Thomas Bjørn won the Legends Tour’s season-ending MCB Tour Championship by an impressive seven shots, with the 51-year-old Dane striding to a comfortable victory with a final round 67 over the Legends Course at Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius.

The Dane went out last on Sunday with a four-shot advantage over the rest of the field and never game them a chance, adding a five-under-par round to his opening 68 and second round 61 to finish on 20-under-par for 54 holes.

“A four-shot lead is a weird one, as you don’t really know what to expect,” said Bjorn. “I thought it I get to -20 then someone will have to shoot 63 to challenge me and I thought that if they did that then they’d deserve to win. I was trying just not to make bogeys.”

Bjorn was -12 on the par fives for the tournament, and didn’t drop a shot in his final 47 holes.

James Kingston finished a distant second on -13, but it was good enough to seal the John Jacobs Trophy for the Order of Merit title for the 2022 season.

The South African had a tough opening round of 74 at Constance Belle Mare Plage, but recovered with rounds of 65 and 64 to take the runner’s up spot and claim the money list title for the first time.

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South Africa’s Ockie Strydom carded a final-round 69 to claim his first on the DP World Tour with a two-shot victory at the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek.

The 37-year-old started the final round level on 15-under par with Scott Jamieson, but suffered a setback on the ninth with a double-bogey. He rallied, however, to secure four birdies in the next five holes and ease to victory on 18-under par.

Spaniard Adrian Otaegui, who closed with a 68, took second, with England’s Laurie Canter taking third after flying up the leaderboard with an 8-under-par 64 on Sunday. Jamieson dropped away tamely, shooting a final round 76 to finish

Strydom, who finished 15th in last week’s South African Open, picked up €255,000 for the win and also earned his card to play on the DP World Tour for the remainder of the 2023 season. His world ranking has risen from 384th to 242nd.

He said:  “It feels good to have finally done it, and to do it at Leopard Creek makes it even more special. I love playing this course. I feel calm out in the bush. I think my plans for next year have just changed a little bit, and I couldn’t be happier.”

For the final leaderboard, click here. 

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When looking back at the wild world of golf in 2022, you will be hard pressed to tell the tale without Cameron Smith. Adding to what has already been a career-defining year both on and off the golf course, Smith claimed the 2022 Australian PGA Championship — the third of his career — at Royal Queensland Golf Club in Brisbane, Australia. 

Playing in his home country’s PGA Championship for the first time in three years, the world No. 3 was able overcome weather, nerves and his fellow countrymen en route to his fifth win of the year. Getting the better of Jason Scrivener and Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune, Smith finished with a 72-hole total of 14-under 270 to win by three shots.

“It’s awesome, mate,” Smith said. “I really didn’t think I had it in me this week me to be honest. The start of the week was a little bit scratchy. The game just got better and better as the week went on other than the front nine today.”

Smith’s game has gotten “better and better” not only throughout this week but throughout this year as a whole. Entering 2022 with three worldwide victories to his name and only one of which resided on the PGA Tour, the Australian shattered what many believed his ceiling to be and continues to do so.

A duel with Jon Rahm kicked off Smith’s 2022 at the Tournament of Champions in Kapalua. Needing to set the PGA Tour scoring record, a scorching Smith reached 34 under for the week to eek by the then-world No. 1 by a single stroke. Finishing atop a limited field of only 38 competitors, it really wasn’t until the spring when the conversation around Smith began to move from “He’s a pretty good player” to “He’s one of the best in the world.”

A weather-riddled Players Championship saw many of the world’s finest curl up as a brutal system rolled through the Jacksonville area the week of the “fifth major.” With a bit of tee time luck on his side at the onset of the tournament, Smith converted this golden opportunity into a golden moment with 10 birdies in the final round at TPC Sawgrass. 

Highlighted by his wedge shot on the famed island green par-3 17th, Smith’s bold action on the 71st hole of the championship gave him his biggest victory to date. Similar words would be uttered just four months later when a comeback for the ages transpired at the oldest major championship in the game.

Five birdies in a row and a back-nine 30 saw Smith leapfrog crowd-favorite Rory McIlroy the final day of the 150th Open. Taking on water throughout the third round, Smith reset on Sunday and leaned on his trusty putter for his last stroll around the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Boasting 25 one putts on the week, it was an unlikely up-and-down from behind the road hole bunker on the 71st hole that secured Smith’s first major championship and the title “Champion Golfer of the Year.” Celebrations, beers from the Claret Jug and praise ensued, but not before an eyebrow-raising moment occurred at his winner’s press conference.

