DJ noticed something with his driver and made the last-minute move before his tee time.
Dustin Johnson, the winner of the 2020 FedEx Cup, started his round at the 2021 Northern Trust on Thursday without having a driver in his bag.
No, Johnson is not taking a page out of Phil Mickelson’s playbook from the 2008 U.S. Open when the left-hander decided to take on Torrey Pine’s South Course without a driver. According to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis, Johnson noticed a small crack in his TaylorMade SIM2 driver shortly before his scheduled 12:44 p.m. ET tee time. Since Johnson had not started playing, he was free to replace the club, but while Johnson travels with a backup driver, it was not being kept at Liberty National Golf Club.
So, instead of using a driver, Johnson is carrying two 3-woods in the first round of the Northern Trust. The 2016 U.S. Open and 2020 Masters champion typically carries a SIM2 Max 3-wood with 16.5 degrees of loft. The SIM2 Max does not have an adjustable hosel, the standard SIM2 titanium does and that allows players and fitters to increase or decrease the club’s loft. It is likely that Johnson’s stronger-lofted 3-wood has between 13.5 and 15 degrees of loft.
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Why not grab a driver off TaylorMade’s PGA Tour truck? The vans and trucks that provide equipment services to players left Liberty National on Wednesday after lunch, which is customary, and started heading South to Cave’s Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, the site of next week’s BMW Championship.
Most PGA Tour players bring the 14 clubs they play to use to tournaments, along with a backup driver, backup putter and oftentimes a hybrid club, driving iron and intentionally a sand wedge with a different bounce configuration than their normal wedge in case the sand conditions are firmer or fluffier than normal.
Johnson finished the PGA Tour’s regular season ranked 20th in strokes gained off the tee (0.452) and 17th in FedEx Cup points.
Patrick Reed pulled out of the Northern Trust, the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events, citing an ankle injury.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Patrick Reed pulled out of the Northern Trust, the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events, citing an ankle injury.
Reed, 31, also withdrew last week ahead of the Wyndham Championship, the final regular season of the PGA Tour’s 2020-21 “super season,” and where he was a past champion, but that was believed to be to rest up for a busy stretch that could include the Ryder Cup in late September.
Reed, who won the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year, enters the FedEx Cup playoffs in 22nd place in the season-long point standings, so he is safe for next week’s BMW Championship, which is reserved for the top 70 in the standings.
But missing this week and battling an injury could impact the chances of “Captain America” making the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Reed is currently ninth in the U.S. Ryder Cup point standings. The top six point-getters will automatically qualify for the team after the BMW Championship. U.S. captain Steve Stricker will make his six captain’s picks after the Tour Championship, the following week. The Ryder Cup will be held Sept. 24-26.
Reed, who ranks No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking, doesn’t have a top-10 finish in his last six starts. He has played a heavy schedule since the U.S. Open in June, including traveling to Japan to compete in the Tokyo Olympics as a last-minute replacement for Bryson DeChambeau when he tested positive for COVID-19. He finished T-31 in his last start at the WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
Patrick Reed is a WD from THE NORTHERN TRUST due to an ankle injury.@TheNTGolf | @PGATOUR
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – With the skyline of New York and the Statue of Liberty creating the perfect background, the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs are set to begin Thursday at Liberty National Golf Club. The top 125 players on the FedEx Cup point list qualified to play in this event, and 124 are here to compete. The top 70 after the conclusion of play Sunday qualify for next week’s BMW Championship.
At this point in the season and with so much at stake, most golfers are not making major changes to their equipment setups. They are going with gear they trust.
Golfweek’s equipment guru, David Dusek, was on the range and in the practice areas Tuesday and Wednesday and spotted plenty of interesting clubs.
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.
The Georgia Tech alum was a rambling, blubbering wreck in his post-round interview conducted by CBS’s Amanda Balionis.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – It took him 34 years, or as he put it, “all my existence,” but Chesson Hadley finally made a hole-in-one on Sunday, and he couldn’t have picked a better time to do it.
“Everybody always gives me so much crap about it,” he said during his pre-tournament interview ahead of the Northern Trust. “It’s not like I’m not good enough to make a one or wasn’t good enough to make a one. It just wasn’t my time yet, but I did it in a PGA Tour event on the very last round when I most needed something, and I guess not many of them could probably say that. So that was pretty cool.”
Indeed, it was. Hadley aced the par-3 16th at Sedgefield Country Club during the final round of the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina. It sparked a first-nine 29 and nifty 62 and when Justin Rose made bogey at the last, Hadley edged him by 1.2 FedEx Cup points to finish No. 125 in the regular-season FedEx Cup point standings. It meant he kept his card and qualified for the Northern Trust, the first of the three playoff events, which begins Thursday at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey.
