Cantlay rallies from four back to win ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Patrick Cantlay felt his swing was good enough to take on any shot, and then it was a matter of making putts. He did both exceptionally well Sunday in the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD for a victory he felt was overdue.
Cantlay rallied from a four-shot deficit and surged into the lead with four birdies in a five-hole stretch on the back nine. He closed with a 7-under 65 and held on for a one-shot victory over Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas.
It was the third victory of his career, and first in his home state of California. All three required making up deficits of three shots or more in the final round.
“I put in a lot of work and try to do the right things all the time, so when it all does come together, it’s really rewarding because it’s all that hard work paying off,” Cantlay said.
He was looking to join what had been shaping up as a duel between Rahm and Thomas, the Nos. 2 and 3 players in the world. Instead, Cantlay surged past them with three straight birdies — a 3-wood to the fringe on the par-5 13th that set up a simple two-putt, a 7-iron to 18 feet on the next hole and the most exquisite shot of his final round on the par-3 15th.
With a three-quarter 7-iron to a front pin over a tiny rock-lined lagoon, the ball landed next to the hole and rolled out to 10 feet for his ninth birdie of the round, and only the fifth birdie at No. 15 on Sunday.
“That’s a hard hole and to make a birdie,” he said. “It was just one of those swings where you make the swing exactly how you picture it in your head.”
That gave him a three-shot cushion, and his challengers never caught up.
As much as Cantlay celebrated, Rahm and Thomas were left to rue their mistakes.
Rahm took the lead with a birdie on the par-5 11th, only to drop shots on each of the next two holes, including the par-5 13th. The Spaniard had a chance to force a playoff, but narrowly missed from 15 feet on the par-3 17th and from 20 feet on the final hole. He closed with a 68.
“Just a couple of unlucky moments,” Rahm said. He said the wind switched on both shots, especially on the 13th, where his second shot flew about 20 yards shorter than he expected and went into a bunker, leaving an awkward distance.
Thomas, who started the round with a one-shot lead, had to scramble for par on the last two par 5s, and hit into hazards on consecutive holes down the stretch. His tee shot to the 15th plugged into thick grass, and Thomas did remarkably well to hack out to 30 feet and make bogey.
Cantlay, in the group ahead of Thomas and Rahm, didn’t realize he had a three-shot lead and went after another birdie with a wedge to the par-5 16th, pulling it slightly into a tree and leading to his second bogey of the round.
Thomas drilled a drive and was in perfect position with a 4-iron. But he sent that out to the right, trying to avoid a shot left of the green, and it bounced off a tree and into the creek.
“Pathetic,” Thomas said as he watched it sail to the right. “So afraid to hit it left.”
After the penalty drop, he had to play a marvelous pitch-and-run off hard pan to get up-and-down for par.
But he needed birdies, and that didn’t come for Thomas until he needed to hole out from the 18th fairway for eagle. His approach landed 4 feet next to the hole for birdie and a 69. It was his first birdie since the sixth hole.
“You could say a lot of things — making one birdie my last 12 holes, shooting even par on the back nine, playing the par 5s 1 under,” Thomas said. “But I know I made a lot of really key putts when I felt like I needed to. But again, it just (stinks) when you’re right there and you don’t get it done.”
Cantlay has no weakness in his game except for the victory tally. He had gone more than a year since his last victory, when he rallied from three behind at Muirfield Village to win the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. His other win was in Las Vegas in 2017 when he came from four shots back and won in a playoff.
Cantlay finished at 23-under 265. No one else was within four shots of him.
The other show at Sherwood was on the opposite side of the course, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson playing together in the final round with no fans.
Woods closed with a 74 and still beat Mickelson by four shots. Mickelson, coming off a victory last week on the PGA TOUR Champions, had five 6s on his card. Both finished out of the top 70 against a 78-man field.
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Phil Mickelson wins PGA Tour Champions event in Richmond
Phil Mickelson likes to play aggressively and found the PGA Tour Champions’ stop at The Country Club of Virginia the perfect place to begin his preparations for the Masters.
Launching drives like he will have to do against the younger set on the PGA Tour, Mickelson shot a 7-under 65 and became the fourth player — and second this year — to win his first two starts on the tour for players 50 and older. He slammed the door on Mike Weir with a back-nine surge Sunday in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic.
“It’s fun for me to come out here and play well, and this is a good start for me as I try to build a little bit of momentum heading to Augusta in about a month,” Mickelson said.
He finished at 17-under 199, one off the event record set by Miguel Angel Jimenez last year.
“I put a new driver into play this week, trying to get a little more pop, a little more carry. It was a little wayward at times, but it was also effective in allowing me to play this course the way I wanted to, which was aggressively,” Mickelson said.
Mickelson beat fellow left-hander and second-round leader Weir by three strokes. The fellow rookie closed with a 71 and said he would have contended had he putted better.
“I haven’t been in this position in a while, but I felt very confident,” the Canadian said. “I hit one poor tee shot on No. 7. Outside of that, I played really well and just didn’t get anything really out of it.”
