Peter Uihlein chases destiny amongst winners at Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

SILVIS, Ill. —The John Deere Classic turns 50 this year. The small-town TOUR stop has played a pivotal role in many players’ careers, as the site of their first victory, or at least their first taste of contention, and as a familiar locale for stars hailing from the Midwest. Recent champions include Jordan Spieth and Bryson DeChambeau. Like fellow future major champions Payne Stewart (1982) and David Toms (1997) and 19 other Quad Cities champs, Spieth and DeChambeau scored their maiden TOUR victories at the Deere. As for can-you-top this moments, TPC Deere Run’s closing stretch of holes has produced an array of rallies and exciting finishes, and by such notable winners as Vijay Singh, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson. 1. JORDAN RULES (2013) Spieth had little to lose and a big, bold head start on a brilliant future to gain when he set his feet in the bright white sand of a greenside bunker on TPC Deere Run’s final hole in July 2013. He’d already earned TOUR status and established himself as a rising star before turning 20. Now he had a chance to get his first victory. Spieth had begun his first season as a pro without status on TOUR, but a runner-up finish in his third start and another six top-10 finishes earned him unlimited sponsor’s exemptions for the remainder of the year. Those performances also ensured he’d be a member in good standing the following season. A win at the Deere, though, would earn his entry into the 2013 FedExCup Playoffs, with all the points accrued in those seven previous top-10s also added to his account. It would gain him two full years of exempt TOUR status. It would punch his ticket to the Masters the following April. The young Texan came to the 18th having birdied four of his previous five holes, but needed a fifth birdie to tie the lead. He got it, and did so with a flair for the dramatic that would become SOP (Spieth Operating Procedure) in the years to come. With a one-hop clank off the flagstick, Spieth holed his 44-foot shot from the bunker to earn his way into a three-man playoff. Then he outlasted Zach Johnson and David Hearn over five holes of sudden-death. His first professional win came 13 days shy of his 20th birthday, making him the first teen to win on TOUR in 82 years. 2. GETTING A GRIP ON TIGER (1996) Between September 16, 1996, and August 16, 2009, Tiger Woods would win 36 consecutive PGA TOUR events when holding the outright lead after 54 holes. To this day, Woods has lost just twice when entering the final round in sole possession of the lead. Those numbers make it hard to believe that Woods coughed up the lead the first time he held it on the PGA TOUR. Ed Fiori, nicknamed “The Grip,” was the beneficiary. Making his third start as a pro following a storied amateur career, Woods took the lead with six straight birdies on the inward nine of his second round at Oakwood Country Club. When Sunday dawned, Woods held a one-shot lead over Fiori, a 43-year-old veteran 14 years removed from his last victory. Woods led by three on the fourth tee, but a wild hook into an irrigation pond led to a quadruple bogey and a one-shot deficit. Three holes later, Woods four-putted a short par-4 for a double-bogey. Steady Eddie brought it home with a final round 67 for a two-shot win. Woods shot a 2-over 72 and finished tied for fifth, but he got his first win two weeks later in Las Vegas and is 44-2 as you read this when taking an outright lead into Sunday. Y.E. Yang joined Fiori in the Tiger Tamer Club at the 2009 PGA Championship. 3. A STOP ON THE SLAM TRAIL (2015) Spieth’s brilliant future already was realized when he returned to TPC Deere Run two years after his first win, having won the Masters in April and the U.S. Open in June. The week after the Deere, he would attempt to join fellow Texan Ben Hogan as one of two men to win three professional majors in a single year. Given those stakes, his decision to keep a promise to play the Deere beforehand was questioned in some circles. Yet, Spieth said he came to Silvis with an eye on a winning second leaping deer trophy and to build momentum for his pursuit of a Claret Jug. He accomplished the former with another fast finish, making up four shots in six holes to force another playoff and then defeating Tom Gillis on the second hole of sudden-death. In his bid for immortality at St. Andrews, Spieth finished a single haunting shot out of a playoff. 