Can Tiger get major-ready for The Open?

Click here to read the full article…

NAPA, Calif. – Rarely does a day go by when Kevin Tway is not reminded of his father, Bob, an eight-time TOUR winner who won the 1986 PGA Championship. Kevin, who made them the 10th father-son duo to win on TOUR with his playoff victory over Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker at the Safeway Open on Sunday, takes it in stride. He speaks to his father daily about the family profession, and clearly remembers the spring break in Scottsdale, Ariz., when he was 16, when he beat Dad for the first time. “I remember it because leading up to that, when we were pretty close, he’d look over and be like, ‘You know I’m going to birdie the last two holes to beat you,’� said Kevin Tway, 30. “And he would, every single time. I’d go home pissed, crying, going, ‘Mom, Dad did it again.’� This time it was Bob Tway who wiped away tears as he watched the Safeway on TV back home in Oklahoma. He did not dispute Kevin’s account, but made no apologies for making it hard on the kid. “I told him, I said, ‘I’m not going to lose just for you to win,’� Bob Tway said by phone Sunday night. “‘You’re going to work for it.’ So, a couple times I actually did do that and it upset him. You know how it is, kids want to beat their dads. I said, ‘Unfortunately, it’s going to be a little harder to beat your dad.’� Kevin Tway has now done more than that, punching his ticket to the Masters and the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua with his victory at Silverado. All week he stressed the need for patience, and he relied heavily on that quality in the wind, as gusts forced him to turn his cap around backward as he warmed up on the driving range. “It was blowing like 40,� Tway said. “My hat was flying off.� This looked like Brandt Snedeker’s tournament for most of the day as he made the turn with a four-stroke lead, but Tway, playing with him in the final threesome, hung around long enough to execute a three-shot swing on the last two holes of regulation, going birdie-birdie as Snedeker went bogey-par. Tway’s third straight birdie in the playoff, and fifth straight overall, was enough to outlast first Snedeker and then Moore. It was all plenty dramatic, so much so that Bob Tway joked about hiding behind the sofa as he watched from home. “I can’t say that I held it back very good with the tears,� he said, “but I did okay.� Bob Tway’s best season was 1986, when he reeled off four wins including the PGA Championship. He is 59 and mostly retired, but he can still be found many weeks on TOUR, following on foot as he follows Kevin, who bears a striking resemblance to the old man. Kevin Tway was born two years after Bob’s signature victory, and smiles and nods at all the well-meaning fans who tell him about the PGA and/or his dad’s other wins. “I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I watched your dad in ’86,’� Kevin Tway said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I wasn’t born yet, but yeah, cool.’ Yeah, I hear about it all my life.� Last week, their club back home was set up to play as hard as it can, the greenskeeping staff forcing everyone to play from the tips, and with tucked pins. (Fittingly, it’s called the Tip-and-Tuck tournament.) Bob thought he was doing pretty well to shoot 72. Kevin shot 67. But if Kevin rarely loses to his dad anymore, Bob still had him beat in one regard: closing. Bob, after all, had those eight TOUR wins; Kevin didn’t have any. When he worked his way into contention at the RBC Canadian Open in late July, only to shoot a final-round 76, it was emblematic of a trend that had seen him falter on Sundays. As he always has, though, he worked through it. His has been a slow, steady progression on TOUR as he leans on not just Dad but also friends of Bob’s like fellow TOUR pros Willie Wood and Scott Verplank. Bob Tway stressed the importance of hitting fairways and greens, and patience, and Kevin also learned to monitor his food intake, eating every two or three holes. Now he’s a TOUR winner, which means someday someone is going to tell Bob Tway about being in attendance that time that Kevin won in the wind. Is there a downside, Kevin was asked, to having a famous TOUR pro father? “You could look at it that way,� he said. “Maybe a little (high) expectations, but I think it’s almost a plus. He played right where I’m playing for 30 years, so he kind of knows what I’m feeling at any point in time, so he’s a good person to talk to.� Especially on Sunday night, after you’ve just hoisted your first PGA TOUR trophy.

