By Dave Shedloski
K.H. Lee’s breakthrough victory Sunday in the AT&T Byron Nelson might not carry the emotional weight of the long-sought win Richard Bland registered Saturday on the European Tour—one that reverberated through the professional ranks here and abroad. Yet it’s doubtful being second fiddle in this instance mattered one iota.

A win, whenever it comes, is a welcome blessing.

In his 80th PGA Tour start, fighting nerves, elements and a hot golfer appropriately named Burns, Lee was a picture of composure when he birdied his final two holes to beat Louisiana native Sam Burns by three strokes in a shootout in McKinney, Texas. After a weather delay of 2 hours, 23 minutes, Lee finished off a six-under 66 at TPC Craig Ranch and grabbed the final qualifying spot in this week’s PGA Championship at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.

When he tapped in from inches away on the 72nd hole, Lee hugged his caddie, Brett Waldman, a secret weapon of sorts who had finished T-14 at the second stage of PGA Tour qualifying at TPC Craig Ranch in 2010. Then he was greeted by his wife, Joo Yeon Yu, who is expecting the couple’s first child in July. Finally, he accepted a congratulatory embrace from countryman K.J. Choi. As he approached the tour’s most successful Korean player, Lee bowed twice.

But he bowed to no one else on a day marred by heavy rains.

“Long time for me to wait for the win,” said Lee, 29, who previously had posted victories in Japan and South Korea before joining the PGA Tour in 2019. “Very hard conditions for everybody today. I tried [to stay] patient and keep playing positive. Still can’t believe now what happened.”

Beginning the day one stroke behind Burns, who had broken through for his own maiden victory in his previous start at the Valspar Championship two weeks ago, Lee birdied four of his first six holes to seize control. He then maintained his composure amid worsening weather conditions that had been expected, prompting tee times to be moved forward for an early finish.

It wasn’t early enough. Lightning forced suspension of play at 1:52 p.m. CDT, leaving Lee and eight others remaining to complete the tournament.

When play resumed at 4:15 p.m. local time, Lee faced a 15-foot par putt on the 16th hole. He left it short for only his second bogey of the week, and his lead slipped to two strokes over Burns. Never was a bounce-back more important.

Matthew Stockman
K.H. Lee handled the rain conditions—not to mention the nearly 2 1/2 hour delay—by posting a six-under 66 to win by three shots.

Instead, Lee, whose given name is Kyoung-Hoon, executed a pounce back.

With rain starting up again, Lee steered a pitching wedge from 130 yards to within four feet left of the cup, well inside Burns’ tee shot that checked up 14 feet away. Burns didn’t get his putt to the hole. Lee, ranked 137th in the world to start the week, then calmly popped his in. His two-putt birdie at the last completed a 25-under 263 total on a course that didn’t put up much resistance in its debut as host of the Dallas-area event.

“Yes, very important shot at 17,” Lee said, doing his best to answer all the interview questions in English, in itself a winning move for his efforts. “When I play 16 make bogey and maybe feels like little lose momentum some, but I tried [to be] more aggressive on 17, 18. And good shot on 17, so more make good momentum and good finish.”

“He played awesome,” Burns said of Lee. “I was really proud of him. When it was tough, he hung in there and he got off to a great start. It was kind of gettable in the beginning. Got off to a really fast start, and then kind of midway through got tough for everybody, and he kept hitting one shot after the next and never gave anybody a chance.”

The difference this week for Lee, whose only other top-10 this season was a T-2 finish at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, was his work on the greens. He put a new Callaway putter in the bag, not a bad idea when you rank 178th in strokes gained/putting. The improvement was significant; he was ninth for the week in putting at 1.127 strokes. That complemented his ball-striking, as he ranked second in approach and tee to green.

Lee lives in Lake Nona, Fla., and is the eighth native of South Korea to win on the PGA Tour. Together with Sung Kang’s win in the 2019 edition (the 2020 event was canceled due to the pandemic), it marks the first time that Korean-born players captured the same event consecutively.

Kang also waited behind the green as Lee was finishing up. It meant a lot to the new champion.

