Who will win the 147th Open Championship?

HONOLULU — Three shots behind with six holes to play, Kevin Na birdied three straight holes and finished with an up-and-down birdie from behind the 18th green for a 5-under 65 and a one-shot victory in the Sony Open in Hawaii. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Kevin Na, Sony Open in Hawaii Na won for the fifth time in his PGA TOUR career, and this one looked unlikely when he three-putted for bogey on the 12th hole at a time where there was no room for mistakes. He answered with birdie putts of 15, 10 and 6 feet, and the winning shot was out of the right rough on the par-5 closing hole at Waialae and ran just over the back of the green. He chipped to tap-in range for his last birdie. Na finished one shot ahead of Joaquin Niemann and Chris Kirk, and only one of them got a consolation prize. Niemann chipped in for birdie from 55 feet on the par-3 17th and got up-and-down with a long bunker shot on the 18th hole for a 66. Even so, he was runner-up for the second straight week in Hawaii. The 22-year-old from Chile was 45-under par in two events without a trophy to show for it. Kirk closed with his fourth straight round of 65 — that wasn’t enough to win on a soft Waialae with no wind — and his tough pitch from below the 18th for birdie proved to be massive. Kirk stepped away from golf in May 2019 citing alcoholism and depression. He was given a medical extension to make up for lost time, and this was the final event for him to regain full status. Needing nearly 150 FedExCup points at the Sony Open in Hawaii, his tie for second was worth 245 points. As for Brendan Steele, it was another year of disappointment in paradise, this one more of a slow leak. Steele last year had a two-shot lead with two to play and wound up losing in a playoff. This time, he made an 18-foot eagle putt on the ninth hole to take a three-shot lead into the back nine. He three-putted the easy 10th hole from nearly 80 feet, and his game was so tentative the rest of the way that he didn’t have a birdie chance inside 30 feet until the 17th hole. That was from 10 feet to tie for the lead, and he missed that. Steele also failed to birdie the 18th and closed with a 69. Na won for the fourth consecutive season, and he attributed the late surge to being happy at home with his wife and two children. He looked comfortable even when the Sony Open in Hawaii appeared to be slipping away. Once he made the 15-footer on the 13th hole, he started walking them in. “I knew there was a lot of birdie holes left,” Na said. “I was having fun out there.” Webb Simpson matched the low score of the final round with a 64 and tied for fourth along with Steele and Marc Leishman, who shot 30 on the back nine. Na finished at 21-under 259 and is assured of returning to Hawaii for two weeks next year, starting with the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. That course can be too big for him. Waialae proved to be a perfect fit.

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Jason Day mastered the treacherous winds that gusted around The Australian Golf Club on Friday to charge up the Australian Open leaderboard.

