By Brian Wacker
HONOLULU — This week’s Sony Open in Hawaii is one of Kevin Kisner’s favourite tournaments of the year.

“It’s Point A to Point B and make some putts,” he said of Waialae Country Club. “That’s kind of my M.O. on the PGA Tour. So I appreciate when we get the golf courses that play that manner and it’s not really see how far you can hit it.”

It’s also a big week.

Kisner’s wife is due with the couple’s third child on Feb. 11, so he plans to take the next six weeks off and not return until the first event of the Florida Swing, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, in March. That also means that he’ll likely lose ground in the FedEx Cup (although he’s currently ranked a comfortable 25th) and Ryder Cup points standings (where he’s 14th).

Not that he plays much on the West Coast anyway—he usually skips the tour’s annual stops at Torrey Pines and Riviera. He also doesn’t have a lot of confidence in his game at some of the circuit’s bigger ballparks. (Kisner last played at Torrey Pines in 2014.)

“Probably not,” he responded when he was asked if he could win anywhere. “I’m not going to win at Bethpage Black or Torrey Pines.”

So why show up?

Quipped Kisner: “Because they give away a lot of money for 20th.”

Indeed. Bethpage and Torrey Pines have both hosted major championships, and Torrey Pines will again with this year’s U.S. Open being played on the South Course. Kisner wasn’t on tour the last time the U.S. Open was played at Torrey Pines in 2008.

As for the rest of his schedule, Kisner said he simply doesn’t go to tournaments that he doesn’t think he can win. It’s a logical approach.

Kisner’s two stroke-play victories on tour came at the 2015 RSM Classic at Sea Island and the 2017 Dean & DeLuca Invitational at Colonial—short venues that reward precision over power. His other victory came at the 2019 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club, which tops out around just 7,100 yards.

“On the flip side, I think I probably put too much pressure on myself on the courses I know I can win at,” he said. “I have to be cognizant of that.”

The good news? Kisner has finished in the top five at the Sony three times since 2016. Another strong performance this week would go a long way with the next six weeks off.

The post Kevin Kisner had the perfect response when asked if he can win anywhere on tour appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
The third time wasn’t the charm for Charles Howell III at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Maybe the 20th will be?

Not that he’s complaining. Howell and Waialae Country Club go together about as well as Kelly Slater and a wave. Or, more accurately, like an ATM card and a bank machine.

In 19 career appearances in the event, Howell has never missed a cut. More impressive is that he has finished in the top 10 a total of 10 times, with seven of those being in the top five.

Total earnings: $2,948,281.91, making him the career money leader in the tournament despite never having won it.

“This tournament has obviously been really good to me,” Howell said Tuesday. “It’s an event that, Lord willing, I’ll never miss, as long as I can play.

“There’s been a couple that I’ve kind of messed up there at the end or could have played a bit better to maybe have won, but it’s been such a great event to me.”

Two that come to mind were in 2007 and 2012.

In 2007, Howell, who at the time had just one victory in six years on the PGA Tour, shot the best score of the third round, a five-under 65, to take a one-stroke lead through 54 holes. The next day, though, he shot two over on the final nine and failed to birdie the par-5 18th. His final-round 70 tied for the highest score of anyone in the top 10 and he finished one back of Paul Goydos.

Four years later, he was in contention again on Sunday, but a final-round 69 ultimately left him in a tie for second and two back of winner Johnson Wagner.

Still, there are varying degrees when it comes to success on tour, and there’s little arguing Howell’s at Waialae, where he also has the lowest score to par—58 under—of any player over the last five years. In all, he has finished in the top 15 a stunning 13 times.

“Looking back on it, though, I’m more impressed that I’ve had as many top-10 finishes as I’ve had here, simply because it is the first event back, if you will, after a break, and you don’t always know how your game is,” he said. “I do love the golf course, though, because I feel like it’s different from so many other places we play. So many golf courses we play now are huge ballparks and it’s just bash driver everywhere. Here, I feel like every hole you kind of have to think and know your angles.”

For Howell, that includes a trip straight to the bank.

The post Charles Howell III cashes in Hawaii like its his own personal bank appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
The sun was shining while the palm trees swayed in a steady breeze as a small squall blew through Waialae Country Club on Tuesday afternoon. Five thousand miles away, Australia could have used the rain as the country continued to burn.

