Expert Picks: Sentry Tournament of Champions

LONDON, UK/PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA/DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, is pleased to announce a multi-year partnership with the PGA TOUR and LPGA in the first-of-its-kind Aon Risk Reward Challenge. The season-long Aon Risk Reward Challenge will highlight the world’s best professional golfers as they tackle the most strategically challenging holes across both the PGA TOUR and LPGA schedules. The player from each Tour on top of the Aon leaderboard at the end of the regular season will each receive $1 million in prize money. As an Official Marketing Partner of both Tours, Aon receives the following designations: the “Official Risk, Retirement and Health Advisor of the PGA TOURâ€� and the “Official Professional Services Firm of the LPGA.â€� “At Aon, we use proprietary data and analytics to advise our clients and provide the insights they need to stay a step ahead of the competition,â€� said Greg Case, Chief Executive Officer, Aon. “The same is true in golf, where players must take calculated risks that improve their performance. We are excited to showcase the best strategic decision makers from across the world of golf through the Aon Risk Reward Challenge.â€� The Aon Risk Reward Challenge will be brought to life through a multi-platform strategy that includes broadcast integration with CBS and Golf Channel, the use of PGA TOUR and LPGA digital platforms, and the opportunity for Aon to bring clients and colleagues inside the ropes with exclusive experiences and business networking events around the world. “We are extremely pleased to welcome Aon as our newest Official Marketing Partner and to align with a globally respected brand that we know will be a tremendous asset to our business,â€� said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “The Aon Risk Reward Challenge is an authentic fit for our sport that will resonate with players and fans while providing Aon an intuitive way to reinforce how their firm creates value for its clients.â€� The PGA TOUR and LPGA entered into a strategic alliance in 2016 designed to further promote the growth of golf. Aon will collaborate with both Tours to create a season long program that spans the sport, and both Commissioners are hopeful that they will continue to see examples of such collaboration. “We are thrilled to welcome Aon to the LPGA family of partners,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan. “The Aon Risk Reward Challenge will bring an exciting new season-long competition to our Tour with a very significant $1 million prize for our winner. The fact that Aon is providing equal prize money for the men (PGA TOUR) and women (LPGA) has made a huge statement to our players, and we couldn’t be more appreciative.” Additional Details About the Aon Risk Reward Challenge · Winners from each Tour will receive the Aon Trophy and $1 million in prize money. · Aon Risk Reward Challenge will run across regular season tournaments (28 PGA TOUR; 30 LPGA). · CBS Sports (PGA TOUR) and Golf Channel (LPGA) are official broadcast partners and the Aon Risk Reward Challenge will be brought to life through feature segments including hole flyovers, player interviews and on-air commentary. · Final details on scoring and the schedule of holes for each Tour will be released later this year. · The Aon Risk Reward Challenge Leaderboard will highlight player performance across the season.

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NAPA, Calif. – PGA TOUR rookie Keith Mitchell has a collection of hats and T-shirts safely stored in his home. Mementoes from his high school days at the Baylor School less than a decade ago, each piece of apparel is adorned with a six-letter acronym: O.A.C.O.A.W. It’s what his old legendary golf coach, Henry King Oehmig, used to stress to his student-athletes. Open A Can Of Ass Whoop. “That’s what he would always say,â€� Mitchell said. “Open a can, open a can. That’s his No. 1 right there.â€� It was Oehmig’s endearing way of stressing the importance of constantly competing, relentlessly push yourself, always try your hardest. His goal was to bring out the best in his golfers, help them reach their full potential. His message has never been more evident on the PGA TOUR than at last week’s Safeway Open, the opening event of the 2017-18 season. Four of his players – Mitchell, Harris English, Stephan Jaeger and Luke List — were in the 144-man field at Silverado, a remarkably high percentage at for one high school. It also beats the three grads from Florida’s Milton High School – Bubba Watson, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum. “I think we’ve got them,â€� English said with a smile. This weekend, English will return to the Baylor campus at Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Alumni Weekend. On Sunday, he and List will be inducted into the school’s Sports Hall of Fame, becoming part of a club that also includes Oehmig, a 1969 Baylor graduate who was inducted in 2014. (List will not be in attendance, as he’s playing in this week’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia.) Sadly, Oehmig, who coached both the boys’ and girls’ teams to a combined 21 state championships in 12 years, will not be there. Less than a year after his Hall of Fame induction, he died suddenly at age 63 from a heart attack while fly fishing. Had he lived, no doubt he would have enjoyed the weekend and taken great pride in seeing four of his best players compete against each other in golf’s highest level. “He’s definitely smiling right now,â€� English said while standing just off the practice green at Silverado. “Four guys that he coached that we all kind of leaned on him and all had success at Baylor and beyond because of him. That’s pretty cool to see.