PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Cam v Sahith: There are two rookies in Tour Championship, and one seems a lock to capture season award

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 07:48:13 +0000

By Evin Priest
Sahith Theegala knows the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year award competition is all but over at the Tour Championship.

Cameron Young, the only other rookie to have made the Tour Championship at East Lake, has one hand firmly on the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Award. Posting five runner-up finishes in your debut season, including at the Open Championship at St Andrews, will do that. Theegala knows it would take a miracle to bring himself back into the discussion.

“Maybe if I shoot three consecutive 63s and won the Tour Championship,” Theegala said after a 71 that left him at one-over par, seven back of Young (67). “But if not, he’s absolutely deserving of the rookie of the year.”

Theegala’s season has been impressive; his five top-10s include a share of second at the Travelers and a tie for third at the WM Phoenix Open, where he led on Sunday through 17 holes. But he knows it doesn’t come close to matching Young’s five runners-up and two third-place results. The New York native eagled the 72nd hole at St Andrews to finish one shot behind Open champion Cameron Smith, while he was one back of a playoff at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, where Justin Thomas defeated Will Zalatoris.

“I don’t think people understand how incredible his season has been. He has seven top-3s as a rookie, and four or five of them were at massive tournaments,” Theegala said.

Sahith Theegala. Michael Reaves

Young’s favourite runner-up may surprise you, though. Most would assume driving the 18th at St Andrews and draining the eagle putt for a second would take the cake. But it was the T-2 at Sanderson Farms during the Fall Series that stands out. It catapulted the Korn Ferry Tour graduate up the re-rankings.

“Honestly, I go back to Sanderson Farms, the first time I finished second,” Young said. “At that point, that finish I think was way bigger than it’s given credit for because it reshuffled me a lot higher and I got into a lot of events I might not have otherwise. Like Riviera, where I had another good finish (another T-2).”

More: Rory and Cam keep their eyes on the action at Tour Championship

There were 28 rookies on the PGA Tour this season and the Palmer Award for the best performer will be determined in voting that ends next week by members who made at least 15 starts.

Young said it would be particularly special given he went to Wake Forest — the same college of the award’s namesake, Palmer.

“Yeah, that would be obviously a really nice honour,” he said. “I think we had a great rookie class this year. To come out on top of that would be great, especially given my ties to Wake Forest with Arnold Palmer also being a big part of that programme. I mean, it’s something that we didn’t really think about much early, but as the season has gone on, it’s something that I’ve known in the back of my head would be nice to accomplish.”

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Will Zalatoris wins 2021 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Award after having no status at start of season

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 03:04:32 +0000

Kevin C. Cox
Will Zalatoris waves to patrons after the final round of the 2021 Masters, where he finished runner-up in his debut.

By Daniel Rapaport
Will Zalatoris began the 2020-21 season without PGA Tour status and finished it as the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

The tour made it official on Monday, but the 25-year-old was an overwhelming favourite to win the award for two reasons. First, there simply weren’t many candidates—due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korn Ferry Tour combined its 2020 and 2021 campaigns into a “super season,” meaning there were no players promoted to the PGA Tour last fall. As such, Zalatoris, runner-up Garrick Higgo and Rafael Campos were the only players considered rookies for the 2020-21 season.

The second reason he was a shoe-in for this award was his remarkable play throughout the season. It began at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Zalatoris received an exemption into the major due to one-time COVID rules that, in the absence of open qualifying, invited a number of Korn Ferry players to participate. He finished T-6 that week, which earned him a spot into the following week’s Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship, where he finished T-8 and was officially off and running. By the end of the fall he’d earned special temporary membership for the remainder of the 2020-21 season.

Zalatoris’ strong play continued into 2021; all told he posted eight top-10s and 14 top-25s in 25 starts—including a solo second at Augusta National, where he finished one back of Hideki Matsuyama in his bid to become the first player to win their Masters debut since 1979.

Zalatoris was not eligible for the FedEx Cup, however, as he did not begin the season as a PGA Tour member and did not win an event, as Higgo did at the Palmetto Championship. He is the first golfer to win rookie of the year as a special temporary member of the tour since Charles Howell III did it in 2001.

