Aim of the game: New putter fixed Wallace’s alignment

Click here to read the full article…

Here are nine tidbits from the final round of the OHL Classic at Mayakoba that gamers can use tomorrow, next weekend or down the road. Be looking for the Emergency 9 shortly after the close of play of each round of the tournament. Winner, winner, chicken enchilada dinner for the first time as Patton Kizzire held off Rickie Fowler by a shot. His 19-under-par 265 featured excellent iron play (T7, GIR) and a hot putter (T4, putts per GIR). His 25 birdies were tied for the most on the week and he only squared four bogeys and a double. There’s no doubt he enjoys the beginning of the TOUR season. In his rookie year of 2016, he finished T2 at Shriners and T4 at Sanderson Farms in back-to-back starts. Last year, he claimed solo second at Safeway to kick off the year. This season he’s rattled off three consecutive top 10s, including this victory. Of his career, 11 top-10 results, he’s posted six of them before Thanksgiving each season. Rickie Fowler isn’t going to get much run in this column because he did exactly what gamers suggested he would do so I’ll turn my eyes to Si Woo Kim instead. Last season he could have been labeled Si WD Kim as he had six, IN-TOURNAMENT withdrawals. Sure, he was immaculate winning THE PLAYERS but he didn’t give gamers any peace of mind after that as he posted only one top 25 the rest of the year. After opening 2017-18 with 12 rounds of 71 or WORSE, it was understandable why he might have been ignored this week. His third-place check this week can’t be ignored. The questions of when to use him should start up again! To “Nappy Factor” or not: Martin Piller’s wife is due this spring and his T4 suggests this fantasy myth as having some credence. Mac Hughes recently missed a couple of events to be with his wife and newborn and he missed the cut. This is Piller’s best result on TOUR so regardless of his impending newborn, I’ll pay attention. It drives me crazy when people say “ATM Machine.” Er, the “M” is for “machine” so go ahead and leave that out when describing Charles Howell III this time of year or at this event. He’s now withdrawn eight checks from nine appearances at Mayakoba with three of the last five in the top 10. His T4 this week is the best of that bunch. He’s truly an Automatic Automated Teller Machine Machine here. It also drives me crazy that I didn’t roster him … Get me in a fantasy league where guys get ANGRY at golfers who don’t close the deal. I’ll gladly jump in and saddle up on J.J. Spaun (saddle not included). Sure, he didn’t close the deal last week in Las Vegas. Sure, he went the wrong way on Sunday at Mayakoba and dropped from T7 to T14. Sure, he hasn’t won on TOUR yet but he’s building some serious scar tissue to help the next time he’s involved. And when did top-15 finishes from non-premium players turn into “bad” things? Fantasy golf is an inexact science and it’s probably why we all continue to keep plugging along. Ryan Moore enhances that theory this week. The two-time CIMB Classic winner decided not to play that event this year. The Las Vegas resident, former UNLV player and 2012 Shriners champion finished T51 last week in a “can’t-miss” week. He missed. He finished T6 this week at an event he’s played one previous time. The grind is real. Pass the paspalum, please! Most gamers will look at past event champions when arranging lineups. Let’s see if that was a good idea: Pat Perez: T34 Graeme McDowell: T34 Charley Hoffman: MC Harris English: MC John Huh: T25 Johnson Wagner: T61 Mark Wilson: MC Brian Gay: T25 There has never been a repeat champion in 11 events. Whee Kim’s streak of finishing rounds inside the top six ended at eight after an opening round 69. But, he sat T14 heading into the final round with another top 10, his third in a row, possibly on the cards. His final-round 75 saw him fall to T45. Apologies to those who arrived week late after T4 and P2 results in his last two events. Ancer me this Abraham … The native of Reynosa, Mexico, cashed his first top 10 in 24 TOUR starts with T9. This is his second go-around on TOUR as he missed 13 of 19 cuts in the 2016 season. He rallied last year to cash seven top 10s on the Web.com Tour which positions him sixth on the priority ranking for the current TOUR season.

Click here to read the full article…

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Russell Knox has experienced a little bit of everything this week at the Valspar Championship. Thursday on the par-5 11th hole, he made an albatross, the first one in tournament history. Friday, he played like a 10-handicapper, throwing away shots and shooting 76, barely hanging on to make the 36-hole cut.  But one late swing late Friday afternoon, a fading 6-iron to 3 feet at the 191-yard eighth hole (his 17th) got him to the weekend, and once there on Saturday, he made the most of it. Four birdies on his back nine lifted Knox to his second 4-under 67 of the tournament, and at 3-under 210, he’ll be within earshot of the lead on Sunday.  His Friday 76, Knox said, was a bit misleading. He didn’t feel that he played that poorly, but threw away four shots in four holes beginning on the 18th (his ninth hole), twice three-putting and blading a bunker shot on another hole. “Brain farts more than anything,â€� he said. But at 2 over for the tournament and facing a possible weekend off, Knox produced that one terrific swing with his 6-iron on the eighth hole, the shot coming off exactly how he’d envisioned it would. For a man who prides himself on his consistency, and making cuts, making such a clutch birdie was a very big deal.  After posting but one top-10 finish in 10 starts this year, Knox said his shot at No. 8 was the variety that could alter his entire path in 2018-19.  “I had to dig deep. I was struggling, obviously,â€� Knox said Saturday. “I birdied 5 to get to 1 over, then drove it behind a tree on the next hole and made bogey. I knew I needed one more (birdie) to be safe.  “I hit an unbelievable shot at 8, held a little 6-iron against the wind to make birdie, and that was big. It was one of those shots that could change a season. If I’d have missed the cut by a shot, I would not have been in a good mood having been right up there after day 1. So it was one of those birdies that really meant a lot to me.â€� Knox turned in even on Saturday, and hoped to shoot 2 or 3 under on the back nine. He’d do even better. He birdied the par-5 11th (he has played that hole in 5 under thus far), birdied 13, then ran in a 30-footer at 15 and topped that with an 80-footer from downtown Tampa on the par-4 16th.  “The one I holed at 16 will probably be the longest putt I’ll hole all year,â€� he said. “It was nice to see that one go in.â€�  As memorable as holing a 3-wood from 275 yards for an albatross at 11 on Thursday will be for Knox, one got the feeling on Saturday that one swing with a 6-iron a day later could turn out to mean much, much more.  “There are definitely shots I hit that I remember,â€� he said. “It’s such a hard, negative game. If you can find ways to remember the good shots, it really does go a long way. That 6-iron yesterday came off exactly how I’d pictured it in my mind. I was between a 7-iron and a 6-iron, the 7 I would have had to draw and the 6 I needed to hold against the wind … It was just a shot that I needed to hit.â€� He pulled it off, and his reward was a tee time on Saturday. Bonus golf. And Knox now has one more round at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course to really make it count. 

Click here to read the full article…