And, indeed, they did. As Erik van Rooyen walked off with an emotional victory on Sunday at the World Wide Technology Championship, the finally tally was in. The field hit a collective 5,740 tee shots on the par 4s and par 5s over four rounds, and 5,194 landed in the fairway. That’s a 90.48 per cent accuracy rate, an astonishing number when you consider most hit previously in any tournament during the 2022-23 season was 74.94 per cent at the Masters.

En route to victory, Van Rooyen missed just four fairways — and ranked T-25 among his peers. Finishing first in the field was Adam Long, who didn’t miss a single fairway all week, a first on the PGA Tour in 31 years.

“It’s something I’ll be able to say forever,” Long told PGATour.com, “some sort of bragging rights or an interesting stat at trivia nights.”

For the season, Long ranks 13th on tour in driving accuracy, hitting 66.78 per cent. So maybe it wasn’t a surprise that he would be out front in Mexico.

Long admitted he was thinking about keeping his perfect week intact as he played the last hole, the reachable par-5 18th with a fairway bunker along the left side of the hole. Long’s tee shot drifted toward the sand, and because of the way the tee box was positioned, he wasn’t sure if where his ball finished up until he walked a good way up the hole.

“I was like: ‘Ahh come on, don’t make it the last one! It’s all right to miss one, but don’t make it the very last hole,’” Long said. “So we get over the crest, maybe 100 yards before the ball, and it’s sitting right in front of the bunker and it was mine. It hung on for dear life. It was only a few feet from going into that bunker.”

But here’s the scary part: Long ended up 10 shots back of van Rooyen, coming in T-23. And, as it turns out, accuracy hasn’t helped the 36-year-old former tour winner shoot lower scores much this season. Despite playing in 36 events, Long is 142nd in the FedEx Cup points list. Aware he was in jeopardy of losing his PGA Tour card, Long is signed up for the second stage of Qualifying School.

Main image: Adam Long. Orlando Ramirez

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By John Feinstein
On Sunday afternoon, while most Americans were watching football, an American golfer was pulling off a stunning feat. The golfer, though, wasn’t Bryson DeChambeau or Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods.

It was John Catlin, someone who even golf geeks know almost nothing about. Playing in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, Catlin birdied three of his final four holes to shoot a final-round 64. A spectacular 3-wood on the par-5 18th from 268 yards set up the final two-putt birdie that allowed him to beat Englishman Aaron Rai by two shots.

Catlin, who turns 30 in November, has now won twice this month on the European Tour. On Labor Day weekend he won at Valderrama in Spain, arguably the most famous course on the European continent, and Sunday he won a tournament whose previous champions include names like Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Sergio Garcia, Ian Woosnam, Colin Montgomerie and—more recently—Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm.

Catlin became just the third American (and the first in 43 years) to win the title. Ben Crenshaw won it in 1976 and Hubert Green won it a year later, the same year he won the U.S. Open and finished third in the Open Championship.

Because Catlin’s win came on a late September Sunday, a lot more people were focused on how their local NFL team was doing or even on the last day of the Major League Baseball truncated regular season. Heck, even U.S. golf fans were more aware of Hudson Swafford’s one-stroke win at the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship than Catlin’s victory.

Golf is a sport that is off the radar of many, if not most, general sports fans except when the game’s biggest events, most notably the four majors and the Ryder Cup, are taking place. The shame of this is that wonderful stories often go unnoticed or are glossed over, even by those of us who cover golf. No one is more guilty of pushing the importance of the major championships than I am. I’ve often said that winning one major is worth winning 10 regular tour events—at least. And the only players I know who disagree with that assessment are those who have won regular tour events but have never won a major.

That does not mean, however, that great stories don’t occur at non-majors. In fact, some of the most poignant stories happen on weeks when only we geeks are paying attention.