The new rookie of the year spoke with Golf Digest about adjusting to competing at a new level, his crazy 12 months and what he’s done with some much-needed off time.

It wasn’t exactly a shock, but I have to imagine seeing your name on the list of rookie-of-the-year winners alongside some of the all-time great is pretty cool.
Will Zalatoris: I’m ecstatic. I went to Wake Forest on the Arnold Palmer Scholarship, so winning an award with Mr. Palmer’s name on it is not lost on me. If you’d have told me I’d be PGA Tour rookie of the year for 2021 when in April 2020 it looked like I was going to have to spend two years on the Korn Ferry Tour, that’s a pretty cool spot to be in.

When you look back at the last 12 months, was there a moment when you thought to yourself for the first time that something like this was possible? That you could rip off a run?
WZ: It started the week before the U.S. Open in Chicago (at the Korn Ferry Tour event). I’d finished second, just missed out on a playoff where Curtis Thompson won. But that last day, I just, I went absolutely crazy. I think I made eight birdies and an eagle or something stupid-—the fish I’m sure has gotten bigger over the year—but I just remember that last round, I felt like I was birdieing every single hole down the stretch. It gave me belief for the Open, and at the Open I had nothing to lose. And once I had that attitude of having nothing to lose, that all I can do is go out and earn a tour card—I think really starting in Chicago, that’s what really propelled me.

One of the difficulties of playing the PGA Tour for the first time is learning the golf courses. Knowing your history with Scott Fawcett and DECADE golf, how much did statistics and satellite imagery help you navigate new venues?
WZ: Something that I looked at from my stats from last year is that I hit a ton of greens from 100-175 yards, which is no surprise, but I was hitting them like 30 feet from the hole. Basically what I was doing was just avoiding mistakes. I think part of that is the fact that I hadn’t seen these golf courses before. Something that Scott does a really good job of is making sure I go look at Shotlink and seeing the overlays of each flag on certain holes. Like a pin on the back-right on 16 at Sedgefield, to choose one randomly, guys hit it in the front-right bunker aren’t getting it up and down. OK, that impacts my target line. But then seeing guys in the back bunker are getting it up and down more than 50 percent of the time, that impacts my target. Now that I’ve had one go around these courses, and I’ll have the liberty of picking my schedule this year, it’ll be a big help come playoffs time so I won’t be so fried.

What’s the difference between a guy who’s kept his PGA Tour card six years in a row and a guy still grinding on the Korn Ferry Tour?
WZ: I actually had this conversation with a couple PGA Tour guys recently, and we all kind of gave a unanimous answer. I think the guy that spends six years on the PGA Tour versus the guy who’s stuck on the Korn Ferry—when I think back to myself, it was just a step in the journey. I was never satisfied with being on the Korn Ferry Tour. I always wanted to get to the PGA Tour. It’s not so much as wanting it more, it’s just nonstop wanting to be a student of the game. Learning, asking questions. If you’ve got the talent and you’re working on the right things, you’re going to get to the PGA Tour. It’s a little different but man, it’s so small. Just one week can change your life. That’s the frustrating part, guys keep banging on the door and they can get frustrated by it. Gotta stay patient, ask questions and be a student of the game. Find what the right things to work on are.

You were thrust into stardom at the Masters. All the sudden, you’re in these huge pairings. What’s that like?
WZ: After Augusta my anonymity was completely gone. I got paired with Billy Horschel and DJ the next week at Hilton Head and I was like yep, this is different. Literally, the very next week my anonymity was gone.

A little annoying having to watch the FedEx Cup playoffs from home?
WZ: I watched Patrick and Bryson duke it out and I watched the last day of East Lake. Obviously, I’d really felt that once I got a good recipe with my back to be able to perform, I knew I was playing really nice golf and would’ve love to been there. Rules are reules, I needed to go win one. Whether you think that’s right or wrong, the bar was set and I didn’t reach it.

The good part of that, if there is one, is you had some time off. What’d you do on the off weeks?
WZ: Kaitlin and I took a vacation with our dog for a few days, put the clubs away. Did a lot of rehabbing on the back to get it to 100 percent. Did a lot of reflecting on the year. It felt like it was non-stop, kind of reactive to things happening around me. I finally had time to sit down and think about what I needed to improve on as a player and a person, and how to improve. I think it was a really productive month.

