Monday qualifiers: Wyndham Championship

Jack Nicklaus is set to oversee a renovation next summer of Muirfield Village, home of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. All 18 greens will be re-done and length will be added to parts of the course. The scope of work could be increased as the 79-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer creates his final game plan. It is the first significant change at Muirfield Village since 2011 when the par-3 16th was re-designed ahead of the 2013 Presidents Cup. Related: Creating a Masterpiece: How Jack Nicklaus brought Muirfield Village to life Next year’s renovation will commence after the 2020 Memorial Tournament, which takes place the week of June 1-7. “Jack is going to touch up the golf course. He is going to redo all the greens starting July of 2020 and we will be ready to go for the 2021 Memorial Tournament,� said Nicholas LaRocca, the general manager who has been at Muirfield Village since 1997. “This fall we are adding three new back tees on the par-3 eighth, the par-5 11th and the par-5 15th which will add distance to the course ahead of the 2020 event. Jack might also do some light tweaks in other areas of the golf course, but he has not put pencil to paper on any of that yet … He will do so this fall.� LaRocca said there is still plenty of planning and decision-making to be done but expected the work to be completed quickly in 2020 before the Ohio winter hits full gear. “Right now we are developing a plan for all 18 greens that will be rebuilt. We are trying to work out what we will put on the bottom, if we are going to put any new systems underground and we haven’t determined which turf we will select to seed,� he added. “We will seed pretty quick July 2020 to be done by Aug. 15, the proper time to get things done in this region to have proper grow in.� Nicklaus opened his signature course in 1974 and has been hosting the Memorial Tournament since 1976 as one of the premier stops on the PGA TOUR. In 2014, the tournament was elevated in status (as was the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard), with the winner receiving a three-year exemption. The list of winners is an esteemed one where along with Nicklaus (twice) the likes of Tom Watson (twice), Hale Irwin (twice), Greg Norman (twice) and Tiger Woods (five times) are amongst those to have hoisted the Muirfield crystal. LaRocca says the membership is excited by the news, particularly as it could be the last set of changes Nicklaus himself will be extensively involved in on the property. The 18-time major winner will turn 80 in January. “The members here are awesome, they embrace this,� LaRocca said. “They love that Jack is here and doing it and they are all excited about the changes. It’s all very exciting for us. “Muirfield Village is like the Mona Lisa. It’s a masterpiece. It’s Jack masterpiece in the game of golf. How can you possibly improve on a masterpiece? And yet Jack and Barbara Nicklaus continually find ways of doing that. Every year there is something new, not because anything was wrong; just to make it better. Their commitment to excellence is amazing.� Earlier this year, Nicklaus talked about his philosophy on design at Muirfield Village. “Through the years I have made a lot of changes, some for the sake of the members, some to improve the spectator experience, and some simply to make the golf course a better and stronger test. Like any designer, I want the course to show well, and be able to hold up against the game’s best players, so I have tried to find ways to preserve shot values,� Nicklaus said. “I think all golf courses are in continual evolution. I do,� he added. “Muirfield Village has been that way. You see something that can make it better and you go do it. But Muirfield Village is intrinsically the same golf course. You could go through the golf course and compare what it was when it opened and where it is today and you’d think the difference was night and day. But done over time you don’t notice it.�

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NAPA, Calif. — Kevin Tway made a 10-foot birdie putt on the third hole of a playoff Sunday to win the season-opening Safeway Open for his first PGA TOUR title. The son of eight-time PGA TOUR winner Bob Tway, the 30-year-old former Oklahoma State player beat Ryan Moore on the par-4 10th after Brandt Snedeker dropped out on their second extra trip down the par-5 18th. After strong wind died down in the late afternoon on Silverado’s tree-lined North Course, Tway birdied the final two holes in regulation for a 1-under 71, then birdied all three holes in the playoff. “In the playoff I made three birdies, so that was pretty good,” Tway said. “I’m kind of at a loss for words.” Moore birdied three of the last four in a 67. “I didn’t get off to the best start and my swing didn’t feel that great,” Moore said. “So I just had to grind a little bit and kind of find a little key for the day.” Snedeker, three strokes ahead entering the day and five in front with 11 to play, had four back-nine bogeys in a 74. “No one to blame but myself,” Snedeker tweeted. “I have to find a way to win today.” The nine-time PGA TOUR winner bogeyed the first three holes on the back nine, birdied the par-5 16th, bogeyed the par-4 17th and parred the 18th, missing from 9 feet. Luke List eagled the 18th for a 67 to finish a stroke out of the playoff with Troy Merritt (68), Sam Ryder (69), Aaron Baddeley (69) and Sungjae Im (71). “Obviously, we all kind of knew the wind was going to be crazy warming up this morning,” List said. “There was debris flying everywhere. I was just anticipating a really tough day and it was.” Phil Mickelson tied for 17th at 8 under after a 72. “It was challenging but yet very playable conditions,” Mickelson said. “Actually, I played pretty good. I hit two balls out of bounds on the fifth hole trying to go for the green, but other than that, I played pretty well.” Fred Couples had a 75 to tie for 41st at 5 under in his final start in a regular PGA TOUR event. “For a while I didn’t think we were going to play and then when we played, I didn’t really play,” the 59–year-old Hall of Famer said. “Then I just started hitting and hoping for the best. Two-time defending champion Brendan Steele had a 75 to finish at 3 under.

