Brooks Koepka is trying to extend an amazing run in the majors that is not limited to winning three out of the last six. Now he tries to avoid leaving Friday afternoon from the British Open. Woods didn’t make a birdie until the 15th hole in his opening round of 78, his worst start in a British
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Justin Rose takes a three-shot lead into the final round. Can he hold on at Torrey Pines?
Toptracer gave us the juicy details: 165 mph ball speed, 274 yards carry, 74 feet of curvature, left to right. The ball peeled around a stand of cypress trees down the right side, all but winking as it flew by; landed just shy of the green; and bounded up toward the pin, stopping 7 feet short. What happened at the drivable 16th hole at TPC Harding Park changed everything: Collin Morikawa, in just his second major start, had seized control of a PGA Championship in which seven players were at one point tied for the lead. Watching from the tee, Cameron Champ, Morikawa’s playing partner, would liken it to a video-game shot – so flawless as to seem almost unreal. It was late afternoon, and with no on-site fans, walking scorers and laser operators whooped and hollered in the damp, cool air. Morikawa flashed a quick smile at his caddie. The real-time odds swung dramatically in his favor. Paul Casey, playing in the group just ahead, looked back from the 17th tee and realized his chances had just taken a massive setback. Here’s how it happened, according to those who were there. All week, the 16th hole, the last good place to attack at TPC Harding Park, loomed as the potential turning point. And the fact that it was drivable – Justin Thomas hit it to 18 feet in Friday’s second round but missed the eagle putt – added intrigue. Collin Morikawa: I wasn’t planning on going for it at the beginning of the week, so I actually never even tried it. Paul Casey (66, T2): It was wind dependent, flag dependent, tee dependent. It was always going to be a pivotal hole, one you feel like you should birdie, but there was also the possibility of screwing it up because of the penalty area on the left and the tree canopy on the right. There was plenty of danger on the last three holes, but 16 was your last real birdie opportunity. Sue Epstein, walking scorer and former Stanford golfer: I had scored for Haotong Li when he shot 65 on Friday, and he hadn’t gone for it and made par. But Collin was hitting the driver so straight. (He would hit 39 of 56 fairways to finish No. 1 in driving accuracy.) Kerry Haigh, PGA Chief Championships Officer: We had planned to make the 16th drivable for two of the four rounds and felt Sunday would be one of those if weather conditions allowed. It was obviously dependent upon the wind strength and direction. We reviewed the actual hole location for Sunday for a long time on both Friday and Saturday afternoons after play with the hope being to make it extremely appealing for players to attempt going for the green. The new yardage presented a conundrum for big hitters like Dustin Johnson and Casey, playing up ahead of Morikawa. Nonetheless, each found a way to birdie the hole. Casey: Driver was too much; it was a 3-wood hole for me. Left bunker, splashed it out to 4 feet with a really awkward putt with a really awkward hog’s back. Couldn’t tell which way it was going to go, called Johnny (McLaren, his caddie) in. I made it. Dustin Johnson: I think I did hit driver Sunday, and just pulled it left. I couldn’t get there with 3-wood, and driver was probably too much, so I was trying to kind of chip it and just pulled it. Carl Woodland, volunteer laser operator on 16: The day was cold, it was chilly, and this was toward the end of the day, so it was starting to get even cooler. We were 60 yards down the fairway, down the left side, and DJ went right over our heads and into the penalty area. But then he pitched in for birdie. We were still talking about that when Collin got to the tee. Morikawa had game-planned for the hole playing more or less to its scorecard yardage (332). But with the tees moved up so far (it was now 294) the hole had changed drastically. Morikawa: It was just something that — everything fit, the circumstance, and made sense, wind and everything was perfect, and obviously it worked out. Jakovac: He never hit driver there, not even in practice. We didn’t think the tee would be up as far as it was. They had it like 20 yards up from the back of the box, which made it 275-ish to the front. We thought it would be more like 290 front, but we got up there on Sunday and the tee was way up, and it was really a no-brainer because it was a perfect distance for him. The wind was in off the left so he could hit his normal cut off there to the left and let it feed to the right. Epstein: When he pulled the driver, I was like, Wow, he’s going for it. I remember the contrast with Li two days earlier, and thinking it was absolutely the right call. Earlier that summer, Morikawa had faced a similar shot at the par-4 14th hole at the Workday Championship at Muirfield Village. The shot called for his stock cut, and he drove the green, hitting it 12 feet. He missed the eagle putt, but went on to win the tournament in a playoff. Now at the PGA at Harding, having holed his pitch shot for birdie on 14, he was set up for even greater drama on 16. Epstein: There wasn’t much discussion with his caddie. You could tell they were in agreement. Champ (70, T10): That pin on 16, if you missed it, obviously you can miss it slightly left, but there’s not much room right and if you miss there you’re completely screwed. Jakovac: It was just a matter of not having it fade too much and kick in that bunker. Morikawa: When you look at what kind of driver or driver hole that is for me on 16 at Harding, like it was literally perfect, and it was just like made for me to hit a good shot there. The shot came off like a thunderbolt that reverberated across the course. Frank Nobillo, on CBS, called it, “the shot of his life!” Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan, in a story after the PGA, sought to answer the question, “Was Collin Morikawa’s drive on 16 the greatest shot in PGA history?” Champ: When it came off, my caddie, his caddie, we just looked at each other like, this is going to be pretty damned good, and of course it landed 3 feet short of the green, bounced perfectly straight right up there. Jakovac: It just needed one straight first bounce, and it went up there perfect. Casey: I turned around and saw his shot and where it finished. I was on the 17th tee. Hadn’t hit my tee shot yet. Two thoughts: Brilliant shot, and dammit. (Laughs) I always tip my cap to great golf, and of course there’s going to be a sense of thinking there’s still a chance, but that was one of the nails in the coffin right there, wasn’t it? The PGA Championship returns to its May date at Kiawah Island this week, but over the last 10 months Morikawa’s epic shot has barely faded from memory. Webb Simpson (72, T37): Could be the shot of the decade for the PGA Championship. Epstein: My son is a huge golf fan, and he said, ‘Mom, were you there?’ ‘Yes, I was right there when he pulled driver!’ There was no roar, but you could hear people gasping. Woodland: We had no depth perception, so it looked like it was going in the hole and had got to within six inches. We were sort of screaming at each other, like, ‘Whoa, he put it on the green!’ Champ: He pulled off the shot when he needed to the most, and I give him mad, mad props. Jakovac: Under the circumstances it’s the best shot I’ve ever seen. Morikawa: The actual club, it’s just sitting in my house. Definitely haven’t framed it. Just sitting in a bag with a bunch of other clubs. I know which one it is. … I’m sure down the road I’ll kind of look at it and be like, That’s kind of the shot that changed everything, that kind of changed my career at that point at 23.
