Tiger’s surgery, a life-saving boat rescue, one top pro’s misquote | Monday Finish
Lilia Vu's caddie Cole Pensanti stole the show with this post-win belly flop.
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Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’re sad we didn’t win a major but a bit relieved we didn’t have to jump into the Snake Lake. Let’s get to it!
FIRST OFF THE TEE
The ripple effect.
“The reason I’m here is because of my grandpa.”
So said Lilia Vu in her winner’s press conference at the Chevron Championship, the first women’s major of the year. Technically the rest of us could say the same thing, too — would any of us be here without our grandparents? — but oh boy does Vu’s grandfather gets extra credit.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, he decided his top priority was to get his family out of the country and to the United States of America. But how to get there? He elected to build a boat. The family story goes that Vu’s grandfather would disappear into the countryside for weeks at a time before, one day, he told his wife and their children that it was time to go. They rushed through the jungle, boarded the boat and headed towards a new future.
As they set sail, others rushed to join them. Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols reported that the boat’s capacity was around 54 — but soon 82 people had come aboard. He took them all, but before long, that proved too many. Just a couple days into the journey, the vessel began to fail.
“The boat had a leak, so they really needed to find someone to help them out,” Vu recalled on Sunday, recounting family lore. They shot up a flare, calling for help — and, miraculously, an American naval ship was in the area. The group, which included Vu’s grandfather and her mother, too, was hauled aboard the USS Brewton. They were brought to the United States. Fifteen years later, Vu was born. Two decades after that she’d become the winningest golfer in UCLA’s history. And a half-decade after that she’d become a major champion.
The last time Vu saw her grandfather he was in the hospital being treated for a heart condition. It was the beginning of Covid and she was headed off to an Epson Tour event in Florida. By the time she returned, he’d passed away.
“The last thing he told me was to play my best,” she said.
Vu still thinks of him often, she said, including during Sunday’s final round, when she could feel frustration bubbling over.
“I was getting really upset on the course and I just had to remind myself, like, Grandpa is with you, and he’d be really disappointed if you were getting upset like this and that you didn’t get your act together.”
All of ’em close. None of ’em quite got there.
At the Zurich, Sungjae Im and Keith Mitchell faltered on their final nine but emerged as feel-good pals and almost-winners nonetheless.
NOT-WINNERS
Maybe next week.
Lydia Ko entered the week at World No. 1. Ko had quite the offseason; she got married and shuffled coaches and caddies. She started the year hot with a win at the Saudi International but showed mixed form entering this week and, after an uneven second round, went home early with a missed cut. Lexi Thompson has been among the most consistent presences in recent major championship history but went home early, too. Last week’s winner Grace Kim and last year’s winner Jennifer Kupcho also got cut.
Lydia Ko’s big changes raise big questions at Chevron Championship
At the Zurich, Team John Daly-David Duval were fan favorites, no doubt. But their two-day total of 14 over par included a second-round 83 and left them in last place by 12 shots.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Misquote, in this case.
An intriguing email landed in my inbox this morning from David Winkle, agent to Dustin Johnson, clarifying that Johnson had not, in fact, taken a shot at PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan over the weekend.
Need some backstory? I did, too. But it turns out a number of outlets (including mega-tabloid the Daily Mail) reported that Johnson had been asked how the PGA Tour commissioner might be feeling in response to LIV’s ongoing existence.
“We don’t give a damn how he [Jay Monahan] feels. We know how he feels about us, so it’s mutual,” Johnson was quoted as saying. If that sounds unusually confrontational for DJ, well, that’s because it wasn’t DJ. What actually happened was that Johnson declined comment while Pat Perez — who speaks more often and more freely — jumped in with the dig at the commish. LIV’s SVP of player communications confirmed the misreporting.
Johnson deserves to be displeased with the entire episode. But the way he handled the incident revealed something interesting: Not only did Johnson not take a shot at Monahan, it was important to him and to his team that we know he didn’t.
“Dustin remains grateful for his time on the PGA TOUR and has the utmost respect for Commissioner Monahan,” Winkle wrote.
It was the latest example of Johnson doing what he can to stay above the fray; thus far he has taken an intentionally straightforward approach to the LIV-PGA Tour divide. Even at LIV Adelaide, which hosted the controversial circuit’s most boisterous crowds to date, that trend continued. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
TIGER TALK
Why this surgery feels different.
Tiger Woods announced last week that he’d undergone a successful subtalar fusion surgery. Based on his statement plus comments his agent made to the AP, this feels different than other Woods surgeries. It seems like a decision Woods made with his day-to-day quality of life in mind rather than anything to do with his golf future. The surgery means a loss of mobility in his right ankle. It also means less pain. Anyone who watched Woods suffer through a cold, miserable Saturday at the Masters could see the agony he was playing through; it’s encouraging to hear this should help address that.
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