Tag: 2020 Bermuda Championship

Ollie Schniederjans was in contention down the stretch at Bermuda Championship, which shows he’s back on track

Ollie Schniederjans finished third in the Bermuda Championship, which is a sign that the 27-year-old’s Korn Ferry Tour reset is paying off.

Ollie Schniederjans was in the Bermuda Championship until the very end. The 27-year-old, in the field on a sponsor exemption, came up two shots shy of the playoff between Brian Gay and Wyndham Clark on Sunday – which Gay ultimately won. Schniederjans’ 13-under total was good for solo third.

A few more back-nine putts drop and Schniederjans, a player who has gone back and forth from the Korn Ferry Tour to the PGA Tour, would have returned stateside in a totally different situation.

“Obviously a win would change my whole situation more than these guys because I’m a sponsor exemption this week,” Schniederjans said. “I’m just lucky to get the opportunity and take advantage of it and have a chance.”

Truly, Bermuda was a family affair for the Schniederjans crew. Ollie and Luke Schniederjans, 22, both received sponsor exemptions. (Bermuda Championship tournament director Sean Sovacool is a Georgia Tech alum, just like the Schniederjans brothers). It was their first time playing in the same Tour field. Middle brother Ben has caddied for Ollie for the past year.

Bermuda Championship: Leaderboard | Best photos

“I always dreamed of us playing a PGA Tour event together,” Ollie said before the tournament. “All three of us brothers out here walking around, it’s pretty incredible.”

Luke missed the 36-hole cut.

Ollie lost his Tour privileges after finishing No. 180 in the 2018-19 FedEx Cup point standings and spent last season competing on the Korn Ferry Tour. But he took the chance to regroup and had five top-10 finishes in 17 events in 2020. He is 11th in scoring average on that tour.

Schniederjans admits he has been lost for a few years – didn’t know what his swing was doing or how to fix it, and as a result, struggled from tee to green. In the early part of 2020, Schniederjans was devoted to figuring out the formula for his own success. Now when he finds himself veering of the rails, he can get himself back on track.

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“I’ve been able to manage it really nice this year and get some consistency and I’ve learned even when I’ve gotten off, gotten back on track, I kind of understand my stuff even better,” he said.

The Bermuda stop, where Schniederjans missed the cut a year ago, is a good indicator that it’s working. Any Tour stop for a player looking for a breakthrough, like Schniederjans, can be life-changing. Brendon Todd demonstrated that last year. The journeyman pro was winless since 2014, but Bermuda represented the first of two straight fall wins that turned around his career.

Schniederjans calls it a “high responsibility” playing on the PGA Tour, where there’s a lot more money on the line and a sense of importance. In that sense, a step back to the Korn Ferry Tour was a blessing – one that allowed time to hit the rest button.

“Kind of used it to my advantage, I would say. You don’t want to do that when you’re on the PGA Tour, you don’t want to take your time. You want to be ready to go right away. I think I was able to kind of look at it as, all right, I’ve got 12 or 15 months to kind of get myself ready so that when I come, back I’m actually ready to do something out here. I think it worked out in my favor.”

It sure would seem so.

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Kramer Hickok on experimenting with a 48-inch driver: ‘It’s like swinging a sledgehammer’

Kramer Hickok discusses why he is experimenting with using a 48-inch driver in competition in order to gain additional distance.

Bryson DeChambeau isn’t the only PGA Tour player considering using a 48-inch driver.

Kramer Hickok, who will enter the final round of the Bermuda Championship trailing leader Doc Redman by one stroke, experimented with the maximum legal limit for club length recently and noted he gained 8 miles per hour in ball speed, though he elected not to use the driver in competition this week.

“I think there’s a big speed surge right now and certainly Bryson is instrumental in I think having all these guys go after speed now,” Hickok said. “I think just the advantage of length is just so huge and astronomical that if you can get an extra 10 to 15 yards, sometimes you’re taking out a bunker. Obviously, you’ve got to hit it straight.”

DeChambeau, who manhandled Winged Foot at the U.S. Open in September, is working on adding a 48-inch driver to his bag in time for the Masters, which begins November 12. Hickock said his dispersion was minimal and that the ability to drive the ball farther would consequently result in shorter approach shots. Even if he hit the ball in the rough it likely would be advantageous to hit a wedge from the rough rather than an 8-iron from the fairway.

