Day: January 15, 2020

Quick look at The American ExpressQuick look at The American Express

The PGA TOUR returns to the mainland for the third week of the 2020 calendar year. The American Express will still be headlined by two-time champion Phil Mickelson, but now he goes from tournament ambassador to tournament host. The storied event, which was most famously hosted by Bob Hope, is in its 61st year but its first with American Express as title sponsor. It will be played on the par-72, 7,159-yard Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West, the par-72, 7,060-yard La Quinta Country Club, and the par-72, 7,113-yard host course, the Stadium Course at PGA West. Adam Long will defend his first TOUR title a year after he edged Mickelson and Adam Hadwin by one. This year’s field features 17 of the top 30 in the FedExCup standings, led by Brendon Todd (2) and Sebastian Munoz (4). RELATED: Tee times | Power Rankings THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER THE FLYOVER The 168-yard, par-3 17th hole, known as Alcatraz, was one of the signature creations of famed golf course architect Pete Dye, who died last week at 94. True to its name, the hole features an island green with a tiny pot bunker, all of it surrounded by a ring of rocks and then water. It played as the third hardest hole last year, with a 3.093 stroke average. There were 35 birdies, 16 bogeys and, not surprisingly, 20 double-bogeys. LANDING ZONE The 560-yard, par-5 16th hole is this week’s Aon Risk-Reward hole. Since 2016, 86% of players who found the fairway off the tee went for the green. Players who go for the green have a 60% chance of making birdie or better when avoiding the greenside bunker on their second shot. Adam Long made two pars on the hole on the way to capturing his first victory last year, but it was the second easiest hole on the course, with a 4.590 stroke average. There were 96 birdies and six eagles compared to just 11 bogeys and two double-bogeys. WEATHER CHECK From meteorologist Stewart Williams: “A weakening cold front will move across Southern California late Thursday night into early Friday bringing a small chance for showers. The wind will likely increase during the afternoon to 12-18 mph and continue into the overnight out of the WNW 15-20 gusting to 30 mph. This system will quickly pass by Friday morning with partly cloudy skies and slightly cooler temperatures in the 60s. A gradual warming trend can be expected this weekend with highs warming near the mid 70s by Sunday. High clouds will likely stream over the region this weekend filtering the sun at times as well.â€� For the latest weather news from Palm Desert, check out the PGA TOUR weather Hub. SOUND CHECK When I stop hitting bombs I’ll play the Champions Tour. BY THE NUMBERS -601 – Cumulative score to par in California PGA TOUR events by Phil Mickelson since 1983, second best behind only Fred Couples. 26 – Number of Top-10 finishes by Tony Finau the last four seasons, the most by any player without a win. 255 – Low 72-hole score, by Steve Stricker, who is in this week’s field, in 2009. +121 – Move up the FedExCup standings by Brendan Steele after his runner-up finish at the Sony Open in Hawaii last week, the biggest mover of the week. SCATTERSHOTS Casey still in mid-season form: Paul Casey, 42, finished a lackluster T19 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, but says not to be fooled. He’s playing well. Why? Because with his T17 at the inaugural ZOZO Championship, followed by a start at the Australian Open in December, he never really stopped competing over the holidays. “My off-season’s been very, very short,â€� he said from The American Express, a tournament he last played in 2017 (T58), and only twice before that (MCs in 2002 and 2015). “I feel like I’ve just kind of continued, continued my year, not really stopped, which is a bit strange, but I’m actually fine about it.â€� It’s a Ryder Cup year, which always perks him up, and he’ll be the two-time defending champion at the Valspar Championship in the Florida Swing. “I feel like the game’s in a really good place,â€� he said. “And normally this time of year I would still be trying to get going and learning where my game is at, but I feel like my game’s in a good position, so the lack of off-season, if anything, is probably going to put me in a good position.â€� New-look Mickelson aims to end slump: Phil Mickelson won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2018 and 2019, respectively, but then went cold. Now he’s back with a new look after altering his diet to include fasting, specialty coffee, and a moratorium on junk. “It’s embarrassing the way I looked,â€� Mickelson said Wednesday. “… I wasn’t really accountable for my health.â€� Now that he is, he said he feels better than he did then and, “there’s no reason that would hold me back from being able to play and practice as hard as I can to play well out here.â€� He’s tried to address his wildness off the tee, which he said led to a water ball on the ninth hole on Sunday last year that cost him the tournament. His clubhead speed, he said, is up. Energy: up. Interest level: up. He loves the challenge of coming back to beat the greatest young players in the world, especially now that he’s feeling renewed. “There’s something that resonated with me,â€� he said, “and that was that everything I put into my body is either helping to fight disease or it’s causing disease. And that saying has me look at everything I eat as to is this helping me or hurting me. And for the most part, I’m not a hundred percent, but most of the things that I put in are helping me.â€�

