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Kevin Yu Parks secures playoff win at Sanderson Farms Championship
Kevin Yu parks in winner's circle in playoff victory at Sanderson Farms Championship
Early in the week at the Sanderson Farms Championship, Kevin Yu’s father, Tommy Yu, tried to park in what turned out to be an area reserved for past champions. As fathers tend to do, Tommy made a passing comment that, well, next year his son would have his own spot in there.
What a call.
It took an extra hole - the third straight year the Sanderson Farms Championship has gone into a playoff - but Kevin, an Arizona State alum whose father got him into golf in the first place, emerged as a first-time winner on the PGA TOUR over Beau Hossler.
“Feels amazing," Kevin said. "Feels like a dream come true. I've been dreaming this since I was 5. I just feel like to do it with my parents out here, it's really special. “Everybody was saying, like ‘first win is always very special and only get it once,’ so (I’m) really happy.”
Yu birdied the first extra hole after stuffing his approach to 5 feet. He closed with a tidy 15-footer on the 72nd hole to post at 23-under.
Hossler was in trouble off the tee on No. 18 but after he punched out from behind a tree, he knocked his approach to a few feet and rolled in his par. Keith Mitchell, the 54-hole leader, had a 35-foot birdie try to win in regulation but it just slid by. And he missed the comebacker for par, leaving him one out of the playoff.
“I hate that it ended that way," Mitchell said. "The way I played on the back nine probably wasn't -- definitely wasn't my best. Only hit one fairway which was 18. I was just grinding to stay in it. Long story short, glad I fought 71-and-a-half holes.”
For Yu, his journey to the PGA TOUR winner’s circle is one of hope, perseverance, and of course, a father’s love. Yu started to play when he was about 5, and his father built a driving range not long after that. It didn’t take very much time at all before Yu got good. Real good. He beat his dad when he was just 10 years old, he recalls. Yu’s parents worked hard to get him to America, help him to college, and they just so happened to be in Jackson all the way from Chinese Taipei for this particular week.
“Just to have them out here, it's really special,” Yu said. “I don't really get to see them very often, and I mean, to have them out here is very special. Just really thankful for them to be here. I think they're a part of the reason why I win today.”
The victory came after a hearty mental reset for Yu, who took the last month to come down after a busy summertime stretch. Yu had played six events in a row on the PGA TOUR, then represented his home country at the Olympics before returning for the Wyndham Championship. This was his first start of the FedExCup Fall. Through the final part of the season, Yu admitted he wasn’t quite into it mentally.
So, this week, Yu took it back to as simple an approach as possible. He wanted to be aggressive and not overthink the results as much. That was that. And the result was the best of his career.
“I feel like this week I was really calm and just feel like little break from last month really helped me, just not thinking too much,” Yu said. “I took a little break and now I'm back and I just feel like my mind is really fresh.”
Yu is the 12th first-time winner on the PGA TOUR this season, but just the third in TOUR history from Chinese Taipei to tilt a trophy. T.C. Chen was the first, all the way back in 1987 at the Los Angeles Open (now The Genesis Invitational), and C.T. Pan followed at the 2019 RBC Heritage. Adding Yu’s name to that small list is not lost on him. An honor. An inspiration for the next generation. And frankly, something that’s just very cool.
“I just show them that we can do it, we can do it by working really hard, have a clear mindset and dream big and we can do it," said Yu.
Winning on TOUR is a dream, achieved, for Kevin Yu.
And of course, it comes with a nice parking spot next year at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
SOURCE: [pgatour.com]
Fairy tale moment for Keegan Bradley as he gets winning point for U.S. President Cup
Keegan Bradley gets long-awaited ‘fairy tale’ moment, clinches winning point for U.S. Presidents Cup victory
MONTREAL – Forgive Keegan Bradley for not closing it out sooner. Ten years of pent-up nerves are hard to shake.