“I just won the British Open, and you’re asking about that? I think that’s pretty not that good,” said Smith when asked about a potential move to LIV Golf.

With rumors swirling, intensifying and seemingly coming to life in real time, Smith was again bombarded with questions ahead of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Brushing off the interrogation in a way only a man with a mullet can, the 29-year-old ultimately chose to join the PGA Tour rival after completion of the Tour Championship.

“It felt like I didn’t sleep for a few months,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I was constantly thinking, ‘what will other people think?’ That was a really big factor for me. I feel like I do most things by the book and to be one to step away … was really tough for me.”

Smith’s decision paid dividends almost immediately. Falling one stroke short of a playoff in his debut at LIV Golf Boston, Smith made amends two weeks later with a victory at LIV Golf Chicago. Rounding out his inaugural LIV campaign with a 7-under 65 at Trump National Doral, Smith single-handedly carried his team Punch GC to within one of the LIV Golf Team Championship.

Fast forward to present day, and Smith should have no issues sleeping after his win at the 2022 Australian PGA Championship. Adding to what was already a memorable year, yet in the same sense equally bizarre, Smith has now captured five victories in five different time zones on three different continents on three different tours. 

While McIlroy will head into the new year as world No. 1 and winner of the season-long races on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, it may actually be Smith who was the most eye-catching, head-scratching, thought-provoking player of 2022. 

Winner of two of the biggest prizes in golf, the subject of controversy and again a champion in his home country, Smith will continue to saunter on. While the path may be one less traveled moving forward, it is a path no less, and one which helped shape Smith’s world class year.

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“Winning breeds confidence,” said Tony Finau throughout the week of the 2022 Houston Open. Claiming his fifth PGA Tour title — and third in his last seven tournaments — with a dominating performance at Memorial Park Golf Course, Finau’s confidence is just now beginning to shine through. As quiet as it may have been, or may be, it is most certainly present. If Houston is any indication of what Finau is truly capable of, the rest of the PGA Tour should take notice.

Finishing the tournament at 16 under, Finau appeared to play a different golf course en route to besting the field by four strokes. Beginning his week with a benign opening nine, the 33-year-old found a different gear during his inward half on Thursday, playing it in 5 under and ascending to the top of the leaderboard.

Finau didn’t look back from there as rounds of 62, 68 and 69 followed his first round of 5-under 65. Occupying the pole position for the entirety of the week, Finau slowly sucked the air out of the golf tournament thanks to a consistent long game and a new-found confidence with the putter in hand.

“I’m putting it better than I’ve ever putted it, more consistently and I know that’s the part of my game I’ve always needed to be better at, so that on the technical side, for sure,” said Finau at the onset of the weekend. “But the belief’s there because of some of the success I’ve had over the last 16 months of my career, and I put myself in another nice situation this week.”

Not only has Finau’s belief transformed over the last 16 months, but so has the perception of him as a player. Long known as someone unable to seal the deal on Sundays, the American experienced his fair share of agonizing moments during a winless drought that lasted more than four years.

“I’ve always had belief, but the confidence when you win is contagious,” said Finau. “I’ve always been a very hopeful person. I work extremely hard, and now I’m starting to bear the fruits of that labor, of all that work.”

This drought has since turned into a deluge of victories as he now boasts four wins over the span of his last 32 tournaments. With so much success in such little time, and this subtle confidence of his now matching the obvious talent, what could be next for Finau?

While the PGA Tour, and golf as a whole, has turned into a young man’s game with new stars like Tom Kim popping up on every corner, Finau is a stark contrast. He is now 33, five times a winner, a member of the last four United States teams between the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and has consistently factored in at least one major championship per season since 2018.

Are 10 career victories and a major championship in the cards? Sixteen months ago, any response other than “no” would be complete lunacy, but here we are. A confident, persistent Finau has the potential to attain such accolades. In an era that features so much parity, Houston could be another building block towards just that. Grade: A+

Here are the grades for the rest of the leaderboard at the 2022 Houston Open.

