Tag: J.J. Spaun

J.J. Spaun wins Valero Texas Open, punches ticket for 2022 Masters

Spaun’s biggest fairytale moment came in Texas on Sunday when he emerged from a jam-packed leaderboard.

SAN ANTONIO — Growing up in Southern California, J.J. Spaun’s fondest childhood memories came at Disneyland, a place he remembers roaming as a preschooler and later enjoyed while holding a season’s pass as an adult.

But Spaun’s biggest fairytale moment came in Texas on Sunday when the former San Diego State University star — who turned pro nearly a decade ago — emerged from a jam-packed leaderboard to capture his first PGA Title, holding off Matt Jones, Beau Hossler and others to take the Valero Texas Open.

In his 147th Tour start, Spaun followed a double-bogey on the opening hole with solid, if unspectacular play, holding steady in a stiff Texas breeze while others faded. With the victory, he earned his first berth to the Masters, which starts this week in Augusta, Georgia. He shot a 69 on Sunday and finished the event at 13 under.

Spaun entered this week with just 11 career top-10 finishes and was a 150-1 shot to win, but he watched as a number of other players flamed out and calmly drained a number of mid-sized par putts to stay in the lead.

The 242nd-ranked player in the world coming into the event, Spaun played defensive down the stretch — hitting iron off the tee on the risk/reward 17th hole and making par with a four-foot putt. He made things interesting on the final hole, pulling his drive left down a hill on a par-5, but Spaun played safely out of the rough and avoided any major mishaps.

Matt Kuchar, who was two down on the final hole, went for the green on the par-5 and dropped his second shot in the water.

By virtue of an impressive 66, Matt Jones finished tied for runner-up with Kuchar at 11 under, although he’d finished nearly two hours before Spaun did. Canadian Adam Hadwin was third at 10 under, tied with Troy Merritt and Charles Howell III.

Among the others who made noise on Sunday were Keegan Bradley — who shot a 66 to get into the conversation early at 9 under, before the pack kept pulling away from him — and former Texas star Hossler, who was tied for the lead to start the day but scrambled all day and finally fell out of contention with a double-bogey on the 14th hole.

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Powered by eagle hole-out, Sergio Garcia goes low on first day at AT&T Bryson Nelson

Sergio Garcia is getting a jump on his PGA Championship prep in his home state of Texas.

Sergio Garcia got a jump start on his PGA Championship prep on Thursday.

With birdies at Nos. 12, 14 and 18, Garcia (who started on the back nine) made the turn at the AT&T Byron Nelson at 3 under. He then added birdies on Nos. 1 and 5 before coming upon the 348-yard par-4 sixth hole. A 293-yard drive left him 52 yards from the hole. From there, he wedged up past the hole, put a little backspin on the ball and seemingly even surprised himself when the ball rolled in for an eagle 2.

“As soon as hit it I knew it was going to be close,” Garcia said. “Didn’t know if it was going to go in or not, but knew it was going to be close.

“It was nice to hear the crowd go a little bit crazy there, because we couldn’t see it go in.”

Garcia, who lives in the Austin, Texas, area, made the three-and-a-half-hour drive to the north side of Dallas for the event, where he is a two-time winner. His eagle hole-out tied him for the lead at 7 under. J.J. Spaun would later birdie his final hole to get to 9 under and take the clubhouse lead with a 63 but Garcia is right there after the first round.

Garcia closed with three straight pars and walked off the course in a seven-way tie for second at 7 under.

“It was obviously a great round,” he said. “I would’ve loved to birdie the last hole, I’m not going to lie. But, you know, I think overall it was a solid day. A lot of good things.

“Couple of things that could have been better, but overall it was nice and putted nicely. So very happy with the way it went.”

After his round, Bello talked about how this year has been tough for him but “today felt really nice.”

He went on to say that he hoped his opening-hole birdie wasn’t actually a bad sign.

“To be fair, the last two events I missed the cut and I started with birdie first hole that I played, so I told my brother, I hope this doesn’t mean that we’re going to play bad the rest of the day,” he said. “So that was the first thing that went through my mind.”

J.J. Spaun later took the lead at 9 under after shooting a 63.

“I haven’t been in this position in a while,” Spaun said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do what I been doing last week and this week. … just stay in the present. You know, don’t be scared. Fire away. Make as many birdies as I can. If I do it, great. If I don’t, well as least I tried. That’s the mindset I’m going into for the rest of this week.”

Koepka, Spieth, Matsuyama make returns

Brooks Koepka, who suffered a right knee-cap dislocation and ligament damage that forced him to withdraw from the Players Championship on March 7, is playing for the first time since he missed the cut at the Masters.

Koepka birdied No. 9, his final hole, to shoot an opening-round, 1-under 71. His scorecard had four birdies and three bogeys.

Jordan Spieth, who last played at Augusta National, contracted COVID-19 during his time off. About 10 days after the conclusion of the Masters, Spieth tested positive. He says he didn’t know how he got it, nor did he lose his appetite or sense of smell but he did have to quarantine in his Dallas home away from his wife, Annie, as he successfully defeated the virus.

The Byron Nelson is also the first tournament back for Hideki Matsuyama since he won the Masters. During his time off, he returned to his native Japan, where he received the Prime Minister’s award from Yoshihide Suga in Tokyo.

