We know it’s been a rough year for NFL coaches who haven’t flown back with their teams after losses, but we wouldn’t mind if Matt Nagy stayed in Tampa Bay for a while.

Game on

It happened again. Jin Young Ko won on Sunday, this time in her home country of South Korea. Four shots back to start the final round of the BMW Ladies Championship, Ko shot a bogey-free 64 and birdied the first playoff hole to defeat Hee Jeong Lim. The win is Ko’s second in a row and fourth in her last seven starts. BMW Ladies Championship Results

Just two months ago, after winning the Tokyo Olympics and the Women’s PGA Championship in the same summer, Nelly Korda was definitively the best player in the world. But since Korda took home gold in August, it’s been the Jin Young Ko Show on the LPGA Tour. In her past five events, Ko has won three times and hasn’t finished worse than T-6. With her victory in South Korea, she will overtake Korda as No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings.

Two events remain in the season, so we’ll see if Korda can strike back. It won’t be easy.

Hometown kids

Not to be outdone, Hideki Matsuyama and Takumi Kanaya shone bright in their home country of Japan this weekend. Despite dropping many clubs in frustration, Matsuyama shot four rounds in the 60s and won the Zozo Championship by five shots. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Kanaya recorded his first PGA Tour top 10. Zozo Championship Results

It’s been a banner year for Matsuyama—he won the Masters, after all!—but his game hasn’t been all that sharp since April. He came up just short of a medal at the Olympics, so he had unfinished business at Narashino Country Club this week. “It was one of my biggest goals [of 2021] to win in front of the Japanese fans,” Matsuyama said after the round. Mission accomplished.


Results

At the age of 33 and in his 10th professional season, Jeff Winther recorded his first victory at the European Tour’s Mallorca Golf Open.

Mr. PGA Tour Champions Bernhard Langer won the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in a playoff, extending his lead in the Charles Schwab Cup.

Luis Gagne, Chandler Phillips, Andy Ogletree, and Peter Kuest are among the notable up-and-comers who secured Korn Ferry Tour status for next year.

Quick Hooks

Eamon Lynch of Golfweek reported that eight players—including Dustin Johnson, Lee Westwood, and Tommy Fleetwood—asked the PGA Tour for approval to play in the 2022 Saudi International. Because the European Tour dropped the Saudi event from its schedule, players on the major tours now need releases to participate in it. The PGA Tour previously said such releases would not be granted.

A cool story we missed last week: North Carolina A&T’s Christyn Carr became the first woman to break 70 at the Alotian Club. After rounds of 84-81 to start the Jackson T. Stephens Cup, Carr birdied four of her final five holes to cap off the record-breaking round.

Paul Casey’s caddie John McLaren, better known as Johnny Long Socks, is taking a break next season. McLaren lives in England and has had to undergo routine Covid testing in order to travel in and out of the country to see his family. “The accumulation of the last 18 months of travel, the testing, the uncertainty has taken its toll, not only on me, but how I am at home with my family,” he said.

With a T-7 at the Zozo Championship, Collin Morikawa moved to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, leapfrogging Dustin Johnson.

Jin Young Ko’s win at the BMW Ladies Championship was the 200th title by a South Korean woman on the LPGA Tour.

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Anyone who teed it up this weekend knows that fall golf can be a bit muddy. Keep your clubs and yourself clean with a Fried Egg or Raynorman towel!