The PGA Tour prepares a major, the LPGA is finally back and a high school math teacher earns a spot at the PGA Championship.
The PGA Tour prepares for its first major of the season, the LPGA is finally back and a high school math teacher from Pennsylvania earns a spot at the PGA Championship.
Take a look at the week’s top stories on the latest episode of Golfweek Rewind featured below.
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WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational
Justin Thomas managed to outlast a tough field at TPC Southwind. Next up on tour is the season’s first major: the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, which will be played with no fans in attendance.
LPGA is back
Danielle Kang became the first player to claim an LPGA trophy since mid-February. The tour will travel to Sylvania, Ohio, for the next event on the revised schedule: the Marathon LPGA Classic at Highland Meadows Golf Club.
No fans at U.S. Open
The USGA announced the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot will be held without fans due to ongoing health and safety concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. The event will be held Sept. 14-20.
For more on what the ACC decided regarding college golf and why a math teacher from Pennsylvania is our Hero of the Week, watch the latest episode of Golfweek Rewind above.
Brooks Koepka dialed up his form just in time for the first major of 2020, the PGA Championship.
It’s that time of the year again.
Koepka Time.
Major monster Brooks Koepka turned in his best performance of the year in the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, one week ahead of the PGA Championship, the first major championship of 2020.
Koepka’s inner timepiece centers around the game’s four biggest championships, and with the clock ticking down toward the 102nd edition of the PGA Championship next week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, he dialed his game up at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee.
While Koepka will rue his 72nd-hole double bogey that ended his chance of catching eventual winner Justin Thomas and successfully defending his title, his swagger returned this week and he looked whole again.
He certainly looked the best he’s looked since he had a stem-cell procedure on his left knee last September and reinjured the partially torn patella tendon seven weeks later when he slipped on concrete in last fall’s CJ Cup in South Korea.
On Sunday, Koepka briefly took the lead on the back nine with a birdie on 13 and finished in a tie for second after rounds of 62-71-68-69. He trailed Thomas by one entering the final hole but pulled his tee shot into a water hazard. Other than that and a slow start in his second round, he was Koepka again.
“I feel good. I feel like my game’s right there. This is where we wanted to be, peaking for the PGA,” said Koepka, 30, who had one top-10 in his last 12 starts heading to Memphis and went MC-T62-MC in his last three starts.
“I feel like my game’s right there, everything’s solid,” he continued. “I hit a lot of good putts today, just didn’t go in. I’m pleased with it.”
Peaking? The guy always peaks for majors. He’s won four of the last 10 he’s played – the U.S. Open in 2017 and 2018 and the PGA Championship in 2018 and 2019. Last year, he also tied for second in the Masters, finished second in the U.S. Open and finished in a tie for fourth in the Open Championship.
Starting Thursday at TPC Harding Park, he’ll try to become the first player to win the PGA Championship three consecutive years since stroke play began in 1958.
“I feel like I’m playing good, so I’m excited to tee it up,” in the PGA Championship, he said. “Everything’s moving in the right direction. So once you lose, doesn’t matter if it was by one or 10, it doesn’t matter. So pleased with it, moving in the right direction and looking forward to next week.”
Koepka started to look forward to this week after he missed the cut in last week’s 3M Open in Minnesota. The extra two days gave him the opportunity to hook up with his coaches and make some adjustments to his setup. After Saturday’s round, he said he was hitting the ball as well as he has since last year’s PGA Championship, when he held off Dustin Johnson at Bethpage Black in New York.
And then he said better things were ahead.
“I think there’s still a little bit of room for improvement just for comfort as far as the changes we made that are only five, six days old now,” he said.
For 17 holes in the final round, he was right. And per his history, he could very well be right again next week in San Francisco.
“I felt confident. I knew I was hitting it good, I knew I was playing a lot better than I had previously,” Koepka said before leaving TPC Southwind. “Pleased with (the week). Why wouldn’t I be?”
Bubba Watson confirms he’s working with swing instructor Claude Harmon III, but not in the traditional sense.
Bubba Watson, one of golf’s famously self-taught savants, claims he’s never taken a lesson.
“I never will take a lesson,” he once told The Wall Street Journal. “If I start playing bad golf, I’ll just have to find me a new job.”
Well, Watson, 41, seems to have had a change of heart. Watson was seen working with Claude Harmon III, son of Butch and instructor to Brooks Koepka, on the practice putting green after his third round of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational on Saturday at TPC Southwind.
