Kuchar leads Sony Open by 2 shots

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – Forget new wave… it’s a tsunami. The U.S. Ryder Cup team, with its six rookies and eight players under 30, have opened up its biggest lead since the oldest member was still over eight years away from being born. RELATED: Day 2 recap | Pairings, preview for Sunday Singles European dominance – they had won four of the last five Ryder Cups coming into the contest – was supposed to be a scar this raw team couldn’t escape. But the young ones don’t have scars … they’re inflicting them. Captain Steve Stricker’s men extended their 6-2 opening day demolition to a 11-5 advantage at Whistling Straits as they chase down the necessary 14.5 points to reclaim the Cup from Europe. They need win only four of the 12 singles matches (three and a tie will suffice) to close the deal. While Spanish pair Sergio Garcia and world No. 1 Jon Rahm continued to show great resistance, and Irish rookie Shane Lowry found some grit Saturday afternoon, the European team was no match for a juggernaut that ran roughshod over them. All 12 of the U.S. team have now won a match and garnered at least one point while elder statesman Dustin Johnson, at 37, is undefeated with a 4-0-0 record. Should he win his Singles match he will join Arnold Palmer (1967), Gardner Dickinson (1967) and Larry Nelson (1979) as the only Americans to go 5-0-0 in Ryder Cup history. After winning the morning Foursomes session 3-1 the U.S. was in control and while for a brief moment in the afternoon Four-ball session Europe was ahead or tied in all four matches, a 2-2 split confirmed the 11-5 score line. Bryson DeChambeau and rookie Scottie Scheffler turned their match against Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland from a deficit to a win late in proceedings – a significant result given that teams trailing 10-6 have come back to win in the past. Europe famously did so in 2012 at Medinah and the U.S. had their own miracle from that position in 1999 at The Country Club in Brookline. The last time it was this lopsided was when Europe led by the same margin on the way to a 18.5-9.5 rout at Oakland Hills in 2004. The last time the U.S. led by six or more points was when they destroyed Great Britain and Ireland 21-11 in 1975 having led 12.5-3.5 heading to Singles. Since continental Europe joined the competition in 1979 no winning team has reached 19 points. Europe’s 2004 score line was matched again in 2006 while the U.S. winning record is the same margin over that period having hit 18.5-9.5 in 1981. This team shows no signs of backing off the gas pedal and might yet make history. In a tense day’s play there were numerous heated moments as players debated rulings, and non-conceded putts while the partisan American crowd was particularly raucous. Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger, sitting in the afternoon, implored them to get louder still. They even joined them and chugged a beer. “They are playing with some freedom. They are having a great time. So it’s good to see,” Stricker said. The confidence spilling out of the young Americans was obvious for all to see. And to be fair, they earned it by playing some incredible golf. “Personally I thought we could have gone 4-0 (in the afternoon). But getting 2-2 and just staying in the same place, the lead that we have created is huge. We haven’t had this good of an opportunity in a long time and hopefully we can get the job done tomorrow,” DeChambeau said. “We have the best players in the world and they have got a lot of the best players in the world too but I would say from the standpoint of average ranking, I think we’re pretty solid and we just have to play our game tomorrow.” DeChambeau is right. While the Europeans have the world No. 1, the U.S team boasts those ranked 2-7, 9-11, 13, 16 and 21. After Rahm at 1, Europe’s next best are Hovland at 14 and Rory McIlroy at 15. McIlroy has gone 0-3-0 this week – a devastating predicament for his side. “Obviously disappointing not to contribute a point for the team yet,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully just go out tomorrow and try my best to get a point, and hopefully we can rally and at last give them