PGA featured holes: Quicken Loans National

NAPA, Calif. — After taking off last week, Kevin Chappell gets back into action at this week’s Safeway Open at Silverado. When we last saw him, he was finishing T47 at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, his first PGA TOUR start after undergoing major back surgery last season. A ho-hum finish. But, of course, Chappell shot a second-round 59. It was the 10th such score on TOUR, 42-plus years after Al Geiberger authored the first. Blame David Letterman, Bo Derek, or the decimal system, but those 10 59s are just begging to be ranked. Call them the Terrific 10. (There’s also been a 58, shot by Jim Furyk, which naturally tops every 59 and will not be ranked here. For more on the 58, click here.) Criteria include whether or not the player won; the quality of the 59th shot; whether the round was shot on a par 70, 71 or 72; Strokes Gained; and intangibles. For example, the intangible that Chappell hit the magic number in his first TOUR start since undergoing major back surgery. To be clear, there’s never been a bad one, and because finding fault with a 59 would be like finding fault with a rainbow, there are no losers here. Every 59 is beautiful, and golf’s most sacred number must be respected, hence the three-way tie for eighth place. Here are the top 10. 1. David Duval, 1999 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (now The American Express),  PGA West – Palmer The third-ever 59 remains vivid two decades later: Duval in a blousy, butter-colored shirt, untucked, rolling in a six-foot eagle at the last to win. The W helps put him No. 1 on this list – half (five) of the 59-shooters have won – as does his special round coming on a par 72. While four of the 59s (Duval, Adam Hadwin, Chip Beck and Geiberger) have come on par 72s, Hadwin finished second, and Beck T3. Just Duval and Geiberger won. Duval gets the nod for the top spot here because he was so hot (about to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated) and winning at such a rate, people were actually debating who would be better, him or Tiger. Golf felt positively electric. 2. Al Geiberger, 1977 Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, Colonial CC – South The mild-mannered Geiberger was so en fuego that news footage of the round later burned up in a warehouse fire. He gets bonus points for using old equipment on a 7,282-yard course, being on a par 72, and winning, but also for being the first to break golf’s version of the four-minute mile. According to ShotLink – oh, never mind. There was no ShotLink back then. Suffice it to say, Geiberger beat the next best score that day, Ray Floyd’s 65, by a country mile. “Skippyâ€� hit every fairway, every green, and took just 23 putts. But he did not have cameras in his face, which he later said would’ve made it harder, and was playing under lift, clean and place rules. 3. Brandt Snedeker, 2018 Wyndham Championship, Sedgefield CC) What an opening round. His Strokes Gained: Approach the Green measured +5.54, he took 22 putts, and beat the field average by 9.71 strokes. Crucially, he later won. Snedeker also gets style points for his final stroke, a birdie putt from the fringe of 20 feet, 4 inches. The quality of the 59th stroke matters in part because a handful of them have been tap-ins, while others have been mere knee-knockers. Knowing what he needed for 59, Snedeker made the longest 59th stroke on this list by far, the next longest belonging to the guy right behind him on this list. 4. Justin Thomas, 2017 Sony Open in Hawaii, Waialae CC Like Snedeker, Thomas shot his 59 in the first round. Like Snedeker, he made a bogey. (There have been three among the Terrific 10, with Furyk, below, making the third.) And like Snedeker, he later won – no small feat, given the hype after carding a 59 on a Thursday. Thomas stands alone, though, in that he was the only one in the Terrific 10 with two eagles. He hit just eight fairways, tied with Chappell for fewest among the 59 shooters, but more importantly found a way, ringing up an eagle from 14 feet, 11 inches at the par-5 18th hole at Waialae to hit the magic number. Clutch. 5. Jim Furyk, 2013 BMW Championship, Conway Farms OK, fine, Furyk did not actually win. Two days after he shot a back-nine 28 for a second-round 59, he shot 71 to finish third. But he gets the nod over Stuart Appleby, who did win, because of one crucial factor: Furyk’s 59 beat the field average by a ridiculous 12.09 strokes, which means, if you have your calculator handy, that he shot golf’s most hallowed number on a day when his peers, some of the finest golfers on the planet, averaged 71.09 strokes. He absolutely crushed them – it’s the biggest gap between a 59 and the field average among the eight 59s charted by ShotLink.       6. Stuart Appleby, 2010 A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, The Old White TPC In the final round and in the hunt for the win, he converted from 10 feet, 10 inches at the last for 59. He beat the course record of 60, which was first shot by Sam Snead in 1950, and finished a shot ahead of Jeff Overton for the victory, ending a four-year drought. That counts for a lot, as does the final stroke – the third longest among the 59 shooters. Appleby’s 59 was the first on a par 70, which left some debating its merits, and on a course where J.B. Holmes had shot 60 earlier in the week. It also came less than a month after Paul Goydos shot 59 at the John Deere Classic. 