Day, Scott reflect best of Australia in World Fame 100

Cameron Champ returns to defend his title at the 3M Open as the PGA TOUR’s 2021-22 season inches closer to an exciting conclusion. FIELD NOTES: John Deere Classic winner J.T. Poston hopes to extend his recent run of good play… Hideki Matsuyama is one of six major champions teeing it up… Michael Thompson looks for more magic after winning the 2020 3M… Newly minted pro Chris Gotterup is making his seventh TOUR start this season. He finished T4 at the John Deere… Brandon Matthews is also amongst the sponsor exemptions. The long-bombing Matthews is fourth on the Korn Ferry Tour’s regular season points list… Cole Hammer, Thaya Lim, Dylan Menante and tennis star Mardy Fish also received exemptions… Rookie of the Year candidates Davis Riley and Sahith Theegala are looking for their breakthrough victories. Riley sits 23rd in the FedExCup standings while Theegala is 38th… Other notables in the field include Tony Finau, Sungjae Im, and PLAYERS Championship winners Jason Day and Rickie Fowler. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 FedExCup points. COURSE: TPC Twin Cities, par 71, 7,431 yards. Minnesota native and former world No.1 Tom Lehman was the player consultant for the layout, located about 15 miles north of Minneapolis/St. Paul. It utilizes natural, rolling terrain on the site of a former sod farm – and features lots of water. One of the signature holes, the risk/reward par-4 7th, is named ‘Tom’s Thumb’ after Lehman. Arnold Palmer and his design company were the architects of the club, which opened in 2000. STORYLINES: Just three events remain in the 2021-22 PGA TOUR Regular Season; FedExCup points are at a premium. Martin Laird and Max McGreevy, No’s 126 and 127, respectively, are in the 3M field. Robert Streb, Fowler, and Stewart Cink (No’s 123-125, respectively) are also teeing it up… Mardy Fish, who is from Edina (a suburb of Minneapolis), won 20 times in his tennis career, reached No. 7 in the world, and earned a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics. He retired in 2015 but has become a prolific golfer. He won the LPGA’s Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions three times and the American Century Championship in 2020 – shooting 63 to break Lee Trevino’s course record. Fish becomes the latest athlete to accept an exemption into a PGA TOUR event, including former NFL quarterback Tony Romo and former MLB pitcher Mark Mulder. Stephen Curry, a two-time NBA MVP, played on the Korn Ferry Tour twice. 72-HOLE RECORD: 263, Matthew Wolff (2019) 18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Scott Piercy (first round, 2019), Bryson DeChambeau (second round, 2019), Matthew Wolff (third round, 2019), Lucas Glover (fourth round, 2019) LAST TIME: Cameron Champ won for the third time on the PGA TOUR after a final-round 5-under 66. Champ’s bogey-free Sunday effort featured birdies on three of his first eight holes. He added two more on the back nine and held off Louis Oosthuizen, Jhonattan Vegas, and Charl Schwartzel, who all tied for second at 13 under. Champ gutted out the victory after suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion. He hadn’t notched a top-10 result on TOUR since a T8 the previous October at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Keith Mitchell finished fifth, while 54-hole leader Cameron Tringale shot a 3-over 74 on Sunday to drop into a tie for 16th. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. ET. Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR PGA TOUR LIVE PGA TOUR Live is available exclusively on ESPN+ • Main Feed: primary tournament-coverage featuring the best action from across the course • Marquee Group: new “marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the group • Featured Groups: traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups • Featured Holes: a combination of par-3s and iconic or pivotal holes

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PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic — Tony Romo fell apart on the back nine and made his PGA TOUR debut with a 5-over 77 in the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback shot even par on the front nine before a bad stretch of three bogeys and a double bogey toward the end of his round. He was 14 shots behind Brice Garnett, the early leader who opened with a 63. Romo now works as an NFL analyst for CBS Sports. He received a sponsor’s exemption into the tournament, which is held the same week as a World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play event in Texas. Among early starters, only Guy Boros at 79 had a higher score. The 53-year-old Boros is playing his first PGA TOUR event in three years.

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LA QUINTA, Calif. – Even Adam Long wasn’t certain where he stood after hitting his approach into the Desert Classic’s final hole. Winning wasn’t at the top of his mind when he teed off in Sunday’s final group with Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin. A top-10 finish, and a spot in next week’s event, would have been nice. Long was an afterthought in a final group that included a World Golf Hall of Famer and a Canadian playing in front of countrymen who flock to the California desert in the winter. Long was just a 31-year-old rookie making his sixth PGA TOUR start. And then he was the champion. He won in a way that most players can only dream of: by making a 15-footer for birdie on the last hole. Long arrived at the final hole tied with Hadwin and Mickelson. After hitting his drive into the right rough, Long hit his 175-yard onto the green. That’s when he asked his caddie to confirm that he shared the lead. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure. I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose,� Long said. The stage was set for him after Hadwin’s bunker shot stopped inches from the hole and Mickelson barely missed a long birdie try. Mickelon’s miss helped Long see the line for his career-changing putt. His 65th stroke of the day found the bottom of the hole. Long, who was 20 over par in his previous five PGA TOUR starts, shot 26-under 262 on the Desert Classic’s three-course rotation. He shot 63 in the first and third rounds, then fired a 65 that was Sunday’s second-lowest score on PGA West’s tricky Stadium Course. Long, who started the final round three shots behind Mickelson, chipped in twice on the back nine. He didn’t make a bogey. “I just kept plugging away and it was kind of the Phil and Adam Hadwin show for most of the way,� Long said. “Everyone was chanting Phil’s name most of the way and there are a lot of Canadians down here. I was just in the background.� Not when it was time for the trophy ceremony. He was the last player left on the 18th green. Before the win, he was an alternate for next week’s Farmers Insurance Open. Now THE PLAYERS Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, Masters and PGA Championship are among the events he can add to his schedule. Long leapt to 12th in the FedExCup standings. He started the week ranked 205th, ahead of just 13 players. The win was worth 500 points. He began this week with just four FedExCup points after missing the cut in four of five starts this season. His best finish was T63 at the Safeway Open. “He hit shot after shot and putted great, had a couple chip-ins and did what you had to do to win,� said Mickelson, who owns as many major titles (5) as TOUR starts Long had made before this week. Hadwin was still three shots ahead after Long’s chip-in on the 12th hole. Hadwin played the final six holes in 1 over, though, while Long birdied half of the remaining holes. He holed a 5-footer for birdie on 14 before holing another chip on the next hole. Then he birdied the last hole, an incredible finish for a player who admitted that just receiving the text with his final-round tee time gave him nerves. Long didn’t look intimidated, though, when he birdied Sunday’s first two holes. “Birdieing those first two really calmed a bit, like, ‘All right, I got this, I can compete, I can play, I belong,� Long said. He’d spent nine years as a professional waiting for this moment. His only TOUR start before this season came at the 2011 U.S. Open. That was the same year that he won his only previous professional title, the Woodcreek Classic on the now-defunct Hooters Tour. He estimates that the winner’s check was $25,000. He played his first Web.com Tour season the following year but finished 127th on the money list. He didn’t get back on that tour until 2015. He never doubted that he could make it, though. “I wasn’t doing great, but I never really doubted it,� he said. �I still wanted to play and I still loved it and I still wanted to see how good I could get.� He became a PGA TOUR winner on Sunday. And it was worth the wait.

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