Tag: Callum Tarren

Photos: PGA Tour pros celebrate Halloween as Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Bob Ross and more

What a great day for the players and their families.

Tuesday was Halloween and plenty of PGA Tour professionals celebrated with their families, and had some pretty good costumes to boot.

Max Homa, dressing up with his son, Cam, for the very first time, wore NASA gear while Cam wore an astronaut costume.

Tony Finau and the whole Finau clan were Power Rangers, while Adam Hadwin and his wife, Jessica, may have had the best costumes of the day. Jessica dressed up as Adam, while the Tour pro was dressed as the security guard that tackled him after fellow Canadian Nick Taylor won the RBC Canadian Open.

Check out some of the costumes below:

Winning is hard: These 14 pros nearly picked up their first PGA Tour win this season

“Second place is just the first-place loser. There is no room for second place.”

With the calendar flipping to June, the PGA Tour counts eight first-time winners this season, including the duo of Davis Riley and Nick Hardy, who teamed up for their first wins at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

It was almost nine on Sunday as Denny McCarthy had a putt to win the Memorial only to be denied his maiden victory by Viktor Hovland.

McCarthy isn’t alone. So far this season, 14 different players have finished runner-up or tied for second 15 times while bidding for their first Tour title. If the Netflix documentary “Full Swing” taught us anything it is that winning is hard. (Don’t drink every time a player says just that or you may not make it through a single episode.)

“The only one who will remember you if you come in second place is your wife and your dog,” World Golf Hall of Famer Gary Player once said, “and that is only if you have a good wife and a good dog.”

NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt didn’t mince words either, saying, “Second place is just the first-place loser. There is no room for second place.”

Nevertheless, let’s take a closer look at this year’s runner-ups, who were so close to tasting victory and climbing another rung on the professional golf ladder with their first Tour wins.

Adam Svensson goes from barely making cut to winning 2022 RSM Classic for first PGA Tour win

Svensson went bogey-free in the final round and made two clutch birdies late on Sunday.

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Until Adam Svensson sank a 6-foot eagle putt at the 15th hole of his second round, he appeared to be in danger of missing the cut at the 2022 RSM Classic. Winning his first PGA Tour tournament wasn’t a thought in his mind.

“I was just trying to make the cut,” he said. “I didn’t want to go home when I knew I was playing this well.”

So, Svensson first grinded out the cut, then vaulted into contention with a 62 on Saturday and fired a 6-under 64 at Sea Island Resort’s Seaside Course on Sunday to win the RSM Classic by two strokes over Brian Harman, Callum Tarren and Sahith Theegala.

“I knew if I just kept doing what I’m doing I will work my way up, but to come out on top, it’s unbelievable,” Svensson said.

The 28-year-old Canadian’s slow start at Sea Island’s Plantation Course, a 1-over 73, was the highest opening-round score by a winner since Jon Rahm at the 2020 BMW Championship. It left him T-108 entering the second round and he was seven strokes back at the start of the weekend. The last player to be outside the top 100 through 18 holes and go on to win was Ian Poulter at the 2018 Cadence Bank Houston Open. It didn’t hurt that Svensson played the last 52 holes bogey-free.

“It’s been a dream of mine since I was 10 years old, 8 years old,” Svensson said. “It’s just incredible.”

Svensson’s ball striking has never been questioned, but ever since he began working with putting coach John Graham a year ago, he’s made leaps and bounds on the greens. This week, he led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting.

“When you have confidence when you’re putting, you feel like you can make everything and those two-, three-footers, you just bang them in,” he said.

Svensson, bundled up in a winter hat and windbreaker on an unseasonably cold day in the Golden Isles, was on fire with his putter. He holed more than 150 feet of putts in the final round. After failing to make birdie at the easy par-5 15th hole and watching Harman and Theegala join the tie at the top with Tarren, Svensson canned an 18-foot uphill, left-to-right birdie at 16. He walked it in from more than 2 feet out and pumped his fist as he assumed sole possession of the lead.

One hole later, he stuck an 8-iron to 10 feet at the par 3 and pumped his fist again – this time with authority – as his ball circled the cup to give himself a two-stroke cushion.

“It looked like we’d have a four-way playoff and next thing you know it wasn’t even close,” the winning U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Davis Love III and RSM Classic host said.

Svensson, who closed with a 6-under 64 for a 72-hole total of 19-under 263, originally earned his PGA Tour card in 2019. He showed flashes of brilliance but lacked consistency. He concedes that he relied on talent alone and didn’t work hard enough at his game. Too many weeks he’d finish a tournament, go to the bar and nurse a hangover for a day or two.

“If you’re doing that,” he said, “you’re falling behind.”

He spent a humbling season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2020, but considers it a blessing.

“It changed my path,” he said.

