“I love the course,” he said of the Country Club of Jackson, Missouri, where he has a scoring average of 67.91 in 11 rounds. He equalled the best score of the day in the third round on Saturday, a seven-under par 65 that placed him in a tie for sixth, five shots behind leader Ben Griffin.

Champ, 28, a three-time PGA Tour winner, had missed 17 cuts in his previous 24 starts and has fallen to 288th in the World Ranking.

“I think everything today kind of came together,” he said. “It was nice and smooth. I just felt like I had control of my ball, and then on the greens I’ve been confident. Obviously if I can drive it well here, it definitely sets me up, and I’ve been able to do that so far.

“Today I think I finally took advantage of that. The first day, I felt like I didn’t make as many putts. Even yesterday was kind of iron play and chipping around the greens. I hit some decent shots in front of par-5s and just into-the-grain chips I kind of struggled with those yesterday, but today I was fine. If I can just do that, kind of go about my day like I did today, we’ll just see where I stand after.”

Another measure of his lethargic play is that he is 145th in the FedEx Cup Fall Standings. He intends to play virtually every week from here on out to the end of the year in an effort to improve his position.

“I think I’m in a good space right now,” he said. “The game has been good. It’s just a matter of allowing myself to be able to play and kind of just get out of my way. This week it’s been a nice fresh kind of start, and like I said, just try to play my game, and I know if I do that, I’ll be perfectly fine. This game is already hard enough, so we definitely don’t need to make it harder on ourselves.

“I’m just going to go out there the same as I have this week and just stay within myself, play my game, and hopefully we get some good results.”

Main image: Jonathan Bachman

The post Cameron Champ (remember him?) is back in contention at the Sanderson Farms Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The PGA Tour professional had a splendid opening round, if you don’t count the fact that he fell into a creek. But he still managed to make one of the best pars of the year. These guys are good.

The former trick-shot artist’s adventure — fortunately, the PGA Tour had extra cameras rolling because Bryan is part of a behind-the-scenes show called “The Turn” — began with his second shot on the par-5 14th hole at the Country Club of Jackson. Going for the green in two, Bryan pulled a fairway wood wayyy left to wind up in a tricky spot.

But Bryan showed off some impressive athleticism by leaping over the water and then hitting a remarkable, blind recovery shot to the back fringe. “I heard one ‘great’. Oh, I hear claps, now what?” Bryan says in the video before being informed where his golf ball wound up. However, this saga was just getting started.

Deciding he couldn’t leap back over the creek, Bryan removed his shoes and began to wade into the water. But then he fell on his butt. “Oh God,” he said. “What a disaster.” With some assistance from his caddie, Bryan made his way back to the hole and two-putted for a wild par with his mud-stained trousers rolled up to his knees (apparently that’s allowed on tour even if shorts still aren’t). Have a look for yourself:

This would be categorized as an adventurous par ?‍@WesleyBryanGolf's first round:

1 eagle
3 birdies
1 "disaster"
0 bogeys pic.twitter.com/UbOvUBNv85

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 5, 2023

Good stuff, Wes. And, hey, at least he didn’t ruin those white shoes.

What’s no laughing matter is the position Bryan finds himself in as he battles to try to keep his PGA Tour card. The 33-year-old enters this week 189th on the FedEx points list, meaning he only has a few more events to finish inside the top 125. So every shot matters a lot for him. Whether he’s wearing dry trousers or not.

Main image: Jonathan Bachman

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“We’re four weeks out,” Jent told the Montgomery Advertiser. “That’s our advantage, right? So we still have a month before the tournament so the city can get some things fixed.”

Besides the time left until the tournament — which begins September 29 — Jent says that the Country Club of Jackson, where the tournament is played, operates on its own self-sufficient water system with water supplied by an aquifer, and has not been impacted by the issues that have forced thousands of local residents to be without reliable running water and having to abide by a boil-water notice (a public statement advising people to boil their tap water before using it) since July 30.

With Mississippi having no teams in any of the four major American men’s sport leagues, the Sanderson Farms is one of the few significant professional sports events that comes to the state. The tournament’s economic impact last year was $15.7 million, Yolanda Clay-Moore, communications director for Visit Jackson, told the Montgomery Advertiser.

“While we are confident the Sanderson Farms Championship won’t be directly affected by the water crisis, the health and welfare of those in Greater Jackson remains a significant concern,”  a PGA Tour spokesperson wrote in a statement to Golf Digest. “We will remain in close contact with Executive Director Steve Jent and his tournament team on ways we can collaborate to assist those in need.”

