Sam Burns finding his own on TOUR

Ted Potter Jr. held off the current world No. 1, a former world No. 1, a guy in hot form and a Hall of Famer on Sunday to claim his second PGA TOUR win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Welcome to the Monday Finish where a journeyman proved he has what it takes to beat the best, barely flinching in one of the sport’s most iconic regions. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. You have to give massive credit where credit is due. With Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Jason Day amongst those around the top of the leaderboard on Sunday it was hard to find someone outside of Ted Potter Jr.’s family who thought he would be victorious at Pebble Beach. Yes, he was the co-leader after 54 holes and yes, he had a TOUR win under his belt from the 2012 Greenbrier Classic but the Floridian was still amongst exalted company. Mickelson and Johnson had tamed the iconic coastal course multiple times before. Day was coming off a win at his last start and is a perennial contender at Pebble. Between that three alone there are 70 PGA TOUR wins, six in this event. Yet it was Potter Jr. who looked every bit the champion. When he bogeyed the opening hole Sunday you could sense the experts nodding to themselves… there he goes out of the mix. Yet he responded with four birdies in his next six holes to take a firm grip of the tournament. The final birdie – a chip in on the beautiful short par-3 7th – came right after watching Johnson run the ball past the hole from a similar spot. From there he leant on his plethora of experience winning at all levels of the game – juniors, high school, mini tours, the Web.com Tour and the PGA TOUR – to play smart golf. Catch me if you can he said… and they couldn’t. He made par on the final 11 holes and won by three. What an effort – especially as it came a day after he sat on 59 watch with his 62 at Monterey Peninsula. It is always tough to back up a low round. Read more about Potter Jr. – and what he had to overcome between victories – here. 2. Dustin Johnson is human. But barely. By his own admission he “just didn’t have it” on Sunday but yet, without his best stuff, he finished T2. Johnson seems to now effortlessly be in the mix just about every time he plays. This PGA TOUR season for Johnson reads 2-1-2 with a top-10 result on the European Tour to go with it. While plenty of guys are hoping to come after Johnson’s spot as world’s best it appears it will take plenty to knock him off top spot. Next up is his title defense at the Genesis Open where from 2009 his results at Riviera read this way. 10-3-CUT-4-CUT-2-2-4-1. It is now at the point that if he’s not a contender on Sunday shock will be the main response. 3. It is a new Jason Day this season. After his winless 2016-17 season the former world No. 1 is back with a vengeance. He backed up his win at the Farmers Insurance Open with a T2 result this week – rocketing up to fourth in the FedExCup. His wild par on the last at Pebble included an attempt at driver off the deck and a wedge shot from down on the actual pebbles that give the beach its name. The significant thing about it was he was clearly playing to make eagle and put some heat on Potter Jr. despite the risk of dropping out of second place had he failed to make par. It is the winning mentality and killer instinct that went on hiatus for a while but is clearly back. Despite the incredible form of late, Day revealed he won’t play heavily over the next few months leading up to the Masters. He is slated to play just the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the World Golf Championships – Dell Match Play before Augusta meaning just four starts in 2018 leading into the first major. 4. Phil. Phil. Phil. Why must you tease us so? Mickelson went close to snapping his now near five-year victory drought at one of his happy hunting grounds – renewing the hope he can find win no. 43 at some point. His T2 finish now means he has four wins, two seconds, two thirds and two other top-10 efforts in the event. In 22 starts Mickelson has pulled in just under $6 million in prize money. Perhaps the most impressive part of his week was his Round 1 fightback at Spyglass Hill where he sat 2 over through 10 holes before five birdies turned his day, and week, around. Ultimately his effort in Round 3 at Pebble Beach, an even-par 72, was not enough to give him a serious shot at the title. But as always, he entertained us. Can he continue the magic this week at Riviera where he has two wins and two runner ups? Let’s hope so. 5. A couple of other key takeaways from the week included Chez Reavie finishing runner up for the second week in a row; Jordan Spieth finished T20 in his title defense (finding a little bit of putting form in the process but also having work to do); Rory McIlroy missed the cut in a surprise given his form in the Middle East; and Jimmy Walker (T8) had his first top-10 result since January 2017 – hopefully signaling a return from his Lyme Disease issues. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Ted Potter Jr.’s 62 at Monterey Peninsula was his career low mark as he surged towards a second PGA TOUR win in 84 starts. The win lifted him to 15th in the FedExCup – also a career high. Potter made the FedExCup Playoffs in 2012 and 2013 but has never gone further than the second week. Potter made 24 birdies on the week, setting a personal best and also leading the field. 2. Potter Jr. had his approach game humming at Pebble Beach with his average proximity to the hole over two rounds at 26 feet, nine inches. It ranked him third in the field. 3. With the runner-up finish and a T5 at last week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, Phil Mickelson recorded consecutive top-five finishes for the first time since 2013 (T2/FedEx St. Jude Classic, T2/U.S. Open). 4. For the week, Chez Reavie’s par-4 scoring average was 3.77, which was the best in the field. 
Reavie has now finished in the top 25 eight times in nine starts during the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season. 5. Jason Day is 24 under in his last seven rounds on TOUR. Not bad as his first nine rounds this season combined to just 8 under. Day significantly led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting with a +3.616 average per round over the rest. He gained more than a stroke a round on the greens on the next best player with Rob Oppenheim at +2.508. TOP VIDEOS

