By Rahul Banerji
Big Tony Finau on Monday ended talk that he has forgotten how to win golf tournaments on the PGA Tour with an ice-cold display,
At the Liberty National Golf Club, the Samoan-Tongan outlasted Australia’s Cameron Smith in the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the Northern Trust.
The two had tied on 20-under 264s, with world no. 1 Jon Rahm finishing third in 19-under 265. Finau settled the issue on the first playoff hole when Smith sent his tee shot out of bounds.
Finai played himself into contention with a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch to close with a 6-under 65. Smith needed a long birdie putt on 18 for the outright win, but that was not to be.
The title handed FInau a long awaited-second PGA Tour victory and moved him up to pole position on the FedExCup standings after the first leg.
Finau’s success came 1,975 days after his maiden PGA Tour title, the Puerto Rico Open in 2016 and came in his 143rd start since then. He now has two from 189 Tour starts.
Long wait
In the 142 starts between his victories, Finau recorded eight runner-up finishes and 39 top-10s, leading critics to wonder if could win again.
But as he said during his post-event press conference, “I always knew it (the next win) would come.”
His first win, at the Puerto Rico Open too, came in a sudden-death playoff, beating Steve Marino.
One other extraordinary feat at the hurricane-hit event was Keith Mitchell birdieing each of the final three holes to move into the top 70 and qualify for the BMW Championship.
Mitchell was on his way out of the second leg but his run carried him into 63rd place on the standings.
The BMW Championship will be played at the Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.
And even as that was happening, Anirban Lahiri saw his season come to an end as he became only the Asian in the field after C.T. Pan not to advance to the second leg.
Needing a top-10 finish to have any hopes of advancing, Lahiri finished T56 after a final round that had four birdies and three bogeys. He was making his return into the Playoffs for the first time in three years.
Disappointing
“Not the finish to the season I was looking for but happy with the effort. Big thank you to my team for riding the highs and lows. Time to rest up and recover. #currypower,” the 34-year-old tweeted on Monday.
Korea’s Sungjae Im enjoyed his best finish at the Northern Trust, a T16 as he led three other Asian stars into the second FedExCup Playoffs event, the BMW Championship.
The 24-year-old Im, in his third appearance in the first Playoffs event, closed out the weather-hit week with five birdies against four bogeys.
He climbed from 30th to 25th on the FedExCup standings following his 14th top-25 finish of the 2020-21 season.
Reigning Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan settled for a share of 43rd following a 70 to drop to 16th place in the standings.
Korea’s K.H. Lee enters the BMW Championship in 37th place following his T47 finish while compatriot Si Woo Kim, who missed the cut, will be the fourth and final Asian advancing in the Playoffs in 33rd place.
The top-70 players will tee up at Caves Valley in Owings Mills, with the subsequent top-30 advancing to the season finale, the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
Since the FedEx Cup was inaugurated in 2007, no more than two Asians have featured at the same time at the Tour Championship.
Also read: Exhausted Lahiri ready for last throw of dice at Northern Trust
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