Big week for small ball at RBC Heritage

The practice green at Kapalua during the Sentry Tournament of Champions was pretty bare after competition rounds in early January. The PGA TOUR winners who had earned their way to Maui were generally easing their way back into things after the holiday period and grinding out more practice after a tough 18 holes with significant elevation changes in high winds. The majority of players arrived with their extended families and/or friends and were making the most of island living by hanging out at the beaches or hotel pools or participating in activities like ziplining and whale watching. So you can understand the post-round exit times were usually pretty rapid. Quality time with loved ones beckoned. Gary Woodland had as much reason to rush out to his family – if not more – than anyone. The four-time PGA TOUR winner’s wife Gabby recently gave birth to twin girls and the pair also have 2-year-old Jaxson to entertain. Jaxson was also set to be a twin but the Woodlands tragically lost his sister when Gabby’s water broke at just 16 weeks. It took ferocious work by doctors to ensure Jaxson didn’t suffer the same fate, and when he was born 10 weeks premature, the battle continued. But now he’s a healthy toddler and was bouncing around the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua hallways desperate for some Dad time. Woodland loves nothing more than time with his son and daughters, and of course Gabby. Jaxson would get plenty of quality time but not before Woodland hit the practice putting green to do some work. It wasn’t extensive – perhaps 10 to 15 minutes – but it was every day. You see, Woodland is determined to strengthen his short game, as he knows it is the last piece of the puzzle to take his game to even greater heights. The 35-year-old’s win at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach last year was part of his most successful season on TOUR, when he finished 15th in the FedExCup. The win, and two runners-up, formed part of eight top-10s for the season. He has continued the impressive run by notching three top-10s this season in just five starts while also being part of his first U.S. Team at the Presidents Cup. Now Woodland returns to the Waste Management Phoenix Open – where he was the champion in 2018 – and a year removed from his famous encounter with Amy Bockerstette. Seeing the special Olympian’s tenacity and strength and just overall positive attitude as she made par at the famous 16th sent Woodland to a new maturity mentally. Her mantra – “I got thisâ€� – has now become his also. It is why he did the extra work post round in Maui when he did. Woodland wants to make the most out of every second he has. He could have been content to win his major championship and just left it at that. He could allow his standards to slip and just live off the notoriety of a great week on an iconic course. But that’s not the competitor’s spirit. And this guy is a true competitor. The former college basketballer has desire running through his veins. “Aspirations are a lot bigger than last year … everybody asks about setting goals … my goal is to get better every day and if I continue to get better every day the sky’s the limit,â€� Woodland says. “I want to be the best player in the world. I want to stay there. I don’t want to just get there. If I get better every day, the short-term goals that I do set, I will accomplish.â€� Those short-term goals are focused on his short game. Woodland has spent the last few years improving under swing coach Pete Cowen, and then adding putting guru Phil Kenyon is taking him to new heights. But more improvement remains on the agenda. Over the previous four seasons, Woodland has an average ranking of 14th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee; 19th in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green and 16th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. Last season alone he ranked first on TOUR with approaches greater than 200 yards, 10th from greater than 275 yards, 18th from 175-200 yards and 31st from 150-175 yards. Clearly he has been hitting it pretty well from distance. On the other hand, he had an average ranking of 111th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 136th in Strokes Gained: Putting during the previous four seasons. Last season, among his success, there were some other numbers that did not make for fun reading. The 35-year-old was 181st on TOUR on putts inside 10 feet. He was 148th in scrambling; 129th from outside 30 yards, 156th from 20-30 yards and 144th from 10-20 yards. In approaches from 50-75 yards he was 167th, and 74th from 125-150 yards. “The short game, I have got to improve. I consider myself one of the best drivers in the world and the ball-striking is continuing to get better, but I need to improve the short game inside of 100 yards especially.â€� Woodland admits. “And the putting, which I’m working on, is getting better but I still have a long way to go.