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If golf has a real-life Jerry Maguire, it’s Mac Barnhardt, who has, over the past 25 years, represented Davis Love, Justin Leonard, David Duval, Lucas Glover, Brandt Snedeker and other popular favorites. At the moment, he doesn’t represent anyone. Still, his quest remains: to sign the first new client of the rest of his life.
 
When the U.S. Amateur is played, as it was at Bandon Dunes last week, it’s a holy week for amateurs. The event is also a confab for agents, at which (in normal times) they size up talent and chat up parents and swing coaches. In this odd year, owing to the pandemic, the agents were not hovering, but last year, like every year, they were. Any winner of a U.S. Amateur can expect to be overwhelmed with agent attention. Last year’s Amateur champ, Andy Ogletree, found that out. Barnhardt was among Ogletree’s suitors. Every agent is trying to sell something. Barnhardt sells the lessons of his life. To be frank about it, it’s not what most young golfers or their parents want to hear. Barnhardt doesn’t particularly care. He knows it’s the best thing he has going for him because he knows it’s the best thing he can give a potential client.  
 
In 2013, the company Barnhardt owned, Crown Sports Management, was bought out by Lagardère Sports, which has a golf division run by Steve Loy, Phil Mickelson’s agent. In May 2018, Barnhardt was, in his own candid telling, fired. That act triggered a noncompete clause. Barnhardt was pushed to the sidelines for a two-year period. Those two years have come and gone and then some. Which brings us to the comeback he is attempting.

In the story of his business life, to turn our subject’s 58 years on this earth into a movie script, Barnhardt’s in the part of Jerry Maguire where Jerry (Tom Cruise) is trying to recruit the fictional NFL receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to be the first client in the new, we’re-humans-first agency Jerry wants to launch. In real life, Barnhardt settled on his Rod Tidwell last summer. That’s when he started focusing his particular brand of attention, with its curious blend of purposefulness and nonchalance, on Ogletree, a tall, lean golfer from Union, Miss., where his father owns a Piggly Wiggly grocery store.
 
There have been U.S. Am winners who were destined for professional greatness (Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods). And many more who were not (Bill Sander, Nathaniel Crosby, Steve Fox). The cognoscenti don’t consider Ogletree a can’t-miss kid. The Georgia Tech golfer was ranked No. 120 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. But Mac is a true believer. 
 
“I love his work ethic, his intelligence, his maturity, his family, his value system,” Barnhardt told me during the PGA Merchandise Show. That was in January, at a time when Barnhardt, among others, was trying to get a commitment from Ogletree, without endangering the young man’s amateur status. (Doable, if you know the applicable USGA and NCAA rules.) Ogletree’s plan then was to choose among his suitors, play in the Masters in April as an amateur, turn pro the next month, after the NCCA tournament. Then a nasty virus turned the world on its head.

So instead, Ogletree stayed amateur. He played in three Tour events as an amateur and missed three cuts. At this year’s U.S. Amateur, he played in the 36-hole stroke-play qualifier and missed a playoff to qualify for the match play portion of the championship — that is, the main event — by a shot. Being an agent in pursuit of a high-profile amateur is a high-wire act, with a lot of ups and downs. It can be like being a Hollywood director where one’s status is dependent on your last movie’s box office.
 
As it happens, Barnhardt’s story actually does share a lot of Jerry Maguire. Except that is mainstream entertainment and you know how it’s going to end. If Barnhardt were available on Netflix, it would be a documentary with a familiar beginning, a revealing behind-the-scenes middle and a TBD end. 

In truth, Barnhardt is looking to do more than come back. He’s looking to reinvent how golfers are represented. The last time that happened, in the early 1960s, Mark McCormack was wearing a plaid coat and could deliver Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, as a package, to your pro-am and cocktail party. Barnhardt in 2020 (and beyond) does not want to be an agent in the traditional sense. He wants to be a performance coach, an advisor, a member of the golfer’s board of directors. He wants to vet and manage the group around the golfer that will help the golfer play better golf. “Talent minus distraction equals performance,” Barnhardt likes to say. He wants to reduce distraction. 
 
