Webb Simpson Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Webb Simpson’s long-time caddie Paul Tesori switching to Cameron Young’s bag

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 05:32:30 +0000

One of the longest and most successful player-caddie relationships on the PGA Tour has officially come to an end. Even more surprising is which bag that caddie will have next.

Webb Simpson announced on Monday that he and longtime looper Paul Tesori are parting ways. And if that wasn’t surprising enough, the seven-time PGA Tour winner also revealed Tesori will be working for Cameron Young, a fellow Wake Forest product.

“I am happy for the great opportunity Paul has in going to work with my fellow WF Demon Deacon and friend, Cameron Young,” Simpson said in a statement.

Tesori was on the bag for all seven of Simpson’s PGA Tour titles, including the 2012 US Open and the 2018 Players Championship.

Simpson, 37, is 12 years older than Young so they didn’t overlap at Wake Forest. What makes the timing even more interesting is that Simpson played in Sunday’s penultimate pairing at the Valspar Championship, shooting a final-round to finish T-7, his first top 10 in 16 months.

“After over twelve years of working together, Paul Tesori and I have made the hard decision to change directions,” Simpson’s statement, which he tweeted, starts. Read the full statement below:

pic.twitter.com/ueJztrt6vj

— Webb Simpson (@webbsimpson1) March 20, 2023

Young, 25, is still searching for his maiden PGA Tour title. But the tour’s reigning Rookie of the Year is coming off a season in which he had five second-place finishes, including at the Open Championship. He also finished second at the PIF Saudi International behind LIV Golf’s Abraham Ancer. Young is currently No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking, while Simpson is 133rd.

Tesori is expected to be on Young’s bag at this week’s WGC-Dell Match Play, where he’ll start in a round-robin group with Sepp Straka, Corey Conners and Davis Thompson. Simpson didn’t qualify for the event.

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To the surprise of no one, Cameron Young captures the PGA Tour’s top rookie award

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 06:18:54 +0000

Kevin C. Cox

By Evin Priest
One of the worst-kept secrets in golf was confirmed Wednesday. Cameron Young was confirmed as the PGA Tour’s 2022 Rookie of the Year by way of fellow Wake Forest alum Webb Simpson walking the Arnold Palmer Trophy into the media centre and interrupting Young’s press conference ahead of the CJ Cup at Congaree Golf Club.

“From one Deacon to another, congratulations Cam,” Simpson said as he handed the bronze trophy to the 25-year-old Young. Like Simpson and Young—and last year’s Rookie of the Year, Will Zalatoris—Palmer attended Wake Forest.

“Well, it’s very special,” Young said. “I know the namesake, Arnold Palmer, was a giant in the game of golf and we have him to thank for a lot of what we do today, what the PGA Tour is. Just to be related to that in some small way is very cool. I know we had a very strong rookie class and I know it’s voted by my peers, so it’s a huge honour to be thought of in that way.”

Sahith Theegala was Young’s only real competition for Rookie of the Year and even Theegala admitted to Golf Digest at the season-ending Tour Championship he had no chance of toppling Young, who collected 94 per cent of the total vote.

New York native Young enjoyed seven top-three results on the PGA Tour last season, including five runner-ups. Of those second places, Young said the standout was finishing second to Cameron Smith at the Open Championship at St. Andrews in July. Young played with Smith for both weekend rounds at the Old Course and put legitimate pressure on Smith on the 72nd hole when he drove the Old Course’s par-4 18th and drained the short eagle putt to edge ahead of Rory McIlroy.

“Probably St. Andrews,” Young said when asked what moment stood out from 2022. “[An Open at St. Andrews] is just a different experience. The Open is about the most fans we see all year, maybe with the exception of Waste Management [Phoenix Open]. They love golf over there [in Scotland]. To walk into town centre to play the 18th hole at St. Andrews is different than anything you find anywhere else. So just knowing the history there and to play well that week was very cool.”

For Young, there’s only one way to make this season better—capture his maiden PGA Tour victory. The milestone eluded him during the many Sundays he was in contention during the 2021-22 campaign.

Winning won’t be any easier to accomplish at the CJ Cup this week, despite a 78-man field and no 36-hole cut. The names in the field at Congaree include World No. 1, Scottie Scheffler, defending CJ Cup champion Rory McIlroy, Tom Kim, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas, among others.

