By Christopher Powers
It’s no secret what the majority of golf fans we’re rooting for on Sunday at Pebble Beach: Jordan Spieth completing his comeback. Daniel Berger, who Spieth famously walked off at the 2017 Travelers Championship, was not interested in such fairy tales.

Here are four takeaways from the 2021 AT&T.

Daniel Berger has all kinds of guts
After Saturday evening’s stunning reversal of fortune on the final three holes, it was fair to wonder if Daniel Berger, at least in this tournament, was cooked. To suffer such a body blow from Jordan Spieth, the same guy who ripped his heart out at the 2017 Travelers, would simply be too much to overcome. In reality, it may have been a blessing, because there is nothing Berger loves more than coming from behind to win. He did it again on Sunday at Pebble Beach, closing with a seven-under 65 that included a door-slamming eagle on the 72nd hole. After starting the day two shots back of Spieth, he wound up finishing three clear of him. Major guts.

Berger now has four wins on the PGA Tour, and his final rounds in those victories are as follows: 67-66-66-65. In that Travelers Championship he lost to Spieth in a playoff, he also shot a 67. The former Florida State All-American is not scared of the Sunday heat, which will serve him well at the Ryder Cup, should he make the team. He entered the week 12th in the U.S. team standings, but this victory makes him all but a lock.

Ezra Shaw

We’d like a lot more of Maverick McNealy, please and thanks
Prior to this week, the former No. 1 ranked amateur in the world had been in the mix a handful of times in his young PGA Tour career, and almost always because his putter kept him in it. This week, though, we saw the full McNealy package, which included one of the cockiest, sauciest club twirls in club-twirl history in the 72nd fairway. He didn’t make the eagle putt, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway (well, it would have if not for that ridiculous penalty from Saturday).

If you know McNealy’s backstory, you’re well aware he could quit the game tomorrow and do just fine in life. He doesn’t need pro golf, and, let’s be honest, pro golf doesn’t need him either. But after Sunday’s saucy performance, we’ve found ourselves clamouring for more Mav. What a name. What a talent. He’s another one of these young studs who is close to “putting it all together,” as they say, and the more of those guys the merrier.

Harry How

Does Jordan Spieth have the Sunday scaries?
In fairness to Jordan, that he’s contended in back-to-back weeks is solid proof that he’s returning to his old self. This is a great thing. The sport is better with Jordan consistently in it. We are all rooting for this to continue. BUT … are we in the trust tree? OK, good. The Sunday swoon trend is very real.

You may be asking, how can it be a trend if he’s just starting to contend again? Well, if you look at the few times he has been in contention since 2017, the Sunday numbers are not good save for that Sunday 64 at Augusta in 2018. Since then though, it’s been SundayScariesVille.

With the 54-hole lead at Carnoustie in 2018 he shot 76 on Sunday. At Colonial in 2019, he began the final round just two off the lead, and he wound up finishing T-8 after a two-over 72. The following week at Muirfield Village he shot a one-over 73 on Sunday after starting the day just four back. In the first post-restart event at Colonial, Spieth was one shot off Xander Schauffele’s 54-hole lead. He posted a one-over 71 to tie for 10th.

And now he has last week and this week to add to that not-so-great collection. At WMPO, with a share of the 54-hole lead, he finished with a one-over 72. This week, he led by two at the beginning of the final round, and ended up finishing three back. He did shoot a two-under 70, which you could argue is progress. But he knows better than anyone that that usually doesn’t get it done unless you’re up by seven or eight on Saturday evening. We should urge the same patience he is exercising in this comeback process, but these Sunday stumbles have become the norm since Royal Birkdale.

Harry How

That Nate Lashley debacle on 16 was NSFW
Nate Lashley’s victory at the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic was one of the great feel-good stories in recent memory. Part 2 of that story seemed to be playing out on Sunday at Pebble, where Lashley was in full control for 15 holes. Then came the 16th green, where this utter debacle took place:

4 putts from 13 feet.

Nate Lashley was tied for the lead before this triple bogey. pic.twitter.com/kGR3YQbUzG

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 14, 2021

As if the four-jack wasn’t ugly enough, Lashley slammed his putter down on the green as he walked off, which the above clip conveniently cuts out. Letting out frustration is fine, so long as you don’t damage the golf course (cough, Sergio, cough). Not the best look for Lashley, but hopefully he learns from it. He’s too nice of a guy to have his character called into question over one brief lapse in judgement. By the way, we do not condone damaging the putting surface, but that pin position was downright cruel. Lashley was within his rights to helicopter his putter into the ocean.

