“I just got a text this morning, so I don’t know much about it,” said Peter Malnati while speaking to the press at this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. “Obviously, I know that Lexi at times has been one of the top players on the LPGA Tour, and she’s obviously very athletic. Distance won’t be a problem. She’ll hit it far enough.

“My gut reaction when I saw that was like the tournament reaching to try to get — just trying to drum up interest. I think I understand that, if that is the case.”

Malnati, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, went on to say that the tour doesn’t need to “resort to gimmicks” and that he was surprised by the move.

Immediately, though, Malnati corrected himself.

?? Peter Malnati calls Lexi Thompson a ''Gimmick'' and then quickly retracts statement. pic.twitter.com/prCiPQsfQn

— PGA Bonus (@PGABonus) October 5, 2023

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Malnati continued. “I don’t know that having Lexi play is a gimmick, but I don’t think the tournaments are going to have to go to those kind of lengths to drum up interest and get storylines that they can sell because I think these events are actually going to have a lot of meaning.

“Like I said, change is hard for everyone at every level, so I assume if you’re a host organisation of a tournament … you just don’t know right now for sure what you have anymore because the fall is completely reimagined.”

Malnati isn’t sure how Thompson will fare next week, but he does know that she has the talent to make the cut and keep things interesting.

“Having Lexi play certainly will get a lot of headlines, and if that’s the goal for Shriners and the host organisation in Vegas there, that’s great,” Malnati said while choosing his words carefully. “Obviously, she’s a professional athlete. She’s accomplished a lot.”

Thompson competing on the PGA Tour will be the first for a woman athlete since Brittany Lincicome accepted a sponsor exemption for the Barbasol Championship back in 2018. We’ll find out soon enough if she gets paired with Peter Malnati.

Main image: Kate McShane/R&A

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By Christopher Powers
It may look like a laid-back affair on television, but make no mistake, there is a lot on the line for many players competing at this week’s Bermuda Championship. You’re going to hear “a good finish here could set (insert player) up for the rest of the season” this week, which is absolutely true.

Here are our takeaways from Day 1 in Bermuda.

Peter Malnati sounds extremely confident
Self-belief is a prerequisite to make it on the PGA Tour. Peter Malnati has plenty of it right now. Understandable given the run he’s on. Since the final round of last month’s Sanderson Farms, where he wound up finishing in solo second, the 33-year-old has gone 63-66-62-71-66-63 on tour. The 66 helped him post a second-straight top five, at the Shriners, and the second 63 came on Thursday at the Bermuda Championship, which he leads alone after 18 holes. The 2015 Sanderson winner says he’s had stretches like this in the past, but they’ve been few and far between. This latest run of form, however, feels different than the others.

“When I finished second in Jackson, and then fifth the next week in Vegas, those both felt awesome and fantastic. But it didn’t feel at all exceptional,” Malnati said. “It felt like, this is what I’ve worked to do to develop this. So that feels pretty good, I feel like I can still keep building.”

When asked if Port Royal, this week’s host site, fits his eye, that’s when Malnati started to sound really confident in himself.

“Right now you could put me anywhere and I’d feel good, I’d feel like the course would suit my game,” Malnati said. “We talk a lot about horses for courses, but the reason Tiger was a horse on so many courses was because any course suited him, you know what I mean? Playing like this, any course could suit me.”

Much work still to be done for Malnati, but he sure sounds like a guy ready to win again, five years after getting his first victory.

Gregory Shamus
Ollie Schniederjans plays a shot on the ninth hole during the first round of the 2020 Bermuda Championship.

Pair of former top-ranked amateurs are in the hunt
Back when they were in college, Doug Ghim and Ollie Schniederjans were both highly touted amateurs. They each reached the top of the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Ghim in 2018 while at Texas and Schniederjans in 2014 at Georgia Tech. In addition to a laundry list of impressive amateur achievements, Ghim earned low-am honors at the 2018 Masters, which he earned an invitation to via his runner-up at the U.S. Amateur. Schniederjans, No. 1 in the amateur ranking for 41 weeks, collected five top 10s, including a third and a second, in his first full season on the PGA Tour in 2017. Both players were expected to produce right away, and they seemed to be doing just that.

But the tour-pro life has a way of bringing some guys down to earth rather quickly. Plus, with all the other young talent making their mark quickly, it’s easy to forget about guys like Ghim and Schniederjans. It doesn’t help that both have struggled, Ghim failing to post a top 10 in 30 career PGA Tour starts and Schniederjans having to go to the Korn Ferry Tour after a lean season on the PGA Tour in 2019.

This week presents an opportunity for both to reintroduce themselves to the golf world, and they’re off to good starts. Ghim opened with a bogey-free, seven-under 64, while Schniederjans posted a five-under 66. Would be good to see them build on their strong Thursdays over the next two days, and perhaps get themselves in contention on Sunday.