“I’m really thankful very much to K.J. and Sung Kang,” he said. “I didn’t think about they wait for me, but he [K.J.] wait for me and [say] ‘Congratulations K.H., you’re so good.’ Always they are very kind for me.”

The fifth man to win his first tour title this season, Lee rides considerable momentum into the PGA Championship, at which he will make his debut, playing in just his third career major.

“Still, I can’t believe now,” he said with a smile. “After this time, more believe in me and more strong my mind. So, I think perfect for me.”

In that regard, his timing was just right.

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By Alex Myers
The PGA Tour became the SqueeGeeA Tour on Sunday at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Excuse us for the bad joke. It was a long day. And if we’re being honest, not a particularly exciting one, either. That is, unless you’re K.H. Lee or his family.

In that case, this was probably the most exciting day of your life. So congrats. He played awesome. And he seemed impervious to the pouring rain that fell most of the afternoon at TPC Craig Ranch. If there was a strokes gained/ precipitation metric, he might just lead the tour.

No, but really. This wasn’t much of a contest. For most fans, this sight was the most entertaining part of a final round that started early and ended, well, at the normal time:

The grounds crew @ATTByronNelson is working overtime to get the finishing holes in. ? pic.twitter.com/CYodx0vuuk

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 16, 2021

What a wild scene that caused plenty of “championship level” jokes in the wake of the NCAA canceling a women’s golf regional earlier in the week. But all that hard work wound up not even mattering as moments later lightning in the area caused a suspension of play. When golf resumed more than two hours later, Lee, who had seized a comfortable lead after birdieing five of his first eight holes on Sunday, missed a par putt that gave Sam Burns hope.

But the 29-year-old South Korean stuffed a pitching wedge to four feet on the par-3 17th and converted the putt to regain his three-shot cushion. A two-putt birdie on No. 18 kept that margin and gave him his first career PGA Tour title and made him the last man to earn a spot into next week’s PGA Championship.

“Long day for me, I think everybody,” Lee told reporters after. “I mean, but I just try keep patient and positive thinking. So I don’t want to looking on the leaderboard, so just try my golf, and then successful now, so I’m very excited and happy.”

Here are four other takeaways from the final round at TPC Craig Ranch.

K.H. Lee had a secret weapon
OK, so a caddie isn’t so secret, but Lee’s looper, Brett Waldman, may have contributed more to this victory—and to Lee’s scorching 25 under total—than you may have realized. You see, Waldman is an accomplished golfer himself, and he once made it through the second stage of PGA Tour Q School, finishing T-14 in 2010. The venue that year? You guessed it, TPC Craig Ranch.

Matthew Stockman

So, yeah, you could say Waldman knows his way around this place. And during a year in which so few players did, that proved to be especially important.

Sam Burns can’t win every week …
… even if it seems like he’s the 54-hole leader every week. The rising star played his way into that position for an incredible fourth time this season, but Burns wasn’t able to go back-to-back after winning his maiden PGA Tour title at the Valspar in his last start two weeks ago.

Matthew Stockman

Still, a solo second gave the 24-year-old three straight top-five finishes and moved him to fifth in the FedEx Cup standings. This dude is the real deal.

The Schwartzel Redemption continues
We are now more than a decade out from Charl Schwartzel’s 2011 Masters victory, but the South African is playing some of his best golf since then. And it’s kind of come out of nowhere. Schwartzel had fallen to No. 211 in the World Ranking entering last month’s Masters, but a T-26 was the start of a nice run.

Matthew Stockman

He teamed with Louis Oosthuizen to finish runner-up at the Zurich Classic in his next start, then went T-21 (Valspar), T-14 (Wells Fargo) and a T-3 this week despite curiously not wearing his trademark big straw hat in the rain. He’s not going to be one of the favourites at the PGA Championship next week, but at 200-to-1 odds, you could do a lot worse than the 36-year-old who made the cut at Kiawah in 2012. Speaking of guys who are going to be getting a lot of betting support at Kiawah …

Jordan Spieth stalled—for now
Spieth entered the final round with a great chance to win his hometown PGA Tour event for the first time, but at even through 13 holes, he never seriously contended. After, he admitted the rain got to him.

