Live leaderboard: Final round of Deere Classic

There were nights when his parents wouldn’t eat so he could, tournament directors who accepted an IOU in lieu of an entry fee, and utility bills that went unpaid. RELATED: Q & A with Vasicki So the moment was choked with emotion when Sarasota mini-tour pro Michael Visacki, 27, Monday-qualified into this week’s Valspar Championship and called home to break the news. “I made it,” he croaks amid the tears, his father alternately cheering and crying. The hundreds of thousands of miles driven on his 2010 Honda Accord. The job cleaning carts. The ball that got stuck in a tree and led to a heartbreaking double bogey in the second stage of Q School in 2019. Visacki, who still lives at home with his parents, has come a long way to arrive at his first PGA TOUR start since turning pro in 2014, and the viral video shows just how long. “Just a lot of people give up on their dreams, probably because they can’t afford it,” Visacki said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, when he was again overcome by emotion as he tried to explain the public’s reaction to his emerging story. “But I’ve been lucky enough to be with my parents and been able to help me out sometimes to keep living it.” Visacki is an only child. His parents, Mike and Donna, own a transport company that ships wheelchairs and stretchers and have done so for about 16 or 17 years. Michael showed great talent as a junior golfer, but developing that talent sometimes proved too costly. “Tournaments would want us to register about two weeks in advance to know that they had so many players in,” he said. “And sometimes money was tight where my parents would call the director and be like, ‘Do you mind putting my son in? I’ll have the money for you when we get to the event.’ And they knew that I was a really good junior golfer, so they would accept that, they would waive that restriction for me back in the junior days.” And Visacki was good. Having played tennis as a boy, he switched to golf at age 8, inspired by his dad. He grew so big and strong the Riverview High School football coach wanted to put him on the offensive line, but Visacki said no, he was a golfer. The coach soon realized he was right. Visacki played one year for the University of Central Florida, then turned pro. Playing 30-45 tournaments a year, he racked up 37 victories on the West Florida Pro Golf Tour and made his reputation as a big-time talent. He qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour’s 2018 Kansas City Golf Classic and finished T27. He lived at home to save money and bought a used Honda Accord he’s since driven 170,000 miles, at one point driving to Utah and back. He tried “six or seven” Monday qualifiers, but the closest he had come before this week was missing a playoff by a shot. Keep your head down, his dad told him. Keep grinding. “Because he knew that I had it,” Visacki said. He worked in the cart barn and pro shop at Serenoa Golf Club in Sarasota to make ends meet, sometimes closing the pro shop at 5, 6 o’clock and then hustling out onto the course to chase the sun. Never, he said, did he consider quitting. Not even after his ball got stuck in the tree to derail his Q School hopes by one shot in 2019, an agonizing close call that nearly broke him. “I don’t know how I was able to even drive,” he said of his somber ride home. His dream of playing his way into the Valspar almost fizzled when his tee shot stopped just short of going into a bush on the first extra hole. He chipped out sideways and got up and down from 107 yards and survived when Chris Baker missed his birdie putt. Visacki had his own birdie try from 20 feet on the second extra hole. “The first thing I was like, man, I have a chance to, if I make this putt I’m playing, I’m going to be playing in the Valspar,” he said. “But after that I was like, OK, I got to not think about that, I got to think about putting the best stroke possible, picking out a good line with me and my caddie and we picked out a great line and I hit the spot and it went in the hole.” Visacki embraced his caddie Kaylor Steger, a friend and fellow pro, and broke down. Then came the freighted phone call, and the viral video, and his reputation quickly growing far beyond all those mini-tour victories. Of his chances at establishing a foothold on the Korn Ferry Tour and/or PGA TOUR, and finally being able to make a decent living as a golfer, Visacki said, “I mean I think it’s just trying to get one percent better every day. I feel like I’m not that far off.” He added, not without ample evidence, “I know I’m capable of doing it.” For the Valspar’s newest fan favorite, the dream is coming together right before our eyes.

