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Congrats to these two longtime competitors and keep them in your prayers as they captain at the Old Course and Cypress Point.

Mike McCoy in 2023 at St Andrews and Nathan Smith in 2025 at Cypress Point.

The full release:

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (March 9, 2022) – The USGA announced on Wednesday that Mike McCoy, of Des Moines, Iowa, will captain the USA Team for the 2023 Walker Cup Match on the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland and Nathan Smith, of Pittsburgh, Pa., will captain the USA Team for the 2025 Walker Cup Match at Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, Calif.

“Both Mike and Nathan have long, exceptional histories with the USGA and outstanding amateur golf resumes,” said Stu Francis, USGA president. “Given the historic nature of the next two matches being staged at St. Andrews and Cypress Point, we wanted to give both of them the time to enjoy this leadership opportunity and plan their next few years accordingly. We congratulate each of them on an honor well deserved and look forward to watching them lead two talented USA Teams.”

Wednesday’s induction ceremony is set for Jacksonville International’s Terminal A, aka the Global Home, with a one surprise presenter (Sam Woods for Tiger Woods) and one total non-surprise (Davis Love for Tim Finchem).

The key details, including a new “trophy” for the World Golf Hall of Fame inductees made by Tiffany & Co. The ceremony will be carried live on Golf Channel at 7 pm ET:

World Golf Hall of Fame Announces Presenters for 2022 Inductee Class:

2022 Inductee, Susie Maxwell Berning (Judy Rankin)

2022 Inductee, Tim Finchem (Davis Love III)

The same day the NFL suspended Falcons receiver Calvin Ridley over a $1500 bet and costing him his $11 million salary, it was hard not to think of Ridley’s situation when Golf Channel aired a perplexing feature (below) about sports betting during Monday’s Live From The Players. In just over five minutes, the piece served up a combo platter attempting to use golf’s long history of players wagering on the course as a legitimizing force for the fan gambling push. With plenty of the usual grow-the-game, it’s-what-the-kids-want gibberish.

(After the feature the PGA Tour’s Norb Gambuzza revealed in an on set discussion that the 501(c)(6) non-profit is hoping to up its share of the U.S. sports betting market from 1.5% to 4-5% in the next few years. So much for the slow, careful buildout.)

Also making the piece pretty weird: ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was the primary voice for a pro-gambling message.

The feature’s message suggests it'’s cool for players to bet in a practice round or at home when playing golf, yet there will be consequences if they bet on PGA Tour action under their integrity statutes. However, since the PGA Tour does not announce fines and suspensions, we probably won’t know if a player ever does such a thing or is punished in the same manner as Calvin Ridley.

Regarding disclosure, Gambuzza was asked by Rich Lerner in the post-feature discussion if player injury reports will be optional. It’s a good question given that other sports provide various ways for gamblers to have some sense who might be at less than 100% or even doubtful for a game. Golf is going to leave such information up to the players.

With all of the weirdness at this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, you might have missed Ryan Brehm’s must-win win in Puerto Rico. Playing in the last event of a medical exemption, Brehm could have finished second and kept a PGA Tour card for the 126-150 category.

Instead he won, vaulting Brehm into this week’s Players. But it’s his story that’s the kind Netflix should be including in a documentary. Thankfully, Brentley Romine did a superb job here capturing all of Brehm’s story that includes a 91 m.p.h. fastball and his wife serving as his caddie.

“It sounded like I had a bunch of pressure, but there really wasn’t,” Brehm said. “This was an opportunity for me to swing for the fences and see if we could win.”

Touch ‘em all.

With his wife, Chelsey, on the bag, Brehm cruised to a six-shot win Sunday at the Puerto Rico Open to not only retain his card but lock it up for two more years.