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      Omar Uresti’s Second Act

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      The golfer is the definition of a journeyman, playing off and on for decades. This is his fifth time playing the P.G.A. Championship.Omar Uresti, 52, is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a slight belly and signature sideburns. Last month, he punched his ticket to this year’s P.G.A. Championship at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina by winning the P.G.A. Professional Championship. Uresti beat a field of 312 of the best club pros, teaching pros and life members in the P.G.A. of America — some half his age — to be one of 20 non-Tour pros to gain entry to the major.Call it his second act. As a touring pro for 20 years, Uresti was the definition of a journeyman. He never won a PGA Tour event, but he won enough money to stick around.“When I was on Tour in the ’90s and early 2000s, I never qualified for the P.G.A. Championship,” Uresti said. “I played in six U.S. Opens, but I never qualified for any other majors.”This week marks his fifth P.G.A. Championship. At the 2017 event he had his best showing. While he finished 21 shots behind Justin Thomas, who won that year, he beat Jim Furyk and Padraig Harrington — both major champions — and young stars like Matthew Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele.Uresti’s days of elite competition seemed over in 2012. In his mid-40s, he no longer had playing privileges on the PGA Tour, and he was too young for the P.G.A. Tour Champions senior circuit. “I went into a little bit of a depression,” he said. “I didn’t play that much golf. I put on 20 pounds.”Omar Uresti during a practice round at the 2018 P.G.A. Championship. His best showing came in 2017, when he finished 21 shots back.Brynn Anderson/Associated PressHe called a friend in the P.G.A.’s Texas office and learned he could reclassify himself as a P.G.A. Life Member. In doing that, he could enter local tournaments. “It saved me, to be able to keep competing,” he said.His success has not been without controversy. Some club pros complain that he doesn’t have the work responsibilities, like running tournaments and giving lessons, that they do. But Uresti shakes it off.The following interview has been edited and condensed.How did you beat a field of young club pros?I worked really hard for a few weeks to get my swing a little better. I’d gotten really out of whack over the past four years. So I watched some old footage from Bay Hill in 1997, when I was leading going into the last day, and I saw how good my swing was. [Phil Mickelson shot seven under par in the final round to win- the Bay Hill Invitational.]How do you hang in there with the long hitters?At the 2017 P.G.A. Championship, I got paired with Rory McIlroy on Saturday. I average about 275 yards off the tee. Rory was hitting it 60 to 80 yards by me, cutting corners. On one hole, it was 285 to a fairway bunker. I barely got to it and had 220 yards to the green. Rory flew it over the bunker and had 100 yards left. But we both made par. That’s when I came up with my mantra: I’m going to straight them to death. I’m going to hit the fairway and hit the green and give myself some chances.What are your plans for Kiawah?I’ve never played it. I’m not sure what to do. It’s tight and windy.What’s your day-to-day life like in Texas?I grew up here at the Onion Creek Club in Austin, Texas. My dad worked three jobs at the time so we could become members and move out here. We joined in 1975 and moved here in 1976, when I was 7. My mom is 83. She lives with me. We take care of each other. When I’m in town, I get to see my kids. Omar Jr. is 16. My daughter, Izzie, is 14.Why do you get so much criticism from other P.G.A. members?I’m not affiliated with a club like they are. But I’m in talks with [Austin courses] Butler Park Pitch and Putt and Lions Municipal Golf Course. I’m talking to them about helping out and making some clinics for kids.What does it take for a pro who is not grinding it out week after week to play at the highest level?It takes a good frame of mind. I try to get out there every day and put in a couple of hours to keep working on my game. More

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      Rory McIlroy Wants A Second P.G.A. Championship on Kiawah Island

