Homa comes full circle and wins Wells Fargo Championship

SAN DIEGO - Marc Leishman wasn’t one to spend time on the range as he was growing up - and who could blame him. In those days you had to pick up your own range balls at Warrnambool Golf Club. Instead, he would use the course proper as his practice facility, challenging his mates to contests on each hole. Warrnambool is a coastal town in Victoria, Australia, a little over three hours drive from Melbourne. The course was rarely full, which allowed a group of youngsters to spend a bunch of time on each hole without slowing pace of play. "It might take us three hours to play nine holes - not holding people up - but we forever came up with things to do," Leishman recalls. "We put ourselves behind trees, or in divots, or tough bunker lies – really in all sorts of spots where we had to use our imagination. We had a lot of fun." Imagination. It's a word used less and less in modern golf. The art of golf is - at times - being bludgeoned by the science. In the past, the likes of Seve Ballesteros would wow the masses with his creativity from all over the course. In more modern times, Bubba Watson has shaped the ball in ridiculous ways. But now the game is skewed towards the athletic prowess and strength of a player and brute force can get you to places never seen before. We have players like Bryson DeChambeau following the science of the swing and of the body and calculating all sorts of variables around every shot to chase perfection. We have technology and stats measuring everything. Gadgets and gizmos a plenty, whozits and whatsits galore. Science has indeed taken the sport to incredible new heights. But science isn't everyone's best subject. Leishman has always been an artist. The joy in his golf comes from shaping the ball both ways or hitting it high or low on demand. He craves hard and fast courses and thrives in the wind. He loves being able to hit the same club across a wide yardage range and gets juiced up when the opportunity to paint a picture surfaces in his game. "That’s when I play my best golf - when I have to use my imagination. Augusta requires a lot of it, the British Open requires a lot of it and it’s what makes golf fun for me," Leishman says. I would call myself an old school pro. The game is an artistic game for me, and I love when you have to control it on the ground and through the air and you really have to think. It is a style that has seen him win five times on the PGA TOUR including last year at the Farmers Insurance Open where he defends this week at Torrey Pines. In the final round a year ago, Leishman couldn't buy a fairway. He was 70th in the field for Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee losing -1.235 to the field. But he invented ways to get himself to the greens regardless of the inaccuracy and gained +4.778 strokes putting as he made 151 feet, four inches worth or putts. Not long after Leishman was runner up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard, an event he won in 2017. Then he opened THE PLAYERS Championship with a 5-under 67, his career best first round at TPC Sawgrass where his scoring average is a not so impressive 72.25. At seventh in the FedExCup, he was rolling along nicely. Of course, we all know what happened to the world next. But Leishman had no clue the COVID-19 pandemic would derail his form so significantly. Not many players - if any - spiraled like he did after the extended pandemic break. In his six regular season starts upon return, Leishman missed three cuts and posted a T40 as his best result. His early season form kept him in the duration of the three FedExCup Playoffs but he was a virtual passenger. Leishman missed the cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST. He then shot 80-78-79-73 (+30) in the no-cut BMW Championship (another tournament he's won before) to be dead last, nine shots worse than second last and 34 shots behind winner Jon Rahm. In the TOUR Championship he was 29th of 30 players. His start to the 2020-21 season wasn't much better as the now 37-year-old missed the cut at the U.S. Open followed by a T52 and T70 at the limited field CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. It wasn't pretty. So, what happened? It was a bunch of factors but at its core - Leishman got bogged down studying science and got frustrated with his art not making it to a gallery. "Having a big rest over the pandemic break was good for me to be with family but for my golf game it wasn’t so good for me," Leishman explains to PGATOUR.COM. “Normally on weeks off I don’t play at all, so I virtually have never played golf with no crowds. It’s either in a tournament or in a practice round at a tournament so that was very new to me. Even when I play golf back home in Warrnambool there are people watching me so returning without fans was weird. I really struggled with energy." The energy he refers to is the competitive instinct of the artist who loves to entertain and who thrives on an internal underdog factor. Leishman long went unheralded by the American public who confused him with other golfers and even when his profile rose, and he was grouped with big name stars, Leishman's nationality usually meant he'd be fighting for the majority of support. It was fuel for him. "When you’re struggling with crowds around it can still be fun because if there are 50 people watching and you hit a shot from the trees you can kind of entertain or show off your skills a little bit," Leishman says. "It gets you engaged even if you’re going to miss the cut – you think these people might remember this if I pull it off. But I was in the trees a lot last year and you can’t even show off when no one is there. "As an artistic player, when you start drawing dodgy pictures with your shots, which I was doing, you start to think about it too much and I started getting technical. I started thinking science and that's never good for me. I was looking in the wrong places for solutions." Now, it's not like Leishman hadn't had some tough weeks in his career before. But in normal circumstances, time with coach Denis McDade would quickly fix any swing issues. Problem was McDade is based in Australia and the pandemic made travel to the U.S. very difficult indeed. Sure Leishman could have looked for a local coach but he's a fiercely loyal type of guy. He's had the same coach and same caddie since he burst on to the PGA TOUR and was Rookie of the Year in 2009. McDade is loyal also. Despite plenty of roadblocks he made his way to the U.S. in late October last year and hooked up with Leishman in Los Angeles during the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. After watching the opening two rounds intently, he had the answer. "It was huge for him to come over and a massive commitment from him," Leishman says. "He has a family back home, but he was over here for six weeks and he got home and had to spend two weeks mandatory quarantine in a hotel room where you don’t get given a room key. He missed his birthday and his wedding anniversary during quarantine, so I am really appreciative and want to thank him. "In the end it wasn't really my swing at all. It was the way I was getting into the ball - I was standing too far away from it," Leishman reveals. "I was being technical on the tee; I was doing drills in the tournaments before every tee shot which I had never done before, and it was getting me too far away from the ball and my weight too far on the toes. When my weight is on the toes my balance is bad and I miss it right and left and it’s just a disaster – I was in a hiding to nothing. "So, it was something really simple and that's where it’s really good that I’ve been with Denis for 18 years. He knows my tendencies and he saw it straight away. If I had gone to someone else or jumped ship with him not being able to come over, a new coach may or may not be able to see that." The results were near instant. In his next start at The Masters, Leishman was T13, hitting the ball better than most of the field but only falling behind on the greens. Two weeks ago at the Sony Open in Hawaii, he finished T4, his first top 10 since the pandemic break. Now he gets another crack at Torrey Pines where he has a win, two runner ups and two further top 10s in his portfolio. Look out. The artist is back.