something to sweat about tomorrow in the middle of the afternoon.” His fellow teammates were also refusing to throw in the towel. They know they’ll need an historic effort, but 18-hole match play can always throw up left field results. “We’re still not out of it. It’s a long day tomorrow, 12 matches. If any 12 of us were going out against any of them in the match play (tournament), we would fancy our chances. We just have to believe. It’s all about believing,” Lowry said after burying an 11-foot par putt on the 18th hole to win his match. “I read a quote last night and it was – if you’ve got a 1 percent chance, you have to have 100 percent faith. And I just think that we really need to live by that tonight and tomorrow and go out and give it our best.” Rahm, who is undefeated going 3-0-1 (3-0 with Garcia), has been a shining light for his team. But he can only do so much. “From what I hear, the team is playing good. Just putts not dropping in and a couple things here and there that haven’t happened,” Rahm said. “I’d like to believe that things even out. So tomorrow, if we get off to a good start, kind of like what happened in 2012, and things start going our way, you never know. “Golf is a very complicated and ironic and sarcastic game sometimes, and teams can be capable of some great things, like the U.S. has done so far the last two days. It could be our chance, and I know everybody on the team is going to give it their all and give that a run.” Captain Padraig Harrington will need to revive the spirits of 2012 in the team room tonight – with the help of McIlroy, Ian Poulter, Garcia and Lee Westwood who were all part of the side. While Harrington was not there, his vice-captains Luke Donald, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell were. With their hand forced Europe will send its stars out early in a bid to gain some momentum. McIlroy has been given a shot at redemption by leading the order where he will play against Xander Schauffele. He is followed by Lowry (v Cantlay), Rahm (v Scheffler) and Garcia (v DeChambeau) the inform players for the visitors. “They have to just go out there and win their own individual match. There’s nothing more they can do than that,” Harrington said. “They have to focus on that and not look at that bigger picture and focus on their individual self and play their game and win that and then just see how it adds up.” As brash and confident as they are, the Americans insist they’ll come out without a shred of complacency. “We go into it with the mindset that we don’t have a lead; that we are at level and go fight for every point. That was the message last night, and I think it played out well for us today,” DeChambeau said. Stricker was playing in the 2012 team under Captain Davis Love III. Love is one of his vice-captains at Whistling Straits this week. At Medinah they took the ire of many in the final wash up for – among other things – putting Tiger Woods in the anchor slot despite the big lead. “We learned a lot of lessons from 2012,” Stricker said. “Probably the thing I can say is that we didn’t do a good job putting our lineup out on Sunday. Not that we took it for granted by any stretch of the imagination, but we just could have done better with it. “And that was on our mind here today. We think about our past mistakes, and we are trying to learn from them and see what we can do to try and improve on them, and that was definitely one of the things that we were talking about up there tonight.” This time around Stricker has opened with Olympic Gold medalist Schauffele and recent FedExCup winning Cantlay – who are both undefeated this week. He has his other top point getters, Johnson and Collin Morikawa, at slot five and six to counter the top-heavy European line up. Johnson is the only current American player who felt the sting at Medinah. He won’t allow for it to happen again. He will play against Paul Casey in the middle of the Singles order, in a prime position to perhaps garner the clinching point. “We’ve still got to go out, and everybody needs to play well. We’ve still got to get three and half points. We know it’s not over,” Johnson said. “I will give my all to them, and I know they will do the same thing for me.” Surf’s up.