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      His world ranking dropped to as low as 13th this spring. But coming off a victory, McIlroy has returned to the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, where he ran away with the P.G.A. Championship in 2012.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Returning to the scene of one of his greatest triumphs, Rory McIlroy played a practice round Tuesday at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, where in 2012 he won the P.G.A. Championship by a staggering eight strokes.It is the largest margin of victory in the tournament, which was first contested in 1916. McIlroy was only 23.Standing about 100 yards from the 18th green, where he sank a 20-foot putt to close out his 2012 performance, McIlroy was asked Tuesday if that victory — the second of four major championships he won from 2011 to 2014 — felt like nine years ago.“It seems longer,” said McIlroy, one of the PGA Tour’s most candid, reflective members. “I feel like a different person and a different player.”At the conclusion of the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, which came 14 months after McIlroy won the United States Open — also by eight strokes — there was a growing consensus that men’s golf was at the dawn of a new era, one that would be dominated by McIlroy. Tiger Woods had not won a major since the United States Open in 2008.McIlroy has indeed cast a long shadow over golf. He has spent 106 weeks as the world’s top-ranked golfer, holding that spot for more than five months last year.But McIlroy, 32, has also been transformed from the floppy-haired 20-something of his last appearance at Kiawah Island. He is now married and a new father, and he endured a rare decline for much of 2020 and 2021, finishing 30th or worse in nine tournaments. At the Masters tournament, where McIlroy has been in the top 10 six times, he missed the cut this spring. His world ranking, now at No. 7, dropped as low as 13th.But taking the advice of a new swing coach, Pete Cowen, who has known McIlroy for many years, he has rebounded, winning the Wells Fargo Championship — his first PGA Tour appearance since the Masters — on May 9.McIlroy’s down period was never long enough to cast the Wells Fargo victory as a comeback, but his return to Kiawah Island, where he will seek his first major championship in nearly seven years, has allowed him to take some measure of what has changed in his life since 2012.McIlroy won the event at the Ocean Course in 2012 by eight strokes.Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images“I’m in a completely different place in life,” he said. “Yeah, everything has changed, really.”He continued: “I think a lot has changed for the better. I’m standing up here probably more confident in myself, happier with where I am in my life, and yeah, just sort of enjoying everything, enjoying life, enjoying everything a bit more.”McIlroy paused and smiled.“Yeah, it’s all good.”Adam Scott — the 2013 Masters champion, who is now 40 — has watched McIlroy’s entire professional career. He was unsurprised by the Wells Fargo victory, and he mostly recalls McIlroy’s soaring heights, including the 2012 P.G.A. Championship. On Tuesday, Scott was asked if that performance had called to mind Woods in his prime, when he made golf seem patently easy.“Yeah, Rory was giving off that vibe at the time,” Scott said. “That was his second major win, and he’d won both majors by eight. That sounds pretty Tiger-esque to me. That was the early Tiger kind of moves.“I mean, it looked free-flow, and he was driving it much longer than most others that week, and straight, and rolling putts in. When talented guys like a Tiger or a Rory start doing that, it does make the game look easy, even on a really tough course.”Wherever McIlroy’s golf game stands as he enters his 49th major championship, he has a more upbeat, energized approach than he did last year, amid the pandemic. McIlroy, more than any other top golfer, admitted that his stumbles in 2020 were in part related to the lack of fans at events.He felt listless without the reaction of an enthusiastic gallery after a good shot and conceded that it had an effect on his ability to play his best. On Tuesday, McIlroy said he had been boosted by the return of fans at events where attendance is at about 25 percent of capacity, or roughly 10,000 spectators.“It’s funny, ever since I was 16 years old I’ve had thousands of people watch me play golf pretty much every time I teed it up,” he said. “Even going back to amateur golf, that was true. So then, not having that last year after playing in that environment for 14 or 15 years, it was so completely opposite.“As I said at the time, it was like playing practice rounds. It’s easy to lose concentration. Everyone is used to a certain environment, whatever work you do.”McIlroy said he had watched the Champions League soccer semifinals and realized that the players had to be performing in front of an empty stadium for the first time in their careers.“That just must be terrible,” he said. “You want to play in front of people and you want to feel that atmosphere. It’s unfortunate that in these times a lot of people don’t have that experience, but I am glad that we’re getting back to some sort of normalcy.”Even the silly remarks that fans are prone to shout after a golfer’s shot — mostly to be heard on the television broadcast — no longer annoy McIlroy.“Yeah, love the mashed potatoes guys again,” he said, smiling. “I don’t even care about the stupid comments. I’m just glad that everyone is back here.” More

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      The Ocean Course, Long Absent From Golf’s Spotlight, Is Back

