Jason Day is trying to avoid looking too far into numbers this week at the Tour Championship. He will begin the season finale at East Lake sitting one-under par and nine shots behind FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler. But another number is perhaps more pressing — it’s only 12 days until Day’s wife, Ellie, is due to give birth to the couple’s fifth child.

Day, 35, has missed tournaments for the birth of his children, including the 2012 Open Championship when first-born son Dash arrived. He’s also missed FedEx Cup Playoffs events before through injury, like the 2016 BMW and Tour Championship when he was ranked World No. 1 and almost as high in the FedEx Cup.

Fortunately for the Australian, he’s caught a break this year. He’s healthy, and the due date for baby No. 5 is not until September.

But it’s still in the back of Day’s mind. “I think Arrow came two weeks early,” he said of their third child, who followed Dash and Lucy and came before Oz, who was born in June 2021.

“I’m just hoping that Ellie holds out another week or two weeks and I can be there and spend some time with my family,” Day said. “I think if this was my first [child], I’d be a little bit more nervous about it.”

The couple discussed the idea of Day dashing home to Ohio during the Tour Championship if the situation arose but Ellie but his mind at ease.

“She said: ‘You’re not likely to make it back in time if I do go into labour,” he said. “We’re having a home birth. She said I may as well just play the tournament and try to win.”

Winning, though, won’t be easy because of the other number Day faces in Atlanta — the nine-shot deficit. Despite winning the Byron Nelson for his 13th PGA Tour title earlier this year, and finishing tied second at the Open Championship last month, Day is tied for 21st on the adjusted Tour Championship leaderboard.

For a quick refresh, FedEx Cup leader Scheffler begins at 10-under par, while No. 2 Viktor Hovland starts at eight-under and the scores regress one stroke until players 6-10 start at four-under; players 11-15 at three-under; players 16-20 start at two-under; players 21-25 start at one-under; and players 26-30 start at even par.

Reeling in Scheffler, the World No. 1, would take a special week.

“I’ve got to play some of the best golf I have ever played and I need a little bit of help, too,” said Day, who had five top-10s in eight starts before his Byron Nelson win. “It’s nice in a sense that at nine shots back, you can just go out and play and not have to worry about being around the lead. I’m hoping to rekindle some of that form and iron play from earlier this year and continue to drive it well.”

And if he can’t, there’s a pretty good silver lining. “I’m pretty excited for our family to grow,” Day said.

The post Labour Day: Jason Day says his wife told him to keep on playing if she goes into labour with child No. 5 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

As we saw on Sunday at the Open Championship, not all runner-ups are created equal. With Brian Harman cruising to the claret jug at Royal Liverpool there was never any drama late on Sunday. But that doesn’t make the money earned by the four guys who finished six shots behind any less real. And it didn’t keep Jason Day from accomplishing something that only a couple handfuls of golfers have ever done.

The T-2 meant the Aussie has now finished second at every major in his career, joining a pretty select group of players. Day is just the ninth golfer to pull off the feat — something Golf Twitter’s stats guru Justin Ray made us aware of:

OK, so who are the other eight? In order of when they accomplished this career grand slam of sorts, you’ve got Craig Wood, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, and Dustin Johnson. Not too shabby, right?

And like all those other names, Day does have at least one major title (the 2015 PGA Championship) to go along with all those other heartbreaks. Although, again, Sunday wasn’t much of a heartbreak with Harman’s runaway victory at Royal Liverpool.

Interestingly, Nicklaus is the only golfer to have accomplished this and completed the actual career Grand Slam. Of course, that makes sense considering the man who won a ridiculous 18 majors also had an even crazier 19 runner-ups.

On the flip side, Day and Oosthuizen are the only guys on this list with only one major victory.

The post The Open Championship 2023: Why Jason Day’s latest runner-up puts him in pretty elite company appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Day is in the midst of a career revival in 2023, ranking seventh in strokes gained and coming into Rochester off a victory at the AT&T Byron Nelson, his first win on tour in five years. The former World No. 1, who won the PGA Championship in 2015, has gone from a dark horse pick to knocking at the door as one of the favourites. So some might be perplexed at Day’s answer on Wednesday when he was asked his thoughts about the course.

“I haven’t played the course,” Day replied. “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the course. I most likely probably won’t see the course today.”

Oh. That seems, um, not conducive to success, given this shindig starts tomorrow, right?

Not quite, as Day explained.

“I’m just not fighting anything, I just want to make sure that I’m mentally prepared and mentally ready for tomorrow,” Day continued. “No matter how well I prepare, even if I go out and play a practice round, if I come in tomorrow tired and exhausted, it won’t do me any favours, so I’m just going to try and take it easy.”

In that perspective Day’s strategy makes sense. The Aussie has been maligned with injuries for much of his career and has been battling vertigo this spring. As Day clarified, it’s not the first time he’s gone into a major without seeing the course, and hey, John Daly won the 1991 PGA after driving through the night just to make it to Crooked Stick in time.

The plan is not without it’s problems. As Day conceded: “I won’t be able to see how the greens are bouncing coming in to approach play, and I won’t really see how the greens are rolling typically out there. I know we have practice facilities here, but it won’t give you the best preparation going forward unless you’ve seen the golf course.” Still, Day seems confident the blueprint he has in place is his true north.

“Like I said, I think if I come in a little bit mentally tired and I start making mental errors, it’s one of those golf courses from what I know and what I’ve played in the past, that if I start making mental errors, then it’s going to go downhill pretty quick from there,” Day said. “I’ve just got to be cautious, understand that I’ve come off a good week from last week, and with a win comes some expectations. But, also, I’ve got to not get too far ahead of myself and make sure that I listen to myself and listen to my body.”

