Finau, Tony

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    Postcard From Phoenix: A Day Inside Sport’s Party Vortex

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    SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The wind was whipping like a blender working overtime on a margarita Thursday morning, and the more than 17,000 people bellied up to the 16th hole at the Phoenix Open acted as if it were last call.If you want cemetery-like quiet, kneel politely before the golf gods at the Masters’ “Amen Corner.”This is the People’s Open, and the 16th is the loudest hole on the rowdiest stop on the PGA Tour. Jon Rahm, a U.S. Open champion, says the decibels have risen exponentially from year to year.The 16th hole at the Phoenix Open is the loudest hole on the rowdiest stop on the PGA Tour.“Very few sporting events in the world can comfortably happen in the same week as the Super Bowl and still have the impact that they have like this one,” Rahm said. “With that said, I don’t think it’s everybody’s favorite — I think either you love it or hate it. There’s no in between. With my case, I love it.”The tournament is an annual destination for fans who refuse to bow to stuffy golf etiquette and, for that reason, the fairways at the T.P.C. Scottsdale course are lined with younger and rowdier attendees than anywhere else in golf. With the Super Bowl in town, golf’s party capital was not only supercharged, but it also helped the 91-year-old tournament sell out its second- and third-round tickets for the first time.Nate Orr, a lawyer, traveled from Kansas City with his friends Jared Kenealy and Micheal Lawrence. They’re Chiefs season-ticket holders who sprung for Super Bowl seats on Sunday, but found themselves in a box on the edge of the 16th green, where they watched golf balls ricochet off the panels beneath them and trickle into sand traps.Dive Deeper Into Super Bowl LVIIThe God of Sod: George Toma, 94, has been a groundskeeper for all 57 Super Bowls. On Sunday, his perfectionism will be on display for millions of people who will have no idea who he is or how he suffers for his work.Philadelphia Swagger: After surviving a disastrous introductory news conference, an ill-chosen flower analogy and his “Beat Dallas” motivational shirt, Nick Sirianni has transformed the Eagles, and maybe himself.Inside a Kansas City Oasis: Big Charlie’s Saloon is a South Philadelphia bar with a bit of a conundrum: how to celebrate Kansas City’s Super Bowl berth without drawing the ire of locals.Halftime Show: The nearly four-year gap between Rihanna’s live performances will close when she takes the stage at the Super Bowl. During her hiatus, the stakes for her return have only grown.“Bucket list stuff,” said Lawrence, an executive at a nonprofit.From left: Jared Kenealy, Nate Orr, Stephanie Orr and Micheal Lawrence inside their suite on the 16th green.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe crowd was just as rough on the celebrities who competed in the Pro-Am on Wednesday, including the Olympic great Michael Phelps.Tony Finau, the world No. 13, was greeted like a gladiator at the so-called coliseum hole after knocking his tee-shot 16 inches from the flag. When he sunk the gimme for a birdie, the crowd roared as exuberantly as they had in Arrowhead Stadium last month when Harrison Butker booted the game-winning field goal that landed Kansas City in Sunday’s Super Bowl.Rory McIlroy was booed for merely backing off his ball as the wind gusted.When Jordan Spieth, ranked No. 17, yanked his five-or-so-foot birdie putt, however, the boos reached a crescendo. How to describe the crowd’s ardor? Imagine Eagles fans greeting Chip Kelly’s return. It was that venomous.The Phoenix Open sold out tickets for the tournament’s second and third rounds this year, a first.Autograph-seekers waited on the 16th tee box during the hole-in-one competition on Wednesday.The crowd skews younger than at any other PGA Tour event, in part because of the access to pros.Chants of “Go Chiefs” and “Fly Eagles Fly” were part of the tournament’s already-booming soundtrack as football fans were among those in the long lines of people waiting to secure seats in the Coliseum’s general-admission grandstand.The crowd was just as rough on the celebrities who competed in the Pro-Am on Wednesday. The Olympic great Michael Phelps, the retired Arizona Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald and Carli Lloyd, a former soccer star of the United States Women’s National Team, were announced at the tee box with D.J. music, but they were razzed and roared at as they made their way to the green.The pro golfer’s bags in the “bag room.”Hideki Matsuyama dove to the ground to catch a scorecard that was blown out of his hand on the 12th green.Name another hole where it can rain suds and thunder beer cans as it did last year when Sam Ryder aced the 16th in the third-round to set off a delirious celebration that halted play for 15 minutes so volunteers could pick up the cans.Alas, aluminum cans inside the Coliseum were banned this week and replaced with plastic cups.Where else are gallery members enlisted to remove a boulder as they were in 1999 so Tiger Woods could get a clear shot at the green. It took a dozen of them, and the blessing of a rules official, but after a few heave-hos Woods got his birdie.Enclosed from tee to green by a grandstand that reaches three stories, an army of aggressive and clever beer vendors helped lubricate the crowd on Thursday.“I got a Coors with your name on it — What’s your name?” went one’s singsong mantra.Unlike the golfers they came to watch, patrons of the People’s Open do not even have to make it through all 18 holes. The Birds Nest, a party tent near the course’s entrance, starts throbbing in late afternoon as tournament goers get ready to dance into the night to performances by Machine Gun Kelly and the Chainsmokers.Yes, the Phoenix Open has its charms. Ask McIlroy.“If I wasn’t a player and I wanted to come to one PGA Tour event,” he said after shooting 2-over in his opening round, “this would probably be the one that I’d want to come to.”The 16th green from the top level of the grandstands. More