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      The masterpiece on Kiawah Island, designed by Pete and Alice Dye to be as challenging as it is breathtaking, has not been the site of a major tournament in almost a decade.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — The P.G.A. Championship is returning this week to the Ocean Course, a daunting place rich in golf lore. Despite the course’s almost spiritual status in the sport — “The Legend of Bagger Vance” was filmed there — this will be only the second major championship held on the site.Pete Dye, who with his wife, Alice, began work on the course at Kiawah Island in 1989, never questioned whether his creation would be one of a kind. In 2012, as he walked the course one quiet evening a month before the P.G.A. Championship that summer, he stopped to wave a hand across the windswept landscape, where the crash of ocean waves is an ever-present soundtrack.“It is the only course we built that walks and swims,” Dye said. “It is of the land and it is of the water.”Head down, Dye marched about 10 strides, then turned to add, “You can go from Miami to New York and you won’t find a golf course like it on the Atlantic Ocean.”The P.G.A. Championship’s return to the Ocean Course has been made more poignant by the deaths of Pete last year at age 94 and of Alice in 2019 at 91. The Dyes, who were married for nearly 70 years, were golf architecture royalty: Pete as the most influential designer in the last half of the 20th century, and Alice as his constant partner who became the first female member and the first female president of the American Society of Golf Architects.Pete and Alice Dye in 1991, the year their Ocean Course at Kiawah Island opened.PGA TOUR Archive, via Getty ImagesTheir work at Kiawah Island symbolized their bond. During one of the couple’s surveys of the property as the final nine holes were being laid out in 1991, Alice said: “Pete, I can’t see the ocean on this nine. I don’t want to just hear it, I want to see it.”The fairways were raised several feet, which provided more than an upgraded view. Elevated fairways exposed the closing holes to seaside winds so fickle that they bedeviled the charging, or fading, tournament leaders. The gusts have become a hallmark of the endlessly memorable course.The Dyes will be missed this week at the masterpiece they created, but their presence will be felt, even by those who were toddlers when the course made its debut.Webb Simpson, who is ranked 10th in the world, did not make the cut at the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, but he left Kiawah Island forever impressed.“I did not play well, but I didn’t blame the golf course,” Simpson, 35, said in an interview this month. “I loved Kiawah. I remember leaving in ’12 and thinking it was like a British Open course where you have to trust your lines over corners, over bushes, over marsh. There’s a 66 or an 80 out there every day for any golfer, which is exciting for a major.”Keegan Bradley tied for third at the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, which was won by Rory McIlroy. Bradley, 34, believes the Ocean Course’s relatively rare appearance on the calendar of elite golf events is part of its appeal.“It’s not a major championship venue that we go to every five years,” said Bradley, who won the 2011 P.G.A. Championship. “It’s become a special place for us to go.”Tiger Woods preparing to putt on No. 9 during the final round of the P.G.A. Championship in 2012. He finished tied for 11th.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesThe Ocean Course was not always held in such regard.Seated in matching white wicker chairs at their South Florida home during a 2011 interview, the Dyes recalled the course’s earliest days.“I saw its future the moment I got there, even if there was nothing but myrtles and ugly bushes,” Pete said. He laughed. “Of course, the first time the P.G.A. folks saw the land they almost threw up.”Then Hurricane Hugo blew through the southeastern United States in September 1989. Kiawah Island was declared a national disaster area. At a 1990 news conference for the 1991 Ryder Cup, Pete was asked where he planned to put the huge galleries of fans expected to attend.“Galleries? How do I know?” Pete answered. “We don’t even have holes yet.”Alice’s memory of the day was slightly different.“You had a plan, Pete,” she said in 2011. “You just didn’t want to tell them yet.”Alice and Pete later agreed that Hugo had oddly helped their project. It ruined the work already done on several holes, but the destruction gave the Dyes the opportunity to rebuild sand dunes and other natural elements to their liking. Flood lights were set up so work crews could put in 16-hour days to get the course ready in time.The course revealed to the golf world ahead of the 1991 Ryder Cup was stunningly beautiful. Playing it was less than pleasant. David Feherty, a television commentator who was on the European Ryder Cup team that year, called the course “something from Mars.”Ian Woosnam in a bunker on the 17th hole during the Ryder Cup at the Ocean Course in 1991.Stephen Munday/Allsport, via Getty ImagesThe competition, won by the American side after three exhilarating days, became the most famous Ryder Cup, in part because of the treachery of the finishing holes at the Ocean Course. The television ratings for the event eclipsed those of that weekend’s N.F.L. games, a first for any golf competition.The Dyes’ creation at Kiawah Island immediately climbed near the top of the rankings of America’s best courses.But it was always impossible for the Dyes to choose a favorite among the more than 100 golf courses they designed.“We think of them like our children,” Alice said, “not pieces of history.”This week, the Ocean Course, after nine years on the sidelines of major championship golf, will take another turn in the spotlight. And with it will come another chance to appreciate the brilliance of Pete and Alice Dye, a golf team like no other. More

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      A Curious Golfer, a Lawn Mower and a Thousand Hours in Lockdown

