Smith, McKenzie, Gilbert share SAS lead

Matt Kuchar turned on the afterburners during the closing holes to claim a ninth PGA TOUR win and second win in three starts. Welcome to the Monday Finish where Kuchar pleased his family by booking a return trip to the Hawaiian Islands a year from now and by adding a family pet, albeit a robotic one. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Matt Kuchar has a killer instinct to go with his killer smile. Don’t be fooled by Kuchar’s trademark grin. He’s a stone-cold killer sometimes on the golf course. After looking like he was wobbling with three bogeys in his opening five holes on Sunday, Kuchar found a way to stare down his competitor and claw out of a hole when it mattered. He made a very important birdie putt on the ninth hole to stay in touch with Andrew Putnam, and when Putnam looked to make his move on the 13th hole, Kuchar responded with back-to-back birdies from 12 and 11 feet. Making putts down the stretch is not easy to do but Kuchar made it look so. The result was a comfortable four-shot triumph. 2. The old guys on the PGA TOUR still have fire. Kuchar now has two wins since he turned 40 and believes he still has plenty more in him. While it might be tough to replicate what Vijay Singh did in his fifth decade (win 22 times including a FedExCup) there is nothing to say he can’t continue a renaissance of serious note. “I would certainly like to (do what Singh did),â€� Kuchar said. “He set a great example. Certainly showed that is possible. A number of guys showed that it is possible. It’s nice to know that. It’s not like you hit 40 and you have to go away. There are guys that have done great.â€� Another of those guys is his good friend Davis Love III. The 54-year-old grabbed his first top-10 finish since the 2017 Wyndham Championship at Waialae. Love III is already the third oldest PGA TOUR winner of all time from his 2015 Wyndham triumph at 51. Maybe he can set a new benchmark this season. 3. Putnam can putt the dots off it. Andrew Putnam is clearly disappointed with his runner up result but if he keeps putting like he did at Waialae it won’t be long before he does claim his second PGA TOUR title. Over the course of the four rounds he gained 10.894 strokes on the field in Strokes Gained: Putting to lead the field. His first round gained an impressive 6.871 strokes on the field, one of the more impressive performances we’ve seen. By the end of the week Putnam had made 447 feet, 7 inches worth of total putts. Now replicating this sort of week will be very tough, but the fact he has this in his memory bank should give him plenty of confidence on the greens going forward. 4. Keep an eye on Marc Leishman and Hudson Swafford over the next two weeks. Swafford was the 2017 champion at the Desert Classic and now he returns off the back of a T3 at Waialae Country Club. Last week he ranked fifth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and was second in proximity to the hole at 26 feet, 10 inches. If he brings that ball-striking again and gets hot on the greens he is certainly a great chance at another victory. Leishman has to be penciled in as a red-hot chance at the Farmers Insurance Open where he’s been runner up twice, in 2010 and 2014, and has two other top 10s. The winner of the CIMB Classic in the fall Leishman was T4 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and T3 at the Sony Open over his two weeks in Hawaii. Prior to that he was runner up at the Australian PGA Championship and the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf. More wins are imminent. 5. Charles Howell III should buy a house at Waialae. That is if he hasn’t already. He’s now made the cut in all 18 trips to the Sony Open in Hawaii and his T8 last week was his 10th top 10. While he has yet to win the event he has two runner-ups and two thirds. Earlier in the week Howell III explained that winning isn’t everything for him but even still a trophy at Waialae would seem very fitting on his resume. “If I stay healthy I’ll never miss this one,â€� Howell III said. “I can control the showing up part… The finishes, I don’t know…. but it would be awful special to one day win here.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Kuchar won his ninth PGA TOUR event in his 430th career start on TOUR and moved from ninth to second in the FedExCup standings. It is the first time since week 33 of the 2013 PGA TOUR season where he has ranked inside the top two of the FedExCup. 2. Since 2009 Kuchar is the seventh player to win on the PGA TOUR after opening with two consecutive rounds of 63 or lower and first since Jason Day (2015 BMW Championship). Kuchar’s 258 total score marks a career-best and ties the 10th-best on the PGA TOUR in 72-hole stroke play events. 3. Kuchar is the 103rd player with 100 or more top 10s in official PGA TOUR events and just the fifth player to reach this mark since 2001. 4. Kuchar ranked inside the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and Strokes Gained: Putting, becoming the fifth Sony Open in Hawaii Champion to accomplish this feat since 2004. 5. Almost three quarters (74-percent) of Kuchar’s total strokes gained for the week came from his approach the green and putting performance. Kuchar hit a field leading 83.33-percent of the greens in regulation, averaging 29 feet, 6 inches in proximity to the hole on all approach shots which was 5 feet, 2 inches closer than the field average. Kuchar made 63.64-percent of his putts from 10 to 15 feet (seven of 11) and each of his made putts were birdies from this distance. WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is in its first season and adds another layer of excitement to the FedExCup Regular Season. The top 10 players at the end of the FedExCup Regular Season will earn bonus payouts from the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. Xander Schauffele remains in top spot while Matt Kuchar moves to second with his second win of the young season. Andrew Putnam goes from 31st to 10th after his runner-up finish.

