Rory dishes on LIV, Ryder Cupper returns, Augusta in ‘recovery mode’

October 7, 2024

Rory McIlroy, Jay Monahan, Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Tyrrell Hatton were among this week’s main characters.

Getty Images

Welcome to the Monday Finish, where the leaves are changing to colors best described as “mid-2000s Volvik”. To the news…

First, a quick request: If you like the Monday Finish, subscribe HERE to get it in your email inbox! It’s free. And it would make me happy.

GOLF STUFF I LIKE

One man’s battle to remain “part of the furniture.”

When Tyrrell Hatton birdied No. 18 at the Old Course on Sunday, he wrapped up a meaningful one-shot victory. It was his first win with his father by his side. It was huge for his DP World Tour prospects. And it was his third win at the Dunhill, an all-time record.

But it was a massive week for the man he beat, too.

Two years ago, Belgian DP World Tour pro Nicolas Colsaerts was admitted to the Mediclinic Parkview hospital in Dubai with a terrifying diagnosis: he had multiple blood clots and fluid in his lungs due to a rare kidney disease called primary membranous nephropathy. He received aggressive care, which was successful — but it was months before Colsaerts returned to on-course action. Even then he wasn’t himself: he made just two cuts in 13 starts in 2022.

The DP World Tour extended a full medical exemption his way for 2023, but still Colsaerts struggled — in his first 19 starts of the season his best finish was T48. He strung together one strong week at the Dunhill courtesy of a T6 finish, but still lost his card. In 2024, relying largely on sponsor invites, Colsaerts — now 41 — has played more than a dozen DP World Tour events. But until this week his best result was T27 and he hadn’t secured any status for 2025.

That all changed in the linksland. Colsaerts’ 65-65-65 start to the Dunhill put him in position to challenge for the win on Sunday. When he made birdie at No. 15, he tied Hatton at the top. And when his eight-footer for birdie hung on the edge at No. 18 he settled for what he admitted was a “bittersweet” but immensely satisfying second place, one that rolls back the clock — and opens the door for the future.

“It means a lot,” he said post-round. “When you have not been in a position like this for a while, yeah, you kind of forget how much it grabs you.

“You become a bit anxious but at the same time, you focus and get really, really tuned in. I was able to hit a amazing shots down the last couple holes.”

The solo second means Colsaerts is up from 85th to 11th in the “Non-Member Race to Dubai” points list, which puts him in line to earn membership for 2025.

“Listen, I feel part of the furniture,” he said. “This has been my life for over 20 years now. I don’t know, it looks like we’re going to go back on the merry-go-round.”

Getting knocked off the horse and climbing back on? That’s golf stuff I like.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

Tyrrell Hatton won the Dunhill Links, the DP World Tour pro-am that visits Kingsbarns, Carnoustie and St. Andrews’ Old Course. Hatton shot a record-tying 61 at the Old on Saturday, built up a three-shot lead midway through the final round and birdied the last for a one-shot victory over Colsaerts — his third Dunhill title. He also moved to No. 16 in the Race to Dubai, all but assuring his place in the tour’s postseason.

“It feels good. It’s actually the first tournament I have won with my dad here, it means a lot and to do it at the home of golf is really special,” Hatton said. “I’m trying not to cry to be honest, I’m a bit lost for words.”

Danish pro Thorbjorn Oleson and Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond partnered up to win the team event at 48 under par.

Kevin Yu won the Sanderson Farms for the first PGA Tour title of his career; he buried a 15-footer on the 72nd hole to earn his spot in a playoff, where he flagged his approach and made a five-footer for birdie and the win.

Heather Lin entered the Epson Tour Championship needing a very specific result — a victory — to vault up to the LPGA Tour for 2025. Considering Lin was 54th in points and had never won a professional event, that seemed like a tall task, but a record-setting Friday 63 at Indian Wells made it a possibility. On Sunday Lin birdied No. 17 and parred 18 to finish the season in style and ensure that she’ll start next year in the big show.

Braden Thornberry birdied the 72nd hole at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick to win the Korn Ferry Tour Championship; like Lin he jumped from outside the top 50 into a qualifying position for the PGA Tour next season.

And Rocco Mediate, 61, won the Constellation Furyk and Friends on the PGA Tour Champions in a two-hole playoff over Bob Estes. The win was his first in a half-decade and gives him pro wins in each of his 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

If you like the Monday Finish, subscribe for free HERE to get it in your email inbox!

NOT-WINNERS

A few guys who didn’t win.

Beau Hossler worked his way through a lengthy — and controversial — TIO ruling at No. 18 before losing to Yu in the Sanderson playoff.

Keith Mitchell had a 30-footer to win the Sanderson outright but three-putted instead to finish T3 alongside Lucas Glover, who played his final six holes in five under par to throw down his first top 10 in more than a year.

Sam Bennett, who you’ll remember from his high Masters finish as a college kid, finished at No. 31 on the Korn Ferry Tour, one spot outside PGA Tour status.

Tommy Fleetwood finished third at St. Andrews; it was his fourth top-five finish in his last seven starts, dating back to the Olympics, though his only win of 2024 came in the second week of January.

SHORT HITTERS

Five things to know, in brief.