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      On Friday evening, Chris Powell and 23 locals stood in a field roughly a mile from his home in the rolling hills of Rhayader in Mid Wales. All around the group, familiar features dotted the landscape — from a winding series of public footpaths to gorse bushes, patches of bracken and a centuries-old stone cottage.But among the greenery there were some new additions: flags, yardage markers, tees, bicycle tires that had been painted red and placed on the ground and a selection of golf bags.While others in Britain spent the past year or so navigating coronavirus lockdowns and picking up indoor hobbies, Powell estimated that he had spent roughly 1,000 hours roaming this land that was once his town’s local golf course — a site that closed more than five decades ago and has slowly been melding into the landscape ever since.To rebuild the course Chris Powell pored over old maps. He used a metal detector to locate original cups. Thanks to Powell’s dedication to discovery and his skills as a one-man renovation team, he managed not only to identify all of the previous tees and greens, hidden among the hills and foliage, but also to repair the course to a playable state. There were surprises along the way, too — like the discovery of ties to a certain course in Augusta, Ga. — and now he and the group were ready to tackle the Rhayader Golf Links once more.“Once I get into something, I’m very obsessive,” Powell, 63, said before teeing off, dark rain clouds rolling through the surrounding valleys.The journey to this point started more than a year ago, when Britain was facing its first lockdown and Powell and a friend decided to take to the hills as part of their permitted exercise.A quick search for Rhayader (pronounced Rei-eder, similar to Ryder Cup) reveals a quiet town, of roughly 2,000 residents, known for its trout fishing, hiking routes, nearby Elan Valley dams and one of the highest pubs per capita figures in the United Kingdom.Chris Powell placed tee marker signs along the course.But golf can be found within this DNA, too. According to the website Golf’s Missing Links, which documents more than 2,000 courses that have been lost to time and the landscape, a nine-hole course first existed in Rhayader from 1908 until its abeyance around the time of World War I. Then, in the mid-1920s, a new nine-hole course was opened on a separate site about a mile from the town center, eventually closing in 1968. Another course on a third site failed in the 1990s, shutting after a few years.Powell remembers parts of the defunct second course from his youth, when he would trek over the hills with his pony. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve always been fascinated by man-made stuff,” Powell, a farrier, said. “So if I’m walking over hills, I’m always fascinated by, say, an old house, and I always want to know, What did that used to be like? Or, Where was that room? Where was the pig sty?”On their first visit to the old links site last year, Powell and his friend, Martin Mason, 53, said they could clearly make out two greens. From there, Powell returned every few days, walking through fields and ferns in the hope of finding new features among the bracken, which, he said, was at chest height in places.Within a couple of months, Powell had unearthed around five or six greens and a similar number of tee boxes. At that point, he said, he remembers thinking, “I am going to run a charity golf day” in a year’s time.Crossing a sheep fence on the 14th. The manager of a nearby course said: “It will be rough and ragged. But that’s not the point.”“He wanted to make it playable for people who’ve not been up there,” Mason, who occasionally helped during the discovery process, said. “We didn’t know where this was leading.”In order to find the final holes, Powell turned to a local undertaker, who had played the course when he was younger and was able to give Powell rough reference points on the hillside, which is often used by mountain bikers. He and Mason were able to discover some of the original cups using a metal detector. They also worked off an old course map that they had found online, which threw up a familiar name within golfing circles: “Laid out as planned by Dr. A. MacKenzie, Golf Course Architect.”Dr. Alister MacKenzie was a British golf course architect whose work spanned four continents. Within the past 10 years, three MacKenzie courses — Cypress Point Club in California, Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia and Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, the home of The Masters — have been ranked in the top 10 in the world.“I was pretty surprised, I have to say,” Powell said.A player walks above an old quarry while looking for the ball from his first drive.Powell also discovered a newspaper article from 1925 that listed MacKenzie as the architect, and a roughly 90-year-old guidebook that documented the designer’s observations while at the site (“I have attempted to reduce the hill climbing to a minimum”). But various societies tied to MacKenzie’s courses show no recognition of Rhayader online — mainly because, members said, affiliation is only for active courses, and online chronologies document MacKenzie being in X location on Y date, rather than simply listing courses he may have worked on.Powell didn’t mind, though. He kept working on his antithesis of the pristine Augusta National course, hoping to one day host a round in the Welsh hills. He purchased a riding mower to tackle the remaining bracken. Some nights he walked the hills hitting balls, which, when they would become lost on the fern-covered fairways, he would retrieve using a sickle.In late April, Powell was presented with an opportunity: the previous year’s bracken had died down, giving him a few weeks when the remaining dead ferns could be cleared from key sections of the course, making it somewhat playable before the ferns grew back.On Friday evening, players found smaller touches, too. There were scorecards and directional signs that Powell and his wife had made. Holes had been given names, like “Moonshot,” where the drive was high and blind, and “Rollercoaster,” requiring players to drive into a valley and then play back up toward the green. All entry fees would be sent to causes supporting the National Health Service.Volunteers poured tea for golfers during the competition.“It will be rough and ragged,” said Ben Waters, 36, the course manager at nearby Llandrindod Wells Golf Club where Powell now plays, who had advised him during the previous months. “But that’s not the point. This has been one man working on a hillside in his spare time.”Over roughly four hours, players trekked across the countryside and, in the case of the first hole, over the outline of an abandoned quarry. They were each armed with a hand-drawn course map, made up of straight black lines and occasional red X’s, which, according to the index, meant “DEEP BRACKEN.”On blind holes, players were required to ring horseshoes that Powell had set up to alert the group behind that it was safe to hit. Greens were lumpy and the standard of “a lawn, at best,” Powell said, so hitting into a red ring around the flagstick counted as sinking a shot. One hole also required players to climb a fence to reach the tee. The first group out were soaked by a swift rain shower.By the time the final group had finished, the sun had set and it was getting dark. Players were met with homemade snacks underneath a cabana, and the Rhaeader Cup — to use the Welsh spelling, Y Rhaeader, meaning “The Waterfall” — was presented to the winning team. Powell hoped the charity round could become an annual event.“The most upsetting part is that it will be completely unplayable again in another month,” he said.Hitting into a red ring around the flagstick counted as sinking a shot. Nature will eventually reclaim the course and Powell’s labors of love. But something more lasting would come of his efforts.Neil Crafter is a golf course architect from Adelaide, Australia, who has quietly been researching and documenting MacKenzie’s work for more than 20 years.Despite Rhayader not being listed as an active MacKenzie course or in any sort of official chronology, the course map featuring his name and the newspaper article referencing Rhayader as being the designer’s work “match my guidelines” for it to be recognized, Crafter, 63, said last week.By “identifying his formula” for hole descriptions over the years, Crafter said he felt comfortable declaring that observations attributed to MacKenzie in the local guidebook read like a “classic MacKenzie course” — taking into account chosen words, references to drainage and the choice to lay out a course at one with the landscape.Crafter is nearly finished writing a series of books on the more than 250 MacKenzie courses he has studied over the years. These will include chapters on active courses, defunct courses and some that were never made — Augusta National, Royal Melbourne, Cypress Point and, yes, Rhayader Golf Links, whose biography Crafter has already written.He offered to read out the final line of that chapter.“Uniquely, the land the course was laid out on remains open farmland today and evidence of MacKenzie’s old greens, tees and bunkers can be clearly seen,” Crafter said.He paused.“I’d love to add a footnote to that: ‘In 2021, a group of local golfers played the course once more.’” More

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      Lydia Ko Is Winning on the L.P.G.A. Tour Again