The Sanderson Farms is the second event on the 2022-23 PGA Tour calendar and is the week after the Presidents Cup. A year ago, Louisiana native Sam Burns won the tournament, the first of his three victories in the 2021-22 season, by a shot over Cameron Young and Nick Watney.

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By Ryan Herrington
When he hung up the phone after Steve Stricker called last month breaking the news that he wasn’t going to be a captain’s pick for the 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup team, Sam Burns felt a twin set of emotions. “Definitely kind of gut-wrenching,” was how the 25-year-old Louisiana native characterised being one of the last players left off an American squad that went on to thump Europe, 19-9, at Whistling Straits.

Yet in the same breath, Burns noted the trait that has so many people so giddy about the prospects of American success in the event for years to come.

Said Burns: “I think it’s definitely motivated me to try to be on the next team and continue to improve and hopefully be on it the next go.”

Sure enough, in his next start after the Ryder Cup romp, the former college player of the year at LSU let the experience he gained from a successful 2020-21 season propel him to victory at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Amid a crowded leader board at the Country Club of Jackson (Miss.), Burns seized control of the tournament on the back nine Sunday, making four birdies in a five-hole stretch to breakaway with a closing 67 and claim his second PGA Tour title in six months.

While Burns had “only” one win to his credit during the super season (the Valspar Championship in May), he held the lead or a share at the end of 13 different rounds, the most of any player on tour.

“I think last year having those experiences around the lead, I think those were really important for me, I learned a lot,” Burns said. “Having that under my belt today, that experience was definitely helpful and coming down the stretch I felt a lot different than I have in the past and not necessarily more confident but just in a better state of mind and thinking process was much better. So, yeah, those experiences definitely helped.”

When prognosticators look at the talent-rich 2021 Ryder Cup team they note that, of course, not all of them will be in the same form in two years time when they’re heading to Rome. But that’s when they make comments about the solid young talent that’s waiting in the pipeline, players like Burns who fought hard all summer to get himself in position for a potential pick in 2021, only to fall short not because of a flawed resume but because the roster only has 12 spots. With the Sanderson victory, Burns moved up to 18th in the World Ranking.

Burns didn’t say how much he talked to the guys on Team USA in the aftermath of the victory to get a first-hand account of the moment. And he admitted only watching a little of it. (“I don’t necessarily watch a lot of golf,” he noted.) But the impression he left was clear. There is likely to be a trickledown effect of the U.S. victory among those who weren’t in Wisconsin to get to share a similar experience in Rome, a party that every top American hopes to be invited to.

The post Sam Burns is already having FOMO for the 2023 Ryder Cup appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The Yosemite Sam mustache is no more, the whiskers falling like leaves at the turn of the calendar. The outlaw disposition? Very, very much alive. While all eyes were elsewhere on welcoming the latest young gun to the sport, Sam Burns quietly and confidently captured the Sanderson Farms Championship.

“Yeah, I think it’s, it hasn’t really set in yet,” Burns said after a closing 67 on Sunday at the Country Club of Jackson (Miss.). “Still looking out there at the golf course like kind of trying to figure out what happened. Yeah, just very honoured to win here, being so close to home. It’s only 2½ hours from where I live now, and having friends and family here, it’s really cool and a special week and just really excited.”

Like most outlaws, Burns is not one that emotes or wants for attention, instead relying on the steady undercurrent of conviction to get him to where he wants to go. It is also far from blind faith: Burns is coming off a breakthrough 2020-21 season where he grabbed his first career PGA Tour victory along with eight top-10s. Though his game is complete (14th in strokes gained), the aforementioned stoicism belies a game that is among the more exciting follows on tour (fifth in birdie average, ninth in SG/putting). When Burns gets hot—which has been often as of late—it is a reminder that those inside the ropes can make this beautifully difficult sport look ridiculously easy.

So it may seem odd to claim Burns, 25 and the highest-ranked player in the Sanderson field at 25th, rolled into Sunday under the radar. He was in the penultimate group, one back of the 54-hole lead. But this round, this tournament was supposed to belong to someone else.

That someone was Sahith Theegala, the Pepperdine prodigy with a swing both graceful and fierce, like a bear taking a swipe at a picnic basket. Theegala, 23, was searching for a wire-to-wire win, a victory that would announce the former three-time All-American as the next “next big thing.” And through 63 holes that coronation was in play, the California native making the turn tied for the lead with Nick Watney. A bogey at the 10th, just Theegala’s second of the week and first since the fifth hole Thursday, did little to quell the belief that he was on a victory march, and a massive drive at the par-5 11th looked to atone for the 10th’s sins.

