Xander Schauffele ready to turn from hunter to the hunted at Kapalua

In pursuit of his first PGA TOUR victory, 21-year-old Aaron Wise weathers a 4-hour rain delay, pulls away at the turn, and fires a final-round 65 to capture the AT&T Byron Nelson. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Wise outplayed fellow 54-hole co-leader Marc Leishman to salt away a comfortable three-stroke victory at Trinity Forest, his audacious 23-under total making him the seventh first-time winner this season. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1 With the 20-somethings already in command of the FedExCup (Justin Thomas), and having won the last four majors, Aaron Wise, 21, stamped himself for greatness. Not that we didn’t see him coming. He was the 2016 individual NCAA champion when he also helped his Oregon Ducks to the team title, and becomes just the second player, after Mackenzie Hughes, to win on the PGA TOUR after having won on the Web.com Tour and the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada. Now he has his sights set on being in the top 30 at season’s end. “I haven’t had time to reassess my goals, but moving up to 18 on the FedExCup is incredible,� Wise said. “Not many rookies have made it to the TOUR Championship.� That may be so, but last year rookie Xander Schauffele won it on the way to top rookie honors. A good omen for the latest AT&T Byron Nelson winner? 2 This was just the 26th start of Wise’s TOUR career, and he’s the first rookie to win the Byron since Keegan Bradley in 2011. Also, at 21 years, 10 months and 29 days old, he’s the youngest Byron winner since Tiger Woods (21 years, 4 months, 18 days) in 1997. Oh, and Wise is also the youngest winner on TOUR this season, and the youngest overall since Si Woo Kim (21 years, 10 months, 16 days) captured THE PLAYERS Championship a year ago. Only once on Sunday did Wise show his youthful inexperience. “Back nine,� he said, “my caddie kind of calmed me down. Like, ‘Dude, you got to focus on these shots, we’ve got some big shots coming up. We’ll finish before dark, don’t worry about that.’ Kind of calmed me back down.� The details on Wise’s rapid rise: He has played eight straight rounds under par, finishing T2 and first at the Wells Fargo Championship and AT&T Byron Nelson, respectively, to rack up 745 FedExCup points and jump from 105th to 18th in the standings. He’s also up to 66th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The top 60 after the FedEx St. Jude Classic get into the U.S. Open. 3 Runner-up Marc Leishman notched his sixth top-10 finish and his second runner-up (P2, THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES) this season, but after an opening-round 61 he was hoping for more. Culprit: the putter. “He hit the ball incredible,� Wise said. “I knew he would have a ton of looks. He did. Unfortunately, he didn’t make all the putts and I was able to edge him out.� Leishman, who jumped from 33rd to 14th in the FedExCup, led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week (+2.226) but struggled, relatively speaking, on Sunday (.085). 4 With Trinity Forest all but defenseless, several players enjoyed career-low performances. Keith Mitchell (T3) shot a career-low, 8-under 63 in the final round. J.J. Spaun (T3) also shot 63 and came one shot shy of tying his career-low round on TOUR (8-under 62, R3, 2017 RSM Classic). Not to be outdone, Branden Grace (T3) fired a final-round 62 to match his career low and the lowest-ever round in a major, which he shot at The Open Championship last summer. “Feels like a breath of fresh air coming to something different,� Grace said of first-year Byron host Trinity Forest. “Really is nice. I really enjoyed the golf course, I enjoyed how it played.� 5 Despite the low scores, Trinity Forest’s big greens could be vexing. Adam Scott (65, T9), who moved up to 61st in the world and barely missed automatically qualifying for the upcoming U.S. Open (top 60 on May 21 and June 11), said he had trouble reading the breaks. Ditto for Jordan Spieth, who is a Trinity member but still didn’t make much while finishing T21 at the Byron. Both now head to one of their favorite TOUR stops in the Fort Worth Invitational. Scott won the tournament in 2014, while Spieth, a runner-up in 2015 and 2017, won it in 2016. “I don’t struggle reading the greens at Colonial,� Spieth said. FIVE INSIGHTS 1 Wise hit the longest drive of the week, a 402-yard blast at the ninth hole Saturday, ranked first in Greens in Regulation (91.67 percent), and recorded the highest GIR percentage by a winner on TOUR since 1997. He is the first this season, and the first since Dustin Johnson last year (THE NORTHERN TRUST), to rank either first or second in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (Wise was second) and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (first) en route to victory. 2 Five players have a win and a runner-up in consecutive starts this season: Wise; Justin Thomas (won The Honda Classic, P2 at World Golf Championship-Mexico Championship); Jason Day (won Farmers Insurance Open, T2 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am); Jon Rahm (2nd Sentry Tournament of Champions, won CareerBuilder Challenge); and Dustin Johnson (T2 WGC-HSBC Champions, won Sentry Tournament of Champions). Wise, 56th in the FedExCup, is the only one of the five players who is not currently in the top 10 in the standings. 3 With the wind mostly down, Trinity Forest was a pushover. There were 12 bogey-free rounds Sunday, with the course softened by rain, and Branden Grace shot 62 on his 30th birthday. Wise’s 23-under total was the third-lowest total in relation to par this season, behind only the CIMB Classic and Sentry Tournament of Champions, where 24-under won. 4 Wise moved up a healthy 38 spots to 18th in the FedExCup, but was outdone, in a way, by Parker McLachlin. His T26 finish at Trinity moved him from 242nd to 203rd, up 39 spots. 5 Only one player, Jimmy Walker, recorded top-10 finishes at both the AT&T Byron Nelson (T6) and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (T8). Walker, who was coming off a T2 at THE PLAYERS, is clearly back from his Lyme Disease, and he’s dialed in. 

