Charles Howell III ends his 11-year drought, Danny Willett rebounds from his post-Masters hangover, Lexi Thompson overcomes personal demons, The Match beckons and more in this week’s busy edition of the Monday Scramble:
Between PGA Tour win Nos. 2 and 3, Charles Howell III took 81,693 strokes over 333 starts and 4,292 days.
That’s more than a decade of late flights and silent car rides and demoralizing close calls when, of course, he had to question whether he was still good enough to win again on the modern PGA Tour, against can’t-miss youngsters who were gifted and powerful and fearless – attributes that once were attributed to him, when he first broke out on Tour.
By almost any measure Howell, 39, has had a highly productive career. He’s earned more than $37 million. He’s played on Presidents Cup teams. He’s never finished worse than 77th in the season-long standings. He’s universally liked in the locker room. But he’d won only twice (and not since 2007) in 528 prior starts, and that didn’t compute, because he was always in contention and because his swing was too pretty to fail him under pressure.
It didn’t fail him Sunday on Sea Island, where he played with poise and the resilience that now defines his career. He hit the crisp iron shots that he needed. He holed the clutch birdie putts. He didn’t try to do too much, to will his way to victory, like he’d tried to do so many times in the past. And so on the second playoff hole, against Patrick Rodgers – another college stud for whom much was expected – Howell poured in the uphill 15-footer and earned long-awaited title No. 3.
He crouched, covered his face with his cap and later choked up during a TV interview.
What a special way to end the fall portion of the season.
1. Here’s the winning moment, when Howell buried 11 years of near-misses and self-doubt:
A long time coming.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 18, 2018
Charles Howell III wins @TheRSMClassic.#LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/GNqq5kkkw0
“I didn’t know if I would ever win one again,” he said, “for the obvious reasons that I had come up short so many times and the fact of how the game is changing.”
Just how much is it changing? For the last 36 holes he had a front-row seat to the Cam Champ Show, during which the wiry phenom ripped 290-yard 3-irons off the tee.
“It gets your attention to how golf’s changing,” Howell said. “Every time one of these guys comes out like that, there seems another and another and another. The fact that I’m sitting here with this trophy, it’s still a bit of a dream.”
2. Of the many perks of winning a Tour event, Howell couldn’t overlook the most personal: A 2019 Masters invite.
It’ll be his first start in his hometown tournament since 2012, and Howell joked that he was getting so desperate to play in the year’s first major that he’d go just to watch his son in the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship if he qualified.
“That tournament, that atmosphere, it’s tough at home to sit back and watch that on television,” Howell said. “That’s one of the first things that popped in my head – that I was getting back to the Masters.”
3. The early-career success that Jordan Spieth had?
That’s what this scribe thought Patrick Rodgers was capable of producing. Even wrote as much, right here. Yes, he was that good, that dominant in college. It didn’t turn out that way, of course – he’s now in Year 5 on Tour – but Rodgers is starting to develop into the player many thought he could become.
Rodgers will be the first to admit that he got into some poor swing habits, but his work over the past year with swing coach Jeff Smith has been therapeutic. For a player with Rodgers’ amateur resume, it was shocking to see him ranked 120th in strokes gained: off the tee and 179th in iron play. No longer.
He’s once again starting to swing with confidence – and that was apparent over the weekend, when he shot a Tour record 123 (61-62) to get into the playoff.
4. For the second week in a row, Champ kicked away a chance to score another early-season victory.
Just one off the 54-hole lead, Champ couldn’t get anything going in the final round and posted just a 1-under 69 that left him in solo sixth. The season is still young, and he looked good down the stretch in Mississippi, but he’s currently ranked 103rd on Tour in final-round scoring – his average nearly a shot and a half worse than any other round.
His skills are undeniably awesome, but there’s still a learning curve as he navigates his first year on Tour.
5. Add Danny Willett to the long list of drought-busting winners in 2018.
Willett’s triumph in Dubai may have been the most surprising of all, considering the depths he’s explored since his surprise victory at the 2016 Masters. After both his swing and body betrayed him, his decision to work with Sean Foley in late 2017 has paid dividends, as he began to find some form over the summer, recording three top-10s on the European Tour.
Willett’s closing 68 included three birdies in his final five holes. Major champs don’t forget how to win.