Day tees off on Thursday alongside Keegan Bradley and Bryson DeChambeau.

The post PGA Championship 2023: Jason Day’s not planning to see Oak Hill before the tournament, and his reasoning actually makes sense appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Slumps happen to all golfers, and they happen for any number of reasons. But slumps tend to end for just one reason — a player’s steadfast refusal to let the game beat him.

Heartsick over the failing health of his mother and frustrated over his own myriad maladies that prevented him from remaining one of golf’s top players, much less enjoying a game that had meant so much to him since he was a boy, Jason Day nearly called it a career a couple of years ago. Chronic back problems not only made golf more challenging but also downright painful. He couldn’t practise like he wanted to — or needed to. He played too many events simply because he had to. “It was a stressful time,” he said.

His mother, Dening, lost her five-year battle with cancer last year. It was Dening who sacrificed for her son so he could chase his dream of a career in golf. And then it was his wife Ellie who offered continual support and encouragement as Day went about rebuilding his game with swing coach Chris Como.

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, both women were on his mind.

Taking over the solo lead with a bang @JDayGolf ? pic.twitter.com/qI5iFCXNEL

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 14, 2023

Having shown signs of a resurgence most of the year, Day finally found his way back to the top, winning for the first time in more than five years with a one-stroke victory at the AT&T Byron Nelson in McKinney, Texas. It took an impeccable performance, which perhaps made it all the more satisfying, as Day assembled a bogey-free nine-under 62 at TPC Craig Ranch.

The victory, worth $1.710 million, was the 35-year-old Australian’s 13th on the PGA Tour and it came 13 years after his first one, also at the Nelson. In outduelling a half-dozen challengers on a damp afternoon, the former World No. 1 snapped a winless drought stretching 1,835 days. Day, who lived in Dallas when he won that first time in 2010 (when the event was played at TPC Four Seasons Resort) capped a 23-under 261 total with a two-foot birdie putt on the par-5 home to edge Si Woo Kim and rookie Austin Eckroat.

“It’s been a struggling few years, and to be able to go out … five years since my last win … and to be able to go out and get the win the way I played today, was really special,” Day said, surrounded by a pregnant Ellie and their four children. “I’m very pleased how things have progressed over the last couple of years for me.

“Just non-stop grinding and non-stop wanting to improve and trying to get better,” Day added, talking about his career comeback. “I’ve had a lot of injuries with my back and for a moment there I thought I wasn’t going to play again. Just trying to get through those two years, just trying to get through a tournament was difficult. To be on the other side of it, to be healthy, feeling good about my game, finally winning again … yeah, it’s no better feeling.”

Day broke down in tears after the victory hit home. It wasn’t just because of the length of time between wins but because all that had happened in that span.

“Yeah, I was in tears for a little bit there, and to think about what my mom went through from 2017 on to her passing last year and then to know that … it was very emotional to go through and to experience what she was going through,” he said. “Then I had injuries on top of all of that going on in my life. To be honest, I was very close to calling it quits. I never told my wife that, but I was OK with it, just because it was a very stressful part of my life.

“Ellie, she never gave up on me trying to get back to the winner’s circle again. She just always was pushing me to try and get better.”

Of course, Day, who began the 2022-23 PGA Tour season last September ranked 175th in the world, realised that he wasn’t ready to let his career fade away. He won five times in 2015, including the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in record fashion, and reached the top of the World Ranking, and even if he couldn’t work on his game as assiduously as he once did in recent years after hooking up with Como in late 2020, he never stopped thinking about it.

“I would be up at 2 in the morning thinking about my golf swing, 1 in the morning calling Chris saying: ‘Hey, man, like I’ve got this thought, what do you think?’ And then I’d go out and practice the next day,” he said, underscoring how determined he was to rebuild his game.

That’s a far cry from what he was thinking just a year or two earlier. He explained his tortured mindset: “Yeah, it was at least a couple years ago when I was just struggling. My thought process was to go: ‘OK what’s my contract minimum that I have to play?’ It’s 20 events. Can’t practise Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday really. If I’m playing the pro-am then I’ll struggle to get through that, that’s fine, I’ll get through that. Get in Thursday, Friday, if I make the cut, great, and if I don’t, that’s a tick off the tournament list. To have that mindset, to even just think about the way that I was thinking, just to try and get through a tournament because of how much pain I was in, it’s not a healthy way of playing golf in general, not a healthy way of just living in general.”

Day was hardly ever in trouble or struggling on Sunday and led the field in strokes gained/tee to green for the week at 2.736 strokes. But it was his still-sparkling short game that put him on the path to victory amid a bunched leaderboard.

He was part of a five-way tie for the lead until he chipped in for birdie from 37 feet at the par-4 12th hole — the most difficult on the golf course — to get to 20-under. He was caught briefly by Dallas resident and World No. 2 Scottie Scheffler at the short par-4 14th, but Day never trailed the rest of the way, regaining the lead alone again when he two-putted the 14th for birdie.

In all seven players held at least a share of the lead at one point on a day of intermittent showers that became a downpour in the final 30 minutes. The final round was played using preferred lies, as if the field needed more help to pummel defenceless TPC Craig Ranch. The final-round scoring average was a blistering 67.048 and 75 of the 84 players who made the cut bettered par.