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      Sean Foley, who coached Tiger Woods for four years, has helped Ko, a former world No. 1, connect her body with her mind. She’s playing her best golf in years.LOS ANGELES — Lydia Ko of New Zealand was strolling the beach at Santa Monica on Sunday when she said she was bitten by a sea gull that swooped in and stole the sandwich in her hand. All Ko could do was laugh. Her return to the top 10 in the women’s world golf rankings after more than three years of absence has much to do with her making peace with her ability to control only so much when she is in the sand.Or on the fairway.The day before, Ko, a former world No. 1, had ended a three-year title drought at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, cruising to a seven-stroke victory fueled by her belief that the outcome was largely out of her hands.For Ko, who at 17 became the youngest player, male or female, to reach No. 1 and had 14 L.P.G.A. wins before she turned 20, the expectations had become a burden that she could no longer comfortably shoulder. So she recently decided to release them to the winds of fate, telling herself “the winner’s already chosen.”The mantra has freed her to play the best golf she’s capable of instead of expending all her physical and psychic energies on manufacturing success. The results have made her 2021 feel like 2015. Going into this week’s L.A. Open, the seventh-ranked Ko is 38 under par in her past five competitive rounds and has 16 subpar scores in 20 competitive rounds this year. She had one bogey and 39 birdies in her last 100 holes before Wednesday, when her hot hand went cold in a round where she shot a seven-over-par 78 at Wilshire Country Club. Ko was 14 shots off the pace set by Jessica Korda, who was in her group.Ko and Gaby Lopez, during the final round of the ANA Inspiration in April. Ko finished second at the major tournament.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press“It takes a little pressure off to think that what’s meant to be is going to happen,” Ko said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, you don’t control your outcome even though you would like to.”Ko, who turns 24 on Saturday, never went away, and yet her presence on the first page of leaderboards this year has the feel of a much beloved show returning after an interminable hiatus. After her Pro-Am on Tuesday, Ko was stopped by every player or caddie she passed as made the serpentine walk through a narrow tunnel and up a hill from the ninth hole to the practice putting green.Everybody had congratulations and kind words for Ko, who has been one of the more popular players on the tour since she burst onto the golf scene like a blast of puppy’s breath.In 2012, as a 15-year-old amateur, Ko became the youngest winner of an L.P.G.A. event, topping a field at the Canadian Women’s Open that included 48 of the top 50 of the year’s leading money winners. She won the event again before turning pro at 16. The L.P.G.A. waived its 18-year-old minimum age restriction to grant her membership and Ko continued her rocket ascent. She won her first event as a professional, won Rookie of the Year honors, and won and won and won.She was so consistent, she made the cut in her first 53 L.P.G.A. events. She was in such command of her game, she had won two majors and an Olympic silver medal before her 20th birthday.But then the unimaginable happened: Ko stopped winning. Not only did the victories dry up, but Ko struggled to advance to the weekend. In the 12 months before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the tour, Ko missed four cuts, including one by seven strokes at the Evian Championship, one of the five women’s golf majors. Ko’s struggles called to mind something JoAnne Carner, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, said in 2012 after watching Ko equal her 1969 feat of winning an L.P.G.A. event as an amateur.Ko at the 2014 United States Women’s Open Championship when she was 17 years old.Doug Mills/The New York Times“They tack a ‘professional’ after your name and all of the sudden you feel like you’re supposed to know everything,” Carner told The Times then. “There’s a lot more pressure and you try so hard and you put so much pressure on yourself.”Ko’s swing went south, but her smile never did, though at times both seemed equally mechanical. During her slump, Ko cycled through a series of swing coaches. One, David Leadbetter, who was fired at the end of 2016, was vocal in his belief that Ko’s biggest impediment to success was her overreliance on her parents. He told anyone who asked that she needed to take control of her career if she wanted to turn around her results.Last year, at the start of the pandemic, Ko made a pivotal phone call to Sean Foley, an instructor based in Orlando, Fla., where she lives, whose clients have included Tiger Woods.“I just felt like my swing was improving but I could do a little better,” said Ko, who began working with Foley during the months when the tour was shut down but the courses in Orlando remained accessible.Foley’s interest in his clients extends beyond the swing plane, and his whole-person philosophy clicked with Ko. More than any adjustment he has made to her swing, Foley has helped Ko sync her mind and her body.He reminded her that she can control only her effort, not the outcome. In the second event after the tour resumed last summer, Ko held a five-stroke lead with six holes to play. She took a one-stroke lead over a charging Danielle Kang into the final hole, a par-5, and made bogey to finish second. Just a bad day at the office, Foley told her. No big deal.Entering the final round in Hawaii with a one-stroke lead over Nelly Korda, whom she had finished second behind at the Gainbridge LPGA in February, she retrieved one final text from Foley before she teed off. It read: Trust and conviction.Ko won in Hawaii with a tournament record 28 under par.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesShe wrote the words on her yardage book, then went out and played that way, closing with a 65 to clinch her first victory in 1,084 days.“I think that settled some of the doubts I had in myself,” Ko said Tuesday, adding, “I felt pretty calm playing. That’s where I feel like it should be. Like just because I shoot a 68 or 78, that shouldn’t dictate my mood and the way I am around the golf course.”Ko considered the win as much a validation of her parents, and their approach, as of her and her game. “For them to get criticism I thought was unfair because they’re just doing everything they can to wish me to be happier,” she said.Foley’s work with Ko is focused on finding that happiness, win or lose. For all her precocity — perhaps because of it — Ko had skipped over that lesson. She had to learn it the hard way. More

