The Valspar Championship was just that kind of tournament. Until it wasn’t.

Anyone who followed Sunday’s final round at Innisbrook Resort undoubtedly felt some kind of emotional investment in the fate of Adam Schenk. Soon to be a first-time father, the sixth-year PGA Tour pro was seeking his first victory and making all manner of clutch putts that suggested a destined outcome. Meanwhile, his expectant wife Courtney followed along in the gallery for all 18 holes while being eight months pregnant.

Playing in his 10th straight event before the child arrives, Schenk was out-clutching his playing partner on the greens, quite a feat when that player is Jordan Spieth, who tends to squeeze the most out of his rounds. The popular Texan, who won this event in 2015, dogged Schenk the entire day. It was largely a two-man battle, though England’s Tommy Fleetwood for a time put himself in position to play a spoiler role.

The winner, however, was a man invisible much of the day, a 29-year-old native Texan named Taylor Moore who used a pair of late birdies to steal away with his first PGA Tour title in his sophomore season. Thanks to a four-under-par 67 on an unseasonably cool day in Palm Harbor, Florida, the lowest score in the final 11 pairings, Moore snuck past the leaders, posted 10-under 274 on the Copperhead Course, and watched it hold up to prevent Schenk’s fairy tale from coming to fruition.

Jordan Spieth made a bogey at the 16th and missed a birdie at the 17th to fall out of contention. Douglas P DeFelice

“I might have been under the radar to some people watching, but I felt like I was in the golf tournament from the time I teed off today and was just excited to control what I could control and get it done,” said Moore, who began the day two behind Schenk and never led outright until Schenk bogeyed the 72nd hole. “I have done a lot of good things this year, excited about where my game’s at, for sure, and, yeah, just so happy to get it done today. I mean, that was insane.”

Schenk, 31, had at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds, and led for all but a brief spell, when Spieth nosed ahead with an eight-foot birdie at the eighth while Schenk three-putted. But Schenk answered from 23 feet for birdie at the ninth, one of several remarkable putts he converted in a closing 70. None was more spectacular, however, than his 71-foot beauty he dropped at the par-4 12th that restored his lead to 10-under.

No one would pass Schenk until the end, though Spieth caught him with a 10-footer at the par-5 14th. And then Moore stealthily made it a three-way tie with a five-foot birdie at 15 and a 27-foot dagger at 16. Playing his final 11 holes in four-under, Moore then saved par on the final two holes, including a five-footer at the last. He finished the week converting all 64 of his putts inside seven feet.

“I thought the winner would be around 10-under. Obviously, I got to that today, which was cool,” said Moore, who had himself in position for his first top-10 finish of the year after a third-round 65 at last week’s Players Championship, only to shoot 74 on Sunday and end up T-35. “I was just trying to shoot the best round I could. I think I got a little bit ahead of myself at Players, looking back, trying to have a nice high finish in that field, and went with the mindset this week that Thursday’s the same as Sunday and every golf shot has the same value.”

Spieth, who over the final two days added a few more “yos” to the yo-yo rounds that have become his trademark, somehow cobbled together a remarkable bogey at the par-4 16th to only lose one stroke after he flared his drive into the water. But his miss from six feet for birdie on the par-3 17th to regain a share of the lead stung him, and he three-putted 18 to fall into a tie for third with Fleetwood (70) at 276.

He admitted he was surprised as anybody to see Moore, a Dallas neighbour, in the mix.

“I thought it was me and Adam,” said the three-time major winner, who closed with a 70. “I thought it was down to us two, and I thought I was maybe going to sneak a tie on 16, and Tommy … I don’t know what he did on the end. But I guess he [Moore] made a bunch of putts, got up-and-down from everywhere to finish.”

That was Schenk’s modus operandi until the fateful 72nd hole, when he hooked his tee shot up against a large tree. Instead of taking an unplayable lie and one-stroke penalty, he opted to turn a club over and play his second shot left-handed. His execution was too good, and his ball darted across the fairway into the rough. His third came up just short of staying on the top shelf near the pin and drifted 41 feet below the hole. After Spieth missed his tying birdie try on the same line from 44 feet, Schenk drilled his putt straight at the cup. His ball hit the pin but didn’t fall. He settled for a career-best solo second and earned $882,900.

Naturally, he wasn’t thinking about the nice start to his first child’s trust fund.

“It stinks,” Schenk said. “I hit a really bad drive on the last hole. I toed it. Wish I could have lightly hit somebody and stayed where I had a chance to get to the green, but it did not, and I didn’t deserve it. I had a chance with the wedge shot that came up short, and then I had a chance with the putt, which surprisingly actually hit the pin and came close.

