Langer signs off as run at weekend falls 1 short

The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island is difficult — and could get even more difficult if the wind blows. So who has what it takes? Who could stun everyone? Who should just be happy to be on property?

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The sun and sand (or is it the rain, fog and wind) of the West Coast Swing is behind us and now the PGA TOUR heads east for the Florida Swing, which this year is a month-long sojourn. With THE PLAYERS Championship sitting right among it, it is also the beginning of the Season of Championships that sees TPC Sawgrass take center stage in March before April's Masters, May's PGA Championship, June's U.S. Open, July's Open Championship and August/September's FedExCup Playoffs. Not to mention Olympic competition slated for July 29-Aug 1. Starting this week at the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession in Bradenton, the TOUR then hops to the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in Orlando, followed by THE PLAYERS in Ponte Vedra Beach before finishing up at The Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens. (The Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor comes April 29-May 2 this season). It is a critical phase of the FedExCup schedule that can make or break a player’s push for either TOUR Championship chances or even just FedExCup Playoffs hopes. We've decided to bust out the crystal ball and make some bold predictions for the Florida Swing. (As a sidenote, here are the 10 Bold Predictions from the start of this season if you want to check our progress.) 1. Tony Finau will leave the swing a winner. Depending on who you talk to, this take is either not bold at all or ridiculously bold. Finau has 21 (!) top-5 finishes on TOUR since the start of the 2017-18 season without winning, so glass half-full tells you he is likely to be in contention at some point in Florida and is trending toward finally grasping that elusive second TOUR win. Glass half-empty says his playoff loss at The Genesis Invitational was just another example in a long line of proof that says he can't close the deal. Also working against Finau is the fact an American hasn't won in Florida since Keith Mitchell won The Honda Classic in 2019. Five wins in a row have been non-American (Tyrrell Hatton, Sungjae Im, Paul Casey, Rory McIlroy and Francesco Molinari). But we believe in Tony. He will win something in the next month. 2. At least one player will play EVERY round in Florida at par or better. The gurus at our ShotLink team point out that Matt Kuchar has the second-longest active streak of rounds par or better in Florida of any player in the last eight years (since 2013). In this time frame, Kuchar has played his last nine rounds in Florida at par or better. The man in front of him won’t play during the next month - 82-time winner Tiger Woods. He remains in recovery from a single-car accident and a fifth back surgery, but sat at 18 rounds at par or better in Florida. We are prepared to say someone will come out of this year's swing having played somewhere between 4 and 16 rounds at par or better in a row! 3. Tommy Fleetwood will continue his mojo in the Sunshine State and add to his top-5 tally. Fleetwood joins McIlroy and Im with four top-5 finishes in Florida since the start of the 2016-17 TOUR season - the most of any players in that span. Of course, the Englishman is the only one of those three not to win. In his five PGA TOUR starts this season, Fleetwood has just one top 20 to his name and sits 157th in the FedExCup, BUT of course that is skewed by the fact he hasn't played in the U.S. since November at The RSM Classic. In his last four starts on the European Tour, he has been no worse than T26 and has two top 10s. Since 2016-17, Fleetwood and Luke List have each made seven eagles in Florida, tied for the most. In the same time period Fleetwood is the most under par of any player on TOUR at 43-under par. 4. A course-record 62 will be posted at THE PLAYERS, with Hideki Matsuyama either being the one to do it, or he will get close by replicating his phantom 63 from a year ago. If the golf gods have any sense of fairness, Matsuyama will break out of a recent slump with a scintillating 10-under 62 to open THE PLAYERS Championship - adding his name to the record books of the storied championship. A year ago, Matsuyama equaled the TPC Sawgrass record with a 63 only for the COVID-19 pandemic to hit and force the cancellation of the event - scrubbing his achievement from history. 5. Rory McIlroy will earn more than 900 FedExCup points in the Florida Swing alone, possibly as many as 1000! Only two players have been able to notch more than 1,000 FedExCup points in Florida during the last five seasons: McIlroy (1,434), Paul Casey (1,189). The record for points gained just in Florida in a single season in that time frame goes to Webb Simpson's 783 from his PLAYERS winning season of 2018. With the WGC back in Florida this season, we think McIlroy can smash that mark out of the park. McIlroy has been inside the top five of the leaderboard after 12 rounds in the state of Florida, most of any player in the last four seasons. The winner’s share of FedExCup points are 600 at THE PLAYERS, 550 at the WGC and Arnold Palmer Invitational and 500 at The Honda Classic. Getting specific, we say he will be runner-up at the WGC, winner at THE PLAYERS, and a top 10 elsewhere to get it done. 6. There will be two aces at TPC Sawgrass, at least one of which will be on the 17th, AND we'll also be treated to an albatross. We lost THE PLAYERS last season to the pandemic so it's time for the excitement at TPC Sawgrass to be ratcheted up a notch. TPC Sawgrass has seen 31 aces at THE PLAYERS in the past with the third hole seeing four and the eighth hole yielding six. The 13th is the most prolific with 12 and the Island Green 17th has nine. Getting two in the tournament shouldn't be too much to ask - after all there were three of them in 2019! Three of the last five were on the 17th - Will Wilcox (2016), Sergio Garcia (2017) and Ryan Moore (2019). But how about an albatross? Well THE PLAYERS has only given up five of those in the past. They've all come on par 5s (one on the second, two on the 11th and two on the 16th), the last of which was Harris English in 2019 on the 11th. But now we can hope for the elusive hole-in-one on a par-4 with the drivable 12th hole. Brace yourself - it's coming. And when it lands it will be just the second par-4 ace in TOUR history, breaking a 20-year drought.