T9. Scottie Scheffler (-6): The No. 2 player in the world holed out to end his tournament and his year on the PGA Tour. That’s fitting considering only one player in the world got the ball in the cup with more efficiency than Scheffler throughout 2022. His T9 ends a nice little three-tournament fall after posting two top 10s and a T45 over the last month. This actually looks pretty similar to how last fall went, and we all know about the spring that followed. Scheffler finished second this week in strokes gained tee to green, which is notable because it’s a reminder that if the putter bounces back starting in January, we could be in for another run from somebody who I think is still pretty underrated in the golf world. Grade: B

T22. Sahith Theegala (-4): Theegala will be in the field next week at the RSM Classic, and he goes into the last event of the fall with a little bit of momentum. He finished T22 in Houston after a T6 at the Fortinet and a T5 at the Zozo Championship earlier in the fall. Most importantly for him, he’s hitting the ball as well as he is all fall. His approach numbers in Houston were fabulous, and his last season shows that his best iron play comes in batches. It’s not difficult to envision Theegala notching his first victory on the PGA Tour at the last event of the year and making a bit of a leap heading into the brief offseason. Grade: B+

T22. Aaron Wise (-4): I’ll take any opening I can to write about Wise. This is his third consecutive top 25 this fall, though it feels a bit like a wasted opportunity. He was lights out on and around the greens this week, but could not get his normally reliable irons going and finished 63 in approach and 54th off the tee. That’s not a massive concern regarding Wise because his recent history doesn’t suggest he’s in a tee-to-green slump; rather, it’s one that he’ll likely look back on and wish that he had his usual stuff because he likely could have made at least a bit of a run at Finau on the weekend. Grade: B

T39. Harris English (E): After missing February through May with an injury, English did not play well to close out the 2021-22 PGA Tour season. His fall has been a bit better. He’s made five of six cuts and had his second-best driving week of the last six events in Houston. After thriving on the Ryder Cup team last fall, English got a bit lost in the shuffle with everything that was going on in the golf world and because he wasn’t playing well (or at all) for most of the year. It would be great to see him get back in the mix at the RSM and beyond as he works his way back toward being a top 30 player in the world. Grade: B-

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Collin Morikawa was unsuccessful in picking up a victory at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. He was barely in contention, but when the dust settled on one of the last PGA Tour events of the year, Morikawa still found himself at the center of the story.

Earlier in the week, Golf Channel commentator Trevor Immelman had posited that perhaps the reason Morikawa has been struggling in 2022 — a year during which he has failed to secure a win — was because of how difficult it is to live up to the high bar he set for himself early in his career when he won five of his first 50 PGA Tour events and two of his first eight major championships.

Morikawa’s reaction to the very innocuous comment from Immelman was strange, and made me think he had completely misunderstood what Immelman had said.

“Wow, that’s hard to hear from him,” Morikawa told Golf Channel. “I couldn’t care less what he says there because I don’t think that’s my bar. I think I’ve got so much more to improve. I’ve been near last on putting. I don’t think I’ve even finished close to being average on putting. If I can just get my putting to be average, I think there’s so much more to improve. I don’t know where that came from, but that kind of stings there. I don’t like to hear that.

“I don’t know if that was a compliment, I’ll be honest. If he did, maybe it came off wrong from what I heard. For me, I’ve never seen a ceiling. I just want to keep improving. Obviously, we took a couple steps back this year. It’s just trying to get better every day and trying to improve on little things. I expect myself to play well. I set really high goals for myself. It just sucks when they don’t come through.”

Immelman later confirmed that the entire thing was in fact a misunderstanding, but between Morikawa’s reaction, his hiring of a putting coach and his early-week monologue about the plight of getting old (Morikawa turns 26 next February), it made me wonder what else was going on with the two-time major champion.

“It was a lot more stressful this year,” Morikawa said of his 2022. “I’ve just been kind of trying to figure out what was wrong when it was simply just kind of a body thing and just the way my body was moving. Unfortunately, it took seven, eight months throughout the year to at least find that, but that’s on me. Everything is on me just to know what’s going on. I’ve got a great team around me, but that’s the best thing is that, you know, I still have to be aware of what I’m doing.

“I just wasn’t kind of being able to make sure everything was where I wanted it to be. It’s a grind, but that’s what’s great. Even though we are kind of heading towards this offseason, this fall area, I’m putting a lot of pieces together and putting a lot of work in to make sure this kind of next 2023 is going to be [the] best ever.”

To be clear, Morikawa was talking about the way his body functioned in 2022.

