Tag: Conversations with Champions

Rory McIlroy on celebrating his third FedEx Cup: ‘We might find a few really nice bottles of red wine’

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek. This week, we take a look at Rory McIlroy basking in the glory of winning the 2022 Tour Championship.

Third time’s a charm?

Rory McIlroy captured his third FedEx Cup title at East Lake Golf Club on Sunday, becoming the first PGA Tour player to win it three times.

He did so in stellar comeback fashion. He began the week six shots back of leader Scottie Scheffler due to the Staggered Strokes format. After a rough start, McIlroy quickly found himself 10 shots off the lead. But then he put his head down and went to work, posting scores of 67-67-63-66 to finish at 21 under. In terms of raw numbers, he had the best week, going 17 under.

The highlight of his Sunday charge was when he drained a 30-footer for birdie on the 16th hole.

After his round, McIlroy made the rounds in celebration. One of the first things he did was congratulate Scheffler’s family.

During a post-round gathering, McIlroy couldn’t help but take a friendly jab at good buddy Tiger Woods, who has won the FedEx Cup twice.

McIlroy was also seen congratulating his caddie, Harry Diamond, on a job well done.

On Monday, McIlroy posted a message about his win, giving credit to Scheffler while reaffirming his alignment with the PGA Tour.

So what’s next?

McIlroy discussed having a delayed celebration with one of his good friends and some fine wine.

“I had a conversation with Shane Lowry yesterday, and it’s Poppy’s birthday on Wednesday and his kids are going to come around our house for Poppy’s birthday,” McIlroy said of his young daughter. “He said, ‘I’ll see you next week and we can celebrate with the FedEx Cup.’ I was like, ‘yeah, whatever.’ I was eight back at the time. I was like, ‘yeah, I’ll just see you next week.’

“Lo and behold, we might find a few really nice bottles of red wine tomorrow night in my wine cellar and open them up and have a good time.”

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‘I won’t say easy because it’s not easy’: Caddie Matt Minister says Patrick Cantlay should be comfortable as defending FedEx Cup Playoffs champion

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Matt Minister, caddie for Patrick Cantlay, shares some thoughts about their win at the 2022 BMW Championship.

Patrick Cantlay found himself in familiar territory Sunday.

Winner of the BMW Championship for a second straight year, Cantlay also became the first golfer to defend a FedEx Cup Playoffs title in the 16-year history of the PGA Tour’s postseason.

Next up: the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta for the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale, a tournament that Cantlay also won a year ago.

Familiarity should prove beneficial but that doesn’t mean solid prep and attention to detail will take a back seat this week.

John Rathouz from The Caddie Network caught up with winning caddie Matt Minister to break down the week that was.

“I would imagine it’s a lot of short-game work because the Bermuda rough is so difficult, and the sand is a lot different than last week’s sand. So doing a lot of short-game practice and a lot of putting because you’re also on a different type of grass,” Minister said.

“The rest of it, as far as course management and your mind management, will be much the same as last year and I think that’s also good for Patrick and myself, having gone through it.

“It should make it more comfortable. I won’t say easy because it’s not easy.”

Minister also revealed an equipment change just ahead of the BMW.

“That was a new driver, a new head, so I think it was a little concerning how he might drive the ball,” he said. “But he drove it unbelievably, maybe a little bit further.”

See the full video interview here:

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For more, check out The Caddie Network’s Under the Strap podcast.

This week: Caddie Matt Minister on team structure, family sacrifice and life on Tour.

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‘It wasn’t boring, that’s for sure’: Caddie Joel Stock guides Will Zalatoris to first PGA Tour win

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Joel Stock, caddie for Will Zalatoris, shares some thoughts about their win at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship.

It took all of four rounds for Will Zalatoris and veteran caddie Joel Stock to find the winner’s circle.

The duo outlasted the field and survived a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, last Sunday for the first—and long-awaited—PGA Tour win for Will Zalatoris.

John Rathouz from The Caddie Network caught up with winning caddie Joel Stock to break down the week that was.

“It wasn’t boring, that’s for sure,” Stock said. “It was really neat. Guys talk about the honeymoon period or whatever when they take new jobs.”

Zalatoris dispatched his former caddie after two rounds the week before at the Wyndham Championship, then had a good friend fill in for the weekend. Stock came on board just as the FedEx Cup Playoffs were starting.

“I didn’t fully know what to expect going into the week. I know Will fairly well, from being around him a lot, being paired with him a bunch. Always been impressed with how he plays, how he handles himself.

“When I got the call, I was super excited for the opportunity. And then the week, it couldn’t have gone any better.”

See the full video interview here:

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Caddie Jacob Fleck first met Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim when he was 16: ‘I knew at that point that he was going to be really good’

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Jacob Fleck, caddie for Joohyung “Tom” Kim, shares some thoughts about their win at the 2022 Wyndham Championship.

It’s a stat that’s almost as twice as old as he is.