While Young joked about what a first PGA Tour win would feel like, the fire is clearly there to break through.

“Yeah, that’d be awesome. Anytime you win out here … well, I don’t know, but supposedly it’s very special,” he said through laughter. “Obviously I had my fair share of chances and I would hope one of them is coming at some point. It would be great just to finish out the year on a high note and [Congaree] would be a great place to do it.”

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Tiger Woods accidentally ruined Webb Simpson’s Presidents Cup surprise

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 10:47:50 +0000

By Joel Beall
Webb Simpson was officially named an assistant captain for the 2022 Presidents Cup on Tuesday. Unofficially he found out last week, because Tiger Woods accidentally blew the surprise.

Both Simpson and United States captain Davis Love III spoke to the media at the Wyndham Championship on Tuesday following Simpson’s appointment. With all four assistant spots taken — Simpson joins Fred Couples, Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker on the American staff — Love was asked if Woods would be involved in any capacity for the upcoming match at Quail Hollow.

“Well, he’s involved,” Love explained. “He called Webb and spilled the beans early, so he’s involved. He’s been a resource since — really since 2015. Well, all the way back to our meetings on where are we going to go with this Ryder Cup thing, who’s going to be the captain for ‘16 and how are we going to restructure the way we run these teams. Tiger’s been a huge influence and a huge resource. He really has opened up and embraced that role.”

Hold on: how did Woods “spill the beans”, precisely? According to Simpson, the 15-time major was a bit premature in his congratulations.

Simpson explained that he was with his family at a hot-dog joint last week, dealing with the chaos that comes with being a father of five. “My kids had already made the owner mad because they continued to open the door, so I’m stressing, it’s my turn to order, my phone rings, I looked down and it’s Tiger.”

Simpson told Woods he had to call him back — it takes a special type of conviction to tell Tiger Woods you have to call him back — to deal with the situation at hand. Once the hot dogs had been secured, Simpson returned the call, with Woods dropping the news on him.

“He just kind of referenced me being from — you know, living in Charlotte, Quail Hollow’s my home, that he thought it would bring a lot to the team,” Simpson said.

However, as Simpson continued, after the phone call he didn’t know if it was official or not. “I don’t know if he meant like he’s rooting for me to be assistant or if I am assistant,” Simpson said.

But Simpson heard from Love two days later, finding out what Woods had already known to be true. “Not that I feared not being a part of it, but there was a part of me that’s like, if I don’t make the team and Davis goes a different direction, that’s fine, but it’s going to be hard to see the Presidents Cup happen there and not be a part of it in some way,” Simpson said. “So I was really, really relieved to get a chance to be a part of it.”

The 2022 Presidents Cup begins September 20 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. The Americans are the defending champs.

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Presidents Cup 2022: Davis Love III names Webb Simpson, Steve Stricker as assistant captains

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 08:50:51 +0000

By Joel Beall
United States captain Davis Love III has announced Steve Stricker and Webb Simpson will serve as his final two assistant captains for the upcoming Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow.

Stricker, 55, is a former Presidents Cup captain, guiding the 2017 American team to a resounding victory at Liberty National, and recently led the US to a win in last autumn’s Ryder Cup. He competed in five Presidents Cups as a player and was also an assistant to Tiger Woods at the 2019 event at Royal Melbourne. Stricker has 12 PGA Tour career wins and added a senior major championship earlier this year at the Regions Tradition.

“Steve has been a great friend to so many players on the PGA Tour throughout the years, and I know that camaraderie he brings to both the golf course and the team room will be incredibly valuable in September,” Love said in a statement. “As we look at this youth movement on the US team, having Steve as a trusted ally in tense situations is something I know our players will lean on.”

Steve Stricker was the victorious US Presidents Cup captain in 2017 at Liberty National. Chris Condon/PGA Tour

Simpson, 36, has competed in three Presidents Cups, including the 2019 match, as well as three Ryder Cups for the Americans. He is a seven-time tour winner, highlighted by triumphs at the 2012 US Open and 2018 Players Championship. Simpson is also a native of Charlotte and is a member at Quail Hollow.

