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After just missing out on playing in the TOUR Championship last season, Adam Long is already motivated early in the 2020-21 campaign to get to East Lake. Long fired an 8-under-par 64 Saturday at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and leads by two heading into Sunday's final round. He's looking for his second PGA TOUR victory after winning The American Express in 2019 as a rookie. Although Long captured his maiden TOUR title in 2019, he missed 16 cuts and finished 69th on the FedExCup standings that season. Last season he was much more steady. He missed only seven cuts and notched two runner-up results (at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and the 3M Open) but he ended up 31st on the FedExCup standings. RELATED: Leaderboard | Lashley feels good after Saturday 65 Long just missed a spot at East Lake after Mackenzie Hughes (his playing partner Saturday at Corales) converted a par save on the 72nd hole at the BMW Championship to earn one of the final spots up for grabs at the TOUR Championship. "That was tough, honestly," said Long of being the-guy-on-the-bubble a few weeks ago. "I was inside the number down the stretch those last handful of events and just didn’t get it done. I didn’t play well enough to do it. "Obviously there were a lot of scenarios that could have happened that would have helped me get in, but I didn’t take care of my own business." Long said being on the cusp of earning a spot at East Lake made him realize how important the events on the fall portion of the TOUR schedule are in the long run. "I already kind of knew that, but these tournaments matter in September and October. At a couple of points (during the season) I was only (outside the top-30 in the FedExCup standings) by a couple of points," he said. "I want to get there. I know that I’ve proven that I can and I know that I want to. I was pretty close last year obviously, so it would be a dream. That’s a big goal of mine this year." Long has leaned on his putting to get him to the top of the leaderboard through three rounds in the Dominican Republic. On Saturday at Corales he had nine one-putts on his last 10 holes. "It was nice when those days are like that where you’re just kind of feeling the putter and you’re just making putts," said Long. "It was nice. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of things, I was just trying to make everything." Long's 64 is tied for the low round of the week so far. He made four birdies on both the front and back nines Saturday, including rattling off three-in-a-row on No's 12-14. "I didn't have much going today and I was watching Adam play awesome, so it was like getting run over by a semi," said Hughes of Long's Saturday stretch. Hughes chipped in twice on the back nine en route to making three birdies in a row and will be in the penultimate pairing Sunday. Long, who finished 13th on the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season money list to earn a TOUR card, is one of 12 players in the Dominican Republic who was also at the U.S. Open a week ago. He finished T13 there, his highest such result in a major championship. It's a big contrast from Winged Foot this week, he said, but he's taken the adjustments in stride. "That was just such a mental grind; it was just trying to hit a fairway," said Long of the U.S. Open setup. "This is more about making birdies, so it’s been a bit of an adjustment getting used to different greens and all that. "But I’ve been (to Corales) before and I’ve always liked coming here, so I’m here." Now he's trying to get back to another place he's been before - the PGA TOUR winner's circle - in hopes of getting somewhere he's not yet been: TOUR Championship.
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PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic — Adam Long took over the lead with a stretch of three straight birdies on the back nine and finished with key par saves for an 8-under 64 and a two-shot lead Saturday in the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. Hudson Swafford had to settle for nothing but pars on the back nine for a 69 and was two shots behind. RELATED: Leaderboard | Lashley feels good after Saturday 65 “It’s nice when those days are like that where you’re just kind of feeling the putter and you’re making putts,” said Long, who one-putted nine of his last 10 holes. “I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of things. I was just trying to make everything.” Long, coming off a tie for 13th at Winged Foot last week in the U.S. Open, matched the low round of the day and will going for his second PGA TOUR victory. His other was in January 2019 when he birdied the last hole of the Desert Classic to beat Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin. He has a little more separation going into the final round in the Dominican Republic. Long was at 17-under 199, with only five other players within five shots of the lead. Swafford was at 15 under and will be in the final group. Mackenzie Hughes of Canada twice chipped in for birdie late in his round of 67, leaving him three shots behind. Xinjun Zhang of China had a 68 and was at 13 under, while Nate Lashley (65) and Sean O’Hair (70) were five shots behind. Long took off with five birdies in a six-hole stretch around the turn, and he really poured it on when Swafford began to stall. Along with birdies on both par 5s, Nos. 12 and 14, Long hit a tricky shot from a flyer lie in the rough on the 13th, and it came out perfectly to 8 feet pin-high for birdie. He also caught a break on his one bad swing, a hook off the tee at the 16th that appeared to catch enough trees to settled about 5 yards away from the out-of-bounds stakes. He sent that right of the green and pitched beautifully to save par. Long had another key save on the 18th when he had mud on his ball that sent it it to the right, just on the edge of a bunker. He chipped that down to about 4 feet to protect a bogey-free round. Hughes played with Long and felt like he was further behind than he was. “I didn’t have much going today and I was watching Adam play awesome, so it was like getting run over by a semi,” Hughes said. “But hung in here. My caddie did a good job of reminding me of just hanging tough and waiting for a little run there.” It happened when Hughes least expected it. From left of the green, his chip was running hot when it banged into the pin and dropped for birdie. After another birdie on the 16th, he came up just short of the green on the par-3 17th hole that runs along the Caribbean, and pitched that with perfect pace into the cup. It was one of only four birdies on the 17th in the third round. “A couple of chip-ins and a nice birdie there on 16, so that definitely … gives me a chance for tomorrow,” he said. O’Hair, coming off a torn oblique in February 2019 and required surgery and kept him out of golf for a year, was hanging around with a clever knock-down wedge from 95 yards that stopped inches away for birdie on the 12th. But he drove into a stand of palm trees that led to bogey on the 13th, and he dropped another shot on the 626-yard 14th. Anirban Lahiri of India also had a 64 and was in a large group at 11-under 205 that included Justin Suh, the former Southern Cal star who needs a top 10 to get into the next PGA TOUR event.
There have been two undeniable truths about the Miami Heat this season. The Boston Celtics have scouting and analytics teams that undoubtedly know these trends. Take away Miami’s 3’s, and the Heat are easier to beat.
