Moore was the only player to move from outside that bubble to inside, and his rise meant someone had to fall. That someone was China’s Carl Yuan, whose T-68 finish wasn’t quite enough to hold off Moore. Yuan dropped from 125th to 126th, just a single point behind Troy Merritt in 125th place.

For Moore, the highlight came at 17, when he holed a 12-foot birdie putt that put him definitively over the line.

“I thought I needed that birdie on 17 to get it done, or at least one in those last two,” he said. “I somehow just made that one go in. Fortunately that went in and I was able to sneak in a two-putt there on 18 and just secure it.”

Moore started the fall far outside the cutoff, but a new caddie and a new set of irons refreshed his perspective, and gave him the chance on Sunday to seize control of his year.

“As someone with a family that likes to spend as much time at home as I can, just being able to plan out your weeks is huge,” he said. When asked about his nerves on the closing stretch, he added, “I’m not gonna lie, it was close to what I felt trying to win a golf tournament coming down the stretch. It means a lot.”

Further down the points list, Vince Whaley and Kelly Kraft were able to rise into the top 50 with a T-13 and T-19 finish, respectively. That was bad news for Satoshi Kodaira and Stewart Cink, who dropped beneath that threshold despite both making the cut at the RSM. Cink will have status next season by virtue of his win at the 2021 RBC Heritage, but Kodaira is not so fortunate.

“It’s just super stressful,” Kraft said after his round. “You never want to be in this position, let alone I’m fighting to stay inside the top-150 because I played so terrible the first half of the year. Would have been a little more fun trying to stay inside the 125, but the way I played for most of the year until really towards the end and then now the fall, I played terrible and I kind of deserved to lose my card after playing that way.”

Still, Kraft was grateful for not falling all the way down, and spoke of what it meant to be inside the top 150.

“It means you still get starts out here,” he said. “You’re not picking your schedule, but I’ve had a lot of buddies that have played out of the 150 category and played well enough to get back in that 125 for the next year. So you just have to be ready to play. You’re not going to get in as many tournaments, which actually sounds kind of nice because I’m tired of playing 32 tournaments a year or whatever. Maybe a forced week or two off every once in a while wouldn’t be so bad.”

The other big prize up for grabs was a spot in the so-called “Next 10,” positions number 50-60, which confer entry into the first two signature events of next season, Pebble Beach and Riviera, and all the money up for grabs there. With his victory, Ludvig Aberg rose from 96th to 53rd to join that club, while Luke List, Sam Ryder, and JJ Spaun managed to stay inside the cutoff with top-20 finishes. Aberg displaced Alex Smalley, who fell from 57th to 61st with a t-44 showing at the RSM.

Spaun in particular had a clutch day, shooting 63 early to stake his claim on one of the final spots.

“I didn’t have the greatest of Thursday and Friday and turned it on on the weekend,” he said. “I really like this course and it fits my game, so I did what I needed to do as best I could have. Maybe I left a few out there, but also can’t really say that because certain putts dropped that shouldn’t have anyway…it’s out of my hands at this point.”

In the non-member category, Peter Kuest and Ryan Gerard came into the week with a chance to post a higher point total than No. 125 on the list, which would grant them full status. Gerard missed the cut, and while Kuest had a better chance, two straight weekend 66s left him in a tie for 13th place; he needed a tie for third or better to reach the 441 points necessary.

It was a day of triumph and heartbreak, but it was also a day of relief. Andrew Novak had told his best friend K.J. Spencer two years ago that he should hold his wedding in the fall, since the stress would be off Novak at that point in the season and he could be in the wedding without a problem. As it happened, the Tour’s format changed, and Novak spent this fall in a state of constant stress as he fought to keep his card. He debated whether he should still go to the wedding or not, and decided to honor his obligation by skipping the tournament in Mexico.

“I kind of bet on myself,” he said. “The entire time I was feeling a lot of stress this whole fall.”

Novak made the cut without much room to spare, and finished low on the leaderboard at T-73, but it was enough; he retained his card, and he doesn’t care if he had to limp to the finish. As he said Sunday afternoon, he’s playing at the pinnacle of his sport, and now he gets to do it for another year.

Image: Gregory Shamus

The post Ryan Moore snags PGA Tour card at the last moment, plus other winners and losers from the season finale appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Ryan Moore has opted out of this week’s PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park. In itself, not surprising: Due to myriad concerns, COVID-19 safety chief among them, Moore was the 12th player to withdraw from the proceedings as of Monday afternoon.

Moore’s stated reasoning for pulling out, however, is something you don’t see at such a prestigious event.

On Monday, the PGA of America announced Moore was out of the field due to a “scheduling conflict.”

Now, it’s not the first time a player couldn’t make the PGA due to previous engagements. Ben Hogan famously passed on the 1953 PGA Championship after winning the Masters and U.S. Open earlier in the year. Although the Hawk did have a noble reason: The Open Championship overlapped with the PGA, and Hogan decided to go for the claret jug instead of the Wanamaker (which he won, completing a triple crown season).

However, Moore was already in the area, playing at the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, Calif., just three hours away from San Francisco.

Moore’s camp told Golf Digest’s Brian Wacker that Moore didn’t want to play both the Barracuda and PGA, and listed as ninth alternate for the PGA at the beginning of last week, decided to play in the Barracuda. When he ultimately got into the Harding Park field, Moore decided to pass, sticking to his original plan. Instead he is opting for rest in hopes for a FedEx Cup postseason run.

Moore will be replaced by Xinjun Zhang, who will be making his major championship debut at Harding Park. Alex Noren is now the next alternate.

