Author: jeremy2878

By Jeremy Harness

UPI photo: Vaughn Taylor winner of the PGA Tour at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am on Sunday

The last time Vaughn Taylor won on the PGA Tour, Jordan Spieth was in middle school, and Tiger Woods was near the height of his powers as the dominant force in the game.

Taylor, who turns 40 in less than a month, used a lights-out back nine that included four birdies in a row at holes 13 through 16, to chase down 72-hole leader Phil Mickelson and propel him to his first tour win since 2005.

He did wait 11 years for this moment, but after completing his round of 65, he had to wait just a little bit more. Upon holing out for par, Taylor, leading by two strokes at the time, still had to hang out a little while the last two groups finished their round to know his fate.

For a moment, it looked as if he and Mickelson, who floundered for much of his round on Sunday en route to an even-par 72, until making a valiant comeback attempt on the final two holes, were headed to a sudden-death playoff.

Mickelson made an 11-footer to save par at the 16^th as well as a 12-footer for a birdie at the 17^th to close to within a stroke of the lead heading into the par-5 18^th. After a fine chip shot, he had a five-footer – a distance from which tour players make 82 percent of the time, while Mickelson had drained all of his previous 23 putts inside of six feet this week – for the birdie and to tie Taylor.

However, the attempt lipped out, leaving the veteran doubled over and crowning Taylor a champion at long last.

To add to the excitement, the victory means a berth in the Masters, which left the native of Augusta, Ga. – where the tournament is held every April – ecstatic.

“I mean, are you kidding?” asked Taylor, who is not a member of the PGA Tour and got into this tournament on a past-champion exemption. “I’m so thankful. So lucky to be here. So many people have helped me get here, the list is endless. So, I’m just super excited.

“I worked so hard and just kept getting knocked down and knocked down. And I just can’t believe it actually happened. It’s amazing. I’m just at a loss for words right now.”

Mickelson, who struggled to find the fairway all week long and is in the process of making changes in his swing, was not as sharp with his short game on Sunday as he was in catapulting to a two-shot lead in the previous round, and it cost him.

“I played a little tighter than I wanted to,” Mickelson said. “I made a few more mistakes in the short game around the greens. I didn’t salvage some pars the way I wanted to, and it just tells me I still need a little bit of work.”

By Jeremy Harness

AP photo Phil Mickelson from the 17th tee at Spy Glass Hill in first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am

If you ask any player what the key ingredients to success on the PGA Tour are, they will point right to short game and putting. Phil Mickelson showed why those two facets are so very important on Saturday.

Mickelson hit only nine of the 18 greens in regulation and only hit seven of the 14 fairways during his third round at Pebble Beach, which means that a lot of pressure was placed upon the short-game prowess that he is widely known for.

His deft touch around the greens came through for him when he needed it the most, as his bogey-free round of 66 included a chip-in for birdie at the par-5 18^th and gave him an overall score of 16-under and a two-shot lead heading into Sunday.

This is Mickelson’s first 54-hole lead in more than two years.

“I fought hard (Saturday),” Mickelson said. “I thought the golf course was playing much more difficult with the firm greens and the wind picking up. I was very pleased to shoot that round, but there were a lot of holes I just had to fight for pars. It wasn’t a pushover by any means.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in contention, and it would mean a lot to me to be able to play a good final round.”

In the process, he shot right past Japan’s Hiroshi Iwata, who himself shot a three-under 69 at Spyglass Hill Saturday to keep himself in contention, only a pair of strokes off of the lead and will be in the final pairing with Mickelson on Sunday.

The co-leader along with Iwata on Saturday was South Korea’s Sung Kang, who shot a two-under 70 at Pebble in the third round and ended up falling into a tie for third place.

“I tried to play very conservatively (early on), and then I think I played all right,” Kang said. “I missed a couple of short putts but still finished all right.

“If the weather is good (Sunday), we’ll play more aggressively. If the weather is bad, like (Saturday), we’ll play a little more safe. We’ll see how it is (Sunday), and I’ll just try my best.”

By Jeremy Harness

AP photo Sung Kang of South Korea hits from the 11th tee at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club leads the tournament after shooting an 11 under par 60

PEBBLE BEACH – While walking up the second fairway at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, country singer Jake Owen took notice of a group of people huddled around a cooler with his hit song, “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” blaring from the speakers, and decided to have a little fun.

After hitting his second shot, Owen hopped over the short fence into the front yard to join the group for about a minute before emerging with a cold one in each hand.

Two holes later, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson took the opportunity to share a friendly moment with Larry the Cable Guy as he was walking off of the adjacent 18^th tee. A short moment earlier, Spieth spotted Andres Gonzales standing in Larry’s immediate shot path as the comedian was teeing off and teased, “Hey Andres, stay right there!”

Gonzales did not oblige and smoothly moved over to his left.

Those were the kind of good vibes that were felt during the entire second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and the scores certainly reflected that, particularly at Monterey Peninsula.