4. THREE-PEAT (2011) Steve Stricker made his first trip to the Quad Cities before he earned a PGA TOUR card. The Illinois alum made his tournament debut in 1993. Sixteen years later, he started an incredible run at TPC Deere Run. The affable Stricker won in 2009 and 2010 before showing that he had an edge, as well, with his dramatic win in 2011. A walk-off birdie from a difficult lie in a fairway bunker made him just the 18th player to win the same TOUR event in three straight years. Stricker responded to a 24-foot birdie make from the fringe with a full-body, two-handed fist-pump celebration that was entirely out of character, deliciously ferocious and magnificently appropriate. Stricker had taken a five-shot lead into Sunday’s back nine but stood on the 17th tee two shots down to Kyle Stanley. He birdied the par-5 17th for the ninth time in his three-year run at Deere Run and stood in the18th hole’s fairway bunker tied at the top after Stanley bogeyed in front of him. Actually, he almost stood in the bunker. Facing a lie that forced a stance announcer David Feherty likened to a giraffe at a watering hole, Stricker stood left foot in the sand, right foot in the grass, 189 yards from the flagstick. He ripped a 6-iron to the back fringe, holed that putt and it was no more Mr. Nice Guy. For a few seconds, anyway. 5. AN AGELESS WONDER (1979) Sam Snead became the youngest player on TOUR to shoot his age in the second round but the 67-year-old was something less than ecstatic. “Now, I gotta come back two more days,” groused the legend, who was feeling the effects of a bad back after walking 18 holes for only the third time that year. “I was almost trying not to qualify.” Snead’s record 67 didn’t hold up long. After a 74 in the third round, the Slammer rallied with a closing 66 at Oakwood Country Club. 6. A LEGEND’S FIRST (1982) Payne Stewart scored the most fashionable victory on TOUR since the days of Walter Hagen when he carded five back-nine birdies en route to a final-round 63 and his first official TOUR victory. It was also the first tournament in which Stewart played all four days in the plus-fours and Hogan cap that would become his signature look. “What I remember about Payne here is him saying ‘I don’t want to look like everybody else – blond, with a visor,’ and that’s where he started wearing the knickers,” remembered D.A. Weibring. “Payne almost got to the point where he looked funny in pants.” For Stewart, the victory was forever memorable because it was the only time his father, Bill, was on hand to see him win as a pro prior to Bill’s untimely death in 1985. Poignantly, Stewart was wearing the Rolex watch he received for the win when he died young himself in a 1999 airplane tragedy. 7. HATS OFF (2017) It was hat’s off to the SMU Mustangs when Bryson DeChambeau capped a six-birdie back nine with a 14-foot putt at 18 and joined the late Payne Stewart among the strong parade of players who notched their initial TOUR win in the Quad Cities. DeChambeau’s trademark Hogan-style cap is worn in homage to Stewart, a fellow SMU alum. The curious and studious Californian knew a great deal about Stewart, but he didn’t know the Hall of Fame Mustang also had earned his maiden win at the 1982 QCO. When so informed, DeChambeau took off his cap, slapped his knee, and became genuinely emotional. “That broke me,” DeChambeau said later. “He’s done some amazing things for the game of golf, and I hope I can do something similar down the road.” DeChambeau was a highly-touted prospect before his rookie season on the PGA TOUR. He won the NCAA Championship and U.S. Amateur in 2015 and won on the Korn Ferry Tour the following year to earn his PGA TOUR card. He was struggling when he arrived at TPC Deere Run, however, ranked 114th in the FedExCup and in danger of losing his card. He had made the cut in just nine of his 24 starts. The Deere changed the course of his career, however, and sent him down that major-winning road, using his unique approach to the game to win seven more times, including the U.S. Open. 8. ZJ’S FIRST WIN (2012) In the history of the TOUR, it’s hard to imagine a sponsor’s exemption that led to a better relationship than the one the John Deere Classic has enjoyed with Zach Johnson. The native Iowan was on the mini-tours when he was granted an exemption in 2002. He was on his way to leading the Korn Ferry Tour in earnings when he received a second in 2003. Johnson hasn’t missed an event at TPC Deere Run since, including in 2007, when he was the reigning Masters champion, and in 2016, when he was a week away from defending his Open Championship win. Johnson has been a player representative on the tournament’s executive committee since 2008 and is the only player on TOUR who has an endorsement deal with Deere & Company. From 2009 through 2017, Johnson scored seven top-five finishes at the Deere. That included three second-place finishes and an epic victory in 2012, when, on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff with Troy Matteson, he found himself in the same fairway bunker from which Stricker had worked his magic a year earlier. Johnson outdid Stricker, lacing a 6-iron from 194 yards to within a foot of the cup for a very popular tap-in victory. 