Less is more for Mickelson against McIlroy, DeChambeau at Travelers

Here are nine tidbits from the final round of The Honda Classic that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road.  Be looking for the Emergency 9 shortly after the close of play of each round of the tournament. Grin and Bear It For the seventh time in his last 31 PGA TOUR events Justin Thomas is taking home the trophy as he defeated Luke List in a playoff to win The Honda Classic. The 2017 PGA TOUR Player of the Year collects his eighth-career TOUR victory and second of the 2017-2018 season. Thomas now has two playoff wins this season as he defeated Marc Leishman at the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in October. Playing in his fourth Honda Classic, he adds this victory to T3 in 2016 and a pair MCs. Thomas only squared five bogeys and a double which was offset by 15 birdies (T4) to post 272. List was the only player to make fewer bogeys (4). Thomas reinforced that it takes a deep bag to win here as he led the field in strokes-gained: tee-to-green, sand saves and scrambling. The Champion Course at PGA National played easier as the week went on as the weather improved and the wind finally quieted down. The greens were crusty, firm and not holding many shots so it is not surprising scoring was high. The lowest round of the week was 65 and all four posted were on the weekend. The tournament record of 13-under-par set by Camilo Villegas in 2010 was never in doubt. There were only For the 10th season in a row the winner came from the final pairing. Gamers’ Choices — PGA TOUR Fantasy Game presented by SERVPRO If gamers are still wondering about Fleetwood and Noren, I can’t help them! This is the bloodiest top 10 that we’ve seen this season. Gamers’ Choices — PGA TOUR One & Done presented by SERVPRO   Gamers who faded Fowler this week will live to fight another day as Woodland and Garcia backers go quietly. With the tricky weather forecasted this week it’s not a surprise the ownership of Thomas was that low. It will be the last time we see it that low! Close Encounters Luke List is accumulating some excellent scar tissue that will help him the next time he’s contending late on the weekend. All of the facets of his game were firing this week but he ran into the wrong guy in the playoff. His P2 check is the biggest he’s collected and is his second top 10 of the year. He was T5 at the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. … If Alex Noren returns to this event next year he might be No. 1 on my list. He was 12-under-par in three of his four rounds including posting eight-under on the weekend. He learned his lesson from the 75 he posted Friday and finished third, missing the playoff by a shot. Noren is white hot as this is his second podium finish is four TOUR starts in 2018. … Tommy Fleetwood’s first visit saw him put all four rounds at par or better including his final three in red numbers. Movers and Shakers Byeong Hun An (T5) and Derek Fathauer (T13) shared the low round on Sunday with 65. An posted his lowest round of the year and his best finish since T11 at the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. Does anyone else see a pattern forming here?? This was the Korean’s first trip to the Champion Course. … Fathauer tried it a different way this week. After beginning last Sunday in the top 10 at Riviera he posted 74 to slip to T16. This week he made the cut on the number and used his break to shoot 71-65. The 65 on Sunday moved him up 41 spots to finish T13. He’s now cashed a check in five of six tries at this event. Grillo Means Go Emiliano Grillo entered the week with 10 consecutive cuts made and added another this week. The Argentine fired 69-66 on the weekend to post T8. He made the cut the previous two seasons here and each Sunday he posted 77. This is his best finish on TOUR since T7 at last year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. #Hint#Hint. Tiger Woods He stood on No. 15 tee T6 (-3) and just four shots out of the lead. His tee shot found the water, again, and his double-bogey ended any chances of sneaking in the back door. His three-putt bogey on the next hole pushed him out of the top 10 as he finished 12th. I was interested to see how his swing would hold up on Sunday if he was in the fight. For the most part, it did. Go look at the tables above and count how many of those guys he beat this week. With back-to-back top-25 finishes, the next question is will he play again before Augusta? Stay tuned. Sunday Silence It wasn’t a great afternoon for South Africans not named Dylan Frittelli (11th) as Louis Oosthuizen carded 75 of them and dropped from T8 to T24. The “other” Rory still won that head-to-head but Sabbatini posted 73 to drop out of the top 10 and cash for T17. … Daniel Berger couldn’t match his Sunday 64 from his rookie year as he also carded 75 and fell to T29. … Hudson Swafford made a birdie on the final hole to post 80. He plummeted 53 spots to T64. … Rory McIlroy’s lowest round of the week was 72 (T59) and that should keep gamers guessing before he tees it up again. It will NOT be this coming week at the WGC-Mexico Championships as he is not entered. Study Hall 2017 NCAA Nicklaus Award winner Sam Burns, playing with Woods on Sunday, posted 68 (-2). He was playing his 14th round on TOUR. His T8 finish will get the Web.com player into the Valspar Championship in two weeks. … Lucas Glover also fired 66 on Sunday for T17, his best finish since T15 at the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. #Pattern. … Michael Thompson (T24) just missed fulfilling his major medical exemption and will have one more start remaining to do so. … Rookie Tom Lovelady showed some serious guts this week as he was seven-over-par thru his first eight holes. He made the cut on the number, fired a bogey-free 67 on Saturday and 70 Sunday to cash T17 for his best payday. … Jason Dufner (T17) has never missed in 10 tries at the Champion Course. Strangely he only has one top 10 to show for his efforts, T9 in 2009.

