The manufacturer doubled-down on its epic holiday card on Christmas Eve, sharing some behind-the-scenes footage of the photo shoot.
“I never thought in my life I’d be in a onesie,” said Rahm, with Johnson adding, “Now I know how my kids feel like every night.” The most-excited appeared to be Wolff.
Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson in green Christmas onesies? You bet.
Last week Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson were donning the red, white and blue for Team USA as the Americans made an epic comeback to win the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in Australia.
Now, they’re rocking … green Christmas onesies in front of a fireplace?
Tiger Woods completed his comeback over the last few years, but two PGA Tour stars notched 18 victories in the last decade.
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The first decade of the 21st century was dominated by Tiger Woods.
He won 56 PGA Tour titles and 12 major championships. He was named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year eight times. And his sustained brilliance and dominance continued to elevate the sport’s exposure – as well as its purses.
His star power was so lit that people wondered if the sport would survive if he ever went away. Well, Woods didn’t go away despite a public scandal and numerous battles with his back and left knee when the calendar turned to 2010. And joined by a stellar cast of gifted golfers, the game marched on in the next decade.
A new crop of stars, many inspired by Woods, included Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Jason Day, took the stage. Established stars, with Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, helped the game flourish.
Here are the top 10 players of the decade who authored so many flashes of stardom.
Lefty began the decade with an emotional victory at the Masters as his wife, Amy, successfully battled cancer. It was his third green jacket. In 2013, he won the British Open for the first time, his fifth major. While the U.S. Open remains elusive, he finished second in 2013 for his record sixth runner-up in the national open. He went nearly five years without a victory but then won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship in 2018, which he followed with his 44th Tour title the following year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at age 48. He won seven PGA Tour titles and also played in every Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup except one during the decade.
9. Bubba Watson
The big-hitting, creative lefty from tiny Bagdad, Florida, began the decade with zero wins. He ended the decade with 12 victories, the third-most by a player in the decade. Two of those wins came in the Masters, two others in World Golf Championships. While he wowed galleries everywhere with his pink driver and prodigious firepower, he was one of the best on and around the greens.
8. Justin Rose
After beginning his career by missing the cut in his first 21 tournaments, Rose became a force in this decade. He won 10 PGA Tour titles. He won the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, won the 2018 FedExCup at 38. He draped the gold medal around his neck when golf returned to the Olympics in 2016. He reached No. 1 in the world.
7. Jason Day
Through numerous ailments – especially to his back – Day won 12 times in the decade, including his lone major title at the 2015 PGA Championship. He won the Players, two World Golf Championships and two titles during the FedExCup Playoffs. His run from 2015-16, when he won seven of 17 titles, was one of the best in the decade. He also became No. 1 in the world.
After joining the PGA Tour in 2014-15 season, it didn’t take long for Thomas to establish himself as one of the game’s elite. In 2019, he became just the fifth player in the past 60 years to win 11 Tour titles before turning 27. The others? Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. His 2017 was one of the decade’s best years, as he won his maiden major at the PGA Championship, captured five titles in all and won the FedExCup. He also reached No. 1. He heads into the next decade coming off a 2019 in which he won twice, including a tournament in the FedExCup Playoffs.
5. Tiger Woods
The game’s biggest star kept coming back. After a public scandal kicked off his decade, he added three Tour titles to his haul in 2012 and five more in 2013, when he was named the PGA Tour Player of the Year by his peers and became No. 1 again. Then his back went out and Woods wondered if his playing career was over. But four surgeries to his back – the most recent a spinal fusion – gave him back his way of life. Then he overcame an addiction to prescription painkillers. After a five-year winless drought, he won the 2018 Tour Championship. Seven months later, he marked his comeback with a remarkable victory at the Masters, his fifth green jacket, 15th major and first in 11 years. In his last PGA Tour start of the decade, he won the Zozo Championship in Japan for his record-tying 82nd PGA Tour victory.
Tiger Woods celebrates after making a putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Rob Schumacher, USA TODAY Sports)
4. Jordan Spieth
He was in high school when the decade started. He used sponsor’s exemptions to kick off his career and won his first PGA Tour title as a teenager. He won 10 more times in the decade, with his creativity, bulldog attitude and electrifying putters among his numerous weapons. In 2015, he posted the decade’s best year and flirted with the Grand Slam as he won the Masters and U.S. Open, finished in a tie for fourth in the British Open (one stroke out of a playoff) and second in the PGA. He also won the FedExCup and became No. 1. His third major title came at the 2017 British Open. That was his most recent victory, but he’s confident his elite form will return in the coming decade.
3. Brooks Koepka
He began his professional career in the remote areas of the European Tour’s developmental circuit but finally touched down in the U.S. with a victory in the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open. Then he became a major force, both with his power, demeanor and touch on and around the greens. From 2017-19, he won his four majors and became the first player ever to go back-to-back in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. In 2019, he won the PGA, finished second in the U.S. Open, tied for second in the Masters and was fourth in the British Open. He will begin the new decade as the top-ranked player in the world and the game’s most feared player in the four major championships.
2. Dustin Johnson
He tied for the most victories in the decade with 18, among them his lone major at the 2016 U.S. Open, six World Golf Championships and four wins in the FedExCup Playoffs. He also had the most top-5s in the decade (58) and most top-10s (88). He won at least one PGA Tour tournament every year. He also finished runner-up in three majors, including twice in 2019 at the Masters and PGA Championship. While his power is matched by few others, he worked hard to become one of the game’s best from 150 yards and in.
