Tournament favorite Dustin Johnson has some company at the top of the leaderboard, as his solo lead quickly became a four-way tie Sunday.
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The next two events are among the most important on Jordan Spieth’s calendar each year. This week, he returns to the tournament that served as his TOUR debut, where he twice contended as a teenager but has yet to win. He’s hoisted the trophy at the other TOUR stop in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, the Charles Schwab Challenge, but winning his hometown event, the AT&T Byron Nelson, has eluded him. Then Spieth will try to complete the Career Grand Slam at a course that seems to complement his skill set, Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Spieth heads into this important fortnight in good form, fresh off a victory at the RBC Heritage. Sharing his home this week with two friends, Justin Thomas and Jason Dufner, should help alleviate any pressure he may feel to win a home game and the only major lacking from his resume. “I always want to play really well here,” said Spieth, whose T9 in last year’s AT&T Byron Nelson, the first played at TPC Craig Ranch, is his best in 10 appearances at this event. “It’s obviously one that’s starred on the calendar.” So is the PGA Championship, the tournament that’s stood between him and the Career Grand Slam for each of the past five years. This year’s venue, Southern Hills, is one Spieth played in his amateur days, but it has undergone a dramatic renovation by Gil Hanse since then. That’s one reason Spieth and Thomas, following in the flight path of Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler, visited Southern Hills earlier this week for an early PGA Championship practice round. Since Hanse’s renovation, the thick Bermudagrass rough that lined the holes of the Perry Maxwell design have been replaced by short grass. It’s a change that makes the short game that much more important because players must pick their pitch shots precisely. It’s similar to another course where Spieth has had plenty of success, Augusta National. The tiny targets also play to another of Spieth’s strengths, his iron play. “It’s tough to chip,” Thomas said about Southern Hills. “I mean the balls roll off the green, they go pretty far away. You get some grainy, elevated greens to where it’s difficult to get the ball around the hole and over the course of the round in a tournament that can be quite a few shots and the person I think that does that the best is going to have the best chance of winning.” It was Thomas’ first trip to the course. He said he was “blown away” by the layout, despite the 35 mph gusts they faced in their practice round. “I thought tee to green it was excellent,” he said. “I thought it challenged kind of all facets of your game. You have to work the ball quite a bit, you have to, you really, really have to be good around the greens. You can’t fake your way around it.” Spieth played Southern Hills in the 2009 U.S. Amateur, when he was still in high school. “It’s changed so much and I was 15 or 16 years old, so I just wanted to see it … take some stress off practice rounds next week and be able to do nine each day instead of feeling like I got to go out and learn a lot,” Spieth said. “The golf course was fantastic. I loved it. The green complexes are perfectly fitting to the holes. The greens play maybe three quarters of the size that they actually are. There’s a lot more runoffs than I remember into Bermuda chipping areas and into runoff areas that are mowed. So, you can be left with a lot of really delicate little shots. “I think it’s going to be a really firm and fast PGA and it’s going to be one of the higher scoring PGAs that we have seen. It was a great test. I really enjoyed playing it.” Spieth often plays the week before a major, whether it’s the Valero Texas Open before the Masters or the John Deere Classic before The Open. He wouldn’t miss this week, when he can play host to his friends. “I’ve got no complaints thus far, but it’s only Wednesday, so ask me later in the week,” he joked about his housemates. Thomas added this event to his schedule as he ponders a different method for preparing for the majors. Thomas’ PGA win came after playing the week prior at Firestone, but he traditionally doesn’t play the week before a major. But this is Thomas’ first start since the RBC Heritage. He last played TPC Craig Ranch in Q-School nine years ago and with Spieth’s current caddie, Michael Greller, on the bag. Thomas is 20th in the FedExCup with six top-10s, but not a win, this season. “I felt like taking four weeks off into a major wasn’t a very smart idea … and I personally just want to try something a little different this year,” Thomas said. “These last three majors, I’m going to see how I feel this week, and potentially add (the RBC Canadian Open, the week before the U.S. Open), but I just want to play the week before and see how that feels and see how that gets going into next week and seeing if that can lead to some success. “My game has been very, very solid this year. It just hasn’t produced any wins, which is what I play for. I’m getting close, I just got to stay patient and just let it come. I know that it will. Just have to be in the right frame of mind for it and hopefully we can get on a little run whenever it does happen.”