“I realize now the responsibility that goes with a major championship, especially the Masters,” Matsuyama said, “I’m honored. I’m flattered by the added attention, but at the same time, sometimes it’s difficult to say no. But it goes with the territory and, again, grateful that I have this opportunity and I’ll try my best to prepare well for what’s to come.”

Matsuyama said he planned to use this week at TPC Craig Ranch “to try to find my game again and prepare for the PGA Championship next week.”

Golfweek’s Steve DiMeglio and Adam Schupak contributed to this article.

2 up, 2 down: Carlos Ortiz, Tommy Fleetwood on the rise

Golfweek’s experts dish on the two players who are up and down on the PGA and European Tours.

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Golfweek takes a look at who’s up and who’s down each week on the three major golf tours. Here are the latest rankings for men and women.

The Golfweek/Sagarin ranking for each player is in parentheses.

PGA Tour

Up

Carlos Ortiz (97)

Ortiz’s tie for second on home soil at the Mayakoba Golf Classic was the best of his fledgling career. The 28-year-old shot a pair of 65s in the middle rounds and overcame a double bogey on his opening hole of the final round to shoot 66. Ortiz has been on a roll thanks to a solid all-around game, highlighted by a rank of fifth in SG: Around the Green. He had finished in the top 5 in two of last four starts (Sanderson Farms and Houston Open).

Harris English (68)

English has had an outstanding start to the 2019-20 season after suffering through his worst season last year (No. 149 in the FedEx Cup standings). Playing on a sponsor’s exemption, he finished fifth at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. It marked his Tour-best fourth top-6 finish of the season: T-3 at Greenbrier, T-4 at Houston Open, T-6 at Sanderson Farms. What’s the difference? English said he simply went back to what worked when he was playing his best golf. “Just sticking to that, not trying to reinvent the wheel and just do what I’m good at,” he said.

Down

Kevin Kisner (41)

Kisner has finished T-66 at Zozo, T-28 at the WGC-HSBC Champions and T-76 at Mayakoba. He’s only broken 70 three times in 12 rounds and shot 72, 77 and 74 on Sundays. This week’s RSM Classic is a course he’s won on before so don’t count Kiz out yet.

J.J. Spaun (177)

The San Diego State product is off to an unusually slow start in 2019-20. In six starts, he’s missed two cuts and his best result is a T-36 at Sanderson Farms. At Mayakoba’s El Camaleon, a course where he finished a season-best T-3 last year, he tied for last (T-80). He’s already shot 77 twice and 78 this year, and ranks No. 201 in SG: Tee-to-Green. No bueno.

Euro Tour

Up

Tommy Fleetwood (8)

It wasn’t that Fleetwood was having a bad season, more a case of a frustrating one. The Englishman finished runner-up in the Open Championship, one of seven top 10s this year, but that fifth European Tour win seemed like it would arrive in 2020. The Englishman showed his class to come from six shots off the lead to return a closing 7-under 65 and then defeated Sweden’s Marcus Kinhult in a playoff.  The 28-year-old led the field in strokes gained off the tee, averaging +1.49 per round. Fleetwood is fourth in greens in regulation on Tour this year, with a 75 percent average. He’s also fifth in scoring average at 69.69 per round. He could do with improving his putter since he’s taking 30.22 putts per round to rank 171st on Tour.

Marcus Kinhult (108)

The 23-year-old Swede ranked third in stokes gained around the green in the Nedbank Golf Challenge. Kinhult averaged +1.46 strokes gained around the greens, which explains why he got into a playoff with Tommy Fleetwood. He was chasing his second victory of the season following the Betfred British Masters, which Fleetwood hosted at Hillside Golf Club. Kinhult moved to 13th on the Race to Dubai, 36 places better than last year’s ranking of 49th.  He has one tournament left and no one would be surprised if he finished the year inside the top 10. The Swede got off to a slow start this season, missing six of his first eight cuts. However, he’s become more consistent as the season as wore on. He’s made the cut in his last 10 tournaments.

Down

Lucas Bjerregaard (348)

The Dane needed a good performance in the Nedbank Golf Challenge to move into the top 50 of the Race to Dubai to make the field in this week’s DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. Bjerregaard finished last and dropped from 49th to 53rd. It wasn’t what anyone would have predicted when he began the season by making the semi-finals of the WGC–Dell Technologies Match Play. However, the 28-year-old struggled the rest of the year, missing 12 cuts on both the European and PGA Tours. Bjerregaard struggled with his iron play this year. He hit an average of 66.16 percent greens this year to rank 119th on the European Tour. Last year he was third in that category, hitting 73.50 percent of greens.

Alex Noren (77)

Needed a good finish in the Nedbank to make it into the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. The Swede finished T-44 and sits 67th on the Race to Dubai. He was sixth last year, eighth in 2017 and third the year before. In 16 European Tour events this season, Noren failed to rack up one top 10. His poor season comes down to struggles with the shortest club in his bag. He was 18th in putts per green in regulation in 2018. This year he ranks 148th. The former Oklahoma State player is one of the hardest workers in the game. He doesn’t have to look too hard to discover what he needs to work on over the winter to try to get back to his best.

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