There was no better example of that than two Sundays ago when Stewart Cink won the Safeway Open. In 2009, at the age of 36, Cink won the Open Championship—the culmination of a career that had included five tour victories and four Ryder Cup appearances. Instead of becoming known to most of the public as a major champion, Cink became the guy who had beaten Tom Watson—denying him the chance to win a sixth claret jug at age 59.

Sean M. Haffey
Stewart Cink celebrates with the trophy and his son Reagan after winning the Safeway Open.

Cink handled it all with grace and humility, saying if he’d been watching the four-hole playoff from home, he would have been pulling for Watson. Until two weeks ago, he hadn’t won in more than 11 years since that day at Turnberry, a period of time in which he had endured the torture of watching his wife, Lisa, be diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in March 2016.

Lisa Cink is cancer-free now and her husband shot 65-65 on the weekend in the Napa Valley to hold a trophy for the first time since his win over Watson. Son Reagan was on the bag for Cink, and the family’s quiet victory celebration was about as poignant as you are likely to see anywhere in sports in this strange pandemic-dominated year.

But because the NFL season started that weekend and because the rescheduled U.S. Open was up next on the golf schedule, Cink’s victory was little noted beyond the golf websites. It wasn’t on network TV and there’s no doubt a lot more people were watching Tom Brady’s debut as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer than Cink’s two-shot win over Harry Higgs.

The thing is, Cink’s story might not have been nearly as glamorous, but it was one far more people should have been able to relate to than the golden boy making his debut in another uniform. Truth be told, Cink played a lot better than Brady that day.

Because golf is built around the four majors and the Ryder Cup, a lot of non-major stories are missed—certainly by the mainstream media.

Earlier this summer, Daniel Summerhays announced before the start of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Classic that he was going to retire at week’s end to coach golf at the high school he graduated from 28 years earlier. Summerhays never won on the PGA Tour, but he twice finished in the top 10 in majors (T-8 at the 2017 U.S. Open after getting in as fourth alternate and third at that year’s PGA). He won once on what was then the Nationwide Tour—as an amateur—and had a solid, though decidedly un-glamorous, career.

Matthew Stockman
Daniel Summerhays nearly won the Utah Championship in his home after announcing he was retiring to become a high school golf coach.

He decided to retire at a tournament near home, even though there wouldn’t be spectators at the event. Then, he almost wrote the script for a Disney movie, shooting 62 the last day to get into a playoff with Kyle Jones and Paul Haley II. Someone botched the ending, though, when Jones won the playoff. Even so, one could almost picture the freeze-frame-ending on that final green as Summerhays walked into the sunset.

Every year there are terrific stories that never make it out of golf’s insular world. Early in 2019, 31-year-old Adam Long arrived at what was then the Desert Classic with four PGA Tour starts to his credit—one cut made in those four starts. He somehow played his way into Sunday’s last group along with Adam Hadwin and Phil Mickelson, the tournament’s “host” and a darling of golf crowds everywhere, no more so than in the Coachella Valley.

With 80 percent of the crowd cheering lustily for Mickelson and the rest for Hadwin (fellow Canadians snow-birding in the desert), Long hung in all day. Finally, on the 18th hole, he drilled a 20-foot birdie putt to win, stunning Mickelson, Hadwin and almost every fan in attendance.

Keyur Khamar
Adam Long pumps his fist and celebrates his one stroke victory after making a winning birdie putt on the 18th hole green during the final round of the 2019 Desert Classic.

The win was life-changing for Long, who just missed the Tour Championship this year—finishing 31st on the points list—and had a two-shot lead Sunday at Puntacana, before a final-round 75 dropped him to fifth place.

There’s also the too-tough-to-believe-even-for-Disney story of Nate Lashley, who had very little status going into last year’s inaugural Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. Lashley tried to Monday qualify for the tournament and just missed, finishing as the third alternate. He got into the field on Wednesday and then, at the age of 36, WON going from limited tour status to an exemption through the end of the 2020-’21 season. That’s not to mention the slightly more than $1.3 million he won to go with the silly-looking trophy someone handed him.

