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SALT LAKE CITY — Everything is coming up Finau right now.
After the third win of his PGA Tour career last week at the 3M Open, Tony Finau shot 6-under-par 66 to sit just one shot off the lead at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and survive the cut well in contention in Detroit.
The career round follows a Thursday performance that left Finau tied for the lead with Canadian rookie Taylor Pendrith, when he dropped eight birdies on a bogey-free round for an impeccable 64. Barely 24 hours later, he was doing it again.
Finau's two-day total of 130 is the lowest 36-hole score of his PGA Tour career, beating out 131 he scored three times, including at last year's FedEx St. Jude Championship (then called the Northern Trust, which he went on to win). Before the second round, he became the first player on the PGA Tour to win and lead or co-lead the next week since Justin Thomas in 2018.
In short, Finau is playing some of the best golf of this career in the summer of 2021 — not just in wins, but also a narrow loss to Rory McIlroy in the RBC Canadian Open in June, among other finishes.
"I had some nice stretches, honestly, I feel like the second half of this season and I put together some nice tournaments," Finau told reporters after his round. "Anytime you win, you breed confidence.
"I was just happy to carry that confidence from last week right into this week."
This approach shot from @TonyFinauGolf 🤌 pic.twitter.com/LBIga2WUsn
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 29, 2022
In two days, he's hit a career-high 34 greens in 36 holes. That's something he and his swing coach, acclaimed Utah native Boyd Summerhays who did not travel to Detroit with Finau, talk about a lot. He's also closed up his short game, with an average of 3.008 strokes gained through putting — even if he admits he "missed a bunch of putts" Friday afternoon.
"I think that was like a milestone for us," Finau said of his historic greens-in-regulation play. "It's something I've never done, so it was just cool to kind of go through and talk about the quality shots and the quality of shots I've been hitting. Yeah, I kind of look at it as a milestone, I think it's a tough feat to have out here and to be able to do it my first time, we definitely had a conversation about it."
Saturday's moving day begins at 5:30 a.m. MDT, with coverage on the Golf Channel from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and CBS from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.. Finau and Pendrith will tee off in the final group at 12 p.m. MDT.
