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Good Wednesday morning, golf fans, as we head south of the border for the 2023 Mexico Open.

1. PGA Tour Americas

AP report…”PGA Tour Canada and the PGA Tour Latinoamerica are merging to form one circuit that will be called PGA Tour Americas. It will have a season divided by two swings — South America and the Great White North — that offer at least 10 spots on the Korn Ferry Tour.”

• “…Still to be determined is the 16-tournament schedule for both regions in 2024 that will run from February through September, and the size of the purses.”

• “The fields will be populated by the leading 60 players from this year’s PGA Tour Latinoamerica and from the PGA Tour Canada season. Other spots will be available through the early stages of Q-school this fall.”

2. Pat Perez said it

SI report…”It was me.” That was Pat Perez’s text Monday to Sports Illustrated when asked if he was the one who made comments about PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour in the 4Aces’ press conference after winning LIV Golf’s event in Australia on Sunday.

• “A story from the Australian Associated Press on Monday reported that Dustin Johnson made some full-throated comments about Monahan when asked about Monahan’s thoughts about him or LIV Golf.”

• ‘We don’t give a damn how he feels,” read quotes attributed to Johnson. “We know how he feels about us, so it’s mutual.”

• “…DJ said nothing, it was all me,” Perez said in a text from Singapore, where LIV Golf plays this week. “I said we don’t care what Jay thinks cause we know how he feels about us and when I say WE, I mean me. I can’t speak for the whole group.”

3. Koepka, DJ want to play Ryder Cup

Evin Priest for Golf Digest…“I have no idea [if we’ll be eligible] and it’s not up to me so I can’t make that decision. But if they choose us, we’ll be ready to go,” Koepka told the Sydney Morning Herald after finishing T-11 among the 48 players who competed at LIV Golf’s Adelaide event.”

• “Koepka and his fellow LIV recruits would almost certainly need one of Johnson’s picks. Despite being able to earn U.S. Ryder Cup points through their performances in the major championships, LIV players are well outside the six automatic qualifiers. Koepka is the highest-ranked LIV player, at No. 17 in the Team USA standings, while Phil Mickelson, who tied with Koepka for second at Augusta, is 22nd. Previous Ryder Cup stars Dustin Johnson (30th) and Patrick Reed (34th) are even farther down the ladder.”

4. “A real major feel”

Elliott Heath for Golf Monthly…”Marc Leishman, one of the home favorites for Ripper GC, said his playing partner Carlos Ortiz compared the atmosphere and feel of the event to a Major, and he agreed. He also described the week as a “highlight” of his career and said that the Aussie event “certainly verified” his decision to join the Saudi-backed tour.”

• “This was on a different level. This was everything like Carlos was saying today, that this had a real Major feel to it, even more than some Majors, and I feel the same way,” Leishman said.

• “A special week I think for Australian golf, a special week for LIV. Me and Cam will have a bit of a hug later on tonight. If we weren’t, which we were, we were already very happy with our decisions, but this has certainly verified it, if it needed verifying, which I don’t think it did.

• “I think I expected it to be huge, somewhat like this, but I was saying this morning, I’ve had chances to win Majors, albeit not in Australia, to have the home crowds like that, that was a highlight of my golfing career, along with all my wins.”

5. A forbidden Masters souvenir

Our Jason Daniels…”On Saturday, reddit user ‘skinow84’ posted a photo of what looked a standard piece of turf in a pot. It’s a “so what?” moment until you see the headline.”

•  “Small divot from the 13th hole at Augusta National landed next to me two weeks ago, took it home in a chip bag. It’s thriving.”

• Knowing just how security conscious the Augusta committee is, ‘skinow’84 was jokingly advised, “Augusta is going to send an assassin for it,” before replying that he was “well within the patron rope, it was going to die anyway, yet I was nervous for some reason. I put it in the potato chip bag with a couple drops of water and planted it the day I got home.”

• “For a bag of official $1.50 Masters chips, our hero may well have something very special on his hands. Or in his pot.”

• “Replies were as amusing as you would think.”

• “Many offered a glowing vision of the future – “With the right fertilizer, we can have Second Augusta in a few thousand years,” said one, whilst we had a bit more of a long-term option from another – “You all realize it automatically grows into a full Augusta, it first will be a small par 3 after a few seasons then it will grow to full size just give it some time! Common sense here gentlemen!”

• “Still, it appears that some of the comments have the user spooked and they have now since deleted their Reddit account.

6. Bentleys, Rolls Royces, and other upgrades at the Chevron Championship

Tim Schmitt for Golfweek…“The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Stipends of $5,000 were added for players who missed the cut, marking the first time in the tournament’s history that was offered. Players received courtesy cars for the week, with returning champs rolling around town in Bentleys and Rolls-Royces.”

• “And those are just some of the perks the new partnership between Carlton Woods and Chevron has cooked up. LPGA players often aren’t given an option when it comes to practice balls, meaning they often have a different feel on the range. Salzman and his staff reached out to ball manufacturers and while some did provide extra balls for the range, a few did not.”

• “That didn’t sit really well with us,” he said. “So we contacted all the ball manufacturers to get balls. Most of the big ones came through, but there were a few that didn’t, so we dug into our own stock and made sure that was the case, so that they can practice with the balls that they play with. And I think that’s the first time that’s ever been done. The gals are walking up there and seeing their balls in boxes and they’re really happy.”

7. Furyk to captain at World Champions Cup

Garry Smits Florida Times-Union…”Jim Furyk will be a match-play captain again, this time against the world.”

• The PGA Tour Champions announced this week that the inaugural World Champions Cup Dec. 7-10 at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton will bring together 50 and over players from the U.S., Europe and an International team for three days of match play.

• The European captain will be Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and the International captain Ernie Els of South Africa. Furyk and Clarke are past Ryder Cup captains and Els captained the 2019 International Presidents Cup team. All three will be playing captains.

• The event will be aired on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen, a seven-time PGA Tour winner and TV golf analyst will be the chairman.

8. Bryson: OWGR not accurate

Michael McEwan for Bunkered…”Talor Gooch won last week’s LIV Golf League event in Adelaide but fell two spots on the Official World Golf Ranking.”

• “According to Bryson DeChambeau, that’s not right.”

• “Speaking ahead of this week’s tournament in Singapore, the former US Open champion took the OWGR and its powerbrokers to task, insisting that it needs to start accommodating LIV golfers – for its own good as much as anything else.”

• “You should realise that the OWGR is not accurate,” said the 29-year-old, now ranked 178th. “I think they need to come to a resolution or it will become obsolete. It’s pretty much almost obsolete as of right now. But again, if the majors and everything continue to have that as their ranking system, then they are biting it quite heavily.”

9. KFT Photos

• Check out our galleries from this week’s Korn Ferry Tour event!