Westwood, DeChambeau will square off once again
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — One aims to continue his rise to the top of the golf world, playing a style all his own.
The other, 20 years his senior, is a former world No. 1 with plenty of game himself and an abundance of youthful enthusiasm these days.
Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Westwood will meet again Sunday, this time with the Players Championship at stake.
“It’s like Round 2,” Westwood said. “The rematch.”
The big-hitting, hot-putting DeChambeau was the last man standing last Sunday at Orlando’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge, edging Westwood by a shot to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The steady, unflappable Westwood dusted himself off and now finds himself with another 54-hole lead, this time following Saturday’s workmanlike 4-under par 68.
At 13-under par 203 total, 47-year-old Westwood holds a two-shot advantage over 27-year-old DeChambeau, who trailed by a single stroke entering the final round at Bay Hill. The Westwood-DeChambeau showdown will mark the first time two golfers have played in the final pairing on consecutive Sundays since Adam Scott and Vijay Singh did during the 2006 Tour Championship and 2007 Tournament of Champions.
Lurking just behind the two men on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass will be a host of world-class players who entered the fray on Moving Day.
World No. 3 Justin Thomas made the biggest jump, courtesy of a tournament-low, 8-under 64 to reach 10-under par. World No. 2 Jon Rahm scaled the leaderboard behind a 5-under par round of 67, leaving him 9-under four off the lead.
“Definitely not a two-horse race,” Westwood said as he seeks the biggest win of a decorated career. “People can come from behind. It’s a tough, front-running golf course.”
Westwood followed a tried-and-true formula at TPC Sawgrass to seize the advantage. One of the world’s top ball-strikers, Westwood has missed just eight greens in regulation over 54 holes, finding 15 of 18 greens Saturday.
The struggles with Westwood typically come once he reaches the putting surface.
A day after he made more than 122 feet of putts, Westwood could not buy one Saturday on his way to nine pars to open his round. He finally sank a birdie just outside 10 feet on the par-4 10th, his longest made putt of the third round until a 25-footer dropped for a 2 on the iconic par-3 17th hole island green, drawing roars from fans spread all along the hillsides of the Stadium Course.
“There’s an element of skill, but obviously there’s an element of fortune when one of those goes in,” Westwood said.
Employing a scientific, analytical approach to golf, DeChambeau has tried to limit his reliance on luck. Nowhere has the precision and calculations of the college physics major shown up more than on the greens.
DeChambeau needed just 23 putts Saturday to record a 67, culminating with a clutch, 15-footer on the par-4 18th hole.
“You feel pretty good the way I finished,” he said. “Gutting it out, grinding it out and giving myself a great chance for tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, Thomas came out of nowhere to record the round of the day.
The 27-year-old’s day and began with four straight birdies. On the back nine, Thomas hit two iron approaches to within a foot to set up tap-ins for birdie on the 10th hole and eagle on the par-5 16th, where his towering 5-iron from 204 yards settled to seven inches from the cup.
A 13-time winner on the PGA Tour, Thomas said he expects one day to win its showcase event. It could be Sunday, but he understands the challenge ahead.
“It’s takes a lot,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a little windier, and it’s a Sunday of a Players. It’s a huge event and nerves are going to be there.”
Westwood is sure to face his share of them as he tries to become the first Englishman to win the Players Championship and the second-oldest player to do so behind Fred Funk, who won the 2005 Players at nearly 49 years old.
“I can’t go out there and be defensive,” Westwood said. “I’ve got to still go out there and play my game. Don’t get carried away with the situation.”
Course conditions are expected to be much more favorable than the final round at Bay Hill. Westwood closed with a 1-over 73 and DeChambeau a 71, one of just three under-par rounds last Sunday as wind gusts neared 30 mph.
Despite the unnerving conditions, Westwood said he found a level of comfort paired with DeChambeau. Westwood hopes this time to turn the tables on one of the game’s rising stars and walk away with a career-defining win.
“Really looking forward to it,” Westwood said. “I enjoy his company and his caddie’s company. I enjoyed last Sunday, and I’m going to enjoy this Sunday.”
The story begins 10 feet off the fourth green where the kid lived. Isn’t that how you’d expect a successful golf story to start? In some rich cul-de-sac of society? With a spoiled eighthgrader growing up by a green?
Except this golf story has no spoiled kid, no rich cul-de-sac and the only reason it involves an eighth-grader is because Kamaiu Johnson dropped out of school before ninth grade. It was a school day when the story starts, too. That spawned his first lie.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” asked Jan Auger, who was playing the hole.
“I’m home-schooled,’’ Johnson said.
With nothing to do, he was swinging a stick like a golfer outside his grandmother’s apartment complex beside the fourth green of Hilaman Golf Course in Tallahassee. Johnson hadn’t swung a real golf club to that point. His mother just moved Johnson from Madison County where Blacks didn’t feel allowed on the golf course. Not that he had thoughts of playing, either.
But Auger saw something in the 14-year-old that day and asked if he’d like to hit a bucket of balls at the range. She even gave him a 9-iron. Thus began a story that restores your faith in the purpose of sports, of the people involved in them — and of larger humanity in general.
Johnson, now 27, plays in the Honda Classic this week on a sponsor exemption after making his PGA Tour debut last month at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. But don’t get the wrong idea. He hasn’t made it in the manner of others on the pro tour.
Until recently, he slept for two-and-a-half years on the couch of his friend’s apartment in Orlando to save money. He also just got his first car two weeks ago. Before that, he’d borrow cars to drive to tournaments. He’d get financial help from friends, businessmen — an uncle even passed around a hat at his cigar bar in Tallahassee to fund his nephew’s dream.
“You know how they say it takes a village?” he said. “Well, I’m fortunate to have a village help me.”
It started that day with Auger, who was the general manager of golf in Tallahassee. That connection helped. She offered to let him play $1 rounds of golf if he helped do chores at the course. Paint. Clean Carts. Whatever.
So for the next five years, Johnson was at the golf course from sun-up to sundown, either working or playing golf. It wasn’t some Disney film. His