Deutsche Bank Championship

Another Labor Day Weekend in the 'burbs of Boston/Providence with the PGA Tour rolling through town. Gorgeous Autumnal day:

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Moving Day Has a New Meaning for Jordan Spieth

By Terry Lyons @terrylyons @DigSportsDesk

NORTON, Mass - September 6, 2015 - The third round of every PGA Tour event is always referred to as “moving day.” The term simply describes the importance of the third round, coming a day after the cut is made and the tournament’s most noteworthy contenders buckle down to play their very best and frequently hurdle some of the pretenders on the leaderboard. Because of the Labor Day holiday weekend, “moving day” comes on Sunday, not Saturday, for the Deutsche Bank Championship, held at the Tournament Players Club situated halfway between Boston and Providence.

For Jordan Spieth, one of the top three golfers in the world today largely because of his victories at The Masters and U.S. Open this year, moving day at the DBChampionship, the de facto “quarterfinals” of the PGA Tour’s contrived FedExCup playoff system, came at its regular time on Saturday. Except, this week, the young talent’s move was to pack up his bags and return to his hometown of Dallas, Texas after missing the cut and a piece of the $8.25 million purse at Deutsche Bank.

Sunset at the 18th hole of TPC-Boston, site of the DBC Championship

“I’m going to take some time away,” said Spieth after his 75-73 opening rounds scorecard from Boston sent him on his way. “It’s probably going to be good for me to take at least four days and not touch a club. Maybe get back with (swing coach) Cameron (McCormick) and just go through a normal routine. Nothing is different.”

Nothing is different?  I beg to differ. Since August 16, when he finished an impressive second to Jason Day at the PGA Championship in Wisconsin, Spieth has now missed the cut in his last two tournaments, both FedEx Cup Playoff events in The Barclays (NJ) and here at the TPC-Boston. 

After missing the cut at The Barclays, Spieth chose not to return home to Texas and went back to the lab, so to say, by staying in New York on the weekend of August 29-30 and traveling the short distance to Boston from NYC, seemingly a very smart strategy to get back on track.

“I went to the city, played a round at (the prestigious North Jersey course) Baltusrol and then rested Sunday,” said Spieth to the Beantown scribes before the Deutsche Bank tournament teed-off. “I figured we’d come up here, versus anywhere else. To fly three and half hourse back, then four hours back up here, to be honest it was going to be a bit more of a pain.

“The best practice we could get is playing the course (for) that week,” he explained. “If I could get on these greens, versus in Dallas where it’s 110-degrees. It’s hard to practice a full day in Dallas at this time of year. Cameron came up and we worked all Monday and Tuesday and got a lot of good work it. There wasn’t much to fix.

“It was more what I was making up in my head,” said Spieth, as honest as a long summer day, but obviously fading just as it’s doing in New England as an early September morning thermometer read 48 today. “I was creating bigger problems than there really was. I wanted to get some speed work and putting work,” Spieth added about his pre-tournament practice strategy.

So what is Spieth’s frame of mind now, that he’s missed his second consecutive cut but will rank No. 2 in the important FedEx Cup points list when the tour heads to Conway farms GC in Lake Forest, Illinois September 17?

“It’s almost like a bad dream,” he said, again so honestly and soul bearing. “Again, I don;t feel like it’s that far off, even though my score is far off. I just (need to) wake up and get the putts to go in again. That’s where I feel it’s at.

“I had a really bad 'self-talk’ week, something I haven’t experienced in quite a while. It maybe heightened by everything that’s happened this year and just being so used to being in contention. I need to walk with some cockiness in my step these next two tournaments. I don't have to fix much in my game other than work really hard on my putting, going into Conway, and then, mentally, I can control that. I can control walking with the cockiness, whether things are going good or bad, and that’s what you have to have inside the ropes.

“I’ll bring it when we get to Chicago.”

If Spieth gets some rest in his own bed and can regain his mental toughness and putting stroke, both Dallas and then, Chicago, will be sweet home.

***

(This column was written for Digital Sports Desk (dot) com - Please visit and follow the site on Twitter @DigSportsDesk)

Labor Day Notes

"T-Off" at Deutsche Bank Championship

By TERRY LYONS

Rory McIlroy enjoys playing in Boston (Getty Images).

