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      Lee Elder Paved the Way for Tiger Woods's Masters Dominance

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      Lee Elder forced golf forward by winning his way into the Masters tournament in 1975, the first Black player to do so, laying a path for Tiger Woods and others.How do we measure athletic greatness? By the number of big wins and unforgettable championships?Or by something less obvious but perhaps more profound: an athlete’s resolve to go against the grain and upend the status quo in both sport and society, even at the risk of personal harm?If the latter measure is as true a test as any, we must make room in the pantheon of the all-time greats for Lee Elder. An indefatigable African American golfer, he died on Sunday at age 87, nearly a half-century after he stood against the stultifying stain of racism and became the first Black golfer to play at the Masters, paving the way for no less than Tiger Woods.“He was the first,” said Woods, not long after he stunned the sports world by winning the Masters in 1997, at age 21. “He was the one I looked up to. Because of what he did, I was able to play here, which was my dream.”What a journey, what a life. The hard, tumultuous arc of sports in the back half of the 20th century — indeed the arc of American history during that time — can be traced through Elder.He was a Black man born in the Jim Crow South who taught himself to play golf on segregated courses and polished his trade on the barnstorming golf tour akin to baseball’s Negro leagues.He dreamed of making it to the biggest stage, but professional golf took its own sweet time while sports such as baseball, basketball and football slowly integrated. The Professional Golfers Association kept its Caucasian-only clause until 1961.Elder never wavered. He broke through on the PGA Tour in 1968, as a 34-year-old. In those days, with the battle for civil rights well underway, the Masters began receiving pressure to add at least one Black player to its field. In 1973, a group of 18 congressional representatives even petitioned the tournament for just that. Elder was among the top 40 money earners on tour and had played in multiple U.S. Opens and P.G.A. Championships — so why not Augusta National?But after choosing not to invite outstanding Black golfers such as Charlie Sifford during the 1960s, the tournament settled on a stringent requirement for its participants: victory at a PGA Tour event.Elder earned that at the 1974 Monsanto Open — the same Florida event where, six years earlier, he had been forced to change clothes in a parking lot because Black people were not allowed to use the country club locker room.Elder possessed an understated but firm resolve. He wasn’t quick to raise a fuss about racism, but he wasn’t afraid to speak up about it, either. “The Masters has never wanted a Black player, and they kept changing the rules to make it harder for Blacks,” he said, adding: “I got them off the hook by winning.”Elder served as a ceremonial starter for the Masters in 2021. He was cheered by Gary Player, in black, and Jack Nicklaus, right.Doug Mills/The New York TimesSince its inception in 1934, the Masters has dripped in the antebellum codes of the South. Held at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, on a former indigo plantation, the only African Americans allowed on the course were groundskeepers and caddies. Nobody described the Masters more truthfully than the Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray. The tournament, he wrote in 1969, was “as white as the Ku Klux Klan.”In the months leading up to the 1975 Masters, Elder was the target of multiple death threats. “Sometimes it was sent to the course where I was playing, sometimes it came to my house,” he said. “Stuff like, ‘You better watch behind trees,’ ‘You won’t make it to Augusta.’ It was bad stuff, but I expected it.”But on April 10, 1975, there he stood, at the first tee, surrounded by a gallery full of close friends, including the football star Jim Brown. When Elder smashed his tee shot straight down the fairway, he did not just make history at the Masters, he pried open the cloistered and often racist world of golf to new possibilities.Looking back at the contours of his career beyond 1975, one sees a consistent solidity. He won three more PGA Tour titles and then eight on the Senior Tour and represented the United States in the Ryder Cup. It will always be a great unknown — the heights Elder could have reached if the opportunity had been equal and he had been able to play PGA Tour events in his prime.We can say this much for certain: Elder fixed himself in the sports history firmament at the Masters in 1975. He will always remain there, a North Star for others to follow.Woods came along just over two decades later, winning the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes and announcing himself as the heir not just to Elder but to Jack Nicklaus, who won at Augusta six times. As Woods marched past a gallery of awe-struck fans on his way to receive the champion’s green jacket for the first of five times, he saw Elder, and the two embraced. Past met present, paving the future.And yet the road to equality in golf remains elusive. The sport was overwhelmingly white in Elder’s era and overwhelmingly white when Woods burst on the scene. It remains overwhelmingly white.The game is “still slacking quite a bit” when it comes to diversity, Cameron Champ, 26, whose mother is white and father is Black, said while speaking about Elder this week. Champ is one of the few players of African American heritage on tour and one of the game’s most vocal about the need to diversify.It took until this year — prodded by tumultuous nationwide protests over racism and police brutality in 2020 — for the Masters to truly give Elder his due.In April, aside Nicklaus and Gary Player, Elder sat at Augusta National’s first tee as an honorary starter for this year’s tournament. Tubes snaked into his nose to deliver oxygen. He was too hobbled to take a shot.A gallery of the tournament’s players stood nearby, paying proper respect to a golfer whose greatness extended far beyond the fairway. The cold, crisp morning had a reverent, unforgettable feel, recalled Champ, whose paternal grandfather fell for golf in part because of Elder and then taught the game to his grandson.But it took 46 years for golf to honor Elder at the Masters. Think about that.Why didn’t it happen in 1985, the 10th anniversary of his smashing past Augusta National’s color line? Or in 1995, 20 years after the fact? Or at any other time?Why must change always take so long? More

