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      Lee Elder, Who Broke a Golf Color Barrier, Dies at 87

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      In his prime he played in a league for Black players, but in 1975, at 40, he became the first African American to take part in the Masters tournament.Lee Elder, who became the first African American golfer to play in the Masters tournament, a signature moment in the breaking of racial barriers on the pro golf tour, died on Sunday in Escondido, Calif. He was 87.The PGA Tour announced the death but provided no other details.When Elder teed off at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in April 1975, he was 40 years old. Years earlier, in his prime, he played in the United Golfers Association tour, the sport’s version of baseball’s Negro leagues. The PGA of America, the national association of pro golfers, accepted only “members of the Caucasian race,” as its rules had spelled out, until 1961.Elder was among the leading players on the UGA tour, which over the years also featured such outstanding golfers as Ted Rhodes, Charlie Sifford, who was the first Black player on the PGA Tour, and Pete Brown while offering comparatively meager purses.Elder first played regularly on the PGA Tour in 1968, and that August he took Jack Nicklaus to a playoff at the American Golf Classic in Akron, Ohio, losing in sudden death.“The game of golf lost a hero in Lee Elder,” Nicklaus said in a statement on Monday.The Masters, played annually at Augusta National, had no clause barring Black golfers, but unofficially it remained closed to them. With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, however, it came under pressure to integrate its ranks.The tournament eased a bit in 1971 by announcing that any player who subsequently won a PGA Tour event would automatically qualify for it. Elder came close, finishing second in the Texas Open and losing a playoff to Lee Trevino in the Greater Hartford tournament in 1972.But those performances did not persuade the Masters to bend its new rule and accord Elder a spot. Elder broke through after capturing the 1974 Monsanto Open at the Pensacola Country Club in Florida, where six years earlier he and other African American PGA Tour members playing there had been refused entrance to the clubhouse. They had to dress in a parking lot.That victory finally brought the 1975 Masters invitation. In the run-up to the tournament Elder received death threats. He rented two houses near the Augusta National course and moved between them as a security measure.When he teed off for his first shot, a huge crowd lined the fairway. “I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to tee off without killing somebody,’” he told The New York Times in 2000, wryly reflecting on the pressure he faced.Elder at the Masters in 1975. Black employees of the Augusta National Golf Club lined the 18th fairway when he played it. “I couldn’t hold back the tears,” he said.Leonard Kamsler/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesHis shot off the first tee was straight down the middle, but he ended up far back in the field in the first two rounds, shooting 74 and 78, and missed the cut to continue to play through the weekend by four strokes. He received a fine reception from the galleries, though.“The display from the employees of Augusta National was especially moving,” Elder told Golf Digest in 2019. “Most of the staff was Black, and on Friday, they left their duties to line the 18th fairway as I walked toward the green. I couldn’t hold back the tears. Of all the acknowledgments of what I had accomplished by getting there, this one meant the most.”Elder played in the Masters six times, his top finish a tie for 17th place in 1979. He won four PGA Tour events and finished second 10 times, playing regularly through 1989 and earning $1.02 million in purses. He also played for the U.S. team in the 1979 Ryder Cup. He joined the PGA Senior Tour, now the Champions Tour, in 1984 and won eight times, earning more than $1.6 million. He won four tournaments overseas.Elder and his first wife, Rose Harper, created a foundation in 1974 to provide college scholarships for members of families with limited incomes. He promoted summer youth golf development programs and raised funds for the United Negro College Fund.In 2019, he received the United States Golf Association’s highest honor, the Bob Jones Award, named for the co-founder of the Masters and presented for outstanding sportsmanship.Elder in November 2020 at the Augusta club after he was named an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRobert Lee Elder was born on July 14, 1934, in Dallas, one of 10 children. His father, Charles, a coal truck driver, was killed during Army service in Germany in World War II when Lee was 9. His mother, Almeta, died three months later.Elder caddied at an all-white club in the Dallas area, earning tips to help his family, then went to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. He worked as a caddy again and dropped out of high school to pursue a career in golf, at times touring the Southwest as a “hustler,” winning private bets against players who had no idea how good he was.At 18, after playing against the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, an avid golfer, Elder became a protégé of Rhodes, who was Louis’s golf instructor.Following two years in the stateside Army, Elder joined the United Golfers Association tour in 1961. In one stretch of 22 consecutive tournaments, he won 18.Gary Player, the South African native and one of golf’s greatest international golfers, invited Elder to play in his country’s Open and PGA championships in 1971, having received permission from the prime minister. Black people mingled with white in the crowd at what became the first integrated golf tournament in South Africa since the adoption of apartheid in 1948.Elder’s survivors include his second wife, Sharon, with whom he lived in Escondido. He returned to Augusta National in 1997 to watch Tiger Woods win the Masters by a record-setting 12 strokes, becoming the first African American golfer to win one of golf’s four major tournaments.Elder with Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, right, during the opening ceremony of the 2021 Masters tournament in April. They were honorary starters. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters“Lee Elder came down, that meant a lot to me,” Woods said afterward. “He was the first. He was the one I looked up to. Charlie Sifford, all of them. Because of them, I was able to play here. I was able to play on the PGA Tour. When I turned pro at 20, I was able to live my dream because of those guys.”On April 8 this year, Elder became the first Black player to take part in a decades-old Masters tradition, joining Nicklaus and Player as that year’s honorary starters, who strike the tournament’s ceremonial first shots. Though he brought his clubs with him, arthritis in his knees left him without enough stability to take a shot.But he received a standing ovation. The ceremony, he said, “was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever been involved in” and “something I will cherish for the rest of my life.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      An American May Finally Win the Race to Dubai

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      It’s never happened before, and the sport is wondering what it means if a golfer from the United States wins the European championship.In the 50-year history of the European Tour, something could happen on Sunday at the final event of the season, the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, that has never happened: An American could win the Race to Dubai competition.Collin Morikawa, who won the British Open this year, is in first place, followed by Billy Horschel, winner of the BMW PGA Championship. Both players are Americans and members of the PGA and the European Tours.This time last year, Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, was in contention. But Lee Westwood of England won the title for the third time. (The race had previously been called the Order of Merit.)Jon Rahm, the top-ranked player in the world, was lurking in third place but he announced on Sunday that he wold not play in Dubai.Still, why top Americans are surging on the European Tour and what it means is not obvious, except that professional golf is in flux.The tour was once the province of European and non-American players. Then it became a testing ground for future stars, the way Brooks Koepka of the United States played on the European Tour early in his career to test his mettle and gain membership on the PGA Tour. He went on to win four major championships.Today, the nationality of who is leading the Race to Dubai may be unimportant because next year the European Tour will not even be called the European Tour. Last week, the tour’s parent company, European Tour Group, announced its flagship tour will be known as the DP World Tour starting in 2022.Even Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s chief executive, was at a loss when asked about American dominance in the yearlong race and what it meant.“I’d have answered that question completely differently before November 2020,” he said, referring to when a strategic alliance was announced between the PGA Tour and the European Tour.“Before the PGA Tour became our partner, as opposed to a competitor, it would have meant a lot more for an American to be in contention in the Race to Dubai,” Pelley said. “We are no longer competing for top players. Collin Morikawa and Billy Horschel are great players and great ambassadors of the game, and we are grateful for them. The importance of an American winning would have been much greater in the past.”Collin Morikawa at the PGA Championship in South Carolina in May.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesThe PGA Tour and the European Tour have historically been rivals for players and commercial dollars. But out of the Covid lockdown came a partnership.When major events — like the Masters, the United States Open, PGA Championship and the British Open — were initially canceled or postponed last year, the two tours came together to see which events could be salvaged and staged safely. While many regular-season events were lost, three of the four majors were held — albeit without fans. (The British Open was canceled.)From that cooperation, the PGA Tour took a 15 percent stake in the European Tour Group in May. They also began to coordinate their schedules so the top players would be able to play in each tour’s big events. At the same time, the players excluded from those events because of their rankings would have other events to play that would count toward the rankings on both tours.Next year, there will be three such events: the Genesis Scottish Open, the Barbasol Championship and the Barracuda Championship.“There’s no question both organizations are going to be made stronger by working together,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer for the PGA Tour.Still, what this cooperation means for the golfers was not as easy to hash out as the scheduling, commercial licenses and big advertising dollars.This mash-up of tours in partnerships and branding comes when the golf ecosystem is increasingly intertwined, but also incredibly scrambled. There used to be clear distinctions on what the tours meant. The PGA and the European Tours were rivals through the 1990s, with each tour’s players really only crossing the Atlantic for majors like the Masters or the British Open.But starting in 1986, the European Tour started the Challenge Tour to serve as the proving ground for future European Tour players. Four years later, in 1990, the PGA Tour created the Ben Hogan Tour, now known as the Korn Ferry Tour, to serve the same purpose for the PGA Tour.At the time, the developmental tours fed into the main tours. But over the decades, players began to shuffle among them as playing privileges became harder to come by in the Tiger Woods era.