Poston claims 1st PGA Tour victory at Wyndham Championship

Tiger Woods made a quadruple-bogey 8 and four-putted on the way to losing the 1996 Quad City Classic (now the John Deere Classic) to rumpled journeyman Ed “The Gripâ€� Fiori. This, after Woods had held the solo 54-hole lead. Three weeks later, Woods got his first PGA TOUR win. “It should have come at Quad City,â€� he said after winning the Las Vegas Invitational, where in his fifth pro start he dispatched Davis Love III in a playoff. “I learned a lot from that.â€� Well, yeah. You could say he’s had an OK career. Woods, of course, reeled off his 81st win and 15th major championship at the Masters three weeks ago. And holding leads? Not until 13 years after Quad City, at the 2009 PGA Championship (Y.E. Yang), would Woods give up another solo 54-hole lead. Like Albert Einstein said, “Failure is success in progress.â€� Most every TOUR pro can tell you about the proverbial one that got away, a tournament they had in their grasp only to fumble it away at the end, oftentimes in gruesome and agonizingly public fashion. What’s apparent in hindsight, though, is that such days are not just a rite of passage but also building blocks, foundational necessities even. Those hard losses? They often lead to spectacular victories. Examples abound: Rickie Fowler was just 65 starts into his PGA TOUR career but already beginning to hear some chirping about his inability to close, having lost 54-hole leads at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in 2010 and the AT&T National in 2011. But at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, he rallied on Sunday to make the playoff, then outdueled Rory McIlroy and D.A. Points for his breakthrough victory. “Obviously there’s a lot of people that have doubted or said you’ll never win,â€� Fowler said afterwards. “So it’s nice to kind of shut them up a little bit.â€� Bubba Watson rolled Kevin Kisner 7 and 6 in the championship match of the 2018 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, but a year later a smarter, stronger Kisner powered through his bracket and won it all, beating Matt Kuchar 3 and 2 in the final a month ago. Anirban Lahiri lipped out from five feet in his 2015 Presidents Cup match against Chris Kirk, one of a handful of missed opportunities, any one of which would have won it for the International Team in Seoul, South Korea. But at the 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National, with the Americans poised to celebrate a day early, a tougher Lahiri came through in the clutch. Kyle Stanley went from the lowest low to the highest high in a span of seven days in 2012. Then there’s two-time Wells Fargo champion McIlroy (2010, 2015), whose entire career has followed this bust-boom cycle. In fact, he said at the Masters, he’d even been reading books on the subject, including “The Obstacle is the Way,â€� by Ryan Holiday. What is going on here? And what’s so great about losing that it leads to so much winning? What doesn’t kill you … You could be excused if you watched the 2012 Farmers Insurance Open through your fingers as Kyle Stanley, an epic talent from Gig Harbor, Washington, suffered an epic meltdown. “God, how did I feel?â€� he says. “Pretty embarrassed.â€� With one hand on the trophy as he played the par-5 18th hole at Torrey Pines South, Stanley spun a wedge back into Devlin’s Billabong, took a drop, pitched on with his fifth shot, and three-putted for an 8. He lost to Brandt Snedeker in a playoff, making bogey on the second extra hole. “It’s no fun to blow a lead like that, especially with a par 5,â€� Stanley says now. “I think I said after that that I could probably play that hole 1,000 times and always make less than 8.â€� Although they’d never met, Mark Few, head coach of Gonzaga, Stanley’s favorite basketball team, texted and told him to keep his head high. “It just kind of brightened my spirits,â€� Stanley says. Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker checked in, too. “So many people reached out; I felt a lot of support,â€� Stanley adds. “A number of players. I wasn’t in as bad a shape as one would think.â€� Once the shock wore off, he told himself he was going to have some bad holes, and he’d just had one at a really bad time. He had to forget it; he was still playing some of the best golf of his life. Seven days later, checking fewer leaderboards, he shot 65 to overtake a faltering Spencer Levin to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Fans called him “The Comeback Kid,â€� and Stanley teared up as he thanked his parents. His roughly 6,000 new Facebook friends reached out, and one of the first congratulatory texts he received was from Few. “I think winning was maybe the only way I would have put it behind me that quickly,â€� he says. “I was just playing so well. After something like that it turns into more of a mental thing.