“It stinks to get so close, but a great week all in all.”

Ranked 103rd in the world, Moore pocketed $1.458 million, nearly half of his career earnings to date. He might have been the surprise guest of honour at the end of the week, but the University of Arkansas product, who needed a few years before reaching the PGA Tour, didn’t surprise himself. His self-belief, he said, was the difference.

“I’ve won at the college level, I won on Korn Ferry Tour, and I think when I get myself comfortable and handle my emotions and get into my space where I’m really calm, I can play at the highest level and compete,” Moore said. “And I thought I did a really good job of that today.”

Better than anyone else. Which is a pretty good story, too.

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Through two rounds at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course outside of Tampa, Adam Schenk stands at seven-under after shooting two-under 69 on Friday and leads Kramer Hickock (68) by one stroke. At two behind are Ryder Cuppers Jordan Spieth (69) and Tommy Fleetwood (70), along with Cody Gribble (65) and Davis Riley (68). Justin Thomas (70) and Webb Simpson (68) are in a pack of eight tied for 12th at three-under.

Schenk, No. 143 in this week’s Official World Golf Ranking, is playing for the 10th week in a row as he and his wife prepare for a baby. He got playfully roasted by his wife last week for all his time away, but doesn’t seem fazed.

“I’ve generally played a lot anyway,” Schenk said, “but having a little baby boy here in about a month-an-a-half, so trying to make as many points as I can to take as much time off as I can and spend time with him and my wife, which will be very special.”

The 31-year-old has never won on the PGA Tour, with his lone professional win coming in 2017 on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour. That said, he sounds as comfortable as he could in this position as he acknowledges the first half of this tournament could not have gone much better.

“I feel like a lot of times you play a couple rounds of golf, maybe shoot two-under, and you’re like: ‘It could have been six or seven.’ But it really couldn’t have been a ton better with the amount of putts I made. Just continue that over the weekend, hit our lines.

“We’re doing a really good job managing the courses and that’s why I’ve made more cuts [11 in 16 starts] this year, which we really made a point. I’m not trying to win every tournament, but I don’t like missing cuts.”

Spieth being Spieth

At the other end of the stardom spectrum, Spieth is very much at home near the top of the leaderboard. And he stayed there thanks to some classic Spieth golf.

After finding a left fairway bunker on the 18th hole, Spieth left his approach short of the bunker that fronts the green. From a downslope in the rough, the three-time major champ showed that his touch is still elite, coming within half of a ball from pitching in.

Classic @JordanSpieth ? pic.twitter.com/e6bWyWCm2a

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 17, 2023

“Up and down on 18 was big. It’s nice to shoot under par or even on a day where you felt like you kind of had to get it around,” Spieth said. “It’s a tough track. I don’t think I lost any ground shooting one-under, but in order to go out and capture it you got to do a little bit better than that on the weekend.”

More access does not mean better access

When the PGA Tour and its broadcasters first proposed putting live mics on players during their rounds, there was mixed reaction. Some guys were all in, while others, namely Justin Thomas, were against it.

“I would not wear a mic, no,” Thomas said at the time. “That’s not me. As close as those mics are on the tees and the greens and as close as I get to boom mics during competition anyway, I basically feel like I am mic’d up.”

Three years later, even Thomas has come around, as he and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay were the first duo to be featured on NBC’s brand new ‘Bag Cam’ for their final two holes around Innisbrook.

What are your thoughts on the first-ever bag cam? ? pic.twitter.com/9nhKl0291b

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) March 17, 2023

With the way the segment ended up going, JT might be back in the “leave me alone during my round” camp.

Bag Cam was … an unmitigated disaster. Don’t believe us? Search “Bag Cam” on Twitter. Don’t have Twitter? Here’s a sample:

Thomas made two pars during the segment, so all was not bad. And kudos to NBC for trying something new, but it would be OK if we never saw this again.

A little more than an hour earlier, fans were treated to an entertaining segment from Adam Hadwin.

Stepping it up while mic'd up ? @AHadwinGolf sets himself up for birdie while talking through the par-5 14th @ValsparChamp. pic.twitter.com/DU1BwFOq7x

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 17, 2023

Golf Channel joined the Canadian on the par-5 14th, where, unlike some other pros who have worn the mic in recent weeks, left his Apple AirPods in while hitting his third shot. With a sense for the moment, Hadwin stepped up and stuffed a nifty little pitch to tap-in range for his birdie, telling his ball to “go in” as it neared the hole.