The post Daniel Berger overcomes disastrous double bogey on Saturday with a gutsy 65 on Sunday at Pebble appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Lashley, who trailed by five shots entering Saturday’s third round, erased that deficit with a front-nine 29, becoming the latest player to be on early 59 watch on the Old White TPC course. He cooled off on the back, shooting an even-par 36 with three bogeys, one birdie and an eagle. His five-under 65 was enough to climb into contention, giving him a prime chance to claim two victories in a span of four months.

Lashley is tied with Richy Werenski, who also shot a 65 to reach 13-under 197. Though he’s yet to win on tour, Werenski did come close in 2017, losing in a playoff at the Barracuda Championship to Chris Stroud.

The post Nate Lashley shoots five-under 65 at The Greenbrier, eyes second PGA Tour win in his last eight starts appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

On the night of April 1, 1985, in the final seconds of Villanova’s stunning upset of Georgetown in the NCAA men’s basketball national championship game, the Wildcats’ Ed Pinckney went to the foul line. Villanova led, 64-62, with less than 10 seconds remaining. It was one-and-one, Pinckney having to make the first shot to get a second. If Pinckney made both free throws, Georgetown—out of timeouts—would have no chance to win the game. If he missed the first shot, the Hoyas would be able to tie.

As Pinckney stepped to the line, I said to my friend Tony Kornheiser, then a Washington Post columnist (now a millionaire ESPN pundit): “I’m not sure I can watch.”

Make no mistake, I was rooting for Villanova. I almost always pull for the underdog, and as luck would have it, I’d covered all six of the Wildcats’ tournament games that spring. I’d gotten close enough to Villanova coach Rollie Massimino that he invited me to fly to Philadelphia on the team plane the next morning. When the plane landed, everyone was loaded onto flatbed trucks for a parade to City Hall. I covered the victory parade while in the parade.

Kornheiser had laughed at me as Pinckney went to the line: “He’s not going to miss. He’s trained his entire life for this moment. He’s dreamed this moment forever.”

He was right. Pinckney made both shots. The Hoyas scored to make it 66-64, Villanova inbounded, and the clock ran out. The miracle happened.

I think back to that night often on a weekend like this past one, when someone like Nate Lashley goes from wandering the wilderness of professional golf to being a millionaire with a two-year-plus guaranteed spot on the luxury liner known as the PGA Tour.

Ranked 353rd in the world going into the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, Lashley was the last man into the field as an alternate after failing to Monday-qualify. His bravura performance—he won by an astounding six shots at 25 under par—makes him golf’s latest nowhere-to-everywhere story.

Lashley tips his hat to fans during the trophy ceremony on Sunday at Detroit Golf Club. (Ben Jared/Getty Images)

Lashley is the 10th first-time winner on the PGA Tour in the 2018-’19 season. At 36, he is the oldest, as well (the youngest was Cameron Champ, who was 23 when he won in Mississippi last November). Lashley also might be the least likely, although Desert Classic winner Adam Long could rival him in that category.

Lashley knows firsthand that a missed four-footer or a 5-iron in the water isn’t tragic. He dealt with real tragedy 15 years ago, when his parents and girlfriend were killed in a plane crash flying home from watching him play in the NCAA West Regional in Oregon. That’s why the weekly PGA Tour send-the-family-out-for-a-hug-and-kiss-with-the-winner moment had some real emotion attached to it Sunday when Lashley’s sister Brooke joined his girlfriend, Ashlie Rego, on the green. The moment clearly was more emotional for Brooke Lashley—which is understandable.

There aren’t many things in sports more life-changing than a first win on the PGA Tour. Like many late-blooming players, Lashley bounced around on minor-league tours for years before finally making it to the big tour last season. A knee injury limited him to 17 events in the 2017-’18, and he began this season playing on a minor medical extension. When he failed to earn enough FedEx Cup points in his allotted tournaments to retain his card, he was forced to play 2019 on limited 126-150 status, which made him an alternate for the field last week. He just missed in Monday qualifying, and then found out Wednesday he would get to play.

It’s natural when someone like Lashley, especially someone with a genuinely compelling story, comes from almost complete anonymity to not just contend but win, that we marvel at his cool, his ability to make putts under pressure, to handle the moment as if he’s done it a million times before.

Here’s the thing: He has. They all have. Anyone who plays a sport as a kid has his fantasy moments.

I certainly had them. I spent hours hitting tennis balls against a wall under the West Side Highway, blowing away Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and Arthur Ashe at Wimbledon. I made Boston Celtics guards K.C. Jones and Sam Jones (both in the Hall of Fame) look silly when I took them on in Riverside Park as the Knicks’ point guard—with no one watching. And, when I was older, I made every big putt as darkness closed in at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club after I had closed the golf shop for the day.

Boy, was I good. We all are. Except only a few actually have the talent to live out those fantasies the way, Pinckney did for Villanova in 1985.