“Today was a little disappointing,” Spieth said. “Just was tough. What a battle. We don’t normally get rain in Texas without electricity very often, and so that was definitely a test. But it was fun. I thought the tournament was great out here, and after having a month off just kind of coming out and hitting a lot of good shots, picking back up where I left off, was a big confidence boost.”

Matthew Stockman

Jordan Spieth, NOT a mudder. Noted. Still, as he noted the T-9 wasn’t all bad considering it was his first start since the Masters after contracting COVID-19 last month. It also turned out to be Spieth’s best finish in 10 starts at the AT&T Byron Nelson as he finally topped that T-16 he recorded as a 16-year-old high schooler in 2010.

Next up, the PGA Championship, where a win would make him go to the head of the class in a different way as he’d become just the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam, joining Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen. With the way he’s been playing, you have to like his chances. Although, after today, we’d like his chances even more if the Ocean Course stays dry.

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Despite all this, K.H. Lee was able to steady his nerves, keep dry enough and stay focused despite a late weather delay to shoot a closing 66, passing 54-hole leader Sam Burns and winning his first PGA Tour title at the AT&T Byron Nelson by three shots.

The win came just in time for the 29-year-old from South Korea, in his third full season on the PGA Tour and making his 80th career tour start. Lee had been third on the alternate list for next week’s PGA Championship. But the victory allowed him to grab the final spot into the official field at the Ocean Course, with PGA Tour winners being exempt into the major.

Tee times were moved up on Sunday at TPC Craig Ranch with a pending forecast that included showers and lightning. The final threesome had almost completed 16 holes when the electricity arrived, nine players needing to wait roughly 2 1/2 hours to wrap up the final round.

Lee, playing with Burns and Charl Schwartzel in the final threesome, managed to take advantage of soft conditions at TPC Craig Ranch before the rain started to come down more steadily. He birdied three of his first four holes to jump past Burns and made the turn four-under 32. He then played the back nine in a steady one-under 35, a bogey on the 16th hole after play resumed offset by a birdie on the 17th and one more on the 18th.

As for Burns, finishing second was a disappointment. This was the fourth tournament in the 2020-21 season that the 24-year-old had either led outright or held a share of the lead entering the final round, the most of any player on tour. He failed to win the first two times, but closed the deal two weeks ago at the Valspar Championship to grab his first PGA Tour win. The assumption was that getting win No. 1 would make subsequent wins a little easier, and that might still be the case, but Burns struggled early, bogeying his first and fourth holes to see Lee quickly pass him. Burns finished with a 70.

For his effort, Lee grabbed a prize money payout of $1.458 million (his biggest check on the PGA Tour previously was $649,700 for his T-2 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February). The overall prize money payout at TPC Craig Ranch was $8.1 million.

Here’s the prize money payout for each golfer at TPC Craig Ranch. Come back shortly after the tournament and we’ll update the prize money payout for each golfer.