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When Dylan Frittelli heard the news, he was more than a little impressed. John Deere, the company that sponsors the PGA TOUR event he won last year, had switched gears – quite literally — and started making face shields to protect healthcare workers along with all those iconic green tractors and all that heavy machinery at its flagship factory in Moline, Illinois. So far, John Deere has manufactured more than 200,000 of the shields and plans to double that number in the coming weeks. The first orders went to healthcare workers in areas where Deere employees live, but deliveries have now been made to more than a dozen states and Canadian provinces. “I think it’s awesome,â€� Frittelli says. “And technology-wise, I’m very interested. It’s cool — how did they figure out that they could do it and then cool in the sense that they’re obviously trying to help the cause and protect people and do what they can to speed up the containment and elimination of the virus.â€� Frittelli was in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, at THE PLAYERS Championship when the sports world abruptly shut down after an NBA player tested positive for the coronavirus. First, the TOUR announced its signature event would go on without spectators. Less than 12 hours later, it was canceled. Subsequent announcements, including the postponement of the first three major championships and the cancellation of the Open Championship, meant no tournaments until at least June 11 with the scheduled Charles Schwab Challenge. The first four events will be played without fans. The fifth is the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run, where Frittelli came from two strokes off the pace on Sunday and ended up winning by three after closing with a 64. The tournament is slated for its original July 9-12 dates and could be the first to host spectators, although health and safety issues will be evaluated before a final decision is made. Frittelli says this is the longest break from golf that he’s had since graduating from Texas in 2012 with a degree in geography. While mindful of the reason behind it, the well-traveled South African has made the most of the time he’s had at home. “I’ve enjoyed it to be honest,â€� says Frittelli, currently 50th in the FedExCup standings. “The beginning was a little tough, but after the first week my trainer was back in town and he’d built a gym in his garage. It made it way easier for me to relax and chill because I was actually burning calories and getting stronger in the gym and I had something to do for an hour to two hours a day. That helped a lot.â€� The 29-year-old didn’t start playing golf again until late April. He wanted the work he’d done in the weight room to settle in before working too much on the practice range. “And also, you swing a golf club, it does mess up your back and your neck and you do get out of alignment often,â€� Frittelli explains. “So, I just thought, hey, I’d rather be way more symmetrical and feel more consistent when I stay away from the golf. “So, I’ll balance a bit of that heavy lifting, do some recovery and be ready.â€� Frittelli also took time to decompress. He did some projects around the house, cleaning out closets and drawers and the garage, as well as adding some lights outside. Nothing particularly major — “just made sure the space I was in was a nice, happy, comfortable place,â€� he says. Always searching for that “edge and new techniquesâ€� that can help him with training and on the golf course, Frittelli read several performance-based books. But at the same time, he finished “Where The Crawdads Sing,â€� the best-selling novel by Delia Owens. And of course, there’s been some binge-watching. He knocked out “Tiger Kingâ€� on Netflix in a day and has also watched “WE ARE LAFC,â€� the 10-part all-access documentary series about the inaugural season of the Los Angeles Football Club. And a little “Brooklyn 99â€� for comic relief. “(The LAFC series) was really interesting,â€� he says. “Kind of a bit of research for me because the new Austin team is starting next season. They’ve already built most of the stadium now.â€� While restaurants were open for takeout and delivery in Austin, Frittelli has done most of the cooking for himself. He wants to eat healthy to make sure that the work he’s put in with his trainer to get bigger and stronger doesn’t go by the wayside. An air fryer is a key component of that process. Salmon and chicken are his go-to proteins while he gets his vegetables in salads and carbs from sweet potatoes, potatoes or rice. “Then tons of supplements, protein shakes and all kinds of added in things just to try and build some mass,â€� he says. Now that he’s back playing and practicing, Frittelli can often be found at UT Golf Club. His roommate, Toni Hakula, who was two years behind Frittelli at Texas, plays PGA TOUR LatinoAmerica, and they frequently play with another former Longhorn, Tayler Termeer, who now plays the mini-tours. Austin is home to a lot of other TOUR pros like Andrew Landry, Nick Watney and Sergio Garcia, though. PGA TOUR Champions is also well-represented with Mark Brooks, Omar Uresti, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw and Bob Estes also in the neighborhood. So, when the urge for competition strikes, there are lots of options. “That’ll be my main focus, just chatting to a few guys on TOUR that are here in town and just getting some money games, playing with them leading into that first event,â€� he says.

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