“The whole day was kind of magical from the start, from the hole-in-one to the finish,” Hadley said. “I’m very blessed to be here right now, that’s for sure.”
The Georgia Tech alum was a rambling, blubbering wreck in his post-round interview conducted by CBS’s Amanda Balionis. With his fate still hanging in doubt – he was No. 126 at the time – Hadley choked up and fought back tears as he showed viewers how much he loves his job. Asked about his emotional interview and turning on the water works, Hadley said he didn’t cry when he blew a four-stroke lead earlier in the summer at the Palmetto Classic. That was a bittersweet moment, but the last time he wept at a golf tournament he figured was during junior golf.
“That’s not true. When I earned my card back in ’17, I remember getting emotional in New York after I won, but I tapped in, and then I kind of went off to the side and like – I mean, the round was over, but I knew I’d locked my card up and I was going back there,” he said. “So, I was emotional then.”
The always affable Hadley brought moments of levity to his press conference, especially when he reversed roles and began asking a reporter? “What did you think of my crying?” he asked. “What about the crying specifically? Was I a good crier? Could I be better? How can I get better at it since you’re asking about it? I’m messing with you. I’m totally hijacking you.”
Hadley was driving him home to Raleigh, N.C., when he was informed he had officially secured the last spot in the FedEd Cup playoffs and would be fully exempt for next season. He squealed with glee that he could cancel his travel plans for Boise, Idaho, and the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. To hear Hadley tell it, Kevin Kisner, who survived a six-man playoff, wasn’t the only winner at the Wyndham Championship.
“I felt like I beat Kevin, honestly,” he said. “I felt like I won the golf tournament.”
Hadley celebrated with some good wine he’d been saving for a special occasion and had a couple of days to enjoy a big sigh of relief. Now, it’s back to the grindstone to see if he can extend his off-season another week with an equally strong performance. He’ll need one to bump into the top 70, and advance to play next week at the BMW Championship.
“I’m playing with house money. I’m on credit at the casino, and I can just kind of let it go,” he said. “I think I need to set a new goal to – I probably need to figure out exactly what I need to finish to get inside the top 70, so I need to set a new goal, figure out kind of where I need to finish, and just kind of look at the leaderboards and kind of get motivated and figure out a way to get to that number and obviously try and win the golf tournament.
“I feel like, when my back’s against the wall, I’ve done pretty well…you’ve got to tap into a little bit of a reserve or something that you have in there that you might not necessarily tap into all the time.”
Points leader Collin Morikawa has more wins than he does missed cuts in individual stroke-play tournaments.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Two years ago, Collin Morikawa arrived at Liberty National Golf Club for the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs just happy to be here.
He was ranked 49th in the FedEx Cup standings despite playing only nine events, the new kid on the block, fresh out of Cal-Berkeley in June and a newly-minted PGA Tour winner, having nabbed the Barracuda Championship in Reno, Nevada, to earn his way to The Northern Trust, the first of the three playoff events.
Fast-forward to the present and Morikawa is back as the Tour’s latest sensation, winner of two major championship – the PGA Championship in 2020 and the British Open in July – before he turns 25 years old in February. As a sign of his rising stature in the game, Morikawa enters the FedEx Cup playoffs in the pole position after topping the points race during the 47-event regular season. Even Morikawa stopped and reflected on his meteoric rise to World No. 3 since he last stepped foot on the grounds of Liberty National with Lady Liberty in the distance.
“Two years ago I was a lot more tired than I was this week,” recalled Morikawa, who finished a very pedestrian T-52 at Liberty National. “Having taken last week off, it was very nice. Last time I played, I had won Barracuda, played at Wyndham, and it was just a busy summer.”
A year ago at the start of the playoffs, Morikawa was still buzzing from the high of his victory at the PGA and entered the FedEx Cup playoffs in second place. But he ran out of steam in the post-season, including missing the cut at The Northern Trust when it was played at TPC Boston.
“I was so focused, let’s go win, win, win, and I think I was almost burnt out by the time I got to that third week knowing I’d be here,” he said. “Not everyone has the luxury of knowing where they’re going to stand coming to the Tour Championship, but I at least know I’m going to be there, I’m going to have a chance with four rounds no matter where I stand.”