Win: K.H. Lee, -25, $1,458,000

2: Sam Burns, -22, $882,900

T-3: Patton Kizzire, -21, $395,381.25

T-3: Daniel Berger, -21, $395,381.25

T-3: Scott Stallings, -21, $395,381.25

T-3: Charl Schwartzel, -21, $395,381.25

T-7: Troy Merritt, -19, $263,250

T-7: Joseph Bramlett, -19, $263,250

T-9: Seamus Power, -18, $212,625

T-9: Jhonattan Vegas, -18, $212,625

T-9: Doc Redman, -18, $212,625

T-9: Jordan Spieth, -18, $212,625

T-13: Luke Donald, -17, $153,900

T-13: Satoshi Kodaira -17, $153,900

T-13: Harris English, -17, $153,900

T-13: Bronson Burgoon, -17, $153,900

T-17: Will Zalatoris, -16, $119,475

T-17: Hank Lebioda, -16, $119,475

T-17: Brandt Snedeker, -16, $119,475

T-17: Matt Kuchar, -16, $119,475

T-21: Lee Westwood, -15, $84,969

T-21: Carlos Ortiz, -15, $84,969

T-21: Marc Leishman, -15, $84,969

T-21: Rafa Cabrera Bello, -15, $84,969

T-21: Alex Noren, -15, $84,969

T-26: Wesley Bryan, -14, $56,700

T-26: Rob Oppenheim, -14, $56,700

T-26: Ryan Armour, -14, $56,700

T-26: Sepp Straka, -14, $56,700

T-26: Vincent Whaley, -14, $56,700

T-26: Rory Sabbatini, -14, $56,700

T-26: Keith Mitchell, -14, $56,700

T-26: Ben Martin, -14, $56,700

T-34: Jon Rahm, -13, $42,201

T-34: Mark Hubbard, -13, $42,201

T-34: Roger Sloan, -13, $42,201

T-34: Scott Brown, -13, $42,201

T-34: Adam Schenk, -13, $42,201

T-39: Talor Gooch, -12, $31,185

T-39: Brian Stuard, -12, $31,185

T-39: Johnson Wagner, -12, $31,185

T-39: Hideki Matsuyama, -12, $31,185

T-39: Pat Perez, -12, $31,185

T-39: Russell Knox, -12, $31,185

T-39: Wyndham Clark, -12, $31,185

T-39: Sean O’Hair, -12, $31,185

T-47: J.J Spaun, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Scottie Scheffler, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Patrick Rodgers, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Ryan Palmer, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Sung Kang, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Michael Gligic, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Nelson Ledesma, -11, $20,958.75

T-47: Brice Garnett, -11, $20,958.75

T-55: Si Woo Kim, -10, $18,630

T-55: Aaron Wise, -10, $18,630

T-55: Charles Howell III, -10, $18,630

T-55: Sebastian Munoz, -10, $18,630

T-55: Cameron Champ, -10, $18,630

T-55: Bryson DeChambeau, -10, $18,630

T-61: Mark Anderson, -9, $17,820

T-61: Wes Roach, -9, $17,820

T-61: Martin Laird, -9, $17,820

T-61: Luke List, -9, $17,820

65: Michael Gellerman, -8, $17,415

66: Bo Hoag, -7, $17,253

67: Michael Kim, -6, $17,091

T-68: Ted Potter Jr., -5, $16,848

T-68: Dylan Meyer, -5, $16,848

70: Cameron Percy, -3, $16,605

T-71: D.J. Trahan, -1, $16,361

T-71: Austin Cook, -1, $16,361

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By Christopher Powers
Jordan Spieth’s 55-foot, triple-breaking eagle conversion at TPC Craig Ranch’s par-5 18th on Thursday was going to be an impossible highlight to top this week, especially for himself. But this is Jordan Spieth we’re talking about, a man who can fill up half of SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays just on the back nine when he wants to.

Not only did Spieth top it, he topped it on the very same hole, once again to close out a low round that has put him firmly in contention heading into Sunday at the AT&T Byron Nelson. This, folks, is what the pros call a zero-putt eagle:

ANOTHER walk-off eagle. ?

Go on, @JordanSpieth He’s 2 back. pic.twitter.com/soaS0Hh10b

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 15, 2021

The late-round heroics were exactly what the three-time major champion needed after back-to-back bogeys at the 15th and 16th holes, a rare lapse in an otherwise stellar 54 holes. The finishing eagle gave Spieth a six-under 66, which has him just three off the lead of Sam Burns. Both Burns and Spieth are looking to capture their second wins of the season on Sunday.

“Once it got on the green, it looked good,” Spieth said of his final putt. “Started the putter raise and I wasn’t positive it was going in because the angle it was coming in at. I wanted to do the no look to the crowd, but, I mean, it was a really cool moment.”

Rolling in eagle putts from everywhere and scheming on how he’s going to celebrate before they actually drop? Yeah, he’s all the way back.

Four other takeaways from Saturday at the Byron Nelson

Icon Sportswire
Sam Burns looks on after his chip to the first green during the third round of the AT&T Byron Nelson.