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Players on the PGA TOUR have enjoyed playing the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head, South Carolina, for a variety of reasons. The challenging, but fun golf course designed by Pete Dye and consultant Jack Nicklaus. The laid-back atmosphere, which is particularly inviting for those making the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Augusta after playing in the Masters the previous week during a normal TOUR season. Seafood, swimming and all those family-friendly activities, too. TOUR rookie Matt NeSmith had another reason for wanting to play in the RBC Heritage this season. Just over two years ago, in the shadow of the iconic red-and-white lighthouse at Harbour Town Golf Links, he proposed to Abigail Pait on the 18th green. She said, yes, of course, and the two were married on Nov. 1, 2019, during a break from his fourth and fifth tournaments as a card-carrying PGA TOUR member. Competing at the RBC Heritage this year – or any year, for that matter – would have been “awesome,â€� NeSmith says. “We’d be reminiscing about the whole day.â€� NeSmith was playing his best golf of the season when the coronavirus pandemic called an abrupt halt to play on the PGA TOUR, with this week’s previously scheduled RBC Heritage among the canceled tournaments. He’d made the cut in eight of his previous nine starts, posting top-15 finishes in three of those tournaments, and was ranked No. 64 in the FedExCup standings. It’s disappointing that he and his wife aren’t at Hilton Head this week, but the memories of that day and the start of their lives together offer warm feelings. He and Pait had met while both were students at the University of South Carolina. He played golf while she was on the equestrian team. Turns out, the two had a mutual friend in Will Starke, who was NeSmith’s roommate and teammate. Pait used to come over to the dorm and have breakfast with Starke each Friday. “I was sitting on the couch and she came over and said hello and we kind of talked a little bit,â€� NeSmith recalls. “I was very shy, always shy with pretty girls.â€� The two ran into each other later that day. Well, not exactly. Pait was behind the wheel of her car, and she spotted NeSmith walking on campus. “She’s very outgoing and I was a little bit shy and awkward to say at least, probably,â€� he recalls. “And she honked at me with all her friends in the car. She’s like, oh, there’s this nice guy that I just met in Will Starke’s dorm. … “I was like, oh, good Lord, and just kind of kept walking. So, she’s like, oh, I guess he’s just shy.â€� The romance blossomed, though, and endured after NeSmith graduated and turned pro. He played two seasons on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada before heading to the Korn Ferry Tour for the 2018-19 season. A win at the Albertsons Boise Open presented by Kraft Nabisco earned him a TOUR card. NeSmith and Pait fell in love with Hilton Head while he was still an amateur. During his college days, he was regularly on the leaderboard at the Players Amateur played at Berkeley Hall in nearby Bluffton. He won the event in 2015, firing a final-round 65 that enabled him to overtake Chase Koepka, who had started the final round with a five-stroke lead. NeSmith – and later, Pait – became close to his host family, the Andreolettis. “This family has three kids — the youngest one’s now eight .. and I’ve known the youngest one since she was a baby,â€� NeSmith says. “… We’d go down there three or four times a year and spend some time with them.â€� One of those times was the weekend of March 11, 2018. NeSmith had decided to propose. He had bought the engagement ring several months earlier and although he says he’s not the most creative guy in the world, he concocted a plan. “She had voiced that she wanted to go down for her birthday and just kind of hang out and be down there and have a good time,â€� he says. “So it just made sense.â€� First, NeSmith got a tee time at Harbour Town and invited Pait along. She enjoys riding in the cart with him when he goes out to play, which enables NeSmith to get some work in and “we can have some good quality time together,â€� he says. A friend was hiding in the bushes about 100 yards from the 18th green to take photographs when the couple arrived. He didn’t have a telescopic lens to capture the moment when NeSmith got down on one knee but that didn’t put a damper on the proposal. The champagne flowed at Bluffton when the couple returned to the Andreoletti home that afternoon, and they had another celebration after returning home to Aiken, South Carolina. The two were married 18 months later at an Augusta church where three other generations of his family have also said their vows, the first wedding held back in 1899. But Harbour Town and that scenic par 4 closing hole that meanders down the shore of the Cailbogue Sound always will hold a spot in their hearts, even if they need to wait another year. “I thought it’d be special for the both of us,â€� he says with a smile. “It was just a right time, right place kind of thing.â€�

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WILMINGTON, Del. – Rory McIlroy was dissecting Wilmington Country Club like he’d been a member for decades and then one bad swing drowned the two-time FedExCup champion’s momentum. It drowned his golf ball also. McIlroy was cruising in the afternoon wave of the BMW Championship at six under through 14 holes, looking nothing like the man who missed the cut in Memphis a week ago and everything like a man who had been spending his free weekend on a reconnaissance mission at the course. Then some indecision and poor execution bit on the par-3 15th, as the Northern Irishman double crossed his 5-iron and it went sailing into a water hazard. To compound matters his shot from the drop zone landed 25-feet from the hole and he promptly three-putted for a triple bogey. In the final wash up he signed for a 3-under 68 knowing it could have been much better but insisted he would take the positives out of the round and forge ahead. “I have to take the positives. I still played a decent round of golf. Three under out there this afternoon was pretty good. I’ve just got to reset tonight and forget about that swing on 15 and go again tomorrow,” he said afterwards. “Started really well, made some good things… just that one tee shot on 15. I felt like I had probably half a club too much, so I was trying to hit like a cut in there over the water, and I just double-crossed it and then compounded that by the three-putt.” Sitting in a tie for 13th after the first round McIlroy projects to stay in the ninth seed in the Playoff standings but believes his best is yet to come as he seeks to be the first three-time winner of the FedExCup. “Knocked some more rust off… last week I definitely turned like a 5- or 6-under into a 1-under on Friday, and that was just sort of rust and not being as sharp as I wanted to be. Just a little sharper today, and hopefully that continues not just this week but obviously into next week, as well. “I practiced really hard the week before Memphis just to get back into it after taking two full weeks off after the Open, but there’s a difference between practicing at home and camping out on the range and actually playing golf. “I knew I just needed even just a couple of competitive rounds last week in Memphis just to see where my game was, and then coming here early, working on some stuff, getting out on the golf course… I’ve been on the golf course every day since Saturday here, so playing little games with Harry, him trying to set me scores to shoot, like trying to get myself into that sort of competitive mindset again (has been helpful).”

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