Hogan’s Alley homecoming for Spieth
Jordan Spieth has always considered Colonial a hometown tournament as well. He also has had much more success at Hogan’s Alley than at the Byron Nelson, where he played his first PGA Tour event as a 16-yearold high school junior.
“I’ve been coming out here since I was 6, 7 years old, too. It was always a fun couple of weeks,” Spieth said Wednesday. “School was letting out into summertime and the PGA rolled through Dallas and Fort Worth way back when I was just falling in love with the game . ... Both places have the extra aura, too.”
Now 24 and with three majors among his 11 PGA Tour wins, Spieth has won only once in his home state of Texas. That was two years ago at Colonial, where he has four top-10 finishes in five starts. He was the runner-up in 2015 and last year.
Webb Simpson, a top-five finisher in the last two Colonials, was off last week after winning The Players Championship earlier this month. He was the 54-hole leader at Colonial last year.
Kevin Kisner is the defending champion at Colonial, the longestrunning PGA Tour event still played at its original site — since 1946. Aaron Wise, the 21-year-old Tour rookie who won the Nelson last week, is in his first Colonial.
The highest-ranked of the 121 players in the Colonial field is Spieth, at No. 3 in the World Golf Ranking. Fourth-ranked Jon Rahm tied Spieth for second in his first Colonial last year.
In his three-stroke Colonial win two years ago, Spieth’s punctuating 34-foot putt was his sixth birdie in the last nine holes.
He also had a chip-in from behind the 17th green after getting relief because his approach shot landed against a temporary grandstand. That came after his tee shot had ricocheted off a marshal to keep the ball from going in much heavier rough.
“Last three years I’ve put myself in position to win a tournament on a Sunday. That’s all you can really ask for,” Spieth said. “From there, the bounces go your way sometimes . ... I look at it very positively as I’ve been in position a lot.”
• The U.S. Open likes to consider its championship the most democratic of the majors, and it has it just about right again this year. With the addition of 23 players who became exempt by being in the top 60 in the world ranking, 77 players in the 156man field are exempt from qualifying. That number could go up slightly with another cutoff for the top 60 the Sunday before U.S. Open week.
The U.S. Open is the only American major that does not offer automatic exemptions to PGA Tour winners. Five such winners from this season still face qualifying, including Patton Kizzire, who has won twice (OHL Classic at Mayakoba and Sony Open). The others are Austin Cook, Ted Potter Jr., Andrew Landry and Aaron Wise.
Kizzire is at No. 63 in the world, followed by Wise (66) and Landry (69). All have three weeks to crack the top
60.
Until 2011, the U.S. Open offered exemptions to multiple PGA Tour winners since the previous Open.
• Careers can change quickly in golf. No one can attest to that as well as Michael Arnaud.
The 36-year-old Arnaud had never finished better than a tie for fifth in his 49 starts on the Web.com Tour, and that was three years ago. His career earnings were just over $130,000. He had only made it into one previous event this year, and he wasn’t in the field at the BMW Charity ProAm in South Carolina last week until Kent Bulle withdrew on the eve of the event.
Arnaud tied the course record with a 60 in the second round. He closed with a 63 and won by five shots.
He won $126,000 and moved to No. 13 on the money list, giving him a reasonable chance to reach the PGA Tour if he finishes the season in the top 25.
“A lot of people kept pushing me when I wanted to step away from it,” Arnaud said. “My wife was one of those that told me to take the chance and go. Low and behold it really paid off.”