Catlin is just the latest example of a story worthy of our attention that will be largely overlooked. He was a three-time academic All-American at New Mexico and has taken the arduous journey in the direction of the PGA Tour that those who come out of college without star credentials often have to take.

Since turning pro in 2013, he has played on the PGA Tour Canada and then on the Asian Developmental Tour for two years. His breakthrough came in 2018 when he won three times on the Asian Tour to gain status to the European Tour. His post-COVID return to golf didn’t start very well this summer when he and his caddie, Nathan Mulrooney, went to a restaurant outside the tour’s bubble just prior to the start of the UK Swing in August.

Catlin, who had only limited status on the European Tour, was banned from the tournament, apologized and then came back to win at Valderrama a month later. His victory in Ireland moved him to 14th place in the Road to Dubai standings and 84th in the Official World Golf Rankings.

If Catlin can stay hot and reach the top 50, he will suddenly be eligible for the majors and for World Golf Championship events. Someone named Brooks Koepka followed a similar path six years ago. If Catlin can continue in those footsteps, he might get noticed someday. Maybe.

The post There are stirring golf triumphs to celebrate, even when they fly under the radar appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Four takeaways from Saturday’s third-round action of the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship.

Long game
Adam Long came out of the golf wilderness to win the PGA Tour’s Desert Classic in January of 2019. A potential victory on Sunday won’t be as surprising.

The former Duke Blue Devil followed up a Friday 65 at Puntacana with an eight-under 64 on Saturday. It was tied for the low score of the day, bestowing Long a two-shot lead heading into the final round.

“It was a fun day,” Long said. “Yesterday was nice, too, making a lot of birdies, which is nice. I’ve had some experience going low in the past out here and just going to have to keep the pedal down and try to make as many as I can tomorrow as well.”

He hit 14 greens on Saturday afternoon, but where Long is making moves is with the short stick, ranking fourth in the field in putts per green in regulation.

“It was nice when those days are like that where you’re just kind of feeling the putter and you’re just making putts,” Long said. “It was nice. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of things, I was just trying to make everything.”

Long recorded two runner-ups in 2020, finishing 31st in the FedEx Cup to prove his La Quinta triumph was no fluke, and kept the providence rolling to start the new season with a T-13 at Winged Foot last week. He is 18 holes away from adding to the resume, and will be paired with Hudson Swafford in the final group.

“I’m trying to win just like everybody else. We all have reasons to win and I do, too,” Long said. “But they’re the best players in the world, they’re all going to make birdies. At a tournament like this you’re going to have to keep the pedal down and keep making birdies, so it would be nice to get off to a good start and see some putts go in early.”

Double dunks
Mackenzie Hughes owns one of the best short games on tour. That is a statement based on stats—the Canadian ranked sixth in strokes gained/around-the-green and eighth in strokes gained/putting last season—and Saturday highlights, as Hughes dunked two chips during the third round.

The first dunk came at the par-4 15th, just off the dance floor …

.@MacHughesGolf is out here making it look easy. ?pic.twitter.com/ZN6r3UD5On

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) September 26, 2020

With the second slam coming minutes later at the par-3 17th:

And he’s at it again. ?pic.twitter.com/88NZVQMidI

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) September 26, 2020

“I didn’t have much going today and I was watching Adam play awesome, so it was like getting run over by a semi, but hung in there,” Hughes said. “My caddie, Jay, did a good job of reminding me of just hanging tough and waiting for a little run there. Lo and behold, he was right and we caught a little run there at the end and a couple chip-ins and a nice birdie there on 16. So that definitely makes dinner taste a little better tonight and give me a chance for tomorrow.”

Hughes finished with three birdies in his final four holes for a five-under 67, leaving him three behind Long.

Saturday movers
Anirban Lahiri began the day outside the top 50. His standing on Saturday night has markedly improved.

Lahiri vaulted over 45 spots on the Puntacana board thanks to eight birdies and zero bogeys for an eight-under 64.

