Nicklaus-Jacklin Award presented by Aon inspired by one of golf’s great gestures

LA QUINTA, Calif. – Even Adam Long wasn’t certain where he stood after hitting his approach into the Desert Classic’s final hole. Winning wasn’t at the top of his mind when he teed off in Sunday’s final group with Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin. A top-10 finish, and a spot in next week’s event, would have been nice. Long was an afterthought in a final group that included a World Golf Hall of Famer and a Canadian playing in front of countrymen who flock to the California desert in the winter. Long was just a 31-year-old rookie making his sixth PGA TOUR start. And then he was the champion. He won in a way that most players can only dream of: by making a 15-footer for birdie on the last hole. Long arrived at the final hole tied with Hadwin and Mickelson. After hitting his drive into the right rough, Long hit his 175-yard onto the green. That’s when he asked his caddie to confirm that he shared the lead. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure. I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose,� Long said. The stage was set for him after Hadwin’s bunker shot stopped inches from the hole and Mickelson barely missed a long birdie try. Mickelon’s miss helped Long see the line for his career-changing putt. His 65th stroke of the day found the bottom of the hole. Long, who was 20 over par in his previous five PGA TOUR starts, shot 26-under 262 on the Desert Classic’s three-course rotation. He shot 63 in the first and third rounds, then fired a 65 that was Sunday’s second-lowest score on PGA West’s tricky Stadium Course. Long, who started the final round three shots behind Mickelson, chipped in twice on the back nine. He didn’t make a bogey. “I just kept plugging away and it was kind of the Phil and Adam Hadwin show for most of the way,� Long said. “Everyone was chanting Phil’s name most of the way and there are a lot of Canadians down here. I was just in the background.� Not when it was time for the trophy ceremony. He was the last player left on the 18th green. Before the win, he was an alternate for next week’s Farmers Insurance Open. Now THE PLAYERS Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, Masters and PGA Championship are among the events he can add to his schedule. Long leapt to 12th in the FedExCup standings. He started the week ranked 205th, ahead of just 13 players. The win was worth 500 points. He began this week with just four FedExCup points after missing the cut in four of five starts this season. His best finish was T63 at the Safeway Open. “He hit shot after shot and putted great, had a couple chip-ins and did what you had to do to win,� said Mickelson, who owns as many major titles (5) as TOUR starts Long had made before this week. Hadwin was still three shots ahead after Long’s chip-in on the 12th hole. Hadwin played the final six holes in 1 over, though, while Long birdied half of the remaining holes. He holed a 5-footer for birdie on 14 before holing another chip on the next hole. Then he birdied the last hole, an incredible finish for a player who admitted that just receiving the text with his final-round tee time gave him nerves. Long didn’t look intimidated, though, when he birdied Sunday’s first two holes. “Birdieing those first two really calmed a bit, like, ‘All right, I got this, I can compete, I can play, I belong,� Long said. He’d spent nine years as a professional waiting for this moment. His only TOUR start before this season came at the 2011 U.S. Open. That was the same year that he won his only previous professional title, the Woodcreek Classic on the now-defunct Hooters Tour. He estimates that the winner’s check was $25,000. He played his first Web.com Tour season the following year but finished 127th on the money list. He didn’t get back on that tour until 2015. He never doubted that he could make it, though. “I wasn’t doing great, but I never really doubted it,� he said. �I still wanted to play and I still loved it and I still wanted to see how good I could get.� He became a PGA TOUR winner on Sunday. And it was worth the wait.

