Water balls sink Rickie Fowler at Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

He was a connoisseur of the close call, an object lesson in losing with dignity, and at odds with his putter. Golf gave Tony Finau ample reason to believe it just wasn’t meant to be. Not for him, and not on the PGA TOUR, the toughest tour in the land. And yet there was an ember that simply wouldn’t die, a stubbornness of belief that despite all evidence to the contrary – eight runner-up finishes and 39 top-10 finishes since his first and only TOUR win in Puerto Rico, in 2016 – he could do this. “I have an extreme belief in myself, and I have to,” Finau said after shooting a final-round 65 and beating Cameron Smith with a par on the first hole of a playoff at THE NORTHERN TRUST at rain-soaked Liberty National. “This game is hard as it is. These guys are so good as it is. If you can’t believe you can beat them, man, it’s just an uphill battle, and I just continue to believe.” How did he do it? How did this extravagantly talented 31-year-old family man bounce back to rocket all the way to the FedExCup standings after so much heartache? In golf terms, he simply hit it better than anyone else from tee to green. Maintenance workers worked to restore playability to the course after nine inches of rain necessitated a Monday finish, and the softness of the course may have further rewarded his distance advantage. But for Finau winning the tee-to-green game is not so unusual. What stood out was his work on the greens, where he gained 2.338 strokes on the field in the final round. He was 16 in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week despite coming into the week at 114th in that stat. His resilience was harder to measure but perhaps even more important. He went into his playoff against Smith with a 0-3 career record in sudden death, and some of the losses were gruesome. Falling to Max Homa at the Genesis Invitational this season? Tough. Losing the Waste Management Phoenix Open last year, when Webb Simpson birdied the last two to catch him and then birdied the first hole of the playoff? Brutal. Finau had seemed to have two hands on the trophy in Phoenix, and afterward his oldest son, a budding golfer himself, was in tears beside the 18th green. Soon the TOUR went on COVID hiatus, leaving Finau to think about what he could have done differently. On Monday he called it his toughest loss. “It’s hard losing,” he said, “and it’s hard losing in front of the world.” A steady drumbeat of questions and endless analysis followed every close call. Finau changed putters, changed grips. He went left-hand low, switched back to conventional. After hitting a succession of spectacular shots but getting little out of it in his third-round 68 at Liberty National on Saturday, he said he was going to have a talk with the flatstick. Instead, given the day off Sunday while Henri dumped nine inches of rain on the course, Finau practiced on the carpet in his hotel room throughout the day. “I would say I putted for maybe an hour and a half total,” he said. “Just kind of five, ten minutes here and there throughout the day. I didn’t really leave my room all day. “I wouldn’t say I found something,” he added, “but I knew I was putting it nicely.” In fact, Finau one-putted seven of his last nine holes for a back-nine 30. Some of these, like his birdies on 12 and 16, were near kick-ins. So was his eagle at 13, set up by a majestic 6-iron that was perhaps the shot of the tournament. But there were knee-knockers from just outside 6 feet to save par at 11 and 18. These are the types of putts he didn’t make in his win drought. And he certainly didn’t convert from over 30 feet, an unexpected bonus, the way he did for birdie at the par-3 14th hole. Meanwhile, leader Jon Rahm, the world No. 1, was finally looking human, going 2 over for his last four holes. Smith birdied the 17th hole to join Finau at 20 under, but sliced his drive out of bounds on the first hole of the playoff, the par-4 18th, all but ending it. Rahm was there to try and buck up a crestfallen Finau at the Genesis. And the shock was so severe at the Waste Management, no one seemed to know what to do. “This one’s going to sting,” Finau’s coach Boyd Summerhays said as they all staggered away. Now, though, Finau didn’t need any consoling at all. He had jumped into pole position in the FedExCup Playoffs, and was off for a celebratory sushi dinner. All those close calls suddenly didn’t matter anymore. “I believe in myself,” he said. “I believe in my team. I haven’t had the wins to maybe have that type of confidence and belief, but you just have to. “I have to believe I can go out there and beat J.T. today, and I can beat Jon Rahm,” he continued. “I have to believe that, and I did, and I continue to do that, and that’s the only reason why I’m sitting here today as the champion.”