Of course, the Presidents Cup came down to Bradley, the 38-year-old incoming Ryder Cup captain who spent a decade desperately hoping, praying and pleading to get another crack at this moment. Why not? He had resigned himself to believing it would only come with an earpiece and clipboard in hand – that his chance to play on a U.S. side might be done. But a late win at the BMW Championship in August earned him a nod from Captain Jim Furyk.
So perhaps it was only fair that the frequent bridesmaid of these U.S. Teams was the one to close it out. Fittingly, though, he had to wait longer than he hoped.
Bradley missed a 4-foot par putt on 17 and an 8-foot birdie putt on 16, both of which would have clinched the Cup. But when Si Woo Kim missed a 6-footer on 18, it was assured – Bradley secured a 1-up victory along with his triumphant moment as the player who clinched the Presidents Cup.
“It's a fairy tale. It's a movie almost,” Bradley said, who went 2-1-0 this week. “I just can't believe it. You just have to work as hard as I can, and good things happen.”
The last time Keegan Bradley played Sunday Singles, it ended in heartbreak. He missed a putt on the 14th hole at Gleneagles in 2014, pushing his match dormie with Jamie Donaldson, securing Europe the winning point at the Ryder Cup.
Bradley has played that moment – and dozens more from that week in Scotland – in his head for the last decade. There are no events he wants to play more than the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup He famously still hasn’t unpacked his suitcase from that week in 2014. He was in play for a captain’s pick for the 2018 Ryder Cup but fell a bit short. He was the last man out a year ago, too. The phone call with Zach Johnson where he learned he was left off the team was captured for hundreds of thousands of eyes to see on Season 2 of Netflix’s “Full Swing.”
All that left Bradley believing his chance was over. He was selected to be Ryder Cup captain this summer and vowed he still wanted to earn a spot on the team. This year’s selection was actually a bit of a surprise. Bradley didn’t play well for much of the summer. He snuck into the BMW as No. 50 in the FedExCup, then got hot and won. Furyk pointed to it as the reason Bradley was selected.
“I’m still trying to figure out how all this happened,” Bradley said. “A month ago I wasn't even in the BMW, and then we were here and then the Presidents Cup point.
“I really took for granted how special these weeks were. I watched a lot of these things on TV and was really sad to not be here.”
The fire still burns in Bradley to make another team and avoid being a bystander again. But he stood on the 18th green in peace, knowing he’s OK if it doesn’t happen. This week did that.
“If this is my last round as a player, I'm happy with that,” Bradley said.
Bradley wiped away tears as he hugged Sam Burns and Jim Furyk moments after the Americans won the Cup. Bradley has caught himself being emotional a few times this week. He secured a point on that same green three days earlier, a 1-up victory in Thursday’s Four-ball that cemented a 5-0 sweep. In the press conference after, he said looked up to the younger players around him, inspired by their ability to be what he wasn’t when he was their age. He treated his fellow peers as his enemies back then, unable to cultivate friendships outside the ropes because of it.
“I really regret that,” Bradley said. “These guys care about each other. They want to beat them inside the ropes bad, but when they get outside the ropes, they're friends, the wives are friends. It's a much happier way to go about this life.”
That’s the life he lives. He was serenaded in cheers by his teammates when answering a question in the winners' press conference on Sunday night. Now, he fully assumes a role he’s always dreamed of having: U.S. Ryder Cup Team captain. Bradley was relieved of his Presidents Cup captain’s assistant duties after he was selected as a captain’s pick, but he learned plenty playing. He was a sponge, soaking up every aspect of the process. He saw what it was like in a younger generation’s team room, what they liked and what he liked. He watched from afar as the captains put together pairings. He observed how leadership cultivated a tight bond with players. He commended Furyk for having the players play matches against each other in practice rounds and how they arrived a day early to give them more time to acclimate.
“We're going to copy a lot of what Jim Furyk did this week,” Bradley said.
More than anything, he’d like to copy the result. He won’t have to wait long for that opportunity.
SOURCE: [pgatour.com]