Yesterday, Brenden Steele won the PGA Tour’s first tournament that launched its new season at the Safeway Open. Steele came from four strokes behind starting the last round. He birdied the last three holes to shoot 65 and win by one stroke over Patton Kizzire. It was Steele’s second win since he won the Texas Open in his rookie year and then went winless for 141 starts.
In doing so, Steele overcame the negative memory of his collapse in this tournament last year. He had led it starting the last round and finished badly with a whopping 40 on the last nine holes. This time he was able to say, “This is a little bit of redemption from last year. It’s nice to close it off this way. You don’t often get that chance in life to redeem yourself in the same way at the same place, and to basically do just the opposite.”
This tournament is played on the North Course at Silverado Resort and Spa in the beautiful, serene, picturesque, wine country of Napa, California. It is one of my favorite places I’ve ever been. Now deceased Billy Casper and I are the only PGA Tour players to have won at the same venue on both the regular PGA Tour and its Senior Tour (now Champions Tour), and we both did it here at Silverado in Napa. I guess Billy, a Mormon convert, and I felt that place is a little bit of heaven that elevated our games (to make a pun).
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