It started, like so many underdog stories, with a near disaster. On the first hole at TPC San Antonio, Spaun blundered his approach shot into the left rough, hacked out to 60 feet, and ended with a double bogey. Before the rest of the leaders had even posted a single score, he had dug himself an early hole. To his great fortune, though, the rest of the leaders would falter through a painful Sunday, while Spaun’s day would only get better.

“Honestly, it didn’t bother me as you would think,” he said after the round. “If anything, it kind of calmed me down. … I knew there was still a lot of golf and I’d rather double the first hole than the last hole, if I was patient and plugged away, I might put myself in contention.”

Beau Hossler, in the final group, was seeking to become the first player to win on the PGA Tour with a sponsor’s exemption since Martin Laird in 2020, and to complete a rapid turnaround after slipping below 400th in the World Ranking earlier this season. He played a strong front nine to reach 12 under, including a chip-in birdie at six, but a bogey at 10 knocked him back. He then lived out a nightmare on 14, butchering the par-5 to the tune of a double bogey:

From 2 back to 4 back.

Beau Hossler takes an unplayable and makes double after hitting it over the green at the 14th. pic.twitter.com/LrPAr3XKma

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 3, 2022

He finished the day right where he started, at 10 under, which marks his second excellent result of the year after a third-place finish at Pebble Beach, but which will come with its share of regrets for what might have been.

Those regrets also will plague Brandt Snedeker, who came off five straight missed cuts to vault into a share of the lead after a 66 on Friday and 67 on Saturday. In his last 18, though, he couldn’t make a single birdie, and a three-over 75 performance to fall to T-18 ended in mild embarrassment with a rushed three-putt on the last hole.

Like his playing partners, Dylan Frittelli was also at a loss, answering every birdie with a bogey until a rough stretch midway through the back nine ended his chances.

In the absence of any fireworks among the other leaders, Spaun regrouped after his double bogey and began his slow rise to the top of the leader board. A brilliant approach on six yielded his first birdie of the day, and an up-and-down birdie on the par-5 fifth brought him back to even. Then on the ninth, trailing Hossler by two, Spaun responded to a bad break (his ball hit an NBC microphone) by pitching in from 50 feet:

Up and in

Perfection from @JJSpaun below the green. pic.twitter.com/l3JMREGf5s

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 3, 2022

As the leaders collapsed around him, Spaun played a steady back nine highlighted by a birdie at 11 and another at 14. By the time the endgame came around, Hossler was nowhere in sight, Frittelli and Snedeker were even further afield, and all Spaun had to worry about was a late charge from Matt Kuchar. (Matt Jones shot a field-best 66 to reach 11 under, two shots off the eventual winning score, and was one of the few players to best Jordan Spieth, who shot 67 in his final round before the Masters.)

The last moment of real drama came after Kuchar’s birdie on 17 to bring him within two shots heading to the par-5 18th. There, Spaun seemed to open the door just slightly with a pulled drive into the native area. But Spaun recovered safely into the fairway, forcing Kuchar to go for the green in two from 284 yards. His miracle attempt faded too early, and too much, and when the ball splashed into the water, Spaun knew a par would be plenty to seal the deal. His approach left a bit to be desired, but a terrific lag from 50 feet guaranteed his maiden Tour win.

Spaun has struggled with health issues in recent years after doctors told him he had diabetes but misdiagnosed the kind. Carmen Mandato

Spaun became the first player to win after making double at the first hole since Tiger Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Unlike Tiger, Spaun needed this badly for his career. After reaching the PGA Tour for the first time in 2016, he put together three steady but unspectacular years. Then in his fourth full season, he endured unexpected weight loss. Diagnosed with diabetes, Spaun changed his diet and routine, but wasn’t feeling any better, later learning he was misdiagnosed with Type 2 when he suffered from Type 1. He stumbled to a 185th-place finish in the FedEx Cup points race in the 2019-20 season and followed that with 174th a year ago. Now, he’s got his full exemption, financial security, and a spot at Augusta. It marks quite a change of fortune, and he knows it.

“I think a year ago … I would have been telling you I have to do a lot of work to [stay on tour],” he said. “But to be here and overcome a lot of things and finally get a win? It’s everything you dream of.”

Dreams were a big theme of his post-round remarks, when Spaun admitted that the prospect of Augusta had floated into his thoughts on Saturday night.

“It’s something you dream of as a kid, playing at the Masters,” he said. “I was thinking about it last night, but there was still so much to be done. You’ve got to do your best to stay in the present. That’s what guys who win do that week, they take it one moment, one shot at a time.”

With a taste of success like this, Spaun will undoubtedly stick to the plan for the rest of the season, but it’s a good bet that despite the benefits of a zen mentality, he might take a moment sometime on Sunday to think ahead to what awaits him at Augusta National. For all the benefits of staying in the present, there are days when the future’s not so bad either.