However, while this is a fall tournament that sits in the shadow of last week’s Ryder Cup spectacle, it is a PGA Tour event, where anything less than good is not good enough. On this day, the bravo of youth came out on the business end. After calling off his caddie’s suggestion to play his approach safely to the left side of the green, Theegala verbalized his intentions to go right at the pin … only for his approach to leak right into the water. He failed to get up-and-down to save par, with a missed 12-foot birdie at the 12th and three-jack from 15 feet at the 14th calling off the parade.

Sam Greenwood
Sahith Theegala couldn’t hold on to the lead on Sunday, but he looks to be a rookie on the rise.

Theegala’s future is bright, but even the brightest are occasionally tossed from the horse, and Sunday left him rubbing his rear end.

“I played some really good golf and just a little unfortunate how that sort of … that back nine … it’s my first one and first time really being in that position,” Theegala said after a 71 led to a T-8 finish in just his 14th career tour start. “So I’m obviously going to learn a lot and just take so many positives away and even the last few holes there I was proud of myself how I held it in there making a couple pars after I was already kind of out of contention, but overall fantastic week.”

Theegala’s struggles turned the Sanderson into a wide-open race. Among the crowd were:

• Watney, a former top-10 talent who entered the week outside the OWGR’s top 600.

• Cameron Young, a rookie who won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour’s superseason.

• Two-time tour winner Andrew Landry, journeyman Henrik Norlander and recent KFT grads Trey Mullinax and Hayden Buckley.

Norlander’s Sunday-best 64 took the clubhouse lead at 20 under, with Landry, Mullinax and Buckley finishing on that number as well, but the reins were soon surrendered to Watney. Making use of a one-time career money exemption this season, Watney shot a bogey-free 65 that was good enough for a four-day 21-under total. For the briefest of moments, it looked like the Year of the Comeback would carry into the fall’s new season.

However, as Watney was finishing up, Burns and Young were saddling up to a scorable stretch on the back nine. Young got it to 21 under but made a mess of the 14th, taking a 6 at the par 5, and though he followed with a birdie at the 15th, he couldn’t get any more red on his card.

Burns? Like a good gunslinger does, he did not miss his targets.

Now, let us not be a prisoner to revisionist history. Good as Burns has been in his nascent career, there have been a handful of squandered chances, and though such stumbles are expected at this level and especially for newcomers, you’re never quite sure how one will come out on the other side of the fire.

“I think last year having those experiences around the lead, I think those were really important for me, I learned a lot,” Burns said. “Having that under my belt today, that experience was definitely helpful and coming down the stretch I felt a lot different than I have in the past and not necessarily more confident but just in a better state of mind and thinking process was much better.”

It showed. Burns birdied the 11th, 13th, 14th and 15th, and did so in clinical fashion, his longest putt 13 feet. The analytics back up the optics, as Burns finished second in the field in approach and first in SG/off-the-tee.

“Yeah, I didn’t really look,” Burns said of scoreboard watching. “I made a comment to [my caddie] on the par-3, 13, can’t remember what I said, but he kind of snapped me back into it, back into what we were trying to do and so he was great all week and just keeping us in the moment and keeping us focused on our process. I didn’t really have necessarily a number coming into today. I thought it could be a few different numbers. I just think if we went out there and put a solid round together, I felt like we would have a really good chance.”

Sam Greenwood
It was obvious how much Burns enjoyed winning a tournament not too far from his hometown of Shreveport, La., as well as one in which he made his pro debut in 2017.

Frankly, there could have been more fireworks, but Burns’ flat stick—the tool that fueled so much success last season—was not feeling it in Mississippi: Out of the 68 players who made the cut, Burns finished 58th in SG/putting.

But missed birdie putts at the 16th and 17th only made the final results look closer than they appeared. Carrying a two-shot lead into the 18th with Theegala and Cameron Tringale out of the mix, Burns enjoyed a carefree trek up the final hole. A flared approach led to a bogey, but no matter: For the second time in five months Burns was a winner, topping Watney and Young by one.

The Sanderson’s bronze rooster joins the Valspar’s golden snake on Burns’ mantle and given the way things are going it’s easy to envision more prizes joining their ranks. That is all well and good, and ultimately may come to fruition. But while Sunday was a showcase for where Burns is and where he might be going, it also provided a chance to remember where he’s been. Burns began his career at the Sanderson in 2017, and hailing from Shreveport, La., just down the road, the tournament is about as much of a home game as he gets.