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Mickelson: I’ll play PGA TOUR Champions eventuallyMickelson: I’ll play PGA TOUR Champions eventually

Phil Mickelson will play on the PGA TOUR Champions after he turns 50 this June. The only question is how long after he turns 50. For now, Mickelson said as he met with reporters at The American Express tournament in Palm Desert on Wednesday, he wants to keep battling younger players on the PGA TOUR.  “I haven’t thought too much about it,â€� said Mickelson, who won TOUR events the last two years but suffered a marked drop-off after capturing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am early last season. “And I won’t until I see how the first six months of this year go, because I’ve had this, I’ve had kind of a lot of great things happen that lead me to be encouraged about the year and I’m curious to see how the first six months go. RELATED:  What you need to know for The American Express | Power Rankings “It’s nice to have the option to move over to another tour,â€� he added, “but it’s also nice to have the challenge of competing out here.â€� Mickelson this year steps into the host role of The American Express, a tournament he has won twice and nearly won last year, but what he’s equally excited about is his new diet and fitness regimen that has seen him shed pounds and add clubhead speed. He is curious to see how his new lease on life translates on the scorecard. “When I stop hitting bombs, I’ll play the Champions Tour,â€� he said, “but I’m hitting some crazy bombs right now. No, I still have speed, I still, there’s no reason I couldn’t play out here. “I hit the ball every bit as far,â€� he added. “Usually as guys get in their 40s they regress; I had a five, six mile an hour club head speed increase last year. A little bit of commitment in the gym, a little bit of work ethic and all of a sudden there’s no reason that physically I can’t do today what I did 15, 20 years ago. In fact I’m doing more.â€� Mickelson has enjoyed great success in California, where he is a cumulative 601 under par in TOUR events since 1983, which trails only Fred Couples. “There’s a chance that if I do what I expect then I may end up competing for years out here,â€� Mickelson said. “And there’s a chance that maybe I am misguided in my thinking and that I should move over. But a lot will be decided or seen in the first six months, because I feel like I’m ready to play.â€�

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Berger battling back to be his bestBerger battling back to be his best

