Inbee Park clinches 21st career victory at the Kia Classic, on the eve of the year's first major

NAPA, Calif. – Notes and observations from Sunday’s wild and windy final round of the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort & Spa.  LEADING LIGHTS TWAY GETS 1ST WIN. Kevin Tway warmed up with his hat on backward. “It was blowing about 40,� he said of the blustery conditions facing the final threesome. He hung tough, though, and made five straight birdies, including three in a sudden-death playoff against Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker, to pick up his first PGA TOUR win at age 30. Tway and his father, eight-time TOUR winner Bob, become the 10th father-son duo to win on TOUR. Snedeker had a four-shot lead at the turn but shot a back-nine 39 to lead to the playoff. How tough were the conditions? Brandon Harkins shot 83, and 13 players hit wind-aided drives of 400-plus yards. Tway, who spoke of his struggles to stay patient, did exactly that. NOTABLES SNEDEKER STUNNED. Brandt Snedeker said he wanted wind, and he got it, but the leader suddenly came down with a left miss and bogeyed three straight holes to start the back nine. He halted the skid with pars on 13-15, seemed to steady himself with a birdie on 16, but bogeyed from the trees on 17 and failed to birdie 18 to fall into the three-man playoff. “I’m going to look at that one in a few years and know I gave that one away,� said Snedeker, who had a three-shot lead as he made the turn but lost it all. The problem: he kept pulling his irons left. “It’s an old tendency when the pressure seems to get on,� he said.  MICKELSON ENTERTAINS. Phil Mickelson never stopped fighting, delivering three closing birdies for a memorable even-par 72 in the difficult conditions. Playing for the eighth time in 10 weeks, a mistake he said he won’t be repeating, Mickelson made five birdies to make up for a triple-bogey 8 at the 5th hole, an adventure that included two penalty shots, and hitting just 5/14 fairways. He finished T17. “Actually, I played pretty good,� he said. “I hit two balls out of bounds on that 5th hole trying to go for the green, and other than that I played pretty well.�     COUPLES STRUGGLES. It was a week in which he turned 59 and made his 500th cut on the PGA TOUR, but sponsor’s exemption Fred Couples struggled in the heavy wind with a final-round 75 to fall down the leaderboard. The bright side: After making bogeys on five of the first six holes, Couples stabilized with three birdies and just one more birdie the rest of the way. He finished T41. “For a while I didn’t think we were going to play,� Couples said of the strong winds. “And then we played and I didn’t really play.� Still, he said the week was so much fun he’s ready to come back again, perhaps as early as next year, if he’s healthy. It was a change of tune for a player who came into the week saying this would be his last non-major TOUR start. OBSERVATIONS MOORE SURPRISED. When he finished his round with a 9-foot birdie some 40 minutes in front of the final threesome, Ryan Moore thought he’d shot a nice final round for a nice top-10 finish. He was surprised to slip into a playoff, though, after third-round leader Brandt Snedeker faltered with a back-nine 39. “I was proud of how I played, hitting good shots in the moment,� said Moore, who birdied the first two playoff holes (both at the par-5 18th) before Tway ended it with a birdie at the third one, at the par-4 10th. “And honestly,� Moore continued, “even the putt on 18 the second go-round, a foot more pace and that was probably going to go in (for eagle).� STEELE FLAT IN ‘3-PEAT’ BID. Brendan Steele was trying to become the first player since Steve Stricker at the John Deere Classic (2009-’11) to win the same TOUR event three years in a row. It seemed possible, given Steele’s obvious affinity for Silverado, but while his week started well with an opening-round 67, he stalled (71-72-75) and never contended after that.  BADDELEY MAKES MOST OF START. Aaron Baddeley shot a final-round 69 to get to 13-under and finished a shot out of the playoff, in a five-way tie for fourth place. Not a bad result, considering he wasn’t even in the tournament until he Monday-qualified for it. The top-10 finish will get him an exemption into the Sanderson Farms Championship, Oct. 25-28. “My game’s been feeling good for a while,� said Baddeley, who reunited with caddie Pete Bender for the week in Napa. “I really felt like this was on the way, so I’ve been really working hard.� QUOTABLES I’d love to come back.It was a nice (way) to start or end the year, however you look at it.Got to find a way to win those. SUPERLATIVES Low round: 67 by Luke List and Ryan Moore. Longest drive: 428 yards (Patrick Rodgers/No. 13) Longest putt: 64’ 1� (Adam Svensson/No. 6) Toughest hole: The 150-yard, par-3 15th played to a 3.392 average. Easiest hole: The 564-yard, par-5 16th played to a 4.284 average. CALL OF THE DAY For play-by-play coverage of the PGA TOUR, listen at PGATOUR.COM. SHOT OF THE DAY

