Chesson Hadley’s big leap

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Scott Harrington was in kindergarten when he started playing the piano. Either the keyboards or the band, it was his choice - his parents just wanted him and his brother Adam to broaden their horizons and get involved in music of some kind. So, for the next 11 years, Harrington would get up early and practice the piano for an hour or so before he went to school. That way, he'd still be free to head to the golf course or the gym when the final bell sounded each afternoon. "It’s something for sure I’d love my future kids to do," Harrington says. "I think it teaches you so much, especially at such a young age, about patience and working towards a goal. I mean, it would take months to perfect a piece." Harrington and his brother Adam took piano lessons from one of the best teachers in Oregon, the kind of instructor who nurtured students who went to Julliard. He remembers performing holiday concerts each year at a local department store, playing duets and four-handed piano pieces. "That was probably the coolest memory I have from doing it, because that was really fun," Harrington says. "Everybody was packed in this mall, and people stop, and everybody would watch a bunch of kids who are playing this insanely good Christmas music." Harrington and his brother competed, too, playing Beethoven and Bach and Chopin with hundreds of other aspiring pianists. "I was always relieved when the competitions were over," Harrington recalls. "I’d be so nervous for those things, but I would always do well. But I couldn’t quite hang with the people who are now doing it for a living. Those kids had talent and work ethic. … They would practice five, six hours a day. "It’s kind of the way I was with golf. That was their passion." Of course, those piano prodigies couldn't hang with Harrington on the golf course. The PGA TOUR rookie, who earned a scholarship to Northwestern, is ranked 94th in the FedExCup and playing in THE NORTHERN TRUST this week. Harrington sees the hard work and patience needed to learn a piece of music as similar to the discipline and dedication required to play golf at the highest level. He was never the kind of musician who could sit down and just jam. He was analytical, memorizing the piece and then performing it, just as he did while perfecting shots on the golf course. "No question," Harrington said. "We’re so rarely truly happy out here. Even when we play well, you know you can do better. There’s always something you want to improve on, and you have to be so patient. And when you go through a down stretch out here, maybe you’re not playing very well, and you kind of have to dig it out the dirt a little bit and just grind your way out. There’s no other way to do it. "And piano, I think, man it is frustrating. When you’re first learning a piece, I mean, you are starting at nothing, and just gradually improving week by week on a piece and grinding it to perfection. Because in piano, you truly are working towards perfection, where you don’t screw anything up. And there are so many little intricacies of pieces that there’s no doubt in my mind that it taught me a lot. … "There’s no question. You can’t really be halfway in on the keyboard, on piano, and kind of accomplish your goal. … It would help in a number of things, whether it’s in school or anything, any work of life that you go into. But yeah, golf for sure. There’s a lot of parallels." Harrington got the OK from his parents, who both played golf collegiately, to step back from the piano after his junior year in high school as the recruiting process ramped up. There were tournaments to play and college visits to take, and he knew he wouldn't be able to give music the attention his teacher required. "I was kind of relieved when I stopped, because I had a lot on my plate and things in golf was progressing really well, and I could put more time into that," Harrington recalls. "But I have nothing but good memories." Harrington doesn't have a piano in his home in Scottsdale. But when he visits his parents in Oregon, he'll occasionally sit down at theirs, although the 39-year-old says it can be frustrating because his skills have deteriorated. Maybe someday, though, he'll have time to devote to music again. "There's so much to learn from playing the piano in terms of responsibility and hard work and being patient and just seeing something through to fruition," Harrington says. "… Looking back, it’s something I’m really glad I did, an experience that I’ll certainly cherish.