The winner in late August at Ozarks National in Missouri in his first start on the tour, Mickelson joined Arnold Palmer, Bruce Fleisher and Jim Furyk as the only players to win in their first two senior events. Palmer accomplished the feat in 1980, Fleisher in 1999 and Furyk did it this year with victories at The Ally Challenge and Pure Insurance Championship.
Mickelson said earlier in the week he came to Virginia to work on accurate driving and competitive fitness, and was hoping to still be in contention for the closing holes.
“I felt like the last six holes I had an opportunity with the two short par 4s and two par 5s to make something happen,” he said, noting the advantage of his length. “… I was able to have two-putt birdies on three of those holes and that was very helpful.”
He got the lead when Weir three-putted the par-3 14th green, doubled his edge with a birdie on the next hole, then highlighted his distance advantage over the 2003 Masters champion by driving the green on the 274-yard, par-4 15th. Mickelson two-putted from 30 feet, then reached the par-5 16th in two and made birdie, canceling out Weir’s birdie.
Mickelson’s chance to work on his competitive side came right away. He erased a three-shot deficit with birdies on three of the first six holes, while Weir made a string of pars, but it was on the back nine that he was really tested, and was delighted with his response.
After going a shot behind on the 12th hole, he pulled even at No. 13 and kept pushing.
Mickelson, who hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since early 2019 at Pebble Beach, plans to return to the PGA Tour next week for the Zozo Championship in California. After a week off, he’ll play in the Houston Open as his final preparation for the Masters on Nov. 12-15.
Weir three-putted the par-5 18th, but still hung on to beat Paul Goydos (65) by a shot. Bernhard Langer (67) and Brandt Jobe (68) shared fifth, five behind Mickelson.
It was Weir’s third top-10 finish in eight starts on the tour.
“I was low right-hander this week,” Goydos quipped.
Robert Karlsson, another rookie on the tour, closed with a 64 including an albatross 2 on the final hole. The ball bounced twice, then found the bottom of the cup.
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Tiger Woods, daylight, silence and grass: One month from a very different Masters
Augusta National Golf Club opened to its membership on Monday, an annual fall occurrence that typically occurs without much fanfare. It is a private club, after all. Other sports are in full song, particularly football. Normally, the annual Masters tournament is still six months away, the golf calendar filled with a bunch of sleepy event this time of year.
Nothing, of course, is normal about 2020. Augusta National was closed as usual for the summer, but shut down more than two months early due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Masters Tournament was lost in the bedlam, just a month prior to its start, and eventually postponed to November.
That seemed long ago.
Now we are a month away from the first fall Masters, and the potential for a wonderfully different look at a revered, historic place in the game that will see Tiger Woods attempt to defend his 2019 title 19 months later on the hallowed Georgia grounds that will be without spectators.
Here is how things stand with another four weeks to go until the third major championship of 2020:
The course
Some stunning photos surfaced recently on Eureka Earth, which took aerial shots of Augusta National in late September. Except for the greens, the entire place was brown. Many fairway areas appeared to be shaved bare. Bunkers had liners but not all had sand.
And this is, well, par for the course.
The fairways and rough at Augusta National have Bermuda grass, the predominant grass that typically prospers in the warm, summer months. As the club is closing in late May, the Bermuda pushes out the rye grass overseed. It is what you would expect of most courses in the South.
But because Augusta National is closed in the summer, there is no need to maintain the Bermuda. The greens — which are bent grass — are kept in top condition, but the rest of the course is not in the traditional sense, unless there is some sort of work being done or changes made.
Hence the photos.
But, magically, some 10 days later, those same photos showed a green golf course.
Each September, Augusta National puts down a rye overseed that is meant to keep the grass green through the fall and winter months. And it’s how the course appears in April for the Masters.
With less time to be ready for a November Masters, it will be fascinating to see how Augusta National plays. Will the turf possibly be thinner than usual? Will it play faster? Could there be cooler mornings? All of this is to be discovered.
The field
The field is set at 96 players and has been since the postponed tournament dates were announced in April. Before play was halted due to the pandemic, there were just two remaining ways to qualify for the Masters for those not otherwise invited: to win the Players Championship, Valspar Championship, WGC-Dell match Play or Valero Texas Open; or be among the top 50 in the world on the Monday following the Match Play.
The Masters then went with the most recent published top 50 in the Official World Ranking. Four players qualified who were not otherwise exempt: then-No. 44 Collin Morikawa, No. 45 Scottie Scheffler and No. 47 Christiaan Bezuidenhout are making their Masters debuts. Graeme McDowell also snuck into the top 50 and will play his first Masters since 2016.
The (mini) controversy
Daniel Berger was well outside of the top 50 in the world when golf was halted following the first round of the Players Championship. He won the first tournament back, the Charles Schwab Challenge in June, and he has add six top-25 finishes since to move up to No. 12 in the world.
Certainly Berger has a case to be in the Masters field given his world ranking. So do Viktor Hovland and Harris English. Both have moved into the top 50. But barring some last-minute change, they won’t be at Augusta National.
