Quigley wins in Morocco in 2nd PGA Tour Champions start

DUBLIN, Ohio – Billy Horschel won’t begrudge you the memory if all you take away from his victory at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday on Sunday is his eagle at the 15th hole. His nearly 55-foot putt, curling from right to left, was a splendid stroke and extended his two-shot lead to four, the final margin as Horschel (72) bested Aaron Wise (71). But while the eagle stood out, shiny things do not excite Horschel, who obsesses more over peak performance and what goes into it. He wants to understand success like a cheetah understands speed. What works? What doesn’t? He thinks about this as it relates to real estate, business – he doesn’t want to play professionally forever – and, for now, golf. On a list of the hardest workers on the PGA TOUR, he puts himself in the top five. RELATED: What’s in Horschel’s bag? That work is paying off, and in capturing his seventh TOUR title over a cast of younger players – Wise, 25; Joaquin Niemann, 23; Will Zalatoris, 25; Sungjae Im, 24; Sahith Theegala, 24 – Horschel, 35, also authored a victory for professionalism itself. “I think today, knowing the golf course, knowing how it was going to be fast and firm again, it was knowing the pin locations,” Horschel said. “I didn’t have to do anything to do anything special out there. I’ve got a five-shot lead.” In other words, Horschel is 13 years into his TOUR career; he knows what it takes. When Tiger Woods converted all those 54-hole leads/co-leads, Horschel was paying attention. He knew to appraise the difficulty of the course, the rock-hard greens, the pin positions. “I love watching golf,” he said. “As I’ve said for many years, I probably watched more golf than any PGA TOUR player. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a bad thing.” Given that he is now 3-for-5 at converting 54-hole leads/co-leads to victory, it’s probably a good thing. Horschel has not only studied the game, he has assembled an all-star cast around him that includes his (longtime) swing coach, Todd Anderson; fitness guy, Alex Bennett at the TPC Performance Center; stats guy, Mark Horton; and caddie, Mark “Fooch” Fulcher, who was on the bag for Justin Rose’s 2010 Memorial victory and joined Team Horschel last summer. Horschel’s wife, Brittany, has his back, too, although she had never been there to witness one of his wins until Sunday. She’s been too busy with their three young children, Skylar, Colbie and Axel. She’s also, ahem, superstitious. “My wife has never wanted to fly in on a Saturday night when I’ve had a chance to win,” Horschel said, laughing at the running joke in their family. “She feels like she may be bringing bad luck or something. “I had a chance to win Bay Hill this year,” he continued. “My family was there. They were right there on the 18th green. As I was walking up, had a chance to make a putt to go into a playoff with Scottie Scheffler.” The most important, relatively new addition to the team is probably Fulcher, who thought that this might have been his 40th victory between caddying on the PGA TOUR, LPGA, and DP World Tour. (When your caddie has lost track of how many times he’s won, you’ve got yourself an experienced caddie.) After Horschel missed the cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge last week – his first missed cut on TOUR since the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, nearly a year ago – he called a team meeting with Fulcher and statistician Horton. “We just said, ‘We need to get back to it,’” Horschel said. It, meaning their process, even if it sometimes feels too slow and deliberate for pedal-to-the-metal Horschel. “To be honest, it was probably long overdue,” Fulcher said. Not missing a cut since the U.S. Open was becoming too much of a story. Also, they were not thinking well, and consequently making poor decisions. Perversely, the missed cut at Colonial, and the ensuing meeting, prepared Horschel for winning. Deep into his successful but somewhat underrated career – he has never played on a U.S. Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team – he is enjoying his best run since winning the 2014 FedExCup. He captured the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play last season, plus the BMW PGA Championship, the crown jewel of the DP World Tour. And now he’s earned the coveted Jack Nicklaus handshake at Muirfield Village, moving from 30th to 10th in the FedExCup. “He’s an incredible professional, and I think he’s getting better,” Fulcher said. Teeing it up against significantly younger competition, Horschel is a throwback to an earlier era when guys like Ben Hogan and Tom Watson and others routinely peaked in their mid-30s. He would know all about that. He also knows where success has eluded him: in the majors. It just so happens the next U.S. Open, at The Country Club in Boston, is in two weeks. Horschel will continue put in the work; he loves the grind. If it doesn’t pay off at the U.S. Open, then it will at The Open Championship, and if not at St. Andrews, then next year. He admits the majors get him extra riled up, maybe too riled up. “He’s emotional,” Fulcher said. “What I have seen, though, is he’s a lot quieter on the golf course now, especially in moments like today. He’s a lot more set in his process than even when I started with him. He was a bit loose.” Work hard, stick to the process, and success will get in the way. Horschel firmly believes that. “Sometimes they get a little tired,” he said of his team, which he calls the best in the business, “because I want to just keep pushing and keep going forward. But they all understand it’s all for the betterment of the team and hopefully gives us the best chance to be victorious. And it’s great to have three wins in roughly the last 15 months.”