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      At the Ryder Cup, the Fans Are Part of the Show

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      The most un-golf golf tournament in the world brings camaraderie, rambunctiousness and world-class banter to a sport normally played in hushed tones.At the Ryder Cup, fans are everything.They bring excitement to the biennial match, which starts this week at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin on the Lake Michigan shoreline. But they also provide an energy that can swing a match or sway an entire day of competition. For three days, Ryder Cup fans make golf feel like football, shaking a normally staid sport and transforming a quiet golf course into a packed stadium.Ben Crenshaw knows that power well. A four-time Ryder Cup player — and two-time Masters champion — he was captain of the 1999 U. S. team that mounted one of the greatest comebacks in the event’s history. Down four points heading into the final day, Crenshaw’s American squad rallied on Sunday at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., to win by one point.“The ebb and flow of the tenor of the crowd is an amazing thing to watch,” Crenshaw said. “Emotions can change very quickly. As a player you know what’s going on. You sort of sense it by instinct.”That afternoon in 1999, the key shot was made by the American Justin Leonard who sank a 45-putt on the 17th hole at Brookline. The crowd erupted. “There was no one on the face of this planet who would have given Justin Leonard a chance to make that putt,” Crenshaw said. “Seeing it go in, it was like a lightening bolt. We lost our composure. We had to apologize for that. But it was just in the moment.”The Ryder Cup, the most un-golf golf tournament in the world, brings camaraderie, rambunctiousness, singing, hollering and world-class banter to a sport normally played in hushed tones.Team Europe golfer Ian Poulter of England walks past a group of enthusiastic supporters during a practice round at the 2012 Ryder Cup in Medinah, Ill.Jeff Haynes/REUTERSThe question that concerns many people this year is, what will the Ryder Cup be like with the Delta variant surging and international travel a challenge? It’s going to be different for sure, but not so different as to be unrecognizable. For one, there will still be fans. Their importance was one reason the P.G.A. of America, which is the host of the event in the United States, did not try to stage the Ryder Cup last year without them.“We held a P.G.A. Championship without fans [in 2020], but a Ryder Cup without fans isn’t a Ryder Cup in our view or anyone’s view,” said Seth Waugh, chief executive of the P.G.A. of America. “We were able to roll it ahead to get to this year when we could have a Ryder Cup with a full fan experience.”Waugh said he was pleased that very few European fans had asked for refunds, even though the P.G.A. offered them no questions asked. He said he was hopeful there would be a robust European crowd at Whistling Straits.Jubilant fans have always been a part of the competition. The first Ryder Cup was held in 1927 at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts. Two of the great players of that time, Walter Hagen from the United States and Ted Ray from Britain were the captains.Ray was well known in the Boston area: He and Harry Vardon, another great British golfer, had lost the 1913 U.S. Open in a playoff to Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur, at the Country Club in Brookline.In that first Ryder Cup contest, the American side easily won, with 9½ points to Britain’s 2½ points. In defeat, Ray “heavily praised the crowds for being nonpartisan, his players were troubled by the many photographers,” according to the club’s history.And so was born the Ryder Cup tradition of players trying to find their footing on foreign ground with a decided home-field advantage.Before 1979, the United States had dominated the Ryder Cup. From that first match at Worcester in 1927 to 1977 when it was played at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in England, the Americans won 18 times to Britain and Ireland’s three, with one tie.But starting in 1979, with the inclusion of European players, particularly Seve Ballesteros of Spain, the event drew greater fan support. Since then, Europe has won 11 times to the U.S. team’s eight wins (and one tie).