Paddy’s parenting, Bryson’s dagger, Ryder Cup money

Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where after watching Q-School I’m just relieved I’ve kept my card (in this case, my job at GOLF) for the 2025 season. No four-footers required. To the news!

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GOLF STUFF I LIKE

Paddy on parenting.

It’s a reflective time of year; it’s also PNC Championship week. And so I’m thinking back to a video that went viral this time last year, in the lead-up to the PNC: Padraig Harrington on how to introduce your kid to golf.

Harrington’s soliloquy was inspired by his son Ciaran, his playing partner for the week — and what he did right and wrong in Ciaran’s beginnings with the game. His insights, in four parts:

1. If you’re enjoying yourself, they’ll enjoy themselves.

“In hindsight, the best way, if you want to get your kid into the game of golf, is bring him somewhere where you’re not stressed. That’s very important,” Harrington said. “Kids pick up on that. Let them do what they like when they’re there, have a bit of fun if they want to hit one shot, two shots, 10 shots, play in the bunker, look in the water, or whatever they wanna do, let them do, and generally bring them home before they get tired.”

2. Quit while you’re ahead.

“So the best thing you can do with a kid early on in golf is say, ‘hey, we have to go home,’ and don’t wait till they’re tired and hate it. Wait till when they’re actually enjoying themselves, go home.”

3. But first, get a soda.

“When you’re finished, take 10 minutes to spend with your son or daughter and go and have a Coke, a Pepsi this week, go and have a Pepsi in the bar, wherever it is, and sit there have an ice cream, and spend 10, 15 minutes. Because if they have that 15 minutes alone time with you just, you and them, for the rest of their life, every time they play golf, they remember the 15 minutes they had with their father or mother, and that’s what would keep bringing them back to golf for the next day.”

4. Keep love first.

“If your kid gets good at the game, that doesn’t necessarily make them love the game,” Harrington said. “If your kid loves the game, it’s likely that they’ll become good at it. It’s the love should be first and, and it’s even more important to get a love of the game because we all know you plateau when you play golf.

“There’s many plateaus where it really gets frustrating. And if you don’t love it, those plateaus are going to stop you playing, you’re going to give up. Whereas if you love it, you’ll go through anything. So try and get the love of the game for the kids first.”

Paddy’s parenting — that’s golf stuff I like.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

Lanto Griffin won Q-School, ensuring he’ll have full PGA Tour status for the 2025 PGA Tour season. One money quote from Griffin after the round of Sunday, a clutch seven-under 63: I want to experience this with my family, now with my baby and it’s — you just don’t want it to end. It’s like being at a really good concert, you just want there to be a couple more songs and that’s kind of what I felt this week.”

Jake Knapp and Patty Tavatanakit put a bow on their seasons with a victory at the Grant Thornton Invitational. Fun fact: This was the second time this year they won on the same day. The first time came back in February, when Knapp won the Mexico Open and Tavatanakit at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

Shaun Norris won the Alfred Dunhill Championship on home soil as the DP World Tour continued its African swing, shooting a final-round 67 to erase a six-shot deficit as competitors fell by the wayside coming down the stretch at Leopard Creek Country Club in South Africa. The win marked his second in as many starts after Norris won the Japan Tour’s Nippon Series JT Cup just two weeks ago.

“This changes a few things for me. I’ve got so much to look forward to over the next few years,” Norris said of his improved status. “But now it’s time for a holiday.”

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NOT-WINNERS

A few golfers who didn’t win but still kinda won.

Five other pros made it through a grueling Q-School week, which started wild and windy and finished with good old fashioned mega-pressure. A sentence on each with help from our Jack Hirsh:

Hayden Buckley: A PGA Tour member for the past two seasons who surprisingly fell out of the Top 125 after just two top-10s in 2024.

Takumi Kanaya: A seven-time Japan Tour winner who has already played in 11 major championships. Was a former World No. 1 amateur and was ranked as high as No. 49 in the Official World Golf Ranking in 2022.

Alejandro Tosti: PGA Tour rookie in 2024 who made headlines for some of his huge (and bold) tee shots, as well as some of his more controversial antics.

Will Chandler: Fired a final-nine 30 Sunday to jumpstart his career opportunities. Advanced from the second stage of Q-School after logging only 10 events on the Korn Ferry Tour this season and nine PGA Tour Canada events in 2023.

Matthew Riedel: Former standout at Vanderbilt University who graduated this spring and earned status on the Korn Ferry Tour through PGA Tour U. That also put him straight into the final stage of Q-School this week.