Kim, a South Korean native who calls Dallas his “second hometown” closed with a 63 after missing the cut last year. Eckroat had a 65 after sharing the 54-hole lead with Texas native Ryan Palmer and Zecheng “Marty” Dou, who is a member at TPC Craig Ranch. Eckroat had a chance to tie Day on 18 but came up well short and right on a 63-footer for eagle from the back of the green. He still enjoyed his career-best finish.

“Yeah, all of us got off to a decent start, and then I looked on hole 9 and saw I don’t know how many guys, but 10, 15 guys had a chance to win realistically, and it was crazy,” said Eckroat, 24, who rose to 77th in the FedEx Cup standings after starting the week 136th. The T-2 was his best finish in 31 tour starts and the $845,500 he earned more than doubled his career earnings. “I mean, you’re just trying to get up there, and it was fun to get some separation at the end and see if you could get a chance to win, like I did, and it was a really fun battle on the back nine,” he said.

Dou, who had a 67, looked like he would take control of the tournament when he birdied four of his first seven to reach 20 under, but he suffered a double bogey at the par-4 eighth after flying his approach from the right rough over the green and out of bounds, and it opened the door to a logjam that would take hours to unravel. He ended up T-5 (still much better than the T-17 that was his previous best career finish in 44 starts) with Scheffler (65) and Tyrrell Hatton (64).

Day, who has risen to 20th in the world, had already posted six top-10 finishes in 15 starts this year, but he had missed the cut at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship, which just so happened to be the site of his most recent win before Sunday. That didn’t sit well with him. But it turned out to be a blessing. The guy who hasn’t been sleeping at night thinking about his swing decided to forget about it.

“I was kind of fed up with having to go over like a lot of technical thoughts with my swing. So I just decided I’m just going to go out and just try and play some golf,” he explained. “For some reason, I just thought that I was going to win the tournament. It’s easy to say that now because I won it, but that’s just … for some reason I just had this sort of calmness about it. It’s weird because when you’re playing golf and you’re in the hunt or around the lead, sometimes there’s moments in your round that you think, ‘Oh, it’s kind of not my time.’ I really never had that thought at all this week.”

It was definitely his time. Perhaps because it was about time.

The post From ‘close to calling it quits’ to a PGA Tour winner again: How Jason Day kept the faith appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Jason Day didn’t see many of the shots Tiger Woods hit after the 15-time major champion walked onto the Augusta National range mid-afternoon Sunday for a practice session ahead of the 2023 Masters.

But former World No. 1 Day certainly heard them.

“It’s still got that Tiger sound; it’s a different noise,” Day told Golf Digest. Day hit balls next to Woods as the five-time Masters champion prepares to play just his second event of the year. Woods, 47, had a good showing during a made cut at his own Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February.

“Tiger is one of only a few players on tour who have their own sound, and it’s still got that power in it,” Day said. “You can hear in the strike that Tiger still has the speed; it wouldn’t surprise me if Tiger was in the top 20 or 30 players on the PGA Tour for clubhead and ball speed.”

During a 30-minute warm-up session Sunday, Woods hit a handful of wedge, short iron, fairway metal and driver shots. He appeared comfortable working the ball both ways with draws and fades. With the driver, Woods appeared to favour a draw. Woods, whose last major win came at Augusta National in 2019, now plays a schedule limited to the four majors and select PGA Tour events. Last year Woods made his return to golf at Augusta National following a 17-month absence due to injuries sustained in a 2021 car accident. He made his only cut of 2022 at Augusta.

This year will mark Woods’ 25th appearance in the Masters, with his debut coming as an amateur in 1995.

Day and Woods have long been friends. The pair had a conversation before Woods began his warm-up. Woods’ limp was noticeable, but he looked in good spirits as he stood with his caddie, Joe LaCava, and also close friend, Rob McNamara. Augusta National chairman, Fred Ridley, and PGA Tour pro, Billy Horschel, were among those who came up to greet Woods.

“I asked him about his [right] foot, and he said his foot was feeling good,” Day said. “It’s good to see him.”

Day also noticed Woods appeared taller, both as he walked onto the range and at address while hitting golf balls. “I said to him he looks taller, and he looks really in shape,” Day said. “Just with my injuries to my back and doing some elongation work, I am aware of that sort of stuff. Tiger just said he had been working on his posture.”

The conversation then moved onto both players’ children, and Woods told Day that 14-year-old son Charlie had prolonged Woods’ playing career.

“I was having a chat to him about Charlie and he said Charlie has kept him in the game a lot longer than if he didn’t have Charlie [playing junior golf],” Day said. “It’s good to see because it’s keeping him young and fired up to compete. As a father I can understand where he’s coming from.”

Day is making his own return to Augusta National thanks to moving into the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking this spring after having missed out on invitation to the 2022 Masters. The Australian has four top-10s at Augusta, including a tie for second on debut in 2011 and two other top-five results.

The post Masters 2023: ‘It’s still got that Tiger sound’—Jason Day impressed by Woods’ Sunday range session appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

And yet, not only did Day attempt an impossible escape, he pulled it off, punching a low hook through a tiny window between two trees and getting his ball to chase its way toward the green. It was a 15-out-of-10 on the scale.

Then, in the most excruciating way possible, it became a 0-out-of-10. Truly sick stuff:

Manque de réussite totale pour Jason Day

TOUR 1

THE PLAYERS Championship @THEPLAYERSChamp pic.twitter.com/srfeSdalZ7

— GOLF+ (@GolfCanalPlus) March 9, 2023

To pull off a shot like that and not get rewarded for it is as brutal as it gets. Day went from thinking he just pulled off some serious magic that might lead to a birdie to just trying to avoid double. How that thick collar of rough didn’t stop that ball from finding the drink is beyond comprehension.