“Our tours were vertically integrated,” Pelley said. “Now they’re horizontally integrated, and it’s a significant difference. What does that mean in the long run? That’s the $1 million question. I can’t emphatically give you an answer.”There is definitely opportunity for the top players. Horschel realizes he could accomplish two firsts in winning or finishing high enough at the DP World Championship, Dubai, which ends on Sunday, to claim the Race to Dubai. In addition to being the first American to win the European Tour’s season-long title, he could be just the second player to win both the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour’s equivalent.Billy Horschel won the BMW PGA Championship in September.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet Horschel, 34, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where the PGA Tour is based, said he grew up watching tournaments like the BMW PGA Championship on the European Tour early in the day and then being inspired to play afterward. He has a growing fan base in Europe and said he hoped to play five to seven tournaments on the European Tour each year.Facilitating this is what the alliance between the two tours and the increased sponsorship from DP World would achieve. Each tournament under the DP World Tour will have at least a $2 million prize purse, while next year’s version of the season-ending DP World Championship will have a $10 million purse, up from about $9 million this year.There will also be more cooperation so the elite players can play in each tour’s biggest events. “The thinking was how can we organize our respective schedules, so this is more planned out,” Anderson said. “If you organize these things, it’ll be better for both organizations and not be disruptive to the tours.(Neither Pelley nor Anderson would comment on Greg Norman’s new Saudi-backed golf venture, LIV Golf Investments, which aims to create a premier golf league to lure the top players.)Where the new focus on the big events is less thought out is on its impact on all the other golfers who are not ranked in the Top 50. Their path is not as clear as it once was. Younger American and European players had a system of working their way from the Korn Ferry and Challenge Tours to the PGA and European Tours. But the alliance and higher prize money from DP World could crowd them out.One nod to that is both tours are sanctioning two lesser events next year, in the Barbasol Championship and the Barracuda Championship, giving playing opportunities to professionals who did not qualify for the Scottish or the British Opens that are held the same weeks.“Today the different ways you make it to the PGA Tour are varied, and there isn’t a clear path to get there,” Anderson said. “We want to identify clear lanes for the players who ask, how do I progress in our sport and create options?”For now, though, all eyes are on golf’s elite players to see who will win this year’s Race to Dubai.“Collin and I have a chance to do something that hasn’t been done before,” Horschel said. “It’s going to be a tight race. You have a lot of great players who have the chance to win the Race to Dubai.” More

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      The Two Worlds of Billy Horschel

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      He has won the BMW PGA Championship and is now close to winning the European Tour’s Race to Dubai.Billy Horschel of the United States, ranked 20th in the world golf rankings, enters the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai this week in second place in the Race to Dubai, the season-long points race on the European Tour. To win it all, he will have to pass fellow American Collin Morikawa, ranked second in the world and leading the Race to Dubai.If Horschel wins, he would enter elite company in winning the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup, the race’s equivalent on the PGA Tour. Henrik Stenson of Sweden is the only one to win both, capturing the FedEx Cup in 2013 and the Race to Dubai in 2013 and 2016.Horschel is a member of the PGA and the European Tours. This year he has played four events in Europe: the Scottish Open, the British Open, the BMW PGA Championship, which he won the same week he found out he would not play in the Ryder Cup — and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.Horschel said he embraced his dual tour status, and in return he has been embraced by European fans.The following interview has been edited and condensed.How does winning the BMW PGA Championship rank in your year?It was a top highlight. I played it in 2019, and I fell in love with the event. I watched it as a kid. It was the first week we were out of school. I’d watch it and go play afterward. To win there — the support I got was unbelievable. It made me feel like I was an English golfer with so many people rooting me on to victory. Being the flagship event on the European Tour, it has that same level of importance as the Players Championship on the PGA Tour. Being able to say I’ve won there is important. That event can rival any event on the PGA Tour. It’s comparable to the majors.Horschel playing last month in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland.Mark Runnacles/Getty ImagesHow did you feel about the Ryder Cup?I’m ecstatic the U.S. Team won. Many times we had a strong team on paper, but these guys produced, and I knew they would. The majority were really close knit, but they also knew how to get away and have fun off the golf course. I wanted to make the team, but I knew I had a very low percentage chance of making it. I was just more upset thinking I should have gotten a call. At