Live leaderboard: Round 1 of QBE Shootout

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Brendon Todd broke his left big toe the other day. He dropped a 45-pound weight on it while working out back home in Athens, Georgia, but while it hurt - he limped through an opening-round 77 at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK two weeks ago - he's got no complaints. Since he completed one of the most audacious comebacks in recent history with back-to-back victories at the Bermuda Championship (he'll defend his title this week) and Mayakoba Golf Classic last season, Todd has been putting distance between himself and his famous slump, all while living the good life. Tiger and Phil told him great playing. So did Jason Day. In Southern California for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD last week, Todd took his oldest son to get a lesson from in-demand instructor George Gankas, Matthew Wolff's swing coach. "It was a blast," Todd says. "I've definitely felt like a new sense of respect and camaraderie with the better players that I didn't have before, even during my previous good play." Todd has joined the game's elite, having made the TOUR Championship and finishing 18th in the FedExCup last month. Now he aims to return to East Lake, contend in a major, and make the U.S. Ryder Cup team for 2021 and/or the Presidents Cup team the year after that. Not bad for a guy who missed 43 cuts in 55 starts heading into last season, and who had never been to Bermuda before kicking off his amazing run. Todd's parents honeymooned at the tournament's host hotel, the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, and he jokes that that good mojo must explain everything. It makes as much sense as anything else. How does a guy who couldn't hit it straight shoot a final-round 62 to beat Harry Higgs by four? "Absolutely not," Todd says, when asked if he had a premonition that it would be his week. He had regained his TOUR card through the Korn Ferry Tour Finals but started last season with four straight missed cuts. Then came a T28 at the Houston Open, followed by a two-week break. Little did he know what was just around the corner. "I did play a really good round at home, shot 65 with Davis Thompson, a really good Georgia player, at UGA the Saturday before (Bermuda)," he says. "But when I flew there, I could only play nine holes in torrential conditions Tuesday, and could only chip and putt Wednesday, so I wasn't even able to play the whole course. I had no idea how the week was going to go. "I had confidence," he adds. "I had had a good year in that I played out of the past champion category, worked my way into the (Korn Ferry Tour) Finals, finished second, got my card back. But I had missed my first four cuts, and when you go to a new country, new golf course, and don't play every hole in practice, it's hard to walk out there like, ‘Yep, I'm going to win.'" The final-round 62 in Bermuda, he says now, was the absolute hottest he's ever been, and was the lowest final round by a winner since Rory McIlroy at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open. "I parred the first hole but burned the edge from 15 feet," he says. Then: seven straight birdies. "Then I lipped out on nine from 15 feet," he says, "birdied 10 and 11, and on 12 I had 5 feet for birdie, but it horseshoed at me. I felt like through 12 I should have birdied every hole." Todd is rarely asked to talk about such glory. With him, people want to hear about the slump. It started how these things often start, after a win. Upon winning the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson, Todd decided he had time to retool his swing to create a higher launch angle. Instead he ended up with a big right miss and faded off the TOUR. Total FedExCup points in 2018: zero. Todd and his wife Rachel considered franchising a Your Pie pizza restaurant - plan B, hold the anchovies - but a book called "The Great Ballstrikers" by Bradley Hughes, an Australian who played the inaugural Presidents Cup and became Todd's swing coach, provided hope. So did a book by Rick Ankiel, a baseball pitcher who had battled the throwing yips. Todd also called on Ward Jarvis, a caddie on the Korn Ferry Tour who fought and overcame a stuttering problem before becoming a firefighter and performance coach. Eventually, Todd says, he began to "keep it between the trees" and claw his way back. "Every interview, I get asked about it," he says. "And I get calls from other people in slumps, or Instagram messages. I am tired of sharing all the details, that's for sure. But I'm happy to use it to help people, because everybody who plays golf for a long time is going to have a slump, and probably even go through the yips. It's nice to be able to share how I worked my way out of it. "I've had some teachers say they've been really encouraged by what I did," he adds. What he did could have been even better. He held the outright 54-hole lead a TOUR-leading four times last season, not just at Mayakoba but also The RSM Classic, Travelers Championship and World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Only in Mexico did he get the win. "I have no regrets," he says. "I felt I prepared for each final round well. I didn't feel nervous or overwhelmed, had a good mentality, and I learned from each one. All three were different." At RSM it was a three-quarter 7-iron that found the hazard at the fifth hole, leading to a double-bogey. At the Travelers it was what he calls "one goofy chip" - a bad mistake from a terrible lie that led to a triple. And he just couldn't make a putt at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude. "I'm not the longest guy," he says, "so I definitely rely on my putting to get it under par." No, at 187th in driving distance last season, Todd is definitely not the longest even if he might be the longest longshot. Or he was, anyway. Now he's firmly established among the game's elite. "I learned that my natural good ball-striking is good enough to play great out here," he says. "I think it probably always was; just keep being me, and good things will happen."

