PGA TOUR declines players’ request to play opening LIV event

NAPA, Calif. – Notes and observations from Sunday’s wild and windy final round of the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort & Spa.  LEADING LIGHTS TWAY GETS 1ST WIN. Kevin Tway warmed up with his hat on backward. “It was blowing about 40,� he said of the blustery conditions facing the final threesome. He hung tough, though, and made five straight birdies, including three in a sudden-death playoff against Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker, to pick up his first PGA TOUR win at age 30. Tway and his father, eight-time TOUR winner Bob, become the 10th father-son duo to win on TOUR. Snedeker had a four-shot lead at the turn but shot a back-nine 39 to lead to the playoff. How tough were the conditions? Brandon Harkins shot 83, and 13 players hit wind-aided drives of 400-plus yards. Tway, who spoke of his struggles to stay patient, did exactly that. NOTABLES SNEDEKER STUNNED. Brandt Snedeker said he wanted wind, and he got it, but the leader suddenly came down with a left miss and bogeyed three straight holes to start the back nine. He halted the skid with pars on 13-15, seemed to steady himself with a birdie on 16, but bogeyed from the trees on 17 and failed to birdie 18 to fall into the three-man playoff. “I’m going to look at that one in a few years and know I gave that one away,� said Snedeker, who had a three-shot lead as he made the turn but lost it all. The problem: he kept pulling his irons left. “It’s an old tendency when the pressure seems to get on,� he said.  MICKELSON ENTERTAINS. Phil Mickelson never stopped fighting, delivering three closing birdies for a memorable even-par 72 in the difficult conditions. Playing for the eighth time in 10 weeks, a mistake he said he won’t be repeating, Mickelson made five birdies to make up for a triple-bogey 8 at the 5th hole, an adventure that included two penalty shots, and hitting just 5/14 fairways. He finished T17. “Actually, I played pretty good,� he said. “I hit two balls out of bounds on that 5th hole trying to go for the green, and other than that I played pretty well.�     COUPLES STRUGGLES. It was a week in which he turned 59 and made his 500th cut on the PGA TOUR, but sponsor’s exemption Fred Couples struggled in the heavy wind with a final-round 75 to fall down the leaderboard. The bright side: After making bogeys on five of the first six holes, Couples stabilized with three birdies and just one more birdie the rest of the way. He finished T41. “For a while I didn’t think we were going to play,� Couples said of the strong winds. “And then we played and I didn’t really play.� Still, he said the week was so much fun he’s ready to come back again, perhaps as early as next year, if he’s healthy. It was a change of tune for a player who came into the week saying this would be his last non-major TOUR start. OBSERVATIONS MOORE SURPRISED. When he finished his round with a 9-foot birdie some 40 minutes in front of the final threesome, Ryan Moore thought he’d shot a nice final round for a nice top-10 finish. He was surprised to slip into a playoff, though, after third-round leader Brandt Snedeker faltered with a back-nine 39. “I was proud of how I played, hitting good shots in the moment,� said Moore, who birdied the first two playoff holes (both at the par-5 18th) before Tway ended it with a birdie at the third one, at the par-4 10th. “And honestly,� Moore continued, “even the putt on 18 the second go-round, a foot more pace and that was probably going to go in (for eagle).� STEELE FLAT IN ‘3-PEAT’ BID. Brendan Steele was trying to become the first player since Steve Stricker at the John Deere Classic (2009-’11) to win the same TOUR event three years in a row. It seemed possible, given Steele’s obvious affinity for Silverado, but while his week started well with an opening-round 67, he stalled (71-72-75) and never contended after that.  BADDELEY MAKES MOST OF START. Aaron Baddeley shot a final-round 69 to get to 13-under and finished a shot out of the playoff, in a five-way tie for fourth place. Not a bad result, considering he wasn’t even in the tournament until he Monday-qualified for it. The top-10 finish will get him an exemption into the Sanderson Farms Championship, Oct. 25-28. “My game’s been feeling good for a while,� said Baddeley, who reunited with caddie Pete Bender for the week in Napa. “I really felt like this was on the way, so I’ve been really working hard.� QUOTABLES I’d love to come back.It was a nice (way) to start or end the year, however you look at it.Got to find a way to win those. SUPERLATIVES Low round: 67 by Luke List and Ryan Moore. Longest drive: 428 yards (Patrick Rodgers/No. 13) Longest putt: 64’ 1� (Adam Svensson/No. 6) Toughest hole: The 150-yard, par-3 15th played to a 3.392 average. Easiest hole: The 564-yard, par-5 16th played to a 4.284 average. CALL OF THE DAY For play-by-play coverage of the PGA TOUR, listen at PGATOUR.COM. SHOT OF THE DAY

