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The PGA Tour announced Wednesday night it had updated its health and safety protocols, which will allow players who continue to test positive for Covid-19 but have met certain CDC guidelines to return to action.

For players and caddies who have tested positive for Covid-19 and were symptomatic, the Tour will follow a symptom-based model outlined by the CDC that allows them to return if they meet certain criteria: At least three days (72 hours) have passed since recovery (resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement in respiratory symptoms) and at least 10 days removed from when symptoms first appeared.

This move is in accordance with the CDC’s Return to Work guidelines. Studies have determined that the virus may no longer be present yet recovered players could still test positive, despite not being contagious. That’s been the case this week with Dylan Frittelli, Denny McCarthy and Nick Watney.

“Out of an abundance of caution” during tournaments, the Tour will put any player or caddie who continues to test positive but met the aforementioned criteria as a single or grouped with other players who tested positive. Frittelli, McCarthy and Watney have been grouped for the first two rounds of this week’s Workday Charity Open. Their first round is at 9:13 a.m. ET off the 10th tee.

The Tour’s initial policy called for a minimum 10-day self-isolation period, and last week it added a test-based model for asymptomatic cases, allowing players or caddie who had tested positive to return if they had not had any symptoms and had two negative tests a minimum of 24 hours apart.

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The coronavirus does not have a bias. 

Sergio Garcia does. The coronavirus shouldn’t have chosen Nick Watney. 

On Friday, Watney became the first PGA Tour player to test positive for Covid-19. Three days earlier, Sergio Garcia welcomed Nick Watney on his private jet, and they traveled from Austin, Texas, to Hilton Head, S.C., site of this week’s RBC Heritage. They are good friends, and Garcia said Saturday his good friend was a bad pick.

“I felt terrible for Nick because he’s probably one of the nicest guys on Tour,” Garcia said. “Unfortunately, it had to happen to him. So there’s a lot of other people that probably deserved it a lot more than him, and he’s the one that got it.”

For a few hours on Friday, Garcia said he was worried he would too. 

News

Garcia and Watney had tested negative after arriving at Harbour Town Golf Links. Both played their first rounds on Thursday. Friday morning, Watney began experiencing symptoms and was tested again. The 11 people the Tour determined Watney came in contact with were too. 

They tested negative. 

“It was about 4½  hours of waiting, very anxiously, hoping that it was negative because, obviously, after missing the cut last week by one and this week finally playing nicely in the second round and being in the middle of the pack, if I would have given positive, then I wouldn’t be able to play on the weekend, and I would have been very, very disappointed,” Garcia said. 

After learning of his positive test, Watney was forced to withdraw, and he will have to quarantine for at least 10 days. Watney also texted Garcia. He called him. Garcia said Watney told him he was sorry about 25 times. 

Garcia said “it was all good.”

“Whatever it is, it is,” Garcia said. “Fortunately for me, it was fine. Hopefully, his is not bad, and we can have him back as soon as possible.”

Garcia was also impressed that Watney tested again. 

Fitness

Garcia said Watney told him Saturday morning that he was feeling fine. He did not have a fever. He did not have a cough. But his Whoop band had told him he was breathing unusually while he was sleeping, and he went to get tested again. 

“If he would have not had that Whoop or whatever you call it, he would have played, and nobody would have noticed,” Garcia said. “Nobody would have known. But Nick is – it shows the kind of person he is. He saw that something was a little bit off. He commented. He talked to the doctor, and a lot of other people probably would have just kind of gone on without even thinking about it, but he was worried about not only himself, but all of us, and he got out and tested. That shows a lot to me from him.”

What if Watney had not been wearing his band?

“Unfortunately, that’s the way it is,” Garcia said. “I feel terrible about it. But unfortunately, it’s the way it is, and we all knew coming out here and playing that there’s a possibility of catching it some way. We’re hoping that no one gets it, but I’m sure that, unfortunately, he won’t be the first and he won’t be the last because there’s a lot of things that can happen. There’s so many unknowns about this virus that we don’t – we think we know a lot about it, but there’s a lot of things we don’t know.”

