Bermuda Championship Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Camilo Villegas completes return from tragedy and golf’s abyss to win Bermuda Championship

Clarkwin — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 05:54:14 +0000

He was weakened by injury and broken by heartache, whatever resolve remained subdued by the knowledge that time and fate were not on his side. Camilo Villegas could have gone away and no one would have blamed him, because how do you make sense—how do you keep going?—after the loss of something so dear. But that’s what Villegas did, refusing to believe the wilderness he found himself in was his new reality. There were stumbles and detours and no guarantee that his direction was true. Yet he kept going, attempting to rediscover the play that made a career and fuse it with the man he had become.

There were flashes it was working, although that is a verdict aided by the benefit of hindsight, for in the moment those flashes can also be false hopes. Until a week ago those sparks were mostly done in the deep recesses of the sport and thus went mostly unseen. But what we saw in Bermuda showed what we saw in Cabo was no aberration: Villegas has made his way out of the darkness. With a final-round 65, the 41-year-old captured the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, his first win in over nine years to complete a return that underlined the will of the human spirit.

“Tough to put in words, what a ride man,” Villegas said after a two-shot victory. “I love this game, it’s given me so many great things. But in the process it kicks your butt.”

Adversity is a word overused in sports and especially in golf. It’s employed for things as frivolous as a bad shot or self-imposed controversy, and occasionally as a nod to poor play and injury. Villegas is the exception that no one wants. In 2020, the Columbian revealed through tears at a Korn Ferry Tour event that his 22-month-old daughter Mia was battling tumours on her brain and spine. “We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” an emotional Villegas said that June. “She started her second round of chemo; the doctor doesn’t want to do a very detailed scan until after a third round. It’s some anxious times.” A month later, the PGA Tour announced that Mia had passed.

Villegas returned to play not long after Mia’s death at the urging of his wife, believing the best way forward was to reconnect with a game he had begun to separate from. He had once been the next big thing on tour, his aggressive play paired with good looks and bold fashion and childlike flamboyance standing out from the sport’s sea of vanilla. He won two playoff events in 2008, including the Tour Championship, and snagged his third victory 18 months later at the Honda Classic. His bark lived up to the bite.

At least it did for a five-year span. In 2012 his game started to go south. His win at the 2014 Wyndham Championship was one of just two top-three finishes over a 10-year stretch. Villegas lost his short game, followed soon by his confidence. A shoulder injury added to his woes. He missed the playoffs in six of seven seasons, and just months ago it seemed retirement might be on the horizon when Villegas served as a color analyst for Golf Channel’s broadcast of the Wyndham Championship. “The reality is that I am getting older,” he explained in August. “I’m 41, you don’t see too many 40-somethings winning on the PGA Tour. I have been struggling first with an injury and then trying to get back into top form. And your reaction is—because you know, they are seeing your career wind down a little bit—but your heart doesn’t want it that way; you want to keep competing.”

Turns out Villegas could not silence the calls from within. He had been working with a new instructor, Jose Campra, and while the results were not there Villegas felt they would come. Just as importantly, the game had given him a renewed purpose, believing he was playing for more than himself. “Golf,” his wife Maria Ochoa told Camilo, “is what you’ve done over all these years and golf has given you so many great things,’ and little Mia has been inspiring these last few months to keep doing what we’re doing.”

It appeared Villegas was on the precipice of putting a capstone on a feelgood comeback last week at the World Wide Technology Championship, around the lead for the entire tournament only to ultimately come in second after Erik van Rooyen’s 72nd hole eagle. Given Villegas’ track record, it was a wonderful story, but one that felt confined to the week. But Villegas proved his play was no fluke with a 67-63 start in Bermuda and backed it up with a Saturday 65 to enter the final round at Port Royal G.C. one behind Alex Noren. Still, whatever conviction Villegas’ play conveyed was not what he felt inside.

“Let me be honest, let’s tell the viewer out there, people think that we just kind of chill out here and we’re very comfortable doing what we’re doing,” Villegas said Friday evening. “There’s a lot of demons out here and when you’ve been doing it for a long time, golf is hard.”