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DUBLIN, Ohio — Jason Dufner wanted to put together more than just a few good rounds this week at the Memorial. The first two put him in the record book. Dufner holed out from 176 yards on the 18th hole for an eagle, and then added three more birdies on the front nine at Muirfield Village for another 7-under 65. That put him at 130 and gave him the 36-hole scoring record at the Memorial. Scott Hoch in 1987 and Rickie Fowler in 2010 previously shared the record at 13-under 131. Neither went on to win the tournament. Dufner had a six-shot lead over Fowler when he finished, and then had to wait to see what kind of margin he would have going into the weekend. He played Friday morning in warm, sunny and pristine scoring condition on greens that are pure as any on the PGA TOUR. Jordan Spieth, one shot behind Dufner after the opening round, was among those playing in the afternoon. The shot that got the most attention was Dufner’s 6-iron that he holed on No. 18 for his eagle. With a back left pin, the shot fit what he was trying to do, and he said the bonus was that it found the bottom of the cup. The key to his great play was his putting, something Dufner rarely says. When asked about it at Kapalua to start the year, Dufner said: “I’ve been putting bad for 17 years. It’s tough to change.” He managed with the help of a friend who sent him some research from a doctor who works with snipers in the Marines, and how they focus primarily on their breathing and their heartbeats. Dufner found his worst trait in putting was not having a consistent routine and getting too fast, almost as if he wanted to get it over with quickly. “I think the one thing that also helps is it gives me something to think about other than my stroke or holing this putt or the situation I’m in,” Dufner said. “Subconsciously, I’m just putting. But I’m more focused on my breathing and I’m at with that.” He said the goal presumably is to keep his heartbeat low, a real challenge for a guy who barely has a pulse in the first place. “I’ve never had anybody measure it,” he said. “But I know that there’s been times with my putting that the thought process and my actions have felt like they’ve been sped up and too quick. And I’m trying to slow down and focus on that breathing. It’s been working. I’ve been using it all year. This is the first time I’ve said anything about it. Some days I’m better with it than others. You think it would be pretty easy to be consistent with that, but some days it’s not.” Fowler started the tournament with a triple bogey on his second hole and he was 3 over through four holes when he turned it around Thursday for a 70. He was back out Friday morning and shot 66 and walked off the course the closest player to Dufner, even if it wasn’t very close. Fowler and Dufner lived under the same roof during the winter months when Dufner came down to Alabama to play some golf. They are good friends with personalities as different as hard rock and easy listening. “We got to spend a decent amount of time together and that was fun,” Fowler said. “He’s one of a kind. He’s one of the best guys I know out here. … Because he’s fairly quiet on the course, you don’t get to really see who he is as a person. He’s one of the funniest guys out here, too. But fan-wise you wouldn’t really see that. The way he carries himself is pretty chill and mellow.” He very quietly took only 130 shots over two days. Dufner, who grew up in northern Ohio, missed the cut the first two times he played Muirfield Village. He skipped the next three chances at the Memorial, but didn’t have a choice in 2013 when he won the PGA Championship and earned a spot in the Presidents Cup that was held on the course Jack Nicklaus built. Dufner spent that week asking his teammates how they played the course. Dufner posted a 3-1 record that week, and when he returned to the Memorial in 2014, he was at par or better over his next six rounds. He still doesn’t have a top 10, but he has figured something out. He would need a 67 to break the 54-hole record set by Hoch in 1987. Posting one low score after another is never easy, and Dufner isn’t sure what to expect Saturday.