“I think it’s just getting old,” said the 25-year-old. “Yeah, no, it’s just getting old. I mean, man, I drank way more in college than I ever do now, but apparently when you get older, your body just moves differently. I still feel great, like everything feels great, everything moves great, but it’s just not as clean as it was. And the maintenance I have to do now is just a little bit more. It doesn’t mean I need to do anything crazy, I’m not changing anything really, it’s just getting my body to where I need it to be.

“Last year, I didn’t really have to focus on it, but when I look back and you think about how much travel I’ve done over the past three and a half years, it’s a lot. It doesn’t stop. I love it, but travel takes a toll on your body and it takes a toll on you and you’ve got to be able to kind of work your way through that and that’s what the best athletes are doing.”

It’s clear that there is frustration from Morikawa that he has been unable to back up his spectacular 2020 and 2021 campaigns with something similar in 2022, and he sort of proved Immelman’s point — and to be fair, the same point many pundits and even players have made over the years — that when you don’t achieve what you once achieved at such a young age, it can wear on you mentally, physically and emotionally.

As for the golf itself, not a ton changed statistically, which should be encouraging to Morikawa. He dropped slightly in ball striking from 2021 (1.62 to 1.47 strokes gained per round) but not nearly enough to be worrisome. He was actually a better putter in 2022 than he was in 2021, although his short game suffered the biggest categorical drop compared to any other part of his game.

One interesting nuance is that while Morikawa’s very best performances and very worst performances were nearly identical to what he did in 2021 (his expected wins did drop from 1.97 to 0.94 from 2021 to 2022), his median performances in 2022 were far worse than they were in 2021. This, theoretically, shouldn’t matter as it relates to winning (you only win with your best performances anyway), but it might matter in regards to how he feels like he is playing.

The point here is that Morikawa is going to be fine. He’s a high-variance player, which if you’re intent on collecting a lot of trophies is what you want to be. It would serve him well mentally and emotionally to understand that just because a few tournaments went his way early in his career, that doesn’t mean his baseline is somebody who wins three or four regular events and a major every year. Data Golf had him at 0.20 expected majors in 2020, and he won one; it had him at 0.45 expected majors in 2021, and he won another. This matters because, while he was good, he was not overwhelmingly great in 2020-2021 yet the expectations after winning two majors started to pile up. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if Morikawa was a three-win, no-major guy.

If you take the long view, wins and losses often happen randomly, which means they can sometimes happen in bunches. Just because you win two of your first eight majors doesn’t mean you’re the second coming of Tiger Woods. Just because you don’t win any of your next 15 doesn’t mean the Korn Ferry Tour is in your future.

Morikawa exceeded both expectations and statistical probabilities in terms of winning over the first few years of his career. He overachieved. That happens, but it doesn’t mean a winless year has changed him as a player or a competitor even if it can often feel that way. 

Are there things to work on? Sure. Can the iron play get a tad better? Yes. Does he need to clean up his short game a bit? Absolutely. But if Morikawa continues to play like he did in 2022, he’s going to have more seasons (in terms of wins) like he experienced in 2021. That can seem counterintuitive, but as we’ve seen so many times throughout the history of golf, this game makes absolutely no sense. If you let it, the sport can befuddle even those who have seemingly every answer.

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While the LIV Golf Championship wound down with $34 million on the line between 16 golfers in Miami on Sunday, Seamus Power had something even more valuable at stake one time zone east of where Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed were busy winning the $16 million first prize at LIV Miami.

Power shot a roller coaster of a 70 in the final round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship to go with three consecutive 65s to start the week and beat Thomas Detry by a single shot. The win gets Power into next year’s Masters (he’s only played in one in his career), moves him up from his impressive No. 48 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, nets him 500 FedEx Cup points and, perhaps most intriguing of all, officially puts him on the 2023 Ryder Cup watch list.

The Irishman went out in 33 on Sunday but came home with four bogeys (including three in his last four holes!) and a 37 that could have upended his chances. However, his main competitor in the final round in Bermuda, Ben Griffin, had an even wackier back nine as he shot a 4-over 39 on the back with two birdies, four bogeys and a double.

“Delighted to get it done,” the affable European said after his round. “… absolutely delighted.”

The win is Power’s second on the PGA Tour — he also took the Barbasol Championship in 2021. But don’t let the quality of victory obfuscate what has been a terrific rise for somebody who doesn’t get as much run as fellow countryman Shane Lowry but could possibly a teammate of Lowry’s come Rom next September.

