DJ grabs lead at HSBC Champions

Andy Ogletree, the 2019 U.S. Amateur champion and low amateur at last week's Masters, announced Thursday that he is turning pro. Ogletree finished T34 at Augusta National to tie former Masters champion Adam Scott and U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau. Ogletree will play Titleist equipment and wear Peter Millar clothing. He played the first two rounds of the Masters alongside defending champion Tiger Woods. Ogletree was 4 over par after the first four holes at the Masters but played the remaining 14 holes of the opening round in 3 under. He shot 70 in the second round to make the cut, then played the final two rounds 1 under. "My amateur golf career was an absolute blast and last week at the Masters is the perfect way for it to end," Ogletree said. "I've had so much fun, met so many great people and have so many incredible memories, but it's time for me to test my game at the next level, against the best of the best." "The game has taken me to so many special places already. I cannot wait to see where it will take me in the future." Ogletree finished his amateur career ranked No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He was an All-American in 2019 and 2020 while playing for Georgia Tech.

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NOTE: For the first three events of the FedExCup Playoffs, Rob will focus only on golfers outside the bubble to advance. In this second edition, all five below open the Playoffs outside the top 70 in points. Jamie Lovemark … With three top 10s among eight top 25s on the season, it seems like a misprint that he’s 79th in FedExCup points. Pile on his pair of 66s to begin the Playoffs last week and shared leads after both of the first two rounds, and it feels like cheating to drop him in this grouping. His bane is the final round during which he ranks 164th on TOUR in scoring average, so he continues to present as a prototypical non-winner who might need to slingshot from way behind on a Sunday – or Monday as it the case this week – to break through. The 30-year-old possesses all of the other attributes to do it. Branden Grace … At least he’s consistent. With last week’s missed cut at Ridgewood, he’s now 0-for-3 in Playoffs openers. He regains our attention at TPC Boston because he’s finished T41 (2016) and T25 (2017). His scorecards will need to be prettier than his pair of over-par totals in each previous visit if he’s going to advance as the 91-seed, but he’s recorded four top 10s worldwide in 2018, two of which lifted him into his current position. Russell Knox … At 93rd in the FedExCup standings, he’s lowest-ranked among the five on this page, but if you were going to circle any of the 30 outside the top 70 to connect for a top 20 to advance, the Scot would (read: should) populate your short list. He’d probably need a top 10 to be safe, but every top 20 since this version of the scoring system was introduced in 2015 has survived. It was just early last month when he shared runner-up honors in Paris, and then prevailed in Ireland. He’s slowed since, but he’s 4-for-4 at TPC Boston with a pair of top 15s. Still inside the top 20 on the PGA TOUR in both greens in regulation and proximity to the hole despite the recent slide. Kevin Chappell … His reputation as a tough-track specialist is implied now at age 32, but it’s still notable when he appears on a course that’s defined otherwise. Since 2013, he’s 5-for-5 at TPC Boston with a pair of top 15s and a T22. That’s the kind of action he’ll need to vault from the 88th in FedExCup points and into the BMW Championship. It’d also mark a significant departure of form that’s yielded only one top-25 finish in the last five months (T6, Open Championship), so the horse-for-a-course angle will get tested. Joel Dahmen … Bonus time. Competing on house points. Whatever your spin, it’s accurate for the Playoffs debutant. Somewhat overlooked during his torrid July that boosted him over 70 spots in the FedExCup ranking was that he had already been stockpiling sturdy weeks to make the month count. Now 76th, he faces elimination on a course that better suits his outstanding ball-striking and greenside game. To turn another phrase, he’s dangerous because he has nothing to lose.

