Sleeper Picks: WGC-Mexico Championship

He was a connoisseur of the close call, an object lesson in losing with dignity, and at odds with his putter. Golf gave Tony Finau ample reason to believe it just wasn’t meant to be. Not for him, and not on the PGA TOUR, the toughest tour in the land. And yet there was an ember that simply wouldn’t die, a stubbornness of belief that despite all evidence to the contrary – eight runner-up finishes and 39 top-10 finishes since his first and only TOUR win in Puerto Rico, in 2016 – he could do this. “I have an extreme belief in myself, and I have to,” Finau said after shooting a final-round 65 and beating Cameron Smith with a par on the first hole of a playoff at THE NORTHERN TRUST at rain-soaked Liberty National. “This game is hard as it is. These guys are so good as it is. If you can’t believe you can beat them, man, it’s just an uphill battle, and I just continue to believe.” How did he do it? How did this extravagantly talented 31-year-old family man bounce back to rocket all the way to the FedExCup standings after so much heartache? In golf terms, he simply hit it better than anyone else from tee to green. Maintenance workers worked to restore playability to the course after nine inches of rain necessitated a Monday finish, and the softness of the course may have further rewarded his distance advantage. But for Finau winning the tee-to-green game is not so unusual. What stood out was his work on the greens, where he gained 2.338 strokes on the field in the final round. He was 16 in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week despite coming into the week at 114th in that stat. His resilience was harder to measure but perhaps even more important. He went into his playoff against Smith with a 0-3 career record in sudden death, and some of the losses were gruesome. Falling to Max Homa at the Genesis Invitational this season? Tough. Losing the Waste Management Phoenix Open last year, when Webb Simpson birdied the last two to catch him and then birdied the first hole of the playoff? Brutal. Finau had seemed to have two hands on the trophy in Phoenix, and afterward his oldest son, a budding golfer himself, was in tears beside the 18th green. Soon the TOUR went on COVID hiatus, leaving Finau to think about what he could have done differently. On Monday he called it his toughest loss. “It’s hard losing,” he said, “and it’s hard losing in front of the world.” A steady drumbeat of questions and endless analysis followed every close call. Finau changed putters, changed grips. He went left-hand low, switched back to conventional. After hitting a succession of spectacular shots but getting little out of it in his third-round 68 at Liberty National on Saturday, he said he was going to have a talk with the flatstick. Instead, given the day off Sunday while Henri dumped nine inches of rain on the course, Finau practiced on the carpet in his hotel room throughout the day. “I would say I putted for maybe an hour and a half total,” he said. “Just kind of five, ten minutes here and there throughout the day. I didn’t really leave my room all day. “I wouldn’t say I found something,” he added, “but I knew I was putting it nicely.” In fact, Finau one-putted seven of his last nine holes for a back-nine 30. Some of these, like his birdies on 12 and 16, were near kick-ins. So was his eagle at 13, set up by a majestic 6-iron that was perhaps the shot of the tournament. But there were knee-knockers from just outside 6 feet to save par at 11 and 18. These are the types of putts he didn’t make in his win drought. And he certainly didn’t convert from over 30 feet, an unexpected bonus, the way he did for birdie at the par-3 14th hole. Meanwhile, leader Jon Rahm, the world No. 1, was finally looking human, going 2 over for his last four holes. Smith birdied the 17th hole to join Finau at 20 under, but sliced his drive out of bounds on the first hole of the playoff, the par-4 18th, all but ending it. Rahm was there to try and buck up a crestfallen Finau at the Genesis. And the shock was so severe at the Waste Management, no one seemed to know what to do. “This one’s going to sting,” Finau’s coach Boyd Summerhays said as they all staggered away. Now, though, Finau didn’t need any consoling at all. He had jumped into pole position in the FedExCup Playoffs, and was off for a celebratory sushi dinner. All those close calls suddenly didn’t matter anymore. “I believe in myself,” he said. “I believe in my team. I haven’t had the wins to maybe have that type of confidence and belief, but you just have to. “I have to believe I can go out there and beat J.T. today, and I can beat Jon Rahm,” he continued. “I have to believe that, and I did, and I continue to do that, and that’s the only reason why I’m sitting here today as the champion.”

