Patrick Cantlay takes Jack's advice, Tiger Woods gets Pebble-ready, Jeongeun Lee6 hits back at Hank Haney, Dustin Johnson and Claude Harmon III split, and more in this week's edition of the Monday Scramble:
This was Jordan Spieth in September 2017, when Patrick Cantlay was still trying to rediscover his game after a few years away, after suffering through injury and personal tragedy: “He’s extremely talented, and he’s going to work his way up into the top 10 in the world.”
That’s a reality now, 21 months later, after Cantlay’s second Tour title, this time at the Memorial, where he fired a final-round 64 to overtake major champions Martin Kaymer and Adam Scott.
Why was Spieth so bullish? Because growing up he’d seen what this observer had, too – that Cantlay was one of the most polished teenagers in golf, that he had not only an all-around game but the temperament and desire to succeed at the highest level. Cantlay is no longer a young hotshot – he’s 27, with an occasionally balky back and emotional scars – but he’s the equivalent of a third-year Tour pro; the Memorial was just his 50th start since 2015.
Cantlay is a top 10 player in the world, now and for the foreseeable future, and he’ll continue to improve on a game that is notable more for its completeness than any outstanding trait.
Spieth and others knew it long ago. And now everyone else does, too.
1. To win the Memorial – and his second Tour title – Cantlay got an assist from the tournament host.
Cantlay visited with Jack Nicklaus earlier in the week at Muirfield Village, and Big Jack told him that he needed to “figure out how to play those last 30 minutes.”
In Cantlay, Nicklaus saw a lot of himself – serious, determined and hyper-focused, perhaps even too much so. So his advice was personal: Have fun. Look around. Soak it in.
Cantlay repeated that to himself down the stretch as he closed out a bogey-free round to win by two, at 19-under 269.
“Hearing it from someone like Jack,” he said, “gives it a lot more weight.”
2. Cantlay was surprised that it took him so long to build on his Tour breakthrough in fall 2017. But few players have been more consistent over the past eight months. Since the WGC-HSBC Champions last fall, Cantlay has 10 top-15 finishes in his past 13 starts, including three consecutive top-3s.
“It feels like a win has been coming,” he said. “I’ve been knocking on the door a lot.”
3. Even with a Sunday charge at Muirfield Village, Tiger Woods wasn’t going to win the Memorial for his record-tying 82nd Tour title. But that doesn’t mean it was a lost week in Ohio.
After looking ill-prepared for the challenges of Bethpage Black, Woods appeared sharp and in control over four rounds. He continued to swing the driver, in particular, with good rhythm and tempo – in the clubhead speed sweet spot, at 115 mph – and hit at least 9 of 14 fairways each round. His strokes gained: approach ranks improved each day as well, culminating with a final-round clinic in which he made seven birdies in the first 12 holes.
Why does all of this matter? Because Pebble will place a premium on fairway finding and iron play into small greens that should be firm and fast.
Woods is ready, and if he’s not among your top three favorites for the U.S. Open, along with Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, then you’re doing it all wrong.
4. Martin Kaymer downplayed it after the final round, but a painful blister that popped on the back nine torpedoed his chances of ending a five-year winless drought in the States.
Kaymer built a comfortable cushion in the middle of the round but came home with bogeys on Nos. 9, 12, 13 and 18 to eventually finish third, four shots back of Cantlay.
Afterward, Kaymer said that the popped blister “kept bleeding” but that it “didn’t change anything in my golf swing.”
Even with the bad break, this was Kaymer’s first top-10 finish on Tour since the 2017 Honda.
5. His off-the-charts scrambling week helped skew the statistics, but Jordan Spieth just posted his third consecutive top-10 and his best tee-to-green performance in a year.
That’s the takeaway from Spieth’s tie for seventh at the Memorial, even if it came after another Sunday letdown (73) in which he hit just eight greens. Spieth gained 6.188 strokes from tee to green – good for 14th in that category – which was his best result against the field since the 2018 Colonial.
“I’ve put a lot of work into my game,” he said. “It wasn’t like I felt the same standing on the tee January and February as now. It’s totally different.”
There’s still plenty of work to do – Spieth would be the first to admit that – but it’s safe to say that he’s emerged from the wilderness.
6. In a sad twist of irony, Hank Haney’s prediction came true and a player named Lee won the U.S. Women’s Open – Jeongeun Lee6, who was the only player in the last five groups to break par on a difficult Sunday at the Country Club of Charleston. She won by two over Lexi Thompson, So Yeon Ryu and Angel Yin.
