By Ryan Herrington
Within minutes of each other, the PGA Tour and LPGA issued statements Wednesday announcing the cancellation of tournaments scheduled to be held in China in October. Both cited guidance from the China Golf Association about ongoing COVID-19 related restrictions.

The WGC-HSBC Champions was slated for Oct. 27-30 at Sheshan International in Shanghai. It was one of two remaining World Golf Championship events on the PGA Tour schedule. This is the third straight year the event has been cancelled due to COVID. The last playing came in 2019 when Rory McIlroy beat Xander Schauffele in a playoff.

“We have worked with all Tours, as well as the China Golf Association, on the viability of hosting the WGC-HSBC Champions this fall, but unfortunately the logistical implications forced the difficult decision to cancel the event,” said Christian Hardy, PGA Tour Senior Vice President, International. “We are thankful for HSBC’s partnership during these trying times as we continue to navigate the changing COVID-19 climate.”

That same week, the PGA Tour was planning to play the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. The tour announced that the Bermuda event at Port Royal Golf Course will now be a full FedEx Cup points event with a purse of $6.5 million.

The Buick LPGA Shanghai was set for Oct. 13-16 at Qizhong Garden G.C. in Shanghai. This event has also not been held since 2019, when Danielle Kang defended her title. It was to be the first of four straight weeks that the LPGA would be playing events in Asia; the tour still has tournaments in South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Japan slated.

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The post WGC, LPGA fall events in China cancelled due to COVID restrictions appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
Jordan Spieth’s bounceback year continued on Monday. And this time, he didn’t even have to play.

The 28-year-old wasn’t in action at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, but that didn’t keep him from continuing to climb (back) up the Official World Golf Ranking. In Monday’s latest edition, Spieth is No. 10, putting him back in the top 10 for the first time in more than three years.

OK, so obviously a golfer who has spent time at No. 1 and who won three majors before turning 24 has loftier goals than this. Still, returning to top-10 status is impressive considering Spieth ended 2020 ranked 82nd.

Despite having last week off, Spieth moved up three spots in the rolling, two-year ranking. The 12-time PGA Tour winner was last ranked this high following the 2018 BMW Championship. The rest of the top 10, including World No. 1 Jon Rahm, remained unchanged.

Spieth began 2021 with a missed cut at the Farmers Insurance Open, but has played the weekend in every tournament since. He finished last season with nine top 10s, including two runner-ups, two thirds, and a win at the Valero Texas Open.

Spieth was a member of the winning U.S. Ryder Cup team in September before finishing T-18 at the CJ Cup last month, his first start of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.

The post Jordan Spieth climbs back to familiar status in the Official World Golf Ranking for first time in three years appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
Lucas Herbert, four strokes behind Taylor Pendrith after 54 holes of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, figured that foul weather on Sunday at Port Royal Golf Course might give him a fair chance at his first PGA Tour title.

Even though he missed the cut in his only two previous starts to the season.

Even though he had been struggling with his swing and needed a fix-me-up from his longtime coach, Dom Azzopardi, to correct a takeaway problem that resulted in “leaks” and “double-crosses, which he said, “is not a really good way to play golf.”

Um, leaks and double-crosses do not sound like good ways to do anything.

You either have to be supremely confident or slightly masochistic to want to take a recently retooled swing into the kind of weather that greeted players in Bermuda. The conditions prompted the tour to schedule an early start off two tees, but sideways rain still forced one brief suspension of play and winds gusting to 30 mph made the tour’s second shortest course (just 6,828 yards, par 71) added a layer of sensory stimulation to a final round in which 12 of the top 16 players on the leader board had yet to win on the PGA Tour.

For Herbert, 25, we’ll go with Door No. 1. He’s a confident dude, exhibiting the kind of swagger that rises up commensurate to the pressure. His final-round two-under 69 was good enough for a one-stroke victory over Danny Lee and Patrick Reed, and while this was his breakthrough win on the PGA Tour, it was his third in the last two years after European Tour victories in the Dubai Desert Classic and Irish Open.

“I felt like I grinded really well early and I had the right attitude going into the day that it wasn’t going to be easy,” said the native of Bendigo, Australia, who is the fourth straight tour winner of international heritage. “Obviously on the range it was … I don’t think we even hit drivers on the range because just couldn’t hit it, it was just pointless, so you just knew it was going to be one of those days where you had to battle really, really hard.”

And so Herbert did in posting 15-under 269 to earn $1.17 million, a berth in the Masters, the Players and PGA Championship, and a spot in the top 50 in the world, moving to a career-best 43rd.

A three-hole stretch starting at the par-4 12th proved pivotal in the outcome.

Leading by a stroke over Pendrith, Lee played quickly and sloppily on the way to a double-bogey while Herbert drilled home a 20-footer for birdie to leapfrog into the lead at 15 under. Herbert bogeyed the par-3 13th—“and I don’t think I hit a bad shot,” he said—but he bounced back by catching an edge on a 35-footer at the 14th to restore his lead. Lee, meanwhile followed with bogeys at 13 and 14, a costly stretch for the veteran playing on a minor medical extension. He managed to respond by rattling off three straight birdies, but had to settle for a share of second place with Reed at 14-under 270, when a solo second would have sewn up his card.