“It was great, especially nice to have a clean card,” Lahiri said. “I’ve made a bunch of silly errors over the last two days and I’ve been playing better than my score would suggest, so I knew that I had to come out and kind of tighten up, focus a little bit more. Hit my irons a lot better today, put some work in yesterday afternoon and I’m glad.”

It was not too long ago that Lahiri ranked No. 33 in the world, making back-to-back Presidents Cup teams in 2015 and 2017. Alas, he has struggled with his game since, and due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, only played in eight events in 2020. Lahiri entered the week No. 690 in the OWGR with just one top 10 on tour in the past two years. Though he’s six shots back of the lead, that Lahiri has an opportunity to contend in something not lost on the 33-year-old.

“I’m just happy that I have a chance, an outside chance one way or the other, and I played well so I can take a lot of pride in that,” Lahiri said.

Lahiri was not the only Saturday mover. Nate Lashley, who won at Puntacana in 2017 when the property served as a Web.com Tour site, jumped 25 spots on the board thanks to a seven-under 65.

“I feel like it’s a good second-shot golf course and I think that’s a good strength of my game,” Lashley said. “When I’m hitting my irons well, I feel like on a course like this I’m going to have a chance to finish well. I like that you hit some fairways and then if you have a chance to hit some irons in close, I like that.”

The friendly confines were desperately needed, as Lashley came in ice-cold, missing the cut or withdrawing in 10 of his last 12 starts. Five shots is a lot of ground to make up, but Lashley seems ready for the challenge.

“Anyone you win a tournament on a course, you feel comfortable, you feel confident,” he said.

Seasons on the line
The focus, especially during events of lesser prestige, tends to gravitate toward the windfall that awaits the winner. And with Puntacana promoted from alternate status to a stand-alone event this fall—thus awarding an invite to the 2021 Masters—that is especially so this week.

However, the bounty extends outside the winner’s circle. Had the tour not extended its membership into this season, many players in this week’s field would not have status for the current campaign. Heck, a good chunk of the leader board doesn’t have full-time status (Hudson Swafford, Sean O’Hair, Justin Suh, Anirban Lahhiri) anyway. The obvious reward for many of these guys (outside a win, obviously) is a top-10 finish, granting a chance to play at next week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. Better yet, even those who fall just short of victory, placing in the top four does most of the major legwork to securing a tour card for 2022. At a cognitive level most diehard fans realize this, and some may be wondering, just three weeks in, if so much importance should be put on a fall event.

Conversely, the players that populate the autumn series events only get so many cracks at it, their exemptions and invites into tournaments drying up as the year progresses. In short, don’t let the September date and Caribbean backdrop fool you: seasons will be made, and hearts will broken, on Sunday afternoon.

The post Why seasons can be made on Sunday and other takeaways from Round 3 at Corales Puntacana appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
Coming into the Desert Classic, Adam Long had played in just five PGA Tour events, making only one cut in October at the Safeway Open. There was no reason to believe that the 31-year-old would be a factor this week in Palm Springs, even after he went 63-71-63 to grab a spot in the final group with Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin. Surely, Long would just be along for the ride on Sunday, gaining valuable experience he’d lean on the next time he found himself in this position.

But on the 72nd tee Long found himself in a three-way tie with Hadwin and Mickelson, in need of an accurate tee shot. He missed the fairway, and caught a bad break as his ball was well below his feet on his approach shot. Long proceeded to hit the shot of his life to 13 feet, then drained the right-to-left birdie putt to claim his first PGA Tour event in his sixth career start. Suffice to say, he was in shock.

“I’m in disbelief right now,” said Long after signing for a final-round seven-under 65. “I don’t really know what just happened, but I’m thrilled.”

Long proved he was up the challenge right from the start, making back-to-back birdies to begin his round and turning in three-under 33. On the back nine he chipped in for birdie twice, once at the par-4 12th on PGA West’s Stadium Course and again at the par-4 15th. He made four birdies on the back nine in total, including the winning birdie at the 18th, which he had a good feeling about after getting a read off Mickelson’s birdie effort.