A telling phrase of the management business describes how the agent “looks after” (a chiefly British phrase) this player or that one. Mark Steinberg, for example, of Excel Sports Management, looks after Tiger Woods, Justin Rose, Matt Kuchar. Barnhardt doesn’t want to hold the hand of his golfers after their rounds or walk with them for 72 holes. “Those things aren’t going to help the golfer perform better,” he says. Barnhardt’s starting point is that to make it today, a golfer needs a team.

Mock that belief if you like, but at your own peril. Not a team with a big roster, mind you, but a team nonetheless. The right caddie, swing instructor, mental coach, fitness guy, club-fitter, accountant, travel-and-docs person. Plus, a designated place to meet these people and do the associated work during tournaments and on off weeks, too. In the mission statement in his mind, Barnhardt says that his job will be to make sure the fits are good ones, that the relationships are managed appropriately, that the financial terms make sense.

“The professional golfer should think of himself as the CEO of a small business,” Barnhardt says. “The product is tournament golf scores, the lower the better, the more years at it the better. Everything the golfer earns comes from that, and every person in the golfer’s life should contribute to performance. The best golfers have always thought about what they earn on the course, not what they make for showing up someplace.”

Barnhardt is a plus-four talker who sprinkles in references to psychologists, philosophers, ballplayers, snow-boarders, business visionaries and military generals in his conversation. His father was a Methodist minister, and the son learned at his feet, except now Mac doesn’t believe in divine anything. He believes in planning, staying the course, adjusting as necessary. He believes in work, even if work is playing golf at home with your buddies five days a week. He does not believe in get rich quick.
 
“A lot of the fathers of a lot of the kids looking to turn pro ask the same questions,” Barnhardt says. “’How many tournaments can you get him in? What guarantees can you give him?’
 
“Those aren’t the right questions. The right way to look at it is this: You hope this is the start of a 15-year career. Your son’s good, but he needs to get better and these are the things he needs to do.”
 
Now that doesn’t sound particularly fun, does it? It has the advantage of being Barnhardt’s hard-earned truth. But fun it’s not.
 
All the things Barnhardt has learned over the past 25 years are the things that, if he said them, practically guarantees that he won’t sign the young player. This conundrum is known broadly as a Catch-22.
 
“It could reinvent the business — or I could wind up working as a lift operator at Sun Valley,” Mac will tell you.

It’s an amusing comment and a telling reference. Barnhardt came up in a legendary agency, Pros, Inc., located in Richmond, Va. That agency represented Tom Kite, Lanny Wadkins, Davis Love and other golfers catching southbound trains. Mac’s job was to make the trains run on time. He looked the part and knew the lines. In 1999, Pros, Inc. was bought by Octagon. In 2003, Barnhardt broke away and became Love’s full-time guy. Soon after, he started Crown, signed Jonathan Byrd and Glover, made Sea Island, where Love and Barnhardt both live, a center for Tour players. None of this is as tidy as it sounds. It couldn’t be. 
 
As Mac became more of his own guy, he started dressing more like the snowboarder Shaun White and less like Steve Loy and Mark Steinberg. You’d often see Barnhardt at tournaments wearing a hoodie, a flat-brimmed cap and tennis shoes, talking about new-agey things.
 
All the while, he was taking a lot in. He could read players — his own and others. He’d casually make prescient observations. When Player X, a winner and a star, bought a home with an elevator, Barnhardt said, “He’s broke, he just doesn’t know it yet.” (That proved to be true.) Barnhardt has a keen understanding of the PGA Tour’s C-suite execs and how they work with Capitol Hill pols, network television deal-makers, mono-named star golfers. He knows how to read the fine print of a contract, how to ask for sponsor exemptions, how to get Korn Ferry Tour status. There’s more to being an agent than standing under a tree and chatting people up, although that’s an important skill, too.
 