9. GOYDOS GOES LOW (2010) The round Paul Goydos was putting together after teeing off early in the opening round was the talk of TPC Deere Run. The place seemed to hold its collective breath as Goydos stood over a 7-foot putt at 18 to become the fourth TOUR player to shoot 59 in competition. “Did he get it?” Stricker asked a reporter while on his way to the first tee. Goydos did indeed get his 59. Then Stricker tried to follow suit. Needing to hole a 159-yard 8-iron from the 18th fairway for eagle and an improbable share of the first-round lead, Stricker came within 2 ½ feet and settled for 60. Only once to that point had a 59 and 60 been scored in the same year. A decade later, Scottie Scheffler (59) and Dustin Johnson (60) would match that same-day feat in the second round of THE NORTHERN TRUST at TPC Boston. And Jim Furyk’s 58 at the 2016 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands would create a new magic number. Still, July 8, 2010, remains a day to remember in Silvis. 10. BEMAN GOES BACK-TO-BACK (1971/1972) In 1971, Deane Beman won the first Quad Cities Open fighting off a 100-degree fever. A year later, he won the second fighting off a future legend. Beman’s closing 4-under 67 was just enough to nip Tom Watson, who posted a 66 just ahead of the defending champion. For the rookie Watson, the near-miss was an early taste of the Sunday heat he’d feel often in his career and he was aided by the “thinking advice” of his playing partner, Lee Trevino. “That was the first time I’d been in contention,” Watson would remember years later, deep into his Hall of Fame career. “That was the first step.” As commissioner years later, Beman would credit the Quad Cities’ volunteers for helping his understanding of the vital importance of volunteer support to achieving his vision for the TOUR. For a QC event that turns 50 this week, Beman’s support from Ponte Vedra proved helpful during some lean and challenging years. Win. Win. Win. Freelance writer Craig DeVrieze is the author of “Magic Happened: Celebrating 50 Years of the John Deere Classic,” available for order here.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Eyerolls. Laughter. Derision. You come to expect such things as a proud and parochial International Team fan ahead of the Presidents Cup. Captain Trevor Immelman and his players have heard it, as well. Apparently, they can’t win. BetMGM Sportsbook has the U.S. Team as a 6.5-point favorite in a 30-point contest, and if you listen to most pundits in the media center at Quail Hollow, it’s not enough. There’s even conjecture that the Americans could finish this off by Saturday. RELATED: Meet the teams Far from having his feelings hurt, Immelman and his players welcome the loose talk. “I let them read all the stuff that you guys are writing,” he said. “That’s where I start.” He knows the U.S. Team is 11-1-1 all-time, and unbeaten at home. At Liberty National in 2017 the 19-11 score probably flattered the Internationals. This year’s U.S. Team has 76 career PGA TOUR wins compared to 33 for the Internationals (22 of which come from just two players). The U.S. Team had 19 combined wins just last season (and Max Homa just won the new season opener) compared to five for the Internationals. What’s more, the average U.S. Team world ranking is 11.6 compared to a 48.9 for the Internationals. U.S. Captain Davis Love III has nine top-15 players, the most on any Presidents Cup team, while Immelman’s team has none. Eight Americans were ranked inside the top 15 of Strokes Gained: Total for the 2021-22 TOUR season compared to just one International. The list goes on and on and on. “It’s quite clear that we’re the underdogs,” Immelman said. “We generally have been in this competition over the years so it’s a tag that we’re used to. “There’s massive amounts of respect for the American team,” he added. “All of these guys compete week in and week out, and all of us know exactly how