Webb Simpson has finally gotten comfortable on the greens again after last year’s anchoring ban. As recently as five months into the second season since the USGA and R&A implemented to rule, the former U.S. Open champion continued to struggle. It was this past May, on the practice green at the Players Championship, that Tim Clark suggested a grip that was a hybrid between the claw and Matt Kuchar’s way of securing the shaft against his left forearm. “That turned our season around, our demeanor around and our expectations around, in a hurry,” said Simpson’s long-time caddie, Paul Tesori. Since that intervention at TPC Sawgrass, Tesori has been telling me that the top-20s Simpson has been recording have looked better in person than they do on a computer screen or paper. How one swing, or one or two strokes, can mean the difference in contending. While Simpson’s strokes gained/putting rank is unimpressive at 102nd, it represents an improvement of nearly 80 places since the change. There is evidence of this with specific strong finished at the Dean & Deluca Invitational (fifth), the Travelers Championship (T-8) and the Greenbrier Classic (T-14), which built the confidence and beefed up his FedEx Cup points standing. In Simpson’s last two starts, it’s really kicked in. A third-place finish at the Wyndham Championship, where he shot 67 on Sunday, and a T-6 at The Northern Trust, where he shot 65 on Sunday, have Simpson ranked 16th going into the Dell Technologies Championship at TPC Boston this week. While some may be surprised Simpson is so highly ranked, Tesori and Simpson aren’t. “We’ve been close to doing good things,” Tesori said. “We’ve been building toward this.”

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