Barnhardt is eager to see what Ogletree does playing alongside Tiger Woods at the Masters in November, if traditional Thursday-Friday threesomes are maintained.
 
Maybe Ogletree will be the 36-hole leader at Augusta in November. Maybe he’ll shoot 150 and miss the cut. Either way, this is Barnhardt’s view: The kid is 22. He’s good at golf, loves the game, works hard at it and has already accomplished way more than most. Let’s see what the next 15 years brings. 
 
Michael Bamberger may be reached at Michael_Bamberger@Golf.com.

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The post U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker names two more vice captains appeared first on Golf.

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Zach Johnson and Davis Love III will join Steve Stricker in Wisconsin. Stricker, the U.S. captain for the 2020 Ryder Cup, on Monday announced that he was adding Johnson and Love to his team as vice captains. Jim Furyk was previously announced as a vice captain.

Johnson has played in five Ryder Cups and was also a vice captain in 2018. Love, a six-time Ryder Cup player, captained the victorious U.S. team at Hazeltine in Minnesota in 2016 and was also a vice captain in 2010 and 2018.

“Steve has been such a consistent presence on this team, both as a player and as a vice captain, and now it’s his time to lead,” Love said in a press release. “He has a terrific vision for what he wants our U.S. team to not only accomplish, but represent, all year long. I’m confident in the program he has in place and am anxious to get to work.”

News

The 2020 Ryder Cup is scheduled for Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis. While Covid-19 has canceled some PGA Tour events and rescheduled others, the Ryder Cup dates have remained unchanged. PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said last month that the PGA of America has considered the reality of it going on without fans, as many options are currently on the table.

“That’s one of our big decisions, is the Ryder Cup the Ryder Cup if you have it without fans,” he told GOLF.com. “If you don’t have fans, the question becomes, ‘Is that a true Ryder Cup or not?’”

Rory McIlroy has also been on record about the Ryder Cup dilemma, saying “If it came to whether they had to choose between not playing the Ryder Cup or playing it without fans, I would say just delay it a year.”

The last time a Ryder Cup date was moved was in 2001, when the September 11 attacks pushed the event to 2002.

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The post Davis Love III joins CBS Sports as full-time golf analyst in wake of McCord, Kostis exits appeared first on Golf.

The post Davis Love III joins CBS Sports as full-time golf analyst in wake of McCord, Kostis exits appeared first on Golf.

Davis Love III will transition from part-time player to full-time analyst beginning in 2020.

CBS Sports announced on Tuesday that it has hired Love to be a full-time analyst to cover the PGA Tour, Masters and PGA Championship. Love will make his debut at the network’s first event of the 2020 season, the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

“Davis is one of the most accomplished and respected players in the game of golf,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, in a release. “With his playing experience, reputation and relationships across the golf community, he brings a unique perspective and insight that will enhance our broadcasts. Davis is the perfect fit for CBS, and we look forward to him making the best broadcast team in golf even better.”

News

Gary McCord explains why he is upset by how CBS Sports fired him

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The post Fred, Davis and Furyk: A trip ’round Riviera with golf’s Fountain of Youth threesome appeared first on Golf.

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PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – On Thursday, they sat around all day and did a whole lot of nothing. On Saturday, this familiar troika played seven holes together. And on Friday, the Fountain of Youth threesome of Fred Couples, Jim Furyk and Davis Love III played 29 holes here at Riviera, a golf course they have been playing, collectively, for over 100 years. Three distinct swings and personalities, each defined by one major championship and a slew of Ryder Cup teams. Brings to mind the old Steven Wright line:

How about those Stones—still doing it after all these years.

Beat.

Fred, Barney.

Fred—we’re on a first-name basis with this whole gang, right?—is 59. Davis is 54. Furyk (you have to think even his mother calls him that) is a child of 48. The latter two were Ryder Cup captains. Fred’s been passed over for that august position, but Tiger Woods is bringing him Down Under come December as an assistant captain for the 2019 American Presidents Cup team. The other two assistants are Steve Sticker and Zach Johnson. Stricker will be in charge of any putting woes that might suddenly emerge. Johnson will be in charge of the distribution of towels and orange slices. All Fred has to do is be Fred. That’s why Tiger is drawn to him so. Fred is the king of good hang. Tiger was never a locker room guy.