Collin Morikawa tees off on the 18th during his final round of The 149th British Open. Photo by Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
But not all was lost in last year’s playoff burn out. It was the disappointment of not playing his usual brand of golf during that three-week stretch combined with a continued lull during the fall season that may have lifted him to new heights this season. Given that his number of wins (5) is greater than the sum of his career missed cuts in individual stroke-play tournaments (4), it’s hard to say he’s gone through tough times but Morikawa points to his blips in performance as learning experiences.
“Because even during those weeks that I wasn’t playing great, I might have expected to play better, that my standards were higher just because I’d won a PGA. I look back at that now, and I don’t look at it as I struggled. I look at it as I had a different mental process. I was looking at golf a little differently that I should have, and I needed to go back to what I was doing great, what I was doing well to play great golf,” he explained.
How did he do that?
“I sat down with my coach, and we kind of reassessed and figured out, ‘What are we doing differently?’ They’re such small, minute things that no one would ever pick up on, but it’s something that, if I sit down with my coach for an hour and really talk through things, talk through the process for showing up at events, what I’m doing on the golf course, we find discrepancies of what I did that fall versus what I might have done the week before the PGA and the week of the PGA, right?” he said. “So these are things that we bring up now to make sure I don’t do them and I didn’t do them after the Open win, and thankfully I had that experience, I learned from it, and we move on. There’s going to be things that creep up into your head that aren’t good, and that’s just golf.”
For starters, don’t expect Morikawa to expend all his energy before the Tour Championship in Atlanta. He’s rested and motivated to claim the FedEx Cup and potentially PGA Tour Player of the Year honors as well.
“This is the finals for us,” Morikawa said. “I think I’m going to kind of look at this a little differently throughout these next couple weeks leading up to the Tour Championship and just see if I can plot my way to really peak in that third week rather than burn myself out in the first few.”
Harry Higgs after the match: “I ran my big mouth and a Hall of Famer put me in my place.”
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — It wasn’t exactly Mohammed Ali and George Forman’s “Rumble in the Jungle,” but the Tuesday morning match between Phil Mickelson and Joel Dahmen against Harry Higgs and Keith Mitchell had the attention of everyone at Liberty National Golf Club.
Smiles and snickers were everywhere as the four walked to the first tee at 10 a.m. Rory McIlroy peaked across the fairway before teeing off on the second hole to catch the action, and Harris English called over a row of mounds on the 14th hole to get an update on the score.
In the end, Mickelson and Dahman came back from 2 down through four holes to win the 18-hole match, 3 and 1.
“I think we were all looking forward to playing today, which is great,” Mickelson said afterward. “We had a great time, and we had the right outcome, really. I think we had the outcome we all really certainly expecting, and I think, hoping for.”
It was classic Mickelson smack talk on a day filled with zingers. If you have not been following this saga, here’s the backstory.
On the Sunday before the start of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Higgs decided to answer questions posted by his Twitter followers. People lobbed in questions about the best shot Higgs had ever seen, the best shot he’d ever hit and so on. Then a follower asked Higgs this:
I’ll play with anyone. And I don’t think @PhilMickelson is ready for my trash talk
Twenty minutes later, after Mickelson’s second shot on the third hole came up well short of the green, Higgs returned the favor and yelled, “Hey Joel would you like a par as a partner?”
Instead of having Mickelson hit his pitch shot, Dahmen putted from 10 feet away and made his birdie. Mickelson then started pontificating about how golfers tend to miss putts on the high side of the hole when they need to make hole-halving putts. Of course, he talked loudly enough to let Higgs and Mitchell hear him, which was the point, but Mitchell made his birdie putt anyway.
“Paht-nah!” yelled Higgs.
After falling 2 down through four holes, Dahmen made a birdie on the fifth hole to win it. Then Mickelson’s drive on the sixth went so far right that it stopped in the seventh fairway. But he hit a great shot and then made an eagle putt to win the hole and square the match before making a birdie on the seventh put he and Dahmen 1 up.
While the match was going on, Mickelson was live tweeting.
It’s all coming together now folks. Joel and I both birdie 13 to go 2 up and everyone here (and on Twitter) can sense the inevitable. We should have Keith off the course well before his 2:30 deadline. You’re welcome as Bubba would say 😏
On the 17th hole, after both Higgs and Mitchell missed their birdie putts, Mickelson called out to Dahmen. “Let’s end this with an exclamation point.”
Dahmen then rolled in a 30-foot birdie putt to give him and Mickelson their 3 and 1 win.
“We lost. That would be the extent of my take,” Higgs said after walking off the 18th green. “I ran my big mouth and a Hall of Famer put me in my place. But it was fun to get out with Phil, Joel is a great friend and Keith is a great friend as well. We had a blast. I would have like to have won, but I do think it was good preparation. I had a few nerves at times, it mattered a little bit. You want to beat Phil and anyone else you are playing with, but the lead up to it created some nerves. It was fun, it was nice to experience that on a Tuesday, when you are usually just walking around looking for places where you need to hit it and not need to hit it.”