Last Sunday at the PGA Tour’s regular-season finale, Joohyung “Tom” Kim, who’s only been 20 for about two months, overcame a first-hole quadruple bogey to win the Wyndham Championship. He’s the first golfer since 1983, according to the Tour’s deep archive of stats, to pull off such a feat.

And at 20 years, 1 month, 17 days, the South Korean became the second-youngest winner on Tour since World War II – only Jordan Spieth, who won the 2013 John Deere Classic was younger.

He’s also—get ready to feel old—the first player born in the 2000s to win on Tour.

John Rathouz from The Caddie Network caught up with Kim’s caddie, Jacob Fleck, soon after their win.

“When it’s like that, honesty, I’m just staying out of the way,” Fleck, who started on the bag in January, said of Kim’s front-nine 27.

“I’m not surprised becaiuse Tom is a really good player,” he said. “I met him originally when he was 16 years old and I knew at that point that he was going to be really good.”

And about that first-hole quadruple bogey?

“We walked off that green and we looked at each other and we both smiled,” he said. “It was like, it was this feeling of calmness. It was like, ‘OK, that just happened’. … but there was no worry.”

See the video interview here:

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Tony Finau was 0-for-5 with 54-hole lead before winning Rocket Mortgage Classic: ‘It was just business right till the end’

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Mark Urbanek, caddie for Tony Finau, shares some thoughts about Finau’s win at the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Tony Finau entered the final round of the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic with the lead, the sixth time he led a PGA Tour event after 54 holes.

The first five times, Finau did not go on to claim the title. This time, things were different.

Seven days after Finau erased a five-stroke deficit heading into the final round of the 3M Open to earn his third Tour title, he made it back-to-back wins by shooting a final-round 5-under 67 at Detroit Golf Club to win by five strokes over Patrick Cantlay, Taylor Pendrith and Cameron Young.

“It was really just a matter of execution for us,” Urbanek told John Rathouz from The Caddie Network. “He was very confident coming off the win last week. He was playing really good, hitting it well, thinking very clearly out there. I think it was really just, it was all business, as you can probably tell. It wasn’t just a bunch of smiles, even when the lead grew. It was just business right till the end.”

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Tony Finau’s caddie Mark Urbanek on the team’s 3M Open win: ‘Pedal down, trying get to 20 all the way’

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Mark Urbanek, caddie for Tony Finau, shares some thoughts about Finau’s win at the 2022 3M Open.

“We talked about it the night before, we knew what the conditions were going to be the following day, it’s exactly what we needed,” Urbanek said when John Rathouz from The Caddie Network asked about coming from behind in the final round. “Being, trailing by I think five shots going into the last round. We had in mind 20 under.

“For him, pedal down, trying to get 20 all the way.”

You can listen to the full chat below:

 

‘Hit it into the fescue on purpose’: Julien Trudeau, caddie for Trey Mullinax, shares some strategy for 2022 Open Championship

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.

“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Julien Trudeau, caddie for Trey Mullinax, at the 2022 Barbasol Championship.

He had missed three out of four cuts on the PGA Tour, with the other finish being a solo 69th.

But last week at the Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, it all came together for Trey Mullinax, who picked an ideal time to snap that skid and earn his first PGA Tour win at the 2022 Barbasol Championship.

He also earned his first trip the Open Championship, which just so happens to be the 150th playing of the event at the most famous golf course in the world, St. Andrews, where the conditions are dry and the course will run.

“The strategy is just massive because there’s so many options off the tee. We’re actually going to hit it into the fescue on purpose on a few holes,” said Trudeau, who was standing on the practice putting green at the Old Course when he caught up John Rathouz from The Caddie Network.

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Mullinax has appeared in two majors prior to punching his ticket to Scotland. He missed the cut in the 2018 U.S. Open. He finished tied for ninth in the 2017 U.S. Open.

This week, the long-hitter will have plenty of options from all parts of the golf course.

“We watched Max Homa hit a putter from like 100 yards and he putted it up to like a foot and I was like, ‘Was that the play?'” Trudeau said. “It was so cool watching this thing go up and down, up and down over these humps. So it’s going to be really fun to watch on TV, I think, because these balls are just moving.

If they’re not aiming for fescue, Mullinax and Trudeau are prepared for rollout.

“We hit a drive. … the run out on No. 14 is 420 and he hit it about even with the end of the fairway,” Trudeau said of a practice-round tee ball from Mullinax. “It was a little bit down on the right but, this thing probably went 410 yards.”

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Since J.T. Poston won John Deere Classic, caddie Aaron Flener says there’s now time to ‘wash our underwear’ before heading to Open Championship at St. Andrews

Aaron Flener says J.T. Poston never gets too high, never gets too low and that suits him just fine.

“Conversations with Champions, presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Aaron Flener, caddie for J.T. Poston at the 2022 John Deere Classic.

J.T. Poston is dialed in.

Poston, a wire-to-wire winner at the 2022 John Deere Classic, came into the tournament with a tie for second the week before at the Travelers Championship. So things are definitely looking up.

Way up, in fact, from the start of the 2021-22 season, when Poston opened the campaign with six straight missed cuts. He’s missed 14 of 24 cuts in all this season, but that’s all in the rearview mirror now.

