• 2019 will be another year that TaylorMade Golf sits right near the top of that mountain, with its most aggressive push in regards to tech advancement since the SLDR in 2013.

• Marketed as “taking speed to the limit,” TaylorMade’s next generation of the M family of drivers, the M5 and M6, feature a Speed Injected Twist Face, building on the Twist Face technology the company debuted with the M3 and M4 drivers last year. The M5 and M6 club faces are designed to initially exceed the USGA’s COR limit.

• In simple terms, speed injected face technology is where they take all of the heads they produce, push them all past the USGA limit in regards to COR and work backwards to ensure they fall within the parameters – the algorithm-driven process of resin injection into the clubs via the two ports on the face brings the figure just inside the acceptable range.

• Dan Kilbridge at Golfweek...”The highlights: Bone-in ribeye, mac and cheese, creamed corn, creamed spinach.”

• “Reed also said he’ll have some grilled chicken and healthier options just in case.”

• “I’ll go caesar salad, but then I was going to make multiple options, because some guys might not like steak,” Reed said. “So there will be grilled chicken, there will probably be some kind of seafood as well. I want to please everyone there. It’s not just for me, it’s for all the past champions and everybody and I want everyone to have a great time.”

• Alex Myers at Golf Digest…”Armour is coming off a solid fall in which he made the cut in all five of his starts and finished T-15 at the RSM Classic in his final tournament of 2018. But in addition to carrying over into 2019 the $269,911 he’s earned, the one-time PGA Tour winner will also start the new year on a crazy streak. The 42-year-old has hit 52 fairways in a row.”

• “Yep, that’s 52 fairways in a row. Or, essentially four straight tournament rounds of not hitting a tee shot on a par 4 or par 5 in the rough. And nope, that’s NOT the PGA Tour record. That distinction belongs to Brian Claar, who hit 59 in a row in 1992, which happens to be the first year the tour began keeping consecutive fairways as an official stat. Yeah, we’re guessing you didn’t know that one.”

• Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard… “There were times when I wondered if I might not ever win again. Maybe I’ll have a really nice career and try to be super consistent and maybe winning just isn’t in the cards,” he said. “I don’t know that you’re ever OK with that, but it was tending to be a reality.”

• “Although Howell has just three PGA Tour victories, he has finished runner-up 16 times and ranks 20th on the career earnings list ($37 million).”

• “By comparison, John Daly won five times on Tour, including two major championships, yet ranks 177th in career earnings. When asked if he would trade careers with Daly, Howell’s answer was a testament to what has been an impressively consistent career.”

• “I wouldn’t [trade careers with Daly]. As painful as that is to say, because he’s won majors. I am proud of the consistency I’ve had and the finishes I’ve had,” Howell said. “When I went to Oklahoma State I wanted to see how good I could be. But if you’d have said, ‘Charles you’re going to have a 20-year career on the PGA Tour,’ I would have signed up in a heartbeat for that.”

• “For some reason I haven’t had nearly the monetary success of some other guys,” the five-time Web.com Tour winner told the Greenville News the week of the Wyndham. “If you get one or two good years on the PGA Tour, it can set you up for years.

• “Instead, after 17 years as a tour pro, the 39-year-old Thompson finally settled on his first “real job” to support his family for the foreseeable future. And he was excited about embarking on his new insurance career to begin the new year”

Rex Hoggard writes…”Despite that success Koepka said he checked off about “half” his goals last season, pointing out that he missed a good portion of the spring with a wrist injury and he didn’t make every cut.”

• “I like playing the weekends,” said Koepka, who missed his only cut at a non-team event at the RBC Canadian Open in July. “I wasn’t happy on that plane ride home. I can tell you that much.”

• But hey... “In bed by 10 o’clock every night. I did good on that one. Every night,” he laughed before adding, “On the road. On the road.”