What are those things? What do you need to do to improve?
WZ: I work with Josh Gregory for short game and putting. I love the guy, he’s practically an older brother to me. Crazy uncle is probably more appropriate for him. The thing that I love about him is we’re nonstop doing drills and games. Every week it’s a tweak here or there. It was more me, not Josh, me wanting to get better and wanting to go win immediately. Trying to win a golf tournament rather than letting it just happen. It took us a couple months to calm down. Like, you’re 25 years old, you’ve got three months left on the PGA Tour where your job is just try to win a golf tournament. You have the best job in the world. You have nothing to lose. Looking at the macro instead of the micro. Instead of trying to make the playoffs, trying to make the Ryder Cup, just go out and get better at golf. That’s the only thing I can control.

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Sungjae Im defeats Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff for PGA Tour Rookie of the Year

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 02:13:57 +0000

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

By Joel Beall
Sungjae Im has been named the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. Im, who won the then-Web.com Tour Player of the Year award last season, defeated Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff, Cam Champ and Adam Long for the prize.

Im, who turned professional at 17 and is now 21, became just the 13th rookie to qualify for the Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup era, ultimately finishing 19th in the standings. Though Wolff, Morikawa, Champ and Long had wins to their credit, Im led the tour in starts (35) and cuts (26), and his 118 rounds were 18 more than the nearest competitor.

“This wasn’t my initial goal,” Im said of workload. “In your first year, you just want to get your card for the next year. To survive, honestly.

“Part of that is hunger, part is just trying to maintain the level of play I am at. Consistency helps keep my energy up, to stay sharp.”

He had seven top-10s in 2019, highlighted by a T-3 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and finished 17th in strokes gained.

“Congratulations to Sungjae on being voted 2019 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “His ‘Ironman’ season was remarkably consistent from start-to-finish, and his fellow players raved about his all-around game throughout the year. Like so many Korn Ferry Tour graduates, he arrived on the PGA Tour prepared to compete with the world’s best, and his season was a reflection of a maturity beyond his 21 years.”

Though not as heralded as his fellow young guns, Im quickly made an impression on tour. “In my short three years caddying on the PGA Tour, we’ve had the fortune to play with some of the very best in the world,” said Geno Bonnalie, Joel Dahmen’s caddie, following a pairing with Im at the Northern Trust. “Sungjae Im is the most impressive player I’ve ever seen.”

Morikawa was also dazzled by Im’s performance. “Oh Sungjae, that guy is a beast,” Morikawa told Golf Digest. “There are not many holes in his game.”

“Being the first South Korean player, and even the first Asian player to receive the award is pretty special,” Im said on Wednesday after playing in the pro-am ahead of this week’s season-opening tournament at The Greenbrier. “That’s incredibly significant for me. This will give me a lot of confidence down the road. I’ll be reflecting on this day for a very long time.”

Im joins Stewart Cink (1996-97) as the only players to be named the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in consecutive seasons.

—Dave Shedloski contributed to this story

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Do Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff have a case for Rookie of the Year?

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 04:53:09 +0000

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Or has Sungjae Im locked up the award?

By Joel Beall
The debate was over by January. He had a short-game prowess to match his prolific power, and his iron production was miles ahead of were it had been on the Web.com circuit. The results backed it up: Cam Champ, hailed as the “Future of Golf” by several publications—this one included—had a win, four top-11s and five top-25s in his first six starts of his rookie campaign. The then-23-year-old was so hot that he was listed as one of the Masters favourites, despite not receiving an invite to Augusta National. He was a lock for Rookie of the Year.

Sure enough, Champ was listed on the ballot the tour released on Wednesday. However, a lot has changed since January. Forget winning the award; there’s a good chance Champ won’t medal.

That’s because Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff, Adam Long and Sungjae Im have enjoyed seasons that have surpassed Champ’s, whose year went sideways after Hawaii. So who will take the title as the tour’s top rookie in 2019? Here are the cases for each:

Adam Long
One of the true Cinderella stories the tour has seen in quite some time. Though it’s too soon to call him a one-hit wonder, Long didn’t do much after his Desert Classic win, missing eight of his next 10 cuts and posting just one other top-10 on the season. That he’s even on the ballot is a feat in itself.