NORTON, Mass - Surprise leaders Russell Henley and Billy Horschel are atop the Deutsche Bank Championship leaderboard as final round play was underway Monday morning in Boston where the PGA Tour's FedExCup playoffs continue on a busy sports holiday weekend in the USA.  The more familiar names of Rory McIlroy, the soon-to-be-crowned 2014 PGA Player of the Year and Aussie long-baller Jason Day are two strokes back from the lead. Day was in control after 54 holes at last week's Barclays championship but fell two strokes shy of Hunter Mahan's winning score. Mahan came to Boston as the FedExCup points leader after being rewarded with 2,500 points and vaulting from 62nd to first place on the leaderboard, besting PGA player of the year Rory McIlroy.

ON to DENVER: The top 70 players on the FedExCup points list will travel to Denver, Colorado for next week's BMW Championship, the semi-finals of the annual PGA Tour countdown to the season finale TOUR Championship at East lake CC near Atlanta, Georgia. ... Here in Boston, the top 100 players advanced to play but only 22 were eliminated after the cut and another seven players were shaved from competition yesterday evening after a rare modified cut-line was established to get the field of play down for Monday's final round. One of the players cut, Patrick Reed, shot an unspeakable 82 on Sunday after openings rounds of 68-68. Reed was No. 8 on the FedExCup points standings list coming into Boston. Reed is projected to drop to No. 14 after the rough round at TPC Boston.

BACK 9 NETWORK? - Jason Day has played the front 9 at the TPC Boston at -12 but the back nine at 2-over. "The front fits my eye," said Day on Sunday. "I like the front nine. The back nine, you've got to pay a little more respect, because it's a little tougher. Throughout the PGA Tour, normally, the harder holes are towards the end of the round. With that said, I feel I need to play the 18th hole a little better."

RYDER on the HORIZON: Although the PGA Tour playoffs are in full swing, the golf world seems to be more focused on the upcoming Ryder Cup tournament featuring the best players from Europe versus the USA in match play. Largely because the Ryder Cup is played every two years, the special nature of the tournament takes precedent over the regular season and playoffs in golf, much like the World Cup in soccer seems to dominate the news over the top European leagues. Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy tries not to get caught up in the mix. "I won;t say I haven't thought about it," said McIlroy. "I'll think about it more the week before, maybe the weekend before we get there. Right now, I'm thinking about myself. I've got (this tournament in Boston), and then two very important weeks to think about before I pay any attention to the Ryder Cup."

TOUGH COMPETITORS: Billy Horschel is known on the PGA Tour as a tough-minded competitor who might be playing his way on to the USA Ryder Cup team as a Captain's pick. Horschel was asked if it was a surprise to see R3 leader Russell Henley and himself atop the leaders going into the final round. "I'm not surprised to be here," he said. "If people are surprised that I'm in second place, then they must not know what kind of person I am. Obviously, my season hasn't been anywhere as good as last year, but I'm a guy that's going to keep working hard, keep grinding until they tell me the season is over and I can't play anymore. I've put a lot of time in the last few months, and it's just now starting to pay off. ... On Russell Henley: "He's a guy who comes from a basketball background. He's like a three-point shooter, he's going to keep shooting, and they're going to start falling sooner than later. That's his kind of mentality. I like that. He's a guy who is never going to give up."

Furyk at the 15th - TPC Boston

These guys are - pretty damn good.



Jim Furyk on the 15th hole of the Deutsche Bank Championship for Eagle!

See http://www.digitalsportsdesk.com for coverage of the event this Labor Day weekend.

Saturday's Alright in Boston

Notes & Quotes on DBChampionship

By TERRY LYONS

THE DAY BEFORE MOVING DAY:  At PGA Tour events around the world, Saturday is fondly called "Moving Day," as the tournaments are almost always scheduled to run Thursday-Friday (then a cutdown) with Saturday and Sunday as the third and final rounds, respectively. Here at the Deutsche Bank Championship, held over the Labor Day holiday in the USA, the tournament begins a day later than usual and, thus, Saturday's round leads to the cut and Sunday's round is "Moving Day," a term the players use to note the clutch play to move into contention for a tournament win.

