Casey shares early lead in title defense at Valspar Championship

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Justin Rose enjoys an annual trip to Philadelphia, usually in the fall when the weather is cool and sweaters are a necessary article of clothing. “That’s my favorite time of year to play golf,â€� he said. “It reminds me of how I grew up playing golf in the U.K.â€� The yearly trip serves as a reminder of his biggest triumph. He takes friends to Merion Golf Club, where he won the U.S. Open in 2013. The club cuts the hole in the same back-left location that was used when he won five years ago. On Rose’s first return, all his companions wore his outfit from the U.S. Open’s final round. They forced him to change into matching clothes. “Slightly embarrassing, but it was fun,â€� he said. Merion is closed this year to undergo a Gil Hanse renovation, so Rose’s trip has undertaken a different context. Instead of playing with friends, he’s among the top contenders for the FedExCup. He’s third in the FedExCup standings with just two events remaining. If he remains in the top 5 after this week, he can clinch the Cup with a victory at the TOUR Championship on Sept. 23. Rose is playing on familiar territory at this week’s BMW Championship. Aronimink, which is less than eight miles from Merion, is on the list of historic venues where he has hoisted a trophy. He won the 2010 Quicken Loans National here. He’s also won at Colonial, Congressional, Muirfield Village, Valderrama and Royal Aberdeen. Aronimink underwent a restoration since the TOUR last visited here in 2011. Hanse, one of the top architects of this era, oversaw the work, which returned the course to its original Donald Ross design. Trees were removed, fairways were widened and bunkers were added. The greens were expanded, as well, to add hole locations. “It’s may be slightly more gentle, a bit more room out there than when I last played in 2011,â€� said Rose, who won the gold medal at the 2016 Olympics on a Hanse design. Rose arrives in good form, as well. He birdied four of his final six holes Monday to finish runner-up to Bryson DeChambeau at the Dell Technologies Championship. It was Rose’s fifth top-3 finish of the season. He has qualified for the TOUR Championship in seven of the past eight seasons, but just once has he been in the top 5 of the FedExCup entering the TOUR Championship. He was third in 2011 (after winning the BMW Championship). He finished T20 at the TOUR Championship as Bill Haas won at East Lake to claim the FedExCup. East Lake, site of the season finale, is a historic venue that would fit in nicely with Rose’s other victorious venues. He has finished second at the home course of Bobby Jones on two occasions (2012, ’15). Even in the midst of golf’s youth movement, the 38-year-old Rose is still having one of the best seasons of his career. His nine top-10s are third-most on TOUR, trailing only Dustin Johnson and Tony Finau. Johnson and Rose are the only players to finish in the top 10 in more than half their starts this season (Rose is 9 for 16). Rose also finished in the top 10 in all four of last season’s FedExCup Playoffs events, giving him 13 top-10s in his last 20 TOUR starts. The biggest improvement in his game has come on the greens. He ranks ninth in Strokes Gained: Putting (+0.51), an improvement of more than 100 spots and 2.3 strokes per tournament from last season. “Sometimes people are afraid to change what they do or how they do it,â€� said Rose’s long-time instructor, Sean Foley. “His lack of satisfaction in what he’s doing has really pushed us to look under every rock.â€� Many players suffer a fall-off in other parts of their game when making such a large improvement in another. They spend so much time practicing their weakness that they neglect their strengths. That hasn’t been the case for Rose, though. He’s remained one of the TOUR’s best ball-strikers while becoming an elite putter. He ranks ninth in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green this season. He’s also in the top 15 of Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green, a testament to the well-rounded game that has made him one of this season’s best players. Rose started using the claw grip in the fall of 2016 and has improved areas like green-reading and alignment. Rose said he employs “three or fourâ€� different strategies, including AimPoint, to read putts. “You can have a perfect stroke and not make putts,â€� Rose said. “The green-reading, the speed control, all of that is a huge factor.â€� This is just the second multiple-win season of his career. The other came in 2010, when he earned his first two PGA TOUR titles in a three-event span. He sandwiched a ninth-place finish at the Travelers Championship – where he shot 75 after starting the final round with a three-shot lead – between wins at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and AT&T National. The latter was played at Aronimink. Rose started the final round with a four-shot lead. He led by five strokes after eagling the par-5 ninth hole with a 5-wood that stopped inches from the hole. Three-putts on the back nine’s first two holes put the title in tenuous position, though. He made par on the final seven holes to finish one shot ahead of Ryan Moore. Moore’s 65 matched Sunday’s low score. “I knew having not closed out last week, it was important for me to do it today,â€� Rose said after that win. He knows what it takes to win at Aronimink. That experience could help him hoist the FedExCup for the first time.

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DETROIT — Taylor Pendrith of Canada shot a 7-under 65 on Friday to take a one-shot lead over Tony Finau into the weekend in the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Pendrith and Finau shared the first-round lead at 8 under and will be in the final group Saturday, pairing a 31-year-old PGA TOUR rookie with a 32-year-old veteran coming off his third career victory. Rookie Lee Hodges (66) was three shots back. PGA TOUR rookie of the year front-runner Cameron Young tied a Detroit Golf Club record with a 63 for a share of fourth place — five shots back — with Russell Henley (65) and Stewart Cink (66). Rookie Sahith Theegala (67) was another shot back in a pack that includes defending FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay, who bounced back from an opening-round 70 with a 65. Davis Love III, the 58-year-old U.S. Presidents Cup captain, was in Detroit in part to play and more importantly to get to know players better on and off the course that may represent the country in September at Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina. Love missed the cut at 5-over 149, but made the most of an opportunity to have dinner with some President Cup candidates and to play two rounds with with Young and Will Zalatoris. Young and Zalatoris, teammates at Wake Forest and close friends, may be paired together again in two months. “If they make the team, they’re a natural,” Love said. Zalatoris, No. 13 in the world ranking, perhaps felt pressure playing with Love because he barely made the cut. He had to birdie his 36th hole to get to 3 under, the cut line, with a pair of lackluster rounds. If Young does not earn an automatic spot on the American team, he might be a captain’s pick. “Cameron is trending up,” Love said. “Go back to Jordan Spieth. Nobody heard of him and next thing you know in one year he’s on the Presidents Cup team, and Cam’s headed that way, too. No one ever heard of him on the Korn Ferry and here he is, he almost won a major.” Young had a runner-up finish at The Open Championship and at the PGA Championship, he missed a playoff by a shot. He has four second-place finishes and was third in two tournaments. And in Detroit, Young showed Love up close what he can do. “I would hope that I made some kind of case,” he said. Pendrith is playing in his third tournament after being out for nearly four months with a broken rib, a break that reminded him of his youth. “We have a long offseason in Canada, so I didn’t touch a club all winter basically growing up so I guess I’m kind of used to it in a way,” he said. Pendrith said matter of factly that he can compete with the best when he’s healthy and has showed that so far at Detroit Golf Club. No one, though, has been better than Finau lately. The Salt Lake City native with Tongan-Samoan heritage is 32 under over his last 107 holes, including rallying from a five-shot deficit last Sunday in Minnesota to win the 3M Open by three shots. Pendrith tried to pull away in the second round in Detroit, opening with four straight birdies and six in his first 10 holes. He had two birdies and a bogey over the final five holes to finish Friday alone in first. Finau, meanwhile, started slow with only one birdie on the front nine before carding five birdies on the back. He has a shot be the first PGA TOUR player to win two straight regular season tournaments since Brendon Todd in 2019. “Anytime you win, you breed confidence,” Finau said. “I was just happy to carry that confidence from last week right into this week.”

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