On several occasions, Phil Mickelson helped Joel Dahmen read putts at Liberty National. Photo by David Dusek/Golfweek
All four players wanted to win, but the most interesting thing about the match was watching the 51-year-old Mickelson interact with his partner, Dahmen (33) as well as Higgs (29) and Mitchell (29). On several occasions, he gave Dahmen a read on putts, and explained his philosophy on putting and green reading. He answered Mitchell’s questions about golf balls, and on the 17th green, gave Higgs advice about being himself and not being afraid to have fun on the course, because that’s when Higgs will play his best golf.
Phil Mickelson had some words of advice for Harry Higgs on the 17th green at Liberty National. Photo by David Dusek/Golfweek
“Phil and I are somewhat similar in that our true selves are somewhat vivacious, if you will. I don’t know if I’m using the right word there, but it’s a big word and it sounded nice,” Higgs said. “I know my best-performing self is a bit of a showoff, someone who interacts here and there. (Phil) put it great and said there are times when you have to harness it because you know it will help you and other times where have to give it no power and basically taker care of your business on and off the golf course.”
It’s the kind of advice that John Daly could have used 25 years ago, and that Higgs, who has developed a cult following of fans thanks to his fun-loving, everyman appeal, will be wise to follow.
So will there be a rematch?
“The key is to win in a way that is not so dominant that they believe they can win, and then come back for me,” Mickelson said, speaking like a shark in a pool of gold fish. “I think they are. I think they are going to come back for me, and that was really the challenge for Joel and I.”
Joe LaCava accepted a one-week gig to work for Patrick Cantlay, No. 3 in the FedEx Cup point standings.
Tiger Woods’ caddie has gotten the call from the bullpen.
Joe LaCava is scheduled to be on the bag of Patrick Cantlay this week at Liberty National Gold Club for The Northern Trust in Jersey City, New Jersey, the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events.
“He’s going to have to put up with the scrub caddie this week,” kidded LaCava toGolf Digest.
Cantlay’s regular caddie, Matt Minister, who was on the bag for Cantlay’s latest victory at The Memorial in June, is sidelined after testing positive with COVID-19. Cantlay subbed with Joe Skovron, Rickie Fowler’s regular bagman, at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
Cantlay enters the week ranked third in the FedEx Cup points standings thanks to two victories, and that’s not all that is at stake for him during the playoff run.
He needs to make up some ground to earn an automatic pick for the U.S. Ryder Cup team or to assure Captain Steve Stricker that his game is in top form for a captain’s pick. Cantlay played under Tiger Woods at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia.
Tiger’s caddie Joe LaCava is on the bag for Patrick Cantlay at the Northern Trust this week.
Just a fill-in gig as Cantlay’s full time looper, Matt Minister, is out with COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/4E8Xk53EaU
LaCava, who lives in the tri-state area in Connecticut and is a diehard New York Giants fan, has been in semi-retirement since Tiger Woods sustained injuries when he was involved in a single-car crash in February. Woods currently is recovering and hasn’t release a timetable for his return.
Previously, when Woods was out with a back injury, LaCava had inquiries to see if he was available for work, but politely declined to work for anyone else. That loyalty was rewarded in memorable victories with Woods at the 2018 Tour Championship, the 2019 Masters, his 15thmajor, and a win at the Zozo Championship in Japan that tied Sam Snead for the most wins on the PGA Tour with 82.
LaCava also looped for former boss Fred Couples at the Principal Charity Classic on the PGA Tour Champions earlier this year. Couples finished tied for sixth.
Cantlay is schedule to tee off on Thursday at 8:26 am ET on the 10th tee.
Take a gander at hole-by-hole maps provided by Puttview for the Northern Trust at Liberty National in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs.
Liberty National, site of this week’s Northern Trust as part of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, was designed by the team of Tom Kite and Bob Cupp and opened in 2006.
Liberty National has been home to the Northern Trust, formerly known as the Barclays, since 2009. Heath Slocum held off the group of Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker to win that first year.
After that first Tour event there, much of the course was reworked. Several greens were rebuilt, and many of the fairway landing areas were recontoured or widened to make them more playable. But one thing that hasn’t changed: the incredible views of New York and the Statue of Liberty.
Thanks to yardage books provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players face this week. Check out each hole below.