Unfortunately for Hadwin, that was one of few highlights on the day, as he shot 76 and missed the cut. At least he’ll have that little clip forever.

Getting Burned

Sam Burns prepares to play his shot from the ninth tee during the second round of the Valspar Championship. Julio Aguilar

Winning on the PGA Tour is hard. Everybody knows that. Winning once, especially with purses continuing to increase, could be life-changing. That’s what makes what Sam Burns has done at Innisbrook so impressive. The 26-year-old has won four times on the PGA Tour, including the last two years at the Copperhead Course.

A three-peat, however, is looking unlikely.

Burns was in good position after Round 1, carding a two-under 69 and starting Friday with a one-under 35 on the front nine. It was on the 16th tee, the beginning of Copperhead’s infamous Snake Pit, where it all came undone. Burns’ tee shot was so far right it looked on TV like it had a better chance to land on the other side of the lake to the right of the fairway, close to the 14th hole’s tee box, where he’d later drop.

From there, he went on to make a double-bogey 6. Burns could not stop the bleeding on the 17th hole, as he put another bogey on the card. In just two holes, Burns went from three-under and within striking distance, to even par. He’ll play the weekend, but it would take quite an effort to win, almost as much as it took to win here two times in a row in the first place.

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More or more players and caddies are beginning to embrace it each year, and it’s led to some hilarious messages slapped across the caddie bib nameplate (“Kick Me” from Mark Hubbard’s caddie was a personal favorite in 2021).

While we’re sure there are plenty of A+ messages and nicknames this week, none of them will top the nickname on the bib of Max McGreevy’s caddie. It simply reads “Mr. 89”:

Bad round Fashion statement@MaxMcGreevy is having some fun with his caddie bib this week after recording an 89 @THEPLAYERSChamp. pic.twitter.com/JfzgqulXf1

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 16, 2023

Now, unless you’re a total golf geek, you’re probably asking: “What am I missing here?” Is McGreevy a big fan of Carolina Panthers legend Steve Smith? Or New York Giants unsung hero Kevin Boss? Is 89 his lucky number? Try none of the above. McGreevy is actually roasting himself here. Last week at the Players Championship, after opening with a first-round 69, he shot 20 shots worse in his second round:

Well played, Max, well played. A masterclass in making the joke about yourself first, thus disarming anyone who was going to make the joke themselves. Mr. 89 has a decent ring to it, too.

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You see, JT was playing with JT Poston. And that final putt gave the two-time major champ a one-shot victory in their individual match-up. While guaranteeing the other JT’s caddie would have to wear a bib that says, well, “The Other JT”.

Have a look:

Huge putt on the last to clip @JT_ThePostman by 1 today. Gives me full “JT” bragging rights for tomorrow https://t.co/wXNvRjJGI4

— Justin Thomas (@JustinThomas34) March 16, 2023

Nice job taking advantage of a fun pairing — and the Valspar’s fun tradition of encouraging nicknames on caddie bibs. Although nothing will top two years ago when Mark Hubbard had his caddie wear one that said “Kick Me”.

At the Valspar championship this week, players can put whatever name they want on the back of their caddies. Some golfers chose their social handle, others a nickname, @HomelessHubbs chose this pic.twitter.com/RNR5aQm6rA

— Nathan Hubbard (@NathanCHubbard) April 29, 2021

Of course, considering Thomas has as many majors on his resume as Poston has PGA Tour titles, he’s always going to have the ultimate bragging rights in this battle. So Poston was always going to be “The Other JT” in this pairing. Now fans at Innisbrook will just be reminded of that fact the rest of the week.

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In all levels of caddieing, there are a few very simple rules to live by: keep up, shut up and do not, under any circumstances, lose one of your players’ clubs. In a country club setting, the third rule sometimes, understandably, gets broken. On the PGA Tour? Unheard of.

Or at least, that’s what we thought before Thursday at the Valspar Championship, where Germany’s Stephan Jaeger matched Ryan Brehm for the low round of the day (so far), posting a five-under 66 to grab a share of the lead. A score made even more impressive by the fact Jaeger played the final three holes without one of the most important clubs in his bag — his 58-degree wedge.

The good news for Jaeger’s caddie, Kent Bulle, is that Jaeger never actually needed the 58-degree on the final three holes. He hit all three greens in regulation at 16, 17 and 18, finishing par-par-birdie, capped off by a 29-foot putt at the last. Jaeger was in such high spirits that he didn’t even notice it was gone, telling Bulle “good job today” when they shook hands at the end of his round.

That’s when Bulle came clean.

