Thread by @LenHochberg

Okay, here we go, Monday morning golf thread …
Chez Reavie is 37 years old and not too long ago, his journeyman golf life started to take a huge turn -- for the better. Athletes are not supposed to get better in their 30s, especially their late 30s.
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2) But Reavie is now a career-best 26th OWGR after winning for the 1st time in 11 years at the Travelers. After being on Tour more than a decade, Reavie has now turned in two of the five best performances of his career in the *past two weeks.* He tied for 3rd at the U.S. Open.

3) Reavie is now ranked ahead of, for instance, Spieth, Phil, Sergio, Stenson. What makes it all the more remarkable that Reavie is finding his greatest success at this stage of his career is that he is a short hitter in an era when balls are flying farther than ever before.

4) He makes up for it by ranking first on Tour n driving accuracy and doing pretty much everything else good to very good. What’s also amazing about Reavie is that he doesn’t look like an athlete. Heck, he barely looks like a golfer.

5) As amazing as Reavie’s accomplishment was, it was not even the best story of the tournament. That of course belongs to Zack Sucher. After all, Reavie has made some $15 million over his career. Sucher had credit card debt and was on disability not too long ago.

6) Sucher tied for 2nd, a result he called “life-changing.” He’s 32, yet had played in only 36 career PGA Tour events. He was 222nd in the FedEx, near the bottom. He doesn’t even have his card. While all the stars were at the U.S. Open, he played a Web event – and missed the cut.

7) As you know, Sucher was leading deep into Saturday – amazingly by six strokes. At that point, he collapsed and Reavie surged. And you thought, okay, he had his little moment, nice knowing you. But Sucher played the back-nine on Sunday in 5-under to catch Bradley for second.

8) Sucher earned $633.600, nearly doubling his career earnings. And unlike Reavie, he needed every penny of it. Really badly.

9) Sucher spoke about injuries from a few years ago that left him unable to play and without *any* income – until PGA Tour disability kicked in. We all think of the glamorous lifestyle of a pro golfer, but he and his wife opened credit cards because they couldn’t pay their bills.

10) Sucher is still playing on a major medical and has two events left to get about 77 FedEx Cup points. It won’t be easy. He had only 26 before Sunday. He said those two events will be this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic and the John Deere two weeks after.

11) Sucher began the yr in the 2000s OWGR. He began the week in the 500s. Now he’s inside the top-150. He moved from 222nd in the FedEx to 126th, just one spot from making the playoffs and securing his card for next season. That would mean more to him that the win meant to Reavie

12) But it won’t be easy for him to move from 126 to 125. At the very least, he’s virtually assured of being inside the top-150, which would get him into the Kenny Perry playoffs … what, what? … [checks notes} … OH, the Korn Ferry playoffs
Anyway, a wonderful moment for Sucher

13) Chip McDaniel
The 3rd best story of the week, or maybe the 2nd or even the 1st, depending on your vantage point, belongs to the ex-Kentucky star. He hasn’t exactly arrived on Tour like Hovland. He got into the Travelers after Monday-qualifying for the third time this season.

14) More McDaniel
In order to get to the qualifier, he had to fly a red eye SF to Boston, then drive to Hartford. He was in the Bay Area because he was in the U.S. Open – and he played all 4 rounds. Naturally, he had to qualify to get into the Open, both sectional *and* local.

15) Moe McDaniel
At the Travelers, he wound up tied for 43rd, and played the third round with Koepka, beating the world No. 1 by four strokes. McDaniel is another example of the glamorous life of a pro golfer, one who is now ranked 703rd in the world. He earned 22 grand last week

16) Keegan Bradley
If you'd have told us that he'd lead the field in SG putting but won't win the dang tournament, you could've knocked us over with a feather. He had been 206th in putting. What a time for his amazing tee to green game to falter. He was 37th in the field. Unreal.

17) Vaughn Taylor
He tied for 4th. At 43, he’s having a great season, now up to 65th in the FedEx and also 125th OWGR, his highest since the end of 2016. Taylor has made 10 of his past 13 cuts. He has 3 top-10s, 6 top-25s.

18) More Taylor
He is 6th on Tour in SG putting, and when you can do that, you always have a puncher’s chance of making the weekend. Taylor has been connecting on a lot of punches lately. He was one of our 4 DraftKings long-shot picks for the Travelers. They all made the cut.

19) Joaquin Niemann
Last year he arrived much like Viktor Hovland, No. 1 amateur turning pro in midseason. And he had a great run at age 19. This year, far worse. We often see 2nd-year players take a step back, or more, as they deal with a full-season grind.

20) More Niemann
The Chilean tied for fifth at River Highlands, only his second top-10 all season and first since November. Niemann was outside the top-150 in the point standings for much of the season. Now, he’s up to 106th and his card seems secure for next season.

21) Abraham Ancer
He shot the round of the day, a 7-under 63, to zoom up the leaderboard, ending T8. It was his third top-10 and eighth top-25. Perhaps most importantly to Mexico’s top player, it moved him inside the top-8 in the International team’s @PresidentsCup standings.

22) Jason Day
The Stevie Williams partnership continued for the 2nd straight week and with a good result: a tie for eighth. The way Day tells it, Williams is a bit of a drill sergeant. That's something Day needs. We're just wondering how long Williams wants to stick around.

23) Brian Harman
About a year and a half ago, he was ranked 20th in the world. He began the Travelers at No. 100, as his game had fallen off the rails. The veteran left-hander tied for eighth, equaling his best showing since tying for sixth at last year’s Travelers.

24) More Harman
He is close to 200th in greens in regulation, which is a byproduct of being a shorter hitter in an ever-lengthening game. For what it’s worth, he’s back to 91st in the world.

25) Jordan Spieth
He missed the cut by three shots. How close is he now?

26) Cameron Smith
Since tying for 6th at the WGC-Mexico in Feb, he has played 9 times. He’s missed 4 cuts, including the Travelers, and has not finished inside the top-50 in ANY of them. (He did cash all 3 majors.) He’s fallen from 24th OWGR to 40th. This is one serious nose-dive

27) Hovland, Morikawa, Wolff, Suh
Hovland and Wolff, ex-Okla St. teammates, made their pro debuts. Hovland tied for 54th, fading to a 73 on Sunday. Wolff was an MDF. Morikawa, playing for the 3rd straight week as a pro, was T36, the best of the bunch among this “Class of ’19.”

28) Suh fared worst, missing the cut by a wide margin. All but Morikawa will be at Detroit this week, and they’ll be joined by yet another ex-Okla St Cowboy, Zach Bauchou, making his pro debut. We will see most of these guys getting sponsor invites the rest of the season.

29) But now that they are pros, they are not in the Open Championship. There are two spots available this week in Detroit for guys who finish in the top-8. Then there's one more available at the John Deere.

30) Check out a free 10-day trial to @RotoWire. No credit card required. bit.ly/2ozk3Wz

END THREAD