the end of the day, it was my little perceived knock, but it worked out in the end.How do you think about splitting your time on the PGA and European Tours?The European Tour’s gotten so much tougher. After winning the BMW PGA, I’ve gotten so much support traveling overseas that I’d like to get over more. I’m trying to give myself enough events on the PGA Tour to give myself an opportunity to win the FedEx Cup again. But I’m also trying to support the European Tour and how it’s trying to grow. Over the next five to 10 years, I’m going to try to get over there at least five times, though seven would be ideal.You are in second place in the Race to Dubai. What are you thinking going into the DP World Tour?It’s a pretty unique situation. No American has won the Race to Dubai. I think Collin and I have a chance to do something that hasn’t been done before. It’s going to be an unbelievable week. It’s going to be a tight race. You have a lot of great players who have the chance to win the Race to Dubai. To add your name to that prestigious list is something you can’t get away from. I’ve already been thinking about it since I won the BMW PGA.What do season-long contests like the Race to Dubai and the FedEx Cup mean to players?I’m always trying to win the tournament. I hardly ever know where I stand in points. I’m always trying to get better through the year. But in a couple of events, you’re coming down 18 and you don’t have a chance to win, and you say to yourself, “Let’s not do anything stupid and take away a top-five finish.” At the end of the year, one shot can be a massive difference. More

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      Greg Norman Takes Aim at PGA Tour With New Saudi-Backed Golf League

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      Norman has tried to get a competing league off the ground before, but top players like Rory McIlroy have shown only disinterest.A group headlined by Greg Norman is the latest new venture preparing to offer an alternative league to the dominant PGA Tour in professional golf.On Friday, Norman, 66, who is a multiple major champion and was the world’s top-ranked player for more than five years, announced his association with LIV Golf Investments, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, an investment arm of Saudi Arabia’s government.Norman’s group has committed to stage an additional 10 events on the Asian Tour in the next decade. But the enterprise’s goals are for a prominent worldwide presence, with play beginning as early as next year.“This is only the beginning,” Norman said in a statement. “LIV Golf Investments has secured a major capital commitment that will be used to create additive new opportunities across worldwide professional golf.”The announcement comes only weeks after a group led by the Public Investment Fund purchased the Premier League soccer team Newcastle United after a yearslong pursuit. That deal was nearly derailed by the fund’s involvement; critics of Saudi Arabia say the investments in sports by the PIF are merely an effort by the kingdom to obscure accusations of human rights abuses. For more than 25 years, Norman has hoped to create a global golf tour as a rival to the PGA Tour. In the 1990s, he proposed a world golf tour and tried to lure top players to play in a collection of small field events that would have enlarged purses. The PGA Tour commissioner at the time, Tim Finchem, succeeded in fending off Norman’s tour, which the PGA Tour viewed as unwanted competition to its circuit.Since then, several versions of a world tour that would challenge the PGA Tour have been proposed without a significant change in elite professional golf’s landscape. The latest was the Premier Golf League, based in London, which had a plan for more than 15 tournaments and limited fields of 48 players that would begin in 2023. A host of PGA Tour players, most notably Rory McIlroy, who was then No. 1 in the men’s worldwide rankings, were emphatic in their disinterest in the new league. The PGA Tour also informed its players that if they played in the upstart league they would not be permitted to compete on the PGA Tour.Norman, known for his bold play and attacking style — his nickname is “the shark” — is undeterred.“The Asian Tour is a sleeping giant and we share ambition to grow the series and unlock what we believe is significant untapped potential,” Norman said. “We see our promotion of these new events as a vital first step in supporting emerging markets, creating a new platform, rich with playing opportunities that create valuable player pathways.” More

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      Venerable Golf Clubs Embrace Fun to Draw More Members

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      Championship play one day, an easier course with piped-in music the next.Many of the world’s top golfers will be among the about 140 players at the BMW PGA Championship, which begins Thursday and is held annually on the West Course at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England. Like they have done for decades, the players will be hitting shots around one of Europe’s most historically rich golf clubs.But like other storied golf-opolises — those vast golf-focused communities built last century — the club is in the midst of a radical reimaging of what it is. This has not always gone smoothly or been well received by its passionate members.Home to the European PGA Tour’s headquarters, Wentworth is where the idea for the Ryder Cup, to be contested later this month, was hatched. The club also has hosted scores of professional tournaments, stretching from the 1950s.Winners at Wentworth have included some of the game’s best: Rory McIlroy, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie, who won three BMW PGA Championships in a row. Last year’s championship was won by Tyrrell Hatton, who has qualified for the European squad’s