Winner’s Bag: Justin Rose, 2019 Farmers Insurance Open

Tiger Woods starts the final day at the Honda Classic trailing by seven shots. How will the 14-time major winner fare down the stretch?

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HOUSTON — Brandt Snedeker found a lot of fairways and greens at difficult Memorial Park, top-ranked Dustin Johnson returned from the coronavirus, and fans were back, too, Thursday at the Vivint Houston Open. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Memorial Park provides a test Snedeker shot a 5-under 65 in the afternoon to take a two-stroke lead in the last event before the Masters. He's one of 37 players in the field this week set to play at Augusta National. "Drove it great," Snedeker said. "Around this golf course you have to be in the fairway, otherwise it's going to be a long day for you. Did a great job of that. Made some putts. And the par 5s, birdied every par 5 out there. This course is a long, tough golf course, so to play well you need to take advantage of the scoring holes, which I did a great job of today." The tournament — at public Memorial Park for the first time since 1963 — is limiting ticket sales to 2,000 a day. It's the first domestic PGA TOUR event to have fans since THE PLAYERS Championship on March 12. "I think that's a big reason why I played well today," Snedeker said. "I love having fans out here. I kind of feed off their energy. It's great to hear some claps and people excited for good shots and some birdies." Johnson had a 72 — bogeying five of the last seven holes on his front nine — in his return after a positive coronavirus test knocked him out of THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. The 39-year-old Snedeker won the last of his nine PGA TOUR titles in 2018. He followed a birdie on the par-4 13th with a bogey on the par-4 14th after driving into the right rough, then birdied the par-3 15th and par-5 16th. "I've been driving it well, so it just kind of depended how I hit my irons and kind of hung in there," Snedeker said. "Did a great job of kind of thinking my way around the golf course." Jason Day was tied for second with Scottie Scheffler, Harold Varner III, Carlos Ortiz, Michael Thompson and Cameron Davis. "The golf course kind of forces you into being patient just because you can't really miss too many greens," Scheffler said. "Around the greens out here is very, very difficult to get up-and-down and you can get into some spots where you start playing ping pong across these greens." Brooks Koepka also had a 72. He's playing for the second time since a two-month layoff to heal injuries. Player partner Lanto Griffin, the winner last year at Golf Club of Houston, also shot 72. Jordan Spieth rounded out the morning threesome with a 72. "It certainly felt more normal as we were playing today and especially as we were finishing up," Spieth said about the fans. “Just the look of it is way more normal than when it was just so bare." Koepka served as a consultant on course architect Tom Doak’s renovation. "I think every time Jordan hit it in the water, he told me that was my fault," Koepka said. Phil Mickelson shot 76. He had two double bogeys and two bogeys.

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DETROIT — Tony Finau ran away with the Rocket Mortgage Classic on Sunday at Detroit Golf Club to become the first PGA TOUR player in three years to win consecutive regular-season events. RELATED: Leaderboard | Inside the Field: Wyndham Championship Finau closed with a 5-under 67 for a five-shot victory and a tournament-record 26-under 262 total. Taylor Pendrith (72), Patrick Cantlay (66) and rookie of the year front-runner Cameron Young (68) tied for second. Finau coasted to his fourth career victory, a third title in 11-plus months. He was the 3M Open winner last week in Minnesota, where he rallied from five strokes back to win by three. Brendon Todd was the last to win two straight in the regular season, doing it in 2019. Finau, the Salt Lake City native with Tongan-Samoan heritage, began his stretch of success last August at THE NORTHERN TRUST, where he had his first victory in five years and 142 PGA TOUR starts. Finau stopped another drought in Detroit, winning for the first time in six attempts when he had or shared the 54-hole lead in a PGA TOUR event. With his sixth birdie at No. 17 and a closing par, he broke Nate Lashley’s tournament record of 25 under set in 2019 during the inaugural PGA TOUR event. The PGA TOUR will close the regular season at the Wyndham Championship, with the North Carolina event opening Thursday. Players on the bubble will have one last shot to finish in the top 125 of the FedExCup standings to earn a spot in the Playoffs and a full card next season. Finau and Pendrith started Sunday tied and their potential duel in Detroit turned out to be a dud. Pendrith had his first lackluster round of the tournament after he shared the first-round lead with Finau, led him by one shot after the second and matched his 21-under total through three rounds. The 31-year-old PGA TOUR rookie from Canada hit an errant tee shot on the second hole to the right in the rough behind tree branches and later pulled a 9-foot putt to lose the lead for good. Cantlay, the defending FedExCup champion, had his third straight round in the mid-60s after opening with a 70. Young bounced back from a first-round 71 to finish second for the fifth time. Pendrith struggled in the final round just as he did the only other time he had a 54-hole lead. He led the Bermuda Championship last October by three shots before a 76 dropped him into fifth place, which was his best finish before his showing in the Motor City. Pendrith played in his third tournament after missing nearly four months with a broken rib. Finau began to pull away from Pendrith with an 11-foot birdie putt at No. 4 and a tap-in for birdie at No. 7. He made a 21-foot putt for birdie at No. 10 for his third birdie. After his first bogey in the tournament at No. 11, Finau made a 31-foot putt with a break from right to left at No. 12 and Pendrith missed an 11-foot putt on the same hole to fall four shots back. Cantlay surged within three shots of the lead with a 5-foot eagle putt at the par-5 14th. On the same hole, Finau made his fifth birdie of the final round to lead by four shots.

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