Willett marks birthday with Dunhill Links win

There was something different about Sam Burns as he finished T29 at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black last week. He was chomping on a wad of gum, not tobacco. In an effort to quit dipping, which he’s done since high school, the 22-year-old Louisiana State product is going through a lot of sticks of sugarless Extra. “Seven days, so far,� Burns, who will tee it up at this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, said of his tobacco-free streak last week. “Hopefully the rest of my life. Cold turkey. I’m trying. It’s been tough; I think about it a lot, obviously.� Golf and tobacco have a long and complicated history. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were among those who smoked and quit, thanks in part to their reactions to the old film reels and photos that showed them puffing away on the course. Nicklaus said all it took was seeing himself with a cigarette in his mouth while beating Palmer at the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont. “I looked at it and I said, ‘Man, that’s the worst example for our youth. You can’t do that,’� he said in 2012. “And it’s the last time I ever smoked a cigarette on the golf course.� Palmer smoked against the wishes of his father. “If I had known what cigarettes were doing to me,� he said in a 2008 interview with Golf Digest, “regardless of what other people might have been saying about my smoking, I would have quit sooner than I did.� He later advocated for more government spending in the fight against cancer. Smoking and chewing are, of course, not the same thing. And two generations removed from Nicklaus and Palmer, Burns has his own reasons for quitting. He had thought about it for a while, but the idea began to take root when he got engaged to longtime girlfriend Caroline Campbell at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town last month. (He finished ninth.)     “My fiancé is not a big fan of it,� Burns said, “and I’d always kind of wanted to quit, just never wanted to try it because I knew how hard it was gonna be. I started late in high school, so it had probably been four or five years. I knew the health factors. “It’s a bad habit, anyway,� he added. “It’s tough breaking it. If I wanted to hit balls, then I would use it. For me (the habit) was just because I did it for so long when I played golf; it was just something that I did. Just trying to get away from that.� The American Cancer Society calls that a trigger. Its website, cancer.org, features tips for quitting like writing down your reasons (to fall back on when it gets hard) and accepting that it will take time and commitment. More advice: pick a Quit Day; tell friends, family and co-workers what you’re doing so they can lend support; stay busy; change up your routine (like taking a different route to work in the morning); and find a healthier alternative than tobacco. For Burns, that’s the gum. “After the first few days I had to cut back because my jaws were so sore,� he said at Bethpage Black, where his fans included Caroline and his parents, Beth and Todd. Burns, who is 80th in the FedExCup, climbed onto the first page of the leaderboard Sunday before shooting a back-nine 40 for a 74 (5 over total, T29) in winds that sent scores soaring a lot higher than that. His best finish this season remains a T3 at the Sanderson Farms Championship. The PGA marked Burns’ second tournament without dip; his first was the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas the previous week, where he made the 36-hole cut but not much more. He said he’s had a few mild headaches, and guesses he has slightly more of an appetite now. He’s pushing through. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual on the PGA TOUR, where players like Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods have been chewing gum to improve focus, and Burns blends right in. “I haven’t really talked to many guys,� he said. “It’s still pretty fresh. I’m definitely excited to kick the habit and get off of it. Don’t ever start it.�

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RIDGELAND, S.C. – Max Homa is a lifelong California guy, so he is very familiar with the concept of riding a nice wave. He still is feeling the ripple effect of finishing a perfect 4-0 in last month’s Presidents Cup, his first foray into team cup competition as a professional. The week prior to that, he won his fifth PGA TOUR title, capturing the Fortinet Championship in jarring fashion with a miraculous chip-in birdie at the 72nd hole. At 31, he and his wife, Lacey, are about to be first-time parents. They are having a boy, due Nov. 2. This week at THE CJ CUP in South Carolina will pretty much be it until December, when he returns to play the Hero Challenge, Tiger’s event in the Bahamas. You could say Homa is in a great place, though on Thursday at Congaree Golf Club, in the first round of THE CJ CUP, he wasn’t. Not health-wise, anyway. Homa has been dealing with back tightness for a few weeks, since the PGA TOUR stop in Las Vegas, and in Thursday’s opening round, a number of factors – cool temperatures, walking 18 holes for the first time in a while, a shot from an awkward lie in a bunker at the par-4 11th – stiffened him up so badly he barely could retrieve his ball from the hole. Each time he slowly bent down, he looked like a man about to be knighted. So on Friday, he decided to just take care of depositing putts into the hole – he did so seven times for birdies – and leaving the fetching to his caddie, Joe Greiner, who was happy to do it. The scene – Homa knocking down a putt, then exiting the green – produced some lighter moments in his group, and wasn’t lost on one of his playing partners, Jordan Spieth. It was Spieth who poured in a long eagle putt at Royal Birkdale on Sunday on the 15th hole of the 2017 Open Champoinship who, in the heat of the frenetic moment, yelled to his caddie, Michael Greller, “Go get that!” “Jordan said he and Greller are going to do it (Saturday),” Homa said, smiling. Homa’s iron play has been spot-on for two days, and Friday he was able to add better driving to his repertoire, which produced a second-round, 6-under 65 that lifted him into a tie for 18th. He made two crazy scrambling pars to start his round, then settled in nicely, hitting approaches to 3 feet at the third, rolling in a 16-footer for birdie at the fourth, and hitting close irons into Nos. 5 and 7, a pair of par-3 holes. He at times moved a bit gingerly, but when he finally stood over the golf ball, he made the game appear easy. “For me, it all starts off the tee here,” Homa said. “All of a sudden I was playing out of the fairway and my irons feel really good. I found myself with a few kick-ins. It was just nice to get moving. I played so poorly yesterday. It was nice to feel I was going in the right direction for longer than two holes.” Homa will be riding the high of last month’s Presidents Cup for some time, saying it provided him a “highlight reel in your head of cool moments.” Week to week in regular tournaments, those meaningful moments can be few and far between. It is difficult to get into contention. But at Quail Hollow in his first Presidents Cup, every shot had something on the line, giving Homa the sense that every match felt like the back nine on Sunday. “This week, I have to play incredibly well the next two days just to be in position to where I could maybe have some sort of highlight moment where you feel that nervous,” he said. “Four matches-worth, that’s good for the future Rolodex of things you go through when, maybe at a major, or Sunday of a tournament, when you have a big moment you can sort of harken back to.” Scottie Scheffler, the World No. 1, knows the value of taking momentum earned in a team setting and using it to one’s individual benefit. It was last autumn that he was a captain’s pick on the U.S. Ryder Cup, and delivered a huge point on Sunday when he took down then-World No. 1 Jon Rahm in singles. A year on, Scheffler has won four times, including the Masters, and he is World No. 1. “I think those tournaments are some of the most pressure you can feel as a player, and so any time you can succeed in those conditions and play really well, you’re going to see a surge in confidence,” Scheffler said Friday at Congaree. “Max is a guy who has performed well out here for a number of years and won some tournaments. I’m sure you’ll see his trajectory continue to go upwards.” At 31, and having his paid his dues for a number of seasons, Homa is enjoying his view as he continues to climb the hierarchy of the game. When the PGA TOUR stages its elevated events beginning in 2023, Homa will have ample opportunity to climb even higher. Once his weekend ends at Congaree, Homa will be switching from a “making-birdies” mode into a “changing-diapers” mode. He cannot wait to meet his new son. What does he look forward to most? “Being able to mold a person, in a way, is a big responsibility, and it’s also very cool,” he said. “And I’m also excited for the things that I don’t even know that I’m supposed to be excited about … I’m excited for that.” Friday, he was excited that his back was good enough to get him around in 65 shots. He trails the leaders by six, but hopes to have a weekend good enough to be highlight-reel worthy.

