For the fourth consecutive year, the Genesis Scottish Open is a co-sanctioned tournament that counts on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, with the next two weeks seeing events on either side of the Atlantic count on both tours.
It is one part of the “strategic alliance” between the tours that has seen the PGA Tour invest in the DP World Tour—helping, among other things, to subsidize prize funds—while offering an exemption to the PGA Tour.
Perhaps the most notable example of a player taking advantage of that pathway was France’s Matthieu Pavon.
Pavon, 32, won the Spanish Open late in the 2023 season and then birdied his last four holes at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship to secure the last of 10 full exemptions onto the PGA Tour.
That year, the two tours had agreed to give an exemption to the top 10 players not otherwise exempt for the following season.
After planning to return to Europe for the 2024 season, Pavon now had a new opportunity ahead, and promptly took advantage, becoming the first French golfer to win on the PGA Tour (Arnaud Massy had won the 1907 British Open) when he captured the Farmers Insurance Open.
He parlayed that into a strong year on Tour, making it to the Tour Championship and becoming exempt for all of the major championships this year.
But 2025 has been more of a challenge.
“It hasn’t been the best year so far,” Pavon said last week. “I had a tremendous year on the PGA Tour. Everything is fresh. No expectations. And this is what helped me to do so great. Then you switch to next year. You achieve a great thing and you want even more.
“And this is where it gets a little bit tough. You expect more from yourself. I made a couple of changes to try and get better. And right now, it hasn’t paid off.”
Pavon was speaking in conjunction with a partnership he has with J. Lindeberg, a Swedish clothing company that has branched into golf and signed several players. It was the clothing outfitter for the U.S. golfers at last summer’s Olympics.
Earlier this year, Pavon signed on with the company, liking what it had to offer and the fact that “they are not afraid to try things.”
Another perk: “Usually they send it straight to my locker,” Pavon said of the clothes he wears each week at a tournament and that will be scripted for next week’s British Open. “You have a nice present when you open your locker. They make you feel like you are special.”
The next stop will be this week’s Genesis Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club near North Berwick, Scotland. (The company has also partnered with the Scottish Open and next week’s British Open.)
And Pavon will be looking to reverse his on-course form.
This year has seen him drop from 31st in the Official World Golf Ranking to 81st. In 17 tournaments, he’s had no finish inside the top 40 and missed the cut in his title defense at Torrey Pines as well as the Masters.
A year ago, he played in the final group at the U.S. Open with eventual champion Bryson DeChambeau, where he finished fifth—which was his last top-10 finish.
Moving his family to America from France has been great, he said, but has also come with challenges.
Pavon lives near the Bear’s Club in Jupiter, Fla., which is home to several professional golfers. Nothing wrong with that, he said.
“The facilities are tremendous and it’s hard to stay home and do something different,” he said. “You guys in America have the best facilities in the world to practice. The best weather as well. It’s sunny every day. You know you’re going to get firm, fast greens.
“The problem is when I was in Europe (full time), the way I was practicing was more quality over quantity. I had more free time. I could work on my body. Since I’ve been in America the way I train is not as balanced. Much more time on the golf course than before. It’s new things. And adjustment.”
Pavon said that has taken some time as he’s sought to find more consistency in his game.
“What was great for me when I arrived in America, I was fresh mentally,” he said. “I had a beautiful winter on the [ski] slopes. Went hiking. Then went to Hawaii ready to compete, not so much the shape of my game but I was mentally ready.
“Now after a year and a half it’s going to another tournament. You know the places now more much more. And mentally you burn yourself out a little bit.”
Pavon said a coaching change has taken longer to see results. “I did it to gain consistency in my game,” he said. “I was missing the [club] face a lot. It was hard to get the right yardages. And really hard when you are trying to control the depth of the ball, control your game. So I’ve tried to make changes.”
So far, he finds himself way behind in FedEx Cup points, 155th in the standings with just the top 70 advancing to the FedEx Cup playoffs next month. There are just five tournament weeks left, including the Scottish Open and the Open, where he hopes to make up some ground.
Either way, Pavon is fully exempt for next year based on his Farmers victory last year. And when the PGA Tour season concludes, he will head back to the DP World Tour, where he expects to play at least four times or more to maintain his membership there.
The adjustment to life in the U.S. remains part of the challenge, he said.
“It’s small things,” said Pavon, who speaks fluent English. “Of course the language. You miss people around you talking French. You’re focused on what the people are saying. I miss the small streets at home, a bit of the French culture. It’s different when you grow up in it and so it’s the small things that you miss.”
