Inside the Field: Farmers Insurance Open

Grit. Determination. And just a flat-out will to win. That is what Abraham Ancer has displayed for a few seasons on the PGA TOUR, but it was not until Sunday afternoon in Memphis that the diminutive, yet feisty, Ancer was able to find his way to a trophy. And what a trophy. Ancer became the first Latin American to win a World Golf Championships event and just the fourth Mexican player to win on the PGA TOUR when he outlasted Hideki Matsuyama and Sam Burns in a playoff. It was a wild and wacky afternoon at TPC Southwind where all three didn’t appeared to be destined for victory until some fade-outs elsewhere catapulted them into the mix. Meanwhile back in California, South African Erik van Rooyen was also claiming his first PGA TOUR win and a breakthrough weekend. Here are five stories you may have missed from the World Golf Championships–FedEx St. Jude Invitational and the Barracuda Championship. 1. Patience was the key for Ancer’s breakthrough When you’re known as one of the best, if not the best player on the PGA TOUR without a win, it can get frustrating as each near miss piles up. But rather than look at the four runner-ups and countless top-10s as any sort of negative, the now 30-year-old kept his head down and persevered with the positive self-talk. Ancer knew he was good enough to win – he’d proven it with a brilliant final round at the 2018 Australian Open. And then his performance at the 2019 Presidents Cup was downright impressive as his only loss came to a vintage display from Tiger Woods. So he kept his head down and forged ahead. On Sunday when he sat five shots back as he started the back nine, Ancer figured it might be another near miss, but he stayed focused and when he picked off a birdie on the 13th, he was suddenly just two back. Shortly after he was tied for the lead. “I didn’t want to think of like, oh, my God, I’m so due,” Ancer said. “I didn’t want to put extra pressure. I’ve done enough in other events to win, and it just didn’t go my way, so I just stayed patient, I didn’t change anything.” He calmly plotted his way into the clubhouse to join the lead of those finished and then when his opportunity came on the second playoff hole he took dead aim and stuck his approach close. Before he could think about finally winning, Sam Burns hit one even closer. But under the pressure, Ancer made his putt while Burns saw his ball cruelly lip out. It was finally Ancer’s time. Get a great rundown on the win here. 2. English collapse sees third win slip away Harris English appeared set to be the first three-time winner this season when he surged to 20-under at the turn on Sunday in Memphis. With eight holes to play, he was three shots clear of his nearest rival in playing partner Bryson DeChambeau and seemingly in control. But the group had been on the clock since early in the round and the quickened tempo started to find a few cracks in his game, particularly as the gusts picked up around TPC Southwind. DeChambeau’s game was also unravelling, making it tough for the group to get any sort of momentum down the home stretch. English doubled Nos. 11 and 14, the two par 3s on the back nine, to fall back into a logjam of contenders before a soft bogey on the par-5 16th had him behind. The Sea Island resident showed great poise to hit a close approach into the 18th to give himself a chance for a spot in the playoff but couldn’t get the putt to drop. Read more here. He wasn’t the only player to falter though. DeChambeau was 6 over on the back nine and Cameron Smith was 3 over in his last four holes including a double bogey on the last when par would’ve ensured a place in the playoff. The Australian’s drive found the trees and he decided to take the risky choice of going for the win rather than punching out to safety. His bold thinking backfired this time around when his second shot hit a branch and rebounded out of bounds. 3. Van Rooyen catapults himself into FedExCup Playoffs Erik van Rooyen was 139th in the FedExCup standings when he headed to Tahoe knowing it would take something special to prolong his PGA TOUR season. The South African delivered with victory in the Barracuda Championship, scoring an impressive 16 points in the final round of the modified stableford format. His five-point victory was finished with an exclamation point birdie on the last and sees him move to 78th in the season long standings with just a week of the regular season left before the top 125 do battle in the FedExCup Playoffs. “It’s massive. It’s massive,” van Rooyen said. “It’s been a difficult sort of 18 months for me golf-wise. I haven’t been playing well. There’s been glimpses of it the last six months. But I haven’t been able to put four good rounds together. So I was well aware of the position I was in going into the Playoffs, knowing that I’ve only got eight rounds left to make that cut. “And to win here this week, I mean, under the conditions, you know, the pressure that I was under, I’m going to take so much confidence from this.” 4. The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season schedule dropped – with a few surprises As we head into the closing stretch of this season, the upcoming 2021-22 season was released with a focus on the Strategic Alliance with the European Tour. The Genesis Scottish Open, Barbasol Championship and Barracuda Championship will now be included in both the FedExCup and Race to Dubai, while the Irish Open will see a significant increase in prize money. The PGA TOUR’s schedule of 48 events also includes the move of the first FedExCup Playoffs event to TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, sponsored by FedEx. “Since the inception of the FedExCup in 2007, we have made a number of changes to enhance the quality of the FedExCup