John Daly did it at the PGA Championship in 1991, when he got into the field as the ninth alternate and never flinched with the lead on Sunday on his way to a historic win. Twelve years later, Ben Curtis was ranked 396th in the world when he found himself fighting Vijay Singh, Thomas Bjorn, Davis Love III and Tiger Woods for the Open Championship at Royal St. George’s. The kid had no chance against those guys. Except he won.

A month later, Shaun Micheel, who hadn’t won a PGA Tour event, hit a 7-iron to six inches on the 18th hole at Oak Hill to clinch the 2003 PGA. “I just told myself, ‘You’ve hit this shot thousands of times; this is no different,’ ” Micheel told me years later. “I wasn’t thinking about the circumstances, I was just playing golf. It’s what I do.”

Exactly.

This is what they do, what they’ve trained to do, and what they’ve dreamed about. They all know what’s at stake, which is why it is so critical to—as the cliché goes—stay in the present.

If Lashley had started picturing himself with the trophy or hugging his sister or with the check for $1.314 million or teeing it up at the Masters next April, he surely would have started spraying shots all over the place. It happens to everyone at some point.

As Gary Woodland walked up the 18th hole at Pebble Beach 15 days ago, knowing he had a two-shot lead in the U.S. Open, he reminded himself of what had happened to him on Maui six months earlier. “I birdied 14 for a three-shot lead and thought to myself, I’ve got this,” Woodland said. “Next thing I know, Xander [Schauffele] is making eagle at 18, and I end up losing by one. You can’t let yourself think the golf tournament is over until the ball is in the hole at 18.”

Lashley was in the very unusual position of actually being able to let down a little on the 18th hole with that massive lead. As Jim Nantz pointed out during the CBS broadcast, “he needs a 9 here to win.” That was with Lashley’s tee shot already in the fairway. One swing and two putts later, he had joined the club of players who go from nonexempt to “having a job for the next two years,” as the players like to call the exemption that comes with a victory.

More important, it means you’ve achieved something you’ve dreamed about almost from the moment you pick up a club as a kid. Sure, no one stands in the gloaming on the putting green and says, “This to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic,” or for that matter, any other weekly event on tour. It’s always to win the Masters or the U.S. Open.

But when you grow up and understand how hard it is to make a living playing golf, lining up that putt to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic or the Puerto Rico Open or, in Long’s case, the Desert Classic, you bet any of them is huge.

Long celebrates after making the winning putt to grab his ‘unlikely’ win at the Desert Classic in January. (Donald Miralle)

Long’s victory in Palm Springs in January might have been the most remarkable of all the first-timers this season. He had played in five PGA Tour events before that day and had made one cut. He found himself in the last group on Sunday and spent the entire afternoon listening to the army of Phil Mickelson supporters cheer their hero’s every move, and an almost-as-loud assemblage of Canadian fans backing Adam Hadwin.

“I kind of felt like I was in the shadows all day,” Long said when it was over.

And yet, he stood on the 18th green with a 20-foot putt to win, a putt he’d made hundreds of times before in his life. And, just like Pinckney all those years ago, he nailed it.

Before Saturday’s third round in Detroit, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee said of Lashley, who was starting the day with a one-shot lead: “We’re going to find out a lot about Nate Lashley today.”

Lashley shot 63. We learned a lot about him. My guess is he knew it all along.

The post Rejoice in ‘out-of-nowhere’ winners like Nate Lashley, but appreciate they’ve prepped for such moments their entire lives appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Now, finally, there was joy.

On Sunday, the 36-year-old journeyman, ranked 353rd in the world and the last player into the Rocket Mortgage Classic, was a winner for the first time on the PGA Tour after a six-stroke romp at Detroit Golf Club. He has a job on the game’s biggest stage for the next two years. A spot in next month’s Open Championship at Portrush awaits, an invitation to next year’s Masters and a trip to Maui in between, among other perks. Pretty sweet for a guy with just one previous career top-10 on the PGA Tour in 32 starts.

But there was also pain.

Everybody in golf has a story. Lashley’s is as incredible as it is gut-wrenching. When he was a 21-year-old junior at the University of Arizona, his parents, Charlene and Rod, along with his girlfriend, Leslie Hofmeister, were killed when the single-engine Cessna that Rod was piloting crashed near Wyoming’s tallest mountain. The three were flying in bad weather, returning home to Nebraska after watching Nate play in the NCAA West Regional at Crosswater Club in Sunriver, Ore. Earlier on May 23, 2004, in 30-mph winds, Nate had gone two under on his final nine holes, punctuated by a long birdie on the last, to help the Wildcats advance to nationals. When neither his parents nor his girlfriend called that night, or the following morning, Lashley became concerned. One of his coaches phoned the FAA and some local airports. Three days later, rescue crews found the plane. Everyone had perished.