PALMER on PALMER: Ryan Palmer jumped to the lead at the DBChampionship, held at the TPC-Boston, a course originally designed by Arnold Palmer. Initially, the design and layout of the course drew criticism from the golf world, mainly because of its structure for long hitters but also because of poor, unforgiving greens. After a re-design and, quite frankly, the power of mother nature over time, the greens settled in and the course was tweaked to become one of the favorites on the annual PGA Tour schedule. A rather dry month of August in the suburban Boston area has resulted in firm greens at the TPC Boston which should increase as the tournament proceeds. Ryan Palmer has experienced some success at the DBC, with a T-11 in 2010 after shooting a first round 64 (-7). He bested that number in R1 on Friday with a (-8) 63, two strokes ahead of New England bred Keegan Bradley.

Palmer has a new caddie this week, as his regular partner, James Edmondson, is home in Texas on a personal matter. Brett Waldman, the regular caddie for David Toms, is stepping in for Palmer this week in Boston.

Keegan Bradley in R1 of  DBChampionship in Boston

KEEGAN'S BLUFF: In 2012, Keegan Bradley, a native of nearby Vermont, shot a 71-73 to barely make the cut at the Deutsche Bank Championship. However, he made good use of "Moving Day" and shot an 8-under 63 in R3 to help him finish T13 for the tournament. He is in the midst of his fourth consecutive start at the DBC and has made it to all four events on the PGA Tour's FEDEXCup playoffs every year since joining the tour in 2011. Coming into the week, Bradley was ranked #13 in USA Ryder Cup points and is an odds-on favorite to be a captain's choice for the USA team in 2014. A strong finish at the DBC will most likely lock him in to be one of Tom Watson's three choices, to be announced this Tuesday, Sept. 2.

LEFTY: At Fenway Park in nearby Boston, right-handed hitters have an advantage when staring down the Green Monster. However, a left-handed hitters, like Carl "Yaz" Yastrzemski and David "Big Papi" Ortiz have made quite a statement at Fenway to become two of the three greatest Red Sox batters of all-time. While there's no "Green Monster" at the TPC-Boston, left-handed PGA Tour great Phil Mickelson has had his share of success in Boston, winning the 2007 Deutsche Bank Championship and capturing a Top 15 in each of the FedExCup standings over the past seven seasons. Mickelson struggled in his R1 this year, shooting a (+3) 74, hitting only half of the 18 greens in regulation. His group shot a collective (+16) in R1, with Justin Hicks (77) and Ryo Ishikawa (78).

PLAYER NOTES in GENERAL: Defending DBC winner, Henrik Stenson, shot a (-1) 70 as he tries to become only the second player to win multiple Deutsche Bank titles in Boston. Vijay Singh is the only player to win the tournament twice, in 2004 and 2008. ... Jim Furyk opened with a (+1) 72 came into the weekend as the sixth highest FedEXCup points scorer. He finished in 8th place at The Barclays last weekend, his 13th Top-10 finishin FedExCup events, tying Steve Stricker who is not playing in Boston this week. ... World #1 golfer, Rory McIlroy, enjoys significant support from the large Irish community in Boston. McIlroy won the DBC in 2012 but finished a distant T-47 in 2013 and T-37 in 2010.

"Tee-Off" from the PGA Tour event in Boston

Notes and Quotes on the 2014 Deutsche Bank Championship:

By TERRY LYONS

Rory McIlroy at the DBC in Boston (Getty Images)

NORTON, MA, August 29, 2014 -- The Deutsche Bank Championship - @DBChampionship - is the second of four events of the PGA Tour's FedExCup Playoffs. After the full PGA season, the top 125 players qualified for The Barclays tournament, held last week in northern New Jersey. The top 100 players after The Barclays qualified for this week's tournament in suburban Boston. Ninety-three players are teeing-off on Friday, a day later than usual first-round play as the DBC tournament wraps around the Labor Day holiday in the USA. Notable PGA Tour players, such as Tiger Woods (DNQ-injuries kept his FedEx Playoff points total down), Jason Dufner (neck), Dustin Johnson (leave from PGA Tour) are not playing while Graeme McDowell and Paul Casey are taking a week off with personal time to witness the birth of their children. Casey's decision will cost him the opportunity to advance to the third round of the FedEx Playoffs in Denver. Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose each took the week off but at 15th and 20th, respectively, on the PGA's FedEx Cup listing, he will advance and is expected to play the final two rounds. Tim Clark (elbow) withdrew from the tournament on Thursday.

Tourney Sites: The DBC Championship at the TPC in Boston (Norton, Mass) and the Tour Championship (East Lake CC in Atlanta) are the two constant sites for the PGA Tour playoff system. The BMW Championship, to be held next week in Denver, rotates through various courses in the Midwest and The Barclays, the first-round tourney, is staged at the premier courses in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, some of the best courses in the Continental USA.

Pay the Man: The Tiger Woods Foundation is the host charitable organization for the DBC within the PGA Tour's season-long commitment to local and national charitable efforts. Overall, the PGA Tour has donated more than $2 billion to charity with $133 million donated in calendar year 2013. Tiger Woods' foundation concentrates its efforts on youth and breaking cycles of poverty through college-access programs for children of low-income families. Significant efforts are made in the area of mentorship, professional development and providing four-year scholarships to many first generation scholars. ... On the player's side, a purse of $8 million is on the line at the DBC with $1,440,000 going to the winner and $864,000 for the runner-up. Overall, the FedExCup playoffs has a $10 million dollar bounty awaiting the season champion with the top five players at the Tour Championship being in the best position to gain the lofty prize.

Hunter, the hunted: Hunter Mahan vaulted to the top of the FedExCup points list with his win at The Barclays in Ridgewood, NJ last weekend, shooting 68 and 65 to close out the tournament. "Jumping to "No. 1" and securing my spot in Atlanta, it feels good having done that," said mahan when he met the media after the Thursday Pro-Am outing. "I want to be the FedEx Cup champion. I was close a few years ago (2011 when he finished 2nd). "Golf is all about winning. Top-5s are great, Top-10s are great, but if you don;t win, you're not making an impact in the game. Winning is the most important thing and it's heavily favored in this format. I think it's fun for our sport to have a "winner-take-home" (all) kind of mentality, since we don;t have that in golf, kind of a finale. I think it's pretty neat with so much on the line."

Defending Champ: Henrik Stenson, the 2013 DBC Champion, is teeing-off as No. 66 on the FedExCup list after serious moving-up exercises at the PGA Championship where he tied for third place and his T38 at The Barclays last week. In doing so, he moved from No. 92 to 66 and is now in place to possibly defend his title. Last year, Stenson overcame a two-stroke deficit to Sergio Garcia to card a 5-under 66 to outpace Steve Stricker on a rain-soaked Labor Day, The 38-year old Swede became the fourth international golfer to win the DBC, joining Adam Scott (Australia, 2003), Vijay Singh (Fiji, 2004, 2008) and Rory McIlroy (No. Ireland, 2012). Stenson recorded scores in the 60s in each of his four rounds, becoming only the seventh player to do so.

Said Henson when he met the media in Boston: "It's great to be back at a venue where you've done well in the past or won in the past," he said. "I need some sort of result this week to carry on to Denver (BMW Championship). I don;t need any miracles, but if I want to make it to Atlanta, I have to have a good showing this week or next week. I'd rather do it this week than to wait to the last minute. I'm trying to move on and it would be a shame not to make it to the Tour Championship and defend my title."

Be sure to follow @DigSportsDesk for up-to-the-minute coverage of the Deutsche Bank Championship and visit http://www.digitalsportsdesk.com 

Stenson Wins at DBC; Overtakes Tiger in PGA Playoffs

(The following column appeared on DigitalSportsDesk over Labor Day Weekend):

Henrik Stenson of Sweden was winner at TPC Boston (Getty Images)

NORTON, Mass, September 2, 2013 - - The day of golf did not begin very well for Sweden's Henrik Stenson. With skies threatening and a morning drizzle lending its way to a steady rain, play was delayed from 8am to 9:30am due to the dangerous weather conditions and sporadic thunder and lightening. When the skies cleared and sun peeked through the overcast skies, Stenson set out at the TPC Boston for the fourth round of play at the Deutsche Bank Championship, trailing third round leader Sergio Garcia by two strokes. Stenson bogeyed No. 2 to drop a stroke as did Garcia, so the Swede caught a break from the Spaniard and felt quite comfortable heading onto No. 4 as the skies darkened.

The mental gamesmanship was off to a soggy start and some 20 golfers were within striking distance on a course where soggy greens lent their way to low scoring as the thunder rumbled. But like those cloudy skies, Henrik Stenson had seen the dark side of the game before, when he suffered through two major slumps - maybe even chasms - back in 2001-02 and again in 2011.

"The one I had back in '01-02, when I was really, really lost," he noted when asked to compare the two lapses in his pro career. "I was lost and confused with my game and with my swing and everything. It's the frustration of dealing with that, because I've had enough good results to know I can play this game at a very high level. Not to be able to be anywhere near that standard is, of course, frustrating."

There was a noticeable difference between the slumps, some 10 or 11 years ago and the smaller imbalance in his game from 2011-12. So, stepping up to the fourth, Stenson proceeded to birdie four of his next five holes before the skies threatened so much that the PGA Tour officials blew the siren, right after he putted for birdie on the par-3 eighth hole. When play resumed after a 1:51 delay, Stenson had a much-mental break to focus his game once more. He stepped out to warm-up at the range, then walked up to the ninth hole and ripped his 3-iron tee shot to finish 33 on the way out, grabbing a strangle hold of the DBC lead where he didn't look back until he faced another bout of adversity on the back nine.

Veteran Steve Stricker was applying pressure and was hovering closely behind on the leaderboard. At 17, Stenson, having found the bunker, sealed the tournament by holing out for a birdie to bring him to -22 on the tournament board, securing a comfortable lead as he walked to the 18th and final hole.

"I hit it left on 17 and I was going to hit a little nine-iron there and tugged it a bit left but got a good lie in the bunker," he said. "I thought I was going to look at a four, five or six-footer for the par, but you know how it turned out, so that made the walk to 18 a little bit easier."

Stricker would proceed to birdie his final two holes and card (66-68-63-67) for the tournament to rise up the FedEx Cup points standings to a lofty seventh place but it wasn't enough to unseat Stenson who took home honors at Boston, including a hefty $1.44 million, then paid the Beantown patrons back by donating a significant portion of his winnings to the One Fund, established to help the victims of the senseless bombing at the Boston Marathon this past March.

With the victory, Stenson jumped ahead of Tiger Woods amongst the FedEx Cup points standings. Stenson will advance to the BMW Championship in the 'burbs of Chicago where the Top 70 PGA Tour players compete for the challenge to rank amongst in the Top 30 FedEx Cup qualifiers. It's all for a chance to grab the $10 million first place prize at the Tour Championship by Coca-Cola, the final round of the complicated PGA Tour playoff system. Embedded in the system is an advantage for the Top 5 FedEx Cup points holders who can win the $10-mil automatically with a win at East Lake GC, the site of the Tour Championship, scheduled September 19-22.

For Stenson, it was his first win on the PGA tour since the 2009 Players Championship, and his first overall win since the South African championship in 2012. His TPC Boston round of (67-63-66-66) earned him a chance to win the top prize on the tour championship with only two weeks left on the season, but it came with some cause for reflection for the dismal days of 2011.

"My 2011 was a really poor season, by any standards," he said. "But, I started coming back at beginning of last year. At the end of the year, I won the South African open but then I didn't get it going early this year. Houston (Open) time, I got my ticket to Augusta, and from then on, it's been steady progress and a couple of fantastic months. This is icing on the cake. I was longing for a win and I got it."

Yes, he got it with the hole-out from the bunker which sealed his fate and the tournament much to the dismay of a charging veteran golfer in Stricker, a self-proclaimed scoreboard watcher, who heard the crowd reaction and saw the number change when Stenson sealed the tournament.

"I just kind of rolled my eyes and said to my caddie, that he's been knocking on the door for a couple months," said Stricker. "He's been playing some great golf. You don;t think it's going to happen to you (when you are defeated) when a guy holes out from a bunker. But, I was a couple of shots back at the time, so I don't think - unless he made bogey - it would've changed things. But, you play it out.

"I was trying to make eagle on the last because you just don't know if a guy is going to run into trouble on the last and you have to play 72 holes. Good for him. Great shot, and like I said, he's been knocking at the door for quite some time and he finally got his win."

"I'm just going to continue to play my best," said the FedEx Cup points leader when he was asked about the next two weeks on the tour. "That's gotten me a very long way. It's going to be no different going to Chicago. I'm going to try my best there and then in Atlanta. I've always been a pretty good front-runner. I always like to think that the 'other guy' is going to have to play better than I do, if I'm in the lead. So, that's always been the mindset and I won a lot of those tournaments," he added smiling at his family seated in the back of the media interview room, his son nodding off.

"Yeah, I'm going to try my hardest. We'll see what happens.

"Chicago ... CHI-CA-GO!"

"Yeah."