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Jordan Spieth put himself into the mix Saturday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am title, and he lived to tell about it. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Inside the Field: WM Phoenix Open On a day when Seamus Power went backward to allow a half-dozen other players back in the game, Spieth went backward just to make sure he didn’t fall over a 60-foot cliff Even if it might have looked more dangerous than it was, his approach from the edge of the cliff on the eighth hole at Pebble Beach stole the show on a Saturday that typically belongs to Bill Murray, Macklemore and the rest of the celebrities. Spieth had a 9-under 63, his career low at Pebble Beach, to go from 10 strokes behind Power to one shot behind the leading trio of Beau Hossler, Andrew Putnam and Tom Hoge. “That was by far the most nerve-wracking shot I’ve ever hit in my life,” Spieth said to caddie Michael Greller after his shot went just left of the green. His tee shot ran out through the fairway, short of going over the edge. Keeping all the weight on his right leg, Spieth hit the shot and immediately backpedaled to level ground. From the rough, he chipped down the slippery green to 18 feet and made the par putt. It was high entertainment on a Saturday built for such theatrics. And while the celebrities attracted a big gallery that lined fairways on another glorious day, the final round was loaded with possibilities. Hossler had a 65 at Pebble Beach, narrowly missing a second eagle of the round on the 18th hole. He was the first to reach 15-under 200. Putnam started on the back nine at Pebble Beach and ran off five straight birdies with hardly anyone watching, finishing with a par for a 68 at Pebble Beach. Hoge was at Spyglass Hill and shot a 68 to join them. Patrick Cantlay, the reigning FedExCup champion, started and finished his round with a pair of birdies and didn’t do a lot in between. He had a 68 and was one shot behind, along with Spieth and Joel Dahmen (66 at Spyglass). “I’m in great position and I love this golf course and everyone will be playing on the same golf course tomorrow so it should be fun,” Cantlay said. A key figure in all this fun was Power, the 34-year-old Irishman, who set the 36-hole tournament record at 128 and looked as though he could do wrong. He had a five-shot lead to par and a four-shot lead on strokes, but his round at par-71 Monterey Peninsula became a struggle off the tee and round the greens. Power had consecutive birdies to get back to 16 under — even for the day — until bogeys on two of his last three holes for a 74. Even so, he was only two shots behind going into the final round. Spieth went out in 31, highlighted by an approach up the hill to 3 feet on the par-5 sixth for an eagle and his two 18-footers to close out the front nine, the par on No. 8 and a birdie on No. 9. He finished with a tee shot on the par-3 17th that took a hard bounce off the springy green, grazed the flag and settled 8 feet away for a birdie. On the iconic par-5 closing hole, his second shot tumbled onto the green and ran near the hole until it stopped on the fringe, leaving 20 feet and two putts for a final birdie. Jason Day, who tied for third third at Torrey Pines as the former No. 1 player in the world tries to regain his form, kept alive his hopes with a 70 at Spyglass. He was four shots behind. Hossler and Hoge are the only players among the leading seven who have yet to win on the PGA TOUR. Hoge had a chance two weeks ago in the California desert. Hossler was bogey-free, a steady round with very little stress. “Pebble can give and take so quickly, right? I was glad to be on the receiving end today,” he said. “I hit it well, played really conservatively, frankly, even though it might not look like it, and was fortunate to not have any misses really get me in significant trouble.”

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SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda — Peter Malnati saw his infant son at a PGA TOUR event for the first time since the pandemic, which brought a smile to his face and another birdie on his card for an 8-under 63 and a one-shot lead Thursday in the Bermuda Championship. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Ghim taking advantage of second chance The tournament is the first to allow limited fans — no more than 500 a day at Port Royal — since the opening round of THE PLAYERS Championship on March 12. The final birdie was the ninth of the round for Malnati, who has gone from the South to the West to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and keeps playing some of his best golf. It was the third time in his last three events he posted a 63 or lower. Malnati was runner-up at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi and followed that with a tie for fifth at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. This round gave him a one-shot lead over Ryan Armour and Doug Ghim, who birdied his last two holes. "With everything in the world right now — and this island is doing a phenomenal job with their testing protocol and keeping everyone safe — I just didn’t know if it was actually going to work for them to get out here," Malnati said of about his wife and 1-year-old son. “So coming off that disappointing bogey on 17, I hit a nice drive on 18 and before I even get my yardage or anything, I see my wife and boy standing out there. "It just brought a huge smile to my face," he said. "To see them and then to finish with that birdie, I’m a happy man." Malnati ran off five straight birdies starting with No. 9, and he was looking to finish strong. Among the shorter hitters in the modern power game, he had made up his mind to take on the bunkers down the right side of the par-5 17th hole and turn it into an easy birdie. Instead, he turned it left into the water for a penalty stroke and made bogey. "So that stunk," he said. "But how can I complain about much? We’re on the island of Bermuda and I sure played great." The Bermuda Championship receives full status this year because the HSBC Champions in Shanghai was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning Bermuda is not the same week as a World Golf Championships event. The winner receives an invitation to the Masters Tournament next year. It also is the start of consecutive PGA TOUR events allowing limited fans. The Houston Open has said it will sell no more than 2,000 tickets a day. The Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, the first event of 2021, also announced this week it would have limited fans. Doc Redman, Vaughn Taylor and Chase Seiffert were at 65, while Hunter Mahan was in the group at 66. It was Mahan’s lowest opening round in more than two years. Three-time major champion and Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington opened with a 67. Harrington won at Port Royal in 2013 in the final stages of the course hosting the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. Fred Funk, the 64-year-old regular on the PGA TOUR Champions, shot 69. He played in the same group as his son, Taylor Funk, who shot a 73.

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