Sung Kang (not to be confused with the actor who starred in the Fast and the Furious movie series) was among those who took advantage of the scoring opportunities that the course presents. After an even-par round at Spyglass Hill on Thursday, during which he said that he did not hit the ball particularly well, he bounced right back by shooting a career-low 60 to surge into a two-way tie for the lead at 11-under.

The South Korean got things rolling and never took a backward step for the rest of the round. He recorded four birdies and an eagle on his front nine, and then ran off five more birdies on the back nine to beat his career best by one shot.

Kang attributed a slight change in outlook to his game to the quick turnaround.

“I was putting too much pressure on myself (before),” Kang said. “I was trying too hard. So now I’m just (saying), ‘I don’t have any pressure.’”

“Even if I miss a shot, or if I hit it bad, or if I make it or not, my family’s still going to love me,” Kang said. “Nobody’s going to hate me. They might like me better if I play good.”

Joining Kang atop the leaderboard is Japan’s Hiroshi Iwata, who recorded four birdies and an eagle on the front nine to carry him to a six-under 66.

Iwata momentarily held the lead after a birdie at the 10^th hole, but a pair of bogeys on the next four holes dropped him back before a birdie at the 16^th brought him back to 11-under and the tie for the lead.

Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson was yet another guy who used Monterey Peninsula as a springboard to catapult him into contention on Friday. After shooting a 68 in his opening round at Spyglass Hill, Mickelson went even lower on Friday with a six-under 65.

He was clean on the front nine with five birdies without a single bogey. He kept the momentum going with an eagle at the par-five 10^th before birdieing the 16^th, but two bogeys on that side kept him one shot off of the lead.

Freddie Jacobson will get his crack at that course on Saturday after getting out of Spyglass, considered the toughest of the three courses that are being used in this tournament, with a three-under 69 on Friday. He only sits two shots behind, and with the scores coming in as low as they have, he figures to be at least near the top by the time the third round is over.

“If you really get it going, especially with the weather being the way it is, you can make some birdies,” Jacobson said. “But you still got to do it. It doesn’t matter what the course looks like, you got to hit the shots and keep it in play and keep doing it.

“That’s what I’ve done for two days, so I got to keep attacking (Saturday) and see if I can put up some birdies there.”

By Jeremy Harness

photo credit: AFP photo–Chez Reavie takes a shot from the fairway 12th hole during the first round at the AT&T Pro Am

PEBBLE BEACH – Most people who come to this year’s tournament will be tempted to follow the likes of Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson as well as celebrities such as Mark Wahlberg and Bill Murray. However, it was a relatively unknown who surged to the top on Thursday.

Chez Reavie, who has had marginal success on the PGA Tour in recent years, ripped apart the back nine at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in the opening round, shooting seven under par on the final nine holes on his way to an eight-under 63 to take a one-shot lead.

He was one under par at the turn after bogeying the par-3 ninth, but he quickly turned it on and never cooled off. He ran off four birdies in a row before settling for a par at the 14^th.

Reavie then picked things right up with a birdie at the 15^th and then followed that right up with an eagle at the par-5 16^th before parring the remaining two holes to the lead.

“I had a lot of good looks on the front nine and missed a couple of (putts),” said Reavie, who played part of last season on the PGA Tour and then lost his full playing status before getting it back by winning a Web.com Tour finals event and then nearly winning the Tour Championship. “(I) hit good putts and just stayed patient and was able to make the putts on the back.”

Of the three courses that this tournament is played on – Monterey Peninsula, Pebble Beach, and Spyglass Hill – Monterey Peninsula is the one that players tend to get their low scores, and that trend continued on Thursday.

Cameron Smith and Bronson Burgoon, both rookies on the PGA Tour, each fired a seven-under 64 at Monterey Peninsula to tie for second. Smith got off to a hot start to his day, birdieing four of the first six holes on his way to a five-under front nine. He recorded two birdies on the back nine and did not have a single bogey on his scorecard.

“It was really good today,” Smith said. “I got some putts rolling in from the start, which got me on a good momentum booster for the first 12 or 13 holes, which was nice.”

Burgoon got off to the best start of them all. Starting on the 10^th hole, he blistered his front nine to the tune of a seven-under 30 to shoot his 64, including an eagle at the 16^th, and then parring out on the back nine.

“I got off to a good start and just kept rolling,” Burgoon said. “I wouldn’t say I slowed down on the back, but (I) missed a couple putts, but that’s golf. I gave myself opportunities on the back nine, (but) I just didn’t make anything.”

Meanwhile, Spieth did not play up to his standards on the first day. Playing at Spyglass Hill, he bogeyed the fourth hole before recording birdies on the fifth as well as the eighth and seemed to be on his way to the top of the leaderboard.

However, he just could not seem to break through on the back nine, as he countered two birdies with a pair of bogeys to finish with a one-under 71.

“(It was) just kind of a bit odd,” Spieth said. “I just was not quite dialed in with the wedges or short game, so (I am) a little frustrated with that.

“But I’ve got a lot of very easy golf holes coming in the next couple days if I put myself in positions off the tees, and I’ll certainly get better when it comes to the wedge play.”