Fred got into this L.A. Open—that is, the Genesis—on a sponsor’s invitation. This is a Tiger event. You do the rest of the math. Tiger played the back nine here with Fred in a celebrity thing on Monday afternoon and the front nine on Tuesday afternoon. They played together before Thanksgiving at the Madison Club in the California desert. Tiger made an ace, witnessed by Tiger’s son, Charlie, Fred and Joe LaCava, who caddied for years for Fred and now works for Tiger. As a caddie, he’s looking for his second major.

It was a brilliant act, to group Fred and Davis and Furyk. There was Fred, ambling along, kicking rain with every step. Davis, feet splayed, with his old familiar bounce step. Furyk, with that forward lean that brings to grandma, or Whistler’s Mother. Fred can tell you all about Whistler’s mother. His specialties are the NFL draft, gardening and mid-century watches and cars, but he’s pretty good on 19th-century American art, too.

Oh, let’s not forget Fluff. That is, Mike Cowan, Furyk’s longtime caddie. When he came on Tour, Sam Snead was still playing, every once in a while, anyway.

Snead has the Tour record for oldest winner on Tour. He won at Greensboro in 1965 at age 52, two months shy of 53. Davis, a World Golf Hall of Famer, won at age 51 (also at Greensboro), and the highest thing on his golf bucket list is to replace Snead on that list. Well, he’d give that up on a New York minute to see his son, Dru, become a card-carrying member of the Tour. But in the end, of course, the boy has to do that on his own.

All of us who like this game are drawn to certain players and their swings, for reasons that may or may not be rooted in anything explicable. This reporter loves watching Rickie Fowler make a swing, in part because he’s ready to play and there’s just (to steal the famous Strunk & White title) an element of style to his whole move. Fred—everybody loves watching Fred, because he makes what is hard look easy. Tiger on a course—there’s a certain majesty to it. But right at the top of the list, for this correspondent, is Davis. For 30 or more years now, it has not changed. It’s close to perfection.

Al Geiberger’s move was, too, back then. Steve Elkington, the same. But Davis is the whole Tour-pro package. You should have seen the effort he made to find Furyk’s fore-right second shot on the second hole Friday night, in the fading light. By the way, and nobody is talking much about this rule-change, three minutes goes fast. Guys are still taking what they’ve always taken, six or seven minutes or eight minutes. (Five minutes used to be the max. The USGA and the R&A chopped off two, in the new-and-improved rules for 2019.)

Friday afternoon, they were playing with virtually no gallery and through a driving, cold rain. It was fun! Here was Trip, his caddie Jeff Weber, holding an umbrella over him, while Davis put his yardage book in his mouth while putting on his tartan rain pants. Fred, taking off his windbreaker to make a swing and putting it back on. Furyk, towel hanging from the spokes of his umbrella, an old-timey move if ever there was one.

Poor guy had a senior moment when he played 18 in the second round. Drove it in the middle of fairway. Put a tee in the soggy turf to lift, clean and place his ball. Except they weren’t playing left, clean and place in Round 2. That’s a shot. (John Mutch, rules official, came on in.) Plus another two for the lost ball two holes later. They say every shot makes somebody happy. Still, he’s going to make the cut here, at two under, when they finally got 36 holes in by Saturday morning.

Davis, on the same score, will, too. Fred, at three over, will not. Does any of this matter? Yes and no, but more yes. All three of them are still playing meaningful golf, the game of their boyhoods, all these years later. People talk about turning back the hands of time. Can’t be done. But holding on, even on a partial basis, to what you have, what you’re good at, and what you love, that’s a pretty neat trick. There’s your fountain of youth.

Michael Bamberger can be reached at Michael_Bamberger@golf.com.

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The post The best new rule and who can win the Sony: Bamberger’s 7 best things in golf right now appeared first on Golf.