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With a well-known fill-in caddie on his bag, Justin Thomas storms from behind with a final-round 65 to become the first three-time PGA TOUR winner of the season at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational at TPC Southwind. In the process, Thomas becomes the third youngest player to win 13 times on TOUR since 1960, behind only Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, and regains the No. 1 spot in the world. He also puts some distance between himself and FedExCup No. 2 Webb Simpson with the Playoffs just two weeks away. Meanwhile Richy Werenski, king of the close calls after finishing 126th in the FedExCup last season (by two points!), authors a similarly fantastic finish as he racks up 11 points in the last seven holes to surge past Troy Merritt and win the Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mountain Club. Welcome to the Monday Finish. THREE KEYS TO SUCCESS 1. Thomas kept it together despite some crazy misses. The FedExCup No. 1 hit some slightly wild shots coming in, most notably at the 15th hole, where his tee shot missed so far left it avoided the water hazard and gave him a chance to get up and down for birdie. Thomas missed his tee shot right at the par-5 16th hole, but laid up and then stuffed a wedge to within three feet for another birdie. He didn’t three-putt or make a double bogey all week, and played tidy golf despite being disappointed by his wedge game. “I didn’t really hit anything too close,” he said. “I just managed my game really well.” 2. He had a short memory. It had been just three weeks since Thomas lost a three-stroke lead and ultimately succumbed to Collin Morikawa in a playoff at the Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village. Thomas forgot about it, other than reminding himself not to think too far ahead as he had at the Workday. His -1.881 Strokes Gained: Putting total at TPC Southwind marked the sixth worst performance on the greens by a TOUR winner since 2004, and the worst SG: Putting total by a winner since Steven Bowditch (-2.434) at the 2014 Valero Texas Open. Yet Thomas shrugged off missed opportunities on the greens and went to the next hole. That he was second in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+7.670) didn’t hurt, either. 3. Werenski kept believing. It’s a nice story that Werenski, the son of a PGA professional in Massachusetts, played his way into the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park this week. Especially because not long ago his TOUR career seemed to be on shaky ground (see below). But through all the close calls, Werenski kept believing that he belonged on TOUR. His team wouldn’t let him forget it, either. “Yeah, a bunch of people have told me that,” Werenski said after making birdie on 18 to win. “My whole team – my swing coach and mental coach and fitness coach and all that, my caddie, everybody. Especially the caddies, the last couple I’ve had, I had Pepsi for a while, Steve Hale, and he always told me, he said, you’ve just got to believe in yourself a little bit. He knew I had a lot of talent and I was good enough to win out here.” OBSERVATIONS Werenski breaks through Richy Werenski has been living on the edge, so the 11 points he banked in the last seven holes (three birdies and an eagle) to capture the Barracuda Championship should perhaps have come as no surprise. Last season he finished 126th in the FedExCup – by just two points. He went back to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, where things weren’t looking promising until he finished T7 on the last day of the season to snatch the 24th of 25 available TOUR cards. “I waited until the last tournament to play well,” Werenski said. Now, after waiting until the last seven holes to put his foot down at Tahoe Mountain Club, he’ll be in the field for this week’s PGA Championship, next month’s U.S. Open, plus the Sentry Tournament of Champions and THE PLAYERS Championship in 2021. What’s more, at 34th in the FedExCup, the native of South Hadley, Massachusetts is a lock to advance to week one of the Playoffs, THE NORTHERN TRUST at TPC Boston. “I’ve kind of always been in that 100 to 125 area,” said Werenski, 28, who never advanced to TPC Boston when it was the second leg of the Playoffs. “So it’s cool to be I think like 34th or something. Haven’t been there before, but I feel like my game is just getting better and better, so we’ll see what we can do with it.” More big times for ‘Bones’ Jim (Bones) Mackay is the hardest-working semi-retired caddie in the business. Last month the on-course commentator for NBC Golf Channel filled in and carried the bag for Matthew Fitzpatrick at the Workday Charity Open and Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide – the partnership bore fruit when Fitzpatrick finished solo third at the Memorial. Now Mackay is in the middle of a two-week stretch with Thomas while Jimmy Johnson, Thomas’ usual caddie, takes some time off the TOUR to address dizzy spells. Week one of the J.T./Bones partnership was a smashing success, which was surprising and not. Mackay had caddied for Thomas before, and has been assigned to follow Thomas many times in his TV role. What made it more intriguing was that Thomas played the final round alongside Phil Mickelson, with whom Mackay spent almost his entire career as a caddie until three years ago. “I honestly was 50/50 on thinking if it would work out this short-notice,” said Thomas, who only called Mackay on Tuesday afternoon of Memphis week. They’ll go for their second straight win at this week’s PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park. QUOTEBOARD “I just managed my game well.” – Justin Thomas on winning without his best stuff “That’s why it’s fun to play.” – Richy Werenski on the volatile modified Stableford format “I feel like my game’s right there.” – Brooks Koepka, aiming for a third straight PGA win WYNDHAM REWARDS The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is a season-long competition that offers a $10 million bonus for the 10 golfers who end the regular season at the Wyndham Championship inside the top 10 in FedExCup points. The player atop the standings will earn $2 million, with varying payoffs for the others through $500,000 for the 10th place finisher. Justin Thomas solidified his position at No. 1 and now has a 713-point lead over No. 2 Webb Simpson. Daniel Berger, a two-time winner at TPC Southwind, tied for second to reenter the Top 10 at No. 8. Only two weeks remain until the start of the FedExCup Playoffs. Here’s how the standings look heading into this week’s PGA Championship. SOCIAL SNAPSHOT

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