Imagine the uproar if Morikawa had not snuck into the top 50 in the spring? He has since won the PGA Championship, which by itself would not have qualified him for this unique Masters because the August tournament was after the Masters cutoff.
Those still trying to qualify for the 2020 Masters missed out on four potential winning possibilities and the ability to move into the top 50.
But Augusta’s stance is solid: Qualification for the 2020 Masters ended in March. Anything that occurred after that applies to the 2021 Masters, which will be just five months later.
The field size is always an issue with the Masters. It rarely goes over 100 players. Last year, it was 87. With far less daylight in the fall, getting the field through 18 holes each day is an issue that likely led to a decision to not add any more players.
The tee times
An issue unlike any other Masters. Instead of daylight saving time, the Masters will operate on standard time. That means approximately two hours less daylight per day. It will be dark around 5:30 p.m. ET. That means, possibly, the need for a two-tee start on Thursday and Friday.
And having to start the first round of the Masters on the 10th tee and facing Amen Corner early in the morning is not an ideal situation.
Could everyone play off the first tee?
It’s possible, but it would be extremely tight. Last year, the final tee time was at 2 p.m. To get in before darkness, the last time can really be no later than about 12:30 p.m., if you consider threesomes are going to take five hours.
But … if you started at 7 a.m. and went in 11-minute intervals, you could have 32 tee times of three players each that run through 12:39 p.m. Delays of any kind would mean the last groups won’t finish. But Augusta National might be willing to take that chance.
Also to be considered: the honorary starters, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Do they tee off in virtual darkness before 7 a.m.?
Without a one-tee start, the Masters would need to go to a two-tee start with a morning and afternoon wave. You would have eight groups of three players tee off the first and 10th tees in the morning, and then another wave of the same in the afternoon.
After 36 holes, there will be a cut to the top 50 and ties, which should allow for normal one-tee start in twos for the third round. But due to CBS’ NFL commitment on Sunday, the fourth round is scheduled to end by approximately 2:30 p.m ET, allowing time for a sudden-death playoff if necessary. That will again mean starting players off both tees.
The defending champion
Woods will have one more start prior to the Masters, as he has entered next week’s Zozo Championship at Sherwood Country Club. It is the tournament he won a year ago — his 82nd PGA Tour title, tying Sam Snead for the most — when it was played in Japan.
How Woods looks at Sherwood in Southern California is anybody’s guess, but if past results are an indicator then there should not be much in the way of expectations for Woods.
He missed the cut at the U.S. Open last month, meaning that during an 11-week stretch between the BMW Championship in August and the Masters, Woods will have played just six competitive rounds.
It’s the least he’s played leading to a Masters since he took nine weeks prior to the 2015 tournament, where he tied for 17th. In 2010, Woods didn’t play all year until the Masters and tied for fourth.
Leading to his 2019 victory, Woods played two weeks prior at the Match Play and a total of four times in eight weeks prior.
After his victory at the Zozo a year ago, Woods was ranked sixth in the world, which is where he ended 2019. He has dropped to 24th.
The bomber
How Bryson DeChambeau plays Augusta National should be fascinating to watch. He’s clearly not interested in navigating his way around the course. The U.S. Open champion said he’s been working on putting a driver with a 48-inch shaft into play specifically for the Masters. Many wondered how his newfound long game that included some 50 pounds of weight gain would fare on a difficult course. Well, DeChambeau was the only player under par at Winged Foot, and he won by six.
The losses due to the pandemic
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur was canceled, as was the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship. Both of those pre-tournament staples played on the weekend prior will have to wait until April.
What is unclear is if Woods will be able to host a Champions Dinner in the clubhouse, on the patio — or at all. So far, no word. Same for the annual Par 3 Contest, which if it is played would undoubtedly be missing all of the spouses, kids and grandkids who frequent the event.
The patrons
Augusta National’s term for the fans or spectators who attend the tournament won’t be of much use this year — as there won’t be any. That’s a huge hit to the club’s bottom line (for the first time, merchandise will be made available for a short time online to contracted ticket holders), despite its enormous resources.
And it’s a huge blow to the tournament that in part has become famous worldwide for the cheers and groans that echo among the huge pine trees, making for one of sports’ great spectacles.
This time, we’ll hear the echo of club meeting ball, birds chirping and maybe a smattering of applause from volunteers or club members who are permitted onto the course.
But those ear-shattering roars will be missing. And they will also be missed.
Woods, who many times has commented on how the support of the spectators played such an important role in his victory in 2019, unknowingly foreshadowed what this year might look like way before anyone could imagine what the world would endure.
As he exited the clubhouse on that Sunday night in April after his victory, the sun had yet to completely drop underneath the clouds, a far different setting than the champion would encounter in the late-night darkness.
“I have never seen the golf course empty like that,” Woods said. “I was out there with [children] Sam and Charlie and I said, ‘This is what Augusta National is like.’ You see the beauty of it. The rolling hills. The perfect grass. It was immaculate.
“It’s so different when nobody is out there. That’s when they started to understand how beautiful the place is.”
It sure is, and perhaps this unique Masters will offer the opportunity to appreciate that even more.
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