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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Every so often, Cormac McCarthy writes a line that blows a hole straight through your eye sockets.

Everyone who’s ever read McCarthy can attest to having experienced one of these moments, which I would describe as the closest thing literature has to letting someone wind up and punch you in the face. One of them arrived for me last summer, deep into McCarthy’s The Passenger, when I stumbled upon this one.

“But salvation, like many another prize, may be simply a matter of daring. You would give up your dreams in order to escape your nightmares and I would not. I think it’s a bad bargain.”

I did not expect to be thinking about Cormac McCarthy on Friday afternoon at the U.S. Open. In fact, I hadn’t considered that line — which was so good it sent a tingle down my spine even when I copied it just a moment ago — since logging it months ago in the “Notes” app on my phone, where I semi-frequently catalog significant pieces of literature.

But then I stumbled into Harry Higgs’ press conference on Friday afternoon at Shinnecock Hills and realized he was saying the line to me.

“I can just choose to be a factor,” Higgs said Friday. “I can choose to just be like, you don’t have to be a small insignificant piece of the 156 playing here — and I believe I was 156 out of 156. I can be part of this, I have done this before.”

Higgs was talking about a most unusual Friday at Shinnecock — one that saw him claim his first made-cut on the PGA Tour in 2026, that gave him a legitimate shot at contention at the U.S. Open, that saw him keep his cool in the hardest test in pro golf. Higgs was a person of interest on account of his score (his one under was good enough for T7 in a crowded field at Shinnecock), but he was a story for the things he said afterward, when he opened up on the journey through golf hell that had brought him to here, on the brink of a weekend in contention at the U.S. Open.

“Through six holes [at U.S. Open final qualifying one week earlier], I was really close to quitting golf,” Higgs said. “It went the same way as it’s always gone. I missed a bunch of putts from short range early for birdie and then made a terrible bogey on 6. Took my phone out, booked a flight back home to Kansas City from Charlotte. We were playing just outside Charlotte and I was like, I’m just going to go home. I’m going to walk off after the ninth hole. I’m just going to go home. I don’t even know if I’m going to go to Amarillo and play the Korn Ferry, and I don’t know that I’m going to keep doing this.“

The 34-year-old did not quit golf. He made 13 birdies in his next 30 holes to force his way into a playoff for a U.S. Open spot. He lost the playoff but gained first-alternate status. More importantly, though, he stoked something within that has been simmering ever since.

“I don’t know if I know the lesson that I taught myself, but I think today was a byproduct of that,” Higgs said Friday, four days after he earned late entry into the national championship as an alternate, and the same day he made four birdies to move to the first page of the leaderboard.

“Man, I was cool. I was cool with bad shots. I was cool if things didn’t go my way. I was just going to have my shoulders back, my head up,” Higgs said. “I was going to walk around like I owned this place. And boy, do I not.“

Higgs didn’t need much time to prove that he does not, in fact, own Shinnecock. He showed up to the golf course after a 3:30 a.m. wakeup on Thursday morning without pants, briefly borrowing an ill-fitting pair from a golf equipment staffer before his wife arrived minutes before his tee time with a pair of backups.

“I would have 100% ripped them,” he said. “They fit, but not that great. It would have been real funny trying to get a ball out of the hole and teeing it up.”

And yet he survived. And then, on Friday, he thrived.

“I’m coming to the realization that all these guys that do this consistently and win all these deals, I think they just make the choice to do that all the time,” he said. “I think the results make it maybe a little easier, but only just a little. Those guys wake up and do the work and choose to act and believe that they are the best.”

Every so often, a golfer possesses such precociousness that a major championship victory seems less like a miracle and more like a foregone conclusion. Much more rarely do they possess the knowledge that a major championship victory is very likely an impossibility … and the stubbornness to pursue it anyway.

On Friday at Shinnecock, Higgs separated himself for the latter. Salvation has not arrived, at least not yet, but rest assured it is not for a lack of daring.

“Why not believe in myself?” Higgs said. “Why not think that I can do well at this? I allow myself to feel insignificant … I don’t need to do that anymore.”

And as for that nagging question, the one you’ve been thinking since McCarthy’s roundhouse kick at the top: Can confidence really be chosen?

“For the rest of this week I’m going to say yes,” Higgs said.

Who knows if he’s right.

But at the very least, it’s a good bargain.

You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com.

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The post ‘Very rare’: Pro describes ‘wild’ green feature at PGA Tour event in Myrtle Beach appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Very rare’: Pro describes ‘wild’ green feature at PGA Tour event in Myrtle Beach appeared first on Golf.

Tour pros aren’t agronomists but they give a lot of thought to grass and greens. Consider this turf-related take from Harry Higgs.

It was Friday afternoon, and Higgs was fresh off a second-round 66 that put him in a tie for the lead at the Oneflight Myrtle Beach Classic at the Dunes and Beach Club, where the putting surfaces had given players fits.

Higgs was pretty certain he knew why.

“It was real hard at the end because there’s not a ton of grass,” he said. “That’s not to say — they’re in perfect condition. But they’re almost, you know, Bermuda gets a little frictionless, and they’re fast. With the wind blowing, it moves even more.”

That makes sense. Fast greens. Breezy day. A recipe for three-putts. And not unusual.

But Higgs said that there was yet another challenge, a complication that he described as “wild.”