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On Friday, Nick Watney became the first PGA Tour player to test positive for coronavirus.

On Saturday, the PGA Tour announced that the 11 people who came in close contact with him tested negative.

Watney’s diagnosis triggered the Tour’s safety protocol, which meant contact tracing to find out who Watney might have come into close contact with while he was traveling to and playing at Harbour Town in Hilton Head, S.C. That list includes his caddie, Joe Navarro; playing partners Vaughn Taylor and Luke List; their caddies; and Sergio Garcia, who flew with Watney to the event. In all, the Tour tracked down 11 people to re-test for coronavirus.

While Watney was forced to withdraw from the RBC Heritage, everyone who came into contact with him was able to continue on to the third round, including McIlroy, who revealed after his round that Watney’s WHOOP band is what tipped him off that he might be sick.

According to McIlroy, who had a brief discussion with Watney on the practice green prior to the second round, Watney told him that his WHOOP had picked up some unusual breathing activity while he was sleeping.

“Nick said the thing that got him yesterday morning was he wears a WHOOP strap,” McIlroy said. “A lot of us, we wear these WHOOP straps on the wrist or on the biceps. One of the big telltale signs that they’ve found over the last few weeks they’ve done studies where, if your respiratory rate goes up during the night by more than two breaths per minute, that’s sort of a tell tale sign that you might have something.”

According to WHOOP’s website, a “Red Recovery” signals that a user’s body is run down, which could mean that they are getting sick. While WHOOP can’t predict what illness a user is coming down with, the company has seen “WHOOP data predict that an individual has sickness or illness before they feel symptoms.”

While it’s impossible to know exactly what Watney’s WHOOP strap told him, it at least appears to have tipped him off that something was wrong. That information, combined with whatever symptoms he may have been feeling, is likely what spurred him to consult with medical professionals on site, get tested and WD from the event. It’s also what likely helped prevent Watney from spreading the virus to others on site.

Watney will now go through the safety protocol established by the Tour and self-isolate for at least 10 days.

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Starting with last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge, the PGA Tour is going to play 25 events in 24 cities through the Masters in mid-November. Hundreds of players, caddies and tournament personnel are going to be involved.     

Someone was going to get the coronavirus, Rory McIlroy said. 

“Look, by the end of the year, there’s going to be 200,000 deaths in the U.S. alone from Covid-19,” McIlroy said. “So to think that us on the PGA Tour, none of us were going to get it was very – I don’t think anyone thought that. I think the consensus was someone is going to get it at some point.”

On Friday, during the second round of the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C., Nick Watney became the first PGA Tour player to test positive.

That “someone,” the PGA Tour hopes, won’t turn into everyone.  

Before the Tour ended its three-month coronavirus hiatus at last week’s Challenge, it developed a testing plan. It developed a “bubble” plan. 

It developed a plan should someone test positive.  

“The whole plan put in place was, not if, but when somebody tests positive, what’s the protocol, and what are the next steps?” Jordan Spieth said Friday. “So I feel confident, just in being on those phone calls, in what the PGA Tour’s going to do going forward here, and hopefully contact tracing doesn’t lead to anybody else testing positive within the bubble.”

A look at what happened, what’s in place and what’s next

What happened?

After missing the cut at last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge, Nick Watney traveled from Fort Worth, Texas, to Hilton Head, S.C., for this week’s PGA Tour tournament, the RBC Heritage. When he arrived, he was tested for the coronavirus, and a few hours later, he found out he tested negative. On Wednesday, he played a practice round at Harbour Town Golf Links, and Thursday, he played the first round with Luke List and Vaughn Taylor. 

