Down three to begin Sunday. Ran away with it in singles.

PRESIDENTS CUP ^. MEDINAH

The 17-13 final is a lie. On Saturday night Snedeker admitted his lineups hadn’t put his guys in the best position. On Sunday his three rookies bailed him out. Jackson Koivun, the pick I called a hunch last week, won five of the last eight holes to beat Si Woo Kim, the Internationals’ top-ranked player. Jacob Bridgeman clinched it 1 up over Min Woo Lee.

The veterans did their job too. Scheffler, Thomas, Cantlay and Schauffele never trailed. Morikawa buried a 30-footer on 15 to flip his match with Matsuyama. The 9½ points in singles set a Sunday record. The favorites played like favorites for exactly one day, and one day was enough.

Three rookies. Three singles wins. One very relieved captain.

DP WORLD TOUR . OPEN DE FRANCE

Matt Fitzpatrick opened Sunday with 12 straight pars. His five-shot lead shrank to two. He won by three anyway, and the scrambling did it. He saved par from under a tree on 3, got up and down on 5 and 14, and waited until 13 for his first birdie. Eugenio Chacarra made a double on that same hole and never recovered.

That’s his 11th DP World Tour win, weeks after he and his wife Katherine welcomed their son Jack. Angel Hidalgo finished second and took the St Andrews Open spot on offer.

Twelve pars, a 70, and his name next to Seve’s.

LPGA . NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP

Yuna Nishimura led the NW Arkansas Championship from the first round to the last, but Sunday got loud. Akie Iwai ran off six birdies in seven holes on the back nine and posted a bogey-free 62. Nishimura answered at the par-5 14th, reaching the green with a fairway wood over water and making eagle. She came home in 30.

She already had six wins on the Japan LPGA Tour. Now she has one over here, and she got it by closing, not coasting.

63, 63, 66. Twenty-one under. Five-shot win.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Tour heads west to Black Desert Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, Oct. 1-4 for the Bank of Utah Championship. After a Presidents Cup week, the fall calendar gets back to what it’s really about: players fighting for status for next season. The trophy matters. The card matters more.

Golf Monthly put the new ZXiU next to the old one on a GC3 and got identical launch, spin and ball speed. The tester kept losing track of which club was which. The change is a cosmetic back plate so it matches the rest of the 2026 ZXi family. Golf Monthly didn’t list a US price. It doesn’t matter. If you own the last one, keep it. If you don’t, buy the old model when shops clear it out. Same club, lower price.

High launch, big carry, and still room to hit a fade. That’s what Plugged In Golf found testing Cobra’s new KING irons, a good fit for players aging out of their old cavity backs. Feel is firm but pleasant. The catch is lofts: the PW is 42.5 degrees (old standard 46) and the 4-iron is 19, a traditional 3-iron. The review didn’t publish a price, so budget for one more line item: a gap wedge, because you’ll have a hole at the bottom of the bag.

ALSO THIS WEEK

On Sept. 18, Back Nine Golf in North Raleigh hosted member Greg Williams’s friends and family to assemble 150 Playtime Therapy Bed Sheets for pediatric patients at Duke Children’s Hospital, in honor of his late daughter, Jillian-Rey. Between sessions they ran a closest-to-the-pin on the 19th at Payne’s Valley on the Full Swing sims, and Back Nine sponsored a hole at the Jillian’s Rey Memorial tournament the next day. It’s a four-simulator club open 24/7 to members, with leagues running and more clinics planned. Good people to know when the weather turns.

The 23rd TLC Golf Classic put 92 golfers on Lonnie Poole on Sept. 14 and raised more than $110,000 for TLC, the Raleigh nonprofit that serves kids and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Lonnie and Carol Poole Family Foundation was one of three Ace sponsors, which fits. If your company is looking for a fall charity outing next year, the organizer contacts are on the event page.

Raleigh’s Paul Simson opened with a 69 at Mill Creek in Mebane, then shot even-par 72 in steady rain, the low second round in the 65+ division, per the CGA recap. That caught first-round leader Macon Moye of Southern Pines, who followed his 67 with a 74. Both finished 3-under 141, and Simson won the one-hole playoff. Even par was the best anybody could do in the final round, which tells you how long and wet Mill Creek played.

Greensboro’s Lawrence Hicks started the final round one back of Raleigh’s Dee Blankenhorn, who opened with a 68, and ground out a 72 to win the 70+ title at 3-under 141. Steve Fox of Pinehurst and Russ Perry of Winston-Salem tied for second at 143, with Perry’s 69 the low round of the day. Raleigh’s Graham Banister sat one back after round one, and Lennie Barton of Raleigh finished fourth at 145. If you think the 70-and-over crowd at your club is soft, go look at these numbers in the rain.

At the PCC Foundation Golf Classic on September 15, Cody Spencer and Michael Puryear, both playing for Elliott Electric, each made a hole-in-one on No. 13. Elliott Electric also won the thing. The 30-team captain’s choice raised a record $62,375 for Piedmont Community College scholarships. Treyburn is one of Tom Fazio’s Triangle designs, and next year’s Classic is already set for September 14, 2027.

ALSO THIS WEEK

ON THE TEE SHEET

TWO WAYS TO KEEP THIS GOING

The next time a buddy picks a Triangle course you have never played, you will know which tees to play, where the trouble is, and what the locals actually pay before you leave the parking lot. That is the Triangle Golf Guide: 23 courses deep, plus the curated sim spots and the membership math worth knowing. Less than a range bucket, at $5.99.

The ad at the top of this issue is what pays for the hours behind it. If the offer is relevant to you, give it a click. That costs you nothing and it keeps Read The Divot free for everyone else.

Tour intel, gear picks, and local course intel every Tuesday.

If this landed, forward it to your foursome. That's how we grow.