Monday Finish: Thomas back to old tricks in Maui

Here are nine tidbits from the first round of the World Golf Championships – Dell Technologies Match Play that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road. The Austin Country Club plays 7,108 yards (par 71). Know Thy Enemy These were the top-selected golfers in the PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. Tomorrow, we’ll look at who gamers selected to win the bracket challenge and Friday, as usual, we’ll reveal the PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO selections. Inside the Numbers Of the 16 seeded favorites from Pot 1, gamers selected 12 of them to win their respective pools and move on. Obviously we know who the MOST-selected player was but I’ll let you know that Bernd Wiesberger (52) was the least-selected player in the field. It won’t surprise the sharper gamers that he was the lowest-ranked player in Johnson’s group. More on that pairing in a minute. The most surprising margin was Patrick Reed (19) was selected in almost 20 percent more of the brackets than Jordan Spieth (4). They both won their opening matches. Seeded Dark-Horses Bubba Watson (35) was the highest-ranked player selected to advance as he was selected out of Pot 3. … There were two groups, Nos. 2 and 7, where the top two were separated by less than five percent. The most interesting part of the tight race in Group 2 is that No. 54 Zach Johnson was the second choice… In Group 6, Charley Hoffman (22) had the biggest separation of any “underdog” as he was selected in over 24 percent more of the brackets than “favorite” Tyrrell Hatton (12). Hoffman lost his match 1-down while the Englishman cruised 3 and 2 over Alexander Levy (55), People’s Choice: Dustin Johnson (1) For 95.25 percent of us, we couldn’t be happier this format changed to pool play in 2015. In the old days, Johnson would be packing his bags and heading home after falling 3 and 1 to Wiesberger and PLENTY of brackets would be busted. The defending champion gets a reprieve, but no guarantee of advancing. That guarantee belongs to the least-selected player from Austria. If he wins his final two matches, he advances regardless of what No. 1 does as he’s beaten him heads-up. This format > the old format! Living Up to the Hype Johnson and Kuchar made gamers look smart in Round 1 as they battled to the final hole. Kuchar led 4-up with four to play before Johnson closed with four birdies to halve the match. Yuta Ikeda (47) defeated Ross Fisher (27) in the other match to lead the group with three points. … The tight Group 7 has Tony Finau (29) breathing down the neck of Alex Noren (13). Both players lived up to the hype as well as the Swede handled Kevin Na (61) 4 and 2 while the big-hitting Finau out-slugged Thomas Pieters (39) 2 and 1. Steamroller: Biggest Win Gamers knew what they were talking about, at least in the opening match, when they supported Watson. The winner at Riviera last month was seven-under-par on the front nine and was 6-up at the turn. His victim was Branden Grace (23) who played those same nine holes one-under. Watson went on to win 5 and 3 and shares the lead in the group. Bracket Disrupters: Biggest Upsets Using the numbers above, there’s no doubt that Johnson qualifies but he’s not alone. McIlroy (6) tried to rescue his match against Peter Uihlein (57) with a late birdie barrage but lost 2 and 1. … Rahm (3) needed to win the final hole against Keegan Bradley (63) to halve their match. Each player claims a point … The last player in the field, Julian Suri (64), defeated Marc Leishman (11) 3 and 2. He shares the group lead with Watson in Group 14. I debated whether to put Suri in the Steamroller section or Bracket Disrupters. The answer was yes on both! Worry? Who Me? Fantasy guru and all-around great dude Rob Bolton has let me know that this edition of Match Play is similar to this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament madness. The eventual pool winners over the last three years had 13 first day wins in 2015, 12 in 2016 and 12 in 2017. I’m terrible at math but I can decipher winning on the first day seems to be quite important but isn’t a death sentence. Of those eight players know Johnson was the only player in 2016 to escape pool play after losing the first round. Study Hall For those of you who enjoy numbers, Paul Casey (10) picked up his 24th win in this format defeating Russell Henley (51), 1-up. His only lead was the final margin. … Jason Day (8) grabbed his 22nd victory 4 and 2 over James Hahn (56). … Luke List (60) is one of the newbies this week and he got off to an auspicious start. His putter didn’t see the end of the round after getting bent after eight holes. His wedge filled in but he couldn’t catch Justin Thomas (2) on the final hole. Thomas, who won 2-up, is battling strep throat while List will get a new putter tomorrow.