On many putts, he said, the grain and the slope were working in opposite directions, “so it’s a going to break little bit and then it’s going to straighten up.”

Those opposing forces — grain going one way, slope the other — were, Higgs said, “very rare.”

That’s an interesting, um, granular, take.

But is the science behind it sound? Is it true that grain and slope usually work in the same direction?

Darren Davis, superintendent at Olde Florida Golf Club, in Naples, Fla., would beg to differ.

“Grain and grade are prevalent on most putting surfaces,” Davis says. “But they are independent of each other.”

That is, just because a green is sloping one way doesn’t mean the grain will be inclined to lean in the same direction. There is no correlation between the two. 

Higgs was right in one respect, though. Grain and grade can both influence putts. But, Davis says, golfers tend to overestimate the impact of the former. 

“Often when putting uphill, golfers think grain is causing a putt to be slower,” Davis says. “Or when putting downhill golfers might assume grain is causing a ball-roll to be quicker. Most often the reality is it’s just the slope increasing or decreasing the speed.”

That’s a good tip for the everyday golfer, who may be wasting time trying to read grain.

But Higgs probably doesn’t need to bother with it. However he’s reading the greens this week, the method seems to be working fine.

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The post How does ‘process’ lead to winning golf? Harry Higgs explains appeared first on Golf.

The post How does ‘process’ lead to winning golf? Harry Higgs explains appeared first on Golf.

When it comes to developing sustained success at the elite pro golf level, a lot of professionals use the P word. They repeat it over and over — on good days and bad. If they can just develop a great process and stick to it, good golf will follow. It’s not as much about trying to play good golf as it is sticking to a process that will eventually bring it out. 

The theory goes that golf is too fickle to ever master. It also involves too much randomness and luck to let any one result define your game. That’s why players try and create top-level processes that hopefully bring about their best. Little things can become big things: visualization, a consistent gameday routine, even going through a mundane golf checklist in a specific order to reinforce some bit of uniformity to every shot in a round, when those shots and conditions can be very different. 

When pros establish and stick to a process, it paves the path for good opportunities to become great achievements. Harry Higgs made that happen as well as anyone — well, anyone not named Scottie Scheffler — in 2024. Higgs began the year ranked 421st in the world, a far cry from his peak of 91st in 2021. He had played his way off the PGA Tour and back onto the Korn Ferry Tour. Worse yet, he had toiled through the spring without much to show for it.

Higgs missed four straight cuts and followed them with T43 and T50 finishes before arriving at the Kansas City stop on the schedule. That’s when his best golf showed up and he found himself in contention. He had crafted a simple and effective process for this on-course play that week that really narrowed his focus, and he explained it on a recent episode of the No Laying Up Podcast.

“I did feel it coming,” Higgs told host Chris Solomon. “I just remember walking to the 1st tee on Thursday being like ‘Oh, s—.’ Ready to win. Ready to compete to win this tournament.

“In that, okay, so let’s focus on a handful of things that aren’t that. Let’s not just constantly walk around saying I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win. Let’s focus on how I’m gonna give myself the best chance to win.” 

That HOW was Higgs’ process. From his retelling, it came in four parts, which we have listed below and synthesized slightly. 

1. Don’t hit a shot without a clear intent.

Simply, know what exactly you’re trying to do with the ball.

2. Don’t hit a shot without a rehearsal to match that intent.

Practice exactly that intention in the form of movement. A deliberate practice swing!

3. Accept the result, post-shot.

Whatever happens, happens. Move forward and accept it. 

4. Walk with your head held high. 

Through that acceptance, feel confidence in your game and how it is projecting. Walk with that confidence. 

“I would just check in my yardage book — yep, do it, walk, look again, yep, do it, walk — and I did it for four days,” Higgs continued. “I had a whole lot of luck to win that golf tournament. I teed off the 72nd hole in fourth place. And wound up winning. Obviously the next week, well, might as well do the same thing.”

News

Harry Higgs delivered 2 shocking victories. Then came a touching speech

By: Dylan Dethier

Those who followed Higgs’ run this summer know what came next. He teed it up a week later in Knoxville, Tennessee, stuck to the same process, and won again. Of course, he admitted, it was a lot easier to stick to that process the second week when it had delivered a victory the week prior. Naturally. But he did it in a playoff, too, a situation he is none too keen for, particularly when he’d surrendered a lead to enter that playoff to begin with. 

But that’s where the back half of his process really kicked in. Higgs could have sulked or pouted as he walked between shots, playing the same par-5 over and over until he won. But he had reached a level of acceptance that wasn’t going to allow poor shots impact what remained of the tournament. 

“I was totally at peace with whether I won or lost this golf tournament,” he said. 

You can listen to Higgs break down his process, mental health on Tour, his thoughts on the future of the PGA Tour and much more in the podcast below.

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The post Joel Dahmen, Harry Higgs break down famous WM Phoenix Open celebration appeared first on Golf.

The post Joel Dahmen, Harry Higgs break down famous WM Phoenix Open celebration appeared first on Golf.

The WM Phoenix Open is always a party. When the PGA Tour visits the desert each February, things always get wild. With over 700,000 fans on the grounds throughout the week, it has the feel of a football game more than a golf tournament.

That raucous atmosphere is cranked up to a 10 at the famous 16th hole. The par-3 features a stadium buildout encircling the entire hole, filled to the brim with boozed-up fans. There is truly nothing else like it in golf.