Only Villegas continued to make this ridiculously hard game look easy on Sunday morning, birdieing four of his first seven holes to grab the lead from Noren at the turn. The wind decided to show up for the finishing stretch and Noren and others had to ditch their ambitions of aggressive play for a defensive mindset and Villegas followed suit, playing to the fat part of the greens and taking the big number out of play. It wasn’t the most exciting finish, but it’s what the moment called for, and Villegas delivered. But this is Villegas we’re talking about, who even in his 40s still pops his collar. He showed he still has a penchant for the dramatic, sticking his approach at the 235-yard par-3 16th to 15 feet, and a mean up-and-down from the greenside bunker at the par-5 17th—while Noren failed to do the same—bestowed a two-shot lead going into the final hole. A birdie lag putt sealed the comeback of the year.

“Life is interesting, it goes up and down both on the personal side and on the professional side,” Villegas said. “Just got to keep a path and you’ve got to keep your mind where it needs to be. Like I said, I’m a hard worker, I love working, I love having a purpose every morning and that’s kind of what I did.”

The win gives Villegas all the usual goodies. A spot in the Masters field, a two-year exemption on tour, a chance to put that broadcasting career on the backburner for some time. That is all well and good. But to understand what Villegas did is to understand where he came from and what he endured, and that is something that’s hard to encapsulate in dollar signs and trophies.

“I just want to thank everyone who supported me on this journey,” Villegas said on the 18th green. “The support has been unbelievable. It kept building up. Everyone on the island was great.

“I got my little one watching, smiling. She’s where she needs to be.”

In one sense, what we saw in Bermuda was nothing more than a game, a performance, a distraction from the pangs of life. Villegas knows this more than most of us ever will. Yet after he tapped in on the 18th Sunday, Villegas looked upward, fighting like hell to keep back the tears he knew were coming. To see what Camilo Villegas did, through the hurt and the doubt, showed a game can still mean a hell of a lot.

Main image: Gregory Shamus

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Amateur Caleb Surratt’s scores for his final three rounds in Bermuda are almost too nutty to believe

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 06:40:20 +0000

By Ryan Herrington
Caleb Surratt was always going to remember his first start in a PGA Tour event. After a wild four days at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, it would become memorable to general golf fans as well.

The 18-year-old freshman at Tennessee had earned an exemption into the tournament thanks to coming in first in the newly created Elite Amateur Cup, a seven-event summer-long series of top national amateur tournaments in which Surratt had four top-five finishes. After an opening-round 71 at Port Royal Golf Club, when the field’s stroke average was a 67.78, Surratt knew he was going to have to go low on Friday to have a chance at playing the weekend. And go low was just what the 16th ranked amateur in the world did. Take a look:

Those three birdies on his final three holes allowed Surratt to make the six-under cut with a shot to spare.

But for as solid as Friday turned out to be Saturday turned into a nightmare. Take a look:

Yes … that’s a 12 on the par-4 14th hole, where Surratt had four penalty strokes and actually chipped in from the rough to make the octuple bogey.

Going from a 64 to 85 dropped Surratt into last place overall. And the 21-shot swing, according to stats guru Justin Ray, was the largest by any player in a PGA Tour event from Round 2 to Round 3 since John Daly went 63-86 in 2012 at the Shriners Children’s Open.

It’s not what you want, but again having made the cut at all, the weekend rounds were a bonus regardless of the outcome. And to his credit, Surratt put Saturday’s ugliness behind him with his Sunday performance. Take a look:

Yes … that’s a 64 to an 85 to a 65. And an par 4 on the 14th! Surratt’s Saturday score made it impossible for him to jump too high up the leaderboard even with that impressive closing number (it was the second lowest score of the day behind only a 64 from Garrick Higgo), but he did move up from 67th to T-65. And he became the first teenager to have two rounds of 65 or lower in a PGA Tour event since Joaquin Niemann did it in 2018.

More impressively, Surratt took to Twitter after his final round on Sunday.

Fought to the end is an understatement.

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Seamus Power hangs on for victory in Bermuda, and offers a lesson in winning ugly

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 07:59:36 +0000

By Dave Shedloski
Treading water doesn’t really get you anywhere, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an important endeavour. Ask Seamus Power, who managed to keep from sinking in the final round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship just long enough to claim his second victory on the PGA Tour.

Taking advantage of the opening provided by playing partner Ben Griffin, who led with seven holes to play until gurgling to the finish, Power did just enough for a one-under 70 at Port Royal Golf Course to hang on for a one-stroke victory over Thomas Detry of Belgium. The Irishman, who came in as the highest-ranked player in the field at 48th in the Official World Golf Ranking, scraped it home in heavy winds to finish at 19-under 265 and walked off with a check for $1.17 million.