Playoffs for our players, fans and partners,” said PGA TOUR commissioner Jay Monahan. “Thanks to the continued support from FedEx as the TOUR’s umbrella partner, we’re proud to bring the start of the FedExCup to Memphis and a course loved by our players. Not only will it be a great test worthy of Playoff golf, but we also anticipate tremendous enthusiasm from a community that has steadfastly supported the PGA TOUR for more than 60 years. And, of course, the important work of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital will continue to be front and center. “In totality, the 2021-22 PGA TOUR Schedule, combined with the momentum we have with our now-entrenched partnership with the European Tour, puts the PGA TOUR in a position of strength within professional golf like never before. We’re confident this schedule will give the world’s best players the opportunity to do what they do best – inspire and entertain our fans around the globe while helping our tournaments make a significant impact in their respective communities.” Read more and see the full schedule here. 5. Wolff on track to win Aon Risk Reward Challenge Matthew Wolff is almost a lock to win Aon Risk Reward Challenge, a season-long competition on the PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour that tests players on the most challenging holes. First place pays $1 million. “It’d be hard for me to lose, but not impossible,” he at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, where he shot a final-round 67 to finish 7 under in a tie for 17th. With two birdies at the par-5 16th at TPC Southwind – the competition takes a player’s best two scores of the week on a designated hole – Wolff protected his big lead over Louis Oosthuizen and Joaquin Niemann. Now he heads to this week’s Wyndham Championship, which he added to his schedule partly to meet the competition’s minimum number of starts. He also just likes the event and has since Wyndham tournament director Mark Brazil extended him a sponsor exemption in 2019. (Wolff didn’t end up needing it after winning the 3M Open.) “I feel like Mark Brazil and everyone has been really nice, and I haven’t played too many this year, so I felt like I wanted to play it and see everyone again,” Wolff said. Not only that, but by playing the Wyndham, which will use the par-5 15th as the Aon Risk Reward hole, he will ensure he is eligible for the seven-figure bonus. “The Aon is a nice little bonus reason to go because I need that minimum,” he said. “It’s really cool what Aon is doing; it’s a game inside of a game, which is pretty cool to me.” For Oosthuizen to unseat Wolff he will need two birdies on the designated hole at Wyndham and Wolff would have to bogey the same hole on two occasions. – PGATOUR.COM’s Cameron Morfit contributed COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup regular season. The competition concludes this week at the Wyndham Championship and the top 10 FedExCup points leaders will be recognized and awarded as the most elite in golf. Week after week, shot after shot, each event matters more than ever before. Who will finish in the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10?

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PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – One of the wildest pars Phil Mickelson ever made didn’t even count. Neither did one of the worst lies Jordan Spieth ever had. Fifty minutes into the start of the Genesis Open, with only 30 players having teed off, the opening round was scrapped because of increasing rain that soaked Riviera and poor visibility that made it unusually tough on the earliest of starters. Everyone started over after what amounted to a seven-hour delay, and Spieth made the most of his second chance. He chipped in twice for birdie, made birdie on all three par 5s and was at 5 under par through 12 holes. He was tied for the lead with Sung Kang, who was through 14 holes. Tiger Woods never made it to the course. He was to play in the afternoon and faces a long day of as many holes as he can get in Friday in what now becomes a long, disjointed week trying to catch up. “Certainly got some good breaks,” Spieth said. None was bigger than the decision to restart the round. Spieth hit his tee shot on the short par-4 10th to the left, normally a good place to be except that his ball hit the cart path, hit it again, bounded across the forward tee at No. 11 and disappeared into shin-high grass so deep he could barely see his ball. If he could have played from there, par would have been a challenge. And then the horn blew to suspend play because of wet conditions, and a few hours later, the PGA TOUR thought it was best to scrap the round. It was the first time in more than five years on the PGA TOUR that a round started over. The was great news to Spieth, who hit his tee shot left of the green near a tree, pitched to 15 feet and walked away with par “Given I went cart path to cart path to junk on the first start today … went from kind of being unfortunate to just fortunate,” he said. He was playing alongside Mickelson, who hit his first tee shot on No. 10 into a bunker, a bad spot in any weather. Mickelson apparently could see just fine, so while Spieth and Xander Schauffele marked their balls, Mickelson chose to finish the hole. He went over the green into a back bunker, the ball slightly plugged in wet sand. Unable to control the spin, he blasted out to the green and watched it roll into a front bunker. With his fourth shot, the ball appeared to be going fast enough to return to the back bunker, instead the hole got in the way. It disappeared for a par, and Mickelson walked back to his caddie with a smile and said, “How about we go in now?” When he returned, Mickelson hit a beautiful flop shot from long and left of