â€� Woodland admits making the move to go to Kenyon was tough to swallow at first. It was thrust upon him by his inner circle after one too many ball-striking clinics that was soured by average putting. For Woodland this meant swallowing a little pride. “A lot of us out here, we are where we are because we’re so confident in what we do,â€� Woodland said. “But it got to a point where for three or four years I was right around 40th to 50th in the world and I just wasn’t getting any better. “Luckily I’m surrounded by great people who told me I need to go find some more help because I was frustrated where I was. They were frustrated dealing with me on a daily basis. But to get better, sometimes you’ve got to take a step back. It was hard to do initially but it’s definitely got me where I am today.â€� Woodland hasn’t just set on-course goals. He has included personal off-course goals as well. And the melding of the two ensures his focus is heightened. “I have to appreciate the great times and the year that I had was amazing obviously on and off the golf course, but I need to continue to be a not just a better golfer but a better father and better husband,â€� Woodland continues. “Becoming a father, it’s been way better. I am now leaving the golf course at the golf course and that’s something I wasn’t able to do before. If I played bad, I’d take it home. I’d dwell on it. Now my kids don’t give me time to dwell on it. They want to have fun; they want to play. And that relaxes me. And it puts life in perspective really quick.â€� This is also why he hits the putting green post round. It is part of the process of getting better at golf and fatherhood at the same time. Whether he had 20 putts in a round or 35, he’s putting in some work. “It’s the stuff I know I have to do. That’s all routine based,â€� he adds. “That’s a mental thing for me. I feel comfortable when I go home knowing I did that. That helps me on the golf course also because it keeps me in the moment. I know when I’m at the golf course, I need to be focused there because when I get off the golf course, I don’t have that time that I used to have.â€� While the personal motivation is enough to keep him on track, the fact Woodland has now finally tasted team golf at the professional level is another huge inspiration. As a Presidents Cup rookie, Woodland went 1-2-1 at Royal Melbourne and now wants to add many more to his resume. As a rookie, Woodland had to deal with a little friendly hazing. He carried some bags, cleaned some shoes, took care of unpacking some clothes for his teammates … and he loved every minute of it. Next up is this year’s Ryder Cup, where Woodland is looking good sitting third on the U.S. Team points list. “I’ve always wanted to be on a U.S. team and when you miss it, you know it’s just another year you miss. But now being on the team and experiencing all that … I don’t want to miss another one ever again so I’m going to continue to work hard and hopefully lock that up myself,â€� Woodland said. “The Presidents Cup was as good and better than I expected. The bus rides, the team room … and to be honest with the golf itself I was a little more nervous than I thought I’d be. It’s a little different when you’re playing for somebody else and your country. “Off the golf course it was the best week I’ve had on TOUR. The hazing, it was fun stuff, but I look forward to getting to not be in a rookie at the Ryder Cup.â€� The work will continue for Woodland in the coming weeks to ensure he meets the new lofty standards. So if you’re looking for the Kansas native after a round at TPC Scottsdale this week, make sure to check the practice green first. Chances are he’s there.

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SILVIS, Ill. —The John Deere Classic turns 50 this year. The small-town TOUR stop has played a pivotal role in many players’ careers, as the site of their first victory, or at least their first taste of contention, and as a familiar locale for stars hailing from the Midwest. Recent champions include Jordan Spieth and Bryson DeChambeau. Like fellow future major champions Payne Stewart (1982) and David Toms (1997) and 19 other Quad Cities champs, Spieth and DeChambeau scored their maiden TOUR victories at the Deere. As for can-you-top this moments, TPC Deere Run’s closing stretch of holes has produced an array of rallies and exciting finishes, and by such notable winners as Vijay Singh, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson. 1. JORDAN RULES (2013) Spieth had little to lose and a big, bold head start on a brilliant future to gain when he set his feet in the bright white sand of a greenside bunker on TPC Deere Run’s final hole in July 2013. He’d already earned TOUR status and established himself as a rising star before turning 20. Now he had a chance to get his first victory. Spieth had begun his first season as a pro without status on TOUR, but a runner-up finish in his third start and another six top-10 finishes earned him unlimited sponsor’s exemptions for the remainder of the year. Those performances also ensured he’d be a member in good standing the following season. A win at the Deere, though, would earn his entry into the 2013 FedExCup Playoffs, with all the points accrued in those seven previous top-10s also added to his account. It would gain him two full years of exempt TOUR status. It would punch his ticket to the Masters the following April. The young Texan came to the 18th having birdied four of his previous five holes, but needed a fifth birdie to tie the lead. He got it, and did so with a flair for the dramatic that would become SOP (Spieth Operating Procedure) in the years to come. With a one-hop clank off the flagstick, Spieth holed his 44-foot shot from the bunker to earn his way into a three-man playoff. Then he outlasted Zach Johnson and David Hearn over five holes of sudden-death. His first professional win came 13 days shy of his 20th birthday, making him the first teen to win on TOUR in 82 years. 