Whether a player finds success on the PGA Tour or not might have more to do with how well he travels than how well he hits a golf ball—an appropriate topic given this week’s PGA Tour stop, the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. The hotel chain surveyed players and found the following insights:
•    94 percent spend at least 60 nights on the road each year.
•    The typically hit the pillow at 10:30 and wake up a little after 6 for around seven hours of sleep per night.
•    When it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, comfortable pillows (90 percent) and quiet (70 percent) were the most important factors.
•    32 percent dream about golf, mostly about hitting the perfect shot or putt or winning a tournament.
Our own LINKS’ non-scientific survey found that most players take about 10 pairs of pants on the road, 10 shirts, and two pair of golf shoes, white and black. They wash their own socks and underwear but typically have the rest sent out for dry cleaning. Now you know!

So it’s official, the USGA and R&A have banned the anchored putting stroke as of 2016—and here’s what we’re pretty sure of: 1) No one will quit the game. 2) People now will either putt conventionally, use their long putters in an unanchored way, or ignore the Rule and do what they want. 3) The major manufacturers will all but stop making long putters. 4) The next major champions at Oakmont and Royal Troon will have conventional strokes. 5) The debate on bifurcation will rage on. And here’s what we’re not so sure of…yet. 1) How the PGA Tour will respond. 2) Whether anyone—professional or amateur—will bring a lawsuit against the rulemakers. 3) Whether Matt Kuchar will feel weird continuing as the “loophole anchorer,” and, assuming not, whether others will now adopt his anchored-against-the-forearm method. Time will tell.

Pro golf and money are almost always synonymous, but there’s been extra news lately. Sports Illustrated released its list of “The Fortunate 50”—the best-earning sports stars—where only two golfers made the list. Tiger Woods came in at number five (with $40,839,027 combined winnings and endorsement income in the last year) and Phil Mickelson at number six ($39,528,000). Tiger had topped the list every year since it began in 2004 until this oner, when boxer Floyd Mayweather ko’d all comers with $90,000,000. Also earnings-related, Rory McIlroy is changing agents. Again. In late 2011 he switched representatives, and now he’s leaving the Ireland-based Horizons Sports Management group—which got him deals with Nike and others—to set up his own company. Among his non-committal comments on the goings-on, McIlroy told reporters, “Management is a funny thing.” He hopes to be laughing all the way to the bank—and standing next to Tiger in the deposit line.

There’s nothing better than ending the week with an animal story. At Chisholm Park Golf Links in Dunedin, New Zealand, a six-year-old sheep dog named Bossdin has become the self-appointed finder of lost golf balls. "He just totally, totally concentrates on the tee shots,” says his owner, Dee Sorrell, as quoted in the New Zealand Herald. “He always gets the easy ones first. He runs up and sits beside the ball with his paws on either side until you get there. He never picks the ball up and he knows not to go onto the greens." Bossdin is almost as focused as the players he’s helping, as Ms. Sorrell describes: “He doesn't notice other dogs or want a pat when he’s on the golf course, because he’s working. Sometimes, he gets bored when they’re putting and starts to cry, because he wants them to hurry up and go to the next tee." Cries when they’re putting? Tell him not to watch golf on TV.