“I told my caddie on 18, I was like: ‘Hey, good job,’” said Jaeger. “And he’s like: ‘Hey, wait a minute on that one,’ you know, we finished the round with 13 clubs. So I, I was like: ‘What?’ He’s like: ‘Yeah, I forgot your 58 on 15 at the par-3.’ I hit it in the bunker and I needed it. So thank God I didn’t need it for the rest of the round. And it kind of gave us a good laugh on 18, everybody in the group.”

The bad news for Bulle, and the part that made the situation extra-funny to Jaeger and his playing partners, is that Bulle is a professional golfer himself, and a darn good one. He’s won twice on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica and appeared in two majors, even making the cut at the 2017 Open Championship. A professional golfer-turned-professional-caddie losing a club mid-round is going to be a tough one to live down.

“He’s caddied for me three or four times,” Jaeger said. “A couple good finishes last year actually with him. He knows what he’s doing. He’s played professional golf for a long time. He’s not a first-timer. He knows what he’s doing. So that makes it even funnier that he lost it.”

Given Bulle knew where it was, and the fact there’s a 100 per cent chance another group came across it, we’re guessing it’s already safely back in Jaeger’s bag and Bulle will live to tell the tale.

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It has not been Ryan Brehm’s year, and that’s putting it lightly. If you remove his one good week, a T-14 at the Honda Classic, you’re left with 14 missed cuts in 16 starts. Not much has gone right for the reigning Puerto Rico Open champion.

The beauty of golf, though, is that it can flip on a dime, which appears to be exactly what happened for Brehm on Thursday at the Valspar Championship. The 36-year-old made birdie on the par-5 first at Innisbrook to begin his round, then sprinkled in three more against just one bogey over his next 15 holes. At three under on the 17th tee, he then jumped to five under with a hole-in-one, the first of his career on the PGA Tour:

? ACE FOR RYAN BREHM ?

Taking over the solo lead @ValsparChamp at 5-under! pic.twitter.com/2HgayRToMa

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 16, 2023

What’s particularly funny about this one is it sounds like Brehm didn’t love it. “CARRY!” you’ll hear him say as the ball sails toward the green, Brehm hoping it would get all the way to the front edge. It ended up carrying all the way to the bottom of the cup.

“It kind of surprised me when I saw it go in the hole, honestly,” Brehm said afterward. “But we got a good reaction. It was a lot of fun. I was really just trying to cover the front edge of the green, and we had the wind that was down off of the right. I think we had 189 to cover the front edge and it probably flew almost 200 yards. So it was pretty fun to see that thing trickle in.”

Now here comes the truly crazy part. While speaking with the media, Brehm revealed that his ace wasn’t even the rarest feat he accomplished on the Copperhead Course this week. The truly rare one came during Monday’s Pro-Am.

“My wife and I talk about it all the time. I’m glad she was there because she’s like: ‘I’ve never seen you have one,’” he said. “And ironically, in the Monday Pro-Am, I rinsed one on 13 for my first shot, grabbed a different club, teed it up, and jarred it for a par.

“So it must be something about this week.”

We’d say so. A hole-in-three and a hole-in-one in the span of four days might just mean it’s your week. The first-round 66, which has him tied for the lead, certainly helps his it-might-be-my-week case, too.

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By Dave Shedloski
Good golf, winning golf, takes long hours, a short memory and an even keel, which pretty much sums up Sam Burns in the last seven days. It also takes a clutch shot at the right time, and while a 32-footer for birdie on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff is definitely in the clutch category, there are usually another key moment or two in which a winner rises to the occasion.

Nursing a two-stroke lead Sunday on the penultimate hole of the Valspar Championship, Burns faced that moment when he chopped up the 198-yard par 3 and had a nine-footer for bogey. Miss it and he falls into a tie with Justin Thomas and Davis Riley. Make it and he keeps alive his hopes of successfully defending his title.

Well, of course he made it. Which was crucial when Riley birdied the same hole a few minutes later to tie him at 17 under par. Then Burns did his thing—which includes being one of the game’s finest putters. With Riley sizing up a chip from just behind the green, Burns found enough of the left lip at the par-4 16th, the second playoff hole, to swirl in a birdie that proved to be the winner when Riley followed by rifling his pitch past the cup.

He BURIES it

Unbelievable putt from @SamBurns66. pic.twitter.com/CbWOptcjLW

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 20, 2022

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Burns, after a final-round two-under 69, won for a second-straight time at the vaunted Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., and claimed his third PGA Tour title in the last 10 months. No one has won more in that span, though, Patrick Cantlay owns three wins as well. Burns has had eight top-10s in his last 16 events, including another victory in the fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

If you haven’t been impressed by the former college player of the year from LSU to this point, you can start now. Endearingly, he isn’t all that impressed with himself.