“I knew it was going to be hard coming in and it was. I mean, I made hard work of it in the end, but I’m delighted to get it done,” said Power, 35, who now owns victories in consecutive years after winning the 2021 Barbasol Championship.

A win is a beautiful thing, but the manner in which Power got his in Southampton, Bermuda, was of the sausage-making variety — not exactly a process you want to watch even if the end result is tasty. The elements contributed greatly to the equation, mostly in the form of subtraction as the incessant breeze wreaked havoc on the leaders coming in.

Power bogeyed four of his last six holes, including the 18th, but he mixed in two key birdies. He holed a 25-footer at the par-4 14th hole, which gave him the outright lead for the first time all day, and then he got up and down from behind the green at the par-5 17th to put him two strokes ahead of Detry, who holed out from the right greenside bunker at 18 for birdie to shoot 67 and post 266.

For much of the afternoon, the tournament looked to belong to Griffin, the rookie from North Carolina who 18 months ago was working as a loan officer for a mortgage company because the financials of playing professional golf weren’t adding up at the time. But he found his way back into the game, graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour in September, and got himself in a tie for the lead with Power after 54 holes (with a record score of 18-under 195) in just his eighth career start.

Griffin, 26, birdied four of his first six holes for an early two-stroke lead, got caught at the turn, and then forged two ahead of Power again with birdies at 10 and 11. But Port Royal picks up in difficulty starting at the 12th with holes more exposed to the wind along the coast.

Short misses for par at the next two holes initiated a brutal slide down the leaderboard for Griffin in which he gave back six shots in five holes. He still managed a one-over 72 and tied for third at 17-under 267 with another rookie Kevin Yu, who had a 70, and Patrick Rodgers, whose 65 was low round of the day.

“Not how I wanted to finish, but it was playing tough out there,” Griffin said. “Those are some of the toughest holes coming down the stretch, especially trying to win a PGA Tour event. I tried my best. I had a couple shots get loose in the wind. and you’ve got to be a little bit better, more precise when it gets windy like that or else you can kind of grind for pars and bogeys quick. That happened to me.”

Power, one of four players who have made the cut in all four editions of this event, certainly earned the victory, converting a tournament-record 28 birdies thanks to strong approach play and putting, stats in which he ranked in the top-10 in the field. Making his 138th tour start, his experience also came to bear on the proceedings.

“Yeah, I just kept reminding myself I know this course well enough. I wasn’t making many mistakes, and I was very confident,” Power said. “He [Griffin] birdied 10 and 11 to get two ahead again, and I had a couple chances there that I just missed. But again, I just kept reminding myself if I could just stay in there. I knew that that stretch, there’s very few people not going to drop shots there. I knew if I had a chance standing on 12 tee, I thought a little bit more experience having been there before, having played this tournament a few times before, I thought it would stand to me and it just about did in the end.”

The victory will move Power to No. 32 in the world and extended his exempt status on tour through 2024. Oddly, Power, who grew up playing competitively against fellow Irish golfers Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, claims that if he hadn’t made it in professional golf he would have become an accountant. So, in the end, the would-be accountant beat the one-time mortgage lender.

In the final, ahem, accounting, Power was most happy with the job security as a golfer.

“You know, the thing when you don’t have the exemption is like every year is year-to-year and it’s tough going. So an extra couple years is fantastic. To be able to focus on just practicing and improving and just playing my own game and not really worrying about all that stuff,” he said.

“I noticed that last season having the winner’s exemption for ‘21-’22, I was really able to play much more freely like when you’re up near the lead, and I think that’s a nice thing to be able to do. That’s also a goal to be doing anyway, but sometimes it’s a little harder than normal. So it’s going to be great. It gets a lot of bonuses. It opens doors as you get higher in the World Rankings, all those kind of things are just all positives.”

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Aaron Baddeley, contending in Bermuda, looks to be just the sixth player since 1980 to pull off this feat

Matt Smith — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 17:27:05 +0000

By Drew Powell
Since 1980, only five players have pulled off the accomplishment on the PGA Tour. On Sunday at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, Aaron Baddeley will look to become the sixth to win a tour event after Monday qualifying.

