• “GOLFTV is the brand name for Discovery’s on-demand video streaming service that starts next year. It plans to collaborate with Woods on a wide range of programming designed to give viewers a closer look into Woods’ practice routines, life on the tour and some instruction.”
• “I want to talk to golf fans and golfers everywhere, directly, and straight from me,” Woods said. “That’s important to me, talking about what we care about. What’s happening on the course, how to play better, how can I shoot lower scores tomorrow, how can I beat my friends?”
• “The content will be owned exclusively by GOLFTV globally, including in the United States, where Discovery can still develop a distribution strategy.”

Full report here.

• “Woods was playing with his 9-year-old son Charlie, TGR executive and good friend Rob McNamara and Fred Couples, who had aced the exact same hole just days earlier and told the group about it before they hit.”

• “Woods took a little off a 5-iron to a back right pin on a shot that never left the flag, according to McNamara. A bunker was blocking their view of the hole from the tee box, but once they got to the green they saw a pitch mark about 15 feet in front of the hole.”

• “We didn’t see it go in,” Woods said. “Somehow when we got to the green it was gone. I thought it might be over the back but I said no, I hit it a lot softer than that. And we get up there and then it’s in the hole.”

Full piece

• “He turns 43 at the end of the year, and with age comes a dose of practical thinking…His expectations are high by his standards. Given the level of attention he draws, the expectations of everyone around him are sure to be much higher. He was asked if he was close to having the same expectations he did 15 years ago.”

• “It’s not the same. It never will be. I’ll never feel that again,” he said. “To be what, 28 years old? Physically, I’ll never be like that. So expectations are different than they used to be, for sure. Now, can I still win? Can I still compete? Yes. Can I do it for the next 20 years? No. Because that’s not realistic.”

• “Indeed, his expectations at the peak of his career were far different….”Just win. Win everything,” he said. “Because I felt like I could.”

• “ON USING THE WILSON STAFF IRONS: “Obviously it’s a good time in the season to start testing some stuff. I had a bunch of stuff sent to my home. I hit these and loved them. They’ve been really good.”

• “ON WHAT HE LIKES ABOUT THE IRONS: “It’s a new blade I believe they’re going to come out with next year. Through the turf has been phenomenal. Ball flight, trajectory all have been very consistent and what I’ve been looking for. … The big thing is consistent trajectory. When I look up, the ball is coming out of the window I want it to.”

• “ON WHEN HE RECEIVED THE WILSON IRONS: “A couple of weeks ago. I’ve been off for the last two weeks so it’s been good. I think they look phenomenal. So traditional. Very clean. I haven’t signed a deal with anybody but they definitely stick out.”

• “He had a long drive contest against my cousin, who finished second in the World Long Drive twice,” Finau, speaking at this week’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, said of an impromptu showdown between Champ and Ben Tua’one, who was runner-up in the World Long Drive Championship in 2011 and 2012.

• “They both went after it and both their [ball] speeds were right around 200 [m.p.h.], just over 200, maybe 202, 203,” Finau said. “Cameron was obviously a little more efficient, hitting in the center of the face. So his ball in Utah was going just over 400 yards, so it was quite impressive to watch.”

• “Maybe once I had that type of speed and that type of length, but not anymore,” Finau said. “That’s pretty incredible. He has the flexibility and the length I’ve never seen before.”

• “Professional golf is becoming an increasingly polarised game and at around the same time that McIlroy was planning his route to his next major title, three younger players were contemplating a much less lucrative life on the mini tours after rules infractions had, at least in part, cost them the chance of earning a tour card at the annual European Tour Qualifying School.”

• “There is a very small margin between success and failure in professional golf and nowhere is that better illustrated than at Q School where dreams are made but where one loose shot or a single mishap can end a career. Sometimes before it starts.”

• “It was an experience that I think that was different for the game of golf and one that everyone had an opinion, whether it’s good or bad, I don’t care what it is, but everyone had an opinion, and that’s what we tried to stir up. Hopefully it was a positive experience for most. We tried to make it, it was a show, it was entertainment, but as I was explaining after, the press conference there, I got lost in the competitiveness of it. I started getting focused on trying to fight through it and trying to beat Phil.”
• “And Phil and I were talking about it while we’re playing, he says I’m having a hard time talking. And I said, yeah, yeah, me too. I’m the same way because I’m trying to beat your brains in, and that’s how we’ve been our entire career. And so yeah, it was a little on the giddy side early, as we turned and he was up, then I flipped it to I was up, he got really quiet and then he started talking when he got up and then after I hole a shot on 17, he got really quiet.”

Full one-on-one interview via SiriusXM On Demand here

• “Phil Mickelson got a lot of attention for a tweet that showed him spending time on a firing range to prepare for the Ryder Cup. Mickelson wrote, “How is today’s long-range sniper shooting preparing me for the Ryder Cup? Meditation, controlling my thoughts, breathing, heart rate and connecting with the target are critical for both!”

• “While it ultimately didn’t do him a lot of good in France, the theory was a sound one. The roles of equipment, technique, and mindset are almost identical in shooting and golf. These crossovers exist between golf and most shooting sports, but Phil should have been practicing at a sporting clays course instead of a sniper range.”

• “It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific reason. Undoubtedly the tricky setup of the course was a huge factor. But don’t forget, we lost all three of the first matches on Friday morning. If it hadn’t been for Tommy Fleetwood and me beating Woods and Patrick Reed, we would have been at 0-4, and it would have been really hard. We reacted by winning, 4-0, in the afternoon. But we didn’t kid ourselves. The more-experienced players worried about an American backlash, but with time we felt better on that course, which many of us know [as an annual European Tour stop for the French Open].”

• “The key moment was Saturday morning, when only Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth had earned a point. We saw that they were probably more tired than we were, also because the majority of them had been busy with the FedEx right up until the end. But you know how the Ryder Cup is. In fact, after the 2-2 Saturday afternoon, they attempted a comeback in the singles on Sunday. But we reacted well.”