On Friday, Watney began to feel symptoms of the virus and was tested again, then went to the course. He came near Brooks Koepka, the world’s fourth-ranked player, in the parking lot. He talked with Rory McIlroy, the world’s top-ranked player, on the putting green. 

Watney was eventually told the second test was positive. He was forced to withdraw from the tournament and will now undergo a 10-day quarantine. The tournament’s third round will still be played. 

What were the testing procedures for Watney?

Before the Charles Schwab Challenge, the Tour “strongly recommended” that players get tested before leaving their homes, though it wasn’t enforced. It is unknown if Watney took that test. 

At the Charles Schwab and RBC Heritage, Watney was to have immediately reported for testing. He was to have his daily temperature check and was to have to filled in a questionnaire regarding his current health and any potential exposure. He was also to be observed for symptoms.

From there, Watney was to have headed to a Covid-19 testing area, where he was to have received a nasopharyngeal swab — a 6-inch-long Q-tip – that was to have been inserted into a cavity between the nose and mouth for 15 seconds. Watney was to have received his results in a few hours.

Every player at the Schwab and Heritage, including Watney, tested negative. 

Should Watney have taken the Tour’s tournament charter jet, he would have needed to have taken a Covid-19 saliva test after the third round.

Besides daily testing, the Tour says “any abnormal daily on-site medical screening will be reported to the tournament physician and PGA Tour medical advisor and will require a clinical evaluation in the tournament designated area. Medical personnel will assess the individual and determine appropriate action. This evaluation may include additional Covid-19 testing.”

According to a Tour release on Friday, Watney “indicated he had symptoms consistent with the illness and after consulting with a physician, was administered a test and found to be positive.”

What’s next for Watney?

Under the Tour’s Health and Safety Plan, Watney immediately withdrew from the tournament, and he will self-isolate for at least 10 days. He can end his quarantine after 10 days provided he has no subsequent symptoms or has two negative test results 24 hours apart or more.

The Tour will also provide Watney with a stipend for costs associated with the self-isolation.

He will not receive a paycheck this week. According to the Plan, “any player who competes in a tournament, makes the cut but is then unable to finish due to a Covid-19 positive test will receive last-place unofficial money.”

What is the bubble?

As part of the Tour’s return to play, it has created a controlled environment for those involved in the tournament. Players go to the tournament. Players go home. A “bubble.”

The Tour has recommended that players stay in a Tour-designated hotel, which “will be required to adhere to stringent safety and sanitization protocols.” The Tour said players could also stay in an RV, a rental home “with proper sanitization practices” or their own homes. It is unknown where Watney stayed. 

Food is also to be controlled. According to the Tour, players were to “pick up food at drive-throughs, curbside restaurant service or stores. Do not dine in restaurants if that is prohibited by state or local guidance.”

Had Watney gone to a restaurant in Hilton Head, he wouldn’t have been alone.

“South Carolina’s open,” Jordan Spieth said. “If you go anywhere to a restaurant, there’s a lot of people there right now.”  

What is contract tracing? 

Watney’s first-round playing partners, Luke List and Vaughn Taylor, their caddies and his caddie, Joe Navarro, were to be tested. The Tour will also attempt to find who else Watney came in contact during his time at the tournament.

The PGA Tour’s Participant Resource Guide is limited in describing how this will take place. 

“A disinfecting/decontaminating response will be implemented to ensure all possible items and surfaces touched by the infected individual are quickly cleaned,” the Guide says. “Contact tracing and enhanced evaluation of confirmed contacts will be performed by medical personnel.”

Will this tournament – and others – be played?

Saturday’s third round will go on as scheduled. 

In March, the Players Championship was canceled after the first round as the coronavirus spread. When the Tour’s Health and Safety Plan was revealed in mid-May, PGA Tour executive Andy Levinson was asked how many positive tests it would take to shut down again.  

