‘He’s never going to stop’: This is just the beginning of the DeChambeau revolution

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Robert Streb kept his game from coming undone over the first hour Saturday, and then pieced together enough birdies for a 3-under 67 to build a three-shot lead going into the final round of The RSM Classic. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Streb looks for second win at The RSM Classic Streb came from five shots behind when he won at Sea Island six years ago, his only PGA TOUR title. This time, he has a lead over Zach Johnson (65) and Bronson Burgoon (67). Streb was at 17-under 195. Camilo Villegas pulled within one shot of the lead going to the back nine of the Seaside course until a two-shot swing at the 10th that cost him momentum. Streb hit his approach to 8 feet for birdie. Villegas was just on the fringe 15 feet away, ran it by 5 feet and missed that to fall three shots back. Villegas added a bogey on the 13th, didn’t make a birdie on the back nine and had to settle for a 70. He was five shots behind as he tries to win for the first time since five years. Streb had to earn back his full PGA TOUR card a year ago, and then missed the FedExCup Playoffs for the third straight year. He kept his status because of the pandemic-shortened year, and a victory Sunday would give him an exemption through August 2023. Even so, he knows from experience not to look too far ahead. It was in 2014 when Streb closed with a 63 to make up a five-shot deficit before winning a three-man playoff. Six players were within five shots of the lead going into Sunday. Even with no spectators and only limited corporate clients allowed, Johnson will feel an entire community behind. He lives at Sea Island, and no resident has ever won this event. Winless since the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews, Johnson rallied late with three birdies over his last five holes, finishing with a 30-foot birdie putt. Burgoon had five birdies in a six-hole stretch on the back nine — the exception was a bogey on the 14th, playing straight into a strong wind along the water — to overcome a rough start and get into the final group. Emiliano Grillo had a 65 and was four shots behind, while Kevin Kisner (66) and Kyle Stanley (68) were five back. Streb began his round with a quick hook and escaped trouble with par. From the left side of the second fairway, 123 yards to a back pin and facing the wind, he left it on the front of the green and had to two-putt from 75 feet. He came up well short of the green on the par-3 third and had to get up-and-down from 65 meet, making an 8-foot par putt. "It wasn't the greatest start, but got out of there with a bunch of pars and tried to find some consistency and it got better," Streb said. It never felt easy, but he wasn’t losing any ground. He made his first birdie with a sand wedge to 3 feet on No. 8, and the rest of the round was relatively stress-free except for a couple of more two-putts from 50 feet or longer.

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Perhaps no dominant performance in recent memory on the PGA TOUR was more surprising than that of Nate Lashley at the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic. Not only did Lashley become just the third player this decade to win a TOUR event as an alternate, he led outright after all four rounds and finished six strokes ahead of runner-up Doc Redman. Lashley ranked 20th for the week in approach shot proximity, but that doesn’t tell the entire story about his pinpoint iron play. Repeatedly – especially on the weekend – Lashley put himself in great scoring positions and took advantage of those opportunities. In rounds three and four, Lashley hit seven approach shots inside eight feet, the most of any player in the field on the weekend at Detroit Golf Club. While the field’s average birdie make for the week was 14 feet, 11 inches, Lashley left himself just over 10 feet on his birdie conversions. Lashley converted 46% of his birdie-or-better opportunities over the course of the tournament, his career-best performance over 72 holes on the PGA TOUR. Readers familiar with ShotLink’s proximity statistics may be wondering how a player who hit it that close, that often, did not rank higher in the weekly statistics. A couple of stray numerical outliers are to blame there: twice, Lashley went after the 17th green in two, winding up more than 130 feet away from the hole. These two figures skewed Lashley’s average a bit, masking an otherwise sterling week approaching the greens in Detroit. Of Lashley’s 28 birdies that week, 22 came on putts of 10 feet or less. He hit 14 approach shots within 20 feet in his third-round 63 that gave him a six-shot lead. There are five players since 2010 to win a PGA TOUR event wire-to-wire and by six strokes or more. Four of those winners – Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Justin Thomas and Martin Kaymer – have been world number one at some point in their career. Nate Lashley, an alternate who had everything going for him that week in Michigan, is the fifth. With his victory, Lashley became the first player to win wire-to-wire and by six strokes or more for his first PGA Tour title since Jose Maria Olazabal at the 1990 NEC World Series of Golf.

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