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Hitch. Shake. Shimmy. Call it a dance for all he cares. Matthew Wolff was already a disruptor in the world of golf given his funky unorthodox swing, but now you might just see imitation take hold because you can’t argue with results. Welcome to the Monday Finish where we dissect the Wolff man’s win at the inaugural 3M Open in Minnesota – one for the ages… well the young ages at least. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Wolff is certainly a disruptor… and that’s not a bad thing. Matthew Wolff certainly brought plenty of notoriety with him when he came to the PGA TOUR this season. The 20-year-old was a stud in college golf, the best in the country actually, and on top of that has an unconventional YouTube swing that is riveting to some, but has been dismissed by many long-term analysts and coaches publicly and privately. Yet here he is, in just his fourth start, winning the 3M Open. In the days of hyper hype in sports those people who thought the noise around Wolff was over the top can be forgiven. But he called himself a disruptor leading into his pro debut on TOUR a few weeks ago and he was right. Whether this all translates into long-term success remains to be seen, but you can’t start trying to build that road without the first win. And that has come in rapid time. Only Ben Crenshaw and Tiger Woods previously won the NCAA title and a TOUR event in the same year… they went on to do pretty decent things. Read more about Wolff’s background here. 2. Winners win. While golf swings can differ greatly and still be successful, one thing always needs to be present to win on the TOUR. Mental guts and execution under pressure. You often hear people say that this guy or girl is a winner. It’s thrown around as a vague term. But what it means is when the blowtorch is applied they don’t back down. They step up and execute when their body is in a new state. Heightened adrenalin. Faster breathing. Quicker decision making. Wolff was watching five-time TOUR winner Bryson DeChambeau make eagle ahead of him on the 72nd hole. He still had to take on a water carry if he was to have a real chance to win outright. Cometh the hour… Wolff found his way into eagle range, even if it was mid-range and from the collar of the green, and the rest is history. That’s brilliant from any player, let alone a 20-year-old chasing his first TOUR win just weeks after turning pro. Bravo. Read more on his stunning finish here. 3. We remain blessed with the production line of talent. Wolff is just 20 years old. Runner up Collin Morikawa is just 22. Viktor Hovland is 21 and was T13 in his third start as a professional. (He was T13 last week also). DeChambeau was also runner up and he’s just 25. Wyndham Clark is also just a quarter of a century old and he was fifth. Since Tiger Woods proved well and truly you don’t need to bide your time as a youngster anymore, a new breed of kid has come onto the scene. They have no fear. Thought Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and co would dominate for decades? They might… but they’ll have to contend with the seemingly endless production line of new talented kids coming right behind them. Golf is lucky in this sense. “For the most part, it’s just playing on the PGA TOUR, that job security. I’m a 20-year-old and I’m saying, ‘job security,’ but it’s just, it really is. I knew as soon as I left college that I’m out here with the best players in the world and I have to prove myself, and I did that. Now I’m just free to play my game,â€� Wolff said almost ominously about becoming a TOUR member. Morikawa earned special temporary membership and has a chance to join his friend on TOUR next season. “Heading down to the end of the season and obviously there’s one more notch I want to reach, but it is a good feeling, you know, to finish T-2,â€� he said. “You’re never going to be fully disappointed on that. I think this is really going to help me just kind of move forward in the next month or so.â€� 4. Is Bryson back and ready to peak for Playoffs? Last season, Bryson DeChambeau was undoubtedly in rare form in the back half of the season. He won the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and also claimed the opening two FedExCup Playoffs. While he was unable to close the deal to take the FedExCup at the TOUR Championship, he did win again soon after at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open early in the new season. However, then he cooled off a little and coming into the Travelers Championship a few weeks ago, he’d slipped to 27th in the FedExCup standings and hadn’t had a top-10 since early January. But he was tied for eighth at the Travelers, signaling he might have turned a corner. This week when the tournament was on the line, he stiffed his approach on the 72nd hole and made eagle only to see a likely playoff spot taken by Wolff’s incredible eagle of his own. DeChambeau is now 14th in the FedExCup and eyeing a potential run towards the Wyndham Rewards Top-10 before the Playoffs. Could he be peaking at the right time for redemption? 