It’s no secret how badly Phil Mickelson wants to win this tournament, the one major that’s eluded him in his brilliant career. Thursday wasn’t a great start.
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K.H. Lee won the AT&T Byron Nelson to claim his first title on the PGA TOUR. He won by three with eight birdies in the final round. Check out the clubs he used to get it done. RELATED: Final leaderboard Driver: Callaway Epic Max LS (10.5 degrees @9) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 6 X 3-wood: Titleist TS3 (15 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD GP 7 X Hybrid: Titleist TS3 (19 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD HY 95 X Irons: Titleist U500 (4), Callaway X Forged CB (5-PW) Shafts: Project X LZ 6.5 Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 (52, 56, 60) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 Putter: Toulon Design San Diego Ball: Titleist Pro V1x Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
The holiday season is now complete, and the 2021 portion of the PGA TOUR season is set to begin in its traditional tropical locale. The Sentry Tournament of Champions will kick off the new year once again, but with a unique field. Because of the reduced number of events in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all qualifiers for last year's TOUR Championship also are eligible to tee it up in Maui. Dustin Johnson, the reigning FedExCup champion, highlights the field in his first appearance since winning the Masters. FIELD NOTES: Johnson, a two-time winner of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, looks to keep his momentum going in the new year. Johnson ended 2020 by finishing no worse than T6 in his final seven events, including three wins and three runners-up. ... Sergio Garcia returns to the Sentry Tournament of Champions after his first TOUR victory since the 2017 Masters. Garcia, an 11-time TOUR winner, won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in 2002 but hasn't teed it up at Kapalua since 2006... Justin Thomas looks to defend his Tournament of Champions title after winning in a three-man playoff a year ago... Twenty-eight golfers qualified for the 2021 event via their TOUR victories last season. An additional 17 golfers earned a spot in Hawaii via their appearance at the TOUR Championship... One of those golfers who earned a spot via the TOUR Championship was Xander Schauffele, winner of the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. Schauffele fell just short in his title defense last year, losing in that playoff that also included former Sentry winner Patrick Reed... There are five first-timers playing in the Sentry Tournament of Champions this year... Forty-two of the 45 eligible golfers are making the trip to the Tournament of Champions, with just Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, and Jim Herman not teeing it up. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points COURSE: Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort, 7,596 yards, par 73 (yardage subject to change). Opened in 1991, the Plantation Course at Kapalua has long been ranked as the top course in Hawaii. It was the first Ben Crenshaw/Bill Coore design to open. The duo has now, of course, gone on to become one of golf's most sought-after design teams, and the pair did an expansive renovation in 2019. The course features dramatic ocean views, wide fairways, and big-time elevation changes. STORYLINES: The last four winners of the Sentry Tournament of Champions went on to finish in the top five of the FedExCup standings at season's end, proving that a hot start at the beginning of the calendar year is paramount to season-end success. Justin Thomas finished second in the FedExCup standings in 2017. Dustin Johnson finished fourth in 2018 after winning in Kapalua. Xander Schauffele finished second in 2019, while Justin Thomas finished second again in 2020... No golfer since Geoff Ogilvy (2009-10) has won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in back-to-back years, although Schauffele came close in 2020... Thomas is looking to build off the momentum from his year-end victory alongside his father Mike at the PNC Championship in mid-December... Golfers who did not find the winner's circle in 2019-20 but are in the field include Rookie of the Year Scottie Scheffler, the highest finisher in last season's FedExCup (fifth) without a win... Eight of the top 10 golfers in the world will be in the field. 72-HOLE RECORD: 261, Ernie Els (2003) 18-HOLE RECORD: 62, K.J. Choi (3rd round, 2003), Graeme McDowell (4th round, 2011), Jason Day (4th round, 2015), Chris Kirk (4th round, 2015), Xander Schauffele (4th round, 2019). LAST TIME: On the hunt for his second straight Sentry victory, Xander Schauffele eventually fell just short in a playoff to Justin Thomas, who won for the second time at Kapalua. Thomas had a one-shot lead going into the 72nd hole but made a bogey on the par five to drop into a three-way tie. Patrick Reed, who zipped up the leaderboard in the final round thanks to a sizzling 7-under 66 (the round of the day) made it through two holes of the playoff with Thomas but eventually lost to the former FedExCup champion, who birdied the par-5 18th on the third extra hole to Reed's par. Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler, and Joaquin Niemann rounded out the top five. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 6 p.m.-10 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. (Golf Channel). Sunday, 6 p.m.-10 p.m. (Golf Channel).
