Charles Schwab Challenge report: What happened at Colonial Country Club?
Kevin Na cruised to a third PGA Tour victory at Colonial having seen off challenges from the likes of Tony Finau and CT Pan throughout the week.
The American converted his 54-hole lead in cool fashion on Sunday with a winning margin of four shots and clearly drew upon his previous winning experiences to stay calm down the stretch.
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After three birdies in his first six holes, he opened up a four shot gap over Finau, but a bogey at 7 combined with Finau’s birdie at 9 saw it quickly halved.
In a champions fashion, he bounced back immediately with an impressive birdie on the 8th and went onto card two more on the back-nine.
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For Finau, it was again a case of what could have been. The American now has 21 top-10 finished since his last PGA Tour victory in 2016, a number which he will be eager to reset to zero.
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Charles Schwab Challenge report: Talking points
At last week’s PGA Championship, we saw the best performance in a long time from Jordan Spieth.
His putting has always been the best aspect of his game and in recent times, his ability to hole putts seems to have evaded him.
However, at Bethpage, we saw glimpses of the major winning Spieth, the Spieth who just doesn’t miss from inside 30 feet.
That was all the evidence we needed to know that his game is on the way back. This form was backed up at Colonial and he holed some serious distance.
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Making up for the areas of his game that perhaps aren’t quite as strong, the American’s putter had him in contention on Sunday, but it was not to be.
As those around him made at least some progress, the World No. 30 did not.
Spieth had a period of 28 holes in which he failed to card a birdie. He made picked up a shot at the 7th on Saturday and did not make another until his closing hole on Sunday. By then, the damage was done.
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His Sunday scoring seems to be an issue, but for now, at least we are seeing him make some positive moves towards returning to his former level.
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Tiger Woods won the Masters in April and did not play another competitive round until the next major came around, the PGA Championship.
While this strategy had worked for him in the past, this time it didn’t and he missed the cut.
Perhaps as a result of this, he has announced that he will be teeing it up at the Memorial next week to bridge the gap between last week’s major and June’s US Open.
The American will be hoping that this scheduling decision can help him on his way to winning major number 16.
