Charley Hoffman’s rant, projectile beers and Scheffler’s sneak-up | Monday Finish

Welcome back to the Monday Finish where we’re glad that unlike the Super Bowl, golf never has any rules controversies of any kind. Let’s get to it!

FIRST GROUP OUT

Scottie Scheffler and the art of sneaking up.

Winning a PGA Tour event is hard. But so is leading a PGA Tour event; plenty of evidence demonstrates that most pros have a tough time “sleeping on the lead” and pressure certainly mounts the longer your name is atop the board. That’s one possible explanation why first-time winners often use an alternate entrance to the winner’s circle: the side door. That’s certainly not meant to diminish anything about Scottie Scheffler’s maiden victory on Sunday at the WM Phoenix Open. Instead it’s meant to highlight something interesting: Until he made birdies at 15-16-17 on Sunday, Scheffler never seemed like the favorite to win in Phoenix.

In fact, Scheffler barely made the weekend. A double bogey on his 11th hole on Friday left him right on the cut line. But then, with his back against the wall, he responded by entering attack mode. Two birdies in his final seven holes on Friday, nine more en route to a Saturday 62 and nine more (including the playoff winner) in Sunday’s finale.

He started hot on Sunday with birdies at 2 and 3 to get right into the mix — but then appeared to drop from contention with a wild stretch of four bogeys and two birdies from holes 5-12.

“If you would have told me on 13 tee I was going to be in a playoff, I would have been pleased,” Scheffler said. “I felt a little bit out of it at that point, so to finish with four birdies coming in to get in a playoff was pretty nice.”

On the third playoff hole, Scheffler looked every bit the underdog again; he found the fairway bunker and left himself a lengthy birdie putt while Cantlay pumped his tee shot down the middle and hit wedge to 12 feet. But with his back again against the wall, Scheffler turned the tables, rolled in his 25-footer and walked off with the trophy.

We’ll see if his next victory comes in the same fashion.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

The PGA Tour’s product

Last week, Phil Mickelson came after the Tour, citing its “obnoxious greed,” alleging restrictive media rights and generally portraying the folks in Ponte Vedra as the Evil Empire. This week, Charley Hoffman turned a gripe with the Rules of Golf into an all-out tirade against the Tour, citing the incident as evidence why it soon might cease to exist. All of this comes in the context of massive reported sums offered to high-profile pros to jump ship to a new breakaway tour.

In other words, it was high time for the PGA Tour to showcase its best product. But on the weekend in Arizona, reports of the PGA Tour’s demise felt greatly exaggerated; the WM Phoenix Open was a wild, wonderful week filled with aces, beer showers and hundreds of thousands of delighted fans. Sunday presented a host of U.S. Ryder Cuppers doing battle with a young, lovable underdog, 54-hole leader Sahith Theegala, making just his 11th PGA Tour start. Paying players a boatload of money is easy. Creating the atmosphere at TPC Scottsdale? Not so much.

Sahith Theegala’s entire vibe

As mentioned above, Theegala found himself surrounded on the leaderboard by a whole host of elite talent. Holding off Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler is no easy task, but Theegala was very nearly up to it. He stepped up to the intimidating tee shot at No. 17, ripped 2-hybrid on an aggressive line and was just one reasonable bounce away from a two-putt birdie and a likely victory.

Instead his ball kicked into the water, he walked off the hole with an unfortunate bogey and made a nifty up-and-down at No. 18 to hang onto T3. After the round, an emotional Theegala greeted his family and spoke openly to the media about what the experience had meant to him. The entire sequence — the gritty contention, the aggression, the emotion — gained Theegala a legion of new admirers. He’ll be here to stay.

Mayhem at No. 16

You’ve seen the highlights by now. Aces. Chip-ins. Shirtless dancing men. Not every hole should be like No. 16 at Waste Management, but as a cathedral for a particular type of gluttonous, no-holds-barred, excessive spectating experience, this hole’s tough to beat.

ALMOST-WINNERS

So close, and yet…

Locked-in Brooks Koepka

It remains among the most mystifying questions on the PGA Tour. How is it that Brooks Koepka can appear to just *decide* to play well some weeks and that’s enough for him to contend? Koepka entered the week as defending champ. He mentioned that his world rank — 20 — was “embarrassing.” He hadn’t posted a top-20 on the PGA Tour since the last time he played a major championship, a T6 at last year’s Open.