6. A tie for 28th was enough for Francesco Molinari to capture the Race to Dubai for the first time.
It was only fitting that the season-long award went to Molinari, who had the most memorable year of his sterling but largely unspectacular career. But this season, at age 36, the Italian won the European Tour’s flagship event (the BMW PGA) and The Open, and authored a historic performance at the Ryder Cup. Even though he ran out of steam at the end of the year – finishing outside the top 20 in his last four worldwide starts – it still was enough to hold off the rest of Europe’s best. He’ll earn serious contention for the GWAA Player of the Year award.
“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” he said, “and now it’s going to be a challenge to reset before next year and work as hard as I did the past winter and try to reproduce the same golf.”
7. Lexi Thompson had to wait a while to earn her 10th LPGA title, but this one was worth it.
In the final event of a trying year, at the same event where she yipped a 2-footer to lose last year, Thompson cruised to a four-shot win at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. It was her first victory since September 2017, since all of the on-course drama and off-course distractions finally caught up to her. Her psyche was so damaged earlier this year that she took a break, to clear her mind. But it’s hard to keep a talented player down, as Thompson won for the sixth consecutive season on tour.
“This year was just an eye-opener,” she said.
Thompson, 23, has been playing golf since she was 5 and is starting to realize that golf can’t completely define who she is as a person.
“There’s so much to life other than that,” she said.
8. Ariya Jutanugarn became the first to sweep all of the season-long LPGA honors, which was a surprise to no one who was paying attention. She finished the year No. 1 in these stats:
- Rolex Player of the Year
- Race to CME Globe
- Official Money
- Putts Per GIR
- Scoring Average
- Rounds Under Par
- Birdies
- Rounds in the 60s
9. The $9 million Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson is this Friday. Can you feel the tension?
OK, maybe not, but we’ll be watching, because it’s our job – and, sure, because we have a free media viewing code.
Expectations here are low, not least because there’s probably some sort of lame deal already in place where they split the $9 million, regardless of the winner.
The golf, frankly, doesn’t matter – it’s not like 18 holes will swing the balance of their career semi-rivalry – but there remains the possibility that this PPV could be the launching point for a long-running series that includes many of today’s other stars and moves around the world.
THAT is what we’ll be watching for: the potential for more.
Can we just fast-forward to Dec. 31 already?
This weekly game of No. 1 hot potato is getting old.
Brooks Koepka needed a two-way tie for 11th or better to retain his No. 1 ranking heading into next week’s action. Instead, he finished solo 12th at the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan to forfeit the ranking again to Justin Rose – by 0.0012 average points.
But standby, because Koepka will take it back after this week, even though neither is hitting a competitive shot!
Got all that?
The Hero World Challenge event in the Bahamas finally will be able to end this musical-chairs routine.
This week’s award winners ...
Thanks, Bro: Curtis Thompson. Lexi’s golf-pro brother was on the bag for her slump-busting victory in Naples, after she parted ways with looper Kevin McAlpine on the eve of the season finale. Curtis kept her loose, apparently, by reciting movie lines from “Wedding Crashers” and “Step Brothers.” Hey, whatever works.
Good News: CME Group Tour Championship. Beginning next year, the winner of the LPGA season finale will rake in a cool $1.5 million, which is more than most PGA Tour events. Progress.
Serious Shootin’: Rodgers. The next time your buddy implodes on the course and posts a score in the triple-digits, remind him that Rodgers shot a record 123 for TWO weekend rounds on Sea Island. It still boggles the mind.
Almighty Abe: Abraham Ancer. One of the smallest players on the PGA Tour – he’s generously listed at 5-foot-7 – came up big Down Under, where he won the Australian Open in a runaway to earn a spot at next year’s Open.
Too Little, Too Late: Patrick Reed. Tied for the lead heading into the final round at Dubai, Reed played his first nine holes in 2 over. Though he made five birdies on the inward side, it wasn’t enough for the Masters champion to get the W. Still, by finishing second in the season-long race, he’s the highest-placing American ever in the Race to Dubai.
Blown Fantasy Pick of the Week: Jim Furyk. OK, so he probably wasn’t going to win, but this should have been as safe as it comes: He was tied for sixth at the Mayakoba and never had been worse than T-11 in three starts at Sea Island. So of course he missed the cut this year. Sigh.