Troy Merritt eagles 18th to take Barracuda Championship lead

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Tiger is in the mix. His most talked-about captain’s pick for next week’s Presidents Cup, Patrick Reed, is the leader. And that’s just the beginning of the drama.

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In pursuit of his first PGA TOUR victory, Texas product Andrew Landry proves he’s got what it takes with a 4-under 68 in the final round at TPC San Antonio. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Landry shook off short misses at the par-4 12th hole (just inside five feet) and par-5 14th (inside four feet) to win and move from 42nd to 9th in the FedExCup. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Landry knows his game. “My game is built for hard golf courses, tough conditions, just because I’m pretty accurate with the driver,â€� he said a few years ago. Yep. Shortly after that, Landry went on to contend at the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont before a final-round 78 and a T15 finish, and he was at it again at difficult TPC San Antonio. He led the field in strokes gained: tee-to-green, and his 17-under total was the lowest winning score since the Valero moved to TPC San Antonio (AT&T Oaks Course) in 2010. “Every single player out here is good,â€� said Landry, who lost to Jon Rahm on the fourth hole of a playoff at the CareerBuilder Challenge earlier this season. “Every single one of them is great. We’re all here for reasons, because we worked really hard and we’re really good at what we do.â€� 2. Zach Johnson, 42, the 54-hole co-leader with Landry, was exactly the right guy for the 30-year-old Landry to play with as he tried to chase down his first win. In fact, Johnson was such a perfect playing partner it was almost eerie. Landry, interviewed on camera after he had finished 21st on the 2015 Web.com Tour money list, was asked which players he looked up to. Answer: Jason Day (not in the Valero field) and Zach Johnson. “Zach’s such a good guy and he is so—he just gets it,â€� Landry said after winning the Valero. “He was telling me good shot after good shot, just keep pushing. He would change the subject every now and then to just kind of lighten the mood. I just knew what I had to do. I just stuck to my game plan and saw it happen.â€� 3. As for Johnson, the 12-time TOUR winner struggled with a final-round 72, but he says he doesn’t mind being a shoulder to lean on for the younger players like Landry. “What I’ve seen lately is that I’m getting questioned a lot by the young guys, about not just golf stuff but life stuff,â€� Johnson said at the RBC Heritage. “That just means I’m getting old. But I asked the same questions myself with David Toms, Chris DiMarco, Davis Love, Corey Pavin, Tom Lehman, Lee Janzen, guys that I really admired.â€�     Johnson was vying to become the third player to win the Valero three times, after Arnold Palmer (1960-’62) and Justin Leonard (2000-’01, ’07). 4. Sean O’Hair isn’t far off. After a T2 that saw him sign for the lowest final round (66), the 35-year-old four-time TOUR winner was a mixture of disappointed and encouraged. The upside: He’d just racked up eight birdies on a course that’s notoriously stingy with them. The downside: He was still chasing his first win since the 2011 RBC Canadian Open. “That fifth [win] has been hard to come by,â€� he said. “… I’ve had some close calls. “I feel like my game’s kind of coming into form a little bit,â€� added O’Hair, who with partner Steve Stricker won the unofficial QBE Shootout late last year. “But this year’s been a little bit erratic and I’ve just got to clean that up a bit. I’ve been driving it really well all year and I felt like this golf course really called for that. Felt like if I could just hit a few more greens, because this golf course is all about that as well, make a few putts, which is what I did, I was going to have a good week.â€� O’Hair chipped in for birdie from 55’ 1â€� on the final hole for his seventh runner-up finish in 345 starts, including one in each of the last four seasons. 5. There were breakthroughs all around in San Antonio. Landry is the seventh first-time winner of the season, with three coming in the last five weeks (Landry, Satoshi Kodaira, Brice Garnett). He’s also the third first-time winner in the last five editions of the Valero, joining Steven Bowditch (2014) and Kevin Chappell (2017). Trey Mullinax shot 62-69 on the weekend for a career-best T2 in his 41st TOUR start. Jimmy Walker (67, solo fourth) had his best finish since a third at TPC Boston in the fall of 2016. Then there was former No. 1-ranked amateur Joaquin Niemann of Chile. The 19-year-old merely birdied his last three holes for a second straight 67 and solo sixth place. “It’s one of the best week of my life,â€� Niemann said. Even better, while becoming the first player since Anthony Kim (T2, 2006) to finish in the top 10 at the Valero in his professional debut on TOUR, Niemann also gained entry into the Wells Fargo Championship without having to burn a sponsor’s exemption. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Although he came into the Valero at 91st in strokes gained: tee-to-green, Landry was first in the field in that stat at TPC San Antonio. He came into the Valero at 84th in strokes gained: approach-the-green, but led that category, too. He was 98th in greens in regulation entering the Valero, but first last week. In fact, his 53/72 greens in regulation was tied for his second-best effort on TOUR. And he’s now one-for-one at converting a 54-hole lead/co-lead into a victory.    2. Landry became only the fourth player to rank in the top 10 in strokes gained: approach-the-green (1st) and strokes gained: putting (8th) while winning this season. The others have been Dustin Johnson at the Sentry Tournament of Champions (7th in sg: approach-the-green, 6th in sg: putting); Ryan Armour at the Sanderson Farms Championships (3rd in sg: approach-the-green, 2nd in sg: putting); and Patton Kizzire at the Sony Open in Hawaii (3rd in both). 3. Zach Johnson, who won the Valero Texas Open twice before it moved to TPC San Antonio, might have won the tournament had the front nine been closed for the week. Johnson was even on the front but 13-under on the back over the four rounds. 4. The margin of victory at the Valero, two strokes, qualified as something of a blowout relative to the rest of this season. Going into the Valero, eight of 14 tournaments had been decided by a playoff, and the average margin of victory was one shot. 5. Since the Valero moved to TPC San Antonio in 2010, six third-round leaders/co-leaders have held on to win, with Landry doing so on the heels of Kevin Chappell in 2017. That makes the TPC San Antonio – AT&T Oaks Course one of the best places on TOUR to be a 54-hole leader/co-leader. So far this season, just 12 of 24 leaders/co-leaders have held on for the win in stroke-play events, with Patrick Reed at the Masters the most recent to do it before Landry.

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