Sam Burns might go ‘full Camilo’
A long time ago, going “full Camilo” was an inside Golf Twitter joke for players who would go low in the opening round of tournaments, then either miss or almost miss the cut on Friday, something Camilo Villegas was once notorious for. Fortunately, Villegas is playing much better golf of late, and that’s not the type of “full Camilo” Sam Burns is going for.

Should Burns go on to win Sunday (he’s three clear at 20 under), he’d become the first player since Villegas in 2008 to win his first two PGA Tour events in consecutive starts. Remarkly, Villegas actually did it in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, winning the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship. For Burns, it would be the Valspar and the Byron Nelson, which would still be wildly impressive, and the type of “full Camilo” we can all celebrate.

Matthew Stockman
Matt Kuchar hits from the bunker on the 18th hole during round three of the AT&T Byron Nelson.

Matt Kuchar is playing Matt Kuchar golf again
Outside of a brief pop at the Match Play, Matt Kuchar hasn’t looked like Matt Kuchar over the last year or so. That has changed of late, however, with Kuchar picking up two top-20s in three starts since the Match Play, and now with him reaching 17 under through three rounds in Dallas. The secret? Kuch is Kuch again.

“Thankfully it’s turned the corner,” Kuchar said Friday evening. “It was a frustrating stretch with the COVID restart. My game was not where I wanted it to be and it’s taken a little while to find form again. Thankfully as of kind of the week in Austin, Match Play tournament, things have rounded back into kind of playing Matt Kuchar golf again.

“It’s been a whole lot more fun. It’s a whole lot nicer when you somewhat know where the ball is going to go when you’re standing over it.”

Matt Kuchar golf has been very good to Matt Kuchar over the years. If Matt Kuchar can play some more Matt Kuchar golf on Sunday, Matt Kuchar has a legitimate chance to end a two-plus year win drought (Matt Kuchar’s last win came at the 2019 Sony Open).

Icon Sportswire
Charl Schwartzel lines up his putt on the first hole during the third round of the AT&T Byron Nelson.

There’s some serious spoiler potential
Given the volatility of the scoring, and the quality of players chasing Burns, there’s a good chance somebody goes crazy low and comes from a few back to win this thing. Charl Schwartzel, who had a ton of love in the betting community this week, is at 17 under and clearly playing some great golf right now. K.H. Lee, who nearly won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February, is just one back at 19 under. Alex Noren, a 10-time European Tour winner in search of his first PGA Tour victory, is among the group at 17 under. Doc Redman, Rafa Cabrera Bello and Harris English are all lurking, too. Burns is red hot and definitely the favorite, but just about anything could happen Sunday.

Weather wreaking havoc on TV schedule, Pray 4 Golf Twitter
If you’re looking for real entertainment Sunday, skip the golf and scroll Golf Twitter when the golf should theoretically be on TV. Bad weather in the forecast forced the tour to move up tee times, meaning coverage will start at 10 a.m ET on Golf Channel and end at 11:45 a.m. It will then move to CBSSports.com and PGATour.com for streaming at noon—which rarely sits well with the vocal minority on social media. Of course, all it takes is one tech-savvy person in your home to figure out how to get it on your big screen, but that can often be a rather large obstacle for some. Hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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By Brian Wacker
Only a month removed from his historic Masters victory, Hideki Matsuyama already has an idea of what he’ll serve at his Champions dinner next April.

“Sushi does come to mind,” he said Tuesday through his interpreter. “I’m a little worried. I don’t know if everyone will really like sushi or not, but I’m going to check with some people and get their advice and what they think. There’s a lot of really good food from Japan, some of the best beef in the world, so I’m thinking about that and looking forward to it next year.”

This week’s AT&T Byron Nelson marks Matsuyama’s first start since his victory at Augusta National, where the 29-year-old became the first player from Japan to win a men’s major championship. He also arrives at TPC Craig Ranch admittedly a bit rusty after what has been a whirlwind four weeks without much time for practice.

Following the one-stroke win, his first in a major, Matsuyama headed back to Japan, where he had to quarantine for 14 days after arriving. Along the way, he watched some of the highlights from the final round and found himself feeling the same nerves again. He also read what he said was just about every newspaper article and magazine article about his victory.