good they are.” And yet the matches are not played on paper, and underdogs do win. Nick O’Hern did beat Tiger Woods in his prime – twice. In 1983 a ragtag bunch of Australians took on the mighty U.S. in the Americas Cup yacht race in Newport, Rhode Island. The historic trophy had been in American hands for 132 years – the most dominant reign in sporting history – and yet the Australians won. The 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team beat the mighty Soviet Union. And in 1990 a 42-to-1 underdog, Buster Douglas, KO’d undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. All of which is to say Immelman and his men certainly don’t see losing as a foregone conclusion. They see this week as an epic opportunity to create history, as a win would rank up there with some of the biggest sporting achievements of all time. And that is a carrot worth chasing. “What excites us is the opportunity to see just how good we are,” Immelman said. The Internationals have eight first-timers in the team, another point some are using against them, but veterans Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama, and Immelman and his assistant captains, see it as a positive. They had seven newcomers in Melbourne and fed off their youthful exuberance. “It’s worked out quite well that we’ve got eight rookies here because they are just so excited,” Immelman said. “Everything is new and fresh, and they’re seeing everything for the first time. It’s kind of like Christmas morning when you can’t wait to open your presents up. That’s what I’m seeing from these kids walking into the team room for the first time.” Immelman has a blueprint to how his squad can prevail, but he’s keeping it to himself. One thing is for sure, though: He intends to unleash the rookies with a no-holds-barred mentality. The theory is to push the U.S. they’ll need to take risks and assert pressure early. It’s understood the players have been given the green light to throw caution to the wind. If they can have the U.S. players thinking about being part of losing the unlosable… they have a chance. “If you look at our record in this tournament and you look at our world rankings versus their world rankings, we have absolutely nothing to lose,” Immelman said. “We can go out there and play absolutely as free as we want, free as we can, and see if we can match up with the crazy good skills the Americans have.” It has the new guys counting down the minutes until go time. “There’s no reason to play safe or do anything like that,” said rookie Cam Davis of Australia. “We’re doing match play. We play aggressive. The golf course is set up to play aggressive. We’re really, really excited to get started. We all really want to win this thing. We all feel that all of us playing well, there’s more than a chance to get that done.” The International Team has momentum of a sort from 2019. Captain Ernie Els eradicated cliques and relied heavily on data to make pairings. He introduced a new shield logo and uniform to get behind. And it all worked for three days as Els’ team, with Immelman as an assistant, led heading to Singles for the first time since 2003 before the U.S. came back to win 16-14. “There was a clear line in the sand drawn for ’19 in our team,” said veteran Scott, who makes a record 10th appearance for the Internationals this week. “Things looked good there. So much changed. The direction of this team changed there, and that’s carried over. “Trevor has embraced that a lot and done an incredible job,” he continued. “We’re going to see that continue no matter what the result and I’m … optimistic that we have a shot this week. These guys are incredibly talented, and relatively unknown maybe compared to the stars of the United States, but they’ve now been given a platform to show off this week, and I hope they do.” Immelman has stats guru Duncan Carey dissecting the numbers, course setup and other factors to help provide him with optimal pairings and gameplan. Asked bluntly why he thinks his team can win, the captain didn’t hold back. “They’re all elite athletes,” he said, “and they got to elite level playing on the PGA TOUR. You don’t get here by accident, man, I can promise you. “You put a ton of work in,” he added. “You dedicate your life to it. You make sacrifice after sacrifice, investing time and money and blood, sweat, and tears to get to this level. You don’t just wake up one morning and get onto the PGA TOUR. These players are legit.” Legit they are. And they’re ready to show it.

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