When fan favorites Joel Dahmen and Harry Higgs arrived at the hole on Sunday of the 2022 WM Phoenix Open, fans were ready for some debauchery. The night before, Dahmen sent out a tweet promising Higgs would take off his shirt on the hole if the post got enough retweets.

They weren’t disappointed.

After rolling in a par putt on the tourney’s final day, Higgs lifted his shirt and flashed the crowd. The fans lost their minds, and the moment soon went viral. And, not to be outdone by his playing partner, Dahmen pulled a stunt of his own.

“I did it and grabbed my ball out of the hole,” Higgs said on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar. “And I turned around and Joel did not have at least half of his clothing on. So that even upped the level of excitement.

“And then at that point, we looked up and saw a couple hundred beer cans flying at us and it was like, Oh s***, we gotta get out of here.”

Only at the Phoenix Open.

Check out the entire episode of Subpar below as Dahmen and Higgs talk about Keith Mitchell’s on-course fashion, the Tito’s Shorties Classic and more.

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The post After ‘miserable’ golf stretch, Harry Higgs is making some changes appeared first on Golf.

The post After ‘miserable’ golf stretch, Harry Higgs is making some changes appeared first on Golf.

TORONTO — Good vibes have returned to the Canadian Open, but we should have expected that. This is the place of Canada Nice, and it totally lives up to the hype. 

Rory McIlroy seems to be feeling great again, taking just 67 second-round strokes to help him back into contention after what has been an impossibly weird week. We are at the only Tour stop that would chant Corey Conners’ name to the tune of Olé, but that is exactly what’s happening when he’s one back after 36 holes. 

Cor-eh, 

Cor-eh-Cor-eh-Cor-eh, 

Cor-ehhh,

Cor-ehhh

But if you were looking for the best vibes on site at Oakdale Golf and Country Club, you needed a credential and a byline. They came in an area we call Quick Quotes, where players get interviewed after their rounds, when Harry Higgs rolled in fresh off a 66. He wasn’t just excited. He was relieved. He said he was thrilled to be playing golf like himself, and “not like someone impersonating Harry Higgs.” 

What did that mean? 

“I feel really light and really airy right now. That’s a nice thing,” he said. ”I haven’t done it in probably over a year.”

Higgs has been on an unenviable journey. The typically jolly competitor known for unbuttoning a deep V into his polos has just one top 10 in his last 45 Tour events dating back to fall 2021. He’s spent the last 18 months missing more cuts than he’s made. He arrived in Canada riding a four-week missed cut streak, battling a two-way miss. When he was reminded of it in Quick Quotes, he was plenty candid: “Sure,” he said. “I have not played good golf at all.” 

It can be a lonely place, this golf world. Tour pros seemed to band together this week, but most struggles are not shared. The individual nature of this sport is felt strongest when the golf isn’t good. Phrasing turns from “we,” inclusive of the caddie, to a much lonelier “I”. Every pro holds himself to a standard higher than he’s probably capable of achieving. For instance, Scottie Scheffler isn’t content unless he’s holding a trophy. 

As for Higgs? There’s been a technical issue in his swing. He described it as his arms needing to lead; to be in front of him. When he doesn’t do this, his arms feel “stuck behind”, leading to a right miss. (Though he’ll take a right miss over a two-way miss any day.) It works on the driving range, but not nearly as much on the course. Have you heard that before? Life on the PGA Tour became like work for Higgs, he said, a lot quicker than he hoped it would. Hitting bad shots in front of people — be it hundreds or just a dozen — was something he had to get used to. It’s part of pro golf. How do you handle it? Whatever the answer, Higgs hadn’t found it. Frustration multiplied. A vicious cycle. 

 “I have been pretty miserable on the golf course for probably a year plus,” he said. “Like I was just tired of it. So it shouldn’t have lasted a year. It should last a week. I allowed it to last a year.”

And yet, he somehow felt like good golf was coming. Why? Baby steps. The benefits of a four-week missed-cut streak are few and vague, but the clearest one is a resetting of expectations. Higgs says he’s able to swing with his arms in front of him about 50 percent of the time now; some days it’s more, other days it’s less. On Thursday, he says he made one perfect swing that felt the way he intended. Then, on Friday, maybe 10 or 12 of those swings, a handful of birdies and zero bogeys. On Saturday, he hopes for more than 10 or 12.

“Today was the first day in a long time where people were screaming and yelling at me. Encouraging me. And that I looked up,” Higgs said. “It was certainly easier because I was playing a very nice round of golf. But it shouldn’t, that shouldn’t matter. I should be able to look up and appreciate that there are people that root for me. Sometimes they say some pretty stupid stuff, but even when they say stupid stuff — look up, smile, wave, that’s just a way to enjoy it.”

The Higgs we watch in contention this weekend (and elsewhere in the future) might be most purposeful in that exact sense. Of taking time to smell the roses. To relish that what he does is both “the greatest game” and also “the most miserable as well,” as he said Friday. Just because it earned him praise in Round 2 doesn’t mean it couldn’t punch back in Round 3. Higgs is two shots back after 36 holes and is aware of that as ever.

“I thought I did a really good job of it the last two days,” Higgs said, “and there’s no guarantee that I’ll continue to do a great job of it … Whether I go out tomorrow and shoot a couple over and don’t hit any good shots. Like just find a way to enjoy it.”