“Completely different feeling but just as special,” said the 35-year-old after his win. “It’s so hard. I play a lot of tournaments and this is only my second. It’s amazing it’s special. It’s going to take a while to sink in, but absolutely over the moon.”

In 2019 Power was a (well) below average PGA Tour player who was averaging -1.0 strokes per round, but in each of the last three seasons he’s improved to the point that he’s now hanging out in the statistical neighborhood with golfers like Jason Day, Paul Casey, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott.

Perhaps even more impressively, Power came into this week’s Bermuda Championship as one of the handful of favorites to win … and then he won. That’s one of the hardest things in golf to do, and now the question is whether he can move from being a good lower-tier PGA Tour player to competitive with the big boys in the most important events.

In 2022, Power qualified for all four major championships and had two top 12s and three top 30s in his four starts. This is encouraging and a sign of his tremendous growth as a golfer over the last several years.

Power could go a number of different directions from here. Perhaps he’ll remain as a good but not great PGA Tour golfer. Perhaps he’ll make yet another leap in 2023, contend in more majors and notch his first Ryder Cup experience in Rome. Perhaps somewhere in the middle of those two realities is where he’ll eventually land. Regardless, his win in Bermuda on Sunday was a reminder of just how far he’s jumped in such a short timespan and what that could mean for his suddenly surging career.

We’ve got reaction and analysis to the Bermuda Butterfield Championship and LIV Miami. Follow and listen to The First Cut podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  

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For the first time in more than a year, Brooks Koepka is victorious. Capturing the 2022 LIV Golf in Jeddah event on Sunday, Koepka finished at 12 under and needed three playoff holes to overtake his teammate and 36-hole leader Peter Uihlein at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club. Playing alongside each other on the final day, up-and-down rounds were experienced by the two members of Smash GC.

Beginning the day one stroke off Uihlein’s pace, Koepka quickly went in front as his playing competitor carded a double bogey and bogey in his first three holes. The four-time major champion remained steady on his outward half, and ultimately turned in 1 under before adding another birdie on No. 10 to command a two-stroke lead over Uihlein, Sergio Garcia and a large cast of pursuers.

Only then did Koepka begin to experience some troubles of his own. Making three consecutive bogeys from Nos. 11-13, the 33-year-old’s name plummeted down the leaderboard. An unlikely birdie from the desert on the par-4 15th put Koepka back on the straight and narrow before he added another birdie on the 54th hole alongside Uilhein to knock Garcia and Joaquin Niemann out of contention at 11 under.

The two traded birdies on the first two extra holes, but disaster struck for Uihlein on the third playoff hole when he hit his third shot from the greenside bunker into the water. Leaving the door open for Koepka, the Smash GC captain marched on through and secured his first win on LIV Golf with yet another birdie.

“The last two years, they haven’t been fun. It’s been a long road, I am super excited,” said Koepka. “My whole team, we got the band back together, literally. We got Claude [Harmon] on the team, Peter [Cowen] — I’ve worked with Pete very, very hard — and Jeff [Pierce] as well, so shoutout to them, this is for them.

“I didn’t know if my career was over for a half second. I told Claude that I wasn’t sure if I was going to play. It’s nice to be able to come back and to be able to win.”

Koepka not only triumphed individually but also led his team to its first victory. While Brooks was the star of the show, it was younger brother Chase who provided the steady hand as his scores were used in each of the three rounds. With the victory, Smash GC moved up to fifth in the team standings — narrowly missing out on a bye in the first round of the Team Championship — and will be the first to pick their quarterfinal opponent for the LIV Golf finale in two weeks.

Team leaderboard

ZOZO Championship + LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah Recap, Reaction & Analysis | PGA Tour Podcast. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

What is next for LIV Golf?

The Team Championship is set to take place Oct. 28-30 at Trump National Doral in Miami. The 4 Aces, Crushers, Fireballs and Stingers have all secured a bye on the first day of competition while the teams ranked 5-12 will partake in the quarterfinals. 

Koepka’s Smash GC is the fifth seed, and as such will have the first opportunity to select the opponent it wishes to face. This selection process will continue for the Majesticks, Torque GC and the Hy Flyers. Teams will compete in three matches — two singles and one alternate shot — on the first two days of the championship before taking to stroke play where all four members’ scores will count.

