Poston claims 1st PGA Tour victory at Wyndham Championship

Life off the course has been pretty good for Adam Scott, who with his wife, Marie, and daughter, Bo Vera, welcomed a son, Byron, last summer. On the course? That’s another story. Good results have been hard to come by for the 13-time PGA TOUR winner, who nevertheless may be starting to play his way out of a year-long slump. He shot three rounds in the 60s and finished T11 at THE PLAYERS Championship last week. It was a welcome uptick for a player who has no top-10s in 11 TOUR starts this season; is 110th in the FedExCup; has dropped to 65th in the world from ninth a year ago; and is in danger of snapping his streak of 67 straight major championship starts, second to only Sergio Garcia. “I have to back it up,â€� Scott, 37, said at THE PLAYERS. “I need three or four good weeks in a row now, but you can’t have three or four good weeks in a row without the first one.â€� Next up: This week’s AT&T Byron Nelson at Trinity Forest Golf Club, the linksy, windswept Coore/Crenshaw design in South Dallas. This is the tournament Scott won in 2008, albeit on a different course, and he has great reverence for its namesake, who passed away in 2006. So much reverence, it informed Adam and Marie’s decision on what to name their son last August. At his press conference at Trinity Forest on Wednesday, Scott recounted his first-ever meeting with Nelson at the 2002 Masters. The legend was sitting on the first tee of the Par 3 Contest when a slightly nervous Scott, then 21, approached to introduce himself. “Before I could say ‘Mr. Nelson,’â€� Scott said, “He said, ‘Adam, it’s nice to see you here, you’re going to have a great career.’ I was pretty touched by the fact that he even knew who I was.â€� In truth, the surfing town Byron Bay and poet Lord Byron also played a role in his son’s name, but Scott never forgot the gentleman golfer Nelson. “If my Byron can be anything like that,â€� Scott said. “Doesn’t have to be a champion golfer, but if he can be a gentleman, I’d be very, very proud.â€� A good omen for this week? Sure. And then there’s this: Scott and Texas golf go together like Wranglers and cowboy boots. He’s won the Houston Open (2007), the Nelson (2008), the Valero Texas Open (2010) and the Fort Worth Invitational at Colonial (2014), completing a rare Texas Slam. Another good omen. Trinity Forest, alas, is a course unlike any other in Texas. “I don’t know anything about it,â€� Scott said. “I mean, obviously, I won at the other course, but things change It’s time to move on. I don’t know that it was a sacred site for the golf tournament. “Hopefully this is a good move,â€� he added, “and it’s important, too, that the Byron Nelson tournament continues to move forward and be fresh, because it’s been named after a great player and you don’t want to see — you want to see it go from strength to strength, so hopefully moving venue will spice things up a bit for it.â€� The spiciest news for Scott is the fact that he may be emerging from the putting doldrums. He is part of a mini-revival of former anchored-putting experts that includes new PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson (first in strokes gained: putting last week) and Keegan Bradley, who tied for seventh and was 22nd in strokes gained: putting. Scott made over 330 feet worth of putts at TPC Sawgrass, which was 27th best in the field. He was 28th in strokes gained: putting (+.590). For a guy who was 193rd in that statistic going into THE PLAYERS, who merely aspires to be average on the greens, that’s pretty good. Trying to keep up with his putting travails isn’t easy, even for him. There’s a pattern, though: He makes a change, putts well, and then, after a while, the ball stops finding its target. His enviable swing is out of reach for most amateurs, but with putting he is like many fellow TOUR pros and virtually every weekend player who would try everything and anything, as long as it’s legal. An old cross-country ski with a modified claw grip attached to the bindings via one of Harry Vardon’s old pipe cleaners? Sure. Let’s give it a go. Scott started his career with a standard-length putter, winning, among other tournaments, THE PLAYERS in 2004. He used a long putter for victories at the 2011 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and 2013 Masters. Then, a month after Scott became the first Australian to win at Augusta National, the USGA announced it would ban anchored putting in 2016. That’s when things started to change. “It’s not a very nice thing; the vibe on the course every week was people yelling we’re cheating,â€� Scott said. “And that was a horrible situation to be in. And then the constant questioning in that 12 months before of what are you going to do, what are you going to do, when are you going to do it, how are you going to do it, all that stuff was quite frustrating.â€� The frustration, he added, began to creep into his game. “No doubt I didn’t putt very well the back half of ’15,â€� Scott admitted, “and it was more out of frustration. For a while I didn’t have to think about putting, and all of a sudden I’m thinking about putting, and thinking for me is never really a good thing.â€� Fed up with his results and the implication that he was doing something wrong, Scott went back to a standard-length putter in the fall of 2015. He practiced, trying to remember the feeling of the thing. Christmas came and went. Then New Year’s. Then something unexpected: Scott won The Honda Classic and WGC-Cadillac at Doral to come out roaring in the 2016 Florida Swing. What had happened? Was he better with the standard-length putter? It didn’t last. By last fall, Scott was struggling again. He skipped the first FedExCup Playoffs event, THE NORTHERN TRUST, to be back in Australia for the birth of his son, and his surprise return for the Dell Technologies Championship to try to extend his season didn’t work out (MC). He went 1-3-0 for the International Presidents Cup Team at Liberty National. This season brought more of the same. “Just me being a little too stubborn,â€� Scott said. At the Wells Fargo Championship, two weeks ago, he finally went back to the long putter he used to win the 2011 WGC-Bridgestone. He braced the grip against his left arm like others have done, and it worked. Although Scott missed the 54-hole cut at Quail Hollow Club, he putted better. Then came TPC Sawgrass, the most encouraging week yet. Those crucial 15-foot par saves that keep a round going? He made one or two of them each day. “It keeps the round going,â€� he said. “And I just haven’t been doing that consistently, and it makes it hard, always on the back foot.