“I’m not necessarily a short hitter, but I’m not a long one, but I hit it straight so I was just trying to mess around. I just wanted to see if I can get maybe an extra 15 yards of carry and still be able to control it,” Hickok said.

“I got my ball speed up about 8 miles an hour with it, but there’s so much that you have to change when you add length to a driver. The head weight, swing weight’s off, you’ve got to actually make the club flatter. It’s just a lot of tinkering going on. I just wasn’t able to get it done before coming here, but it’s a work in process.”

Hickok, who lives in Dallas, has been working with Artisan Golf on his equipment and said he used a 47-1/2-inch Callaway Maverick driver.

“I had my same shaft, just tipped an inch and that was as long as they could get it for me. Throwing my head directly into a 48-inch driver, my swing weight went from D-3 to E-6, which is, if anyone knows golf, that’s unbelievable. That’s like swinging a sledgehammer.

“So, I took all the weight out and I was able to get my swing speed up about 10 to 12 miles an hour, but then the smash factor wasn’t there because there’s not enough mass in the head. We’re going to mess around with a 46-and-a-half, 47-inch driver next week whenever I’m home just to kind of find some happy medium. If I can control it, great. I mean, length is not a bad thing. And if I can’t, then I’ll just keep hitting my driver the way I do.”

Hickok has recorded just one top-10 finish in his 52 Tour starts. It came at the 2019 Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship (T-10), but he poised to improve upon that finish and perhaps a whole lot more if he can play well on Sunday in Bermuda.

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When he’s 64: Fred Funk joins Nicklaus, Snead & Watson in making PGA Tour cut at 64 or older

Fred Funk became just the fourth player age 64 or older to survive the 36-hole cut at a PGA Tour event and did so playing alongside his son.

Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead and … Fred Funk? One name doesn’t fit with the others. Even Funk would be the first to admit that but he joined that Hall of Fame trio as the only players age 64 or older to make a cut on the PGA Tour.

Funk, 64, shot 1-under 141 to make the 36-hole cut at the Bermuda Championship.

“Shoot, I didn’t know they were that old and still played a Tour event. I knew Watson had maybe. Wow, that’s pretty good,” he said. “Watson, Nicklaus and Snead? That’s really good. And then Funk. You throw that in there, it doesn’t sound right, does it?”

If making a cut wasn’t special enough, Funk did it while playing in a threesome that included son Taylor, who celebrated his 25th birthday by missing the cut.

“This guy is pretty damn good for an old guy,” Taylor said.

Indeed, he is. Funk, winner of the 2005 Players Championship among his eight PGA Tour titles, spends nearly all of his time competing on PGA Tour Champions, where he’s won nine times in all. But he played on a sponsor’s exemption last year at the inaugural Bermuda Championship and missed the cut.

“The whole time I was saying, why aren’t we playing together?” Funk said of last year when father and son played in separate groups. “It would just be so much fun to play together, and it was beyond fun to play with him. Yesterday and today was really phenomenal. Something you kind of dream about or think about. I don’t know if you actually can put it whether it’s really going to happen, the probability of it happening, but it did and it’s really special.

“The only reason I played this week was because I was in the field with Taylor. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to go yesterday the way I felt Wednesday in the pro-am. I said, I’m going to go and tee it up and see what happens. I played surprisingly really well.”

On a blustery day that made scoring difficult, Funk carded 1-over 72 despite averaging just 234.5 yards off the tee. He bogeyed three of his first six holes on Friday, but rallied with four birdies on the inward nine and overcame a double bogey at No. 5, his second nine.

“When he made that double on 5, I was like, ‘Oh, God,’” said Taylor, who approached his father after the hole and said, “I’m your cheerleader now, I’m 6 over. I was rooting him on and tried to keep him upbeat and keep his mind off his body aches.”

Taylor, a former member of the Texas Longhorns who is still seeking status on one of the professional tours, struggled to a 36-hole aggregate of 12-over 154.