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The post ‘I think about it often’: This may be Harry Higgs’ most honest admission yet appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I think about it often’: This may be Harry Higgs’ most honest admission yet appeared first on Golf.

It’s fitting that Harry Higgs is probably best known to casual golf fans for exposing his chest at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open, because, well, the guy is kind of an open book.

He has spoken freely about his affection for Tito’s and of “rooting” for his opponents to make bogeys. He has revealed that he was teased as a teen for carrying a few extra pounds. He has confessed to being “angry at the world” when his swing misbehaves. In sunglasses and his signature splayed-open polos, he looks less like a Tour pro than one of your weekend golf buddies. There’s an everyman relatability there — not only in how Higgs presents himself (yes, that’s a Dude Wipes logo on his shirt), but also in how he plays, because the game has not and does not always come easily to him.

After playing college golf at Southern Methodist University and turning professional in 2014, Higgs kicked around the wilds of the mini tours, playing two seasons on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica before earning Korn Ferry status in 2019. A year later, he was on the PGA Tour, where in his rookie season a pair of top-10 finishes helped land him in the top 60 on the FedEx points list. But he has been unable to build on that success, at least in terms of his FedEx rank. In 2020-21, he dropped to 66th and a year later to 147th. This season, playing with conditional status, Higgs has missed half of the cuts in his 16 starts with his sole top-10 finish coming at the opposite-field Puerto Rico Open. He’s been trying to scrape by with his “C, C-minus game,” he said.

This week, Higgs was in dreamy Puerto Vallerta for the Mexico Open. He stayed on site at the host resort, Vidanta (“entirely too nice for me,” Higgs joked), and enjoyed a discounted room rate. “If I had a family, which I do not, it would be definitely a great family week,” he said. (We’re employing the past tense because Higgs shot 70-75 to miss the cut by five Friday and we don’t know if he’s still on property.) Higgs loved the course, too, a Greg Norman design called Vallarta. “The best turf conditions that I’ve seen in this now my fourth year on Tour,” he said.

Higgs knows the golf scene around these parts from his days on the Latinoamerica circuit. Earlier this week he shared fond memories of trying to navigate the culture and language, of feasting on lomo saltado (beef stir fry) after winning in Peru and of carrying around wads of cash to compensate the local loopers who carried his bag in tournaments. “The caddies were almost more into the result than I was,” he said. “Sometimes you’d have to, Hey, man, calm down, it’s just Thursday, we’re going to be OK. I got off to not a great start but trust me, I am good at this, I’ll show you here hopefully in the next few days.”

When asked Wednesday what advice he’d give to Latinoamerica pros who are trying to find their way, Higgs said: “You have to bet on yourself, you have to invest in yourself. You have to spend money on comfort and convenience. Playing at that level, which I’ve done, there is not a whole lot of disposable income to spend on comfort and convenience, but when you can, do it. Then I had the most success in year two out there when I almost found joy and pleasure in the adversity, just the random things that may happen that might throw other guys off but you find a way to deal with it. Oh, heck, just shrug it off, right? It’s hard, it’s very difficult. It happens everywhere again in every profession, but those that are going to be the most successful will find ways to deal and kind of work through that adversity.”

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'Spiral upwards': Struggling pro explains mindset that helped him shoot 62

By: Dylan Dethier

Higgs didn’t have to provide such a thoughtful answer, but that’s how he rolls. He’s a talker, a schmoozer. He’s naturally generous with insights, stories, opinions. He conveys a no-worries, life-of-the-party vibe but, in truth, there are worries. Like so many of his fellow pros, Higgs is fighting to make cuts and cover his costs and stay relevant — all while fighting the urge to get too comfortable on Tour.

And it’s on that last point where Higgs’ reflections this week got really interesting.

And really honest, even by his candid standards.

“It was almost in a way more enjoyable, more romantic, the chase, right?” Higgs said of his days of trying to make ends meet on the mini tours. “Oh, man, I’ve just got to get better and work my way. Opportunities are hard to come by especially at that level, you’ve got to earn them, be given them and then when you have them, you have to take them. Out here [on the PGA Tour] you get real used to courtesy cars, the fancy hotels, player dining is just fantastic.

“Now, I can find ways to make up complaints versus playing the PGA Tour Latinoamerica — we hardly ever had player dining and if we did we had to pay for it. We didn’t have courtesy cars, we were stuffing three or four guys and three or four golf bags into little tiny sedans and driving an hour from the airport out to the golf course, the hotel we were staying at, but there was kind of — it was fun. It was miserable, but it was fun.

“It’s something that I think about quite often. It’s different now and it will forever be different, but I need to find a way to have that enjoyment that I had before in the chase and trying to get here and not get — you know, you don’t want to get — gosh, the word’s kind of eluding me, but you don’t want to get complacent. You don’t want to get out here and [think] Oh, wow, this is enjoyable.”

Maybe you can’t relate to Higgs’ conundrum, but maybe you can. Maybe you, too, have arrived at a point in your career where things feel comfortable, where the pressure to perform and prove yourself relents. Golf is no different than any other profession. When things get easy — when you have your pick of ball brands on the range, when tournaments charter jets for you, when you can make nearly half-a-million dollars for a T13 finish — you can lose your burn, your edge. It’s a barrier surely many pros knock up against, though few would be willing to publicly admit it.

None of this is to say that Higgs isn’t striving to excel on Tour — he just feels a sense of wistfulness about his former life. He’s sentimental. He misses the grind, and how it drove him.

