Kevin Na: Given a chance, he’s deadly

Kevin Na won the Sony Open Sunday, his fourth victory in four contending opportunities

The Sony Open field gave Kevin Na a chance Sunday, and as usual Na seized on it.

Na’s final round 65 beat Chris Kirk and Joaquin Niemann by one shot. Trailing Brendan Steele by two shots starting play Sunday and by three at the turn, Na ran off three straight back nine birdies to pass Steele, Niemann and Kirk.

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The outcome turned on those three back nine par 4s, the 13th through 15th. Having bogeyed the 12th hole, Na, at -17, trailed Steele by three strokes and Niemann by two. At the same time, Kirk – playing several groups ahead – was in the process of sealing his own -20 finish.

But Na drained a 14-footer at 13, then knocked home a 10-footer on 14 for another birdie. Steele, who drove into the rough on 14, left his approach short and walked off with bogey.

When Na threw a wedge within five feet of the cup at 15, he moved to -20, tied with Kirk, one stroke ahead of Steele and two up on Niemann. He closed the win with an eagle pitch to within a foot of the cup at the par five 18th.

The outcome provided yet one more illustration of an easily overlooked yet occasionally important Tour truism: do not, under any circumstances, give Kevin Na a chance to win. In those rare circumstances, he’s an assassin.

The victory was Na’s fourth since triumphing at the 2018 Greenbrier. Those four wins were also the only tournaments he even got close to the lead in that time. Other than those victories, his highest non-winning showing in a medal play event during that stretch was a fifth at the 2020 Travelers.

Na doesn’t bring his A game every week. His previous best this season was a tie for 13th at the Masters.  But when he does contend it’s for real.

The victory is Na’s fifth in a decade-long career and raises a valid question: If a guy can win five PGA Tour events, will he ever threaten in a major?

Winning a full handful of Tour stops without making one of them a major is a relatively rare phenomenon. As a rule, if you’re good enough to do one you’re good enough to do the other.

Since’s Na’s arrival on Tour, only four players have won more tournaments than he has without stumbling into a major victory. The four constitute elite company among non-major champions: Brandt Snedeker (8), Rickie Fowler (6), Matt Kuchar (6) and Hideki Matsuyama (6).

Somehow the Majors have never taken to Na or vice-versa. He’s qualified to play in 38 of them since debuting as a wet-behind-the-ears 21 year old Korean export at the 2005 PGA. He missed the cut for the first of 16 times in the game’s biggest events.

Only twice in the intervening 15 years has he brought home as much as a top 10: he was seventh, five strokes behind Dustin Johnson, at the 2016 U.S. Open, and tied for 10th, six strokes behind Keegan Bradley, at the 2011 PGA.