Baddeley, a four-time PGA Tour winner but without a victory since 2016, will start the final round at Port Royal Golf Course at 16-under, just two shots back of the lead shared by Seamus Power and Ben Griffin. Playing this season on past champion status, the Aussie wasn’t in the field this week, so he decided to try his hand at Monday qualifying.

The 41-year-old shot five-under 66 in the qualifier held in Orlando on October 17 before advancing in a 6-for-2 playoff to earn a tee time this week in Southampton, Bermuda. Funnily enough, Baddeley also advanced out of a 6-for-2 playoff to Monday qualify for the Fortinet Championship last month, where he finished T-36th.

Baddeley, whose last tour win came at the 2016 Barbasol Championship, has struggled in recent years, with his last top-10 on the tour coming in 2019. For the veteran with more than $22 million in tour earnings, though, being in contention in Bermuda brings with it a certain comfort.

“It feels like it’s the right spot to be, to be honest,” said Baddeley after shooting a third-round 68. “I feel like my game’s been in the spot to be in this position for a while, and it’s just nice to be here, be back having a chance to win.”

A Baddeley win on Sunday would be consistent with a theme that is emerging at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in its short four-year history. Starting with Brendon Todd’s win in 2019, Port Royal has proven to be a putter’s paradise.

Both Todd and 2020 champion Brian Gay finished inside the top four in putts per round en route to their wins, and though last year’s champion Lucas Herbert finished T-6 in the stat, he led the PGA Tour in strokes gained/putting for the 2021-22 season.

Like Todd, Gay and Herbert, Baddeley has long been regarded as one of the best putters on tour. The Aussie led in strokes gained/putting in 2015 and has rarely strayed from the top 10 in the stat throughout his 20-year career.

Though his numbers have slipped over the past few years, Baddeley said earlier in the week that he’d “got the putting figured out again now,” which has been confirmed so far this week, as he sits T-2 in putts per round.

Should the putter stay hot and he come back to win, Baddeley would be the first Monday qualifier to win on the PGA Tour since Corey Conners did it at the 2019 Valero Texas Open.

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Tour pro involved in serious crash, withdraws from Bermuda Championship

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 10:00:27 +0000

By Joel Beall
PGA Tour player Grayson Murray was involved in a crash ahead of this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, forcing the 29-year-old to withdraw from the event.

According to the Royal Gazette, Murray and his caddie, Douglas Schwimer, were riding scooters on Tuesday in the town of Puget en route to their hotel. As Murray was turning a bend, he collided with a car coming the opposite direction.

“Two visiting men were hurt and transported to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital via ambulance for treatment,” a police spokesman told the Gazette. “Each was riding a separate rental scooter at the time of the collision. One of the men is understood to have sustained injuries to his arms and legs, while the other is understood to have sustained injuries to his hands. Both visitors are in Bermuda for the 2022 Butterfield Bermuda Championship golf tournament.”

?BREAKING @PGATOUR
Source: Pro golfer Grayson Murray in Bermuda for @Bermuda_Champ seriously injured in rental scooter accident. Likely out of tournament. Caddie also hurt. @GolfChannel pic.twitter.com/hxEWUJmyYx

— Glenn Jones (@GlennNBCBoston) October 26, 2022

In an interview with Golfweek, Murray said he was knocked unconscious during the accident and does not remember being transported to the hospital. He said he did not break any bones but received 50 stitches, 25 of which were on his face.

“Honestly, I’m pretty fortunate because the helmet saved me. If it wasn’t for my knee and stitches in my left hand, I would try to play,” Murray told Golfweek. “It is nobody’s fault. Riding on the opposite side of the road is already confusing and the roads in Bermuda are narrow and sketchy.”

Schwimer, who was riding behind Murray, attempted to stop but fell off his scooter, resulting in road rash. However, he is remaining in the event and will now caddie for alternate Johnson Wagner.

Murray, who has been open about his substance-abuse issues, told Golfweek he was sober at the time of the crash. In Bermuda, tourists are not allowed to rent cars, forcing many to use scooters to get around the island.

Murray was set to make his first start on tour in the 2022-23 season. He’s played in 115 events on the PGA Tour and won the 2017 Barbasol Classic.