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Most of us can appreciate the travails of Jordan Spieth at the moment. Trying to appreciate his game at its peak was something most of us mere mortals cannot fathom. Solid off the tee, crisp iron shots, and a short game that at times seemed to never miss. He took that game to a FedExCup title, 11 PGA TOUR wins and three majors in his early 20s. But his current efforts over the past few seasons, where one part of his game would be firing but another be off, is something more familiar to most amateur golfers for sure. On Friday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Spieth found some needed rhythm off the tee and on approach at times, but his putter largely deserted him. He gained as many strokes on the field in his approach game that he had lost on Thursday but rounds of 74-69 will see him miss the weekend. It’s part of a larger slide for the now 26-year-old who is coming up on nearly three years since his last victory at the 2017 Open Championship. Since claiming the claret jug, his only top-five finish came at the 2018 Masters. Related: Leaderboard | Amy paying it forward Despite falling outside of the world top 50 for the first time since he first entered it in 2013 early this week, Spieth’s game is still miles above us weekend warriors. He’s still in another stratosphere and while words can sometimes be cheap and “it’s closeâ€� is one of the most used clichés in the sport, you really believe him when he says a turnaround is coming. “I drove the ball really well, just hit my irons poorly yesterday, which set me back. And then just historically, I’ve had a really hard time reading these greens and it just continued this week,â€� Spieth said after his round. As he signed his card, he had lost nearly three strokes to the field on the greens over the two rounds. “Felt like I put good strokes on it and then I would look up and I missed them by like a foot offline, which was very unusual for me,â€� he added. “But overall I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made off the tee. That was the best I’ve driven the ball in a couple years. So when that happens I know the rest of it’s kind of coming behind. Did a lot today to make it work and I hit 16 greens which is another really good sign.â€� Spieth worked his tail off over the off-season with coach Cameron McCormick to get his swing back to the heady days of 2015, but on Tuesday they made another adjustment. He strengthened his grip by some “five degreesâ€� and is working on getting his shaft flatter with a very closed clubface in his backswing. This makes his accuracy into the greens Friday perhaps even more impressive. But the flip side of that is there could be some more erratic golf as he tries to embed yet another change. “That’s something that takes 2-3 months to nail down,â€� Spieth told Golf Digest of the changes. “It’s an unusual feeling for me and it’s been difficult to trust, especially without having my grip in the perfect place. I miss a lot of left shots given the grip. My hands are pretty good and I’ll be able to figure it out in a couple of weeks, but I did it with the idea that we have a couple of months before the first major.â€� Next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am provides a welcome happy hunting ground for the Texan to continue his efforts. He won the tournament in 2017 and has never missed the cut in seven starts, finishing inside the top 25 in six of them. “When the driver starts to come around… that’s normally last… so when that starts to come around, I’m not worried about the rest of the game. And I’m not worried about the putting either,â€� Spieth continued. “I’ve had bad putting weeks where I’ve walked away saying, I don’t know what’s going on in the stroke. But I hit my lines almost every single putt and just simply misread them all. And I know that that’s not the case historically for me on the three courses next week, so I’m looking forward to that.â€� While he remains upbeat looking forward, he was emotional on course at TPC Scottsdale, even more so than usual. Afterwards, he admitted he felt like he had let down a few of his friends who had flown out to watch the tournament. “(The frustration) was just will. I just really wanted it. I wanted to play the weekend. I had a bunch of buddies come in town. I wanted to kind of give them something to watch the next couple days,â€� he lamented. “So when I just couldn’t do the easy part for me, which is the putting, that’s what was so frustrating. It’s not like overall frustration. I’ve had plenty of that. I’m done with that. I’m on the rebound now.â€� Currently Spieth is not locked into the World Golf Championships – Mexico Championship on Feb. 20-23 but can still earn his way in over the next few weeks. If his ranking slides further, he could also find himself out of the World Golf Champions – Dell Match Play Championship on March 25-29.   “I don’t know where I’m at in the world ranking,â€� he said. “Don’t care, don’t look at it. I’m just trying to step up and win a golf tournament and let everything else take care of itself [but] you need to play all four rounds to win a tournament.â€�

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