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Matt Kuchar turned on the afterburners during the closing holes to claim a ninth PGA TOUR win and second win in three starts. Welcome to the Monday Finish where Kuchar pleased his family by booking a return trip to the Hawaiian Islands a year from now and by adding a family pet, albeit a robotic one. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Matt Kuchar has a killer instinct to go with his killer smile. Don’t be fooled by Kuchar’s trademark grin. He’s a stone-cold killer sometimes on the golf course. After looking like he was wobbling with three bogeys in his opening five holes on Sunday, Kuchar found a way to stare down his competitor and claw out of a hole when it mattered. He made a very important birdie putt on the ninth hole to stay in touch with Andrew Putnam, and when Putnam looked to make his move on the 13th hole, Kuchar responded with back-to-back birdies from 12 and 11 feet. Making putts down the stretch is not easy to do but Kuchar made it look so. The result was a comfortable four-shot triumph. 2. The old guys on the PGA TOUR still have fire. Kuchar now has two wins since he turned 40 and believes he still has plenty more in him. While it might be tough to replicate what Vijay Singh did in his fifth decade (win 22 times including a FedExCup) there is nothing to say he can’t continue a renaissance of serious note. “I would certainly like to (do what Singh did),â€� Kuchar said. “He set a great example. Certainly showed that is possible. A number of guys showed that it is possible. It’s nice to know that. It’s not like you hit 40 and you have to go away. There are guys that have done great.â€� Another of those guys is his good friend Davis Love III. The 54-year-old grabbed his first top-10 finish since the 2017 Wyndham Championship at Waialae. Love III is already the third oldest PGA TOUR winner of all time from his 2015 Wyndham triumph at 51. Maybe he can set a new benchmark this season. 3. Putnam can putt the dots off it. Andrew Putnam is clearly disappointed with his runner up result but if he keeps putting like he did at Waialae it won’t be long before he does claim his second PGA TOUR title. Over the course of the four rounds he gained 10.894 strokes on the field in Strokes Gained: Putting to lead the field. His first round gained an impressive 6.871 strokes on the field, one of the more impressive performances we’ve seen. By the end of the week Putnam had made 447 feet, 7 inches worth of total putts. Now replicating this sort of week will be very tough, but the fact he has this in his memory bank should give him plenty of confidence on the greens going forward. 4. Keep an eye on Marc Leishman and Hudson Swafford over the next two weeks. Swafford was the 2017 champion at the Desert Classic and now he returns off the back of a T3 at Waialae Country Club. Last week he ranked fifth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and was second in proximity to the hole at 26 feet, 10 inches. If he brings that ball-striking again and gets hot on the greens he is certainly a great chance at another victory. Leishman has to be penciled in as a red-hot chance at the Farmers Insurance Open where he’s been runner up twice, in 2010 and 2014, and has two other top 10s. The winner of the CIMB Classic in the fall Leishman was T4 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and T3 at the Sony Open over his two weeks in Hawaii. Prior to that he was runner up at the Australian PGA Championship and the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf. More wins are imminent. 5. Charles Howell III should buy a house at Waialae. That is if he hasn’t already. He’s now made the cut in all 18 trips to the Sony Open in Hawaii and his T8 last week was his 10th top 10. While he has yet to win the event he has two runner-ups and two thirds. Earlier in the week Howell III explained that winning isn’t everything for him but even still a trophy at Waialae would seem very fitting on his resume. “If I stay healthy I’ll never miss this one,â€� Howell III said. “I can control the showing up part… The finishes, I don’t know…. but it would be awful special to one day win here.â€� FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Kuchar won his ninth PGA TOUR event in his 430th career start on TOUR and moved from ninth to second in the FedExCup standings. It is the first time since week 33 of the 2013 PGA TOUR season where he has ranked inside the top two of the FedExCup. 2. Since 2009 Kuchar is the seventh player to win on the PGA TOUR after opening with two consecutive rounds of 63 or lower and first since Jason Day (2015 BMW Championship). Kuchar’s 258 total score marks a career-best and ties the 10th-best on the PGA TOUR in 72-hole stroke play events. 3. Kuchar is the 103rd player with 100 or more top 10s in official PGA TOUR events and just the fifth player to reach this mark since 2001. 4. Kuchar ranked inside the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and Strokes Gained: Putting, becoming the fifth Sony Open in Hawaii Champion to accomplish this feat since 2004. 5. Almost three quarters (74-percent) of Kuchar’s total strokes gained for the week came from his approach the green and putting performance. Kuchar hit a field leading 83.33-percent of the greens in regulation, averaging 29 feet, 6 inches in proximity to the hole on all approach shots which was 5 feet, 2 inches closer than the field average. Kuchar made 63.64-percent of his putts from 10 to 15 feet (seven of 11) and each of his made putts were birdies from this distance. WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is in its first season and adds another layer of excitement to the FedExCup Regular Season. The top 10 players at the end of the FedExCup Regular Season will earn bonus payouts from the Wyndham Rewards Top 10. Xander Schauffele remains in top spot while Matt Kuchar moves to second with his second win of the young season. Andrew Putnam goes from 31st to 10th after his runner-up finish.

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