U.S. has work to do Sunday at Ryder Cup

A trip to Australia and the opportunity to represent one’s country aren’t the only perks for the participants in the Junior Presidents Cup. The 24 players on the U.S. and International teams get to interact with the elite players who will compete in this year’s Presidents Cup, set for December at Royal Melbourne. While many juniors will be meeting their heroes for the first time, Preston Summerhays is accustomed to being around the PGA TOUR’s best. That’s what happens when your father is a former TOUR player and successful swing coach. Preston, the reigning U.S. Junior Amateur champion, already knows several of the players who will compete for captains Ernie Els and Tiger Woods. Summerhays’ father, Boyd, was once the top-ranked junior in the country. He played college golf at Oklahoma State, where his teammates included Charles Howell III and Bo Van Pelt, and played 29 events on the PGA TOUR from 2004-06 before injuries ended his career. Now he is the instructor for Tony Finau, J.J. Spaun and Wyndham Clark. Golf success runs in the Summerhays’ genes. The family has featured multiple generations of successful players. Preston and his sister, Grace, who competed in this year’s U.S. Girls’ Junior, are continuing that tradition. Preston is waiting to see if the TOUR player with whom he has the closest relationship, Finau, also will be in Australia in December. Finau FaceTimed Preston shortly after that U.S. Junior. Am win. They’ve played hundreds of rounds together. Preston calls him “a great influenceâ€� on his career. “He cares about our family. He always wants to know how we’re doing, how we’re progressing,â€� Preston said. Finau wasn’t the only TOUR player to offer congratulations. Brooks Koepka sent a text to Boyd from The Open Championship. Rory McIlroy congratulated Preston before teeing off in the first round of a recent PGA TOUR event. Finau, who finished ninth in the final U.S. points standings, is a favorite to earn one of Woods’ four Presidents Cup captain’s picks next month (the top eight earned automatic spots on the roster). He bolstered his candidacy with a ninth-place finish at last week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he led the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. He now has four top-10s in his last five TOUR starts. Finau is a strong candidate to get a pick because of his consistent play and strong ball-striking. He has 25 top-10 finishes in the previous three PGA TOUR seasons and has played in the past three TOUR Championships. His average FedExCup finish in those three seasons is 10.7. He finished in the top 25 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green last season. Finau’s strong debut in international team competition also helps his candidacy. He was one of just four Americans with a winning record at last year’s Ryder Cup. He went 2-1 at Le Golf National, including a 6-and-4 win in his singles match with Tommy Fleetwood. If Finau is picked, it will mean double duty for Boyd Summerhays. He has been coaching Finau since 2014, after his own professional career came to an end. Finau graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour that year. He’s been on the PGA TOUR ever since, never finishing outside the top 50 in the FedExCup. “Boyd’s been a great mentor to me, he’s been a great teacher and he’s been a great friend,â€� Finau said. “We’ve been through a lot together. He’s helped me fine-tune my game, fine-tune my golf swing and fine-tune the mental side of my game. He’s been a huge part of what I’ve been able to accomplish.â€� Finau said his instructor’s son possesses “the confidence to be a champion.â€� “I’ve played a lot of rounds of golf with him, and to see him play, and to see kind of his swag, and taking his game to another level this summer has been a lot of fun to watch,â€� Finau said. Preston also plays with many of the TOUR players who live in his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona. That experience has undoubtedly paid dividends. “Preston’s always known he is good because he’s been winning junior tournaments, but when he plays with TOUR players he also gets to see how far he has to go,â€� Boyd said. “He’s very confident in himself, but he still has the humility because he knows what he has to do better. … It gives him a clear picture of what he has to do.â€� Finau hails from Utah, as does the Summerhays family (though Boyd and his family have since moved to Arizona). The Summerhayses are a golf family, through and through. Boyd’s grandfather, Pres, was the head coach at the University of Utah. Boyd’s father, Lynn, was the captain of Utah’s golf team. Boyd’s uncle Bruce won on PGA TOUR Champions, and Bruce’s daughter, Carrie, played on the LPGA. Boyd’s younger brother, Daniel, has two runners-up on the PGA TOUR and now plays on the Korn Ferry Tour. Boyd encouraged Preston to play other sports, and not simply fall into the family’s preferred pursuit, but the pull toward golf was too strong. Preston’s first memory of the game is accompanying his father to the course with a loaf of bread to feed the ducks while his father practiced. Boyd’s playing career came to an end after playing several events on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada in 2012. Preston was 9 years old when caddied for his father in a tournament in Canada. “The bib was down to his knees,â€� Boyd said. Preston videoed Boyd’s rounds, starting his commentary of each shot with, “Here we are in Canada.â€� Preston has won the past two Utah Amateurs, becoming the first player to go back-to-back since his uncle, Daniel, in 2000-01. Preston was the youngest winner in the tournament’s history when he won in 2018. Preston also turned heads last year when he shot 65-60 to qualify for the U.S. Amateur; it was the lowest qualifying score for that championship since 2011. The Junior Presidents Cup is the next step in his promising career.