That tragic event had been mentioned often in Lashley’s up-and-down career. He’d met questions with mostly stoic, matter-of-fact responses. Perhaps it was out of necessity; how does one endure and move on from such horror? Survival of the fittest, or mentally toughest, anyway.

“It took me a long time to get over my parents’ death,” Lashley said on Sunday. “Mentally, it was holding me back for a long time.”

Gregory Shamus
Lashley never flinched on Sunday, finishing with a six-stroke win after starting the day with the same size lead.

How could it not? Off the course, the little parts of day-to-day life became difficult. On it, Lashley was always feeling like something was going to go wrong. He could have quit the team or even quit school. There would have been no shame in that. Instead, he returned to become Arizona’s top player, earned All-American honours, graduated and turned pro.

Still, things were hard. Lashley played on the Nationwide Tour (now Korn Ferry Tour) in 2006 but made just two cuts in 14 starts. His career spiralled from there, down to mini-tours to giving up the game for six months in 2012, when he got into real estate and tried flipping houses.

But he never really quit, and after a couple more years in golf’s hinterlands, he qualified for PGA Tour Latinoamerica in 2015, where he finished eighth on the money list. The next year, he won three times on the developmental circuit and was named its Player of the Year. That got him a Web.com Tour card for 2017, and from there he went on to win the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship, finish 11th on the money list and earn a PGA Tour card for 2018.

“It was nice to take a few months off, and by taking those few months off and doing some other stuff, I realized golf’s a lot of fun. It’s a blessing to be able to come out here and compete,” Lashley said. “Especially now playing at the highest level, I’m glad I stuck it out.”

The perseverance paid off, but there were still obstacles to clear.

In 2018, Lashley’s season was cut short by a knee injury, which resulted in him starting this year on a minor medical extension. When he failed to fulfill it, that meant playing out of the 126-150 category—and ultimately it meant being an alternate for the Rocket Mortgage Classic. He tried to Monday qualify for the tournament but failed, missing out on a playoff by two strokes before getting in anyway.

Once in the field at Detroit Golf Club, Lashley made the most of the opportunity and was buoyed by a pair of 63s, in the first and third rounds. At one point, he went 39 straight holes without a bogey.

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Lashley embraces girlfriend Ashlie Reed (L) and sister Brooke after closing out his win.

Leading by six going into the final round, though, he still couldn’t help but be nervous. A birdie at the first and another on the third mostly took care of that. The lead never got smaller than four strokes, with Lashley appearing in complete control rather than like a golfer playing with a 54-hole lead for the first time on the PGA Tour.

On the walk up the 18th, the emotion and enormity of all he had been through finally hit him, and he finally let it all out, with his sister, Brooke, and girlfriend, Ashley, among other friends and family, there to cry along with him.

“I think about my parents all the time,” Lashley said. “And thinking about them today, I was getting a little emotional. Walking up 18, even before I hit my second shot, [I was] thinking about my parents, because without them I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

The long nightmare was over.

“I mean, I wasn’t even sure I was going to get into the tournament,” he said. “Ending up being in here right now, it’s a dream.”

The post Nate Lashley’s first PGA Tour win ends with joy after so much pain appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
In 32 career starts on the PGA Tour, Nate Lashley has zero wins and has finished in the top 10 only once, and that result came in an opposite-field event earlier this season at the Puerto Rico Open. On Sunday, he’ll enter the final round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic with a six-shot lead following his second round of nine-under 63 on Saturday at Detroit Golf Club.

Lashley, 36, does have previous winning experience, his lone professional victory coming at the 2017 Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour. He’s made only one bogey this week, and his 24 total birdies are the most of any player in the field.

While the tournament is not over yet, Sunday could very well be a victory lap for Lashley, whose heartbreaking backstory came to light following his Korn Ferry Tour win in 2017. During his junior year at the University of Arizona in 2004, Lashley’s parents and his girlfriend visited him in Oregon while he competed in the 2004 NCAA West Regional. Afterwards, Lashley returned to Arizona, while his parents and girlfriend flew back to his hometown of Scottsbluff, Neb. Days later, Lashley was informed that they had been killed in a plane crash near Gannett Peak in Wyoming.

“It was pretty tough for quite a while, definitely for a few years,” Lashley told the Lake County News Sun in 2016. “I tried to use golf in college as something to do other than always think about it. Golf is very mental. It was difficult to play and tough because you always are going to think about it.”

Fifteen years and one month later, Lashley has a chance to notch is very first PGA Tour win.

The next closest competitor is J.T Poston, who fired a six-under 66 to reach 17-under 199. Cameron Tringale is alone in third at 16 under, while Patrick Reed is in solo fourth at 15 under.

The post Nate Lashley posts second 63 of the week, leads by six at the Rocket Mortgage Classic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.