Gregory Shamus
Doc Redman opened with a 65 at Port Royal as he aims to win his first PGA Tour title.

Speaking of former top amateurs …
Doc Redman, the guy who actually won that U.S. Amateur over Ghim, is in the mix as well thanks to a first-round 65 that featured an opening-nine 29. Any talk of a 59 watch was quelled with a bogey at the par-3 third, his 12th, but Redman did well to keep his round together, finishing with six straight pars. Based off his recent close calls, and his overall game, a lot of folks were high on the former Clemson Tiger pre-tournament. It’s far too early to spike the football, but he’s making the prognosticators look good so far.

Gregory Shamus
A five-under 66 from Hunter Mahan in the opening round of the Bermuda Championship was his lowest score in more than 14 months in a PGA Tour event.

Hunter Mahan? Yup. Hunter Mahan.
If you’re looking for a redemption story—which events like the Bermuda Championship often provide—boy do we have some good news for you. Hunter Mahan, yes, THE Hunter Mahan, the Hunter Mahan who has six PGA Tour wins and was once as high as No. 4 in the OWGR, was tied for seventh at the completion of Round 1 on Thursday. The 38-year-old (he’s 38?! Man I feel old) shot a five-under 66, his lowest score since the second round of the 2019 Wyndham Championship.

Coming into this week, Mahan had missed the cut or withdrew in 14 of his last 16 PGA Tour starts, with a high finish of T-45 in one of the two cuts he made. Since August 2015, he has one—ONE—top 10 on tour. It’s the slump of all slumps, the drought of all droughts. That’s actually putting it kindly. He’s looked completely finished the last five seasons. But one good week in Bermuda can erase all the bad memories of the last half decade. For a player who was once among the best in the world, it has likely been a very difficult stretch both mentally and physically. To not root for him to come out of it is just plain cruel. Go, Hunter, Go.

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By Christopher Powers
For much of the afternoon, it looked as though Peter Malnati had done enough to claim his second Sanderson Farms Championship, or at least done enough to earn a spot in a playoff. However, Sergio Garcia, who had not won on the PGA Tour since the 2017 Masters, was able to fend off Malnati with a furious final five holes, ending the tournament with an impressive flourish on the 18th.

Here are our takeaways from the 2020 Sanderson Farms Championship.

Sergio Garcia wins in stunning fashion

All week in Mississippi, the story was Sergio Garcia’s eyes-closed putting technique, as it should have been. Garcia, a notoriously bad putter, had found something that was working, and then said he had been doing it for a few years now (the jury is still out on that). But it didn’t matter if he started it three years ago or this week at the Country Club of Jackson. It was working, and it was working well now, so it was obviously going to be a big topic.

However, Sergio fittingly wound up winning this tournament on Sunday thanks to his irons, the best clubs in his bag for his entire 20-plus-year career as a pro. Yes, he did still putt quite well during his final-round 67, the best he had all week actually, but the deciding shot came with an iron. Here was the stunning moment on the 72nd hole:

A perfect shot at the perfect time. ? @TheSergioGarcia needs birdie on the 72nd hole to win @Sanderson_Champ.

He just did this … pic.twitter.com/z6UoP8txvC

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 4, 2020

A good-looking shot? Try phenomenal. Try tournament-ending. It came from 171 yards out, and it set up the easiest putt of the week for the 40-year-old Spaniard (we still have trouble believing El Niño is 40). Eyes closed or not, that one was going in, and it gave him his first PGA Tour win since the 2017 Masters. He did win on the European Tour almost exactly one year ago at the KLM Open, but even with that victory Garcia still dropped out of the top 50 of the OWGR for the first time in nearly a decade. A timely win, and more importantly, a special one, as Garcia explained.

“It’s pretty sweet,” Garcia said. “There’s no doubt. I was fortunate enough to win a couple times in Europe, so Azalea [Garcia’s daughter] could see it, but not Enzo [Garcia’s son]. But now both Azalea and Enzo can see me win in the U.S., which is amazing. I don’t know if Enzo will recall it. But it’s great, obviously a lot of hard work, my whole family, Angela, Azalea, Enzo, my family in Spain. Everyone around, it’s been tough, I lost two uncles to COVID, so it’s been tough on my dad. This one was for them.”

Sam Greenwood

Poor Peter Malnati (well, not really)

On the PGA Tour, second place can often be as good as first, but to lose in the way Peter Malnati lost, after shooting a nine-under 63 and waiting more than 90 minutes for the leaders to finish their rounds. It had to be crushing, no?