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      Ready or Not, Hideki Matsuyama Is Now a National Hero in Japan

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      By winning the Masters, the publicity-shy golfer will face a news media spotlight that trails every move of Japanese athletes abroad.TOKYO — Hideki Matsuyama has never been a fan of the spotlight. Even as he rose to become Japan’s most successful male golfer, he did his best to avoid the attention lavished on the every move of other Japanese athletes who have shined on the global stage.But with his win on Sunday at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., the glare will now be inescapable. His victory, the first by a Japanese man in one of golf’s major championships, is the fulfillment of a long-held ambition for the country, and it guarantees that he will be feted as a national hero, with the adoration and scrutiny that follows.Japan is a nation of avid golfers, and the game’s status as the sport of choice for the Western business and political elite has given it a special resonance. Success in sports has long been a critical gauge of the country’s global standing, with the United States and Europe often the standard by which Japan measures itself.“We have always dreamed of winning the Masters,” said Andy Yamanaka, secretary-general of the Japan Golf Association. “It’s a very moving moment for all of us. I think a lot of people cried when he finished.”Those tears reflect, in part, an island nation that sees itself as smaller and less powerful than other major countries, even though it is the world’s third-largest economy. That means athletes who represent it globally are often burdened with expectations and pressures that transcend the field of play.The country’s news media has followed the exploits of its athletes abroad with an intensity that some have found unnerving. When the baseball star Ichiro Suzuki joined the Seattle Mariners, Japanese news organizations set up bureaus in the city devoted exclusively to covering him. Television stations here broadcast seemingly obscure major league games just in case a Japanese player appears. Even modest scoring performances by a Japanese N.B.A. player can trigger headlines.Golf is no exception. Even during low-stakes tournaments, a gaggle of Japanese reporters often trail Matsuyama, 29, a degree of attention that the media-shy golfer seems to have found overwhelming.At Augusta, the pressure — at least from the news media — was blessedly low. Covid-19 restrictions had kept attendance by journalists to a minimum, and Japan’s press turned out in small numbers. After finishing Saturday’s third round with a four-stroke lead, Matsuyama admitted to reporters that “with fewer media, it’s been a lot less stressful for me.” The pressure is on for Matsuyama to win a gold medal in golf for Japan at the Tokyo Olympics.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHis victory was a major breakthrough for a country that has the world’s second-largest number of golf players and courses. The game is a ubiquitous presence throughout the nation, with the tall green nets of driving ranges marking the skyline of virtually every suburb. In 2019, the P.G.A. added its first official tournament in Japan.In the century since the game was introduced to Japan by foreign merchants, the country has produced a number of top-flight players, like Masashi Ozaki and Isao Aoki. But until now, only two had won major tournaments, both women: Hisako Higuchi at the 1977 L.P.G.A. Championship and Hinako Shibuno at the 2019 Women’s British Open.Earlier this month, another Japanese woman, Tsubasa Kajitani, won the second ever amateur women’s competition at Augusta National.Matsuyama’s Masters victory was the crowning achievement of a journey that began at the age of 4 in his hometown, Matsuyama — no relation — on Japan’s southern island of Shikoku. His father, an amateur golfer who now runs a practice range, introduced him to the game.He excelled at the sport as a teenager, and by 2011, he was the highest-placed amateur at the Masters. By 2017, he had won six PGA events and was ranked No. 2 in the world, the highest ever for a Japanese male golfer.In recent years, however, he seemed to have hit a slump, haunted by an uneven short game and a tendency to buckle under pressure, squandering commanding leads on the back nine’s putting greens.Through it all, Matsuyama has led a private existence focused on golf, while other athletes have racked up media appearances and corporate endorsements. He has earned praise for a work ethic that has sometimes led him to cap off a major tournament appearance with hours of work on his swing.He seems to have no hobbies or any interest in acquiring them. In 2017, he surprised the news media when he announced that his wife had given birth to the couple’s first child. Few even knew that he was married. No one had ever asked, he explained. When Donald J. Trump — a devotee of the game who was fond of conducting presidential business on the links — visited Japan in 2017, the prime minister at the time, Shinzo Abe, recruited Matsuyama for some golf diplomacy. The threesome did not keep score, and Matsuyama — true to his nature — had little to say about the experience.With his victory at Augusta, the expectations on Matsuyama will increase dramatically. Media attention is likely to reach a fever pitch in the coming weeks, and endorsement offers will flood in.Although golf has dipped in popularity in Japan in recent years, sports analysts are already speculating that Matsuyama’s win could help fuel a resurgence in the game, which has had renewed interest as a pandemic-friendly sport that makes it easy to maintain a healthy social distance. The Tokyo Olympics this summer will also focus attention on the game.Matsuyama chatted with Dustin Johnson, left, the 2020 Masters champion, after receiving his green jacket for the victory.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMunehiko Harada, president of Osaka University of Sport and Health Sciences and an expert on sports marketing, said he hoped that Matsuyama would use his victory to engage in more golf diplomacy, and that it would ameliorate the anti-Asian rhetoric and violence that have flared during the pandemic.“It would be great if the victory of Mr. Matsuyama would ease negative feelings toward Asians in the United States and create a kind of a momentum to respect each other,” he said, adding that he hoped President Biden would invite the golfer to the White House before a scheduled meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, this week.In remarks to the news media, Suga praised Matsuyama’s performance, saying it “gave courage to and deeply moved people throughout Japan.”The pressure is already on for Matsuyama to notch another victory for the nation.“I don’t know his next goal, maybe win another major or achieve a grand slam, but for the Japan Golf Association, getting a gold medal at the Olympics would be wonderful news,” Yamanaka, the association’s secretary-general, said.News reports have speculated that Matsuyama will be drafted to light the Olympic caldron at the Games’ opening ceremony in July.Asked about the possibility at a news conference following his victory, Matsuyama demurred. Before he could commit to anything, he said, he would have to check his schedule.Hisako Ueno contributed reporting. More

