Oosthuizen, Spieth start strong at Open

In the final round of the 2018 Valspar Championship, Paul Casey birdies seven of his first 13 holes, then pars in for a 65 and a one-shot win over Patrick Reed (68) and Tiger Woods (70). Welcome to the Monday Finish, where amid great Tiger fervor, Casey won for the second time on the PGA TOUR and the first since the 2009 Houston Open, moving from 39th to eighth in the FedExCup. Here are some further thoughts on the Valspar: FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1- If you want to get more out of your game, sometimes it helps to try less. Casey got into contention a lot last year only to struggle on Sundays. At the TOUR Championship, he was in the mix to win before shooting a final-round 73 to finish fifth. Eventually he realized he was grinding so hard, especially on the greens, that his perfectionism was getting in the way. He was even shutting and de-lofting the putter face. This year, Casey has tried to open the putter face while not getting himself so worked up on the greens. (Jordan Spieth would call it free-rollin’.) It certainly worked at the Valspar. Casey took just 21 putts Sunday, the lowest single-round total of his PGA TOUR career, and was +1.660 in strokes gained: putting on the day. “The way I strike the golf ball … I don’t stress about technique, I never have,â€� Casey said. “I figure everything out and I pick the target and hit it. If it’s a good shot, great. If it’s a bad one and went slightly off line, maybe I make a small adjustment and try not to do the same with the next one. I’ve never done with that the putting. I’ve always been super critical and try to have a great stroke. I’m approaching it the same way I approach the rest of the game. It’s carefree. “If it’s not, I’m not beating myself up,â€� he added. “I’m now striking the ball much better. My speed is infinitely better and I’m not shutting the putter face. And starting on line I can now read putts again. It’s pretty simple, but for so long I just couldn’t see it and trying to be perfect and trying to be better and the trying wasn’t getting anywhere. Getting in my own way.â€� 2- Birdies get the glamour, but pars save the day. Casey sizzled with the seven birdies and one bogey (at the difficult par-4 third hole), but after signing his card and beginning the long wait in the clubhouse, he was most delighted with his par saves at 16, 17 and 18. He missed all three greens in regulation, but chipped up and made knee-knocking par putts of 3 feet, 5 inches; 2 feet, 4 inches; and 5 feet, 2 inches. “The reason I’m happy, the way I cleaned up,â€� Casey said. “I putted brilliantly, the thing that has been holding me back for a couple seasons. Really good to hole the putts at 16, 17 and 18. It’s been a long time since I’ve holed three pressure putts like that in a row. I’m ecstatic about it.â€� 3- Tiger Woods (70) at least enjoyed some smaller victories. He moved to 43rd in the FedExCup and posted four straight sub-par rounds for the first time since THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2013. He also registered his 30th runner-up and 187th top-10 finish in 332 TOUR starts, and this week he heads to the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, which he’s won eight times. (For more on his comeback and his performance at the Valspar, click here.) 4- Woods wasn’t the only player enjoying a big comeback at the Valspar. Jim Furyk, the 2010 Valspar champion, was playing on a sponsor invitation and shot a final-round 66 to finish solo seventh. It was the first top-10 finish for the 17-time TOUR winner since he finished T6 at The RSM Classic in 2016. At 47, Furyk is trying to bounce back from a disappointing 2017 even as he makes preparations to captain the U.S. Ryder Cup Team in Paris in the fall. 5- Sergio Garcia’s eight birdies Sunday was a tournament best for a single round, but he was left to lament what might have been were it not for his two bogeys, everything adding up to a 65 that left him in solo fourth. Garcia also didn’t capitalize on his first three rounds (70-72-69). “Unfortunately, I left myself too much to do today,â€� he said. “Played really, really nicely. I played nicely all week. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get anything out of my rounds the first three days and today could have been a really, really special round. You know, I probably wasted at least three shots on the front nine with a three-putt and a couple short misses for birdies.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1- Casey scrambled exceptionally well, getting up and down 82.14 percent of the time, third best in the field. He was also +.865 in strokes gained: putting (15th), and near the top in driving distance (301.6 yards, 17th) and proximity to the hole (35’ 10’’ for T22). His worst stat was driving accuracy (46.15 percent, T68). 