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Arjun Atwal finds out he’s in Bermuda field 25 minutes before tee time, promptly shoots 63

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 07:48:09 +0000

By Christopher Powers
Unlike Bermuda Championship leader Austin Smotherman, who came into the week well-prepared, Arjun Atwal was coming in ice cold. Three months ago, the 49-year-old from India lost his father, the first death of an immediate family member that Atwal had experienced. During the mourning period, Atwal put the clubs away, not playing a single round of golf until last Friday at Isleworth in Florida. As of a 8.45am Thursday morning, he wasn’t even in the Bermuda field.

As an alternate, though, Atwal still made the trip to Bermuda just in case someone withdrew. Someone did on Thursday morning — Nicholas Lindheim, who cited a back injury. That opened up a spot for Atwal, who got to the course early but still had no idea he’d be playing until 25 minutes before his tee time.

“I figured I’d be here before the first tee time, so I got here around 7.30am [local time],” Atwal said. “Hit a few wedges and then went in to eat breakfast and about 8.45 my caddie texted me. He’s like: ‘Oh, 9.10 we might have a game.’ So I left my breakfast, came out, hit a few drivers and off we went. It was fun, started with three birdies in a row.”

The “game” his caddie was referring to was actually Atwal’s first competitive round since July 22, when he was disqualified from the 3M Open after shooting rounds of 73 and 78. Prior to that, he had made just six PGA Tour starts during the 2021-22 season, missing the cut in four and tying for 71st and 63rd in the other two.

That was all ancient history after Atwal’s early birdie binge, which he followed with four straight pars and then a birdie-birdie finish for a front-nine 30. His lone slip-up came at the par-4 10th, where he made bogey, but Atwal made up for it with four birdies over his last eight holes to finish with an eight-under 63, his lowest round on the PGA Tour since he shot a first-round 65 at the 2011 (!!) RBC Heritage.

“The only thing I could see was hopefully I could get around this place walking,” Atwal said. “Because I haven’t played much golf. I lost my father about three months ago in India, so I went over there. You know, I just haven’t played golf, and forget walking. I played 18 holes at Isleworth last Friday in our Scotch game in a golf cart and it’s not the same as this place, as you guys know, so I’m really pleased I got the 18 holes in and I’m not worn out as such.”

Walking and not being worn down are now the least of Atwal’s worries, as at T-3, he is firmly in the mix heading into Friday. As Atwal sees it, though, he’s just enjoying the ride.

“The game’s just a game,” he said. “I take it for what it is now, you know, and I have nothing to prove to anybody. I’ve won out here [2010 Wyndham Championship], I’ve won on the European Tour, the Asian Tour and I’m looking forward to the 50 tour next year after March, that will be fun.”

For now, the PGA Tour Champions will have to wait. He’s still hanging with the young guys despite them having no idea who he is.

“I’m just really looking forward to playing out there with my buddies because I really don’t know too many people on this tour anymore,” he said. “There’s so many kids and they’re like, they see me walking around like, ‘Who’s this old dude?’”

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The reasons why Lucas Herbert isn’t defending his title in Bermuda include a date with Dubai

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 10:41:06 +0000

By Evin Priest
There are two simple reasons why Lucas Herbert will not defend his title at the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship this week: He’s a member of the wedding party for a close friend who is getting married in his native Australia, and he’s also taking some rest before a last-minute bid to make the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

Herbert won last year’s Bermuda event at Port Royal Golf Club, holding off a late-charging Patrick Reed. It was Herbert’s maiden tour PGA Tour win after two career wins on the DP World Tour.

“I had my friend’s wedding, and I was in the groom’s party, and that was it for me in the US this year. I’m not going to head back to the States until the new year,” Herbert told Golf Digest over the phone from his hometown of Bendigo. “I would have loved to have defended. Hopefully I get back there in years to come.”

Herbert won the Irish Open on the DP World Tour in 2021 before transitioning to the PGA Tour, where he earned his card through Korn Ferry Finals before winning quickly in Bermuda in the autumn. But Herbert has only played five DP World Tour events this year, including the Open Championship in which he finished tied for 15th, and so his Race to Dubai ranking has dropped to 60th. As such, Herbert will head to South Africa next month to compete in the Nedbank Golf Challenge in a bid to climb inside the top 50 who qualify for the DP World Tour finale in Dubai a week later. Herbert has a good record in Dubai, having won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2020, albeit on a different course.

“Those two tournaments are really special. I love playing the Nedbank, and Dubai is a great place to play,” he said. “It means a lot to be among the best 50 DP World Tour players who make that final. I’ll probably need a really good result at the Nedbank to jump inside the top 50, but I’m confident I can do it.”

