Inside Sucher’s career-changing finish at the Travelers Championship

HAMILTON, Bermuda – Afternoon sun was starting to pop out from beneath a thick blanket of clouds Wednesday afternoon, a welcomed sight after overnight rain and heavy morning wind had brought the Butterfield Bermuda Open to a halt. With the pro-am canceled and Port Royal Golf Course closed, it had been standing room only most of the morning at The Duchess café, inside the Fairmont Hamilton Princess lobby. But now, “Bermy,” as the natives love to call their home, was starting to get its shine back, comfortable warmth enveloped the island, and the buses and ferries were running to Port Royal. The course was still closed for maintenance, but the range and putting green were opened and so the lobby was bustling with players, caddies, and golf bags, everyone seemingly in pursuit of transportation. Yet a glance over the left shoulder offered a glimpse of the most veteran of all the competitors in this week’s field. Brian Gay had a range session on his mind and a golf bag over his left shoulder, but why? The man who this week will be teeing it up in his 629th PGA TOUR tournament and whose 50th birthday will be in about six weeks smiled. “Because I haven’t hit a ball since Saturday,” he said. “That’s the longest time I’ve gone without hitting a ball before a tournament. It’s not normal for me.” Understood, and with that, Gay hustled to get a bus. But the thought occurs that here in Bermuda, Gay has mastered the art of “not normal” and harken back to a year ago for definitive proof. It’s rare for 48-year-olds to win on the PGA TOUR, especially those who are relatively short of today’s supreme power, and most definitely those who have missed the cut in nine of their previous 11 starts over a period of five months. Ah, but when Gay stuffed an approach to the 72nd hole and tapped in for birdie to force a playoff, then made a 10-foot birdie putt on that same hole a few minutes later to beat Wyndham Clark, arguably one of the PGA TOUR’s most unheralded success stories had registered his fifth career win, albeit for a variety of reasons that were “not normal.” “This is absolutely insane,” Gay told The Golf Channel that Sunday after his 7-under 64 in the final round included birdies on six of his last 10 holes. “I’ve been playing awful, and it’s been a struggle.” Indeed, Gay had missed the cut in his first two starts to the 2020-21 season. He had missed the cut in seven of nine starts to end the 2019-20 campaign. No one could have blamed him if he surrendered to the background and waited for that first tee time on the PGA TOUR Champions, except that like just about anyone who has fallen in love with Bermuda, Gay feels rejuvenated down here. “I don’t mind the wind and Bermuda grass is something I grew up on,” said Gay. “And (Port Royal), it’s not a bomber’s course; you don’t necessarily have to hit it far and there are plenty of birdie opportunities.” He had finished third in the debut of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in 2019, so the comfort factor was there. As for his assessment of what’s ahead when he plays Port Royal, give Gay high marks. It rewards his precision, doesn’t penalize his “shortness,” and ample scoring opportunities are there. Consider: Gay has made two eagles and 44 birdies in two starts here, good for 33 under and a 66.9 scoring average. Head coach Buddy Alexander called Gay a “quiet leader” back in 1993 when the University of Florida won the NCAA Championship, and that label can be applied all these many years later. Twenty-two uninterrupted years on TOUR speaks volumes for his consistency. Only once has he played fewer than 20 tournaments in a year, 11 times he has played in more than 30, and while a long line of bigger, stronger, and more talented players have exploded on the scene, Gay has carved out a splendid career. Quietly, of course.