the green to 18 feet, and his birdie attempt turned away at the cup. He tapped in for another par, this one far less entertaining. “Same score,” Mickelson said as he walked off the green. “Whatever.” Spieth reached the edge of the green on the par-5 11th and took two putts for birdie. From right of the green at No. 12, the toughest hole at Riviera, he hit a lofted chip that rolled dead into the cup for another birdie. Spieth picked up two more birdies on the par-5 11th and par-5 first hole, and then when he came up short of the green at No. 2, another cheer rang out on the hill as he chipped in again. Kang chipped in for eagle on the 11th hole and kept it in play on the tough par 4s. Jimmy Walker (10 holes) and Patrick Rodgers (13 holes) were at 4 under. Mickelson, coming off a birdie Monday in his victory at Pebble Beach, had yet to make a birdie and was 1 over through 12 holes. Rain was one problem. The PGA TOUR was equally concerned about visibility. The starting time at Riviera was at 6:40 a.m. because it has a 144-man field and limited daylight this time of the year. But with thick clouds that brought the rain, it made the sky even darker and players had trouble even seeing their shots. “We don’t do that very often,” said Mark Russell, the TOUR’s Vice President of Rules and Competition. “But if I had it do over again, we would have delayed the starting times.” Scores last were reset in 2013 at the Dell Technologies Championship outside Boston after an hour of play because of heavy rain, and the same year at Kapalua because of wind so strong that balls wouldn’t stay on the greens.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — Tony Finau ended more than five years and 142 tournaments without winning with a dynamic charge on the back nine and big miss from Cameron Smith to capture the rain-delayed THE NORTHERN TRUST in a playoff Monday. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Updated FedExCup standings Finau was three shots out of the lead when he ran off a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch at Liberty National, the last one a 30-foot putt across the 14th green. He closed with a 6-under 65. Smith had a rally of his own with two late birdies, missing a 25-foot birdie chance on the 18th in regulation that would have won it. He closed with a 67. That was as close as the Australian came to winning. With the win, Finau moved to No. 1 in the FedExCup standings. On the 18th in the playoff, Smith hit such a wild drive that it sailed over the retaining wall that separates Liberty National from the edge of the Hudson River. Finau had already pounded his drive down the middle of the fairway, and the playoff at that point was effectively over. That’s just what Finau needed — no drama, and more importantly, a victory. Since winning the Puerto Rico Open in the spring of 2016, Finau had eight runner-up finishes, three of those in a playoff, and 11 finishes in the top three. Now, one of the most likeable players in golf goes to the top of the FedExCup standings and No. 8 in the Ryder Cup standings with one week left to be among six automatic qualifiers. He was the guy who did everything right but win, and now that burden was lifted. Finau, who had to save par from the bunker with a 6-foot putt on the 18th in regulation to finish at 20-under 264, only had to two-putt for par in the playoff. He lifted his head to the sky and fluttered his lips in sheer relief. “It took just about everything I had,” he said. And it took some help from Smith, who two weeks ago lost a chance to win a World Golf Championships with a wild drive on the 18th. Jon Rahm contributed, too. Rahm looked to be in control all afternoon, even as Finau began his big run. The world’s No. 1 player was bogey-free, made birdie on all three of the par 5s and threw a wedge into 3 feet for another birdie. It came undone quickly, though. Rahm’s tee shot found the bunker on the 15th and he missed a 6-foot par putt. On the reachable par-4 16th, he caught all ball with a pitch that sailed 30 feet by the pin and cost him an easy birdie. He didn’t get another look at birdie over the final two holes, saving par from a bunker on the 17th and having to lay up from a fairway bunker on the 18th, where he closed with a bogey and a 69 to finish alone in third. “I haven’t been able to digest it,” Rahm said after his round. “My son put a smile on my face so at least I’m not in a terrible mood.” There were other big winners Monday, starting with Keith Mitchell. He was at No. 101 in the FedExCup, and only the top 70 advance to the BMW Championship. Mitchell needed a big finish and delivered with three straight birdies for a 69 to tie for eighth at 13-under 271. “We thought 13 (under) was good,” Mitchell said. “When I had that putt on 18, I had to make it in my mind. Fortunately, I hit a great putt.” Tom Hoge started at No. 108 and tied for fourth to advance. That was his best finish of the year, and it came at just the right time with points counting quadruple. Also moving on to the BMW Championship later this week were Alex Noren, Erik van Rooyen, Harold Varner III and Harry Higgs. Van Rooyen was in contention on the front nine until he hit two shots in the water on the par-3 11th and made a quadruple-bogey 7. Finau all along had 20 under as his target, and caddie Mark Urbanek told him at the turn to deliver his best back nine of the year. He shot 30, and that turned out to be enough. The final round was postponed on Sunday as Hurricane Henri approached, and the edges of what became a tropical storm at landfall dumped more than 6 inches of rain on Liberty National. There was another four-hour delay in the morning and spectators were kept away. They missed quite a show, and a popular winner.

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