“I’m really good friends with Claude and Brooks and them, so my manager and Claude are really good friends. So my manager (Jens Beck) said, ‘Hey, you should definitely talk to him.’ And all it is is it’s about, ‘Hey, man, do you see anything that me and Teddy are missing?’ ” Watson explained. “There’s no range stuff, if that makes sense. I know people don’t understand that. I’m trying to score better. I feel like my physical part is there and how do you score better. That’s why I asked him.
“I call him my life coach is what I call him.”
Bubba Watson gets a putting lesson from instructor Claude Harmon III after Saturday’s third round of the WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).
Sounds like it is simply a question of semantics. Watson finally has been seeking out a second set of eyes.
“He’s the one that said he saw something with putting, that I need to get back to my – when I first started golf, I always put my weight on my front foot, closed my stance, was over the ball more. Back in the old days. And so that’s what he’s thrown into the mix so far,” Watson said.
Watson shot 4-under 66 on Sunday, his best round of the week, including an outward 5-under 30, with four birdies in a row beginning at No. 6.
“I know when I ever do see (Claude) again, he’s definitely going to say, ‘See how good you putted?’ So I’m definitely going to hear that. But yeah, that’s it really. It’s nothing golf swing, I just want to see if there’s something I’m missing. I call him my scoring coach, my cheerleader, my life coach. I call him everything but a swing coach because I know how to hook it and I know how to cut it, so it’s not like I’m needing help that way, if that makes sense.”
On hand are Jena Sims (Brooks Koepka’s girlfriend), Paulina Gretzky (Dustin Johnson’s wife) and Allison Stokke (Rickie Fowler’s wife).
Jena Sims is a beauty pageant winner, actress, non-profit organization founder and social media influencer with nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram, and she was sitting alone at a picnic table Saturday waiting for her boyfriend to make the turn at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
Memphis has become a constant since she began dating Brooks Koepka. She’s been here four years in a row. The first time, she had to be discreet because they hadn’t announced publicly they were a couple. The second time, they had a memorable visit to meet the kids at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The third time — last year — Koepka won the tournament.
This time her visit comes in the midst of a pandemic that’s completely altered the atmosphere surrounding this event in ways both obvious and subtle.
“I actually get to watch Brooks play golf because usually he’s got such big crowds,” Sims said, “but I miss the ‘Hush Y’all’ signs.”
There is, of course, nobody to hush out here this year. When Phil Mickelson and Justin Thomas and Koepka were charging up the leaderboard during moving day, there were no roars that echoed throughout TPC Southwind.
Jena Sims, girlfriend of Brooks Koepka, watches from the sidelines Saturday during the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational golf tournament at TPC Southwind
As third-round leader Brendon Todd (12-under) battled with Rickie Fowler and Byeong Hun An in the final threesome, their emotions were largely subdued.
But this week, when the PGA Tour came to Memphis and most of Memphis wasn’t allowed to be there, is also the first week the Tour’s WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are allowed back on-site since resuming play in June.
So roaming around the grounds the past few days were prominent WAGs like Sims, and Paulina Gretzky (daughter of Wayne, fiancée of Dustin Johnson and owner of 798,000 followers on Instagram), as well as former track and field star Allison Stokke (Rickie Fowler’s wife).
The golfers’ spouses were, in most cases, the only members of the gallery this week. For the last two months, they’d been just like everyone else, forced to watch the PGA Tour on a screen somewhere else.
“This is way more fun than the app,” said Meredith Scudder as she followed her fiancé, Scottie Scheffler, around TPC Southwind.
They still had to deal with restrictions that wouldn’t have been in place without the precautions being taken due to COVID-19. They weren’t given COVID-19 tests upon arrival like the golfers and caddies. They just had their temperatures taken and got asked a few questions about their recent health before entering the property.
Rachael Todd, wife of golfer Brendon Todd, right, and Allison Stokke, wife of golfer Rickie Fowler watch from the sidelines Saturday during the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational golf tournament at TPC Southwind.
It means WAGs still aren’t allowed in the clubhouse as part of The Tour’s bubble policy.
But Sims, for instance, said she took and passed a COVID-19 test last Friday, “out of courtesy for Brooks because I’d been traveling.”
Stokke, meanwhile, spent the first two rounds walking and chatting with Jon Rahm’s wife, Kelley Cahill. On Saturday, Stokke was with Rachel Todd as their husbands dueled for the tournament lead.
Fowler said Stokke hadn’t missed an event pre-pandemic, and so perhaps it’s no coincidence that he’s playing his best golf in a long time with her on the course again.