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Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama returned to Japan after his victory but wasn’t able to see his family until completing a two-week quarantine. During that time, he got to soak in his first victory in a major by reading articles and watching highlights.

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LAS VEGAS - They say luck's a fortune in Las Vegas but skill can certainly get you further. Martin Laird showcased a brilliant combination of both as he claimed his second Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, outlasting Matthew Wolff and Austin Cook in a playoff at TPC Summerlin. RELATED: Full leaderboard | What’s in Laird’s bag? Playing on a sponsor's exemption as he returns from knee surgery, the Scotsman earned his fourth PGA TOUR win by getting the ultimate redemption on a hole that perhaps owed him some luck. It was his first title in over seven years. Chasing back-to-back wins after winning in 2009 (ironically in a three-man playoff), Laird joined Cameron Percy and Jonathan Byrd in extra holes in 2010. When they reached the par-3 17th he had to just stand in disbelief when Byrd made a hole-in-one to win the tournament. A decade later he would face the hole in sudden death against two others again. This time there was no ace but Laird did send a 22-foot, 11-inch birdie putt home after the other two players had missed their own chances to claim the win. "When I sit back and think about it, this win might go right to the top just because it’s been a while," Laird said. "I had a bunch of life changes since my last win. Now I’ve got a couple kids who kept asking me when I was going to win the trophy. It’s going to be nice to take a trophy home for them this time." "I’m unbelievably excited to have pulled that off today... you have some doubts at times whether you’re going to get another one. I just played so well all week this week tee to green; was probably the best I ever played. Just felt in control really all week. To see that putt go in on that hole, it was pretty special." His winning putt wasn't the only drama he faced on the infamous hole on Sunday. He came to it in regulation with a one shot lead but flailed his tee shot on the breeze and it went miles right onto a hill normally reserved for spectators. It left a tricky pitch from a downslope, over a cart path, through trees with water behind the green. The 37-year-old pulled off a magnificent shot to find the putting surface and then buried a 17-foot, 11-inch par putt. It was the longest putt he made all day Sunday (in regulation) and provided a buffer he needed when he was unable to get up and down on the 72nd hole for the win and was sent to extras. "That hole owed me one," Laird admitted. "To make that putt on 17 honestly was huge in regulation, and then to roll that putt in there to close it out, I mean, obviously it’s pretty special." Unbelievably it might not have been his best shot of the day. Earlier Laird was looking to push his early advantage on the par-5 9th hole, going for the green in two. His ball sailed on a great line only to come up fractions short, cannoning into the upper lip of a bunker where it stayed, seemingly buried and dead. But with an awkward stance and the putrid lie to deal with Laird would not only extricate the ball exceptionally, he would hole out the shot for an eagle. It was the third straight day he'd eagled the hole. "That second shot... if it flies another foot it’s an unbelievable 3-wood. It was a really bad break but it was almost lying so badly that I said to my buddy, this is lying so badly if I hit this as hard as I want it’s not going to go very far," Laird explained. "Obviously I wasn’t planning on holing it... but I was hopeful of getting inside maybe ten feet if it came out pretty good. I hit it hard as I could. The sand exploded and I couldn’t see anything, and I managed to open my eyes up as the ball landed and it started tracking. I enjoyed being down to the level of the bunker and watching that one go in. I’m not going to lie." Laird joins Jim Furyk and Kevin Na as multiple time winners of the event and won't need sponsor invites for a while having secured full status and a further two seasons after this one. He moved to fourth in the FedExCup with the win. Wolff has now finished runner up in his last two starts, falling to Bryson DeChambeau at the U.S. Open before this week. "Game is at an all-time high. I have a lot of the confidence carrying into the next two weeks and then the Masters, so looking forward to what’s next," the 21-year-old young star said. "My game has progressed amazingly and at pace that if you would’ve told me I would’ve been pretty amazed by it. I’m just looking to maybe get a win soon... I’m feeling like I can go out there and win any week now. Maybe a win is due sometime soon. But if I just keep on doing this, I’m sure it’ll come."

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