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      Hideki Matsuyama is Golf's Quiet Superstar

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      Shy, intense and obsessive about his golf game, Hideki Matsuyama has been quietly working toward his elite place in the sport for the past several years.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Hideki Matsuyama stood on the 18th green at Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday evening, a winner of the Masters Tournament. There had been no skyward leap, no cathartic, celebratory climb into his caddie’s arms.Just a hat tip and some hugs — an understated, in-the-moment recognition of a seminal achievement for Matsuyama, the first Asian-born golfer to claim a green jacket, and for golf in Japan.“When the final putt went in, I wasn’t really thinking of anything,” he said, adding that he was happy for his caddie, Shota Hayafuji, because it was his first win.“And then, it started sinking in,” Matsuyama said, “the joy of being a Masters champion.”It was characteristic Matsuyama, the man who used a rain delay on Saturday to play games on his cellphone in his car, the golfer who for years has been unsettling opponents while seeming set on avoiding the spotlight.“He doesn’t talk a whole lot, and he’s really solid,” Justin Thomas said after his round but before Matsuyama’s triumph.“I think he’s quite an intense character, actually, even though we don’t really see that,” said Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner who has known Matsuyama for years. “I mean, and obsessive about his game.”“He played like a winner needs to play,” said Xander Schauffele, who was paired with him for the final round on Sunday. “He was like a robot.”Just under six feet and weighing close to 200 pounds, Matsuyama had been lionized in Japan, where he began to learn golf from his father, long before he rose to No. 2 in the world, even before his victory at Augusta National, which earned him $2,070,000. He played in the Masters for the first time in 2011, when he tied for 27th and was crowned the low amateur. He shot a 68 in the third round then, a trip through the course that he said was significant to building the fortitude he would need outside the amateur ranks.“It gave me the confidence that I could play here,” he said. “I could play professional golf as a career.”He joined the PGA Tour in 2013 and won a few tournaments before a breakout 2017, when he topped the leaderboard at three events and placed second at the United States Open.It was that year when his penchant for privacy became clear: He announced that he had married months earlier and that he and his wife had had a child.“No one really asked me if I was married, or, you know, so I didn’t have to answer that question,” he said at a tournament news conference then. “But I felt that after the P.G.A. would be a good time, because our baby is born and I thought that would be a good time to let everyone know.”The shyness remains. Asked over the weekend how he felt about the coronavirus pandemic having kept more journalists away from the grounds at Augusta National, he replied: “I’m glad the media are here covering it, but it’s not my favorite thing to do, to stand and answer questions. And so with fewer media, it’s been a lot less stressful for me, and I’ve enjoyed this week.”But in the years before a full ascent into golf’s elite, particularly in Japan, Matsuyama was a promising young player in search of guidance, Scott remembered.“I found back then he was really interested to learn everything he could,” Scott recalled of his interactions with a younger Matsuyama during the 2013 Presidents Cup, the first of four in which Matsuyama would compete.“Just someone who’s got a desire to do well is what it looked like,” Scott said later. “He wasn’t afraid to ask the questions, and I think that shows. As timid as some people can be, the desire to do well overshadows the language barrier or being shy or anything like that.”Until Sunday, however, he had been in something of a slump, even though he was leading the Players Championship in 2020 when the rest of the tournament was canceled as the coronavirus gained a greater foothold in the United States.This year, Matsuyama said, he had a coach with him from Japan who was helping him to improve his game.“He’s been a great help, a great benefit,” Matsuyama said on Saturday. “Things that I was feeling in my swing, I could talk to him about that.” He added: “He always gives me good feedback. He has a good eye. It’s like having a mirror for my swing, and it’s been a great help for me. We worked hard, and hopefully now it’s all starting to come together.”On Sunday evening in Augusta, it did. More

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      Hideki Matsuyama of Japan Is the First Asian-Born Winner of the Masters