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“It’s definitely been nice to have them back out. Hopefully that’s permanent soon,” Fowler said. “They’re a part of our bubble whether they’re getting tested on a regular basis or not. My wife and I are together every day, so I’d like to have her out here.”
Some, like golfer J.T. Poston’s girlfriend, still get so nervous watching they “try to stay as far away as possible,” Kelly Cox said, standing on the cart path, a good 50 yards from where Poston was putting on the 9th green.
Others, like Kevin Streelman’s wife, found the experience of walking around TPC Southwind with no spectators around to be both “bizarre and peaceful.”
Courtney and Kevin Streelman have been married for 12 years. During most summers, when their two kids are out of school, Courtney can be found on a golf course watching her husband play the game he loves.
So when the PGA Tour informed golfers recently that their spouses were permitted at TPC Southwind this week, the family went to Alabama first to pick up Courtney’s parents and bring them to Memphis, too. They’re on babysitter duty while the Streelmans are back on the course together again.
“For our day-to-day lives, it’s been great,” Courtney Streelman said. “For me to be back out here walking with him, it feels more normal.”
Given how much is different right now, here at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, here in Memphis, and all over the country, we all could use a little more normal. Even the best golfers in the world.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto
Todd shot 1-under 69 on Saturday, but faces a star-studded leaderboard in what has the makings of a wild Sunday finish.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Brendon Todd continues to outdistance the field with his brand of small ball at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
Despite averaging a measly 275 yards off the tee – 77th of 78th in the field this week at TPC Southwind – Todd’s putter has been his sword and savior – he’s 33-for-33 inside five feet – and signed for a 1-under 69 on Saturday to hold a one-stroke lead over Ben An.
“Winning a WGC would be the biggest win of my career and something I’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time,” Todd said.
But the 35-year-old Todd’s path to his third PGA Tour title of the season and a career-defining victory may not be so easy on Sunday as Rickie Fowler and major winners Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Phil Mickelson and Louis Oosthuizen are lurking if Todd falters.
An, a former U.S. Amateur champion and European Tour winner, is the most unheralded of the chasers and despite 17 career top-10 finishes, is still bidding for his first win on the PGA Tour. He peeled off four birdies in a row on the back nine beginning at No. 13 en route to shooting 4-under 66.
Fowler, 31, is one stroke further back after shooting 1-under 69. He chipped in at No. 3, the third time he’s done so this week, and snatched the lead away from Todd, only to relinquish it with a bogey at No. 12. Fowler hasn’t recorded a top-10 finish since the American Express Championship in January, but has played solidly through 54 holes.
“We’re still in it, two back going into tomorrow,” Fowler said. “So, I’m happy with where the game’s at and how I feel and I’m excited for tomorrow, but yeah, a little unfortunate not having the score reflect how I felt I played. So, got that round out of the way and we’ll go have some fun tomorrow.”
Perhaps the most dangerous threat to Todd is the defending champion, Koepka, who won’t give up the trophy without a fight. The four-time major winner doubled the second hole for the second straight day and trailed by as many as seven strokes, but rallied with five birdies in a six-hole stretch starting at the ninth to shoot 68 and trail by three. Koepka, who entered the week ranked No. 155 in the FedEx Cup standings, has found something in his swing. He ranks first in both Strokes Gained: Tee-to-green and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-green.
“I like where it’s at,” Koepka said of his swing. “I think there’s still a little bit of room for improvement just for comfort as far as the changes we made are only five, six days old now. So, every day is getting more and more comfortable.”
Brooks Koepka has been at/within 3 of the lead entering the final round on the PGA Tour 9 times since 2017.
He won 6 of those tournaments and has a final round scoring average of 67.2 in those situations.
Thomas, the FedEx Cup leader who can regain the World No. 1 title with a victory on Sunday, entered the fray with three birdies on his final four holes and is sitting alone in fourth at 8 under.
“I kind of found something those last 12 holes where I really started hitting some good putts and making them with good speed,” Thomas said. “Yeah, it was nice to shoot 4 under on that back nine to give myself somewhat of a chance tomorrow.”
Much the same could be said for Mickelson (66), who is among a four-way tie for sixth with, among others, Oosthuizen (68), a former British Open champion, at 7 under.
