Monday Finish: Lowry, Herman notch seismic victories

AVONDALE, La. – It was a year ago in the first round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans that Trey Mullinax and Scott Stallings first discussed a partnership. They each had different partners at the time. Stallings was with Australian Aaron Baddeley. Mullinax, a late addition to the field, played with Jonathan Randolph. But that didn’t stop Mullinax and Stallings from looking ahead to 2019. “We just kind of decided last year, hey, if we’re in next year, we’re just going to play together,� Mullinax said. “Been about a year in the making.� It probably felt like the completion of Thursday’s round was also a year in the making. A 7-1/2 hour weather delay in the middle of the day meant that Mullinax and Stallings started early and finished late. But it was worth it, as they finished 18 holes just before darkness with a 11-under 61 in the Four-balls format to take the clubhouse lead. Martin Laird/Nick Taylor are the closest finishers at 10 under, with Brian Gay/Rory Sabbatini are also at 10 under with four holes left. “Kind of an odd day,� Stallings said. “Obviously we played a lot more this morning than we thought we were going to, but to play 18 holes … and we not birdie the same hole and come out at 11 under – if you told us that at the beginning of the day, we’d have definitely taken it.� The lengthy delay left them with a “lot of nothing� to do while waiting for the lightning to clear and the course condition to improve. They sat in the car, went to the fitness trailer, grabbed a bite off-course and watched TV. But the biggest impact was having to reschedule their movie plans to watch “Avengers: Endgame.� “Extremely happy we can go see that movie tonight,� Stallings said. “We were supposed to go at 7:30 to 3-D but now we changed it to 10:00 and we got IMAX,� added Mullinax. “We got a little upgrade,� Stallings said. If you’re getting the impression these guys are close, you’d be spot-on. They’ve played lots of practice rounds together, and their friendship obviously extends beyond the course. Mullinax just had his first child, and Stallings – who had two children – has been giving him tips on fatherhood. Stallings’s penchant for fitness even has Mullinax working out more. “I’m trying to get a little bit bigger like him,� Mullinax said. “I can’t do as many push-ups and bench as much as he can, but he’s a pretty strong boy.� The two have been serious about their preparation for the Zurich Classic. Last week at the RBC Heritage, they held an alternate-shot nine-hole practice to get use to playing with the other’s golf ball. This week, they’re renting a house together. Their respective families are not in town. It’s strictly a boys’ golf week at TPC Louisiana. “We had this house booked a while ago,� Mullinax said. “And both our wives and families are like, yeah, we’re not going. We’re out,� Stallings added.

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The PGA Championship heads to Southern Hills Country Club for the first time since 2007. FedExCup leader and world No.1 Scottie Scheffler leads the field as he looks for his second major championship victory of the season. FIELD NOTES: Tiger Woods is set to return to action. Just 14 months after a horrific car accident Woods teed it up at the Masters in April and made the cut. The PGA Championship will mark Woods’ second start of the season. Woods has won the Wanamaker Trophy four times (including the last time the PGA was hosted at Southern Hills) and has finished runner-up three times – as recently as 2019… FedExCup leader Scottie Scheffler will look to win his second major championship title of the year. Scheffler, who won the Masters by three shots, has won four times on TOUR already this season… Brooks Koepka, a two-time PGA Champion, withdrew from the AT&T Byron Nelson but is set to compete at Southern Hills. Koepka has never missed the cut at the PGA in nine starts… Rory McIlroy is looking to keep some major momentum going at Southern Hills. McIlroy shot an 8-under 64 in the final round of the Masters – tied for the lowest final-round score in tournament history… The reigning FedExCup champion, Patrick Cantlay, is looking to win his maiden major championship… 15 PGA Champions are teeing it up… The final spot in the field is reserved for the winner of the AT&T Byron Nelson if he is not otherwise qualified… Bryson DeChambeau is set to return to action. He missed the cut at the Masters in his last start on TOUR as he recovers from injury… Twenty PGA of America club pros earned their way into the event via qualifiers… TOUR winner Talor Gooch is teeing it up in his own backyard. Gooch is from Edmond, Oklahoma – less than 90 minutes from Tulsa. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 600 FedExCup points. COURSE: Southern Hills Country Club, par 70, 7,556 yards. Southern Hills, an established major championship venue, was not the original host club of the 2022 PGA Championship but was more than ready to welcome some of the world’s best when it was called upon. The redesigned Southern Hills hosted last year’s KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship (won by Alex Cejka who finished at 8 under). Originally a Perry Maxwell layout that opened in the late 1930s, the course was re-worked by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner in 2018 and re-opened in 2019. They removed trees, added bunkers, restored fairway widths, and removed rough near the edges of greens. There will be only two par fives in use for the PGA Championship, both measuring more than 630 yards. The course is set to play more than 300 yards longer than it did in 2007. All seven of the previous men’s major championships hosted at Southern Hills all came in the serious heat of July or August (in 2007 the temperature reached triple digits every day) but that’s not set to be a factor this year with the PGA taking place in May. Tiger Woods and Raymond Floyd have the Southern Hills Country Club course record. Floyd shot 63 at the 1982 PGA, while Woods matched the score in 2007. STORYLINES: Phil Mickelson will not defend his title, the PGA of America announced. Mickelson, who has won 45 times on TOUR and has four PGA TOUR Champions victories, has not played competitively since stepping away from the game in late February. He is the third PGA Champion not to defend his title in the last 75 years (Tiger Woods, 2008 and Ben Hogan, 1949)… Will this year’s PGA Championship be won by someone looking for their second major title like Scheffler (two top-10’s in a row at the PGA), Jon Rahm, or Justin Thomas (on the five-year anniversary of his first major win)? Or will one of the game’s top golfers break through for his first like Cantlay, Viktor Hovland, or Xander Schauffele?… RBC Heritage winner Jordan Spieth is again looking to capture the career Grand Slam… Collin Morikawa has played only two PGA Championships in his young career, but so far, so good. He won his debut and finished T8 at Kiawah Island… McIlroy is looking to break a major championship drought that spans eight years. He’s a two-time winner of the Wanamaker Trophy… Woods, Adam Scott, and Justin Rose are the trio of golfers who finished inside the top 15 at Southern Hills in 2007 who are returning in 2022… Americans have won the last six PGA Championships. 72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Brooks Koepka (2018 at Bellerive CC) 18-HOLE RECORD: 63, Bruce Crampton (2nd round, 1975 at Firestone CC), Raymond Floyd (1st round, 1982 at Southern Hills), Gary Player (2nd round, 1984 at Shoal Creek), Michael Bradley (1st round, 1993 at Inverness), Vijay Singh (2nd round, 1993 at Inverness), Brad Faxon (4th round, 1995 at Riviera CC), José María Olazábal (3rd round, 2000 at Valhalla), Mark O’Meara (2nd round, 2001 at Atlanta AC), Thomas Bjorn (3rd round, 2005 at Baltusrol), Tiger Woods (2nd round, 2007 at Southern Hills), Steve Stricker (1st round, 2011 at Atlanta AC), Jason Dufner (2nd round, 2013 at Oak Hill), Hiroshi Iwata (2nd round, 2015 at Whistling Straits), Robert Streb (2nd round, 2016 at Baltusrol), Brooks Koepka (2nd round, 2018 at Bellerive; 1st round, 2019 at Bethpage Black), Charl Schwartzel (2nd round, 2018 at Bellerive). LAST TIME: Phil Mickelson became the oldest major winner in TOUR history as well as becoming the first major champion after age 50 when he lifted the Wanamaker Trophy at Kiawah Island. His 45th TOUR title moved him to T8 on the all-time TOUR wins list, and he became just the fourth player to win TOUR events in four different decades. Mickelson came into the 2021 PGA Championship having not notched a top-10 result in 16 TOUR starts and not contending in a major in about four years. Mickelson, who was paired with two-time PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka for the final round, started with a struggle. He three-putted for bogey on the first hole while Koepka birdied, giving Koepka a one-shot lead. But Koepka made double bogey on No.2 and Mickelson birdied – jumping back ahead again. On the long par-3 5th Koepka landed safely on the green while Mickelson landed in a waste bunker. But Mickelson’s short-game magic returned again – as it so often does – and he pitched in for a birdie. Despite shooting a 1-over 73 in his final round, Mickelson won by two shots and claimed his sixth major title. Koepka and Louis Oosthuzien finished second at 4 under, while Shane Lowry, Harry Higgs, Paul Casey, and 49-year-old Padraig Harrington finished T4. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m.-8 p.m. ET (ESPN). Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET (ESPN), 2 p.m.-7 p.m. (CBS) Bonus: Thursday: ESPN+ broadcast 8 a.m.-2 p.m., 8 p.m.-finish. Featured Groups: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Featured Holes: 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN broadcast 1 p.m.-2 p.m.. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN2 broadcast: 2 p.m.-5 p.m. Friday: ESPN+ broadcast 8 a.m.-2 p.m., 8 p.m.-finish. Featured Holes: 8:15 a.m.-7 p.m. Featured Groups: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN broadcast: 1 p.m.-2 p.m. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN2 broadcast: 2 p.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday: ESPN+ broadcast 8 a.m.-10 a.m. Featured Groups: 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN broadcast: 9 a.m.-10 a.m. Joe Buck/Michael Collins ESPN+ broadcast: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Featured Holes: 12 p.m.-7 p.m. Editor’s note: The PGA of America, which owns and operates the PGA Championship, controls all digital streaming and broadcast rights to this event. PGA TOUR LIVE coverage will resume next week at the Charles Schwab Challenge For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR

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FORT WORTH, Texas — It was just a bogey putt from inside 5 feet. Yet Jordan Spieth walked it in – and the whole complexion of his second round, perhaps even his entire weekend, perhaps even his entire two weeks in his home state of Texas, changed. Starting Friday’s round off the 10th tee, the defending champ had already suffered two bogeys in his first four holes and was guaranteed of another lost stroke at the par-4 14th, having failed to get up-and-down from the greenside rough. The last thing he wanted to do was three-putt the green and walk away with a potentially crippling double bogey. So he called in caddie Michael Greller to help him read the putt. Spieth and Greller had recently tried to stay away from the constant back-and-forth analysis of shots and let Spieth free-flow a little more. “We’ve been working to kind of stay out of each other’s business,â€� Spieth explained. “ … Trying to go back to kind of an ‘I play my game’ and stop over-dissecting kind of each situation. Talk less and just hit the shots.â€� But this putt was too important. A second set of eyes could help. Greller provided his thoughts and helped Spieth commit to the line. Then he told Spieth to hit the putt with confidence and walk it in – which he did. “It was kind of shocking because it was a bogey putt to go to 3 over, and no one really walks those in,â€� Spieth said. “It was exactly what I needed to get the confidence that I’ve been working towards back in that putter. From there, I hit great putts the rest of the round.â€� Indeed. Spieth rolled in a 35-foot birdie putt at the next hole, made a 10-footer to save par at the 18th, then made four birdies in the next five holes after the turn. Two of those birdies were from distance – 27 feet at the fourth hole, and 13-1/2 feet at the fifth. Spieth finished with a 2-under 68, one of the better rounds in the morning wave, which leaves him at 2 under for the tournament. Worried just a few hours earlier whether he miss the cut for the third straight start (including last week at his hometown event, the AT&T Byron Nelson), Spieth now enters the weekend with a realistic shot at becoming the first defending champ to win since Ben Hogan in 1953. “I played 5-under on my last 13 holes,â€� Spieth said. “That’s the round of the day. That’s what we needed to see. …“That would’ve been really, really tough for me to swallow if I missed this cut. It was in my head. I normally never talk about the cut line, and it was in my head, given I don’t miss two cuts in a row. So back is against the wall. To be able to come back – definitely a lot of confidence.â€� One thing Spieth definitely wants to avoid this weekend, though, is getting off to a slow start. On Thursday, he bogeyed two of his first four holes in a rollercoaster afternoon that ended with an even-par 70. The stress after Friday’s first five holes was even more pronounced. He survived only because he did something he had never done before in his Colonial history – play holes 1 through 5 (that include the Horrible Horseshoe of Nos. 3, 4 and 5) in 4 under. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that,â€� Spieth said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been 2-under on those holes.â€� He’ll gladly take that on Saturday.

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