“There is no specific number that we are focused on,” Levinson said. “When there is a positive test, there does have to be some contact tracing that takes place, which is why social distancing is so important. We haven’t identified a specific number, but obviously if it was a large number then we would have to evaluate the situation.”

What are the players saying?

Those interviewed after Friday’s second round believed the test was inevitable. 

Someone was going to test positive.

“Like someone was going to get it eventually,” Sebastian Munoz said. “There’s just too many – like this Island is just – I don’t know, there’s just too many people hanging around. It’s just a pandemic, you know. Like a lot of people get it, and eventually one of us was going to get it. I feel good that we caught it early with one guy so far. So hopefully, it doesn’t rise up pretty quick.”

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Rory McIlroy looked down at his phone. He had just completed his second round at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C. He had a text from Nick Watney. 

A few hours earlier Friday, he and Watney talked on the putting green at Harbour Town Golf Links. McIlroy was coming off a 1-over 72 and was teeing off at 1:05 p.m. off the first tee. Watney had shot a 3-over 74 and was going off at 12:21 p.m. off the 10th. 

Soon after, Watney learned that he was the PGA Tour golfer to test positive for Covid-19. 

His text said he wanted to tell McIlroy firsthand. His text said he was sorry. 

“He was just saying, look, I hope I didn’t get too close to you,” said McIlroy, the world’s top-ranked player. “He feels badly that he was here today at the golf course. I said, ‘Look, it’s fine. You never know.’ So I said to him, ‘If I was in your position, I probably would have been here, too. Look, at this point, you just have to concentrate on getting better and getting healthy.’

“But, yeah, look, it sucks for him especially. You know, if you contract it, that’s fine, but then it’s the fact that who have you come into contact with, and who you might have exposed and stuff. Look, we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. Until this thing’s over, we all just have to stay vigilant and keep your distance and wear our masks if we’re going out in public and keep washing our hands.”

Brooks Koepka teed off in the group ahead of McIlroy, at 12:54 p.m. on No. 1. He got to Harbour Town around the same time as Watney. He was right next to him in the parking lot. 

With a hole left in his round, Koepka heard about Watney from Daniel Berger, one of Koepka’s playing partners.

“We’ve got to see what happens,” said Koepka, the world’s fourth-ranked player. “Hopefully — it’s unfortunate Nick got it, but at the same time, hopefully, it stays with just him and doesn’t spread because I think we’ll have a big issue on our hands if it keeps going as the weeks continue.”

Luke List and Vaughn Taylor played the first round with Watney. List shot a 2-under 69 on Thursday, Taylor a 4-under 67. They were told shortly before their 12:21 tee time just that Watney had withdrawn from the tournament. 

They had heard just that he wasn’t feeling well. 

After their first nine, List and Taylor heard about Watney from a PGA Tour official. He had tested negative for Covid-19 when he arrived in Hilton Head, but felt symptoms on Friday and was retested.

“Yeah, it was hard to concentrate out there for me, just thinking about different stuff, and I wasn’t playing my best anyway,” said List, who shot a 2-over 73. “So it was a little – it would be nice if they had an option you can kind of say if you want to know or not in a situation like that. I would definitely like to find out after the round next time.”

Rules

List, Vaughn and their caddies were to undergo tests themselves. Each said they were not feeling symptoms. Watney will quarantine for at least 10 days.   

Taylor said after Friday’s round he felt “a little nervous, but I feel good.”

“I didn’t have any close contact with Nick yesterday,” said Taylor, who shot a 2-under 69. “We kept our space. We didn’t shake hands. Right after the round, I washed my hands. Nick never coughed or sneezed. So I feel comfortable.”

The Tour said in a release that 369 people – players, caddies and essential personnel – underwent on-site testing prior to the tournament. Zero tested positive. Zero tested positive the week before at the Charles Schwab Challenge, the Tour’s first tournament after a three-month hiatus due to the coronavirus. 

Players said they still felt safe.