On a brutally hard day for scoring at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club, Paul Casey manages a 1-over 72 for a one-stroke victory over surging Louis Oosthuizen (69) and Jason Kokrak (71). Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Casey became the first player to successfully defend his title on TOUR this season as he moved from 16th all the way to 4th in the FedExCup. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Casey getting better with age. At 41, Casey feels like he might just now be coming into his own. Who can argue? Casey, who said he’s getting older but better, picked up his third career PGA TOUR title in his 250th start. But it was his second in as many years at the Copperhead Course. The one-year gap was a big departure from the nine years between his first (2009 Houston Open) and second victories. Casey, whose resume lists back-to-back English Amateur titles, is the first to successfully defend a Valspar Championship title, the first player to successfully defend a title of any kind since Brooks Koepka at the 2018 U.S. Open, and the third player to win the Valspar multiple times, joining K.J. Choi (2002, 2006) and Retief Goosen (2003, ’09).   2. You had to crush the 5s at Copperhead. Casey did, playing them in 15 under. (He won at 8 under.) You had to feast on the 5s because the par 4s took a heavy toll. Louis Oosthuizen (69, T2) bogeyed the par-4 16th hole both Saturday and Sunday, and missed a playoff with Casey by one. Sergio Garcia (73, T54) was having a good round until he made a 9 on 16, the hardest hole on Saturday (4.300) and Sunday (4.414). The par-4 third was the toughest on Thursday (4.271) and Friday (4.406). 3. Oosthuizen is figuring out the Valspar. The sweet-swinging South African, whose lone TOUR win is the 2010 Open Championship, missed three straight cuts at the Copperhead from 2013-’15. It’s been all good since then: a T7 in 2016, T16 in 2018, and T2 this time around. He had the best weekend (66-69) but had left himself too far back after the opening two rounds. 4. Im is playing up to expectations. South Korea’s Sungjae Im was the first player to lead the money list from start to finish on the Web.com Tour last season, when he was Player of the Year. Big things were expected of him. He has not disappointed. Im fired a final-round 70 to finish T4, his second top-five showing in his last three starts (T3/Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard). He moved up 13 spots to 17th in the FedExCup, and with a victory could move ahead of winners Cameron Champ, Adam Long and Martin Trainer in the Rookie of the Year race. 5. Johnson will shrug this off. Playing in the final group, Dustin Johnson (T6) was the favorite, or so said Casey, afterward. Alas, the favorite didn’t make a birdie and struggled to a 3-over 74. That ended his streak of rounds in the 60s at 14, which was the longest active streak on TOUR and the longest of his career. It was also the first time in over two years he has failed to make a single birdie. But Johnson shrugged it off, insisting he didn’t play that bad. (The Copperhead Course was a brute all week, but especially in the final round.) Why the optimism? First, Johnson had missed the cut in his two previous starts at the Valspar (2008, 2010). The T6 was better, and gives him five top-10 finishes in his last six starts, most notably his 20th win at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship last month. And he now heads to the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Championship, which he won in 2017. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Casey dominated the par 5s. His 15-under total on those holes, where he made birdie or better 14 times in 16 chances (87.5 percent) was easily the best in the field. Nick Taylor (75, T24), Jon Rahm (68, T6) and Sungjae Im (70, T4) were second best with 10-under totals. It was by far the best performance on the par 5s at the Valspar since 2000, and the best of Casey’s career. 2.The winner led the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (+2.810), which marked the TOUR-leading eighth time Casey has led in that category since the start of the 2014-’15 season. Justin Thomas is next best, having done it seven times in that span. Five players have done it six times. 3. Dustin Johnson’s 74 (T6) marked the first time he has failed to birdie a single hole since the 2017 WGC-HSBC Champions, where he lost a six-shot lead. It was the first time in 31 starts worldwide that he’d not made a single red number on the scorecard. 4. After yielding just five bogey-free rounds Thursday through Saturday, the Copperhead Course gave up none in the final round. The course played nearly a full shot tougher than it had the day before, and the 72.143 stroke average was highest of the week. Casey became the second player this season, and first since Rickie Fowler at the Waste Management Phoenix Open (74), to win with an over-par score in the final round. 5. This marked the third straight week for a European winner on the PGA TOUR, after Rory McIlroy at THE PLAYERS Championship and Francesco Molinari at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. It’s the first such streak since 2010, when Justin Rose (Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide), Lee Westwood (WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational) and Graeme McDowell (U.S. Open) won in consecutive weeks. 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. There were no changes at the top after the Valspar Championship, with the top three players holding their positions. There was, however, a big mover: In successfully defending his title at the Copperhead Course, Paul Casey moved from 16th to 4th.