7. Paul Goydos, 2010 John Deere Classic, TPC Deere Run He made a clutch 7-footer for birdie to get it done in the first round while beating the field average by 10.53 strokes. The round was just the fourth 59 in TOUR history, the first on a par 71, and came approximately 10-1/2 years after Duval’s. Goydos was locked in on the greens, where he took just 22 putts – tied with Snedeker for second best among the Terrific 10 – and measured +7.39 in Strokes Gained: Putting. The judges awarded extra credit here for the quality of the final stroke, and the blazing-hot finish of eight birdies in his last nine holes.    T8. Kevin Chappell, 2019 A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, The Old White TPC “Surreal,â€� he called it after making history in his first TOUR start since undergoing major back surgery, and that about covers it. He had the shortest 59th stroke among the Terrific 10 – a 14-inch tap-in for par – and didn’t break 70 the rest of the week to finish T47. That’s by far the worst finish by a 59 shooter, the second worst being Chip Beck’s T3 at the 1991 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. But still … 59. Neither Phil Mickelson nor Tiger Woods has reached that exalted number in an official TOUR round. Chappell rose above his injury, ignored the fact that he really didn’t have his A+ game, and rode a hot streak all the way in for the feel-good story of the week. T8. Adam Hadwin, 2017 CareerBuilder Challenge (now The American Express), La Quinta CC Hadwin one-putted 15 times in his magical third round, and his 21 putts are the fewest of the Terrific 10. He tied Chip Beck’s TOUR record with 13 birdies, shooting 59 just nine days after Thomas did it at the Sony. (That the 59s were shot so close together is a strange quirk of history and should not minimize how hard it is to break 60.) The first Canadian player to shoot 59 on TOUR, Hadwin credited playing partner Colt Knost for keeping him loose despite the fact that, as he later admitted, “I was thinking about it. I knew exactly where I was. I knew exactly what I needed to do.â€� He nearly let it get away but salvaged a scratchy par with a 4-foot putt at the last. T8. Chip Beck, 1991 Las Vegas Invitational (now Shriners Hospitals for Children Open),  Sunrise GC It had been 14 years, 4 months and 123 days since Geiberger became Mr. 59. In the third round in Vegas, Beck drained a 60-foot birdie on his first hole, the 10th, and became the second player to break 60. Some questioned the course, a 6,914-yard par 72 that played even shorter in the dry desert air. (Geiberger was on a 7,282-yard track, with much older equipment.) Still, Beck was the only one to sign for 59 there, and at a time when the mystique of joining Geiberger was enormous. Also, he was acutely aware of the $1 million 59 bonus offered by the Hilton Corp. hotel chain – half to Beck, the other half to junior golf and PGA TOUR charities – that hung in the balance.

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The first event of the 2019-20 season concludes today with the final round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. Here’s everything you need to follow the action. Round 4 leaderboard Round 4 tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Saturday-Sunday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel) Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.-6 p.m. ET. Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) FEATURED GROUPS Adam Long, Scottie Scheffler 1:50 p.m. Nate Lashley, Robby Shelton 2:00 p.m. Joaquin Niemann, Richy Werenski 2:10 p.m. MUST READS Niemann takes two-shot lead Sidelined for over four years, Bramlett back in contention Chappell cards 59 in ‘surreal’ return from back surgery Chappell’s historic second round at The Old White TPC Griffin’s special connection with The Greenbrier Perks aside, new members came to play at The Greenbrier Top 10 rookies to watch Meet the 50 players who earned TOUR cards What to expect during the fall schedule Experts roundtable: Five burning questions Sign-up and play Fantasy Golf CALL OF THE DAY

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With everyone else having long-since packed up and headed home, Patton Kizzire outlasts James Hahn with a par on the sixth hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the Sony Open in Hawaii. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Kizzire built on his breakthrough win at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba last fall to become the first multiple winner this season. He also takes over the top spot in the FedExCup. Not bad for a guy who until two months ago was winless in his career. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Kizzire is mentally tough. Because even the winners on TOUR are gloriously imperfect, the trick is to not get bogged down in the messy details. Kizzire is used to that. Hitting fairways at a 58.7 percent clip this season, he is 187th in driving accuracy. But he makes it work with solid putting (.829 in strokes gained: putting, 20th best on TOUR) and scrambling (63.03 percent, 47th). “My golf game is a roller-coaster,â€� Kizzire said after outlasting Hahn. “It always has been. I’m up and down and all around.â€� Case in point: the first hole of the playoff, the par-5 18th, where Hahn was looking at a makeable birdie putt and Kizzire, facing a delicate third shot, tried to get too cute and dumped his ball in the bunker. His caddie, Joe Eter, gave him a pep talk. “Yeah, that was a little rough, no pun intended,â€� Kizzire said. “I caught a little rough between my ball and the club and came up short, and I showed my caddie all the grass that was on the face. He said, just get that thing up and down, man, and we’ll see what happens.