“Yeah, it’s definitely come full circle,” Burns said. “This is one of my favourite events on tour, I always enjoy coming here, being close to home and to give me that opportunity as a kid coming out of college, it was really special to me and it meant a lot to me and God willing I’ll be able to play here for the next 20 years and it will always have a special place in my heart.”

Of course, outlaws—as Burns’ performance stated emphatically on Sunday—are cold-blooded, and Burns wasn’t exactly thrilled at being left off the Ryder Cup team. “Hearing the news that I didn’t make the team was definitely very motivating and definitely kind of gut-wrenching,” Burns said. “And, so, yeah, I think it’s definitely motivated me to try to be on the next team and continue to try to improve and hopefully be on it the next go.”

A shame Burns shaved the ‘stache, though. “Yosemite Sam” has a nice ring to it.

The post The mustache is gone but Sam Burns remains an outlaw, taking the Sanderson Farms title appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
Because he hadn’t had an American victory since the 2017 Masters, Sergio Garcia’s Sanderson Farms Championship win felt like it came out of nowhere. In reality, the Spaniard had won three times since putting on the green jacket, all three victories coming on the European Tour (2017 and 2018 Andalucia masters, 2019 KLM Open).

Yet even with those three wins, Garcia had fallen out of the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in nearly a decade last week. The fact that was so shocking, much like Phil Mickelson dropping out of the top 50 for the first time in 26 years last November, highlights just how consistent Garcia has been these last 10 years (as well as his whole career).

Then, with his eyes closed, the 40-year-old Spanaird reminded us just how good he still is, claiming his 11th PGA Tour victory in Mississipi in stunning fashion. In the process, he checked off a few incredible stats boxes, all of them courtesy of the great Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf).

First, Ray pointed out that Garcia is the only player with a win in each year between 2011 and 2020. He was quick to clarify that Dustin Johnson has had a win in each of the last 10 PGA Tour “seasons,” but one of those DJ wins came in the fall portion of the 2013-’14 season, meaning it occurred in 2013. Johnson did not get a an official OWGR win in the year 2014:

Most consecutive years with at least 1 OWGR-credited win worldwide; active streaks:

Yuta Ikeda, 2009-19; 11
Sergio Garcia, 2011-20; 10
Justin Rose, 2010-19; 10@TheSergioGarcia is the only player with a win in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2020.

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) October 4, 2020

If you’re wondering how Yuta Ikeda is leading this stat, it’s because Japan Golf Tour wins are official OWGR victories. Amazingly, Ikeda has had one every year since 2009. But he has not yet won in 2020, and has just two months left to keep the streak alive.

Another wild stat Ray shared showed that not only is Garcia one of the most consistent players ever, but he’s been quite the closer since 2017:

Best win percentage with 54-hole lead/co-lead, worldwide, since beginning of 2017 (minimum 5 leads):

Koepka, 100%
Jared Wolfe, 100% (2 KFT, 3 LatinoAmerica)
Yuta Ikeda, 80%
Sergio Garcia, 75% (6-for-8 including today)

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) October 4, 2020

For much of his career, the narrative was that Garcia couldn’t finish. Since 2017, that has clearly not been the case, impressive given just how often 54-hole leads are squandered nowadays (Tiger Woods caused us to forget that golf tournaments are hard to close).

Lastly, this one is a little specific and it’s more of a Vijay Singh appreciation stat than it is a Garcia stat:

Sergio is one of 26 PGA Tour winners age 40 or older since 2004 to gain 12+ strokes tee-to-green on the field.

Vijay Singh accounts for 12 of the other 25!

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) October 4, 2020

Veej! Ridiculous. Thanks, as always, to Ray for the stats. What a week for Sergio, who may have found his game just in time. Apparently, there is a pretty big tournament scheduled for next month.

The post Sergio Garcia checked off a handful of incredible stat boxes with his win at the Sanderson Farms appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen,” the master, while blindfolded, said in his instructional video released 40 years ago, “and all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking. Let things happen. And be the ball.”

Garcia didn’t compete in the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss., blindfolded, though many times in his career he has looked like a man who was enjoying the game about as much as a guy who’s been offered a blindfold and cigarette. But on Sunday at the Country Club of Jackson, the mercurial Spaniard smoked a few shots at just the right time and putted throughout with his eyes closed and captured his first victory in America since the 2017 Masters.