“if you look at the statistics. I read a thing today that – look, by the end of the year, there’s going to be 200,000 deaths in the U.S. alone from Covid-19,” McIlroy said. “So to think that us on the PGA Tour, none of us were going to get it was very – I don’t think anyone thought that. I think the consensus was someone is going to get it at some point, and Nick’s the one that’s got it, and he’s self-isolating and doing what he has to do.

“Yeah, it’s a shame, but the show goes on. We’ve got 36 holes to play at this tournament.”

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The post Here are 9 legendary Phil Mickelson gambling stories appeared first on Golf.

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Long before there was this Thanksgiving edition of Tiger vs. Phil, and before there were sponsors at Shadow Creek, and big pay-per-view dollars, there was just Phil Mickelson, legendary gambler. Before The Match, there were just the matches, loads of them, the glorious details of which have leaked out over time. If you’re turned off by the press conferences and the corporate money and the contrived nature of this latest iteration, take comfort in the tales of Phil wagering under the radar. Here are nine tales of Mickelson, money and golf.

An Augusta bet he couldn’t pay on his own

In 2014, Mickelson was playing a Tuesday practice round with Jason Dufner, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler when one patron got in his ear. Mickelson was just off the green at the par-3 6th when he started to hear from a member of the gallery.

“He was mouthing off — ‘hard shot, get this up-and-down, no chance’— blah, blah, blah,” Phil recounted in a press conference afterwards. Mickelson accepted a wager from the fan: he’d get it up and down, for a dollar. “And it wasn’t that hard a shot and I should have gotten it up and down. And I did hit a good shot. I had a 7-footer straight up hill.”

But Mickelson missed. Dismayed, he had to borrow a small bill from Jason Dufner’s caddie because he doesn’t carry any of his own. And then he paid up in this wonderful picture.

@GolfCentral and he paid the debt, even if he had to borrow the $1 from @JasonDufner's caddy pic.twitter.com/uAFe8Ml2XG

— Brad Mont (@mavdc) April 8, 2014

Tin Cup tricks

Cheech Marin recounted a fantastic story of Mickelson’s legendary flop shot prowess as a part of GOLF.com’s Tin Cup oral history. “I’ll tell you a story no one’s ever heard,” he begins. That’s always a good place to start.

“We were between scenes, standing around, and someone came up with a bet. There was this really tall pine tree, and someone said to Phil Mickelson, “I bet you can’t put your shoulder against the tree, drop a ball and hit it over the tree.” The shot basically had to go straight up. Everybody threw in a hundred bucks. I think there was $1,200 in the pot. And he did it! When the ball was still in the air, Mickelson bent over, picked up the money, and put it in his pocket.”

It would have made for quite the scene in the movie itself; maybe they’ll save it for Mickelson’s biopic.

Down goes Keegan

Last year, Mickelson joined Alan Shipnuck on a GOLF.com podcast for a wide-ranging discussion that included a gem of a story about a Tuesday money match where Mickelson and Rickie Fowler took on Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele. Take it away, Phil:

“Now, Keegan is about ready to bow out of these games because he’s never won. It’s been a year and a half and he’s paid every time. And it gets demoralizing. So he’s like, ‘If I don’t win today, I’m out. … This is the day. This is the day I’m going to win.’

“Fast forward to the 12th green. Keegan and I have about a 16-footer and 14-footer, and I’m away. Now they’re 2 up. They’re 2 up. And as I’m standing over this putt, I back away, and I say, ‘Oh my goodness, this putt is the entire match.’

“And Keegan bit, and he goes, ‘Oh yeah, how so?’ which is what I was hoping he would say.

“And I said, ‘Well, if I miss, you’re going to make your putt. You have momentum, you’re going to make it, and you’re going to be 3 up with six to go, and you guys are going to win. But if I make it, you’re going to quick-peel yours low side. You’re going to be so pissed off, you and Brendan are going to give us a hole. Next thing you know, we’re going to be tied, Rickie and I are going to have momentum, we’re going to make a birdie or two coming in, probably beat you, 2 and 1.