“I’m not sure if Seve was the catalyst for the Ryder Cup change, but once he was included it became competitive again,” said David Smith, an English professional golfer turned golf course developer. “It became fun. Now there’s an opportunity for both sides to win.”The European team celebrates its victory at the 1985 Cup in Wishaw, England.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty Images/Getty ImagesThis year’s European squad will include Ian Poulter, an English golfer ranked 49th in the world who has had an outsized influence on the Ryder Cup over six appearances. He has a record of 14 wins, six losses and two ties. (For comparison, Tiger Woods has a record of 13 wins, 21 losses, and three ties over eight appearances.)“Ian Poulter’s trying to get the crowd charged up,” Smith said. “You don’t normally have people screaming and chanting when you’re teeing off on the first tee.”If you were rooting for the European side in 1999, the American fans’ enthusiasm was over the top.Davis Rowley, a real estate broker and a longtime Brookline member, volunteered as a marshal at the 1999 Ryder Cup and said he tried to keep the worst of the rowdiest fans in check.“I was stationed on the 15th hole, which was the main entrance to the club,” he said. “I had four to six Boston College football players at my disposal. At one point, another marshal relayed that there were a couple of inebriated fellows on 15 tee that were heckling the heck out of Montie [Colin Montgomerie]. At my command, my boys went up and threw them out.”But that control was lost when Leonard sank his putt. “The place exploded,” Rowley recalled. “There was just this roar that shook the course.”The nature of fans is that the opposite side does not always agree. “Crenshaw at Brookline whipped the fans up,” said Andrew “Chubby” Chandler, a longtime agent for players on the European Tour. “It was a pretty unpleasant atmosphere. It was about as volatile an atmosphere as I’ve ever been to at a Ryder Cup.”Crenshaw, for his part, doesn’t deny that he played to the crowds. “I plead guilty to exciting the fans,” he said. “I was going out in my cart, and I’d see a whole bunch of fans and I’d raise my hands. They’d acknowledge that. But it was much the same way as Seve was doing in Spain.”That was the previous Ryder Cup at Spain’s Valderrama Golf Club in 1997. The Europeans won that contest by a point with Ballesteros as the team captain.Playing in the Ryder Cup, particularly for first-time participants, is difficult. “The one thing rookies don’t realize and expect is how nervous they’re going to be,” Chandler said, noting the noise on the first tee. “They’ve all played in majors, and they’ll be more nervous than that. I could never imagine that Darren Clarke [a five-time Ryder Cup player] would be so nervous on the driving range and then go birdie the first three holes.”Padraig Harrington, this year’s European captain, cited the need for experience in the selection of his team. “The older guys bring something, but the younger guys bring a huge amount of passion,” he said. “They light the fire in the team room for the old guys. You know the young guys can play. But you need those veterans as well. There’s an equilibrium point.”Changes have been made to the course at Whistling Straits, like flattening steep mounds, widening carts paths and putting the concessions on an adjacent course that won’t be in use during the competition, to move people around more easily under Covid protocols, said Jason Mengel, director of the Ryder Cup. But what matters most this year is that fans will be there in person.“People haven’t been able to root for their country in quite some time,” Waugh said. “The animal spirits are high.” More

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      The Challenges of Whistling Straits