Should Herbert qualify for the DP World Tour finale, the 26-year-old will head straight back to Australia to contest the Australian PGA Championship the next week, at Royal Queensland in Brisbane. Then he’ll tee up in the Australian Open, which will be held across two iconic Melbourne Sandbelt courses, Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath in early December.

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This week’s PGA Tour venue has one of the more obscure golf course plaques we’ve ever seen

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 07:48:53 +0000

By Alex Myers
For a fourth consecutive year, Port Royal Golf Course will be the site of the PGA Tour’s Bermuda Championship. But it’s going to be tough for the Robert Trent Jones track to create as much drama as it did when it used to host a major. Or, rather, an exhibition for major champions.

Remember the PGA Grand Slam of Golf? Sure you do! It was that 36-hole event in which the four men’s major champs from that year played against each other. Over the course of 35 years, the event produced some great moments until it was cancelled after the 2014 edition. Tiger Woods won seven times. Phil Mickelson fired a 59. And who can forget Lucas Glover cruising to a five-shot win?

OK, so most golf fans probably don’t remember the latter, but it’s Glover’s triumph in 2009 (pictured above) that has been immortalised with a plaque at Port Royal. And a rather obscure one at that.

Port Royal’s signature 16th hole is a spectacular 235-yard par 3 on a waterside cliff. It’s a beast even in calm conditions, but you can imagine the difficulty with high winds. Or with a tournament on the line — even if it happens to be a four-man exhibition, which the course hosted from 2009 to 2014. Because, as legend has it, Glover uttered: “Man, I’ve never been so nervous on a shot” on his way to winning in 2009. And there’s a plaque there with that quote.

“Man, I’ve never been so nervous on a shot”, reads the plaque on No. 16 tee at Port Royal Golf Course, host of the ⁦@Bermuda_Champ⁩

Lucas Glover spoke these words en route to winning the 2009 Grand Slam of Golf. Glover makes his debut in @Bermuda_Champ⁩ this week. pic.twitter.com/AK9FaOuJRa

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) October 25, 2022

Interesting. On the obscurity ranking, it still doesn’t top El Camaleon Golf Club having a plaque where Jon Rahm struck his first-ever PGA Tour shot (as an amateur), but that’s up there. Especially considering that, again, Glover won that little hit-and-giggle by five shots over that year’s Masters champ, Angel Cabrera.

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Brian Gay proves short and steady can still (occasionally) win on the PGA Tour

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 02:06:55 +0000

Gregory Shamus

By Brian Wacker
Ever since the Brysonball Brand launched (Established: Sept. 20, 2020, Mamaroneck, N.Y.), there has been no shortage of discussion over how distance is dominating the game and whether anything can/should be done to keep bombers from overpowering professional golf. The usual solutions have all been offered up: Roll back the ball. Limit the size of drivers. Narrow the fairways and grow the rough.

But on Sunday in Bermuda, Brian Gay proved that on rare occasion there’s still a place in the game for the little guy, and the old guy, too. All it took was the PGA Tour playing on a windswept island in the middle of the Atlantic with none of the game’s top players showing up. Two days after 64-year-old Fred Funk made the cut in the Bermuda Championship, Gay, who ranks 136th on tour in driving distance and turns 49 in December, beat long-hitting 26-year-old Wyndham Clark to win the fifth title of his PGA Tour career and first since 2013.

“I did wonder [if I’d win again],” Gay said. “I’ve struggled the last few months and been quite miserable on the course at times. Everyone around me kept telling me you’re still going to win. My wife says you’re still going to win, do it again. Just kept at it. Crazy game, you never know what’s going to happen.”

That was certainly true down the stretch on Sunday.

Doc Redman entered the final round at Port Royal Golf Course leading by one stroke and was among 10 players separated by four shots who had never won on tour. That included Clark, who showed little in the way of anxiety in reeling off five birdies in his first seven holes to move in front by one. Then he added two more, on Nos. 10 and 11, to stretch the advantage to three.

But Clark’s game cooled in the breezy conditions as he was trying to win for the first time on tour. On the par-3 16th, he took too short of a swing on a long bunker shot and left his ball in the rough. He made bogey to fall back into a tie with Gay, who was on his own heater with four birdies in his previous six holes. Gay ran into troubles with a sloppy three-putt bogey on the par-5 17th but bounced back with a birdie on the 18th, where his wedge from a hanging lie right of the cart path stuck to within a few feet of the cup.

