Brandt Snedeker attended the Payne Stewart Award ceremony as a rookie. Now the honor goes to him

AP Golf Writer

The Payne Stewart Award has become one of the most cherished honors on the PGA Tour, and it took on special meaning for Brandt Snedeker when he was announced as this year’s recipient.

Snedeker was still at Vanderbilt when Stewart died in an October 1999 plane crash, so he never met him. That was case for Zach Johnson and Justin Rose in recent years, and it will continue as time goes on.

Snedeker still felt connected in a couple of ways.

His family is from the Springfield, Missouri, area, where Stewart was raised.

“My grandmother actually knew Payne Stewart’s father and that’s how she became a golf fan,” Snedeker said. “She didn’t play golf and she actually got me started in the game of golf. So indirectly through Payne’s father I got to play golf at an early age. I probably wouldn’t have.

“Just through that one little act of giving me a set of golf clubs and that one interaction she had with Payne’s dad kind of started this whole process,” he said. “It’s kind of cool, 37 years later to be sitting here with that award means tons to me.”

Snedeker’s rookie year was 2007, when he won the Wyndham Championship and reached the Tour Championship. The Payne Stewart Award ceremony was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta that year, and Snedeker attended to watch Hal Sutton get honored. The ceremony rarely disappoints with genuine emotion and humility from the winners.

Snedeker said he set a goal of one day receiving the award.

“I went to it every year I played the Tour Championship and just saw these heroes, icons of mine breaking down on stage and going through what they’ve given back in their communities and kind of reinforce what the tour is all about,” he said.

Phil’s future

One year after his surprise runner-up finish in the Masters, Phil Mickelson has taken a big step backward. He has finished out of the top 20 in nine of the 10 LIV Golf events. His didn’t break par in any of the 12 rounds he played in the four majors, missing the cut in two of them.

Mickelson says he is an equity shareholder in his HyFlyers team on LIV Golf and believes he will be involved for decades to come.

“But as far as my career, I’m realistic with where I’m at,” he said last week in a conference call to promote his latest YouTube venture called “Pros versus Schmoes.”

Mickelson has been injury-free for most of his career. He’s just not producing the scores.

“I see glimpses, and my teammates see glimpses, of me being where I expect to be able to compete at this level,” he said. “But I’m also realistic with myself, and if I’m not able to I’ll step aside and let somebody come on in and take the HyFlyers to new levels.”

Mickelson, who won the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50 to become golf’s oldest major champion, has one more year of eligibility for the U.S. Open. He can play the Masters and PGA Championship as long as he likes and the British Open for six more years.

Playoffs start

Scottie Scheffler goes into the PGA Tour’s postseason with just over $36 million in earnings on the course this year.

He won $28.1 million from prize money in the 16 tournaments he played (an average of $1,759293 per tournament). And then he received an $8 million bonus from the Comcast Business Top 10, which pays the leading 10 players in the FedEx Cup after the regular season.

Xander Schauffele received $6 million for finishing second, followed by Rory McIlroy ($4.8 million) in third. Shane Lowry held onto the 10th spot and pulled in $2 million, slightly more than he got for winning the British Open in 2019.

With the unofficial money from the Comcast bonus, Scheffler could become golf’s first $50 million man, which would require him winning the FedEx Cup and its $25 million bonus.

As good as he has been, Scheffler has not played his best in the postseason. He had a 73-70 weekend at the Tour Championship last year to fall out of contention, and he lost a six-shot lead at East Lake the year before.

It all starts with the FedEx St. Jude Championship this week. Points are quadrupled, but Scheffler leads by nearly 2,000 points over Schauffele. Even if Scheffler wins the next two tournaments, the best he or anyone can do is having a two-shot lead going into East Lake.

No guarantees

The top 50 in the FedEx Cup after this week are assured of playing in all eight of the $20 million signature events, which also come with elevated points.

What it doesn’t offer is a guarantee.

Lucas Glover won’t be defending his title in the FedEx St. Jude Championship because he didn’t qualify for the top 70. Six others also had spots in all the signature events and failed to advance to the postseason — Rickie Fowler, Adam Schenk, Kurt Kitayama, Lee Hodges, Adam Svensson and Andrew Putnam.

That list could grow. Ten players who were top 50 a year ago are outside the top 50 going into the first playoff event. That list includes Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth and Nick Taylor.

Curtis Cup

Rachel Kuehn was among five players added to the Curtis Cup team, making her the lone returning player of the eighth-member team from the 2022 matches the Americans won by a record margin at Merion.

Kuehn, a 23-year-old Wake Forest alum, also becomes the first player since Virginia Grimes in 2006 to play on three straight Curtis Cup teams. She secured the winning point in the last two matches at Merion and Conwy in Wales.

Also added to the team, which faces Great Britain and Ireland on Aug. 30 at Sunningdale in England, were Anna Davis, Melanie Green, Megan Schofill and 15-year-old Asterisk Talley.

Previously named to the team based on their world amateur ranking were Zoe Campos, Jasmine Koo and Catherine Park.

The Americans will be going for a fourth straight victory. They hold a 33-8-3 advantage in the matches for amateur women that began in 1932.

Whistling Straits

The PGA Championship had to abandon Whistling Straits in Wisconsin when it moved from August to May — Vijay Singh (2004), Martin Kaymer (2010) and Jason Day (2015) each won a Wanamaker Trophy along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Now the U.S. Golf Association is stepping in. It announced Tuesday it will host three championships at the Pete Dye design, starting with the U.S. Amateur in 2028. It also will bring a U.S. Junior Amateur (2033) and a U.S. Girls’ Junior (2037).

To be determined is whether that leads to a more prominent championship. The USGA was said to be interested in a U.S. Open at Whistling Straits until the PGA of America locked it up in 2005 with a 15-year commitment.

Divots

Kevin Kisner will serve as the NBC analyst in the booth during the FedEx Cup playoffs. … Brandt Snedeker is the latest to be appointed an assistant captain to Keegan Bradley in the Ryder Cup next year. Snedeker played in two Ryder Cup matches, both on U.S. soil. … Florida State sophomore Luke Clanton is No. 3 in the world amateur ranking and No. 140 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He has three top 10s on the PGA Tour this summer. … There’s a reason Rickie Fowler didn’t play the final tournament of the regular season. He and his wife, Alison, announced the birth of their second child, another daughter they named Nellie.

Stat of the week

There were 16 players outside the top 50 in the world ranking to win on the PGA Tour this year, compared with 13 winners who were inside the top 50.

Final word

“I do feel like I’m a mythical character in a story tale. It really couldn’t have gotten any better.” — Lydia Ko after winning the Olympic gold medal to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame.

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