None of this is to say that Higgs isn’t enjoying himself in the big leagues. He is, immensely. It’s just that sometimes he needs to grab himself by the collar and remind himself of how good he has it.

Higgs’ has his younger brother, Alex, on the bag. Every so often he’ll saddle up to Alex in the middle of a round and say something like, “Holy cow, I’m on the PGA Tour, this is really cool.”

Those moments are intentional.

“I’m making it a point to say it aloud to him and now his response is like, yeah, man, you’ve been out here for a while now, too, right?” Higgs said. “Just to find that little bit of enjoyment versus [when] I was just thrilled to have a 72-hole golf tournament that I was playing when we were playing the PGA Tour Latinoamerica, because in and amongst playing those more developmental tours, you’re trying to Monday qualify and do all that stuff. And that’s not really tournament golf, that’s just organized gambling in a way.

“Yeah, I’m trying to always continue to find the enjoyment in playing out here. It’s not that I do not enjoy it because I certainly do. I take great pleasure in the opportunity to beat the best players in the world every week that I get into a tournament, but just those little things throughout a day I need to continue to find ways to enjoy them more.”

Good advice for us all. Smell the roses.

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The post Popular pro has concerns over Tour moves. He also blasted golf broadcasts appeared first on Golf.

The post Popular pro has concerns over Tour moves. He also blasted golf broadcasts appeared first on Golf.

Harry Higgs, one of the PGA Tour’s more popular players, is concerned over recent moves made by the tour in its fight against LIV Golf, describing a scenario where “there is no way that there is anything other than a 20-event PGA Tour schedule starting probably year 2031.”

Over an hour-plus-long appearance last week on the No Laying Up podcast — which you can listen to in full here — Higgs also had worries over whether the Tour and its broadcast partners can tell “the right stories often enough and in a way in which will continue to generate revenue.”

“I think the Tour is doing a better job,” he said. “I think our broadcast partners do an absolute s**t job of doing it.”

Higgs’ comments came on the heels of a host of changes made by the Tour and go in effect next month. In short, 20 players will be defined as “top players;” the device in which the Tour will define those players will be the Player Impact Program, and it will receive a $100 million purse to reward those players; and the 20 players will play in 12 so-called “elevated events” — with purses that have increased to between $15 million and $20 million — the four majors, the Players Championship and three other tournaments, for a 20-event schedule. 

It’s the latter changes that are raising some questions with Higgs. If the elevated events “hit,” he said on the podcast, all is well. Higgs then dove into what he thought if they didn’t. 

It came in response to a question by podcast host Chris Solomon on what Higgs meant by ‘hitting.’

“Basically those events need to generate a s**t ton of revenue to offset the cost of pumping money into purses, pumping money into bonuses,” said Higgs, who last season lost his Tour card, but will still play in some events. “If those events generate a ton of revenue, more than what we are putting into every pool, with purses, bonuses, all this stuff, all the money that is being shelled out, then we’re cool, we’re fine. We’re going to be just great. Every event is going to continue to run.”

And if they don’t ‘hit?’ Higgs believed the Tour would consolidate its money into just the aforementioned 20 events.

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By: Nick Piastowski

“If they don’t generate the revenue we think, or we’re hoping, then there is no way that there is anything other than a 20-event PGA Tour schedule starting probably year 2031,” he said on the podcast. “And then the rest of the events kind of, I would imagine, mix in with European Tour and Korn Ferry Tour, and there’s some kind of hybrid tour that’s just underneath that that feeds X amount of players into the big tour every year. And whatever number that may be, who knows.”

Still, Higgs believed the Tour needed to adjust. The moves have come in a rapid response to Saudi-backed LIV Golf, who has signed multiple Tour players to guaranteed-money contracts, and this year played eight events, all with no cuts, 48-player fields and $20 million purses. 

For the Tour’s part, their commissioner, Jay Monahan, explained the additional funding for the changes this way, back when they were announced in full in late August:

“The money comes from three sources,” he said. “One, I would say for 2020, this year that we’re in, the Tour is having its strongest year in the history of the PGA Tour and is performing well ahead of budget.

News

How is PGA Tour finding more money to fight LIV? Jay Monahan gave an idea.

By: Nick Piastowski

“Secondly, as you’ve heard me talk about before, the Tour through the years has been very prudent in managing its finances and building reserves and being in a position to be able to invest in programs that are going to help the Tour grow. That’s what they’re there for, and that’s what we’ll continue to use them for.

“I would say additionally, our partners, our sponsors and all of our partners who want to get behind and are getting behind the direction that we’re going in, want to be a part of the continued growth and evolution of the Tour. They recognize that with the changes we’re talking about today, the changes that we’ve made prior to today, and the direction we’re heading in, we’re going to be creating more value.

“When you create more value, you’re going to get more income coming into the business.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. In reference to the strong year, a large chunk of the money has likely come from the Tour’s new media rights deals, which went into effect on Jan. 1 and are worth billions through the end of the decade. The reserves, meanwhile, were not directly addressed, but they were in March; at the Players Championship, Monahan said that account was at $225 million, down from $300 million prior to the pandemic. 

Monahan’s third point — the partners and sponsors — is notable. What those conversations were like is unknown, but they’ll help fund nonetheless. For now. 