The case for (and against) Patrick Reed’s Ryder Cup bid
Patrick Reed’s name has come up in various discussions about the U.S. Ryder Cup team, and there is certainly plenty to unpack there.
First, just looking at the golf record, there is understandable reason for consideration, putting aside any other issues concerning his candidacy. The one-time “Captain America” has had a nice year and a strong last three months. He was on the fringe of contention at the Masters and finished third. He finished second at an International Series event in Macau, which got him a place in next week’s British Open. He is coming off his first victory in the LIV Golf League with his win in Dallas. And he will have played in all of the major championships this year.
According to statistics from LIV Golf, his 1.01 strokes-gained overall in 2025 is his highest in four years. Aside from gaining strokes off the tee, Reed has improved in every other category this year and he’s got a proven track record in team events.
Of course, driving it poorly at Bethpage Black is not going to be of much use. And Reed’s Ryder Cup record is mostly colored by what he did in 2014 and 2016, when he went a combined 6–1–1. That’s a long time ago, of course.
And he’s remembered more for what he did in Paris, going 1–2—playing poorly with Tiger Woods as his partner in 2018—and then doing so again a year later at the Presidents Cup, where he went 1–3 and his caddie and brother-in-law, Kessler Karain, had to sit out a day due to an altercation with a spectator in Australia. In his last two team competitions, Reed has not earned a point with a teammate.
He was in the mix to be picked in 2021 at Whistling Straits and came back from a serious illness that saw him hospitalized that summer. But ultimately, captain Steve Stricker went with Scottie Scheffler as his last choice, and that worked out pretty well.
Reed also has the baggage associated with his complaints in 2018 when captain Jim Furyk split him from his former partner Jordan Spieth, a successful pairing no doubt. But Spieth went 3-1 with Justin Thomas as Reed and Woods faltered. And Furyk, who undoubtedly wasn’t a big fan of being second-guessed, will have a big role as an assistant for U.S. captain Keegan Bradley this year. Is it worth any drama that might linger?
Bradley has said he wants the best 12 Americans on the team and has made it clear he cares not at all about any perceived issues with LIV Golf members. Bryson DeChambeau will undoubtedly be on the team whether he qualifies on points or not and Brooks Koepka—despite a disappointing year to date—deserves consideration as well.
So does Reed. But he probably needs to show more in his remaining events. It didn’t help that he missed the cut this week at the BMW International Open in Germany. LIV Golf plays this week in Spain and Reed is in next week’s Open followed by the LIV Golf UK event. Those are three opportunities to let his clubs do the talking.
He will also have three LIV events leading into the time when Bradley makes his at-large picks.
For Reed, it seems, the best course of action is to play well enough that he has to be picked. And that is going to require some excellent golf.
A peek at LIV Golf’s tentative 2026 schedule
One area new LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil seems intent on addressing is the schedule. Namely, getting it locked down sooner than in past years when the entire schedule would not be unveiled until the new year had begun.
Although LIV Golf said its schedule for 2026 is not final, Sports Business Journal reported last week that it is all but set.
The biggest difference: no U.S. event prior to the Masters. And more of a lean into international locations.
Like this year, LIV Golf will go overseas starting in early February for tournaments in Riyadh, Adelaide, Hong Kong and Singapore. Instead of playing in Miami the week before the Masters—as LIV has done the past two years—it is tentatively scheduled to play an event in South Africa from March 20-22. That is the same week as the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, three weeks prior to the Masters.
The week following the first major championship, LIV Golf is slated to return to Mexico City.
The new additions to the schedule are South Africa and New Orleans, which is the week after the U.S. Open.
Missing are events from this year’s schedule, the stops in Miami and Dallas, where last week LIV Golf reported one of its best domestic events in its four-year existence.
If the schedule stands, LIV would return to South Korea following the PGA Championship and also play in Spain prior to the U.S. Open—unlike this year when the event at Valderrama is being played this week prior to the British Open.
The U.K. event follows the Open, which is at Royal Birkdale next year, and then LIV Golf concludes—as it does this year—with events in Chicago, Indianapolis and Michigan, although there is a one-week break between the first two events, unlike this year when they are played in consecutive weeks.
If this schedule holds, there will be just six of the 14 events in North America, with five in the United States.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Matthieu Pavon Took the DP World Tour's Pathway to the PGA Tour and Now Hopes to Stay.