Haas opens with 64 to take Phoenix Open lead

Mandy Snedeker had just dropped her two children, Lily and Austin, off at school near their home in Nashville. Her husband, Brandt, was in Greensboro, North Carolina, playing in the Wyndham Championship. He was in one of the morning’s featured groups, paired with Billy Horschel and Hideki Matsuyama, so she could follow the PGA TOUR Live coverage of his round as she ran errands. “And then all of a sudden, I don’t know what hole it was, but they started mentioning that there was a chance that he could shoot 59,â€� Mandy recalls. “I kind of went, errrk, pulled over in a parking lot, and watched the rest of it.â€� Mandy sat in that parking lot for a good hour on that Thursday morning a year ago, watching the final four holes or so on her cell phone. So, she saw the 20-footer he made on the Sedgefield’s ninth hole, his last of the day, to become just the ninth player in PGA TOUR history to shoot a 59. “Oh, my gosh, I screamed and just went crazy,â€� Mandy says. And then her telephone started virtually blowing up with text messages. In relatively short order, she had probably 40 or 50; her husband’s phone pinged with roughly double that amount – all meaningful in their own way. “We have a lot of friends that are in the music industry … and obviously are huge golfers,â€� Mandy says. “So, they were all texting me. I thought that was cool. “I don’t know if I have anyone that (stood out); it was just so many at one time I couldn’t believe it because I wasn’t sure if everybody knew. It was a Thursday, Thursday morning. So, I was texting people all morning. Brandt shot 59. Brandt shot 59. It was crazy.â€� Of course, her first text was to Brandt. He was whisked away to interviews after he signed his scorecard but called as soon as he could. “He was so excited,â€� Mandy recalls. “You know, golf, it’s crazy. It’s like up and down and he hadn’t been playing that great. But out of nowhere he shoots 59. So, it’s just how the sport rolls.â€� Then came the hard part. At least for Brandt. Take that four-stroke lead he had accrued with the 59, play three more rounds and try to win a golf tournament.  “Fifty‑nine was such a cool moment and such a great place, has such a great place in my memory and the history of the game obviously, but doing it on Thursday when you’ve got three more days to deal with, A, all the questions, B, all the kind of attention you draw on yourself, and then most importantly, the expectations you have on yourself,â€� Brandt says.  “You have a … four‑shot lead after the first day, play that kind of round of golf, you can’t really think of anything other than messing it up from there, to be honest with you. So, it’s hard to kind of deal with that, try to get over it and make sure you get back into what made you successful that first day.â€� The internal pressure was one thing. After all, Brandt had already won eight times on the PGA TOUR. But the 2018 Wyndham Championship was the first time his kids, who were 7 and 5 years old at the time, really understood what was going on. “The second he (shot 59) it was, Dad are you going to win the tournament? Dad are you winning?â€� Mandy recalls with a smile. “We flew in Saturday; we go upstairs to the player dining. Dad, are you leading still? Dad are you leading? Are you going to win? I was like, oh my goodness. Stop. “So, we had joked if he can win with that pressure of the kids constantly reminding him, you know, he’s got it. He’s got it.â€� Steve Holmes, who is chairman of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Wyndham Destinations, had sent a private jet to Nashville to pick up Mandy and the kids. Wyndham has sponsored Brandt since shortly after he won the 2007 tournament at Sedgefield, which was his first PGA TOUR victory. Holmes was the one who presented Brandt with the Sam Snead Cup that year. “It just so happened he was coming up to New York for the first playoff event right afterwards and he offered me a ride up on his plane,â€� Brandt remembers. “And so, I hop on the plane. We celebrated and talked and just kind of grew from there and Steve’s one of the best human beings in the world. Spending that little time with them on a plane, I realized what a quality guy he was and what they stood for. “Just always have been very fortunate in my career, surround myself with really good people and make sure I have the right partnerships and it all started with him and them because they are a bunch of great people and do stuff the right way.â€� So, Brandt wasn’t at all surprised that Holmes flew Mandy and the kids in for what turned out to be another Sunday celebration with Lily and Austin racing onto the 18th green to jump into their dad’s arms. “They’ve been dear friends of ours for a long time,â€� Mandy says. “That’s what made it so special, too. It’s not just shooting the 59 … it was just like a storybook book setting. I mean, with it being Wyndham and his sponsor and just all the years that we’ve been with them and stuff. “So yeah, it was really special.â€�

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What a year. As we prepare to close the book on 2021 still a little wobbly on our feet, a little glassy-eyed as we try to process it all, it seems only appropriate to pause and consider what we’ve seen. A six-man playoff. An eight-hole playoff. The first PLAYERS Championship in two years. Xander Schauffele striking gold at the Tokyo Olympics. Tony Finau winning again. We saw Power, as in Seamus, your Barbasol Championship winner, and power, as in driving distance leader Bryson DeChambeau’s crowd-pleasing, 370-yard moon shot on the par-5 sixth hole at Bay Hill as he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. English, as in Harris, was spoken seemingly everywhere, from Kapalua (Sentry Tournament of Champions) to Connecticut (Travelers Championship) to Kohler (Ryder Cup). We also had a long-awaited Ancer, as in Abraham, capturing his first PGA TOUR trophy in an unlikely playoff at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Here’s what else we saw over these unforgettable 12 months. Underrated Player of the Year: Hideki Matsuyama, as rated by himself At The Masters in April, Matsuyama became the first Japanese player to wear the green jacket and the first to win a men’s major of any kind. He was brimming with confidence. Alas, it was gone by the time he went home for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in October. “Ball striking, putting, chipping, all of these have not reached the level I want,” he said. “If my game scored 10 out of 10 at The Masters, now I would say it scores less than 1. I will be struggling this week, but I am here in Japan, so I am motivated to be in contention.” Then he won, after which he said, “I would rate my performance as two or three.” Geez. Tough crowd. Underrated Player of the Year II: Justin Thomas, as rated by himself Despite winning THE PLAYERS Championship, Justin Thomas said at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba that he would give his season a C-minus. Craziest finish: WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational Harris English was going to win, and if not him, then Bryson DeChambeau. They were 20 under and 18 under, respectively, as they went to the back nine at TPC Southwind. The next closest player was at 16 under. Alas, after multiple water balls, a long ruling, and being put on the clock, English and DeChambeau shot 40 and 41, respectively, on the back. Abraham Ancer (2-under 68) won after joining a playoff with Hideki Maruyama and Sam Burns, who finished an hour before English and DeChambeau and admitted he almost left the property. Shocker of the Year Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship less than a month shy of his 51st birthday, becoming the oldest player to win a major – by 2 1/2 years. (Julius Boros) Shocker of the Year II After winning just three times in 27 years, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team trounced Europe 19-9, the biggest margin of victory since the event went to 28 matches. Most Functional Family Stewart Cink won the RBC Heritage in April with son Reagan as his caddie. It was the second time they’d teamed up for a W in the season’s first eight months. This, after Cink went into last season without a victory since 2009. Best Playoff Fittingly, it’s a four-way tie: “Patty Ice” Cantlay beat Bryson DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff at the BMW Championship (and went on to win the FedExCup). Harris English beat Kramer Hickok in eight extra holes at the Travelers Championship. C.T. Pan won a seven-man playoff to capture the Bronze Medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Finally, Kevin Kisner won a six-man playoff that also included Branden Grace, Si Woo Kim, Kevin Na, Adam Scott and Roger Sloan at the Wyndham Championship. Best Delivery World No. 1 Jon Rahm and his wife, Kelley, welcomed their first child, son Kepa, just prior to The Masters Tournament in early April. Best Delivery II Jon Rahm birdied 17 and 18 to win the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he’d captured his first PGA TOUR title in 2017 and not far from where he later proposed to Kelley. Best Slump-Buster Jordan Spieth won for the first time since 2017 at the Valero Texas Open. “It’s been a long road,” he said. A total of 1,351 days, to be exact, but who’s counting? Best Home Cooking Breaking a drought going back to the 2019 PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP, Rory McIlroy won his third Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, where he’s a member. It was the first time he’s won a TOUR event three times. Best Reason to Keep Knocking on the Door Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters, becoming the first Japanese player to win a men’s major in April. It was his first victory in four years. Justin Thomas opened with a 38 Thursday and was a shot outside the cut line with nine holes remaining Friday, then shot 64-68 to win THE PLAYERS Championship. “It was a ball-striking clinic,” said his then-caddie, Jimmy Johnson. After winning for the first time in his career at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK the previous fall, Jason Kokrak, 36, continued his transformation from journeyman to multiple TOUR winner as he captured the Charles Schwab Challenge in late May. And when he captured the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open in November, he had a sleeve of wins in a span of 13 months, making him one of the game’s hottest players. Supernova of the Year Less than a year after picking up his first major title at the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, Collin Morikawa captured The Open Championship for major No. 2. The five-time PGA TOUR winner, who is still just 24, also went 3-0-1 at the Ryder Cup and became the first American to win the European Tour’s Race to Dubai. Nickname of the Year Patrick Cantlay rode a red-hot summer all the way to the FedExCup, but he was “Patty Ice” to the fans at the BMW Championship. Rarely has anyone so aptly lived into his new nickname, which was ironed onto the back of an Atlanta Falcons jersey (and apparently into Cantlay’s unflappable game) for the TOUR Championship. “It could have been a different nickname, but he really appreciated that the fans got behind him,” said Matt Minister, Cantlay’s longtime caddie. “Because up until last week (at the BMW), everybody else was being cheered for, and then they really started cheering for him. That’s what made the difference, that they got behind him.”

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Tiger Woods and Mark Calcavecchia were never supposed to play in Foursomes (alternate-shot) at the 2002 Ryder Cup at The Belfry. Birdie-machine Calcavecchia seemed more appropriate for Four-ball play, but two things led to the Tiger-Calcavecchia pairing. First of all, they were friends, having played practice rounds together, and “Calcâ€� wouldn’t be intimidated by Woods’ aura. And secondly, there was something Calcavecchia knew that U.S. Captain Curtis Strange didn’t, or at least didn’t seem to take into account: Playing with Ken Green and Payne Stewart, Calcavecchia had gone 4-0 in previous Ryder Cup Foursomes. “I actually had to talk Curtis into it,â€� Calcavecchia said recently. “I brought it to his attention. I said, ‘Let me play with Tiger, I’ll get you a win.’ “I would have thought, teeing off, that there was no way we could lose.â€� A lot of people have thought that way upon partnering with Tiger, who is coming off a seismic victory at the TOUR Championship at East Lake last weekend, the long-awaited 80th of his career at age 42. He is perhaps the greatest player in history, knows more about winning than anyone short of PGA TOUR victories leader Sam Snead (82), and would appear at first glance to be the perfect teammate. What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. In seven Ryder Cups, Woods has had 12 partners in Foursomes and Four-ball play, going 4-8-1 and 5-8-0 respectively, for an un-Tiger-like 9-16-1 record in the matches that make up the first two days (and 16 of 28 points) of the competition. One of the stories heading into this week’s Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris will be the U.S. Team’s effort to win on foreign soil for the first time since 1993. But to do that, U.S. Captain Jim Furyk may need to find a way to help Woods find a partner. His record in Ryder Cup Foursomes and Four-ball has been a head-scratcher, to say the least. Woods’ frustrations certainly haven’t been for a lack of trying. Three times, in ’99, ’02 and ’04, he has been paired with three different players in a single Ryder Cup. He settled down and went 2-2 with Furyk in ’06, and 2-1 with Steve Stricker in 2010. The Woods/Stricker tandem had been potent the previous year in the 2009 Presidents Cup, winning all four of their matches. But in the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, they went 0-3 as the U.S. lost a heartbreaker. What gives? I think Tiger’s not easy to pair with people. Because the attention that he brings … you’re expected to win, and then you’re going up against the best players in (Europe), and over an 18-hole match. So, a lot of funny things can happen. As it turns out, it may not be