Cameron Champ
Though Champ was a fall phenom following his win at the Sanderson Farms, he suffered a fierce slump in the new year. He missed the cut in 11 of his last 20 starts, with a mere two top-40 finishes in that stretch. While he led the tour in driving and was sixth in strokes gained/off-the-tee, the rest of his game was a bit of a mess, finishing 161st in approach, 188th in around-the-green and 151st in strokes-gained overall. He’s just 24, and his distance is an asset that all crave. Still, next season will be a barometer if Champ has learned from growing pains, or if he merely was on an autumn heater.

Matthew Wolff
Wolff would easily win the fan’s vote. His viral swing—part baseball stance, part piñata cut—length and bravado are the trappings of a marketable star. He won six times as a sophomore in the 2018-’19 college golf season—an Oklahoma Statue record, which included the NCAA individual title—while posting a 68.69 scoring average, the lowest in NCAA history. Wolff carried that success to the tour, winning the 3M Open over Morikawa in just his third professional start.

“What he’s done over the last two, three years is absurd,” Morikawa recently told Golf Digest. “We grew up playing against each other in junior golf, and his drive is just relentless.”

Though the bite is matching the much-hyped bark, his so-so showings in his other six starts—a T-19 was his second-best finish—will keep him from winning Rookie of the Year. Given the trajectory this fledgeling star is on, it won’t matter one iota.

Sam Greenwood

Collin Morikawa
Though he was overshadowed by Wolff and Viktor Hovland’s arrival, Morikawa had the best overall performance of the college-to-pros quartet (you are not forgotten, Justin Suh). The Cal product turned in a T-14 at the RBC Canadian Open in his pro debut; a week later, he made the cut at the U.S. Open (T-35). Admirable, yes?

Then Morikawa transformed into a fireball starting in Minnesota,. A T-2 finish at the 3M Open was followed by a T-4 at the John Deere Classic and then a win at the Barracuda Championship. Unlike Wolff and Champ, Morikowa’s game is not fueled by power but precision. Had he enough starts to qualify, he would have finished the regular season in the top five in strokes-gained/approach and greens in regulation.

“It’s always a lot of fun,” Wolff said of Morikawa’s breakthrough. “There’s a level of comfort out there, and I think when we play together it kind of comes out. Obviously he’s been really hot, and we’ve both got a win now, so it’s kind of just awesome battling back and forth.”

Morikawa cooled down in his final three events, a T-31 at the Wyndham, T-52 at the Northern Trust, and T-48 (at 70 player field) at the BMW Championship to miss the Tour Championship. Nevertheless, that run, when he needed it most, has made his candidacy a viable one.

“If it happens, it happens,” Morikawa said about Rookie of the Year. “I’ve proved I belong out here. Now it’s about that next progression.”

Sungjae Im
Im is the most unheralded out of this bunch, despite being No. 1 on the Web.com Tour money list after the . This relative invisibility isn’t for lack of appearance. He lead the tour in starts (35) and cuts (26), and his 118 rounds were 18 more than the nearest competitor. He finished the year 17th in strokes gained, and was the only rookie to reach East Lake.

Though fans might not be taking notice, those inside the ropes are. Following a pairing with Im at the Northern Trust, Joel Dahmen’s caddie Geno Bonnalie took to Twitter to testify to the things he had seen.”In my short three years caddying on the PGA Tour, we’ve had the fortune to play with some of the very best in the world,” Bonnalie wrote. “Sungjae Im is the most impressive player I’ve ever seen.”

Added Morikawa: “Oh Sungjae, that guy is a beast. There are not many holes in his game.”

Verdict
It comes down to Morikawa and Im. While Morikawa has a win in his corner, he’s got two major knocks against him. Sample size—as evidenced with Champ, six events is not much of a litmus test—and history. Im was the ninth player to make the Tour Championship as the only rookie in the FedEx Cup era; in the eight previous instances, that player captured ROY honours. Though Morikawa’s game is more consistent than Champ’s, it’s hard to overlook the body of work from Im, giving him the nod as the 2019 Rookie of the Year.