“I’m excited to see the Presidents Cup contested on my home course in a great sports town like Charlotte, and I know the fans are going to show up with tremendous support for the US team,” Simpson said. “I’ve had the good fortune of playing for Davis in past international events and he will have this team prepared to play each day. It’s an honour to be named a captain’s assistant and I look forward to helping the guys with a bit of course knowledge and a fun, enjoyable team atmosphere.”

The top six players in the US Presidents Cup standings after the BMW Championship will automatically qualify for the event, with Love announcing his captain’s picks after the Tour Championship. The International team’s top eight automatically qualify, with Immelman picking four players to round out his roster after East Lake.

The 2022 Presidents Cup begins on September 20 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. The Americans are the defending champs.

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The LIV Golf wrinkle impacting the FedEx Cup Playoffs chances of Rickie Fowler, Jason Day and others

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 05:24:10 +0000

Rickie Fowler. Kevin C Cox

By Joel Beall
Normally deducing who is on the FedEx Cup Playoffs bubble is easy. Take a look at the players near the cutline of No. 125 and boom, there’s your bubble. But this year, like so many other facets in professional golf, analysing the confines of Who Is In and Who Is Out is far from simple.

The complexity lies in LIV Golf, for those who have moved to the fledgling Saudi-backed circuit are A) under indefinite suspension from the PGA Tour or B) have renounced their PGA Tour membership. The upshot from the latter group — which includes the likes of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na — has already been calculated, as they have been removed from the FedEx Cup standings. The former group, however, remains listed in the post-season race. While the PGA Tour has yet to officially state how these players will be handled, sources tell Golf Digest the LIV Golf members currently on the FedEx Cup list are expected to be skipped over and replaced. Currently, that means 10 players inside the top 125 — Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Charles Howell III, Matt Jones, Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Hudson Swafford and Matthew Wolff — aren’t eligible for the playoffs, meaning the real FedEx Cup line is likely in the No. 134-136 range. (Perez, for example, is currently No. 121 but is in danger of falling outside No. 125).

Wrinkles remain. Until now, the PGA Tour has not suspended LIV Golf members until they have teed it up in a LIV event. But LIV Golf has also used the first two events to announce future signees, with Reed and Bryson DeChambeau announced in London and Paul Casey announced in Portland. The reason this matters is that, should LIV Golf follow the same cadence at Trump Bedminster this week, more players will be announced in the following days, but the next LIV Golf event won’t be held until the first week of September … the week after the conclusion of the tour’s season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. Meaning the PGA Tour would have to break from its precedent of waiting to suspend a player, or a future LIV Golf member would get to compete in the postseason.

Keeping all this in mind, here are the following big names currently on the FedEx Cup bubble.

Webb Simpson

Currently at No. 125, Simpson should be safe and has the Wyndham Championship coming up, where he has a win and nine top 10s in 13 career starts and loves the event so much he named one of his daughter’s after it. Though it’s jarring to see Simpson this low — he’s just two seasons removed from a two-win campaign — it’s a position mostly predicated off the complications from suffering a herniated disc in his neck.

Jason Day

It appeared the former PGA champ was on the verge of a comeback when contending at the Farmers Insurance Open earlier in the year. That performance at Torrey Pines proved to be an aberration, as Day has just one finish inside the top 20 in 10 individual starts since (although he did log a T-10 at the team-centric Zurich Classic). At No. 127 Day should be OK in making it to the post-season, but even if he misses the FedEx Cup, the Aussie remains tour exempt through the 2024 season thanks to his Players Championship win in 2016.

Rickie Fowler

Fowler logged a T-3 at the CJ Cup in the autumn. Since, zero top-20 finishes in 17 starts. With the slump stretching into its third season it’s fair to wonder if what Fowler’s experiencing is really a “slump” or a new normal. Needs a good showing at this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic to move safely off the bubble.

Danny Willett

The Englishman’s Masters exemption runs out in two weeks. That he even finds himself with a shot to keep his card is thanks to a T-7 at the 3M Open, his first individual top 10 on tour in 16 months. Willett has missed the playoffs the past two seasons, and at No. 137 desperately needs to make the cut in Detroit this week.

