Breakfast Ball #5: Storm Wyndham

Ah, sunsets and LIV Golf playoffs. A match made in Mayakoba heaven. Until the sun runs out and you need the scoreboard to keep play going. Golf always manages to produce some interesting situations.

In This Week’s Newsletter:

Wyndham Clark Wins the Shortened Pebble Beach Pro-Am after more Impressive European Performances

On Friday night, it seemed like the recent European surge of success on the PGA Tour was set to continue. Tom Detry 🇧🇪 and Ludvig Åberg 🇸🇪 were tied at the top of the leaderboard with Matthieu Pavon 🇫🇷 two shots behind. Nicolai Højgaard 🇩🇰 had recovered from an opening round of 74 with a 7-under 65. On Saturday, he was paired with American Wyndham Clark, who only had one top ten finish since his US Open victory in LA last June.

Then, Clark did something nobody has ever done to wrestle control of the PGA Tour back to the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Pebble Beach’s course record had stood since 2017, when German Hurly Long shot a 61 playing there for Texas Tech in a college tournament. However, Wyndham Clark shot a 60 on Saturday to take the course record away and lead by one stroke with one round to play. He holed just under 190 feet of putts, including five putts of 25 feet or more, in a round that included 9 birdies and 2 eagles. He left putts short on the last two holes that could have made the round even better, including this one on 17:

A storm rolled in on Sunday, canceling play due to high winds and rain. Initially, the intention was to continue play on Monday, but the tournament was cut short and Clark was declared the winner after 54 holes with -17. Ludvig Åberg came up one shot short at -16, with Matthieu Pavon finishing solo third at -15. It was another successful weekend for Europe on the PGA Tour, with 3 players in the top 5 as Tom Detry came tied for 4th. It was a disappointing weekend for the stars however, with McIlroy finishing T66 and Hovland T58.

Joaquin Niemann wins a 4-hole playoff against Sergio Garcia in 1st LIV Golf event of the season

Joaquin Niemann shot a 59 on Friday and finished the weekend as the champion after a four hole playoff against Sergio Garcia that finished in the dark. The Chilean’s round was the 3rd best round across all tours since 2004 by strokes gained (data golf), which measures the strength of the round relative to the rest of the field.

It was an impressive performance by Garcia, who is still playing good golf well into his 40s. Jon Rahm started hot on Friday with five birdies in his first seven holes as a LIV player, but bogeyed the final two holes of the tournament to miss out on the playoff. However, he did get his first win as a team captain! Legion XIII’s four stroke victory was aided by a 64 from Tyrell Hatton on Sunday in his first LIV Golf start.

Due to the delay in Pebble Beach and the first Sunday without NFL since September, there was significantly more attention on a LIV event than ever before. It delivered in spades, with a final leaderboard full of stars ending with a nail biting 4-hole playoff as darkness descended on the final green. It was the best case scenario for a tournament which was supposed to be up against a signature event on the PGA Tour at one of golf’s most iconic venues.

How will they build on this? We shall see. But there should be no doubt: LIV Golf is here, and it is here to stay.

“Who is this Ludvig guy anyway?”: My day at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am

As Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Adam Schenk made their way down the 16th fairway I was positioned by the green, ready to get a sight of one of Ireland’s greatest ever athletes. I wondered what reception McIlroy would get, as he was not in contention for the title and the crowd was dominated by California locals. Schauffele was not far from his childhood home of San Diego, and I thought the world’s 6th ranked golfer would get the biggest cheer as he approached the green. I was wrong.

McIlroy, who at the time was in a tie for 68th, was followed by a horde of onlookers and given the most encouragement out of anyone I saw the entire day outside of the final group. He has become a truly positive representation of the island of Ireland on a global stage, something we probably needed after the exploits of a certain mixed martial “artist” in the past decade.

It was interesting to keep an eye and ear on some of the things you don’t get to see on TV: Adam Hadwin and Sepp Straka chatting about whether they were playing in Phoenix at the Waste Management Open, Jordan Spieth praying to God for a putt to drop (although you might see that on tv from time to time), and Viktor Hovland chunking an 80 yard wedge shot into the front bunker.

However, the most impressive thing was the sheer calmness and poise with which these pros operate. Of course, their swings are incredibly impressive and 99% of golfers will never be able to produce the sound the ball makes when they hit driver. But I am now convinced that the thing that separates the top 100 from the rest of the pros is their mental game. The next time you step up to a putt to break 80 for the first time, or beat your friend in a match, think about doing that with thousands of people watching and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.

Making the right decisions, keeping a calm mind, and swinging your swing over and over again for 4 days straight, up against the best in the world at your craft. Really, really cool. I will be back, Pebble Beach.

Other Results:

• South African Dylan Fritelli won the Bahrain Championship by 2 strokes ahead of fellow Springbok Zander Lombard and Sweden’s Jesper Svensson

  • While LIV may have hurt the PGA Tour, it is the DP World Tour that might be losing out even more. More to come on this in an upcoming newsletter!

Coming up this week on Tour:

• The PGA Tour moves to Phoenix for the Waste Management Open, which has lost its status as a signature event, but still boasts a pretty strong field

  • Europeans playing include Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry, and Tom Detry

• LIV Golf is hosting its second event of the year in Las Vegas, where the Super Bowl is being held this weekend also. It should be quite the party in the desert

• Doha is the venue for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters on the DP World Tour