PGA Tour: Waste Management Phoenix Open final leaderboard here.
When it finally came down to the short strokes at this sunny warm version of the Waste Management Phoenix Open their were 5 guys at the table.
The deal: Defending champion Brooks Koepka bowed out first, he ran out of holes at -15, so did Xander Schauffele. Many were pulling for underdog rookie Sahith Theegala, who defied all the odds even being in this company, ran out of the race with a drive into the water at the 17th. He'll have another crack at it at home this weekend at Riviera.
Then it was down to Patrick Cantlay and Scottie Scheffler. Cantlay a quiet assassin had it all won with a 5 footer at the 72nd which he misread right, it never touched the hole.
So then the pair stick handled their way up and down the 18th three times until Scheffler holed a 20 foot birdie putt, and Cantlay missed, game set and match in front of an enormous crowd, the biggest you'll see this year, all spilling out from the 16th grandstand to surround the 18th...
What Covid ? Not one mask, not a chance of spacing, no thought of COVID or OMICRON, and over 700,000 showed up like that all week. Meanwhile for what ever your stance is, the Leafs/Raptors are still playing in an empty arena in front of tarpaulins up here in Toronto.
Adam Hadwin in my opinion had a really good experience this week, he was right in the thick of things from Thursday- Saturday with some terrific play 66 68 68 -11.
By Sunday the leaderboard as we knew, was really tightly bunched with 16 big name guys who had a chance. The air was rarified, there wasn't a lot of room for bogey's, unless like Scheffler you got on a run of 4 birdies to catch up..
That wasn't the case for Adam. Saturday he birdied the first 3 holes with all the rest pars. Sunday he made bogey's at 2 and 3 turning 2 over. Another bogey at the 10th and now he was -8 and out of it without a birdie run. A birdie at the par 5 13th was negated by another bogey at 14, he parred his way in for that +3 74 and a final T26.
Corey Connors got as high as -9, but got into bogey trouble, ended up T38 with a 72 and -5.
This week Hadwin, Connors and Sloan will fly over to LA for the Genesis at Riviera, joined by Mac Hughes. Waiting for a call are Pendrith, Svensson and Taylor all on the alternative list.
Tiger will steal all the media time as he is there hosting the event, so let's hope he holds the presser on Tuesday, says whatever he has to say and gets the speculation over with.
Bryan Angus
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