PGA Tour's Tony Finau 'thinks he has to be perfect to win - he doesn't'

Finau was third at last year's Open Championship, his best finish in a major

Has big-hitting American Tony Finau become golf's biggest under achiever?

His current consistency does not yield wins and it poses a further question of whether regularly playing better than the vast majority of your peers becomes some kind of curse?

Players who regularly leave leaderboard operators redundant rarely face scrutiny or criticism, despite playing consistently worse than players such as Finau.

It seems the 30-year-old from Salt Lake City is producing form too strong for his own good because his character, his "bottle", falls under the microscope for failing to win.

Never mind that he is beating the vast majority of players on a weekly basis.

"It's funny isn't it, no-one gets criticised for trying too hard but that's probably what someone like Tony Finau is doing," former European Tour stalwart Anthony Wall told BBC Sport.

Finau, 17th in the world rankings, was previously most famous for popping back a dislocated ankle after injuring himself while celebrating a hole-in-one during the par-three competition on the eve of the 2018 Masters.

He recovered sufficiently to finish 10th in the main tournament, an incredible feat given the circumstances. Now, though, top 10s have become his source of enduring pain.

Contending is not enough for a Ryder and Presidents Cup player who has won only once on the PGA Tour. That victory, at the low-profile Puerto Rico Open, was back in 2016.

Since then Finau has amassed 30 trophy-less top 10s. He held the halfway lead in the Memorial Tournament earlier this month before shooting 73-78 over the weekend to finish eighth.

Then, as the highest-ranked player to make the cut at TPC Twin Cities, he was again firmly in the mix last weekend. But he missed five putts inside 15 feet in a closing 68 that left him three behind 3M Open winner Michael Thompson.

"You've got to make those putts to win the tournament and I wasn't able to do it," Finau admitted.

But Wall, now an excellent and insightful commentator, has a different outlook. The Englishman believes striving for flawless golf is counter-productive.

"You can get bogged down in trying to be perfect all the time," he said. "I had this vision that to win a golf tournament you had to play properly all the time.

"I remember playing with guys and they would win ugly. Once people accept that winning ugly is absolutely fine, they'll be fine.

"I think Finau thinks he has to be perfect - he doesn't," added Wall, who will be working on BBC Radio 5 live's coverage of 2020's first major, the US PGA Championship, from 6-9 August.

"He just has to hit fairway and green and not care on the greens. Just roll a few in and all of a sudden you win.

"It took me years to work out that you actually don't have to be that good, you've just got to hang around."

Wall enjoyed just two wins during 22 solid years competing on the European Tour. "It's the only job in the world where you lose nearly every week," said the 45-year-old Londoner.

"People say I never won enough, I only won twice so, effectively, I lost 530 odd times."

He recalls a conversation early in his career with six-times major champion Sir Nick Faldo, as they shared a taxi from a tournament. "He said to me 'every week, it doesn't matter how badly you've played, you've got to find a positive'.

"Often the positive would be that I still beat 154 others in a full-field event. That has to be the positive because that is the fact."

Perhaps these are the sort of words Finau most needs to hear, especially as the revamped men's schedule steps up with the first WGC of the year in Memphis this week.

"I'm definitely proud of myself on just being mentally strong and emotionally strong," the tall American said last weekend. His brother Gipper takes over caddie duties in Tennessee and for the US PGA in San Francisco the following week.

Given Finau's consistency and explosive power, recently registering a phenomenal 206mph ball speed, he should be among the favourites in an elite World Golf Championships field this week.

But when his name appears on leaderboards it is unlikely to spark fear among his rivals. They will not melt away as they might when the name of a more seasoned winner is posted.

This means that if and when Finau adds to the collection on his mantlepiece it will be an achievement earned the hard way, providing true testament to a prodigious talent at last harnessing the nerve required to fully capitalise on it.