Sharvin shoots 63 to lead at English Championship

Golf is a game with a simple objective: get the ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible. But several different skills must be mastered to accomplish that task. There's driving, iron play, short game and putting. Players must attain, and maintain, a certain level of proficiency in each aspect of the game to have success. That's why Stewart Cink compares golf to another game, one that's often found in an arcade or at a carnival. The six-time winner says it's like Whack-A-Mole because once a player fixes one fault in his game, another one is quick to pop up. "You correct one thing, and something else flares up, and it’s just constantly you’re searching for where you’re going to put the next fire out." he said. "We’re not robots. We’re human beings. "It’s just the way golf is, and it’s part of what makes it such a great game." Players can only practice for so long, though. Daylight presents a natural limit. Some players have parental commitments to schedule around. Then there's the law of diminishing returns, and the increased risk of injury that comes from excessive work. Swinging a golf club more than 100 mph can be hard on the body. That's why players turn to data and technology to make their practice time more efficient. Rory McIlroy, the reigning FedExCup champion, is among the players who relies on stats to show him what to work on. For example, a report he received after the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship showed him that his sand shots weren't up to his standards. "I got a stats report after the three weeks that I had at Torrey Pines, at Riviera, and Mexico, and that’s what I based my practice off going into the next few weeks," McIlroy said at this year's Arnold Palmer Invitational. "My bunker play wasn’t up to the same standards it needed to be. I needed to get better (with putts) from 6 to 12 feet. It’s stuff that you sort of know anyway, but it’s nice when you have that objective data in front of you." PGA TOUR players are finely-tuned athletes but they aren't always attuned to the true state of their game. They hit thousands of shots in a season but often remember the outliers the most vividly. This can make it difficult to produce a true assessment of their game. "What happens to athletes, because they're always in the thick of it, they start telling themselves stories,” instructor Sean Foley said at the 2014 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, an annual meeting of the best minds in sports statistics. These stories aren't always accurate. Foley tells the story of former pupil Justin Rose, who considered himself a poor wedge player. The statistics actually showed that he was No. 1 in strokes gained from 100 yards and in. "It’s nice to look at some numbers to back it up, because you can get a little blinded out there thinking I’m not putting well, when in actual fact you’re hitting a lot of great iron shots and you’re giving yourself a lot of 15-, 20-foot looks that you’re not going to make a lot of, and therefore you think you’re putting badly," said four-time PGA TOUR winner Graeme McDowell. Charles Howell III hired data analyst Richie Hunt to help him prioritize his practice. "I've always been a guy who really likes to practice, but there have been some times when I'm practicing really hard and not getting any better. Richie would come in and say that's because you're practicing the wrong things," Howell said. "Every part of the game matters, but certain things matter more to certain people." Technology like force plates and 3-D motion capture also help players get more out of their training, especially when they are struggling. This technology helps players more quickly find a solution to their swing problems. Some players use such high-tech training aids when they are playing well, in order to capture data on their swing when it is working its best. This data serves as a benchmark against which players can compare when things go awry. "If someone is playing really well, you collect that data and put it in a vault and save it for a rainy day," said instructor Chris Como, who works with Bryson DeChambeau, Emiliano Grillo, Jamie Lovemark and Trevor Immelman. "And if they get in a funk, you can compare their current swing to when they were playing well." Brooks Koepka credited force plates for his recent success at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. They showed him that he wasn't getting enough weight on his left side through impact. "Usually at impact, I'm at 70% (of my weight) on the left side. I had 70% on the right side," Koepka said. After struggling for most of the season, he finished second at TPC Southwind to lock up his spot in the FedExCup Playoffs. Injuries, travel and different weather and course conditions can all lead to small changes in a player's swing over the course of a season. Hard data can diagnose problems more quickly than the naked eye. As Bobby Jones once wrote, "Golf is a difficult game to play consistently well because the correct swing is not a thing the human body can accomplish entirely naturally." Technology and data can help players when they get off-kilter, however.