That Masters, we just have learned, also was won employing the no-look method, which, on those sinister greens, has to be either one of the gutsiest moves in a major championship or the actions of one desperate desperado.

But who are we to judge? It worked then and it worked all week in Mississippi, where Garcia sank a 2½-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to edge upstart Peter Malnati by a stroke. With a final-round five-under 67, Garcia finished with a 19-under 269 total to claim his 11th PGA Tour title and extend to six the streak of winners making their first appearance in this event.

In the end, what transpired was a case of the blind leading the grind.

“I think that the great thing about it is my mind was very clear throughout the whole week,” said Garcia, 40, who was playing his first tournament since 2011 being ranked outside the top 50 in the world, having slipped to 51st. “I knew what I wanted to do pretty much every single shot I hit. … I was very confident throughout the whole week. I was believing in myself the whole week.”

For Sergio, at least on the greens, not seeing is believing.

Sergio Garcia speaks to viewers at home after winning the Sanderson Farms Championship. Sam Greenwood

Timeout for a little reflection here. A core fundamental of sports is being challenged. Hand-eye coordination is about as basic as it gets when it comes to athletic execution, and Garcia is making us second-guess that whole notion. Who are you going to believe, Sergio or your lying eyes?

Then again, we are highly dubious of the efficacy of the Garcia method in the application of other athletic pursuits. The Giant Slalom and the Tour de France come to mind.

Garcia doesn’t remember how or why he began the practice, but he’s not the first to take his eyes off the ball and climb onto the winner’s podium. Down the stretch at the 1987 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Johnny Miller, in an attempt to overcome the yips, rallied past the late Payne Stewart with a surge of blind ambition.

“I don’t know why it’s such a big deal,” Garcia said on Saturday after claiming a share of the 54-hole lead with Cameron Smith and J.T. Poston. “I don’t see anywhere in the book of Rules of Golf where it says that you can’t do it. At the end of the day we’re all trying to find ways to be better, to be more consistent, and that’s what works for me. I’ve done it for quite a while now in practice and obviously in most of my tournaments. It’s just a personal thing that I feel like it helps me, and that’s why I do it.”

The reason it helps, he said, is that it allows him “to feel the stroke … and just let my natural ability kind of take over.”

About that natural ability. Garcia is one of the game’s elite ball strikers, and while he putted quite well—he ranked 28th for the week in strokes gained/putting—it was still his full-swing prowess that made the difference. The winning stroke was set up by crushing his tee ball with an exquisite draw 314 yards into the left fairway followed by a near-perfect 8-iron.

And that opportunity at ending the affair in regulation was the product of your basic, ahem, seeing-eye fairway metal from 260 yards out at the par-5 14th. The ball settled 3½ feet from the cup, and Garcia proceeded to guide it in to tie Malnati, the 2015 winner of this event who closed with a career-low 63.

“The great thing for me is that when I’m feeling it, I don’t feel like I even have to putt too well to have a chance at winning, or to win,” said Garcia, who, perhaps not surprisingly, led the field in strokes gained-tee to green. “With an average or just above average kind of putting week, if I’m playing the way I played this week, I can give myself a chance of winning almost every week.

“Obviously it’s not easy to play the way I played this week every single week because there’s some weeks that you feel a little bit better, some weeks you feel a little bit worse. But my long game, it’s always been a strength, and everyone knows that, and that’s what I rely on.”

Sergio’s last win is no longer the 2017 Masters. Ben Walton

Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Garcia chose to remain in the U.S. this fall instead of venturing to Europe, and the victory comes after two straight missed cuts to begin the season, including at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. But he couldn’t entirely celebrate what on the surface seemed like a fortuitous set of circumstances.

Back home there was tragic news; he has lost two uncles to COVID-19, the second just a week ago Saturday. They were his father’s brothers, and in the immediate aftermath, speaking to Golf Channel, his eyes welled with tears.

“I wanted to win this for them,” he said.

That’s not to say he didn’t want to win it badly for himself either, having gone more than a year since his victory in the KLM Open on the European Tour. As he exited the putting green just moments after the winning putt dropped, Garcia let out a loud primal grunt.

“It’s pretty sweet, there’s no doubt,” he said. “Obviously, the perfect ending to an amazing week.”

Anyone could see that.

The post Sergio Garcia found a way to win again, even if he had to close his eyes to see it appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

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.