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      U.S. Ryder Cup Team Seizes Big Lead on a Wild Opening Day

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      The action included some harrowing moments for a couple of golfers, and the gallery included Michael Jordan.HAVEN, Wis. — A snapshot panorama from the first day of the Ryder Cup would start with a crowd of 40,000 — 90 percent of it American fans because of pandemic-related travel restrictions — noisily arriving before sunrise on Friday to roar unabated for 12 hours and through eight matches that concluded in the gloaming. Patriotic costumes were in vogue, though not among the most prominent spectators in the mix: Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry.Whistling Straits, the topsy-turvy golf fun house designed by Pete Dye along Lake Michigan, almost claimed two competitors as a stumbling Jordan Spieth ended up a hop step from a Great Lakes face plant and Ireland’s Shane Lowry flopped to his backside on an embankment like a toddler on a water slide. Tiger Woods, still recovering from a devastating car crash in February, was there in spirit on Friday, having sent an inspirational message to the U.S. team on the eve of the event. Bryson DeChambeau, ever the lightning rod for attention, boomed his opening drive of the day off line and off the ankle of a spectator. Later, DeChambeau ripped a towering 417-yard drive and then helped chase down the world’s top-ranked male golfer, Jon Rahm, to earn a pivotal half point.DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?! 🤯@JordanSpieth // @RyderCupUSA 📺 Watch now on GOLF and @peacockTV💻 https://t.co/FGvI8M8F19 pic.twitter.com/wHxO9XuSKr— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 24, 2021
      Ultimately, the big picture would reveal that the Americans had taken control of the event by winning each of the four-match morning and afternoon sessions for a 6-2 lead over the European team. It was the largest first-day lead for the United States at the Ryder Cup since 1975, when it had a five-point lead.But that was when the Americans routinely dominated the event. Since the mid-1990s, the script has been reversed, with the Europeans having won four of the past five events and nine of the past 12.“It was good to finally get things going, and it was obviously a good start,” Steve Stricker, the U.S. nonplaying captain, said. “We’d like to win every session.”Stricker, a mild-mannered Wisconsin native not known for risky moves, took some big chances with his afternoon pairings after the Americans had built a 3-1 lead in the morning matches. Every match featured two-man teams from each side. The morning format was foursomes, in which players alternate hitting the same golf ball on a hole, while the afternoon brought a four-ball format, in which each golfer plays his own ball, and the lower score for a team decides the result on a hole.The strongest American combination in the morning was Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, two of the American team’s six Ryder Cup rookies. The pair surged to a big lead early and routed the high-profile, veteran European team of Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter, 5 and 3.“I don’t know that anyone could have beaten Xander and Patrick today,” McIlroy said later.Usually when a new team is formed and has immediate success, Ryder Cup captains keep the players together and playing often. But for the afternoon matches, Stricker surprisingly had Schauffele play with Dustin Johnson, who had teamed with Collin Morikawa for an easy win in the morning. It had been expected that Stricker would keep that pair together as well.Instead, Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion, sat out the afternoon matches, as did Spieth and the team of Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger, who had been victorious in a morning match.But on Thursday, Stricker said that he had arranged his lineup for the first eight matches and that nothing that occurred in the morning session would change his plans for the afternoon. Given the pressure the Americans are under to win on home soil, few believed Stricker would stick to such a plan. But he did, and the results were impressive.Justin Thomas celebrating on the ninth green as Viktor Hovland of Norway looked on. Thomas emerged as the emotional leader of the U.S. team on Day 1.Warren Little/Getty ImagesCantlay teamed with Justin Thomas, who had played in the morning with his close friend Spieth. Cantlay, the PGA Tour player of the year, was steady, and Thomas, who appears to be the emotional leader of the American team, was fiery. But the duo was losing for most of its match against England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Norway’s Viktor Hovland. Then, with two holes remaining, Thomas rallied for a crucial putt that created a tie, which is how the match ended.The usually stoic Cantlay even showed some emotion during the round with an occasional fist pump.“I was feeding off J.T. a little bit,” Cantlay said, referring to Thomas. “He carried me around all day today, and he played great, and it was a dogfight.”Cantlay was also doing most of the post-round talking because Thomas had all but lost his voice from screaming and yelling toward the American crowd, which he did after sinking any meaningful putt.Tony Finau, left, and Harris English of the United States on the 10th green Friday afternoon. They defeated Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, 4 and 3.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesThe Johnson-Schauffele team defeated England’s Paul Casey and Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, 2 and 1. DeChambeau was paired with Scottie Scheffler in a match against Rahm and England’s Tyrrell Hatton that ended in a tie. The American team of Tony Finau and Harris English used their length off the tee and their accurate iron play to overpower McIlroy, who combined with Lowry in a 4-and-3 loss.The competition continues Saturday with another eight matches.Some of the Americans mentioned that Woods’s message had been part of the motivation for their winning play on Friday.“I’m obviously not going to reveal what he said,” Schauffele said. “But we referred to it a few times a day, and we knew what we needed to do. We knew he was fist-pumping from the couch. Whether he was on crutches or not — he’s fired up as any of us back at home.” More

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      Ryder Cup: U.S. Names Finau, Schauffele Among Six Captain's Picks

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      The U.S. captain, Steve Stricker, completed the 12-man roster, which already included Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas.Six golfers were named on Wednesday to round out the 12-man American team that will compete in the latest Ryder Cup match against a team of European golfers to be played Sept. 24 to 26 at Whistling Straits in Haven, Wis.The U.S. Ryder Cup captain, Steve Stricker, selected as his choices Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Harris English, Daniel Berger and Scottie Scheffler.Team. Complete.With his Captain’s Picks locked, @SteveStricker selects:🇺🇸 @DanielBerger59 🇺🇸 @Harris_English 🇺🇸 @tonyfinaugolf 🇺🇸 @XSchauffele 🇺🇸 Scottie Scheffler🇺🇸 @JordanSpieth pic.twitter.com/wFGR3bw8IH— Ryder Cup USA (@RyderCupUSA) September 8, 2021
      Six golfers had already qualified for the team based on a cumulative points system linked to recent performances. They were Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay. The number of captain’s picks on the American side was increased to six from four for this edition of the competition.The European team is the defending champion after a commanding victory in 2018 in France. The European captain, Padraig Harrington, will announce his captain’s picks on Sunday. Paul Casey, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm have qualified automatically for the European team. The Ryder Cup is typically played every two years but was postponed in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.The American team lost for the sixth time on foreign soil in 2018, a competition that included bickering over player pairings and poor showings by three of the four optional selections made by Jim Furyk, that year’s U.S. captain. Of Furyk’s picks, only Finau (2-1) had a winning record, while Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and DeChambeau failed to win any of their matches.The United States leads the Ryder Cup series, which dates to 1927, by 26-14. But since 1985, when Europe claimed its first victory in 28 years, the United States has won only six of the 16 Ryder Cups contested, often losing by lopsided scores. When the competition has been held in the United States in recent years, the Americans have fared better, with a 3-2 record since 1999. More

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      Tony Finau’s Perseverance a Lesson in Overcoming Setbacks