2- Perhaps the winner’s nerve on the greens (just 21 putts in the final round) was helped by the fact that he hit nine of 13 fairways, by far his best of the week. Casey, 40, had hit just six, five and four fairways over the first three rounds, respectively. 3- Woods was attempting to match fellow 40-something Phil Mickelson’s victory at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship the week before. In no particular order, Woods and Mickelson have won in back-to-back weeks on TOUR 10 times, most recently at the 2013 Farmers Insurance Open (Woods) and Waste Management Phoenix Open (Mickelson). 4- Patrick Reed (68) logged a lot of driving range time at the WGC-Mexico Championship, and it paid off at the Valspar. He matched Casey at 10-under before making bogey at the last. Reed’s sixth TOUR win, and first since THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2016, will have to wait. So, too, will atonement for the 2015 Valspar, when Reed and Sean O’Hair lost a playoff to Jordan Spieth. 5- Sam Burns came into the Valspar with 122 non-member FedExCup points, needing no worse than a two-way tie for third to earn the 147 points that would equal No. 150 on last year’s list (Rick Lamb, 269 points). Alas, Burns finished T12 and remains 88 points of Special Temporary Membership. He’ll play on a sponsor invitation at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. TOP VIDEOS

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THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — The scorecards of Sebastian Munoz and Tiger Woods were unusual for different reasons Thursday in the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. That was only good news for one of them. RELATED: Full leaderboard | How Tiger inspired Phil Munoz twice holed out for eagle from a combined distance of 219 yards. He also had eight birdies. Throw in a wild tee shot for double bogey, three bogeys and only five pars and it added to an 8-under 64 and a one-shot lead. "Not a normal round," Munoz said. That especially was the case for Woods. For the first time in his 1,277 rounds on the PGA TOUR as a pro, he made bogey or worse on three par 5s in a single round. That led to a 4-over 76 — by two shots his worst score in 49 rounds at Sherwood — that left him 12 shots out of the lead. Munoz, the Colombian who played his college golf at North Texas, finished off his bizarre round by saving par from a narrow section of the front bunker with a 15-foot putt on the 18th hole. He was one shot ahead of Tyrrell Hatton, the hottest golfer this month, and Justin Thomas, who had a hot finish. Hatton won the European Tour flagship event at Wentworth, flew to Las Vegas for the CJ CUP and tied for third. Thomas shot 29 on the back nine at Sherwood. They each had a 65. Whether it was shocking to see Woods so far back on this course is a matter of perspective. He is a five-time winner at Sherwood, along with five runner-up finishes, against small fields in a holiday exhibition. He was playing only his third competitive round in the last seven weeks, and his first since missing the cut in the U.S. Open a month ago. The rust was evident, and a few bad breaks didn’t help his cause. He pushed his tee shot on the par-5 11th to the right, normally not a big deal except the ball stopped rolling in the dirt between two trees about 18 inches apart. Woods couldn’t believe it when he got to his ball and wasted no time inverting a sand wedge to hit out left-handed. That didn’t make it back to the fairway, and the rough is thicker than he ever saw it in the 12 previous times playing Sherwood in December. The course recently over-seeded with rye and the grass is thick, as it was at Shadow Creek. He laid up from there and made bogey. On the par-5 13th, he sent his tee shot again to the right, partially blocked by a tree. He tried to gouge out a mid-iron and it didn’t make it to the second section of fairway. Another vicious swing from thick grass advanced it only 130 yards to a bunker some 50 yards to the hole. The sand shot didn’t quite reach the green. His putt from 55 feet didn’t reach the hole He made double bogey. And then on the par-5 16th, a tee shot down the right side took a wild bounce to the right, and a marshal carefully going down the bank toward the creek was not a good sign. He took a penalty drop, laid up and sent wedge just over the green, forcing him to get up-and-down for bogey. The one smile came on an 85-foot putt for birdie on the 14th. Smiles were rare on this day. Munoz smiled in disbelief. His round began with a three-putt bogey from 7 feet. He followed with four birdies on the next five holes — he missed a 7-foot birdie putt on the par-5 fifth — and then he hammered a 9-iron from 168 yards that faded gently toward the hole and rolled in for an eagle. "Once you see the guy throw up the touchdown sign, it’s good," Munoz said of a volunteer behind the green. His