Fortunately Day was able to save bogey, then went par-par to get in the house at two under. Considering he went off in the more difficult afternoon wave, that’s still a quality round. But it could have been a special one if that ball just hung on for dear life.

The post Players 2023: This Jason Day punch out is agony to watch appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Jason Day has a classic Arnold Palmer story.

Yes, many golfers do, given that the King stayed in touch with players at all levels through meetings and his famous letters. But it was Day who had the honour of winning the last Arnold Palmer Invitational before Palmer died in late 2016 at age 87.

Sunday night of the 2016 Palmer event, Day had just finished his wire-to-tire victory at Orlando’s famed Bay Hill course. It was customary for champions of the invitational to do two things after winning: shake Palmer’s hand off the 18th green and come into his office inside the Bay Hill clubhouse to share a celebratory beverage.

“So, this is a unique story,” Day told Golf Digest after a practice round Tuesday ahead of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, a $20 million designated PGA Tour event. “Typically after every time you win here, you would go and have a celebratory drink with him. His drink was Ketel One vodka on the rocks. No mixer and it was like a good dose of Ketel One.”

Day, however, did not know Palmer’s usual drink.

“It was like 90-degree weather, and I was hot and hadn’t eaten really that much [all day]. So I go in and I say, ‘I’ll have whatever he has.’ And Arnie poured me a drink and I thought, I better finish this now. After that, I had to go on Golf Channel and I felt pretty buzzed.”

Back then, Day was in career-best form. The 2015 PGA Championship winner would go on to win the 2016 WGC-Match Play and the Players Championship to take the World No.1 spot and not relinquish it for almost a year. But the Australian star has not won on the PGA Tour since a pair of victories in 2018 and struggled with his form for several years after that. Last year, Day’s world ranking even dropped as low as 164th.

Day, now 35, has begun to turn things around. He’s getting comfortable with a swing rebuild under coach Chris Como, which aims to shallow the club and produce a fade in his full swing to alleviate chronic back injuries. The changes have seen Day record top-10 finishes in his past three starts leading into Bay Hill.

“It’s the best [my swing and body] have felt since I was No. 1 in the world,” Day said. “Over the last two years, I was just hoping to get through four days [pain-free at a tournament] I’d wake up every day with pain.”

Day’s tie for ninth at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera two weeks ago brought Day back inside the top 50 in the world and has him eyeing a return to the Masters. Day, who finished second at Augusta in 2011 and tied for fifth in 2019, only qualified for one major last year, the PGA Championship, which he did through a lifetime exemption as a winner.

“It’s been consistent hard work, being really disciplined with my body off the golf course and then being really disciplined with my swing,” Day said of the process.

“It’s also been about the drive to get back inside the top 50, little goals I set for myself. Then get back inside the top 25 and then top 10, hopefully.”

The post Everyone has an Arnold Palmer story, and Jason Day’s from 2016 left him feeling mighty fine appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Normally deducing who is on the FedEx Cup Playoffs bubble is easy. Take a look at the players near the cutline of No. 125 and boom, there’s your bubble. But this year, like so many other facets in professional golf, analysing the confines of Who Is In and Who Is Out is far from simple.

The complexity lies in LIV Golf, for those who have moved to the fledgling Saudi-backed circuit are A) under indefinite suspension from the PGA Tour or B) have renounced their PGA Tour membership. The upshot from the latter group — which includes the likes of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na — has already been calculated, as they have been removed from the FedEx Cup standings. The former group, however, remains listed in the post-season race. While the PGA Tour has yet to officially state how these players will be handled, sources tell Golf Digest the LIV Golf members currently on the FedEx Cup list are expected to be skipped over and replaced. Currently, that means 10 players inside the top 125 — Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Charles Howell III, Matt Jones, Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Hudson Swafford and Matthew Wolff — aren’t eligible for the playoffs, meaning the real FedEx Cup line is likely in the No. 134-136 range. (Perez, for example, is currently No. 121 but is in danger of falling outside No. 125).

Wrinkles remain. Until now, the PGA Tour has not suspended LIV Golf members until they have teed it up in a LIV event. But LIV Golf has also used the first two events to announce future signees, with Reed and Bryson DeChambeau announced in London and Paul Casey announced in Portland. The reason this matters is that, should LIV Golf follow the same cadence at Trump Bedminster this week, more players will be announced in the following days, but the next LIV Golf event won’t be held until the first week of September … the week after the conclusion of the tour’s season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. Meaning the PGA Tour would have to break from its precedent of waiting to suspend a player, or a future LIV Golf member would get to compete in the postseason.

Keeping all this in mind, here are the following big names currently on the FedEx Cup bubble.

Webb Simpson

Currently at No. 125, Simpson should be safe and has the Wyndham Championship coming up, where he has a win and nine top 10s in 13 career starts and loves the event so much he named one of his daughter’s after it. Though it’s jarring to see Simpson this low — he’s just two seasons removed from a two-win campaign — it’s a position mostly predicated off the complications from suffering a herniated disc in his neck.

Jason Day

It appeared the former PGA champ was on the verge of a comeback when contending at the Farmers Insurance Open earlier in the year. That performance at Torrey Pines proved to be an aberration, as Day has just one finish inside the top 20 in 10 individual starts since (although he did log a T-10 at the team-centric Zurich Classic). At No. 127 Day should be OK in making it to the post-season, but even if he misses the FedEx Cup, the Aussie remains tour exempt through the 2024 season thanks to his Players Championship win in 2016.

