Grillo wins the Frys.com Open that others let slip away

By Art Spander

NAPA, Calif. — They weren’t marquee names. That’s for sure. And as the leaders wobbled and stumbled through the last few holes of the Frys.com Open, the opener of the PGA Tour schedule, you wondered if this was the future of golf.

Yes, the kid who won — Emiliano Grillo, age 23, which makes him a kid — has a considerable amount of talent, but the way the most of the other four players with whom he once was tied came to the finish line was unsettling.

Maybe if one or two had been people like Charl Schwartzel or Justin Rose, who were three shots back, or Rory McIlroy, who despite a final-round 69 was six behind, the view would be less critical. They were winners, major champions, able to handle the pressure.

But when you get Grillo, Kevin Na, Tyrone Van Aswegen, Justin Thomas and Jason Bohn, each of whom was tied for first at one point, well, you get golfers who rarely had been in pressure situations and then basically couldn’t handle that pressure.

Poor Brendan Steele also should be been included, perhaps. He led from the first day until the back nine Sunday but with a closing 76 dropped to a tie for 17^th. It’s tough out here, very tough.

Grillo, with a 69, and Na, who shot 70, finally ended up at 15-under-par 273 on Silverado’s North Course, a shot in front of Van Aswegen (68), Thomas (69) and Bohn (70). 

Grillo and Na each parred the first extra hole, the 18^th, of the sudden-death playoff, Grillo blowing a four-foot birdie putt.

Then, as shadows of the oaks and fir trees lengthened across the course, they went back to the 18^th, where Na, 32, a one-time winner, took a silly gamble and used his driver for his second shot. The ball sailed to the left, and by the time he finished the hole, Na had a bogey six. To his credit, Grillo had a birdie.

Also to his credit, Grillo, from Argentina and just off the Web.com Tour, the Triple A league if you will, became the first player since Russell Henley in 2013 to win his first tournament after becoming a fulltime Tour member.

Grillo thus qualifies for the Masters — “The Masters,” he said, “it’s unbelievable” — and several other huge tournaments, including The Players.

It’s a funny sport, golf. One day you’re a virtual nobody, the next day you might be a star, as is Grillo’s longtime friend Jordan Spieth, who this past calendar year won the Masters and U.S. Open and was a shot out of a playoff in the British Open.

Spieth, now 22, and Grillo were competitors as juniors. Spieth offered congratulations on Twitter.

When someone asked if he thought he were catching Spieth, the Player of the Year for 2015, Grillo said, “Well, I’m definitely closer. I need what, five more wins? Two majors. There is a long way. I mean he is top-ranked in the world. That says it all.”

What Jason Bohn was saying was, “I was a little disappointed the way I finished the last three holes.” And he should be.

Bohn was 15-under and a shot ahead after the 15^th, a difficult par-three. But he bogied the par-five 16^th, parred the short 17^th and then after smacking his second shot against a gallery fence parred the par-five 18^th. It was his Frys to lose, and he lost.

“Maybe a little bit of nerves,” said Bohn. “I was fairly focused at 16 there where I just kind of laid the side over and chunked it. Kind of really throws a shock into the mind because you know you’re not thinking anything like that. That kind of rattled me a bit.”

Na denied ever being rattled, reminded that he birdied four of the last six to get into the playoff and insisted he had used a driver off the fairway — or “off the deck,” as the pros remark — five or six times during the four rounds.

“I was confident,” he said of the errant shot on the second playoff hole. “Only thing is it was dark. It’s a lot tougher. The ball was above my feet. Maybe I should have hit a 3-wood. Probably caught (the driver) a 16^th or 18^th of an inch heavy and the club just turned over.”

This Frys seemed to offer a turnover in golf, people we barely knew getting in position and, in the case of Grillo, getting a victory while the others missed out.

Grillo had become a bit infamous Saturday when his tee shot on the 17^th nearly skulled McIlroy on the green. It was a problem with communication, said Grillo, who was unable to see the green from the tee.

“I almost actually ran across a few fairways to apologize to him,” said Grillo. “I didn’t want to be the guy who almost hit Rory McIlroy this week.”

What he hit instead was the jackpot. When all the wobbling ended there was Emiliano Grillo standing solid.