JACKSON, Miss. – Ryan Armour arrived at Aronimink Golf Club’s first tee last month for a round with a familiar opponent. “It’s about time,â€� the man said to Armour. He wasn’t late. It was a reference to the decades that had passed between their rounds together. That other player was Tiger Woods. Armour and Woods are forever linked by their meeting in the final of the 1993 U.S. Junior Amateur (I don’t need to tell you who won). They played together just one other time, at a college tournament, in the quarter-century between their meeting at Oregon’s Waverley Country Club and the third round of this year’s BMW Championship. Woods was two weeks away from winning his 80th PGA TOUR title. Armour finally got his first victory earlier in the season, at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Armour is back at the Country Club of Jackson this week to defend that maiden title. He arrived after an intercontinental commute from South Korea, where he competed in THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. The spots in two of the PGA TOUR’s limited-field events in Asia, where the paychecks and FedExCup points are guaranteed, were among the myriad rewards that came from Armour’s career-changing season. He finished 49th in last year’s FedExCup after his Sanderson win and runner-up finish at the Quicken Loans National. He was in the top 30 of the FedExCup standings as late as July and began the Playoffs ranked 39th. He advanced past the first Playoffs event for the first time in his career, making it to the BMW Championship before bowing out. “There were a lot of firsts,â€� Armour said. He took his family to Maui for the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He played the first two majors of his career, The Open Championship and PGA Championship. Then he started this season with trips to Malaysia for the CIMB Classic (T33) and South Korea for THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES (T29). This week’s jet lag may be the only negative effect of his newfound success. Armour woke up shortly after midnight Wednesday. He headed to the hotel gym two-and-a-half hours later, after it became obvious that he wasn’t headed back to sleep, knocking out a six-mile run on the treadmill. Only three men – Armour, Brian Stuard and Sungjae Im, the Web.com Tour Player of the Year – made the trip from South Korea to the Deep South. Armour wasn’t going to miss his first title defense. Not after waiting 41 years to lift a trophy on the PGA TOUR. “You put a lot of work in, as all of us do, and to finally reap the benefits of all that hard work and sacrifice that your wife and kids give up, not just yourself, it’s definitely gratifying,â€� he said. He shot 19-under 269 at the Country Club of Jackson to finish five shots ahead of Chesson Hadley, who was the top player on last year’s Web.com Tour. Armour made it look easy. He started Sunday with a five-shot lead, then birdied three of the first seven holes en route to a final-round 68. His path to the winner’s circle was anything but. He’d played just four seasons on TOUR before last year, finishing in the top 10 just four times. He’d considered quitting the game, especially when his trademark accuracy left him in 2012 and 2013. “I really didn’t know what I was doing, I mean, golf-wise,â€� he said. “I was hitting it so poorly. For me to start driving it off line, I mean, I can’t compete if I drive it off line.â€� Instead of hanging it up, he told instructor Jason Carbone to implement any changes necessary to make him better. Three years later, Armour won on the Web.com Tour for his first victory in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event. It came a month before his 40th birthday. “There was no light switch,â€� Armour said. “I wish I could think of this one time that something happened, but it really was a process of just being fed up with being average and going to my teacher and putting all the kind of faith in him. Saying, ‘Hey, make me better. If you want me to do something that’s going to take time, I’ll give you that time.’â€� He translated that Web.com Tour victory into a PGA TOUR card for the 2016-17 season. He finished 159th in the FedExCup, then regained his card via the Web.com Tour Finals. He finished second in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital at the same Ohio State University Golf Club where he played his college golf. He won in Mississippi just a few weeks later. His career hasn’t been the same since.
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