Rickie Fowler

Fowler logged a T-3 at the CJ Cup in the autumn. Since, zero top-20 finishes in 17 starts. With the slump stretching into its third season it’s fair to wonder if what Fowler’s experiencing is really a “slump” or a new normal. Needs a good showing at this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic to move safely off the bubble.

Danny Willett

The Englishman’s Masters exemption runs out in two weeks. That he even finds himself with a shot to keep his card is thanks to a T-7 at the 3M Open, his first individual top 10 on tour in 16 months. Willett has missed the playoffs the past two seasons, and at No. 137 desperately needs to make the cut in Detroit this week.

Francesco Molinari

The 2018 Open champ is not in the Rocket Mortgage Classic field, meaning any hopes he has of reaching the playoffs (currently No. 142) are based on a strong display at the regular-season finale at Sedgefield Country Club.

Harry Higgs

The fan favourite has been struggling mightily, entering the week 169th in scoring and 184th in strokes gained. His FedEx Cup position is slightly better (147th), but Higgs needs a top 10 this week or the next to secure his card for 2023.

Cameron Champ

Champ logged a win in each of the three previous seasons. But while he leads the tour in distance he sits 149th in the FedEx Cup, with a T-16 at last week’s 3M Open breaking a streak of five missed cuts in a row. Thanks to the aforementioned victories Champ is not in danger of losing his card, his status secured through 2024.

Zach Johnson

At No. 155, the 2023 Ryder Cup captain will need something special over the final two weeks to keep his card. Has had past success at the Wyndham with two top 10s in his last four starts.

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The post The LIV Golf wrinkle impacting the FedEx Cup Playoffs chances of Rickie Fowler, Jason Day and others appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Contrast that to 12 months ago, when Mickelson came out of nowhere to capture his second PGA Championship title and his sixth major just a month before his 51st birthday. He smashed the record for oldest major winner that the late Julius Boros had held since he won the 1968 PGA Championship at age 48.

“Certainly, one of the moments I’ll cherish my entire life,” Mickelson said in the aftermath. “I don’t know how to describe the feeling of excitement and fulfillment and accomplishment to do something when — you know, of this magnitude — when very few people thought that I could.”

Winner of the 2005 PGA, Mickelson arrived at Kiawah Island ranked 115th in the world and hadn’t had a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in his previous 17 starts. The cagey left-hander, who joined the PGA Tour Champions in 2020 and enjoyed immediate success with wins in his first two starts, hadn’t finished in the top 10 in a major championship since the 2016 Open Championship at Royal Troon, where he was runner-up to Henrik Stenson.

Somehow, he summoned enough shot-making, guile and nerves at Kiawah to record a two-stroke victory over Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen. Mickelson, who held at least a share of the lead the last three days, posted rounds of 70-69-70-73 to finish at six-under 282. It was a wildly popular victory authored by one of the game’s most beloved players, a crowning achievement in a career that includes 45 PGA Tour wins, tied for eighth all-time with Walter Hagen.

Because of his stature in the game and his status as one of top personalities in all of sports, Mickelson was celebrated far and wide for his unlikely victory. Social media exploded with reactions, most notably from sports stars, including Tom Brady, Steph Curry and even from Lefty’s longtime rival Tiger Woods. Mickelson himself never wasted a moment issuing reminders, subtle and otherwise, that he was owner of the Wanamaker Trophy. He was on top of the world — not just the golf world.

Phil Mickelson ermerges from a crowd of fans on the 18th hole in the final round. Patrick Smith

Mickelson has been accommodating in the past in offering his insights into and reflecting on other past major championships — notably, tough losses in the 2004 and ’06 US Opens and the 2016 Open Championship. The California native had agreed to an in-depth interview with Golf Digest to discuss his historic victory at Kiawah Island, but that was just days before his controversial comments. After that, he did not respond to repeated follow-up inquiries, and he has not made any public comments, except for releasing an apology on social media for the aforementioned remarks.

Though he is a past winner in both tournaments, Mickelson skipped the Players Championship and the Masters, and although he is registered for next week’s PGA and is on the tournament’s official list of entries, it is not known if he will defend his title.

The following is a compilation of observations from fellow players and others about Mickelson’s PGA Championship performance of a year ago, observations that augment the undeniable sentiment that the events that unfolded at Kiawah Island in the spring of 2021 possessed a mystical, magical quality.

Two weeks before the PGA Championship, in the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow, Stewart Cink, who won two PGA Tour events at age 47, played with Mickelson, who was a month shy of turning 51.

Cink: “We were paired together in Charlotte, and he was asking me about how I’ve experienced the changes in getting older — what, if anything, I’ve noticed about how I’m different, and if I’ve done anything about it. We just kinda talked about it for a whole hole — what have I noticed? What did I do about it?

“I just told him that the biggest thing for me since I’ve been in my forties has been the ability to intensely focus. I just feel like I’m a little bit more susceptible to distractions and that my focus is just wavering if my scores aren’t that great. He was very attentive to what I was saying, and, I mean, it must’ve stuck somehow. Cause he was very intent when he was at Kiawah about not hitting the shot until he was kind of dialed into it.

“We also discussed practice and schedule-making a bit. I think it’s natural for players that get older, you’ve got other things in your life that you really start to care about and take more attention, and the next shot on the course doesn’t feel like it means more to you as it once did back in your twenties or even thirties. And I think when that happens, it’s really easy to lose your focus. Phil obviously did a great job of staying with every shot at the PGA. He made the shots matter.”