2. GETTING A GRIP ON TIGER (1996) Between September 16, 1996, and August 16, 2009, Tiger Woods would win 36 consecutive PGA TOUR events when holding the outright lead after 54 holes. To this day, Woods has lost just twice when entering the final round in sole possession of the lead. Those numbers make it hard to believe that Woods coughed up the lead the first time he held it on the PGA TOUR. Ed Fiori, nicknamed “The Grip,” was the beneficiary. Making his third start as a pro following a storied amateur career, Woods took the lead with six straight birdies on the inward nine of his second round at Oakwood Country Club. When Sunday dawned, Woods held a one-shot lead over Fiori, a 43-year-old veteran 14 years removed from his last victory. Woods led by three on the fourth tee, but a wild hook into an irrigation pond led to a quadruple bogey and a one-shot deficit. Three holes later, Woods four-putted a short par-4 for a double-bogey. Steady Eddie brought it home with a final round 67 for a two-shot win. Woods shot a 2-over 72 and finished tied for fifth, but he got his first win two weeks later in Las Vegas and is 44-2 as you read this when taking an outright lead into Sunday. Y.E. Yang joined Fiori in the Tiger Tamer Club at the 2009 PGA Championship. 3. A STOP ON THE SLAM TRAIL (2015) Spieth’s brilliant future already was realized when he returned to TPC Deere Run two years after his first win, having won the Masters in April and the U.S. Open in June. The week after the Deere, he would attempt to join fellow Texan Ben Hogan as one of two men to win three professional majors in a single year. Given those stakes, his decision to keep a promise to play the Deere beforehand was questioned in some circles. Yet, Spieth said he came to Silvis with an eye on a winning second leaping deer trophy and to build momentum for his pursuit of a Claret Jug. He accomplished the former with another fast finish, making up four shots in six holes to force another playoff and then defeating Tom Gillis on the second hole of sudden-death. In his bid for immortality at St. Andrews, Spieth finished a single haunting shot out of a playoff. 4. THREE-PEAT (2011) Steve Stricker made his first trip to the Quad Cities before he earned a PGA TOUR card. The Illinois alum made his tournament debut in 1993. Sixteen years later, he started an incredible run at TPC Deere Run. The affable Stricker won in 2009 and 2010 before showing that he had an edge, as well, with his dramatic win in 2011. A walk-off birdie from a difficult lie in a fairway bunker made him just the 18th player to win the same TOUR event in three straight years. Stricker responded to a 24-foot birdie make from the fringe with a full-body, two-handed fist-pump celebration that was entirely out of character, deliciously ferocious and magnificently appropriate. Stricker had taken a five-shot lead into Sunday’s back nine but stood on the 17th tee two shots down to Kyle Stanley. He birdied the par-5 17th for the ninth time in his three-year run at Deere Run and stood in the18th hole’s fairway bunker tied at the top after Stanley bogeyed in front of him. Actually, he almost stood in the bunker. Facing a lie that forced a stance announcer David Feherty likened to a giraffe at a watering hole, Stricker stood left foot in the sand, right foot in the grass, 189 yards from the flagstick. He ripped a 6-iron to the back fringe, holed that putt and it was no more Mr. Nice Guy. For a few seconds, anyway. 5. AN AGELESS WONDER (1979) Sam Snead became the youngest player on TOUR to shoot his age in the second round but the 67-year-old was something less than ecstatic. “Now, I gotta come back two more days,” groused the legend, who was feeling the effects of a bad back after walking 18 holes for only the third time that year. “I was almost trying not to qualify.” Snead’s record 67 didn’t hold up long. After a 74 in the third round, the Slammer rallied with a closing 66 at Oakwood Country Club. 6. A LEGEND’S FIRST (1982) Payne Stewart scored the most fashionable victory on TOUR since the days of Walter Hagen when he carded five back-nine birdies en route to a final-round 63 and his first official TOUR victory. It was also the first tournament in which Stewart played all four days in the plus-fours and Hogan cap that would become his signature look. “What I remember about Payne here is him saying ‘I don’t want to look like everybody else – blond, with a visor,’ and that’s where he started wearing the knickers,” remembered D.A. Weibring. “Payne almost got to the point where he looked funny in pants.” For Stewart, the victory was forever memorable because it was the only time his father, Bill, was on hand to see him win as a pro prior to Bill’s untimely death in 1985. Poignantly, Stewart was wearing the Rolex watch he received for the win when he died young himself in a 1999 airplane tragedy. 