Wielding hockey-stick putter, Tony Finau chasing ‘better’ golf in Utah

The PGA Tour returns to Utah this week — so it only feels right that Utah’s favorite golfer returns to the PGA Tour, too.

“It’s nice to have a home game,” Tony Finau said on Wednesday ahead of this week’s Bank of Utah Championship at Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah.

Finau grew up in Salt Lake City and lives in Lehigh; this is the third edition of Utah’s first PGA Tour event, but it marks Finau’s debut.

“To have a PGA Tour event in Utah and now to be participating in it on this stage for a home crowd, I’m really excited about it,” he said.

The course is a visual stunner; red rocks and black lava line the fairway.

“If you dropped me here, I would think I might be on a different planet. It’s incredibly cool,” Finau said.

Finau enters in a precarious and unfamiliar spot: No. 100 in the FedEx Cup. After a half-decade where we got accustomed to seeing him on every U.S. team (he missed just one from 2018-2024) Finau’s level has slipped the last couple seasons; in 2026 he didn’t play in any of the four majors.

And while his PGA Tour status is secure for next season — he stacked up wins in 2022 and 2023, which have him exempt for 2027 — there’s still plenty of incentive to improve his standing. There are ways to get into the big-money, big-point Signature events, for instance. There are also big-time perks that come with winning: a victory this week would guarantee a spot in the 2028 Championship Series.

If his recent stretch of substandard golf — Finau has just one top-30 finish in his last 15 starts — is getting to him, he gave no signs of that during Wednesday’s media availability.

“I didn’t have the PGA Tour season that I wanted throughout the ’26 season, but the great thing about this game with the experience that I have is any time you’re playing well, it’s a good time to play well. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the fall, in the spring, in the summer,” he said. “Hopefully I start playing better at this tournament this week.”

Finau, a six-time PGA Tour winner, said this is “a situation I’ve never really been in,” thinking about his ranking and his future status. That has him going down different rabbit holes, looking for an edge. Which is why he is using…

“No secret I’m using a hockey stick to putt with,” Finau said. He debuted the new putter at the Biltmore Championship two weeks ago and said he “really liked it,” despite a missed cut. Now he’s back for more. You can read the story behind the Caliber Golf putter here; on Wednesday Finau extolled the virtues of its flat grip and easy aim.

“The way you put your hands on it, it all faces the exact same angle as the putter face. I thought that was a really cool thing, and I just think it’s easier to aim,” Finau said. “I’ve always been really good from 20-, 25-plus feet throughout the history of my PGA Tour career, and then as I got closer to the hole, not as good.

“Aiming to me is the most important thing. The closer you get to the hole, the better you have to aim. You don’t have time to manipulate the face on a short putt. So it seems to help me aim better, and that’s why I put it in the bag.”

Finau says he’ll play some more this fall, including both events in Mexico — one of which he won in 2023 — but this week is particularly special, playing at home. In Tuesday’s practice round he played in an all-Utah foursome with three amateurs: BYU’s Kihei Akina plus Bowen Mauss and Boston Bracken, who play at Arizona State.

“They were just trying to soak up, I think, the experience, asked me a lot of questions about my career, how I got where I am. They’ve all followed me,” he said. “But to really just have that experience with them on the golf course at a PGA Tour event was a special thing, not only for them, but again, for me.”

Finau expects to hit a lot of driving irons in an attempt to steer clear of the lava hazards that he said play effectively like out-of-bounds. But he plans to enjoy a home game, with his family driving down, his parents in town and plenty of support on tap.

“You can’t beat the views in St. George,” he said. “There’s nothing like it really in the world.”

He’ll hope his scorecard looks good to match.