This was supposed to be great, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the same group at The Players Championship. It turned out to be anything but.
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Patton Kizzire outlasted James Hahn in six extra holes to win the Sony Open to become the first multiple winner on the PGA Tour this season. Kizzire, who won the OHL Classic in Mexico last fall, closed with a 2-under 68. Hahn shot 62 in the final round Sunday and got into a playoff with Kizzire at 17-under 263.
SANDWICH, England – Collin Morikawa has a chance to become the first player to win two separate major championships on debut after a scintillating 6-under 64 in the second round of The 149th Open. Morikawa surged to nine under 131 through 36 holes, a record for Opens at Royal St. George’s and one off the all-time Open record of 130. He was three shots clear of the pack after the morning wave with the likes of Louis Oosthuizen (-6) and Jordan Spieth (-5) yet to start. The 2020 PGA Championship winner is playing his first Open Championship and looks to emulate Ben Curtis – the last player to win an Open on debut – which coincidentally happened at Royal St. George’s in 2003. Willie Park Sr (1860), Tom Kidd (1873), Mungo Park (1874), Jock Hutchison (1921), Denny Shute (1933), Ben Hogan (1953), Tony Lema (1964) and Tom Watson (1975) are the only players pre Curtis to all win The Open on debut. But no one has ever won two of golf’s four majors in their first attempt. “We have four of them a year, and you’re trying to definitely win these four because they’re that big,” Morikawa said of the majors. “Sometimes you have those days where you’re very fortunate to have good numbers, and today was one of those days.” Morikawa opened the round with a birdie and had added three more at the turn to set up his special round. Further birdies at 11, 12 and 14 had the California kid at seven under on the day and on track to equal the course record 63 or perhaps better Branden Grace’s all-time major championship low 62. But a leaked drive on the 15th resulted in a missed green from the left rough and he was unable to get it up and down to save par. Morikawa then had a chance at 63 via an eight-foot attempt for birdie on the 18th only to see it slide by. “I had no clue what any course record was. I don’t know any of those numbers. Now I do know. But I was just trying to make a lot of birdies,” Morikawa said. And besides. He was more proud of some of his par saves, including a great one on the 13th after a drive into a pot bunker. “Out here in links golf you’re going to hit bad shots. You’re going to hit bad approach shots, bad tee shots. To see the par save on 13 I’m really going to draw on that for the rest of the week because sometimes you have to just bite your tongue, play safe, and try and make par best you can. Sometimes bogey is going to be your friend,” he said. Bad shots were rare on Friday for the 24-year-old. For most of the round it was a ball-striking clinic, incredible considering his first real foray into links golf was at last week’s Scottish Open and he’d changed some of his scoring irons in the lead up to the tournament. The changes came directly from what he learned after his T71 result in Scotland. “I wouldn’t be here through these two rounds if I hadn’t played last week at the Scottish. I’ve played in firm conditions… I can think of places I’ve played in tighter, drier conditions, but just having fescue fairways and the ball sitting a little different was huge to see last week,” Morikawa explained. “I changed my irons, my 9 through 7-iron that I normally have blades in. I changed to the (TaylorMade) P7MC’s strictly because I couldn’t find the center of the face. I was sitting these iron shots last week that I just normally don’t and my swing felt good, but it was a huge learning opportunity. “This style of golf is very different, but last week helped tremendously.” Changing irons wasn’t the only adjustment for the cerebral Morikawa. While he putts with a saw grip from close range he was adjusting to a conventional grip for longer putts. Anything outside around 30-feet saw him change it up. “Mentally it felt that much better. Even though I didn’t know how I was going to perform, you just have to go out and feel confident with what you’re doing.”
DETROIT – Matthew Wolff made things too complicated after his maiden PGA TOUR victory at the 3M Open last year. He put every facet of his game under a microscope – and got worse. No more wins, not even any top-10 finishes, just aggravation. Changing course, Wolff resolved to keep it simple. He’s obviously sticking to that, because by his own admission he shot a second straight 64 at Detroit Golf Club not because he’d optimized his spin rate or anticipated the nitrogen levels of the grass. No, no. Not even close. “I heard an ice cream truck circling the property,” said Wolff, 21, who will carry a three-shot lead over Ryan Armour (67) and Bryson DeChambeau (67) into the final round. “Seemed like every time I heard that, I made birdie or made a putt, so I’ve got to give a lot of credit to that.” RELATED: Leaderboard | Wolff: ‘Maybe I need to impress the old greats’ | Armour makes quiet ace If that seems like a wacky explanation, then maybe it’s because Wolff, he of the wacky swing trigger, had a decidedly wacky round: five pars, nine birdies, an eagle, and three bogeys. Add it all up and he’ll be aiming for win No. 2 almost exactly one year to the day after his first. Ice cream? The only guy who’s made more of the Fourth of July weekend is Joey Chestnut. “Felt like the putter was really good today,” Wolff said. “Wasn’t really thinking about much over the putt, lining it up, feeling confident in the line and stroking it really nice.” Not thinking about much other than ice cream, that is. (He’s a vanilla guy.) He didn’t even let a missed five-footer at the second hole get to him. He made over 117 feet of putts – second for the week in Strokes Gained: Putting – including a 13 1/2 footer for eagle at the par-5 14th. Now comes the hard part: Keeping his carefree outlook even with the trophy on the line Sunday. It might have been an intriguing study in contrasts had Wolff been paired with DeChambeau on Sunday. Each crushes the ball, each is a classic iconoclast, but they are mondo different between the ears. One guy, DeChambeau, squirts his golf balls with mist to study how they react in the rain. The other guy, Wolff, lets his thoughts drift with the seductive trills of the Mr. Softee truck. Anyway, it’s a mood point because Wolff will play the final round with Armour, whom he calls “a super good guy.” More than twice Wolff’s age, Armour has the same number of career PGA TOUR wins, one, but he may not go away quietly. After missing a three-foot putt to double-bogey the 17th hole, Armour drained a 21 1/2 foot birdie on 18 to get back to 16 under. “You can see a picture in your eye of what shot you want to hit based on the framing of the trees,” Armour said of the Donald Ross-designed Detroit Golf Club, which he said fits his eye and reminds him of his junior golf days in Akron, Ohio. “I think that’s really pretty.” DeChambeau, by the way, was relegated to a share of second place by Wolff’s eagle putt on the 72nd hole at the 3M. No telling whether history will repeat itself at the Rocket Mortgage, but rest assured the Mad Scientist won’t be thinking about ice cream trucks and trees. “Just going out there and being aggressive, being aggressive where need be,” DeChambeau said of his plan for the final round. That shouldn’t be a problem. He nearly drove the green at the par-4 first and 13th holes, birdied both, and leads the field in driving distance (347.3) by a wide margin. Still, he hasn’t quite put it all together. Five more players – Troy Merritt (67), Mark Hubbard (69), Seamus Power (69), Chris Kirk (70) and Wesley Bryan (65) – are at 14 under, five off the lead and with an outside chance. There will be fireworks. There will be ice cream. There will be golf. “I’ve really got to give it to a lot of mindset,” Wolff said of his success. “I feel like there was a lot of times in the past where I had good rounds and I let my head get in the way – I need to close this out or I need to do something, I want to try to make more birdies coming in. “Instead I would go the other way,” he continued, “whereas I’m taking it shot by shot, hole by hole and whatever happens, happens.”