5. Should Ernie Els be concerned? International Presidents Team Captain Ernie Els knows there is still six months before his team takes on the USA at Royal Melbourne. But you can’t help but think he might be a little worried as the deadline for the first eight spots gets closer and closer. Just four weeks of regular season remain on the TOUR before the three FedExCup Playoffs, after which the top eight on the International Team standings make the team. The 3M Open was another week of small promising signs, but ultimately no win. Adam Hadwin was fourth. Carlos Ortiz tied for fifth… but Hideki Matsuyama failed to take advantage of a good 54-hole position and was seventh. Big gun Jason Day, who is barely inside the top eight on the standings in seventh was 66th this week. Since the turn of the calendar in 2019, just three of the winners on the TOUR are eligible for the International Team. In the same span, just four winners on the European Tour are eligible players. Only one of those players, C.T. Pan, is currently inside the top eight of the standings. Now sure, winning tournaments individually doesn’t instantly correlate to team golf, but it would certainly help with confidence going up against the American juggernaut. Consider this, the current top eight Americans have, with the exception of Justin Thomas, won on the TOUR or the European Tour in 2019. Els will be hoping some International stars can create some momentum into and through the FedExCup Playoffs to perhaps inspire those who will later rely on captains picks. All 12 members will need to bring form and confidence to Melbourne if they are to win their first Cup since 1998. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Matthew Wolff became the first player since Russell Henley (2013) to win in four or fewer starts on TOUR. Wolff became the second youngest winner on TOUR since Jordan Spieth won the John Deere Classic in 2013 at the age of 19. He is the ninth youngest in TOUR history and the second youngest since 1940. 2. He is the first player to win after receiving a sponsor invitation since Billy Hurley III at the 2016 Quicken Loans National and becomes the third player to win NCAA individual championship title and TOUR event in same year, joining Ben Crenshaw and Tiger Woods. 3. A total of 95 percent of Wolff’s strokes gained for the week were a result of his play from tee-to-green. Wolff ranked second in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green, outperforming the field by a combined +2.361 strokes per round. 4. For the week, Wolff outperformed the field by +3.329 strokes per round from tee to green compared to losing -0.453 strokes per round in his first nine rounds of his TOUR career. Further comparison between this week and his first nine rounds – Greens in Regulation: 83.3% vs 66.7%; Proximity to Hole: 28 feet, 4 inches vs 40 feet, 2 inches; Birdie Average: 6.5 vs 3.7; Score to Par: -21 vs -2. 5. Wolff made a field leading 26 total birdies for the week marking the 26th of 35 TOUR stroke play winners this season to make 20 or more birdies and go onto win. 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. Matt Kuchar remains No. 1, and there were no changes among the rest of the all-important Top 10. Just three weeks and five tournaments remain until the start of the Wyndham Championship, the last event of the FedExCup Regular Season.

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SAN ANTONIO — Back in the spring of 1973, Ben Crenshaw won his third individual NCAA title at the University of Texas. The junior from Austin then made a choice. He left college early and registered for the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament, which at the time comprised eight grueling rounds. Crenshaw wanted to see if he was ready for professional golf. The answer came in the form of an emphatic 12-shot victory at Q-School. Crenshaw announced that he would make his debut at the Valero Texas Open, seventy miles down the highway from his hometown. The tournament moved in the fall of ’73 to Woodlake Golf Club, a Desmond Muirhead design with captivating bunkers and a par-5 finish flanked by water. Crenshaw was 21. He had won a pair of Texas state junior championships at Brackenridge Park, the Texas Open’s original home. But he had never played Woodlake. He shot 65 in the first round and 72 in the second. He shot 66-67 on the weekend, beating Orville Moody by two and George Archer by three. Crenshaw became the youngest winner in the history of the Valero Texas Open, which began in 1922. “This kid is going to be winning tournaments for many years,” Valero Texas Open official Gordon Glenz told reporters. Glenn was right. Crenshaw won 19 times on the PGA TOUR, including the Masters