Xander Schauffele has played many money games with Mickelson around San Diego and continued to do so leading up to the PGA.

Schauffele: “I think I got a real good feel for Phil when we played a lot. He’s just an unbelievable human when it comes to his playfulness and his persistency. Man, I beat him down during COVID. He was open about it. He admitted all of that. I was playing really well, and he wasn’t. Whether I pushed him to try to work harder … he was pretty open about saying he was always trying to learn, which I thought was pretty special for a guy of his stature and his ability and how long he’s been out there.”

Schauffele said he saw a change in Mickelson’s game in the build-up to the second major of the season.

Schauffele: “He was struggling. I don’t know if it was denial, or if he was struggling and working through something, He started working with [coach] Derek [Uyeda] on his putting a little bit. Getto [Mickelson’s swing coach Andrew Getson] was with him every week he was out. They were together at all times and figuring out his tendencies. He put the 2-wood into play and started playing better; then his self-belief caught on. Hodgepodge all that together, and there you go — Phil’s got his sixth major.”

Phil Mickelson works with putting coach Derek Uyeda early in the week of the PGA. Sam Greenwood

Uyeda, who is based at the Grand Del Mar in San Diego, works on putting with Schauffele and other tour players. He started working with Mickelson in the months before the PGA.

Uyeda: “We did a lot of work on the launch of his golf ball and the acceleration of his putting stroke. We used a machine called Quintic, which, in the wrong hands, can be pretty dangerous because there are a lot of metrics that you can take a look at. And Phil loves that stuff. But we kept it super, super simple. We made sure he was launching the ball correctly and making sure that the ball was coming off at the proper smash factor — or impact ratio. We did some green-reading work at his house.”

For the tournament, Mickelson successfully made 64 of 66 putts from seven feet or closer.

Uyeda: “The biggest thing was that week [at Kiawah] was really windy. Normally, with my guys, the range we want to putt good from is 10 feet and in. But it was so windy that week and the balls were getting blown around a lot, I told Phil that if we could just putt well from six feet and in, we’re going to have a good week. And he actually mentioned that on TV.”

On the 17th hole on Sunday, Mickelson boldly used the claw grip for the only time in the tournament — a move unrecognised by many — in successfully making a shorter par putt to retain the lead with one hole to play.

Uyeda: “So he knows he can launch the ball higher when he does the claw. So, for one putt the entire week, he went claw on 17, because he said his ball was sitting in a little depression. I don’t think a lot of people noticed that. This guy is so good that it doesn’t matter what the situation is, he’ll do what he needs to get it done.

“He’s a genius golfer. It’s crazy. To do that — he’s literally a different guy. Nobody else is going to do that. But he knew from all the research we did on the launch machine — if I need to launch it out of a depression so that it doesn’t bounce off-line, I know how to do it. And so, he did it. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. He’s going to the claw! It was pretty cool.”

Steve Stricker, the 2021 US Ryder Cup captain who tabbed Mickelson as a vice captain for Whistling Straits, played a practice round with Phil at Kiawah.

Stricker: “We played that Monday or Tuesday against Zach [Johnson] and Will Zalatoris, and we were both playing pretty well. Phil was hitting it great. We won, like, four of the first five holes, and typical Phil, he turns to me and says, ‘Geez Strick, I thought we’d be winning by more by now. We’re just two 50-something guys killing it.’ You just have to shake your head at the stuff he says. It was fun to be with him.

“But, you know, practice rounds are one thing, and the tournament is another, and so I didn’t give much thought, really, to whether or not Phil could win. That’s not to say I didn’t think he was capable, but I just wasn’t thinking about it.

Phil Mickelson walks and talks with Will Zalatoris during their practide round for the PGA. Patrick Smith

“Then he goes out and he keeps hanging in there, and he has the lead and isn’t going away, and I recognised that was the same Phil who was playing well in the practice round. That’s when I first thought he could win, was that last day, because I knew how he had been hitting it and, well, it’s Phil. He knew what to do being in the hunt.”

Jason Day, the 2015 PGA champ, was grouped in the first two competitive rounds with Mickelson and Padraig Harrington, winner of the 2008 PGA. Mickelson opened with a 70 and backed that up with a 69 to share the lead at five under with Oosthuizen.

Day: “I just noticed that during his normal tournaments, [Mickelson] was walking around and you could tell that he wasn’t just quite 100-per-cent comfortable with himself. And then during that week, I could just tell something kind of flipped in him. Everything was more slow. Everything was more deliberate. I actually talked to my caddie about that. I said he was taking a lot longer than what he usually does. And he just looked a lot more focused. And then he kind of just went through the first two rounds. I missed the cut. Watching him on the weekend as the tournament went on, it was very much the same; he just kind of took advantage of everything.”

Day watched Mickelson and thought he wasn’t overswinging. Using his 2-wood on numerous holes, Mickelson hit 55 per cent of Kiawah’s fairways, or a smidge better than his 54-per-cent average for the entire season. His average drives for the PGA (299 yards) were only two yards shorter than his mark for the year. He reached 63 per cent of the greens in regulation — almost exactly his number for the season.

Day: “He didn’t hit a lot of balls that were off the planet. You know what I mean? So, he kept it out in front of himself and he was able to score better that way. And he pretty much did that the whole week. I know that Phil likes to hit his so-called ‘bombs.’ But for me, personally, if I was telling him something, and sometimes it’s hard to tell Phil something because he’s got a little bit of an ego when it comes to golf … but it would be ‘Stop trying to hit it as far.’ He still gets it out there pretty good, but take a little something off and hit it on the fairway. He just needed to give himself more opportunities. Which is what he did all week.”