The post How J.J. Spaun got past a horrible start, became a PGA Tour winner and is now going to the Masters appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ron Kaspriske
If social distancing during the pandemic has revealed anything noteworthy about how PGA Tour pros go about their business, it might be just how much thought Jordan Spieth puts into every shot he hits. Without large galleries to muffle what is said inside tournament ropes, Spieth’s conversations with his caddie, Michael Greller, have been a fascinating peek inside the mind of one of the game’s most thoughtful and determined players.

“He’s worked very hard over a long period to get his swing to where, when he takes the club back, he’s only got a picture in his mind about the ball flight he’s trying to create. That’s what he’s talking [to Michael] about,” says his longtime coach, Cameron McCormick. “His swing is now jelling with what he sees. There’s no conflict.”

A victory (the Valero Texas Open) and four other top-four finishes in a stretch of eight events earlier in 2021 speak to the resurgence of Spieth and the golf swing that won three majors. McCormick says that Jordan 3.0 is a blend of what he did right earlier in his career and some new wrinkles—and how he arrived at this point is what’s really interesting.

“We reverse-engineered the swing changes starting with creating a good feel at impact and then building the rest around that,” McCormick says. “We recognized that if he started feeling better about impact, then pre-impact, then transition, the jigsaw-puzzle pieces fit together really well. Make sense?”

It does, but that’s not typically the way elite golfers go about improving. Diagnostics usually follow the sequence of the swing, starting at address. But Spieth and McCormick went directly to the moment of truth, the strike, and worked backward. Spieth is now in a place where he’s “giving himself permission to go after the ball,” McCormick says, and he has returned to predominantly hitting a “bullet cut,” meaning a lower-flying drive that starts a little left and works back to the right and rolls out once it lands.

Spieth is not chasing yards. He’s keeping his tee shots in play and relying on his irons and short game to challenge the field regularly since finishing tied for fourth in the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. Spieth ranked in the top 25 in strokes gained/approach the green and top 15 in putting average on tour through April.

The key is that at the top of the swing, Spieth senses the club is in great position to create the feel he wants through impact. “He’s swinging much more like he did when he first came out on tour,” McCormick says.

Specifically, Spieth takes the club back on a steeper angle than he returns it to the ball. He doesn’t roll his forearms clockwise through the middle of the backswing, and the butt end of the shaft points inside his target line as he approaches the top. But in transition, things dramatically change. As Spieth begins to unwind aggressively starting with hip rotation, the shaft flattens with the butt end now pointing at the ball or even outside the target line. From there, Spieth knows he can just turn hard and produce the ball flight he sees in his mind during those in-depth conversations with Greller.

If you want to know what that move feels like, Spieth and McCormick talk about the club going from “light to heavy.” It’s light as Spieth takes the club back, by virtue of the shaft being more vertical in orientation. But when Spieth transitions into the downswing, the club starts to feel heavy in his right hand because the shaft is lying down or flattening.

“That’s what some people call the slot or the hitting position,” McCormick says. “The earlier he can set that hitting position, the better he feels about it. It’s funny, but when he won at Valero and finished third at Augusta, he actually got to the point where he was setting it up way too early. He couldn’t wait to get there.”

Overcooking a great swing feel aside, Spieth is mostly doing everything right with his full swing these days, McCormick says. He’s gripping the club slightly stronger after recovering from a hand injury that forced him to hold the club in a weaker position in recent years. That weak grip helped contribute to his predominant miss right of the target. He’s also standing more athletically over the ball (a deeper hip hinge), McCormick says. And when he swings through the impact zone and gets into the follow-through, it’s a result of good body turn and a feeling of passive hands.

He can still hit a draw and get some extra distance when he needs it, but it’s not something Spieth looks to do often.

“With his covered cut, you’d expect he’d lose some carry distance because he’s launching the ball lower,” McCormick says. “But honestly, so what, he’s still hitting it around 300 yards and control trumps distance.”

ATHLETIC FROM THE START

Among the improvements Jordan Spieth and his coach, Cameron McCormick, have worked on is to get Spieth in a more athletic setup. A deeper hip hinge at address (above left) puts him in position to make a more dynamic swing.

A GRIP THAT WORKS BETTER FOR HIS BALL FLIGHT

Since recovering from a painful injury to his left hand, Spieth has been able to strengthen the orientation of his hands on the club so the right palm is turned slightly more under the shaft (above right). This gives him better control of the clubface, so he doesn’t lose many shots to the right.

THE MOVE SPIETH CAN’T WAIT TO MAKE

Spieth takes the club back with the shaft in a more vertical position as he reaches the top but then lets it flatten during the transition to the downswing (above left). From a feel standpoint, this “laying down” of the shaft mentally gives him the green light to go after the ball aggressively.