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PGA Tour renames Rookie of the Year award after Arnold Palmer

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 02:50:47 +0000

Mike Ehrmann/Wire Image

By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour announced Monday that it’s Rookie of the Year honour has been renamed to the Arnold Palmer Award.

“Arnold Palmer was golf’s greatest ambassador with his go-for-broke style of play, his charitable endeavours and his true passion and respect for the game and its fans,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “A thumbs up, a wink, a carefully signed autograph, a thank you – simple gestures like these passed on by Mr. Palmer to countless young players helped shape their character, on and off the golf course. The Arnold Palmer Award will now reflect those contributions in honouring the tour’s most outstanding rookie. Our thanks to the Palmer family and the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation for their support with this initiative.”

The announcement coincides with this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. There are 12 former ROY winners in the tournament field, including Tiger Woods (1996), Ernie Els (1994), Rickie Fowler (2010) and reigning ROY Aaron Wise.

The award, which is voted on by the tour’s membership, was first bestowed to Robert Gamez in 1990. Coincidentally, Gamez won that year’s event at Bay Hill, holing out his second shot from the fairway on the 72nd hole to defeat Greg Norman by one stroke.

The Arnold Palmer Award was previously a trophy given to the tour’s season money-leader.

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Aaron Wise wins PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, is more than ready for his second season to get underway

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 04:46:09 +0000

Icon Sportswire
ATLANTA, GA – SEPTEMBER 23: Aaron Wise during the final round of the Tour Championship on September 23, 2018, at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

By Alex Myers
After becoming the only PGA Tour rookie to earn a spot in this year’s Tour Championship, Aaron Wise used the opportunity to start preparing for next season. Rather than fly home to Las Vegas to spend a rare opening in the schedule, the 22-year-old spent the week getting his first look at TPC Sawgrass in advance of his first appearance in the Players. Way, way in advance.

Even with the tour’s flagship event moving up in the calendar, it’s still not until mid-March. But Wise’s scouting trip some six months out shows he’s nowhere near content when it comes to improving.

“My goals are always progressing,” Wise told GolfDigest.com.

And now he can check off another goal on his to-do list. On Tuesday, Wise was announced as the recipient of the 2017-18 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Award.

“I’m just excited to be able to get the award,” Wise said. “And I played well at the end of the year, so I feel like I earned it.”

During his first season on the PGA Tour, Wise finished 24th in the final FedEx Cup standings and won the AT&T Byron Nelson. But he says his biggest thrill may have come two weeks before when he battled Jason Day down the stretch at the Wells Fargo Championship.

“It was pretty surreal,” Wise said. “That was my first time having a chance to win a PGA Tour event. To to be playing such a tough closing stretch with one of the game’s greats just going head to head and to pull off some of the shots I did, that’s where a lot of my confidence built. . . . Just knowing that I could do that was a big help for the rest of the season.”

Wise also fondly recalled taking videos of the scene at East Lake as Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship. And he knows what he’s working on most ensure he gets back to Atlanta.

“This year it’s going to be more focusing on the short game,” said Wise, who ranked 96th in strokes gained: around-the-green. “Converting birdies on par 5s and getting the ball up and down to save shots will be the key for me.”

Although the tour doesn’t release vote totals, Wise was selected for the honor over fellow rookie winners Austin Cook and Satoshi Kodaira, as well as Keith Mitchell and Joaquin Niemann. PGA TOUR members who played in at least 15 FedExCup events during the 2017-18 season were eligible to vote in the balloting process ended on October 1.

After winning the NCAA Championship at Oregon and turning pro in 2016, Wise won on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada later that year. He won on the Web.com Tour in 2017 before winning on the PGA Tour in 2018 to become the second golfer to win on all three tours. His next big goals, though, start with wearing the red, white and blue.

“Getting into some of those team events would be really cool. I was once really close to making the Ryder Cup team after I was playing really well there,” said Wise, who will start this season with a home game at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. “To watch them on TV really got me energized. I want to be out there too on those teams playing for my country,” Wise said.