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      Pete Dye designed the course, home to this year’s Ryder Cup, for all golfers, but threw in a few surprises for the professionals.Players come and go, but golf courses remain. The United States will try to wrest the Ryder Cup back from the Europeans this week, and standing between them will be the golf architect Pete Dye and the course he designed at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.Dye, who died last year, was known for defying conventions.“Pete Dye changed the direction of architecture around the world twice,” said Bill Coore of Coore & Crenshaw, who is a former Dye associate.Over his six-decade career, Dye created memorable and difficult courses, including Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina and T.P.C. Sawgrass in Florida. Coore said courses like Harbour Town were “based on finesse and shot placement, and then later in his career he went the exact opposite way with T.P.C. Sawgrass,” building big, brawny courses he once eschewed.The courses are indicative of the ways Dye changed golf design.“You can pick any course with smaller mounding, pot bunkers and small angled greens that was built after Harbour Town’s acclaim, and you can be certain it was influenced by Pete Dye, if not designed by Pete,” Coore said.His work for the P.G.A. of America gave Dye, a former insurance salesman who turned to golf design, the opportunity to build courses that challenged the professionals.“What’s that great line of his,” said Mike Clayton, a designer and former player. “‘Once you get these guys thinking, you’ve got ’em.’ And he was certainly able to do that.”The 17th island green at T.P.C. Sawgrass is an example of how Dye can get in the head of the world’s best. The short par 3 would often be a birdie if it were on dry land, but, surrounded by water and coming late in the round, it’s a challenge.Dye’s courses require golfers to hit the proper side of the fairway to score well. An easier shot from the tee may provide the safety of short grass, but will likely block a golfer’s best scoring angle.A daring shot toward a hazard is often rewarded with an easier scoring chance. As matches conclude this week, notice the options Dye presents players on the par-4 18th hole at Whistling Straits. The split fairway offers a path right to avoid the many bunkers to the left. But an aggressive play over those bunkers, requiring a 300-yard drive, provides a straighter path to the hole and a chance at birdie.“Pete understood exactly how talented the pros were, and he really did design for them,” Tom Doak, another former associate, said. And yet, Doak said Dye also understood how to build for the average player, which came from his wife, Alice, an excellent player.“Because of Alice’s influence, Pete’s whole design style was thought out to scale down for those who couldn’t hit the ball so far,” Doak said.He said Dye accomplished this, in part, by not placing hazards at logical yardages, like a bunker at 280 yards down the right, just because that might force an average player into a tough spot. By focusing on angles and sides of the holes for players to score, Dye allowed his designs to flow seamlessly in challenging the professional and the everyday player.Over his six-decade career, Pete Dye created memorable and difficult courses, including Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina and T.P.C. Sawgrass in Florida.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesHerb Kohler, executive chairman of the Kohler Company, said he was so taken with Dye’s designs that he had him build four courses at Whistling Straits.“Pete’s greatest contribution to growing the game of golf was that he considered golfers of all age and skill levels,” Kohler said.Steve Stricker, who lives in Wisconsin and is captain of the U.S. team, said Kohler put Wisconsin on the golf map.“Whistling Straits is a tremendous test, a beautiful piece of property,” he said. “It’s just one of those iconic places here in our state thanks to Herb and his family. It started right here for Wisconsin golf, to be quite honest.”The Ryder Cup is, of course, about challenging the pros. Jason Mengel, director of the Ryder Cup, which ends on Sunday, said he believed that the course was “One of the finest tests of golf anywhere on the planet.”There will also be the raucous crowd on the first tee, where Mengel said they had put hospitality tents in high visibility areas to help set the atmosphere. Coming down the stretch, Mengel said the par-3 17th hole, named Pinch Nerve, “could play a critical role” in determining the winner.Pinched Nerve continues a Dye tradition of testing the mettle of a golfer late in the round. Cut into a hillside, the green is flanked by bunkers left and right with a severe falloff on the left of the long, somewhat narrow green. Past those bunkers is Lake Michigan. Should golfers err toward the right and push the shot onto the hill, they will have virtually no chance to stop the ball from racing off the green from the elevated perch.Looking at the course’s two finishing holes, it’s hard to believe that it lies on land that was once an airstrip. Dye cut into the bluffs that overlook the lake to create a ragged appearance, as if the course had always been there waiting to be discovered. Doak said the dirt he excavated from those bluffs then allowed Dye to create the dunes and mounding found throughout the course.Dye’s courses continue to test the best players. He had a singular vision, which was not that each course must possess a set of qualities, but that a golf course should push golfers to play their best by thinking their way around the course. The pressure of the Ryder Cup will compound that thinking. More