The South Koreans continue to have a stranglehold on the majors, now claiming 18 of the past 36, including eight of the last 12 U.S. Women’s Opens, the biggest prize in women’s golf, especially with the $1 million prize that goes to the winner.
Lee6 couldn’t fully grasp the magnitude of Haney’s dismissive comments – she used a translator but vows to give her next winner’s interview in English, now that she’s taking online classes twice a week – but there was plenty to enjoy last week.
The Seth Raynor design shined despite oppressive heat and humidity. Lexi Thompson’s new claw putting grip showed potential. And NCAA individual champion Maria Fassi’s pro career got off to an auspicious start, with a tie for 12th in her debut.
7. With rumors swirling, Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported Sunday night that Dustin Johnson and Claude Harmon III would no longer work together. Johnson will continue to see Harmon’s father, Butch, in Las Vegas, and Allen Terrell, his former college coach and the current director of coaching at the Dustin Johnson Golf School in South Carolina.
Asked after the PGA whether he was still coaching DJ, Claude Harmon replied: “Unless I got fired and don’t know about it.”
It was always going to be a complicated scenario for Harmon to navigate, coaching the top two players in the world in Johnson and Brooks Koepka. The shifting nature of the stars’ relationship – with Koepka evolving from the lovable younger brother to the major-winning alpha – further muddled the situation.
It’s best for everyone involved to have a clean split.
Betrayed over the past few years, Tiger Woods couldn’t resist twisting the knife into his former swing coach, Hank Haney, after Haney’s controversial comments about LPGA players earned him a suspension from his PGA Tour SiriusXM radio show.
“He deserved it,” Woods said at the Memorial. “Just can’t look at life like that. And obviously said what he meant, and he got what he deserved.”
It was a rare moment of bluntness from Woods, but it also was no surprise. Haney split from Woods in 2010, during the messy fallout from the star’s extramarital affair, and then later published a tell-all book about their time together called, “The Big Miss.”
As for Haney, sure, there were some racist and sexist undertones to his comments, but he failed his listeners in other ways, too, ways that should keep him from earning back his gig.
His only job is to provide insight into the game for diehards who are listening to a premium channel. How can he be so ignorant as to ignore the best women's tour in the world?
This week's award winners ...
Longest Day in Golf: U.S. Open sectional qualifying. The final road to Pebble gets underway in earnest today, with Lee Westwood, Jason Dufner, Retief Goosen, Cameron Champ, Ollie Schniederjans, Akshay Bhatia and Gary Nicklaus among those teeing it up all across the globe. Follow along here.
That Worked Out: Canadian Open’s new spot on the schedule. No longer held the week after the Open Championship, Canada’s major now gets top billing in the final tune-up event before the U.S. Open. This year’s edition will feature four of the top six players in the world.
Why You Should Never: Seek shelter under a tree. Because you could get zapped, like this:
Scary scene during the weather delay at the #USWomensOpen. Players and fans are safe, and play is about to resume. pic.twitter.com/wAW3ivGjKv
— USGA (@USGA) May 31, 2019
Oh, Sure, Pick on the New Kid: Andrea Lee. Even with rounds taking all day at the U.S. Women’s Open, the USGA managed to find the (ahem) one and only slowpoke: the Stanford junior, who was slapped with a one-stroke penalty during the third round. In all seriousness, poor Lee, who isn’t yet clever enough to get around the arcane pace rules, like the rest of the tour’s dawdlers. Let’s see who they single out at Pebble ...
So Much For That: Grayson Murray. The one-time Tour winner announced on April 7 that he was shutting it down for the next six months – or for the rest of the PGA Tour season – to get a “healthy back and healthy mind.” Instead, he showed up at the Web.com Tour’s Rex Hospital Open in his hometown of of Raleigh, N.C., fired a closing 61 and tied for second.
Coming to a PGA Tour Near You: Matthew Wolff. The Oklahoma State star is expected to turn pro this week, setting the stage for a big summer. He’ll get six sponsor exemptions – the max allowed to non-members, after burning one in Phoenix – as he tries to earn his way onto the PGA Tour.
Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Rory McIlroy. Did Tiger break Rory’s momentum? In the midst of his best statistical season to date, McIlroy hasn’t been the same player since Woods ousted him, head to head, at the WGC-Match Play. His latest result was a missed cut at the Memorial, where he opened with 75. Sigh.
https://www.golfchannel.com/news/monday-scramble-patrick-cantlay-jeongeun-lee6-tiger-woods-and-hank-haney
2019-06-03 15:00:00Z
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