Francesco Molinari

The 2018 Open champ is not in the Rocket Mortgage Classic field, meaning any hopes he has of reaching the playoffs (currently No. 142) are based on a strong display at the regular-season finale at Sedgefield Country Club.

Harry Higgs

The fan favourite has been struggling mightily, entering the week 169th in scoring and 184th in strokes gained. His FedEx Cup position is slightly better (147th), but Higgs needs a top 10 this week or the next to secure his card for 2023.

Cameron Champ

Champ logged a win in each of the three previous seasons. But while he leads the tour in distance he sits 149th in the FedEx Cup, with a T-16 at last week’s 3M Open breaking a streak of five missed cuts in a row. Thanks to the aforementioned victories Champ is not in danger of losing his card, his status secured through 2024.

Zach Johnson

At No. 155, the 2023 Ryder Cup captain will need something special over the final two weeks to keep his card. Has had past success at the Wyndham with two top 10s in his last four starts.

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LOOK: This graphic showing how much Rory McIlroy outdrove his playing partners is pure comedy

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 06:19:51 +0000

ESPN

By Alex Myers
To be clear, there were plenty of factors that went into Rory McIlroy outdriving his playing partners by a Connecticut country mile on his final hole on Thursday at the Travelers Championship. But the main reason is that Rory hits a long ball. And boy, was he locked in during the opening round.

The par-4 ninth hole at TPC River Highlands is a 405-yard, dogleg right. But it plays much shorter if you take an aggressive line at the houses down the right side. And being McIlroy’s last hole of the day after starting on the back nine, and with him playing the previous 17 holes in seven-under, the four-time major champ was feeling good as he reached the tee.

When he reached his ball, he may have been feeling bad for the guys he was playing with. That’s because he outdrove Webb Simpson and Kevin Kisner by a combined 163 yards. Yep, we double-checked the maths on that.

Now, to be clear, those guys aren’t bombers like Rory. And they took less club and a more conservative route off the tee. Still, it’s hard not to look at this graphic and not laugh:

Rory McIlroy is playing a different game ? pic.twitter.com/z8rMEJftzv

— GolfBet (@GolfBet) June 23, 2022

You could literally build a car park between those drives! And a supersized one, at that.

Most importantly, McIlroy got up and down after his mammoth blast for one last birdie to cap an eight-under-par 62. Here’s a look at his incredible drive and beautiful pitch that nearly dropped for an eagle:

Meanwhile, the other two guys in the group only managed par, although Rory’s gap on the leaderboard over Simpson, who shot 64, isn’t quite as big. Kisner had a solid day as well with 67.

McIlroy is tied for the lead with JT Poston and one ahead of Xander Schauffele and Martin Laird. The World No. 2 won his last regular PGA Tour start at the Canadian Open two weeks ago and finished T-5 at the US Open last week.

Despite not having won a major in almost eight years, Rory remains the favorite to win the final one of 2022 at next month’s Open Championship at St Andrews. With rounds — and drives — like this, it’s not hard to see why.

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Getting passed over for Ryder Cup has Webb Simpson motivated for a repeat of his great 2020

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 01:40:44 +0000

Cliff Hawkins

By Tod Leonard
Webb Simpson honestly did not know how the 2021 Ryder Cup week was going to be for him. Badly wanting to play on his fourth U.S. team at Whistling Straits last September and get his first American win, he’d made early noise at making the squad with two wins in 2020. But his game wobbled at times in 2021, and when captain Steve Stricker made his six captain’s picks, Simpson was the man with his nose pressed to the glass, on the outside looking in.

He could have fumed. He was most certainly a little crushed, since, at 36 years old, the path to making another team event is ever narrowing. Simpson could have found anything else to do during Ryder Cup week. He does, after all, have five children to provide any number of gleeful distractions. But as the Friday of the biennial grudge match with Europe approached, he was unequivocally drawn to the drama.

“We got closer; it was Friday morning and it’s all I wanted to do,” Simpson recalled on Tuesday in Honolulu, where he starts his 2022 calendar year in the Sony Open. “So I watched for two hours; I needed to practice, but I’d pause [the TV] … and I would go practice for two hours, come back, watch it. I didn’t miss a shot.”

It was hard that Sunday, he admits, with his American brethren whipping Europe by a score of 19-9, but he couldn’t help but feel their joy, too.