GOOD ROTATION IS KEY

Spieth isn’t trying to guide the clubhead into the ball with his hands. Instead, impact is a result of good body rotation toward the target in the throughswing (above right). He gets the club in the position he wants at the top of the swing and then it’s turn, turn, turn.

Editor’s Note: This cover story appears in June 2021 issue of Golf Digest Middle East. Read our latest issue in its entirety here.

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By Alan Shipnuck
AUGUSTA, Ga.—He has already given us so much of himself. A 72nd hole birdie to win the U.S. Open. The greatest driving range bogey in golf history. (“Go get that.”) Chasing the Grand Slam on the hallowed turf of the Old Course. A Masters Sunday so wrenching it felt like a death in the family. (“Buddy, it seems like we’re collapsing.”) A mystifying, almost four-year slump that confounded and transfixed the golf world, followed by a cathartic victory just as this Masters beckons. He was a phenom at 16 and a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame by 23 but what has always made Jordan Spieth so riveting is his openness. We feel his joy and, even more acutely, his pain.

For most Tour players, the barrier between them and the fans is much more formidable than a thin rope. But Spieth lets us in and makes us part of the journey. He arrived on Tour just as Tiger Woods’ health and career were cratering and this enigmatic champion had retreated into the well-guarded fortress of his inner-self. Spieth is the opposite, a compulsive oversharer whose self-talk between the ropes can be amusing but often strays into self-flagellation. His rollercoaster play has always drawn comparisons to Phil the Thrill but the key difference is that Mickelson’s crack-ups rarely leave a bruise because he seems in on the joke—he is part jester and part stuntman and his job is merely to entertain us. Spieth is different. His golf is raw and real and elemental. Even in the best of times the wolf is at the door—let us not forget his sloppy 71st hole double bogey to nearly boot away the 2015 U.S. Open. But he rallied to win that national championship, part of an epic three-year run during which he took three-quarters of the Grand Slam, won a total of 10 PGA Tour events and nabbed a FedEx Cup. But time marches on as inexorably as Spieth’s hairline recedes. The one-time boy wonder is now nearly 28 and married. After his breakthrough victory last week in Texas he is suddenly the betting favorite for this Masters. While Golf Twitter collectively loses its mind, Spieth is doing his best not to get caught up in the whirlwind. “I feel it’s actually been a lot easier for me, over the last 12 hours, to just look forward versus kind of looking back, I guess,” he said on Monday after touching down in Augusta.

Spieth went so far as to backtrack on having used the word “monumental” to describe the importance of his victory at the Texas Open. “Yeah, I think I used a word that was within 30 seconds of tapping in the last putt and kind of just not really knowing where my head was at, and I think that was probably a little aggressive of a term,” he says.

With more time to reflect, he has been better able to put the breakthrough in its proper perspective. “I was happy that it didn’t hit me that hard, that it felt more normal, that it felt like me and that’s where I’m supposed to be and this is who I am.”

Who is he, exactly? The overwhelming statistical favourite for this Masters, as crazy as that might be. As recently as February, Spieth was on the verge of falling out of the top 100 in the World Ranking and he hadn’t had a top-5 finish in over 20 months. Before his slump, he had constructed a game very similar to peak Mickelson, built on stellar iron play and sensational work on and around the greens. When Spieth drove it well he was very, very difficult to beat; when he drove it OK he was still a contender.

Over the preceding three-plus years he often struggled to keep his drives on the planet, leading Brandel Chamblee to opine earlier this year that Spieth is “headed for oblivion.” But he pushed forward with the squinty determination that once led Ben Crenshaw to compare Spieth to Wyatt Earp. He never panicked, even as everyone else did. He remained loyal to his “team” even as the cognoscenti called for the ritual sacrifice of a caddie or swing coach. Spieth just kept grinding and preaching patience to a sports world that demands instant gratification. And then it all finally came together last week, as he gained 12.89 strokes on the field tee-to-green, the most dominant performance of any of his 12 career wins.

Now Spieth has arrived at his favorite course, where his 70.46 scoring average is the best in history (among players with 20 more rounds played). The surge in expectations has led to a familiar feeling swirling in the dogwoods, of hope mixed with dread. Spieth has broken our heart here before; think of his watery doom in 2016, or the overhanging tree branch near the 72nd tee in ’18, when Spieth was stalking a 62 and a comeback for the ages. Earlier this year, on Saturday at Pebble Beach, after Spieth played a wild slinging hook on 16 and his ball trickled into the hole for an eagle that salvaged a shaky round, Gary Murphy of Sky Sports said,“That is why he is so enjoyable to watch. A bit like Seve, he defies logic–a vulnerable genius.”