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AUSTIN, Texas – This time Tiger Woods is just happy to be here. That doesn’t mean the three-time World Golf Championship – Dell Technologies Match Play champion isn’t hoping to make it a fourth win in the man on man showdown – he’s just cognizant of the progress he’s made to be back for the first time since 2013. In that time Woods’ has had four back surgeries. He also recently dealt with a neck complaint. But he’s also successfully returned to the winner’s circle at the 2018 TOUR Championship. It is that victory, and the schedule he endured, that gives the 43-year-old confidence he could get through seven rounds in five days to win. “Hopefully I can play well enough to get to that point to where I’m in the finals,â€� the 80-time PGATOUR winner said on the eve of his first match. “The end of last year gave me a lot of confidence that I played as many events as I did to end the season. I was tired, but my body held up. “My training has been pretty good. My neck has been feeling better, which is nice. And so I have to play well and beat the guy in front of me in order to have that situation where I’m there on Sunday in the finals. There’s a lot of work to be done between now and then.â€� Woods is slated to play against fellow TOUR winners Aaron Wise, Patrick Cantlay and Brandt Snedeker in his group. In his 13 previous appearances in the event it was a single elimination format.  “I’m looking forward to getting introduced to this new format. This will be a little bit different than what I’m used to,â€� Woods added. “I guess you can halve a match and still move on. And so that’s different. I don’t really know the intricacies of it all. I just know that I need to win all three, and I move on. It’s not real complicated. Play well and take care of the guy in front of me. “I’m looking forward to the fact that I just get to focus on one guy. Each and every shot is different, and you don’t really care what the rest of the field is doing. I just have to beat the guy standing in front of me.â€� The first guy up is PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year Wise, a 22-year-old that Woods is actually well aware of given his old college teammate Casey Martin was Wise’s college coach when he was winning an NCAA title in 2016. “I watched him play well when they were in Eugene. And Casey said a lot of good things about him when he was being recruited, as well as when he was in college. Amazing talent,â€� Woods said. “Obviously he won at the Nelson and he has the game to win golf tournaments. I get to go out there and put a lot of pressure on him and hit the ball well and hopefully get the ball in the right spot to make putts.â€�

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In 2017 at the actual World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, Jon Rahm came oh-so-close to winning it all at Austin Country Club. This week, in our Mythical Match Play Championship, the Spaniard took the last step, earning the fictious title in voting that included experts and fans. No. 2 seed Rahm beat top overall seed Rory McIlroy in a final separated by one vote. Although McIroy was the overwhelming favorite of our readers with 81 percent of the votes, Rahm grabbed 6 of the 10 expert votes for the final tally of 6 votes to 5. Xander Schauffele beat Sungjae Im in the third-place match. Of course, none of this is official. Our Mythical event is the just-for-fun exercise we’re conducting this week in lieu of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, which was among the canceled events by the PGA TOUR in response to the coronavirus pandemic. After the TOUR conducted a draw to produce a bracket, our 10 experts began voting. We released the Round 1 results on Wednesday (click here), the Round 2 results on Thursday (click here) and the Round 3 results on Friday (click here) that determined the 16 also used fan voting to break three ties. On Saturday, we conducted voting for the Round of 16 and quarterfinals, again involving our fans to break three tiebreakers (click here). We asked our fans on the tournament’s Twitter feed to become the 11th vote for our two semifinal matches Sunday morning, and the fans cast the deciding vote by choosing McIlroy over Schauffele. Rahm handily beat Im. No surprise that McIlroy and Rahm reached the finals, as they were the top two seeds entering the tournament. Had this been the real thing, it would’ve been the first time the top two seeds had ever met in the final of the Dell Technologies Match Play. Our 10 expert voters include: GolfBet’s Jason Sobel from The Action Network; GolfTV’s Jamie Kennedy; Tom Alter and Jim McCabe from PGA TOUR Communications; Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton; PGATOUR.COM writers Ben Everill, Sean Martin, Mike McAllister and Cameron Morfit; and a combined vote from the TOUR’s ShotLink team. The results of the final and semifinal matches are below (player seed in parentheses). CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL Rory McIlroy (1) vs. Jon Rahm (2): 6 votes for Rahm, 5 votes for McIlroy (including fan vote). RAHM wins the championship. Why I picked Rahm: “What a final. McIlroy has become a clear World No. 1 but Rahm is on the ascent and his short game and putting carry him through the final against Rory.� – Jamie Kennedy Why I picked Rahm: “So tough to choose between the top two players in the world. Their records at Austin CC are nearly identical (Rory’s 8-5-2 in four years; Rahm is 7-4-2 in last three years). My gut feeling is that Rahm, chasing his first World Golf Championships title, will draw upon his championship match loss to Dustin Johnson in 2017 and figure out how to get the job done this time.� – Mike McAllister Why I picked Rahm: “I had the exact opposite final slated and would have gone with Rahm in the consolation match, so I’ll stick with him here to win it all. Rory would be leaving just a touch in the tank for April and it would be the slim margin Rahm would take.� – Ben Everill Why I picked Rahm: “Remarkable consistency for months.� – Jim McCabe Why we voted for McIlroy: “Both players are powerhouses from Tee-to-Green. We’re going to give the edge to McIlroy, who leads the TOUR in Scrambling this season, salvaging par 70.4% of the time compared to Rahm, who ranks 37th at 64%.� – ShotLink team Why I voted for McIlroy: “McIlroy has won this thing before, albeit at TPC Harding Park, and was annoyed by (and will find motivation in) his loss to Tiger Woods in round of 16 last year.� – Cameron Morfit Fan vote: McIlroy 81%, Rahm 19%. THIRD-PLACE MATCH Xander Schauffele (12) vs. Sungjae Im (23): 8 votes for Schauffele, 2 votes for Im. SCHAUFFELE wins. SEMIFINALS McIlroy vs. Schauffele: 6 votes for McIlroy (including fan vote), 5 votes for Schauffele. McILROY wins. Why we picked McIlroy: “Both players rank inside the top-10 in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, so it may come to a putting contest. McIlroy ranks fifth in putting from 15-25 feet this season, making 27% from this distance compared to Schauffele, who is 159th, making 14%.� – ShotLink team Fan vote: McIlroy 79%, Schauffele 21% Rahm vs. Im: 7 votes for Rahm (including fan vote), 4 votes for Im. RAHM wins. Why I picked Rahm: “In a much-anticipated meeting (and hopeful precursor of more to follow), Im finally is upended, but the Match Play debutant has nothing about which to be ashamed as Rahm clinches his 12th podium finish worldwide in the last 11 months.� – Rob Bolton Fan vote: Rahm 67%, Im 33%

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