“A lot of good and a lot of bad. I fought really hard for it, just 12 through 14 was a very, very tough stretch for me,” Lee said. “After that I just bite my tongue, and I just try to grind it out. There’s so many times when that time comes or whenever that disappointment happened, I just kind of half-assed it all the way in, so this time I didn’t want to do that. I gave 120 percent all the way in.”

Cliff Hawkins
Patrick Reed charged on Sunday with a 65.

Reed, the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 24, birdied his final two holes for a 65. Only Scott Stallings, who somehow found 10 birdies in the wind and rain for an insane 62, scored lower on the blustery day. Stallings tied for fifth with Pendrith, who somehow found no birdies in a 76 after tying the 54-hole tournament record of 196.

While on the subject of medical extensions, we pause to update the status of Jim Knous, who was playing in his final event on his extension and had to finish at least solo 67th for conditional status. Ranked 695 in the world, Knous, 31, made a gut-check eagle on his penultimate hole on Friday to make the cut, and on Sunday gave his gut another check. After playing his opening nine holes in four over, Knous rallied for an inward 33 amid the breezy conditions to shoot a one-over 72 and ended up T-57 with a 283 total.

“The emotions were going crazy today,” Knous said. “Yeah, greatest top-60 of all time. [But] job’s not done. Obviously conditional status, the ones I get in I have to be ready, and I plan to be ready and go low and have chances.”

After missing the cut at the Fortinet Championship and the Sanderson Farms Championship, Herbert wasn’t quite sure what kind of game he was bringing to the British island territory, close to where, legend has it, ships and planes mysteriously disappear. So do 54-hole leads, by the way; no Saturday leader has become a Sunday champion in the tournament’s three years.

With two early bogeys to his opening round on Thursday, Herbert already was thinking about just how soon he might disappear from the British island territory. “I think,” Herbert recalled, “I was sitting under a little palm tree on the side of the 12th green at two-over through three thinking, I’ll tell you what, if this wind doesn’t die down or this weather improves, then we might be packing the bags early because this is tough.

“Yeah, it turned around pretty quick, but golf’s one of those sports,” he continued. “There’s endless of stories of guys that have started off with three straight bogeys, that have been four-over through nine and then come back to win. So I tried not to get too caught up in that early and just make sure that I just keep fighting. Maybe 30th place is a good result, maybe just making the cut’s a good result. I tried to really focus on that, and it just got better and better as the week went on.”

Herbert earned his card by finishing fourth in the Albertson’s Boise Open, the opening event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, which ensured his participation on the tour—if he could just get into the field. Fortunately, Bermuda had some openings. Even surplus spots. The Aussie native once again showed his knack for timing. And game management.

He didn’t realize that his victory, in just his 19th tour start, got him into the Masters. Needless to say, the man with wins on three different continents in the last two years has a lot to look forward to on the U.S. mainland.

“Definitely gets me into the Masters? OK. I mean, the next 12 months are going to be really cool,” he said. “I’ve never played Augusta, so being able to play the Masters is going to be pretty cool. Getting to play … in a few of these events that I’ve watched growing up on TV, it’s just going to be a cool experience. No matter how I play, it’s just going to be phenomenal to play in those tournaments. It’s going to be lots of fun.”

He probably won’t even mind if the wind blows at a few of them.

“Wind brings out the best players,” Herbert claimed, and he could point to himself as the latest example.

The post Stormtrooper Lucas Herbert embraces rain and wind in his first PGA Tour victory appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
With some wacky weather forecasted, plus the fact that a pair of short hitters had won in each of the last two years, the advantage for the bomb-and-gouger was supposed to be reduced at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. Naturally, one of if not the longest players in the field, Canada’s Taylor Pendrith, is the solo leader after 54 holes.

Pendrith has reached 17-under doing exactly what wasn’t supposed to work this week—hitting it as far as possible, wedging it on and making some putts. Turns out, that strategy might work anywhere, as the 30-year-old backed up his second-round 61 with a Saturday 65, a score that appeared out of the question when he began the day one over through six holes. A birdie at the par-5 seventh proved to be the jolt of energy his round needed, with Pendrith going on to make six more to grab a three-shot lead over Danny Lee heading into Sunday.

“It was a tough mental day to kind of stick with it and just kind of know that I should make some birdies at some point,” Pendrith said.

The birdies most certainly came, none bigger than the one at the beastly 235-yard par-3 16th, which featured a treacherous back left pin on Saturday. No matter for Pendrith, who safely played to the front right portion of the green and made a mile-long putt (no Shot Tracker this week, so we’re estimating) that could prove to be massive come Sunday evening.

“Yeah, that was a bonus. I was just trying to put good speed on it, and it was perfect speed. Just kind of fell right at the end, and it was great to see that go in.”

Pendrith will now enter some unfamiliar territory, having never finished higher than T-11 in just 12 career PGA Tour starts. He’s no stranger to winning as a pro, though, with a pair of victories on the PGA Tour Canada in 2019. Fortunately, outside of Lee, a number of the guys chasing Pendrith are entering unfamiliar territory, too.

