Steele starts fast again, would like better finish

Brendan Steele knows all about a fast start to the season. What he’d like to avoid is the slow finish.

Steele won the Safeway Open a year ago, and he felt he was on his way. He made the cut in his next 16 tournaments. He had three top 10s, including a tie for sixth in The Players Championship. He made the cut in both majors he played during that stretch.

He was 13th in the FedEx Cup, and the Tour Championship looked like a sure thing. And then it wasn’t.

“I really felt like at the end of the season through the summer, I definitely limited myself as to what I was trying to achieve,” Steele said. “I just wanted to make the Tour Championship so bad, I was just trying to scratch and claw for every point I could. There was never going to be a week where I had a chance to win playing like that because you play to the level you’re thinking.

“If you’re trying to make the cut, you’ll be right around the cut line,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to win. I wasn’t trying to play my best. I was just trying to get whatever points I could and I played right to that level.”

He made only three cuts in his last seven events, and two of those tournaments didn’t even have cuts.

Career money exemptions

Tim Clark is coming up on the second anniversary since he last played on the PGA Tour at the 2016 CareerBuilder Challenge. Instead of taking a major medical extension, he is using a one-time exemption for being among the top 50 in career money (No. 47).

Whether he plays depends on his health. Clark spent time this year working with Russell Henley on his wedge game.

Also using a one-time exemption for top 50 in career money is two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, who is No. 26 in career money. Goosen, who turns 49 in February, narrowly kept his card for last season.

Sergio’s clubs

Sergio Garcia is playing the next two weeks, and there’s sure to be more attention than usual on what clubs he has in the bag.

The Masters champion is a free agent. Garcia and TaylorMade Golf on Monday announced a mutual release from the rest of his contract. Garcia had been with TaylorMade since 2003, and he has been an even stronger ambassador for Adidas.

— Wire services