Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau are ready for the Showdown heat at Shadow Creek on Monday.
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Welcome back to Monday’s Finish, where after watching Q-School I’m just relieved to have kept my card (in this case, my GOLF job) for the 2025 season. No quadrupeds required. For the news!
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I LIKE GOLF
Pedi in parents.
It is a reflective time of year; it’s also PNC Championship week. And so I’m thinking again about a video that it went viral this time last year, on the eve of the PNC: Padraig Harrington how to introduce your child to golf.
Harrington’s soliloquy was inspired by his son Ciaranhis playing partner for the week – and what he did right and wrong in Ciaran’s early days with the game. His insights, in four parts:
1. If you’re having fun, they’ll be happy.
“In hindsight, the best way, if you want to introduce your child to the game of golf, is to bring them somewhere where you’re not stressed. This is very important,” said Harrington. “Kids understand that. Let them do what they want to do when they’re out there, have some fun if they want to hit a shot, two shots, 10 shots, play in the bunker, watch the water, or whatever they want to do, let them do it. , and generally bring them home before they tire.”
2. Quit while you’re ahead.
“So the best thing you can do with a kid early in golf is say, ‘hey, we’ve got to go home,’ and don’t wait until they get tired and hate it. Wait until they’re really satisfied, go home.”
“Remember, if your child is good at the game, it does not mean that he loves the game. If your child likes the game, he is likely to become good at it. Love must come first.”
“When you’re done, take 10 minutes to spend with your son or daughter and go and have a Coke, a Pepsi this week, go and have a Pepsi at the bar, wherever, and sit there, have an ice cream . and spend 10, 15 minutes. Because if they only have 15 minutes with you, you and them, for the rest of their lives, every time they play golf, they remember the 15 minutes they had with their father or mother, and that’s what they’re going to do. brought. back to golf for tomorrow.”
4. Keep love first.
“If your kid gets good at the game, that doesn’t mean they love the game,” Harrington said. “If your child likes the game, he is likely to become good at it. It is the love that must come first and, and it is even more important to acquire a love for the game, because we all know the plateau when playing golf.
“There are a lot of plateaus where it gets really frustrating. And if you don’t like it, those plateaus will stop you playing, you’ll quit. But if you love him, you will go through everything. So try to get children’s love of play first.”
Paddy’s parenting – that’s golf stuff I love.
wINNERS
Who won the week?
Lanto Griffin won the Q-School, ensuring he will have full PGA Tour status for the 2025 PGA Tour season. A money quote from Griffin after Sunday’s round, a bundle of seven-under 63: I want to experience this with my family, now with my child and it’s — you just don’t want it to end. It’s like being at a really good concert, you just wish there were a few more songs and that’s something I felt this week.”
Jake Knapp AND Patty Tavatanakits put a bow on their seasons with a win at Grant Thornton Invitation. Fun fact: This was the second time this year they won on the same day. The first time was back in February, when Knapp won the Mexico Open and Tavatanakit at the Honda LPGA Thailand.
Shaun Norriswon The Alfred Dunhill Championship on home soil as the DP World Tour continued its momentum in Africa, carding a final-round 67 to erase a six-shot deficit as the competitors fell off the fairway down the stretch at Leopard Creek Country Club in South Africa. The win marked his second in as many starts as Norris won the Japan Tour’s Nippon Series JT Cup just two weeks ago.
“It changes a few things for me. I have a lot to look forward to over the next few years,” Norris said of his improved status. “But now it’s vacation time.”
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Non-winners
Some golfers who didn’t win, but still somehow won.
Five more pros made it through a grueling Q-School week that started wild and windy and ended with good old-fashioned mega-pressure. One sentence for each with help from ours Jack Hirsch:
Hayden Buckley: A member of the PGA Tour for the past two seasons, he surprisingly dropped out of the Top 125 after just two top-10s in 2024.
Takumi Kanaya: A seven-time Japan Tour winner who has already played in 11 major championships. He was a former amateur world No. 1 and was ranked 49th in the 2022 Official World Golf Ranking.
Will Chandler: He unloaded a final-930 on Sunday to restart his career prospects. Advance from the second phase of Q-School after logging just 10 Korn Ferry Tour events this season and nine PGA Tour Canada events in 2023.
Matthew Riedel: The former Vanderbilt University standout who graduated this spring earned Korn Ferry Tour status through PGA Tour U. That also put him directly into the final stage of Q-School this week.