“So I knock it in. I knock it in. And of either side he could have missed it on, he missed it low side. He quick-peeled it low side. Now they’re so pissed off, they both bogey the next hole, and we get that hole and now we’re tied. So Rickie and I birdie 15, 16 and 17, and win, 2 and 1.

“And I just chuckle about the story every time I hear it, because it’s just funny. And I don’t care about the money. I just love being able to – and I give him smack about this every time I see him.”

Phone-a-friend

This one comes courtesy of Tour pro Colt Knost, who revealed the story on the Action Network’s podcast. Knost told Mark Gallant about a round that he played with Mickelson, Ben Crane and an anonymous TV writer who was getting plenty of strokes. Here’s how Gallant laid it out:

“Lefty insisted on playing with Crane, leaving Knost and the high-handicap writer to pair up in a money match, with the latter getting 24 strokes. As Knost puts it, this writer was only driving the ball 200 yards, so they wanted him to be able to play a tee up. Can’t have an amateur playing from the 7,400-yard back tees at the Madison Club against tour pros.

Phil was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed. They teed off the first hole, with the writer getting about a 30-yard advantage. The second hole comes around, and the gap between the tee boxes is not quite as far.

By the fourth or fifth hole, the tee boxes were just a few yards apart, and Phil shot Colt a look.

It was at that point, Colt realized what was going on.

“This son of a bitch …”

Phil had called the pro shop and had them move all of the next-to-back tees closer to the tips, taking away the slight advantage Knost and his teammate thought they were getting.”

“That was a veteran play by Phil and a very impressive one,” Knost said in conclusion.

Big Zingers and a big finish

Our next chapter comes courtesy of Paul Azinger, who told a marvelous story on PGA Tour Radio about Mickelson’s penchant for final-hole theatrics. Here’s Zinger’s story, transcribed (but you can hear the audio here):

“I had some big games with Mickelson. He was virtually unbeatable. Payne Stewart and I were playing Ben Crenshaw and Mickelson. By the time we got to the 18th hole at Bay Hill, it had gotten a little out of hand … We get to the last hole, and it’s like $1,600. We get to the 18th green, and we all have birdie putts. Mickelson is the closest, and he has about a 14-15 footer down the hill. We all miss … If (Mickelson) makes it, we lose $1,600. If we beg out, we forfeit $800. But if he misses it, we only lose $400. So Payne says, ‘I’m out.’ I said it was downhill, right-to-left. He’s not making it.

So Crenshaw jumps in and says, ‘I’ll take Payne’s side.’ So he gets his guaranteed $800. I looked at Mickelson, and I don’t know if I can say this, but I said, ‘Putt it, bitch.’ Mickelson looks at me and walks over to the putt. Dead center. He makes it dead center and smiles. Payne starts smiling and high-fiving Mickelson because I just lost $1,600 and he only lost $400. I was so mad. That’s when I knew Mickelson was going to be a really good player. I just knew it.”

Mind the conversion rate

Shane Ryan recounts for ESPN a story from across the pond involving Mickelson and Nick Watney. The two played a practice round at St. Andrews alongside Dustin Johnson in 2010 with a simple format: Worst score pays the best score $1,000. Watney objected, but after some name-calling, he said “I gave in to peer pressure.”

Sure enough, Watney lost and Mickelson won. But when Watney handed over the $1,000 to Mickelson, Lefty handed it right back. “This is Britain,” he told Watney. “I need pounds.”

Watney had to chase down the rest of the debt, which totaled about $1,700. “They’ve asked me to play again,” Watney told ESPN. “And now I just say ‘f— you’ and walk away.”

Fight Night!

Mickelson’s affinity for pay-per-view may come from his enjoyment of another mano a mano showdown sport: boxing. Jason Sobel detailed a series of gambling stories for the Action Network, including one on a night he’d spent at a party Mickelson was hosting.