“I got a pretty good read off Phil’s putt,” said Long. “It was one of those putts that you stand over and you just know you’re going to make. You can’t control that, but when you have that feeling, it’s a good one.”

Long, who had missed four consecutive cuts, is the third first-time tour winner of the 2018-’19 season. The victory is his first professional victory on any tour, and it earns him a spot in this year’s Masters. Perhaps most importantly, he’ll take home $1,062,000, nearly doubling his career earnings as a professional in one week.

Despite some poor putting, Mickelson battled to the end, making consecutive birdies at 15 and 16 to tie for the lead. But the issues with the flat stick proved to be too much to overcome.

“Terrible putting day, one of the worst I can recall in awhile,” said Mickelson, who fired a three-under 69 with 33 putts. “It felt awful with the putter. I hit a lot of good shots today though, but I just couldn’t get the ball to go in the hole.”

As for Hadwin, it’s another unfortunate near-miss at the Desert Classic, where he’s now finished T-3 or better three consecutive times.

Talor Gooch, who failed to register a top 10 last year in his rookie season, carded an eight-under 64 to finish in solo fourth.

The post Adam Long, a 31-year-old PGA Tour rookie, birdies the 72nd hole to win the Desert Classic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall

Long time coming

Adam Long missed the cut in all four Web.com Tour Finals events last fall. Had never won in 135 career starts across the Web, Mackenzie, and Latinoamérica circuits. Started the week 205th in the FedEx Cup out of 218 players, and outside the top 400 in world rankings. Not exactly the profile of a legend killer.

Yet it was Long with raised arms on the 72nd hole, vanquishing 43-time tour winner Phil Mickelson with the shot of the early season to win the Desert Classic.

“In some ways it’s been a little bit of a roller-coaster, but it’s been a steady improvement throughout my career,” Long said. ”I’ve played in pretty much most tours around the world that there are and just kind of steadily progressed. It kind of can seem like it came out of nowhere, but my game’s been trending in the right direction for really the last two years now.”

The 31-year-old Long, who began his day three shots back of Mickelson, opened with a flawless 33 on the front. However, he was upstaged by playing mate Adam Hadwin, as the Canadian made the turn in 31, and another Hadwin birdie at the 11th put Long four behind the lead.

But Hadwin bogeyed the 13th while Long put together three birds of his own—including two chip-ins—in a four-hole stretch. Not to be outdone, Mickelson added red figures at the 15th and 16th, putting the final threesome in a tie going into the last hole. Long missed the fairway, and faced an approach of 175 yards with his ball well below his feet. All he did from there, with Mickelson and Hadwin staring down, is put the smoothest swing you’ve ever seen on a six-iron, his shot finishing 14 feet from the pin.

After his competitors missed their birdie attempts, Long dropped his, giving the former Duke product his first professional win since the 2011 Woodcreek Open on the Hooters Tour.

“I got a pretty good read off Phil’s putt,” Long said. “It was one of those putts that you just stand over you just know you’re going to make. And you can’t control that, but when you have that feeling it’s a good one. I’m in pretty disbelief right now. I don’t really know what happened.”

His life has changed forever. ?@ALongShot will never forget this.#LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/svPhEEnIXa

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 21, 2019

Cameras caught Mickelson saying “Wow” when Long’s putt fell, and Long himself exclaimed “Holy crap” to his wife when he walked off the green Both which were apropos. For Long’s second shot, the winning putt, the fact that he had just won $1.1 million (more than double his career earnings from the past seven years) and earned an invite to the Masters, and took down a player of Mickelson’s stature. Forget legend killer; Long became an epic of his own on Sunday.

Mickelson’s streak comes to end

For the first time in 29 years, Mickelson will not be teeing it up at Torrey Pines.

