Tony Finau knew a top-10 finish in the third event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs in mid-September would send him to the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
Yet as he played that final round near Chicago, he was thinking about a venue 140 miles east of Atlanta. Finau’s target was Augusta National Golf Club and his first appearance in the Masters.
“It was the only thing on my mind,” the Lehi resident said recently. “There was nothing more important to me in my career than I needed to get to Augusta.”
He’s there. Finau will tee off Thursday in the Masters, taking another step in his fourth PGA Tour season. He earned the invitation via a top-30 finish in the 2016-17 FedEx Cup standings, an achievement that seemed unlikely when he began that Sunday’s play in the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club.
Finau had not performed well in the first two playoff events, tying for 54th and 65th places. He started the BMW Championship with a 6-under-par 65, but faded to rounds of 72 and 70 and was tied for 34th after three rounds. Only a top-10 finish would give him enough points to move back into the top 30 for the season and earn a trip to the Tour Championship — and accompanying benefits for the 2017-18 schedule, including the Masters invitation.
Finau in the majors<br>Tony Finau’s results in major tournaments: 2015 – U.S. Open, T14; PGA Championship, T10. 2016 – U.S. Open, MC; British Open, T18; PGA Championship, MC. 2017 – British Open, T27; PGA Championship, T44.
“I knew my chances were going to be really, really slim if I didn’t get off to a good start on Sunday,” he said. “I knew what I had to do. That’s a tough thing, when you know you have to go out and shoot 6 or 7 under in a round. It’s never a position you want to put yourself in.”
Finau responded wonderfully. He birdied 6 of the first 11 holes. After a errant drive caused him to bogey the par-5 No. 14, he birdied No. 15. As it turned out, a par on No. 18 would have been good enough. But as they sized up a birdie chip from the back of the green, Finau and his caddie thought the chances of advancing with a par were “like 50-50,” Greg Bodine said.
Finau holed the shot to complete his 64, then emphatically high-fived Bodine. A tie for seventh place lifted him to No. 24 in the standings, then he also tied for seventh in the elite field of the Tour Championship.
“To me, that was the moment that changed him as a player,” said his coach, Boyd Summerhays, crediting Finau with “a once-in-a-year round.”
Summerhays added, “That kind of sums up Tony. He excels in the biggest moments. He definitely loves the big stage.”
Besides giving him access to all four major tournaments in 2018, the clutch finish launched Finau into the tour’s 2017-18 schedule that started in October. He placed second in the Safeway Open in California and has posted two other top-six finishes, propelling him to No. 9 in the standings.
Even before making his Masters debut, he’s already well positioned to return to Augusta National in 2019. Finau can do that by finishing in the top 30 again or by maintaining his top-50 Official World Golf Ranking (he’s No. 34) through December.
It all can be traced to that Sunday round in September, after a disappointing finish the previous day. His sloppy finish of the third round was “one of those moments when golf hit him hard,” Bodine told Utah Golf Radio. “If he didn’t have a good perspective, I don’t think it would have been possible for him to come out and play the round he played on Sunday.”
Bodine labeled Finau’s turnaround “in a lot of ways … more rewarding” than his victory in the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, and that’s true. Played the same week as a World Golf Championship event, that tournament couldn’t offer the winner a Masters invitation.
Finau may have been able to get to Augusta National by finishing in the top 50 in the 2017 world ranking, even without his top-10 finishes in the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship. But he’s happy to have come through when he did.
“Waiting isn’t a good thing in this game,” he said. “You want to secure everything you can, when you can. … Going out and shooting a round like that, in that scenario, when I knew I had to, gave me a lot of confidence and I think I’ve been able to ride that into this season.”
Drive, Chip & Putt: Victoria Romney of Draper tied for seventh place among 10 contestants in the Girls 12-13 finals of the Drive, Chip & Putt competition Sunday at Augusta National Golf Club.