But back to ‘hitting.’ On the podcast, Higgs believed it was more than on the players to do so.  

And he went into a critique on golf broadcasts. 

News

Report: NBC Golf makes broadcast additions to replace long-time voices

By: James Colgan

“I want to be kind in the way that I say this because I have played on Tour for now this is my fourth year, I see the amount of work that goes into showing us play golf, and it is ridiculous,” Higgs said on the podcast. “And I really, really appreciate all the work that they all go through to do that. But at the end of the day, they do a s**t, s**t job of telling the story of what’s going on. 

“So if we got a … elevated schedule and the lesser ones are not elevated, but if you play good golf in those, you can get into the elevated ones, that’s awesome. That’s something I’m sure you would watch, I’m sure almost every listener would love to watch and follow along. But they make it too f***ing hard to follow along. I don’t trust them to tell the story the way that it should be. I cannot wait to watch — I hope I’m not playing in it — I cannot wait to watch Q School next year. To just see the difference in like the top five guys — the top five finishers get to the PGA Tour. That adds a zero to every check that they make for the next year. It’s a f***ing zero. It adds a zero. And I don’t trust any of them to portray to me in the appropriate way to captivate me to stay and watch for four days. I just don’t trust them to tell the story the way that it should be. 

“And I think they have a lot of great people that can, they just don’t do it, or maybe they don’t have enough time, I don’t know.”

Higgs then offered specific suggestions. 

“Well, it’s like, I didn’t particularly care to turn on my TV and listen to Nick Faldo,” he said on the podcast. [Faldo, CBS’ main analyst, retired from broadcasting this and has been replaced by Trevor Immelman.] “I don’t really know him that well. I’m sure he’s a decent guy. I didn’t particularly care. The reason I didn’t particularly care is I never saw the man. Like, he’s there Wednesday to Sunday. Just come out on the driving range. Now whether people talk to you or not, who knows. But listen to what’s going on. Trevor Immelman is taking his place — I see the man everywhere.” 

“Everywhere, yep,” Solomon said. 

“Everywhere. I think he’s going to do a great job,” Higgs said. “Colt [Knost, a CBS analyst], obviously he’s easy. Colt is everywhere. And Colt has the relationship with a lot of the current top-level guys. And even some of the not-so top-level guys. He has a relationship with them. It’s going to be easy for him to tell the story. 

“Now when it comes to n**-cutting time and the story needs to be told, everybody needs to stop talking and let Colt talk. Because he’s the one that has the story. Just stop. Just stop talking. We’re going to listen to Colt for an hour, for the end, because Harry is about to win, and Colt knows him really well. Or whomever it may be. 

“Any time one of those Presidents Cup guys from the International team is about to win this next year, Immelman should be the only one talking for an hour. Because he has all the detail. He spent two years cultivating relationships with those guys. And then a very, very spirited week with them. He knows those guys. Everybody stop talking. Let’s listen to Trevor.” 

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Harry Higgs’ fun personality has been winning hearts on the PGA Tour for well over two years.

First, he broke the internet with his take on the viral “Dreams Challenge.” Then he stripped off his shirt on the 16th green at the WM Phoenix Open. His wit and candor have earned him a legion of fans, and his raw, reflective honesty about his recent struggles made him even more relatable.

That’s why, especially lately, when Higgs speaks, we listen. And his post-round comments at this week’s RSM Classic, where he shares the 36-hole lead with Cole Hammer and Andrew Putnam, were no exception.

Higgs gamely elaborated on a number of topics, including his gratitude for fellow pro Keith Mitchell, whom he credits with getting him in to the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico, which Higgs pegs as the start of his game’s renaissance.

“Truly, a friend like that reaching out, getting me into that event, I feel like it’s really close to having changed my career,” Higgs said. “Just what I learned there about myself, what I put into play, how I executed it has led me to now this point through two days. Hopefully you fast forward another couple days and it’s a win that obviously changes my life and my career.”

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‘Lord knows why’: Popular pro Harry Higgs opens up on lengthy spiral

By: Nick Piastowski

After firing a round of seven-under 63 on Friday, Higgs is in a similar position to what he experienced a few weeks ago: low second round, in the hunt, with two rounds left to play.

In Mexico, Higgs followed a 62 with 69 and 71 to finish T32. What did he learn about how to follow up a low round? Plenty, as it turns out.

“I thought I did a really good job in Mexico,” Higgs said. “I had a couple — Saturday and Sunday I had a couple mud balls and then just didn’t quite get as comfortable as I was even Thursday and Friday on a few tee shots. But I really felt like I handled it well. I didn’t start, as I’ve talked before, kind of crying and whining that things aren’t going my way and I’m hitting poor shots. No one cares if you’re hitting poor shots really other than me, my family and my brother who’s my caddie, right? There’s no need to just scream and yell and be audible with it. You can hit poor shots, it’s OK.”

According to Higgs, his main takeaway was the importance of being patient, and resisting the urge to push or speed up.

“I did a very good job of being patient,” he said. “I didn’t do an awesome job throughout the weekend on every shot, which you’re never probably going to do it on every shot of getting comfortable and basically just telling myself this is what I want to have happen. So in that, that would be the goal for the next two days. Stay patient, for sure, which always gets harder and harder and harder.