Sobel writes that the main event of the night was a Floyd Mayweather fight against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, but it was an undercard match that caught Mickelson’s attention. Here’s how he sets up the story:

“He explained that the next bout featured Alexander Munoz, a man with the brilliant nickname “El Explosivo,” who counted 28 knockouts among his 36 career victories. He told the room that Munoz would be fighting against Leo Santa Cruz, who was not only 10 years less experienced, but he was moving up a weight class that night to challenge for the super bantamweight title.

Then, like an experienced fisherman chumming the waters for his prize catch, Mickelson offered a wager.

‘You know,’ he said, as if the idea had just suddenly percolated in his mind, ‘I’m sort of liking this young kid. If anyone wants the favorite, I’ll take that bet at even money.'”

You can only guess what happened next. Santa Cruz was dominant from the start, and the referee granted him a TKO in the fifth round. Mickelson made his way around the room, collecting cash. Sobel lost $100. “Most of the bets were bigger than mine. A few were much bigger.”

Read his full account here.

Ruffel-ing some feathers

Mickelson doesn’t just take on seasoned Tour vets; playing money matches against Lefty can be a rite of passage for some young stars. One such player? Ryan Ruffels, a 17-year-old Australian phenom at the time, joined Mickelson and his brother, Tim, for a round (he was considering attending Arizona State at the time). Ruffels recalled the sequence of events for the Sydney Morning Herald.

“We get on the first tee, it’s pretty early in the morning and he says, ‘I don’t wake up this early to play for any less than $2,500′,” Ruffels recalled of a friendly offer made to him by Mickelson. The 42-time US PGA Tour winner gave Ruffels 2-1 odds; if Ruffels won, Mickelson would give him $5,000, if he lost, Ruffels would have to pay up $2,500 when he turned professional.

“I was a few down through nine but then I birdied six of my last seven to win by one shot and took his money, so that was pretty cool,” Ruffels said with a laugh.

But Mickelson didn’t take too kindly to Ruffels’ violation of their code of trust. After the story began to make the rounds, Ruffels’s team tried to walk back the details, citing “overdone” reporting about “friendly wagers.” Mickelson didn’t mince words at a Farmers Insurance press conference.

“He’s young,” Mickelson said, “and he’s got some things to learn.

“One of them is you don’t discuss certain things. You don’t discuss specifics of what you play for. And you certainly don’t embellish and create a false amount just for your own benefit. So those things right there are – that’s high school stuff, and he’s going to have to stop doing that now that he’s out on the PGA Tour.”

The original Tiger vs. Phil

Doug Ferguson of the AP reported that the first time Woods and Mickelson squared off for money, it was Lefty who emerged victorious. The two young Southern California superstars squared off in the leadup to the 1998 Nissan Open. According to Ferguson, Mickelson won big. Afterwards, he put photocopies of Tiger’s $100 bills in his locker. He also included this note, passed along via Shane Ryan for ESPN:

“Just wanted you to know Benji and his friends are very happy in their new home.”

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The post Sam Reeves is a retired cotton merchant, bodysurfer, pro-am partner and one of golf’s trusted old souls appeared first on Golf.

I first heard about Sam Reeves 15 or 20 years ago. At Cypress Point, if good fortune got you there, a caddie might point out his magnificent house, between the course and the ocean. Someone would say that Tiger had just been to the Reeves house for dinner, or that Butch had given Fred a lesson there, in the backyard. In any given Pebble week, the guest list might include a range of Tour elites: Jim “Bones” Mackay, Jay Haas, Tim Finchem, and also Peyton Manning and Tom Brady and that whole crowd. I imagined the houselord as an industrialist of the old school, sniffing his port. Then I met him.

A mutual friend, Brian Roberts of Philadelphia, got us together, in South Florida, during the Honda tournament. Sam Reeves invited me to dinner with his wife and two of their younger friends.