All those goliaths of the golf world are lining up behind at Todd, who was ranked No. 795 in the world a year. Todd picked up where he left off with a 15-foot birdie putt at the first hole, but gave the stroke back with a bogey at five. While his putter remained sharp, his tee shots strayed from the fairway and he scrambled for pars at 6 and 7. But he hit his first green in regulation in four holes at the eighth and poured in a 22-foot birdie putt to regain sole possession of the lead. Fowler grabbed a share of it with a 19-foot birdie at 9 and went in front when Todd bogeyed at 10, but it wouldn’t last long. Todd made back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13 and combined with a Fowler bogey, Todd led by two. Just as he started to open up some breathing room, Todd dunked his tee shot at the par-3 14th hole and tossed his hat in disgust.
“It was a swing that was out of rhythm that was a little bit too often today and to know I hit the water there, it made me pretty mad,” he said.
But he salvaged a bogey and a birdie at 16 was offset by a bogey one hole later as he finished with a 54-hole aggregate of 12-under 198. Todd hasn’t had as good a ballstriking week as he did in victories earlier this year at the Bermuda Championship and Mayakoba Championship, but his putter has been a force to be reckoned with: he ranks second in Strokes Gained: putting.
Those previous victories this season didn’t come against fields as deep as the one he’ll have to outlast at TPC Southwind on Sunday. The last time Todd was in a similar position, he failed to convert a 54-hole lead at the Travelers Championship, making a triple-bogey on the back nine that sealed his fate as Dustin Johnson made off with the title.
“What I learned at the Travelers is just you cannot control the result, you can’t control the way you’re going to feel, where the ball’s going to land, if putts are going to go in tomorrow. I think we all – the best players in the world treat each final round like it’s just another day and they just go out there and try to execute and stick to their game and let the results fall as they do,” he said.
But Todd’s track record when he’s playing well enough to get in contention is better than most and as World Golf Hall of Famer Willie Park Jr., once said, “A man who can putt is a match for anyone.”
“I think the best that you can do in the final round is put up birdies because that’s the ammo you need to keep moving up the leaderboard and hold a lead,” Todd said. “Fortunately the golf course gives me a lot of chances. I’ve got some short irons in my hand and I’m putting well.”
After 36 holes of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Duston Johnson showed up to TPC Southwind clean-shaven.
On Friday, Dustin Johnson wore a full beard.
But on Saturday, after 36 holes of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, he showed up to TPC Southwind clean-shaven. According to the CBS golf broadcast, Johnson shaved Saturday morning.
It’s not the first time the No. 5 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Rankings has opted for a shave before a big round. He appeared clean-shaven at the 2016 PGA championship. He said that it was for good luck as he finished ninth at the British Open the week before with a beard. But he ended up missing the cut.
“It’s a place I’ve liked since the first time I came here. It’s a really good golf course,” Johnson said. “It’s tough, especially in these conditions. Obviously, (the course is) really soft, which is unusual. Usually, it plays firm and fast. But, you know, I feel like the first two days this week have been OK. I just made too many mistakes, really. I hit a lot of good shots and made a lot of birdies, I just made too many bogeys.”
The results weren’t too shabby — DJ shot his second straight 68 and sits at 5 under, seven shots behind leader Brendon Todd.
Neither Dahmen, who is No. 31 in Golfweek/Sagarin, nor Bezuidenhout, who is No. 75th, has won on the PGA Tour.
Dahmen said he fully expected to play well at TPC Southwind.
“I expect myself to be in the top 10,” he said. “This is a great golf course for me, you don’t have to be a bomber. Iron play is important out here, driving in the fairway and that’s what I do well. I expected to play well this week. This course fits everything I’m supposed to be good at.”
For Dahmen, this week has special meaning because it’s his first appearance in a World Golf Championships field.
“Well, first is nice, so that means a lot there,” said Dahmen, who earned his PGA Tour card in 2017. “World rankings points are huge. I’m only a couple good weeks away from the Tour Championship as well, so that means a lot. That’s all stuff you add up Sunday evening. Hopefully, I don’t think about it too much (Sunday), but yeah if I get off to a hot start, then all those things come with it, for sure.”
In May, during a friendly round of golf at Mesa Country Club in Arizona, Dahmen set the course record with a 58. He said Saturday’s 65 felt very similar.
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“I hit it the same way, I just made a ton of 4- to 10-footers all day,” Dahmen said. “I made a couple longer putts today, but kind of similar. When you get hot you just try to stay out of your own way at that point.”
Bezuidenhout, who plays on the European Tour, made seven birdies Saturday and one bogey. His final birdie came on the last hole of his round and came from 19 feet away from the cup.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.