If there was a silver lining to Jon Rahm’s ill-timed positive COVID tests, it was that he gained family time with his wife and new son.
Jon Rahm still can’t believe that he’s reached the end of a season in which six majors counted toward the beginning of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He’ll miss having so many majors in a season, Rahm said Tuesday ahead of The Northern Trust, but there’s arguably a fatigue factor at play, too.
Some guys have racked up an obscene amount of sky miles these past few weeks – Patrick Reed and Justin Thomas, both Olympians, talked of mileage totals upwards of 20,000 upon returning from Tokyo earlier this month. That’s one trip that Rahm didn’t take.
His season already took a COVID hit in early June when he was forced to withdraw from the Memorial despite having the third-round lead because he tested positive for the virus. He came back the next week to win the U.S. Open.
The positive test that knocked him out of the Olympics was tougher to take, he admitted.
“I understand it’s a weird case because I tested negative so quickly and tested negative and tested negative all throughout the UK, and I get here and the test is positive,” he said of the pre-Olympic testing cycle. “It really is unfortunate. It sucked because I wanted to represent Spain. I wanted to play that one. I wanted to hopefully give Spain a medal. I was wishing for a gold medal, but just being part of that medal count for the country would have been huge. It was more devastating in that sense. I was more in the mindset of playing for them more than me.”
Rahm confirmed he was never ill but knowing people close to him who did suffer with COVID, he understands the seriousness of the virus.
“That’s why I don’t take it lightly.”
Jon Rahm celebrates holding the trophy as he poses with his wife Kelley Cahill and son Kepa Cahill Rahm after winning he U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course. Photo by Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
While his medal chances were dashed, Rahm did point to one silver lining in the form of some unexpected downtime: the new dad got the opportunity – a scarce one for Tour players – to remain home for a month with baby Kepa. He hasn’t competed since a T-3 at the British Open four weeks ago.
That translates to rejuvenation.
“I was with my family. I was with my wife and our son and had a great time, also trained hard and practiced hard,” he said. “Yeah, I feel like I’m a little – I’m probably going to be a little bit more rested than most people, but at the same time, I haven’t played competitively in four weeks. So there might be a slight bit of rust, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to go quickly just because of how happy and how excited I am to be back and be competing.”
For the next three weeks, the obvious goal is to win, but Rahm also wants to make sure he sticks around for the whole stretch. He’ll take it week by week to get there.
“The important one is the last one,” he said, “so it’s a bit of kind of like a qualifying few rounds where you’re just trying to get ready and get positioned for the Tour Championship.”
It happened innocently enough thanks to Twitter: Higgs and TBD Vs. Mickelson and Dahmen.
Harry Higgs and TBD vs. Phil Mickelson and Joel Dahmen – now there’s a match golf fans can get behind. It will happen on Tuesday, Aug. 17, at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, and continue a PGA Tour tradition of great smack-talk practice round money games.
This one came to be innocently enough. Higgs, one of the most affable players in all of golf, was bored and had some time to kill on a flight and asked his Twitter followers to help him pass it by with a Q&A. That’s when Cameron Binder chimed in and asked, “Who would you want to partner with to take on Mickelson and Tom Brady in the next Match?” Higgs responded that “he’ll play with anyone. And I don’t think Phil Mickelson is ready for my trash talk.”
That’s all it took for Mickelson to take the bait. He came back firing, tweeting, “I might not be ready for your trash talk, but I am READY for you.”
Who would you want to partner with to take on @PhilMickelson and @TomBrady in the next “The Match”? Would be a huge step up in production to have your commentary!
The back and forth continued and before long Mickelson had proposed a match at next week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Championship. He tweeted, “This will save me a trip to the ATM before I leave. Thank you.”
I might not be ready for your trash talk but I AM READY for you 😘
There was only problem: Higgs didn’t qualify for next week’s limited-field, no-cut tournament in Memphis.
“And folks this is why Phil is the greatest. You swing at the greats you better not miss,” Higgs tweeted. “It’ll have to be Tuesday at Liberty National I didn’t qualify for Memphis. But I’m game!”
Mickelson couldn’t resist: “What? You say you’re ready for me and you’re not even qualified to be in the field? Might want to rethink that last lane change.”
Not long after, Dahmen asked in and Mickelson grabbed him to be his partner. Higgs has a little time to pick his teammate. Mickelson’s Tuesday money games are legendary, and this one shouldn’t disappoint. As Michael Buffer would say, “Let’s get ready to rumble!”
Alright that’s it for me folks! I’ll be doing this again soon! Thanks @PhilMickelson for putting me in my place. I’ll see you in a few weeks 😎
