current BYU star Kihei Akina<\/a> (Lone Peak) and Arizona State golfers Bowen Mauss (Corner Canyon) and Boston Bracken (Crimson Cliffs).<\/p>\n\u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d Finau said. \u201c\u2026 All these young kids that have been watching me play on the Tour since they were 10, 11, 12 years old, and now they\u2019re playing some of their first and second starts on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty humbling,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey all asked me if I wanted to play with them and do a practice round just the night before. \u2026 So foursomes aren\u2019t looked at on Tour as things that you should do in a practice round, but I hope it was an exception yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finau said that although he has played a lot of golf in southern Utah, Tuesday was the first time that he has stepped on the property, which opened in May 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people are surprised by that. \u2026 Unbelievable property. The resort is really cool. The golf course is really cool, really different than anything I have ever seen on Tour,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously the black lava stands out. The views are unbelievable. If you dropped me here, I would think I might be on a different planet. It is incredibly cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cI obviously love Utah. I think we have maybe the most beautiful state in all of America,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo we get to display that this week here in St. George. It\u2019s going to be a fun week.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be Finau\u2019s second fall start, as he missed the cut at the Biltmore Championship in Asheville, North Carolina, two weeks ago, shooting 78-71. Obviously, it was a rough year for the six-time winner on the PGA Tour, who is No. 100 in the FedExCup standings and missed all the majors and the playoffs for the first time in years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like my game is coming together,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the PGA Tour season that I wanted throughout the \u201926 season, but the great thing about this game with the experience that I have is any time you\u2019re playing well, it is a good time to play well. It doesn\u2019t matter if it is in the fall, in the spring, in the summer. We have golf all year round on Tour. \u2026 Hopefully I start playing better at this tournament this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finau said he will play in one more event on the FedExCup Fall Schedule, the VidantaWorld Mexico Open in late October. He won there in April 2023, which was his last PGA Tour win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like my game is coming together. I didn\u2019t have the PGA Tour season that I wanted throughout the \u201926 season, but the great thing about this game with the experience that I have is any time you\u2019re playing well, it is a good time to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Tony Finau<\/p>\n
\u201cI am always extremely motivated (to win),\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what continues to drive me. Sports is all about winning, and I feel like on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 six (wins) doesn\u2019t sound like nearly enough. We\u2019re continuing to work towards more. That\u2019s a daily process-type situation. Why not No. 7 this week?\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he\u2019s exempt through the 2027 season because of his PGA Tour wins, Finau said he wants to finish in the top 100 after the fall season \u201cjust to kind of secure my status and my spot. This is a tournament that stood out to me as one that I haven\u2019t played in the past, and obviously it is a home game, so it is one that made sense for me to play this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
How will Tony Finau play Black Desert?<\/p>\n
Whoever wins at Black Desert this week will have to go low. In 2024, Matt McCarty shot -23 to win by three shots, and in 2025 Michael Brennan shot -22 to win by four shots. Both golfers are in the field this week.<\/p>\n
Finau said he will play it \u201cmore conservatively than I would have liked,\u201d which means he won\u2019t hit driver all that much.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a golf course unlike anything I\u2019ve ever seen on Tour before,\u201d he said. \u201cThe lava is basically out of bounds. It is not like a hazard. \u2026 I would have liked to be playing a golf course where I can hit more drivers and have that kind of luxury to use my distance. But it is a golf course where, if you just play in the right way, I think you\u2019re going to score it better through 72 holes. That\u2019s how I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finau said he\u2019s \u201creally good\u201d with his driving iron, and will use it a lot this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo keeping the ball in front of me is going to be a huge thing for me this week,\u201d he said. \u201cAgain, I\u2019ve only seen the golf course once, but that\u2019s the way I see it to play that best fits my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why Utah has \u2018a rich golf culture\u2019<\/p>\n
Other Utahns in the field are former BYU golfers Tyson Shelley, Rhett Rasmussen and Carson Lundell and Utah Section PGA champion Zach Johnson, who prepped at Cottonwood High in the Salt Lake Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a rich culture in golf (in Utah),\u201d Finau said. \u201cI think it is a super underrated culture in golf. We have not only amazing players, but so many amazing pros and just great programs. The junior golf programs in Utah have continued to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see that flourish now with my kids being involved in those programs is an incredible thing,\u201d Finau continued, referencing his son Jraice, who starts as a freshman on the golf team at Lehi\u2019s Skyridge High. \u201cThe PGA of America has always been a huge benefit to the state. The PGA Tour now being in the state of Utah, I think, is an incredible thing. The culture here is rich. To add a PGA Tour event to that rich culture and the history of this state, I think is super meaningful. I think we deserve it, no question.\u201d<\/p>\n
With St. George being less than a four-hour drive from Lehi, Finau expects to have dozens, if not hundreds, of family members and supporters in the gallery this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will have quite a bit of family support out here, for sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IICOWODWYNHBLIRL6NPHPLFBME.jpg\")
Tony Finau of the United States acknowledges the crowd on the 5th green during the third round of the British Open at the Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland, Saturday, July 19, 2025. | AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As one of the most popular golfers on the PGA Tour, Utah\u2019s Tony Finau draws large crowds almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,3125,99],"class_list":["post-866793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-news-feed-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}