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      Seth Waugh, Head of the P.G.A., Says the World Needs the Ryder Cup

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      The pandemic has caused a lot of stress, which he said this raucous tournament could help relieve.Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America since 2018, is ready to hold the biennial Ryder Cup, a year after it was postponed because of the pandemic.The Ryder Cup, with 12 golfers from the United States pitted against 12 from Europe over three days starting on Friday at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, has become more than a golf tournament; it has become a raucous event that Waugh described as a combination of the Super Bowl and a Rolling Stones concert. No other golf tournament regularly has players and fans taunting each other.This year, after Covid-19 seemed to ebb in the spring, the Delta variant has surged back, presenting a challenge to an event that typically hosts about 40,000-plus, all following only a few players.Add to that the tension over critical comments made between two of the U.S. team’s top players — Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka — which has led fans to taunt DeChambeau. Waugh said he, like the PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, would not tolerate bullying. “We’ll be vigilant to make sure it doesn’t cross the line,” Waugh said. “We’ll enforce it if it does.”This year, the P.G.A. of America has created an award to recognize sportsmanship in the contest. The Nicklaus-Jacklin Award commemorates Jack Nicklaus’s conceding a short putt to Tony Jacklin in the 1969 Ryder Cup. As a result, the match ended in a tie.The following interview has been edited and condensed.What will be different about the Ryder Cup this year?There will be different protocols, with masks indoors and masks in some of the more crowded seating areas. The players are likely to be in a bubble. We can’t ensure that everyone is vaccinated, but to make sure we can have a final putt on Sunday we’re going to put them in a bubble. We contemplated checking vaccinations for the fans, but we couldn’t guarantee all the players were going to be vaccinated, so how could we check all the fans?Will European fans be able to come?We said we’d offer refunds for people who couldn’t come or didn’t want to come now. It’s only been a small number of Europeans who have asked for refunds. We hope there will be a good attendance on both sides.How did the planning change with Covid?Part of it is how much more we learned about the virus. There wasn’t as much knowledge last year. We didn’t know how hard it was to catch it outdoors. We think there are natural advantages of being outdoors that make it safe for people to be there. Indoors we’ll have masks. People have gotten better at living with this thing. That’s very different than it was a year ago. We came to the conclusion that the amount of fans doesn’t make a difference. It’s the protocols.How are you preserving the spirit of the event?The first Ryder Cup I went to was at the Belfry in 1993. It was the year Davis Love III made the putt to win. I can tell you I was on the 18th green when he made the putt, but I didn’t see it. I just saw him raise his putter. The experience is the excitement. It’s being there, it’s the fans. If you’re at a Stones concert and you’re not in the front row you don’t see Mick Jagger, but you’re still there hearing “Jumping Jack Flash.”What do you hope this year’s contest will achieve?The Ryder Cup is about fostering relations between each side. We’re trying to recapture some of that purity with the Nicklaus-Jacklin Award. We want to make the stress and the tension of the Ryder Cup the best moment of a player’s life. I hope it will recapture the spirit of what these things should be.Everyone is just fatigued and worn out by this pandemic. Normally, you come back from summer and you’re ready to go. But we’re hurt animals. People haven’t been together for a long time. Schools haven’t been schools, work hasn’t been work, games haven’t been games. The world needs a Ryder Cup to remind us of the good in the world. More

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      Padraig Harrington Faces Hard Choices

