Inside the Field: Barbasol Championship

The PGA TOUR returns to the United States this week for the Sanderson Farms Championship Past FedExCup winners Henrik Stenson and Brandt Snedeker headline a field that also includes past PGA TOUR Rookies of the Year Sungjae Im and Scottie Scheffler. Sebastián Muñoz, who finished eighth in last season's FedExCup standings, will defend in Mississippi. FIELD NOTES: Scheffler is returning to action after testing positive for COVID-19 before the U.S. Open... Muñoz will defend his maiden TOUR title... Davis Riley, who has won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour this season, is in the field on a sponsor exemption. Riley is a native of Mississippi... Recent Sanderson Farms winners including Ryan Armour, Peter Malnati, and Nick Taylor are all looking to reclaim some magic at the Country Club of Jackson… There are nine major champions in the field in Mississippi, including Sergio Garcia... Stewart Cink, a major winner himself who won the first event of the 2020-21 season at the Safeway Open, is back in action... Another past FedExCup champion, Bill Haas, is in the field on a sponsor exemption... Luke Donald won the 2002 Sanderson Farms Championship for his first TOUR victory and will tee it up again this year in Mississippi. FEDEXCUP: Winner Country Club of Jackson; par 72, 7,461 yards (yardage subject to change). This is the seventh time the Country Club of Jackson will play host to the Sanderson Farms Championship. Eighteen of the 27 holes were redesigned by John Fought in 2008. He incorporated design elements from Donald Ross, notably small and tricky greens. STORYLINES: This is the second year in a row the Sanderson Farms Championship will offer full FedExCup points to the winner...The last six winners of the Sanderson Farms Championship have been first-time TOUR victors...Sungjae Im will look to avenge his playoff loss from a year ago... Former college stars Sahith Theegala and Matthias Schwab are looking to once again gain valuable TOUR experience this week. Isaiah Jackson is in the field as the reigning Mississippi Amateur champion. 72-HOLE RECORD: 263, Dan Halldorson (1986 at Hattiesburg GC). CC of Jackson record: 267, Cameron Champ (2018) 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Keith Clearwater (2nd round, 1996 at Annandale GC). CC of Jackson record: 62, Roberto Castro (1st round, 2015). LAST TIME: Muñoz topped Im, the reigning PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year, in a playoff at the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship to notch his first TOUR victory. After firing a sizzling 63 in the third round, Munoz birdied the par-4 18th to force a playoff. His closing-hole birdie matched Im's 18-under-par total. Im shot a Sunday 66. Muñoz made par on the first playoff hole to secure the win. Byeong Hun An finished third, one shot back of the playoff. Kevin Streelman and Carlos Ortiz, Munoz's former collegiate teammate, rounded out the top five. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Sunday, 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.-7 p.m. (Featured Groups). Saturday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.- 7 p.m. (Featured Groups). Radio: Thursday-Friday, 1 p.m.-7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio).

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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Chalk up another victory for Friday the 13th. Kelly Kraft of Dallas was cruising inside the cut line at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town on Friday when a freak bird strike potentially scuttled his chances of playing into the weekend. Kraft made what he described as clean contact at the 192-yard, par-3 14th hole only to watch his ball glance off a “giant, black bird� and plop into the water hazard in front of the green. The bird flew away.  “It cost me the cut, most likely,� Kraft said. “There was a helping wind, and I hit a 7-iron, caught it perfect. It was probably 30 yards off the tee box and this giant, black bird swooped in front of it and hit it and the ball fell 20 yards short in the water. It would’ve been in the middle of the green. It might have been close. I got screwed.� A bird strike on the course is so rare that Kraft, playing with Robert Garrigus and Michael Thompson, initially wasn’t sure what to do. None of them were. They needed a ruling. “Robert Garrigus came running up to me first,� said Mark Dusbabek, one of the PGA TOUR rules officials on site. “He said, ‘His ball hit a bird in flight! That’s a cancel-and-replay, right?’� It was not. The cancel-and-replay rule is invoked if a ball hits a permanent, elevated power line, but not a bird. “The big difference is a bird is a God-made object,� said Dillard Pruitt, another TOUR rules official on site. “Whereas a telephone wire is man-made. It’s just a stroke of bad luck. It doesn’t happen very often, but today is Friday the 13th. Freaky Friday.�  Dusbabek said Gary Woodland hit a bird at the CIMB Classic last fall, which turned out to be a good break as his ball landed on the green. Although a seagull once plucked Brad Fabel’s ball off the green and dropped it in the water at THE PLAYERS Championship, he was allowed to replace it thanks to Rule 18-1. “The difference there was the ball was at rest,� Pruitt said, “and this one you just don’t know where it would’ve gone. It could’ve gone in the water or it could have gone in the hole.� Kraft believes it was going on the green. He bounced back with birdies on the 17th and first holes, but bogeyed the seventh hole to wind up at 1-over, most likely one shot outside the cut line. “It’s kind of a dumb rule that you can’t re-tee there,� Kraft said. “If you hit a power line, you can re-tee, and if a bird moves your ball while it’s resting you can replace it. But there’s nothing you can do about this. This has got to be more unusual than a hole-in-one. Two moving objects colliding? I mean you hit balls all day long on the range and you don’t hit another ball in the air.�

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