If you needed more proof, then just take a look as Garcia played his second shot on the par-5 14th hole during the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Before watching, a little background. Garcia, a 10-time PGA Tour winner, hasn’t been victorious since his triumph at the 2017 Masters. It’s gotten so bad that this past week he fell out of the top 50 on the World Ranking for the first time since 2011. And yet, through 54 holes at C.C. of Jackson, Garcia looked like his old winning self, taking a share of the lead into the final round and putting himself in position to quiet all the naysayers.

However …

Early on Sunday Peter Malnati stormed out to a 63, finishing his round with Garcia just starting the back nine and grabbing the lead away from the Spaniard. Suddenly, Garcia was in need of stepping up in the clutch if this story of his career turnaround was to continue in Mississippi.

OK, back then to the second shot on the 14th:

EAGLE for @TheSergioGarcia. ?

A near-perfect shot into the par 5.

He's tied the lead @Sanderson_Champ.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/wJOfUc6ymK

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 4, 2020

Of course, there’s a bit of luck there, the ball just carrying the bunker and then totally being killed on the first bounce to nestle within six feet of the hole, by far the closest any golfer had come all day.

Garcia, who also was making headlines this week for closing his eyes over putts, easily rolled in the eagle putt and suddenly found himself tied for the lead with Malnati.

Here’s one more look—and listen—into Garcia going all Sergio on his golf ball:

Looked good the whole way. ? pic.twitter.com/4ZIoh35RMf

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 4, 2020

The post Watch (and listen) to Sergio Garcia bark at his ball mid-flight setting up this amazing eagle appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
Scottie Scheffler didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate his selection as PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in the manner he would have preferred. He didn’t get to celebrate it at all, frankly.

He was at home, isolated from friends and family when he should have been in New York preparing for the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. After finishing fifth in the final FedEx Cup standings with a season that included seven top-10s, a tie fourth in his first PGA Championship and the 12th sub-60 round in tour history, Scheffler found out the Monday of U.S. Open week that he was selected by his peers as the top rookie of the abbreviated 2019-’20 season.

But the day prior he had to withdraw from the year’s second major because he tested positive for COVID-19. The Dallas resident became the first tour player to test positive after six consecutive weeks without a positive case. The only consolation was that he was asymptomatic.

“That obviously stunk,” Scheffler, 24, said Wednesday at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss., where he is making his first start since the Tour Championship. “I felt all right, and only one person I knew was also infected, and so we kept our circle pretty small, and it paid off. It was obviously scary for my coaches and the few people I was around that week, but everybody was feeling all right. We’re all recovered now.”

But he’s far from recovered from the disappointment of being at Winged Foot, despite it being a relative scoring nightmare for almost everyone not named Bryson DeChambeau.

“It definitely stunk sitting at home all week watching the U.S. Open, especially the way I was playing leading into it,” Scheffler said. “I felt like I had a good chance of winning. It stunk, but it’s the world we live in. I felt OK so very blessed to have felt good through all of it and came out on the other side recovered. So all good.”

But it stunk. In case there’s any doubt how he feels about sitting out.

And that bit about watching it, well, he didn’t do much watching to an appreciable degree. “Not a huge golf watcher when I’m not playing, especially during COVID week … or during when I had COVID I was trying not to pay attention,” he said. “It kind of bummed me out watching everybody on TV.”

Scheffler had reason to feel confident about his chances of winning the U.S. Open. In his final six starts of the season, he finished no worse than his T-20 at the BMW Championship. And during that stretch he fired a second-round 59 at TPC Boston in The Northern Trust, the first playoff event. The former Texas Longhorn two-putted from 90 feet and sank a four-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to complete the round.

“Yeah, it seems to come up a decent amount,” he said. “With my friends at home, they told me ‘good job’ and then kept making fun of me after that, so there wasn’t too much discussion there.”

Christian Petersen/PGA of America
Scottie Scheffler impressed when he held his own with Dustin Johnson in the final pairing on Sunday at the PGA Championship in August.

Scheffler comes to the Country Club of Jackson as the betting favorite. He is making his third start in the tournament, with finishes of T-45 and T-16, respectively, the previous two years.

The forced layoff gave him time to reflect on his successful rookie campaign, of which he is mostly satisfied. “If you had told me that was going to be my results going in, I would have been pleased. I would have liked to have had a win last year, but I feel like that’s coming on the horizon.

“I feel my game is still in a good spot,” Scheffler added. “I think there’s still a few areas that are a little rusty just from taking—having not played tournament golf in the last three weeks. A little different feeling coming into this week. I’m not as in rhythm as I usually am, but hopefully I’ll pick back up soon, but like I said, my game feels like it’s in a good spot.”

Thankfully, so is his health.

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