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This year, the PGA TOUR delivered a bevvy of historic performances and remarkable finishes. This marked the first time in 14 years that THE PLAYERS Championship and all four majors were each decided by two strokes or fewer. Seemingly every week, the record book got a new addition – whether by tying the longest sudden-death PGA TOUR playoff since 1949 (Travelers Championship, eight holes) or through incredible on-course performances. Here are the best statistics of 2021 on the PGA TOUR: -27 Let’s start with one of the best duels of the year in all of sport: Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau needing six playoff holes to decide a winner at the BMW Championship. Cantlay nailed a 21-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation to force the playoff, meaning at 27-under, whoever didn’t win would set the PGA TOUR record for lowest 72-hole score to par by a player who didn’t win the tournament. DeChambeau ultimately claimed that distinction. +14.58 Cantlay’s putting performance at the BMW was historically great. He made 21 putts of 10 feet or longer in regulation, by far the most for any player in a single tournament since ShotLink began tracking such things more than 15 years ago. His +14.58 Strokes Gained: Putting for the week also set a ShotLink-era record. On his way to winning the FedExCup, Cantlay added four more rounds in the 60s at East Lake, giving him 15 straight sub-70 rounds to finish the 2020-21 season. The last player with a longer streak to end a year was Charles Howell III in 2002 (16 straight). 14 Closing out a victory on the PGA TOUR is no easy task: over the last 10 years, only 34.2% of players to hold a 54-hole lead or co-lead have gone on to win. But for 14 consecutive PGA TOUR events this summer, closing with the 54-hole lead went from difficult to impossible. From the Charles Schwab Challenge (won by Jason Kokrak, who entered the final round one shot back) through THE NORTHERN TRUST (won by Tony Finau, who entered the day two off the lead) not a single PGA TOUR event was won by a player who held the 54-hole lead or co-lead. The run of 14 such winners in a row was the longest such streak on TOUR in the last 30 seasons. -12 Sitting eight back of Lee Westwood on Friday evening at THE PLAYERS Championship, Justin Thomas knew he needed an historic closing 36 holes to get into contention. That’s exactly what he did. Thomas shot 12 under on the weekend, tying the lowest closing 36-hole score in PLAYERS history. Thomas was a ball-striking savant all weekend: his +11.2 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green are the most by any player over the closing 36 holes at TPC Sawgrass since tracking began in 2004. At age 27, Thomas became the second player to have double-digit PGA TOUR wins, a major and a PLAYERS title before age 28, joining – who else – Tiger Woods. 513 Sungjae Im, who played 17 more rounds than any other player in the 2021 PGA TOUR season, set the single-season record for most birdies-or-better, with 513. The previous mark was held by Steve Flesch, who made 509 in the 2000 campaign. While Im’s record is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even more remarkable is that he did this while ranking 29th for the season in par-breaker percentage (23.4%). Im played 42 more rounds than the leader in par-breaker percentage in 2021, Bryson DeChambeau (26.3%). His historic birdie-making sum is a brilliant testament to his rigorous playing schedule and consistently solid results. 6 Perhaps no player permeated major championship storylines more often in 2021 than a man who never actually found the winner’s circle. Louis Oosthuizen led or co-led following six major championship rounds in 2021. Since the PGA Championship switched to stroke play in 1958, Oosthuizen is the only player to hold the lead or co-lead that many times after major rounds and not win a major that season. Since the first Masters Tournament was held in 1934, only four men have had a major championship season with three top-3 finishes but no wins: Jack Nicklaus (1964 and 1977), Ernie Els (2000), Rickie Fowler (2014) and Oosthuizen. 2-for-8 Contrasting the majorly-forlorn South African is the incredible ascension of Collin Morikawa, who won his second major championship at The Open this summer. His two victories have come in just eight career majors, the fewest of any player since the first Masters in 1934. Only two men in the last century won their second professional major in fewer starts Walter Hagen (sixth start, 1919 U.S. Open) and Gene Sarazen (fourth start, 1922 PGA). There are only three instances since 2000 where a player won a major championship with a bogey-free 66 or lower in the final round. Rory McIlroy had one of them, at the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. After this summer at Royal St George’s, Morikawa has the other two (64 at the 2020 PGA, 66 at the 2021 Open). +2.08 Only one player gained more than 2 strokes per round over the field on the PGA TOUR in 2021: U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm. For the calendar year, Rahm ranked either first or second on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Ball Striking (tee & approach shots). Couple that with a top-20 performance on and around the greens (18th in Strokes Gained: Short Game per round), and Rahm developed himself into arguably the most complete player in the game as he ascended to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. In the 2021 season, Rahm became the fourth player since 1980 to have 15 or more top-10 finishes in a season with 22 starts or fewer. The others to do it are Tiger Woods (twice, 1999 and 2000), Tom Watson (1980) and Dustin Johnson (2015-16). 20 Rory McIlroy claimed his 20th career PGA TOUR title at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT, making him the second-youngest player (age 32) born outside the United States to achieve the milestone. Harry Cooper, born in England in 1904, is credited with his 20th PGA TOUR title at age 31. Since 1960, McIlroy is one of just seven players to reach 20 official PGA TOUR titles before age 33, along with Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. 31.8 With an average Official World Golf Ranking of just under 32, the fall collection of PGA TOUR winners in 2021 was, statistically, the best we have ever seen. For comparison, the average World Ranking of winners in the fall of 2020 was 169.8. Every winner in the fall portion of the 2021 schedule was ranked in the top-60 at the time of his victory. Only one other fall stretch can lay claim to even having an average ranking of its winners better than 60 (2013, 53.2). 50 The golf world probably needs additional time to gain proper perspective of Phil Mickelson’s historic PGA Championship victory in May at Kiawah Island. Of the 458 events deemed major championships, stretching across more than 160 years, Mickelson is the oldest player to win one of the game’s four most storied events. To say Mickelson caught lightning in a bottle is an understatement: as of Thursday, Mickelson will have one top-10 finish on the PGA TOUR in the last 500 days. It will be a win at a major championship. Mickelson’s PGA Championship win made him the first player in PGA TOUR history to have victories more than 30 years apart. His first win came at the 1991 Northern Telecom Open, 30 years, 4 months and 10 days before his triumph at the 2021 PGA. The winners of the four men’s major championships in 2021 were 24, 26, 29 and 50. Since the first Masters was held in 1934, it’s the only time that there has been a year where all four majors were held and none of the winners were in their 30s or 40s.

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