1. Augusta National announced a $5 million donation to help with local Hurricane Helene relief, the latest initiative to help rebuild the Augusta area after the devastation caused by the category 4 hurricane. Augusta National itself has sustained significant damage, and this week chairman Fred Ridley said the club was in “recovery mode,” but to the club’s credit it has kept the focus on those facing much more devastating losses.

2. Meet the 30 Korn Ferry Tour pros who just qualified for the PGA Tour next year including 23 first-timers from eight nations, led by three-time winner Matt McCarty at No. 1.

3. Meet the 15 Epson Tour graduates who will play the LPGA in 2025, led by No. 1 Lauren Stephenson, who lost her LPGA Tour status after 2023 but earned it back in style.

4. Remember Tom Kim‘s assertion that a U.S. player had been swearing at him during a Presidents Cup match? His caddie Paul Tesori says he heard it, too. “Obviously, I witnessed three scenarios where members of the U.S. team emphatically got personal with Tom and yes, cursed at him and got very personal,” Tesori said.

5. Wenyi Ding won the Asia-Pacific Amateur, earning berths to the Masters and Open Championship — but he’s turning pro, so he won’t get to claim ’em.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

There’s more to life than birdies. Kinda.

From the Korn Ferry Tour’s No. 1 graduate, Matt McCarty, playing his first event as a PGA Tour member:

“I’ve been working a lot on my wedges and my putting, and I think that’s gotten a lot better this year, and when you do give yourself a chance to be in scoring position to actually be able to convert, it’s huge, and just make a lot more birdies — but also just kind of managing the misses a little bit better lately, too, of, like, making pars easier on myself and not having to grind for par as much. Limiting the bogeys I think is huge, especially on the Korn Ferry but definitely [on the PGA Tour], as well.

“Sometimes it’s not the birdies that you do make but the bogeys that you don’t, I guess, I think, to have a successful week.”

Sometimes it’s not the birdies you make but the bogeys you don’t. Words to live by. Or maybe just to golf by.

ONE BIG QUESTION

What happened with Jay and Yasir and Rory and the gang?

The visual was fascinating. The figureheads for the opposing side of pro golf’s future — the PGA Tour’s Jay Monahan and LIV chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan — playing golf together? Then Al-Rumayyan alongside LIV’s most vocal early detractor, Rory McIlroy, at the Home of Golf? Sure, there was the fascinating nugget that Monahan edged Al-Rumayyan 3 and 1, but what did it all mean?

“I don’t think they are going to have any conversation on the golf course about the deal,” said Monahan’s partner for the week, Billy Horschel, ahead of the tournament.

Rory McIlroy waits to putt on the 17th hole with Yasir Al-Rumayyan during the third round of the 2024 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on The Old Course at St Andrews on October 05, 2024. — Rory McIlroy played a round with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan at the 2024 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Getty Images

“I don’t think they are going to decide the future of golf in five hours around Carnoustie,” added defending champ Matt Fitzpatrick. “I know Carnoustie is pretty bloody hard. Not much time for talking.”

And at the tournament’s conclusion, Hatton agreed that there probably wasn’t much being decided on the course.

“I mean, there’s guys that were obviously playing this week that are having those conversations to figure out how we come back together as a sport,” he said. “I know what events I want to play, and hopefully I can continue to keep playing them. I certainly don’t have the power to make decisions that need to be made, and from a player’s perspective, I just want to play golf.”

But Rory McIlroy provided by far the clearest update in a conversation with the Scotsman. “It doesn’t have to be St Andrews to do it,” McIlroy pointed out with a laugh. “They all have their own airplanes — they can go and meet each other whenever they want.” But he allowed that the man behind the Dunhill, South African businessman Johann Rupert, had used the week as a way to help bring golf’s powers together. And he laid out what the next few years could look like.

1. The first step would be a big investment. “I think by year’s end, [we’ll know] whether the Public Investment Fund will invest in PGA Tour Enterprises,” he said, referring to a potential billion-dollar injection to join the 10-figure investment from the SSG.

2. The second step, which includes everything, is still a ways away and involves lawyers, namely those working their way through the rules of the Department of Justice, a process which McIlroy doesn’t particularly enjoy. “…but that doesn’t solve the problem of where we find ourselves in golf, the schedule and everything,” he said. “I mean, I’d say we’ll know by the end of the year whether [the investment] is a possibility or not, but I think all tours are going to keep trucking along and doing their own thing for the foreseeable future and I think the best thing we can maybe hope for is a bit of crossover between them and then maybe while that is happening over that period of time, whether it be one year, two years, three years, just trying to figure out the rest.

“I think the hard thing is there are legal precedents that have been set in America and here and that makes it very different. That’s the big thing. No one likes lawyers — I certainly don’t — and, yeah, that’s a big part of the issue. I think there is a willingness there from all parties to try and get it to happen but you’ve got tons of lawyers in the middle of it.”

The question, then: Are we just settling in for the long haul?

ONE THING TO WATCH

SNL talks golf.

SNL dived into the golf-on-TV space. RIP Fairway Fred.

Rory dishes on LIV, Ryder Cupper returns, Augusta in ‘recovery mode’