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – This season started with Kevin Tway becoming a first-time winner in his 91st career start on the PGA TOUR. Since then, we’ve had Matt Kuchar ending his drought after 116 starts, followed the next week by Charles Howell III winning for the first time in 333 starts and nearly 12 years. Last week, Rickie Fowler returned to the winner’s circle for the first time in nearly two years. That brings us to 29-year-old Tony Finau. Since his lone win in a playoff against Steve Marino at the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, he’s made 78 TOUR starts. He’s come close several times to that elusive second win – four runner-up finishes, including a playoff loss last fall to Xander Schauffele at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. He’s posted 20 top-10 finishes since his breakthrough win, and last season was the highest-ranked player in the FedExCup standings without a victory. He’s given himself opportunities. He’s made noise in the big events (three top-10 finishes in majors last season). He’s shown the ability to handle pressure; his opening tee shot at last year’s Ryder Cup still resonates as a defining moment, as does his 2-1-0 match record in Paris – one of just four Americans over .500 in an otherwise losing effort. “I played well on a big stage,� Finau said – and he hopes to do so again in December at the Presidents Cup in Australia. He’s among the biggest hitters on TOUR, his putting made a big leap in improvement last season, he’s easy-going and seems ultra-steady and calm inside the ropes. At the Masters last year, he even showed super-human recuperating powers, overcoming a dislocated left ankle while celebrating an ace in the Par-3 Contest to finish T-10. There’s a lot to like about Finau’s game, his demeanor and his future success. In this season of drought-busting, Finau would seem to be next on the list – perhaps starting with the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Even if it doesn’t happen this week, Finau is confident it will happen soon. “I’ve gotten a lot better every year and in every part of my game,� he said Wednesday. “And if that trend continues, then I know I’m going to win some golf tournaments. “That’s all I can do is try and get better, and my coach and I have worked on a lot of great things over the past few seasons and the progress has been continuous. And in the process of getting better, I’ve had some nice results. “That’s all I’m trying to do is continue to get better, and I’ve done that these last few seasons. If I continue to do that, then I know some wins will be on my resume this year.� Not a win. Some wins. That’s the expectation level that Finau asks of himself, and that’s probably an accurate assessment of what the golf world also expects of him. But it’s not easy. Fowler showed that last week at TPC Scottsdale. A five-shot lead disappeared in two holes, starting at the 11th when Fowler ran his third shot through the green and into the water, then suffered an additional penalty shot when his placed ball on the downslope rolled back into the water while he was on surveying his line on the green. He would go on to card a triple bogey, and then bogeyed the next hole, eventually falling one shot behind Branden Grace. Fowler managed to shake off the two-hole disaster and regain the lead to win for the fifth time on TOUR. Finau, who missed the cut last week – just his second missed cut in his last 24 worldwide starts – was an interested observer of how Fowler persevered. “To be able to finish in the fashion he did after basically something tragic in the middle of your tournament happens. … That’s a tough pill to swallow for anybody,� Finau said. “I feel like mentally I’m pretty strong when I play. And Rickie’s the same way, and he showed his true colors.� Finau led by three shots after 54 holes in Shanghai last October and shot a respectable 71 on the final day, only to be caught by Schauffele, who made an unlikely birdie at the 71st hole, then won the playoff with another birdie. Since then, Finau worked with swing coach Boyd Summerhays on a higher swing plane in hopes of avoiding the flat swing that sometimes got him in trouble. He called it a minor adjustment, but with additional practice time, he finally committed to it in the off-season. The results were immediate – a runner-up finish to Jon Rahm at the 18-man Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. “Someone being my height,� said the 6-foot-4 Finau, “I think it’s a lot better to swing up and down more so than around you.� But more than the physical work for Finau, it’s the mental approach he wants to improve on the most. His off-season wasn’t spent so much on pounding balls each day but working on the proper mindset to turn those second-place finishes into wins. “Getting my mindset right and seeing what I can learn from,� he said. He thinks he’s on the right track, but validity will come only with a big trophy. “I look forward to the season,� he said. “I think it’s one that I carry a lot of momentum from last season.� Rain is in the forecast for the final three days this week at Pebble Beach. That should make the courses play longer, giving Finau and the other big hitters in the field an even larger advantage. Wet and favorable conditions – seems like a good week to end a drought.

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