By Christopher Powers
Any time Jordan Spieth is leading and in the final group on a Sunday, he is the story. Add in the fact that he’s going for his second win in the last nine weeks, and he’s pretty much the only story.

But both Jason Kokrak, who is one shot back after matching Spieth’s third-round 66, and Sergio Garcia (five back, 68), each with a win already in this PGA Tour season, might have something to say about that. Garcia struck first at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, closing out the tournament with one of the shots of the year on the 72nd hole. Kokrak won two weeks later at the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek, holding off Xander Schauffele, who you may have heard of, with a scintillating final-round 64 in Sin City.

Two pretty impressive victories, some would say, and both Kokrak and Garcia would love another, the former to bolster his fringe Ryder Cup resume and the latter to pick up career win No. 2 at Colonial, 20 years after his first. Two worthy storylines, no doubt. 

But alas, Spieth is in the mix, in his home state, at a course at which he’s already won, with a pair of runner-ups, too. He’s the focus, as he should be. When Spieth is running pure, it’s his world and we are all just living in it. 

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Tom Pennington

Ian Poulter makes a monster move

Speaking of the Ryder Cup, Ian Poulter, a European team staple, is very much on the outside looking in right now. He’s always in captain’s pick territory, of course, but he’s hardly shown much form recently outside of an OK week at the Match Play, which he could get up for no matter how bad he’s playing.

Now that it’s officially Ryder Cup SZN (you’re going to hear this stuff every week until September), perhaps Poults is about to heat up. He certainly did on Saturday, shooting a six-under 64 to skyrocket 25 spots up the leader board. He’ll likely need something similar, or lower, to have a serious chance on Sunday, but the third-round 64 might be something to build on. Any signs of life from now until September and it will be hard for Padraig Harrington to leave him off the squad. 

The end of a (rules) era

You probably didn’t even know it, but two rules legends—Slugger White and Mark Russell —are calling it a career, together, this week. Isn’t that just adorable? The longtime buddies combined for 80 years of service on the PGA Tour:

End of an era at the @CSChallengeFW as Vice Presidents of Rules & Competition Slugger White and Mark Russell work their final event together on the @PGATOUR.

Congrats to both on distinguished careers that combine for over 80 years of service on TOUR. Well done gentlemen. pic.twitter.com/eESGz1byvC

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) May 29, 2021

As someone who has been watching golf for two decades, this truly does feel like the end of an era. These guys have been a part of our Sundays for years, often because of wacky rules situation that end up making for gripping television. And every time, they both handled it in as professional of a manner as they could have. They are both the embodiment of the term “pro’s pro.” 

“Doesn’t get any better than this,” said White. “Mark and I have been friends for 40 years plus, and that will continue. … It’s kind of a bittersweet thing. But we understand that it’s time to pass the baton and we’ll be just fine. Everything will be good.”

“Same here,” Russell added, “I’ve been coming to Colonial for 40 years and I’ve ran this golf tournament for probably 25 years now, and Slugger and I, we don’t work together very often, but he realized what an awesome event this is, and he would come here and work. We don’t get together very often, but it’s great that he’s been here for so many years with me and certainly going to miss him. But we’ll stay in touch. We’ll hook up from time to time.” 

Thinking about White and Russell hanging out in retirement is filling our hearts with gladness. Just a couple of guys being dudes, talkin’ rules. Actually, we hope for their sake that they have something much more interesting to talk about in retirement than the Rules of Golf.

Erik Compton putts on the 18th hole during the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge. Tom Pennington

Erik Compton looking for first top-10 in a loooong time

If you missed our story on Erik Compton from Thursday, it’s definitely worth reading now. Compton didn’t light it up on Saturday, but his even-par 70 kept him inside the top 10. Should he stay there on Sunday with a low round, Compton could lock up his first top-10 on the PGA Tour in a very, very long time. 

How long? Compton’s last on tour, a T-10 on the dot, came at the 2015 Humana Challenge in La Quinta, Calif., now known as The American Express. It should be noted that this is only Compton’s third PGA Tour start since 2016, as the 41-year-old has spent the majority of the last six years on the Korn Ferry Tour attempting to get his tour card back. He won’t earn it with a top-10 on Sunday, but it would be his biggest week in pro golf in years, making for arguably the best non-Spieth storyline of the final round.

The post Jordan Spieth on the brink of another ‘W,’ Ian Poulter makes a move and two rules legends call it a career appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Roger Maltbie and his wife, Donna, were in their hotel room in Napa, Calif., on Sunday night, slowly getting things in order for the ride back to their home south of San Francisco on Monday morning, when the smell from the Silverado Highlands wafted into their condo at the Silverado Resort. Roger went to check it out and saw the orange glow in the sky on the other side of the mountains. “We better start packing,” he told Donna after hustling back to the room.