1. Rory McIlroy
The boy wonder became the man in golf this decade. He won 18 times on the PGA Tour and added six more titles on the European Tour. He became the heart and soul of the European Ryder Cup team. With his eight-shot romps in the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA Championship, he joined Tiger Woods as the only players to win multiple majors by at least eight shots. With his FedExCup titles in 2016 and 2019, he joined Woods as the only two-time winners of the lucrative postseason. McIlroy won four majors, tying Koepka for the most in the decade, and three PGA Tour Player of the Year awards, the most in the decade. In 2019, won four PGA Tour titles, including the Tour Championship and the Players. He won the decade’s last World Golf Championship. He was the best player of the decade.
Jason Day has withdrawn from the Presidents Cup International Team and captain Ernie Els has chosen Byeong Hun An as replacement.
Presidents Cup captain Ernie Els has chosen Byeong Hun An to replace an injured Jason Day on the International Team, the Presidents Cup announced Friday.
Day, who has a 5-11-4 Presidents Cup record, withdrew from the Dec. 9-15 event at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club due to a back injury. The event would have been the Australian’s fifth Presidents Cup appearance.
In a statement released Friday, Day said he hopes to return to Australia to play soon, but in the meantime, wishes all Presidents Cup competitors luck.
Day also withdrew from the Australian Open, Dec. 5-8.
“I’m quite disappointed I won’t be coming home to play in either the Australian Open in Sydney or the Presidents Cup the following week in Melbourne,” Day said. “I was quite looking forward to both events. I had been prepping all week in Palm Springs when I was injured.
“Frustratingly, I’ve been through back problems before and my medical team decided it best to shut down all practice and play. Therefore, I wanted to inform Golf Australia as well as provide Ernie as much time as possible to best prepare our International Team for Royal Melbourne.”
“We wish Jason well and hope his back recovers quickly. We were eager to have Jason as part of the team at Royal Melbourne and his experience will be missed,” Els said in a statement. “The good news is that there were a number of strong and qualified players available to choose from when I made my captain’s selections. To have someone as steady and talented as Ben An puts us in a great position to succeed. Ben played extremely well this fall and throughout the year and he will fit in nicely on this team.”
The 28-year-old An competed in 22 PGA Tour events last season and had three top 10 finishes with his best coming from a third-place finish at Wyndham Championship. An also earned $1,990,033 in 2019.
With the addition of An, who will compete in his first Presidents Cup, the International Team will feature two Korean players. An joins Sungjae Im, the 2019 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.
“I’m sorry to hear that Jason has been forced to withdraw from the International Team and I wish him a speedy recovery. It was a huge surprise to receive a call from Ernie who told me that I was in the team,” An said in a statement. “It has been a goal of mine all season to be on the International Team and I am honored to play in my first Presidents Cup. I’m looking forward to joining Ernie and the rest of the team in Melbourne and, more importantly, contribute to the International Team’s goal to win the Cup.”
The International Team move follows Brooks Koepka’s withdrawal from the U.S. Team due to a lagging left knee injury. Team captain Tiger Woods selected Rickie Fowler as a replacement on Nov. 20.
Jason Day is using his fourth different caddie at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, but things are starting to come around for the Australian.
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There’s maybe no relationship more key in competitive golf than the one between player and caddie. Jason Day has had a rotating cast of bagmen in his 21 starts this year, employing four different caddies since the beginning of 2019.
Day, fielding questions prior to the start of this week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico, called it “a massive change within the camp of Team Day.” That bit came in response to a question about a 2019 season that included six top-10 finishes – steady, but by no means up to Day’s standards.
“When you go through changes like that, trying to find the right makeup, the right chemistry, it takes some time,” Day said of his frequent caddie change-ups. “But I feel like with what I’m doing with David (Lutterus) out there, I think we’re slowly working on the communication and things are working and they’re coming around.”
Lutterus, a former PGA Tour player who has logged countless rounds next to Day as a player, picked up with Day at the BMW Championship. The Australian Day had been working with New Zealander Steve Williams, who famously caddied for Tiger Woods through much of his early career.
Williams worked six events with Day, beginning with the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in June, where Day finished T-21.
Day just had one top-10 finish during that run (a T-8 at the Travelers Championship) and added a pair of missed cuts – at the British Open and the Northern Trust. They parted ways after what Williams called a “disconnect” following the Northern Trust.
Before hiring Williams, Day had spent the first six months of the year with two other friends sharing bag duties – Luke Reardon and Rika Batibasaga.
In a chilling side-story to all this, Lutterus survived a near-fatal motorbike accident just weeks before starting work with Day. He was hospitalized for a week in July when he crashed a four-wheel motorbike in Ohio. Lutterus suffered a concussion and a broken jaw when the vehicle’s roll bar struck him in the face.
“He’s tremendously lucky,” Day told the AAP at the BMW Championship.
Caddies aside this season, Day also felt the effects of not having a trainer for much of the past year. With his back acting up, it made it hard to put in the kind of practice he would have liked. It was yet another factor that went into an off year.
“I’ve done everything I possibly — especially in this offseason, kind of start of the season for me — to get my team back together.”
For the next few weeks, however, “team” takes on a new meaning as Day prepares to compete on the 12-man International Presidents Cup team. Day is playing Mayakoba for just the second time in his career, and the first time since 2009. Much of that has to do with needing a warm-up for the matches, which will come to Day’s Australian homeland next month.
“I’ve had a lot of experience around that golf course, which is good,” he said of Royal Melbourne. “It’s crucial heading into the Presidents Cup.”
Florida, began the decade with zero wins. He ended the decade with 12 victories, the third-most by a player in the decade. Two of those wins came in the Masters, two others in World Golf Championships. While he wowed galleries everywhere with his pink driver and prodigious firepower, he was one of the best on and around the greens.
