After a frustrating delay, Finau savors tasty triumph
Tony Finau’s win over the Thomas Pieters was a long time coming. One year to be exact. His last visit to the WGCDell Match Play was, in a word, uneventful.
He showed up at the Austin Country Club in 2016 as the next-in-line alternate, which meant he was simply the No. 65 guy in a field of 64. How does it feel to basically hang around the course with one ear focused on the loudspeaker, hoping to hear that one of your colleagues has dropped out of the tournament for one reason or another? The guess here is not good. That was Finau’s reality for two days in Austin in 2017. Had one golfer, just one, withdrawn from the field before play started, Finau — the cousin of Milwaukee Bucks forward Jabari Parker — would have had a chance to test his mettle against the world’s best.
As it turned out, Finau did play a practice round at ACC but not one during the tournament. No golfers pulled out, though it should be mentioned that defending champion Jason Day withdrew six holes into his first match to be with his mother, who was battling lung cancer in Ohio.
Even more frustrating for Finau was that he put off a chance to defend his title at the Puerto Rico Open to travel to Austin. The gamble didn’t pay off, but Finau, a 28-year-old father of three, made his wait worth it Wednesday, when he recorded a 2-and-1 victory in his opening match. The American next faces Swede Alex Noren in pool play.
“I wanted the opportunity to play in the WGC (last year),” Finau said. “I wanted to put all my energy here and not think about Puerto Rico. So when I committed to play here last year, I was planning on playing. When I didn’t, I was like, ‘Pack your bags and get ready for next week.’”
What Finau didn’t know was that a columnist from the local paper was frantically looking for him back in 2017. I had been pitched the story by one of my editors, who thought it would be a cool idea to have a column about a guy who basically showed up here hoping another golfer would pull out.
On the bright side, I was able to become acquainted with every crack and crevice at Austin Country Club as I searched for Finau in 2017. I met the nice folks in the pro shop, who did their best to see if he had been spotted on the course, and I also grew to know the accommodating ushers while asking them to text me if they spotted the 6-foot-4 Finau.
“I tried to get you last year, but you were a couple of steps ahead of me the whole way,” I told Finau on Wednesday.
“Ha, ha, it’s all good,” he said, stopping to chat with some well-wishers.
Finau’s resemblance to Parker is noticeable, and they share a basketball bond. Finau helped his high school hoops team in Utah to a pair of state tournaments, and on Wednesday, he was able to overcome a two-hole deficit through three holes with some nice hustle, particularly on the sixth hole, where found the greenside bunker while Pieters was poised to take a huge lead after chipping to within six feet of the cup. Finau recovered, getting up and down. Pieters’ putt to win the hole went wide.
Finau had some shaky moments, too. He found the water on No. 12 and threeputted on the 13th to leave the door open, but he played 1-under for the rest of the round, making a birdie on the par-3 15th to put all the pressure on his Belgian opponent.
Turns out Finau’s decision to skip Puerto Rico worked out well. The son of Tongan-Samoan immigrants who came to the U.S. in the mid-1960s recorded three top-five finishes to close 2017 and rise to No. 40 in the world rankings. This year, he already has runner-up finishes at the Safeway Open and the Genesis Open to move up to No. 34.
The kid who was on the outside looking in at ACC last year is now two wins away from automatically qualifying for the round of 16.
“I didn’t feel like I was going to be prepared if I left here and played Puerto Rico,” he said. “So the best thing for was to pick which one I was going to play. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t play.”
He’s playing now and playing well. Last year’s experience is water under the Pennybacker Bridge. a sand save on the 18th hole to close out a closely contested match. Even then, a disruptive Twix candy wrapper blew near his ball in the green-side bunker and refused to budge but couldn’t interrupt his focus. But at least he survived. “Match play, it’s brutal,” Thomas said.
And he was a winner on day one. So were three-time major champion Jordan Spieth, fivetime PGA Tour winner Patrick Reed and two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson, who opened with four consecutive birdies and seven in his first nine holes. Despite very benign conditions with a windless Wednesday and gorgeous blue skies, many of the game’s bigger names struggled.
Spieth’s first shot of the day was closer to a Torchy’s Taco food trailer than the first hole fairway. Defending champion Dustin Johnson posted a nine on the par-5 sixth and lost 3 and 1. Rory McIlroy fell behind 5-down to Peter Uihlein after nine holes and lost, too.
And Thomas, the reigning player of the year and FedExCup titleholder, had to scramble out of a ravine to halve a hole on No. 9 and received a fortuitous deflection on No. 6 when his errant drive hit a familiar fan in a cowboy hat and careered back toward the fairway fringe.
“It’s a little swollen, but it’s not my first time to be hit,” said former Texas baseball All-American Keith Moreland, who got plunked by 13 pitches during his 12-year major league career. “If he gets up and down here, I’ll take a percentage (of his winnings).”
Thomas signed and handed over one of his golf gloves, inscribing it with “Thanks for the bounce.” Of course, Moreland probably didn’t tell the Alabama golfer his son, Cole, played golf for Tide rival Auburn for four years.
Thomas needed all the help he could get because he didn’t sink many more putts than List did with his sand wedge after List bent his putter a fraction of an inch and used a secondary club for the last 11 holes.
“I was thinking how much it’d hurt if I couldn’t get it done,” said Thomas, who has won eight times in the past two-plus seasons, including twice this year. “I felt I played a lot better than the score would indicate. Today was about as easy as this golf course will ever play. Perfect conditions. No wind. I was just lucky Luke was not at his best.”
When I asked how often Thomas practices putting with a sand wedge, he quipped, “Uh, never. It’d be pointless.”
It would be unless you’re List, a rising star who has three top-20 finishes this season. Thomas was reluctant to concede any short putts for the powerful 6-3 golfer because all’s fair in love and match play. He made List putt out a 2-footer on the par-3 17th because, well, you never know. “He putted probably two or three putts I wouldn’t have made him putt with a putter,” he said.
For the 24-year-old Thomas, it marked only his second career match play win in seven tries because, he said, frankly, he hadn’t played well enough to win the past two years. So it’s somewhat of a relief to start with a win to reinforce his status as the best golfer in the world not named Dustin Johnson.
“It’s no surprise,” 2016 Dell winner Jason Day said of Thomas. “I’m so impressed with his firepower and his touch around the greens. He’s not No. 1, but he’s probably playing the best golf of anyone. He’s someone we’re all striving to go after.”
Spieth can appreciate the meteoric rise of his lifelong friend, whom he beat for the 2012 college national championship, and said it’s “amazing to see how aggressive he’s playing and how he plays just fearless golf. It’s fun to chase him.”
They could be chasing each other all week but can’t meet until Sunday’s final if they keep advancing. Who knows, by then Thomas might be eating a whole lot of tacos and brisket and feeling even stronger. And he might even get in some practice on the putting green with his own sand wedge. Just in case.
Not Spieth, who says in a similar circumstance he would use a lob wedge to putt.
“I probably could have used it on the front nine today,” he said. “I would have done better.”