PGA Featured Holes: The Greenbrier Classic

Editor’s Note: Kevin Techakanokboon is in his second full season as a PGA TOUR Series-China player and has played professionally throughout Asia since turning pro in 2015 after playing collegiately at Long Beach State University in California. Techakanokboon was roommates with Malaysia’s Arie Irawan in Sanya, China, when Irawan died in his sleep early Sunday morning, April 7. The American-born player of Thai descent wrote this piece in memory of his friend. When I would room with my good friend Arie Irawan during PGA TOUR Series-China tournaments, one of the things I noticed we both did after our rounds, good or bad, was overanalyze things about our play. Because of that, I would always try to find ways to get us to disconnect once we were off the golf course. We would play a video game, or we might watch TV. We would definitely do stuff to get us to relax and get ready for the next day and not necessarily talk about golf. Last year, we were playing the Zhuhai Championship in Zhuhai, China, the second-to-last tournament of the PGA TOUR Series-China season. The two of us sharing a hotel room to cut down on expenses was our normal pattern when Arie’s wife wasn’t traveling with him. That week, I was playing pretty well, but Arie missed the cut. Friday night, we were back in the room watching “The Office� on Netflix when Arie said, “I’ll come caddie for you tomorrow.� He said it kind of jokingly, so I came back with, “Yeah, sure.� I didn’t use a caddie in the first two rounds, so I could use one. But I honestly didn’t think he was being serious. He then said, “Yeah, I’ll take the first shuttle bus from the hotel to the course, I’ll get my practice in and then I’ll see you on the first tee.� Well, Saturday morning came, and Arie left the hotel to go to the course way before I did. By the time I got there, he found me and said, “I’ll see you in a little bit.� I thought he was going to practice putting or have a little breakfast. But a few minutes later, he comes back from the locker room, and he had changed into shorts, he had his running shoes on and he was at the practice tee ready to go. All he needed was a caddie bib. All right, I thought, I guess we’re doing this. That was the first time Arie Irawan served as my caddie, and what a weekend it was. For my third round I was paired with my close friend Gunn Charoenkul, and Gunn’s girlfriend—now wife—Vichuda, or “Koy� as she’s more commonly known, was caddying for him. Here’s an admission: Since turning professional, I have never really had much success on weekends of tournaments. Now, whether that’s a fatigue issue or mental issue or something else, I really don’t know. For some reason, though, I haven’t played well. That Saturday, with Arie as my caddie, I put a strong round together. I felt very lucky to be paired with Gunn and have Arie carrying my clubs. To be honest, the round didn’t feel like we were playing in a tournament at all. It felt like we were just out there going about our business playing a casual round of golf and joking around all day. Between shots, Arie and I talked a lot, but we didn’t talk about golf. Instead, we joked about something he saw or something I saw. We talked about stuff that would take us away from the golf just enough before we had to get back into it. It was just what I needed. That weekend Arie was definitely a reassuring presence for me. We had played practice rounds together earlier in the week, so we both knew the course pretty well. On hole 4 in Zhuhai, there is a big bridge you can see in the background off the tee. I would look at my line and say, “The fourth pillar on that bridge, OK?� I knew it was OK. I just wanted to hear someone say, “Yeah, it’s perfect.� Arie did that for me so many times during those two rounds. When the third round ended, I didn’t know what position I was in, and instead of going straight to the bus, I went for a little practice. I knew I wasn’t that close to the lead when the day started. I shot a 66, 5-under, but I didn’t think I would close the gap by more than three shots on the leader. When Arie and I got on the bus to go back to the hotel, we checked the scores on my phone and saw I had a three-shot lead. The next-closest score to my 66 was a 69. This was new territory for me. After the second round, Arie and I watched “The Last Samurai� and I ended up playing really well. Saturday night we followed our normal plan of decompression and, being a bit superstitious, we watched it again. It was a relaxing night, and the next day I won my first professional tournament, with Arie Irawan as my caddie. This past Sunday, Arie died in the room we shared. He was sleeping in the bed right next to mine. I’m still trying to process what happened. The coroner said his death was from natural causes. We just don’t know what caused this, and we may never know. What I do know is not having him around is what I’m going to miss the most. We first met in Indonesia when we were both playing the Asian Tour and the Asian Development Tour. We hit it off, but we didn’t spend a ton