Nine things to know: Olympia Fields

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The PGA TOUR hit the sun in the Dominican Republic at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and it was Hudson Swafford who came away with a great victory. Welcome to the Monday Finish where we give you the lowdown on what you might have missed as the 33-year-old claimed the second TOUR victory of his career and moved to second in the FedExCup standings. 1. Hudson Swafford did what can be very tough to do by impressively turning the tide of negative momentum. Swafford was cruising early on Sunday and at one point led by four shots. But any thought of a tropical cruise down the back nine was thrown away when he chalked up a double bogey and bogey to fall back into a tie for top spot. Invariably that sort of sudden jolt and slide is hard to turn around in a short space of time but Swafford took stock with two to play and stepped up with some clutch moments. He hit a brilliant shot into the 17th to set up a go ahead birdie and after leaving meat on the bone with a birdie attempt on the last, calmly slotted the testing par putt for the victory. Get the low down here. 2. The top 10 was a great mix of stories to keep an eye on in coming weeks AND when we return to the D.R. for the second time this season. They may not have won in the D.R. but those who fell just a little short could certainly press for victories in the coming weeks and of course when the tournament returns to its traditional slot in March. Runner-up went to Tyler McCumber who opened with a 7-under 65 to share the first-round lead. He clearly likes the course having shared the 54-hole lead there on TOUR debut in 2018. A closing 66, including a clutch long birdie on the last hole, gave him a chance for the win. Mackenzie Hughes is another who likes the course having now been T2 in 2018 and third this week. Nate Lashley won when the event was part of the Korn Ferry Tour schedule and fourth this time around. Adam Long fell back from the 54-hole lead to be fifth but was also in the mix at Winged Foot so keep an eye on his form and James Hahn and Cameron Percy were now in the mix at both the season opening Safeway Open and here in the Dominican Republic. Anirban Lahiri had his first top 10 finish since 2017. 3. Zalatoris does it again. Will Zalatoris is in rare form. In 16 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour this season, his worst result is a T34 and his last 11 starts on that TOUR have all been inside the top 20, including a win. He kept that streak alive with a T6 at the U.S. Open and was T8 in Corales Puntacana. He has quickly become a candidate for promotion to the PGA TOUR through non-member points. He's slated to play the next two weeks at Sanderson Farms Championship and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. If he maintains the rage we will likely see a lot more of him. 4. Justin Suh is coming. The two-time All-American is the odd man out when it comes to college prospects from his era making waves on the PGA TOUR. While Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland have already all won on the TOUR - with Morikawa winning a major and Wolff being runner up in another - Suh is still finding his way. There is most certainly no disgrace in his progression though and with a troublesome wrist complaint now seemingly behind him the 23-year-old is starting to pop up on leaderboards. A T14 finish this week is further proof he can match it in the big leagues. 5. There was a Dominican Republic Golf best finish. Willy Pumarol, the lone Dominican to advance to the weekend, finished T65. It was the best finish in the history of the event by a player from the Dominican Republic besting Julio Santos who set the mark at T73 in 2018 before beating it with a T69 in 2019. Let's hope come March more improvement can be made. TOUR TOP 10 Bryson DeChambeau's U.S. Open win is still enough to hold down the top spot but Hudson Swafford has rocketed to the second spot following his win this week.Swafford jumped 98 spots with his win. Other new faces in the top 10 this week include Tyler McCumber, Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Long and James Hahn. The regular season top 10 will receive bonuses for their efforts.