“I even got emotional watching it,” Simpson said, “seeing the guys get emotional. And what an interview Rory [McIlroy] gave. Everybody, I felt like was giving great interviews. But it was really hard for me not to be there. Because I’ve experienced the joy of winning the Presidents Cup three times, but 0-for-3 in Ryder Cups.”

Ah, yes, the Presidents Cup. Beyond the most current disappointment of not being in Wisconsin, Simpson has another signpost for motivation—and pressure. This year’s Presidents Cup is being contested at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, where the North Carolina native is a member. The American captain is Davis Love III, for whom Simpson played in the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah.

“The question is, do I get to sleep in my own bed, or do I have to go downtown 20 minutes away from my house to sleep with my team?” Simpson pondered.

Simpson insists he couldn’t be upset about the decisions Stricker made—particularly after the Americans’ dominating win—though that rejection phone call from the captain was rough. He points to one of the guys who probably edged him out—Scottie Scheffler, a Ryder Cup rookie who earned 2½ points in the three matches he played.

“Stricker was after more … just a different player than me, which is fine,” Simpson said. “… It didn’t make me mad. Just made me want to work harder. Like I said, I have a dream of being a captain one day of a team, and I know I’m going to have that same situation. Every captain has to deal with telling a couple, two or three guys that they are not on it, that they were close; and get the good phone call of telling the guys that they made it; they are the pick. But I’ve got nothing great feelings for Strick.”

Simpson had a lot to overcome in 2021. He tested positive for COVID-19 in December 2020 and didn’t get in much practice before the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions. He also got a bad flu prior to the U.S. Open and had to withdraw from the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow with a scary neck injury.

All of it, he said, “crept into my golf game.”

The neck injury was unsettling. Simpson was hitting balls on the range on Tuesday of Wells Fargo week when he felt an “weird” sensation in his neck. There wasn’t a lot of pain, but by the evening he could barely turn his head. Treatment the next day didn’t help, and Simpson was disappointed to have to withdraw from his hometown tournament.

An MRI revealed a slight bulge, but nothing that was going to keep Simpson out for long. Two weeks later at the PGA Championship, he said he felt good, but there was, understandably, a nagging concern about it.

“Any time I felt like a weird crick or stiffness, it definitely brought back some of those memories,” Simpson said. “Again, we’ve done a lot of work on it to the point where I don’t fear it coming back.”

The good health has allowed him to focus on his game, and he’s feeling good after he got a lesson from Butch Harmon at the Shriners in Las Vegas last October. They agreed he needed to shallow out his swing more, and the results were immediate—Simpson tied for 14th in the following week’s CJ Cup and shot 66-66 on the weekend for a T-8 in the RSM Classic.

Simpson played 21 events last season and is looking at about the same this year. He’s not the up-and-coming prospect he was when he captured the U.S. Open at Olympic Club in 2012, but he insists he’s loving golf and has a good decade to still contend. After all, Stewart Cink has experienced a resurgence in his late 40s and Phil Mickelson won the PGA at 50.

“It seems like the guys in their 40s playing good golf becomes less and less every year,” Simpson said. “But I feel like my best golf is ahead of me. I feel like I have such a great team that I still have plenty of things I want to do in this game. I want to win more majors. I want to be on more teams. It would be a dream to captain a team one day.

“But I feel like I’m 36; in my mind, I’ve got a good 10 years left. Stewart Cink is giving me a lot of hope.”

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Webb Simpson had a crazy finish to a wild back nine in Wyndham

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 05:23:08 +0000

Webb Simpson reacts after chipping in for par at the 18th hole. Jared Tilton

By Tod Leonard
It’s well-documented how much Webb Simpson loves the Wyndham Championship. We need no more evidence than he and his wife named their third daughter Wyndham. (More heartfelt, our course, than saying her namesake is a hotel chain.) The Wyndham marked Simpson’s first victory on the PGA Tour in 2011 and going into Saturday’s third round of this year’s tournament at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., Simpson had a remarkable streak to protect.

Simpson shot 16 consecutive rounds in the 60s in the Wyndham in notching four consecutive top-three finishes, and this week the North Carolina native started 65-65 to get into contention again. Eighteen straight under-par rounds anywhere deserves big kudos.

