Idyllwild native Brendan Steele showed the stuff he’s made of last Friday when he sank a 20-footer on the final green to ensure he would make the cut and play the weekend. He eventually posted a 7-under-par 67-71-68-67 — 273 to finish tied for 25th place.
Steele did well tee-to-green, finding 76.79 percent of the fairways with drives averaging 300.9 yards, including one boomer of 337 yards. He hit 79.17 of the greens in regulation and gained 4.469 strokes, tee to green. But his putter was balky. He did sink some long puts, but he uncharacteristically missed some short ones, too, losing 0.403 strokes to the field in putting. He averaged 1.719 puts per green.
Still, he moved up from 54th to 47th on the FedExCup points list and now has 743 points, 142 points behind the player in the important 30th spot. (Finishing in the top 30 on that points list at the end of the season would earn him a trip to the 2016 Masters.)
Although Brendan’s website shows that he will play both in the two-day CVS Caremark Charity Classic and the four-day Greenbrier Classic this week, he does not show at their websites as being in the field for either of these tournaments. Instead, he's playing this week in the Alstom French Open on the European PGA Tour, which tournament also could qualify him for this month's The (British) Open, if he has a high finish.
