Alex Myers discusses Tiger Woods tying Sam Snead for the most wins in PGA Tour history and a couple special encounters that may have helped along the way.
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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – This week marks the 50th RBC Heritage; Arnold Palmer won the first one in 1969. Luke Donald finished second. Actually, no. That’s not true, but it’s only a small exaggeration. Donald, 40, is a five-time runner-up at Harbour Town, having finished second to Bryan (Wesley, 2017) and Brian (Gay, 2009); Branden (Grace, 2016) and Brandt (Snedeker, 2011). Oh, and he had his heart ripped out by Matt Kuchar in 2014. “The one that probably hurt the most,� Donald said Wednesday. “Kooch holing the bunker shot and shooting 63 or 64 and coming from a lot behind.� You have to dig hard to find a golf oddity that compares to Donald’s close-but-no-cigar record at Harbour Town, where every anniversary is plaid. He has played 32 of his last 35 rounds here at even par or better. He has five seconds, two thirds and a T15 (but no victories) since 2009. Over the last 75 years, only two players have had more runner-up finishes in a single event: Jack Nicklaus at the RBC Canadian Open (seven), and Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open (six). Indeed, the plaid jacket is to Donald what the Emmy was to Susan Lucci, but on the flip side there could be no better place than this cozy Pete Dye masterpiece for him to begin a career comeback. (He’s 189th in the FedExCup and 196th in the Official World Golf Ranking.) We’ve seen Phil Mickelson get back into the winner’s circle this season, plus Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Gary Woodland. Why not Donald? And why not here? “It’s been a good run around here, for sure,� he said. “I’ve done everything but win. I guess the simple answer is I think it suits the way I play. Obviously very small greens; it’s tough to hit a lot of greens. You have to be very good around the greens, which is a strong part of my game. “It’s a fiddly course,� he added. “You’re not going to always have straightforward shots to the greens. I think it takes some imagination, some creativity around this course. Again, that’s something I’ve always been known for.� Donald reached the top of the Official World Golf Ranking in the spring of 2011 and stayed there, on and off, for 56 weeks through the middle of 2012. He played on four European Ryder Cup teams, and racked up five PGA TOUR victories. That all seems like a long time ago. Niggling injuries have been part of the problem, and Donald was hospitalized with chest pains prior to teeing off at The RSM Classic in St. Simons Island, Georgia, last November. He withdrew from the tournament and underwent extensive testing, which showed he was not having a heart attack. “I think it was some kind of remnants of a stomach flu that my kids had,� he said. The other setback: his decision to part ways with his longtime coach, Pat Goss. (They’ve since reunited.) It was Goss, then the men’s golf coach at Northwestern, who recruited Donald to go to college in America, and their partnership continued after Donald turned pro. But in 2013, Donald began working with Chuck Cook. A little over a year later, he went back to Goss. “The impetus there was to search to try and hit my driver a little bit straighter and gain a little bit of distance,� Donald said. “I thought that would give me a better chance to win majors. Certainly, Chuck’s method was very different to what I had been doing, and after 13 months, what he was trying to get me to do, I couldn’t do. “But in trying to do it,� Donald added, “I got into some bad habits that took a long time to get out. I’m certainly not blaming Chuck. He’s a wonderful teacher; it just wasn’t the right fit for me.� Donald’s swoon has coincided with career highs by some of his old teammates like Poulter and Henrik Stenson, and he derives hope from their comebacks. If they can do it, he tells himself, then so can he. And, as Donald pointed out in one of his recent tweets, there’s nothing wrong with struggling, which is relative, after all. To be blunt, we should all struggle like him. His social media feed has featured photos of himself playing Cypress Point; a golf-and-basketball date with Keegan Bradley, Tom Brady and Michael Jordan; and a fierce Moana-themed Halloween costume lineup consisting of Donald, his wife, Dianne, and their three children. Was he tempted to reassess his priorities when he turned 40? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to step away to tend to his wine label fulltime, or start brewing his own kombucha. “Those things always cross your mind,� Donald said. “You could sort of disappear into the shadows and not really play again and live off what I’ve made on the golf course over the last few years. “But that’s not really my style,� he added. “I’m still very competitive. I want to be out here. I want to compete. I’ve seen lots of my peers go through struggles and tough times and slip down the rankings and come back. And those kinds of players and experiences give me heart that I can do the same.�
SAN ANTONIO — Camilo Villegas chipped in twice to highlight a nine-birdie round that earned him an 8-under 64 and the first-round lead at the Valero Texas Open on Thursday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Cut prediction: Valero Texas Open Sung Kang, a 33-year-old South Korean, is two shots back with Cameron Tringale after each had a 66 at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course. Jordan Spieth, whose struggles the past three years appear to be subsiding after four top-10 finishes the past two months, is three back (67) with Seung-Yul Noh and Hideki Matsuyama. Phil Mickelson dropped to 15 shots back when he had a 10 on the 18th hole — he took two penalty shots and another three strokes trying to get away from a greenside stream — and ended with a 79. Villegas won the TOUR Championship in 2008 and the Wyndham Championship in 2014, but has endured injury and then the death of his 22-month-old daughter last year. His two top-10 finishes this year include a tie for eighth at the Honda Classic. “Sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Villegas said. “The last few years I’ve been up and down with many things. We keep showing up and the results start showing up.” He bogeyed his opening hole Thursday and birdied six of seven holes in the middle of his round. That streak included putts of 23 and 20 feet and a chip-in from the fringe at his 13th hole. He finished up when he holed out from about 45 yards away to the side of the green. “Some days the hole is a little bit big,” Villegas said. “On (the last hole), I got really lucky. I hit a chip that was probably going off the green, and it hits the pin and goes in.” Kang, the 2019 Byron Nelson champ, got his round rolling with an eagle on his 11th hole. He hit the green in two on the par 5 from 292 yards and made a 30-foot eagle. “I played great today, but I didn’t start off very good,” Kang said. “I struggled a little bit with a new driver from the start, but I found a way to hit it on the back nine so started driving a lot better.” Kang birdied three of his last four, including his finishing hole with a 22-foot birdie. Spieth birdied three of his opening five holes. Looking for his first win since the 2017 Open Championship, he had steadily dropped in the world rankings until he hit No. 92 in January after missing the cut in five of eight starts. “Overall with the score, I certainly would have signed up for 5 under starting out,” Spieth said. “I felt like I played some really nice golf on our front nine. I didn’t quite hit it as good as I have been, but certainly the short game came through. I mean, 5 under around this track is a good score. I’d take four more of them.” Five of Spieth’s seven birdies came before he made the turn. For the day, three of his birdie putts came from longer than 15 feet, including a 21-footer at his second hole. “Overall, just chipped and putted really well, which was the difference-maker today,” he said. He used a putter from the fringe while 16 feet away for birdie at his second-to-last hole. He made up for hitting into the bunker on the right off the tee, but he couldn’t recover on his 18th. He pushed another tee shot right and hit a provisional. But he found his tee shot near trees, punched it out near the green, yet failed to get up and down and settled for his second bogey. “It just got a little bit off there today off the tee on contact,” Spieth said. “The rest of the swing, I mean, I feel like I’m swinging the same and out in front of it and putting a good move on it.” Spieth has used the Texas Open to bolster his game in the past. In 2015, he finished second after four straight birdies late. Two weeks later, he won his first major at the Masters and in June won the U.S. Open. In February, Spieth had a share of the lead after a third-round 61 at Phoenix and he led by two shots going into the final day at Pebble Beach. Last month at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in Florida, he was two shots out of the lead heading into the final day and finished tied for fourth. Scottie Scheffler, a Dallas native and former Texas Longhorns standout like Spieth, shared opening-round 68s with Tom Hoge and Sebastian Munoz. Scheffler was runner-up last week in Austin at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. He made up for a bogey on his 17th with an 11-foot birdie putt at his last. “I made a few silly mistakes here and there, kind of two sloppy bogeys, but other than that, I felt like I played really solid,” Scheffler said. “I was pretty frustrated bogeying a par 5 there towards the end of the round, so having a nice bounce back will give me some momentum and make me rest a little easier.” In addition to Mickelson’s final-hole struggles, he had a three-putt inside nine feet and on the next hole missed from less than four feet. Abraham Ancer was tied with Spieth at 4 under early in his second nine, but a triple-bogey and bogey finish put an even-par 72 on his card.
Francesco Molinari learned on the eve of his first appearance at the Masters this major was different from the others. ”After like six steps, one of the green jackets came in and said, ‘No running,”’ Molinari said. Augusta National has rules, just like most private clubs,
