Trump gives McIlroy the drowned 3-iron
DORAL, Fla. – Donald Trump made sure Rory McIlroy had all 14 clubs in the bag for his final round at the Cadillac Championship.
Adding yet another day of publicity to McIlroy’s mini-meltdown, The Donald had a scuba diver retrieve the 3-iron that McIlroy heaved into the water left the par-5 eighth hole during the second round at Trump National Doral.
McIlroy played with only 13 clubs in the third round, saying he really didn’t need a 3-iron.
Trump waited for McIlroy to arrive on the practice range, walked over and presented him with the sunken treasure. Turning to the crowd lined up behind the railing, Trump said, “Thirteen is an unlucky number. I want him to have 14 clubs in his bag.”
Maybe that was a mistake.
“I put it back in the bag. I actually used a 3-iron to hit into the water for my third shot on 18,” McIlroy said with a laugh after he closed with a 72.
McIlroy feigned slinging the club into the water on 18, but smiled and held onto it.
He would have had 14 clubs, anyway, as a replacement club was shipped to the world’s No. 1 player earlier Sunday. That didn’t keep The Donald from another date with the cameras.
“He’s never one to miss an opportunity,” McIlroy said. “It was fine. It was good fun.”
McIlroy said he would return the club to Trump after the round, and Trump already had something special in the works.
“We’re thinking about auctioning it for charity or doing a trophy case for Doral, putting it on a beautiful mount,” Trump said. “People really want that. I think Rory wants that. It was such a big thing. Last night it was all over television. It was the biggest story. And then the scuba diver! He was from central casting.”
McIlroy hit his second shot into the water in the second round, and then sent the club flying some 50 yards into the lake in such a way it looked like the rotor on Trump’s helicopter he has stationed near the ninth tee.
It was the most compelling image Friday of this World Golf Championship. And the scuba driver got as much air time on Saturday as J.B. Holmes and Dustin Johnson making a hole-in-one some 20 minutes apart. And now the “trophy presentation.”
Marcel Siem threw his club into the water on the same hole Saturday, though no one paid much attention. And the diver didn’t bother with that. Then again, McIlroy is the best player in golf.
“I don’t usually get scuba divers to go out and collect them, especially mine,” Trump said. “But it was a beautiful moment. He did it with elegance.”
Holmes gets an ace, 4 straight birdies to expand Doral lead
DORAL, Fla. – J.B. Holmes and Dustin Johnson each made a hole-in-one on the par-3 fourth hole in a span of 20 minutes. Holmes was in a league of his own in the final hour Saturday at the Cadillac Championship.
His advantage down to one shot, Holmes answered by running off four straight birdies in the rain to expand his lead to the largest it has been all week. He closed with a bogey for a 2-under 70, leaving him five shots ahead of Johnson and Masters champion Bubba Watson.
On a day of two aces, five other eagles on par 4s and even a scuba driver retrieving the 3-iron that Rory McIlroy heaved into the lake the day before, Holmes took some of the drama out of Doral with his late surge.
Johnson, who made his ace with a 7-iron from 207 yards, converted a birdie on the par-4 16th to get within one shot. Holmes appeared to be struggling, with two bogeys on par 5s and only the hole-in-one keeping him in front. But the big hitter from Kentucky poured in a 12-foot birdie putt at No. 14, and he was on his way.
Holmes went at the flag on the par-3 15th and made a 12-foot birdie putt. From the back bunker on the reachable 16th, he blasted out to tap-in range for another birdie. And as the rain came down harder, he got even better. He drilled a 333-yard drive down the middle of the 17th fairway and holed another 12-foot birdie putt.
He ended with a bogey from the palm trees and fell back to 11-under 205.
Even so, he looked to be a tough guy for Johnson (69), Watson (70) or anyone else to chase down.
“I can’t worry about what J.B. is doing,” said Watson, who holed a bunker shot from behind the 18th green for birdie. “This golf course is hard enough as it is. If I start worrying about other people, I’m going to lose it.”
Ryan Moore, tied for the lead after a birdie on the opening hole, fell back with a triple bogey on the third hole and was on the verge of falling too far behind until he hit his tee shot on the 301-yard 16th hole to 15 feet for an eagle. He salvaged a 74 and was six shots behind.
Bill Haas had the low score of the third round, making eight birdies for a 65. He was tied for fifth with Louis Oosthuizen (67) and Henrik Stenson (72), though they were seven shots behind.
McIlroy provided the highlight of this tournament by slinging his 3-iron into the water left of the par-5 eighth hole Friday after a shot into the lake. He opted to play with only 13 clubs in the third round, but back-to-back bogeys on the front nine and back nine kept him from making a move. He had a 72 and was 10 shots behind.
He wasn’t aware of the diver that fished out his 3-iron. He wasn’t aware of Holmes and Johnson making aces, either?
“No way,” McIlroy said. “That’s why I’m not leading the tournament.”
Watson might have had the best view.
He was on the third green when he heard the roar and saw Johnson raise both arms after his 7-iron went in. Then, Watson was heading down the fifth fairway when he heard another road and saw Holmes doing a jig on the tee box.
“Maybe one of us should have made a hole-in-one instead of skip a group,” he said.
Amazingly, both shots looked identical. They landed in the middle of the green, rolled up the slope and were in the center cut of the hole. Johnson’s shot drop on the final few turns, while Holmes’ shot gently struck the pin before it disappeared.
Holmes also hit a 7-iron.
“When you’re on top of the leaderboard and you can get a hole-in-one, that’s awesome,” he said.
There were a lot of awesome shots at Trump National Doral.
Watson holed out from a bunker for the second straight day. Luke Donald and Oosthuizen holed bunker shots for eagle on the 16th. Rickie Fowler dunked one from the 11th fairway for eagle. There were 10 eagles in the third round, only three of them on a par 5.
Most satisfying to Holmes was having a five-shot lead going into the final round. Holmes looked as though he might come back to the field when he chipped into a bunker on the par-5 10th hole and had to scramble for par, hit his drive into a hazard on the 12th hole and made bogey and had to scramble for par from a bunker on the 13th.
And then he took off, and gave the rest of this World Golf Championship field one last day to try to catch him.
“It’s not over yet,” Holmes said. “I’m not going to change my game plan.”
Brown and Smith share lead; Hadwin fifth at Puerto Rico Open
RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico – Scott Brown birdied the final two holes Saturday for a 5-under 67 and a share of the lead with Chris Smith in the PGA Tour’s wind-swept Puerto Rico Open.
Brown, the 2013 winner, matched Smith at 6-under 2010 at Trump International-Puerto Rico.
“Got a few more putts to go in today and ended up shooting a good round,” Brown said. “The wind died just a little bit for us this afternoon. Putting has been tough early in the week with the wind blowing as hard as it’s been. It’s still blowing around a little bit, tough to get it close.”
Brown also had three front-nine birdies in his bogey-free round.
“The toughest thing about this course is it’s all cross-winds, so you very rarely get any downwind or into-the-wind shots,” Brown said. “It’s all quarter in or across. That’s what makes it so tough. It’s really just guesswork. It’s guessing on how much you think it’s going to move it. The wind has been so strong that you can’t really play shots that hold up against it. You’ve just kind of got to let the wind do what it does.”
The 45-year-old Smith had a 68. He won the 2002 Buick Classic in New York for his lone tour title.
“I’m starting to get comfortable playing golf again, which is nice, and it’s fun,” Smith said. “All three days have been fun. I’m just trying to keep taking steps. I feel like I’m taking steps.”
Smith has limited tour status.
“It’s one of the only weeks of the year that I know I’m going to get in, so I can kind of mentally prepare for playing for it,” Smith said. “When I get here, it’s not like getting in Tuesday night and then trying to hustle to the tournament and then playing.”
Jon Curran and Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo were a stroke back. Curran had a 70, and Grillo shot 72.
Second-round leader Alex Cejka dropped four strokes on the final four holes to fall into a tie for fifth at 4 under. He finished with a 75, making bogeys on the par-5 15th and par-4 17th and a double bogey on the par-5 18th.
Canada’s Adam Hadwin (68) of Abbotsford, B.C. also was 4 under along with Scott Pinckney (71), Zimbabwe’s Brendon de Jonge (71) and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti (69).
Stephen Ames carded a 2-over 74 Saturday and dropped 23 spots into a tie for 54th.
Holmes keeps the lead, McIlroy loses temper at Doral
DORAL, Fla. – J.B. Holmes kept his lead. Rory McIlroy lost his cool.
Holmes was 11 shots worse than his tournament record-tying 62, finishing with a tee shot in the water and a double bogey on the 18th hole Friday for a 1-over 73. That still was enough to take a two-shot lead over Ryan Moore (71) into the weekend at the Cadillac Championship.
McIlroy made the wrong kind of splash at Trump National Doral – first with a shot, then with his club.
On a wild afternoon of eagles, birdies and big numbers at every turn, McIlroy produced the biggest highlight when he pulled his 3-iron into the water on the par-5 eighth, and then heaved the club some 50 yards into the middle of the lake.
“Felt good at the time,” McIlroy said. “Look, I just let frustration get the better of me.”
McIlroy managed to salvage a bogey, made three birdies on the back nine and shot a 2-under 70 to stay in the hunt at this World Golf Championship. He was still eight shots behind Holmes, though the Blue Monster is a tough course for anyone to protect a lead.
And it didn’t take much to get into trouble.
Holmes began the second round with a 360-yard drive and a 6-iron onto the green at the par 5. It rolled into the water, and he made his first bogey of the tournament. His approach on the third hole came up just enough short to go into the water for another bogey. And his tee shot on the 18th was pulled just enough for another splash. He at least countered with five birdies to stay in the lead.
Holmes was at 9-under 135.
He was more irritated by the bogey on No. 1 than the double bogey at the end of his round, and what set him off was a reminder than he thought the old Blue Monster was too easy for a World Golf Championship.
“There’s a difference between easy and hitting two perfect shots and the ball going in the water,” Holmes said. “That’s a joke. I hit a 6-iron straight up in the air, it landed 3 feet off the left of the green and 5 feet on it and it goes in the water on the right side of the green. That’s not hard. That’s stupid. That’s unfair.”
Still, he was in a good mood heading into the weekend.
Adam Scott made six birdies in his round of 68 and was three shots behind at 6-under 138. Masters champion Bubba Watson made a pair of eagles, including a bunker shot he holed at the 10th, for a 69. Henrik Stenson bounced back from a double bogey in the water at the par-3 fourth hole with three straight birdies in his round of 71. They were at 4-under 140, five shots behind.
Moore managed to avoid trouble for most of the day, dropping his lone shot at the 14th from a bunker. He has made par or better on 34 of the 36 holes he has played. He used the word “fluke” to describe his 66 (with a double bogey on the last hole) and the 62 by Holmes.
“I don’t know if it would have real really mattered what golf course either of us were on,” he said. “I was hitting good shots and hitting them next to the hole and making every putt I looked at. So I think that was more the players than golf course. Today, I think this was how this golf course plays. It’s just a really difficult golf course.”
Scott’s 68 was the low round of the day, while the average score again was about 73.4 For the second straight day, only seven players shot in the 60s. Scott thought his first-round 70 was good, too, except that he was eight shots behind.
Like everyone else, he couldn’t figure out how Holmes shot 62, and there was some relief to see Holmes play a more ordinary round.
“He might have had the round of his life – and certainly round of the year already – yesterday,” Scott said. “I don’t know if there’s going to be better than that anyway. … And for me, sitting eight shots back after a pretty good round myself yesterday, I just have to hope he’s not going to do it again, and I can slowly pick away at those eight shots.”
Holmes didn’t feel as though he played much worse than his 62 in the opening round, except for not making as many putts.
Ultimately, he was pleased with his position because he still had a better score than anyone else. The Blue Monster has a mean streak, though, and now it’s a matter of Holmes and those chasing him to hang on.
“If you had told me at the beginning of the week I would have a two-shot lead after two rounds, I would have said, `All right, sounds good.’ Like I said, I’ve been playing great,” Holmes said. “Played great today.”
Alex Cejka leads PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open
RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico – Alex Cejka birdied three of his last five holes Friday for a 5-under 67 and a one-stroke lead in the PGA Tour’s wind-swept Puerto Rico Open.
Cejka birdied Nos. 5, 7 and 9 in a bogey-free round to reach 7-under 137 at Trump International-Puerto Rico. A four-time European Tour winner, the 44-year-old Czech-born German is winless on the PGA Tour.
“I like it here,” Cejka said. “I’ve been coming here for a lot of years. … My short game is great. I make a lot of putts when I need to and I’m in a great position right now.”
He has made only one bogey in 36 holes.
“It’s windy all day long,” Cejka said. “Sometimes it gusts a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. But it’s a consistent wind, and since we got here on Monday or Tuesday, all these players, it’s been the same. Same direction, same kind of strengths of the wind, so you can adapt to the wind condition.”
Brandon Hagy was second. Making his third PGA Tour start, he birdied his final hole for a 67.
“I played well today, controlled my ball, which you have to,” Hagy said. “It’s very windy out there. I just kind of tried to let it go and hit good golf shots. It was a good day.”
Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo was third at 5 under after a 70.
Defending champion Chesson Hadley topped the group at 3 under after a 70.
First-round leader Mark Hubbard followed his opening 68 with a 74 to drop to 2 under.
Sitting even-par thru 36 holes are Canadians Adam Hadwin and Stephen Ames. The pair have a share of 31st after matching even-round 72s Friday.
Failing to advance to weekend play were Team Canada’s Corey Conners, an amateur from Listowel, Ont. and Roger Sloan of Merrit, B.C. Conners finished 4-over par (74-74), while Sloan was 10-over (77-77).
Holmes opens 4-shot lead at Blue Monster
DORAL, Fla. – J.B. Holmes never liked the old Blue Monster at Doral because he thought it was too easy for a World Golf Championship.
He said this with a straight face Thursday after a 10-under 62 that tied the tournament record at the Cadillac Championship, gave him a four-shot lead and left the rest of this world-class field to wonder just how he managed.
“I was able to hit the shots where I envisioned and hit good shots, and today the putter was on,” Holmes said. “Put that combination together, you do everything pretty good, you’re going to shoot a good score.”
He made it sound as easy as it looked. Except that Trump National Doral wasn’t all that easy for everyone else.
Rory McIlroy again felt tentative with his swing and shot 40 on his opening nine holes before finishing without a par on his last six holes – an eagle, three birdies and two bogeys that allowed him to salvage a 73. The world’s No. 1 player has shot 73-74-73 in his three rounds in Florida this year.
Phil Mickelson shot 74 and failed to make a birdie for the first time in 186 rounds on the PGA Tour, dating to the final day at Olympic Club in the 2012 U.S. Open.
“Ten under? You’re joking,” Shane Lowry said after a hard-fought 71.
Ryan Moore was hanging with him until he hit his tee shot into the water on the par-5 18th hole and made double bogey. He still had a 66.
“It was a very fair test of golf,” Moore said. “I mean, it’s difficult, but you can make some birdies.”
Dustin Johnson ran off four birdies in a five-hole stretch on the back nine and was at 68, along with Alexander Levy of France and Rickie Fowler, who thought his round was solid. “To shoot 68 in some tough conditions on a tough golf course and be six back, wouldn’t really expect that,” Fowler said.
Henrik Stenson, making his American debut, had six birdies and joined Phoenix Open winner Brooks Koepka at 69. The group at 68 included Adam Scott, who used a conventional putter for the first time in just over four years.
Holmes last played at Doral in 2010, missing time with injuries, not the least of which was surgery to remove a piece of his skull in 2011. Gil Hanse renovated the Blue Monster to make it more sensational with so much water hugging the fairways and greens. That was never an issue for Holmes. He finished his round with an 8-foot par putt, which he said was the closest he came to bogey all day.
“By about 5 feet,” he said.
The start was nothing short of deal. Holmes two-putted for birdie on the par-5 10th, holed a 35-foot birdie putt on the 11th, and then smashed a drive downwind on the 603-yard 12th hole. He hit 6-iron thinking he might be able to clear the bunker, and it turned out better than he imagined, a foot away from the hole for an eagle.
The rest of the round, playing in tropical warmth and typical south Florida wind, was a matter of keeping it below the hole and making putts.
This was never his favorite WGC event the two previous times he played it.
“One of my least favorite tracks on tour,” he said of the previous design. “It was just too easy. I felt like for a World Golf Championship, 22 under winning shouldn’t really happen. It’s a very difficult golf course. I played great today.”
He was right on both counts.
The average score was 73.4, meaning that Holmes was more than 11 shots better than the field, the best standard of a great round. His 62 matched the tournament record set by Bubba Watson at Doral in 2012, and Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen at Mount Juliet in Ireland in 2002.
McIlroy’s standard is slightly off at the moment.
Already a winner in Dubai and a runner-up in Abu Dhabi, he missed the cut last week at the Honda Classic after a month break and said he felt tentative. A week later, not much changed. Poor tee shots kept him from reaching the par 5s on the back nine in two. He twice failed to save par from the bunkers. And then from the middle of the fairway on the 18th hole – the tee shot is supposed to be the hard part – he was caught between clubs and tugged a 7-iron short, down the bank and into the water for a double bogey.
On his next tee shot, McIlroy was 5 yards away from going into the water – on the adjacent Red Course.
“It is very good on the range and it is very good in normal play when I’m not playing a tournament,” McIlroy said. “Then I’ve got a card in my hand the last couple weeks and it just hasn’t quite been there. It’s nice you can get round rounds this week and sort of try to play your way into some sort of rhythm. I don’t feel like it’s that far away. That’s the frustrating thing.”
But he’s far away from the lead. McIlroy already was 11 shots behind.
Mark Hubbard leads PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open
RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico – PGA Tour rookie Mark Hubbard closed with a birdie in windy conditions Thursday for a one-stroke lead in the Puerto Rico Open.
Hubbard opened with a 4-under 68 at Trump International Golf Club-Puerto Rico. He birdied Nos. 4, 5 and 6, dropped a stroke on the par-3 eighth and finished with a birdie on the par-4 ninth.
“It played tough out there with the wind, but I hit a lot of really good kind of three-quarter and half shots into the wind,” Hubbard said. “I actually probably played the into the wind holes better than the downwind holes where I had to just hit normal shots. But I drove it pretty well, kept it in the fairway and made a lot of solid 5-, 6-footers.”
Hubbard made news last month when he proposed to Meaghan McCurley on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach during the first round in the AT&T Pebble National Pro-Am.
“I’ve been getting a lot of press,” Hubbard said.
Chris Smith, Billy Mayfair and Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo were tied for second.
The 45-year-old Smith last played the tour full-time in 2005.
“It was super windy,” Smith said. “I was up super early this morning and it was still dark out and I was out walking around, trying to wake up and warm up at 3:45 this morning, and it was howling, and I was like, `What in the heck.’ But yeah, I think it’s going to be like that all week, so it’s OK. … At home it’s like 15 below right now, so I really like the fact that it’s 80 degrees.”
David Duval, Jonathan Byrd and Alex Cejka were in the group at 70.
The 43-year-old Duval is winless since the 2001 British Open.
“I hit it good and I putted really well,” Duval said. “I made a couple to keep me going, two-putted several times from 25 to 40 feet and didn’t have to sweat over the second one.”
Defending champion Chesson Hadley opened with a 71.
Two-shots back of Hadley were Canadians Stephen Ames and Adam Hadwin. The duo carded even-par 72s.
Amateur Corey Conners of Listowell, Ont. carded a 2-over 74, which included two bogeys. The Team Canada member was T63.
Roger Sloan of Merrit, B.C. shot a 5-over 77.
Masters buildup begins for Rory McIlroy at Cadillac Championship
DORAL, Fla. – Rory McIlroy says he is not thinking about the history that waits at the Masters, even though that’s all he seems to be talking about.
It’s not all his fault, of course.
Coming off his first missed cut in eight months at the Honda Classic, McIlroy leads the strongest field of the year at the Cadillac Championship. It’s the first time since the 2012 PGA Championship, which he won at Kiawah Island, that everyone in the top 50 of the world ranking are in the same tournament.
He wants to win at Doral. He wants to win at Bay Hill in two weeks at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
But he can’t avoid the questions about the Masters, where the world’s No. 1 has a chance to become only the sixth player to complete the Grand Slam. Boy Wonder is only 25, and so this won’t be his last chance to pick up the last leg. But having won the British Open and the PGA Championship last summer, it could take him one big step closer to joining Tiger Woods as the only player to hold all four major titles at once.
That’s a lot on the plate. That leads to a lot of questions.
And that’s OK with McIlroy.
“I think I’d rather have the questions, because it’s obviously a great position to be in going into Augusta and having it be the only major that I haven’t won,” he said Wednesday. “It’s not a bad position to be in. There’s always excitement and anticipation and hype that surrounds Augusta every year, and I feel it regardless if I’m going in as the favorite or under the radar or whatever.”
It’s the first major of the year. It the golf course fans know better than any other. It draws the most interest.
“There’s always hype,” McIlroy said. “There’s always buildup. My name is getting thrown around a little bit more than it used to, but I’m OK with that.”
It beats the alternative.
McIlroy began his year as a runner-up in Abu Dhabi and a winner in Dubai. He had won or finished second in eight of his previous 12 tournaments. And then he missed the cut at the Honda Classic – a tournament he won in 2012 to reach No. 1 for the first time – with rounds of 73-74.
It wasn’t a great way to start the road to the Masters. It was no time to panic, either. McIlroy worked at his home in West Palm Beach when the rain allowed, tightened up his swing, and then showed the Honda Classic might have been a mere speed bump when he shot 63 in the Pro-Member at Seminole.
He teed off Wednesday before the sun was up and worked his way around the Blue Monster in relative peace, an odd scene for the best player in golf. Only two photographers, the occasional TV camera and three fans with memorabilia in bags for him to sign (he didn’t) followed him around most of the day.
If there was ever a time to miss a cut, the Honda Classic would be a good one. It rained so hard that the tournament didn’t end until Monday. McIlroy’s biggest problem was controlling his ball in the wind, and luckily for him, it still was blowing when the rain stopped for his practice sessions.
“I just practiced and played a little bit, and at least I know going into this week where my game is,” McIlroy said. “So even if things maybe don’t go my way at some point during the round, I’ll know how to manage it a little bit better. Excited to get back at it and obviously try to put in a better performance than last week.”
The defending champion is Patrick Reed, who declared last year that he felt like he was among the top five in the world. He’s at No. 15, but at least making progress. Reed was tied for the lead at the Honda Classic with four holes to play when he went double bogey-bogey-bogey and shot 73. It was his first time over par in 20 rounds on the PGA Tour this year.
The top 50 doesn’t include Woods, who is not eligible for a WGC event for only the second time in his career. Woods has fallen to No. 75 after missing most of last year with back problems and playing only 47 holes in two events this year before saying he would take time off to sort out his game.
Henrik Stenson and Adam Scott are making their first starts on the PGA Tour, and Scott plans to use a conventional putter for the first in more than four years. Stenson will be playing with McIlroy and Masters champion Bubba Watson, a 1-2-3 pairing from the world ranking.
Jason Day joins Team RBC
TORONTO – RBC continued to deepen its commitment to the game of golf with the signing of a multi-year deal with one of the game’s most talented golfers, Australian sensation Jason Day.
Joining an impressive roster that includes 2014 RBC Heritage champion Matt Kuchar, No. 7 world-ranked Jim Furyk and recent AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro Am champion Brandt Snedeker among other top golfers, Day will add an increased global dimension to RBC’s stable of brand ambassadors.
“Jason is one of the most exciting professionals playing right now on the PGA TOUR,” said Jane Broderick, chief brand and communications officer, RBC. “The calibre of talent he displays on the golf course combined with his commitment to help families in need off the course make him a dynamic ambassador, and one who is helping to shape the future of the game. We are thrilled to have Jason join Team RBC and we look forward to working together.”
“I’m proud to partner with organizations that place an emphasis on and share my interest in giving back to the community,” stated Jason Day. “RBC has a rich history of doing this through their sponsorship of golf and the extensive ambassadorial program they have in place. It’s an honour to join this fantastic team of touring professionals wearing the RBC brand week to week.”
Thrilled to announce that I have just joined iconic Team RBC. What a staff of first class players representing a first class brand! #RBCGolf
— Jason Day (@JDayGolf) March 5, 2015
The 27-year-old Day is a three-time PGA TOUR winner including the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open and the 2014 WGC- Accenture Match Play Championship. He’s had seven top ten finishes at major championships, including runner-up at the 2011 Masters Tournament and the 2011 and 2013 U.S. Open. When not playing on tour, Day and his wife Ellie run The Brighter Days Foundation, dedicated to providing funding and resources to deserving projects and organizations, with a focus on helping families in need.
The sponsorship kicks off at the WGC Cadillac Championship in Miami, Florida, where Day will begin to wear the iconic RBC shield on his golf apparel and golf bag, just like the other 13 members of Team RBC. As well he will participate in future marketing initiatives and client events for RBC, and act as a global brand ambassador, particularly in support of charitable initiatives that demonstrate RBC’s commitment to kids and youth such as the #RBCGolf4Kids online charity challenge.
Other recent additions to Team RBC include Canadian golfers Adam Hadwin, Brooke Henderson and Nick Taylor in a nod to the bank’s Canadian roots. RBC acts as the Official Banking and Financial Services partner to all members of Team RBC.
Harrington wins the Honda Classic in a playoff
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Padraig Harrington captured his first PGA Tour title in more than six years on Monday when he birdied the final hole in regulation and then beat 21-year-old rookie Daniel Berger on the second hole of a playoff.
Leaving to Harrington to win the wildest finish of the season on the PGA Tour. It took two days to complete and included one stunning collapse after another, including one by Harrington.
The three-time major champion had a one-shot lead until hitting into the water on the 17th hole for double bogey. On the same hole in the playoff, Harrington hit his tee shot to 3 feet. Berger, who closed with a 6-under 64, followed with a shot into the water.
Ian Poulter hit five balls in the water and shot 75.
Canada’s Adam Hadwin carded a final-round 72 and finished with a share of 31st at 3-over.