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The kid from Japan with the tall hairdo and pause at the top announced himself as one to watch at the 2011 Masters, earning low amateur honors with his T27 finish. Hideki Matsuyama has been challenging the world’s best since then while becoming a golf icon to fans back in Japan. For those in the U.S. who stayed up late, and others around the world, Sunday was a special day as Matsuyama claimed his seventh PGA TOUR title at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. The Land of the Rising Sun could celebrate with its risen star. Matsuyama comes alive for home fans For most of the four days at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, it felt like destiny was on Matsuyama’s side. He opened the tournament with a 64 to trail countryman Hiroshi Iwata by one but seized a one-shot lead with back-to-back 68s in tough conditions Friday and Saturday. This season has had its highs and lows for Matsuyama, who won his first major at The Masters Tournament in April but missed the podium, losing the bronze-medal playoff, at the Tokyo Olympics in August. He came to the ZOZO playing poorly, he said, but found something. An eagle at the par-5 6th hole extended Matsuyama’s lead to two over Cameron Tringale, but then it got tight. Matsuyama bogeyed No. 8, Tringale birdied No. 9, and they were tied. Then Tringale birdied No. 10 to take the lead. That’s when everything changed, Matsuyama throwing down the hammer. With the home fans giving him a little extra push, he birdied Nos. 11, 13 and 15 to take a two-shot lead. He and Tringale bogeyed 17, but then Matsuyama left no doubt, sending his fans into a frenzy. From 241 yards out on the par-5 18th, Matsuyama hit a fairway wood to 12 feet. While Tringale bogeyed, Matsuyama slammed in his eagle putt for a statement-making five-shot win. The victory is Matsuyama’s seventh on the PGA TOUR, but first in Asia. He pulls within one of K.J. Choi’s record eight PGA TOUR titles by an Asian-born player. “I was the only Japanese player contending and was up on the leaderboard,” he said. “To be honest, there were some pressures to deal with, but I’m glad I was able to convert that to positives.” The last time the ZOZO was held in Japan, in 2019, Matsuyama finished second to Tiger Woods. But this was Matsuyama’s moment. Surprising, given that he said before the tournament, “If my game scored 10 out of 10 at the Masters, now, I would say it scores less than 1.” Afterward, he boosted his grade, but not by much. “I would rate my performance as 2 or 3,” he said. “From the results perspective, it went about to 8, but I think it’s because of all the energy that I was getting from the fans, and I was very surprised how much energy I was feeding off of them.” For sports-crazed Japan, which has been mostly without on-site fans during the pandemic, most notably for its own Olympic Games, it felt like a special moment in the country’s athletic history. Tringale: another close call Last May, Cameron Tringale put his name in the record books, for better or worse. He became the highest-earning PGA TOUR player without a win. After another runner-up finish, his fourth on TOUR, the 34-year-old Tringale retains his title, as much as he wants to get rid of it. For about an hour on Sunday, it looked like Tringale might foil Matsuyama’s victory march. Tringale’s birdie at the 10th gave him sole possession of the lead. He waved to the crowd and was met with pleasant claps, although it was no secret who the gallery was cheering for. Alas, he flatlined from there: pars on Holes 11-16, then a bogey-bogey finish to lose by five (T2). “I needed to kind of take a couple risks and unfortunately it didn’t pan out,” Tringale said, “but I played 16 really good holes and yeah, that was the day.” Of his eight top-3 finishes, four have come since the TOUR’s post-COVID restart in June of 2020. It feels like a victory is inevitable, but then it’s felt like that for a while. “At least I was in it to some degree on the back nine,” he said. “I felt comfortable. I feel like I keep getting more comfortable and I’m more excited about continuing to be in that position.” Still no first-time winners Five weeks into the 2021-22 PGA Tour season, all five winners have added to their trophy case, while none have started their collection. Max Homa won his third title, Sam Burns his second, Sungjae Im his second, Rory McIlroy his 20th and Hideki Matsuyama his seventh. All five champions are between ages 23-32 and all were in the top 50 in the world at the time of their wins. All five are expected to be consistent factors throughout this season, if not years to come. The 2019 fall season produced four new winners, while the 2020 falls season gave us two. Tringale, who tied for second with three-time TOUR winner Brendan Steele, joined Maverick McNealy and Cameron Young as 2021-22 runner-ups who were seeking their first wins. Japan shows depth While it was Japan’s most famous player hoisting the trophy, a handful of others also excelled. Takumi Kanaya, the 2018 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship winner, who subsequently made the cut at the 2019 Masters, went 68-66 on the weekend to climb to T7 at 5 under. The 23-year-old Kanaya, who spent 55 weeks as the top-ranked amateur in the world before turning pro in 2020, has won three times on the Japan Golf Tour over the last three years. Kanaya, who in 2020 won the Mark. H. McCormack Medal as the world’s No. 1 amateur – other winners have included Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann – is a legit future star. Hiroshi Iwata, 40, who played on TOUR from 2016-2017, took the first-round lead with a 9-under 63. Although he cooled off (T18), he proved he can still go toe-to-toe with the best in the world. Shugo Imahira, who has reached world No. 30 and made the cut at the 2020 Masters and U.S. Open, also finished T18. The 29-year-old has five Japan Golf Tour wins and if he can get his world ranking back up – he’s No. 136 – could find his way back to a few majors in the next decade. Keita Nakajima, who followed Kanaya as the McCormack Medal winner in 2021 and remains the No. 1 amateur in the world, put together at an impressive T28. In all, six Japanese players landed in the top 30, while just one – Matsuyama – did so in 2019. Morikawa quietly in form Just over two months ago, Collin Morikawa started the FedExCup Playoffs at No. 1 in the standings. Alas, he missed the cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST, finished T63 at the no-cut BMW Championship and had the 28th-best gross score at the TOUR Championship (of the 29 players who finished). As it turned out, he had hurt his back in the Olympics, but by the time he got to the Ryder Cup a month ago, he said he was fully healthy. His results have backed that up. After going 3-0-1 at Whistling Straits, Morikawa finished second at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT. He finished T7 at the ZOZO, and climbed to No. 2 in the world, his highest-ever ranking. In doing so, he passed Dustin Johnson, his partner in all three of his Ryder Cup wins. The ascendant Morikawa, 24, only has one man ahead of him now: Jon Rahm. Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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