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Playing alongside a Hall of Famer and Canada’s brightest star, unheralded rookie Adam Long, 31, rolls in a 15-foot birdie on the 72nd hole to shoot 65 and pull off a stunning victory over Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin at the Desert Classic. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Long won to earn spots in select fields like THE PLAYERS Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, the Masters, and the PGA Championship. He also jumps to the front of the line in the Rookie of the Year race. As ever on TOUR, one week can change everything. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. It’s anyone’s game. We’ll say it again: There’s staggering depth on the PGA TOUR, where anyone can win in any given week. Long had one professional victory, on the Hooters Tour in 2011. A TOUR rookie this season, he was 20 over par in his previous five starts, which included four missed cuts. His best result was a T63 at the Safeway Open last fall. He was supposed to be an alternate at this week’s Farmers Insurance Open. (He’s in now!) In light of all that, how do you explain his final-round 65 at the tough PGA West Stadium Course, the second-best round of the day, to reach 26 under par and win? “I had nothing to lose,� said Long, who birdied the first two holes to settle his nerves.  2. Maybe Phil gets 50 wins, after all. Mickelson said he would reach 50 wins on TOUR after he picked up No. 43 at the World Golf Championship-Mexico Championship nearly a year ago. It seemed optimistic, given that he’d just broken a nearly five-year win drought going back to the 2013 Open Championship. Now, though, who knows? After predicting some rust in his first start of the 2019 calendar year, Mickelson threatened 59 before settling for a 60 in the first round. He shot his lowest 54-hole score, led the field in driving distance (318.2 yards), and at 48 looked uber-competitive. OK, so he didn’t win, settling for his 36th career runner-up after failing to birdie the last hole. He fell to 25-for-40 when entering the final round with the lead/co-lead, including failures to win six of the last seven times he held the lead going into the final round. But give him even an average putting week in the desert (he was an uncharacteristic 64th of 73 players who made the cut in Strokes Gained: Putting) and Mickelson practically waltzes to victory. Maybe 50 wins isn’t such a crazy idea, after all. 3. Hadwin is a desert demon. The co-runner-up continued to cement his status as Canada’s best player. Hadwin’s third top-10 finish of the season puts him 13th in the FedExCup, and was his third straight top-three finish in the Desert Classic. He was runner-up last year, too, when he shot a third-round 59. He also delighted the throngs of Canadians who flock to the desert to escape the winter chill. The bad news, which was not all that bad, was that he missed a five-foot putt on 12 that would have given him a four-shot lead, then went 1-over the rest of the way to come up just short. “It’s golf,� Hadwin said. “I made a bunch of putts all week and then honestly I was kind of battling it a little bit swing-wise. I didn’t quite have it like I did the first three days.� 4. Chipping and putting told all. Long was 6-for-6 in scrambling in the final round, chipped in twice on the back nine (No. 12/15’8’’ and No. 15/20’6’’), and needed just 98 putts for the week, fewest of anyone. That was also tied for the fewest putts on TOUR this season, with Kiradech Aphibarnrat at the WGC-HSBC Champions. Long played tidy golf, from start to finish. Now consider Mickelson, who rode a putting revival to a solid season in 2018 but missed a four-footer to start the final round Sunday. He later missed twice from 5-7 feet, gave up 3.2 strokes on the greens for the day, and admitted, “I felt awful with the putter.� 5. Long (shot) gave others hope. No knock on Long, but if he can win, a lot of others have to feel hopeful that they can, too. After all, many boasted credentials equal to or greater than the winner going into last week. Long was 13th on the Web.com Tour Regular Season money list last season, earning his call-up to the TOUR, and had a career-best finish of T63 at the Safeway Open, his only made cut this season. Prior to the Safeway he had just one TOUR start, at the 2011 U.S. Open.   Yes, the Desert Classic put wind in Long’s sails, but it should invigorate others, too, starting with his 20 fellow rookies and those who have been knocking on the door for years. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Long is the first player to win in his sixth TOUR start or earlier since Smylie Kaufman at the 2015 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. After coming into the Desert Classic with a career low of 66, he shot three scores of 65 or better last week, including first- and third-round 63s. 2. Mickelson has failed to convert in six of the last seven tournaments in which he has held at least a share of the 54-hole lead, and this marked the second straight time he has taken a two-shot lead into the final round and not won (2016 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am). 3. Hadwin led the field in par-5 scoring average (4.13). He is 84-under for his last 16 rounds in the tournament, and 96-under in his last 20. 4. With 98 putts, Long led the field but was only one of three players to take 100 or fewer strokes on the greens. The others were Sam Burns (T18) and Brian Stuard (T40), who took 100 each. 5. Defending champion Jon Rahm finished sixth in his attempt to become the first back-to-back winner in the desert since Johnny Miller in 1975-’76. Daniel Berger (68, T12) enjoyed his best finish since his T6 at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills last summer. Talor Gooch (4th/-24) earned his first top-10 finish in his 33rd TOUR start. WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is in its first season and adds another layer of excitement to the FedExCup Regular Season. The top 10 players at the end of the FedExCup Regular Season will earn bonus payouts from the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. There were no changes in the top 10, but Adam Long made a massive leap from 205th at the start of the week, when he was ahead of just 13 other players, to 12th. Meanwhile, co-runners up Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin move up to 28th and 13th, respectively.

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John Daly (knee) WDs from Champions event

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