That is now the central question of this Masters: is Spieth still wounded, despite the recent win, or can he again access the genius that carried him to a green jacket at 21? The answer may be found in something he said at Pebble, when his luck was just beginning to turn: “It’s crazy, you go on runs of cards out here. You get good ones and then you go on a bad run of cards. I’m now hitting it and kind of thinking it’s going to be a good break again, which is really nice.”

The post The never-boring Jordan Spieth narrative takes on a familiar theme—hope appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Jordan Spieth, whose three-plus-year odyssey from the top of the sport to its peripheries was one of its great wonders and concerns, capped the comeback that has dominated golf in 2021 with a win at the Valero Texas Open.

“It has been a long time,” Spieth said. “It’s been since July of 2017. There’s peaks and valleys in this sport. I never expected to go this long. Back then, in between wins, I just kind of took a lot—maybe more for granted than I should have,” Spieth said. “It’s very difficult to win out here and I’ll certainly enjoy this one as much as I have any other.”

This was no surprise; the win had been coming into focus for weeks now. There were near-misses at TPC Scottsdale and Pebble Beach and Bay Hill, strong showings at Riviera and Austin C.C. This victory seemed like a matter of if, not when. But though he was heading out of the darkness, the beauty of this game is the end is never predetermined. As Spieth’s past has proved, the present is no guarantee of the future.

A sentiment all too evident at the beginning of the final round. Sharing the 54-hole lead with Matt Wallace, Spieth looked very much like the guy who had laboured mightily on Sundays (146th in Round 4 scoring) by missing his first three fairways of the day. Yet his approach game kept him afloat as he settled down on the tee, with his putter—the tool that was once friend and now occasionally foe—cleaning up a handful of 10-footers for birdies. He made the turn in 33, and the Texas crowd was ready for the victory parade.

“Just to see those putts go in, I felt like I was doing everything right those other Sundays and I hit good putts and they wouldn’t go in,” Spieth said. “Today I hit a couple that I didn’t quite strike very well, but they went in. It’s a funny game. It shows that as long as you put yourself in that position enough times, the bounces do go your way.”

Only Charley Hoffman had no intentions of letting such a march happen. Hoffman, who’s made a living at this event (more on him in a second), also made the turn in 33, and a chip-in birdie at the 13th brought Spieth’s advantage down to two. After trading birdies at the par-5 14th, Hoffman cut the lead to one with another birdie, this one at the par-3 16th.

But Hoffman sprayed his drive into a bunker at the 17th, and though his approach was true, his birdie try was not. Spieth answered, his second from 75 yards finishing five feet from the hole. Five feet that was converted for birdie to move the lead back to two. With Spieth finding the fairway at the 18th, the tournament appeared to be a wrap.

Just kidding. This is Jordan Spieth we’re talking about. Anyone who thought he’d land this plane without skidding off the runway and deploying an emergency parachute hasn’t been paying attention, which is why his lay-up hooked far left and near a scoreboard. Somewhere, TV executives exchanged high-fives. But Spieth decided that was enough drama, his third safely finding the edge of the green. With Hoffman unable to apply pressure off another tee-shot miss, Spieth’s conservative lag completed the journey.

Where Spieth goes from here—starting this week at Augusta National, a course that has been his playground—is now the preeminent storyline in golf. And watching him at the Masters and going for the career Grand Slam at Kiawah and attempting to do the things that were on his former all-time trajectory will be fun. But Sunday was a day to cherish the day, and all the days that came before it. A day some thought might never come.

“There’s also moments I look back on where I hit balls till my hands bled and I wasn’t doing the right thing and I just went home [and] thought about it; sleeping, lost sleep,” Spieth said. “This sport can take you a lot of different directions. So I think it’s just most important to embrace when I have moments like this and just really appreciate them and keep my head down, keep the process that I’m doing.”

That in itself is a miracle to celebrate. Three other takeaways from the final round of the Valero Texas Open.

Steve Dykes

Hoffman keeps cashing cheques
Spieth won the day, but consider Sunday’s performance an official petition to change the Texas Open to the Charley Hoffman Invitational. Or at least put a Hoffman ATM on the first tee.

In 14 career starts at the event Hoffman has never missed the cut while racking up more than $3.7 million in the event. Though he failed to grab the trophy he’s adding to those figures with a $839,300 payday for finishing in second thanks to a final-round 66. Not that Hoffman was overly ecstatic about it.

“Obviously you come to each event trying to win, but second place isn’t that bad,” Hoffman said. “Obviously I want to get back to the Masters, I want to get back to Kapalua. I play to win, not finish second. But obviously had a chance, gave my best and just fell slightly short.”

To be fair, while he somewhat stumbled on the final two holes, this was a tournament Spieth won, not one given away by Hoffman. “Jordan played some great, amazing golf,” Hoffman acknowledged. “Bogey free on that back nine is something special.” And even though Hoffman is the epitome of a horses-for-courses at this tournament, this marked his third top-10 finish in his last six starts.