He’s 82 but he doesn’t look or act it, and he’s as slender as Hogan’s Merion 1-iron. (He ordered moderately, in a rural Georgia accent, from both sides of the menu.) I learned that Sam and Betsy were married in 1958, at an historic church in downtown Asheville, N.C., and that their four daughters have traveled the world with their father, on work and mission trips both.

Reeves is in great shape in a variety of ways. He made his fortune as a cotton king, opening China to the American cotton trade in the wake of Nixon-Kissinger. At the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this year, Sam and Nick Watney made the cut. If an older amateur has ever played all four rounds there—walking!—I’d like to hear about it.

We were a fivesome at a Juno Beach fish-house: Nick Watney and me on one side of our booth, Betsy and Sam on the other, Adam Scott in between them. (Our host has played golf or broken bread with 25 Masters winners, including Claude Harmon, Butch’s father.) Sam wears his vitality as another man might wear cologne, and he packs more questions than answers, though he has plenty of both. Asking questions keeps you young, don’t you think?

“Well, our friend Brian’s getting his squash game in shape for the Maccabiah Games, isn’t he?” Sam said.

“What’s that?” Adam asked.

“The Jewish Olympics,” Sam said. “They play them in Israel every four years.” Not a well-known thing, but Sam’s beat is the world.

One of his hobbies is bodysurfing, as it is for me, and a couple days later we met again, at a beach club, bathing suits on. Two and half hours later, though, we were still on the barren side of the dunes, the gray Atlantic yawning. Sam, who played golf at Chapel Hill in the 1950s, is a plus-4 conversationalist.

“I believe we all have a creator,” Sam said. His eyes, bright blue, have a power source all their own. “We all seek to deepen our mental, physical, occupational and social lives. People the world over want what you and I want. They want dignity. They want to be valued.” Beachside chitchat, Sam Reeves-style.

Adam Scott met Sam when the Australian was a 19-year-old amateur. “I learned how to be a human being from Sam,” he told me. We were in a windowless room deep in the PGA National clubhouse. The 2013 Masters champ was sitting on a cargo box after insisting that I take the lone chair. “Sam’s one of the biggest role models in my life.”

In 2001, when Christy and Butch Harmon were married, Sam Reeves was the best man. “In personality, Sam and I are 180 degrees apart, but we love each other,” Butch said. Butch, like Sam, has seen the world’s dark underbellies. “Sam cares. It’s not a bulls— care. He actually cares.” Butch and Christy, with rising emotion, talked about Sam’s commitment to their son, a budding historian—and not a golfer—now preparing for grad school.

But with Sam, there’s always the tug of the game. For his 70th birthday, he and Butch went to Scotland. The nastier the weather, the happier Sam was. He wrote in an e-mail, “Golf embraces character, perseverance, grit, courage, mental strength, timeliness, worldly disappointment, hope, faith, pain. And, yes, joy, accomplishment and satisfaction.”

The intimate dinners held at the Reeves home during the Pebble Beach tournament are occasions where the players can breathe. One winter night, a decade or so ago, José María Olazábal talked about the unthinkable prospect of a life without golf, after a mysterious foot ailment caused him to miss all of 1996. But by April 1999, he and Greg Norman were in the day’s final twosome on Masters Sunday.

“And I remember being on 13 green on Sunday with Greg,” Olazábal said that night, as Butch recalled it. “He has a 20-footer for eagle, I have a 15-footer for birdie, the flowers are magnificent and I am thinking, “How lucky am I to be here?” And then Greg made the putt.”

The room was still. Sam could not contain himself.

“But what did you do, Ollie? What did you do with that birdie putt?!”

The author welcomes your feedback at mbamberger0224@aol.com.

The post Sam Reeves is a retired cotton merchant, bodysurfer, pro-am partner and one of golf’s trusted old souls appeared first on Golf.