28vTfr

— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) July 28, 2023

A good reminder that those three-footers you scoop up on the weekend with your buddies are not “gimmes” in the real world. It’s rattle bottom at the pro level. Cruel, cruel sport. Despite the missed shorty, Whitney still shot a second-round 67 to reach 10-under through two rounds, which has him in a tie for 15th. He’s just three off the lead of Ryan McCormick at the NV5 Invitational.

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PGA Tour Canada and PGA Tour Latinoamerica, both feeder leagues to the Korn Ferry Tour, will now form the PGA Tour Americas beginning next February. The tour will consist of 16 tournaments across the United States, Canada and Latin America, with the top 10 finishers on the season-long points list earning promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2025.

“As we build on the rich golf history across Latin America and Canada, we are thrilled about PGA Tour Americas and the role this tour will play in preparing players for the next step in their professional golf journey,” said Alex Baldwin, president of the Korn Ferry Tour, who will also oversee the Americas circuit. “PGA Tour Americas will be an extremely competitive tour aimed at identifying, developing and transitioning top-performing players to the next level as they ascend through the ranks and strive to reach the highest level of professional golf, the PGA Tour.”

The Americas tour will begin with a Latin America swing. Eligibility for this portion of the schedule will include the top 60 players from the final points lists of the 2023 Latinoamerica and Canada standings. Eligibility will also be gained from the top 40 finishers at Q-School, with an additional spot given to the winner of the 2023 APGA season-long points list.

The top 60 players from the Latin America swing will move on to compete in the North America portion of the season.

The Canadian Tour traces its roots back to 1970, and produced a number of talents for the PGA Tour, including Mike Weir, Paul Casey, Steve Stricker, Todd Hamilton, Chris DiMarco, Michael Campbell and Mackenzie Hughes. The PGA Tour Latinoamerica is just a decade old yet counts Harry Higgs and Nate Lashley among its former points leaders.

The PGA Tour Americas will also host a mid-season Q-School and introduce graduates from the PGA Tour University system. The full 2024 PGA Tour Americas schedule will be announced in September.

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In golf, rules are rules, even if they seem random or arbitrary. Korn Ferry Tour rookie Wilson Furr understands this, but even more frustratingly so after a seemingly innocuous mistake on Friday during the second round of the Lecom Suncoast Classic might have cost the former All-American at Alabama future starts on the developmental circuit.

Furr, 24, was playing in a threesome in the afternoon wave at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, along with Alejandro Tosti and Mason Andersen. The trio started its round on the 10th hole, and as the players finished the 18th hole, they walked through a tunnel under a grandstand where they noticed a volunteer sitting in the driver’s seat of an empty three-rowed golf cart. It was the same type of vehicle that took the players from the driving range to the 10th tee.

According to Monday Q Info’s Ryan French, Tosti asked the volunteer if he was shuttling players to the first tee. The driver told him yes, but in actuality he was not authorised to take players between the 18th green and first tee. The tournament was being played under a Model Local Rule that stated players and caddies could not take transportation during a round, except in instances of stroke and distance penalties. A supplemental rules sheet did make one exception, however, allowing transportation between the seventh green and the eighth tee.

On the fourth hole, a rules official approached the players and asked them about the ride, informing them that it was not authorised as noted on the rules sheets, which were posted in player dining, on the range and on both starter’s boxes. At the end of the round, all three players were assessed a two-stroke penalty for violating the MLR.

The additional two shots were relatively inconsequential for Andersen, he was already well off the cutline. Tosti fell from 10-under to eight-under for the tournament, and is eight shots off the lead to start the third round.

For Furr, however, it cost him the chance to play on the weekend. Instead of posting a four-under 67, he shot a second straight 69 and missed the cut by two shots.

Making matters worse, this was Furr’s eighth and last guaranteed start on the KFT after he earned conditional status at last autumn’s Q school. In his seven previous starts, he had made three cuts but his best finish was only a T-54. He entered the week 148th on the Korn Ferry Tour points list and needed a good performance to improve enough to assure more starts when the tour reshuffled the players’ priority rankings after this tournament.

Given his status on the points list, Furr is unlikely to get into any other KFT events this season unless he Monday qualifies, receives a sponsor’s exemption or gets a spot off the alternate list.

“This sucks,” Furr told GolfChannel.com. “There’s no way around it. It just sucks. To start the day, probably one of the bigger rounds I’ve played in my career, and I knew it, and for this to happen then, just ugh.”