“I don’t feel special, but it feels special to do it,” Burns said of winning back-to-back at a course that is among the more revered on tour.

But what about moving from 17th to 10th in the World Ranking? Again, that puts him in elite company.

Douglas P. DeFelice
Burns is one of two golfers (along with Patrick Cantlay) with three PGA Tour wins in the last 10 months.

Let’s back up for a minute. Burns had a chance to win the weather-plagued Players Championship on Monday, but his swing already was somewhere along Florida’s I-4 and couldn’t pick a lane. He shot 76 and knew he needed to call in his coach, fellow Louisianan Brad Pullin, who drove 12 hours to give Burns a tune-up.

Back on track, Burns entered the final round trailing Riley by three strokes. The two men, both 25 and hunting enthusiasts, are good friends who have competed against each other going back to their pre-teen AJGA days. It might not have been Burns’ day had Riley not given three shots back in one hole with a triple bogey on the par-5 fifth that let in a slew of contenders, including playing partner Matthew NeSmith and Thomas.

Burns then nearly let it all slip away himself when he found the left greenside bunker at the 17th, blasted out poorly to the fringe, and then blitzed his par attempt, leaving him a nine-footer. “I just tried to read the putt to the best of my ability, and I just told myself, ‘Just best stroke of the day, whatever happens, happens.’”

Julio Aguilar
Bruns and Riley, both 25, have been rivals since their pre-teen days playing the AJGA junior circuit.

Ranked 399th in the world, Riley, a Korn Ferry Tour graduate, battled back gamely from his massive misstep—it was the only triple bogey of the week from any player on a par-5 hole—but his one-over 72 tied for the highest final round among players who finished in the top 10. Even with his struggles, Riley gave himself a 15-foot birdie look on the 72nd hole to win it, but the Mississippi native missed on the low side to tie Burns at 17-under 267.

After the pair traded pars on the first playoff hole, Burns, who has led the tour in strokes gained/putting in Florida events since 2019 (and was eighth for the week at Innisbrook), holed his lengthy game-winner and reacted with a surge of energy and a few brisk fist pumps.

“I just think that after last week, the last couple weeks, I’ve tried to conserve as much energy as possible, and all through today just trying to make sure that I never got kind of too high or too low and just tried to stay kind of even-keeled,” Burns said, explaining why he finally let loose after staying bottled up on a sunny and warm afternoon.

Riley, seeking his first tour win after two KFT titles last season, was hardly surprised. “He’s been a very good putter for a long time, and yeah, that was a very good putt,” Riley said after his career-best finish. “He made a big putt in a big moment and, yeah, it was really impressive and, yeah, he did what he needed to do.”

Douglas P. DeFelice
Burns hugs his wife, Caroline, after winning with a 32-foot birdie on the second playoff hole at Innisbrook.

And, yeah, Burns has to be in the conversation now as one of the favourites for the upcoming Masters, the year’s first major. You know, because how well have players with good putting strokes fared at Augusta National?

But for now, he isn’t thinking about anything but taking his game to another level. That is something winners usually do. The resting on laurels plan never works.

“I think, for me, I just try to put in hard work, just try to improve my game every year, every week, look at stats and see what areas I can get better at and then my team and I try to attack those areas,” he said after improving in one area, his bank account, with a $1.404 million payday. “That’s all I can control and so I mean, it’s nice to see that those things are paying off, it gives us motivation that we’re working on the right things. I want to just try to make things better. That’s ultimately what I love to do.”

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By Ryan Herrington
His gaze was strong, his voice calm. Davis Riley met the media on Sunday after a harrowing day at the Valspar Championship, but from the 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie’s demeanour, it wouldn’t appear to have been a heartbreaking one.

Riley lost his chance to claim his maiden tour win when he couldn’t follow up a Sam Burns 32-foot birdie on second playoff hole at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort. But that was something Riley could stomach.

“Sam’s a hell of a player. And, yeah, I mean, any time you give someone like that who is playing well within 30 feet you always think there’s a chance, so I kind of went into there thinking he was going to give it a really good run,” Riley said. “He’s been a very good putter for a long time, and yeah, that was a very good putt.”

Go back and look at Riley’s round, however, and it’s obvious where he will say he truly lost the tournament. No golfer had made a triple-bogey 8 on any of Innisbrook’s par 5s all week. But Riley did just that on the fifth hole Sunday, squandering the 54-hole lead he carried into the round.