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A lot of Canadians have won on the PGA TOUR, but how many have done it more than once? Only six, as it turns out, led by Mike Weir and George Knudson with eight apiece. The latest multiple winner from Canada: Nick Taylor (70, 19 under), who twice holed out from off the green to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in wire-to-wire fashion over Kevin Streelman (68). It was the second TOUR win for Taylor and the first since the 2014 Sanderson Farms Championship. He held off five-time AT&T Pebble Beach champion Phil Mickelson in stiff winds that sent scores soaring to a 74.426 stroke average, and shot up to 13th in the FedExCup. Not bad for a guy who has been scrambling just to keep his TOUR card the last few years. Welcome to the Monday Finish. THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS 1. The hole-out at the sixth. Mickelson was on the green in two at the uphill par-5, while Taylor was in a greenside bunker. Advantage, Lefty? Nope. From just over 47 feet away, Taylor splashed out and watched his ball roll into the cup for eagle, and when Mickelson couldn’t convert from long range for his own eagle, Taylor had extended his lead from one to two. “I mean, Nick played better than I did,� Mickelson said. “That eagle on six, the putts he made on four, five and seven, and he just really played some great golf.� For more on Taylor, click here. 2. Taylor was an iron giant. Pebble Beach has notoriously small greens, and hitting them is imperative. The last five winners of the tournament had ranked in the top 10 in Greens in Regulation, and Taylor (54/72, T3) made it six straight. On the rare occasions when he failed to hit the green, he bounced back strong, typified by his nearly 36-foot chip-in from the rough to birdie the par-4 15th hole. The short-game magic came at an especially good time, what with Taylor having double-bogeyed the previous hole to cut his lead to two. 3. He made the most of his chance when it came. Taylor, who became the tournament’s first international winner since Vijay Singh in 2004, hadn’t exactly been knocking on the door. In nine previous starts this season, he had one top-10 finish. He was the third Canadian option, at best, for the International Presidents Cup Team last year, after Adam Hadwin, who was selected, and Corey Conners, who was not. And yet Taylor kept at it, undeterred. “I had to battle for my card the last few years,� he said after celebrating with his wife, Andie, and 3-month-old son, Charlie. “I think some of those rounds to keep my card helped me today for sure.�   OBSERVATIONS  Mickelson’s silver lining was for real. Whether it was the fatigue of playing overseas the week before, the swirling winds that made club-selection a guessing game, or something else, Phil Mickelson (74) just didn’t have it in the final round. “I got outplayed,� he said. Specifically, he suffered a rare short-game lapse and double-bogeyed the par-4 eighth hole, and played his last 12 holes in 5 over. And yet there was so much to be excited about. For one thing, this was his first top-10 finish on TOUR since he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last season. And it marked the 30th consecutive season he’s had at least one top-10 finish, making him one of just three players to have reached that number, along with Sam Snead (34) and Raymond Floyd (32). Although he admitted to struggling with the conditions, Mickelson was delighted just to be in the hunt again. “It was fun to get back in it,� he said. “And these last couple of weeks have really given me a lot of motivation and momentum to continue doing what I’ve been doing.� Spieth suddenly has momentum. It wasn’t just Taylor and Mickelson; plenty of other players were also trending in the right direction at Pebble Beach. Jason Day (75, solo fourth) registered his fourth straight top-five finish, Daniel Berger (69, T5) continued to bounce back from injury, and Maverick McNealy (66-68 weekend) went from T89 at the halfway point to a T5 finish. Also, Charl Schwartzel (T5) earned 96 FedExCup points and went a long way toward fulfilling the terms of his Major Medical Extension. Then there was 2015 FedExCup champion Jordan Spieth, who in shooting the day’s best score (67) went from T55 to T9. “This is what I’ve been seeing,� said Spieth, who shot just three final-round scores in the 60s last season. “It’s just today I finally had a lot of good numbers. I’ve just felt like the last few days I’ve been in between clubs a lot, and hard to commit, and then today it was just one of those days where it hit me kind of where I could commit to a lot of full shots.� His next start: this week’s Genesis Invitational.   QUOTEBOARD “I had to battle for my card the last few years.� – Nick Taylor, whose AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am win gives him a two-year exemption on TOUR. “I had a lot of looks on the front nine; almost every hole.� – Jordan Spieth (67, T9) after shooting his first final-round score in the 60s this season. “We just ham-and-egged it perfectly.� – Kevin Streelman (68, solo second), who won the pro-am portion with Larry Fitzgerald for the second time.  WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is a season-long competition that offers a $10 million bonus for the 10 golfers who end the regular season at the Wyndham Championship inside the top 10 in FedExCup points. The player atop the standings will earn $2 million, with varying payoffs for the others through $500,000 for the 10th place finisher. Justin Thomas remains in the lead after the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; Webb Simpson is still in second. Kevin Na finished T14 at Pebble to move from 13th to 10th, while Nick Taylor remains just outside the Top 10, going from 79th to 13th after his victory. Here’s how the standings look heading into this week’s Genesis Invitational. SOCIAL SNAPSHOT

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