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A stunning 72nd hole eagle may not have been enough to win the DP World Tour’s Singapore Classic, but fan favourite Kiradech Aphibarnrat logged the best finish by a Callaway player across the major tours last week.
Thai golf star Aphibarnrat birdied the third, fifth, seventh and eighth holes at Laguna National during the final round, although his hopes of victory looked slim when he bogeyed the 12th. But Aphibarnrat salvaged his charge when he made birdie at the par-5 14th, then hit it to six feet and made birdie at the 15th before holing a long birdie putt at the 16th to share the lead.
Aphibarnrat came up clutch when he needed a 3 at the par-5 18th to set up a playoff. He fired a laser-like fairway metal for his second shot to 15 feet from the hole and drained the eagle to lay the platform for extra holes. Aphibarnrat’s blistering 64 meant he finished at 17 under par – good enough to secure extra time.
After a birdie and a par in sudden death, Aphibarnrat misjudged his approach shot over the back of the green on the third extra hole and made a bogey. That dropped him to a runner-up finish.
All round, the Singapore Classic was a good tournament for Callaway ambassadors with Sam Bairstow (68) in solo third place at 16 under, although only a shot outside the playoff with Aphibarnrat.
Australian Callaway star David Micheluzzi, who earned his DP World Tour card via winning the Australasian tour’s order of merit last year, was at times leading outright or co-leading on the front nine and into the early part of the back nine before a nightmarish two holes. He made double-bogeys at the par-3 11th and par-4 12th to drop four shots. But the Victorian showed true fight when he added two birdies coming home to finish at 12 under par after a 73, sharing seventh place.
Meanwhile on the PGA Tour, Xander Schauffele, for the second week in a row, was the leading Callaway ambassador on the men’s tour in the US with a final-round 65 lifting him to tie for fifth at the Valspar championship, outside Tampa. World No.5 Schauffele finished at eight under par and just four shots off the winner.
Unlike last week’s Players Championship, where Schauffele tied for second, he wasn’t alone as the top Callaway player at the tournament.
With his Paradym Ai Smoke driver, Schauffele was ranked No.5 for the Valspar in strokes gained off tee, gaining 3.184 shots on the field. He was accurate at the narrow corridors of the Copperhead course, too, finding 33 of 52 fairways to rank T12 in driving accuracy. In the short game, 2021 Olympic gold medallist Schauffele was tidy – ranking 13th for strokes gained around greens. He gained 3.023 shots on the field with his short game.
“65 [in a final round] is obviously not something I’m going to complain about, but I missed a few [putts] and made some silly mistakes early in my round,” Schauffele said Sunday. “Then I had a snap-out-of-it moment on 11, and it kind of paid off coming in.”
Indeed his mood change paid off. On the par-5 11th, the San Diego native blasted his Ai Smoke driver 323 yards down the left side of the fairway, before rifling a 238-yard second shot to 10 feet. He drained the eagle and it kickstarted his run. He sank a 35-foot birdie from the fringe on No.12, and hit it to two feet for birdie on No.13. At the par-5 14, Schauffele obliterated his tee shot 333 yards down the fairway before hitting his second shot just short of the green, getting down in two for birdie.
Schauffele said the slow play on Sunday fired him up.
“I think we waited on 15 of our holes today, so I was getting a little testy, a little impatient, and I told [my caddie] Austin, I’m going to start trying,” he said. “Like, I need to try to focus more. Not that I wasn’t trying, I just needed to try and focus more and lock in because it felt like there were such big breaks between shots, it was hard to get into any flow. I think once I locked in and accepted what was happening, I started to hit better shots.”
Callaway stars Carl Yuan, from China, and Canada’s Adam Hadwin also tied fifth at eight under. South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout continued his hot play on the PGA Tour. After a T11 at the Players Championship last week and a runner-up result at The American Express in January, Bezuidenhout tied for ninth at Valspar at seven under.
XANDER SCHAUFFELE WHAT’S IN THE BAG
Driver Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond, 10.5°
Fairway woods: Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond fairway
Irons: Apex utility 23 degrees, Apex TCB irons (4-PW)
Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw (52 degrees)
Putter: Odyssey Toulon Design Las Vegas Prototype 7CH
Separately, Callaway stars are playing their way into the PGA Tour’s Signature events through consistent performances. The next Signature Event on the schedule is the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, the week after the Masters. There are two categories for the Heritage, both the Next 10 (current season-long FedEx Cup standings) and the Swing 5 (FedEx Cup points accumulated specifically in events held between Signature tournaments). The cut-off for the Next 10 is through the Masters Tournament while the events for the Swing 5 that will yield five spots into the Heritage are the Puerto Rico Open, Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open. Bezuidenhout and Erik van Rooyen are currently in the Next 10, while Brice Garnett, and Carl Yuan are Callaway players inside the Swing 5.
On the LPGA Tour, Andrea Lee was the best of the Callaway players at the FIR Hills Seri Pak Championship at Palos Verdes Estate near Long Beach, California. Lee picked up three shots in her final round to finish at seven under par and two shots shy of a playoff. Fellow Callaway player Ruoning “Ronni” Yin was a shor further back at six under, tied eighth.
