Monday Finish: WGC-HSBC Champions, Sanderson Farms Championship

In the final round of the 2017 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, Justin Rose shoots a back-nine 31 for a 67 and an epic comeback victory over Dustin Johnson (77) at Sheshan International Golf Club. Meanwhile, Ryan Armour, 41, also torches the back nine for his first PGA TOUR victory, a five-shot romp at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where both Rose and Armour proved it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1.) There was some spooky, Halloween juju at work in Shanghai. First, rookie Dou “Marty� Zecheng beat Matt Kuchar in Ping-Pong. (Kuchar, who finished T31 at 1-under, would beat Zecheng by 10 on the golf course.) Then, world No. 1 Dustin Johnson fell apart at Sheshan, opening the door for Rose. By now you know that Rose, who began the final round eight shots behind, matched the third-best comeback in TOUR history. And Johnson matched the biggest collapse. But to get a sense for just how unusual Sunday was, consider that Johnson, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, chunked iron shots on the 14th and 15th holes. One such shot is rare enough. But two? Johnson failed to birdie the par-5 14th and bogeyed the par-4 15th. More weirdness: There was no reason for Rose’s family to stay up to watch him play for second, but they were up, anyway, and saw him finish first. Rose’s daughter, Charlotte, stirred at 3 a.m., waking up Rose’s wife, Kate, who turned the TV on just in time to catch the finish.  2.) Johnson can take inspiration from Kyle Stanley. The guess here is Johnson won’t be too distraught, given that the wind was gusting up to 25 mph and he hasn’t exactly made a habit of such finishes. But if he needs a silver lining, here it is: Before Rose, Kyle Stanley was the last player who came from eight back to win, at the 2012 Waste Management Phoenix Open, where leader Spencer Levin soared to a 75. The week before that, Stanley had lost a five-stroke lead in the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open. In other words, watch out for Johnson in his next start, which would most likely come at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, which he won in 2013. 3.) Rose was right: He does have time Players are often asked to reflect on their career arcs, and after losing the Masters to Sergio Garcia in a playoff last April, Rose said he felt like he would have more chances to win the Green Jacket. He is 37, but in winning his eighth TOUR title one year after winning the gold medal for England at the Rio Olympics, he’s got a nice little streak going. “All players pride themselves on winning,� Rose said, “and I’ve won every year since 2010. I was very aware that that was slipping away from me this year.� More superlatives: Rose’s performance at Sheshan was positively Nick Faldo-like, with the plot echoing the 1996 Masters: An Englishman (Rose, Faldo) shoots 67 to reel in a faltering superstar (Johnson, Greg Norman) who after spending multiple weeks at No. 1 in the world loses a six-shot lead and then some by soaring to a shocking number (77 for Johnson, 78 for Norman).   4.) Good things come to those who wait. Armour blinked back tears after picking up his first TOUR win in his 105th start. That seems like a long wait, and Armour, 41, didn’t even have a place to play as recently as 2013. “It’s a big monkey off my back,� Armour said after shooting four rounds in the 60s, after which he was permitted to kiss a chicken (or at least the Sanderson Farms trophy). His breakthrough is just the latest reminder that no sport offers more second chances than golf. Kevin Chappell won in his 180th TOUR start at the Valero Texas Open last season, a feel-good story that was nevertheless eclipsed by Sergio Garcia winning the Masters, marking his first major triumph in his 74th major start. Garcia’s stirring victory came seven months after Henrik Stenson, 40, got his first major victory in his 42nd major start at The Open. That’s a lot of late-bloomers. Perhaps there’s hope for the rest of us. 5.) It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. Rose spun his wheels with an even-par 36 on the front before kicking into high gear with five birdies and a back-nine 31, but he was hardly the only player to see a drastic improvement after making the turn. Armour did most of his damage on the back at Sanderson Farms for the entire week. He made 17 birdies on the back, compared to 11 on the front, and drained over 273 feet of putts on the back, where he outperformed the field by +7.05 in strokes gained: putting. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. With 550 FedExCup points, Rose, with one start so far this season, moves into third in the FedExCup race, just six points behind Safeway Open champion Brendan Steele. Pat Perez, who is enjoying a late-career awakening, leads the FedExCup with 627 points. 2. Dustin Johnson’s 77 was his worst round since a final-round 82 at the 2010 U.S. Open, and marked just the seventh time in his career that he has failed to make birdie or better in a round. Still, the last time he didn’t make a birdie wasn’t that long ago: the first round of the 2017 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. 3. Tony Finau, who led the TOUR with 50 rounds in the 60s last season, finished T11 at the WGC-HSBC, where he notched his fourth round in the 60s in three starts in 2017-’18. Armour, meanwhile, shot four rounds in the 60s in winning the Sanderson Farms at the Country Club of Jackson, the only player at either tournament to break 70 all four days. 4. Armour made 441 feet, 3 inches of putts at Sanderson Farms, 12th most by a winner in the ShotLink era. His average driving distance of 264 yards was the shortest by a Sanderson Farms winner since 2003. He laid up on 17 of 20 par 5s, which was the third-highest lay-up percentage (85%) by a winner on TOUR since 2003. Second highest was Jim Herman at the 2016 Shell Houston Open (88.2%). First highest was Ben Curtis at the 2012 Valero Texas Open (90.5%).   5. With two 41-year-old winners (Armour at Sanderson Farms, Pat Perez at the CIMB Classic) and one 37-year-old (Rose at WGC-HSBC) so far, the average age of the winners over this season’s first five events is 35.4. That’s in stark contrast to last season, when 20-somethings accounted for 28 victories (of 47 total tournaments), the most since 1970. TOP THREE VIDEOS

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