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – There’s posters of Abraham Ancer all over El Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course. He is the local hero this week, ranked 14th in the world and for the first time playing in his home country as a winner on the PGA TOUR – having captured the World Golf Championship-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in August. He’s also one of the favorites this week, thanks to three top-15 finishes in his last four starts in Mexico. The tight El Camaleon course, lined by penalty areas and thick mangroves, complements Ancer’s game well. He ranked in the top 10 in driving accuracy in both 2019 and 2021. A successful showing this week would carry extra weight, as the race is on for roster spots on Trevor Immelman’s International Presidents Cup team, which will face the United States on Sept. 20-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a team Ancer desperately wants to be part of. “After I played in Melbourne (in 2019), I knew I wanted to be part of that team every time. I mean, it’s an unbelievable experience. You can’t really put into words what it feels like to play for a captain, a group of guys like that. It’s just extremely special,” said Ancer, who finished runner-up in this year’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. “I’m going to bust my butt to make that team.” While Ancer already has Presidents Cup experience (he went 3-1-1 in 2019 and was arguably the Internationals’ MVP), countryman Carlos Ortiz – who will defend his first PGA TOUR title at next week’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open – is hoping to join Ancer on next year’s International Team. “One hundred percent, that’s one of my big goals,” said Ortiz, who finished T8 at Mayakoba last season. “I would love to play with a bunch of my friends (on the Presidents Cup). It’s just something I always looked forward to competing on and a lot of the work that I’m doing is to be part of that team.” While there’s been lots of talk about the American Ryder Cup team’s big victory at Whistling Straits, plenty of Internationals have not-so-quietly been making noise this fall. Sungjae Im, who matched Ancer’s 3.5 points at the 2019 Presidents Cup, won the Shriners Children’s Open last month. Then Hideki Matsuyama captured the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in his home country of Japan. And just last week, Lucas Hebert of Australia broke through for his maiden TOUR title at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. Im is on top of the International Team standings, while Ancer is fourth, Matsuyama is fifth, and Hebert catapulted his way to No.14 in the standings after his win a week ago in Bermuda. And the solid results from the International hopefuls have caught the eye of one of Team USA’s big stars. “I think the International side is only getting better and better,” said Justin Thomas, who has been a part of the winning American team in each of the past two Presidents Cups. “It’s not like you look at the team lightly no matter who’s on the team, just because Team U.S. may have more accolades and wins put together. … You go put me against Sungjae Im and I know he’s going to be extremely difficult to beat. Same with Hideki, same with so many guys on their team.” And while Ancer is leading the Latin American charge, don’t be surprised to see Latin golfers make a solid impression on Immelman and his assistants at Quail Hollow. There’s Mito Pereria of Chile (who won three times in the most recent Korn Ferry Tour season), his countryman Joaquin Niemann, and multi-time TOUR winner Jhonattan Vegas of Venzeula as part of this core group. “We push each other, we motivate each other,” said Ancer of the Latin America crew. “We see somebody in our friend group obviously playing really well, it motivates us knowing that we can play the same or maybe even better, you know. I think it’s unbelievable. “I feel like we’ve got the firepower to have more Latin guys on that team and it would be so much fun.” Ancer ended up ninth on the FedExCup standings last season, and, at 30, is entering the prime of his career as both a player and ambassador for the sport in his home country. He alludes to the impact Lorena Ochoa had on golf in Mexico (Ochoa won 27 times on the LPGA Tour and ascended to No. 1 in the world – the first golfer of either gender from Mexico to get to that point) and how he’s trying to keep the torch lit. “I was speaking only about Mexico, but us as a whole and Latin America has been growing tremendously,” said Ancer. “It’s been fun and I can’t wait to grow that even more even little by little. I feel like we’ve done a great job, but we’ve got to do better.” And perhaps that growth will mean more of a Latin American presence on the Presidents Cup moving forward.

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