As he mentioned, Hoffman needed the W to earn the Augusta invite. But the 44-year-old, after a few lean years, is enjoying a late-career rejuvenation. There’s no doubt he’ll be a favorite once this tournament returns next year. Expect to hear his name again well before that.

Kuchar gets momentum into Masters
Two weeks ago it was fair to wonder where Matt Kuchar was heading. After finishing in 16th or better in nine of the past 11 FedEx Cups, Kuchar entered the WGC-Dell Match Play 183rd in the rankings thanks to missing the cut in five of 11 starts with his best finish a T-34. He was struggling in nearly every facet of the game—181st in SG/off-the-tee, 120th in approach, 124th in SG/putting—and turning 43 this summer, the question was raised if Kuchar was running out of gas.

Two weeks later, the man enters the Masters with Big Mo riding shotgun. Kuchar proved his run in Austin (ultimately finishing with a T-3 in Match Play) was no aberration, following up with four solid rounds at TPC San Antonio to log a T-12 at the Texas Open.

A bit of context is needed. Like the Match Play, Kuchar has a strong track record at the Texas Open. He also never truly contended and failed to break 70 all four rounds. Conversely, Kuchar was arguably the weakest player (by current form) in the world’s top 60; before the Match Play his last top 10 was at Riviera in 2020.

Now he rides into Augusta with his game trending and his conviction intact. Like the previous two tournaments, Kuchar has had success at the Masters with four top-10s and eight top-25s in 14 career starts. As we’ve seen at Augusta National, two of the key ingredients are experience and momentum. After a vague forecast just two weeks ago, the horizon looks bright—and possibly green—for Kuchar next week.

Steve Dykes

Fowler’s major streak comes to a close
He gave it a run. But it is a run that came up short.

Rickie Fowler needed a win in San Antonio to make the Masters and keep his streak of 42 consecutive major appearances alive. An opening-round 76 put the kibosh on those aspirations. The former Players champ battled to make the weekend and did thanks to a Friday 68, and followed that performance up with a 69 and 70 over the final two rounds. Still, for the first time since the 2010 U.S. Open, Fowler will be watching one of the big four at home.

For Fowler fans seeking solace, this week was littered with signs of hope. Entering the Texas Open 178th in SG/approach and 176th in SG/putting, Fowler made strides in both categories (30th in approach, 39th in putting). Although Bogey avoidance remains an issue (196th on tour), Fowler had a 14-to-5 birdie/bogey ratio over the final three rounds. And his T-17 is his first finish inside the top 20 this season.

A player of his skill set has higher ambitions. But when you’re engulfed in struggle like Fowler, every little step forward can feel like a leap. For the first time in what feels like forever, Fowler is heading in the right direction, even if that direction isn’t Georgia.

The post Jordan Spieth ends victory drought in very Spieth fashion appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
To steal a phrase from the great Chris Vernon: Where the hell is Charley Hoffman?!?!

More specifically, where the hell has Charley Hoffman been? Up until Saturday at the Valero Texas Open, Hoffman had been a ghost of late. Once ranked as high as 20th in the World Ranking, the 44-year-old had fallen to 152nd following a string of withdraws and missed cuts last month, a byproduct of injury and poor form.

Now at full health, Hoffman has quietly strung together some solid results, starting with a T-7 at Pebble Beach and following that with consecutive top-17 finishes at Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass. Even with those weeks in mind, though, nobody saw Saturday at TPC San Antonio coming.

Of course, that would be ignoring Hoffman’s history in event, which is as elite as it gets. He proved to be a horse for the course once again in the third round, shooting a seven-under 65 to jump to within two shots of the lead with 18 holes remaining. This after starting the tournament five over through 14 holes on Thursday.

“It’s been a nice turnaround,” said Hoffman, who ended the first round in a tie for 95th. Since then, the San Diego native has gone 15 under par, giving himself a chance to get back to Augusta National, where his strong first rounds have become a running joke on social media over the years. Without a win on Sunday, though, he’ll miss a second straight Masters.

“I think I like Augusta just as much as I like this place,” he said. “It’s somewhere I want to get back to, obviously have had some success at Augusta. But I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow to get there, and if I don’t I’ll be back soon.”

Hoffman won’t have to dig too deep in the memory bank to recall just how good he’s been at this place. In 2019 he finished runner-up, and three years earlier he won the event by one stroke over Patrick Reed. He hasn’t missed a cut at the Valero in 15 starts, and since 2006 he’s 99 under in the event, the best of any player.

“It fits my eye. You’ve got to shape tee shots. You’ve got to be in certain spots hitting iron shots into the green. I guess it just fits my eye and I really enjoy playing this golf course. You’ve got to hit right to left, left to right and make a few putts, and I’ve been able to do that so far and throughout my career.”