But to do that, Wise will need to be more steady. Although he had 10 top 25s and four top 10s this season, he also missed 13 cuts in 29 starts.

“Hopefully, I can have all the same highs,” Wise said, “but with a little less of the lows.”

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A humble Xander Schauffele said all the right things in accepting his Rookie of the Year award

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 05:45:02 +0000

Icon Sportswire

By Dave Shedloski
There are many ways to measure success, and Xander Schauffele has the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Award as ample proof that his professional golf career is taking off. However, it occurred to Schauffele, whose T-5 finish in the U.S. Open launched a late-season surge to a pair of victories, including the the season-ending Tour Championship, that he can gauge his progress throughout the 2016-17 campaign in another way.

“Right now, my caddie has a nicer car than I do. That tells me a little something,” Schauffele says with a laugh, referring to Austin Kaiser, his college teammate from San Diego State, who bought a nifty BMW while Schauffele still schleps around in his Toyota Camry, one he just scraped up in a recent fender bender. But he doesn’t mind. “I’m an old soul. I haven’t purchased anything crazy. I used to want all these things, but now that we’re sitting here with some success, it doesn’t seem all that important now.”

The 23-year-old Schauffele learned Monday that he had beaten out Wesley Bryan, Patrick Cantlay, Mackenzie Hughes and Grayson Murray for top rookie honors. A 2016 graduate of the Web.com Tour, Schauffele is the fourth member of the high school class of 2011 to win the award, as voted on by fellow tour members. He joins Jordan Spieth (2013), Daniel Berger (2015) and Emiliano Grillo (2016).

“Everyone was telling me I should win this thing, but it’s just a crazy year for rookies, and to beat them all is pretty amazing,” he said. “I was told some stats before the interview. There were 20 guys that won this year 25 and under; the highest previously was like 11. I think the reason I won is because three guys before me were crazy enough to win—Cody Gribble, Wesley Bryan and Mackenzie Hughes. I was talking about Jordan Spieth setting the bar high, but those guys set the bar for my class. They made me believe that I could win out here, so kudos to them.”

Schauffele captured The Greenbrier Classic in July. He then held off Thomas, the prohibitive favorite for the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year Award (which will be announced Wednesday) at the Tour Championship, the first rookie to win the season finale since its inception in 1987. In 28 starts, the San Diego resident recorded four top-10 finishes, the most important being his surprise showing in the U.S. Open at Erin Hills.

A sectional qualifier out of Memphis, Schauffele opened with a 66 and found himself surrounded by media wondering who he was. Up to that point, he had missed six cuts and was languishing in 135th place in the FedEx Cup standings, well outside keeping his card tour. He was ranked 352nd in the Official World Golf Ranking.

But he performed the rest of the week like he had been around all along. “I never looked back,” he said. “That was a huge opportunity that I was able to take advantage of, and I could just feel the momentum switch over to my side and I was able to ride it the rest of the year.”

He finished the year third in the FedEx Cup and 32nd in the world. He earned more than $4.3 million, so whenever he is ready to upgrade his automobile, he has the resources.

Last week, while the top American players were competing the Presidents Cup, Schauffele went out to dinner with some friends and the waiter recognized him. A far cry from being an unknown U.S. Open contender.

“It’s all strange to me, but it’s pretty cool when people know who you are,” he said.

Schauffele admits he didn’t watch much of the Presidents Cup. He didn’t touch a club last week, but is ready to gear up for the new season with a three-week run of tour events in Asia starting at next week’s CIMB Classic. He missed the Presidents Cup with his peers, but he has his sights set on the Ryder Cup in Paris next fall.

There are goals to improve, but the old soul in him keeps it real. “You look at the stats, even on the tour app, it’s pretty obvious what I’m good at and what I suck at. And I’m very aware of it,” he said. “I think if I can get a little bit better in every category, I’m doing OK. But it’s also about keeping a clear head. I think it’s easy to get a big head in this situation. I need to find a way to manage my time and be an adult. That’s one of my goals for the next year.”

What he doesn’t have to improve on is his ability to win, even though, he admitted, “It was something I didn’t have a lot of experience with before.”

Yet he did just fine. By any measure you choose.

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