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico — Jon Rahm faced the wind and handled it just as well Friday in the Mexico Open at Vidanta, making eight birdies on his way to a 5-under 66 that staked the world’s No. 2 player to a two-shot lead over Alex Smalley. RELATED: Leaderboard | Inside the Field: Wells Fargo Championship Rahm birdied all four of the par 5s, including the 18th hole at Vallarta Vidanta with a 4-iron from light rough to just short of the green, a pitch to 6 feet and one last putt. He was at 12-under 130 going into the weekend. Smalley was playing on the other side of the course, where he did most of his work. The highlight was holing out from 165 yards on the par-4 third hole for eagle. He had eagle chances on consecutive holes late in his round, two-putting from 35-feet on the par-5 sixth and driving the 291-yard seventh hole to 30 feet for another two-putt birdie. He finished with a 66 and will be in the final group with Rahm. Rahm was two shots higher then his opening round, in which the Spaniard never had to deal with the wind until the final four holes. This was one felt even better. “I feel like I might be a little bit more satisfied with today’s score than yesterday,” Rahm said. “Yesterday I felt like I was really under control and relatively speaking stress free. Today was a bit more of a grind, but still a really good round of golf.” Patrick Reed ran off two late birdies and was poised to close out his round with a third in a row until a pedestrian pitch from just short of the green on the par-5 18th. He had to settle for par and a 66, leaving him in a large group that was three shots behind. Cameron Champ, who played alongside Rahm and handled the wind with his penetrating ball flight, had a 66 to reach 9-under 133. Champ and Reed were joined by Trey Mullinax (69), Adam Long (66) and Andrew Novak (67). Rahm played a superb shot from a waste area well right of the green on the par-5 14th to about 3 feet. What really pleased him was his 6-iron on the par-3 ninth, over water while trying to navigate the gusts. “The 6-iron was perfect. And having 3 feet for birdie there, it’s a huge bonus,” Rahm said. “I think my iron game was really, really good today. It was really under control and in those windy conditions I was hitting it really, really solid so. I was never really too surprised where my ball was ending up and I was always in a good position.” Smalley, a Duke graduate in his rookie year on the PGA TOUR, had a runner-up finish in the Dominican Republic a month ago. Both courses have the same kind of grass on the greens, and Smalley said he picked up plenty of experience playing in the final group on the weekend, starting with the belief he can compete on TOUR. He also was a quick study on the wind, that made some of the par 4s more difficult to reach than some of the 600-yard par 5s. Smalley had a 5-iron for his second shot into the 608-yard sixth. Two holes later, he had 3-wood for his second shot on the 515-yard eighth hole, barely reaching the front of the green. That led to a beautiful lag from 65 feet for a par. “That’s what happens when you have winds that are gusting 25,” Smalley said. “I was able to keep the ball in play and was able to get out of those holes that were playing really long, and happy I’m done with them.” Scott Brown, Jonathan Byrd and Davis Riley, who lost in a playoff at the Valspar Championship earlier this year, were in the group at 8-under 134, four shots behind. The cut was at 2-under 140. Among those making it to the weekend were the Ortiz brothers of Guadalajara — Alvaro shot 69 and was at 5-under 137, while Carlos, a PGA TOUR winner, had a 69 and was at 3-under 139. Abraham Ancer, part of 10 Mexican players in the field and No. 20 in the world ranking, had a 69 and made the cut on the number. The task for everyone is chasing Rahm, going for his first victory of the year. “I’ve been playing really good,” he said. “I can’t really complain about anything I’m doing right now, so hopefully I can keep that good ball-striking going and keep rolling it the way I have.”