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You can count Pat Perez out of the kale-and-crunches revolution. The defending champion at this week’s OHL Classic at Mayakoba much prefers the comforts of his couch and the TV remote, and at 41 he’s not part of the PGA TOUR’s youth movement, either. Having made it to his first TOUR Championship at East Lake at the end of last season, when players in their 20s won a record 28 times, Perez was asked where he fits in. “I’m the old guy,â€� he said, drawing laughter. No one was laughing, though, when on Oct. 15 he won the CIMB Classic at TPC Kuala Lumpur, giving him two wins in a span of less than 12 months. The old guy had won by four strokes, and he’s not the only graybeard who is just now hitting his stride. Perhaps inspired by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who’s yet to show any signs of a drop-off even after turning 40 this summer, the Fab 40s on the PGA TOUR are enjoying a mini-moment. Perez will enter his title defense at Mayakoba as the current FedExCup points leader. Charley Hoffman made his first Presidents Cup team at age 40 after being selected as a Captain’s Pick by U.S. Team Captain Steve Stricker. The other Captain’s Pick was 47-year-old Phil Mickelson, who extended his streak of having played in every Presidents Cup. Two weeks after Perez’ win, Ryan Armour — also 41 and the most accurate driver on TOUR last season (72.7 percent) — won for the first time in 105 starts at the Sanderson Farms Championship. That same day, 41-year-old Henrik Stenson – who won the 2016 Open Championship at age 40 – tied for second at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. Meanwhile, Paul Casey, 40, is playing the most consistent golf of his career. In his last 11 starts, he’s finished inside the top 20 10 times, including three top-5s in the FedExCup Playoffs. Last week, Tiger Woods, 41, announced he will return to competition at the Hero World Challenge later this month. As for Perez, not only is he the defending champ this week at Mayakoba, he’s the current FedExCup points leader. Five other 40-somethings are inside the top 20 – Armour (9), Alex Cejka (13), Stenson (T-15), Mickelson (18) and Casey (20). As Casey joked this summer, “Apparently life begins at 40.â€� Not that any of this has come easily. In fact, you might say it’s been a long time coming. On a Talk of the TOUR podcast last week with host John Swantek, Armour noted that he had no place to play as recently as 2013. Then he made a few simple but crucial adjustments, starting with a healthy living pledge. “My wife was just like, ‘OK, listen, we’re going to go forward with this,’â€� Armour said. “‘We’re going to eat better, we’re going to exercise more, we’re just going to be healthy individuals, and no matter what happens with the golf, we’ll always have that.’â€� Armour also abandoned his misguided efforts to get longer. Instead, he changed shafts to bolster his brand of precision golf, then finished T4 at the Wyndham Championship in August, his first top-10 in more than a decade. (Incidentally, the tournament was won by the 41-year-old Stenson). A runner-up at the Web.com Tour’s Nationwide Children’s Hospitals Championship secured Armour’s TOUR card for this season, and at the Sanderson Farms, he became the eighth player since 1970 to get his first win at 41 or older. OLDEST FIRST-TIME WINNERS (SINCE 1970) Woods has won 79 TOUR titles, second-highest total of all time behind Sam Snead’s 82. Of course, none of those have been since he’s turned 40 (he’ll turn 42 on Dec. 30). Given his shaky health the last few years while undergoing a series of back surgeries, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to add to that total. On the flip side, there is certainly hope he can continue his chase of not only Snead’s win total, but Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors. Nicklaus, Snead, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Lee Trevino all won major titles after turning 40 – Nicklaus and Hogan, in fact, won three majors each after 40. Since 2011, the Open Championship has been won by 40-somethings four times — Stenson in 2016, Mickelson in 2013, Els in 2012 and Darren Clarke in 2011. Asked last week about Woods, Els urged patience in light of the 14-time major winner’s back problems, but added, “If we can do it, he can certainly do it.