Still, Clark had a 10-footer for the win on the final hole of regulation but missed, so he and Gay headed back to the 18th, where Gay rolled in a 10-footer, Clark missed from seven feet and that was that.

It wasn’t just Gay who tried to show short and steady can still win the race. Stewart Cink (tied for 113th on tour in driving distance in 2019-’20) and Ryan Armour (271st on tour so far in 2020-’21 after ranking 182nd last season) both posted top-10 finishes this week.

But how much longer guys like Gay can succeed in the modern game is a question worth asking.

Gregory Shamus
Gay ranks 193rd on the PGA Tour this season in driving distance with his 293.1-yard average.

Drive for show, putt for dough, someone once said. These days, it’s drive for dough, and putt for even more dough. Exhibit A: DeChambeau and his U.S. Open victory in September. Exhibit B: On Sunday, it was Clark, who ranks sixth on tour in driving distance, nearly winning.

Even Gay, a notoriously short hitter who has leaned on a deadly short game long enough to have never lost his card in 23 years, knew he had to up his game. Though he ranks well down the list in driving distance at 298.4 yards this season, that’s still 23 more yards than he averaged the last time he won in 2013.

“I’ve been fighting,” Gay said. “The guys are young and hitting it really far, so I’ve tried to do some things in the gym and some stuff with my swing to get some more distance to try to stay out here longer. I want to stay past turning 50.”

Whether he’ll be able to or not is another matter. The victory gets Gay into next year’s Masters, PGA Championship and Players. He’s also exempt now through the 2022-’23 season.

As for whether Gay thinks tour pros known for his style of play can still exist years from now?

“I certainly hope so,” he said. “I think it’s better when everybody in the field can compete and have a chance to win.”

Amen.

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Brian Gay ends seven-year drought and three other takeaways from the Bermuda Championship

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 21:10:22 +0000

Gregory Shamus

By Christopher Powers
We often hear about how young the PGA Tour has become and how many young players are so good so quickly. While that’s true, the early portion of the 2020-’21 season has proven that the old guys should not be slept on.

The latest 40-something to get it done was Brian Gay on Sunday at the Bermuda Championship, which featured a leader board stuffed with younger players looking to breakthrough. But the wily, 48-year-old veteran ultimately pulled out the unexpected victory with some unbelievably clutch shots down the stretch. Experience still plays on tour, evidently, and Gay has plenty of it.

Here are our takeaways from the final round at Port Royal.

Brian Gay ends seven-year drought
Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, Brian Gay. What do the three have in common? They’re all 40-plus and they all have a win in 2020, yes, but all three have also shown their incredible longevity this season. Gay’s first of now five PGA Tour victories came in 2008, and 12 years later he was victorious again. No, he’s not a major champion and we’re not saying he’s had the career of a Garcia or a Cink, but Gay has made $22 million on tour and keep his card ever since he first earned it in 1999. No doubt he’s been a solid player for a very long time.

What made his Bermuda win so impressive, however, was the fact that no longer seemed to be the case. Gay’s all-world consistency finally took a dip in the second half of the 2019-’20 season, which got off to a strong start with a T-7 at the Shriners and a T-3 in Bermuda in 2019. After that, though, he missed 15 of his next 20 cuts, including two to start the 2020-’21 season, posting just one finish in the top 20. Even Gay knows this came out of nowhere.

“This is absolutely insane,” Gay said after holing the winning putt on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff with Wyndham Clark. “I’ve been playing awful since COVID, it’s been a struggle. Been trying to work hard and get back. I love this place. Came here last year and finished third, so I had good feelings coming in.”

After shooting rounds of 70, 68 and 67, Gay saved his best for last, shooting a seven-under 64 to match Clark’s 72-hole total of 15 under. It looked like he let it slip away at the par-5 17th, which he three-putted for his second bogey of the day. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but at the 18th, after a long discussion with his caddie over club selection, Gay struck a perfect approach and asked for it to “go in the hole” as he sailed right at the pin. It nearly did, spinning back to tap-in range. He birdied the hole again in the playoff, then watched Clark’s birdie effort slip past the left edge, Day him his first win since the 2013 Humana Challenge.