The post A bizarre rules mishap involving a shuttle ride might have just cost a tour pro his job appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

High school junior Anthony Purcea proved that once again with his emphatic performance at the Monday Qualifying event for the Korn Ferry Tour’s Club Car Championship in Savannah, Georgia. It took a birdie on the 449-yard 18th hole to sneak into a 4-for-1 playoff for the last spot, and then four playoff holes that were extended into Tuesday to separate from the pack.

This is Anthony Purcea, who is currently in a 4 for 1 playoff for the last KFT spot. He birdied the 449 yard 18th to get into the playoff.

Now on the third playoff hole, still fighting.

He’s a high school junior. pic.twitter.com/15O3SC6SyC

— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) March 21, 2023

Anthony Purcea shot 66, survived a four hole playoff and made this putt to get the last spot in the @clubcarchamp .

He’s 16. pic.twitter.com/vec1IZ05es

— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) March 21, 2023

Purcea won the AJGA Junior All-Star at Quail Creek back in 2022, shooting 12-under for the Boys Division title, and less than a year later he’ll have a shot in a KFT event.

The 16-year-old will join fellow Monday (and Tuesday) qualifiers Jack Maguire, Tee-K Kelly, Ben Smith, Bryce Hendrix, Jay Card, Brad Hopfinger and Angus Flanagan at the Club Car Championship at The Landings Golf & Athletic Club, formerly known as the Savannah Golf Championship.

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Henley — who is caddying for Chris Gotterup at The Great Exuma Classic this weekend — began his trip plagued, as many Americans were on Wednesday, by FAA system outages that grounded planes across the country. Henley missed his connection to Exuma International Airport, which forced him to fly into Nassau instead and then catch a second flight over to Sandals Emerald Reef Golf Club, the site of next week’s Great Exuma Classic, the following day. Not the start you want.

Once he arrived in the right place, Henley discovered that the hotel he booked online was sold out, so he was bumped to a nearby hostel. There, Henley posted a video of his sleeping quarters, partly as entertainment and partly as evidence for investigators in case he mysteriously goes missing. Check it out … if you dare.

The ceramic tile is 10 degrees softer than the mattress. Only going to be able to Loop one armed tomorrow. We can only head North from here. South is less than Hell. ?. What don’t kill ya makes you stronger! pic.twitter.com/N7Uokwj0TH

— KIP HENLEY Blue Check Mark (@KipHenley) January 12, 2023

OK, so let’s start with the good. There’s a lock on the door. That’s what you want to see. You also have a fairly modern air-conditioning unit, which is important since Henley’s suite doesn’t include an al-fresco, sea-facing balcony. Lastly, there doesn’t appear to be any blood stains on the mattress or in the bathroom. You wouldn’t want to test that theory with a blacklight, but to the naked eye, everything appears to be OK.

As far as the bad, well, that closet door definitely houses a demonic entity that only comes out at night, the beds (plural) look about as comfortable as a prison bench, and the less said about the sink situation the better. We’ve seen worse, but the Four Seasons it ain’t. Hell, it isn’t even a Motel 6. So here’s hoping Gotterup and Henley have a strong showing to make up for it. If not, let’s just hope he comes back with both kidneys and no bed bugs. That, in and of itself, would be a win.

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But the tour opportunity was a good one and Gore seemed badly needed, considering the tour’s desire to keep players happy against the threat of LIV Golf. Still, it left the USGA with a bit of a conundrum in replacing the popular Gore.

The search lasted four months and the USGA ultimately identified another former PGA Tour player, Scott Langley, to lead player relations on the men’s side. Langley, 33, is an Illinois native and Florida resident who officially retired at the end of 2021 after a decade-long career playing on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour. His lone victory came in the KFT’s 2018 Panama Championship.

Langley owns the distinction of being the first product of the First Tee programme to reach the PGA Tour. He was a three-time All-American at the University of Illinois and won the 2010 NCAA Division I national championship. At the tour level, he showed an interest in leadership positions, serving on the Player Advisory Council on the KFT and PGA Tour, and he ended his career with a two-year stint as the KFT’s PAC Chairman.

In the new job, Langley will report to Heather Daly-Donofrio, who has been promoted to oversee all player relations.

“The most important thing that Jason shared with me was just to be a great listener. To truly listen,” Langley said in an interview with Golf.com. “To always lead with that. I think that’s really my aim.”

The USGA created the player relations position because of the seeming disconnect between the competitors and the USGA as an organization. There had been several high-profile controversies over the last decade, and the USGA felt it needed a person to hear out players’ concerns and address them. Gore also contributed idea and opinions about course set-up for the US Open.

Last summer, Gore told Golf Digest, “They don’t have to love us, but they have to respect us.”

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