Monday Finish: Koepka, Morikawa finish strong

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It remains the largest playoff to end a 72-hole PGA TOUR event, another bit of history created at the iconic Riviera Country Club. There also was a six-man playoff at the 1994 Byron Nelson but that tournament was just two rounds because of persistent rain. Seven years later, six men braved the elements to decide a champion at Riviera in the tournament now known as the Genesis Invitational. It rained so hard that a delay never seemed far away. The 18th hole, reachable with short-irons earlier in the week, now required players to use fairway woods for their approach shots. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this unique finish, PGATOUR.COM caught up with some of the participants to hear their recollections. On the broadcast, Jim Nantz tried to draw a connection to CBS' Sunday night movie, The Mask of Zorro, by declaring "it would take a little swash-buckling birdie here to win this tournament." Riviera's finishing hole had allowed just one all day but then Robert Allenby delivered a shot that one competitor called "the greatest shot I've ever seen." Allenby choked down on a 3-wood and hit it to 5 feet to walk away with the title. It was his third TOUR win - all of them came in playoffs - and moved him to 7-0 in playoffs worldwide. Brandel Chamblee, Dennis Paulson, Jeff Sluman, Bob Tway and Toshi Izawa were the other participants. The playoff was brief, but the unique ending and miserable conditions were fodder for some entertaining stories. PGATOUR.COM caught up with some of the participants, and recently-retired rules official Mark Russell, to hear their recollections. Read below about the ball hit into a hot dog stand, Chamblee's wardrobe malfunction (and how he forgot one of the playoff's participants when working for Golf Channel later that year) and the award that Tiger Woods robbed from Allenby later that year. CHAMBLEE: "I had a deal with a clothing company where if I finished in the top three, I got a $75,000 bonus, something like that. I had their rain suit on as I played the first hole and I could hardly swing. I had it on as I was coming up the second hole and I said to my caddie, ‘Can you run up to the clubhouse and get my other rain suit. I can't swing in this thing.' So he ran up and got my other rain suit, which did not have the company's logo on it. I was six back going into Sunday. I didn't really think about it. I put the new rain suit on and I was warm and I played great. I shot 67, which was the (second-lowest) round of the day (behind Izawa's 66). And I didn't even think about the implications of not having the right rain suit on. "Later on, as soon as I got in, there was kind of a nasty note from the company saying, ‘We're not paying you the bonus because you didn't have on our rain suit.' That was the first note I saw. They were quite obviously upset. I called them and I said, ‘I totally get it. You did not get the advertisement you paid for. But if I had worn your rain suit, I wouldn't have been in that playoff.'" SLUMAN: "Somebody in the group ahead of me hit it in the hot dog stand and it took at least 10 minutes to get a ruling. It wasn't the most opportune timing. [Laughs] There was a big slope to the right of the green, with a hot dog stand with nachos and all that stuff. It was Tiger's group, I don't know who it was who needed the ruling, but it was easy, with the ball being wet and everything, to hit one out there. It was like Animal House hitting the ball into the cafeteria; you wonder if someone got a hot dog with a golf ball on it. It was really a bad place to put a hot dog stand." ALLENBY: "I missed around a 10-footer for a par that would have won the tournament. My attitude in playoffs was always positive. I always treated it as a second chance and didn't dwell on the negatives of the fact I hadn't won in regulation." RUSSELL: "I'm thinking the whole time, these greens could go down any moment and we can't finish. We kept playing. We're trying to get done and it turns into a six-man playoff. Worst-case scenario! I'm amazed we got it in to tell you the truth. The next playoff hole was 10 and I'd already received the call that the 10th hole was unplayable." PAULSON: "It was so cold that I dressed to wear rain pants all day. I had a great pair of rain pants. They had pockets and everything else. They had belt loops. They were basically a pair of Gore-Tex pants. I knew it was going to be cold so I wore Long Johns under those pants. Whether it rained or not, I was going to wear those all day long." SLUMAN: "It was like the Sunday scramble at the club going back out there. Each player gets in a cart driven by someone; everybody got a cart, caddies on the back getting driven out, plus an official to pick straws or numbers, and you're off and away." PAULSON: "When we got done, I had to go to the bathroom really bad because it had been raining all day. I told the guys, ‘I'll get out there but I have to use the restroom.' Instead of one minute, it took three because you have all your rain gear on. I get on a cart and arrive at the tee and they say, ‘Dennis, you're hitting (fourth). Good luck.' I wasn't even part of the draw to determine what order we hit. No one shook my hand. It wasn't unfriendly, but it was raining and everyone was huddled under their umbrellas." ALLENBY: "That shot was probably the greatest 3-wood I ever hit in my life. It is the greatest. And I still have the club. It’s up in my house and I have the original grip on it and everything, it’s such a little beauty. "I remember Fred Couples and myself seemed to be the last two to have it in play before we finally gave it up. Every tournament we would go to we would both find each other on the range and check to see if the other still had it in play. Then finally one tournament he came along and he saw that I had switched it out and I was like, ‘Oh man it's just too small, I just switched it out.' Then he starts laughing and says, ‘I did the same thing.' So we both hung on for ages but had to let it go. It was a dinosaur by then." PAULSON: "Robert's is still the best shot I've seen in my life. It was just flush out of the middle of the club. It started three yards right of the hole and turned over three yards. It was a laser right at the flag. I remember that shot more than any shot I saw on the PGA TOUR, or hit. It was that special." RUSSELL: "We're walking up to the green and I'm thinking, ‘I hope we can keep going.' Then I see a ball about 4 feet from the hole and I'm thinking, ‘Damn, who hit that shot?' I had been over in the left rough, helping Toshi with a drop. Thank goodness someone birdied it." CHAMBLEE: "I had never heard of or seen Toshi Izawa before (This was just Izawa’s fourth TOUR start in the States). He hooked it up on the hill and with all the people and caddies and cameras I never really saw him again in the playoff. Later on that year, I was asked to come in and work for Golf Channel during the Masters. Tiger was going for his fourth major in a row and all that. Toshi was either leading or close to the lead after round one and I asked one of my coworkers who he was and they laughed and said, ‘Yeah right,' and I said, ‘No really, who is it?' They said, ‘You really don't know?' and I said, ‘No, I've never heard of him.' ‘He was in the six-man playoff with you at Riviera,' they said incredulously. And I said, ‘Well, it was so chaotic with six players, their caddies, TOUR officials, cameras and media and so many people running around, you could've been in that playoff with me and I might never of known it.'" ALLENBY: "It’s up there but here’s what’s funny: I hit that shot and then later in the year Tiger Woods had the ‘Better Than Most' putt at TPC Sawgrass on the 17th green in the PLAYERS Championship and that ended up being voted the shot of the year. But I remember (former PGA TOUR Commissioner) Tim Finchem saying to me that he thought my shot in L.A. was the best shot of the year. He also remembered that at TPC that same year, he saw me make a putt from off the wood of the walkway on the 17th green that was about an hour ahead of Tiger and from farther away. But hey, Tiger Woods got all the accolades because at the end of the day, he’s Tiger Woods. "I came back (to Riviera) the next year as defending champion and my picture is on the wall behind the staff at registration with me holding the trophy. I walk in and sat down and the three ladies looked at me and asked, "OK, who are you?" I said, "I’m the guy behind you on the wall". They all turned around and looked and were like, ‘Oh no. Sorry. I remember having a good giggle about that."

