Top 30 Players to Watch in 2019: No. 16 Tony Finau

SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda — Doc Redman found the wind far more manageable Saturday, and he took advantage with a 4-under 67 for a one-shot lead going into the final round of the Bermuda Championship. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Funk’s chip-in seals made cut The wind came out of the opposite direction as the previous day and it wasn’t quite as strong. It showed in the scores and in the number of opportunities for players who never won or have gone without winning in years. Redman was at 10-under 203, one shot ahead of Ryan Armour (70), Wyndham Clark (70) and Kramer Hickok (69), who took three putts from a tough spot on the fringe on the 18th at Port Royal. Another shot behind were Matt Jones (66), Brian Gay (67) and Ollie Schniederjans (69). Jones was bogey-free in the third round, which to him was as impressive as any of his five birdies. Redman, the 2017 U.S. Amateur champion, is among 10 players separated by four shots who have never won on the PGA TOUR. A victory Sunday comes with an invitation to the Masters next April. "I feel like with the wind switching, it was a little easier," Redman said. "And it was still really windy. But yesterday was incredible. We couldn’t have been far away from stopping play yesterday. That made it a little easier. And the greens roll great, so if you have looks at it you can make birdies." Redman still was mindful of the wind, particularly on the par-5 17th when he made decisions to play short off the tee because of the strong left-to-right wind off the Atlantic Ocean and potential problems it could have created. The wind also made it tough on Armour, the 44-year-old from Ohio who picked the wrong day to not be swinging his best. What saved him was a short game that enabled him to break par for the third straight day and to stay very much in the mix to win on Sunday. "I’m going to have to go figure out what was going on," Armour said. "Toward the end there, I started hitting the center of the face a little more. As you know, when the winds are this high, you’ve got to hit in the center or else it’s going to get blown all over." He took a little off a pitching wedge for a beautiful third shot just below the pin for birdie on the par-5 17th, and he narrowly missed a 15-footer on the 18th that would have given him a share of the lead. Jones is used to windy conditions from his roots in Australia, and he handled it well. He will be going for his first PGA TOUR victory since the 2014 Houston Open, although Jones won the Australian Open at the end of last year. Gay, 48, whose putting stroke atones for his lack of power, has not won since 2013. He was long enough on the 507-yard 17th to make eagle to cap off his 67 and put him in prime position. The oldest player in the field, 64-year-old Fred Funk, didn’t fare so well. He shot 75 and was 13 shots behind.

Click here to read the full article…

HONOLULU, Hawaii – Blayne Barber’s caddy Cory Gilmer is in an intensive care unit at a local Hawaiian hospital after collapsing and hitting his head in Waikiki last night. Gilmer was out some fellow caddies in downtown Waikiki after finishing dinner with Barber when he is said to have collapsed while sitting on a high-top chair, hitting his head hard on the ground in the process. He was rushed to hospital with swelling around the brain and has been unresponsive for the night and most of the morning. Barber rushed to Gilmer’s side as soon as he heard the news. “By the time I got there, he was unconscious, and the paramedics were there. Then I went to the hospital with him last night. And he’s pretty much just been unresponsive since then,â€� he explained. “He’s in the neurological ICU, a lot of bleeding and swelling in his brain. So, I went by this morning, and that was kind of the last update I had. He’s in pretty critical condition. His parents are flying in tomorrow.â€� To make matters worse Barber was caught up in the false alarm regarding a missile strike in Hawaii when he returned to the hospital in the morning, forcing him to head to lower ground. He returned to Waialae Country Club to play the third round with his brother Shayne on the bag, hoping the golf would take his mind off things. But the emotions got the better of him as he shot a 2-over 72 – dropping him to T68. Barber had considered withdrawing from the event but ultimately decided to play on given there was little he could do. “I’ve been gone from my kids and my wife for ten days, and between that happening to Cory and then just the emotions of facing your own mortality in that moment, it’s just been a heavy day for sure,â€� he said emotionally. “It certainly wiped me out. I was kind of out of it all day, just trying to push through and have something to concentrate on, but it was hard to focus on any of that. “I slept about three hours. That was about the hardest day of golf I’ve ever played.â€� Doctors were trying to contain the swelling medicinally overnight and had not yet taken a surgical route in his recovery. Barber said there was nothing he was aware of in Gilmer’s medical history that would be prone to him collapsing. “Seizures was mentioned (by some in attendance to the collapse), but as far as I know, he collapsed, and the head trauma is the issue,â€� Barber said. “We don’t know why he collapsed. I mean, he could have been dehydrated or any number of things. I don’t think there’s any necessarily clear answers at the moment.â€�

Click here to read the full article…

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Stats Insider, where we’ll take a closer look at Nick Taylor’s win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Just a reminder, ShotLink was only available for the two rounds at Pebble Beach this week. 1. STRIKE WHILE IRONS ARE HOT: Nick Taylor ranks in the top-25 of both driving accuracy and greens in regulation this season. That trend continued at Pebble Beach, where he was seventh in fairways hit (43 of 55, 78%) and third in greens hit (54 of 72, 75%). 2. ROLLING THE ROCK: Pebble Beach’s small, severly-sloped poa annua greens may be the hardest surfaces to putt on TOUR. Taylor didn’t have any problem with them. He made almost half his attempts between 10-20 feet in his two rounds at Pebble Beach. He gained nearly 6 strokes on the greens in just two rounds at Pebble Beach, ranking second in Strokes Gained: Putting. He didn’t hole a putt longer than 18 feet, but he made plenty of his mid-range attempts. He was 7 for 15 (47%) from 10-20 feet. Pebble Beach has the lowest make percentage of putts from both 10-15 feet and 15-20 feet this season. 3. PHIL’S TOP-10 STREAK: If Phil Mickelson had won, he would’ve set the PGA TOUR record for largest gap between first and last wins. His first win came on Jan. 10, 1991. Raymond Floyd currently holds that record. It was 28 years, 11 months, and 20 days between his wins in the 1963 St. Petersburg Open and 1992 Doral-Ryder Open. Mickelson’s third-place finish did give him 30 consecutive seasons with a top-10 finish. He’s the third player to accomplish that feat. Sam Snead had top-10s in 34 consecutive seasons, while Floyd had them in 32 straight years. 4. SPIETH’S SUNDAY SURGE: Much has been written about Jordan Spieth’s weekend struggles, but Sunday was a positive sign. His 67 was the low round of the day, vaulting him up 46 spots into a tie for ninth. Spieth led the field in both Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach. He gained +4.6 strokes with his approach play alone Sunday. That was his best Strokes Gained: Approach performance in three years, since the first round of the 2017 Sony Open in Hawaii. 5. RORY REACHES NO. 1: Rory McIlroy wasn’t in action but he still returned to No. 1 in the world ranking before this week’s Genesis Invitational. It’s the first McIlroy has been No. 1 since Sept. 19, 2015. That span of 1,605 days between stints at No. 1 is the longest in the world ranking’s history, and by a large margin.

Click here to read the full article…