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USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Fourth time the charm: Ryan Fox wins 2025 RBC Canadian Open on fourth playoff hole
Fourth time the charm: Ryan Fox wins 2025 RBC Canadian Open on fourth playoff hole Ryan Fox is becoming a dangerous man in playoffs on the PGA Tour. The 38-year-old from New Zealand closed in 66 and then won in extra holes for the second time in a month, edging Sam Burns on the fourth playoff hole to take the 2025 RBC Canadian Open. Just last month, Fox showed his flair for the dramatic, chipping in on the first playoff hole to win the OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic. This time, he hit a beauty at 18, a 3-wood to inside 10 feet to set up a two-putt birdie. "That shot I hit on 18, that 3-wood, was probably the best shot I've ever hit," he said. "It would've been nice to make it [the ensuing putt] but, hey, I'll take it." Fox moved into contention with a 64 on Saturday and entered the final round one stroke off the lead. But he ended up chasing, Burns, 28, who caught fire on the back nine at TPC Toronto's Osprey Valley (North Course). Burns birdied the first five holes on the back nine and canned a 10-foot birdie at the last, raising his putter with his left hand and squeezing his fist tight as it dropped for 62 and a 72-hole total of 18-under 262. 'Couldn't ask for an easier putt,' Burns said. 'I knew I needed to make birdie there to have a chance.' He added: 'I hope it's enough.' Almost but not quite enough. Burns finished his round at 4:02 p.m. local time and then had to wait nearly two hours. Cameron Young needed a birdie at the last but ripped a 3-wood over the green and made bogey. 'I thought in the air I was going to have about a 12-footer to win the tournament, and it ended up somewhere I was going to struggle to make par, let alone make a 4. Pretty upset,' Young said. 'Played pretty well. Kind of just want to go home right now.' Kevin Yu (66) needed to hole a pitch for eagle but came up empty and finished in third, one stroke better than Young (65) and Matt McCarty (67). 'I hung in there,' Yu said. 'Proud of how I fought.' The last person with a chance to force a playoff was Fox. With the New Zealand All Whites football team, who had won its game against the Ivory Coast the night before, watching from a luxury box above the 18th green, Fox wedged to 17 feet and his birdie putt to force a tie trickled in. 'By a fingernail,' said CBS's Jim Nantz. What happened in the playoff at the 2025 RBC Canadian Open? They returned to the 576-yard par-5 18th for the playoff and Burns had a chance to win it on the first hole after Fox grazed the left edge from 16 feet. But Burns, who ranks first in Strokes Gained: Putting this season, rimmed the right edge from 6 feet. After Burns laid up on 18 again at the second playoff hole, Fox drew cheers when he switched from an iron to a fairway wood. His shot flirted with the pond fronting the green but held up in the first cut of rough, leaving a pitch from 44 yards. Burns wedged to 15 feet and didn't scare the hole, missing to the left. Fox left his 12-foot putt for victory short. So, they returned to 18 again but after a change in the hole location this time. Burns wedged his third from 75 yards and it spun off the false front of the green. He recovered for par, which Fox could do no better than match by taking two putts from 39 feet. 'This is turning into a pillow fight,' remarked CBS's Trevor Immelman as the playoff participants each made three straight pars. Fox described the playoff the same way but went for broke with a 3-wood from 269 yards that soared high in the air and faded to about 5 feet from the hole. 'Landed like a bird,' Nantz said. Burns reached the green in two but powered his eagle effort more than 10 feet past the hole and missed the comebacker to take the pressure off Fox, who missed his eagle try but tapped in for the birdie and celebrated by hugging his two kids, who asked, "Did you win, daddy?" It took four extra holes but for the second time in a month, the Kiwi is a winner.
USA Today
21-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Justin Thomas credits this top-ranked player for helping him fix his putting woes and win
Justin Thomas credits this top-ranked player for helping him fix his putting woes and win Justin Thomas returned to the winner's circle Sunday at the RBC Heritage thanks to some help with his putting. He didn't credit one of the putting whisperers but rather one of his competitors. None other than world No. 3 and two-time major winner Xander Schauffele was given kudos after Thomas ranked third in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week, gaining 5.512 shots on the field on the putting surfaces at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. "As funny as it is, a huge help was when I called Xander at the end of last year," Thomas said during his winner's press conference. "I think he's one of the best putters in fundamentals, and not just putting but everything, and I was just like, 'Can I just pick your brain for like two or three hours, just talk to you about putting?' " A balky putter had been one of the biggest reasons Thomas suffered a victory drought that stretched to nearly three years since the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills. Thomas ranked No. 174 in SG: Putting in 2024 and wasn't much better in 2023 – No. 135 – when he failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. "You guys obviously know Xander, but he doesn't leave any box unchecked," Thomas said. "He said that day, he's like, if it has anything to do with you potentially improving in golf, I've probably done it or tried it." The biggest revelation for Thomas? That he had abandoned what made him successful during his heyday and tried too many things. "The more I was talking, I'm like, I don't do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years, 2017-'18," he said. "I was very, very regimented ... how he said it is I had a home base and I had no home base. I had things that I did, but it was a very vague bag of things and there was no consistency to it.' Thomas didn't simply ride a hot putter to victory for one week. He entered the RBC Heritage ranked 40th in SGP and had been knocking on the door with two runner-up finishes already this season. [He vaulted 16 spots in the putting rankings to No. 24 for the season.] Thomas also realized he had become too mechanical and robotic. "And that's not me," Thomas said. "I'm better off, I call it 'pro-am putting,' when it's like I obviously want to make a putt that I'm hitting in a pro-am but I'm not grinding on read and thinking about all these different things. I'm pretty much stepping up, give it a look and go, and how often I make putts. It was probably more up here than it was anywhere else." The three-hour session with Schauffele has paid dividends. He enjoyed his best statistical performance on the greens in quite some time. According to Golf Channel's Todd Lewis, Thomas joked, 'I may get an invoice (from Xander) in my locker.'
USA Today
14-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Viktor Hovland appears to be using a center-shafted Ping prototype putter at Genesis Invitational
Viktor Hovland, the 2023 FedEx Cup champion and winner of six PGA Tour events, finished a respectable 44th in Strokes Gained: Putting last season, but he is off to a slow start on the greens this year, ranking 123rd in eight measured rounds and with an average of -0.239. That means the Norwegian is giving away almost a quarter-shot on the greens through 18 holes, or nearly a full shot throughout a 72-hole tournament. And, with one shot potentially being massive, Hovland has benched his Ping PLD DS-72 putter in favor of a yet-to-be-released Ping PLD prototype mallet. The putter, which does not have a name on the bottom of the club but does have Ping PLD etched into the sole and on the face, has a semi-circular design and appears to have a metal insert added into the hitting area. While Hovland's previous putter has a single shaft bend design that enters the head near the toe and creates some toe-hang, the prototype mallet is center-shafted, with the hosel being positioned behind the topline. The silver-toned putter also appears to have a single black alignment line on the topline. According to Ping PGA Tour rep Dylan Goodwin, who spoke with GolfWRX about the putter, it is called a Ping PLD Oslo 'Onset' putter. 'What (Hovland) was kind of noticing with his gamer was he just wasn't comfortable at address," Goodwin said. "He felt like he was manipulating the face with his hands, trying to figure out where the lie and the loft looked right to him. He wasn't feeling comfortable over the ball. So with that Oslo Onset, how it sits, it just sits really flush, and there's no manipulation of that center shaft, right?'