“Yeah, I just hit a bad tee shot and then from there it was just kind of a cluster,” Riley said.

Indeed, his drive went way left of the fairway, all the way to the left side of the adjacent sixth hole. His second shot wasn’t much better, ending up near the tee box on the eighth hole.

Riley got relief from the signage on the tee, but he proceeded to hit his third shot chunky, the ball coming to rest against a tree still some 70 yards from the hole. The only way he could play the shot was flipping a club and hitting the ball left-handed, which Riley decided against and instead took an unplayable lie.

Now hitting five, his punch shot went over the green and then his chip dashed through to the other side. Two down from the fringe got him his 8.

The only triple bogey on No. 5 this week.

Davis Riley entered the hole with a 2-shot lead and leaves it trailing by one. pic.twitter.com/8KFqsC5NGN

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 20, 2022

“Honestly, I think where it went wrong was after I dropped, got the relief from the tee box, the tee marker, yeah, it was just sandy, kind of weird grass over there, and maybe I just tried to hit too much of a perfect shot instead of making sure I blast it over the green and give myself just an up and in at par.

“Then I just kind of, I don’t know, it was just a tough shot. It’s just so sandy over there and it’s thin. You really have to make perfect contact to even get the ball that far. But if I had to do it over again maybe just make sure I get it long instead of trying to get it on the green, almost just take long and try to get up-and-down.”

To Riley’s credit, he hung tough despite the big number. Remember this is a player who had never been better than T-15 entering the final round in his 24 previous PGA Tour starts.Yes, he won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour and was an All-American at Alabama, but playing for a PGA Tour title is different. And from that point out, Riley made three birdies and just one bogey, closing out a one-over 72 to force the playoff at 17-under 267.

He even had a chance to win in regulation, missing a 15-foot effort on the par-4 18th after making a birdie to tie things up on the 17th.

“Yeah, walking off the green, I told [my caddie], ‘There’s a lot of golf left. Like, I’m playing good,’” Riley said. “And fortunately I had a little bit of cushion up until that mistake, so I was still in it. It was not like I really shot myself out of it. I knew if I played solid golf that I could play this course three, four, five under coming in and I knew that would probably be enough to win.

“But I just had to hit the reset button and just go shot by shot and I felt like I did a really good job of that today.”

Despite losing, Riley posted the best finish of his young PGA Tour career, topping his T-7 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship last October. His $850,200 runner-up check also was more than four times bigger than the previous best payday on tour ($190,775 in Bermuda).

More importantly, there was no head hanging on Sunday night at Innisbrook. Disappointment, perhaps, but Riley walked away knowing full well it was one bad hole that cost him.

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By Christopher Powers
If you did a deep stats dive, you’d find that Keith Mitchell, despite a lack of strong results, had been hitting the ball very nicely of late, both off the tee and with his irons. During that same deep dive, though, you’d also see his putting numbers from the Valspar Championship, which would cause you to projectile vomit.

For the week, Mitchell lost 12 strokes with the flat stick, the majority of the damage being done on Sunday. In the final round at Innisbrook he lost a staggering 8.92 strokes on the greens, a number that would make lesser men snap their not-so-magic wand in two.

Turns out, while it wasn’t snapped, Mitchell’s putter was actually bent and he didn’t know it. “I realized it was my putter, not me,” said Mitchell, who needed 42 putts in Tampa last Sunday.

The craziest part, is that Mitchell didn’t figure it out until Tuesday at Quail Hollow, when his coach noticed the loft was off by a few degrees. That was a timely find, and it’s helped Mitchell grab the 54-hole lead at the Wells Fargo Championship. On Saturday, he backed up his 67-71 start with a third-round bogey-free 66, which has him two clear of a pair of major winners in Rory McIlroy and Gary Woodland.

The putter, not surprisingly, has been key. Mitchell has gained nearly 3.5 strokes on the greens, good enough to rank 17th in the field. The driving has been elite, as it often is for Mitchell (he’s first in SG/off-the-tee), and the approach game has been strong as well. All-round play usually gets it done at tough golf courses, which appear to be Mitchell’s speciality. If he wins Sunday, he’ll have wins at Quail Hollow and at PGA National, where he won the Honda Classic in 2019.

“Really tough golf courses demand every part of your game,” Mitchell said Saturday. “I’ve definitely played poorly on tough golf courses, but my best weeks have been at the tough ones, Bay Hill, Honda, here. When you hit a bad shot you get penalized, and when you hit a good shot you get rewarded. Some golf courses on the PGA Tour where you can hit bad shots, get away with it and still try to make birdie. You can’t do that here. I think that’s a true test of golf. I don’t think golf would be fun if every course was like this. I just feel more comfortable around a tougher course.”