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Sahith Theegala is the latest player to make a quick transition from the college game to the PGA TOUR. He was college golf’s consensus player of the year in 2020, sweeping the Haskins, Hogan and Nicklaus awards. Now he is a PGA TOUR rookie and coming off a T8 finish in his second start of the new season, at last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. He held at least a share of the lead in each of the first three rounds before shooting 71 on Sunday. The top-10 finish – his third in his last four starts between the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR – also earned Theegala a start in this week’s Shriners Children’s Open. A new driver has played a large role in his recent success. He made adjustments to that club after missing the cut in the first event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. They paid immediate dividends. Thanks to an extra 15-20 yards off the tee and a narrowed dispersion, he finished in the top-10 of the next two events to earn his TOUR card. “It’s a longer driver. I’m like, if I’m going to hit it off line, I might as well hit it a little bit farther and funny enough I’m hitting it way straighter,” he said after his first-round 64 at the Sanderson Farms Championship. “So that helped a little bit, seeing something new. Still getting comfortable with the driver, only had it a month now. But it’s been really nice to see some of the work paying off and being in more fairways.” Theegala finished 10th in driving distance (317.1 yards) and 19th in fairways hit (60.7%) last week, a solid combination. Several changes were made to Theegala’s Ping G425 LST driver to dial in the cut he likes to play off the tee and eliminate the dreaded double-cross. Ping’s Korn Ferry Tour rep, David Bray, installed a new shaft in Theegala’s driver – True Temper’s Project X HZRDUS Smoke Black RDX 6.5 – and made it 45.25 inches long, 0.75 inches longer than Theegala’s previous shaft. The shaft was “tipped” 1.5 inches – Bray said he usually tips players’ drivers about an inch — to control the spin and dispersion of Theegala’s shots, as well. “Tipping” a shaft means removing length from the clubhead end instead of the grip end. This makes the shaft stiffer and also increases its resistance to twisting. Braylso added hot melt to the toe of the club to promote a fade. Also known as “rat glue” by gearheads — owing to the similarity between the properties of the substance and the material found in glue traps — hot melt is injected into clubheads via a hot glue gun with a long nosel. The changes dropped about 500 rpms off Theegala’s tee shots, to about 2,500, and an increase of 3-4 mph of ball speed. “He hits a high ball to begin with. This just controlled the spin for him,” Bray said. “He likes to cut the ball, so he’s going to have more spin, but this is more penetrating. It’s not ballooning on him. I would say he probably picked up 3-4 more mph because he was hitting it more in the center of the clubface than the heel misses he had before. “It just builds confidence. For these guys, everything starts with driving. When you’re struggling with driving, you press with every other part of your game.” Theegala has found a club that fits him off the tee, and is exhibiting the potential he displayed during his promising college career.

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TORONTO, Ont. – Bobby Jones said that a great career was not complete without winning The Open at St. Andrews. Jones did it in 1927. Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and so many of the game’s greats have followed in his footsteps. Another player will have an opportunity this year as The 150th Open returns to St. Andrews after a one-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Record crowds will be on-site to witness history, and players can earn the opportunity to compete in this important championship in several upcoming PGA TOUR events. The Open Qualifying Series, which offers Open berths to top finishers in various events around the world, includes several upcoming PGA TOUR events, starting with this week’s RBC Canadian Open. Two Open spots are available this week to the two highest finishers who are not yet exempt to St. Andrews, as long as they also finish in the top eight on the leaderboard. The John Deere Classic, Barbasol Championship and Genesis Scottish Open also are part of the Open Qualifying Series. Three spots apiece will be available at both the Deere and Scottish Open, while the Barbasol will offer the final spot in The Open. Several big names are still vying for their spot in The Open, including former world No. 1 Jason Day, who finished a shot out of a playoff in the 2015 Open at St. Andrews, 2017 Open runner-up Matt Kuchar, Matthew Wolff, Maverick McNealy and Davis Riley. Among the players in the field this week who are looking to lock up a spot at St. Andrews are Jason Dufner, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Champ and Luke List, winner of this season’s Farmers Insurance Open. Seventeen players who are teeing it up this week have already booked their spot to St Andrews. That group includes defending champion Rory McIlroy, winner of the 2014 Open Championship, and Justin Thomas, winner of this year’s PGA Championship. The top two players in the FedExCup, Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, also have Open spots locked up, as do Canadians Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes. Adam Hadwin, who earned a berth in the 2019 Open via his finish at that year’s RBC Canadian Open, is again looking to punch his ticket to The Open. Past Canadian Open champions still seeking their spot at St. Andrews include Jhonattan Vegas, Brandt Snedeker, Scott Piercy, and Sean O’Hair. Harry Higgs, Carlos Ortiz, J.J. Spaun, Sahith Theegala and Keith Mitchell are among the other names seeking Open spots this week. Graeme McDowell and Adam Hadwin earned berths via their position on the leaderboard at the Canadian Open in 2019. “It’s always nice to have a chance to get into The Open Championship field,” says Hadwin, who is one of 20 Canadians in the field at St. George’s Golf and Country Club. Hadwin, who finished T57 at The Open that year, says earning a spot in the major is something that became a surprising reward as he was coming down the stretch that Sunday in Hamilton three years ago. There were two other Canadians – Mackenzie Hughes and Ben Silverman – who were in the mix to earn a spot in The Open, but also win the golf tournament. Thirteen golfers have won both the Canadian Open and Open Championship, McIlroy being the most recent addition to that list after his 2019 victory in Hamilton. Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods are the only golfers to have won the Canadian Open, The Open, and the U.S. Open in the same season – golf’s coveted Triple Crown. That feat is another on the table for 2022 with the U.S. Open and, of course, The Open Championship, yet to be contested. There are six more events to come as part of the Open Qualifying Series. Chris Kirk and Talor Gooch earned their spot at St. Andrews earlier this year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, which also was part of the Open Qualifying Series.

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