Ryder Cup team.Tyrrell Hatton of England won last year’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.Paul Childs/Action Images, via ReutersYet, in golf as in life, things do not always stay the same. In 2014, the club was bought by Reignwood Group, which is an investment vehicle of Yan Bin, a Chinese billionaire whose wealth derived from selling Red Bull energy drinks. After paying 135 million pounds (about $187 million), he wanted to make some changes, which set off a furor.He decided to reduce the membership rolls to make the club, which has three 18-hole golf courses, more upscale. Instead of having more than 3,500 members, he increased the annual dues to slash the membership count, said Ruth Scanlan, director of marketing for Wentworth.He reportedly wanted only 888 members, 8 being a lucky number in China. And those members had to buy what are called debentures — essentially a bond held by the club. The fee was 150,000 euros (about $178,000), and at last count the club had about half the number of debenture members he wanted, Scanlan said.How Wentworth, which in the 19th century was owned by a relative of the Duke of Wellington, is changing is emblematic of a broader trend of older, once-unassailable golf centers. What has happened is difficult for longtime members, but anything new or different at an established club often comes with grumbling.The bigger issue is how Wentworth and other golf-opolises have had to face down a starker choice: Change now or go into decline as the world of golf resorts leaves them behind.But what has forced these changes?There is not just one answer. Before the pandemic, rounds of golf were in decline and traditional golf courses were struggling to turn a profit. This could be seen as a reason for Wentworth’s looking to go more upscale. But other clubs chose a different route, by trying to add more fun to their clubs or letting nonmembers stay at a private club as a way to play.Which is what Mike Keiser did. Keiser sold his greeting card company in 2005 and parlayed the proceeds into several golf resorts, including Bandon Dunes in Oregon, Sand Valley in Wisconsin and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia. His courses are all about golf and the post-round golf hangout. And they began siphoning off players from the older golf-opolises.In many ways, PGA National in Florida is Wentworth’s equivalent in the United States. It is home of the Honda Classic, which is played on a tough course, and has been the longtime headquarters of the P.G.A. of America.PGA National used to have five courses that were stout tests of golf and attracted business golfers and vacationers, and it hosted tournaments for elite amateurs and professional golfers. One of its courses — designed by Tom Fazio, an architect who has worked on Augusta National — was sliced and diced into a family-friendly nine-holes and another venue just for match play — where winning and losing a hole matters more than the score.Covid-19 was the impetus for the change, said Jane Broderick, club manager and director of golf at PGA National, who has been there for 35 years. “When you see this resurgence of golf, you think, how do we keep these golfers?” she said. “They may not be the die-hard golfer. What we’re trying to do with these courses is make them a social experience.”Broderick said converting the Fazio course to two, more-relaxed courses was driven by the club’s new owners, Brookfield Asset Management, which paid $233 million for the club in 2018. “We’re unbuttoning the top button of our golf shirt, and we’re relaxing the rules,” she said. “We want people to have fun.”Firestone Country Club in Ohio, a private club that was originally the company club for the tire manufacturer of the same name, has long been known for being a strong test of golf. It has hosted decades worth of PGA Tour events, most recently the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational as well as the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship. Tiger Woods has won eight PGA Tour events at Firestone.Yet, more recently, the club has opened up to limited stay-and-play options.“We always had three really good golf courses,” said Jay Walkinshaw, the club’s general manager. “As the club and the membership has evolved, we realized we had these 86 guest rooms on property and some excess capacity. That was when we started thinking about opening up Firestone.”Opening it for semipublic play has brought in revenue without hurting member play. “It’s a destination for golf enthusiasts, and now we’re accessible to them,” he saidEven venerable Pinehurst in North Carolina, the host of four United States Opens in the next two decades, has loosened up. Its main attraction, Pinehurst No. 2, considered among the best Donald Ross-designed courses, remains a sought-after test of golf just as when Payne Stewart beat Phil Mickelson in the 1999 U.S. Open. But it now has the Cradle, a nine-hole course, with music piped in. What it is missing in history, the Cradle aims to make up in fun.“There’s this theme at Pinehurst of going back to our history and tweaking it for the modern era, and the Cradle is a great example,” said Tom Pashley, president of Pinehurst. “Having music at the Cradle is lauded now, but it was a very difficult decision. It’s added to the relaxed atmosphere we wanted. It’s part of the charm now of playing the Cradle.”Likewise, Pebble Beach Golf Links in California this year converted an underused par-3 course into the Hay, a short course designed by Tiger Woods with lengths that commemorate historical moments at Pebble, including a replica of the course’s seventh hole, the short par-3 surrounded by water.“One of the nice things is it’s challenging for the good golfer and still accessible for the new golfer,” said David Stivers, chief executive of the Pebble Beach Company.Yet the company also recognizes that as golf becomes more accessible it needs easier, not harder options. Stivers said Pebble Beach was introducing a shorter set of tees to allow more players to experience the perennial U.S. Open host site.Similarly, Sea Pines in South Carolina, which is open to the public, operates three courses, including the highly rated Harbour Town Golf Links. John Farrell, director of sports operations at Sea Pines, said his focus was not on adding new things but on speeding up rounds, which can be painfully slow at sought-after courses.“Our focus has been to take care of the core values of the golf experience,” he said. “If you do that, everything else takes care of itself. We check pace of play every single day.” More