SHORT HITS
Six teams to watch in the PNC Championship.
When served with an ad broadcasting tomorrow’s Showdown odds, it occurred to me that the PNC Championship might be the most degenerate golf event to bet on, considering families and kids and whatnot. With that as inspiration, let’s run through the betting favorites (yes, real odds):
6. Team Singh (+650) – Vijay and Qass. The 2022 winners and the only team to go 59-59 in event history.
5. Team Langer (+650) – Bernhard and Jason. Last year’s champions; they also won in 2019 and 2014. Bernhard also won the final PGA Tour Champions event of the season, so he’s entering in good form. Dangerous team.
4. Team Woods (+500) – Tiger and Charlie. These guys are becoming seasoned event vets; with luck this will be their healthiest year yet.
3. Team Kuchar (+450) – Matt and Carson. Shot 57 in first round last year but faded to T5 on Day 2. Came back hungry.
2. Team Cink (+450) – Stewart and Connor. They won in 2013; can they turn back the clock?!
1. Team Daly (+300) – John and John II. They won in 2021; they are closed to have the brightest pants. John II averaged 71.78 points at Arkansas last year, but I don’t think they played any father-son two-man matchups.
AN IMPORTANT THOUGHT
By Daniel Berger and Nelly Korda.
During Grant Thornton Week it’s interesting to hear what LPGA and PGA Tour pros think of their partners’ games, and a fun tidbit came from Daniel Berger AND Nelly Kordawho realized with an approach shot that they were both pulling 7-irons.
“There were a few times when I hit one yesterday and I looked in her bag and she was hitting the same club that I hit,” Berger said. Korda was quick to add that her draw adds yardage, while Berger’s fade takes some away. But they were mutually impressed.
“It’s been very easy, she hits the fairway, she hits the green, she makes the putt. I mean, it’s pretty obvious why she’s no. 1 in the world and I have to get my act together,” Berger said.
“He’s a very fine player,” Korda said. “I always appreciate it when a player shows his artistic side.”
A BIG QUESTION
What’s going on with the Ryder Cup payout?
Monday morning PGA of America confirmed reports that yes, the American Ryder Cuppers will be compensated for their participation in this year’s event at Bethpage Black. Specifically they will receive $300,000 to give to a charity of their choice and another $200,000 as a salary.
So how should you feel about this? Typically, I just use this space to ask a question, not answer it, but here I’ll offer a hint: You don’t have to think about it at all! You don’t need an opinion on this! Do these guys need the money? No, they don’t. Do they deserve it? Yes, they probably do; they are the ones everyone comes to see. But the Ryder Cup is not made or broken by a few million dollars in appearance fees and charitable donations. Professional players get paid to play just about anywhere else they do. That looks (shrugs) good.
With that said, Team Europe should absolutely rely on the idea that theirs is a purer commitment to competition. Their bond with the team has traditionally been stronger than the American side – that’s easy bulletin board material if they need more.
ONE THING TO PRESENT
Bryson tweets Rory.
The Crypto dot com show is coming up on Tuesday, and while I’m really excited about Scottie/Rory vs.. Brooks/Bryson I was a little worried that nothing about this matchup had seeped into the general sports world (in other words through the NFL bubble). But that changed on Monday with a devastating and actually pretty organic dagger thrown in Bryson DeChambeau in the direction of Rory McIlroy.
Exchange, in a Monday clinic:
McIlroy: “I’d like to go up against Bryson and try to repay him for what he did to me at the US Open.”
DeChambeau: “Honestly, you did it to yourself.”
You could argue that this was history repeating itself, with McIlroy doing to himself once again throwing this alley-oop at DeChambeau, but it was good, if devastating, fun. Let’s hope there will be some more fun and lots of fire on Tuesday night. I am a cautious optimist.
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday Finish headquarters.
We haven’t hit the shortest day of the year yet, but we’ve passed a major milestone: Last week we saw the earliest sunset of the year at 4:17 PM, and now we’re headed in the right direction – 4:19 today! Mornings are a different story (7:52 with sunrise and still getting worse), but we’ll take the wins where we can get them. Spring is basically here.
See you next week!
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Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. Resident of Williamstown, Mass. joined GOLF in 2017 after two years of struggling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he is the author of 18 in Americawhich details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living out of his car and golfing in every state.