Since the wildfires Down Under began in Queensland and New South Wales last September—fueled by a long, intense drought—nearly 20 million acres have been scorched, according to multiple reports. At least 25 people have died, more than a half-billion animals have perished and scores of residents have been forced to flee their homes.

Among them was Cameron Smith’s uncle, who fled Tumbarumba, a small town about 300 miles southeast of Sydney, to Smith’s home in Florida a few days ago after losing his house, tractors, horses, “just everything, really,” according to Smith.

“It’s pretty bad,” Smith said. “He’s OK, and that’s the main thing, but it’s still a big loss. It’s just bad.”

The ongoing tragedy, of course, is personal for Smith and many of the Australians on the PGA Tour. It’s why the 26-year-old is pledging $500 a birdie and $1,000 per eagle this week at the Sony Open. Countryman Marc Leishman is doing the same, and his Begin Again Foundation will match every donation made up to $5,000.

“Everything is so dry it’s hard to see it getting better,” Leishman said.

Their donations are a start.

Golf is a sport with deep pockets and can have a significant impact, which is why the Presidents Cup, run by the PGA Tour and held last month at Royal Melbourne, will kick in as well. Tour officials have committed to match whatever donations players make at this week’s Sony Open, up to $125,000. Smith and Leishman were both members of the International team at Royal Melbourne.

“It’s just devastating for the families,” said Leishman, who figures he has about 15 family members still in the country, all safe—for the moment, anyway. “Firefighters and people risking their lives to save homes and other people’s lives, animals as well. … You feel kind of helpless.”

In the wake of Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the Bahamas last September, a number of players and powerful figures in the game came together to raise millions for that island nation. It will likely take years for parts of the Bahamas to return to normal. That money makes a difference.

In Australia, the fires aren’t expected to stop anytime soon; it’s only the beginning of the fire season there. Flames have hit every state in Australia, but New South Wales and Victoria—home to Sydney and Melbourne—are in the worst shape.

While Sydney and Melbourne are currently safe from the fires, coastal areas between the two cities have been hit hard, particularly in the south. Victoria is under a state of disaster and New South Wales a state of emergency.

Which is why help continues to pour in from all directions.

Actor Chris Hemsworth has pledged $1 million to relief efforts; Nicole Kidman and her husband, Keith Urban $500,000; Russell Crowe more than $100,000.

Golf can and should continue to get on board, too.

LPGA stars Jessica and Nelly Korda, whose father Petr won the 1998 Australian Open in tennis, have promised $150 for each birdie and $300 for every eagle they make during the LPGA’s two opening events of the 2020 season in Florida. Others will likely follow suit, too. Some already have.

Other Aussies in the field at Waialae this week—Matt Jones, Cameron Davis, Cameron Percy and Rhein Gibson—have offered to make donations as well.

“It’s an uphill battle,” Leishman said of the disaster.

Every little bit of aid helps.

“So much is lost, you don’t know what to do,” Smith said. “I’m just trying to help in every way. It’s not that much, but if everyone helps in a small way it can turn into a big help.”

The post As wildfires rage at home, Australian golfers look to raise money for relief efforts appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
HONOLULU — Two years ago, Chez Reavie was chasing 59 in the final round of the Sony Open in Hawaii before he settled for a 61. This time, he succeeded in adding his name to the record book, albeit for a different reason.

Friday at Waialae Country Club, Reavie holed out for eagle three times, becoming the first player to do so on three par-4s in the same round since the PGA Tour started keeping track in 1983.

“I was trying to think back to any round I even had more than one hole-out and I couldn’t think of any,” the 37-year-old journeyman said.

He didn’t take long to make the first one, jarring a sand wedge from 101 yards on the par-4 10th, his first hole of the day. Six holes later he made another, from 149 yards with a 9-iron.

The momentum didn’t last long, though, with Reavie making bogey on the par-4 first and double at the par-3 fourth after missing the green left and blasting his sand shot across the green, prompting him to change balls.

You can guess what happened next. Two holes later he holed a gap wedge from 135 yards, prompting two of the caddies in the group to throw their hats at him.

