Matthew Wolff set up for redemption at Shriners Children’s Open

On Saturday at the Shriners Children’s Open in 2020, Matthew Wolff recorded his career-best round. On Saturday in 2021, he showed his career is back on track.

Last year, Wolff showed up at TPC Summerlin three weeks removed from his runner-up at the U.S. Open. A Saturday 61 put him in the mix before a Sunday 66 landed him in a playoff with Martin Laird and Austin Cook. Laird won the playoff, but Wolff reached a career high No. 12 in the Official World Golf Rankings. He had four top 5s in his last 10 events. He hadn’t missed a cut in three months.

The question was not when Wolff would win next, but how many times he would win in 2020-21.

In the year since, the victories have not come for Wolff. Neither have the top 5s. Or the top 10s.

Wolff’s best finish in the last 12 months was a T15 at the 2021 U.S. Open. That came after a two-month hiatus, as Wolff stepped away from the PGA TOUR to focus on his mental health. In recent weeks, the 22-year-old has been open about that period, saying he did not even want to get out of bed at points last spring.

His candidness has inspired others in the golf world to address their own mental health situations.

Wolff’s last year is coming full circle as he is back in form at the Shriners Children’s Open. His Saturday score this year was a 65, not a 61, but tied for the second-best of the day. It puts him at 17-under, one shot back of Adam Schenk. The two will make up the final pairing Sunday.

“I feel really comfortable here,” Wolff says. “There's a couple stressful tee shots out there, but for the most part I feel really good with my 3-wood and that's kind of the club that I use around here and I'm hitting it really good.”

Wolff has dominated the par 5s this week, going 11-under on nine holes. Both his Thursday and Saturday rounds were bogey-free. In 11 rounds at TPC Summerlin, Wolff has 11 rounds in the 60s.

For over two years now, Wolff has been chasing his second PGA TOUR victory. His first came at the 2019 3M Open – his fourth career start – as an 18th hole-eagle fended off Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau by one shot. With three runner-up finishes, as well, Wolff has experience around the top of leaderboards, although, not within the last year.

“I was hitting it really good last week at Sanderson,” Wolff says. “I've been working on the same thing with my coach for a little bit now and it's the first time we kind of stuck to one thing because last year was kind of a struggle. I was trying to find a bunch of different stuff in my swing and we came to the kind of realization that we don't need to be changing too much, just one small thing and for me it's just set up. It's when I feel comfortable over the ball and I feel I'm athletic, I feel like I really hit the ball well.”

Wolff posted a T17 at last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship, a remarkable finish considering he made the cut on the number with a 35-foot birdie putt. He now has seven straight rounds under par since then.

Meanwhile, the winner of the last week’s tournament, Sam Burns, has nine straight under-par rounds and at 16-under, he is just two shots off the lead. And yet, Burns is going to spend Saturday night trying to figure out what went wrong on the back-nine.

After a birdie on 11, Burns was 4-under on his day and 17-under for the tournament, giving him a two-shot advantage on the field with a forgiving stretch of holes again. However, Burns missed a six-foot birdie putt on the par-5 13th and followed with a nine-foot birdie miss on the par-3 15th.

On the par-5 16th, Burns left himself just 171 yards out for his second shot. But his iron clanked off the greenside rocks and into the water, setting Burns on a route to bogey.

Burns was one-over on holes 13-16. For reference, Wolff was four-under.

“I just think late in the day the greens, it's not quite rolling as well as they were early in the day, so hopefully those will go in tomorrow,” Burns said on his late afternoon putting struggles in the desert.

Burns will go out in the penultimate pairing with Andrew Putnam on Sunday and he still has a shot at the PGA TOUR record books. A win this weekend would make Burns the first player to win his first two starts of the season since Ernie Els in 2003. Burns would also be the first to win in back-to-back weeks in the regular season since Brendon Todd did so at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship and World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in 2019.

While Wolff and Burns have the winning pedigree, Adam Schenk holds the winning hand right now at 18-under. The 29-year-old has two career top 5s on the PGA TOUR, both happening in 2021: A 4th place finish at the Barracuda Championship and a T4 at the John Deere Classic. Schenk was the 54-hole leader in the former.

“I haven't been in this situation a lot,” Schenk admits. “I started to play a lot better towards the end of last year, but just keep doing the same things I've been doing, I mean you're going to have to shoot a low score tomorrow....There's going to be some low scores in the morning, someone could shoot 60, 61 or maybe even lower, so it’s definitely going to take a good round.”

After his round on Saturday, Schenk mentioned he’s been spending his recent downtime watching “Friday Night Lights.” If there is ever a time for him to think, “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose,” it is now.

Among others notables, second-round leader Sungjae Im posted just a one-under 70 on Saturday, but is still only three strokes off the lead at 15-under. A Saturday low-round of 64 – back-to-back 64s – has Lanto Griffin at 13-under and Louis Oostuizen, who has five top-10 finishes in his last eight PGA TOUR regular season starts, is at 12-under.