Straka tests positive; latest to pull out of Valspar

MAMARONECK, N.Y. - The kid will live to fight another day. Matthew Wolff, the 54-hole leader by two, just didn't have it for the final round of the 120th U.S. Open at Winged Foot on Sunday. He shot a final-round 75 to finish even par and in solo second, six behind Bryson DeChambeau (67), who shot the low round of the day by three. "I played really tough all week," Wolff said. "I battled hard. Things just didn’t go my way. But first U.S. Open, second place is something to be proud of and hold your head up high for." Wolff blinked first when he hit a wild hook and bogeyed the third hole. DeChambeau caught him with a birdie at the fourth hole, and took a lead he would never relinquish with a par at the fifth. Both eagled the par-5 ninth to remain separated by just one shot, but it was no contest from there as DeChambeau kept the pedal down while Wolff shot a 39 coming in. "My advice?" said Zach Johnson (74, T8) "Leave this parking lot with the positives because, my guess, there’s a slew of them. Whatever he’s doing right now is not ineffective. "... He’s going to slice and dice today," Johnson added, "and he needs to really focus in on some of the things that he did the previous three days, I think more so than today." The two main combatants have a history of butting heads. When Wolff won the 3M Open last year, DeChambeau tied for second. When DeChambeau won the Rocket Mortgage Classic in July, Wolff was second. Both tied for fourth at the PGA Championship last month. DeChambeau said he expects to run into Wolff again in the future, and it seems likely. Wolff is too good to just go away, and he's also irrepressible, approaching golf as a game, not science. While DeChambeau had ear buds in prior to the final round, Wolff was on the phone cracking up laughing. Although he said he would play his usual "rip dog" game, he was just a little off. "I really didn’t feel that nervous out there," he said. "Maybe at the start I did, but at the start I played pretty well. I don’t think it was nerves that were holding me back. I just think it wasn’t meant to be." A few breaks here and there, he said, and he might have made it closer. The final pairing further accelerated a youth movement that was already in gear. Wolff (21) and DeChambeau (27) combined to make up the second youngest final pairing in the last 50 majors, behind only Jordan Spieth (22) and Smylie Kaufman (24) at the 2016 Masters Tournament. Wolff's youthful exuberance will almost certainly come away from Winged Foot unscathed. "He's just a kid," said fellow Oklahoma State product Rickie Fowler (79, 17 over). "Some of the things he'll say, you sometimes forget that you're around someone who's - you look at him as one of our peers, someone you play against and compete against, but he'll say something and you're like, yeah, he's still a kid. He's 10 years behind us. "There's really no course that doesn't suit him," Fowler added, "just because he's able to work the ball both ways easily. He's a great ball-striker. His extra length, with the way the rough is, it helps on a lot of holes out here because you're going to miss fairways, and to potentially have between two and four clubs less out of the rough, that makes a big difference." That's the case on any course, and Wolff will almost certainly be a force on many of them.

Click here to read the full article…

FORT WORTH, Texas – Jamie Sadlowski’s first tee shot in his first round of his first PGA TOUR start travelled 365 yards. Nobody was surprised. The two-time winner of the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship is expected to hit it far. But the Canadian native is determined to prove he’s more than just a bomber. That he can use all 14 clubs in his bag and can manage his way around the golf course – and not just impress fans at the range. “I look at this as I’m trying to start a new career and I’m working hard at it,� Sadlowski said after his 3-over 73 left him tied for 75th after Thursday’s first round of the DEAN & DELUCA Invitational. “At the end of the day, I want to prove myself I can play out here.� It was roughly a year ago that Sadlowski decided to retire from his career as a long drive champion – he had performed in approximately 600 exhibitions and show – to pursue his dream as a pro golfer. He’s played a handful of Web.com Tour and Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada events, as well as some overseas events in Australia. But Thursday was the first time he had teed it up in a PGA TOUR event. It was just his 51st competitive round as a pro. Sadlowski is in the field as one of Colonial’s Champions Choices, in which all the tournaments’ living champions choose two promising newcomers. That’s how Jason Day in 2008 and Jordan Spieth in 2013 made the field. The phone call came about two weeks ago and Sadlowski obviously was thrilled to receive the opportunity. Yet it’s ironic that his TOUR debut comes on a course that sometimes gets accused (perhaps unfairly) of taking driver out of a player’s hands. The old-school, tight course is a shot-maker’s dream, hardly a bomber’s paradise. It’s nothing new, though, for Sadlowski. He has played at the Web.com Tour event in Boise, Idaho, and said that Hillcrest Country Club is even tighter than Colonial. He said another Web.com Tour event in Bogota, Colombia, also is not long, even though it’s at altitude. “I haven’t ever found a bomber’s paradise track,� he said after a round in which he hit six drivers on holes 1, 2, 6, 11, 14 and 15. “But this doesn’t take driver out of my hand. And I have a 2-iron that I’m comfortable with. Maybe that helps me, I don’t know. One of these days, I’ll get a longer golf course. But I think I can play this one.� He held his own with playing partners Kevin Tway (who finished at 2 under 68 after a late double bogey) and Brandon Hagy (who shot a 75). And they held their own off the tee – again, no surprise, considering both Tway and Hagy are ranked inside the top 10 in driving distance on TOUR. Sadlowski knows both players, so it was a comfortable pairing. And no, there was no discussion about trying to one-up each other off the tee, no mini-long drive contest suggestions. “I think everybody knows [about the power],� he said. “I don’t think we needed to talk about it.� Sadlowski had the longest drives in the field on hole Nos. 1 (the 365-yarder) and 2 (a 350-yard drive on his hardest swing of the day). He also had a 368-yard drive on the par-5 11th. Only one player hit it farther – Tway, whose drive went 371 yards. For the day, Sadlowski averaged 297.5 yards off the tee on all drives – third highest average behind Jon Rahm (304.3 yards) and Jhonattan Vegas (298.8). But it’s not just power off the tee but also on any shot – Sadlowski will likely face shorter approaches than most of his playing partners, and can reach par-5s with short and mid-irons, like he did on the second hole. He realizes he needs to work on his short game – he successfully scrambled on just two of eight chances and made just one putt over 10 feet. But hey, it’s his first time out. The power will obviously be there. Now it’s just refining the other parts. Getting a taste of TOUR life this week certainly offers plenty of motivation. “It wasn’t that long ago that I was a kid sitting on the couch watching PGA TOUR events – which I still do,� he said, still soaking in the surroundings. “This just doesn’t feel real.�

Click here to read the full article…

Chase Koepka will be an addition into next week’s Workday Charity Open field at Muirfield Village Golf Club, as confirmed by the PGA TOUR today. Koepka successfully Monday qualified for the recent Travelers Championship but withdrew prior to the start of the event out of an abundance of caution, despite testing negative for COVID-19 after having close contact with two caddies who subsequently tested positive. “Given the extraordinary circumstances that led to his withdrawal after Monday qualifying, a start in the Workday Charity Open as a result of his selfless act was the right thing to do,” said PGA TOUR Chief of Operations Tyler Dennis. “The term – abundance of caution – was not part of our vernacular four months ago and to that point, I can’t say enough about our players that put their TOUR – and the health and safety of their peers and all involved with our tournaments and our communities – above their own goals.” Koepka’s addition will expand the field size to 157.

Click here to read the full article…