Fabulous Freddie: Couples calls his amazing run of birdies in SAS Championship 'best round ... by far'

Fred Couples has gone deep into the red numbers in the past.

Take his Players Championship record, for example. He shot 64 in each of his victories at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, including the final round in 1996 when he became the first two-time winner at the Stadium. It was a record for the lowest final-round score by a winner in Players history, matched in 2003 by Davis Love III.

Couples was also the first of nine players to shoot a 63 at The Players, which remains the low score in tournament history.

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But he didn't hesitate in labeling his 60 last Sunday in the final round of the SAS Championship at the Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, N.C., his best round ever. For one thing, it was his 14th PGA Tour Champions victory (he has 15 on the PGA Tour) and is a record closing score for a winner.

Five players, including Couples in the 2014 Shaw Charity Classic, had shot 61 in the final round.

Couples, 63, won for the first time in 1,939 days. He's the second player in Champions Tour history to shoot 60 and beat his age at the same time. Walter Morgan fired a 60 at the AT&T Senior Canadian Open in 2002 at the age of 61.

“It’s easy to say because we’re standing here, but I think it’s the best round I’ve ever played,” Couples told the media after the round. “I hit a few loose shots, you know, got away from them, but I made so many putts. You know, I don’t know what other rounds I’ve ever shot on the Champions Tour that are close to 60, so this would probably be my best round and lowest score by far.”

Couples came close to a bogey only at the 10th hole, making a 30-foot putt for par. After another par he closed with seven birdies in a row, and birdied 12 of his last 14 holes.

He finished at 20-under and won by six shots.

Couples said he felt the round coming.

"I warmed up on the range better than I’ve ever felt and I played really, really well," he said."

The only damper is that Couple is shutting it down for the year after eight starts. He went from 60th to 34th on the Charles Schwab Cup money list but is passing on the three playoff events that begin this week with the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Va.

Fowler trending up

Couples wasn't the only past Players champion to have a good week.

Rickie Fowler's tie for second at the ZOZO Classic in Japan was his second top-10 in three starts this season and he's vaulted to seventh on the FedEx Cup standings.

He had only two top-10s in his previous 58 starts.

Fowler has been under par in all 10 rounds he's played this season, including his missed cut at Las Vegans when 4-under 140 (70-70) wasn't enough to get to the weekend.

But he fired three rounds in the 60s in Japan, had the 54-hole lead and eventually lost to Keegan Bradley.

However, it's progress for the 33-year-old Fowler, who changed caddies and swing coaches before the season began. He's finished 133rd and 134th in the last two seasons, reaching the depths of a slump that began in 2019-20 when a 94th-place finish was the first time in six seasons in which he finished below 31st.

He peaked at fourth in 2014-15 after winning The Players and a playoff event, the Deutsche Bank Championship.

But Fowler now has nearly as many FedEx Cup points (337) as he had all of last season (340).

Fowler made changes before the season.

He split with caddie Joe Skovron after 13 years and all five of his PGA Tour titles and hired Ricky Romano, who previously bagged for Scott Piercy and Nate Lashley. Fowler also has stopped working with John Tillery for his swing and is back to leaning on Butch Harmon.

Fowler is making his 300th PGA Tour start this week at the CJ Cup, at the Congaree Club in Ridgeland, S.C.

Tiger as an audible

During Sunday night's NFL game between Philadelphia and Dallas, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts called an audible.

That's hardly unusual. But it was the terminology that made NBC announcer Mike Tirico take notice.

On a second-and-five, Hurts, lined in up the shotgun, scanned the Cowboys defense then yelled, "Tiger Woods!" three times.

Hurts then yelled "Let's Go!" twice to get the snap but a handoff to Miles Sanders was stopped for a 1-yard gain by Trevon Diggs and Trysten Hill.

"Tiger, you're an audible tonight," Tirico said at the snap.

And when the play was stopped cold, Tirico said, "and that's in the bunker."

Tight race in LPGA

The LPGA statisticians say 18 players are still in contention for the player of the year award, based on points for victories and finishes.

The leading candidates are Minjee Lee, Brooke Henderson, Atthaya Thitikul and Lydia Ko. Lee has a 19-point lead over Henderson, but Henderson isn't playing in this week's BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea.

Tournament winners earn 30 points. Thitikul is 25 points behind Lee and Ko is 29 points back.

Information from golfweek.com and the Associated Press was used in this report.

PGA TOUR

Event: CJ Cup, Thursday-Sunday, The Congaree Club, Ridgeland, S.C.

At stake: $10.5 million purse ($1,890,000 and 500 FedEx Cup points to the winner).

Defending champion: Rory McIlroy.

TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Saturday, 3-6 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30-5:30 p.m.).

Area players entered: Harris English, Brian Harman, Billy Horschel, Keith Mitchell, Trey Mullinax, J.T. Poston.

Notable: McIlroy shot 62 in the third round at The Summitt Club in Las Vegas and went on to beat Collin Morikawa by one shot. … Joining McIlroy and Morikawa in the field are Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

LPGA TOUR

Event: BMW Ladies Championship, Thursday-Sunday, Oak Valley Country Club, Busan, South Korea.

At stake: $2 million purse ($300,000 to the winner).

Defending champion: Jim Young Ko.

TV: Golf Channel (Thursday, 7-10 p.m.; Friday-Sunday, 6:30-10 p.m.).

Area players entered: Chella Choi.

Notable: Ko shot 64 in the final round to catch Hee Jeong Kim, then won in sudden death. … Ko, the No. 1-ranked player on the Rolex Rankings, leads a field that includes seven of the top-10 players. The top-60 on the Race to the CME Globe Standings after the next two events will qualify for the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.

PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS

Event: Dominion Energy Charity Classic, Friday-Sunday, the Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

At stake: $2.2 million purse ($335,000 to the winner).

Defending champion: Bernhard Langer.

TV: Golf Channel (Friday-Saturday, 7-9 p.m.; Sunday, 6:30-9 p.m.).

Area players entered: Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh.

Notable: Langer became the oldest-ever winner on the PGA Tour Champions at the age of 64 when he made a 6-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to beat Doug Barron. … This is the first of three Charles Schwab Cup playoff events, for the top-72 on the money list. The top 54 after this week will advance to the second stage at the TimberTech Championship in Boca Raton Nov. 4-6.

Contact Garry Smits at gsmits@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @GSmitter

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Fred Couples thinks his scintillating 60 was his best competitive round ever