“Look, I know I’ve got the game to compete out here,” Gay said. “But it’s certainly easy to doubt yourself. The players are so good and so young, a lot of them are my daughter’s age, so, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

The win earns Gay an invite into the 2021 Masters, a tournament he has not played in since 2013. Gay’s only appeared in three majors since that year, an Open Championship in 2016 where he missed the cut, and the 2018 U.S. Open (T-20) and 2018 PGA Championship (79th). Every win is the proverbial “this must be the most special one,” but in Gay’s case, it’s actually true.

Gregory Shamus

Wyndham Clark let one get away
That may sound harsh, but all you need to do is look at his face in the above photo. That’s Wyndham Clark’s reaction to his missed putt on the first hole of sudden death, and it’s a face that screams “how did I lose this one?” At one point, Clark had a four-shot lead on the back nine, and was primed to cruise home. He shot a front-nine 31, then made back-to-back birdies at the 10th and 11th holes. Every swing was pure, every putt was pure. All he had to do was not beat himself.

While Gay did enough to win, Clark did plenty to lose as well. His tee shot on the par-3 16th finding a greenside bunker, and then that bunker shot barely getting out of the sand and failing to get on the green will give him nightmares. And a poor drive at the par-5 17th forced him to lay up, taking eagle out of play and making him work for birdie. He didn’t make birdie, then missed two very makeable birdie putts at the 18th in regulation and in the playoff. He had ample chances to get it done, he just didn’t capitalise on them.

Gregory Shamus
Ollie Schniederjans comes up clutch

No, the former top-ranked amateur in the world didn’t get a win, but his solo third might have been just as big for him. In his first two seasons on the PGA Tour, Schniederjans lived up to the hype, collecting eight top 10s including three top threes in 2017 and 2018. But a woeful 2019 campaign saw him finish the season 178th in the FedEx Cup standings, relegating him to the Korn Ferry Tour.

It had to be a brutal blow for a player who had such promise, but Schniederjans accepted the challenge. In 17 KFT starts in 2020, the former Georgia Tech standout finished inside the top 12 eight times. He was second on the KFT in birdie average, 11th in scoring average and first in birdie or better conversion percentage. He brought that strong form with him to Bermuda this week, where he was making his first PGA Tour start since last year’s Bermuda Championship thanks to a sponsor’s exemption. Schniederjans believes it’s a sign of things to come.

“Obviously a win would change my whole situation more than these guys because I’m a sponsor exemption this week,” Schniederjans said. “I’m just lucky to get the opportunity and take advantage of it and have a chance. I mean, first time with my brother on the bag with a chance to win a PGA Tour event on Sunday is really fun. And I played great right off the bat, four under at the turn, I was right there on the back nine. So I can’t really … I don’t really have any regrets today. It’s just as close as you can get without getting it done. Just looking forward to Houston now, see what I can do. My game feels really good.”

Count us among those rooting for the hatless wonder to get back to his former stud self. The more young guns the better, even if the old guys are dominating them right now.

Gregory Shamus

The Stewart Cink resurgence continues
With a final-round 64, Stewart Cink locked up his third finish of T-12 or better in four starts this year. One of those, of course, was a win at the Safeway Open, Cink’s first since the 2009 Open Championship. At 47 years old, he’s playing some of the best golf of his life. What’s his secret?

“It’s been a couple of factors. Reagan caddieing for me, my son, we have great chemistry,” said Cink, who was supposed to go back to veteran looper Kip Henley after the Sanderson Farms Championship. “You know, half his DNA is mine and we just see things the same way on the golf course and we have really good communication out there on our shots. It makes me be really decisive and committed. That certainly helps when you’re searching for ways to separate you from the competition out here where everybody is so good. Those little things really, really matter, so that’s been a big factor.”

As good as the father-son partnership has been for Cink’s game, a key equipment change before the Safeway Open has been a massive help, too.

“I kind of lowered my spin rates through my whole bag, driver all the way down through my irons, and when we came here and we had the crazy winds there for a couple days, I think I was able to keep my ball sort of like mildly, you know, less out of control than maybe I would have before.”

The top-five finish in Bermuda moves Cink back to No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings. Yes, it’s still very early in the season, but being No. 1 at any point is always a good thing.

“Just to be looking at that list and seeing my name, it just continues to give me confidence over and over knowing that I’m doing the right things on the golf course and I just don’t plan to change anything.”

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