• …”The PGA of America announced Koepka as its Player of the Year Monday afternoon, edging McIlroy for the honors.”

• “The PGA uses a year-long points formula to determine its winner, with tournament victories, official money standings, and scoring averages featured in its equation. Koepka’s wins at the PGA Championship, WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and C.J. Cup bestowed 50 points, 10 more than McIlroy accumulated for his Players Championship, Canadian Open and FedEx Cup triumphs.”

• “That category proved to be the difference maker, with Koepka finishing with 84 points to McIlroy’s 78.”

Full piece.

• “It was a new-look American team well before Inkster picked Morgan Pressel and Stacy Lewis to round out the 12.”

• “Why not simply go with current form?…Because this isn’t like any other tour stop. Line up a dozen Hall of Famers and ask them to talk about Solheim Cup nerves. They’ll all tell you there’s nothing else like it in golf. And that playing overseas with fans rooting against you – loudly – can be overwhelming.”

Full piece.

• “Kerr failed to make the team off the U.S. points list, via the Rolex world rankings or as one of Juli Inkster’s two captain’s picks. Her swing has been uncharacteristically out of sorts all summer. She has missed the cut in her last four starts in stroke-play events and in three of the last four major championships.”

• “Kerr put out an Instagram post as her statement Monday before heading to the Cambia Portland Classic to play this week, saying she wouldn’t be fielding questions about the Solheim Cup while there.”

• “It’s with a heavy heart that I say I won’t be going to the Solheim Cup,” she wrote. “I hold no bad feelings for Captain Inkster or any of the team. At the end of the day, you want the USA to bring home the trophy, and I could have made the team outright over the last 2 years. I want to sincerely wish captain @juliinkster and Team USA the best of luck and want to say congratulations to my amazing friend @mpressel for making the team. You’ve worked so hard these past few years! I’m so very proud of you!! Go bring that cup back girls!!! USA ALL THE WAY . . .

Full piece.

• “This time, the roles were reversed. It was McIlroy who went low, with a four-under-par 66 (best score of the final round) and Koepka who spun his wheels, shooting a surprising two-over-par 72 to drop into a tie for third.”

• “Would it have been better if, in both cases, the two had dueled one another for 18 holes, with one dropping a winning birdie putt at 18? Yes.”

• “But what we appear to have now is a real rivalry between the two best players in the world. “I wanted some revenge for Memphis,” McIlroy said, moments after his last birdie putt dropped in Atlanta.”

• “Harig: Jordan Spieth. Jason Day is a close second, but for the second straight season, Spieth didn’t win and struggled mightily for much of it. The weekend woes continued, and although he showed improvement toward the end of the year, he was never really able to get to the back nine of a Sunday with a chance. It’s odd to think he has gone more than two years without winning. And he’s likely not going to be part of the U.S. Presidents Cup team.”

• “Collins: Jason Day. I’m worried about Day in a way I’m not worried about Jordan Spieth. My worry with Day is not just on the golf course, but off. Not in a bad way, just in a way that juggling fatherhood and being the best golfer in the world can wreck a golf game. I think the caddie switch to Steve Williams was a mistake. I don’t think he can bring his old caddie(s) back, so I’m worried that this year was not an aberration.”

• “O’Connor: Funny, but if Tiger Woods didn’t win the Masters, he’d be a candidate given the fact that he closed 2018 like a freight train. And every year that passes without Rickie Fowler winning a major makes him a candidate, too. But I’d go with Jordan Spieth, too. Went winless — again. Missed the Tour Championship — again. The sport will be better off when Spieth returns to relevance.”

Full piece.

• “Just one of those days where you don’t feel comfortable,” Koepka said. “I mean, I can’t bring it every day.”

• …Koepka won a career-high three events, including the PGA Championship, and might have been even better than he was while winning two major titles in 2018.

• “I mean, I like two majors a little bit better,” Koepka said. “But at the same time, I thought my consistency was a little better. I think if you take away the major wins, I would say this year is probably better. … This year was very, very consistent. I felt like every time I needed to, I played well. You know, this week, just didn’t get it done. I don’t think I was going to beat Rory today, even if I had it. But pleased with the season overall.”

Full piece.

• “[The book] was lying on the bed the other night, and I was on my phone, and Erica [his wife] said, that’s ironic,” McIlroy laughed. “It’s just using [technology] the right way, I guess.”

• ….”Some of the work that I’ve put in on the mental side of the game and some of the things I’ve been doing, I definitely think you’re starting to see the fruition of that,” McIlroy said at East Lake where he became just the second player, after Tiger Woods, to win the FedExCup twice. “Just a different approach, a little bit of a different attitude. That attitude and that consistency day in, day out, I think that’s what you’ve seen over the course of this year.”

• “McIlroy: I love it. I loved it from the start. They first showed it to us at this photo shoot that we did in October in Florida, and I loved it. It’s a little bit more compact than the original Spider. I love the white channel. For me, one of my bad habits in my putting is that I would address the putter a little out at the toe. So to have that white channel right in the middle – that white channel is the exact same width as a golf ball – I can center the golf ball on that.”

• “For me, having that contrast between the white channel and the black line… I’ve never aimed the putter as well as I have with that. Without even making any changes mechanically to my stroke, my stroke has gotten better because I aim my putter correctly. I make a stroke that starts the ball on the line that I’m aiming and there are no compensations throughout the stroke at all. So the putter has actually made me stroke it better. I went to The Kingdom (TaylorMade’s performance center in Carlsbad, California) and we tested it all in February, and my stroke between last year and this year is so different, so that’s been huge.”