â€� Here is their story. ATTENDING BAYLOR As a private institution that offers boarding for non-local residents, Baylor School can draw from not only the United States but all over the world. List was the first to arrive in the late 1990s, then English a few years later, soon followed by Jaeger – an exchange student from Germany – and Mitchell, the only one raised in Chattanooga. It’s not cheap to attend Baylor. According to the school’s website, the current tuition costs for this school year are $23,980 for day tuition, $48,842 for boarding domestic and $52,422 for boarding international. Scholarships and other financial aid are available. GRIFFIN: “Baylor had such a name for itself in all these sports that if a kid’s parents wanted to send them to a school where they got an incredible education but fulfilled their athletic needs or dreams, Baylor was the place to go. It didn’t matter what sport it was. It was just a great academic school that you kind of had everything you needed if you wanted to play sport at the next level but still get an education that was suited enough to go to any school in the country. You didn’t have to recruit. I don’t think it’s allowed. It didn’t matter. People knew about it. People wanted to go there.â€� LIST: “I was living in Jasper, Georgia at the time. I found out about it and I boarded my first year, so I was away from home. And then I have two younger sisters and my parents decided to move the family there, because my sisters were competitive swimmers. They also had a really good swim team, and my mom wanted all of us home. It worked out nicely just being home. I know Harris was a boarder there and Stephan Jaeger was a boarder.â€� ENGLISH: “I went in ninth grade. It was after Luke, but I knew he was a really, really good player. I had met him before. It was really because of Coach O. I went up there and visited and really loved the place. It was a place for me to get better in my golf game, get better in academics and to set me up to go to a college I wanted to, which was Georgia. It was the next step in kind of the whole process. My parents really believed in that, and it was probably one of the best decisions of my life, them sending me to Baylor, affording for me to go to a school like that.â€� JAEGER: “I was 17. I was a junior in high school. The (exchange) organization we were with worked with 40 schools, 40 high schools that they had contacts with. It was between that and a couple other ones and I picked that one. Had read about Harris. He was the oldest guy there. Luke was already gone. He was committed to Georgia and all that. So we just kind of knew that the team was going to be good. Ended up winning State all the years I was there.â€� GRIFFIN: “I was very, very fortunate. My dad went there, actually. He played sports there. So I was kind of just bred that I was going to go there and that’s what I was going to do.â€� COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT Once on campus, the student-athletes quickly realized the depth of talent on their team – as well as the expectation level that came with it. Practices were competitive, sometimes tougher than tournaments, and nobody received a free pass from Coach O. Ultimately, teammates pushed each other, and success followed. List was the Tennessee state champion in 2001 and 2002; English won state in 2005 and also led his team to four straight team championships. Mitchell said in his first three years, Baylor never lost a single tournament. LIST: “I came in and no one really knew who I was. I won the qualifying as a ninth grader. I was No. 1 as a ninth grader, and the guys were kind of pissed. King was just, You keep opening a can on those guys, it’ll push them. He was always competitive. Everything we did was a competition. Eating contests, cards, whatever it was, we were always competing. So that was cool.â€� ENGLISH: “We had a really good team and pushed each other. I really liked that. I liked the competition. That is what I saw at Baylor. I thought I was a really good player in eighth grade. Then I went to high school and I was playing No. 3 on the team. Two guys were better than me. I like having that, I like practicing and playing with guys who are better than me. That’s what made me better at Baylor.