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NAPA, Calif. – After a long, slow slog in the rain, everything changed in an instant. Max Homa pitched in from 33 feet, Danny Willett three-putted from 3 1/2, and it was over. With the stunning birdie-bogey exchange at the par-5 finishing hole at Silverado Resort & Spa, Homa had successfully defended his Fortinet Championship title. “That was crazy,” he said after a final-round 68 that netted his fifth PGA TOUR victory by a shot over Willett and three shots over rookie Taylor Montgomery (64). “I still don’t really know what happened. It was one of those weekends you just had to hang around.” Homa has now won three times in just over a year and will head into this week’s Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club as arguably the fastest rising player on the U.S. Team. His wife, Lacey, who is expecting the couple’s first child, a boy, in early November, followed the action despite the weather. Although this was the fifth win for Homa and caddie Joe Greiner, it was the first witnessed by Greiner’s fiancé, Mayla. All were planning on boarding a private jet that would arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the dark early Tuesday morning. For most of Sunday afternoon at soggy Silverado it looked like Homa would finish second. He had hit his second shot into the front bunker on 18 when Willett knocked his approach tight. It looked like Willett, who finished third at the 2015 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, would have another indelible memory of playing great in Northern California. Then everything changed. “It was probably the most unexpected finish,” said Greiner. “As a caddie you’re always expecting the unexpected, but once Danny hit his approach to three or four feet, I felt our chances of making the bunker shot were pretty low. I just told (Homa) to hit it on the green and make the putt to at least make him have to make it to win.” Willett, 34, was closing in on his first TOUR title since the 2016 Masters. Once his opponent’s third shot from the bunker didn’t reach the green, the tournament looked over. “The sand was a little wet,” said Greiner, “and he didn’t have much green to work with. He was doing his best to spin it as much as he could and just came underneath it a bit.” Said Homa, “I kind of had to assume he was going to make it and I kind of went for the hero bunker shot and didn’t quite catch it.” No matter, he chipped in from 33 feet, nearly taking off Greiner’s hand with a high-five as the fans erupted. Willett smiled, then unraveled. “I hit it obviously far too hard,” he said of his birdie try, which flew by the hole and left him a longer putt for par, from 4 feet, 8 inches. “And on the way back … I thought it was straighter. Again, yeah, just ended up tailing off and missing left. “Yeah, disappointing way to finish,” he continued, “but you know, first out of the season, like I said, to be in contention, things are in a good place. Yeah, we’ll live to fight another day.” Justin Lower (73, T4) took a one-shot lead into Sunday, but it came down to Homa and Willett on the back nine. Homa would have been the favorite, coming off a career-best, two-win season and advancing to the TOUR Championship first the first time, where he tied for 5th. But while he briefly pulled even with birdies on 9, 10 and 11, he never led until 18. Tee times were moved up due to the forecast, and rain brought relief to drought-stricken Northern California. It also brought Homa and Willett to the forefront. Homa won the Wells Fargo Championship in May at rain plagued TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Willett smiled at the mention of bad weather. He had a three-shot lead through eight but made a three-putt bogey at the ninth as Lower and Homa each birdied to cut the lead to one. Homa and Willett pulled away with more birdies and Lower fell off the pace. A shot behind with five, four, three, two, one hole remaining, Homa told himself that the moment he tried to force the issue would be the moment he played his way out of contention. His coach, Mark Blackburn, preached patience all week. Greiner preached patience all day. And it paid off, albeit in a way no one could have expected. After he won the 2021 Fortinet, Homa admitted he sometimes had a hard time with self-belief. This year, though, upon noting he was the pre-tournament favorite, he was good with it. “Oddly, it felt OK,” he said. “It didn’t feel like too much pressure.” Added Greiner before they all headed to the airport, “That’s part of mine and Mark’s deal is to tell him how good he is, and the day he believes it he might not even need us at all.”

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