• Schauffele trailed by two with four holes remaining, but birdied 15 and 18 to force extra holes.

• “Xander pushed me the whole way, or all 73 holes we played together this week,” McIlroy said.

• “But McIlroy felt he had an advantage as soon as Schauffele pulled a piece of paper from Slugger White’s hat. Schauffele’s slip had a “2” written on it, indicating that he’d hit second in their sudden-death showdown.”

• “I knew that was the big moment because I could hit a drive down the fairway and put the pressure on him,” McIlroy said.

Full piece.

• …”Christina Kim witnessed what used to be known as blatant cheating – a player asking a caddie for another golfer what club they hit. She reported it after the round, the LPGA ruled correctly and now two players have missed out on getting their cards. One deservedly, one not.”

• “Sadly, for the player blissfully unaware her caddie was helping another player – Dewi Weber – this led to her Q-Series downfall even as she did nothing wrong. Fortunately for the spirit of the rules, the player unaware of a basic tenet of competition lost her card. Kendall Dye now has time to read up on the most basic guidelines that govern how the game is played.”

• “The Rules of Golf can be cruel, as they were in this case for Weber, who trusted her caddie to know you don’t openly share information with players other than your own. And for Kim, who had to be wondering how oblivious her playing partner had to be to so brazenly ask the opposition for advice, she is now unfairly getting blowback for reporting a very basic and simple rules violation.”

• “That’s pathetic. A professional golfer or caddie at an event as significant as qualifying school must be aware such information sharing is a no-no. More likely, this is another sign of the bizarre, we’re-all-in-this-together mindset in modern competitive golf.”

Full piece.

• “The putt was missed and Korda went on to get the better of the German and playing partner Minjee Lee on the first play-off hole.”

• “There was a little more to it than that though…Masson’s fiance Jason McDede would have undoubtedly been rooting for his partner to win the third title of her career but he was in fact also doing his part to prevent that from happening.”

• “McDede is actually the caddie of Korda and has enjoyed plenty of success alongside the American but until this point, Korda had never gone directly head-to-head with Masson when vying for a title.”

Full piece.

• Golfweek’s Adam Schupak…”The streak is over. Long live the streak…For the first time since Nov. 27, 1993, Phil Mickelson is no longer ranked in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking.”

• “We knew this day would eventually come, but it doesn’t make the streak any less astounding. Shugo Imahira finished runner-up in the Japan Golf Tour’s Mynavi ABC Championship to vault past Mickelson and end his 1,353 weeks inside the top 50.” 

Full piece.

• “Thomas. Woods. McIlroy…PGA Tour brass in Florida could not have asked for much more from the tour’s foray to Asia, even if most of the heavy lifting for these events occurred overnight for American viewers.”

• “At a time of year when American sports’ fans attention has been focused on the NFL, college football and the MLB playoffs as well as the start of the NBA and NHL seasons, golf managed to squeeze its away into the consciousness, duly helped by Woods’ surprising run in Japan, where he looked like a different player than in recent months in winning his 82nd PGA Tour title to tie the record held by Sam Snead.”

• “That long-ago conversation came to mind this weekend as I waded through a Twitter thread initiated by Denis Pugh, the coach of Francesco Molinari. Pugh worked with Colin Montgomerie at his peak and with Seve Ballesteros. He is one of the more thoughtful men in golf and brooks no B.S. from any quarter, two traits that are assets everywhere except on social media.”

• “If you think you can make a living as a Tour pro prepare and invest in your future properly,” he tweeted. “This winter find a Challenge Tour player in your area and play him twice a month, home and away courses, for £500 a game. If you can make money from him, you are a potential ‘player.'”

Full piece.

• AP report…”Colin Montgomerie won the Invesco QQQ Championship on Sunday with a par on the first hole of a playoff after Bernhard Langer took four strokes to get out of a greenside bunker.”

• “With Langer finally on the par-4 18th green in six shots, Montgomerie two-putted for the victory, with the 56-year-old Scot tapping in from 2 feet to end the second of three events in the PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Cup playoffs.”