How a 45-minute stretch saved the U.S. from disaster at the Presidents Cup

Here’s a close look at the golf clubs and equipment used by celebrities and pros at the 2019 Genesis Open including Hall-of-Famer Jerry Rice, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, actor Mark Wahlberg and more.

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Buckling down after his six-shot lead had been cut to one, Chez Reavie comes up clutch with a birdie on the 17th hole while Keegan Bradley, his closest pursuer, suffers an untimely double-bogey. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Reavie, 37, solidified his reputation as mentally tough by converting a 54-hole lead/co-lead into a victory for the second time in as many tries on the PGA TOUR (2008 RBC Canadian Open). With the victory, he jumped from 35th to 12th in the FedExCup. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The long wait made it all the sweeter. Reavie’s wrist injury, his handful of failures to make the FedExCup Playoffs, his long win drought – all that stuff made winning the Travelers, in his ninth try, even more satisfying. “It was great,â€� Reavie said, “because it gave me good perseverance and good perspective of what life is and what golf is. I enjoy every minute of every week I’m out here now, and I don’t think I would necessarily be that way if I didn’t go through those tough times.â€� Reavie kept working hard despite the fact that it had been 3,983 days since his first and only other win on TOUR, at the 2008 RBC Canadian Open. That’s the 11th longest span between a player’s first and second wins on TOUR since 1900. Would he have expected to win sooner? “Not really,â€� he said. “Golf is tough, right? There are a lot of great players on the PGA TOUR. To win out here is an honor and something that shouldn’t be overlooked or under appreciated.â€� 2. For a guy who hadn’t won in 11 years, Reavie had momentum. He had played in the second-to-last group at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach the week before, and finished T3. He also shot a back-nine 28 at the Travelers on Saturday that friend Paul Casey called, “one of the best nines that I can think of since I’ve been on TOUR.â€� Reavie used that confidence to quiet his nerves as he prepared for the final round at TPC River Highlands, and to hang in there when the putts weren’t dropping. The turning point came when Bradley cut the lead to one and Reavie hit the 17th fairway, fired at the flag, and drained his birdie putt of 14 feet, 4 inches. With Bradley finding the fairway bunker off the tee and skulling his 9-iron approach on the way to a double bogey, it was all but over. “Being in the second to the last group at the U.S. Open last week, that definitely gave me a lot of confidence coming into this week, and in particular into today,â€� Reavie said. “I played really well on Sunday at the U.S. Open, and I tried to treat this the same as I did then.â€� 3. Bradley fired up the home crowd. Although he now lives in South Florida, Keegan Bradley is a native New Englander and everyone knows it. As such, there was no shortage of thrills as he went 5 under through 16 holes to cut Reavie’s seemingly insurmountable six-shot lead down to a single stroke. Alas, after thrilling the hometown fans for much of the afternoon, Bradley’s double bogey at 17, combined with Reavie’s birdie, created a three-shot swing and all but ended it for the crowd favorite, who wound up with a 67 and a T2 finish, four shots back. “Dream come true,â€� Bradley said. “I got to play in front of the fans in New England and put on a show. I’ve never felt that type of support ever. Maybe in a Ryder Cup. It was so fun.â€� 4. Zack Sucher sort of won with a T2. Saddled with credit-card debt, unheralded Zack Sucher birdied four of his final six holes and chipped in for par on 18 for a 67 and a timely T2 ($633,600). “It’s life-changing, to be honest,â€� said Sucher. Sucher was playing on a Major Medical Extension this season, and had six events in which to earn 347 FedExCup points. But he’d earned just 25 FedExCup points in three starts until his breakthrough at the Travelers. He picked up a much-needed 245 more at TPC River Highlands, leaving him two remaining starts to get the last 77. Sucher alternated between stellar play (five-shot lead halfway through the third round) and disasters (he responded with a bogey and two doubles in a three-hole stretch). The final round brought more of the same: He four-putted the ninth hole for a double bogey before firing a back-nine 30 to finish T2 and zoom from 222nd to 126th in the FedExCup. For more on Sucher’s feel-good story, click here.  5. Paul Casey ‘Travelers’ well. The Englishman played his last six holes in 4 under, highlighted by an eagle 2 at the 15th hole, to shoot 65 and finish T5. Amazingly, it was his fourth top-five Travelers finish since 2015. “Three weeks off for me,â€� Casey said of his plans going forward. “I’ve not played (Open Championship venue Royal) Portrush before, so my focus is now getting ready for that. Go in early, do a (reconnaissance), learn it as quick as I can. And three weeks off really is also to save some energy. I’m not tired, but I’ve got a lot of golf ahead. “I’ll play Memphis (the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational). There is a possibility you’ll see me at Wyndham because of the Wyndham Rewards now, and then the FedExCup.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Reavie led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+1.684). (Of his total strokes gained on the field, 41 percent came on approach shots.) He was 10th in SG: Off-the-Tee (+0.723) and SG: Putting (+1.231), 24th in SG: Around-the-Green (+0.457), and first in SG: Total (+4.095). 2. Vaughn Taylor (65, solo third) picked up his best finish since winning the 2016 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. He played the front nine at TPC River Highlands in even par for the week, the back in 12 under. 3. Three-time Travelers champion Bubba Watson slogged through the weekend in 73-71 to finish T54, while U.S. Open runner-up Brooks Koepka finished T57. 4. It was a good week for International Presidents Cup Team hopefuls Abraham Ancer and Joaquin Niemann. Ancer birdied five of the last eight holes for a final-round 63, tying the week’s low score, and a T8 finish. Niemann posted four rounds in the 60s to finish T5, which ties his best of six top-10 finishes in 36 TOUR starts (2018 A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier). 5. Collin Morikawa (T36) led the quartet of newly minted pros, with Viktor Hovland (T54) not far behind. Matthew Wolf (MDF) and Justin Suh (MC) rounded out the foursome. Hovland and Wolff became the fifth and sixth players since 2009 to advance to the weekend while making their professional debuts at the Travelers. WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is in its first season and adds another layer of excitement to the FedExCup Regular Season. The top 10 players at the end of the FedExCup Regular Season will earn bonus payouts from the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. Matt Kuchar remains No. 1, while Brooks Koepka showed that every point counts, jumping from 3rd to 2nd with a T57 finish. Meanwhile, Patrick Cantlay (69, T15) also moved up a spot from 7th to 6th, and Chez Reavie (35th to 12th in the FedExCup) is knocking on the door.

