Jason Kokrak rallies to win Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open

Leishman cruising at BMW Championship

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Welcome to Numbers to Know, where we’ll take a look a closer look at Justin Thomas’ victory in the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. This was Thomas’ 13th career victory and second World Golf Championships title. 1. BETTER BY THE DOZEN: Twelve of Thomas’ 13 wins have come in the past four seasons. No one else is close to him in that span. 2. COMEBACK TRAIL: Thomas started the final round in fifth place, four shots behind 54-hole leader Brendon Todd. Thomas shot 65 on Sunday, the second-lowest round of the day, to win by three shots. It was the biggest comeback of his career. He’s held the 54-hole lead in eight of his wins, and this was just the second time he’s won when trailing by more than two shots entering the final round. The four-shot deficit he overcame Sunday matched the largest of his career. He started the final round in fifth place, his lowest leaderboard position entering the final round of any of his wins. “It was a hard-fought day, but it meant a lot … how we did it, being four behind to start the day,” Thomas said. “I haven’t exactly played well coming from behind in the past and I feel like I learned a lot from that.” 3. HAT TRICK: This was Thomas’ third win of the season. He’s now collected three or more wins in three of the past four seasons (2017, 2018, 2020). Since 1983, only Tiger Woods has had more seasons with three-plus wins before turning 28. Thomas’ three seasons of three-plus wins also are the fourth-most since 1990. The only players with more? Woods (13), Phil Mickelson (5) and Vijay Singh (4). And Thomas is only 27 years old, with plenty of time to add more. 4. SOLID APPROACH: Brooks Koepka may have fallen short Sunday, but he showed promising signs as he goes for the three-peat at the PGA Championship. Koepka led the St. Jude field in greens hit and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. This was the third time in Koepka’s career that he led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. The other two times were majors. This was Koepka’ best performance in Strokes Gained: Approach since his win in last year’s PGA Championship. 5. ON A ROLL: Matthew Fitzpatrick and Bryson DeChambeau finished 1-2 in Strokes Gained: Putting, which should be no surprise. They’ve been among the TOUR’s top putters since the season resumed. Fitzpatrick finished sixth at TPC Southwind, his second consecutive top-10. He’s finished T32 or better in five of his last six starts. He’s also finished in the top five in Strokes Gained: Putting four times since the season resumed. DeChambeau, on the other hand, finished T30 at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude. This came on the heels of a missed cut at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, which ended his streak of seven consecutive top-10s.

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For the golfer who wants his resume to be the envy of his fellow professionals, there are certain venues that capture attention. Obviously wins at Augusta National come not only with a Green Jacket but yards of cache. Really, wins at any major, of which Mark O’Meara has a pair including one at the Masters, look good on a resume. But what about other venues? Where does it really matter if a guy has won outside of the four majors? Surely, TPC Sawgrass is on the short list. And so is Pebble Beach, home of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA TOUR and the PURE Insurance Championship on PGA TOUR Champions, otherwise known as O’Meara’s personal playground. O’Meara, 65, won an event at Pebble Beach in each of three decades beginning with the 1979 California State Amateur. He won the PGA TOUR event played at Pebble five times, including the last time it was called the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and four times after AT&T became the title sponsor. “Sometimes you hear people say O’Meara won 16 times but five were at Pebble Beach,” O’Meara said Wednesday. “Well, with all due respect to the great venues out there, where would you rather win five? Unless you win a major or The Players Championship, Pebble is probably next on the hit list.” Phil Mickelson joined O’Meara in 2019 as a five-time winner at Pebble. O’Meara said he texted Lefty in the aftermath and said, “Congratulations but I think that’s enough, young man.” O’Meara has been hitting Pebble hard since his first trip to the Monterey Peninsula, for the California State Amateur in 1979, when he was a senior at Long Beach State. He was immediately taken by the beauty and mystique of the area. It also didn’t hurt that he won the 36-hole final match 8&7. O’Meara credits that first trip as being a cornerstone of his success at Pebble Beach. Before he had even turned pro, he had good vibes for the place. He also didn’t mind the poa annua greens. They can be very bumpy and tricky to read, but O’Meara grew up in Mission Viejo putting on poa annua. “It was a combination of factors that lead to my success at Pebble,” said O’Meara, who added that he’ll play about a dozen events on PGA TOUR Champions this season, including the PURE Insurance Championship. “First for me to go back there and have all the fond memories of the State Amateur. And a lot of great players won the California State Amateur. I also love to play so much in the natural beauty and growing up on poa annua greens that are very bumpy and knowing you have to be very patient. “You also have to be patient because being in the final group it can take almost six hours to play. You’re playing with amateurs. I love amateurs. My dad was a real people person, a sales guy. I had more fun playing with amateurs than I did my pros. They were an escape for me to not always worry about what was happening with Mark O’Meara on the golf course. It took my mind off what I was doing right or wrong on the course. Instead of just focusing on me, if I could engage with the amateurs it took my mind away. I just used them as a positive, not a distraction. Other guys don’t feel the same way about it. That’s why I had a lot of success at Pebble.” O’Meara won the tournament once with his dad as his amateur partner. He cited that as one of the most cherished memories of his life. The year was 1990. They had first played together in 1986, the year after his first victory at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. And they made the cut. After O’Meara won in 1989, he invited his dad to come play with him one more time. “I gave it to him as a Christmas present,” O’Meara said. “I flew him and mom out and then I won the tournament playing alongside my dad. I put that right at the top of the list of great things, winning at Augusta with a putt on the final hole, winning the U.S. Amateur. But to play with my father and coming up the last hole, the 18th hole at Pebble, you can’t do better than that.”

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