Tony Finau continues fine form at Torrey Pines

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Kelly Ryder knows there are no guarantees when it comes to souvenirs. RELATED: Leaderboard | The top 5 aces at TPC Scottsdale’s 16th Her son, Sam, once made an albatross at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, saved the ball, and forgot it in his courtesy car. He once played with NBA star Stephan Curry in a Korn Ferry Tour event in Northern California, and afterward they swapped signed balls. She has that one in her study back home in Orlando. Now she and her husband, Art, will be getting another souvenir after Sam became the first player to make a hole-in-one at the WM Phoenix Open’s 16th hole since Francesco Molinari in 2015. The ball flew 124 yards and spun hard left before disappearing into the cup, triggering a meteor shower of beer, beer cups, and anything else that would fly. “Still kind of coming down off the adrenaline,” Ryder said, “but, yeah, it was pretty crazy.” As 16th hole moments go, this one recalled Tiger’s ace in 1997 and the late Jarrod Lyle’s in 2011. Here’s how it all went down: Ryder didn’t have the honor; playing partner Chris Kirk had just eagled 15 and went first. Ryder and his caddie, David Pelekoudas, sized up the short shot and were in immediate agreement. “It just ended up being a perfect 54-degree wedge,” Ryder said. “Everything always plays a little shorter in there, adrenaline or whatever it is, it’s just, it always plays shorter. And it just, I just told (Pelekoudas), ‘It’s just got to be that, doesn’t it?’ And he’s like, ‘That’s all I ever thought.’” The shot came off perfectly, and as Brian Harman, the third member of the group, said later, it looked like a hole-in-one the entire way before disappearing and triggering pandemonium. What made it even more special was Ryder’s parents were inside the ropes with him, walking through the tunnel and watching from inside the cauldron of 16 as the ball went in. Ryder raised his arms and went in for a collision/embrace with Pelekoudas, then high-fived Harman and Kirk as their respective caddies and fans screamed, the stands shook, and beer rained down. After that the only question was when play would resume – it would take 15 minutes or so for volunteers and maintenance officials to clear the debris – and what to do with the ball. “We’re definitely getting this one,” Kelly said with a smile. “He knows which one it is.” After Ryder fished his ball out of the cup, and his caddie had cleaned it, he got very deliberate. “I’m like, ‘Let’s just put that one away,’” said Ryder, who had missed five cuts in 10 starts coming into the week and is 129th in the FedExCup. “And we kind of put it in a different pocket, but there was a couple other balls in there; I was like, ‘Woah, woah, woah.’” They kept the ball separate from the others and housed it in its own pocket. “We got the right one,” Ryder said. As golf shots go, it was a cardiac moment – shout out to Ryder’s sister, an ER doc – literally stopping play. But Ryder, whose last hole-in-one in competition came at a long-ago Hooters Tour event, had an up and down day otherwise (even-par 71). He said he’d be trying to figure out “what happened on the other 17 holes,” but won’t soon forget the shot of the tournament. “I’m going to enjoy it,” he said. “I want to make sure I take care of the media center and the maintenance and stuff like that, buy some drinks so that everyone can enjoy that, and they can send me the bill for that. But I’m probably just going to try and rest up and have a good day (Sunday). Probably not the answer that you’re looking for, but I’ll probably have a beverage, try and get ready for tomorrow and hopefully have a good day and finish the tournament strong.” At 6 under par, he’s tied for 29th place.

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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Charles Howell III’s career is a Rorschach test of golf success. His incredible consistency is impressive to some. Others can’t look past the lack of wins. He’s earned more than $35 million in almost two decades as a pro. He’s never lost his card and has qualified for every edition of the FedExCup Playoffs. Howell has finished in the top 3 in 27 PGA TOUR events. Only two of those are wins, though. He won for the first time in his second full season, in an event that no longer exists. His second win was more than a decade ago. It’s a surprisingly small amount of victories for someone who turned pro after a dominant performance in the NCAA Championship and who finished third in his third PGA TOUR start as a pro. “I’ve talked about it forever,â€� he said. “I thought I would have won more by now.â€�  He has a chance to end his drought Sunday. Howell will start the final round of The RSM Classic with a one-stroke lead over rookie Cameron Champ and 44-year-old Jason Gore, who earned his insurance license last week. Howell started Saturday with a three-shot lead after back-to-back 64s. He led by as many as five before walking off the 18th green with just a one-shot advantage. Saturday’s 68 gave him a career-best 54-hole score of 196. He was pleased with how he handled the nerves Saturday. On Sunday, he must fend off a bevvy of challengers on a Seaside Course that allows low scores. Nine players trail him by five or fewer shots. “There’s nothing to protect,â€� Howell said. “This golf course really isn’t going to lend itself to that mentality.â€� The Seaside Course played to a 67.5 scoring average on Saturday. Patrick Rodgers shot 61. Seven players shot lower than 65. Four of this tournament’s eight champions shot 64 or lower in the final round, including a 60 (Tommy Gainey, 2012) and two 63s. Champ has been the breakout star of the fall season. He won the Sanderson Farms Championship and has ranked in the top 10 after 12 of his past 15 rounds. Fourteen of his past 16 rounds have been in the 60s. His unprecedented length allows him to navigate the Seaside Course by hitting long-iron off almost all of the tees. He leads the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, as well. Gore’s lone PGA TOUR win was 13 years ago but he is playing with the freedom of someone who shouldn’t even be here. He didn’t receive a sponsor exemption until Sunday evening. On the way to the airport, he expressed doubts about flying across the country for his first start of the season. The logo on his hat and bag are of the insurance company he started three years ago with his wife and a friend. “I love being a dad, I love being home, I like doing what we’re doing,â€� Gore said. “We have a great new house and I have a great wife and two great kids, and it’s nice to wake up every morning and take them to school and not here, ‘Hey Dad, thanks for stopping by.’ “I’ve been out here 20-something years. No matter what happens, I’m good with it.â€� Where does Howell fit in with the wunderkind and the retiree who will join him in Sunday’s final group? “I’ll be a disgruntled 39-year-old right in the middle,â€� he joked. There are few players who can match Howell’s enthusiasm for the game, though. He is enthralled with the unceasing quest for improvement that his profession requires. For Howell, Sunday isn’t just an opportunity to win. It’s a chance to assess how his game withstands the pressure. “I’m most excited to see how I handle tomorrow because I have no idea what’s going to happen,â€� Howell said. “Nobody does.â€� This is the sixth time he’s held a 54-hole lead. He has never turned one into a victory. He has the chance to change that. “It’s the same reason Bernhard Langer’s playing. The carrot is always dangled out there in this game,â€� he said. “In golf, it’s always out there. You know you’re just one day away.â€�

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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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