Tony Finau Stopped Tinkering With His Putting, and Wins Started Coming in Bunches

With four wins in his last 18 starts, the Utahan has silenced all doubters. Along the way, he stopped doubting himself on the greens.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For the bulk of his PGA Tour career, Tony Finau was the guy with immense promise and talent without the victories to back it up.

He won on U.S. Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams. He contended at major championships. He hovered around the top-10 players in the world at times.

But he had that lone victory at the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, an opposite-field event that left his resume lacking.

He won the Northern Trust tournament in August 2021, the first FedEx Cup playoff event, to finally get a second win. Then nearly a year went by before another victory.

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That next win came last summer at the 3M Open, and Finau has now won four times in 18 starts on the PGA Tour over the past nine months, including the Mexico Open on Sunday.

The secret? Putting.

"I would say the No. 1 thing has just been my putting," Finau said Tuesday at Quail Hollow Golf Club, where he is part of the Wells Fargo Championship field. "I decided at the beginning of last year my No. 1 goal was don't change your putter grip this year and see what happens.

"That literally was my first goal, which was just the priority. Anytime I was in a putting rut, I seemed to switch grips or switch putting heads. It was quick fix, it wasn't an overall. I'd have a great week or two and then I'd be back in the same mess if not even a deeper hole with my putting further down the stretch.

"So I decided that I was going to commit to putting conventionally for a full season no matter how I was putting, just figure it out. I think I'm enjoying the success of what that looks like for me on just being able to dissect the same putting stroke with the same putter, the same putting grip style. I think I would say that that's where most of my success has come. Even this year I haven't putted great before leading into Mexico. I was starting in my mind to think maybe it's time to switch grips again and then I won I with the conventional grip."

Finau said he was frustrated to see improvements in other parts of his game only to have putting still holding him back.

This season, he ranks among the top four in three PGA Tour statistical categories, including first in strokes-gained approach to the green. He is 25th in strokes-gained putting.

"My putting has been my Achilles heel in the past, where my ball-striking has gotten better and I've hit it well enough to win more tournaments than I have, I haven't been able to execute with the putter," Finau said. "But that's changed over these last couple years and that would be the main reason I'd say."

Finau acknowledged that perhaps there is something to consider for golfers when it comes to experimenting too much.

"No question, I think it's a great lesson to be learned," he said. "It's a lot better to be great at one thing than tinker around with 10,000 different techniques and trying to figure it out."