The post This is one of the oddest WD reasons you’ll see at a major championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Kevin Tway plays golf with a voice in his ear, one capable of alternately cajoling or critiquing or even cursing, and, on this day probably, crying. The voice has a name, too. Tway calls him Dad.

Father Bob Tway was the winner of the PGA Championship in 1986, the most memorable of his eight career tour victories. He holed a bunker shot on the 72nd hole to beat Greg Norman by two strokes.

“I always have him right here on my shoulder,” Kevin said at the Northern Trust Open in August. Kevin taps into his father having “played at the highest level for 30 years,” calls it “a good tool to have.”

They talk every night, he said, though on Sunday night, Kevin might have left him speechless.

Kevin, 30, won the Safeway Open with a closing series of clutch golf, including his holing a 12-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to beat Ryan Moore at the Silverado Resort in Napa, Calif., after making birdies on the 17th and 18th holes in regulation.

It was Kevin’s first PGA Tour victory, coming in his 91st start. He had never finished better than third before.

“He always told me I had the talent,” Kevin said of his father. “I don’t think I believed him until now.”

RELATED: How much money every player earned at the Safeway Open

Golf is a sport in which fathers pass down their passion, playing with their sons and daughters, but in the history of the PGA Tour only 10 fathers and their sons have now each won tournaments. The Tways become the first since Kevin Stadler won the Waste Management Phoenix Open in 2014 to join dad Craig Stadler as tour winners.

“I think he’s probably crying, to be honest,” Kevin said when asked what his father’s reaction might be in the immediate aftermath of his son’s victory. “He’s pretty proud of me. It’s been a long road, but this is why you work hard right here.”

Other factors are involved, too, and on a windy Sunday, Brandt Snedeker was among them. It was his tournament to lose and he did just that, squandering what once was a five-stroke lead on the back nine, shooting a final-round 74 and winding up in the playoff with Tway and Moore. The latter two each birdied the first playoff hole, the par-5 18th, while Snedeker parred it to end his bid.

Tway and Moore again birdied the 18th, the second playoff hole, and moved over to the par-4 10th. Each hit the fairway, but Moore’s second came up just short of the green and he made par. Tway, outwardly calm, unnaturally so for one in uncharted territory, followed with his winning birdie putt, his fifth straight when you add the two to finish regulation and three in the playoff.

“It felt amazing,” Tway said afterward. “I wanted to do a little more, but thought it might look weird with a fist pump.”

He did a small one. Act like you’ve been there before, they say in sports, and Tway did so, perhaps guided by the demeanor with which he plays.

“Honestly, I was just trying to hit good shots,” he said. “Trying not to think about it. I stayed patient in the regular round. Kind of got hot at the end. Birdied the last five holes, actually [two in regulation, three in the playoff]. That always helps. I’m kind of at a loss for words. I’m pretty happy.”

That makes two of them, Kevin and the man he listens to more than any other, the man on his shoulder with the voice in his ear.

The post Kevin Tway’s victory in the Safeway Open is a father-son affair appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 17-year-old Dubai-based Indian amateur No.1 was two-under at the turn in his opening round at Skokie Country Club but eventually mixed five birdies with as many bogeys (including dropped shots on 16 and 18) to sign for an even par 71. It left the dual Dubai Creek and Emirates GC member, ranked 66^th in the official world amateur rankings, in a 17-way share of 49^th place in the 156-player field.

The leading 44 players and ties after today’s second round advance to Thursday’s final 36 holes of stroke play. Thereafter, the top 16 progress to the ‘Sweet 16’, the historic event’s match play phase to be decided over Friday and Saturday.

Thomas tees it up at 8.40am (5.40pm UAE time) today and surviving the first cut would be another huge confidence boost after he missed the match play phase of The (British) Amateur in Northern Ireland by a solitary stroke before becoming the first Indian to progress to the semifinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur at Flint Hills GC in Kansas last month (he was beaten 5&4 by eventual runner-up, Texan Noah Goodwin).

Thomas moved inside the top 1000 of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) on the back of his U.S. Junior Amateur performance. To put his 972^nd rating into context, injury-sidelined former world No.1 Tiger Woods is currently ranked 1046^th.

The Emirates Golf Federation star is five shots adrift of the Western Am’s overnight leaders – Americans Stephen Franken, Dawson Armstrong and Collin Morikawa, Australian Ruben Sondjaja and New Zealander Nick Voke – and a sub-par round is likely to do the job Wednesday. Among other notable scores, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo shot 80 in his first big amateur event while defending champion Dylan Meyer ( Indiana), made two bogeys over his final five holes to finish with a 72. Morikawa is the world No.2 and 2013 Western Am champion while Armstrong captured the 2015 edition of the tournament first played in 1899.

The Western Am is one of the most prestigious events on the amateur calendar. Past champions include Francis Ouimet, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Chris DiMarco, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard, Woods, Ryan Moore and Danny Lee.

Catch the first round highlights here:

The post Thomas walking a knife-edge at Western Amateur in the US appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

PGA Tour pros are right there with the weekend hacker when it comes to fickleness with their flat sticks. If these guys are good (and they are) then the old adage that “it’s a poor workman who blames his tools” doesn’t hold water when it comes to a players’ work on the greens.

That includes last week at the Masters, where no fewer than eight players—including Ryan Moore—changed putters the week of a major. Why would they do that? The reasons for swapping putters are varied.

Some players prefer certain types of putters on particular types of grasses. Others simply are looking for a change of scenery that might break them out of a slump. But whatever the reason, there’s one thing all players should consider before banishing one flat stick to the basement in favor of another: The move is likely to cause subtle changes in your stroke as different putters can behave differently given changes in toe hang or moment of inertia. In other words, don’t throw your old putter in the lake.

—E. Michael Johnson/@EMichaelGW

Photograph by Getty Images

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