â€� Kizzire did just that, and when Hahn’s birdie try stayed out, Kizzire had staved off elimination. “Joe was big,â€� he said of caddie Eter. “He was big all week. He kind of gave me a kick in the rear end when I needed it and made me laugh when I needed to.â€� 2. Hahn has age on his mind. There were lots of positives for Hahn, who was 2-0 in playoffs before losing this one. After starting the day seven shots off the lead, his nine-birdie, one-bogey 62 was the low round of the day. It was also his best since a 10-birdie effort in the third round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide last season. And his play at the Sony would seem to bode especially well considering Hahn is beginning a stretch of five starts in five weeks. But Hahn said he doesn’t do moral victories, copping to uncertainty about how many more chances he might get (he is 36), and stressing the need to convert those chances into victories. “Everything I’m doing is great on the golf course,â€� Hahn said. “But you get to this level where you might only have two, three, four opportunities to win out on TOUR. These guys are really good. Dustin Johnson is going to get a couple. You know Jordan Spieth is going to get a handful, Justin Thomas. So, any time you have an opportunity to win and you don’t close the deal, I feel like it’s just one less opportunity for me. “So I feel really defeated right now. I probably sound that way. I probably feel like the most depressed guy in the room. Sorry. We didn’t get nuked, all right? But it’s one of those things where, at the end of the day, I’m going to be replaying all the bad shots that I hit and how I can improve, and that’s just the kind of person I am. I just keep grinding and just try to get better.â€� 3. Hoge classy in defeat. In retrospect, the worst place to be on the back nine, if not the whole golf course, may have been the bunker left of the 16th green. Tom Hoge and playing partner Brian Harman each wound up short-siding themselves in that bunker, and with little green to work with, neither could so much as hit the putting surface. Although Harman, whose first bunker shot didn’t get out of the sand, salvaged bogey, Hoge, whose bunker shot got caught up in the rough, succumbed to double-bogey to lose the lead and ultimately finish third. There were two ways to look at it for Hoge. The first was that it was his best-ever finish on TOUR. The second was that he’d made a mess of 16 from the middle of the fairway, just 156 yards remaining for his approach shot. Hoge, who lives in Fargo, N.D., tried to see the silver lining, remaining upbeat for a Golf Channel interview and to compose this tweet: 4. Harman a top-10 machine. Brian Harman (64-63-68-70) never quite found his best stuff on the weekend, but his T4 finish was his fifth in five starts so far this season. As usual, he hit a lot of fairways (nearly 68 percent, tied for fourth best in the field), but he was also long (averaging over 313 yards per pop, 23rd best). And he was in the top 10 in greens in regulation (76.39 percent, T23) and strokes gained: putting (1.425, eighth best). We should all have such off-weeks. 5. Thomas, Spieth struggling on greens. Justin Thomas (T14) said, “Hit some good putts again today on the front nine.â€� Jordan Spieth made a 91-foot putt, the longest of his career, in finishing T18. Mostly, though, the two young stars, who finished first and second, respectively, in the 2017 FedExCup, reported frustration on the greens after failing to win or even contend in either Hawaii events. “I couldn’t get the speed matched up,â€� said Thomas, who at the Sony was defending his title for the second consecutive week on TOUR. “I had a problem with that all week. I don’t know if that’s just from being a little rusty or maybe not practicing it as much. But there’s nothing to really be too upset about my game. For the first two events back, and kind of where I felt coming here, I’m in a great spot for the rest of the year. I just need to tighten things up a little bit.â€� Year-to-date, Thomas is sputtering at -.428 (T173) in strokes gained: putting. Spieth, meanwhile, sounded a similar refrain. Although it’s a tiny sample size of just eight rounds this season, he’s even further down the list at -.678 (201st) in strokes gained: putting. “I’ve got a lot of work to do with the putter,â€� he said. “It’s as simple as that. Everything else is plenty ready to win.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Sunday’s playoff marked the longest ever at the Sony, and the longest on TOUR since Bryce Molder outlasted Briny Baird in six holes at the 2011 Safeway Open. 2. It was a well-played six holes, with Kizzire and Hahn both making birdies at the 18th hole the second time they played it. And the third. Hahn seemed to tire, though, mentioning his failure to eat enough throughout the day after making bogey at the par-3 17th hole to end it. 3. Kizzire, who will turn 32 in early March, is the latest player to embody the “floodgatesâ€� theory of winning. After not lifting a TOUR trophy in his first 62 career starts, he now has won twice in his last four tournaments, including the Sony and the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in November. 4. Tom Hoge was solid from tee to green, ranking in the top 12 in driving distance and accuracy, and hitting 83.33 percent of the greens in regulation, second best in the field. His solo third came after he took the 54-hole lead for the first time in his career. All of which suggests he’ll be back. 5. Sometimes you’ve just got to play. Since the start of 2012, Brian Harman (T4) has more TOUR starts than any other player, with 186. He is currently seventh in the FedExCup. TOP THREE VIDEOS

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