“The first one was great, the second was, wow, that’s cool, the third one was like, are you kidding me?” said playing partner Michael Thompson. “Pretty amazing to watch. The third time we gave him a hard time. Thats’ probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be in a group and see a guy do that, let alone do it yourself. It’s pretty cool to see.”

Reavie had a chance to add a fourth eagle on the par-5 ninth but missed the green left with his second shot and narrowly missed holing out from a greenside bunker.

“Yeah, that would’ve been fun,” said Reavie, who finished with a second-straight 65 to move into a tie for second two strokes back after the morning wave. “I was just trying to get it as close as I could and make a birdie. If it would’ve went in it would’ve been special.”

The post Chez Reavie, seriously? He holes out for eagles on three par 4s in second round of Sony Open in Hawaii appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
“What’s wrong with Jordan Spieth?” is a question that has been posed plenty of times before. We’ve simply inserted a new name into the query.

There were two significant interludes of “What’s wrong with Jack Nicklaus?” in the career of golf’s greatest major championship player. And before that, the golfing cognoscenti were wondering, “What’s wrong with Arnold Palmer?” And then there was, “What’s wrong with Tom Watson or Greg Norman … or Tiger Woods?”

No one is immune from the game’s ebbs and flows, though sometimes it’s difficult to figure where one starts and the other stops. Or as the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus wrote, “The way upward and the way downward is one and the same.” And to think, Heraclitus, born in 535 BC, who came to be known as “the weeping philosopher” because of his melancholy disposition, never picked up a golf club.

In the case of Spieth, his career seemed to flow naturally from the moment he won the 2013 John Deere Classic to become, at 19, the fourth-youngest winner in PGA Tour history. From there he assembled a player-of-the-year season, winning the first two majors of 2015 and five times overall to rocket to world No. 1, and though he collapsed at the 2016 Masters, it appeared that he put that experience to use in his gut-check victory in the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

But Spieth, 25, is winless since that miraculous self-reviving effort to claim the claret jug. The flow has, well, ebbed. Not only did he not win last year, but he failed to reach the Tour Championship, missing by one spot the event reserved for the top 30 players in the season-long FedEx Cup standings. He slipped to No. 17 in the world.

What’s wrong with Jordan Spieth? Not much. But just enough to send him asking the same exact question that he knows a lot of others are asking.

“The thing for us,” Spieth began, “is not to get caught up in today’s news. It’s easy to sometimes when you’re not used to it. I haven’t seen, read, or heard anything on it. I learned that lesson already because I know what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth, and I know what’s right with Jordan Spieth.

“I know how to get where I want to go with my golf game and have fun doing it. … I don’t really know what anyone has said other than something is wrong. I know my results aren’t the same, and I know I’m not playing as well. Clearly, I already know that.”

What hadn’t been clear is what he should do about it. A slump of some nature isn’t just about doing things poorly; it’s also about the path you choose to resume doing things well. As he prepares for the Sony Open in Hawaii, Spieth is unsure of his prospects for winning again in the near term but is certain he is back on track after searching in vain last year.

Having failed to qualify for the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui, another huge disappointment, Spieth eyed the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines for his 2019 debut. But after confidence-building practice sessions after Christmas, he couldn’t subdue the urge to start earlier. He has no expectations, except “to knock off some rust and gather some information about where I’m at.”

And just where is he now?

“Honestly not sure,” said the native Texan, who will play his first event since he married his high school sweetheart, Annie Verret, in November. “Like I have lesser amount of certainty of that than I’ve had in a while. It doesn’t bother me right now. I don’t feel anxious, like I have to do anything. I feel pretty patient with what’s coming because I know I’m working on the right things. Took me a while to figure out what that was. Now I know I’m working on the right things in the game to get back on track and get to where I’m as consistent as I’ve been before.”

But it wasn’t just that Spieth was consistent. He was, at times, spectacular, of which he even showed glimpses last year when he caused the tall pines at Augusta National to quake from the cheers for his brilliant closing 64. That 2015 campaign, when he was the youngest since Bobby Jones to win consecutive majors, set him up for difficult encores.

“It was such an unbelievable year,” said Steve Stricker, who partnered with the youngster in the 2013 Presidents Cup at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, after Fred Couples made Spieth a wild-card pick. “The unfortunate thing is he had that so early in his career and we hold him to that high standard. I think that is a little bit unfair.”