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OUTHPORT, England — Jordan Spieth is The Open champion, just like expected. Not like anyone could have imagined. On the verge of another meltdown in a major, so wild off the tee that he played one shot from the driving range at Royal Birkdale and lost the lead for the first time all weekend, Spieth bounced back with a collection of clutch shots, delivering a rally that ranks among the best. A near ace. A 50-foot eagle putt . A 30-foot birdie putt. Spieth played the final five holes in 5 under and closed with a 1-under 69 for a three-shot victory over Matt Kuchar, giving him the third leg of the career Grand Slam and a chance to be the youngest to win them all next month at the PGA Championship. “This is a dream come true for me,” Spieth said, gazing at his name on the silver claret jug. “Absolutely a dream come true.” For so much of Sunday, it felt like a recurring nightmare. Just 15 months ago, Spieth lost a five-shot lead on the back nine at the Masters, coming undone with a quadruple-bogey 7 on the 12th hole. It was more of a slow bleed at Royal Birkdale, with three bogeys on the opening four holes and four putts inside 8 feet that he missed on the front nine to fall into a tie with Kuchar. And then it all fell apart — or so it seemed. His tee shot in the rain on the par-4 13th was so far right it sailed over the gallery, over the dunes behind them and was closer to the practice range than the fairway. When he finally found the ball, it was nestled in thick grass on a hill so steep Spieth could barely stand up. Kuchar was 15 feet away for birdie, waiting — and waiting — on the green. Spieth appeared to be headed for a double bogey at best. But the break of the tournament — and a moment that will rate alongside Seve Ballesteros making birdie from the car park when he won at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 1979 — was when Spieth discovered the range was part of the course. He took a one-shot penalty for an unplayable lie and took relief as far back as he wanted, onto the range, behind the equipment trucks. Then he received free relief from the trucks. That still left him a blind shot over the tall dunes to a fairway littered with pot bunkers. His 3-iron stopped just short of one of them in front of the green, and he pitched over it to about 7 feet and holed the putt to escape with bogey. Kuchar missed his birdie, but had the lead for the first time. Spieth had momentum from his bogey, and his 6-iron landed in front of the flag and missed going in by inches. He made a 4-footer for birdie to tie for the lead, and then seized control with a 50-foot eagle putt on the 15th hole, looking at caddie Michael Greller filled with playful bravado and barking, “Go get that!” Spieth said his caddie played a massive role in keeping his head in the game. “I was getting down on myself, as I think anyone would,” Spieth said. “This is as much mine as it is his.” Kuchar made birdie from the bunker on the 15th to stay one behind, but he had no answer when Spieth poured in a 30-foot birdie at the 16th. And after Kuchar rolled in a 20-foot birdie on the 17th to stay in the game, Spieth buried a 7-foot birdie on top of him to keep that two-shot lead going to the 18th. The sequence left the crowd — the largest ever this week for The Open in England — simply delirious. And they weren’t alone. “Is Jordan Spieth something else?” Jack Nicklaus tweeted. Zach Johnson, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler were among those who waited by the 18th to watch Spieth capture yet another major. Johnson won at St. Andrews two years ago, when Spieth missed the playoff by one shot in his bid for the calendar Grand Slam. Spieth drank wine from the jug that year, which he was told was bad luck for anyone wanting to possess the trophy one day. “I started to believe them a bit through nine holes today,” he said. “It feels good to have this in my hands.” From the driving range to the claret jug, Spieth put himself in hallowed territory just four days before his 24th birthday. He joined Nicklaus as the only player to win three different majors at age 23. Gene Sarazen in 1923 was the only other player with three majors that young. The Squire was 21. Spieth goes to Quail Hollow in North Carolina next month with a chance to get that final leg of the Grand Slam. Kuchar closed with a 69 and did nothing wrong. He just had no answers for Spieth’s final blitz. Kuchar had a one-shot lead leaving the 13th green. He played the next four holes with two pars and two birdies and was two shots behind. Spieth finished at 12-under 268. He became the first player to post all four rounds in the 60s at Royal Birkdale, which was hosting its 10th Open. Li Haotong of China shot a 63 and finished third at 6-under 274. He was on the practice range in case the leaders came back to him, and Spieth joined him there as he tried to figure out how to get out of his pickle on the 13th. Moments later, with one massive roar after another for Spieth’s theatrics, Li got in a cart and left.

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Each week during the fall, PGATOUR.COM will highlight one of the rookies playing on the PGA TOUR during the 2019-20 season. This week: Michael Gellerman, who’s in this week’s field at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. Age: 27 Birthplace: Tucson, Arizona Resides: Edmond, Oklahoma College: Oklahoma TOUR card gained by: Finishing 21st in the Korn Ferry Tour regular season standings. TOUR starts/Best finish: Making his PGA TOUR debut this week at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier Pro highlights: Won the 2019 KC Golf Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour for his first victory as a pro; it came in front of family and friends, as Gellerman grew up in Sterling, Kansas, about 3-1/2 hours away. Two months later, he finished T-3 at the TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes en route to earning his TOUR card after spending four seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour and Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada. Amateur highlights: Made 47 starts for the Sooners during his four-year career from 2011-15, winning the 2014 Wyoming Cowboy Classic among his 17 top-10 finishes … Led the Sooners in scoring average in his junior and senior seasons … Was an Academic All-Big 12 First Team golfer for three seasons … As a junior, he was named the 2009 Kansas Junior Player of the Year (he won nine tournaments that year) and was runner-up in 2010. Interesting tidbits: During his freshman year in high school, he broke both of his wrists while playing pickup basketball. That kept him out of the golf regular season, but he returned in time to win the state championship, the first of three in his high school career. … Grew up playing junior golf against fellow rookie Harry Higgs, who is from the Kansas City area. Higgs finished T-2 to Gellerman at the KC Golf Classic. Gellerman says (after winning the KC Golf Classic): “Winning on Mother’s Day was great because I was kind of lacking on the presents, so I really needed to come in clutch down the stretch. Having my fiancée and my mom here on Mother’s Day was awesome. I had my dad here who taught me the game and was really the only one to ever give me a lesson up until last year. It was really cool to have all of the support. Even my dog is here.� For more on Michael Gellerman, click here.

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