of time together. It wasn’t until the 2018 season in China that we really started to bond. I remember we played the final round of China Q-School in February 2018 at Mission Hills in Haikou. We were paired together. He didn’t have the best of days. He had just an awful start, but he never stopped trying to claw his way back. On the last 10 holes, he kept inching his way closer and closer to fully exempt status. I think he may have missed getting his full card by a shot, maybe two. We were talking afterward, and he was pretty confident. He kept saying he was going to get his starts, that he was going to play his way into the top 50 on the Order of Merit. That’s the kind of guy he was. No matter how tough times got, he never had it in him to give up. He “got his starts,� he finished 49th last season, and I ended up No. 19, mainly because of my win in Zhuhai. We both kept our cards. One of the many memories that I’ll look back on was our first night in Hong Kong. It was after the final round in Zhuhai, and it was also Ben Lein’s birthday. Ben is a Long Beach State guy as well who had also played in Zhuhai. So, we took the ferry to Hong Kong immediately after the tournament ended and found a street with a bunch of bars and restaurants. We went out to a nice dinner and decided to head out for some drinks afterward. But Arie doesn’t drink. He did, however, stick around for the party because he was so happy for me and so proud of what we had just accomplished. We were sitting there with a few of the guys we spend most of our time: Ben, Matthew Negri and Eugene Wong, and we were all having a great time celebrating the win as well as Ben’s birthday. Arie was texting his wife, Marina, letting her know he was out with the boys but that he wouldn’t stay out too late. Arie knew how to maintain relationships even if he was friends with people who didn’t quite walk along the same path as him. He was great that way, he was never much into judging people and he was always quick to share information or knowledge he had that he thought would help me or whoever else. Arie and Marina shared themselves with us, and I’m so grateful they were such a big part of my life on Tour. Whether it was playing practice rounds with one another or and having dinner together with our group of friends, I’ll never forget the presence both Marina and Arie had on us. Life on Tour is so much more than just the hours that we spend on the course during competition, and it’s those times that we shared that I’ll look back on the most when I remember my friend, Arie Irawan.  I’ve had a flood of emotions since Sunday morning. Nothing really prepares you for something like this. How am I supposed to tell his wife what happened? How am I going to face his parents? There was just so much that I didn’t know how to say and so much that was left unsaid to Arie. But once Marina and Arie’s parents, Ahmad and Jeny, Marina’s sister and Arie’s aunt arrived in Sanya, I had the chance to meet with them. They were all so strong and so calm. You could really feel how much they all love him and miss him. You could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. We all did our very best to hold it together and be strong for them in their time of suffering. In the end, it was Ahmad who told those of us who were with them that day to not let what happened with Arie stop us from going out and doing what we needed to do to take care of business. “Don’t stop,� he said to us. “It’s not what Arie would have wanted for you to do. Look back at all of the good times that you shared with Arie and be happy.� I can do that, and I will try to continue doing that. Many of those good times involved us in California. For almost two years, we’ve shared the same swing coach, Dana Dahlquist, in Long Beach. Dana is a really good guy, and we would just try to soak up as much information as we could from listening in on Dana’s lessons. Then we would go out and practice and play together and put into practice the things we learned. I always figured I could be a second set of eyes for Arie out on Tour based on the things I learned while listening in on his lessons. The best part about spending that time in California was I had the chance to show Arie a little of what my world back home is like. Last September, before our final stretch of events in China, I brought Arie to Heartwell Golf Course in Long Beach so he could play in the infamous Heartwell Skins Game, held every Wednesday evening. A typical turnout for the game includes some of my closest friends from junior golf, college teammates, my brother and some of the guys who had been playing at that course since I was about 7. I was able to introduce Arie to all of these friends of mine, and he cleaned up that night. That’s the thing with Arie. There weren’t a lot of guys who he didn’t get along with. Everybody was touched by the guy in some way, and everybody has Arie stories to tell. Today, you talk to people from any of the Tours he played on who knew him well and they will all tell you—every one of them—he was not just another face on the Tour.