Another PGA TOUR season, another Dustin Johnson victory. If you are looking for the easiest prediction on the TOUR each year look no further than Johnson… he’s just made it 12 straight seasons since he joined to win at least once. Welcome to the Monday Finish where Johnson took it to 20 PGA TOUR wins for his career with another demolition job in Mexico City and Martin Trainer produced another feel-good story for the battlers with his triumph at the Puerto Rico Open. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Happy learned how to putt… Dustin Johnson is basically unbeatable when he putts well. He already mashes the ball better than most. His iron play cuts the mustard. A few years ago he dialed in his wedges incredibly, but it is when he putts at his best that he annihilates the world’s greatest. Johnson made it 12 straight seasons on the PGA TOUR with at least one win, and hit 20 career PGA TOUR wins, with a five-shot demolition job at Club de Golf Chapultepec. The kicker was he led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. It was just the second time in his career he has done so (2016 Houston Open) and takes him to 13th on the season in the stat. Considering eight years ago he was statistically one of the worst putters on TOUR and his average Strokes Gained: Putting season rank over the last five seasons was 62nd… just imagine what he could do if he kept rolling the rock the way he did in Mexico. Don’t be surprised if win 21 comes soon… and a FedExCup title (he moved to eighth in the standings) is in his future. Read more on his great victory here. 2. Rory win party coming soon Rory McIlroy appears on the verge of a surge of victories. Well that’s how we choose to look at the fact he’s finished inside the top-5 in his last four PGA TOUR starts and is a combined 56-under in those. McIlroy tried to play spoiler to Johnson’s victory in Mexico but despite briefly pulling within two shots off the lead on Sunday, the 13-time PGA TOUR winner and former FedExCup champion had to settle for a runner up result. His ball-striking was on point for most of the week and he led the field in birdies with 25. With so much talent comes so much expectation. Some are using the near misses as ammunition against him, but don’t forget his next start will be the Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard… the site of his last win on TOUR a year ago. Read more about McIlroy’s Mexico efforts here. 3. Smith to lead in Melbourne Cameron Smith will be a leader in his first Presidents Cup team. The 25-year-old may have never been on an International team before, but not only will he be in Ernie Els’ team at Royal Melbourne in December, he will be a standout. And he will go there with at least one more PGA TOUR win to his name… Smith’s short game prowess is well known to those who have watched him over the years, but it is getting some more mainstream attention of late. His T6 finish in Mexico was littered with a master class around the greens, just the sort of skills that make a great match player. Smith finished T5 at last season’s World Golf Championships – Dell Technologies Match Play, but don’t be surprised if he tops it in 2019. Remember his PGA TOUR win also came in a team effort at the Zurich Classic in 2017. Smith is made for the challenge that the U.S. team will bring, but he’s also ready to burst through and win a title on his own. 4. Trainer brings hope to all On the 2017 Web.com Tour, Martin Trainer made just $9,300 for the season. He lost his status and was heading for the PGA TOUR – LatinoAmerica in 2018. In the lead up to his first event in Mexico, he decides to enter a Sunday qualifier for the Web.com Tour event also being held south of the border and survives a 3-for-1 playoff to get in. The following Sunday he was hoisting the trophy for his first Web.com title. A few months later, he wins again and locks up a PGA TOUR spot for 2018-19. From zero status to PGA TOUR rookie in a year. Amazing. But Trainer clearly wasn’t done. Despite heading to the Puerto Rico Open this week having missed five of eight cuts in his rookie season on TOUR and only boasting a T28 as his career high, Trainer blitzed his way home with a final round 5-under 67 to win in just the 11th PGA TOUR start of his career. This game always offers the chance to change your life in a week. Trainer knows it all to well. He brings hope to all the battlers out there. Read more on his incredible journey here. 5. Tiger Woods continues to knock off the rust Through the opening two rounds in Mexico City it appeared Tiger Woods may have rid himself of the putting woes he faced the week before at the Genesis Open. His opening round wasn’t spectacular on the greens, but on Friday Woods dropped them in from everywhere to gain 3.648 strokes on the field putting, the best of the round. Unfortunately, the flat stick turned ice-cold over the weekend. Woods hit 31 of 36 greens, but played those holes in just 3 under par as he took his tournament three-putt total to six. He ranked 62nd (of 72) in Strokes Gained: Putting on Saturday and 64th (of 71) on Sunday. Perhaps a move off poa annua greens to Bermuda in Florida may be just what the doctor ordered. Woods will suit up next at the Arnold Palmer Invitational where he will look to claim a ninth title at Bay Hill. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Johnson becomes the 38th player with 20 or more PGA TOUR victories: the average age of the 37 other players on their 20th win was 34, the exact age Johnson is. He is just the ninth player since 1960 to win 20 PGA TOUR titles before the age of 35: Tiger Woods (age 24), Jack Nicklaus (26), Tom Watson (30), Arnold Palmer (31), Phil Mickelson (31), Billy Casper (31), Johnny Miller (33) and Gene Littler (34). 2. Johnson now has six World Golf Championships, including three Mexico Championships (one of those was at Doral in Florida). While he is second only to Tiger Woods’ 18 WGC titles, Johnson dies have the distinction of being the only player to have won all four of the current WGC events. 3. Johnson moves from No. 57 to No. 8 in the FedExCup and from No. 3 to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, closing to within 0.01 average points of No. 1 Justin Rose. Johnson will actually take back No. 1 status next week with both players inactive. 4. Tommy Fleetwood excited the masses early in his second round by opening with back-to-back eagles in Mexico. He was the first player on the PGA TOUR to do so since 2009, but Fleetwood’s efforts were even more impressive given they came on a pair of par-4s. 5. With his win Martin Trainer collects 300 FedExCup points to move from No. 185 to No. 39 in the FedExCup standings at 322 total points. Last year it took 377 points to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs. Trainer becomes the fourth first-time winner of the 2018-19 season, joining Kevin Tway (Safeway Open), Cameron Champ (Sanderson Farms Championship) and Adam Long (Desert Classic). He also joins Champ and Long as the third rookie winner of the season. 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. Xander Schauffele remains on top but Dustin Johnson makes his way into the top 10 after his big win, moving from 57th to 8th.