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Rory McIlroy initially had 2019 as the year he would finally play the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His figured it would make a good 60th birthday present for his dad Gerry, who could join him as his amateur partner. The present arrived a year early. McIlroy is making his tournament debut this week, and his dad — a 5 handicapper — will indeed be by his side. It’s not the first time the two have played as a team — they’ve made several appearances on the European Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, including last October when they failed to qualify for the final round — but the appearance at Pebble Beach will be a special one. “It’s going to be a really cool week for both of us,” McIlroy said. “… It will be a nice experience to hopefully play four rounds of golf with him. Obviously, first thing is to try and make the cut so he can play on Sunday.” Rory said his dad has been practicing at Seminole Golf Club in South Florida for the last two months and has looked “pretty good.” The Dunhill Links appearances in Scotland has given them a taste for this kind of pro-am environment, so Rory doesn’t expect much difference this week other than the “weather’s a little nicer here.” (Well, at least it is this week, with no rain in the forecast.) The last time McIlroy played a PGA TOUR event was in the FedExCup Playoffs last season, when he finished T-58 at the BMW Championship and failed to advance to the TOUR Championship, where he would’ve been the defending champ. He’s made four European Tour starts since then, with three top-3 finishes along with a T-63 at the Dunhill Links (helping to explain to some degree why he and his dad failed to make the team cut). His last two starts was a T-3 in Abu Dhabi followed by a solo second in Dubai. While he didn’t win, he said the confidence gained after being away from tournament golf during his four-month break was valuable. “I was really happy flying away from Dubai after those two weeks,” he said. Adding the AT&T Pebble Beach to his schedule this season wasn’t simply determined solely by his dad’s participation. McIlroy plays the European Tour’s two Middle East events starting in late January, but those tournaments were moved up a week earlier than usual, allowing McIlroy a one-week breather at his Florida home before flying to California. In addition, McIlroy wants to ramp up his playing schedule after making just 18 worldwide starts in 2017, his fewest of any calendar year in a decade. After a winless campaign, McIlroy wants to make sure rust is not a factor going forward. “Not really making up for lost time but just missed playing, missed playing competitive golf,” said McIlroy, who has played Pebble Beach before — at the 2010 U.S. Open when he missed the cut. “And I feel like there’s nothing in my way, there’s nothing stopping me from playing a pretty full schedule.” McIlroy has added another new tournament in the Valspar Championship, which he said will replace the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship on his schedule this season. He thinks the set-up will serve him well going into the Masters in April, when he’ll once again try to complete the career Grand Slam. “Once I get to Augusta, one excuse I won’t have is not being prepared and being under-golfed,” he said. “I’ll have played a lot of tournament golf leading up to it. … “I don’t think anyone has ever found the perfect schedule. I don’t think that exists. It’s all about how you’re feeling at that given point and that given time. Right now I feel like playing a lot of golf — and that’s what I’m going to do.”

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