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As Erik van Rooyen and Camilo Villegas walked down the first fairway on a Sunday afternoon last week in Cabo San Lucas, van Rooyen told Villegas the story of his pain. He told him about the “JT” written on his golf balls — for Jon Trasamar, the college teammate with terminal cancer he had on his mind.
And Villegas understood. He lost his daughter, Mia, to brain cancer three years ago, only returning to golf at the urging of his wife. That weekend, Villegas was having one of his best tournaments since that loss, so it wasn’t in him to complain as van Rooyen shot a back-nine 28 to win the World Wide Technology Championship and break down in tears telling the world about Trasamar.
“It was just meant to be,” Villegas told reporters. “He said it, playing for a different reason other than just a trophy, and it was his time.”
And Sunday was Villegas’ time. He went to the Butterfield Bermuda Championship to escape nine years of declining golf and emotional pain to get back to the winner’s circle.
“And here I am,” he said. “I guess it was my week to be.”
“The day we lost her, she’s been inspiring us to give back.”
Mia’s Miracles is a foundation dedicated to helping children facing challenging circumstances.@CamiloVillegasR and his wife Maria reflect on their inaugural pro-am.
(Presented by @RSMUSLLP) pic.twitter.com/CZcwoEGZiQ
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 13, 2023
You might not have been watching any of this. I get it. The PGA Tour fall schedule isn’t appointment viewing. Nobody’s claiming you should be tuning in Thursday morning for early groupings. The fields are thinner and the scores are crazy low and can lead to a somewhat empty feeling. But you also have to acknowledge the storylines coming out of these winners have been incredible.
And that tends to matter.
Start with Sahith Theegala at the Fortinet Championship in Napa, one of the best young players on Tour who has come painfully close so many times, finally getting his first PGA Tour win. Tom Kim, the 21-year-old rising star, defended his Shriners title in Las Vegas.
But then Collin Morikawa won in Japan. No, it’s not some massive victory for his resume. Yet it’s a key step in the career of a 26-year-old star that has a chance to be great. Because after his second major in 2021, Morikawa had a disappointing 2022 season that bled into 2023. That was until late August, when Morikawa got hot in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, going T13, T25 and T6 in the three events. He talked in Atlanta like somebody figuring it out, smiling as he said it all clicked for the first time in two years. To then go to Japan (Morikawa is of Japanese and Chinese descent) two months later and win his first Tour event in two years solidified something. That he might have his game back, and the young phenom might be ready to go on a tear next year.
Then van Rooyen and Villegas won in back-to-back weeks.
The stories of the regular season often begin in the fall, so they do have relevance.
Keegan Bradley had become something of an afterthought about a year ago. Then he got a T5 at the Sanderson Farms Championship and won last October in Japan. That sparked a massive comeback year for the 37-year-old major winner, winning the elevated Travelers Championship and putting himself in the Ryder Cup discussion.
Same for Russell Henley. He was living in the middle. Then, he won in Mexico to launch a career year with 13 top-20 finishes and three top-5s. He’s currently the No. 12 golfer on DataGolf.
And don’t forget Napa is where Max Homa launched his mid-career renaissance. His 2021 win at the Fortinet was the precursor to his breakout 2022 campaign, and winning again last September came before the best season of his career. Kim also announced himself at the 2022 Shriners, earning his second career win at 20.
Whether or not van Rooyen, Villegas or Luke List (who won last month in Jackson, Mississippi) are going to have big 2024 seasons is to be determined. But their wins this season were worth watching.
Rory McIlroy’s emotional outburst at caddie Joe LaCava was one of the stories of the 2023 Ryder Cup. (Kyle Terada / USA Today Sports)
Rory McIlroy speaks out on the Ryder Cup drama, Cantlay
It’s been more than a month since the drama of Rome, with Europe winning the Ryder Cup but maybe most notably intrigue surrounding Patrick Cantlay’s wearing of a hat, his caddie Joe LaCava’s elongated celebration and Rory McIlroy later having to be pulled away into a car in anger.
McIlroy and fellow Irish Ryder Cup golfer Shane Lowry spoke to the Irish Independent in a really interesting interview this week that’s worth reading in its entirety. We don’t wanna delve into the clickbait-y, but in reality, the most interesting parts of the interview also shed light on a really important dynamic for the future of the PGA Tour.
The piece that will get the most headlines will be McIlroy calling Cantlay “that dick” and saying their relationship is “average at best.” McIlroy and Cantlay are two of the key forces on the PGA Tour’s policy board. They’re both opinionated, involved figures who often get looped together because of their positions and the PGA Tour-LIV conflict, but inside golf, it’s always been understood they often represent different perspectives. McIlroy was practically the face of the “anti-LIV” movement and doing everything he could to boost the PGA Tour while Cantlay is often reported to be flirting with LIV and focusing on more money and rights for players.
So when discussing the incident on the 18th green at the Ryder Cup in which Cantlay’s caddie, LaCava, famously waved his hat in the air to shut down the European fans taunting Cantlay for a report saying Cantlay wasn’t wearing a hat to protest players not being paid and causing a rift in the locker room — I’m aware that’s a mouthful, but that day was a lot — McIlroy said he felt like he was not given the same courtesy he gave Cantlay.
McIlroy: “Here’s what angered me. My relationship with Cantlay is average at best. We don’t have a ton in common and see the world quite differently. But when I saw he was getting stick on the 17th and 18th greens I tried to quieten the crowd for him. And I don’t think (Matthew Fitzpatrick) and I were afforded the same opportunity to try and hole those putts to halve the match.”
Need those women on TikTok who lip read everything Taylor Swift says https://t.co/m7GNLMW2B0
— Brody Miller (@BrodyAMiller) September 30, 2023
It’s the first time McIlory has put that description of their relationship out into the world, something helpful as we all make sense of inner Tour dynamics. Again, it’s worth reading the entire piece, as McIlroy and Lowry discussed scenes inside the locker room and everything that went down.
“We get to the hotel, and as you come into the lobby we go left to our wing of the hotel, and the Americans go right to their wing,” McIlroy said. “So we’re going left and someone is shouting at me, ‘Rory! Rory!’, and I look back and it’s Ricky Elliott (the Portrush-born caddie of the American, Brooks Koepka) and Claude Harmon (Koepka’s swing coach). And they’re trying to defuse the situation but I start having a go at them: ‘Joe LaCava used to be a nice guy when he was caddying for Tiger, and now he’s caddying for that dick he’s turned into a …’ I still wasn’t in a great headspace.”
Later, he went on to say:
“I went back to my room and there was a text from Joe LaCava: ‘Hey Rory, would love to meet up in the morning to clear the air.’ But I was tired and didn’t get back to him. There was also three texts and two missed calls from Tiger, because they’re obviously still close. I sent him a quick message: ‘It will be fine … long day … just want to go to bed.’”
The drama of that week lends itself to over reading and investigation. More and more will likely come out over time. It matters that McIlroy acknowledges he doesn’t think highly of Cantlay. It matters that Tiger Woods, who LaCava used to caddie for, tried to call and make repairs. And it matters that McIlroy talked so openly.
But mainly, yeah, it’s entertaining.
(Top photo of Camilo Villegas: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
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