“There will be some nerves for everybody in the top-10, I think, going into tomorrow,” he said. “Just going to try to focus on what I can control and just go play golf and try to battle the wind.”

Pre-round driver switch works wonders for Herbert

Cliff Hawkins

Relatable: Lucas Herbert noticed something was off with his driver on the range prior to Saturday’s round, which caused him to feel a little uneasy. Who among us hasn’t hit a few squirrely ones on the range and thought “it must be the driver, right?”

Not relatable: It actually was the driver, so Herbert replaced the clubhead with one of the extras in his locker, went out and shot a six-under 65 to get into contention. Tour pros, they’re absolutely nothing like us!

“We were hitting a few on the range, sort of hit probably … I hit pretty much most of the drives I wanted to hit, I was just kind of hitting a couple low ones,” Herbert said. “Obviously sort of get ready for playing on a windy day. Hit one that felt weird, and I hit another one that felt weird. I looked at the driver and it sort of looked a bit suspicious. Yeah, with sort of probably 12 minutes until we teed off, it was back to the locker, get a new driver head. Luckily, we had spares. Had to run with that on the fly, but it turned out all right.”

Sure did. Herbert, who just picked up his second European Tour win at the Irish Open in July, is four back of Pendrith’s lead, all this after telling himself “we’re in for a long week” after just three holes on Thursday morning. The 25-year-old Aussie was two over at the time, and the rain was coming down sideways. “I’ll be heading back to the mainland on Friday,” Herbert said he thought to himself.

Things have since escalated quickly, as Herbert is now in legitimate striking distance of a PGA Tour win. He wouldn’t mind a little more of that weather to roll in on Sunday, which could bring everybody back into the mix.

“The harder it is, the better, I think. I’ve always enjoyed a good test of golf and I think, yeah, the conditions make it tough tomorrow, could make it a bit of fun.”

Weather is LOOMING on Sunday

It looks like Herbert will definitely get his wish, though the question now is whether or not lightning will be a factor, thus halting play. As of now, there is an 80-percent chance of rain and thunderstorms are expected, which is why the PGA Tour has moved up tee times and is sending players off two tees on Sunday. (The final threesome goes off at 8:57 a.m. EDT and Golf Channel will broadcast the final round live from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.)

Should the lightning and thunder hold off, though, players will not only have to play through the rain but the wind, too, with 15- to 25-mph winds expected. Simply put, weather will be a factor in the final round. The hope is that it doesn’t push play to Monday, which no one wants.

Danny Lee expected to be here

Cliff Hawkins

An injury and some poor form have seen Danny Lee fade into the background a bit on the PGA Tour, which makes his strong week so far feel a bit out of nowhere. At 14 under, Lee is in solo second, in prime position to claim his second tour title, the last coming at the 2015 Greenbrier.

Lee doesn’t see his place on the leader board as unusual, at least judging off the way he answered a question about having “low expectations” coming into the Bermuda Championship.

“I worked my ass off last month,” Lee said. “Getting on the plane all the way to [come] over here, I was kind of expecting to do something great, and I need to. So I didn’t come here just to play golf. I came over here to play some good, really good golf.

“I’m doing it right now, so it’s good to see that happening right now. I just need one more day like this.”

One more good day would prove incredibly clutch for Lee, who has just three starts left on a minor medical extension. Safe to say the only expectations he could afford to have would be high ones.

The post Pendrith pulls away, pre-round driver switch works wonders and bad weather looms in Bermuda appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dan Rapaport
Historically speaking, travel and Bermuda aren’t a good match. There’s a certain geometric entity in the area that’s been known to swallow ships whole. We’ve since progressed to airborne methods of transportation, and yet the problems persist—albeit on a smaller, less morbid scale.

The British island territory is playing host to the PGA Tour this week, with the Butterfield Bermuda Championship offering some younger player a chance to shine and veterans from the past an opportunity to turn back the clock for a week. To do that, however, they have to get to Bermuda, which has proven quite the task. On Monday, Rex Hoggard of Golf Channel reported that the tournament’s defending champion, Brian Gay, was one of multiple tour pros who wasn’t allowed on his flight because the plane was “too heavy.” Hoggard also suggested that the dearth of flights to Bermuda would delay some pros’ arrival by a full day.

Another player in the field told Golf Digest that his flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Bermuda involved three gate changes and plane switches. The reason? “All our golf bags made the plane heavy.” A separate player acknowledged one airline was having issues getting to Bermuda but said his flight there arrived without incident.

These are the unglamorous parts of PGA Tour life they don’t tell you about.

Despite the travel situation and the eclectic field, the Bermuda event has benefitted from the cancellation of the WGC-HSBC Champions, which was also to be played this week in China, by being elevated to full-field status. That means the winner will get 500 FedEx Cup points (up from 300) and a Masters invite. You just have to get there first.

The post Travel to PGA Tour’s Bermuda event is being disrupted for a very PGA Tour reason appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.