During that time he looked himself in the mirror – “probably after one of those hangovers,” he said – and decided he had to make some changes if he wanted to reach his full potential. He committed to treating golf like a job and “made a choice to give it 100 percent.” The changes included quitting drinking, or as he put it, “no more going out with the boys.”

“It’s turned my life around,” he said.

Svensson turned his week around with a flurry of birdies on the weekend and earned his first trip to the Masters – or any major for that matter. One person who didn’t doubt that Svensson had the ability to get to the winner’s circle was his caddie A.J. Montecitos.

“I told him when I first got on his bag that we’d win in six weeks,” Montecitos said. “I was wrong. It took him 10.”

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2022 3M Open: ‘Happy days’ are here again for Emiliano Grillo, Callum Tarren and Tony Finau

Grillo had little to smile about until two weeks ago when he finished T-2 at the John Deere Classic, his first top 10 of the season.

Happy days.

That’s how Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo described his opening two rounds at the 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota.

Of Thursday’s bogey-free 67, he said, “I actually think it was one of my best rounds of the year. It almost felt like I almost had no chance of making bogey out there.” And his score was even lower on Friday despite one dropped shot, as the 29-year-old Grillo signed for a 6-under 65 at TPC Twin Cities to improve to 10-under 132 and grab the 36-hole clubhouse lead by two strokes over Callum Tarren.

“Anything under par on windy days, it’s a plus,” Grillo said. “I was able to manage the ball pretty well, and I was able to make the putts when I had the chance.”

For Grillo, his season had little to smile about until two weeks ago when he finished T-2 at the John Deere Classic, his first top 10 of the season and first overall since last May. That locked up his Tour card for next season and removed a gigantic weight off his shoulders.

Grillo is seeking his first PGA Tour title since the 2016 Frys.Com Open in his rookie season. He has always been a ball-striker par excellence but his putter is often more foe than friend. He’s only cracked the top-100 in Strokes Gained: Putting once, and has ranked as poorly at 192nd in that category. He entered the week ranked No. 153, but gained more than 3 strokes on the field with his short stick on Friday. Nevertheless, Grillo said to ignore his putting stats.

“In this year, the days that I played bad around the greens, it’s just because I was hitting very poorly or I just didn’t want to be there,” he explained. “I would say that 90 percent of the rounds this year I putted really well. Obviously it helps when you hit it close and when you make a few that kind of gets your momentum going and the hole gets a little bit bigger.”

Grillo made four putts of more than 15 feet during his second round, including a 40-foot eagle putt at six and nearly had another at the 12th, but missed the shorter eagle try from 7 feet.

“It’s kind of funny how this sport works, right?” Grillo said. “You hit it to 10 feet and you miss it, but you hit it to 35, 40 feet, 45 feet even and you make it. It’s a funny game.”

Tarren, a 31-year rookie from England, can relate. He switched putters for the first round and couldn’t buy a putt so he ended that trial and stuck it back in his locker, retrieving old faithful, an Odyssey No. 7 that he has used for seven or eight years now.

“It got me out here,” Tarren said. “Sometimes it just needs to be benched just to fire itself back up.”

Tarren began his season with seven missed cuts and a disqualification but has found his stride and entered the week at No. 146 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs with work still to do to retain his card for next season. Tarren had a 45-foot putt to set the 3M Open tournament course record, but settled for 63.

“I’ve got nothing to lose and a lot to gain,” said Tarren, who hit all 18 greens in regulation on Friday. “I’m just going to keep the foot to the floor and make as many birdies as possible…I don’t know what it is, but I feel calm, I feel chilled, I feel confident.”

That might also describe the mood of Tony Finau, who at No. 17 in the world is the top-ranked player in the field this week after Hideki Matsuyama withdrew Thursday, and playing a course he has always enjoyed. Finau finished T-3 in 2020 and improved to 43 under in 14 career rounds at TPC Twin Cities. He posted a bogey-free 68 to finish at 7-under 135 and three off the lead. He, too, was pleased to see a few putts start to drop.

“It was nice to get one on 7, which was my 16th hole,” he said of the 22-foot birdie putt. “I felt like I had a bunch of looks beforehand that weren’t going in and it was nice to roll one in on my way home.”

The 32-year-old Finau has made the Land of 10,000 Lakes a regular stop for him. He has first and second cousins who live nearby and loves renting a house near the course for his extended family.

“I’m far from a fisherman, but it’s the one time of year I know I’m going to go fishing on the lakes out here,” he said. “My family and I usually get a house around here. Nothing but lakes around here, so no shortage of fish. It’s quite fun for my family to be here.”

Lost clubs, steady play and a Thursday 67: 5 things to know about Callum Tarren at the 2022 U.S. Open

Get to know one of the early leaders at The Country Club.