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There's nothing wrong with your circadian rhythm. It's November and we're no longer saving daylight, yet the Vivint Houston Open and the Masters are lined up over the next fortnight. So, what gives? It's a familiar pairing. Beginning with the first year of the FedExCup (2007) and extending through 2018 (with an exception in 2013), the consecutive contests were cornerstones of early spring. Houston shifted to the fall in 2019 and the 2020 Masters was bumped to autumn due to the pandemic. So, like a force that reunites old neighbors, and with a change of seasons - literally and figuratively - the two connect once more. What has been planned all along is the move to Memorial Park Golf Course within five miles west of downtown Houston. Scroll past the projected contenders for details on the return to this exciting host course, the construct of the field and more. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field | Five things to know: Memorial Park POWER RANKINGS: VIVINT HOUSTON OPEN Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Adam Scott and Francesco Molinari will be reviewed in Tuesday's Fantasy Insider with other notables. Memorial Park hosted this tournament in 1947 and from 1951-1963, so it's not new to the PGA TOUR. However, how it presents this week is entirely different to when Bob Charles was the last to prevail on the property. This marks the TOUR debut of a Tom Doak redesign (2019) and it doesn't disappoint. There are five par 3s and five par 5s on the par 72. If that sounds familiar, Sherwood Country Club, the recent host of the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD, stages the same array. Unlike tony, 7,073-yard Sherwood, Memorial Park is a municipal track and it can stretch to 7,432 yards. The longest hole is the 625-yard, par-5 eighth. The longest par 3 is the 237-yard 11th, but the hardest hole might prove to be the par-4 finisher that tips at 503 yards. Doak employed the advice of Brooks Koepka, who encouraged the architect to pare down to fewer than two dozen sand bunkers. As a result, MiniVerde bermudagrass greens are protected by Doak's imaginative undulations, grassy collection areas and a Stimpmeter measurement upwards of 12 feet. With unfamiliar greens, finding the shortest grass off the tee will matter. Primary rough in excess of two inches walls the fairways, while greens averaging 7,000 square feet will require precision on approach due to the humps, hills and sections of potential hole locations. Ball-strikers with length have an advantage but, and as always, unpredictable hot putters never should be ruled out. Due to the shift from mid-October to early November, the field is down 12 to 132. As of Monday afternoon, 36 are scheduled to compete in next week's Masters as well. Unlike when the Golf Club of Houston was prepped to imitate components of the challenge at Augusta National, comparisons to Memorial Park will be unintentional due to the coincidental timing of the tournaments. Fabulous conditions are expected throughout the Vivint Houston Open with high temperatures in the upper 70s every day. Breezes out of an easterly direction will be moderate at worst. Rain is not forecast. ROB BOLTON'S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM's Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM's Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Dustin Johnson emphatically clinched the victory on Sunday, holing out for eagle from 170 yards on the final hole for a six-stroke victory in the FedEx St. Jude Classic. “What a cool way to end the day,” Johnson said. Johnson shot a 4-under 66 for his second PGA TOUR victory this season and 18th of his career to take back the No. 1 ranking he held for 64 straight weeks before dropping down a month ago. He won the event for the second time, finishing with the eagle, three birdies and a bogey for a 19-under 261 total. Andrew Putnam started the final round with a share of the lead for the first time in his career. He shot 72 and finished at 13 under. Preparing for the U.S. Open, Johnson took the lead by himself with a par on No. 1, while Putnam double-bogeyed, and cruised to the $1.18 million winner’s check. Johnson turned in the lowest score under par by a winner here since David Toms won at 20 under in 2003, and that was before the course was redesigned with par dropped from 71 to 70 after the 2004 tournament. Johnson, who won the U.S. Open in 2016, heads to Shinnecock Hills after stringing together four straight rounds in the 60s. He went 67, 63 and 65 before wrapping up a final round that felt almost like a practice round with the only question remaining how low Johnson would go. At least until his dramatic walk-off eagle. Johnson was in the intermediate rough to the right of the fairway, and the ball bounced twice before rolling into the cup to bring fans to their feet. J.B. Holmes (67) was at 9 under. Stewart Cink (72) and Richy Werenski (71) tied at 8 under. Brandt Snedeker (70) and Retief Goosen (66) tied four others at 7 under. Phil Mickelson had a 65 and was at 6 under. Putnam, a two-time winner on the Web.com Tour, had only one bogey through his first three rounds. He pushed his opening tee shot into the right rough and his approach in the rough left of the green. He wound up three-putting for double bogey. Johnson rolled in a four-footer for par and a two-stroke lead at 15 under on a sizzling day with the temperature feeling like 99. Johnson worked on keeping the ball in the fairway, hitting 3-wood off the tee on the first of the course’s two par 5s. Even with the 3-wood, Johnson had the second-longest drive of the day, hitting 333 yards on the 554-yard hole. Even when Johnson three-putt No. 5 to drop to 15 under, Putnam also bogeyed protecting Johnson’s lead at three strokes. Putnam pulled within two strokes with a birdie on No. 7, rolling a putt 11 feet after Johnson parred the hole. Johnson hit an iron 307 yards off the tee at No. 10 . After hitting iron off the tee at No. 12 and going left of the cart path, Johnson saved par with a 16-foot putt to protect his two-stroke lead. Then Johnson hit a drive 359 yards on the par-4 No. 13, leaving him 95 yards to the pin. Johnson then hit his approach to 3 feet for his second birdie to go 16 under. He previewed his dramatic finish on the par-5 16th. Johnson’s tee shot found the trees right of the fairway, and he threaded a shot through a couple trees to just off the green. He chipped to 5 feet and birdied for a four-stroke lead.

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