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ERIN, Wis. – Welcome to the Monday Finish, where we’re still digging out of Erin Hills’ famous fescue. We’ve freed ourselves from the thick stuff long enough to give you a deep look at Brooks Koepka’s dominant victory at Erin Hills. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The plethora of low scores at this U.S. Open drew the consternation of those who like their fairways narrow and their rough thick. This definitely wasn’t Ben Hogan’s U.S. Open. But if you’re from the camp that thinks par, like age, is just a number, then you likely considered this U.S. Open a success. A dramatic finish ended with a deserving champion. The debate over an appropriate winning score at the U.S. Open truly is a par-tisan debate (excuse the pun), with passionate voices firmly entrenched on each side. Some think a 16-under-par winning score at their national championship is an abomination. Others say that par alone is not the judge of a suitable test. I lean toward the latter perspective. Would this really have been a better championship if the USGA had converted two par-5s into long par-4s? PGA TOUR players are always going to stray farther from par when there are more par-5s. This was the first par-72 to host a U.S. Open since 1992. Erin Hills’ wide fairways allowed players to attack the golf course. Koepka displayed impressive prowess from the tee, averaging 322.1 yards while missing just 10 fairways for the week. We got to watch a player win the golf tournament, instead of seeing someone lose it. A golf course that allows players to be aggressive, while still penalizing wayward shots, usually creates the best theater. It’s why we so often see an exciting finish to tournaments like THE PLAYERS Championship and the Masters. It should be remembered, too, that the weather didn’t come to the course’s defense until the final round. There’s nothing the USGA can do about that. Frustrated traditionalists should rejoice, though, because the lineup of upcoming U.S. Open venues includes classic courses like Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach, Winged Foot, The Country Club, Los Angeles Country Club and Pinehurst No. 2. 2.  Koepka’s path to the PGA TOUR and ultimately a major victory wasn’t a straight line – which should give hope to all players battling away on different tours around the world. The American plied his trade on the European Challenge Tour, where he won four times before jumping up to the main European Tour. He won events in Spain, Scotland, Italy and Turkey before earning his first PGA TOUR victory at the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open. He’s also won in Japan after claiming last year’s Dunlop Phoenix. His game truly does travel. He started to shift back to the States during the 2013-14 season, when he was able to accumulate enough non-member FedExCup points for 2014-15. He finished 24th in the FedExCup after winning in Phoenix, and was 35th last season. Now he has extended his TOUR status another five years with the U.S. Open win. So to all those players battling away on the Web.com Tour or the MacKenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada or PGA TOUR Latinoamerica or over in Europe, Asia or Australia… there is always much hope. A major championship could well be in the future. 3. Hideki Matsuyama shot the low score in two of the four rounds at Erin Hills, but it wasn’t enough to catch Koepka. Matsuyama was 13 under par in the second and fourth rounds. His 7-under 65 matched Chez Reavie for Friday’s low round, and his 66 was Sunday’s best. Matsuyama shot 74 and 71 in the other two rounds, though. “I learned that I have to put four good rounds together,â€� said Matsuyama, who moved to No. 2 in the FedExCup. “I played two good rounds, but it wasn’t enough.â€� The finish was another strong showing for Matsuyama in the majors. He has finished 11th or better in the past three majors (T4, 2016 PGA; T11, 2017 Masters; T2, 2017 U.S. Open). Like many of the players who are consistent contenders in the Grand Slam events, Matsuyama is known for his excellent ball-striking. He’s ninth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and 21st in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. Here’s how he ranks in proximity to the hole from various distance intervals: 125-150 yards: 11th (20 feet, 6 inches) 150-175 yards: 7th (24’, 3â€�) 175-200 yards: 6th (29’, 2â€�) More than 200 yards: 16th (47’, 2â€�) The finish also moved Matsuyama to a career-best No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, the highest ranking ever for a player from Japan. The 25-year-old also sits atop the International Team’s rankings for the upcoming Presidents Cup, which will be held Sept. 26-Oct. 1 at Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey. This will be his third Presidents Cup appearance. 