â€� Experience is the best teacher Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.â€� Before beating Stanley at Torrey, Snedeker was leading the 2010 Waste Management Phoenix Open but, with his mind a whir of activity, shot 78 in the last group and finished T43. “I hadn’t had the lead on Sunday and been successful,â€� Snedeker says. “That stuck with me on the West Coast. I said, Listen, I’m not going to play that way again, scared and afraid.â€� Something obviously clicked; he now has nine TOUR wins, and won the 2012 FedExCup. One of the game’s elite players, Snedeker looks back to that abysmal final-round 78 in Phoenix. “That was the one where I realized, you’re not doing this right,â€� he says. “I said, Next time I’m in that position I’m going to focus on the small things, stop looking at leaderboards, and stop focusing on things I can’t control. And it really made a difference.â€� Keegan Bradley, who cites the 2012 Northern Trust Open (now Genesis Open) as the one that got away, says such losses can still provide a helpful shot of confidence. To be fighting it out with Phil Mickelson and Bill Haas, who ultimately won, told Bradley he was on the right track. “I still think about it,â€� he says. “I had 10 feet that I thought was going to be to win the tournament. And (Haas) makes this 60-footer and I miss.â€� Did the loss fuel an ensuing win? “Well, it did help,â€� Bradley says, sounding surprised by his answer. “I won Akron the following year. It just helps you realize you’re supposed to be there, that you can be there, going up against Phil, you know. That was one of my favorite memories, actually.â€� Every week is a clean slate Before he won THE PLAYERS Championship in March, McIlroy had strung together five top-six finishes in a row without a victory. He patiently answered questions about his ability to close after each one—the golfing equivalent of being nibbled to death by ducks. Then he notched his electrifying and historic win at TPC Sawgrass. “Maybe if I hadn’t have had those experiences,â€� McIlroy said afterward, “I wouldn’t be sitting up here with this trophy, so I’m thankful and grateful for those experiences I’ve had this year.â€� One such experience came at the 2011 Masters, when he took a four-shot lead into the final round but triple-bogeyed the 10th hole on the way to an 80. McIlroy is normally an easy-going and even chatty competitor, but upon reflection he realized he’d been trying to be someone he wasn’t: a ruthless, tunnel-vision type. Part golfer, part cyborg. That was one of the lessons he took to heart as he crushed the field at the U.S. Open at Congressional two months later, winning by a gaudy eight shots over Jason Day. “I was very honest with myself and I knew what I needed to do differently,â€� McIlroy said. Kisner, too, spoke of lessons learned after winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in March. Namely, getting waxed in the 2018 championship match had taught him what not to do. “Last year I felt like I rushed around to get ready to play in the second match,â€� Kisner said. “I ran around and ate really fast, ran back out. Tried to go through my whole normal routine in an hour to get ready, and that’s just not feasible (considering) how much golf you played.â€� And this time? “I hung out,â€� said the low-key South Carolinian, “took a shower, chilled out, got some treatment on my body and really went to the range at 2:05, and teed off at 2:25. I just went and hit 20 balls and went to the tee. I think that greatly helped my mental side of the game as much as anything. “I wasn’t overhyped for it and just tried to go play a casual round of golf.â€� Lahiri: A changed man two years later Lahiri’s 2015 miss in his match against Kirk was more than just a cruel lip-out; it swung the entire Presidents Cup. Unbowed, Lahiri would play a prominent role for the International Team at Liberty National in 2017, with the outcome all but decided. On Saturday, he and partner Si Woo Kim took on Americans Kevin Chappell and Charley Hoffman in a Four-Ball match. No team had ever clinched on a Saturday; a Chappell/Hoffman win would make history. “We obviously wanted to end it,â€� Hoffman said. “We knew what was on our shoulders.â€� Hoffman pitched in for birdie at the 17th hole, prompting a delirious American celebration, but Lahiri had spied champagne on ice in the U.S. Team’s carts and vowed that the corks wouldn’t pop early. He converted from 20 feet, his final birdie of the back nine — he also had birdied 12, 15 and 16 — to halve the hole and thwart the Americans as the Internationals won, 1 up. The champagne went back on ice. “Got to give it up to Lahiri,â€� Hoffman said. Did he work harder on his putting after the 2015 Presidents Cup? “Much harder,â€� Lahiri says. “It’s hard; you’ve got to learn from it. You can’t persecute yourself. There wasn’t anything I could’ve done differently (in 2015) except maybe hit the putt a fraction softer. I was just waiting to get that opportunity again where I needed to make a clutch putt, and I made a few. That’s the one area of my game that has improved in the last few years.