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Every week GOLF senior writer Michael Bamberger identifies — and ranks — the absolute, undeniably, very best things in golf right now.

7. Best Chance for a Record-Old Winner

This is the best chance all year for Sam Snead to be knocked off his pedestal as the Oldest Winner on Tour. Snead won at Greensboro at age 52 in 1965. This week, at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Davis Love, who is 54, and Vijay Singh, 55, are in the field. The Waialae Country Club course is short and its Bermuda greens are flat and slow (by typical Tour standards). All you have to do to win there is play good golf from start to finish. Nothing crazy. Play the wind, play to positions, choose your spots. It’s all about guile. There’s no PGA Tour stat for guile, but these guys have it.

6. Best Names in the Monday Qualifier

These names were all on the tee sheet for the Monday qualifier for the Sony Open: Ted Purdy, Billy Hurley, Mac O’Grady, Matt Every — and Tadd Fujikawa. The first four are all former Tour winners. (O’Grady, a noted and singular golf instructor, is 67 and the results show no card for him.) Fujikawa is the first openly gay male professional golfer. None made it. There’s more going on each Monday than we realize. A kid named Brent Grant, co-medalist at the Monday qualifier, is playing in his first Tour event this week as a pro. I can tell you one thing about him for sure: he’s good enough to dream.

5. Best Golfy Comment at Dental Office

I settled into the chair. The hygienist put on Golf Channel. Out came the tools of her trade.

She said, “Working on a new book?”
“Yes,” I said. “About Tiger’s comeback.”
“Oh, that’ll be interesting,” she said. (Well that’s the goal, anyway.) “Now do you have to get his permission before you do that?”
“No, actually you don’t,” I said.
“Is that because of our rights to free speech and all that?” she asked.
Exactly!

4. Best Example of the Finchem Effect

To be any sort of sports commissioner, you have to be, among other things, a politician and a diplomat. Jay Monahan’s predecessor as PGA Tour commissioner, Tim Finchem, was a master of the euphemism. “Step-away” for suspension, for instance. Monahan offered a beauty from Maui and we repeat it here because it will have lasting repercussions. He was talking to reporters about legal gambling on Tour events while play is underway: “The reason we would do it is because we think gaming leads to more engagement.” In other words, legal gambling will mean more money for the Tour. If the Tour can bring in gambling and keep the players clean, more power to it. But it won’t be easy.

3. Best New Rule

Nobody’s talking about it but the best new rule is the elimination of the penalty if you accidentally step on or kick your ball while searching for it. You just put it back. Rule 7.4, if you want the exact language.

2. Best News for Golf Writers

Padraig Harrington being named Ryder Cup captain. Possibly the best golf talker since Lee Trevino. So smart, insightful, funny, original, and not just when he has a mic under his chin. At the 2005 Masters, I caddied for a Scotsman in the field, Stuart Wilson, the reigning British Amateur champion. He sought Harrington’s autograph, for his mother. “You’re her favorite player,” Stuart told him. Paddy said, “Wouldn’t that be you?”

1. The Best Thing in Your Mailbox this Week

The new-and-improved GOLF magazine. Bigger, brighter, stronger. New day, fresh start.

Michael Bamberger may be reached at Michael_bamberger@golf.com.

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The post Family Matters: PNC Challenge appeared first on Golf.

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Weekend recap of the Father/Son tournament.

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ORLANDO, Fla. – This PNC Father-Son event is an Alastair Johnston enterprise. Johnston is an old IMG hand, going back to its Arnold Palmer heyday, and he sets the rules for this 36-hole event.

As a starting point, per Johnston, the headliner must have won a major or a Players Championship, and the partner cannot have a Tour card. On that basis, if all goes well, this year’s winners, Davis Love III and his son, Dru, will not be able to defend. Dru, like his father and grandfather before him, is a professional golfer. But he doesn’t have a Tour card.