4. Perhaps the biggest surprise on Sunday was the play of Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas. The pair looked primed for a breakthrough major victory. Thomas was quickly out of the mix after three early bogeys, but Fowler hung reasonably tough until the early stages of the back nine. He just couldn’t hit the gas. It marks the second straight major Fowler has been within two of the lead after 54 holes but failed to be a factor in the result. This was his fifth top-5 in a major. Perhaps he only needs to talk to his Zurich Classic teammate Jason Day about dealing with near-misses. Day had nine top-10 finishes in majors before winning one. So Fowler most certainly has time. Phil Mickelson didn’t get his major winning ways underway to well into his 30s. We have now had seven first-time major winners in a row so the trend is there for them to be part of at next month’s Open Championship. 5. Brian Harman was dominant as a junior golfer. His impressive resume in high school included the 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur. He also represented the United States in the Walker Cup before his freshman year of college, a feat later accomplished by Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth. Harman played on both the 2005 and 2009 Walker Cup teams, becoming the rare player in the past two decades to play on two teams in the amateur version of the Ryder Cup. “He hit every shot perfect. He was just a stud ball-striker when he came in. I just remember him always hitting flagsticks in practice rounds,â€� said his former Georgia teammate, Kevin Kisner. Harman is now 30 and having the best year of his career. His runner-up finish at the U.S. Open moved him to 10th in the FedExCup and ninth in the U.S. Team’s Presidents Cup standings. Harman has finished in the top 10 in three of his past five starts, including his victory over FedExCup leader Dustin Johnson at the Wells Fargo Championship. Harman has risen more than 100 spots in the world ranking since the start of the year, now sitting at a career-best 27th. “When I was a young junior golfer, I definitely perceived myself contending in majors,â€� Harman said Sunday. “Not that I’m an old man by any means, but I’m 30. So for me, I feel like I am trying to make up for some time lost. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I feel that way, but that’s just kind of the way I feel.â€� He may be doing that now. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Koepka’s 16-under 272 tied Rory McIlroy’s record for low score (in relation to par) in a U.S. Open. McIlroy set the record in his dominant win in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional. Erin Hills played to a par 72 while Congressional played to a par 71. All four major championships have now had scoring records either broken or tied in the last few years. Jordan Spieth tied the Masters’ scoring record when he shot 18-under 270 in 2015. Jason Day finished 20 under at the 2015 PGA Championship, setting the record for relation to par at any major. Henrik Stenson matched that with his 20-under total last year in Troon, a win that included the second final-round 63 for a major winner. Now Koepka tied the U.S. Open mark. It appears the modern golfer is very good. 2. Koepka’s victory came with an impressive display of distance and accuracy. He hit 49 of 56 fairways to rank fourth in the field and then hit 62 of 72 greens to lead the field. His driving distance of 322.10 ranked seventh. He managed to keep the big numbers off the card with bogey being his worst score of the week. 3. In terms of Strokes Gained, Koepka was on fire. He ranked first in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green, besting the field average by 8.466 strokes, including being 3.030 strokes better on Sunday. He also ranked third in SG: Off-the-Tee (5.379), SG: Putting (7.110) and SG: Tee-to-Green (13.442). 4. Thomas might not have won the event but he did enter history with his third-round 9-under 63. Thomas became the 31st player to shoot 63 in a major championship but his was a record in relation to par at a U.S. Open. Johnny Miller (-8), Jack Nicklaus (-7), Tom Weiskopf (-7) and Vijay Singh (-7) had previously done it in America’s national championship. Not bad in a year where he became just the eighth player to shoot a 59 on the PGA TOUR. We’ve now seen four 63s in the past four majors (Thomas, 2017 U.S. Open; Robert Streb, 2016 PGA; Stenson and Phil Mickelson, 2016 Open Championship). 5. Koepka’s win rockets him to fifth in the FedExCup standings and Presidents Cup team standings. Matsuyama jumps to second in the FedExCup, and atop the International Team’s Presidents Cup standings. Harman moved to 10th in the Presidents Cup and ninth in the U.S. Team’s Presidents Cup standings. PGA TOUR rookie Xander Schauffele rode his T5 finish to move inside the all-important FedExCup top 125 at 108th, while fellow first-year player Trey Mullinax jumped up to 123rd courtesy of his T9 finish. TOP 3 VIDEOS 1. Relive the top shots from an exciting U.S. Open here: 2. Here’s the highlights from the final round: 3. And then there was this stylish finish to Thomas’ record-breaking 63. Only a handful of people in the world could hit that shot:

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