Tony Finau finds his stride at the Mexico Open at Vidanta

Tony Finau, who tied for second a year ago on the heels of a course-record 63 in the final round, started this year’s edition of the Mexico Open with rounds of 65-64 and had a one-shot lead as Friday’s morning wave was ending.

His runner-up finish here last year was his first top-10 finish in nine months on TOUR. After that he would go on to finish T4 at the Charles Schwab Challenge and runner-up at the RBC Canadian Open before winning back-to-back starts at the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic. His victory at the Cadence Bank Houston Open in the fall portion of this season was his third win in a span of seven starts.

“This was a place where a lot of things changed for me last season,” Finau said. “I was able to post a second-place finish and just have a nice final round, make some putts that were very important and then it carried me into a very nice finish to last season.”

So far at this season’s Mexico Open, Finau has made just two bogeys in 36 holes and sits at 13 under. He opened Friday on the back nine and recorded five birdies – including three in a row. He added three more birdies on Nos. 5-7 before bogeying the par-4 eighth, his penultimate hole of the day.

While Finau’s tee-to-green game has been the elite-of-the-elite so far this season, he said his putting is the one area where there has been ebbs and flows.

So far, so good, this week, however. Finau is inside the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, Off-the-Tee and Putting through 36 holes. He said he did some “great” putting work with his coach last week and it’s all clicked so far at Vidanta Vallarta.

“Sometimes you've got to ride the waves with your putter throughout a season. I haven't putted it great statistically over the last couple months, but things change fast,” Finau said.

“I played really nicely over the last couple days, was able to capitalize with the putter on shots that I hit pretty close. That was probably the biggest story, hitting it nicely, but being able to capitalize with the putter is very important out here and I was able to do that over the last couple days.”

Although Finau needed a hefty charge up the leaderboard in the final round a year ago to notch a good result, this time around he’s off to as good a start as he could ask for. Finau’s family loves this resort, he said Thursday with a smile, so he’ll hit the pool Friday afternoon to get refreshed and ready to go for another weekend run at a PGA TOUR title.

“After 36 holes I'm playing nicely, find myself at the top. With my experience, we're only halfway, there's so much golf to be played. You always want to say that you have what it takes to win a golf tournament. I think luckily for me, I've done that a few times over the last year,” Finau said. “But every week has its own challenges, every day has its own challenges, so this is not a time to get ahead of myself.”