Golf Notes: Keeping track of LIV players in the majors is starting to get old

Tyrrell Hatton tied for third at the Masters. He missed the cut at PGA Championship. And then there's Bryson DeChambeau, who missed the cut at both majors this year.

Also missing the cut at the PGA Championship — FedEx Cup champion Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre and Russell Henley.

Cameron Smith had missed the cut in six consecutive majors. He went to a new swing coach recently, Claude Harmon, because he felt he was getting nothing out of hard work. Smith had a chance late at Aronimink until Aaron Rai pulled away.

By the sound of it, the Australian is excited for the U.S. Open.

“It feels great to play nice. You don’t work hard to play crap, and it’s frustrating, and the last couple of years have been frustrating. I feel like I’ve been putting in the work and not really getting anything out of it,” Smith said. “Even out there today, under the pressure I felt like I was able to trust it already. So lots of positive signs.”

Rahm was asked on Saturday, when he was two shots out of the lead, what winning would mean to LIV Golf now that its Saudi funding is ending after this season.

“Honestly, in a week like this, I’m thinking more about myself,” Rahm said. “I’m not going to take on anything outside what I can control when it comes to competing tomorrow.”

Now you can see who plays fast (and slow) on the Korn Ferry Tour

The Korn Ferry Tour has broken new ground in golf with a published listing of how long it takes to hit shots relative to the field average for a tournament and for the season.

The data for “average stroke time” was posted to the PGA Tour’s website after last week’s Colonial Life Charity Classic. It provides an overall speed of play, with how long a player takes off the tee, with his approach, around the green and putting.

“The publishing of the AST data on the Korn Ferry Tour is an opportunity to provide greater context around a player’s pace of play and the various factors that may impact it during any given tournament,” Korn Ferry Tour President Alex Baldwin said.

Mitchell Meissner said he considers himself to be a quick player and he was 17th at 4.815 seconds below the field average.

“There was definitely some interest in comparing my timing data to the data of my buddies,” Meissner said. “I hope the fans will be surprised by how quickly the majority of us play, especially considering all the necessary decisions it takes to play one shot and the significant consequences at stake out here.”

Nicholas Infanti led the Korn Ferry with an average overall time of 12.226 seconds below the field average. Ian Gilligan was last (No. 129) at 9.097 seconds above the field average.

Marco Penge to step away and focus on health

Marco Penge, second in the Race to Dubai on the European tour to earn a PGA Tour card, is stepping away to attend to his health. He announced his decision on social media after missing the cut at the PGA Championship.

Penge had said leading up to the PGA that he had an MRI after suffering from a sinus infection and vertigo symptoms. He also had a viral infection at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai last November when he was chasing Rory McIlroy for the season title.

“This week didn’t go to the way I wanted to but that’s golf,” Penge wrote on social media over the weekend. “Moving forward, I have decided that I am going to take some time off to get my health back to where it needs to be. Thank you for your support as always! I’ll be back soon!”

His best finish this year was a tie for fourth in the Valspar Championship.

Penge said he would be back when he felt fit and healthy.

“That could be in two weeks or two months, I don’t know right now,” he said. “But I’m hoping for the U.S. Open. Sooner the better!”

Hogan Finalists are named

Auburn junior Jackson Koivun, Oklahoma State junior Preston Stout and Virginia senior Ben James are the finalists for the Ben Hogan Award, awarded to the best college golfer based on his college, amateur and professional events over the last 12 months.

Koivun is a heavy favorite to join Jon Rahm (Arizona State) and Ludvig Aberg (Texas Tech) as the only two-time winners of the award. He also won the award as a freshman.

Along with six college wins this spring, Koivun has a pair of top-5 finishes on the PGA Tour and is No. 1 in the world amateur ranking.

Stout, who is playing The CJ Cup Byron Nelson this week, became the first player to win three straight Big 12 Conference titles. James is No. 3 in the world amateur ranking and leads the PGA Tour University ranking.

The winner will be announced May 25 at a black-tie dinner at the TCU Legends Club in Fort Worth, Texas.

Players flock around the world after PGA and US Open qualifying

Weeks around the majors are a reminder of how global the game of golf has become.

Mikael Lindberg of Sweden and Casey Jarvis of South Africa are among seven players in the Soudal Open in Belgium who were in Philadelphia last week for the PGA Championship. That list includes Thomas Detry, who missed the cut and had a stopover in England for a U.S. Open qualifier.

Also in Belgium is Caleb Surratt, who was in Dallas on Monday to get the final spot in a U.S. Open qualifier. He is joined in Belgium by Eugenio Chacarra and Josele Ballester, who also were in Dallas and failed to qualify.

Abraham Ancer missed out in qualifying in Dallas, and he’s in South Korea for the start of the Korea Open (where the leading player gets into the British Open).

Curtis Cup team filled out for the Americans

Stanford senior Kelly Xu will cap off her college career with her first appearance in the Curtis Cup.

Xu joined Kary Hollenbaugh, Jasmine Koo and Avery Weed as the final four additions to the eight-player American team that will play Great Britain and Ireland at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles on June 12-14.

GB&I has not won the Curtis Cup on the road since it was held at The Honors Course in Tennessee in 1994.

The American team previously announced top-ranked amateur Kiara Romero, 17-year-old Asterisk Talley, Farah O’Keefe and Anna Davis. Davis, Koo and Talley will be making their second appearance.

Xu, a 21-year-old senior, played on Stanford’s NCAA title team and played in the Palmer Cup in 2024. She also was an inaugural winner of the Drive, Chip and Putt competition at Augusta National.

Divots

Aaron Rai became the first player in the PGA Championship since it went to stroke play in 1958 to improve his score after each round (70-69-67-65). It has happened only seven previous times in the majors, most recently by Mark O’Meara in the Masters in 1998. ... CBS announcer Jim Nantz has been selected to receive the Donald Award Ross from the American Society of Golf Course Architects for significant contributions to the game and golf course architecture. ... Golf Australia announced a partnership with Capital.com to become title sponsor of the Australian Open, which will be played this year at Kingston Heath with Masters champion Rory McIlroy returning to play.

Stat of the week

Americans have not won either of the two majors to start the season for the first time since 2013, when Adam Scott (Australia) won the Masters and Justin Rose (England) won the U.S. Open.

Final word

“It was a true major championship setup in terms of how difficult it was, how penalizing it was, but it also rewarded you for good play.” — Aaron Rai on Aronimink.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf