Kevin Na wins Greenbrier to end long drought
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Kevin Na’s hot putter ended his cold streak on the PGA Tour.
Na shot a 6-under-par 64 for a five-stroke victory Sunday at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier, ending a winless streak of nearly seven years on the top-tier tour. The 34-year-old’s only other PGA Tour win was in Las Vegas in October 2011.
“I wasn’t sure if it was going to come again. I was hoping it would — sooner than later,” Na said. “I’ve been close so many times, failed so many times.”
Na had three dozen top-10 finishes since his first win and showed signs earlier this year that reaching the top again was still well within reach. He tied for second at the Genesis Open in January, two shots behind Bubba Watson. In late May, he shot 61 in the first round of the Fort Worth Invitational to match the course record and finished fourth.
Starting Sunday’s round one stroke behind co-leaders Kelly Kraft and Harold Varner III, Na birdied six of his first 10 holes to open a big lead at The Old White TPC, and he cruised from there. The only blemish on his card was a bogey on the par-4 11th after driving into the rough.
Na finished at 19-under 261 and picked up the $1.31 million winner’s paycheck as he improved 40 spots to No. 18 in the FedEx Cup standings.
Kraft (70) wound up second, while Jason Kokrak (67) and Brandt Snedeker (64) tied for third at 13 under. Varner (72) shared fifth with four other golfers: Austin Cook (66), Joel Dahmen (69), Joaquin Niemann (64) and Sam Saunders (70).
Na’s birdie stretch included made putts of 24, 33 and 43 feet.
“My putter got hot,” Na said. “The first day the putter felt awful, and (then) it just clicked. Every time I got over the ball it felt great, and everything felt like it was going in.”
By the time he strolled up to the 18th green, Na was at ease, relaying his love to his wife and young daughter via a TV camera. He cried during a TV interview after the round as he relayed a message to fans in Korean.
“I didn’t want to leave the Korean fans out,” said Na, who was born in South Korea before moving to California with his family as a child.
The only drama down the stretch was who would pick up the last of the tournament’s four qualifying spots to the British Open in two weeks. Na had already earned a spot. Varner needed to make a birdie putt on either No. 17 or 18 to get there, but he parred both holes. That gave the final spot to Cook.
Kokrak, Kraft and Snedeker were the other qualifiers — the leading four players not already exempt from the top 12 finishers qualified for next week’s tournament.
Former Baylor School standout Keith Mitchell (65) tied for 30th at 6 under, won $41,529 and earned 23 FedEx Cup points. Chattanooga’s Stephan Jaeger (70), a fellow PGA Tour rookie and former Red Raider, shared 47th at 4 under to earn $18,524 and eight points.
Phil Mickelson (74) tied for 65th at 1 under and broke the rules again, only this time he didn’t realize it until after his violation. Mickelson tamped down fescue grass with his foot in front of the seventh tee, then called a two-stroke penalty on himself for improving his line of play.
At the U.S. Open last month, Mickelson intentionally violated a rule by hitting a moving ball on the green in the third round. He first defended his actions, then later apologized, saying his anger and frustration got the best of him.
On Sunday’s gaffe, Mickelson said he “wasn’t really thinking.” After stepping on the grass, he paused before he hit his tee shot, realized the mistake and checked with a rules official, who confirmed the violation.
Record shattered
ONEIDA, Wis. — Sei Young Kim became the first player in LPGA Tour history to go lower than 30 under in a performance so dominant in the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic, she now has the tour’s scoring records all to herself.
Kim closed with a 7-under 65 for a nine-shot victory, finishing at 31-under 257 to break by four shots to par the record she had shared with Annika Sorenstam. Kim won the 2016 Founders Cup at 27 under, while Sorenstam won the 2001 Standard Register Ping at 27 under, the same tournament Sorenstam at which shot 59.
Kim also set the 72-hole scoring record at 257, finishing with three straight pars to break the mark by one shot.
The only blemish for Kim at the tournament was a double bogey in the second round. The 25-year-old South Korean had 31 birdies and one eagle — a record for most sub-par holes in a tournament — and hit 67 out of 72 greens in regulation.
Kim had tied another Sorenstam record Saturday, when she was 24 under through 54 holes. She reached 28 under with a tap-in birdie on the par-5 ninth Sunday. She began the back nine with another birdie when her wedge shot from about 100 yards stopped a few feet from the hole, and she became the first to reach 30 under by making a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 12th.
Carlota Ciganda closed with a 64 despite a double bogey on the 18th hole and finished alone in second.
Knox wins playoff
DONEGAL, Ireland — Scottish golfer Russell Knox rolled in almost identical birdie putts from around 40 feet on the 72nd hole and the first playoff hole to win the Irish Open.
After Knox made a birdie on No. 18 to close with a 6-under 66 and set the clubhouse target at 14 under, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox missed an eight-foot birdie putt that would have won the European Tour Rolex Series event, shooting a 68 to set up the extra hole.
They went back to the 18th tee for the playoff, and Knox pitched from 131 yards to virtually the same spot on the green. His long birdie putt curled left to right and into the cup. Fox failed to match the birdie, with his putt agonizingly lipping out, and Knox put his hands to his face.
“Tough to describe how amazing this feels,” Knox said. “It’s why I play golf — all the practice days, all the misses, all the bad moments, all are taken care of with putts like that … Making two of them from almost identical positions, I mean, that’s a bit of a bonus. Unbelievable.”
Knox is set to climb into the top 50 of the World Golf Ranking and has boosted his chances of making Europe’s Ryder Cup team in September.
Jorge Campillo (65) was third at 13 under, with 2017 tournament champion Jon Rahm (66) and Erik van Rooyen (74) sharing fourth at 12 under.
Fox earned a place in next week’s British Open in Carnoustie, Scotland, as did Zander Lombard and Andy Sullivan as the top three players in the top 10 on the final leaderboard who were not already exempt for the year’s third major.