â€� Legendary range rat Vijay Singh has the most wins by a player in his 40s since 1970, with 22. Kenny Perry is in second place with 11, and Steve Stricker won nine times. Perez, Armour and Woods would love to emulate any of them, and Perez is clearly off to the best start. Given truth serum, though, all three would probably take Fred Funk’s 40s. The likeable, straight-hitting Funk won five of his eight TOUR titles after turning 40, including THE PLAYERS Championship in 2005, when he was 48. He played in the Ryder Cup that year and made the 2003 and 2005 U.S. Presidents Cup teams at ages 47 and 49, respectively. “I got comfortable in my own skin,â€� says Funk, now 61 and the father of an aspiring TOUR pro, former Texas golfer Taylor Funk. “I was determined to work hard and see how good I could do.â€� Funk had good role models when it came to work. His mother, Ruby, ran a labor-intensive custom drape-making business. His older brother, Bernie, worked hard at jobs ranging from the fire department to the civil air patrol. Fred got his first job as a paper boy when he was 8. He later worked as a newspaper delivery driver and the University of Maryland golf coach. By the time he got out on TOUR, Funk was in his early 30s, and when he kept progressing into his 40s, he was keen to make up for lost time. “Whereas a lot of the guys my age, they’d come straight out on TOUR after college,â€� he said, “and they were maybe burnt out.â€� Not Funk. He kept at it. As for Perez, he’s a harder worker than he lets on. “I’m such a different person than I was 17 years ago, even like five years ago,â€� Perez said after winning the CIMB. “I’m learning how to play the game and learning how to play my own game and stay within myself and that kind of stuff. I’m a late bloomer.â€� Just as dogged persistence can fuel successful 40-somethings, so, too, can a change of heart. Jay Haas, who wanted to be active on TOUR upon the arrival of his son Bill, rededicated himself to the game and racked up eight top-10 finishes in 2003 at 49, when he made his second Presidents Cup team. With eight more top-10s in 2004, Haas made his fourth Ryder Cup team at age 50. “Jay is an example of a change of mindset,â€� Funk says. “Because when he reignited his drive, he went to a level that he was never at before and made those teams. He flipped a switch.â€� Kenny Perry also rededicated himself late, with the goal of making the 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team that would face Europe at Valhalla, in Perry’s beloved home state of Kentucky. The results were astounding: Perry won three times on TOUR at age 47, getting to 14 victories so suddenly he began to talk about reaching 20. (He ended with 14.) “I guess 47 is now the new 30,â€� Perry said at the time. His turnaround spoke to his focused work but after winning the 2008 John Deere Classic, his third victory in seven weeks, he cited guile, too. Asked if a 27-year-old Perry would have won that day at TPC Deere Run, he gave an emphatic no. “I wouldn’t have had the nerves to handle all that,â€� Perry said. “Knowing my golf swing was out of sync and out of kilter. I knew my putter was so good. I knew if I get it on that green, I would have a chance to make a putt. I couldn’t have won like that 20 years ago.â€� Jack Nicklaus won the Masters at 46. Two months later Raymond Floyd, 43, won the U.S. Open, the last of his four majors. Mark O’Meara won the 2008 Masters and The Open at 41, going from a nice player (and a Pebble Beach specialist) to a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Last week Rod Pampling returned to the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, where he was the defending champion after breaking through the year before at 47. Asked about winning during a season that was dominated by players in their 20s, Pampling called it the beauty of golf. “We might not feature as often as the young guys do,â€� he added, “but when we’re there, we have a chance. We know how to win, so the experience comes rushing back. So the key is just when it comes, you know, we’re prepared for that and we can, hopefully, take advantage of it — which we did last year.â€� This week’s stop at El Camaleon Golf Course, a roughly 7,000-yard par 71 Greg Norman design that wends through mangrove jungles, limestone canals and oceanfront stretches of sand, seems particularly 40s-friendly. It’s even 50s-friendly. Funk won there in 2007 when he was 51. Perez, whose second win ties him with Mickelson and Stenson for most victories by players 40 or older since 2013, won’t have to think back too far if he gets into contention. Neither will Armour, whose Sanderson Farms win was the 20th by players in their 40s in that time span. The two recent winners will both play Mayakoba. Hoffman will be in Mexico, too, as will D.A. Points, 40, who won the Puerto Rico Open last season. Take note, Tiger. Being “the old guyâ€� isn’t a bad business these days.

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