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      He is captain of the Ryder Cup’s European team, and he has to pick the last three players for his team.Padraig Harrington of Ireland is back in the spotlight — not as a player, but as the captain of Team Europe in this month’s Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.Harrington, 50, a three-time major champion, will be competing in the BMW PGA Championship, which begins on Thursday at the Wentworth Club in England. There, he will be monitoring how potential members of his team perform.After the tournament, he will pick three players to round out the 12-man squad that will face the Americans. The other nine will have qualified on points.The following conversation, which took place in late August, has been edited and condensed.Can you talk about the BMW, the tournament and the course?Wentworth is the traditional home of the European Tour. It is really a great tournament venue. You can score well on it, but when the pressure comes on Sunday, those tree-lined holes and out-of-bounds get a little tight.How are you going to be able to focus on your own game this week?Hopefully, I won’t be able to focus on my play. Maybe being on the course will be a slight respite.How do you think the event will play out because of Covid-19?I’m interested in that, actually. Will the fans be more excited because they waited so long and there’s a certain level of, “Gee, we’re happy to be here?” I suspect, because of Covid, it might be more of a celebration of golf and the Ryder Cup than anything else.I won’t ask you for your three picks, but do you have certain people in mind?There are three weeks to go, and I’m very aware that things can change, especially with the BMW being such a big event. It would be pretty straightforward right now, but three weeks is a long time in golf.And you’re happy with having three picks?I chose three. They were offering me eight picks when it was at the height of the pandemic. The reason I wanted three is anybody who gets picked is under more pressure and stress because the media and public second-guess whether somebody else should be picked.Your thoughts on Whistling Straits, and how it fits your team?It’s very difficult for the Europeans to beat a U.S. team on a stereotypical U.S. golf course. Whistling Straits is a links-style course. They’ve opened it up as much as possible — I’m sure there will be plenty of birdies — but the elements [wind] will come into play.You sound like you’re saying the Americans are the favorites?To beat them in the States, it’s going to require a momentous effort on our behalf, and we are definitely going to have to figure out how to make the collective more confident than the individual. They look like they’re the strongest they’ve ever been.Are you satisfied with your career or do you feel you didn’t achieve as much as you thought you should?I achieved far more than I could have ever possibly dreamed in this game. I studied accountancy. My goal in life when I took that school was to become an accountant and manage a golf course.I was a good player, but I didn’t think I was good enough to be a professional. And even when I turned pro, my goal would have been to survive on tour half a dozen years and retire and get a good country club job.How much more golf will you play?I will try and play where I’m competitive.If I don’t feel like I’m competitive on the regular tour, I’m very happy to try to compete on the Champions Tour [a circuit for golfers 50 and older]. I will continue to play and do whatever I can around golf for years to come. More

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      Rory McIlroy Has a Long Game

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      He has won four majors, but with his investment fund he’s preparing for a life without golf.By every measure, Rory McIlroy is in the prime of his career. And given recent performances by players in their 40s and 50s on the PGA Tour, McIlroy, 32, who is originally from Northern Ireland, has decades to go before thinking about hanging up his spikes. More

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      The Players to Watch at the U.S. Open