Click here to read the full article…

Click here to read the full article…

In the final round of the 2017 RBC Canadian Open, Jhonattan Vegas shoots 65 and birdies the par-5 18th hole in a sudden-death playoff to dispatch Charley Hoffman. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Venezuelan-turned-Texan Vegas became the fourth man to successfully defend a title on the PGA TOUR this season, notching his third win overall. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1 Vegas had missed five straight cuts coming to Glen Abbey. His victory recalls, most recently, Billy Horschel at the AT&T Byron Nelson, where the former FedExCup champion was trying to break a streak of four straight MCs and — seemingly out of nowhere — won the tournament. “Just being the defending champion was something really positive,â€� Vegas said. “Having the fans really support me through the whole week, seeing the enthusiasm when I got here, everyone was like: ‘You know what, you’re going to repeat again and you’re going to win for us.’ The positive energy really helped me to play good golf.â€� What happened in Canada only reinforces the truism that any player can win in any given week. Vegas moves from 87th to 28th in the FedExCup standings, and is looking to improve on his career-best 29th-place finish last year, when he was T24 at the TOUR Championship.    2 Just three South American countries have been represented in The Presidents Cup: Argentina (Angel Cabrera, four times), Colombia (Camilo Villegas, once) and Paraguay (Carlos Franco, twice). With the win at Glen Abbey, Venezuela’s Vegas moved from 17th to ninth on the International team’s points list. He said he would relish the opportunity to take on the powerhouse U.S. squad at this year’s Presidents Cup at Liberty National Sept. 26-Oct. 1. How would he do in match play? If form holds, pretty well. Vegas is 2-0 in sudden-death playoffs on TOUR, and he went 2-1-0 at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play earlier this season. Vegas notched 3-and-1 victories over Thomas Pieters and Scott Piercy but lost 1 up to Bubba Watson, who won the group to advance to the round of 16.  3 Sam Saunders was briefly the feel-good story of the week as he went for his first TOUR win at the same tournament where his late grandfather Arnold Palmer got his, way back in 1955. Things were looking good as Saunders went out in 3-under 32 Sunday, but he made five bogeys on the back nine, including two on his last two holes, to shoot 72 and finish 19th. Had he succumbed to nerves? Saunders, who turned 30 on Sunday, admitted he probably had. “I’ve been at this for long enough now,â€� he said. “I’ve got a lot of scar tissue, you know. And that’s okay. Most guys struggle before they break through. I’m not doing that bad. My third full year on the PGA TOUR, it could be a lot worse. “There are so many great players out there that never even make it to this level. So, I’m glad that I’m here, and it will feel that much sweeter when eventually I do get that first win.â€� Steve Flesch at the 2004 DEAN & DELUCA Invitational is the last man to win on his birthday. 4 Starting the week at 71st in the Official World Golf Ranking, Ian Poulter would’ve needed a win in Canada to make it to this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Although he didn’t quite get there, he shot a final-round 64 to finish solo third at Glen Abbey, continuing a career revival that began with his runner-up finish at THE PLAYERS Championship earlier this season. Poulter led the field in strokes gained: putting at the RBC on Sunday, making more than 128 feet of putts. And a week after he finished T14 at The Open Championship, his third-place finish vaulted him from 77nd to 43rd in the FedExCup race. Oh, he’s also up to 62nd in the OWGR. All in all, he’s not doing too bad for a guy who was just hoping to hang onto his TOUR card this year. “It’s amazing how things change,â€� he said. The one flaw in his final round, he said, was his failure to birdie two of the three back-nine par 5s. He finished a shot out of the playoff. 5 Third-round leader Charley Hoffman could manage only a 4-under 68 Sunday and remained winless this season. After making a birdie at the par-5 18th to force extra holes, Hoffman got out of position in the sudden death on the same hole, losing when he failed to match Vegas’ birdie. “Didn’t make that many putts of any significance at all on the back nine, unfortunately,â€� Hoffman said. Sunday marked the 17th time that Hoffman has had the lead or co-lead after any round on TOUR (six first-round, seven second-round and four third-round leads/co-leads). A four-time winner, he has nevertheless failed to convert any of those leads to victory. The silver lining: He moved from 24th to 12th in the FedExCup, and from 16th to 10th in Presidents Cup points. FIVE INSIGHTS 1 Vegas putted better than most, finishing 14th in strokes gained: putting (.837) for the week. But he was red-hot when it mattered most Sunday, rolling in better than 142 feet of putts, his best performance on the greens all season and the fourth best day of his career. Vegas had averaged just 66 feet of made putts for his first three rounds at Glen Abbey. 2 Gary Woodland (solo fourth, 19 under) tied Vegas with 27 birdies for the week, tops in the field. The two figured prominently in Vegas’ first win as well, at the 2011 CareerBuilder Challenge, where Vegas beat Woodland and Bill Haas in a sudden-death playoff. 3 Dustin Johnson, No. 2 in the FedExCup and No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, said he was encouraged with his game after finishing T8 at the RBC, as well he should be. Johnson led the field in greens in regulation (57/72) as he heads to this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, where he is the defending champion. 4 Keegan Bradley, who fired a final-round 65 to finish T14, led the field with a gaudy 6.508 in strokes gained: off the tee on Sunday, and leads the TOUR in total driving this season. 5 Sean O’Hair, who also shot a final-round 65 and finished T10, birdied all four par-3s Sunday. It was the first time in his career that he has birdied all four par-3s in a single round. TOP 3 VIDEOS 1. We wonder how many people have attempted this shot since 2000? 2. Half man. Half amazing. Nothing but cup. 3. These guys are good.

Click here to read the full article…