Hubert Green passes away at age 71

They are going to start calling Playa del Carmen “Playa del Hovland” if Viktor Hovland keeps dominating El Camaleón Golf Club the way he did once again over the weekend. The 2020 World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba winner successfully defended his title with a four-shot win over Mexico’s own Carlos Ortiz. Hovland, 24, flashed his trademark smile on the way to his third PGA TOUR title, perhaps fitting for one of the only stops on the PGA TOUR where monkeying around is par for the course. 1. Hovland goes back-to-back Mexico is about 5,000 miles from Norway, but Viktor Hovland has found a home at Mayakoba. He edged Aaron Wise by one a year ago, finishing at 20 under for his second TOUR title. This time Hovland had even more juice, getting to 23 under, four clear of runner-up Carlos Ortiz. Hovland’s third-round 62 gave him a two-shot advantage over Talor Gooch headed into the final round, which he began with a three-under front nine while Gooch went one-over on the same stretch. Ortiz, Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler showed some fireworks, but Hovland was never quite tested on the back nine, and he carded a 67 for the win. In his two Mayakoba wins, Hovland has rounds of 63, 65, 62 and 67 on the weekends. “I probably putted better throughout the whole week this year,” Hovland said. “I feel like I still hit the ball really, really well last year, but my short game was still not as sharp.” Hovland’s 23-under score is the lowest at Mayakoba since 2007, when the tournament took its place on the PGA TOUR schedule. He is also the first player to go back-to-back on TOUR since Brooks Koepka successfully defended his PGA Championship crown in 2019. The fifth-straight international winner on TOUR this fall, Hovland follows Sungjae Im, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama and Lucas Herbert. 2. Hometown fans get a show Mexico has two players in the top 100 in the world and both gave the home fans reasons to roar. Abraham Ancer, world No. 14, shot 68, 68, 68 and 65 to finish T8 at 15 under. His 65 was tied for the fifth-lowest score Sunday and included four straight birdies on holes 10-13. In his last five starts at Mayakoba, Ancer has five top-25 finishes, including three top-10s. Runner-up Carlos Ortiz has been even hotter at El Camaleón. Coming off at T2 in 2019 and T8 in 2020, Ortiz opened the 2021 event with rounds of 67, 65 and 67. After a mostly pedestrian final round, he birdied Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 17 to put some light pressure on the eventual winner. “I’m really proud,” Ortiz said. “It was a tough day. I couldn’t really find anything on the front nine and I just kept pushing. The people, having them out here, all my friends, I just found a way to get something going. And it’s funny how golf works, but once you hit that first shot that you see and how you want, it just clicks and I just found that confidence that I needed to finish strong.” Ortiz signed for a final-round 66. He’ll take that mojo over the border to this week’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open, the site of his first TOUR win a year ago. Roberto Diaz, who won on the Korn Ferry Tour at the Chitimacha Louisiana Open last March, finished as the third-highest Mexican at T45. 3. Wolff continues hot streak Matthew Wolff is enjoying one of the most consistent streaks in golf, a statement that would have come as a surprise as recently as two months ago. After opening his season with a T17 at the Sanderson Farms Championship and a runner-up at the Shriners Children’s Open, Wolff opened with a 10-under 61 on Thursday at Mayakoba. He added a 68 on Friday, his tenth straight round in the 60s, for a two-shot lead headed into the weekend. An off-day led to a 74 on Saturday, but his final-round 65 got him to 16 under (T5). “I felt like even (Saturday) my game really felt good, just stuff wasn’t really going my way,” Wolff said. “I had a lot of bad breaks, and the putts weren’t dropping. I easily could have shot maybe a couple under if I made a couple of the short ones coming in, but it just didn’t turn out that way. “I knew that I felt really good with every part of my game,” he continued, “and I knew that if I came out today, especially with it being a little windy, and put a really solid round together, then I could shoot up the leaderboard and that’s what I did.” Wolff’s two top-10s so far this season have already matched his total from 2020-21 (which happened to be his first two events of that season). Still, he was the second-highest Oklahoma State finisher this week, behind his college teammate Hovland. 4. Thomas enjoying ‘fresh start’ Justin Thomas was in a slump last year, no other way to put it. After his win at THE PLAYERS Championship in March, he didn’t record another top-10 finish until THE NORTHERN TRUST. But now, over the last three months, Thomas has climbed back toward his former world No. 1 form. He finished 4th at the TOUR Championship, went 2-1-1 at the Ryder Cup and opened his 2021-22 campaign with a T18 at the CJ CUP. His four rounds in the 60s at Mayakoba were good for solo third, his best finish since the aforementioned PLAYERS in March. His strongest stretch came on Friday and Saturday (65 and 64, respectively). It was a solid week considering he went 3 over for his opening nine but birdied six of his last seven holes Thursday. He’s also using a new permanent caddie in Jim “Bones” Mackay. “This is a new season, completely different,” Thomas said. “Especially with Bones, it kind of feels like a fresh start, a new start.” 5. Kirk makes first-swing hole-in-one Many pros will tell you that starting a round on a par 3 isn’t ideal. Chris Kirk, on the other hand, began his week with an ace at the par-3 10th hole at El Camaleón. Part of the first group off the back nine on Thursday – 6:55 a.m. local tee time – Kirk carded his ace before most of the field had even taken a swing on the range. It’s safe to say some hadn’t even woken up. He was the first player to make a hole-in-one on his first swing of the tournament since Keith Mitchel, also at the par-3 10th hole at El Camaleón, in 2017. It was a mixed bag from there, as Kirk birdied 12 and eagled 13 – 5 under through five holes – and opened with a 64. But with ensuing rounds of 73, 70 and 71, he settled for a T64 (6 under). Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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Austin Smotherman’s routine before the Korn Ferry Tour event every week is the same. He must chat with his grandfather to give him the course rundown. Not so his grandfather can check up on how it fits his game. It’s more of a preliminary strike on his grandfather’s nerves by letting his grandfather know how the course is playing, so when he is following along at home he’ll know when to sweat and when not to. “I have to give him the whole rundown of, ‘Alright, when the PGA TOUR app says first cut, the first cut is nothing this week, don’t even worry about it. When it says primary rough, the rough is nonexistent this week, so do not worry,” Smotherman said. “Because he’ll see me in the rough and he’ll start freaking out.” Smotherman’s grandfather, Bill Acquistapace, is the man who introduced him to the game. When he was three or four, his grandfather cut in half an old Sam Snead 7-iron blade and a persimmon 5-wood and taped them with duct tape and electrical tape for grips. Now that his grandson is on the Korn Ferry Tour, Acquistapace and his daughter, Smotherman’s mom, have become pros at figuring out his proximity to the hole with minimal info when they can’t be at the tournament. If his two playing partners scores post on the app before him, they get excited because they know he’s got a nice look at birdie. “They live and die by the PGA TOUR app every single week,” Smotherman said. “But they love it.” Smotherman, who played at SMU despite never having a coach until college, even jokes with his grandfather every year at Christmas time on the present he’s going to get him based on that love. “I always joke with my grandfather that every Christmas I’m going to have to get him a new keyboard because he’s hitting enter and refresh so often that he’s going to break it every single year,” Smotherman laughed. When Smotherman’s playing on the East Coast with an early tee time on Thursday or Friday, it can make for some early mornings for Acquistapace, who lives in Sacramento. So Smotherman tries to do his best to take care of him for the weekend. “I’ve been getting some early morning tee times, 7 o clock on the east coast, 4 o clock for him.” Smotherman said, “So, he’s like, ‘Alright, I’ll catch you on the sixth hole. I’ll be on my second cup of coffee by then!’ And then I’m like, ‘Don’t worry I’ll get you a late tee time on Saturday so you can sleep in, alright?’” The two still make sure and talk for a couple minutes after every competitive round. Acquistapace is quite the player himself too. Although he doesn’t get to play much anymore, he has six hole-in-ones and shot his age when he was 77. And he’s been a major part of getting his grandson to the Korn Ferry Tour, and maybe even the PGA TOUR soon. “He’s been a big part of it all,” Smotherman said. At No. 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points Standings, his grandfather will surely be hitting refresh a lot over the final two events as Smotherman chases one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards that will be handed out in Omaha. His grandfather won’t be there but will be in Boise the following week to kick off the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, and Smotherman’s hoping they’ll have a PGA TOUR card to celebrate together. He got a lot closer to that dream last week with a T4 that helped him jump back inside the top 25. “Last week was huge. I think I kind of proved to myself that I could keep those thoughts of [the top 25] out of my head,” Smotherman said. The California native admits it’s hard to keep the bubble out of your head at this stage, especially when his caddie’s wearing a top-25 bib, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “It’s obviously going to be crunch time, but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Smotherman said. “To be in this position at the start of the year, I would have said, ‘Give it to me. Embrace it, go play well.’ And you know what someone’s gotta be the bubble boy, and I feel like I can handle it. And now I gotta go kind of prove that. Whether I finish 25, 26 or 15, I feel confident, and it’s a very cool feeling.” It’d be hard for him to not feel confident with as well as Smotherman has been hitting it. He ranks sixth in ball striking, seventh in total driving, 10th in greens in regulation and 11th in driving accuracy. At Lakewood National earlier this year, he posted the best mark of the Korn Ferry Tour season to this point, hitting 44 greens in a row. He also won his first Korn Ferry Tour event in a wire-to-wire victory in May at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, and he’s added two additional top-5s in his last five starts. It’s the type of season that has the 27-year-old on the verge of a lifelong dream – a PGA TOUR card – that would complete a journey that goes far beyond just him. “To make a start as a PGA TOUR member that would be accomplishing a lifelong dream of me,” Smotherman said. “It would definitely be rewarding and to have that sense of pride. My family and everyone that sacrificed things around me through my whole life from traveling to junior events, to spending time away from my wife, we got married young and I traveled a ton, but I think it’d be rewarding for me and everyone around me that have seen my work put in.” And if he starts to feel that pressure of the bubble the next two weeks, he knows where to turn. “My family’s support…those are the things coming down the stretch if I have any nerves the next couple of weeks, how can I not fall back on that and just know, ‘Hey, relax a little bit, Austin, this game’s done a lot for you? Let’s go take care of business now!’” His grandfather will certainly be refreshing and following along.

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Lee Janzen holed a 20-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a playoff to win the SAS Championship, his second senior title.

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