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Since ShotLink will be measuring performance only at PGA WEST’s Stadium Course for this week’s CareerBuilder Challenge, the full array of fantasy scoring will not be in play in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. Only actual scoring will apply before bonus points are rewarded for your starters in the final round. This also will be the case at next week’s Farmers Insurance Open, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Feb. 8-11 and the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship on March 22-25. All are contributing events in Segment 2. Because of the fantasy scoring, how the Stadium Course stacks up against the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA WEST and La Quinta Country Club isn’t as impactful, but it’s not irrelevant, either. Note the scoring averages of each in the two years the three courses have co-hosted the tournament: 2016 68.936 = Tournament Course 69.148 = La Quinta 70.818 = Stadium Course (final round = 70.614) 2017 69.635 = La Quinta 70.744 = Tournament Course 71.588 = Stadium Course (final round = 71.299) NOTE: Only the Stadium Course is used for the final round of the tournament. The Tournament Course experienced the greatest change in last year’s inclement conditions. Although wind on Friday this week could even the Tournament Course and La Quinta overall, the forecast projects a return to the kinds of three-round averages logged in 2016. Our approach is simple. Since lower rounds correlate directly to higher fantasy scores, even modestly this week, consider building a lineup that consists of two golfers in each rotation. This leaves you with two golfers on both the Tournament Course and La Quinta in each of the first three rounds. Of course, if you commit to this plan, you’ll be burning one start on each of your six and in a low-scoring affair. So, if you’re inclined to resist, consider playing the Stadium Course on Thursday when the weather is expected to be the most favorable. PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO My roster for the CareerBuilder Challenge (in alphabetical order): Bud Cauley Jason Dufner Brian Harman Jon Rahm Chez Reavie Webb Simpson You’ll find my starters in Expert Picks. Others to consider for each category (in alphabetical order): Scoring: Tom Hoge; David Lingmerth; Luke List; Phil Mickelson; Patrick Reed; Brendan Steele Driving: n/a Approach: n/a Short: n/a Power Rankings Wild Card Kevin Kisner … It’ll surprise those who think he’s the biggest snub in the Power Rankings that last year’s T25 in his only top-45 finish in five tries in this tournament. He was bouncing off a T4 at Waialae at the time, so it made sense that he sustained form. The rub is that shootouts favor the random, so even the biggest chips on the board are neutralized. Without better evidence that this is a site where he’ll emerge, our expectations must remain tempered. It also doesn’t help that he’ll be putting on rye-Poa blends instead of his favored Bermuda. Draws Hudson Swafford … If he wasn’t the defending champion, he’d size up as sneaky because of his propensity to make cuts. He’s cashed in nine straight starts and 14 of his last 15. The worry is that he’ll be distracted by new experiences outside the ropes as last year’s winner, but he can lather in that attention since he’s already familiar with the rotation having competed in both previous editions. Tom Hoge … Multiple people associated with the TOUR have shared publicly or privately with me that they’re quite impressed with his game. And that was before last week’s career-best solo third at Waialae where he held the 54-hole lead and ranked third in proximity for the week. From my analytical perspective, the trending is there to corroborate what those experienced eyeballs have witnessed. He has two top 10s and a T25 already this season. The 28-year-old has also exhibited a comportment in his rhetoric that supports further investment. Austin Cook … To the avid fan, what he’s accomplishing is rare; that is, immediately fulfilling the promise that was projected years ago. Think Adam Hadwin or Bud Cauley, although injury interrupted Cauley’s ascent. Cook already has the win at The RSM Classic on the books, but last week’s T18 at Waialae was his fourth top 25 in full-field competition this season. He’s carried phenomenal form from last year’s Web.com Tour to the sport’s highest level and hasn’t blinked. Expect the same confidence and composure from the 26-year-old in his debut at the CareerBuilder. Zach Johnson … Look out. It’s been four years since he’s made the cut here but that hasn’t deterred him from returning. It’s also a slump that can’t last forever. Aside from that positive spin, he’s coming off a T14 at the Sony Open in Hawaii where he led the field in proximity to the hole and ranked T8 in greens hit. Yes, he’s thrived at Waialae, but the result was an extension of months of sound play (five straight top 25s). He likely won’t come