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      The American golfer had eight runner-up finishes across five winless years until he won the Northern Trust on Monday. His rivals couldn’t be happier.OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Unbridled euphoria unfolds alongside haunting discontent routinely in the crucible of professional golf, most conspicuously at the end of tournaments. A player wins an event and grins throughout a post-round interview on the final green. Steps away, the golfer who finished second faces probing questions about what went wrong.The vanquished player, imbued by the sport’s air of civility, typically accepts the setback with tact. It turns out that is harder than it looks.“A lot harder,” said Tony Finau, who had eight runner-up finishes across five winless years until he won the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust on Monday in Jersey City, N.J. “Extremely hard.”But Finau revealed a code of conduct among his brethren, and with it a slice-of-life insight into the highly paid troupe that makes up elite golf’s traveling circus.“You just have to take it on the chin,” he said Wednesday as he prepared for this week’s BMW Championship, the second stage of the tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs. “I’m going to have critics, but that’s how it is, and that’s what I signed up for.”In a year when mental health issues faced by prominent athletes have become widely discussed, Finau’s colleagues seemed accepting of a work environment in which openly talking about setbacks is commonplace. Perhaps it is because recurring disappointment is inherent to golf, something underscored weekly at the highest levels when roughly 150 players show up to a tournament knowing only one will win it.Still, coming close to claiming what could be a career-defining victory and not getting it can be more demoralizing than losing by 20 strokes. And yet, it is rare for a player to not accede to the questioning of reporters afterward. Not that is a beloved tradition.“After a tough loss you don’t really want to talk to anybody,” said Jordan Spieth, who has won three major championships but also recently had a prolonged period without a win. He added: “It can be tough to explain because in our game you can do everything right and it still doesn’t go your way.“There are plenty of events where you didn’t do anything wrong and people say, ‘What did you do wrong?’ And you have to try to come up with an answer. It can deplete your confidence.”Rory McIlroy, who has won every golf major except the Masters, wondered Wednesday if the post-round interview might be easier if golfers had a cooling-off period, which is common in other sports.Asked if he agreed, Spieth laughed and said he would be no less distraught.“For me, it lasts hours to a day, so it wouldn’t really make a difference if you gave me an extra 10 minutes,” he said.There is one thing that golfers agreed upon on Wednesday: Finau’s victory at the Northern Trust after a long drought — he won the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, which was contested on the same week as a World Golf Championship event — was greeted enthusiastically by his colleagues.“It was a really popular win in the locker room,” McIlroy said.“Obviously Tony hadn’t won in a while, but he never complained,” McIlroy continued. “He just sticks his head down, goes about his business.”Finau even credited the process of falling short in several tournaments — and then meeting with reporters to talk about his many second-place finishes — with helping to guide him back to the winner’s circle.Answering questions following a defeat, he said, was an act of sportsmanship.“I was taught since I was a kid, no matter how things go, sportsmanship is very, very important,” Finau, who is of Tongan and Samoan descent and was raised in Utah, said. “If you want to be good at anything, you’re going to go through some really hard times. When you go through those, it’s OK to be nice, it’s OK to be kind still. I never wanted to be one where golf was going to kill me. I’ve seen it happen to too many people where they let the game literally drive them crazy. I’ve never wanted that to be the case.”Finau, 31, called the string of runner-up finishes, which included losing three playoffs, part of his development on a world golf stage.“I didn’t get discouraged; I used it as fuel to do better,” he said. “It was more of the attitude of, ‘OK, not quite good enough yet, so keep working.’ ”Next up, trying to claim one of the top spots at the BMW Championship in Maryland and perhaps win the FedEx Cup playoffs, which conclude next week at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. Finau leads the playoff standings.Monday’s victory may, however, yield a cosmetic change. Finau has been sporting a beard that has grown fuller in recent weeks. He vowed not to shave until he won again, or was named to the American Ryder Cup team, which will not be finalized until after the next week’s event.Finau predicted his beard would be gone by Thursday. More

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      At the British Open, Tony Finau Shuts Out a Sense of Frustration

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      The American golfer wants to win. But after finishing in the top 10 at major tournaments 10 times, without a title, Finau has a healthy perspective on outcomes.Tony Finau shot a four-under-par 66 on Friday at the British Open and found himself in familiar territory. He was once again a contender for a major golf championship and knew that people would be wondering if it would end with another near-miss result. More

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      Rose Holds Slim Masters Lead as Johnson Misses the Cut

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      After shooting a 75 on Friday, Dustin Johnson, who won the Masters in November, became the latest defending champion not to advance into the weekend.AUGUSTA, Ga. — To most every player at the Masters Tournament, the 530-yard, water-guarded hole called Firethorn is a back-nine destination for earning back a stroke. To Bernd Wiesberger, that hole, No. 15 at Augusta National Golf Club, can teeter toward the nightmarish.In November, it dealt him a double bogey. On Thursday, his putt for eagle rolled and rolled and rolled across some of the firmest greens in Masters memory before it slipped clear into the drink. And so there Wiesberger stood on Friday, having gained four shots before coming upon the pine-lined nemesis that had left him “a little bit too excited” a day earlier.His first shot on Friday went 305 yards and landed in the rough. The second vaulted his ball beyond the tree canopy. The third moved him onto the green, positioning Wiesberger for a 6-foot putt that, mercifully, did not have him aiming toward water. Birdie.“I’ve been playing really solid golf yesterday and today, obviously,” said Wiesberger, an Austrian whose second-round six-under-par 66 matched Tony Finau for the day’s best score and by sundown had him in a six-way tie for sixth place that also included Finau. “Just today, I kept the mistakes off the card.”But there were plenty of other shots that went wayward elsewhere on the course as the cut, set for the second consecutive year at the lowest 50 scores plus ties, loomed.Dustin Johnson, the 2020 champion, struggled with his putting and, at five over par across two days, failed to move into Saturday’s third round. Rory McIlroy, who arrived at Augusta National in search of the Masters victory he needs to complete a career Grand Slam, logged a double bogey at No. 10 and did not advance. Brooks Koepka, who is ranked No. 14 in the world, faltered and did not make the cut, nor did Sungjae Im, who finished second in November’s tournament, which organizers had postponed from April because of the coronavirus pandemic.Johnson leaning to inspect the 15th green, where his ball went into the water.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAugusta National played far differently back then, offering players a soft course on which 43 golfers finished below par and Johnson won at 20 under, a tournament record. The grounds have proved far more vicious this week, with one player after the next declaring the greens — famously fast and firm — more perilous than they had ever seen them.Not that Augusta National was concerned. “We have the golf course where we want it,” its chairman, Fred S. Ridley, said this week.Justin Rose, who entered Friday with a four-stroke lead, remained atop the field after shooting a 72. But his advantage narrowed to a single shot on a day when he had three fewer birdies than in his opening round and doubled, to four, the number of bogeys.“I think it was just a classic day at Augusta National when you’re slightly off,” Rose said. “You can be a foot or two out on certain occasions and you end up struggling.”Will Zalatoris chipping to the ninth green.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWill Zalatoris, who is aiming to become the first person to win his Masters debut since Fuzzy Zoeller did it in 1979, birdied the final three holes to climb into second place, a shot behind Rose and alongside Brian Harman, who made birdie on No. 18 when his second shot rolled downward and set up a 10-foot putt that had just enough power.Marc Leishman and Jordan Spieth were tied in fourth place, while Cameron Champ, Si Woo Kim, Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Thomas joined Finau and Wiesberger in sixth. (Augusta National said Friday evening that Matthew Wolff, who was not in contention, had been disqualified after he submitted a scorecard with an inaccurate tally for No. 17.)Finau’s six-stroke swing into the tournament’s upper ranks began early in his round, when he sized up the second hole, a par-5 that, at 575 yards, is the longest on the course. He was 8 feet from the pin after a pair of strokes. His putt slid right, tracing a crescent on its way toward an eagle.With the predicted rain looking less likely before the start of Saturday’s round, Finau professed himself unbothered by the conditions that had thrilled and terrified others.Tony Finau after making a birdie on the sixth hole.Doug Mills/The New York Times“I really like the conditions fast and firm,” said Finau, who finished in a tie for fifth at the 2019 Masters, his best showing at Augusta National. “With my ball flight, I think it’s a big advantage. I put plenty of spin on it. I enjoy the golf course the way it’s playing — I guess I wouldn’t say enjoy, but I think it’s a good setup for me.”Johnson was another story: a defending champion who three-putted six times in two days, but whose demise this week was not quite sealed until late in his Friday round. His second shot on Friday at No. 15, the hole that had so frustrated Wiesberger, wound up in the water and fueled a bogey there. Two holes later, his second shot lifted him onto the green — before a pair of putts streaked past the pin. Adding to the turmoil, his first putt fell short on No. 18.“I don’t know,” he said afterward. “I just didn’t have a good beat on the speed the last two days.”He will still be at the club this weekend, of course, to drape the green jacket on someone else. It has happened recently: Johnson became the third reigning winner to miss the cut in five years, after Danny Willett and Sergio García stumbled.“I like this golf course,” Johnson said after his round. “I feel like I play it very well. I just didn’t putt very good. It’s pretty simple.” More

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      Here Are The 5 Golfers to Watch at The 2021 Masters Tournament

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      Tiger Woods is out with injuries, and Dustin Johnson is back to defend his title. Here are five more golfers to keep an eye on.When the best golfers in the world tee off at Augusta National Golf Club this week, the Masters will seem, to a large degree, like the Masters again. The azaleas should be blooming, and there will be fans, if only a limited amount, on the grounds.That was not the case in 2020. Because of the pandemic, the tournament was held in November instead of its traditional spot in April, and it was played without the boisterous galleries.Dustin Johnson, the top-ranked player in the world, won by five strokes with a record score of 20-under 268. Tiger Woods, the 2019 champion, tied for 38th. Woods won’t be playing at the Masters. He is recovering from injuries from a February car accident in California.Johnson, vying for his third major title, will be one of the favorites, along with Justin Thomas (No. 2) and Jon Rahm (No. 3).Here are five other players to keep an eye on.Bryson DeChambeauThere doesn’t seem to be a golf course that can neutralize DeChambeau’s distance off the tee. He’s averaging 320.8 yards, the best on the PGA Tour.It will serve him well at Augusta National. He should be able to easily reach the greens in two shots on the par-5s, which provide the best scoring opportunities. His power isn’t the only impressive part of his game. DeChambeau, ranked No. 5, has been able to make a lot of crucial putts.Before last year’s United States Open at Winged Foot, it wasn’t certain whether the way he planned to attack the course would pay off; the fairways were narrow and the rough was thick.No problem. DeChambeau, 27, won by six strokes and was the only player to finish under par.DeChambeau hasn’t had much success in his previous four appearances at Augusta. His best finish was a tie for 21st in 2016, just before he turned pro.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesTony FinauSooner or later, Finau, 31, is going to break through on the big stage. Augusta National could be the place.Finau, too, hits the ball a long way. He is 15th on the tour in birdies and 11th in eagles. The course seems to suit him well. In his three starts, he has two top 10 finishes, including in 2019 when he tied for fifth, two shots behind Woods.Since 2017, Finau, ranked No. 13 in the world, has recorded 37 top 10s without a victory. His lone triumph came at the Puerto Rico Open in 2016.He came close to his second victory in January and February. He finished second in the Farmers Insurance Open and the Genesis Invitational. He shot a final-round 64 at the Genesis, but lost in a playoff to Max Homa.Finau has played well in the majors. In his last 11 appearances, he has recorded seven top 10s.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesPatrick CantlayCantlay, 29, seems to always be in the hunt. In his last 10 starts, he has finished in the top 20 eight times. The only hiccup was a missed cut at last month’s Players Championship.Like Finau, he makes a lot of birdies. Heading into the Masters, he ranks fourth on the PGA Tour this season, with 4.68 birdies per round. He’s 13th in scoring average at just over 70.Cantlay played extremely well at the recent World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament. In his first two matches against Brian Harman and Carlos Ortiz, Cantlay recorded 14 birdies and an eagle. He failed to make it to the round of 16, losing in a playoff to Harman.Ranked No. 10, Cantlay trailed by only a shot heading into the final two rounds of the 2020 Masters. He faded over the weekend to end up in a tie for 17th. In 2019, he tied for ninth.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesJordan SpiethUntil recently, it would have been a stretch to suggest that Spieth, 27, would be a factor at Augusta National. He hadn’t won a tournament in more than three years. Before 2018, he won 11 times, including three majors.The drought is over. Spieth captured the Valero Texas Open on Sunday by two strokes over Charley Hoffman. It was his first victory since the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.Spieth has played very well since February. He posted top 10 finishes in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Arnold Palmer Invitational. The only negative was that he did not perform well enough on Sundays. That wasn’t the case in Texas. He shot a 66 in the final round.What’s important, as always at the Masters, will be the ability to negotiate the treacherous greens. Spieth has handled the challenge well.His record in the tournament has been outstanding. He won the 2015 Masters with a score of 18-under 270. He has finished in the top three on three other occasions, including in 2014 when he was only 20.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesSergio GarciaIn his last two starts — at the Players Championship and the Dell match play tournament — Garcia, 41, flashed some of the magic that has made him such a dynamic player for more than two decades.In the Players, he shot a 65 in the first round and was still in the hunt in the final round until he faded and tied for ninth. At the match play tournament, he made it to the quarterfinals before losing to Victor Perez.His walking off with a second green jacket — he won the 2017 Masters, his only major title — still seems like a long shot, but his recent play makes him a more viable contender. He is still a very good ball striker. The challenge for him, as usual, will be to make enough critical putts. More