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Chris Perry had more than a passing interest in Saturday’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. Granted, he was only 7 years old when it happened. So, Perry doesn’t really remember watching the historic event that was broadcast live from the lunar surface to hundreds of millions around the world on July 20, 1969. But the PGA TOUR veteran did know astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first of just 12 men to ever set foot on the moon. Perry’s father-in-law and Armstrong were long-time friends. Perry first met Armstrong while he and his wife Kathy were dating, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award winner was a guest at their wedding. They skied in Colorado and played golf together, as well. Perry, who played collegiately at Ohio State, took Armstrong, a Purdue grad, to the Buckeyes’ Scarlet Course a couple of times. The two also played at Camargo Country Club, Armstrong’s home course in Cincinnati, which is ranked 44th in Golf Digest’s most recent top 100.   Armstrong, Perry reports, was a “passionateâ€� golfer who was likely an 18 handicap or so. “His swing was really flat, and he was kind of handsy. But he just loved to be out for the exercise and being with his foursome,â€� Perry says. Off the golf course, Perry remembers Armstrong, who died in 2012 at the age of 82, as being a very unassuming man. “He felt that the guy in the control room was just as important as he was,â€� says Perry, who won the 1998 B.C. Open. “He was very private. He didn’t believe in stardom and autographs and all that kind of stuff. “He was just very, a very humble person.â€� So, taking his lead from Armstrong, Perry didn’t press his friend for details on the moon walk. He never joked that maybe his friend should have been the one to hit the makeshift 6-iron off the lunar surface like Alan Shepard did when Apollo 14 landed, either. “We just didn’t really go there with him,â€� says Perry, who made 483 starts on the PGA TOUR. “We knew obviously the way he was — he felt everyone had an important role and stuff — even though it’s 500 million watching (him) that night. “After they got back, several months later, they did 20, 28 parades in like 43 days. That was all over the world – (he was) just a hero all the way around and still is to this day.â€� The date of the moon landing is important in the Perry family for reasons beyond the friendship that developed with Armstrong, though. Both Perry’s father, Jim, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins, and his uncle, Gaylord, who at the time was pitching for the San Francisco Giants, had milestones accomplishments that day as well.   The weekend Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Twins were in Seattle for a series with the Pilots. Saturday’s game went extra innings and eventually was suspended, tied 7-7 after 16 innings, at 1:30 in the morning. When the game resumed on July 20, Twins manager Billy Martin sent Jim, his only rested pitcher, to the mound. He pitched two shutout innings, doubled and then scored the winning run on a balk by Pilots pitcher Jim Gelnar. But there’s more. While Armstrong was taking his first steps on the Sea of Tranquility, Jim was getting ready to start the regularly scheduled Sunday game – going all nine innings in another shutout. So, he picked up two wins in one day – unusual in itself — and scored the game-winning run to boot. “There were 400 or 500 million tuned in that day on the radio or TV around the world,â€� Perry says. “But my dad had to go back and warm up, so he missed the actual landing on the moon.â€� Jim’s younger brother Gaylord was pitching against the Los Angeles Dodgers that day. An announcement was made during the first inning – with the Giants already trailing 3-0 — that Armstrong had climbed out of the lunar module and taken that famous one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind. About 30 minutes later, Gaylord hit a home run. What made this so interesting is that seven years earlier, the Giants’ manager, Alvin Dark, had famously told one of the team’s beat writers that there will be a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry ever hits a home run. “It was his first, and I think, only home run he ever hit in his career,â€� Chris says. Jim later told Armstrong about their shared July 20 history when he and his brother met the astronaut at Chris’ wedding reception. “So, it’s a very unique situation that it’s been 50 years, since the lunar landing … and that all of this had taken place,â€� Perry says. “And the fact that I played golf with him and you look up (at the moon) and just go, wow, we know that someone’s actually been there, and that you actually have somewhat of a relationship with him and played golf with him. “And so, it’s very unique to our family.â€�

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