Tournament in 1984 and 1995. In February, Crenshaw spoke at an event marking the role of San Antonio’s Oak Hills Country Club in the 100-year history of the Valero Texas Open. The tournament spent 24 years at Oak Hills, where Crenshaw won his second VTO in 1986 and finished as runner-up to Bill Rogers in 1981. Crenshaw is not just one of the great players in the history of Texas golf, but also a noted golf historian, which made him an appropriate speaker at this event celebrating the sixth-oldest professional tournament worldwide and third-oldest on the PGA TOUR. Below is a transcript of his remarks at the event. They are edited for clarity and brevity. PGATOUR.COM: What are your memories of your first start as a professional at the Valero Texas Open? BEN CRENSHAW: I was playing well at the time. There were three guys that I had to overcome. One of them was George Archer. And Orville Moody, who won the 1969 U.S. Open at Champions (Golf Club in Houston), and Mike Hill, Dave Hill’s brother. It got pretty tight at the end. As I remember, Woodlake had a par 5. The last hole had water on both sides. I made birdie on the hole and won. That was a really happy time. San Antonio, I’ve always regarded as my second home. The state junior was here, at Brackenridge Park. I first played it when I was 13 years old. It was my first introduction to players from around the state, who really keyed for that tournament. It was a big deal. I loved Brackenridge Park, and I still love it to this day. It means so much to the history of our state. PGATOUR.COM One of the founders of the first Valero Texas Open was a newspaper editor named Jack O’Brien. He and the other organizers saw the VTO as a way to bring club professionals from the Midwest and Northeast to enjoy San Antonio in the heart of winter. The idea seemed to work, didn’t it? CRENSHAW: What he (O’Brien) was trying to do was spread tourism. He did a beautiful job with that. I like to say the Texas Open is the first forerunner for the whole PGA TOUR itself. It was such a success. There was so much excitement about it. And I think it introduced a way of having the professional tour travel throughout the country, and have a schedule. The pros played wherever they could. You know, most of the pros back then had two jobs. They were players, but they were also club pros. PGATOUR.COM: The VTO was played here at Oak Hills from 1961 to 1966, and from 1977 to 1994. What are your memories of those years? CRENSHAW: Some of my happiest memories have been right here at Oak Hills. I was 9 years old. My brother was 10. And my dad brought us out here and we watched the 1961 Texas Open. We went out on the first tee box, and (Crenshaw’s brother) Charlie and I were on the right side, and here comes this big, burly guy named Mike Souchak (the winner of the 1955 Valero Texas Open). He pulled out this black-faced Macgregor 1-iron, teed it up on the right side, and he buzzed this 1-iron right past us. It was just the most amazing thing I ever saw. That was our introduction to professional golf. We followed Arnold Palmer (who won that year). Couldn’t get close to him. My father knew Jimmy Demaret. So we followed him a few holes. PGATOUR.COM: In 1981, you and Bill Rogers produced some of the greatest golf in the history of the Valero Texas Open. You shot 64 in the final round. Rogers shot 63. You tied, resulting in a sudden-death playoff at Oak Hills. What do you remember about that year? CRENSHAW: Bill Rogers is one of my dear, dear friends. It only took him one hole to knock me out. That year was one of the most special years for a player. Nobody could beat him that year. He won the British Open. He won the Australian Open. He won the world match play. (Rogers won four times that year on the PGA TOUR and finished second once, winning Player of the Year honors. He made the cut in 20 of 26 starts.) PGATOUR.COM: The Valero Texas Open has endured many challenges in its 100 years, from a depression to a world war to revolving sponsorships. Now it has a stability in the form of Valero. It’s one of the leading tournaments on the PGA TOUR in terms of charitable giving and civic support. What do those say to you about the VTO and San Antonio? CRENSHAW: That says quite a lot. It’s very important. And, believe me, the players know it too. If they know anything about the history of this event, not too many places have had a strong relationship with the community. And, as you know, the newspapers were very much a part of the impetus to get the word out to come to your town. We have to give thanks to companies like Valero to sustain the relationships with the players and also the community. I kind of think that San Antonio has served as a great model for the rest of the TOUR. I think of so many moments. Times where I’ve had near misses, but times I’ve triumphed too. San Antonio was a special place for me.

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