Where the hell is Charley Hoffman? He’s back at the Valero, and he’s given himself a prime chance to get back to Augusta National.

Three other takeaways from Round 3 at TPC San Antonio.

Steve Dykes

Jordan Spieth … party-spoiler?
There is so much at stake on Sunday for a number of guys in contention, the key prize for many of them a Masters invite, Hoffman included. Cameron Tringale is playing for one too, in addition to a breakthrough PGA Tour victory. Anirban Lahiri, Tom Hoge, Brandt Snedeker, Lucas Glover, all playing for Masters invites. England’s Matthew Wallace, a four-time European Tour winner, could notch his first win on American soil.

And then there’s Jordan Spieth, who sits in a tie at the top of the leader board at 12 under on the strength of his third-round 67, his second 67 of the week. Spieth’s already in Augusta for life, and he’s got 11 PGA Tour victories to his name. The kind thing to do would be to lay down, throw one of these other dude’s a bone and save some for next week.

Abso-freaking-lutely not. The comeback is near completion, and all that’s missing from it is a W. And if you’re one of these people who thinks he might be wasting his best stuff on the Valero, think again. This is a guy who used to rip off three victories in a blink, and if he wins tomorrow he’ll enter Augusta as confident as he’s been in years. If anybody can pull off the elusive win-the-week-before-then-also-win-the-Masters feat, it’s Spieth. The last to do it? Phil Mickelson in 2006.

So no, he won’t be laying down on Sunday. He is here to spoil everyone else’s party, which is ironic given he’s the reason this event is a party in the first place.

Steve Dykes

Matt Wallace ain’t going down without a fight either
Anybody prematurely handing this thing to Spieth should pump the brakes immediately, because Wallace will be giving it everything he’s got on Sunday. The four-time European Tour winner matched Spieth shot for shot, birdie for birdie down the stretch on Saturday, also shooting a five-under 67 to grab a share of the lead. He hasn’t won on the PGA Tour, but he’s come close in a few of the premier events, most recently at the Memorial last June, where he tied for fourth. He also tied for third at the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, and posted a T-6 a few months prior at Bay Hill. He’s a big-time player with big-time guts.

Steve Dykes

Give credit to Cameron Tringale for hanging in
After a bad bogey at the par-5 second, things appeared to be going smoothly for Tringale, who responded with birdies at the fifth and seventh to take back the lead. But the wayward drives finally caught up to him on the back, leading to a disastrous bogey-bogey-bogey stretch at 11, 12 and 13 that allowed Wallace and Spieth to leap frog him and never look back.

Tringale could have really let it get away after that, but he was able to birdie the par-5 14th then par his way in to shoot a one-over 73. Yes, he was the only player inside the top 19 to shoot over par, but it could have been way, way worse. He could have completely played his way out of it, ending any chance at a maiden victory and a Masters invitation. Instead, he settled down and kept himself in striking distance at eight under, which has him in solo fourth, just four back.

The post Charley Hoffman still owns the Valero, Spieth inches closer to victory and a Euro looks for his first U.S. win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Golf is highly unpredictable, even when it seems completely predictable. Sometimes there’s not much rhyme or reason to it. Just hanging in and knowing (if not hoping) there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Take Corey Conners.

In his second start of the 2018-’19 season last fall, he finished second at the Sanderson Farms Championship. His two starts before and after? Missed cuts.

Conners really has this roller-coaster act down to an art, though.

In March 2018, then a wide-eyed rookie on the PGA Tour, he held a one-stroke lead over Tiger Woods, Justin Rose and Brandt Snedeker after 54 holes at the Valspar Championship. But he shot a closing 77, the finish, in part at least, costing him full status for the 2018-’19 season after he’d ended the year 130th in the FedEx Cup standings.

This year hasn’t been much different. The 27-year-old Canadian native has managed to scrap together eight starts but has missed the cut five times. And yet he also had a tie for third at the Sony Open in Hawaii. And on Sunday he did even better, winning the Valero Texas Open for his first professional victory anywhere.

In doing so, Conners became the first Monday qualifier to win on the PGA Tour since Arjun Atwal at the 2010 Wyndham Championship and just the fifth player to do it since 1980.

(Did we mention that he also emerged from a 6-for-1 playoff in Monday qualifying just to earn a spot in the field in San Antonio?)

“I will not be playing in Monday qualifiers, which is pretty awesome,” Conners said after a final-round 66 to finish his week at TPC San Antonio at 20 under par and two strokes clear of runner-up Charley Hoffman.

More awesome? A trip to Augusta National for the Masters, which he’ll play for the second time this coming week after missing the cut as an amateur in 2015 following a runner-up at the 2014 U.S. Amateur.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in,” he said after a spirited embrace with his wife Malory. “It just doesn’t seem real. It’s pretty amazing.”

Making it even more amazing was how Conners survived yet another roller coaster.