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      The Open starts this week, and these are the five players, including Phil Mickelson, to keep your eyes on.In April, history was made at Augusta National Golf Club when Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese male golfer to win a major championship. As other contenders at the Masters faltered, Matsuyama shot a seven-under 65 in the third round for a 4-shot lead heading into Sunday. He won by a stroke.In May, history was made again in the P.G.A. Championship when Phil Mickelson, 50, became the oldest golfer to win a major. It was his sixth major title.Both players have never won the United States Open, but have finished second. If either of them captures this week’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, history will be made again, Matsuyama as the first Japanese player to win the Open and Mickelson as the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam.Here are the players, including Mickelson, to watch at the Open, the third major of the year.Phil MickelsonAfter he won last month’s P.G.A. Championship, how can one not keep on eye on the now 51-year-old Mickelson?Mickelson’s failure to win this tournament has been well chronicled; he has finished second a record six times. None was more heartbreaking than the collapse in 2006 when a par on the final hole would have given him the championship. He ended up with a double bogey, losing by one stroke to Geoff Ogilvy.Mickelson, a San Diego native who has played Torrey Pines countless times, will likely hit his share of poor shots this week. He will also likely hit his share of wonderful shots. In other words, he will be the same person golf fans have come to expect. It will be great theater no matter what happens.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockJon RahmRahm, leading by six strokes after three rounds, was well on his way to a victory at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio about two weeks ago when he tested positive for Covid-19. He immediately withdrew. Rahm was in isolation until June 12, when he had two negative Covid tests in a 24-hour period.The course certainly seems to fit his game. His first tour triumph was in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in 2017, where he recorded two eagles on the final six holes. The second eagle came on No. 18 when he made a 60-foot putt from the fringe, capping a seven-under 65. Earlier this year, Rahm tied for seventh at the Farmers.Rahm, the No. 3-ranked player in the world, has not won since the BMW Championship last August, but has been in good form for most of the year. Including the Genesis Invitational in February, where he tied for fifth, he has finished in the top 10 in six of his last 10 starts.He’ll have to keep his emotions in check when things go wrong, which they often do at the Open. Bogeys will come. The key will be to avoid any double bogeys or worse. Rahm, 26, is high on the list of the best players in the game who have not won a major.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesBrooks KoepkaForget about the way he struggled in the final round of the P.G.A. after he seized the lead from Mickelson. Koepka, who shot a two-over 74 and finished in a tie for second, was making only his third start since knee surgery in March.Koepka, ranked No. 10, seems to always be in contention in the majors.In his last 20 majors, going back to the 2015 British Open, he has finished in the top 10 13 times, including four victories and three seconds. If he were to win this week, Koepka, 31, would become only the 20th player to capture at least five majors.It has been an up-and-down year for Koepka, who won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. He has missed the cut in five of nine tournaments.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesDustin JohnsonGranted, Johnson, 36, hasn’t been on his game in recent months.He has recorded only one top 10 — a tie for 10th in last week’s Palmetto Championship at Congaree in South Carolina — since he finished in a tie for eighth at the Genesis Invitational. Worse yet, he missed the cut in the Masters and the P.G.A. In four rounds at those two majors, he failed to shoot lower than a 74.Johnson is the game’s No. 1-ranked player, and by a good margin. In South Carolina, he was in contention on the back nine on Sunday before he made a triple bogey on No. 16.Johnson has played extremely well in previous Opens. In addition to winning the 2016 championship, he has posted five other top 10s, including a tie for sixth last year.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesCollin MorikawaAfter his performance in the Memorial Tournament, where he lost in a playoff to Patrick Cantlay, Morikawa is now ranked No. 4, his highest. At 24, his future is very bright.He has been on a roll since the Masters. In his last five starts, he has finished in the top 20 four times. Morikawa has missed just one cut since October. In February, he captured the WGC-Workday Championship at the Concession in Florida by three shots.Morikawa was brilliant in last year’s P.G.A. Championship. On the drivable, 294-yard par-4 16th hole, his tee shot came to a rest only seven feet away. He made the eagle putt and went on to win by two strokes over Johnson and Paul Casey. In his final two rounds, Morikawa shot a 65 and 64. More

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      10 Memorable Moments From P.G.A. Championships