On Sunday, Mitchell will play alongside another guy who plays tough courses well—McIlroy, who has a pair of wins and a number of high finishes at Quail Hollow. Mitchell shouldn’t feel too scared, though. When he won the Honda, he held off a guy named Brooks Koepka on Sunday.

Here are four other takeaways from Day 3 at the Wells Fargo.

Maddie Meyer
Rory McIlroy reacts on the second green during the third round of the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship.

Is Rory going to hurt us again?
Theoretically, Quail Hollow should be the one place where McIlroy can’t hurt us based off his course history. When he won here in 2010 he shot a closing 62, and when he won again in 2015 he went 61-69 on the weekend. He loves the course, it’s tailor made to his game. He should be immune to a Sunday sputtering, the type we’ve seen a few too many times from him since his last win in November of 2019. But all the past success in the world means nothing when he walks to the first tee on Sunday. Unfortunately, it would not be surprising to see him stall, but we’re all sincerely rooting for that not to happen. McIlroy being back in the fold for this upcoming Kiawah-Torrey-Royal St. George’s-Ryder Cup stretch is something we all desperately need.

Quail Hollow’s 18th remains one of the great beastly finishers on tour
Not breaking any news in saying that many of Quail Hollow’s holes are pretty forgettable. The 18th is not one of them. It remains an absolute beast of a par 4 that gives these guys fits and always produces high end-of-round drama. On Saturday there were zero … zero (!) birdies, and the scoring average was well over a half-stroke over par (4.701). The three par 5s all played easier in the third round. It’s a monster.

Maddie Meyer
Gary Woodland walks the 18th hole during the third round of the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship.

This is a BIG boy leader board
In other words, it’s a Quail Hollow leader board. We’re not complaining. Mitchell, Rory, Woodland, Luke List, Scott Stallings, Viktor Hovland. If you want to win here, you better be able to smash driver and hit a bunch of greens, something all the aforementioned names do very well. It would be tough to watch this style of golf every week, but a handful of times a year it can be very entertaining.

Jared C. Tilton
Phil Mickelson looks on from the third green during the third round of the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship.

Phil Mickelson’s first round was such a tease
What some Phil pessimists feared turned out to be very, very true—Thursday was a tease of the highest order. His seven-under 64, which gave him the solo lead after 18 holes, did not end up being a sign of things to come for the weekend. Friday and Saturday, Mickelson came all the way back to the pack and then some, shooting 75-76 to fall outside of the top 50.

It’s a shame, because Lefty has been grinding his face off of late and it looked like he was finally reaping the rewards. But the irons, which were red hot Thursday, failed him in the second and third rounds. Friday he lost 0.759 on approach, which paled in comparison to the nearly 4.2 strokes he lost on approach Saturday. That’ll lead to some ugly numbers at Quail Hollow. Hopefully, we’ll get more of the Thursday version of Phil in the near future, though those days are becoming fewer on the big tour for the 50-year-old.

The post Keith Mitchell and his not-bent putter in the lead, Rory giving chase and Quail Hollow’s 18th hole remains a beast appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

After a few close calls, the former college standout gets his breakthrough PGA Tour win—and seems ready for more

By Daniel Rapaport
Sam Burns and Keegan Bradley had traded blows for 30 consecutive holes, seemingly glued to one another at the tip-top of the Valspar Championship leader board. They shared the 36-hole lead, shot matching 69s in the final pairing on Saturday and had both taken 46 shots through 12 holes on Sunday, three clear of third as they headed to the 13th tee on a feisty Copperhead Course at Innisbrook.

The par 3 measures 182 yards on the card but played far less—a 9-iron for the bombers, an 8-iron for the mortals. Burns played first and his 9 came up well short, on the dance floor but a solid 60 feet from the band. So Bradley pulled 8, ostensibly to fire away from the water and toward the middle of the green, content to let the decisive blow in this two-man battle come a bit later.

What followed was his worst shot of the week, a fanned cut that found the drink—the type of break Burns had been waiting for in an annoyingly long quest for PGA Tour win No. 1.

Bradley’s blunder resulted in a crushing double bogey, the turning point in a shootout that became a rather comfortable stroll to victory. Burns’ three-under 68 was good for a three-shot victory, the first of the 24-year-old’s career. The first, according to CBS’ Jim Nantz, of “many to come.”