“I wish it was flipped, I really do. I wish he was out there competing in the championship on the weekend,” Fred said. His son’s weekend off did nothing to diminish his own pride in his accomplishment.

“It feels good to know you can do it,” said Fred, who took just 24 putts in each of the first two rounds. “Not many guys even have an opportunity to play this late into their career on a regular Tour event.”

Fred capped off his day with a chip-in birdie at No. 9, which led to quite the father-son celebration.

“Yeah, he almost killed me. He horse collared me and I wasn’t ready for it,” Fred said.

“I went the other way and I was like, ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ He’s very fragile nowadays,” Taylor said. “No, it was a cool moment to hug him after that. Looked like he was about to cry making the cut again.”

On a windy day, Bermuda is a breeze for tourney leader Ryan Armour

On a blustery day, Ryan Armour handled Port Royal Golf Club better than most to grab the lead at the Bermuda Championship.

High winds nearly knocked Ryan Armour over on the 15th hole at Port Royal Golf Club, but it couldn’t knock him off the top of the leaderboard at the Bermuda Championship on Friday morning. Scores were kept high by a frisky, fickle southwesterly wind that puffed about the course, gusting to 35 mph, and nudging golf balls in all directions.

“I enjoy the challenge of it. Today was really hard,” Armour said. “We didn’t know whether to say get up, get down, what to tell it.”

Armour did better than most, following up his 7-under 64 in the opening round with a 1-under 70 and a one-stroke lead over Kramer Hickok among the early wave of finishers.

Armour, 44, made birdie on three of his first five holes to get to double-digits under par, but canceled them out with three bogeys before he tacked on one last circle on the card with a birdie at the par-5 17th. Armour didn’t just enjoy the battle; he enjoyed the Robert Trent Jones Sr., layout in Southampton, Bermuda.

BERMUDA: Leaderboard | TV info, tee times | Photo gallery

“What I really love about this place is it’s unique. Every day could be different, it depends on where the wind’s coming from,” he said. “You’ve got to hit so many different shots off the tee, so many different shapes off the tee. You can’t just go over everything like, I hate to say it, like kind of we’re playing every day on the PGA Tour.”

The wind sent scores skying in the second round with five players posting numbers in the 80s and former British Open champion Henrik Stenson withdrew with a foot injury after playing his first nine holes in 43. On the oceanside, par-4 15th, Armour was nearly blown off course.

“I had a chip behind the green and on my backswing I got blown and like I had the grass mark right on the toe of the club and I’m like, wow, I almost missed that chip shot. So I was happy to get out of there with 4,” he said.

Armour has missed the cut in three of his first four starts during the Tour’s 2020-21 season and seven of his last nine dating back to July. As one of the shorter hitters on Tour, Armour has tried chasing more distance and realized he’s better off focusing on what makes him great.

“I was trying to just get it from a high-260s carry to a mid-280s carry. I just kind of went crooked and I can’t play golf that way,” he said. “I don’t hit it long enough to play out of the rough. So, for me, fairways, give myself as many opportunities as I can and try and hole some putts.”

Armour didn’t earn his first victory until age 40 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, and has been a steady performer the last few years after bouncing back and forth between the Tour and Korn Ferry Tour. As for win No. 2? it could be blowing in the Bermuda wind.

“I did what I could out there today to get it under par,” Armour said. “I can’t stress how difficult it really was out there.”

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Peter Malnati continues recent tear, takes early lead at Bermuda Championship

Peter Malnati has been on a tear recently and leads the PGA Tour’s Bermuda Championship after a Thursday 63.

Peter Malnati is on a tear. On Thursday, he recorded his third round of 63 or better in his last three starts dating back to the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship last month.

Yet after racking up nine birdies, including five in a row beginning at the ninth hole, Malnati’s first question from the press was about his lone bogey on his scorecard.

That was at the par-5 17th hole, where Malnati hit a lousy drive and squandered a chance to go even lower, but he didn’t let it phase him. He bounced back with a birdie at the closing hole to shoot 8-under 63 and grab a one-stroke lead over Ryan Armour and Doug Ghim after the first round of the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Club. Of the one blemish on his scorecard, Malnati said, “Got to be the easiest one on the course if you drive it well, and I made bogey. How can I complain about much? We’re on the island of Bermuda and I sure played great.”

