Undercover Lessons: Justin Thomas

SAN ANTONIO — Valero Texas Open co-leader Matt Wallace tried a new idea this week when practicing to play a greenside bunker shot. He swung the club cross-handed. RELATED: Full leaderboard "I've been working with my coach on trying to keep my right shoulder down, a little bit flatter, keeping the right elbow in," Wallace said. "Helps my low point. I sometimes get a little bit steep and on top. Cross-handed helps me fold my right arm and keeps my shoulder down." Wallace said his ball flight has been higher as a result. (He grips it conventionally for the shot, naturally.) "I think my bunker play's been really good this week," he said. It's better than most. Wallace is four of seven in sand saves, good for a tie for 21st in the field of 78.

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Here are nine tidbits from the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship that gamers can use next week, next year or down the road. Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte has been the host since the creation of the event in 2003 and plays 7,544 yards to a Par-71. The 2017 WFC was played at Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, NC. Here are nine tidbits from the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road. Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte has been the host since the creation of the event in 2003 and plays 7,544 yards to a Par-71. The 2017 WFC was played at Eagle Point Golf Club in Wilmington, NC.  Beautiful Day Australian Jason Day became the fourth multiple winner on TOUR this season as he posted 12-under 272 to win the Wells Fargo Championship for the first time. His final-round 69 saw him hold off Aaron Wise and Nick Watney by two shots to collect his 12th PGA TOUR title. Day’s day was anything but easy, but he tends to make it look that way when he’s in the hunt. His two-shot lead was three at the turn before bogeys at Nos. 13 and 14 made for an interesting finish. Day cranked up the class and blasted a 380-yard drive on No. 16 that he turned into a birdie. If that wasn’t enough, he almost broke the flag on No. 17 at the base. His tee shot on the par-3 smashed into the flag and stopped three feet from the hole. His birdie sealed the tournament, as he played “The Green Mile” in 3 under for the week. Entering the week without a finish inside the top 20 since February, gamers had to trust his T9 experience at the 2017 PGA Championship would be enough. Day hasn’t played this event since 2012 when he finished T9. His wins at Torrey Pines and Quail Hollow Club shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as he hits it a mile and has a fantastic short game. He checked all of those boxes this week even though he admitted he had less than his best on Sunday. He led the field in putts per GIR and SG: Around-the-Green while checking in second in SG: Putting, scrambling and sand saves. He joins Lucas Glover as the only winner to place all four rounds in the 60’s. Gamers will only have to go back to 2016 to see how badly Day destroyed TPC Sawgrass. The changes after his victory slowed him to T60 last year but no player has ever defended that event. Ever. Those with regret can patiently wait until the PGA Championship or The TOUR Championship (among others) for a chance to use him. PGA TOUR Fantasy Game presented by SERVPRO top selections: What a difference a Day makes! Plenty of the names above feasted on the easier conditions on Saturday but regressed in the final round. The breeze was up and the sunshine was out so scores followed suit. Finau had the round of the day with a bogey-free 66, the only bogey-free round on Sunday. PGA TOUR One & Done presented by SERVPRO top selections: It’s a win-win for the Day supporters as their man won and the three horses-for-courses at Quail Hollow Club did not. I was waving my DeChambeau pompoms a bit more vigorously after he holed that 18-footer for birdie on the last to take solo fourth. One of the cheers was for DeChambeau and the other was hoping to catch McIlroy down the road when he turns it on again. Play All 72 Regular readers of this column will know that Nick Watney has now cashed in 11 consecutive events. His best result of that stretch of 10 straight was T20 the last time he played his own ball at the Valero Texas Open. He played in the final twosome and collected his best finish, T2, since he was solo second at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2015. He beat Day by two shots that day. This week he needed a 58-foot putt on the last to drop to chop the runner-up cash. This was Watney’s third top-10 finish at QHC in the last five years so make a note for next year! Close Encounters Rookie Aaron Wise was tied with Day as he teed it up on No. 16. There’s no shame in making three pars to close on “The Green Mile” and that’s exactly what he did. He played his final 16 holes on Sunday in 4 under after bogeying the second hole. The former NCAA champion from Oregon picks up his best finish as a pro and sits inside the top 50 in the FedExCup standings at No. 49.  Bank on Lefty His worst 36-hole total (+2) in 14 appearances probably scared most of his investors to death. His 64-69 weekend saw Phil Mickelson claim another top 10 in Charlotte, the 10th of his illustrious career. Don’t fall into the trap of following him on to TPC Sawgrass, though. His recent record there is dire and his last top 10 was his win in 2007. The Landlord The only two-time champion at this event struggled to find anything in his game this week. Rory McIlroy’s T16 payday is his worst check he’s collected here in eight tries. Even his “bad” is good but he’s forced gamers to set the bar ridiculously high and I understand the frustration. I don’t think next week is time to break him out if he’s struggling across the board. Sunday Silence I don’t think many expected Peter Uihlein to back up his 62 with something tasty on Sunday. He didn’t, but his 71 only dropped him three spots to T5 to match his best finish of the season. … There have been two players over the years that cause gamers to bite their nails on Sunday: Paul Casey and Rickie Fowler. Casey bogeyed the last to fall into a share of T5 while Fowler finished double bogey-bogey to drop all the way to T21. … Peter Malnati held the 36-hole lead alone before 75-74 on the weekend saw him eventually land at T34. … Tiger Woods didn’t make a birdie on Sunday and ended up T55. Study Hall Sunday’s scoring average jumped to 71.973 from 70.368 as QHC played almost 100 yards longer than Saturday. The scoring average for the week was 72.132. … Wise and fellow top-10 finishers Charl Schwartzel (T9) and Sam Saunders (T9) led the field with 19 birdies for the week. … Emiliano Grillo bogeyed his last two holes to collect T9 money. That’s 13 straight paychecks this season when playing his own ball. 

