Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we’re feeling extra thankful—and sentimental—this Thanksgiving week. The return of the Skins Game has me realizing that the last time this event was played in 2008 was a few months before I started at Golf Digest. A lot has happened in those 17 years, 13 of which I’ve been doing this column, so thank you for following along. And, hopefully, we’ve got plenty left in the tank. OK, that’s enough sappy stuff. Let’s get to some golf.
WE’RE BUYING
Jeeno Thitikul: The World No. 1 capped an incredible year by winning the LPGA’s CME Group Tour Championship by four shots. Thanks to a birdie on the final hole, the 22-year-old also broke Annika Sorenstam’s season scoring record that had stood since before she was born. Talk about clutch.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd then there’s Thitikul’s timing. This event’s first-place prize money doubled from $2 million to $4 million in 2024 and she’s won it both times since then. And thanks in large part to that $8 million from those two wins, she’s already up to seventh on the LPGA CAREER money list. Colonel Steve Austen may have been the Six Million Dollar Man, but Jeeno Thitikul has emerged as the Four Million Dollar Woman.
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Sami Valimaki: The golf gambling community darling is now a PGA Tour winner after claiming the RSM Classic. And there were plenty of people on Golf Twitter showing off their winning betting slips. Must be nice.
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AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementValimaki also made history by becoming the first Finnish PGA Tour winner in history. Grow the game! While growing gamblers’ accounts! What a guy. It’s no wonder he had fans travel all the way from Finland to Sea Island to see him play:
Trout National: We’ve heard about this joint venture between two sports GOATs (Mike Trout and Tiger Woods) for years and now it finally opened for preview play with an official opening set for next spring. And our Steve Hennessey (of course) got to check it out. Here’s his review:
Looks amazing. I just wish it was a three-hour drive from my house. But then again, if those fans could make the trip from Finland to the RSM Classic, I should be able to suck it up for a little road trip.
WE’RE SELLING
Losing your PGA Tour card: The most memorable moment of the RSM Classic actually happened on Friday when Justin Lower gave an emotional answer about missing the cut to not only end his season, but to lose his tour card for next season:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementUnfortunately for Justin, he was one of the first crop of players to be victims of the tighter PGA Tour qualifications with only the top 100 being fully-exempt instead of the top 125. It’s a tough gig out there—and it just got even tougher.
Losing your PGA Tour card despite playing well: It’s hard not to feel even more bad for guys who played great this past week with so much on the line and yet still came up short. In particular, Ricky Castillo and Lee Hodges. Castillo, a PGA Tour rookie, shot a Sunday 62 at Sea Island and looked to have jumped into the top 100 until a late birdie putt by Max McGreevy, who vaulted into the top 60 with a runner-up, knocked Castillo to third and No. 102.
And then there was Bubble Boy Lee Hodges, a past PGA Tour winner who finished T-4, but came up one spot short at 101. The sports psychologists will preach how these can still be valuable learning experiences and I’m sure they can be. But they’re also going to be painful memories for a while.
Nelly Korda’s season: Look, by a mere mortal’s standard, Nelly had a nice year. She finished second to Jeeno in scoring average and fifth on the money list. But no one would have expected a winless season after her historic 2024 campaign in which she won seven times, including an insane five in a row.
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AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd if someone said at the start of the year that the LPGA would have 30 different winners and Nelly Korda wouldn’t be one of them, they’d be put in an institution. Anyway, the margins in pro golf remain razor thin—whether you’re a journeyman fighting to keep your tour card or one of the world’s best trying to add to your win total.
ON TAP
The seasons for all the major tours are officially over, but the Skins Game is back! That’s right, this treasured Thanksgiving tradition returns Friday morning on Amazon Prime Video with a fun foursome of Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Keegan Bradley. And to talk all about it, we had Pro Shop’s co-founder Chad Mumm on this week’s episode of The Loop podcast:
Random tournament fact: K.J. Choi was the winner of the last Skins Game in 2008, triumphing over Stephen Ames. Which is the main reason why that was the last Skins Game. Until now.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK
—Jeeno Thitikul won’t win a major in her career: 4 MILLION-to-1 odds
—Nelly Korda won’t win again in 2026: 100-to-1 odds
—Trout National will have a full tee sheet when it officially opens: LOCK
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
By virtue of winning gold at the Asian Games with Si Woo Kim, Sungjae Im is exempt from South Korea’s mandatory 21-month military service. However, he still had to do three weeks of basic training and he shared this photo and message with his fans:
/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/251121-sungjae-insta.pngGlad to hear you made it through unscathed, Sungjae.
VIRAL VIDEO(S) OF THE WEEK
Let’s start with our pal Chad Mumm and his Vanity Index Podcast co-host Wells Adams telling the craziest John Daly story we’ve ever heard involving the two-time major champ concocting his famous cocktail when he was NINE years old to celebrate a big Little League win:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHow JD is still alive is truly staggering. And then there was another celebration, this time by 29-year-old Robert MacIntyre after Scotland qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1998 when Big Bob was still Baby Bob:
We’d love Bob to rank his all-time celebrations between the Ryder Cup, the Canadian Open, the Scottish Open, and now this. It’s been an amazing year-and-a-half for him. And back to Daly, his home away from home in April, the Hooters down the block from Augusta National, was demolished:
It’s the end of an era. JD will have to find a new place to hawk merch during Masters week. And Masters patrons will have to find a new place to order hot wings and baked beans.
THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS
Congrats to Team Minnesota Twins, Aaron Hicks and Royce Lewis, on winning the inaugural Capital One MLB Open. And doing it with an eagle on the final hole at Shadow Creek:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNicely done. However, Hicks will always be a Yankee to me. A usually-injured Yankee, but, still, a Yankee.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I don't know if I'm going to ruffle some feathers, but the guys that come in here and kind of feel sorry for themselves, I have no pity for because you played it, you know what I mean? You played every shot this year. Same way as me. I'm where I am because of my golf, nobody anybody else's golf. Nobody put me there, I put myself there. Yeah, you just are where you are, but we all have avenues out so just go do that, you know what I mean? Go take the road that gets you where you want to go.” —Lee Hodges just went way up in my book.
THIS AND THAT
Scottie Scheffler wound up leading the PGA Tour in first-, second-, third-, and fourth-round scoring to match Tiger Woods as the only players to do that since official stats started being kept 40 years ago. If we’re nitpicking, he could really improve on his third-round scoring average of 68.4, the worst of the bunch. . . . Nicklaus Companies files for bankruptcy after losing in court to Jack Nicklaus. That’s gotta be the strangest headline of 2025. . . . There’s been a lot of chatter since the Internet Invitational, but no one broke it down better than our Shane Ryan. Fasoli! . . . And, finally, I saw the musical “Ragtime” for the first time in more than 20 years—pre-dating the last Skins Game!—at Lincoln Center Theater and it was even better than I remembered:
/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/251125-grind-ragtime.jpgAlso, my sister has been talking about Joshua Henry, who played Coalhouse Walker, since going to school with him at the University of Miami. And he is nothing short of amazing. . . . That being said, my favorite performances of the weekend came from my two girls, who were both in a much, much smaller production of “Tom Sawyer”:
/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/251125-grind-girls.jpgAnd I couldn’t be more proud.
RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER
What’s the best Broadway musical ever?
What was the best Skins Game ever?
Where will John Daly be now during Masters week?
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