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      The tournament’s history includes brilliant play from the stars Tiger Woods and Gary Player, and the surprising winners Bob Tway and John Daly.The fans who follow professional golf can cite plenty of memorable moments over the years from the Masters, the United States Open and the British Open.That isn’t necessarily the case with the least glamorous of the four majors, the P.G.A. Championship, which starts Thursday on the Ocean Course at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina. The P.G.A. is a major nonetheless, and since its format switched from match play to stroke play in 1958, the tournament has featured its share of heroics and dramatic finishes.Here, in chronological order, are 10 P.G.A. Championships that stand out since the format changed.Gary Player won the 1972 P.G.A. Championship at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.Getty Images1972: Oakland Hills Country Club, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.After bogeys on 14 and 15, Gary Player of South Africa, a future Hall of Famer, hit his tee shot into the rough on the right on 16 and then had a huge willow tree and a water hazard between him and the green.No problem.Player borrowed a chair from a fan to get a better look at what he was facing. He hit a 9-iron to within three feet of the hole, made the birdie putt, and won by two strokes over Tommy Aaron and Jim Jamieson.Lee Trevino, center, won the 1974 P.G.A. Championship at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, N.C.Al Satterwhite/American Broadcasting Companies, via Getty Images1974: Tanglewood Park, Clemmons, N.C.Consider those who were in contention during the final round: Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Sam Snead, who was 62 years old.Ultimately, it was Trevino, using a putter he discovered in a friend’s attic, who prevailed by a stroke over Nicklaus to win the first of his two P.G.A.s. After making a bogey on 17, Trevino two-putted for a par at the final hole to hold off Nicklaus. Snead, who won his first P.G.A. in 1942, tied for third.1978: Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pa.The P.G.A. was the only major Tom Watson didn’t win in his career. At Oakmont, he came very close.Watson, who led by five over Jerry Pate heading into the final round, shot a two-over 73 on Sunday. As a result, he found himself in a sudden-death playoff with Pate and John Mahaffey. Mahaffey, after an opening 75, shot rounds of 67, 68 and 66. Each player made a par on the first hole before Mahaffey birdied the second for the victory.Bob Tway won the 1986 P.G.A. Championship at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.Jeff McBride/PGA TOUR Archive, via Getty Images1986: Inverness Club, Toledo, OhioWith eight holes to go, Greg Norman enjoyed a comfortable four-stroke lead. He was on track to win his second straight major, having captured the British Open in Scotland a month earlier.Norman proceeded to double-bogey No. 11. By the time he and Bob Tway, reached No. 18, they were all square. A playoff seemed likely. Tway then made a birdie when he knocked his bunker shot into the hole. Norman missed his birdie attempt for the tie.John Daly won the 1991 P.G.A. Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind.Getty Images1991: Crooked Stick Golf Club, Carmel, Ind.John Daly, an alternate who made the field when other players withdrew, shocked the sport with a three-stroke victory over Bruce Lietzke. The manner in which Daly won was a big part of the story. Hitting one booming drive after another, he became the game’s new hero.Daly, a tour rookie, was an unknown heading into the week. He would win one more major, the 1995 British Open.Greg Norman lost the 1993 P.G.A. Championship in a playoff with Paul Azinger at Inverness Club.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty Images1993: Inverness ClubAnother strong performance for Norman in Toledo. Another heartbreaking finish.The beneficiary this time was Paul Azinger, who birdied four of his last seven holes to force a playoff with Norman. Both parred the first hole before Norman missed a four-footer for a par on the second. Norman would have been the first player since Walter Hagen in 1924 to capture the British Open and the P.G.A. in the same year.Sergio Garcia’s memorable shot at the 1999 P.G.A. Championship at Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Ill.Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1999: Medinah Country Club, Medinah, Ill.Tiger Woods won by one stroke for his second major title and first since his triumph in the 1997 Masters. However, it was the play of 19-year-old Sergio Garcia that makes this tournament so memorable; specifically, the shot he hit at No. 16.With the ball inches from a tree, Garcia hit it onto the green. He ran down the fairway and jumped in the air to see where the ball ended up.2000: Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Ky.The first P.G.A. of the new century offered an unlikely and most entertaining duel between Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, and an unknown, Bob May.May pulled off one clutch shot after another over the final nine holes, capped by a double-breaking 15-foot birdie putt at No. 18. Woods followed with a five-foot birdie putt to stay alive and then prevailed by one stroke in a three-hole playoff. May would never win a PGA Tour event.2001: Atlanta Athletic Club, Johns Creek, Ga.David Toms had a choice to make.Leading by one shot on the par-4 18th hole, with his ball in the rough and a water hazard between him and the putting surface, he had to decide whether to go for the green or play it safe. He played it safe. It was the right choice.Toms hit his second shot short of the water, his next shot landed about 12 feet from the hole and then he made the par putt to edge Phil Mickelson by a stroke. Mickelson had just missed his birdie effort from 25 feet.2014: Valhalla Golf ClubRory McIlroy, the leader by one after three rounds, bogeyed two of his first six holes on Sunday, while other contenders made birdies. Suddenly, McIlroy was down by three.He turned things around with an eagle at No. 10 and followed with birdies at 13 and 17 to take the lead heading into the last hole. As darkness approached, Mickelson made it exciting, nearly chipping in for an eagle from off the green, which would have tied him with McIlroy. More