Once out of quarantine, he was able to show off his green jacket to his parents and the rest of his family and friends. There was also a press conference and a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who honored the newly minted champion with the Prime Minister’s Award.

“Seeing how the Masters win was portrayed in Japan was great, really unforgettable, and that really stands out for my trip back to Japan,” Matsuyama said. “I’m not used to all that attention, but grateful that people took notice.”

As for the current state of his game, Matsuyama said that he hardly practiced while he was in Japan and isn’t sure how he’ll fare at TPC Craig Ranch. His main goal, he said, is to find his form again and prepare for next week’s PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.

He also doesn’t look at himself any differently now that he’s major champion.

“It was a relief, really, to win the Masters,” he said. “It has been a while and now moving forward and looking forward, I still have the drive to want to win more on the PGA Tour and hopefully the confidence. It’s kind of an unusual combination of the two feelings of how I look at myself, and hopefully I’ll be successful in the future.”

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By Daniel Rapaport
Jordan Spieth told reporters Tuesday that he contracted COVID-19 shortly after the Masters but has since made a full recovery.

Speaking ahead of the AT&T Byron Nelson, which will mark Spieth’s first start since his T-3 at the Masters and his last appearance before next week’s PGA Championship at Kiawah, Spieth said he began to feel symptoms in late April—though he did not lose his sense of taste or smell—and that three separate tests returned a positive result.

“Not really sure when I got it, to be honest, because nobody I was around ever got it,” the 27-year-old said.

“It was bad for a day and a half and then it was just kind of annoying for the next five days. Kind of lost energy and sinus stuff. And then after that I started to get full strength back, and I would say the last week to week and a half now I’ve been acting as if it never happened. I’ve just gone about my days, feeling full energy and being able to hit full workouts and practice sessions and all that kind of stuff.”

Spieth said he quarantined in his Texas home away from his wife, Annie, and that she nor anyone else in his household contracted the virus. The virus did, however, keep him from playing in the Valspar Championship.

“I like the golf course there, so I was really bummed. It was tough watching it knowing that I had been playing well and I would go to a course that I like a lot, but that’s unfortunately part of the world we live in right now. I don’t think I would have been 100 percent last week [for the Wells Fargo Championship], so decided to wait until this week.”

Spieth, of course, won for the first time in nearly four years at last month’s Valero Texas Open, then contended at the Masters the following week. He has six top-10 finishes in eight starts in 2021 and will once again have a chance to complete the career Grand Slam next week at Kiawah.

“Every year I go into that tournament—it’s like it’s the one that if I could pick one more to win, I would pick that one,” he said. “But it doesn’t really … while I’m playing the tournament, it hasn’t really hit me and added any pressure or anything like that. It just kind of excites me a little bit more going into it.”

The AT&T Byron Nelson counts as a home game for Spieth, who grew up in the Dallas area and still lives there. He made his first career PGA Tour start as a 16-year-old high school amateur in the event in 2010, finishing T-16, his best finish in the tournament in nine career starts.

The post Jordan Spieth says he contracted COVID-19, has fully recovered appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Dustin Johnson has withdrawn from the AT&T Byron Nelson.

The World No. 1 pulled out of the Texas event Monday afternoon, citing knee discomfort as the reason for the WD.

“Unfortunately, the knee discomfort I occasionally experience has returned and after consultation with my team and trainers, I feel it is best that I remain at home and focus on my rehabilitation work,” Johnson said in a statement. “I am not pleased about this situation, as I was really looking forward to playing this week. I have several friends in the Dallas area, many of whom I have met through their involvement with the tournament, so I hate to let them down. I apologize to all of them and especially the Salesmanship Club of Dallas and our sponsors at AT&T. You have my word I will be back in the future and in the meantime, I wish you best of luck for a great week at the TPC Craig Ranch. I am truly sorry I won’t be there with you.”

The decision comes a week before the PGA Championship, held in Johnson’s native South Carolina at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course. The World No. 1 has not been his historically dominant self since his 2020 Masters breakthrough with just one top-20 finish in his past six outings, including a missed cut at Augusta National in his title defense.