that complicated. It’s the ball — or it was. Although Ryder Cups in America never abide by the one-ball rule, Ryder Cups in Europe used to do just that, forcing Foursomes teams to pick a ball (brand, compression, cover softness) and stick with it for the day. Woods played a soft, high-spin ball that was unfamiliar to the rest of the TOUR, sometimes leaving his partners to try and adapt on the fly. They didn’t always have much success. So it went for Calcavecchia as he and Woods never quite clicked at The Belfry and lost 2 and 1 to Europe’s Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. “I had a problem playing with his Nike ball,â€� Calcavecchia recalled. “I hit a couple iron shots that I thought were perfect and came up 30 feet short. And on a par-5 on the front nine, I thought I could carry this fairway bunker and it crashed into the lip, which surprised me. I basically hit his ball 10 yards shorter than I hit my ball. It just felt softer than the Titleist I was playing. “And neither of us played very well,â€� Calcavecchia added. “Tiger missed a couple 4-footers for par, which he never does, and on 14, the par-3, he half-shanked an 8-iron about 50 feet right and it buried in the corner of a bunker. I could barely get a club on it and we lost that hole. Prior to that, I’d hit a couple bad drives and put him in a bad spot. But that’s alternate-shot.â€� How bad was it? Garcia and Westwood won three holes with pars. The good news is that the one-ball rule is no longer in effect in Europe, allowing Foursomes teammates to each use their own ball off the holes where they tee off, simplifying the process. Woods, at least, believes the rule change might help him going forward, whether he’s paired with Bryson DeChambeau, as speculated, Phil Mickelson or somebody else in France this week.

“Now when you’re pairing guys — a little bit more on personality than your golf ball,â€� Woods said. “So that’s changed the alternate shot. … It’s so much easier now because we’re able to hit whatever we want off the tees. And that makes a world of difference.â€� Both he and DeChambeau play a Bridgestone ball, albeit different models. Woods calls it, “a firmer version of what I play.â€� Perhaps more indicative of a potential partnership, the two have formed a rapidly growing friendship, teaming up for practice rounds and also playing together in the third round of the Dell Technologies Championship, when DeChambeau shot 63 on the way to his second victory in as many weeks to start the FedExCup Playoffs. “If he goes around and shoots 8-under par every time, that will work,â€� Woods said. Shooting 65, as Woods did twice at East Lake last week, would also work. As for why his record isn’t better in Four-ball, more often called best ball in the States, NBC/Golf Channel commentator Justin Leonard says that’s more complicated. There’s heightened attention on anything Woods does; players are especially fired up to beat him (ask former No. 1 Greg Norman about being a target); and match play can be a fickle beast. “I think Tiger’s not easy to pair with people,â€� Leonard said. “Because the attention that he brings … you’re expected to win, and then you’re going up against the best players in (Europe), and over an 18-hole match. So, a lot of funny things can happen.â€� Funny things that as Joe Pesci might say are not exactly “hah-hah funnyâ€� for the Americans. Leonard, one of the 12 Americans who have partnered Woods, fared better than most; they halved a Foursomes match against Jesper Parnevik and Ignacio Garrido at Valderrama in 1997. Phil Mickelson has a different theory about Woods’ woes. “When you’d be partnered with him, you’d let him do all the work because he’s so good,â€� Mickelson said. “And you don’t get focused in on your own game and play our best golf.â€� Who will be Woods’ partner in France? That might be up to Woods himself; after all, he was a Vice-Captain until Furyk tabbed him as a captain’s pick. “Tiger tells you who he wants to play with; he’ll tell the captain,â€� Calcavecchia said. You get the sense that he’s probably right, be the year 2002 or 2018. As for Woods’ partner problems, though, the one-ball rule isn’t the only thing that’s changed over the decades. “It was a little bit different 15, 18 years ago than it is now,â€� Calcavecchia said, “especially with all Tiger has been through. He’s a little easier to be around. Whoever gets paired up with him, whether it’s DeChambeau or someone else, I think will feel more comfortable.â€� DeChambeau already sounds comfortable. “I don’t really want to say it,â€� he said, “but I think maybe we can potentially intimidate a couple of people out there. I think it would be kind of cool.â€� Your move, Captain Furyk.

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