What they did on Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton course here was phenomenal. Yes, it’s a flat, short resort course and the pins were in flat spots. Yes, it’s scramble format from the teeing ground to the bottom of the hole, which means bogeys are about as rare as a Fred Couples phone call. Yes, you place your ball, so you never have a lie that’s not perfect. Yes, the par-5s are short. Still! The Loves played 18 holes in 56 shots. That’s 16 under par! They won by three over three other teams.

Father-and-son both were wearing white pants and light blue shirts you could call Carolina Blue, but you wouldn’t exactly call it a team uniform. Davis is a Polo guy, has been for years, and everything fits just so and is perfectly pressed. Dru’s a big boy in every way, kind of half-stuffed into his Sunday outfit, which he might have found under his bed. If this kid, a former Alabama golfer, has ever had a worry in his life, you could not tell.

When it was over, they stood on a riser recounting the highlights for reporters. It was all highlights, except for the two pars made. Jack Nicklaus came into the scrum, leaned in and said to Dru, “Get your PGA Tour card and get out of here.”

At the start of the day, the Loves were chasing Nicklaus and his grandson, GT, Big and Little John Daly, and some other teams. “There was no issue with leaderboard watching, because there are no leaderboards,” the senior Love said.

After a first-round 59, a course-record (in this event) 59, Daly and Daly looked like they would be very hard to beat, in large part because 15-year-old Little John Daly can flat out play. Beautiful swing, loads of desire and, in the Dru Love tradition, looks like nothing worries him. Jack and GT were two shots back.

As a record, that round of 59 was short-lived, as Love and Love improved on it by three! This is not a fair comparison, but just to get you thinking about what the Loves did: can you imagine the Masters course record going from 63 to 60 in one day?

Like a sportswriter on deadline, Johnston, the vice chairman of IMG, was openly rooting for the best story to win. The Loves are great, everybody likes the Loves, but how cool would it be to see Jack Nicklaus actually win some sort of golf tournament again?

When Team Nicklaus made a late bogey on Sunday, Johnston, still carrying a Scots burr from his boyhood, said “Oh, Jack.” You make a bogey in this thing and other teams fly by.

As hunters and fishermen and golfers, Davis and Dru have logged a lot of road miles together. Father caddied for son at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills. Dru missed the cut by a shot. Davis looked like a gutted bluefish on a fishing dock. Davis, in his prime and still today, is a very aggressive player, but any U.S. Open course, even a big wide one, requires different times and places to put the throttle down.

Dru was asked how his father is different, as playing partner here and caddie then.

“Here, you have to be aggressive on every shot, because you have two chances. He played first on every shot, I tried to learn something from what he did, then I played my shot,” Dru said. “Then when we got to the greens, we flipped it.” You always want your better putter to go second in these things.

Dru played in the RSM Classic in Sea Island last month on a sponsor’s exemption, and his father played in it as the tournament host and as a Hall of Famer with lifetime exemption status. After a third-round 64, Dru was thinking of a top-10 finish, which would have qualified him automatically for next month’s Sony Open in Honolulu. He sometimes gets ahead of himself, as young players do. He shot a final-round 70 and finished T-54. He said on Sunday he still might go to Hawaii and try to Monday qualify. His father is already playing.

Dru had to cut short the interview. “I wanna see these parachutes come in!” he said.

As part of the closing ceremony to this decidedly low-key and fun event, three military parachuters dropped out of the sky and onto the 18th hole. A PA announcer said, “God bless and blue skies and Merry Christmas.” Dru stood near his mother and father and sister and niece, his head cocked and mouth slightly ajar at the wonder of airborne men. For a lot of years now, a lot of people have looked at his father’s towering tee shots in just the same way. Davis Love, who turns 55 in April, could still win a Tour event, if everything came together. He knows that. If his son was in the field that week as a card-carrying Tour member, that would be even better.

Michael Bamberger may be reached at Michael_bamberger@golf.com.

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Jack Nicklaus still has plenty of game — and showmanship.

Nicklaus partnered with his grandson, GT Nicklaus, in the PNC Father-Son Challenge over the weekend at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., and the 78-year-old proved his game is plenty sharp.