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Tom Kim is having a moment. The 20-year-old Korean known for his love of fast food and his choice of the name “Tom” because of his affection for a children’s play train by the same name is suddenly accomplishing things that haven’t been accomplished since trains were the primary means of transportation for most of the world.

After winning the Wyndham Championship in August in just his 14th start on the PGA Tour, Kim crushed at the Presidents Cup, where his 2-3-0 record belied the reality that nobody was a bigger star and nobody changed the perception of their future more than him. Then he took Sunday’s Shriners Children’s Open over Patrick Cantlay, and suddenly he’s the No. 15 player in the world while winning two PGA Tour events faster (18 PGA Tour events) than Tiger Woods (20 events).

Let the hyperbole wash all the way over you, courtesy of Justin Ray.

Kim is the youngest to get his second PGA Tour win in 90 years. He’s the youngest international player since 1900 to win multiple times on the PGA Tour. The only comparison for what he’s done in his tiny career thus far is to invoke the name of the best to ever do it: Tiger Woods. Those men are the only two golfers to win multiple times on the PGA Tour since World War II, and Kim was younger; he doesn’t turn 21 until next summer.

So the obvious question, it seems, is what to make of all this. What … is this? It’s probably not the second coming of Tiger. I think we can all agree on at least that. But when you’re part of a statistical category that includes only yourself and a legend of his caliber, it’s also not nothing. Kim needs some sort of context and projection around what he’s achieved.

So, let’s start.

It would be easy to write off the Wyndham and the Shriners as two easy golf tournaments to win and discount what Kim’s achievements. However, Data Golf rates both tournaments among the 20 hardest for a regular PGA Tour pro to win throughout the year. Winning one might be an anomaly. Winning both, though? Hardly an aberration. Then there’s the way Kim has won his tournaments. He had good putting weeks in both, yes, but he also finished in the top 12 in approach shots in both events. Kim is a flusher, and flushers win a lot.

Statistically, Kim’s profile looks a bit like a slightly downgraded Collin Morikawa. There are much worse comps than “a slightly downgraded Collin Morikawa.” Morikawa is deeper off the tee, and thus gains more strokes in that category, but Kim is slightly better on and around the greens. While Morikawa is one of the best iron players of this (or any other) generation, Kim is a solid but not necessarily elite iron player. At least not yet.

So we arrive at the hardest portion of all of this to project: improvement. Can Kim make a leap as a 21-year-old or beyond to become a +1.5 or 2.0 strokes gained player (this is the very upper crust)? Or will he stay where he is (around a +1.0 player), which is still very good and pick off a few tournaments when he has hot putting weeks?

It might be instructive to take a look at Kim’s personality to catch a glimpse around the corner of his career. While Kim is playful and exciting on the course, it’s clear that he’s not necessarily excitable, which is an important distinction. As a 20-year-old, it’s quite easy to be excitable, but in situations where Kim had the opportunity to get out over his skis, he has refused. Case in point: He was asked on Saturday night at the Presidents Cup whether he wanted to play Justin Thomas on Sunday in singles. There’s not a good answer to this question, and Kim realized that and neutralized the entire situation.

“Anyone, really,” he said. “Someone’s got to play someone. So I just want to play with anyone and try to get a point for the team.”

The First Cut podcast crew is back to bring you their recap for the Shriners Children’s Open and the LIV Bangkok event. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This is how somebody who is going to mature in the right way speaks at age 20. It creates a bullishness about his career from the mental and emotional side that he understands how to be a professional and what it takes to improve into a future that is wide open for him and his gifts. However, he combines it with an innocence that embodies the 2021 Padraig Harrington quote about how there’s a sweet spot between gaining experience and losing wisdom that’s a hell of a place to exist.

“I mean, I’m playing on the PGA Tour as a 20-year-old,” said Kim after his second win over the weekend at the Shriners. “It’s hard to get tired from this. I’m a 5-year-old at Disneyland, for sure. That’s the way I would pronounce it.”

Then there is the question of the majors. Kim is incredibly short off the tee for a top 20 player in the world (even Morikawa is quite a bit longer than he is). However, a few of the 2023 major venues- — namely Los Angeles Country Club and Oak Hill — might favor his game. The last time a major was held at Oak Hill, two of the shorter hitters in the game — Jason Dufner and Jim Furyk — were in the mix for the 2013 PGA Championship.

