Finau wins Rocket Mortgage for second straight PGA Tour victory

Tony Finau has changed the conversation about him in less than a calendar year.

Finau ran away with the Rocket Mortgage Classic on Sunday at Detroit Golf Club to become the first player in three years to win consecutive PGA Tour events in the regular season. He closed with a 5-under 67 for a five-shot victory and a tournament-record 26-under 262 total.

It was his fourth career victory, and third title in 11-plus months. Finau began his stretch of success last August at The Northern Trust, where he had his first victory in five years and 142 PGA Tour starts.

“I’m proud of the way I’ve fought through adversity in my career," said Finau, a Salt Lake City native with Tongan-Samoan heritage. “They say a winner is just a loser who kept trying, and that’s me."

Finau ended a drought in Detroit, winning for the first time in six attempts when he had or shared the 54-hole lead in a PGA Tour event.

And he did it easily.

Taylor Pendrith (72), Patrick Cantlay (66) and rookie of the year front-runner Cameron Young (68) tied for a distant second.

“I wasn't that close," Young said. “Tony put on a show."

Indeed.

Finau hit 66 of 72 greens in regulation, trailing the accuracy of just two players since 1980 in a PGA Tour 72-hole event. Peter Jacobsen hit 69 greens in regulation at Pebble Beach in 1995 and a year later, Willie Wood hit 67 at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

With Finau's sixth birdie at No. 17 and a closing par, he broke Nate Lashley's tournament record of 25 under set in 2019 during the inaugural PGA Tour event.

The PGA Tour will close the regular season at the Wyndham Championship, with the North Carolina event opening Thursday. Players on the bubble will have one last shot to finish in the top 125 of the FedEx Cup standings to earn a spot in the playoffs and a full card next season.

Finau and Pendrith started Sunday tied after a third round that seemed like match play, and a potential Detroit duel turned into a dud.

Pendrith had his first lackluster round of the tournament after he shared the first-round lead with Finau, led him by one shot after the second and matched his 21-under total through three rounds.

The 31-year-old PGA Tour rookie from Canada hit an errant tee shot on the second hole to the right in the rough behind tree branches — after being distracted by a fan running across the fairway — and pulled a 9-foot putt on the hole to lose the lead for good.

Cantlay, No. 4 in the world ranking, had his third straight round in the mid-60s after opening with a 70. Young bounced back from a first-round 71 to finish second for the fifth time.

“I’d be lying if I said it was easy to just watch other people win," Young said. “Obviously, today Tony beat us all by a lot."

Pendrith struggled in the final round just as he did the only other time he had a 54-hole lead. He led the Bermuda Championship last October by three shots before a 76 dropped him into fifth place, which was his best finish before his showing in the Motor City.

“It stings a little bit," said Pendrith, who played in his third tournament after missing nearly four months with a broken rib.

Finau began to pull away from Pendrith with an 11-foot birdie putt at No. 4 and a tap-in for birdie at No. 7.

A par-saving, 11-foot putt at No. 9 was pivotal.

“When that lipped in, that gave me some momentum and then I was in control of the golf tournament," Finau said.

He made a 21-foot putt for birdie at No. 10 for his third birdie. After his first bogey in the tournament at No. 11, Finau made a 31-foot putt with a break from right to left at No. 12.

Finau was the 3M Open winner last week in Minnesota, where he rallied from five strokes back to win by three. Brendon Todd was the last PGA Tour player to win two straight in the regular season, pulling off the feat in 2019.

“A week can change your life," Finau said. “When you look at mine, two weeks have changed my life."

Stenson wins LIV Golf event

Henrik Stenson's decision that cost him the European Ryder Cup captaincy paid large and immediate dividends when he won the LIV Golf Invitational at Bedminster and picked up more than $4 million for three days' work.

Staked to a three-shot lead going into the third and final round at Trump National, Stenson opened with a 20-foot birdie putt and never led anyone closer than two shots the rest of the way.

He closed with a 2-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Matthew Wolf (64) and Dustin Johnson, who birdied the last hole for a 68.

Stenson, five years removed from beating a field of more than 20 players, picked up $4 million for winning and an additional $375,000 for his team finishing second.

The big payoff — not including a signing bonus reported to be about $50 million — comes less than two weeks after he 46-year-old Swede decided to join the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series.

Stenson had pledged full support to the European tour when he became Ryder Cup captain and March, and the tour stripped him of the job four months later when he changed his mind.

"I guess we can agree I played like a captain," Stenson said on the LIV Golf telecast.

He finished at 11-under 202.

Asked by the LIV-paid broadcaster if he felt validated by the win, Stenson chose not to engage and replied, "It's been a good first week."

"It's been a busy 10 days. I'm extremely proud I managed to focus as well as I did," he said.

Stenson won the Hero World Challenge in December 2019 in the Bahamas, the holiday event hosted by Tiger Woods with a 20-man field. Before that, he won the Wyndham Championship in 2017. And while he felt pressure in the final hour, it didn't always look like it.

Stenson poured in an 8-foot birdie putt on the 14th that gave him a three-shot lead with four holes remaining, two of them par 5s. But he took four to get down from left of the green on the par-5 15th. Two holes later, Stenson made a 10-foot putt for par to take a two-shot lead down the par 5 closing hole.

"The putt on 17 was massive to keep the cushion coming up the last," Stenson said.

Johnson now has finished eight, fourth and tied or second in the three LIV Golf Invitationals. His team, "4 Aces," has won the last two times, paying $750,000 to each player. In three events since Johnson reportedly received a $150 million signing fee, the two-time major champion has made over $5.2 million on the course.

Carlos Ortiz of Mexico (68) finished fourth, while Patrick Reed (69) was fifth.

Phil Mickelson shot an even-par 71, only the second time in nine rounds of LIV Golf that Mickelson has shot par or better. He finished 35th.

The LIV Golf Invitational is off for a month during the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour, returning over Labor Day weekend about an hour west of Boston, and then two weeks later plays in the Chicago suburbs.

Ayaka Furue wins Women's Scottish Open

Ayaka Furue of Japan ran off six straight birdies in the middle of her round and rallied from a four-shot deficit with a 10-under 62 to win the Women's Scottish Open for her first LPGA Tour title.

A seven-time winner on the Japan LPGA — once as an amateur — Furue became the second rookie to win on the LPGA Tour this year, and she did it in style at Dundonald Links in Scotland.

Starting the final round four shots behind Celine Boutier of France, the 22-year-old finished the front nine with four straight birdies and added two more to start the back nine. She never let up, playing bogey-free to win by three.

"I was four shots back. I thought it would be difficult to catch the top, good players. But I'm very happy I played good golf and I was able to come out as a winner," Furue said. "I had the right mindset. I thought I had to go low, and I played very well."

Boutier was still in good shape until making three bogeys on the back nine for a 69.

"I started making some bogeys and I feel like it's not easy, playing in the final group. Then obviously when someone just has their day, you just can't do anything about it really," she said.

Furue finished at 21-under 267 and won $300,000, along with valuable momentum going into the final major of the year next week in the Women's British Open at Muirfield.

She began to show her full potential late last year on the Japan LPGA when Furue won three tournaments in a four-week stretch and tied for third in the other. Furue finished second on the money list behind Olympic silver-medalist Moni Inami, earned an LPGA card through the qualifying tournament and came into the Women's Scottish Open at No. 30 in the world.

Hyo Joo Kim of South Korea (66) and Cheyenne Knight of the United States (67) tied for third, four shots behind.

Lydia Ko of New Zealand, the 36-hole leader, faded to a 71-71 weekend and tied for fifth.