Following his Friday round the 48-year-old Mickelson announced he was skipping his hometown event.

I want to share my updated tour schedule: this week I will be playing here in the desert, Phoenix, Pebble Beach, and then defending my title in Mexico. My streak of 28-straight Farmers Insurance Opens will end next week. I will try to make it up to the great community of SD!

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) January 19, 2019

The move is partially a byproduct of the new condensed PGA Tour schedule, but also falls in line with Mickelson’s fall comments about avoiding tough courses in 2019.

“And I’m 48. I’m not going to play tournaments with rough like that anymore, it’s a waste of my time,” Mickelson said in Napa, regarding his performance at Le Golf National during the Ryder Cup. “I’m going to play courses that are playable and that I can play aggressive, attacking, make a lot of birdies, style of golf I like to play.” Torrey Pines does not fit that category: the average winning score hovering around nine under the past five seasons, making it one of the hardest tracks on tour.

Mickelson is a three-time winner of the Farmers Insurance Open, but had played on the weekend in just three of his last seven appearances.

Ross Kinnaird

Lowry stumbles, then surges, in Abu Dhabi

Shane Lowry began the final round at the Abu Dhabi Championship with a three-stroke lead. Eleven holes later, the Irishman found himself four shots out of first.

“I completely thought I was gone, to be honest,” Lowry would later admit.

But Lowry, who watched Richard Sterne jump in front with an opening-nine 31, answered with a pair of birdies on the back, and untimely bogeys from Sterne brought the two to a tie on the 18th hole. A wayward approach took Sterne out of the running, with Lowry convertingan easy birdie on the par-5 finisher to win by one.

“I didn’t think I had that in me. The putts I holed, the shots I made…All sorts of things go through your mind in this mad game,” Lowry said. “It’s been a tough few years on the course.”

Lowry, who will be playing more on the European circuit after losing his PGA Tour card, moves into the world’s top 50 with the victory, his highest standing since 2016

Enrique Berardi/LAAC

Ortiz wins LAAC

Alvaro Ortiz is used to disappointment at the Latin America Amateur Championship. He lost the event in a playoff in 2017, and watched Joaquin Niemann erase his one-shot lead on Sunday with a closing 63 to take the title last winter. So when his overnight lead at this year’s tournament disappeared halfway through the final round, it appeared Ortiz had another reservation for the Heartbreak Hotel.

Yet Ortiz, an All-SEC talent who is prone to occasional bursts of fury, remained calm and responded with vigor, touring the Teeth of the Dog second nine in 31 strokes to win the LAAC by two.

“You can learn through the tough times, more than anything,” Ortiz said. “Those moments … you start looking back, especially a couple years after when you start realizing that showing your emotions really affects you and you have to really be calm and have that mental peace on each shot to do your best.”

A sentiment that was tested at the beginning of the week. Ortiz’s flight on Monday to the Dominican was canceled due to mechanical issues, and he missed a connection on Tuesday that kept him from getting to Casa de Campo until the evening.

Hopefully his journey to Augusta National will be less frantic, as Ortiz becomes the first Mexican to earn a Masters’ bid since Victor Regalado in 1979.

“I can’t wait,” Ortiz said.

The break of all breaks

We’re guessing Jerry Kelly doesn’t play the lottery. No need to with over $30 million in career earnings, after all. But, for the sake of entertainment, the man should buy his numbers this week.

That’s the only reasonable conclusion to this video of Kelly’s wayward approach during the final round of the PGA Tour Champions season-opener, the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai:

Are you kidding me?!

Possibly the wildest eagle you’ll ever see from @JerryKelly13PGA @MEC_golf. ?? pic.twitter.com/XFwpXQ48xi

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) January 20, 2019

Actually, we take it back. Kelly’s not lucky. That is straight up witchcraft.

While snatching eagle out of the jaws of double was the highlight of the week, the trophy ultimately went to Tom Lehman, who overcame a four-shot deficit to beat David Toms by one.

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