2022 Hero World Challenge: Top 10 Power Rankings at Albany
Life’s pretty good for Tony Finau these days.
After going five years between PGA Tour wins, he’s hoisting trophies at a rapid pace.
Finau’s up to five career victories after his latest triumph a few weeks ago at the Cadence Bank Houston Open. Scores of 65-62-68-69 allowed him to blitz the field by four shots. Memorial Park is a tricky course, but Finau made it look like your local muni.
He led by as much as eight on Sunday before coasting home on the back nine.
Winning is old hat for Finau, but he was proud to get this one done in a different fashion than the rest.
"“But overall this was a special week. You know, I won this golf tournament from start to finish,” Finau was transcribed by Tee Scripts. “I don’t know if I’ve done that in my career, maybe at Rocket Mortgage, but to have played that well for four straight days, that’s what it’s all about and all the hard work is starting to pay off, which is fun.”"
It was a nice bounceback from a missed cut the week prior in Mexico. Before the MC, Finau was on a streak of five made cuts that included back-to-back wins at the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic.
This will be the 33-year-old’s fourth Hero World Challenge start.
Finau debuted in 2018 with a solo second-place finish. If not for an opening 72, he would have contended with four-shot winner, Jon Rahm. Finau closed in 64-67-69 to beat third place by one.
The big Utahn took T-10th (79-68-69-65) in 2019 and T-7th (68-66-70-71) last year.
Speaking of 10th, that’s where Finau ranked last season on the PGA Tour in total strokes gained per round (1.499). He gained strokes in every category, including tee to green where his ball striking ascended to a whole other level to rank fifth (1.408).
You can draw some interesting lies if you miss the fairway this week, but there’s not much rough to speak of.
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Finau is also a fairly strategic bomber who has gotten more adept at knowing when to pull back or when to let it rip.
I still have questions about Finau’s ability to get it done at the majors.
We’re on island time this week, so I see his incredible run of golf continuing at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.