Paul Casey seeks end to long win drought at Deutsche Bank

Paul Casey shot 66 on Sunday at the Deutsche Bank. (Getty Images)

It’s somewhat shocking that a player as talented as Paul Casey has just one PGA Tour win. He’s in good position to change that on Monday.

Casey carries a three-shot lead into the Labor Day finale of the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second of the four FedEx Cup playoff events. He’s at 15 under par, ahead of second place Brian Harman and four clear of reigning PGA champion Jimmy Walker, 36-hole leader Kevin Chappell and Smylie Kaufman.

A season ago, the Englishman announced his comeback after a few down years following a 2010 shoulder injury and a divorce. He finished a playoff loser twice, to James Hahn at Riviera and to Bubba Watson at the Travelers Championship. The results reminded people of the Casey who was once snubbed for the European Ryder Cup team as a top-five player in the world and has 13 European Tour wins. It also reminded people that Casey has one win, the 2009 Shell Houston Open, in 193 career PGA Tour starts. It just doesn’t make sense.

However, Casey, now 39, has an explanation. When he was a young buck on the European Tour, the predominant number of his PGA Tour starts were in majors and World Golf Championships and other big events — you know, the kind that Tiger Woods owned.

“I think early in my career, admittedly, there was a couple of fairly good players that seemed to be dominating,” he said Sunday. “Goodness knows how many wins Tiger and Phil and then there’s others. I’m sure Ernie [Els] thinks he could have about 10 majors if it wasn’t for those two, as well. There’s lots of guys. What an era to play in. I’m proud that I played in that period of time. Got to play with Tiger. I saw some amazing stuff and I hope that I see that again.”

These days, there is no Tiger. Mickelson is playing well, but hasn’t won this season. Els isn’t winning on the PGA Tour either, but he’s showed dramatic improvement in his multi-year fight against the yips. Casey is fighting, instead, against time, himself and a new, wider crop of PGA Tour players that can win any given Sunday (or Monday).

“Recently, I’ve got no excuse,” Casey said. “I’m almost looking like it’s a second chance, wherever that cutoff point is, say, a couple of years ago or something like that. It’s now time to try and correct that statistic or double that number of wins, and then triple it, whatever it might be. I don’t know the reason. I can give you the answer for the first part right now. The last two or three years, no excuse. But I’ve been doing a lot of hard work so let’s hope it pays off.”

On Monday, Casey won’t have to wait long for the payoff. With the after effects of Tropical Storm Hermine off the New England coast, officials moved up tee times to finish at 9 a.m.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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