Harrington, 50, with three major wins, has long enjoyed playing with Mickelson and the rapport they have, and the Irishman felt like the friendly grouping helped both of them. He would end up tying for fourth.

Harrington: “[Mickelson] was overpowered through six, seven holes [at three over par] and struggling [in the first round]. And then he had a bad tee shot on 10 and got away with it, and then made birdie from it. And he never looked back. He played great after that. … That’s what happens in golf. You get a little break here and there, and you hit a shot that you feel good about, and then he was right in it from there on.

“Look, he plays such a high-risk game. He knows, or he feels anyway, that he has to bring his A-plus game to win. And he goes for his A-plus game on every shot. And that’s just the way he is. If it doesn’t work out, so be it; he’s not interested in not winning.”

Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka watch Mickelson’s shot on the 11th hole during the final round. Patrick Smith

Brooks Koepka, who won back-to-back PGA titles in 2018-19, played alongside Mickelson in the final round and ended up finishing T-2 after a closing 74. Here’s what he said in the immediate aftermath.

Koepka: “The thing was, Phil played great. That whole stretch when we turned after 4 and 5 and played those holes, [the wind] it’s into off the left for me and that’s quite difficult for a right-handed player. And it suited Phil right down to the ground, and I thought he played that entire stretch from about 6 to 13 so well. So, you know, I’m happy for him, Amy and Tim [Phil’s brother and caddie]. It’s pretty cool to see, but a bit disappointed in myself.”

Scott Verplank, a winner of five PGA Tour titles, was working for CBS/ESPN and followed Mickelson all four rounds. He could not believe what he was seeing.

Verplank: “Last year I did that featured group on ESPN, and I had him every day, and it was nothing short of amazing. And that was awesome for me because I saw every shot. It was very amazing. He played very unlike himself, at least what he had been doing recently. He wasn’t wild.”

Schauffele contends he wasn’t shocked when Mickelson pulled off the win.

Schauffele: “Everyone is surprised when Phil does something crazy — but not really, because his self-belief is his biggest strength and his biggest attribute. And you need as much self-belief as possible when you’re trying to win big tournaments. And man, does he have it.”

A fellow lefty, Steve Flesch, who is 54 and a regular on the Champions Tour, contemplated the far-reaching impact of Mickelson’s win.

Flesch: “Selfishly, I think a lot of people at our [PGA Tour Champions] were looking forward to him playing, ‘cause it helps give us a little more identity. People will tune in to watch the Champions if Ernie Els is playing or Freddy [Couples], and Phil is on that list of players people want to watch.

“You look at his level of play, but it’s his belief that he can still compete and win out there at that level that’s mind blowing. I mean, it’s not like he won Hartford. No disrespect to Hartford at all, but to win the PGA Championship was something else. And we were all happy for him.

“But at the same time I think we all were a little disappointed. That sounds really terrible, but we want eyeballs on our tour, and he brings eyeballs. He still might play a few out here, but why would he play a lot of senior golf when he’s in every major for another five years?”

Ernie Els, 52, who’s won two US Opens and two Open Championships, captured his most recent major victory at age 37 and marvelled at Mickelson’s accomplishment.

Els: “I’ve played against Phil for so many years now, and I have to say that winning that PGA was about the most incredible thing he’s done. Those of us around 50 still think we can win against the young guys, and maybe still win a major with our experience. But he actually went out there and did it, and you have to tip your cap to him.”

Phil Mickelson celebrates holing ot a bunker shot on the fifth hole during the final round. Montana Pritchard/PGA of America

Though Stricker and Mickelson talked little about the upcoming Ryder Cup during the PGA week, they spoke soon after about Whistling Straits and Mickelson’s role there.

Stricker: “I called him to talk about where he was as far as being an assistant if he didn’t make the team as a player. I told him I’d love to have him as a player, especially after he won, and he said to me, ‘I need to show you something more.’ And I told him that I agreed. He already was thinking that to be on the team he needed to show some consistency, and we agreed on that. So, he knew that one tournament, even though it was the PGA, wasn’t going to be enough to get him on the team.”

Three months after Mickelson captured the PGA, Schauffele won the gold medal at the Olympics in Japan. After Xander’s triumph, he and Mickelson got together for a round in San Diego, and there was Phil, with a surprise.

Schauffele: “He brought his [Wanamaker] trophy out. It was bungie-tied to his cart. He was hoping I was going to bring my gold medal out and we could talk some smack. Back to classic Phil. I told him the gold medal was a few weeks in the past and I was trying to move forward. [Laughs]. He thought that was pretty funny.”

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The post ‘Nothing short of amazing’: An oral history of Phil Mickelson’s improbable 2021 PGA Championship win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
AUGUSTA — Tiger Woods limped off the gloriously sun-drenched stage of Augusta National Golf Club much too early on Sunday, but although his 24th Masters was completed, he left behind his progeny to bask in the spotlight, a battle of wills having been rejoined for the distinction of trying to follow in his footsteps.

The names keep changing but they are of one identity. Scottie Scheffler is only the latest in line, not just winner of the green jacket after his three-shot victory in the 86th Masters, not just owner of the world No. 1 ranking, but also wearer of the mantle of he who best emulates the game’s most dominating player.

They keep climbing over one another for the honour, submitting their streaks of greatness, maybe winning a major, claiming that transient piece of real estate known as the No. 1 ranking whose importance seems increasingly meaningless as it increasingly changes hands.