“The better you do, the harder it is,” he continued. “I felt like I was getting a little impatient to finish out the back nine today even, but stay patient and then just go ahead and take — I don’t want to take too long, but take just another little half second. OK, this is what I’m going to make this golf ball do. So again, in the long-winded way that I like to describe things, that would be what I learned and what I’ll take into the next couple days.”

Tour pros: What works for them can work for us recreational players too.

You can watch Higgs in the third round starting at 1 p.m. ET on Golf Channel.

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When you think of Harry Higgs, what do you see?

It was just nine months ago that Higgs was at the center of one of the PGA Tour’s most iconic scenes of 2022. Playing at the center of the pandemonium that is No. 16 at TPC Scottsdale, Higgs poured in a birdie putt and then, egged on by the delighted crowd, took his shirt over his head. He was followed swiftly by playing partner Joel Dahmen, creating perhaps the first bare-chested twosome in PGA Tour history. Higgs ran across the green and two-stepped into a jumping fist-pump, Michael Jordan-style. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. The crowd, tens of thousands strong, roared in approval. The People’s Open has found its People’s Golfer.

The months that followed have been decidedly lonelier.

Higgs is well aware of his image (“I’m too self-aware,” he admitted Friday); the gregarious 30-year-old has amassed a cult following as a jovial man of the people who buttons as few buttons as possible and keeps a glass of Tito’s at easy reach. His provocative deep-Vs serve as metaphor: Life — and golf — is meant to be enjoyed. Let it breathe.

But Higgs is also well aware of the realities of the PGA Tour. The realities of stroke-play golf. If you’re off — even just a little bit — there are dozens of pros waiting to pass you by.

Higgs said he “had a blast” on Friday at the World Wide Technologies Championship. That makes sense; he shot the best score of the day, a nine-under 62 that featured seven birdies, an eagle and plenty of characteristic Higgs grins. He finished the round with a daring effort from the fairway bunker at No. 9— “probably a bunker shot I shouldn’t have tried, a big ol’ high slice,” he said — that skittered to a stop just a couple feet from the hole. Every round is better with a kick-in birdie at the last.

But 2022 hasn’t been easy for Higgs. He’s had just two finishes better than T36: a T11 at the off-field Barracuda Championship and a T14 at the Masters. He finished the PGA Tour season by missing four of his last six cuts to finish No. 130 in the FedEx Cup and lose his fully exempt status. He went to Korn Ferry Finals but missed three cuts there, too. And in three starts on the PGA Tour season he’s missed three cuts, too.

All of which means Higgs came into this week’s sponsor’s exemption at Mayakoba with a lot on his mind and extra pressure on his plate. He opened with a pedestrian round of 1-under 70. And then came the 62 that vaulted him well inside the top 10. Where has that been?

“I mean, all over the place,” Higgs said when he opened up to reporters afterwards. “Like, I have had a lot of poor days and some consecutive poor days, and then I’ve also had — not as many as I would like — but I’ve had some days that were great where I had full control, I was making good decisions, I was kind of, as we all say, getting out of my own way.”

Higgs said those goods days were few and far between; perhaps two or three rounds per month. That’s not enough. He’s keenly aware. He’s been pressing to find more.

“For the last probably five, four, five, six months, I show up, I’m preparing the same way, I’m probably borderline working too hard and too much at home and here,” he said. “A few too many times, actually, sorry, almost all the time I go on the first tee for a competitive round and I don’t really know what’s going to happen, which is a really not fun place to be.”

That’s one of the toughest battles a struggling pro faces: the vicious cycle. The downward spiral. Higgs described where his attitude could improve: “I have to be careful when I hit a poor shot or make a bad decision to not react as poorly as I have been because that spirals me straight down,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve acted so poorly for so long at shots that were not even really that bad, like, I don’t have a chance to gain that certainty and gain that confidence, right?”

In other words, when things start poorly they tend to get even worse. But on Friday Higgs channeled the inverse, something he used to pride himself on: the upward spiral.

“I allowed myself to, as I would say, spiral upwards to continuously start to feel more and more comfortable with good decision-making, like, thinking through shots and where to miss, good club selection, and good visualization before I hit it, but then also just trust.”

Higgs’ golf swing doesn’t feel perfect. He knows it probably won’t. “But clearly that doesn’t really matter,” he admitted. “If I can continue tomorrow to spiral upwards and feel more and more comfortable and more and more certain in what I’m doing, then I love my chances, right?”

For sure. Any day a pro shoots 62, it’s hard to poke holes in his game. Higgs acknowledged that it will only get tougher from here; there’s a lot of pressure on him to stay in contention for two more rounds. “I have a lot to play for,” he said, acknowledging his limited status. But he also recognized that Friday’s round was worth celebrating. That making his first cut since early August was no small victory.

Higgs’ brother Alex is his caddie, which means he’s seen Higgs as his most jubilant and most despondent. He liked what he saw on Friday.

“He said he saw something different in me today. He said he’s kind of unlocked it, right? So I’m going to go sit and have lunch and hear what he has to say about it,” Higgs said. “Yeah — coach, girlfriend, everybody’s got a hand in dealing with this. Mom, Dad, we all have teams. I hate everybody saying “the team,” but it certainly is a team effort. So there will be some phone calls and conversations about how we continue to do this.”

In other words, Higgs was set up for a satisfied afternoon.

“It will make lunch — and then I’ll probably go sit down by the beach a little bit — it will make that much more enjoyable,” he said.

And then he’ll try to do it again.