At another part of the property, PGA Tour VP of rules Mark Russell was seeing, smelling and thinking the same thing. “No one had to tell me when to evacuate,” Russell said when we spoke on Monday afternoon. “I could tell it was already bad, and it was going to get a lot worse. It’s hard to believe something like that can happen so quickly. We got out of there.”

Back-to-back Safeway Open champion Brendan Steele and the tour players traveling to Malaysia for the CIMB Classic received word of the wildfires while awaiting their flights out of San Francisco International Airport. Having grown up in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California, Steele wasn’t surprised. He had been evacuated from his hometown of Idyllwild several times due to lurking wildfires and remembers his father’s fear of them wiping out his business and home.

Conditions had changed dramatically from when the NBC on Golf Channel reporter, the tour rules official and the tournament champion walked off the North Course at Silverado Sunday afternoon, Steele a two-stroke winner over Tony Finau. The wind had begun blowing in gusts upwards of 50 miles per hour. Maltbie saw fencing blown down, garbage cans flying through the air, and flames dancing on the east side of the golf course. “I ran back in and said, It is time to go now,” Maltbie said. “We just got out of there. It was scary.”

A tent structure built for the 2017 Safeway Open burns on a golf course at the Silverado Resort and Spa. (Photo by Josh Edelson)

So scary that Donna left some of her belongings in the closet just ahead of the mass evacuation. As they made their way down Monticello Road and Silver Rock Trail, their hope was that trees wouldn’t be blown over, blocking the road. Even on Thursday, 100 miles away at their home in Los Gatos, the smell the fumes from Sunday night still lingered with them.

Through Friday, hundreds of thousands of acres around Napa, Sonoma and other areas in that region of Northern California had been burned with 31 people killed, making these the deadliest wildfire in state history.

While going through this escape route, Maltbie exchanged text messages with the host of the tournament, part owner of the resort and his good friend, Johnny Miller. On the property was the house overlooking the 10th green where Miller raised five of his six children. Johnny and his wife, Linda, had downsized to a condo at the part of the course where homes burned to the ground.

Locals look through the remnants of their mother’s home in the Silverado Community, which was burned by the Atlas Fire. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

They evacuated at 1 a.m. to Walnut Creek and learned Monday that their property didn’t sustain damage. Same, thankfully, for the house that belongs to Miller’s son Andy. Unfortunately, though, the home of his daughter, Kelly, was part of a row of houses in the Deer Hallow subdivision that didn’t make it.

“Johnny’s pretty sad,” said John Evans, the resort’s managing director. “He tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve.”

As a 21-year-old amateur, Miller finished second to Miller Barber in the 1969 Kaiser International at the resort before going on to win the event there in 1974-1975. Personally, professionally and financially (as a co-owner and renovator of the resort), he was connected to and invested in the property, which he often, ironically, boasted of having the most amazing aroma from the oak trees.

“Silverado will always be special to me,” Miller told Golf Digest in 2011. “It feels like you’re on vacation when you go home. There aren’t that many people who move to Napa and leave.”

The Silverado Mansion was sparred the fire’s wrath. (Photo by Twitter/@SilveradoResort)

According to Evans, Miller was grateful for the efforts put in to save the resort proper during that harrowing first night. For the most part, the oak trees and the buildings of the resort escaped the type of damage that faced homeowners like Miller’s daughter. By using light generators to pump water, by staying up all night and dousing trees, brush, ground cover and buildings, workers and resort managers were able to save the 130-year-old mansion that serves as the resort’s centerpiece, along with the clubhouse, spa and marketplace that were part of the resort’s renovation in 2010.

If there was a blessing in this, it’s that the wildfires didn’t happen on Saturday night, when 6,000 fans were bussed in to a Goo Goo Dolls concert on the event’s front lawn. “As bad as it was, one day earlier would have been a disaster,” said Jeff Sanders, the tournament’s executive director.

Sanders hadn’t yet seen for himself the aftermath. “I’m still waiting for the yellow tape to come down [this coming Monday],” he said. As of Thursday there still wasn’t power or water at the resort and communications were hampered by a reported 73 cellphone towers downed. The resort is targeting Oct. 27 for a re-opening.

Close to his heart, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Steele was sending positive thoughts back to Wine Country. They could certainly use them.

“It was like a war zone around there,” Maltbie said. “It was devastating.”

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