But on Saturday, Simpson found himself fighting to keep the streak alive in probably the craziest battle with the course that he’s ever had at Sedgefield. He made six birdies in the round, but also suffered three bogeys—and then made one killer blunder—a triple-bogey 7 at the par-4 14th when Simpson fluffed a greenside bunker shot and left it in the sand.

The card for the last six holes of the round: birdie, double bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, par.

No one can say that Simpson dwells on his misfortune, that’s for sure. And that was clear on his final hole, where he made a par of 4 that was hardly routine. He left his approach short on the uphill slope in front of the green, and when his pitch wasn’t strong enough, the ball rolled back nearly to his feet.

Saving par in style. ?

After a roller-coaster back 9, @WebbSimpson1 can't help but smile.

He heads into the clubhouse T9 @WyndhamChamp. pic.twitter.com/jYHVvqIJm6

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 14, 2021

This was when he displayed a lesson for all of us. Obviously frustrated, Simpson stepped up to the ball and was quickly going to hit it. Then he stopped … and took a breath … and looked at the shot again … and then took his swing. And the ball took a couple of hops and bounced into the cup for par. The crowd responded with a cheer as if he’d made birdie.

“It was a perfect ending to a very weird day, very frustrating day,” Simpson said. “I had the position to shoot four, five under again and just didn’t get it done. Just frustrated, but it’s always nice to birdie 17 and par 18.”

The 60s streak? It ended with Simpson signing for an even-par 70 that put him at 10 under total and five shots off the lead of Russell Henley.

“We’re going to go work on the range right now,” Simpson said. “I clearly have a left miss right now that I want to go work out. I don’t know exactly why I can’t get it out of my system, but hopefully 30 or 40 balls will help.”

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Webb Simpson has work to do to make Ryder Cup team and fill a big hole in his career

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 03:56:37 +0000

Tracy Wilcox
Webb Simpson sits 13th on the Ryder Cup points list.

By Shane Ryan
Nobody in professional golf is quite as associated with the Wyndham Championship as Webb Simpson. Not only was he born and raised near Greensboro, N.C., in nearby Raleigh, and not only did he go to college at nearby Wake Forest, and not only does he live in nearby Charlotte, but the tournament itself has played an integral role in his career. This is where he won his first PGA Tour title in 2011, and on Wednesday morning he spoke about the emotional moment when his late father presented him the trophy on the 18th green. This event has been so important to him, in fact, that he and his wife named their third daughter Wyndham.

In 2021, though, as he prepares to tee it up once more, he’s got more than just this week on his mind. Simpson currently sits at 13th in the Ryder Cup standings and is one of several players in the running to get one of Steve Stricker’s six captain’s picks. Unlike a few other elite players of his generation, Simpson had the misfortune of missing the 2016 Cup at Hazeltine, when the Americans were victorious, which means that his career record stands at 0-3, with losses at Medinah, Gleneagles, and 2018 in Paris. When asked if this represents a hole in his resume, Simpson was emphatic in his belief that it’s unfinished career business.

“I’ve been 3-0 at Presidents Cups and 0-3 in Ryder Cups,” he said. “Sitting at home in ’16, it was a bittersweet feeling, I was so bummed not to be there, but I was so happy that we won. I remember watching all the coverage even after the tournament just to see how excited they were. I remember feeling like I would love to have that experience at least one time in my career. It would be one of those things where I feel like if I was on a winning Ryder Cup team, I would kind of check that off the list because I’ve never experienced it and it would be an amazing feeling and accomplishment.”

Simpson knows he has work to do. Due to the pandemic, the situation is odd this year in that Stricker has more captain’s picks than any other captain in Ryder Cup history, and only six automatic qualifiers. A look at the current standings seems to hint at a few players outside the top six who are locked in, including Jordan Spieth, Harris English, and—you would imagine, based on his match play history—Patrick Reed. After that, things get more ambiguous, and Simpson is among a crowd of perhaps seven or even eight players vying for three spots.

“I’m telling myself every day that I need to have a good run here—Memphis, this week and next few weeks to make that team,” he said, “so there’s definitely motivation there for me to play well.”

At last week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Simpson finished T-15 in one of his strongest recent results and believes he’s on the path to a strong late run that could help his chances.