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      Patrick Cantlay Wins the FedEx Cup

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      Cantlay fended off Jon Rahm, the world No. 1, at the Tour Championship in Atlanta to claim the $15 million prize.ATLANTA — Given a head start, Patrick Cantlay proved uncatchable at the season-ending Tour Championship.Cantlay started the week at 10 under par and reached 21 under, never trailing for 72 consecutive holes to beat Jon Rahm of Spain, the world No. 1, by one stroke at the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup at East Lake Golf Club. Cantlay and Rahm dueled over the last three days, as Rahm kept whittling away at his initial four-shot deficit but could never draw even with Cantlay.Cantlay’s lead was only one stroke after Rahm converted a par after missing an 11-foot putt for birdie on the 17th hole and Cantlay saved bogey from 6 feet. With $15 million and the FedEx Cup on the line, both players took dead aim at the flag on the par-5 18th hole.Rahm’s approach from 238 yards skipped within an inch of the flagstick and rolled out just over the apron 18 feet past the hole.Cantlay stepped up and delivered a 6-iron from 218 yards that rolled 11 feet short of the hole — the closest eagle chance of the day. When Rahm’s eagle chip attempt slid past the cup, all Cantlay needed to do was lag it to 6 inches to make birdie and secure his victory.“It was the longest lead I’ve ever held, but I just tried to stay, day after day, in the present, and I did an amazing job of that this week because the last couple days I made some mistakes I don’t usually make and I was able to really center myself and hit a lot of good shots when I needed to,” Cantlay said.“It’s such a great honor because it’s all year and I played so consistent all year and just caught fire the last couple of weeks.”In the 18 events in which Cantlay and Rahm both played this season, Rahm finished ahead of Cantlay in strokes 14 times — including this week. But Rahm’s 14-under effort on the course was not enough to overcome the four-shot cushion Cantlay started with on Thursday. Rahm and Kevin Na, the third-place finisher, shared the lowest gross scores, but neither was enough to completely make up ground on Cantlay. Justin Thomas finished fourth.“We had distanced ourselves from the field and it was like a one-on-one match play feel,” Cantlay said of his duel with Jon Rahm, left, in the last round.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockCantlay started Sunday two up on Rahm and quickly extended his lead to three with a birdie on the second hole. But his advantage was down to a skinny stroke as the players made the turn after Cantlay bogeyed the par-3 ninth hole.Cantlay had a great chance to go back up by two on the 13th, but his 4-foot birdie putt took a 90-degree turn around the lip and stayed out. It was a surprising miss from Cantlay, who set a PGA Tour record for strokes gained putting (14.68) when he made 537 feet of putts, including every one that mattered down the stretch, last week at the BMW Championship in Maryland.That hiccup didn’t last, as he buried putts of 4, 6 and 6 feet for par, birdie and bogey on 15, 16 and 17 to take his one-shot lead to the par-5 18th tee.“We had distanced ourselves from the field and it was like a one-on-one match play feel,” Cantlay said.Cantlay has finally manifested as the force he seemed destined to become on tour. A decade ago as a freshman at U.C.L.A., Cantlay ascended to the top of the amateur and collegiate ranks, winning four tournaments and sweeping all of the prestige awards. He ranked as the No. 1 amateur in the world a record 54 consecutive weeks and 55 overall — a standard that held up until broken by Rahm in 2016 — before opting to forgo his final two years of college eligibility and turn professional in 2012 immediately after claiming the silver medal for low amateur at the Masters.It seemed a prudent step considering in his first four tour starts as an amateur Cantlay finished no worse than 24th, including a tie for 21st at the 2011 U.S. Open, and set an amateur record for the lowest score on the PGA Tour when he shot 60 at the Travelers Championship.Cantlay was considered can’t miss.But neither golf nor life is that simple. A combination of physical and emotional traumas shaped Cantlay’s early development. A stress fracture in his lower back derailed his transition almost from the start and affected his progress for four years, two of them (2015 and 2016) spent entirely out of commission. During that period, his best friend and caddie, Chris Roth, died in his arms after a hit-and-run while crossing the street in Newport Beach, Calif., in 2016.“I think as tough as the tough times were, they made me who I am,” Cantlay said. “I’m a better person because of it and I thank all the people that really helped get me through that time and get me to the other side of it.”Since returning to competition in 2017 and reclaiming his card, Cantlay has been a steady presence. He won his first PGA Tour event at the end of 2017 in Las Vegas and has never fallen out of the top 50 in the world since. He has consistently been around the top 10 before last week’s playoff victory in the BMW Championship over Bryson DeChambeau vaulted him to a career-best No. 4.At the other end of the field, Joaquín Niemann played alone after Brooks Koepka withdrew midround Saturday with an injury. Niemann decided to try to break Na’s record of playing 18 holes in 1 hour 59 minutes during a Tour Championship at East Lake. Running with his caddie, Niemann shot 72 in 1:54 and finished 29th.“When I was a kid I used to run a lot in high school and like track and field and stuff, but now I hate it,” he said. “I don’t like running. I just did it for fun and it was pretty fun.” More