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Tyler Duncan wasn’t on many short lists to win The RSM Classic. He had three top-10s in his previous 67 starts on the PGA TOUR, with a best finish of T5, twice (2019 AT&T Byron Nelson, 2017 Safeway Open). He was ranked 378th in the world, and was no guarantee to even have his TOUR card until a T4 in his last start of last season gave him a 25th-place finish on the Korn Ferry Tour priority ranking. And yet one day after making 18 pars, he closed with a 65 on Sunday to tie Webb Simpson, the pre-tournament favorite, whom he defeated with a birdie on the second hole of a playoff. Just a few months removed from job insecurity, Duncan will go into the 2020 calendar year at 11th in the FedExCup. Not a bad early Christmas present. Welcome to the Monday Finish. THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS 1. Duncan limited the damage on his off day. Much was made of his second-round 61, the lowest anyone went all tournament, but every shot counts. And when he wasn’t nearly as hot the next day, Duncan at least managed to be a paragon of consistency with 18 straight pars. That set him up for Sunday, when he bounced back from an opening bogey – his only bogey all week – to shoot 65 and get into the playoff. For more on Duncan’s big day, click here.  2. He finished strong. It wasn’t just that Duncan birdied three of his last four holes of regulation to force the playoff. Consider this: He birdied the tough 18th hole twice in the three times he played it Sunday, once in regulation and once in the playoff. Total final-round birdies by the rest of the field on the hole: five. Zach Guthrie, Duncan’s caddie, calls it mental toughness. Yep.  3. He kept it simple. Duncan hit 50 of 56 fairways for the week to finish sixth in Driving Accuracy, and tied for fourth in Greens in Regulation (60/72). With the pressure turned all the way up in cool, breezy conditions on Sunday, he missed just one fairway and two greens. What’s more, he finished first in average proximity to the hole at 25 feet, 3 inches. OBSERVATIONS Muñoz was a revelation this fall. Amid so much excitement over the first 11 tournaments of the 2019-20 season, it would be easy to overlook Colombia’s Sebastián Muñoz, but that would be a mistake. The winner of the Sanderson Farms Championship is long off the tee and just now figuring out how good he can be, a recipe that could prove dangerous in 2020. He also played in short sleeves, explaining, “I’d rather play good than be warm.â€� Going for his second victory of the fall, he came up just a shot short of the playoff after a final-round 68. Now he’ll recharge the batteries before starting up again at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, a course that has been good to long hitters. “Yeah, major time off,â€� said Muñoz, second in the FedExCup. “Going to Bogota, seeing the family, friends and just relax for, I don’t know, three, four weeks and then start practicing like 10 days before a tournament.â€� Todd ran out of gas. Brendon Todd took a two-shot lead into the final round and was bidding to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three straight tournaments on TOUR. Then it all caught up to him. Suddenly absent his legs and/or timing, Todd blocked his approach shot right and into the marsh at the fifth hole, leading to a double bogey, and lost a handful of other iron shots to the right, as well. “I couldn’t find it,â€� he said of the form that propelled him to victories at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and Bermuda Championship. Still, a solo fourth is the kind of result he would have happily taken during a three-year slump that saw him plummet off the TOUR. Oh, and he’ll take the FedExCup lead into the 2020 calendar year. Simpson is at home at Sea Island. He’d already lost in a playoff at The RSM Classic, to Ben Crane in 2011, and was third last year. “I know, another close call,â€� Simpson said after shooting a final-round 67 but failing to birdie either of the two playoff holes. He has not won since the 2018 PLAYERS, but is close. In his only other start of the fall, he finished seventh at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. And he made three clutch putts to get in the playoff at The RSM Classic, one for birdie (from 25 feet) and two knee-knockers for par. “I’m very pleased with the way I played,â€� he said. “Obviously, I would like the drive back in the playoff to give myself a birdie chance, but hats off to Tyler birdieing the last two in regulation and again there in the playoff. Tough way to finish, but I gave it everything I had.â€�   QUOTEBOARD “You never know. This is a crazy game.â€� – Tyler Duncan on winning just a few months after barely regaining his PGA TOUR card at Korn Ferry Tour Finals. “My game is continuing to build and go in the right direction.â€� – U.S. Presidents Cup Team member Webb Simpson, after his fourth runner-up in his last 10 starts. “I didn’t feel I was in the zone.â€� – Brendon Todd (72, solo 4th), who saw his streak of two straight wins and 12 straight rounds of 68 or better come to an end. 

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Our experts provide their picks to win and top fantasy values as the PGA Tour heads to Canada.

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