“He got off to a slow start in the fall, missed every cut and just had a couple top 25s here and there at the start of the year, but nothing great,” Flener told John Rathouz from The Caddie Network.

Consistent work with his swing coach though has paid off.

“Finally his golf swing has just clicked in and he doesn’t have to think about that anymore, he can just go play golf,” Flener said.

An even-keel mindset is one of Poston’s best attributes.

“He never gets too high, never gets too low so it’s so it’s nice to work for a guy like that,” Flener said. “I’m kinda like, too, so we kinda have similar personalities, similar, you know, just the way we operate.”

It’s not just his caddie though, that sees the cool, calm demeanor.

“I think the beauty of J.T. is never gets too high with the highs or too low with the lows. He just kind of stays pretty steady,” two-time major champion Zach Johnson said.

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Poston’s second PGA Tour win earned him one of the last remaining spots in the 150th Open Championship next week. It also got him into a couple of other important events.

“When we were playing on Sunday, I wasn’t thinking about any of that stuff,” Flener said. “I thought about the Open during the week because I know there were three spots, so I was thinking about that. And once we got done Sunday I was like ‘We’re in the Masters. And oh year, the Tournament of Champions’, which is awesome.”

Poston is not in the field at the Genesis Scottish Open this week, nor is he playing the opposite-field event in Kentucky, the Barbasol Championship. That has freed up Flener to take care of some chores before hitting the road.

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Caddie Austin Kaiser explains how a new putting routine paid off for Xander Schauffele

Xander Schauffele’s short game was on fire at the Travelers but it was his improved putting that really turned heads.

“Conversations with Champions, presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Austin Kaiser, caddie for Xander Schauffele at the 2022 Travelers Championship.

It had been a while for Xander Schauffele.

Oh, he teamed up with Patrick Cantlay to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. And he brought home the gold medal from the Olympics. But it had been more than three years since Schauffele won an individual stroke-play event on the PGA Tour.

That skid is now over, thanks to his two-shot win Sunday at TPC River Highlands.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for three years,” Austin Kaiser told John Rathouz from The Caddie Network. “We won the Olympics, which in our mind is a win but it’s not an official PGA Tour win but it’s definitely a monkey off the back.

“I could see the stress just leave him that moment he made that final putt, so it was good just being a part of it honestly.”

Schauffele was solid with his wedges and short irons all week, Kaiser said.

“We got on the plane ride home and he goes ‘Man, we shouldn’t win at this course but we did’ and I was like ‘Well, your wedges and short irons were just amazing,'” Kaiser said.

But it was putting that really made the difference. Check out the video to learn more about a new putting routine implemented by Kaiser and Schauffele.

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Schauffele’s improved putting might make him more of a force in bigger tournaments in the future.

“We play it pretty safe and conservative, that’s why we play well in majors,” Kaiser said.

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‘I let out a loud roar’: Caddie Billy Foster admits he got carried away after Matt Fitzpatrick’s monster putt at 2022 U.S. Open

“He rolled in a 50-footer or 60-footer or whatever it was on 13 and I even actually got quite carried away myself.”

“Conversations with Champions, presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Billy Foster, caddie for Matt Fitzpatrick at the 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Billy Foster has been a caddie for 40 years, and has worked for the likes Seve Ballesteros, Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood. Along the way he collected 45 victories but never bagged the big one.

But at the 2022 U.S. Open, it was 27-year-old Matt Fitzpatrick who finally brought Foster, 59, to the winner’s circle at one of golf’s major championships.

After many close calls over the years, Sunday’s final round started to look like another oh-so-close major for Foster. That is, until Fitzpatrick drained a long putt on the 13th hole that realigned the stars.

“He missed a four-footer on 10 for bogey and then he three-putted 11 from like 15-18 feet, roughly five-foot putts and he missed it. And I just thought, ‘Here we go again. It’s not going to happen again,'” Foster told John Rathouz from The Caddie Network.

“And then he rolled in a 50-footer or 60-footer or whatever it was on 13 and I even actually got quite carried away myself, which I never do. I never get carried away but I let out a loud roar and that got him right back in the tournament again. Yea, it was a massive putt, just at the right time.”

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Fitzpatrick has worked hard to get his game major-championship worthy. He added length off the tee and kept his short game in order. Foster said there’s also mental hurdles that need to be conquered as well.

“You have to learn to lose to win. I think it was a big learning curve for him,” Foster said. “I always thought that coming to the U.S. Open, if he’s going to win a major, that’d be up there with his best chance, with how straight he is and he’s put on 25 yards the last 18 months, I don’t know what’s going on there but he’s turning into a bit of a beast. We played with DJ [Dustin Johnson] the first two days and he bombed a couple past DJ by 30-40 yards and I’m like ‘My God, he’s getting the attention.’

“But yea, his all-around game, his chipping has improved immensely. … Seve [Ballesteros] would be spinning his grave watching. I think he’s in the top 20 of every stat category on the tour so he’s a very consistent player.”

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