other eagle looked like it might be a bogey. He hit 3-wood that crashed into a tree near the 16th green, and Munoz was waiting for it to splash down in the creek. Instead, it went backward into the fairway, 51 yards from the hole. "My caddie was like, ‘Be aggressive. You already took a risk on shot No. 2, so might as well just keep going.' All right, sure," he said. "So I throw it up there and find the hole. It was pretty sweet." Roughly half the 78-man field shot in the 60s on a pleasant day in the Conejo Valley. Woods wasn’t the only one who didn’t take advantage. Rory McIlroy had two double bogeys sandwiched around two birdies at the end of his round of 73. Phil Mickelson, a winner last week on the PGA TOUR Champions, needed four birdies on his last eight holes to shoot 72.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – It would be fitting if a tip from former THE PLAYERS champion Tim Clark produced the newest member of the club to win at TPC Sawgrass. A year ago Clark approached Webb Simpson on the eve of THE PLAYERS Championship and offered his fellow former anchored putting buddy a tip. Simpson was in the putting wilderness after being forced to switch from his near life-long method of belly-putting thanks to the anchor ban. The former U.S. Open champion had ranked inside the top 53 players for Strokes Gained: Putting from his debut year in 2009 through the 2014 season with a high mark of 15th. But after switching he plummeted to 174th in 2015 and 177th in 2016. He was lost. “Tim asked me how I’ve been putting, and I told him, pretty inconsistent. He asked me had I ever tried the claw grip, and I said no. So I tried it. I liked it,â€� Simpson explained of the encounter a year ago. “So thanks to Tim, I started putting better last year.â€� The combination of a mid-length putter that rests against the forearm – ala Matt Kuchar – and the claw grip has been a game changer. He put it in to place and finished T16 last year. Last season Simpson’s strokes gained ranking improved to 88th. This season he entered this week ranked 10th. This week he’s first – gaining an incredible 9.079 shots on the field so far through two rounds. Round one was the 10th best of his career in the stat. Round two the fifth best. “It turned his whole season around and turned his career around, getting it to where we thought it was going to be. The putter isn’t a problem anymore,â€� long-time caddie and friend Paul Tesori says of the change a year ago. “For us, it’s nothing short of miraculous. We got to a two and a half year stretch where we didn’t know if we ever would see it again. “We’ve had some battles. It’s been stressful.â€� On Friday, Simpson officially made 142-feet, eight inches worth of putts. But this didn’t include an 18-footer he made from the fringe on the 12th hole and a 28-footer he drained from behind the 15th green. “Obviously I’ve been with guys who have shot some incredible rounds, but it was just amazing how many putts he made,â€� playing partner Jhonattan Vegas said. “He hit the ball really well, but he was just making it from everywhere. I was rooting for him to break the course record; he definitely had it. “The putt that shocked me was the putt he made on 15, which would have gone way far by but went in. Right there we knew he had something special at that point, so we were just rooting. We were fans at that point.â€� Adam Scott, another of the players forced to change once the anchor ban came in, tipped his hat to Simpson’s transformation. Scott himself has spent the last few seasons changing between a short and long putter, still searching for something he can reliably trust. “There is some psychological stuff involved,â€� Scott said. “In the two or three years between the making of the decision and the rule coming into effect we were being called cheats and all sorts out there. “Then the not knowing what’s going to happen… how you’ll go. Learning a new technique and feels. Lots of things played into it. “The guy spent thousands of hours in his life working on a particular method and he’s sent back to square one. So all credit to him.â€� As much as anything Simpson himself is happy just to have belief in himself again. In the dark times it was hard not to wonder if he’d ever find a way. “Confidence is so big, and it can change the way you think… Even more so maybe with putting,â€� Simpson said. “Putting there’s read, there’s grain, there’s speed… there’s the stroke, the aimer, and then there’s you. “I had tournaments where I putted well, but I never had stretches of three months, six months, eight months where consistently I was a lot better. “Once that kind of four, five, six months of good putting hit, I started to believe again that I’m a good putter. It had been a long time since I had really felt that and believed it.â€� We believe it to now.

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