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      Patrick Reed Struggles at the Tour Championship

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      A few weeks ago the golfer was in the I.C.U. “battling” for his life. Now it is his last chance to show he’s ready to join the American side for the Ryder Cup.ATLANTA — Ostensibly, Patrick Reed drove 15 hours from Texas to Georgia on Tuesday in the back of a van to chase the FedEx Cup title and the largest possible share of the $46 million on offer at the season-ending Tour Championship.The truth about Reed’s presence at East Lake Golf Club is far simpler.Two weeks earlier Reed had emerged from what he called “a dark space” and “battling for my life” after nearly a week in a Houston I.C.U. bed with bilateral pneumonia. He came to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club to add to his FedEx Cup points total and prove to U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker that his is healthy enough to warrant one of six captain’s picks for the match that begins on Sept. 24 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. Asked if he would be in Atlanta if this wasn’t a Ryder Cup year, Reed answered succinctly: “No.”Stricker watched on Wednesday as Reed completed his first nine holes of golf since the final round of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis on Aug. 8.“He came out to me when I was on nine and I hit a hybrid to eight feet and I made the putt for him,” Reed said the following day after posting a scrambling two-over-par 72 in the first round of the Tour Championship. “So you know, honestly, the biggest thing is, talking with Stricks and stuff, is just making sure I’m healthy and I think the biggest thing for me this week is just to see kind of where I’m at.“And I know by Ryder Cup my game’s going to be where it needs to be, as long as I feel like my health is where it needs to be and as long as I feel like I can sustain through rounds of golf.”Playing in a fourth consecutive Ryder Cup was the least of the worries the last two weeks. Reed suddenly withdrew from the Northern Trust on Aug. 19 before the first round of the first FedEx Cup playoff event, citing an ankle injury. But he returned home to Houston and was promptly admitted to the hospital. He said the pneumonia hit him in both lungs “like a brick.”“Just all of a sudden I went from feeling OK to literally feeling like I couldn’t breathe and was almost drowning in air,” he said. “It hit me so fast and it was so brutal.”Reed initially told the Golf Channel he had COVID-19, but later retracted it in a vague statement on Twitter: “My primary diagnosis was bilateral pneumonia. I was vaccinated for COVID-19 so I’m not sure if I had the delta variant but I’m just happy to be here.” He said Thursday that the hospital didn’t test him for the coronavirus until he got a negative test result before checking out last week.“Their main priority was to make sure that we fought this pneumonia in both lungs because of how fatal it can be,” he said.“First couple days they were sitting there telling me that make sure you text your family quite a bit, talk to your family, because you just don’t know,” Reed explained. “I mean, this is not good. We’re not in a good spot right now.“With how the hospitals are these days because of Covid and everything that’s going on, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. They won’t allow people in there, so it’s only you in there. So, I’m sitting there and those first two days the only thing that was going through my mind is, I’m not going to be able to tell my kids goodbye. I’m not going to be able to tell them I love them. I’m not going to be able to tell my wife that I love her and give her a hug.”Despite not playing in either of the first two PGA Tour playoff events, Reed still qualified for the last of the 30 spots into the Tour Championship this week when K.H. Lee bogeyed the last hole at the BMW Championship. That allowed him the opportunity to make one last audition before the U.S. Ryder Cup roster is finalized on Wednesday.Normally Reed would be considered a likely pick. However, his health as well as bitterness about pairings after the 2018 event in France have cast doubt on his chances.It’s expected that Stricker will choose Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Harris English. Reed is in consideration primarily with Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns for the remaining two spots.Reed was clearly not at full strength playing his first full rounds in nearly a month. He hit 10 of 14 fairways off the tee but missed 12 greens in regulation on Thursday. On Friday he was a little more consistent but followed an opening bogey with 15 consecutive pars before finishing with two birdies to shoot one-under-par 69, tied for 26th in the 30-player field at one over par.“The good thing is my short game didn’t leave me,” he said.But Reed believes he can be ready when the Ryder Cup starts in three weeks.“It’s like my third day back swinging a golf club, so there’s going to be rust there, there’s going to be things that you want to obviously not do on the golf course,” Reed said. “But the great thing is I felt like I can play now, I feel like I can do what I’m supposed to do. I feel now it’s just get some reps in and just get the energy level and strength back which just takes a little bit of time.” More

