Presidents Cup: Match previews for Day 1

When it comes to his equipment, Tony Finau doesn’t like to change much. Yes, he changes his golf ball and switches up markings between holes when things start going poorly, but Finau prefers to stick with what he knows when it comes to his clubs. After wins in his last two PGA TOUR starts, there likely aren’t many changes coming to Finau’s bag, if any. He sits seventh in the FedExCup standings as the Regular Season comes to a close this week and is in line for a spot in the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10. Finau’s Nike Vapor Fly Pro model driving iron, which he’s been using since 2016, serves as an example of his loyalty. He has no plans of switching to a different model, though he did have to switch to a new head after the original finally caved in after six years of use. “I’m hoping to get about six to seven years out of this one,” Finau told GolfWRX earlier this year. “I only have one backup, but I’m hoping I’ll get six to seven years out of that one, too.” Finau did switch into a Ping putter for the first time prior to his victory in the opening event of last year’s FedExCup Playoffs. The custom PLD Anser 2 prototype head was built to his unique preferences and came equipped with a black Garsen Ultimate grip, which is flat on three sides to place golfers’ hands in a position where the palms face each other and the wrists are neutral. Company founder Bernerd Garsen, who spoke with GolfWRX on Monday, said Finau has been using the three-sided Garsen Ultimate grip for seven to eight years. He used a green version of the grip on a Piretti putter before Ping installed a black one on the custom Ping PLD Anser 2 that he started using last year. Finau hasn’t changed the grip since, even as it begins to show some wear and tear. Players are particular about their grips, especially when it comes to the putter, and Finau is yet another example of their desire to keep a consistent feel in their hands. He’s kept the same grip even though a replacement would be available in an instant. He isn’t the only player slow to change his putter grip. Remember Harris English at last year’s Ryder Cup? The first of Finau’s two consecutive victories, at the 3M Open, came on a banner day for the company, as Brooke Henderson also used the grip to win her second LPGA major, at the Amundi Evian Championship, that day. Finau’s backup Ping putter is equipped with a custom green-and-black Garsen Ultimate grip that also has the Tony Finau Foundation logo on it. Garsen developed the custom green version to replicate Finau’s black Ultimate grip, and a portion of the proceeds go to the Tony Finau Foundation. For now, at least until it finally falls off, Finau is happy using his black version in competition. “Tony is just a very simple guy,” Garsen said. “He doesn’t like changing that much. … He’s like, ‘Don’t touch it, don’t mess with it.’ I mean, the grip he has on now is so frayed it’s about to fall off. … It definitely has a lot of character.” After back-to-back wins at the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic, can you really blame Finau for sticking with it?

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HONOLULU (AP) — Brendan Steele had the lowest score of his PGA TOUR career with a 9-under 61, giving him a two-shot lead and another chance to win the Sony Open in Hawaii. RELATED: Leaderboard Steele has reason to still be smarting from last year. He had the tournament all but won until a series of errors over the last three holes he played to lose in a playoff to Cameron Smith. And if Saturday was any indication, even a two-shot lead isn’t safe. Overnight rain at Waialae Country Club, coupled with the tropical wind not even strong enough to make palm trees sway, left the course as vulnerable as it has ever been. Steele didn’t even have the low score to himself. Kevin Na also had a 61 and was two shots behind, along with Kapalua runner-up Joaquin Niemann. Na had it going so well he thought about a 59 when he stood over a 10-foot birdie putt on the 17th, knowing that would leave him an eagle away from golf’s magic number. On this day, he had to settle for a 61. Niemann squinted his eyes into the setting sun as his approach on the par-5 bounced up to 10 feet for a birdie-eagle finish and a 63. In two holes, he went from outside the top 10 to the final group on Sunday. Steele was at 18-under 192. Stewart Cink birdied his final hole for a 65 and was three shots behind, along with Charley Hoffman (64), Peter Malnati (64), Chris Kirk (65) and Russell Henley (65). Starting times have been moved up by two hours Sunday with hopes of finishing ahead of heavy rain in the forecast. Steele had a two-shot lead with two holes to play a year ago when he missed a 6-foot par putt on the 17th hole, hit a wild hook on his approach to the easy par-5 18th and had to settle for par, and then missed the 10th green with an 80-yard shot in the playoff. It was a final hour when everything went wrong. On this blissful day, everything went right. And he wasn’t alone. Keith Mitchell, who had a 62 on Friday, took the lead at one point in the third round and was 8 under through 15 holes on his round when his tee shot landed near a cement wall of a house and cost him a penalty drop. A mediocre finish gave Mitchell a 63, which felt even higher being in the same group as Na. There were 10 scores of 64 or better. The average score for the third round was 66.7. Nick Taylor, who took a two-shot lead into the third round, was keeping pace until a pair of bogeys on the back nine. He shot a 68 and was still only four shots back. Such is the nature of this tournament in this kind of weather. It was wide open on Saturday, and it’s not likely to be any different in the final round.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Collin Morikawa is getting old. He said it himself, with a big smile, and it might have been the reason why his body hasn’t been moving the way he would have liked through the 2022 calendar year. A lot of traveling. A lot of work. A lot of effort to try to become the best in the world. But he’s got a plan in place to end this year with a bang at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, and hopefully get a bit of the sour taste of a winless 2021-22 campaign out of his mouth before the holiday season. “This year’s been fairly stressful, a little frustrating at the same time. I think some guys are definitely taking it easy and I’ve kind of ramped it up just trying to kind of figure things out,” said Morikawa. “I want to finish this fall on the best of foot forward as possible. That’s why I come to these tournaments… to come out here and play well and hopefully win.” Morikawa notched two runner-up results last season – THE CJ CUP and The Genesis Invitational – and had eight top-10 finishes. His ball-striking remained elite, finishing third on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach The Green. The momentum hasn’t been there through the fall portion of the 2022-23 season, however, as he finished tied for 45th at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP and then tied for 29th at THE CJ CUP in South Carolina. The two-time major champion admitted he did “a lot of searching” after starting his year in Dubai on the DP World Tour with a few lackluster results. Things “just never felt good,” he said. “Just kind of was searching for that game, searching for just kind of a normal,” he said. “The problem is when I search is like, I search for perfection, right?” As he looks back on the year that was, he said he knows what he needs to do. And he’s already started to tighten the screws. “Man, like I drank way more in college than I ever do now, but apparently when you get older, your body just moves differently,” said Morikawa with a laugh. “I still feel great, like everything feels great, everything moves great, but it’s just not as clean as it was. And the maintenance I have to do now is just a little bit more. “It doesn’t mean I need to do anything crazy. I’m not changing anything really. It’s just getting my body to where I need it to be.” This week’s setting may help with that. Although this marks Morikawa’s Mayakoba debut, he said he fondly recalled playing golf in Cabo San Lucas as an amateur and compares golf in Mexico to teeing it up in Hawaii. After a stretch of travel that included Japan, South Carolina, and now Mexico, the easy-going vibe at the World Wide Technology Championship may be just what the doctor ordered. “You do a lot of business when you’re out on the golf course but you’re able to really separate yourself and enjoy the time away,” he said. “I think what’s so great about when players come to a resort like this… they’re able to stay near the beach and kind of do other activities that force them to get away from the golf course. I think all great players have to do that.” Morikawa is certainly one of those great players. And despite not feeling 100 percent about his results from 2022, there’s hope for good things to come yet. “It’s a grind, but that’s what’s great,” said Morikawa. “Even though we are kind of heading towards this offseason, this fall area, I’m putting a lot of pieces together and putting a lot of work in to make sure this next (2023) is going to be as best as ever.”

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