In the 36-hole scramble, Team Nicklaus shot 62 on Saturday to open the final day just thee shots off the lead. While Jack and GT couldn’t match Davis and Dru Love’s scorching 56, Jack did provide one of the highlights of the day.

Playing from off the green and below the putting surface on the par-4 16th, The Golden Bear pounded his ball up the mound and onto the green, starting it a good foot left of the pin, and then watched as it made its way back toward the cup and dropped in for a birdie 3.

Nicklaus fist-pumped and then turned back to the crowd, holding his arms up and soaking in the applause. The gallery ate it up.

It’s not the first highlight Jack and GT have made together. GT was caddying for his grandpa at the Masters Par-3 Contest last April when GT made an ace. Jack won the Masters six times, yet he still says that watching GT make the ace is his No. 1 Masters moment.

Jack and GT shot an eight-under 64 on Sunday and finished sixth. The Loves finished 26 under to win.

You can watch Nicklaus’s putt from the 16th hole below.

What. A. Putt.@JackNicklaus turns back the clock with this putt @PNCFatherSon. 👏 pic.twitter.com/AhdZ02B6qs

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) December 16, 2018

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Davis Love III and son Dru Love caught fire on the front nine and went on to win the PNC Father-Son Challenge on Sunday at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla.

The Loves went out in 27 (which included a par) as they made seven birdies and an eagle to shoot nine under on the front before pulling away from the Goosens, Dalys, Cinks and more on the back side.

Team Love signed for a 16-under 56 to finish 26 under for the 36-hole scramble. The 56 was a tournament course record, which was previously set at 59 (and recently matched by the Dalys on Saturday).

Retief and Leo Goosen, Stewart and Connor Cink, and John and Little John Daily all tied for second at 23 under, three shots back.

You may also like You gotta see this! Jack Nicklaus hit one of the shots of the year and the Dalys are on fire at feel-good Father-Son Challenge

Jack and JT Nicklaus shot 64 to finish 19 under and in sixth place.

The Dalys shot 59 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead ahead of David Tom and his son, Carter Toms (60). Nicklaus and GT and the Cinks were two back with 61s, and the Loves were three back after shooting 62 in the first round.

The Loves tied for 2nd in 2015 but didn’t play the previous two years.

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Davis Love III says improved communication among Ryder Cup brass and players would help frustrations from festering into problems.

Love, who was an assistant captain in Paris when the Americans lost 17.5-10.5, was asked about the biggest lesson he learned from the loss during his Wednesday press conference at the RSM Classic.

“I just think we need to communicate a little bit better as a team. That doesn’t mean just the captains or just the players. I think we need to get to know each other even better and communicate a little bit better so little frustrations don’t turn into problems,” said Love, the tournament’s host. “I said there was a few things I could have done better that I apologized to [captain] Jim [Furyk] for that we just didn’t see early enough or deal with during the year.”

Love didn’t mention Patrick Reed during the press conference, but it’s not difficult to connect the dots. Reed’s frustrations stemming from the loss, two benchings and a split pairing with Jordan Spieth led to him criticizing the team’s communication and some decisions. (Furyk, and later Justin Thomas, contradicted some of Reed’s claims.)

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The Americans have lost four of the last five Ryder Cups (and nine of the last 12). They were the heavy favorite in Paris but couldn’t match an energized European team.

Love said the USA Basketball-like year-round approach has helped the U.S., but there’s still room for improvement.

“We have to get better at some things,” he said. “But as players, we have to be a little bit more prepared as well.”

Love said the U.S. had a lot of tired players who played poorly in the playoffs and into Paris, or players who were in form but then ran out of gas. He thinks the new schedule, with the Tour Championship finishing earlier, will benefit the Americans.

“We hate to lose, but I think we’re still positive about the future,” he said. “Except for a couple little things that have created a big stir afterwards, we all got along great and we had a lot of fun and we had a great time even leaving and flying home and communicating afterwards.”

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