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Kailee Kuehn’s birthday was Thursday. And if you’re wondering about her boyfriend, here’s how he broke up, mid-thought, a plunge into how he’s fallen off the golf map. 

“I would be remiss if I didn’t — my girlfriend’s 30th birthday is today, too, so we just spent two and a half minutes trying to dive deep and it’s probably because it’s her 30th birthday and I’m missing it is why I shot seven-under and I didn’t make a bogey today,” Harry Higgs said. “We’ll give her all the praise.”

You know Higgs, maybe in more ways than one. He’s the shirt guy. And the shirtless guy. Higgs goes for the deeeeep V with his polo buttons, though we saw more than a peek of chest back in February, when, after a talk with friend and fellow pro Joel Dahmen, he flipped his top over his head, to the delight of the raucous 16th hole at the Waste Management Open. He’s the fun guy. Of course, there’s more. 

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By: Dylan Dethier

Higgs can swing it. He’s won on the Korn Ferry and Latinoamerica tours. He tied for fourth at ‘21 PGA Championship. Two months after the flash, he tied for 14th at the Masters. But you can tell by the tone here where things are going. 

Though even he can’t figure out exactly how he went from that finish at Augusta, to missing 10 out of his next 14 cuts. He lost his Tour card, too.

“Yeah, I legitimately have not played good golf since the Masters in April, and Lord knows why,” Higgs said. 

He’s not without his theories, though, and on Thursday, after an encouraging seven-under 64 during the Bermuda Championship first round, he opened up on it all. A day later, Higgs shot a 75 and missed the weekend cut, but you could be right in thinking bottom may have already been hit. 

Physically, Higgs says he has a left miss, but if he’s being honest, this is a mental thing. It’s layered, though. 

“Well, actually, one of the definites is I was way too hard on myself,” Higgs said. “Still wasn’t playing my best, but just had a poor enough attitude that, you know, with making the cut by a shot or two and then having a chance to get better over the weekend to kind of break out of the slump, I just didn’t have a good enough attitude to — it would cost me a shot or two and I’d miss out by one or two. and then the last couple months I wasn’t really even close. So today was nice to see successful golf shots, kind of not be shocked when I look up like, oh, wow the ball’s nowhere near where I was thinking.

News

Did Harry Higgs legend grow? Pro chips in — as fan taunts him with drink, he says

By: Nick Piastowski

“No, none of us think that [not playing well after the Masters]. You’re riding real high, especially after playing great in a major. None of us ever think that that’s going to stop. But kind of also throughout my career, I’ve had a little bit of a difficult time dealing with successes. Like if you go back and see kind of some of my best results, usually follow with some poor ones and then I shake myself out of it a lot sooner than I have done up until this point.

“So just ever learning, ever trying to figure out how to deal with success. Also figure out how to deal with failure. I’ve been home on a lot of weekends since April and that’s just not any fun, it really isn’t. You complain, you’re tired, we’re on the road a lot. Well, I really wasn’t on the road a whole lot; I was there for four or five days and then back home, regroup.

“I certainly worked my tail off to try to get out of it, and I’m looking forward to testing it.”

A reporter then asked: “Why do you feel like you’ve had struggles dealing with success, successes?”

Higgs became more reflective. 

“I have had — I guess you just kind of relax in a way,” he said. “Not relax in it like I don’t put the same amount of work in, it’s just kind of relax and assume that I played great last week, I’m going to play great again this week. And I do all the same things, but in a way I do them a bit more unfocused, a bit more in like the going through the motions phase. I mean, we all get caught doing that obviously. It’s obviously a very long year; we play a lot of golf tournaments. You literally do the same thing. You wake up and do the same thing every day pretty much. The only days that are different are Thursday to Sunday because you actually go out on the golf course and play golf with a scorecard in your back pocket, but everything else is so similar.

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“Also, just inherently I’m trying to focus a bit more as I’m just going through the motions, right? I’ll go have some lunch and I’ll go to the driving range and try to accomplish something with some focus. Then I will go home and probably take a nap and Lord knows what else after that.

“But yeah, in a long-winded way to say it, you get going through the motions and you kind of feel like, OK. I’ve had some great weeks in some really big tournaments as well, so you start to think, well, shoot, compare the PGA finish from a couple years ago and then I show up to Colonial the week after, it’s like well, of course I’m going to play good. Then you don’t.

“And then also, because I think that way, I’m not as accepting of a result or two that may not be in my favor. So you get going down the bad attitude part, too. Going through the motions and bad attitude is not a good mix. I feel like I did a pretty good job today of not going through the motions, looking up and focusing on where I’m trying to hit a golf ball.

“And then I got a little angry for just a brief second, but after that it was pretty easy, but it was also pretty easy because I was doing good. I got to do a good job of not allowing myself to anger and get kind of down on myself when I make a bogey. I would like to not make a bogey for the rest of the week, but the chances are that I will make at least one bogey. …

“Yeah, it’s the ever back and forth, back and forth, no going through the motions, no doing anything without as much focus as you possibly can.”

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At this point, the interview was nearing its end, and the introspection was deep, along with potential solutions. Whether Higgs finds his way back, or the spiral is extended, is unknown. 

But the conversation ended this way. 

“What’s your girlfriend’s name?” the reporter asked. 

“Kailee Kuehn.”

“Happy birthday,” the reporter said. 

“Happy birthday, Kailee. Sorry I’m not there.”

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