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      Matsuyama led the final round from start to finish at Augusta National, becoming the first Asian-born man to win the Masters.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Hideki Matsuyama’s first swing in the final round of the 85th Masters was an unsightly banana-shaped slice that would have looked familiar on the nerve-racking first tee of any golf course in the world.Matsuyama, who entered Sunday’s fourth round with a four-shot lead, had not slept much Saturday night, and the walk Sunday afternoon from the practice range to the golf course was more disquieting.“When I got to the first tee it hit me,” Matsuyama said. “I was really nervous.”But Matsuyama hunted down his wayward opening drive in the left woods and decisively chose an intrepid course, smashing his ball from a bed of wispy pine straw through a slender gap between two trees. Matsuyama’s caddie, Shota Hayafuji, yelped, “Woo,” which elicited a toothy grin from the typically undemonstrative Matsuyama.Matsuyama chipped a shot on the 18th hole from the bunker.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEven though he bogeyed the first hole, the tone for his day was set.A former teenage golf prodigy in Japan who has long been expected to break through on golf’s biggest stage, Matsuyama, 29, fearlessly charged the daunting Augusta National Golf Club layout on Sunday to build a commanding lead. Even with three unsteady bogeys in the closing holes, he persevered with a gutsy final-round 73 to win the 2021 Masters by one stroke and become the tournament’s first Asian-born champion.Matsuyama, who finished 10 under par for the tournament, is also the first Japanese man to win a major golf championship. Will Zalatoris finished second, and Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth tied for third place at seven under par.Matsuyama’s groundbreaking victory will make him a national hero in golf-crazy Japan, which has had a rich history of producing world-class male golfers who have come close to winning a major championship over the past several decades but have fallen short. Two Japanese women have won major golf championships. Matsuyama’s breakthrough comes at a time of unrest over racially targeted violence against Asian and Asian-Americans.Matsuyama started off the day 11 under par and remained in front the entire day.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe new face of Japanese golf is shy and tight-lipped, so much so that when he was married and had a child in 2017 he kept it hidden from the golf world for seven months. Sunday, after receiving his ceremonial green jacket beside the 18th green, Matsuyama stood motionless, his arms at his sides as news photographers took his picture. Urged to look celebratory, he raised both arms overhead and meekly smiled. Emboldened by the winsome reaction it elicited, Matsuyama widened his grin and jabbed his fists in the air twice.Led to a news conference, Matsuyama was asked if he was now the greatest golfer in Japanese history.“I cannot say that I am the greatest,” he answered through an interpreter. “However, I’m the first to win a major, and if that’s the bar, then I set it.”Will Zalatoris, a Masters rookie, finished second in his tournament debut.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMatsuyama was more interested in answering what effect his victory might have on young Japanese golfers.“Up until now, we haven’t had a major champion in Japan, maybe a lot of young golfers thought it was an impossibility,” he said. “Hopefully this will set an example that it is possible and if they set their mind to it, they can do it, too.”Matsuyama, who had the low score for an amateur at the 2011 Masters, was ranked as high as second in the world four years ago, but suddenly fell into a slump. Until Sunday, he had not won a tournament since 2017 and his ranking had slipped to 25th worldwide.But after a sparkling 65 in the third round Saturday — he had an eagle and four birdies in his final eight holes — Matsuyama came into the final round with a heathy cushion atop the leaderboard. He was steady at the start on Sunday, even after the opening-hole bogey. He rebounded with a birdie at the second, then reeled off five pars and cruised into the back nine with a comfortable five-stroke lead.But as often happens on a Masters Sunday, odd, unforeseen things ensued.At the par-5 15th hole, Matsuyama sized up a second shot in the fairway that was 227 yards from the flagstick. He said he “flushed” a 4-iron but his golf ball rocketed off the green and scooted into the water behind the hole. It was no small misstep, not with his playing partner Schauffele about to birdie his fourth consecutive hole. Matsuyama did not lose his poise or persistence. Taking a penalty stroke, he prudently chipped to the fringe of the green and two-putted for a bogey.Schauffele was trailing by only two strokes when the duo stepped on the 16th tee. Still chasing the leader, Schauffele said he felt he had to go for another birdie, but his aggressive tee shot was short of the green and trickled into a pond.Schauffele said the notoriously swirling Augusta National winds double-crossed him, a familiar rejoinder, and likely an accurate one.“I hit a good shot; it turned out bad,” Schauffele, who made a triple bogey on the hole, said. “I’ll sleep OK tonight — I might be tossing around a little.”The turn of events made the Masters rookie Zalatoris the closest pursuer to Matsuyama, especially after Zalatoris made a lengthy, downhill par putt on the 18th hole to finish the final round at nine under par, just two strokes behind Matsuyama.With two holes left to play, Matsuyama hit a brilliant drive in the middle of the 17th fairway, launched a perfect wedge shot to the middle of the green and two-putted for par. At the 18th hole, he hit another perfect drive but his approach shot faded and landed in the greenside bunker to the right of the green. His recovery from the sand stopped six feet from the hole, but two putts still gave him the championship.The second place finish by Zalatoris, who is in his first year on the PGA Tour, will raise his profile in the golf community considerably, especially in combination with his result at the 2020 United States Open where he tied for sixth. Leaving the 18th hole Sunday, Zalatoris, 24, received a standing ovation from the fans ringing the green.“Absolute dream,” Zalatoris said. “I’ve been dreaming about it for 20 years.” He added: “I think the fact that I’m frustrated I finished second in my third major says something. Obviously, my two majors as a pro, I finished sixth and runner-up. I know if I keep doing what I doing, I’m going to have a really good chance in the future.”Matsuyama also received a hearty, long ovation as he left the 18th green on Sunday. When he sank his final putt and the victory was assured, Matsuyama, unlike most golfers in that situation, had no visible reaction.“I really wasn’t thinking anything,” Matsuyama acknowledged. “Then it started to sink in, the joy of being a Masters champion. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like, but what a thrill and honor it will be for me to take the green jacket back to Japan.” More