USA TODAY International Edition
Stanley: Goat to hero in 1 week
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Kyle Stanley needed one week to bounce back from a devastating collapse.
How long will it take Spencer Levin?
In a topsy- turvy two weeks on the PGA Tour, Stanley and Levin have coughed up seemingly insurmountable finalround leads in excruciating meltdowns from the final group. Each held seven- shot leads in the final round only to let apparent victory slip out of their hands.
Stanley, however, cast aside any demons that might have crept into his head seven days after he had an ugly snowman 8 on the par- 5 18th hole and blew a three- shot lead on the final hole at Torrey Pines in San Diego in the Farmers Insurance Open. He lost to Brandt Snedeker on the second playoff hole.
But Stanley stormed back from an eight- shot deficit Sunday with a sterling, bogey- free 6- under- par 65 to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale.
“You go from a very low point to a high point,” Stanley, 24, said after earning his first career Tour victory and a trip to Augusta National for the Masters. “I’m not sure I expected to maybe recover this quickly. . . . I think the biggest challenge was seeing if I could put last week behind me. I think I did.”
Levin was among the victims of Stanley’s last- round heroics as he took a six- shot lead into the final round and stretched it to seven after one hole. He struggled with the huge lead and his game en route to a 75 to finish two strokes behind Stanley in third place.
Levin, 24, nowlooks for a similar rebound starting Thursday in the AT& T Pebble Beach National Pro- Am, where he’s one of 156 players but the lone starter with such a collapse so fresh on his mind. Like Stanley last week, Levin is looking for his first Tour victory. And like Stanley, he isn’t taking a week off to mend his wounds.
“That’s pretty awesome from what happened last week to come back and win the very next week. That shows ( Stanley’s) a hell of a player,” Levin said after his round. “I guess it shows that you can recover from it. I think I will.
“I feel like I am getting better, like I keep saying,” he continued. “It was a weird feeling. I’ve never had a lead like that. It’s just a weird deal. It’s almost like you’re kind of wanting the holes to run out real quick.
“Next time I’ll just try to maybe stay a little more patient, like they always say, and try to have a little more fun.”
Aces: Daniel Chopra defied the odds Monday when he recorded one of the rarest doubles in golf. Playing a practice round at Pebble Beach Golf Links, Chopra made a hole- in- one on the par- 3 seventh hole and another on the par- 3 17th. According to the National Hole- In- One Registry, the odds of making two holes- in- one in the same round are 1 in 67 million. Chopra used a Ping Tour- S Rustique 50- degree wedge to ace the seventh from 103 yards. From 176 yards at the No. 17 hole, he used a Ping S56 7- iron.