â€� Would he have come through in Jersey without his agonizing finish in Seoul? “Hard to say,â€� Lahiri says. “I don’t think anyone can look back at their life and say, ‘I would be exactly where I am had that not happened to me.’ Life doesn’t work that way.” “You just accept what comes, you learn from it and you evolve,â€� he adds. “I’m grateful for whatever I’ve experienced – the good and the bad.â€�

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Another year is in the books. Sunday’s final round of The RSM Classic was the last official PGA TOUR round of 2022. The year concluded with the nine fall events that mark the beginning of the 2022-23 schedule. As usual, the fall saw a mixture of first-time winners and stars who added to their resumes. The latest class of Korn Ferry Tour graduates had ample opportunity to display its skills, and the U.S. Team continued its success with a Presidents Cup victory at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club. Seamus Power ended the fall as the top player in the FedExCup. His success is a testament to patience, as the 35-year-old Irishman is playing the best golf of his career. He won his second TOUR title at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship and closed the calendar with two more top-5 finishes. Power, who competed alongside Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry in amateur golf, could be teammates with them at next year’s Ryder Cup after cracking the top 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking. As Thanksgiving approaches, here’s a quick rundown of five stories you may have missed from the fall. They include Rory McIlroy’s return to the top of the golf world, the game’s newest sensation, a wild win for one of the game’s most popular players and a major champion’s comeback. 1. RORY RETURNS TO NO.1 Rory McIlroy won his third FedExCup in August. A victory in his next start, at THE CJ CUP in South Carolina, put McIlroy back atop the Official World Golf Ranking. “I’ve worked so hard over the last 12 months to get back to this place,” McIlroy said. “I feel like I’m enjoying the game as much as I ever have. I played with that joy and it’s definitely showed over these last few months. “It’s a big achievement. I’m really proud of myself right now.” McIlroy has reached No. 1 in the world nine times. He was No. 1 when the PGA TOUR schedule stopped for three months at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he lost the top ranking to Jon Rahm when the Spaniard won the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday later that year. McIlroy began his most recent FedExCup-winning campaign with a victory at THE CJ CUP at Las Vegas’ Summit Club. He followed with incredible consistency, finishing in the top 10 in more than half his starts, including two more wins at the RBC Canadian Open and TOUR Championship. He led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Total (+2.12) and scoring average (68.7). McIlroy is the first player to win the FedExCup three times. Now he’s trying to become the first player to successfully defend the Cup. How did he begin his defense? With another win at THE CJ CUP. For good measure, he won the DP World Tour’s season-long points race in November. It was the fourth time he finished the year as the DP World Tour’s top player. 2. TOM KIM, GOLF’S ASCENDANT STAR The celebrations were entertaining. The performances were historic. Even though his team lost to the U.S., Tom Kim’s exuberant displays produced many of the highlights from this year’s Presidents Cup. The pinnacle was his putter-slamming celebration after he sank a 10-foot birdie putt to win a tight Saturday afternoon Four-ball match. He set up the winning birdie by striping a 2-iron approach from some 240 yards. “I was already thinking in the back of my mind, ‘If this goes in, what am I going to do? How am I going to celebrate?'” Kim said. What did he do for an encore? Win the Shriners Children’s Open in his next start, beating former FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay in the final round at TPC Summerlin. Kim was just the third player since 1974 to win on TOUR without making a score of bogey or worse, and he’s the first since Tiger Woods to win twice before turning 21. This came after his win in August in the Wyndham Championship, where he became the first player since 1983 (when the TOUR began keeping hole-by-hole records) to win after recording a quadruple-bogey or worse on the opening hole of a tournament. “I’m having fun playing on the PGA TOUR,” said Kim, who’s fourth in the FedExCup. “It’s awesome.” And we’re having fun watching. 