7. HATS OFF (2017) It was hat’s off to the SMU Mustangs when Bryson DeChambeau capped a six-birdie back nine with a 14-foot putt at 18 and joined the late Payne Stewart among the strong parade of players who notched their initial TOUR win in the Quad Cities. DeChambeau’s trademark Hogan-style cap is worn in homage to Stewart, a fellow SMU alum. The curious and studious Californian knew a great deal about Stewart, but he didn’t know the Hall of Fame Mustang also had earned his maiden win at the 1982 QCO. When so informed, DeChambeau took off his cap, slapped his knee, and became genuinely emotional. “That broke me,” DeChambeau said later. “He’s done some amazing things for the game of golf, and I hope I can do something similar down the road.” DeChambeau was a highly-touted prospect before his rookie season on the PGA TOUR. He won the NCAA Championship and U.S. Amateur in 2015 and won on the Korn Ferry Tour the following year to earn his PGA TOUR card. He was struggling when he arrived at TPC Deere Run, however, ranked 114th in the FedExCup and in danger of losing his card. He had made the cut in just nine of his 24 starts. The Deere changed the course of his career, however, and sent him down that major-winning road, using his unique approach to the game to win seven more times, including the U.S. Open. 8. ZJ’S FIRST WIN (2012) In the history of the TOUR, it’s hard to imagine a sponsor’s exemption that led to a better relationship than the one the John Deere Classic has enjoyed with Zach Johnson. The native Iowan was on the mini-tours when he was granted an exemption in 2002. He was on his way to leading the Korn Ferry Tour in earnings when he received a second in 2003. Johnson hasn’t missed an event at TPC Deere Run since, including in 2007, when he was the reigning Masters champion, and in 2016, when he was a week away from defending his Open Championship win. Johnson has been a player representative on the tournament’s executive committee since 2008 and is the only player on TOUR who has an endorsement deal with Deere & Company. From 2009 through 2017, Johnson scored seven top-five finishes at the Deere. That included three second-place finishes and an epic victory in 2012, when, on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff with Troy Matteson, he found himself in the same fairway bunker from which Stricker had worked his magic a year earlier. Johnson outdid Stricker, lacing a 6-iron from 194 yards to within a foot of the cup for a very popular tap-in victory. 9. GOYDOS GOES LOW (2010) The round Paul Goydos was putting together after teeing off early in the opening round was the talk of TPC Deere Run. The place seemed to hold its collective breath as Goydos stood over a 7-foot putt at 18 to become the fourth TOUR player to shoot 59 in competition. “Did he get it?” Stricker asked a reporter while on his way to the first tee. Goydos did indeed get his 59. Then Stricker tried to follow suit. Needing to hole a 159-yard 8-iron from the 18th fairway for eagle and an improbable share of the first-round lead, Stricker came within 2 ½ feet and settled for 60. Only once to that point had a 59 and 60 been scored in the same year. A decade later, Scottie Scheffler (59) and Dustin Johnson (60) would match that same-day feat in the second round of THE NORTHERN TRUST at TPC Boston. And Jim Furyk’s 58 at the 2016 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands would create a new magic number. Still, July 8, 2010, remains a day to remember in Silvis. 10. BEMAN GOES BACK-TO-BACK (1971/1972) In 1971, Deane Beman won the first Quad Cities Open fighting off a 100-degree fever. A year later, he won the second fighting off a future legend. Beman’s closing 4-under 67 was just enough to nip Tom Watson, who posted a 66 just ahead of the defending champion. For the rookie Watson, the near-miss was an early taste of the Sunday heat he’d feel often in his career and he was aided by the “thinking advice” of his playing partner, Lee Trevino. “That was the first time I’d been in contention,” Watson would remember years later, deep into his Hall of Fame career. “That was the first step.” As commissioner years later, Beman would credit the Quad Cities’ volunteers for helping his understanding of the vital importance of volunteer support to achieving his vision for the TOUR. For a QC event that turns 50 this week, Beman’s support from Ponte Vedra proved helpful during some lean and challenging years. Win. Win. Win. Freelance writer Craig DeVrieze is the author of “Magic Happened: Celebrating 50 Years of the John Deere Classic,” available for order here.

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Johnson nips Spieth in playoff

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