I don’t know what Tom Kim is going to be. Nobody does — not even Tom Kim. What I do know is that the PGA Tour is always in need of 20-year-old potential superstars who think rightly about the future even while soaking in the present. In a year in which there has been a lack of celebrating the right things, Kim represents so many of them that we love about golf, and it’s likely that he will for a long, long time.

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Outside a couple shaky moments at the onset of his final round, Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra looked at ease en route to his first professional victory at the 2022 LIV Golf Bangkok. Firing a 3-under 69 to reach 19 under and fend off the likes of Patrick Reed, Paul Casey and Richard Bland, the former All-American at Oklahoma State successfully entered the winner’s circle with his Fireballs teammates looking on.

Beginning his day with a birdie, Lopez-Chacarra was able to maintain his overnight lead of five strokes. This would be fleeting as a pair of bogeys on Nos. 4-5 — his first two of the week — opened the door for his pursuers to walk through. Reed did just that as the former Masters champion quickly became Lopez-Chacarra’s main competition with three birdies in a five-hole stretch.

With this run from Reed, the Spaniard saw his lead shrink to two before a rain delay forced players off the golf course late on Sunday. Like a perfectly timed timeout in an NBA game, the break in action was exactly what Lopez-Chacarra needed to resettle his nerves and finish his LIV Golf Bangkok experience the way he started it.

“[I] knew it was going to be hard today,” Lopez-Chacarra said. “It was going to be a long day. There’s such good players coming from behind and they want to win as much as I do. I just stayed patient, and I feel like when the rain and the cold out on 15 helped me a lot. I needed some time off.” 

Faced with a delicate chip on the par-4 15th, the 22-year-old hit it to gimme range and successfully saved his par. 

“I was kind of pretty nervous, and being with my family, my coach and my best friend Gonzalo kind of helped me relax and just see how life is and how nice is my life right now and just kind of going out there and trust all the work I’ve put in, and when I was on 15, I think that’s the best chip I ever had in my life,” Lopez-Chacarra said. “It was an easy shot, downhill, a little wet, but it came out like I wanted to, and I think that was big momentum coming into the last three holes, and here I am right now. Couldn’t be any more proud.”

At the same time, Reed’s first swing out of the rain delay was one he wish he had back. Teeing off on the par-3 16th only two strokes off Lopez-Chacarra’s lead, Reed made a fatal mistake and found the water with his tee shot. This additional breathing room was more than enough for Lopez-Chacarra as he added a birdie on the par-5 17th to ultimately win by three strokes over Reed.

“Feels great. I mean, I don’t think there’s a lot of secret. Just trusting yourself and working hard every day,” Lopez-Chacarra said. “That’s what they teach me when I was young and what these guys tell me you need to do, and trusting your team, having a good team, and just work and work I would say.”

Lopez-Chacarra not only claimed the individual trophy, but also the team title as the Fireballs waltzed to the first-place podium. Finally disarming the 4 Aces — winners of four straight team events — Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz and captain Sergio Garcia were able to follow in the footsteps of their youngest team member to reach 45 under as a squad and win by seven strokes over the Crushers.

“It’s an amazing week,” Garcia said. “I think that we all played really, really solid, and to be able to, like you said, Four Aces were coming off four wins in a row, I think, so we knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but we all had a lot of faith in each other. We’ve been playing really, really well and been quite close a couple of times. We felt like we just needed to click a little bit here and there, and that was going to make the difference, and that’s what happened this week.”

The 4 Aces were unable to carry their U.S. momentum to Asia despite Reed’s best efforts. LIV Boston winner Dustin Johnson was stuck in neutral for most of the week and despite a final round 5-under 67 finished solo 16th. This marked the first time the 4 Aces captain’s name fell outside the top 10 on the leaderboard, but still Johnson remains in a good position to win the season-long individual points race with only one event left.

The First Cut podcast crew is back to bring you their recap for the Shriners Children’s Open and the LIV Bangkok event. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  

Team leaderboard

What is next for LIV Golf?

There is no rest for the weary as LIV Golf is set to wrap up its regular season next week in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Playing in back-to-back weeks for the first time in the tour’s existence, players will hop on the jet from Bangkok to Jeddah and quickly assimilate themselves to the new venue from Oct. 14-16.

After putting the finishing touches on the regular season, players will have a week to prepare for the team championship at Trump National Doral. Taking place Oct. 27-30, a recently announced format featuring byes, alternate shot, singles matches and stroke play will pin teams head-to-head against each other before crowning the first LIV Golf Team Champion.

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