After finishing T-20 at the Wyndham Championship, Henrik Stenson has pulled out of the Northern Trust at Ridgewood.
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HONOLULU, Hawaii - Brendan Steele, Joaquin Niemann and Kevin Na can all smell a little redemption as they gear up for the final round of the Sony Open in Hawaii. But they can't all have it. The trio each have demons to bury at Waialae Country Club on Sunday and are in great position to do so. Steele and Na produced stunning 9-under 61s, while Niemann posted a 63 in Saturday's third round to become the players to beat. Steele has a two-shot lead at 18 under with Niemann and Na sharing second at 16 under. They won't be the only ones with a shot as five players share fourth at 15 under and four are just a shot further back at 14 under. RELATED: Full leaderboard But they'll start Sunday with the best chance. Steele has demons from a year ago, Niemann has his from a week ago, while Na has them from the last two years. Steele lost to Cameron Smith 12 months ago in a playoff - a result that still stings given he had a two-shot lead with two holes to play. On that day he bogeyed the 17th and then as Smith made birdie, Steele produced a wild hook from the fairway on 18 that made making the necessary birdie to win near impossible. After Smith drove his ball in the playoff into the rough, Steele looked in great shape in the fairway, but Smith punched a beautiful shot to 10 feet forcing him to go flag hunting. His wedge sailed over the green and when he failed to get up and down, it was an easy two-putt win for the Australian. "You hope that you come back and you play well and erase whatever negative memories there are, but all the memories are pretty positive. Playing great here last year was good, and I’m excited for the challenge tomorrow," Steele said. "I know it’s going to be really tough. Guys are coming after me. But I’ll just do my best and hopefully it will be enough." Steele kept a positive demeanor despite being asked about his failure a year ago multiple times. But the three-time TOUR winner admitted to getting a little annoyed earlier in the week. The last player to win a tournament after losing it in a playoff a year earlier was Ryuji Imada at the 2008 Atlanta Classic. "The first practice round we played was on the back nine and I was remembering some shots, some good and some bad, kind of kicking myself a little bit," the 37-year-old said. "I would have liked to hit a better shot into 18, but Cameron had a really tough up-and-down and made a great putt, and then hit a great shot in the playoff and forced my hand on the second shot there. I was very happy with everything I did, and I don’t feel like I did anything differently last year than the times that I’ve won. I would like to do the exact same thing tomorrow and hopefully it’s good enough." For 22-year-old Niemann, Sunday is a chance to shake off a playoff loss at the Sentry Tournament of Champions last week in Maui. Niemann failed to birdie either of the back nine par fives at Kapalua on Sunday and it proved costly. When he failed to birdie the 18th again in the playoff, it allowed Harris English to pounce and take the title. But on Saturday in Honolulu, Niemann hit two towering 7-woods on the last hole to set up a close-range eagle to finish off his round and bring him within two shots of the lead. The last player to lose at Kapalua and win the following week at the Sony Open was Jimmy Walker in 2015. "The eagle was huge. I wasn’t really satisfied on my first 16 holes. I thought I was playing great. I thought I could put myself in a better position, and then finishing that way and making eagle on 18 made me really happy and gave me a bit of motivation for tomorrow," Niemann said. "I took a lot of experience from last week. I’m just going to try to put everything I took from last week into this week and hopefully try to win it. I’m playing great. Just need to keep doing the same stuff I’ve been doing these two weeks and hopefully get a good round tomorrow, and you never know." Niemann is now 41 under in his last seven rounds on TOUR with a 37.3% birdie or better percentage so far in 2021 (47 of 126 holes). For Na, it's just good to be playing at all. Two years ago he had to miss the tournament after breaking his finger in the lead up to the Sentry Tournament of Champions. A year ago, he hurt his neck, and once again was forced out of the field. "I actually pulled my rib Wednesday before the Pro-Am and was like, here we go again, but I’m just happy to be playing. Maybe that’s the attitude I need," Na said of how he almost found himself sitting out again. When he made his fourth consecutive birdie on the 14th hole - his sixth of the round to go with an eagle - Na needed to play the final four holes in 3 under to shoot 59. He made life tough by missing a 10-footer on the 15th and the dream was over when he missed a seven-footer on the penultimate hole. "I played great. I made my share of putts. But on 17, you’re thinking, OK, I make birdie here, eagle the last and I have a 59 and how often do you get a chance for that magic number," he said. "And it’s definitely in your head. If you’re a professional golfer, it’s in your head. It was fun and exciting. Unfortunately, we misread that putt totally." He'll have a chance to atone on Sunday. They all will.