Early in the final round at the Valero, it looked like he’d run away with the tournament thanks to four birdies in his first five holes to break away from playing partners Hoffman and Si Woo Kim. Then came four straight bogeys, which included blowing a bunker shot across the green on the par-3 seventh as well as a bogey on the par-5 eighth.

But the ride wasn’t over for Conners. He rebounded by stuffing his approach shots tight to set up easy birdies on 10 and 11, then added another with a 34-foot bomb on 12. Three more birdies followed over his next five holes, including on 16 and 17, and the closing 30 proved the difference.

And made for a change of plans.

Conners and his wife were scheduled to fly back to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and relax at home during Masters week. Not so fast.

“It’s funny, we were in the hotel room here [Sunday] morning and my wife got the email to check in for our flight home [Monday] morning,” Conners said. “I was like, ‘Don’t check in for that quite yet. I’ve got different plans.’ ”

Next stop: Augusta, Ga.

The post Corey Conners is off to bigger things (Next stop: the Masters) after a wild finish in San Antonio appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

But Conners survived, and then had the week of his life at TPC San Antonio, where he carded rounds of 69, 67 and a pair of weekends 66s to grab his first career win on the PGA Tour. With it comes a last-minute Masters invite, giving him a second look at Augusta National after missing the cut there as an amateur in 2015, plus a two-year exemption on the tour, which might be just as sweet as the trip to Augusta. His Monday qualifying days are over for the time being.

Early on Sunday, the 27-year-old from Ontario, Canada looked poised to run away with the tournament, as he made birdies on four of his first five holes to separate himself from playing partners Si Woo Kim and Charley Hoffman. But Conners stumbled late on the front nine, bogeying four straight holes to drop all the way back to even par for the day.

He recovered in a big way, carding an absurd back-nine 30 to win by two strokes. Conners made just four pars on his final 15 holes, including one at the 72nd hole to close it out. He’s the first player to win after Monday qualifying since Arjun Atwal did it at the 2010 Wyndham Championship, and he’s only the fifth player to do it on the PGA Tour since 1980.

Hoffman, 42, finished alone in second thanks to a birdie at the final hole that capped a Sunday 67. It is Hoffman’s best finish of the 2018-’19 season, and his first inside the top 10 since the 2017 WGC-Bridgestone. That’s a somewhat shocking fact given how consistent Hoffman was not too long ago. But he’s picked a good time to snap out of a slump with the Masters looming, an event Hoffman as had recent success in, finishing inside the top 30 each of the last four years.

Ryan Moore, who matched the low round of the tournament with a final-round 64, finished alone in third. Brian Stuard tied for fourth with Kim, who led after each of the first three rounds, but struggled on Sunday, posting a 72.

The post Corey Conners grabs first career win and last-minute Masters invite with final-round 66 at the Valero Texas Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
Corey Conners had the ultimate up-and-down final round at the Valero Texas Open, but it was a pair of up-and-downs (followed by a timely staked 7-iron shot) that secured Conners his first PGA Tour win and provided him with the golden ticket: a last-minute invitation to the Masters.

Of course, it was fitting there was some turbulence along the way. The tournament was contested at the Westin La Cantera Resort from 1995 to 2009 and the course sat in the shadows of a large roller coaster from the nearby Six Flags amusement park. That describes Conners’ round perfectly. He birdied four of the first five holes before riding the bogey train on holes six through nine. His fortunes reversed again with three birdies to start the back nine. Then, on the par-5 14th, Conners—who was a paltry one for nine in sand saves for the week—hit a nifty bunker shot to tap-in range for a birdie to stay ahead of his pursuers, then converted another up-and-down from sand on the next hole for par, albeit courtesy of a 12-foot putt. Then on the 175-yard, par-3 16th Conners stepped up and nailed a 7-iron shot to four feet, seven inches and made the putt for another birdie to stretch the margin to two. Yet another birdie on 17—his 29th plus an eagle for the week—let him cruise to the clubhouse.

Conners’ used Ping’s Glide Forged 60-degree wedge for his key bunker shots and the 7-iron is the company’s iBlade model with Golf Pride’s New Decade Multicompound grip, an iron with an extremely thin face along with a large area from heel to toe on that thin face with an elastomer insert. The elastomer is wedged into the pocket cavity behind the face, but the material in the insert allows the face to give at impact while filtering vibrations for a softer feel. According to Ping, his irons are 1 degree upright with Project X 6.0 shafts.

For the week, Conners ranked first in greens in regulation with 52 of 72 (72.22 per cent) and first in strokes gained/approach the green, picking up more than 11 shots on the field in that stat. Conners then made the most of those opportunities by also leading the field in putts per green in regulation.

Which all added up to a lot of green—both money and Masters—that more than made up for the roller coaster ride along the way.

