For comments: ben.alberstadt@golfwrx.com

Good Tuesday morning, golf fans, as we gear up for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

1. PGA Tour pro makes 8-hour drive to play for $20K

Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine…”Eric Cole isn’t in the field for this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic. It will mark the first time in 12 weeks that the 35-year-old rookie hasn’t teed it up on the PGA Tour.”

• So, how is Cole spending his off week? He’s playing a golf tournament.

• Yes, after tying for 24th on Sunday at the Travelers Championship, Cole hopped in a car and drove eight hours to Pittsburgh for this week’s Frank B. Fuhrer Jr. Invitational, a 72-hole tournament at Pittsburgh Field Club.

• The Fuhrer has been around for nearly four decades, dating to 1985 when Bob Ford won the inaugural title. The 40-player tournament is the brainchild of Pittsburgh businessman Frank B. Fuhrer Jr., who also was behind the Family House Invitational, a two-day competition for charity that for 14 years featured dozens of PGA Tour pros. Fuhrer died last year at age 96, but his invitational lived on with David Bradshaw winning for a record fourth time last year while claiming the $40,000 first-place prize.

2. Record mark at no. 1

ESPN report…”South Korea’s Jin Young Ko was ranked No. 1 in the world Monday for a record-setting 159th week, and rising star Rose Zhang is now in the top 50.”

• “Ko remained atop the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings after a tie for 20th at this past week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, surpassing the 158 weeks spent at No. 1 by Lorena Ochoa of Mexico from 2007 to 2010. Ko, a 15-time winner on the LPGA Tour, has held the No. 1 spot five different times since April 2019. This is the 27-year-old’s sixth consecutive week there.”

3. Garcia enters Open qualifying

The Telegraph’s James Corrigan…”Sergio Garcia has entered next week’s final qualifying for the Open Championship. The record Ryder Cup points scorer will take his place alongside 287 other hopefuls — a mixture of starry-eyed amateurs and lowly-ranked pros — attempting to win one of the 16 berths on offer for Hoylake.”

• “However, Telegraph Sport has also learned that Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter — two other Ryder Cup legends who are members of the LIV Golf League — will not feature in the draw when it is released on Tuesday, with the veterans electing to skip the 36-hole shootout. This means that Westwood will miss his first Open in 28 years.”

4. Blair close to keeping his card

Jim McCabe for PGATour.com…”There were two scoreboards in play for Zac Blair during Sunday’s final round of the Travelers Championship.”

• “The one that mattered the most – where he stood in his quest to pile up FedExCup points to fulfill his major medical extension – was one he had no control over and one that wouldn’t even come into focus until his round was long over. He needed a solo second to secure his card; a two-way T2 would move him to the precipice.”

• “So Blair tried to push that out of his mind and focus on the leaderboards at every green. There, he saw his name prominently placed near the top and he was able to take deep breaths and feel a sense of achievement.”

• “There was a time where I was way back,” said Blair, who began the day tied for 15th, nine behind 54-hole leader Keegan Bradley, who proceeded to win by three strokes over Blair and Brian Harman. “So I was just trying to play well and (the putts) kept going in.”

5. “Technology has passed this course by”

Our Matt Vincenzi…”Rory McIlroy, who finished at 18 under and tied for seventh place, spoke after the round about the golf course. The four-time major champion said that he believes “technology has passed the course by.””

• “I don’t particularly like when a tournament is like this. Unfortunately, technology has passed this course by, right? It sort of has made it obsolete, especially as soft as it has been with a little bit of rain that we had.”

• “So, again, like the conversations going back to, you know, limiting the golf ball and stuff like that, when we come to courses like this they just don’t present the challenge that they used to.”

6. Cantlay’s coup?

Our Jason Daniels…”Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch wrote a piece on Saturday that told of the huge pressures now facing PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan following June’s declaration of “an ill-defined but ignominious deal that promises a future in which the Tour will have to rationalize its proximity to [Saudi] regime atrocities.”

• “According to Lynch, the Tour is now having to cope with rebellious players that previously kept quiet, for they now have “no prospects for the lucrative payday to which they feel entitled.”

• “Whilst previously, LIV-jumpers were cast as the heinous group, now it seems the new objectors have nowhere positive to go.”

• “Lynch is clear, though, “his [Cantlay’s] objections aren’t based on the morality of dealing with human rights abusers.” Rather it’s about money.”

Read Lynch’s full piece here

7. Wolff returns to LIV

Matt Cradock for Golf Monthly…”At the end of May, it seemed that Matt Wolff was no longer part of Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC team in the LIV Golf League. However, just a month after the rumours broke, it appears that the American is back in the quartet, with Smash GC posting a picture of the four-man squad before LIV Golf Valderrama.”

• “Captioned “VAMOS SMASH”, we see Wolff’s picture in the top left corner, with both Chase and Brooks Koepka in the middle and Jason Kokrak on the right hand side as the tournament gets underway from the 30th June to the 2nd July.”

8. USGA admits mistake in Rory’s controversial drop

Bob Harig for SI…”It ultimately didn’t factor in the outcome, nor did Rory McIlroy take much advantage of the situation.”

• “But the ruling he got on the 14th hole during the final round of the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club has still simmered some 10 days later, due in part to the oddity of the situation and his prominence in the game.”

• “And a United States Golf Association executive told Sports Illustrated during an interview Monday that while McIlroy did nothing wrong, the spot from which he measured his point of relief from an embedded lie above a bunker was incorrect.”

• “The nearest point of relief was mis-identified; it should have been directly behind the ball,” said Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s chief governance officer. “If there’s no area immediately behind the ball, you go to nearest point in the general area. But if you look at where the ball was embedded, there was a grassy area below and that should have been the starting point.”

9. Framework sent to senators

Rex Hoggard for Golf Channel…”The “framework” agreement that united professional golf following the most tumultuous divide the game had seen in decades was, as officials have explained, a broad stroke.”

• “PGA Tour officials turned the agreement over to lawmakers late Monday as part of a review of the deal by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). A copy of the five-page agreement obtained by GolfChannel.com outlines the “long-term strategic partnership” between the Tour, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and the DP World Tour.”

• “According to the agreement, the for-profit assets of the Tour, DP World Tour and the PIF (LIV Golf) will be combined into what is tentatively being called NewCo. After an evaluation of those assets, the PIF, which owns 93 percent of LIV Golf, will make a minority investment into the new entity.”

• “Per the agreement, the Tour’s for-profit assets will include “contracts/agreements and equity interests” but do not include player retirement plans, corporate reserves or any of the circuit’s tax-exempt assets.”