Daniel Berger used to think he didn’t really love golf… he just happened to be really good at it. But the two-time PGA TOUR winner has upgraded his love of the game over the last 18 months after a persistent injury took him away from the little white-dimpled ball he took for granted. Berger falls into the classic category of “You don’t know how much you love something till it’s gone.� Coming off a sixth-place finish at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, where he was part of the 54-hole lead, Berger was hitting a shot at the Travelers Championship when he felt some discomfort in the index finger on his right hand. It lingered. Berger battled through the pain and suited up for six more events that season and even forged top-15 finishes in the PGA Championship and THE NORTHERN TRUST. But the discomfort was stopping him doing his usual preparations and forced him to pull out of the BMW Championship before it began, ending his FedExCup run. The pain was now giving him issues down to the wrist. Inflammation meant only one thing could be done. Rest. RELATED:  What you need to know for The American Express | Power Rankings “I just couldn’t practice. I’d get to a golf tournament and hit just 50 golf balls the whole week and I just didn’t feel like I could do the preparation to where I would feel ready to go,� Berger explained. “At home I couldn’t go hit 500 balls if I wanted to. I never was able to do the things that in the past I was able to do.� Initially, a rest didn’t sound so bad to a young man who had been around elite athletes his whole life and had been working his tail off to become one himself since before he can remember. Berger’s father Jay played top-level tennis, winning three ATP singles titles and getting as high as seventh in the world. He played in the Davis Cup for the United States and then moved to coaching, working with the U.S. Davis Cup and Olympic tennis teams and also was a director of tennis for the USTA. Amongst this environment, young Daniel Berger thrived. “I knew since I was a young boy I would be a professional athlete. I just didn’t know what sport yet,� Berger said. His father, and Berger himself, are believers in the 10,000-hour rule. That being you need to get to 10,000 hours of dedicated practice in something to master it. So Berger’s life has been about putting in the work, and then doing more. So the idea of a break was something of a novelty. Maybe he could enjoy some down time and a more “normal� life for a while. The 2015 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year was excited about getting in the water on his boat and doing other recreational activities that wouldn’t hamper his injury. And he did have fun … until he started to miss his previous way of life. “In the beginning I thought it was amazing. I got to do other things,� Berger said. “But the reality is my whole life all I’ve ever known is hit balls, go to a golf tournament, compete … and suddenly you are unable to do those things you are so passionate about and it sucks. “I have always been a firm believer of the harder you work the better you perform and prior to that I had never had a time in my career where I wasn’t able to do the things I felt like I needed to do. That was the most frustrating part. You know what you need to accomplish but physically you are unable to do that and it just eats you up.� The frustration and annoyance got the better of the 26-year-old. And he came back to competition in 2019 despite things not being 100%. A runner-up finish at the Puerto Rico Open in late February gave him a bit of false confidence that he could battle through things a little. But the entire season he couldn’t quite trust things and his practice time remained well down on his usual standards. He fell to 131st in the FedExCup without a top-10 after Puerto Rico and missed the FedExCup Playoffs. Now though, Berger says he is 100%. The last few months he has returned his practice to the hours he is accustomed to. And in his five starts this season Berger has three top-25 finishes to be currently 79th in the FedExCup. The results might not yet show significant improvement, but Berger knows his ball-striking is returning toward its best. At the Sony Open last week, he was 10th in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and 11th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. And he had his first positive mark of the season in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. “I have put a lot of work in that I wasn’t able to do before. And that has already been the big difference in the five events I have played this season. I just need to continue to put the work in,� he said prior to The American Express this week in California. “It’s been a blessing to come back and do what I love. I used to always say I never really liked golf; I was just good at it. But when you take some time off, I realized I really like golf a lot. My main goal now is to put myself in contention to win. It is tough out here, so you’ve got to continue to get better. I feel like this offseason I did a lot of good things and I am hitting the ball way better than I have in a long time.� Berger is trying to get those feelings from the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons where he was Rookie of the Year and won back-to-back FedEx St. Jude Classics. He’s even reverted to the old TaylorMade irons he used coming through the ranks and says it helps him “just feel more like me.� As one of the famed Class of 2011, Berger has also drawn motivation from what Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth have already achieved in the game, knowing he’s always been able to compete on their level. It makes the idea of winning a FedExCup and major championships even more attainable. And watching the recent Presidents Cup on television – two years after he secured the clinching point for the U.S. Team at Liberty National – also put a fire in his belly. “I watched every single shot … and I never watch golf. But I love team sports and I love rooting for anything that’s American,� Berger said. “It is disappointing not to be there but obviously I didn’t deserve to be. To see those guys go out there and play the way they did was impressive and it is certainly motivating. “There are a lot of young guys making a name for themselves and I think you will see 10 or 15 guys playing on the teams for the next 10 or 15 years just like you saw with the Phil’s and Tiger’s. I want to be part of that.� Now that he’s back fit and healthy, there’s a good chance he will be.

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Approaching 50, Lefty still has plenty in the tankApproaching 50, Lefty still has plenty in the tank

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