Bermuda Championship: Leaderboard | Best photos | Tee times

Indeed, he did. Malnati, 33, got off to a sluggish start with a couple of ho-hum pars until he rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt at the par-3, third.

“Just beautiful, right in the middle of the hole,” Malnati said. “I had two weeks off after the momentum in Sanderson and then at the Shriners, so to make that putt I’m like, all right, I’m picking right back up. So that first one was big.”

He added circles on the card at Nos. 3 and 6 before his string of birdies began at No. 9. Malnati, who excels with his wedge and putter, took just 24 putts on the day, and says his long game finally is hitting its stride.

“My strengths that have kept me on Tour for as long as I’ve been here have been wedges and short game and putting and I’ve worked hard to make sure that those are still sharp,” he said.

Malnati hadn’t recorded a top-10 finish since the 2019 Zurich Classic of New Orleans before notching back-to-back top-10s at Sanderson Farms (second) and the Shriners Children’s Hospital Open (T-5). He’s been known to emphasize the importance of patience to the young golfers he mentors in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, but as his frustration grew with his own play, he found it tougher to practice what he preaches.

“I’m always telling them, hey, hard work pays off, it just doesn’t always pay off as quickly as you want it to. I give that advice, but I was getting very impatient with it myself,” he said.

Despite the bogey at 17, Malnati finished on a high note, carding one last birdie to claim the lead. He got a final emotional boost as he walked up the hill on No. 18 and noticed his wife, Alicia, and 1-year-old son, Hatcher, in his gallery.

“It just made my day,” he said. “I’m always in pretty good spirits, but to see them, and it’s the first time Hatcher’s on the golf course [this season]. He was with me in Mississippi, but he wasn’t allowed on site. It’s the first time he’s been on a golf course since The Players or before. So that was really awesome to see him. And to cap it off with a birdie, perfect ending to the day.

“I smile a lot, but nothing makes me smile quite like that. To see them and then to finish with that birdie, I’m a happy man right now.”

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Bermuda Championship: Who could be this year’s Brendon Todd?

Golfweek’s Adam Woodard previews the field and course at this year’s Bermuda Championship.

Golfweek’s Adam Woodard previews the field and course at this year’s Bermuda Championship.

Bermuda Championship: Who could be this year’s Brendon Todd?

While the stars prep for Augusta National in two weeks, there are plenty of storylines for someone to grab the spotlight in Bermuda.

A year ago, Brendon Todd arrived in Bermuda as a down-on-his-luck journeyman PGA Tour pro winless since 2014. By Sunday he had blitzed the field at the Bermuda Championship, victorious by six strokes, won the next event too, and racked up another 10 top-25 finishes last season as he resurrected his career.

When asked how he would have responded if told prior to the start of last year’s tournament that he would improve from outside the top 500 to No. 41 in the Official World Golf Ranking this week and be the highest ranked player in the field, he said, “I probably would have laughed and said, ‘I’ll take it, give me more, right?’ ”

While much attention already is being devoted to the Masters, which begins in two weeks, for the 132-man field this week and next at the Vivint Houston Open, these starts mean everything. Todd, who is making his 200th career Tour start, took advantage last year making seven birdies in a row in the final round, beginning on the second hole, to coast to victory.

BERMUDA: Tee times, TV info | Fantasy | Odds, best bets

“I felt like I was kind of walking on clouds and that’s a really special feeling to have,” he said.

For some of the special invites, this week could change the trajectory of their career. Take Camiko Smith, a 35-year-old native of Bermuda who is making his Tour debut after winning a 36-hole local qualifier played earlier this month. Until Todd came along and shot one of three 62s at last year’s tournament, Smith shared the course record of 64 with Adam Scott. Smith grew up along the fourth hole of Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton, so close to the Robert Trent Jones Sr. design, in fact, that a ball pulled left will end up out of bounds in his family’s yard.

“I actually hop over a fence and I’m right on it,” said Smith, who had been teaching golf in Orlando and Dallas prior to returning to Bermuda and working at a local glass company for the last four months. “I used to get kicked off for doing that, now I’m sitting here playing a PGA Tour event in my backyard, so it’s pretty awesome.”