â€� Assuming his stroke traveled to Texas with him, the 65th-ranked Scott is in prime position to crack the top 60 in the world by either May 21 or June 11, thereby earning entry into the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Otherwise, it’s off to sectionals. But that’s background noise. Scott has another Byron in his sights, this time on a course that evokes the Open Championship, a tournament he’s always played well. Given the trajectory he’s on with his new/old putter, you’d be smart to keep an eye on him.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Losses are often learning experiences, and that was the case for Justin Thomas at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Losing a three-stroke lead three weeks ago helped him make an unprecedented comeback at TPC Southwind. Thomas now has 13 PGA TOUR victories, but he won this latest one in a way that he never had. He started Sunday in fifth place. Never before has he won after starting the final round so low on the leaderboard. He also trailed by four, matching the largest final-round deficit he’s overcome on the PGA TOUR. The victory kept him on an elite pace. Since 1960, only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have reached 13 wins at a younger age. Thomas is 27 years, 3 months and 4 days old. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Thomas’ bag? Thomas shot 13-under 267 (66-70-66-65) for four rounds at TPC Southwind, good for a three-shot victory over Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Daniel Berger and Tom Lewis. Thomas got into position with a stellar 31 on the front nine. He missed just one green (he hit the fringe) and had birdie putts within 25 feet on all nine holes. He bogeyed the 12th hole but birdies on 15 and 16, the former made possible by a fortuitous bounce, were the difference. Thomas finished first in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, second in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and second in proximity to the hole. This was Thomas’ third win of the season, and first since the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January. He increased his lead in the FedExCup to more than 700 points and retook the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking. This was his second World Golf Championships win, as well. “It was a hard-fought day, but it meant a lot … how we did it, being four behind to start the day.” Thomas said. “I haven’t exactly played well coming from behind in the past and I feel like I learned a lot from that.” The margin of victory implies an easy victory, but it was anything but. At one point on the back nine, there were five players tied for the lead. A resurgent Koepka, who seems to have regained the form that’s netted him four majors, put pressure on Thomas until the final hole. Thomas described it as a “grind.” He spent most of the round unaware of how things stood, though. That was intentional. He didn’t see a leaderboard until accidentally staring at one on the 13th hole. Thomas parred those two holes before hitting a poor tee shot on the 15th, a short par-4 with a creek that runs down the left side and in front of the green. His ball was headed toward the water, but it hit the cart path and bounced safely over the penalty area. Good breaks aren’t worth much if you don’t convert, though, and Thomas did by knocking his 51-yard wedge shot to 6 feet. He birdied the next hole with another nifty wedge that carried a bunker before checking up and stopping 3 feet from the hole. Thomas and Koepka, the past two winners of this event, had separated themselves from the field at that point, but Thomas appeared to have the tournament in hand when Koepka’s own pitch to the 16th rolled over the green. The bogey gave Thomas a two-shot lead. Koepka has a knack for summoning his best golf in crucial moments, and he did that again Sunday, holing a 40-foot birdie putt from the fringe on 17 to pull back within a shot. Thomas pushed his drive and approach well right on the 18th hole to ensure he missed the water. A bogey seemed possible, but Koepka drove into the water while Thomas was saving par with a chip he described as “pretty sick.” This was just Thomas’ second win when trailing by more than two shots entering the final round. He’s held the 54-hole lead in eight of his 13 victories. He also trailed by four entering the final round of the 2016 CIMB Classic, his second win on TOUR. “I remember that day kind of being just at ease and just not worried about Anirban (Lahiri, the 54-hole leader) and other guys that were ahead of me,” Thomas said. “I was just strictly trying to make as many birdies as I could because I can’t control what everybody else does. “And that’s what I tried to do today.” Three weeks ago, he paid the price for letting his mind wander. He had a three-shot lead with three holes remaining at the Workday Charity Open, but bogeyed two of the final three holes and lost to Collin Morikawa in a playoff. He used that experience Sunday. “I just didn’t get ahead of myself anytime those last two, three holes, where I felt like my mind was kind of wandering and maybe thinking about winning,” Thomas said. “I basically just told myself to shut up and figure out what you’re doing because I could lose that tournament just as easily as I won it today. I was really, really proud of myself to stay in the moment and get it done.”

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