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Justin Thomas arrives at Southern Hills after a fifth-place finish at last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson. Even more promising than the high finish was his performance on the greens. Thomas finished 20th in Strokes Gained: Putting at TPC Craig Ranch while debuting a prototype Scotty Cameron putter. Thomas is in the midst of a solid season – he ranks 15th in the FedExCup despite a winless drought that’s lasted more than a year – and the putter may be the key as he seeks to win a second PGA Championship this week at Southern Hills. Last week marked Thomas’ seventh top-10 in 12 starts this season and ninth top-25. Thomas gained 0.8 strokes per round on the greens last week, his best performance in that metric since February and his second-best this season. Thomas is known for his excellence with his irons, having ranked no worse than sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach in each of the past five seasons. But he’s struggled to cash in on all those birdie opportunities, finishing outside the top 100 in Strokes Gained: Putting in each of the past three years. He’s 82nd in that metric this year. Thomas started his PGA TOUR career with a classic Newport 2 blade-style putter with a traditional plumber’s neck, collecting his first win, at the 2015 CIMB Classic, with the club. The next 13 of his 14 PGA TOUR wins came with a custom Scotty Cameron X5 mallet that he debuted in the summer of 2016. The mallet had a short flow neck and a dual-winged shape. That switch preceded Thomas’ top season, his five-win 2017 that included his first major triumph and FedExCup. In 2020, Thomas and Scotty Cameron celebrated his success with the putter by releasing a collaborative Phantom X5.5 putter, which was inspired by Thomas’ custom putter. Scotty Cameron released 2,020 limited-edition putters to the public. Thomas and his putter seemed inseparable. That was until he debuted a slightly different putter before last year’s Open Championship, however. The dual-winged, mallet head shape of the new flatstick, a Scotty Cameron T5, was nearly identical to his previous gamer, except the putter came with an extended plumber’s neck hosel that differed from the short slant neck style he’d been using for years. The custom hosel used what’s called a “knuckle” construction, which is a piece of a shaft that connects the bottom portion of the hosel to the top portion. The knuckle allows for the neck to be elongated without adding too much weight. Thomas had only a short stint with the new putter, though. By the end of 2021, he had returned to the Phantom X5 with which he won 13 times. That was until last week, at least, when Thomas brought out a new T5 with slight modifications from the one he used in 2021. WRX caught up with Scotty Cameron tour rep Drew Page last week to understand why Thomas made the switch back and what’s different about this unique Scotty Cameron T5 prototype. Page said that Thomas’ new T5 prototype has smoother milling marks on the face than his longtime X5, a silver-colored knuckle neck and an aluminum plate on the back cavity. The new knuckle neck is slightly duller than the standard, which uses a chromed piece of shaft, and the aluminum plate was added to adjust the sound at impact, a change that Thomas requested after his first experiments with the putter at last year’s Open. “He started working with a knuckle neck last year before the British Open,” Page told GolfWRX. “He put the first version of it in play at the (2021 Open Championship). Then, afterwards, he came back with feedback for us, what he liked, what he didn’t like, and what he wanted to see out of it. We were able to create that. The new, custom neck design also provides a different toe hang, Page said. This helps Thomas gain more stability throughout the stroke. “It stabilizes the stroke a little bit. His open to closure rate is just better, it’s more consistent as far as his strike and starting on line,” Thomas said. “He can feel it throughout the stroke a little bit. A player like that, it’s very much about honing in and being in touch with what they feel throughout the stroke. That produces confidence in being able to make putts, which is huge.” Thomas also switched from the X5 head to the T5 because Scotty Cameron no longer makes the former. Thomas would’ve needed to stockpile inventory of the X5 head if he wanted to continue to experiment with that model. “He was like, ‘Alright, let’s get into current product,’ so that’s why we went that direction,” Page said. “He can see something new, and he knew if he does get into it as a full-time thing there’s no shortage of current product to get, or head shapes, or new heads in that line if we want to alter necks. It’s expected that Thomas will continue using the Scotty Cameron T5 prototype putter at the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week. During this time of experimentation, however, nothing is set in stone.

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Dustin Johnson would not let Rory McIlroy close the gap and went on to capture his 20th career win.

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