The Loop
Paul Casey, Kevin Chappell searching for redemption in final round of Deutsche Bank Championship
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NORTON, Mass. -- There were times Paul Casey wondered if he could ever play the type of golf needed to win again. Kevin Chappell has at times wondered when he’ll win, period. The final round of the Deutsche Bank Championship has a chance to be about redemption for both. Casey shot a five-under 66 Sunday, capped by a kick-in eagle at the par-five last, to take a three-stroke lead over Brian Harman with one round to go at TPC Boston. Chappell is one of three players another stroke back. Will this finally be the time for one of them? Three times this year Chappell has finished second (twice to Jason Day, at the Players and the Arnold Palmer Invitational), and five times in all during his 164 career starts prior to this week. Still, it’s difficult for the 30-year-old out of UCLA to be too upset. With more than $3.5 million in earnings, he’s having the best year of his career, having banked more than twice as much than any of his previous five years on tour. “Last year when I stood here, I was trying to get to the next event, and this year I stand here and it sounds like I'm pretty much a lock to get to the last event at East Lake,” he said this week. “You can't be disappointed with that. I would love to have won and won multiple times, but I've learned from those experiences, and my team and I keep addressing the weaknesses that come up from those situations. You don't know if you're improving until you get in the situation and see how you hold up, so I look forward to that.”
RELATED: Life on the road with Kevin Chappell A positive outlook has helped. Rather than beat himself up about making double bogey after his drive found a divot on the 12th hole Sunday, Chappell grinded out six straight pars to close to stay within reach of the lead. “He’s gotten so much better at not wasting energy on bad shots,” his coach Mark Blackburn said. “He’s not attaching emotion to bad shots, he’s moving forward to the next shot.” In other words, be patient. “Use The Players [Championship], for example. I was over par for the tournament for 26 holes and was able to fight back and finish solo second,” Chappell said. “Solo second pays out like a win, which is huge, but I could have easily packed it in and took it as a missed cut and all of a sudden I net $1 million on the week. It just goes to show that you're never out of it. I'm never out of it, and I need to be myself and just ride out the process.” The process has been a long one for Casey, too. Ranked as high as No. 3 in the world in 2009, he has battled through a laundry list of injuries and in 2010 went through a difficult divorce. At 39 years old, the Brit also played the bulk of his career during Tiger Woods’ best years in golf. “Sometimes I believed I could get to ‑‑ get back to a certain level and other times it was ‑‑ didn't see much hope,” he said. “It was very, very tough to focus on the golf.”
RELATED: Ryder Cup is of no concern to Paul Casey, who's focused on winning The last few years have made it easier. Re-married three years ago and a new father not long after, Casey is healthy and happy. He also shifted to playing the PGA Tour full time rather than splitting time between two tours. Now he’s hoping for the same thing Chappell is: A win. Though he won two years ago on the European Tour, Casey’s last and only victory on the PGA Tour was in 2009. “I'm almost looking like it's a second chance, wherever that cutoff point is, say a couple of years ago or something like that, it's now time to try and correct that statistic or double that number of wins, and then triple it, whatever it might be,” he said. “I've been doing a lot of hard work so let's hope it pays off.”