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SANDWICH, England – Adam Scott walked off from a practice round late Tuesday evening at Royal St. George’s with a satisfied grin. “She’s way fairer than she used to be,” the Aussie beamed. She – in this case – was Royal St. George’s. The Open Championship course Scott battled away on in 2003 and 2011 brings a unique challenge. Call them mounds, moguls, humps or bumps – whatever you prefer. But they litter the fairways on this links course and can send a good shot into a not so good place. It is one of the reasons why Scott’s idol Greg Norman’s then-record final round 64 in 1993 was lauded as one of the greatest in major history. Norman was the first Open champion with four rounds in the 60s (four others have since joined him) and his 267 was the lowest winning total in Open history (Henrik Stenson’ 264 and final round 63 from 2016 are now records). Gene Sarazen, who was 91 when he witnessed Norman’s round, called it, “the greatest championship in all my 70 years in golf.” Sarazen is one of five men to complete the career Grand Slam. Trawl through old interviews and you can find a plethora of players referencing the luck needed at Royal St. George’s. It helps one better understand why long-shots Ben Curtis (2003) and Darren Clarke (2011) triumphed here. “This course certainly puts a demand on trying to get the right bounce, that’s for sure. These fairways are very difficult to try and hit, especially with all the mounding in them. And anytime the wind blows it makes it even more difficult,” Tiger Woods said pre-2003. While it has hosted the fourth-most Opens, and most in England, Royal St. George’s has rarely been called anyone’s favorite, most likely because – as Justin Rose put it in 2011 – it’s “almost like playing on the surface of the moon.” Scotland’s Sandy Lyle, winner of the 1985 Open, put Royal St. George’s in a class with Carnoustie and Royal Birkdale as “the beasts” of the Open rota. A combined seven players have finished under par in the past two Opens at St. George’s. “There are no adjoining fairways like a lot of links courses,” Lyle told ESPN. “You get deeper and deeper into the rubbish. You have to be very accurate in places and it’s not a very friendly course if it is breezy.” And Norman himself prior to his domination in 1993 said, “I’d swear the Royal Air Force used a couple of the fairways for bombing runs.” But in 2021, Scott is among many who believe the disproportionate bad luck of the past should be tempered this time around. One such fan is 2014 champion Rory McIlroy who was not a happy chap coming off with a T25 in 2011, but after early reconnaissance work this week he felt differently. “I walked away from the golf course on Saturday and Sunday thinking, this is a much better golf course than I remember it being, and I think that’s just because of the way it’s playing right now,” said McIlroy, a two-time FedExCup champion. “It’s certainly not as penal or unfair as it has been in previous years. 2011, it was a little bit like that, but looking back to ’03, for example, it looked really burnt and crispy then, and it looked like a bit of a pinball machine out there. But that’s not going to be the case this week. It’s a lot more lush. It’s a lot more green. “I think it’s perfect, and as the days go on with a little bit of wind and sunshine, by the weekend it should just be absolutely perfect. It should be playing the way it should play.” Home country hero Lee Westwood believes officials will look to keep the fairways in check to further avoid the bad luck bounce. The veteran faces his 88th major start and should he not win, he will own the longest streak without a victory. “The fairways are softer than they were last time. I spoke to Martin Slumbers on Monday evening, and he said they’re probably going to water some of the fairways to stop that happening, as well,” Westwood revealed. “You can’t have really bouncy fairways carrying it off into rough that’s this high that you’re hacking out of, undulating fairways. “This course was laid down with the fairways like that and undulating, designed to go into the rough where you’d have a shot but it would be a flying lie and you’d have to judge that. It wasn’t designed to land in the fairways and go into rough where you’re hacking out with lob wedge. I think they’re probably trying to get more into that.” Marc Leishman is facing his first Open Championship on the course. He has three top-6 finishes previously in this major and is regarded by some as a links golf specialist. The six-time TOUR winner says it’s not the bad bounces that will matter – it’s your response to them. “That’s the beauty of links golf sometimes,” Leishman said. “You know you’ll get the odd quirky bounce here and there and it might be frustrating but you have to be able to let it go and move on. “I try to see each shot I’m asked to play as an opportunity to use my creativity or golf brain so to speak. When you embrace the different questions links golf asks you and be prepared to accept there might be a few answers that would not normally be the case, then good things can happen.” Good things won’t happen to those players who spray the ball wide off the tee though. The thick luscious rough Westwood referenced awaits – the type where escaping can feel near impossible. Woods lost his first ball in pro golf on his first tee shot in 2003. Jerry Kelly made an 11 on the same hole without losing a ball. So while there may be less carnage, there will still be enough to satisfy those who enjoy watching that sort of thing.

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