Click here to read the full article…

SAN DIEGO - Patrick Reed is at his best when he is under pressure. He almost craves it. So perhaps it was a foregone conclusion that he would march to a dominant win at the Farmers Insurance Open. Reed's final-round 4-under 68 helped him finish at 14 under at Torrey Pines - enough to secure a five-shot win over Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Ryan Palmer and Henrik Norlander. The now nine-time PGA TOUR winner broke free of a log jam of contenders with an early eagle and then doggedly shook off a challenge from Hovland late in the day. The margin was ultimately large, but it wasn't all that easy. Reed needed to produce some stellar short-game play to stay in control. When things got shaky on the notoriously difficult South Course, Reed had one cliché in the back of his mind: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Each missed shot just fueled his fire and gave him a chance to showcase a trait he values in his game. Resilience. "You look at all the great players throughout times, all of them are really resilient. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on around them, what’s going on on the golf course, whether they’re getting good breaks or bad breaks, they seem to really figure out a way to get the job done, to really just drive in and to keep on improving each shot each day," Reed said. "That’s golf, that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s why I love the game. It throws punches at you; you throw punches at it. And at the end of the day hopefully you’re the one standing. "Golf’s hard as it is, and you come to a place like this where it’s so demanding. Not just off the tees. It doesn’t matter if it’s a drive, an iron shot, a wedge shot, putt, you have to be all locked in 24/7." On Sunday, things started in neutral for Reed with five straight pars before a brilliant eagle putt on the par-5 sixth. The Texan connected from outside 45 feet a day after doing similar from 40 feet. He would make the turn at 13 under with only Hovland (one back), Jon Rahm (three back) and Carlos Ortiz (three back) legitimate threats to his ambitions. Ortiz was gone quickly with bogey at the 11th and double bogey at 12. Hovland suffered a slow bleed as Reed became a short-game wizard under pressure. The Norwegian missed a short birdie putt on the par-5 13th to join the lead and then made back-to-back bogeys. On the 14th hole, Hovland went from a fairway bunker into a canyon forcing a penalty drop, and then on No. 15 he drove the ball directly behind the base of a large tree, forcing a simple pitch out. Despite being three back with two to play, the two-time TOUR winner felt he could force the issue with a finishing flourish and his birdie putt on the 17th from 32 feet went within a whisker of going in. Sadly, perhaps still disappointed it didn't drop, he missed the 2-foot par attempt. Meanwhile, Reed could easily have been leaking shots just as fast as the other contenders. But staying true to his mantra, he knuckled down. He got up and down for par from the rough on No. 10, and from greenside bunkers on Nos. 12 and 14. Then, with Hovland sticking his tee shot on the 16th hole ahead of him inside 20 feet, Reed was brilliant in securing another par from 50 yards on the 15th after a forced punch-out from a wayward tee shot. He just refused to open the door for others. The victory sees Reed surge to 10th in the FedExCup standings and to 10th in the world rankings. Reed was also able to move past a ruling from the third round. The 30-year-old had acted in a "textbook" manner when taking relief from a ball deemed to be embedded on the par-4 10th hole. Reed's victory on Sunday was the result of some changes. It was after the last U.S. Open - played in September due to the COVID-19 pandemic - that Reed switched to David Leadbetter for a swing coach. He was pleased that - for the most part - the new swing held up under pressure. "The hard work that my team is going through and working with me on trying to dial it in, get it where it is right now is amazing," Reed said of his new swing. "The good thing is, Led’s always told me... you’re working towards something, there’s no reason why you can’t go ahead and win. Because of that I had that kind of attitude going into today that, hey, even though the swing’s not 100%, you know how to get it around this golf course, you can go out and shoot a number and put up a fight. "This one was pretty special. To be tied for the lead going into today and in that final group and seeing the swing kind of hold up throughout the round and allowing my short game to kind of save me there towards the end meant a lot, meant that I’m on the right path."

Click here to read the full article…