Still, only Rory McIlroy entered Monday with lower PGA Championship odds than Johnson’s 12/1 mark. Johnson, 36, has finished runner-up at the past two PGA Championships.

Greg Chalmers replaces Johnson in the Nelson field.

The post Dustin Johnson WDs from Byron Nelson appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
Brooks Koepka will make his first start since the Masters at next week’s AT&T Byron Nelson. The four-time major winner was included in the field list published by the PGA Tour on Friday afternoon.

Koepka, who turned 31 on Monday, dislocated his right kneecap in early March and needed surgery to repair his medial patellofemoral ligament—brutal timing as he won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February and finished tied for second at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession two starts later.

The injury kept him out of the Players Championship, but he did manage to tee it up in the Masters just a month after the operation—which, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, normally requires a six-month recovery. Koepka was clearly in pain that week and could not bend his leg to read putts, eventually missing the cut by two shots.

“I worked my ass off just to get here, and then to play like this is pretty disappointing,” he said that week. He then suggested he might not play another tournament before the PGA Championship at Kiawah, which will directly follow the AT&T Byron Nelson, but he’s clearly encouraged by the progress he’s made rehabilitating the injury in Los Angeles.

Koepka is a two-time winner of the PGA Championship, having hoisted the Wanamker Trophy back-to-back in 2018 and ’19.

Koepka joins a strong field in the first Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch, just ouside Dallas. The event was held at Trinity Forest in 2018 and ’19 before the 2020 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson will tee it up, as will Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth and Hideki Mastuyama, who will make his first appearance since winning the Masters.

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By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour’s AT&T Byron Nelson event has found a new home.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the Salesmanship Club and Tour reached a verbal agreement on Tuesday to move the Nelson tournament to TPC Craig Ranch for the next five years, beginning in 2021.

“The PGA Tour and the AT&T Byron Nelson continue to finalise the tournament’s future location,” read a statement from the Salesmanship Club. “We expect the PGA Tour will make an announcement soon.”

Residing in McKinney (about 30 miles outside Dallas), TPC Craig Ranch is a Tom Weiskopf design that opened in 2004. The course, owned by ClubCorp, has previously hosted the 2008 Nationwide Tour Championship and 2012 Web.com Tour Championship.

The decision comes four months after tournament organizers announced the event was leaving Trinity Forest after just three seasons. While the move to Trinity Forest—a Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design opened in 2014—was welcomed by architecture fans, the tournament has suffered a series of woes the past three years. Bad weather kept attendance low, and the property and tournament infrastructure could not combat soggy conditions. Fans also complained about the lack of respite from the sun on the grounds.

Moreover, be it Trinity Forest’s unconventional design or its proximity to the PGA Championship last season (the Nelson was played the week before the major), the tournament failed to attract a healthy field, with just two of the top 20 players in the world playing in 2019’s competition.

This year’s event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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By Joel Beall
Tyler Duncan made just one bogey in his second-round 66 at the rain-delayed AT&T Byron Nelson. Unfortunately for the 29-year-old, the bogey cost him more than a shot on the scorecard.

Duncan’s approach at the par-4 13th at Trinity Forest sailed to the right of the green on Friday and hit a spectator. A spectator that Duncan holds close to his heart.

“Today I hit my wife in the head on that hole,” he told reporters after Round 2. “Took a big bounce and hit her, I guess.”

Duncan said he was not aware that it was his wife until after the round, meaning he can’t use the incident as an excuse for failing to get up-and-down on the hole. “I had a little mud on the ball, little unfortunate timing there and shot out to the right,” he explained.

The craziest part? This wasn’t Maria’s first golf-related accident.

“Not long after we started dating, she actually got hit in the head by another ball, a random ball from the driving range,” Duncan said. “She’s dodged two hits to the head. I’m sure most people can’t say that.”

Luckily, Duncan said Maria wasn’t hurt. Duncan, who tees off at 6:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, is currently in a tie for second place. His best career finish is a T-5 at the Safeway Open, and a win would double his career earnings. Just spitballin,’ but he might want to set aside some of that cash for an apology gift.

The post PGA Tour player accidentally hits wife in head with errant shot at AT&T Byron Nelson appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.