For whatever reason Koepka also seems to categorize the WM Phoenix Open as a major championship, though, so we shouldn’t have been surprised to see his name in contention. And while a series of loose wedge shots doomed his chances down the stretch, birdies at 13, 15, 17 and 18 were enough for Koepka to finish T3, an encouraging sign as he stares down major season.

Patrick Cantlay’s chase for World No. 1

As Patrick Cantlay stared down a short birdie putt at No. 17, he looked like the tournament’s most likely champion. As he stared down an even shorter birdie putt at No. 18 he looked even more like the tournament’s champion. But both putts went wanting, Scheffler turned the tables and Cantlay settled for a measly runner-up, $900k or so, a world ranking of No. 3 and the ability to unseat No. 1 Jon Rahm at this week’s Genesis Invitational. Keep playing like this and we think he’ll get over the heartbreak sooner or later.

Xander Schauffele, near-winner

While various other contenders experienced turbulent stretches of birdies and bogeys on Sunday, Xander Schauffele was doing some Grade A lurking. He made eight consecutive pars to begin the round. But he added birdies at 9 and 13 to stay in touch with the leaders. He drove the green at No. 17 and his eagle putt threw on the brakes just two inches early; he settled for a blow-in birdie. And at No. 18 he flagged his approach shot from the rough to nine feet. Had he made that putt he would have snuck into the playoff and potentially emerged with his first Tour victory since 2018. Instead it was another near-miss for the World No. 7, who continues to rack up top-threes. With Schauffele, as with Cantlay, life could be worse.

NOT-WINNERS

Not their week.

Charley Hoffman’s mentions

Whatever Charley Hoffman was trying to achieve with his Friday Instagram rant — which began with the PGA Tour’s rules and its lack of “player protection” and finished with the suggestion that rulings like his were the reason players would ultimately leave — he didn’t achieve the desired result. Instead he left the impression that he was using his fans for…something. The whole thing felt disingenuous, completely missed the mark and, not unlike fellow San Diegan Phil Mickelson‘s “obnoxious greed” tirade, seemed to be an attempt to tell us something we knew not to be quite true. It didn’t sit well with Hoffman, either — he shot 79-75 on the weekend to finish dead last among players who made the cut.

Charley Hoffman’s rule

Here’s the thing, though: Hoffman actually had a point. His initial gripe was about being doubly penalized when he took a drop and then, after coming to rest, his ball rolled into the water. This rules makes no sense; unless you cause the ball to move, golfers should be immune from this sort of double jeopardy. If Hoffman had stuck to making that point, the public would have rallied to his cause.

Here’s what’s interesting, though: Not only did the same thing happen to Rickie Fowler as he was leading this tournament, it also spooked then-leader Theegala as he chipped on No. 17. Here’s what he said:

“It was such a steep slope, I was worried about the ball kind of, rolling back, so I maybe rushed my process just a little bit there and hit a poor chip — and hit a poor putt.”

Let’s find a way to make this right to avoid any future double-penalties.

Playoff ratings

Going up against the most-watched sporting event in the world can’t do your playoff any favors. The Waste Management is a terrific prelude to the Super Bowl but it falls somewhat short as side-by-side competition.

Beers as projectiles

There’s a bunch of hand-wringing about how far is “too far” when it comes to the debauchery at the WMPO. Well, I’m here to draw the exact line: It’s all good until a player gets pegged with an actual beer. And it sounds like we were bumping up against that line over the weekend. Justin Thomas said “the beer-throwing gets a little dicey sometimes.” And Carlos Ortiz, whose hole-in-one inspired plenty of celebration on Sunday, said he was dodging beers left and right.

“A lot of people cheering for you and then you start trying to watch out for your head because I got actually nailed pretty hard on the back with a beer can, and then after that I was just trying to just avoid all the cans I could.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I want my golfers to complete their rounds un-concussed. Beyond that, play on!

WHAT’S NEXT

3 things to watch this week.

1. Sahith greets his family.

2. Shoe-chugging

After winning the Vic Open, Hannah Green celebrated in proper fashion:

3. Genesis Invitational coverage!

I’ll be in Los Angeles this week with a few talented members of the GOLF team. Stay tuned for on-the-ground action. We’ll see you next week!