“I don’t think I could have dreamed of a better moment,” Burns said after his family joined him on the 18th green to celebrate. “Just to have my wife [Caroline] there. We have been together for … not married but together for five or six years. She’s seen really good golf, she’s seen really bad golf and she’s just been there by my side for all of it. So to have her here was really special. And just a moment that we’ll get to have for the rest of our lives, we’ll get to tell our kids about one day.”

Coming into this final round, Burns wasn’t quite in why-hasn’t-he-won-yet territory. But he wasn’t far away, either, thanks to his consistently excellent play—Saturday evening marked the eighth time that Burns had led or co-led after a round in the 2020-21 season, two more than any other golfer. Before this week, the most recent time came at the Genesis Invitational, where he played preposterously good golf to lead a star-studded field by five at the halfway point. He started the final round that week at Riviera with a two-shot lead, shot two-under 69 on a major-ready golf course, and lost.

There was also the 54-hole lead at the Vivint Houston Open last November, where he finished T-7, and the brutal 75 he shot from the final group at the Farmers Insurance Open in January.

Burns doesn’t say much, a laconic Louisianan who says more with his eyes than his mouth. The few words he does offer suggest a steadfast belief in the Law of Averages—that if he continued to put himself in position, one of these days it’s going to happen.

“You have a better understanding of what it takes,” Burns said of the near-misses. “And I think having those past chances that I wasn’t able to convert, I think it got me ready for this moment. Going into the back nine [caddie], Travis [Perkins] and I just really wanted to stick to our game plan, stick to the process of just being really engaged on each shot. And we were able to do that.”

Julio Aguilar
Sam Burns celebrates with the trophy and family members (including his wife, Caroline, to his right) after winning the Valspar Championship for his first PGA Tour title.

He’ll be delighted, then, with his process on the par-5 14th, right after Bradley handed him control of the tournament. A 312-yard drive left him 251 yards to the hole, well within his wheelhouse, but a lone pine tree stood inconveniently in his line. Perkins stepped in with an assertive message: The tree is in your way, and you’re laying up. Burns never hesitated in pulling 7-iron. From there, he feathered a lob wedge within two feet of the hole, the birdie bringing him to 15 under for the week on the par 5s.

Bradley, who was trying to win for the first time since September 2018 at the BMW Championship, battled a cold putter and missed from inside seven feet on 16 and 17, rendering the final hole all but academic. The 34-year-old dropped nearly three shots to the field on the greens over the weekend, a frustratingly familiar story for a player who entered the week ranked No. 182 in strokes gained/putting. But it’s the swing at 13 that will leave a particularly rank aftertaste.

“I just hit a terrible shot,” Bradley said. “I hadn’t really hit a really bad shot all week, and you just can’t hit it there, obviously. But you can’t hit it right of the flag. And I just came out of it a little bit, it got gobbled up by the wind, if it goes another yard, it might have been in that bunker, but it was a bummer.”

And so the tour now has yet another sub-25-year-old stud with a win under his belt. Burns did not have the same instant success on tour as some of his other age-peers, posting just four top-10 finishes in his first 45 events. But there is no one timeline for a golfer’s development, and Burns didn’t quite emerge until this season. Now that he has, there’s reason for optimism that he can absolutely reach that elite level; the win will take him inside the top 50 in the World Ranking (one of 10 golfers 25 and younger in that group), and you get the sense he won’t be leaving anytime soon.

The signs have been there for quite a while. After winning the Nicklaus Player of the Year Award as a sophomore, Burns skipped his final two years at LSU to turn professional. Before making the jump, he was passed over for the 2017 U.S. Walker Cup team, an inexplicable snub that irks him to this day. Four months later, playing on a sponsor’s exemption at the Honda Classic, he earned himself a Sunday tee-time with Tiger Woods … and beat him by two.

Julio Aguilar
Burns celebrates with his caddie Travis Perkins on the 18th green after closing out the three-shot win.

Burns left an impression on Woods that day, the legend particularly intrigued with Burns’ ball-striking and his veteran-like demeanour at 21. “He played beautifully,” Woods said back then. (Two months later, Burns won on the Web.com Tour, ensuring that his time spent outside the big tour bubble would not last long.)

Still, there are plenty of impressive players who never win on the PGA Tour. Take Cameron Tringale, who finished tied for third. The 33-year-old has played in 299 PGA Tour events and amassed more than $13.7 million in career earnings—more than any player in Tour history without a victory.

Sam Burns learned first-hand just how difficult winning is—at Memorial Park, at Torrey and at Riviera. At Innisbrook, he learned that difficult does not mean impossible.

The post Sam Burns is done with moral victories appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.