BROOKLINE, Mass. — The Masters may be a tradition unlike any other, but it seems like every year at the U.S. Open a golfer that few people in the United States know much about gets to the top of the leaderboard. This year, it’s Callum Tarren, a 31-year-old from Darlington, England, who is competing in his second U.S. Open.

Thursday morning, after teeing off in the first group off the 10th tee at 6:45 a.m. ET with Fran Quinn and Hayden Buckley, Tarren made a bogey. He followed that up with eight consecutive pars and made the turn in a respectable 36 (1 over). He played his next nine holes in 31 however, for a 67 that left his name alongside Rory McIlroy, David Lingmerth and Joel Dahmen atop the leaderboard at the 122nd U.S. Open.

Here are five things to know about Tarren and his days at The Country Club.

U.S. Open: Scores | Best merch

This PGA Tour pro didn’t see a gator at first, then went into panic mode at Zurich Classic

Can’t make fun of him, would have done the same thing.

AVONDALE, La. — When you come down south to play some golf, you better expect to see some dinosaur-like creatures. It’s tough not to think of Happy Gilmore when an alligator shows up at a PGA Tour event.

RIP Chubbs.

Anyway, some Tour players handle the situation better than others. If you remember, Cody Gribble gave a gator a little love tap to get him out of the way.

And Rory McIlroy couldn’t get far enough away.

Saturday at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Callum Tarren didn’t see the gator at first, but once he did, he went into panic mode.

Can’t poke fun at him though, we’d all (apart from the crazies) do the same thing.

And if that wasn’t enough, another gator held up play as he made his way back home. Excuse me, Keegan.

PGA Tour rookies achieve their dreams, but can they keep their dream jobs?

Unlike some pro sports, there are no guaranteed contracts in professional golf.

NAPA, Calif. – Callum Tarren wondered when he might be getting his PGA Tour card.

The 30-year-old England native seemingly had worked a lifetime to gain admission to the big leagues. He finished tied for fourth at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship three weeks ago, a result that locked up one of the 25 PGA Tour cards given out in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals with one event still remaining. But he skipped the ceremony a week later to fly home and spend time with his first child, Sofia, born two weeks earlier.

Tarren’s friend, David Skinns, a 39-year-old journeyman pro from England who spent time during golf’s pandemic shutdown as both a bartender and DoorDash driver to make ends meet before earning his card too, made sure Tarren received the grand symbol of Tour membership at the Fortinet Championship, the first of 48 tournaments that make up the 2021-22 PGA Tour season. Skinns marked his golf ball on the putting green with Tarren’s card during a practice round at Silverado Resort & Spa’s North Course.

Tarren and Skinns aren’t the only ones who have waited a long time to achieve their dream of playing on the PGA Tour. Justin Lower, 38, attended Q-School six times, missed earning his card by a single shot in 2018, and needed to pitch to a foot from 30 yards to save par at the final hole at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Indiana to secure the last card. Lower still wasn’t sure if he’d done enough until his fellow pros and caddies showered him with beer and champagne. When he finally grabbed hold of his coveted PGA Tour card, Lower said, “It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”

There are 27 rookies in this season’s class on the PGA Tour, the most since 2011 when 35 earned cards, and 26 of them are in the field this week (all but Matthias Schwab). Max McGreevy and Jared Wolfe are making their Tour debuts.

Some, like Aaron Rai, a 26-year-old Englishman who once holed a record 207 straight 10-foot putts at age 15, needed just three starts in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to graduate while others such as Scott Gutschewski, 44, is returning to the big leagues full time for the first time since 2011. He made just two PGA Tour starts in the past 10 years. How did he celebrate his success? He went to Denny’s.

“It ain’t Applebees, but still pretty fancy,” he tweeted.

Hayden Buckley was the last man to get into the Korn Ferry Tour’s Lecom Suncoast Classic in February and then birdied the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to jumpstart earning his Tour playing privileges. Membership has its privileges. It also means having to play against the likes of World No. 1 Jon Rahm and PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson, who headline the field this week in Napa.

But there are no guaranteed contracts in professional golf. Stephan Jaeger is back for his third tour of duty. He was the Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year, winning his sixth career title on the circuit, tied for second most all time, but he’s yet to record a top-10 finish in 62 starts on the PGA Tour. Still, he remains undeterred.

“I’ve done a lot over the last year and that’s given me a lot of confidence that like, ‘Hey, I can do this out here,’ ” he said.

Lower shares Jaeger’s never-give-up attitude. The 11-year-pro shed tears of joy when he finally secured the job he’d always dreamed of. This week marks the arrival at his destination, PGA Tour member, but the real work had just begun.

“It means everything,” he said, “and I don’t think this is it. I don’t think my journey is over at all. I think it’s just getting started.”