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The phone call, as Brendon Todd likes to say, was "extra special." After all, it's not every day he gets to tell the person on the other end of the line that he's making a $50,000 donation to their organization. And in this case, the group was "Extra Special People," which aims to create transformative experiences for people with developmental disabilities near his home in Watkinsville, Georgia. "It was a new life experience," Todd says, the satisfaction in his voice palpable. "And the first time I’ve been able to contribute that much money to a certain foundation. So, it was really neat and definitely was something that touched my heart and made me want to do it again." Todd's donation was made possible after he won the RSM Birdies for Love competition at last year's Bermuda Championship - a tournament he also happened to win overall, the first of two consecutive victories for the former Georgia Bulldog in what became the season's most compelling comeback story. Ashley Stewart, the director of development for ESP, happened to answer the phone that day. "I remember being so, so honored," she says. "I just really couldn’t believe it. It was an incredible phone call to receive and just so cool to hear how he was able to be so moved and just to feel so connected to our agency. … To provide such a gift, it was really awesome." ESP's marketing manager Katarina Christmann was sitting across from Stewart and couldn't help but listen in as her co-worker spoke with Todd. "She was like, oh that's great, you want to make a donation," Christmann remembers. "Do you want to write a check? And then I remember her being like, oh, wow, $50,000? Not your average phone call for sure." Todd first became aware of ESP about two years ago when he played in a charity pro-am with several former Georgia football players. One of ESP's newest programs is Java Joy, a non-profit where coffee carts are staffed and managed by the disabled, and Todd was impressed by their enthusiasm and energy. "It was just so neat to see these special disabled people starting their own small business and thriving and enjoying it," he says. "And that was just something that you don’t see every day that I think we probably need to push a little bit more in our society." True to their names, the Joyristas dance and hand out smiles and hugs - virtual these days, of course, as well as cups of coffee. Not only do they staff the cart, they get other kinds of vocational training and learn how to do things like write resumes and proper interview technique. "I just kind of got to know some of the kids, some of the people that are involved and some of the special people that are recipients of the money," Todd says. "They just touched my heart. And it was one of those local charities I thought I could really support. "So, when I had the opportunity to last fall, it was the first one I thought of." Java Joy, though, is just one of the programs ESP offers to service kids, teenagers and adults with developmental disabilities. There are afternoon programs, summer camps and weekend activities to help develop confidence, social skills and relationships, as well as family support programs that include counseling, family dinner and other resources. There is no upper or lower age limit for participation, either. Todd's donation, though, was earmarked for the younger kids that ESP serves. He made the grant early this year, at a time when Stewart says the organization was deep into planning for its summer camp program, which is open to anyone, regardless of a family's ability to contribute to the cost. Then came March and COVID-19 upended life. Suddenly, the money Todd donated made "even a bigger impact," Stewart says. With quarantines and shutdowns and unemployment rising, ESP was called upon to provide financial and food assistance that wasn't in the budget "but it was something our parents told us they needed in the spring," Stewart says. At the same time, staff was thinking ahead about how to safely hold summer camp when restrictions were lifted - splitting what would have been done at one location into six smaller ones. "Where Brendon’s donation was so significant is that we had about triple the amount of scholarship requests than a normal year this past summer," Stewart says. "And we didn’t really know how we would be able to serve our families, but we knew that we needed to serve them. So, we went forward in courage and in faith that this program is important, and we need to serve every single family and we’re not going to turn them away. "So, having the donation from Brendon really helped us keep that promise to our families that we would serve them no matter what. … It really came at a perfect time that we didn’t even know about at the beginning of the year. So, it was really, really powerful and significant in not closing our doors and being able to serve every type of family this summer." Erica Andrews, who is the national expansion manager for the Java Joy program, says 87 percent of adults with developmental disabilities are unemployed right now although most are capable of working. They just haven't been given the opportunity. Programs like Java Joy, which started with a janitorial cart, minus the mops, and now is active in four cities with coffee trucks, as well as carts, help not only employ the Joyristas but also show businesses what these adults are capable of. Adults like Donna, a 55-year-old ESP participant who lives with her sister and who started working as a Joyrista last year. It was the first job she'd had in her life. Or adults like Hannah, who is in her 30s and can be headstrong at times, but she loves Java Joy so much that she puts her clothes out and sets her own alarm clock on the days she works. "It doesn’t surprise me that Brendon was impressed by them because it is so fun to be around," Andrews says. "The name joy honestly, doesn’t do it justice. We were at an event this afternoon, just serving coffee dancing the whole time. … "These adults that we hire have something that I don’t have and that you don’t have. They bring joy to people. And I’m so sad that we cannot give hugs right now because it really is super remarkable — just the interaction that you get when you break the physical barrier of what we’re able to do." Andrews says having Todd show an interest in ESP and Java Joy means a lot to everyone associated with the non-profits. "For us and for our participants and for those that do attend ESP, it feels like a celebrity status — knowing that someone who they can find on TV and who they may never meet giving to them, it feels like a dream come true for most of them," she says. "And we do have a few male Joyristas who would geek out pretty hard if they had the chance to meet him."

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