Phil Mickelson shot a 4-under-par 66 to move to 7 under through 54 holes and within five shots of leader Brendon Todd heading into Sunday.
Standing on the fourth tee during Saturday’s third round of the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, Phil Mickelson’s score was on a southward trend and his chances for victory seemed as dull as the cloudy skies.
He had bogeyed the second at soggy TPC Southwind, failed to make birdie on the par-5 third and stood nine shots out of the lead. Another poor week seemed to be at hand – he’d missed five cuts in 10 starts this year, notched just two top-3s, and rolled into Memphis, Tennessee, coming off ties for 58th and 54th in the Dublin Double at Muirfield Village in Ohio.
That’s when the forever optimistic Mickelson turned to his brother and caddie, Tim, and instead of unloading a mouthful of frustration, he teed up a message overflowing of positivity.
“This is so much fun,” Mickelson said he told his brother. “Like I’m having so much fun because I can feel my game turn around, I’m starting to play well again, I’m starting to putt well and starting to drive the ball well and it just feels good and I’m having fun. I just think the results are going to start to slowly come back.
“It’s been really fun for me to come out and play and start to play well.”
The results – at least for 18 holes – came back quickly as Mickelson turned in a 4-under-par 66 to move to 7 under through 54 holes and within five shots of leader Brendon Todd heading into Sunday’s final round. The first page of the leaderboard is loaded with the likes of Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Louis Oosthuizen and Todd, who has won twice this season, but Mickelson has placed himself within range of his 45th PGA Tour title.
“Well, I’m going to have to shoot something really low, probably 63, 64 to have a realistic chance,” Mickelson said. “It’s certainly out there, I’ve shot it before, but a good test of golf. I mean, it’s a really good golf course. It punishes any mis‑hit off the tee. When you’re trying to hit these greens that are so small out of the rough, it’s really tough. Fortunately, I’ve been driving the ball pretty well and been able to get aggressive with my irons.”
Mickelson has been feeling pretty good since he arrived in Memphis. He loves the challenge of TPC Southwind and said it’s one of the most underrated courses on the PGA Tour. His track record is a source of confidence, too – although he’s never won here, he has two runner-up finishes and six top-25 finishes in eight starts. And after posting 67-70 the first two rounds, Mickelson took to Twitter and posted a photo of himself walking tall that was accompanied by a caption that read, “Mood heading into the weekend,” and a smiley-face emoji in sunglasses.
“I saw the picture and just thought why not,” he said.
And then he backed up the tweet.
“I hit a lot of good shots, made a lot of good putts and played really well,” he said. “You can always look back and you feel like you let a couple go. I wish I would have finished the round off a little better. I wish I had birdied 16 and not bogeyed 17. Those two shots coming down, you’ve really got to close the round out a little better than I did today. But I hit a lot of good shots in the heart of the round, made seven birdies and really had a good day.”
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The 50-year-old Mickelson could have been enjoying some good days in Michigan this week if he’d decided to make his debut on the PGA Tour Champions in the Ally Challenge at Warwick Hills outside of Flint.
He would have played there if he hadn’t been eligible for this week’s WGC. He wanted to get sharp ahead of next week’s PGA Championship, the first major of the year. And he’d like to make a deep run in the FedEx Cup Playoffs when they start in three weeks. And then the U.S. Open next month and the Masters in November.
“It’s really exciting that we’re going to be able to compete in three majors,” Mickelson said. “It’s exciting that I’m starting to play well as we head into them and exciting that golf has been able to do this in a safe environment.”
Mickelson captioned a photo of himself during Wednesday’s practice round at TPC Southwind with, “Mood heading into the weekend.”
Phil Mickelson does not lack confidence.
Not this weekend, at least.
Winner of 44 PGA Tour events, including five majors, “Lefty” sits tied for 15th after two rounds of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational at TPC Southwind. Mickelson teed off at 12:10 a.m. (ET) at 3 under.
His performances on Thursday and Friday left him feeling so good, he took to Twitter to proclaim it. Mickelson captioned a photo of himself during Wednesday’s practice round at TPC Southwind with, “Mood heading into the weekend.” It was accompanied by a smiley-face emoji with sunglasses.
Later, in response to a question on Twitter about whether or not he plans to visit Germantown Commissary, Mickelson tweeted, “Check.”
Mickelson is chasing Brendon Todd (-11), who takes a two-stroke lead over Rickie Fowler into the third round after firing a 64 Thursday and a 65 Friday. Play began at 10 a.m. Saturday.