cheap in DFS, but contrarians won’t care. Nor should they. Martin Laird … As a long-hitting ball-striker, he falls into the same category as Lucas Glover, who is one of my Sleepers this week. Laird was a Sleeper here last year and placed T9. He’s missed only one cut in 10 appearances and that was in 2010 when the tournament went five rounds. The Scot is a gem in all formats. Ryan Palmer (DFS) Brendan Steele (all) Fades Adam Hadwin … With a T6 (2016), a solo second (2017) and a 59 at La Quinta last year, course history buffs won’t think twice. However, his proficiency on and around greens has deserted him of late and he’s been a non-factor exponentially more often than he’s threatened. Quintessential trap. Kevin Chappell … He placed T8 in this tournament in 2013 with a closing 62, but it’s his only top 25 in five tries. It’s also a reminder that he’s best suited when a shootout isn’t expected. Bubba Watson … Ah, the promise of a new year. He actually held on nicely while learning how to flight a different golf ball in 2017, but his return to a more familiar orb has salary gamers salivating at just $1.223 million. No need for weekly gamers to rush him back into play, though, especially at a tournament where he’s ending a six-year hiatus and where a shootout will occur. Use this as an opportunity to observe and learn. Brandt Snedeker … As he debuts with his new caddie, Matt Hauser, we can’t forget that Sneds is still feeling his way back from the sternum injury that sidelined him for nearly five months in the second half of 2017. He returned for a T29 at Sea Island and played the QBE Shootout to quiet concerns of full-season investors. His mid-tournament withdrawal from the Indonesian Masters was due to heat stroke, which shouldn’t overshadow that he kept his commitment to compete overseas at all. Despite that relative good news, this is his first look at the current rotation of tracks used for the CareerBuilder, so you’re encouraged to let him ease into it alone. Russell Knox … Now that he’s reconnecting with usable form (with two top 10s among a 5-for-5 start to the season), he’s worth keeping an eye affixed, but he’s a flier at best in DFS in his first appearance on the current rotation of courses at CareerBuilder. Jimmy Walker … Continues to work back into playing shape as much as his health will allow. This is his first appearance in the CareerBuilder in five years and it figures to present a modicum of confidence at a site where he can watch putts drop, but we need to remain cautious. Keep him in your crosshairs for the Genesis Open in a month. By then, we should have his pulse. Maverick McNealy … This is a nice tune-up for his rookie season on the Web.com Tour, but only keeper leaguers should be dabbling at the moment. He’s done a masterful job of letting his future come to him, so there’s no reason to rush. Kevin Na Jhonattan Vegas Returning to Competition Steve Marino, Will MacKenzie and Shane Bertsch competed in The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay that launched the 2018 Web.com Tour season. All three are on medical extensions on the PGA TOUR this season, but only Marino and MacKenzie are worth looks in the deepest of full-season formats. (Both are committed to next week’s second stop in The Bahamas as well.) For the terms of all golfers on medicals, click here or use the following navigation at the top: MENU→Fantasy→Medical Extensions. Notables WDs Ollie Schniederjans … Also withdrew early from the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in the fall. Hasn’t used social media to explain this week’s decision, so it could be nothing more than a shift in scheduling after the commitment deadline. He’s 103rd in the Official World Golf Ranking after a T7 at the Sony Open in Hawaii and not yet exempt into any of the majors or World Golf Championships. In due time, he’ll be a fixture in all of them. D.A. Points … Placed T66 in both of the last two editions of the tournament and hasn’t cracked the top 40 in eight appearances overall. Last week’s T73 at Waialae extended his drought without a top 50 in a full-field event to eight months. Power Rankings Recap – Sony Open in Hawaii Power Ranking  Golfer  Result 1  Brian Harman  T4 2  Jordan Spieth  T18 3  Justin Thomas  T14 4  Marc Leishman  T47 5  Kevin Kisner  T25 6  Daniel Berger  T14 7  Zach Johnson  T14 8  Jason Dufner  T18 9  Charles Howell III  T32 10  Cameron Smith  T18 11  Tony Finau  T32 12  Russell Henley  MC 13  Gary Woodland  T7 14  Chez Reavie  T18 15  Peter Uihlein  MC Wild Card  Si Woo Kim  T58 Sleepers – Sony Open in Hawaii Golfer  Result Jason Kokrak  T47 William McGirt  T65 Yusaku Miyazato  MC John Oda  T67 J.J. Spaun  T47 Birthdays among active golfers on the PGA TOUR January 16 … Jimmy Walker (39) January 17 … none January 18 … none January 19 … Brian Harman (31); Tommy Fleetwood (27) January 20 … Derek Fathauer (32) January 21 … none January 22 … Graham DeLaet (36); Marty Dou (21)

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