Uresti holds on, earns trip to PGA Championship

Welcome to the Monday Finish where everything old is new again as Justin Thomas continued his love affair with Asia, this time finding his way to the top of the leaderboard in Korea at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES.  Here’s five observations and insights from the inaugural PGA TOUR event in Korea.  FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas just moved to third on the new season points list. He also moved to third in the world rankings. But if we throw the current formula out the window and just tell it how it is… he’s the best player in the world right now. Thomas’ seventh PGA TOUR win, his third in Asia, caps off a dominant last few months. In the last 10 weeks, he won his first major at the PGA Championship; he claimed the Dell Technologies Championship; he won the FedExCup with his runner-up finish at the TOUR Championship; he was part of the dominant U.S. team at the Presidents Cup (3-1-1), he was rightfully voted PGA TOUR Player of the Year after a 5-win season; and now he’s kicked the new season off again with victory at THE CJ CUP. While Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth sit above him on the rankings, Thomas is the hot hand. It is going to be fascinating to watch him after he has his well-earned break and off-season to see if he can continue the roll and continue his rapid rise. He ended 2016 at 22nd in the world. He will probably end 2017 inside the top five. I don’t think many would be surprised if he ended 2018 at the top. 2. Some players are winners. Pure and simple. Justin Thomas is a winner. While he didn’t have his best stuff all week in Korea, he certainly stood up with the game on the line so to speak. After a penultimate hole bogey dropped him back into a tie for the lead, his approach shot on the par-5 72nd hole to set up a close-range eagle putt was epic stuff. The putt may not have dropped, but the swagger was palpable. While some players struggle in the moments, Thomas does not. He wasn’t thinking about making birdie to get in a playoff. He was thinking eagle and victory the whole time. Later in the playoff after Marc Leishman found water, Thomas didn’t think about playing safe for birdie. Once again, he pulled off another beauty from long range to secure his victory. Leishman also showed he’s not afraid to chase glory when it’s presented. While he may have found the water in the playoff, earlier he had also produced a brilliant approach on the final hole in regulation to set up an eagle try. His loose swing in sudden death came with his aggressive mindset. So while it will burn, it should at least make him happy to know he refused to take the soft option. He was playing to win. 3. Speaking of Leishman – the former PGA TOUR Rookie of The Year must be commended for the continuation of his career form. The year 2017 has been a banner one for the boy from Warrnambool in Australia, as he claimed victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and the BMW Championship. He’s moved from 56th in the world to 12th and is now pushing towards being the best ranked player from Down Under, chasing his mate Jason Day who sits eighth after starting the year at No.1. While Leishman has always been loved in his home country, he hasn’t been feted at the levels Day and Adam Scott have. This is beginning to change. His goals for 2018 are lofty, and rightfully so. He has major championships and another assault on the FedExCup clearly in focus and you’d be mad to count him out of either. 4. I will be accused of bias and I’m sure there is some … but I expect this new season to be a big one for Cameron Smith. Living in the time of Spieth and Thomas and the like puts high expectations on young players, but this 24-year-old can handle it. With a T5 at the CIMB Classic and a third place finish this week, he’s moved himself to sixth at this early stage in the FedExCup race. A winner with Jonas Blixt at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans last year, Smith now has his sights on an individual title. His shot into the penultimate hole in Korea was epic, given the wind and clear troubles others were having. While he’d like his birdie putt back, given it finished a few revolutions short of the hole, Smith can be proud of his fight that left him one shot shy of the playoff. As he becomes more and more comfortable with TOUR life, the Australian will prosper further. His schedule can seem limited to some, but this is because he likes to return to his native land to have a “normal life� with his mates and customs at times. Don’t be surprised if this kid upstages Jason Day and Jordan Spieth in the Australian Open in November. 5. It was great to see the golf on display in Jeju this week and I’m looking forward to more visits to Korea in the future. The locals provided great support for their PGA TOUR heroes and you couldn’t help but get behind Whee Kim as he tried to make a Sunday surge before ultimately being the top Korean in fourth place. Seeing the likes of K.J. Choi get to play a TOUR event in front of his home crowd was certainly uplifting, as was the strong support behind Seung-Yul Noh after he announced he will be heading into his two-year mandatory military service after the event. Our game truly is a global one and as an international traveler myself I get a real buzz from seeing the TOUR make its presence felt in Asia. I’ve made no secret of the fact I’d love to see places like Japan, Australia and South Africa join Malaysia, Korea and China in this part of the season to truly celebrate our global TOUR. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Thomas held the first-round lead by three after a 63 on the first day. His win made him three for four in converting first-round leads to victory. For comparison, only eight of 46 first-round leaders went on to win last season (twice by Thomas, at the CIMB Classic and the Sony Open in Hawaii). 2. Thomas is 5-for-7 when it comes to converting 54-hole leads in his career. He has now converted five of his last six. 3. The previous week’s CIMB Classic winner, Pat Perez, shot the low round of the day on Sunday and the only bogey-free round of the weekend with a 4-under 68 to finish T5. It allowed him to take the FedExCup lead over Brendan Steele with Thomas now third. 4. Thomas’ win gets the 20-somethings on the board after their dominant 2016-17 season. Last season, we had 28 wins by 19 different players in their 20s but the opening two events this season saw the 30-somethings (Brendan Steele) and 40-somethings (Pat Perez) strike the early blows. 5. Just 24 players have played in all three opening events of this new PGA TOUR season with Keegan Bradley being the pick of that bunch in terms of points. He sits fifth in the FedExCup standings after starting the year CUT-2-T47. Nick Taylor has been the model of consistency from the same group, posting T9-T13-T23 to sit ninth in the FedExCup. TOP 3 VIDEOS