Danish teen sensation Rasmus Hojgaard has already won twice on the European Tour, becoming its first champion that was born in the 2000s. The 19-year-old, who has PGA Tour aspirations, played in the U.S. Open in September and jumped at the chance to make another PGA Tour start.

“It was a no-brainer for me to come over here and play,” he said.

Left to right: Brothers Ben, Luke and Ollie Schniederjans enjoy a walk in Bermuda. Photo by Mark Williams/PGA Tour.

The Bermuda Championship also has a couple family affairs as 64-year-old former Players Championship winner Fred Funk and son Taylor, 24, are grouped together Thursday (12:15 p.m. ET tee time) while brothers Ollie and Luke Schniederjans, who also benefited from sponsor’s exemptions, will be playing in their first Tour field together. It didn’t hurt the chances for the brothers, who both attended Georgia Tech, that Bermuda Championship tournament director Sean Sovacool is also a fellow Yellow Jackets alum.

Ollie, 27, a former No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, lost his Tour privileges after finishing No. 180 in the 2018-19 FedEx Cup point standings and spent last season competing on the Korn Ferry Tour, while younger brother Luke, 22, is making his Tour debut. (Middle brother Ben has caddied for Ollie for the past year.)

“I always dreamed of us playing a PGA Tour event together,” Ollie said. “All three of us brothers out here walking around, it’s pretty incredible.”

Someone will leave Bermuda with a trophy, $720,000 added to their bank account, a two-year Tour exemption and a berth in the 2021 Masters among the spoils.

“There’s probably going to be somebody this week that finishes first or second who is a great player and has shown great form either in the last year or in a previous year that changes the curve of their career,” Todd said. “That’s what’s so cool about some of these events that don’t have the top-ranked guys in them.”

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Harold Varner III on getting married in COVID times and why his ring didn’t fit

Newly married and ready to go, Harold Varner III talks about his wedding day and why not playing the last two weeks serves as motivation.

Harold Varner III had the last two weeks off from the PGA Tour because he didn’t qualify for either the limited field CJ Cup or Zozo Championship, and he was none too happy about it.

“Just seeing the best in the world play and not being in those fields, just extra motivation that I needed,” said Varner, who is scheduled to tee it up this week during the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton, Bermuda.

The 30-year-old, who is still seeking his first PGA Tour victory, used his downtime to do some construction around the house and also get his wedding ring re-sized. Varner tied the knot with his girlfriend, Amanda, who he met at age 17, on September 26, despite the fact that COVID-19 threw a wrench into their best laid plans.

“The big is thing for me was to get married,” he said. “Obviously, I wanted a lot of people there to see it, but the biggest thing was getting married to my wife, that’s the most important thing. I think weddings are getting a little blown out of proportion. What are you really getting married for? Are you getting married to party? Like I can throw a big party, I’m good at that, I have no trouble with that.”

Varner was named Golfweek‘s “most fun” player on the PGA Tour in its “Fun Issue” this year, so we have no doubts the nuptials were a blast. Varner said he was fortunate that the laws were loosened in North Carolina to allow larger gatherings and he was able to have 150 people attend the couple’s big day.

“A lot of older people left after the ceremony. And the reception was a lot of fun because it became a big party, but a lot of close friends. We were super fortunate, but we were going to get married whether it was two of us or 300 of us,” Varner said.

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Their first dance? Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love” was their song of choice and according to Varner, it got pretty crazy on the dance floor from there.

“It was good,” he said. “I definitely lost all my clothes.”

As for his wedding ring, Varner is adjusting to having playing with something new on his left ring finger. He’s elected to leave it on in fear of losing it if he were to take off. Initially, getting it off was a bit of a problem as it happened to be a little too snug.

“You know the little ring thing you put keys on? I sent that to the [jeweler] for the measurement of my finger and it didn’t come out great,” he explained. “So, I went to sleep with my ring on and it cut the circulation off in my finger, so, that wasn’t a great idea. That’s been a little different.”

Not many better places for a honeymoon than Bermuda, but this is a work trip for Varner. He tees off No. 1 on Thursday at 11:15 a.m. ET.

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