What Corey Conners had in the bag at the Valero Texas Open

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

Driver: Ping G400 LST (UST Elements Gold 6), 8.5 degrees

3-wood: Ping G400, 14.5 degrees

Hybrid: Ping G400, 19 degrees

Irons (4-PW): Ping iBlade

Wedges: Ping Ping Glide 2.0 Stealth (50, 56 degrees); Ping Glide Forged (60 degrees)

Putter: Ping PLD Anser 2

The post The clubs Corey Conners used to win the Valero Texas Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

That’s because a win would be a wire-to-wire victory for Kim, as he’s held the solo lead at the end of all three rounds. Saturday was the only day that was in doubt, as he arrived at the 18th tee tied at 14 under with one of his playing partners, Corey Conners. But after Conners laid up with his second and ultimately settled for par, Kim got up and down from a greenside bunker for birdie, his fourth of the day, to grab a one-shot edge at 15-under 201 heading into Sunday.

A win for Kim would be his third on tour, the last coming at the Players and the first at the 2016 Wyndham Championship, where he won by five strokes.

He’ll play again alongside Conners, who survived a 6-for-1 playoff at the Monday qualifier to earn the final spot in the field. If he were to pull off a win, he’d be the first Monday qualifier to win on tour since Arjun Atwal accomplished the feat at the 2010 Wyndham Championship. If you recognize Conners’ name, that’s because he held the 54-hole lead at last year’s Valspar Championship, where he faded on Sunday as Tiger Woods made a charge and came up one shot short of Paul Casey.

Just two back is 2016 Valero Texas Open winner Charley Hoffman, who posted the low round of the week, an eight-under 64 to vault 17 spots up the leader board. Hoffman played his final seven holes in five under, making four birdies and an eagle at the par-5 18th, where he hit his 283-yard second shot to 10 feet.

Scott Brown, Jhonattan Vegas and Kyoung-Hoon Lee are tied for fourth at 11-under 205. Jordan Spieth, who started the day just four back, is now eight off the lead following a third-round 73 that featured a front-nine 42 and a back-nine 31.

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Tom Landry was a giant in Texas, a Hall of Fame football coach with two Super Bowl rings. Andrew Landry, at 5-foot-7, is not a giant anywhere, though he came up large on behalf of the Lone Star State on Sunday.

Landry, no relation to Tom (as far as we know), is a Texan through and through, from head to pointed toes on the cowboy boots the Valero Texas Open awards its winners. Not his first pair of cowboy boots, of course. “Got a couple pair at home,” he said.

Landry closed with a 68 to win by two strokes. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

This was a win made in Texas. Landry is a native of Port Neches, outside Beaumont and east of Houston, and a resident of Austin, who won in Texas hill country in San Antonio. He birdied his first three holes on the AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio on Sunday, parred his last seven and won by two.

“A lot of hard work,” Landry said of the key ingredient to his first PGA Tour victory, coming at age 30.

His has been a gradual ascent to the pinnacle, not a steep one. He won twice on the Adams Pro Tour and twice on the Web.com Tour on a nine-year journey en route to his inaugural PGA Tour title.

The Landry name ought to be a familiar one to those outside Texas, too. Most recently, Andrew lost to Jon Rahm in a playoff at the CareerBuilder Challenge in January. And two summers ago, he held the first-round lead in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club after shooting the lowest opening score (66) in the championship’s 117-year history. He played in the final pairing of the fourth round and eventually tied for 15th.

He had his PGA Tour card in 2016, lost it for 2017, and regained it this season via his Web.com Tour performance. It was his loss to Rahm that was the impetus for his win on Sunday.

“It helps because you get yourself in that situation and you continue to learn,” he said. “You know, losing in that playoff when I was continuing to hit good shot after good shot, just not making any putts. Normally that’s a strength of my game. Now here we are, a winner.”

He also learned from his Oakmont experience, where after taking the first-round lead he suggested to his father that he was going to win, “something of that nature,” he said. This time, he did not look beyond the shot at hand.

Landry poses with the Valero Texas Open Trophy and his family at TPC San Antonio after winning his first PGA Tour title. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

“I just told my wife, ‘We’re not talking about what we’re going to wear, we’re not talking about any of this. I’m just going to go out and play golf. We’ve got a lot of golf left and this golf course can bite you in a hurry. If we stay in the present I think that it’s going to help out a lot.’ And that’s kind of what we did today.”

Landry played a near flawless weekend, a single bogey in 36 holes, to prevail over Trey Mullinax and Sean O’Hair. He entered Sunday tied with Zach Johnson, potentially a future World Golf Hall of Famer. He separated himself from Johnson with three birdies to start his round and finished with a four-under-par 68, while Johnson shot 72 and finished fifth.

Maybe it did not help in the crucible of a final round in contention, but a Landry, on Sunday, in Texas, there’s history there, and this Landry created some more.

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