“Form comes and goes. It’s a long career,” said former world No. 1 Adam Scott of Australia. “You know, everyone’s and your own expectations can be very high. When you look at a guy playing well you wonder how he’ll ever play poorly again. The biggest thing is to not get in your own way so much. I was guilty of that over the past 18 months because frustration gets in your way.

“If you put some perspective on it, ranking 50th in the world, it’s not completely terrible. I still think being the ranked 50th ranked player I can win a tournament any week with my experience and the potential of my game. I just need to sort it out, get myself in a good mindset going on the course. I think that’s as important as some of the technical stuff. Just got to give yourself a break sometimes.”

Adding further perspective, Scott suggested that a slight drop in performance can cause a disproportionate falloff in results simply because the competition is too good to not take advantage. A run of Tiger-like dominance doesn’t seem possible.

“Tiger has set the mark to a point that is unrealistic almost for anybody else,” said Scott, the 2013 Masters champion. “And with where the game is right now, I just don’t see the separation in players the way Tiger separated himself from everyone for 10 years.”

Spieth has a terrific all-around game, but nothing spectacular save for one area. He could separate himself from the competition with his putting. He was uncanny from any distance, particularly long range. In 2015, he ranked ninth in strokes gained-putting; in other words, his success didn’t derive solely from his work on the greens, but it sure was integral to it.

Last year in the same category he ranked 123rd, a drop of nearly 100 spots from 39th in 2017 and a precipitous fall from ranking second in 2016. His ability to clean up close to the hole was especially shaky as he fell from seventh to 181st on three-footers.

“I’ve had the reputation of being the best putter in the world, and I want to get back to that,” said Spieth, well aware of the shortcoming. “I just have to clear up the visuals and go do it.”

Which means clearing his head, shaking off all of the bad feelings from a year in which he had a chance to win two majors but in the end got nothing out of it, not even a Ryder Cup victory. But he knew a season like 2018 was possible. Smart young man. He does understand the game.

“I think whether you’re tricking yourself or – and that’s part of the gig – I was certainly frustrated with last season results-wise compared to previous seasons,” he began. “It was also something I kind of embraced as an inevitable at some point in the career.”

But now he understands that there was much he didn’t understand.

“I almost took ignorance as bliss in a lot of parts of my game. I did things well, but I didn’t know why. I just did them. Then they got off, and so I had to figure out why I did them well and how to train it back. Ultimately that should help me going forward … if I get off, not be as off or be able to click it back on quicker to stay as consistent as possible. When I started to kind of embrace the fact that it was bound to happen at some point in the career and maybe this is it, then make that be the only time I get that far off and grind it back. Then you have your checkpoints that can’t get off again.

“I think we’ve established them,” Spieth added before a note of caution. “Again, just not quite back yet. It will require some reps. I want to trust. Out here just trying to trust what I’m working on and not bail on swing feels and go to what’s easy. Instead, power through it and wait for it to come around.”

What would a successful 2019 look like to a player who already has 11 career wins without any in the last 17 months? The answer is obvious but also layered. He mentions that he had a chance on Sunday to win the Masters and the Open Championship, the latter where he failed to make a birdie in the final round after holding a share of the 54-hole lead.

“Ideally, you’d have that chance every year,” he noted. “[But] it’s not fun to see other people winning.”

Indeed, chances can only heighten frustration. Somewhere, somehow, a player has to take advantage, convert when getting close. Ask Rory McIlroy, who let another winning opportunity – seven and counting in the last year – slip by at last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions, how fulfilling chances are in and of themselves.

“I would love to get back in the winner’s circle. Been itching,” Spieth admitted. “I know in golf you can play the best and still not win that week, and you can also be a little off and somehow win. I’ve been on both sides of that. Ultimately, just comes down to being as consistent with my game as I can to continue to work my way into the top 10 by Sunday, and then it’ll start to fall. So, it’s not trying to win a tournament. It’s more an overall consistency of the game.

“When you don’t know what’s off, that’s an uneasy feeling. But when you know and you’re working the right way, then I don’t feel the pressure to make it happen right away.”

So, what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth? Perhaps only the thought that we’ve ever had to ask the question in the first place.

The post Jordan Spieth knows ‘what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth and what’s right with Jordan Spieth’ appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.