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      At the Tour Championship, Bryson DeChambeau Can Hear Himself Think

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      Sheriff’s deputies and security personnel shadowed the golfer during his first round to enforce a new PGA Tour ban on fans who heckle him. No one dared.ATLANTA — A Tour Championship crowd at East Lake Golf Club will never be confused with a gallery at the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, but on this particular Thursday, the scene could have been mistaken for a solitary stroll in a park.Two days after the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, issued a no-tolerance policy for the “disrespectful” outbursts that have haunted Bryson DeChambeau all summer, the crowds following the penultimate twosome around East Lake during the first round minded their manners. People were reluctant to shout out Bryson’s real name, much less a derisive “Brooksie!” — his rival on the PGA Tour is Brooks Koepka — especially with two DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies and three PGA Tour security officials shadowing him around the course.The peace and quiet did little to lift DeChambeau as he dropped a stroke to his playing partner, Jon Rahm, on each of the first four holes. But he rallied with three consecutive birdies and finished with a one-under-par 69, tied for third with Harris English and five shots behind the leader, Patrick Cantlay, and three behind Rahm.Over the summer, DeChambeau has become the most divisive player in golf. After tossing away a share of the lead with a back-nine 44 at the United States Open at Torrey Pines and shrugging it off as “bad luck,” his relationship with the news media began to sour. He angered his equipment sponsor, Cobra, with harsh criticism of his driver. He denied, despite video evidence, that he had repeatedly failed to shout “Fore!” on errant drives into galleries. And then he delivered a curious explanation for refusing to get vaccinated and missing the Olympics after testing positive for Covid-19.In response to the criticism, DeChambeau will talk only to news outlets that are PGA Tour partners. At the same time, the fallout from his long-running feud with Koepka has generated taunts of “Brooksie!” everywhere DeChambeau has gone, making life miserable for him between the ropes. The situation boiled over last week at the BMW Championship at Caves Valley, where DeChambeau reportedly confronted a heckler who had shouted, “Nice job, Brooksie!” at him after he lost a thrilling six-hole playoff to Cantlay.On Tuesday, DeChambeau spoke to the Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis and admitted that the “Brooksie!” heckles were “another variable that I have to take account for.”Like wind direction or the grain of the greens.Monahan doesn’t think it should be a variable, and on Tuesday, he announced a new fan behavior policy under which “disrespectful” shouts directed at players would not be tolerated and could result in fans’ being removed from the course.“The barometer that we are all using is the word ‘respect,’ and to me, when you hear ‘Brooksie’ yelled or you hear any expression yelled, the question is, is that respectful or disrespectful?” Monahan said. “That has been going on for an extended period of time. To me, at this point, it’s disrespectful, and that’s the kind of behavior that we’re not going to tolerate going forward.”Several tour players, including Rory McIlroy and Cantlay, defended DeChambeau.“I certainly feel some sympathy for him, because I certainly don’t think that you should be ostracized or criticized for being different — and I think we have all known from the start that Bryson is different and he is not going to conform to the way people want him to be,” McIlroy said. “He is his own person. He thinks his own thoughts, and everyone has a right to do that.”He added: “There are certainly things that he has done in the past that have brought some of this stuff on himself. I’m not saying that he’s completely blameless in this. But at the same time, I think he has been getting a pretty rough go of it of late, and it’s actually pretty sad to see, because he — deep down, I think — is a nice person, and all he wants to do is try to be the best golfer he can be. And it just seems like every week, something else happens, and I would say it’s pretty tough to be Bryson DeChambeau right now.”DeChambeau tried to downplay the impact of what some have labeled harassment on the course.“I can take heat — I’ve taken heat my whole entire life,” he told the Golf Channel. “And it’s because I’m a little different, and I understand that. And I appreciate that, too. No matter what, if you’re a little different — whether it’s Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or whoever it is — there’s always going to be heat, and I recognize that, and I respect that.”He added: “At the end of the day, people are going to say things they’re going to say because they have the right to do so. It’s been going on for months now. Everybody has their own limits, and everybody has their own tipping points and whatnot. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of realizing: ‘You know what? I’m going to let that fuel me in a positive way.’”McIlroy, the current chairman of the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council, supports the commissioner’s crackdown on fan behavior.“There’s no room in golf for people to abuse someone on the golf course when all they’re trying to do is do their best and win a golf tournament and follow their dreams,” McIlroy said. “So there’s no place for that in our game. And that might sound a little stiff or snobby or whatever, but that’s golf, and we have traditions.”DeChambeau, left, and Jon Rahm walk up the fourth fairway at the Tour Championship.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock More