PGA Tour: Tony Finau in contention again, this time at 3M Open
By Tim Letcher
Tony Finau is in contention on the PGA Tour once again this week, this time at the 3M Open. Can lessons learned last week benefit him this time around?
For the second consecutive week, Tony Finau finds himself in the mix on the PGA Tour. After faltering last week at the Memorial Tournament, Finau now is in contention after 18 holes at the 3M Open.
Finau’s round on Thursday started slowly but really picked up on his second nine. He played the back nine first and opened with pars on the 10th and 11th holes. He then birdied the par-5 12th hole to move under par.
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He would par numbers 13, 14 and 15 before a birdie on the par-4 16th hole moved him to 2-under on the day. A pair of pars closed out his first nine, which resulted in Finau shooting a 2-under par 34.
Finau started his second nine with a birdie on the first hole, quickly getting to 3-under par. After a par on the second hole, Finau birdied the third and fourth holes to get to 5-under on his round.
He would par the fifth hole before yet another birdie, this one at the par-5 sixth hole. At that point, Finau found himself at 6-under par.
The only blemish on his Thursday card came on the seventh hole, where a poor approach shot ultimately resulted in a bogey five. However, he rebounded immediately on the par-3 eighth hole. His tee shot left him about 12 feet for birdie and he rolled in the putt to get back to 6-under on the day.
Finau finished with a par on the ninth hole to shoot a 5-under 31 on his final nine and a 6-under par 65 for his Thursday round. He finds himself two shots behind leader Richy Werenski after 18 holes.
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The challenge for Finau will be to not have flashbacks to last week when he was in contention through 45 holes before falling apart on the back nine on Saturday and the entire round on Sunday. He ended up shooting 73 on Saturday at Muirfield Village and 78 on Sunday to slide from first place into eighth.
Hopefully for Finau, he can build on what happened last week and use that experience to not let it happen again. That will be his challenge as he approaches not only tomorrow’s round, but especially over the weekend.