“Two great rounds, two not-so-great rounds, but as a golfer you can fake it for a little bit and I don’t feel like I was doing that last week,” he said of Memphis. “I feel like we are really on the right track … we saw a couple of things we haven’t seen this year. For example, my approaches to the greens in my career typically have been most consistent. That’s been the weakest link this year and last week I had a much better week in that category.”

Simpson is not remotely a controversial figure in golf, but if there’s one moment that veered into controversial territory, it came in 2014 before the Gleneagles Ryder Cup when a series of last-minute texts he sent to Tom Watson seemed to have the intended effect of earning him a captain’s pick, apparently at the expense of Bill Haas, who was not chosen. On Wednesday, Simpson spoke about that incident, and how things are different this year as he finds himself in a similar position.

“Would I do that again?” he asked. “I don’t know. I was so, I guess, anxious about making that team in 2014, and maybe it was good and bad that I texted him, but in that moment I felt like I don’t know Tom as well, I don’t know if he knows how much I want to make this team. Stricker and I have texted, but I haven’t sent that text like I sent to Tom. I think he knows how much I love team events. But also, I guess getting older, playing these events more, I’ve realized Stricker’s going to pick who he feels is the best team for that week and I trust that.”

And if there’s anything Stricker knows, it’s that like him, Simpson is a great putter, who even in a relatively down year remains among the top 15 putters on tour. That’s always a useful skill when it comes to the Ryder Cup, and while Simpson knows he has something to prove in Greensboro and the weeks to come, it’s also likely that he’s got an inside track on one of the final picks.

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The Premier Golf League hasn’t gone away, but neither have questions about its ultimate viability

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 05 May 2021 00:55:54 +0000

By Daniel Rapaport
CHARLOTTE — The latest news from the upstart golf league that won’t go away diffused slowly throughout Quail Hollow Club on Tuesday, just barely beating the rainstorm that washed away an afternoon of practice for the Wells Fargo Championship.

Indeed, the venture formerly known as the Premier Golf League has, according to a report from The Telegraph, progressed to the offer-making stage. Representatives for Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka are reportedly in possession of multi-million dollar offers—$20 million or $30 million or more, depending on which report you read—to leave behind the PGA Tour ecosystem for a new league that promises guaranteed paydays.

The proposed system, which is backed by Saudi Arabian money and reportedly hopes to be operational by 2022, would look completely different from what golf fans have come to know over the past century. Instead of 72-hole, 144-plus-player every-man-for-himself tournaments, it would incorporate team competitions with much smaller fields.

In the most basic sense, this isn’t really news. The league first made waves in early 2020 but was, at least it seemed, successfully fended off by the PGA Tour. Commissioner Jay Monahan made clear that any player who went down the PGL route would lose his PGA Tour membership, and star after star said they were out on it. Months later, the tour even devised a way to reward its star players for something other than their on-course performance, and that was that. But representatives for the PGL continued to hang around the game’s powerbrokers, often looming around PGA Tour events and in the pro golf epicenter of South Florida, sources tell Golf Digest, unwilling to let the ambitious project die—not when they have the type of financial backing they do.

“Players and agents are just listening to their vision and pitch,” one agent said. “That’s about it at this point. Just a lot of listening.”

Well, if the reports are to believed, the group has put the ball in the courts of four players who are essentially being asked to take a leap of faith, to leave behind the organization that made them multi-millionaires in favor of something new. Representatives for Johnson, Koepka and Rose declined to comment to Golf Digest.

As news spread around Quail Hollow, plenty of players were hearing of the PGL for the first time in months. The PGL folks seem to have honed in on potential targets, bypassing any conversations with rank-and-file tour players (as well as multiple top-20 players). For those outside the PGL picture, the latest news was met with more than a few eye-rolls.

“I hope it doesn’t happen,” Harris English told Golf Digest. “This is the best tour in the world. The best players are making tons of money. Why don’t we just focus on continuing to improve this tour?”

The timing of the report dripped in irony, dropping just a few hours before the PGA Tour’s first mandatory player meeting of the year. The gathering had been on the schedule since at least last week, and there are typically at least one per year. One usually happens at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, but COVID-19 restrictions have made any such meeting impossible until now.

