Costly double bogey hurts Tiger’s chances

HOUSTON – Later this month, Peter Malnati will become a father. His wife Alicia is due on Oct. 26, and whether their first child is a boy or a girl remains a surprise until the delivery. For the last couple of months, they’ve been making preparations to turn their new house into, as Peter says, a home. So it’s understandable that he’s been a little distracted lately inside the ropes. His results reflect it. He ended last season with a pair of missed cuts, then started the 2019-20 season with a Saturday WD due to a bad back, a T45 finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship, and consecutive missed cuts in his last two starts. Entering this week, he hadn’t broken 70 in his last eight rounds. Already planning to take the next five weeks off, Malnati wondered if he should even be playing the Houston Open. “The last couple weeks I’ve let it be a distraction in that I haven’t really prepared the way I normally would because my head’s back home. I want to be home,â€� Malnati said. “This week I was like, ‘dude, this is your last tournament before you become a dad, like do something with it.’ “The best thing you can do for your wife and your kid is to go out and play good.â€� So he did. Related: Leaderboard | Hammer roots on Astros after 67 | Beem’s ‘simply incredible’ first round Malnati shot a 3-under 69 on Thursday, followed by a bogey-free 7-under 65 on Friday morning at the Golf Club of Houston. That leaves him at 10 under. When he walked off the course, he was the clubhouse leader, with first-round co-leaders Austin Cook and Talor Gooch just starting their day. Given the windy conditions that kicked in in mid-morning after a 2-hour rain delay, the field average soared to nearly 73 for those with an early tee time. That means Malnati’s 65 was nearly 8 strokes better than the field. His caddie Chad Antus, who has been on the bag for about 2-1/2 seasons, called it the best round he had seen Malnati play. The only other round worthy of a comparison was the 10-under 62 that Malnati shot at the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour Championship, a round that included an eagle and 10 birdies. “Given the conditions of the course and everything else going on,â€� Antus said, “this round today was No. 1.“ While the next few weeks certainly will be exciting, Malnati is now in position to make the next two days exciting, too, as he chases his second career PGA TOUR win. He won the Sanderson Farms four years ago. “I practiced with a lot more focus this week and it’s nice to see that that does result in some better golf for me,â€� he said. “Yes, my head is definitely a little bit elsewhere, but again, the best thing even after the kid comes, when I do decide me and my wife decide it’s time for me to go play again — the best thing I can do when I’m at a tournament is focus on the tournament. “That’s what they need me to do, so that’s what I’m trying to do this week. It’s beyond words to say I’m 98% excited, 2% terrified, all of that is definitely at play right now. My wife’s the best and she’s going to be the best mother, so we’re going to handle things all right back home.â€� Perhaps Friday is an indication that he’s handling things inside the ropes too. Last season, Malnati’s only top-10 finish in 26 starts last season was in a team event, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, when he and Billy Hurley III were T9. But he was steady enough to make the FedExCup Playoffs and keep his TOUR card, actually improving his status from the previous year when he missed the Playoffs. In some ways, though, it was a breakthrough season for Malnati. He cites two areas of improvement – improved iron play and increased distance off the tee. On Friday, he said he “drove the ball beautifullyâ€� and was excited to see where he ranked in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, a statistic in which he’s never ranked better than 150th in the previous four seasons and generally gives up strokes to the field. “I’m not a huge guy into stats,â€� he said. “At the end of the day, there’s only one that matters and that’s score and I had a good one of those today, but I do like to look at my driving stats and they’ve been really, really a weakness for me for a year.â€� What a story it would be if Malnati could pull off a win in Houston this weekend. What better way to enter fatherhood than with a shiny new trophy to show his child. “Most kids, when they kick it around at their home course growing up, they’re dreaming about that putt to win the Masters or that putt to win the U.S. Open or that putt to win THE PLAYERS Championship or something like that,â€� Malnati said. “I always took that dream one step farther. My dream, I used to as a little kid, I would watch and you would see these guys hole out to win the big tournaments and their wife and their little kids would just come running out on the green. That to me, that’s where the dream really is. That was the dream stuff. “I already won a Korn Ferry Tour event with my wife caddying for me, I won a big amateur event with my mom caddying for me, so I’ve gotten to have some of those kind of family moments at the end of a tournament. But the idea of actually being a father and then one day hopefully having my kids get to see me do what I love to do, which is this, and hopefully do it well is something that I kind of get emotional even just thinking about that. “That’s going to be so awesome for me.â€�

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GREENSBORO, N.C. - There was a lot on the line at this week's Wyndham Championship, with the top 125 in the FedExCup standings advancing to the Playoffs and the finale of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 competition. Here's a quick look at each one after Sunday's final round at Sedgefield Country Club. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Herman picks up 3rd TOUR win FedExCup Update Three players earned a spot in the FedExCup Playoffs thanks to their performance this week. The biggest leap was made by Jim Herman, who came into the week ranked No. 192. He will head to THE NORTHERN TRUST ranked No. 54 thanks to his one-stroke victory on Sunday - the biggest move in the regular season finale since Davis Love III won the Wyndham Championship in 2015 and went from No. 186 to 76. It will be Herman's fourth appearance in the Playoffs and his first since 2017. … Zach Johnson and Shane Lowry were the other two players to book a trip to TPC Boston. Johnson came in ranked 129th and finished No. 104. Lowry came in No. 131 and finished 122nd. … The three players who dropped out of the top 125 were Fabian Gomez, Russell Knox and Charl Schwartzel. Gomez, who missed the cut, dropped four spots to No. 126 while Knox fell four spots to No. 127 with his tie for 72nd. Schwartzel, who came to Greensboro as the bubble boy, also missed the cut and finished No. 128. Zach Johnson: A year ago, Zach Johnson missed the Playoffs for just the second time since the FedExCup began in 2007. On Sunday, he battled down to the wire - in fact, there were only 10 players left on the golf course when he signed for a 65 to tie for seventh and jump 25 spots to No. 104, booking his trip to THE NORTHERN TRUST. … "I don’t like missing cuts, I don’t like missing the FedExCup, I don’t like not being a part of it," Johnson said. "When there’s events that you’re not qualified for, which has kind of been new to me in the last year or two, it’s frustrating. I say that, it’s also motivating. "If anything, it highlights the beauty of this game. I mean, the complete beauty of this game in the fact that you get what you earn. Any given week, any given stretch, you play well, you get your reward. you don’t play well, you get what you deserve. Johnson, who shot 61 in the second round, said he felt like he was on a "slight upward trend. I know it was only two days, but I’ve been feeling this for a while, it just hasn’t showed up. Hopefully, I can maintain it." Shane Lowry: Lowry thought he'd put himself in a good position to make the FedExCup Playoffs after he shot 63 on Friday to move well inside the bubble from No. 131 to 99th. As it turns out, though, Lowry fell back outside the 125 after shooting even par 70 in the third round and then had some anxious moments down the stretch on Sunday when he bogeyed No. 16 and was projected as the bubble boy. When all was done at Sedgefield, though, Lowry clocked in at No. 122 and will head to Boston for the second straight year. "You look at what I’ve achieved in the last year or two, stuff like that shouldn’t really be as stressful as it was, but it was," said the reigning Open champion. "It’s a big deal. We all know if we can make it to Boston that a good week there, you know, can do big things. … "Obviously, the goal next week would be to make Chicago. Then the goal from there is to make it to East Lake, but that would be a hell of a three weeks. I need to do something very special." Lowry, who tied for 22nd at Sedgefield, gave himself a shot at the Playoffs when he shared sixth at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational two weeks ago. He needs to move into the top 70 to play in the BMW Championship and the top 30 to make the field for the finale in Atlanta at the TOUR Championship. "I feel like I’m playing good golf," said Lowry, who originally had a golf trip to Rhode Island scheduled with his buddies next week. "To be honest, I feel like all that outside stuff got in my way a little bit over this weekend. I felt like I was in a great position heading into the weekend, I just struggled yesterday. Then today I got off to a great start and it was going lovely. Then the last few holes, it was almost like, you know, you’re playing on the cut mark. It was strange." Wyndham Rewards Top 10 At stake: The top 10 spots in the FedExCup standings and its bonus pool money of $10 million. Justin Thomas already had wrapped up the top prize of $2 million. For the fourth straight day there was no movement into or out of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. And none of the four players ranked inside the top 10 at the start of the Wyndham Championship moved up or down. Webb Simpson, who has two wins this season, finished third in the bonus pool after tying for fourth at the Wyndham Championship. Sungjae Im, who tied for ninth on Sunday, finished No. 5 in the Wyndham Rewards. One spot below is Patrick Reed, who won the Wyndham Championship in 2013 and joined Im in the tie for ninth this year. Brendon Todd, another two-time winner this year, missed the cut at Sedgefield but held onto the No. 9 spot in the Wyndham Rewards Top 10.

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