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SILVIS, Ill. — Two words — one name, actually — drew a wide smile Sunday from Alex Stewart that answered a question that hadn’t yet been asked. The mere mention of Willie Mack carries that kind of currency these days on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, which will continue its race to the Lexus Cup with the schedule’s penultimate event, the APGATour Deere Run, Monday and Tuesday. The 36-hole tournament is being contested at the TPC Deere Run course where Mack scored his second PGA TOUR check in as many weeks just eight days ago at the John Deere Classic. It will serve as a prelude to the season-ending APGA Tour Championship Atlanta Aug. 9-10 at TPC Sugar Loaf in Duluth, Ga. Highlighted by a Friday round of 66, Mack finished 61st at the Deere. That followed a 71st place finish a week earlier at the Rocket Mortgage Classic near his hometown of Flint, Mich., which followed a T62 at the Korn Ferry TOUR’s BMW Charity Pro-Am June 10-13 in Greer, S.C. All three starts came via sponsor’s exemptions. The $31,143 Mack earned in those three events wouldn’t cover a third of the rental cost of the private jets Champion Golfer of the Year Collin Morikawa and many of the American players rode home from Sandwich, England, Sunday night. Yet, for Mack — who spent a year-and-a-half of his nine-year grind on various mini-tour circuits sleeping in his car — it represents a windfall. For Stewart and the 58 other contestants in the APGATour Deere Run, the example of Mack’s monthlong run of success at the game’s highest level is simply invaluable. Stewart is playing as an amateur on the APGA circuit while awaiting his senior season at Livingstone College in Greer, N.C. Like Mack and the other Black and minority golfers competing on the APGA circuit, the PGA TOUR is his goal. “It’s not a pipe dream anymore,” Stewart said of the possibility of making the step from the APGA to the TOUR. “It’s reality. I was at work at a golf course back home, sitting in an office following the John Deere, thinking, ‘Wow, Willie’s doing it.’ You see him make four birdies in nine holes and you think, ‘OK, maybe he’s ready to be on the TOUR.’ Two cuts back-to-back? How can he not be?” Prince Cunningham will make his first APGA start as a pro this week after concluding his collegiate career at Florida A&M in June. Mack’s recent success is inspiring. “It’s definitely an amazing thing he did,” he said. “Being a young golfer who just graduated from college it, gives you something to look at. If he did it, I can do it. It’s a hard dream, but it pays off if you stick with it.” The 32-year-old Mack knows his quest is far from finished, but he’s never been closer. He began working with Todd Anderson, director of instruction at the PGA TOUR’s Performance Center at TPC Sawgrass, earlier this year and will enter the three-stage Korn Ferry TOUR Qualifying Tournament in late August fortified by the opportunity, experience and success he has enjoyed this year. Emphasis on opportunity. Mack has felt equally ready at various junctures since turning pro after an 11-win career at Bethune Cookman University in 2012. In 2019, Mack was Player of the Year on the Florida Professional Golf Tour, and he will be seeking his fourth finish atop the APGA points standings next month in Atlanta. “Yes and no,” he said, when asked if race and economic stature impeded his pursuit of a PGA TOUR career. “I always say things work out how they’re supposed to. I’m glad I could get these opportunities now.” Creating opportunity is what the Advocates Professional Golf Association is about. It was launched in 2008 as non-profit headed by CEO Ken Bentley, who retired as vice president for community affairs and workforce diversity at Nestle USA in 2013. The APGA Tour debuted in 2010 as a two-tournament circuit offering a total of $40,000 in prize money. Today, the tour features 10 events offering more than $500,000 in total purses, and is supported by the PGA TOUR, the PGA of America, Farmers Insurance and Lexus, among others. Five TPC Network clubs — Deere Run, Sugar Loaf, along with TPC Louisiana, TPC Scottsdale and TPC Las Vegas — serve as tournament venues. A 27-hole event is staged on the Torrey Pines North Course on the Saturday of the Farmers Insurance Open, and Farmers Insurance this year signed Mack and fellow APGA Tour stalwart Kamaiu Johnson to multi-year sponsorship deals. Mack made his first PGA TOUR start at the Farmers in January, but did not make the cut. He also missed the cut at the Genesis Invitational three weeks later. Executive director Cole Smith said the opportunity to play APGA events on TOUR-caliber courses has grown the APGA’s profile, as well as player interest. “It is a unique experience for our guys. Membership requests are going through the roof,” he said. “We’ve come a long way and we’re excited about what the future holds for us.” More excited in the wake of Willie Mack’s summer run. “Hopefully that inspires some other players to go out and try to do the same,” said Mack. “There are a lot of talented people out here. Just getting those opportunities can definitely change some minds.” Certainly, Mack feels ready after years of chasing his dream.

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