Well, not for Malnati, who wouldn’t show that he was upset with the outcome even if he was. Before the outcome was determined, he remained as jovial as ever and seemed happy he had locked up a top 10 (at this point, he was leading alone by two strokes).

“It’s funny, I mean, this game … this is my dream job, and I get to do it every day, and it beats me up and it’s so hard, and the competition out here is so strong, and you fail so much,” Malnati said. “To have a day like today … I mean, I have no idea the outcome. There are a lot of birdie opportunities on the back nine, but what I did out there today felt like … it just felt awesome. I feel like I won the tournament. I probably won’t, but I feel like I did, and it’s amazing.”

This attitude from Malnati, one of the ultimate good guys on tour, is not surprising at all. It’s also not surprising considering this is his best finish on the PGA Tour in a very, very long time. Since 2016, he has just one top 10, and since his Sanderson Farms Championship win in 2015, his next best finish was a T-6 later that same year at the Tournament of Champions. So yeah, he’s pretty pumped about the runner-up this week.

“I knew better … of course I was five back going into the day. I knew I loved this golf course. I knew I’d been playing really well and feeling like I was this close to a low one. So I knew that everything could line up to be in a position, but I really wasn’t thinking about a number at all. I definitely fell out of that top 125 category last season, didn’t play particularly well, so I’m actually not in the field for Vegas next week [Shriners Hospitals for Children Open], and I actually wanted to play there, so I was thinking about the top 10 a little bit, and it looks like I’m going to get that.”

Sam Greenwood

Keegan Bradley almost overcame an ugly Saturday front nine

For 63 holes, you could argue Keegan Bradley was the best player in this field this week. But an ugly front-nine 39 on Saturday might cause him to lose plenty of sleep these next few days. Bradley finished at 15 under, four shots back of Garcia. It goes to show how a rough three-hole stretch in these birdie fests can be so crushing. Bradley knows that better than anyone.

Sam Greenwood

Stay hot, Stewart Cink

Because of the craziness of the U.S. Open, it was easy to forget Stewart Cink just picked up his first victory on the PGA Tour since the 2009 Open Championship at the Safeway Open. Three weeks later, Cink kept the good form going at the Sanderson. The 47-year-old shot a seven-under 65 on Sunday to finish at 13 under for the week, locking up a T-12 finish. Even better, he did it with his son Reagan on the bag once again, though it sounds like this was the end of the father-son run, as Cink plans to go back to veteran Kip Henley, who took over Cink’s bag last August. Had Stewart and Reagan finished top five, Reagan may have been back next week at TPC Summerlin.

“I don’t want Reagan to … he’s a great caddie,” Cink said. “He’s doing a great job, but I don’t think I want him to become a caddie. He’s just a little bit too good at doing this to where I think if he keeps going he might find a home out here. He’s already had offers from other players … I’m joking. He hasn’t.”

Great stuff. It’s a shame there was no Open Championship this summer. Perhaps Cink could have capitalized on this late-career resurgence in a major. Maybe next year.

The post Sergio Garcia wins in stunning fashion and three other Sunday takeaways from the Sanderson Farms appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The national anthem protests, sparked by Colin Kaepernick’s demonstration a year ago, have impelled countless responses from the sporting landscape. However, for the most part, the golf arena has been silent on the issue. But, following President Donald Trump’s weekend comments on players taking a knee — words that were construed as inflaming and schismatic by the NFLPA and countless NBA players, including LeBron James and Chris Paul — Peter Malnati responded to the matter, becoming one of the first professional golfers to speak out on the debate.

“Though athletic rivalries divide us playfully, sport unite us,” Malnati wrote on Twitter. “It has an amazing power to transcend differences that everyday life cannot.”

Acknowledging Trump’s words will lead to divisive responses, Malnati implored his followers to look within, asking themselves what the flag represents to them. The 30-year-old asserted, to those against players kneeling, to put their protests in a different context.

“Those who kneel during the national anthem aren’t disrespecting the heroes who sacrificed to defend the United States,” Malnati said. “Those who kneel are pointing out that as a nation, we are not doing a good job of upholding the values for which people sacrificed.”

What are the "American values" for which you stand? My thoughts on #TakeAKnee: pic.twitter.com/uMA9FJpld6

— Peter Malnati (@PeterMalnati) September 24, 2017

Malnati also took a pointed shot at the Trump White House. “The current administration in Washington has made it very clear they don’t want the United States to be a nation that cares for those on the margins of society. Or a nation that celebrates freedom and equality.”

Malnati, who’s fully exempt on tour for next season, finished his note with a personal declaration.

“I stand for freedom. I stand for ‘justice for all.’ I stand for equality, for empathy, and for compassion.

“I kneel to hubris and greed. Therefore, I take a knee for the flag that represents this administration. Not because I don’t love this country, but because I do.”

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