Ben Jared
Webb Simpson is sceptical that the PGL can survive if only a handful of top players are on board.

According to a player in attendance, the meeting lasted just 30 minutes or so and was more a State of the Tour than anything else: Budget talks, financial breakdowns, that sort of thing. No players spoke. The PGL news was acknowledged only briefly, with Monahan saying that the PGA Tour and the European Tour, which joined together in a strategic alliance last November, were united in their position on the league, and reiterating that any players who signed with the PGL would lose their PGA Tour membership. The legality of such a threat remains unclear, as does the position of the four major championships, none of which are owned or operated by the PGA Tour.

“I personally don’t think that it’ll happen,” the player said. “This is the tour’s stance, and I feel like major championships will feel the same way. I don’t think this thing is going to go ahead, to be honest.”

The parallels to the European Super League are unmistakable. In April, an upstart venture promised to upend the soccer universe by presenting an alternative to the in-place system, which requires teams to qualify for the Champions League each year by having success in their domestic leagues. The ESL would feature the same teams every year, and secured commitments from 12 of the top clubs from Italy, England and Spain.

The ESL news was met with outrage from the outset. Rumors swirled that players who played in it would be banned from representing their countries in the World Cup, and fans took to the streets to protest what they believed to be a shameless money-grab that callously ignored clubs’ history and culture.

And while you shouldn’t hold your breath to see golf fans protest on a putting green near you, the same age-old barriers to change that helped doom the Super League—at least for now—exist in golf. A sense of nostalgia, if you will.

The majors and the Ryder Cup and the PGA Tour are all part of a professional golf ecosystem that has evolved over the past 70-odd years. Signing with the PGL, then, would not be purely a financial decision, but a willing departure from the framework the shaped the careers of Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Simply put, it would shake the game to its foundations. How would the World Ranking work? How would we compare players from different eras?

“Are the best players in the world really going to go to this tour if only eight of the top 25 in the World Ranking are going to go?” Webb Simpson said when asked during a Tuesday press conference. “I think as a top player, I want to play against the best. At the end of the day, you have a career-long enough, I think most of these guys, they’re financially set. They want to break records, they want to win. Be like Dustin, win 20 times, be a life member, whatever it might be. You create a new tour, all these records get kind of thrown out the window, I think.

“I just think too many things like that are going to come up. I don’t think throwing X amount of money at guys is as appealing now as it maybe once was because of how great the opportunities we have on the PGA Tour. Whatever the number is, $350 million we’re playing for this year, and what FedEx has done, there’s so many opportunities for guys to make a great living here.

“If I’m a guy who’s on my way to make history like a Dustin or, you know, a few other top guys, I’m going after—I want to go after records, not a dollar.”

Cliff Hawkins
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan reiterated in a players meeting on Tuesday at Quail Hollow Club that golfers who join the PGL would lose their PGA Tour membership.

One agent, who agreed to speak anonymously, pointed out that while players who join the PGL may enjoy a lucrative initial payday, they’d risk losing long-term sponsorship dollars from companies who do not want to associate with a Saudi Arabian-financed venture.

“Go look at the pictures of Dustin Johnson holding the trophy in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “See if you can find the RBC logo there on his sleeve.” He’s correct—Johnson did not have the RBC logo planted in its normal spot on his left sleeve during the Saudi International in February, but did have it in his starts immediately before (Sentry Tournament of Champions) and after (Genesis Invitational).

And while the PGA Tour seems intent on taking a hardline stance on the PGL—us or them—executives have shown a willingness to respond to top players’ desire to be compensated for the eyeballs they draw, albeit indirectly. Last month, the tour confirmed it has enacted the Player Impact Program, a $40 million year-end prize fund that will reward the 10 players who bring the most positive publicity to the Tour. It was widely seen as a response to the PGL, a way to guarantee a payday for its biggest stars no matter how they play on the course. Perhaps the re-emergence of the PGL possibility will trigger yet another change tweak to its payment structure.

But will the PGL be successful in comprehensively upending golf? One top-100 player assessed the chances rather bluntly: “There’s no chance anyone has the balls to go over. Absolutely no chance.”

The post The Premier Golf League hasn’t gone away, but neither have questions about its ultimate viability appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.