Sleeper Picks: RBC Heritage

To appreciate the view of Hunter Mahan these days, it is best to first refer to snapshots from years gone by. Of that day in 2003, for instance, when he officially signed an equipment deal to signal his move to the professional ranks. “He showed up wearing an OSU (Oklahoma State University) T-shirt and gym shorts,â€� laughed Chance Cozby, the longtime director of tournament player relations for PING. “No pretenses.â€� Of that Monday in 2010 when another U.S. Ryder Cup loss on European soil was decided in the final game of the competition – Graeme McDowell edging Mahan, 3 and 1 – and teammates had finally tired of the media’s excessive interrogation of the man in that anchor match who ended with a poor chip. So, Stewart Cink spoke from the heart. “If you go up-and-down the line of TOUR players in Europe and the U.S. and ask them, ‘Would you like to be the last guy to decide the Ryder Cup?’, probably less than half would say they would and probably less than 10 percent would mean it. Hunter Mahan put himself in that position today; he was a man to put himself in that position.â€� Of that warm October afternoon at Oklahoma State’s Karsten Creek Golf Club, when Mahan – just five days after that crushing defeat to McDowell in Wales – hung around and mingled with 72 players and their parents for more than 3-1/2 hours as host of the PING Invitational. For sure, he was peppered with more Ryder Cup questions. Yes, he provided all the answers. Of that April Sunday in 2012, when Mahan’s victory at the Houston Open lifted him to a career-best No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Of that August in 2014 when a triumph at The Barclays assured Mahan of another trip to the TOUR Championship, meaning he had scripted a seven-year run of impeccable consistency: Appearances in all 32 FedExCup Playoffs events; two World Golf Championship wins; and berths on three Ryder Cup and four Presidents Cup teams. Of that Sunday in July of this year, when Mahan, having shared the 54-hole lead at the Barbasol Championship, bogeyed a pair of par-5s down the stretch and squandered his chance to win for the first time in four years. Put them together in one of those childhood flip books and you would see that Mahan has ridden the highs and lows that are as much a part of golf as doglegs and greenside bunkers – all the while maintaining an impeccable dignity. “Hunter,â€� said Cozby, “is just a stand-up guy.â€� Good perspective to consider for those who might wonder if there is a story developing along the lines of “the rise and fall and rise againâ€� of Hunter Myles Mahan, who parlayed a share of second at the DAP Championship presented by NewBrick on Labor Day weekend into a 11th-place finish on the money list and 18th on the priority ranking. It assures him full status for 2018-19 after having played out of lower-tier categories for a few seasons. He will be making his fourth start of the season at this week’s The RSM Classic, the final event of the fall portion of the schedule. Mahan, whose eight-year run of elite golf – from 2007-2014, he ranked top 20 in ball-striking seven times, won six tournaments, and placed top 10 in 45 of 202 starts – is as impressive as his 2015-18 stretch is perplexing, has not let the slide define who he is. He and his wife, Kandi, welcomed a third child in the summer of ’16 and while it’s convenient to suggest that Mahan’s golf took a back seat to quality time at home, it remains tough to explain, he said. “There are just so many layers,â€� said Mahan, who has finished 49th, 183rd, 182nd, and 159th in the FedExCup standings each of the past four seasons after having been a fixture at the TOUR Championship for the previous eight. He acknowledged that it started to slip away in 2015 when he had just one top 10 over his last 13 tournaments and exited the Playoffs at the BMW Championship. “For the first time in my life, I really wasn’t sure what was going on,â€� he continued. “My ball-striking, usually so consistent, just didn’t feel the same.â€� From there, he added, “it was a slow bleed and a lack of confidence comes with that.â€� To be here right now, with all that has happened, you know you just don’t have that much control of life and what might happen. But you realize life is so precious. But for all the struggles on the golf course in ’15, ’16 and ’17, Mahan never lost his passion for competitive golf. He hooked on with Dallas-based swing coach Chris O’Connell, who had won praise for his work with Matt Kuchar – winner of last week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic — and the foundation at home buoyed him. “When you’re surrounded by people you love and who love you, you don’t want to waste a day,â€� Mahan said. Little did he know how that faith was going to be tested early in 2018 when news was received “that took my breath away,â€� Mahan said. His wife’s sister, Katie Enloe — whose husband, Jason Enloe, the head golf coach at SMU, is one of Hunter Mahan’s best friends — had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. For years, Mahan concedes he didn’t really “go deep into my techniqueâ€� to study why he was so proficient a ball-striker. “I figure it was in my DNA and I knew that I was consistently good at it,â€� he said. Cozby remembers Mahan telling him there isn’t “a golf hole in the world that I don’t think I could stand up there and hit it in the fairway,â€� so clearly it was stunning when he dropped to 99th in ball-striking, then 144th in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Yet that mystery didn’t shake Mahan. Katie Enloe’s death in July did, however. The mother of two daughters was just 35. “To be here right now, with all that has happened, you know you just don’t have that much control of life and what might happen,â€� Mahan said. “But you realize life is so precious.â€� Understandably, Mahan had trouble focusing on golf, but he knew it was important “how you reactâ€� to heartache like this. Admirably, he and Kandi embraced golf, not so much Mahan’s own tournament golf, but instead, they poured their hearts and souls into the Mahan Family Foundation Match Play at Trinity Forest outside of Dallas and a sense of wonder consumed them on this day to support “KatieStrongTx.â€� Said Mahan: “It was clear to us that we wanted to do this, that we needed to do it.â€� To offer Mahan praise for putting so much time into a charitable foundation at a time when he was still trying to get his game back together does not register with him. It’s golf. It’s everywhere. He remembers in the aftermath of Celtic Manor and the gut-wrenching loss to McDowell in the 2010 Ryder Cup, how Steve Stricker “made a point of telling me he’d always be there for me.â€� And how Kuchar and Cink and Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk and Davis Love III had Mahan’s back in front of a media that might not have been kicking a man when he was down, but they weren’t exactly letting him up without more questions about that deciding game. Of course, Mahan recovered from that bitter defeat. A starring role in the 2011 Presidents Cup win, two more triumphs in 2012, and a 2013 and ’14 seasons that saw him win over $3 million — it was all proof that Mahan wasn’t down for the count. Nor is he now, said Cozby. “His priorities changed for a while,â€� Cozby noted. “He got to the point where he didn’t want to be at the golf course. But we think Hunter has got a lot of game left.â€� At 36, Mahan agrees, and he relishes the opportunity in front of him. He improved to 69th in ball-striking in 2017 and 30th this past year, so he feels as if he’s trending positively. “On or off the golf course, it’s always an interesting challenge to pick yourself back up,â€� he said. “I’m motivated for this opportunity.â€�

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OK, Phil Mickelson is gone. The focus at The Country Club can now entirely shift to the pursuit of the U.S. Open title. And there is no shortage of storylines.

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DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — Jon Rahm won the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide to join Seve Ballesteros as the only Spaniards to reach No. 1 in the world, a victory he finally wrapped up with a magical shot that would have made his idol proud. Rahm built an eight-shot lead at the turn, only to see it reduced to three shots with three holes to play Sunday on a Muirfield Village course playing its toughest in 42 years. In trouble behind the green on the par-3 16th, with Ryan Palmer facing a 12-foot birdie putt from the fringe, Rahm hit a flop shot from deep grass that came out perfectly. It landed on the fringe, ran toward the hole and dropped for birdie as the fiery Spaniard let out a ferocious fist pump. Palmer took bogey on the 17th, and the coronation was on. The only issue was the score. Replay of Rahm’s chip appeared to show the ball moved ever so slightly when he placed his lob wedge behind it. PGA TOUR officials reviewed it and gave him a two-shot penalty. It didn’t affect the outcome. Rahm was surprised when it was mentioned to him after he finished and said he didn’t realize anything was wrong. “It doesn’t take anything from the shot,” he said. “It’s not going to take anything away from today.” Rahm closed with a 3-over 75 for a three-shot victory over Palmer, the highest final round by a Memorial winner since Roger Maltbie shot 76 in the inaugural year in 1976. The victory was the 10th of Rahm’s career, his fourth on the PGA TOUR and jumps him to No. 8 in the FedExCup standings. He moves past Rory McIlroy in the world ranking by winning against the strongest field of the year. It was the strongest test, too, with the rough not being cut and the greens allowed to bake out because they are being replaced. The fifth green already was stripped as the leaders were on the back nine. Only five players broke par, the fewest for a final round since the Memorial began in 1976. The average score of 75.932 was the highest for the final round since it was 75.972 in 1978. Rahm looked to be playing a different course. He played bogey-free on the front nine with birdies on the two par 5s. That put him eight shots clear on his way to No. 1. And then he made bogey on the 10th. Not a problem. He yanked his tee shot into a creek on the par-5 11th, and that was a bigger problem based on how hard he slammed the club into the ground in a pique of anger. He made double bogey. Palmer made birdie on the 12th, and then Rahm made another bogey from the bunker on the 14th. Just like that, the lead was three shots. Only a week ago at Muirfield Village for the Workday Charity Open, Justin Thomas had a three-shot lead with three holes to play and wound up losing in a playoff to Collin Morikawa. Rahm only wanted his tee shot on the 16th to stay dry, though the rough was not a great option with how fast the greens were running. The chip was similar — but from a different angle — to Tiger Woods chipping in from behind the 16th green when he won the Memorial for the fifth time in 2012. Woods, in his first competition since Feb. 16 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, shot 76 and tied for 40th. “Tough, tough conditions to start out my first week back, Thursday and Sunday,” Woods said. “But it was good to get the feel and the flow of competing again.” Matthew Fitzpatrick had a 68 for the low score of the final day to finish third. The consolation prize went to Palmer (74) and Mackenzie Hughes (72), who earned spots in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot in September as the leading two players from the top 10 who were not already eligible. Henrik Norlander could have taken the final spot with a par on the 18th, but he missed the fairway well to the right, couldn’t reach the green and made bogey. Norlander and Hughes tied at 3-under 285, but the spot went to Hughes because he had the better world ranking. That ranking now starts with Rahm, who only five years ago was at the Memorial to receive the Jack Nicklaus Award as the nation’s best college player. On Sunday, Nicklaus was there to greet him behind the 18th green. Nicklaus revealed earlier Sunday he and wife Barbara tested positive for the coronavirus in March, and they have since tested positive for the antibodies. As for the shot behind the 16th? Nicklaus was impressed. So was Rahm. “I still can’t believe it, I’m not going to lie,” Rahm said.

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