SHORT HITTERS

Six teams to watch at the PNC Championship.

When served with an ad broadcasting tomorrow’s Showdown odds, it occurred to me that the PNC Championship may be the most degenerate golf event to bet on, given the families and kids and whatnot. With that as inspiration, let’s run through the betting favorites (yes, real odds):

6. Team Singh (+650) — Vijay and Qass. The 2022 winners and the only squad to go 59-59 in event history.

5. Team Langer (+650) — Bernhard and Jason. Last year’s champs; they won in 2019 and 2014, too. Bernhard also won the last PGA Tour Champions event of the season so he’s entering in fine form. Dangerous team.

4. Team Woods (+500) — Tiger and Charlie. These guys are becoming seasoned vets at this event; with luck this will be their healthiest year yet.

3. Team Kuchar (+450) — Matt and Carson. Shot 57 in the first round last year but faded to T5 on Day 2. Back hungry.

2. Team Cink (+450) — Stewart and Connor. They won in 2013; can they turn back the clock?!

1. Team Daly (+300) — John and John II. They won in 2021; they’re locks to have the brightest pants. John II had a 71.78 scoring average at Arkansas last year, but I’m guessing they didn’t play any two-man father-son scrambles.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

From Daniel Berger and Nelly Korda.

During Grant Thornton week it’s interesting to hear what the LPGA and PGA Tour pros think of their partners’ games, and one fun bit of insight came from Daniel Berger and Nelly Korda, who realized on one approach shot that they were both pulling 7-iron.

“There was a couple times where I hit one in there yesterday and I looked in her bag and she was hitting the same club I was hitting,” Berger said. Korda was quick to add that her draw adds yardage, while Berger’s fade takes some off. But they were mutually impressed.

“It’s been very easy, she hits it in the fairway, she hits it on the green, she makes putts. I mean, it’s pretty clear why she’s No. 1 in the world and I need to get my act together,” Berger said.

“He’s a very much finesse player,” Korda said. “I always appreciate that when a player shows his artistic side.”

ONE BIG QUESTION

What’s up with Ryder Cup pay?

On Monday morning the PGA of America confirmed reports that yes, American Ryder Cuppers will be compensated for their participation in this year’s event at Bethpage Black. Specifically they’ll get $300,000 to give to a charity of their choice and another $200,000 as a stipend.

So how should you feel about this? Typically I just use this space to ask a question, not answer it, but here I’ll offer a suggestion: You do not need to feel any type of way about this at all! You do not need an opinion on this! Do these guys need the money? No, they do not. Do they deserve it? Yes, they probably do; they’re the ones everyone is coming to see. But the Ryder Cup is not made or broken by a couple million bucks in appearance fees and charitable donations. Pro golfers get paid to play just about everywhere else they tee it up. This seems [shrugs] fine.

With that said, Team Europe should absolutely lean into the idea that theirs is a purer devotion to the competition. Their team bond has traditionally been stronger than the U.S. side — this is easy bulletin-board material, if they need any more.

ONE THING TO WATCH

Bryson chirps Rory.

The Crypto dot com Showdown is coming Tuesday, and while I’m genuinely excited for Scottie/Rory vs. Brooks/Bryson I was a bit concerned that nothing about this match had broken through to the general sports world (through the NFL bubble, in other words). But that changed Monday with a devastating and actually pretty organic dagger thrown by Bryson DeChambeau in the direction of Rory McIlroy.

The exchange, at a Monday clinic:

McIlroy: “I’d like to go up against Bryson and try to get him back for what he did to me at the U.S. Open.”

DeChambeau: “To be fair, you kinda did it to yourself.”

You could argue this was history repeating itself, with McIlroy doing it to himself once again by tossing this alley-oop to DeChambeau, but it was good, if devastating, fun. Let’s hope there’s some fun and plenty of fire, too, come Tuesday night. I’m cautiously optimistic.

NEWS FROM SEATTLE

Monday Finish HQ.

We haven’t yet hit the shortest day of the year, but we have crossed an important milestone: Last week we saw the earliest sunset of the year at 4:17 p.m. and now we’re headed in the right direction — 4:19 today! The mornings are another story (7:52 a.m. sunrise and still getting worse) but we’ll take the wins where we can get ’em. Spring is basically here.

We’ll see you next week!

Before you go, a quick request: If you like the Monday Finish, subscribe for free HERE to get it in your email inbox!

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.

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