Luke

List

List ended his week with a 2-under 70 which put him at 18-under for the week and that was good enough to play his way into a five-man playoff alongside Ben Griffin, Ludvig Aberg, Scott Stallings, and Henrik Norlander. They didn’t have a lot of daylight to work with but List made quick work of the playoff when he poured home a 45-foot birdie bomb on the first playoff hole. A hot putter was the theme of the week for List who gained 6 strokes putting at week’s end (not even including the playoff putt) which was his best week-long putting performance since the 2019 PGA Championship and one of the five best putting weeks of his PGA Tour career. This will go in the books as his second career Tour title (2022 Farmers Insurance Open) and earns him spots at the 2024 Tournament of Champions as well as the 2024 Masters.

List was an early exit in Detroit due to a foot injury. He won’t be ready to return just a few days later. The Vanderbilt product is just 115th in the FedExCup race so he’ll surely be itching to return whenever his foot allows him.

List entered the week with top 33s in two of his last three starts but that momentum stalled with an opening 74. He didn’t give it a go on day two due to a foot injury. This will be his fifth career mid-tourney WD, in 250 events played.

List fired rounds of 67-68=135 (-9) today at the Columbus sectional. That earned him one of 11 spots up for grabs from that site. That triggered a change of schedule as he removed his name from the field at this week’s RBC Canadian Open. List is 0-for-5 at the U.S. Open but he’ll try to end that slump next week. He arrives off a top 20 at the Memorial Tournament.

It was a balanced attack from List today who gained at least 1.4 strokes off-the-tee, on approach, and putting. He arrived with missed cuts in six of his last seven stroke-play events but certainly found something today. One thing that did change was his caddie, “My caddie is back home in Sweden for a couple weeks and needed to kind of get back and see family, which we had discussed. This is five weeks in a row, which I normally don’t do, so that was kind of just an add-in in the schedule to try to get something going to the year. It’s been kind of a struggle, so to have my buddy on the bag was just kind of just real comfortable, and we had a lot of laughs out there, and it was fun just to get some good mojo going.” The carefree vibes worked out well today so gamers should watch closely to see how he follows that up on Friday afternoon.

List has four podium finishes on his TOUR resume before finally crossing the line last year at the Farmers. It was far from a wire-to-wire win as he was outside of the top 5 after each of the first two rounds and found himself at T19 heading into the final day. A closing 66 helped him gain ground quickly and his 15-under aggregate was good for a playoff over Will Zalatoris. “For me the mentality on Saturday was I was behind so I needed a good round obviously and I wasn’t really thinking about winning as much as like OK, at this level on Saturday or mostly Sundays it’s kind of pedal to the metal and not really feeling like you’re giving up opportunities and really trying to be aggressive. So that was my mindset going into the day, just be as aggressive as possible.” List went on a little slump after his win but did pop with a T11 in Maui just two starts ago, potentially finding his game just in time for a title defense.

It was a tale of two days for Luke List. After the media made a mockery of his embarrassing putting in Round 1, List bounced back with not only a stellar putting performance but a strong 3-under-68. During round 1, List missed a handful of 3-foot putts, but in round 2, he made sure to make the close ones count. Golf is always easier when the flat stick is rolling, and List found that out during his second round at Wilmington CC, where he gained +2.51 strokes putting. If he wants to get back to red figures for the tournament, there’s still a great deal of work to be done by list, but List at least showed signs of life on the greens in his second trip around the Delaware track.

List surged out of the gate last week at Muirfield Village, sharing a slice of the first-round lead. His position on the board dipped in each progressive round though, From T1 to T4 to T7 and eventually fading to T26 after a Sunday 77. List has now gone 11 straight stroke-play events without a top 25, all coming on the heels of his breakout win at Torrey Pines.

After kicking off with 67-71, the 37-year-old began the day tied with four others (T4), including playing competitor and now 54-hole leader Billy Horschel, who dusted List by seven shots. He was holding his own thru 16 holes at 3-under on the day (5 birdies, 2 bogeys) and T2 on the board, but fell off the pace with a triple bogey-7 at 17 (two penalties strokes), relegating him to the fifth-to-last pairing on Sunday with rookie and first-timer Davis Riley (72). At the three-quarter pole, the Vanderbilt alum has tallied 16 birdies, T1 in that stat, versus seven bogeys and the triple, and ranks 11th SG: Tee-to-Green (6.063), lowlighted by a 0.139 TTG today, and 26th SG: Putting (2.122), eking out a 0.114 SGP in R3. The last two winners on TOUR, Sam Burns at last week’s Schwab (P1), and Justin Thomas at the 104th PGA (P1), both began the final frame seven in arrears, as is List, so a second TOUR victory, while a long shot, is still a possibility.

The 37-year-old, who co-led with five others after 18 holes, trails leader Cameron Smith (69) and will be in the fourth-to-last pairing in R3 with Billy Horschel. He won his first TOUR title (in his 206th career event) at the 2-course Farmers 12 starts ago in a playoff over Will Zalatoris, three of those laps on the wicked-long South Course (7,765 yards), and is now contending on the not-short Muirfield Village GC (7,533 yards). He was asked about that post-round today (link below): “Both tough golf courses. I think that par goes a long way on certain holes, and I think traditionally I have the ability to do that pretty well.” The Vanderbilt alum got off to a good start here two tries ago in 2020 on a sponsor invite (70-68), T4 thru 36 holes, and finished an event-best T10 with a closing 71, which would’ve been higher were it not for a 79 in R3, which he’ll look to avoid a repeat of tomorrow. List ranks 42nd SG: Off-the-Tee with a cumulative -0.079, 5th SG: Approach (4.606), 25th SG: Around (1.390) and 26th SG: Putting (2.008), drug down in the latter by a -0.826 SGP today.