• “The Rules of Golf have been a hot topic of conversation, with some players questioning a few of the newly simplified rules that went into effect at the start of 2019 and wondering if the TOUR should make its own rules for the game’s best players to follow, leaving the USGA and the R&A to make and implement rules for others.”

• “Monahan was adamant that would not happen….”We have two fantastic professional governing bodies of the game,” he said during his annual press conference prior to the start of THE PLAYERS Championship. “We have always played by their rules and we will continue to play by their rules – and we are not going to be playing by our own rules.

• “We think that the game is best served with everybody playing by the same rules and the same standards. We think it’s a source of inspiration for the game.”

• “Francesco Molinari might not look like the modern version of an Arnold Palmer, a player who makes people watch because of his ability to charge from behind with clutch shots, big putts and low scores….He just plays one on TV.”

• “Four of his eight career victories have come in the last nine months, three of them counting as PGA Tour titles.”

• “Four players have shot 64 or better in the final round four times on the PGA Tour since 2017. Molinari is on that short list with Koepka, Justin Thomas and Gary Woodland. He doesn’t have their power. He doesn’t have their flash. He just gets results, which is what matters in this game.”

• “Greener. Cooler. Windier. And tougher.”…Those are a few of the adjectives players have used to describe the return of THE PLAYERS Championship to March for the first time since 2006.”

• “The best players in the world are preparing to take on a different sort of TPC Sawgrass now that the tournament has been moved back to March. The Stadium Course has new grass (ryegrass as opposed to Bermuda) and new, rye-overseeded greens. And that’s not all that’s different.”

• “The weather will be cooler (70s dipping to 60s on the weekend, as opposed to 90s). The wind could well be different (coming out of the north and into players’ faces on 17 and 18). And to a man, players this week have said the 7,189-yard, par-72 Pete Dye gem feels much longer.”

• “Meet Rob McNamara, officially a vice president for TGR Ventures, but unofficially, a second set of eyes for Woods’ golf swing. That second role has become especially important with Woods no longer employing a swing coach, although, he has been spotted working on his putting with Matt Killen at this week’s Players Championship. And in GOLFTV’s latest video installment with Woods, McNamara and the 14-time major champ talked about their unique working relationship that dates back to their junior golf days in southern California.”

• “I mean he knows my game,” said Woods, who estimates the two have played 500 rounds of golf together. “One, he’s a good player. Two, he’s got a good eye and he has seen me go through changes and iterations in the game of golf, but at the end of the day I try and use Rob for what I’m trying to work on now, because right now it’s different, because I’m limited what I can do, and not only am I limited in what I can do, I’m limited in how much I can practice.”

• “The payoff came on Wednesday at The Players when Bonnalie had to eat a Paqui Carolina Reaper Madness chip before hitting his shot in the annual Caddie Competition on the 17th hole. According to advertising on the company’s website, the chip is made from the hottest chile pepper in the world.”

• “Bonnalie didn’t seem too bothered by the chip at first and found the island green with his tee shot. But he struggled to reach the hole and had to kneel for several minutes to recover.”

• “Varner had been asking a lot of questions about success, and he was telling Woods that he really wanted to win on the PGA Tour.”

• “The best thing he told me … he said, ‘Run your own journey. It’s your path. No one else’s. Run it,'” Varner recalled. “So then I quit worrying about everything else… He’s just like, ‘Run your course. If you work hard, you’ll win. It’s pretty simple.’ That’s why it’s easy to be around him, because he’s not judging you.”

• “They call me the Fisherman. It was a photographer from the Japanese version of Golf Digest who came up with my nickname, as when he took photos of me, he thought my swing reminded him of a fisherman trying to hook his catch – so he called me the Fisherman in his captions.”

• “When I was in my last year of high school, I lost half of my thumb in an accident. I was working a part-time job cutting tuna when I caught my finger in a machine. They had to take skin from my stomach to graft a new end to my thumb. It is something that affects my daily life – I really feel it in the winter and it swells a lot in the cold. I never see it as a disadvantage to my golf game though – I always try and think positively about it and use it to my advantage.”

• “I learnt to play golf through seeing pictures of swings in magazines. When I started to learn the game there was no YouTube or any videos on the internet, so I just used to look at photos of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Annika Sorenstam and try and be like them. Of course, they were all just snapshots, but I was able to apply their technique by looking at them. My swing is very unique now though, and I don’t think I look like any of them when I’m playing!”

Piece.

• After telling Collins he visited with one of the doctors for the Arizona Cardinals, Perez said he’s slated for an MRI.

• Pat Perez: “So he says it’s a calf strain 2, which is basically a torn calf muscle. It’s much better than an Achilles.”

• Michael Collins: “Yes, you thought you blew out your Achilles.”

• Perez: “I thought I did. … It was just horrible flying home, leaving The Players, it’s just a horrible, horrible feeling. But, you know, at least the good news is it’s supposed to be like six weeks.”