Marc Leishman doesn’t have an office with four walls, where one might hang his kid’s art project. But tapping into infinite kid-wisdom, his oldest, Harvey, 6, came up with a solution: Why not scrawl the art directly on what passes for Leishman’s office, his enormous golf bag? This was in early 2017, and Leishman wasn’t thrilled. “At the beginning, I’m kind of like, ‘No,’â€� Leishman said after shooting 65 for a five-shot win at the CIMB Classic at TPC Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. “Then I was like, ‘Yeah, write your name on my bag,’ so he wrote his name. Then my other son (Ollie, 5) wanted to write his name. “So now every golf bag that I have, they write their name on it and they love doing it,â€� Leishman added. “They see it on TV. And then every time I look at my golf bag, I think of them doing that or I think of my kids and that’s never a bad thing to think of your kids. Yeah, that’s a pretty cool thing that they do, and it will keep happening.â€� Leishman, who was solo in Malaysia as wife Audrey looked after the kids back home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, said he was hitting it every which way on the driving range. He kept at it, though, and figured something out with his driver as he recorded scores of 68-62-67-65. His 26-under total tied the CIMB record at TPC Kuala Lumpur, and left him well clear of T2s Emiliano Grillo (66), Chesson Hadley (66) and Bronson Burgoon (68). Two-time CIMB winner and 2017 FedExCup champion Justin Thomas shot a final-round 64 to tie for fifth. Now the TOUR heads to THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES at Jeju Island, Korea, where Thomas beat Leishman in a sudden-death playoff last year. It’s helpful, sometimes, to view the TOUR as one long story with lots of similar themes. Last week, Kevin Tway, son of eight-time TOUR winner Bob, got his first win at the Safeway Open as Dad watched through tears on TV. The CIMB was also, in its way, about fatherhood. In April, 2015, Leishman’s wife, Audrey, nearly died from a combination of sepsis, toxic-shock syndrome (TSS), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and pneumonia. She was in a coma for five days and given a 5 percent chance at survival. Marc was nearly a single father, but Audrey not only survived, she also gave the couple a daughter, Eva, 1. Audrey and Marc started the Begin Again Foundation to support survivors of sepsis, TSS and ARDS. “I won’t say it made golf less important, but it made me realize that golf’s not life or death,â€� Leishman said from the CIMB, where he saluted his family’s willingness to forgo sleep in order to watch him win on TV. “We’ve been through that and that’s not fun. “Yes, I want to win trophies and lucky enough today to be leaving with one, which my kids will be very happy about, by the way,â€� Leishman added, “but if I wasn’t to walk away the winner today, that’s all right, too. As long as I give it my best shot, that’s what it’s all about.â€� The CIMB was not life or death for Audrey and the kids, either, but it was still tense. Marc was tied for the 54-hole lead with Gary Woodland (71, T5) and potential Presidents Cup teammate Shubhankar Sharma (72, T10). Not surprisingly in Asia, Sharma, of India, was the fan favorite. Audrey took the boys to a theme park Saturday in order to think about something else. That night, she organized her schedule around the late telecast. After napping from 9 p.m. to midnight, she turned on the TV as Leishman birdied four of his first five holes while his playing partners struggled. He cruised from there, and she woke up Harvey to watch the last putt at 3 a.m. A year and a half ago, before Leishman won the 2017 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, and the BMW Championship, Harvey put the pressure on. He’d seen Jason Day’s kids, Dash and Lucy, scamper onto the 18th green to celebrate Dad’s victories, and wondered aloud why he and Ollie weren’t doing the same to greet their own dad. Then came Bay Hill and Conway Farms, and the Leishman family celebrated. Last season saw Marc notch two runner-up finishes but no wins as he still made it all the way to the 30-man TOUR Championship. He must have sensed a win was imminent, though, because prior to the CIMB he booked the family plane tickets from Australia to Maui at the end of this year. “I just booked them for Maui thinking that I’ll either be playing in the (Sentry Tournament of Champions) or we’ll go for a vacation there,â€� Leishman said. “Now I’ll be playing a golf tournament.â€� (He tied for seventh at last year’s Sentry TOC, despite a third-round 76.) “I know Audrey will be very excited, as my kids will be,â€� Leishman added. “Hawaii’s an awesome spot, that’s one of my favorite places in the whole world. To be able to play two weeks there at two of my favorite golf tournaments is certainly something to look forward to.â€� Before he left Kuala Lumpur, Leishman pocketed a few toy airplanes to bring home to the kids, a gift of tournament sponsor Malaysia Airlines. Miniature airplanes? A trip to Maui? A fourth TOUR win? Yep, Marc Leishman banked some major Dad points even from half a world away.
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