3. HOMA’S HOLE-OUT The first tournament of the season surely had one of the wildest finishes we’ll see this season. A chip-in and unlikely three-putt on the Fortinet Championship’s 72nd hole led to another title for Max Homa, whose career continues on its upward trajectory out of the depths. Homa arrived at Silverado’s par-5 18th hole one shot back of Danny Willett. When Willett hit his third shot inside 4 feet and Homa missed the green with his 30-yard bunker shot, it looked like Willett would earn his first PGA TOUR title since the 2016 Masters. Homa chipped in his next shot for birdie, however, and Willett proceeded to three-putt. “That was crazy,” Homa said. “I still don’t really know what happened. It was one of those weekends you just had to hang around.” It was Homa’s fifth PGA TOUR victory and fourth in his past 45 TOUR starts. The victory was the beginning of an eventful fall for one of the TOUR’s most popular players. He took an overnight flight from California to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Presidents Cup, where he represented the United States for the first time as a professional. He went 4-0-0 for the victorious U.S. Team, calling it the “best week of golf I could imagine.” Homa finished in the top 25 in his next two starts before shutting it down for the birth of his first child. He and his wife Lacey welcomed a son, Cam, on Oct. 30. 4. A ROOKIE’S RAPID RISE Taylor Montgomery had to endure an agonizing finish to his Korn Ferry Tour campaign in 2021. A year later, he couldn’t have asked for a much better start to his PGA TOUR career. The top 25 in the Korn Ferry Tour’s points standings after both the Regular Season and the Korn Ferry Tour Finals earn PGA TOUR cards. Montgomery finished 26th … in both. A pair of missed cuts – including a second-round 85 at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship – led to him falling outside of the top 25 in each finale. This year, Montgomery locked up his card early with his consistent play. Then he carried a strong finish to his Korn Ferry Tour campaign – top-15s in nine of his final 10 starts, including six finishes of fourth or better – into his rookie season on PGA TOUR. It started with a third-place finish at the Fortinet Championship and kept on rolling. Montgomery finished in the top 15 in all but one of his seven fall starts. He ranks 11th in the FedExCup entering the new year. He also won the RSM Birdies Fore Love competition after making the most birdies or better in the fall season. He’s done it with an impressive combination of power and touch. He averages 309 yards off the tee and ranks 13th Strokes Gained: Putting. 5. KEEGAN’S COMEBACK Success came quickly for Keegan Bradley, who won three times in his first two seasons on TOUR. He won the first major he ever competed in, the 2011 PGA Championship, becoming just the third man in a century to win in his major debut. A professional golf career is rarely a linear progression, however. Bradley has won twice in the 10 years since claiming the 2012 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, enduring two lengthy winless droughts. The latest came to an end this fall, with a victory in THE ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan that brought the New Englander who prides himself on toughness to tears. It was his first win since the 2018 BMW Championship. “I’ve been crying since I finished,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I cried. I talked to my wife on the phone a second ago, FaceTime. I can’t keep it together; I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” In early 2021, Bradley had fallen outside the top 150 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time since his rookie season on TOUR. Bradley was back on the upward swing before his victory in Japan. He finished T5 in this year’s PLAYERS Championship and then was runner-up at the Wells Fargo Championship in May, which got him back inside the top 50 of the world ranking and qualified him for the U.S. Open in his native New England. He finished T7 at Brookline for his first top-10 in a major in eight years. As it often does with Bradley, it came back to the putter. Bradley enlisted the help of noted putting coach Phil Kenyon last fall and in 2022 gained strokes on the greens for the first time since 2014. “It means a lot,” he said. “There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it. Even if you play perfectly, doesn’t mean you’re going to win. But for me, I feel like I should be contending for tournaments, I want to be contending to play on Ryder Cup, Presidents Cups teams, majors. You know, this is going to go a long way.”

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