Thanks to a final-round 71 that included an inconsequential four-putt at the last, Scheffler, a thoughtful, unassuming Texan, won for the fourth time in his last six starts, a searing run reminiscent of many breathtaking stretches Woods orchestrated to help him procure 82 PGA Tour titles and the top of the world rankings for a record 683 weeks. While a prodigious display of uncanny golf execution has propelled Scheffler to these heights, the truly formidable work begins now — sustaining it while accepting that there is nothing he can do to blunt a challenge from the next determined talent.

“It’s a perfect example of the Tiger effect,” said reigning US Open champion Jon Rahm, who shot 69 on Sunday in the company of Woods and who saw a 36-week run as world No. 1 come to an end two weeks ago when Scheffler overtook him by winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. “We all grew up watching Tiger. We all grew up wanting to be him, and we grew up with the dream of being major champions.”

Rahm rattled off the names since 2015 who have exhibited their spurts of excellence: Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Cantlay. He rightly included himself in the mix as well as Rory McIlroy, who surged with a final-round 64 to abscond with second place. And, of course, he had to throw in the newly minted Masters champion, who calmly led after each of the final three rounds and finished with a 10-under 278 aggregate total.

All but Johnson and McIlroy are in their 20s. “With the advancement in golf, in all of us thinking of ourselves as athletes, you can see the difference,” Rahm, 27, added. “Everybody can reach a new level.”

Or the same one.

Since Spieth overtook McIlroy in August, 2015, the No. 1 ranking has changed hands 32 times among nine players. On 20 occasions, the reign at the top lasted four weeks or fewer. The longest anyone retained it was Johnson’s 64-week run from February 19, 2017 to May 12, 2018.

“In all the parity, it seems like tournament wins mean more than maybe getting to No. 1 in the world,” Cantlay said. “Unless someone could hold No. 1 in the world for six months or a year at a time, then I think it would mean something. I feel like it gets discounted when you hold it for a week or two and then someone else takes over.”

“Since 1997, watching Tiger, listening to Tiger, everybody has changed,” said two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson. “I think the talent level is through the roof right now. Think about it. We can sit here and debate year after year, week after week the field strength … just a bigger crowd playing the game of golf, so it’s harder to stay No. 1 because there’s other talent coming after you.”

When Harold Varner clipped him with a 92-foot eagle putt on the 72nd hole to win the Saudi International, Watson, 43, told the 31-year-old Varner to enjoy it, but not for too long. “I said you can’t party for a week, man. You got to go home and practise. These young kids are trying to beat you,” Watson said. “Not that he shouldn’t celebrate his victory. But he has to now reset and be hungry again. These guys are hungry.

“Yeah, everybody out here that just won a trophy might have lost a little bit of hunger, and the other guys are hungrier. That’s where to be No. 1 or to stay at top 10 is not as easy as it used to be.”

Scheffler, 25, shows no signs of slowing down, but neither did Spieth in opening 2015 by winning the first two majors, or Koepka when he won four majors in eight starts in 2017-19, or Johnson in late 2020 when he won the Masters or Rahm in the middle of last year, or Cantlay near the end of it when he succeeded Johnson as the FedEx Cup champion.

As Woods himself said on Saturday, the top players hope for a two- to three-month window of high-calibre play, preferably during major season, to make their mark. This from the guy whose letdowns — what ones there were — were barely of that duration over the course of more than a decade. Woods bequeathed to the following generation the inspiration to reach the highest level but not his secret for staying there.

A scramble for supremacy has ensued.

“No one has really been able to sustain a run at the top of the world rankings for very long, which is different than the era before where Tiger seemed to dominate the world rankings and was maybe only briefly interrupted every once in a while, usually due to injury,” Cantlay noted. “I think it’s a different paradigm for the sport with guys getting hot for certain periods of time … and then somebody else takes over.”

Scheffler is a man who likes to live in the moment. He’s intent on it, in fact. Where did he learn that? From watching Tiger’s victory in the 1997 Masters on YouTube. Call it a history lesson. Scheffler was 10 months old at the time Woods triumphed by a ridiculous 12 strokes.

“I remember watching the highlights of him winning in 1997, kind of running away with it, and he never really broke his concentration,” said Scheffler, who admitted that he wore a shirt this week that resembled one Tiger had worn. “That’s something that I reminded myself of today. I tried not to look up. I tried to keep my head down and just keep doing what I was doing because I didn’t want to break my concentration. The minute I did was on 18 green when I finally got on there and I had a five-shot lead and was like, ‘All right, now I can enjoy this.’ And you saw the results of that. Thank you, Tiger.”

So, it’s head down now and plough ahead for the newest member of the major winners’ club. Good idea. The array of talent aligned against him would make his admittedly queasy stomach even more unsettled. Not that he doesn’t already know that; they were the impediments to his success until very recently.

Then again, it’s difficult to predict who will be the next threat. He might not have yet reached the PGA Tour. Four years ago, Scheffler needed an up and down on the final hole of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament to finish T-34 and earn his card. He converted, won Player of the Year while earning his PGA Tour card, and now he is world No. 1 with a green jacket.

So, yeah, Scottie Scheffler is the new king of golf. But uneasy lies the crown.

“It’s really hard to stay up there for a long time,” Rahm said. “Some players have been able to do it, but it’s just the next guy comes up, gets hot, and there you go. It’s a beautiful part of the golden age of golf we’re living in right now.”

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The post Masters 2022: Scheffler is on top of the world … but recent history shows it’s a tenuous position appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.