South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
It’s Westwood vs. DeChambeau Part 2
Taggart pleased with Owls’ level of progress during spring practices
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — One aims to continue his rise to the top of the golf world, playing a style all his own.
The other, 20 years his senior, is a former world No. 1 with plenty of game himself and an abundance of youthful enthusiasm these days.
Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Westwood will meet again Sunday, this time with the Players Championship at stake.
“It’s like Round 2,” Westwood said. “The rematch.”
The big-hitting, hot-putting DeChambeau was the last man standing last Sunday at Orlando’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge, edging Westwood by a shot to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The steady, unflappable
Westwood dusted himself off and finds himself with another 54-hole lead, this time following Saturday’s workmanlike 4-under par 68.
At 13-under par 203 total, the 47-year-old Westwood holds a two-shot advantage over the 27-year-old
DeChambeau, who trailed by a single stroke entering the final round at Bay Hill. The Westwood-DeChambeau showdown will mark the first time two golfers have played in the final pairing on consecutive Sundays since Adam Scott and Vijay Singh did during the 2006
Tour Championship and
2007 Tournament of Champions.
Lurking just behind the two men on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass will be a host of world-class players who entered the fray on Moving Day. World No. 3 Justin Thomas made the biggest jump, courtesy of a tournament-low, 8-under 64 to reach 10-under par. World No. 2 Jon Rahm scaled the leaderboard behind a
5-under par round of 67, leaving him 9-under and four off the lead.
“Definitely not a two-horse race,” Westwood said as he seeks the biggest win of a decorated career. “People can come from behind. It’s a tough front-running golf course.”
Westwood followed a tried-and-true formula at TPC Sawgrass to seize the advantage. Long one of the world’s top ball-strikers, Westwood has missed just eight greens in regulation over 54 holes, finding 15 of
18 greens on Saturday. The struggles with Westwood typically have come once he reaches the putting surface.
A day after he made more than 122 feet of putts, Westwood could not buy one Saturday on his way to nine pars to open his round. He finally sank a birdie just outside 10 feet on the par-4
10th, his longest made putt of the third round until a
25-foot dropped for a 2 on the iconic par-3 17th hole island green, drawing roars from fans spread all along the hillsides of the Stadium Course.
“There’s an element of skill, but obviously there’s an element of fortune when one of those goes in,” Westwood said.
When the FAU Owls started spring camp last week, coach Willie Taggart emphasized the importance of establishing fundamentals and learning the altered schemes under the team’s new coordinators.
And through the first half of spring practices, with Saturday’s situational scrimmage marking the Owls’ eighth of 15, Taggart believes the team’s overall understanding is right where it needs to be.
“We’re right on progress of where we need to be in learning and understanding,” he said. “Each and every day, our guys are getting better at the things we’re doing. You’re not seeing the same mistakes as much as we were earlier, which is a sign of improvement.
“It’ll be fun to let them get out on the field and let them play without the coaches being out there, seeing exactly what they know and don’t know.”
FAU added new offensive and defensive coordinators over the offseason in Michael Johnson and Mike Stoops, respectively.
For the Owls defense, it’s the fifth consecutive year in which it has had a new coordinator — which makes adjusting to new schemes and terminology somewhat routine for the players.
“Coaches always say, ‘Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready,’ ” said cornerback Zyon Gilbert,
who’s entering his fifth year with the program. “A coach always comes in with a new scheme. You just have to buy in and learn as much as you can.”
With all the defensive coordinator changes, it’s helped Gilbert realize that a lot of the time the schemes are similar, but the way coaches ask them to fulfill an assignment may be different.
“When new coaches come in, defenses stay the same,” he said. “It’s just different terminology that he wants to use.”
Stoops, who was an analyst at Alabama for two seasons before joining FAU, sees daily improvements from the defense.
“Conceptually, the concepts are starting to make sense to the players,” he said. “They can’t see the big picture yet, but it’s starting to come into focus a little bit. You start to get a better feel for the different types of players you have — what they’re good at and what guys can do what.
“We’ve installed a great deal and they’ve worked hard to understand the principles of what we’re trying to do. On defense, we’re a long way from being a finished group.”
For Stoops, it’s too early to describe the kind of defense the Owls will have on their hands when the season starts in September.
“We’ve been in some competitive situations but not really in a scrimmage environment yet,” he said. “I have a pretty good idea, [but] I don’t want to talk about people until they get in a competitive environment for the entirety of the entire day.
“There are some guys who have built some trust already, but we’ve got to get the whole group to play a certain way and build trust along with the whole group.
“We’re just not there. Sometimes it doesn’t come together until maybe even the first week of the season.
Right guard reps: With Federico Maranges rehabbing from a labrum injury and out for spring practices, Taggart said Andrew Boselli and Doug Johnson Jr. have taken the majority of the reps at right guard in practices.
Maranges started eight of the Owls’ nine games in 2020 before missing the team’s loss to Memphis in the Montgomery Bowl, with Adarius Tolliver starting in his place.
Boselli is the son of five-time NFL Pro Bowler and College Football Hall of Famer Tony Boselli. He joined FAU as a graduate transfer from Florida State, where Taggart previously coached, during the offseason after four years with the program.
Johnson was used in the offensive line rotation last season and started at right tackle for BJ Etienne when the Owls were without 43 players due to injuries and COVID-19-related absences.
“He’s another one that’s improved so much,” Taggart said of Johnson.
“Big Doug is having a good spring.”