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JACKSON, Miss.  – The transition to pro golf can be a tough one, even for a player whose physical talents drew comparisons to Tiger Woods. Sub-par scores almost always spell success in college golf. They can lead to missed cuts at the highest level. Players who felt unbeatable competing against their peers can lose confidence when they start losing to men who are old enough to be their father. Norman Xiong learned that after turning pro this summer. When he arrived at this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship, where he’s playing on a sponsor exemption, he’d missed all six of his cuts as a pro. “When I turned pro, it was a little bit overwhelming, I guess,� Xiong said. “I think I’ve done a really good job of learning and getting used to it.� He didn’t just make his first cut this week. He was atop the leaderboard after shooting 67 on Friday. He sits at 9-under 135 after two rounds at the Country Club of Jackson. Xiong, 19, is leading a PGA TOUR event while his high-school classmates are early in their sophomore years of college. If he can win, he’d be a day older than Jordan Spieth was when he claimed the 2013 John Deere Classic. Spieth was the youngest PGA TOUR winner since Ralph Guldahl in 1931. A newfound strength – his short game – has carried Xiong over two rounds played in cold, windy conditions at this century-old layout. Like many of his peers, Xiong plays aggressively off the tee, opting for driver despite the Country Club of Jackson’s penal Bermuda rough. It’s paid off on the par-5s, which he has played in 6 under par, including an eagle on Friday’s second hole. The 55-footer he holed from the fringe on that hole was one of three hole-outs for Xiong on Friday. He also saved par all seven times he missed a green in the second round. Xiong has hit 11 greens in each of the first two rounds but has saved par on all but one occasion. He leads the field in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. He chipped in on No. 16 and holed another putt from the fringe on the sixth hole. Xiong also holed a 56-foot birdie putt Thursday. Xiong said his short game used to be a weakness, but it has improved since employing coach Josh Gregory after turning pro. Bermudagrass poses unique challenges, especially to those who grew up outside the Southeast. Gregory has helped Xiong, who grew up in Southern California before attending the University of Oregon, change his clubhead path on chip shots. Xiong’s club was closed and traveling to the left through impact. Now he feels like he’s drawing his chip shots. A strong short game is a helpful addition to an impressive repertoire of physical skills. “At 19 years old, I think Tiger is the only guy I would defer to as being better than Norman. I haven’t seen much better than him at that age. He’s really that good,� Oregon head coach Casey Martin said in a GolfChannel.com profile earlier this year. Martin was teammates with Woods at Stanford. Xiong turned pro this year as college golf’s consensus player of the year. He won both the Jack Nicklaus and Fred Haskins awards, which are given to the top player in college golf. He won six times in his sophomore season, including four of his final six starts. Xiong already is ahead of the curve. He came to Oregon a semester early, halfway through his senior year of high school, and immediately entered the Ducks’ lineup. He was the national freshman of the year in just half a season. He entered the lineup immediately and won in his third start. Amateur accomplishments can help secure big endorsement deals and sponsor exemptions, but they are meaningless once the tee is in the ground. The score is all that matters. Xiong saw that this summer. He shot under par in his first four stroke-play starts on the PGA TOUR. He received nothing for his efforts, missing the cut all four times. He also missed the cut in the Barracuda Championship, which uses a Stableford format, and the European Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links. “It was very frustrating,� he said. “I felt as though my whole game was really solid.� Xiong recently saw success a month ago at the first stage of Web.com Tour Q-School, shooting 16 under par to share medalist honors. He is scheduled to play the second stage next week in California but can change his site if he qualifies for next week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Of course, a win means he can scrap the whole Q-School quest. He’s halfway there.

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