â€� MITCHELL: “If you didn’t prepare and you didn’t practice and you didn’t want to be the best, then you weren’t even going to make the high school team. That was the difference at Baylor than most other places. That was the norm there. That was the going rate.â€� JAEGER: “It was kind of like a college feel there. You practiced. You would practice in the afternoon with each other. You work every day and stuff. It was a cool experience for sure.â€� MITCHELL: “Just with practice schedules and the tournaments and qualifying. It was run like a college program with our coach. He was incredible at just motivating us and keeping us striving to be the best we could be. And that’s really the difference was we looked less of it as a really good high school team and more of it as we all wanted to play on the PGA TOUR from that day forward.â€� ENGLISH: “We all pushed each other and helped each other get better, and practicing and playing and learning different things from each player. Coach just had a great system. We played a lot. We practiced a lot. We had fun on the road. When we show up at tournaments, we knew we were going to win. We had the confidence that we just knew we’d lean on each other and play well. “ MITCHELL: “We all had aspirations to play in college and on the PGA TOUR even at that age. It was less of winning in high school. It was more of we were trying to be the best players we could be for the future. It really helped having that environment with such good players around us, and a coach that treated us like we were going to play on the PGA TOUR and not just really good high school players.â€� BEYOND BAYLOR List attended Vanderbilt and earned All-American honors all four years; he was also runner-up at the 2004 U.S. Amateur. He turned pro in 2007 and comes off his best TOUR season in which he ranked 50th in FedExCup points.English went to Georgia and, like List, was a four-time All-American. Since turning pro in 2011, he’s won twice on TOUR. Jaeger stayed in the area after graduating from Baylor, as he attended Tennessee-Chattanooga. He won twice on the Web.com Tour last season, and in 2016, he won the Ellie Mae Classic after shooting an opening-round 12-under 58, the lowest score in Web.com Tour history. Mitchell followed English’s path, attending Georgia and has also moved to the Sea Island, Georgia, area, where English lives. Each one appreciates the Baylor connections. ENGLISH: “I’ve known Keith for a long time. He was in eighth grade when I first met him or maybe even younger. I think he played on the team in the eighth grade. Jaeger came over from Germany my senior year. We all got to play on the same team for one year. We stayed in great touch, we’re great friends. And then Luke List, he was kind of a mentor to me. Obviously five years older, but he’s had a great career and he was a reason why I went to Baylor and why Baylor had such success.â€� LIST: “He’s (English) done well without any of my influence. And obviously he’s won a couple of times, so he’s had a far better career than I have so far. I’m hopefully a late bloomer. … I’ve got nothing but great things to say about Harris and his game and his personality. If I did anything to help with that, then I’ll take very little credit.â€� MITCHELL: “Played the last two seasons with Stephan Jaeger on the Web.com Tour, so we spent multiple weeks rooming together, playing practice rounds together, everything. Just helping each other with each other’s games. Then Harris lives in Sea Island. So when I’m home, I get to see Harris. Stephan and I were both in Harris’ wedding. We’re as close as friends can get. I live in the same city as Harris. Now I’m going to see him a lot more being on the road and the same city. … I think Luke lives in California now. I haven’t seen him in a while just because of the difference in the schedules. But he actually texted me when I got my card and said he was looking forward to hanging out.â€� JAEGER: “We have so many new memories about college and out here and on the Web with me and Keith. I think it’s more of a live-in-the-present kind of thing. … It was a good time (in high school) and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.â€� ENGLISH: “He’s (Mitchell) kind of been a little brother to me. He played on the team in eighth grade and I have seen him grow up. I’ve seen him mature as a person as well as a player. His game has really come around and he’s a solid, solid player. I don’t think he has any weaknesses. There were times where he had some weaknesses throughout high school and college, but he’s definitely worked hard and he’s got to all-around game that he can hit it far, he can chip and putt. He can do everything. That’s why he’s had such success this year on the Web.com. I don’t think anybody in our group was surprised by the way he played. Every time we go home, he plays well. He’s got a lot of confidence. “Same thing with Jaeger. I’ve said from day one since I met him, he’s one of best guys I’ve seen. He’s got probably the best work ethic I’ve ever seen. Believes in himself. He’s got that will to win. You could see that when he shot 58, when he won the tournament by a lot.â€� LIST: “It’s cool to see Keith getting his card right away. He’s playing great. And Stephan also. He played so well last year and to continue this year, well, those guys have bright futures.â€� ENGLISH: “It’s good to have guys out here who aren’t trying to beat you up, who you can say, ‘Hey, man, what do you think about this? What do you think about this swing or what do you think about my stance?’ They are willing to help and give their advice. It’s good to have guys like that out here who are really good friends of yours and can help out. It for sure can get lonely out here traveling, so it’s been awesome. We have a special bond.â€�

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Two months ago, Tiger Woods won the TOUR Championship, the 80th career title of his illustrious PGA TOUR career. The percentages are not in his favor that he’ll be able to defend that title next August at East Lake. In the five seasons since the TOUR introduced its wraparound schedule, just 21 players (out of 150) have advanced to the FedExCup Playoffs finale without accruing a single FedExCup point in the fall portion of the season. That averages to just about four players a season – or 14 percent of the 30-man field who reach the TOUR Championship. Of course, Woods’ greatness is such that historical averages and low percentages are things that usually don’t apply to two-time FedExCup champion. And to be fair, he did make the TOUR Championship last season without benefit of a start in any fall event. He’ll hope to do the same this season. Two more past FedExCup champs also reached East Lake last season without acquiring a single point in the fall – Rory McIlroy and Billy Horschel. So, it’s not impossible. It’s just much easier if you’re able to get a quick start. That’s what makes this week’s RSM Classic extremely important for those looking for the last chance this calendar year to make a move. The crosshairs are firmly on the likes of Zach Johnson and Kevin Kisner at Sea Island. Both players opened their seasons last week in Mexico but failed to make the cut, thus rendering this week’s result a little more important. They’re not alone. Fellow TOUR winners Sangmoon Bae, D.A. Points, Wesley Bryan, Retief Goosen, John Huh, Padraig Harrington, Sean O’Hair, David Lingmerth, Jim Herman, Cody Gribble, Freddie Jacobson, Tommy Gainey, Brendon Todd, Tim Herron, Eric Axley, Jason Gore, Will MacKenzie, and Chad Campbell are also in the field this week but are yet to open their FedExCup accounts. Of the 147 TOUR members in this week’s field, 25 are still seeking their first FedExCup point. That’s just the former winners, let alone the rest of those looking to get a wriggle on. Joining Woods as high-profile players certified to start January on zero are former FedExCup and PLAYERS champion Henrik Stenson; another former PLAYERS champ in Sergio Garcia; plus Bubba Watson and Daniel Berger. You can already see the talent trying to cram into those likely few open spots at East Lake. To make matters more interesting, there is one less Playoffs event this season, as the season was reconfigured to end the FedExCup Playoffs before Labor Day. There will now be just two Playoffs events prior to the TOUR Championship. “I don’t necessarily think it gives you a head start now, I think it’s more so you don’t go into January behind the 8-ball because if you don’t play in the fall, if you don’t play well, you’re so far back,â€� Rickie Fowler explained when describing his starts at the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open and the Mayakoba Golf Classic. “You might be playing catch-up the first few months, on the west coast and then Florida.â€� Even Jason Day, who managed to make the TOUR Championship in each of the first four wrap-around seasons without playing the fall, relented to playing in Asia last season and again this season. Jordan Spieth managed the feat in 2017 but this season decided on fall golf. With the introduction of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 system where regular-season play is rewarded financially, Spieth saw added value. “No matter what anybody says, that’s a goal of every PGA TOUR member … to try and win the regular season and FedExCup playoff bonus,â€� Spieth said. Unfortunately, with just six FedExCup points to his name he hasn’t exactly given himself the big leg-up that he wanted. Still, it’s better than nothing. One man who does have a head start is CIMB Classic winner Marc Leishman. The Australian was sick of looking at his name so far down the list in Hawaii each January but also saw the value in playing to try to free yourself up for the remainder of the season. “It is definitely very important to get off to a good start. You don’t want to get to the Masters next year and still trying to get into that top 125,â€� the four-time winner said. “Having success early in the season … it just makes you think about winning more and you can take a few more risks, which sometimes you need to do to win. “Sometimes early in the season if you’re one or two back, you don’t want to do anything silly because you don’t want to go from second back to 12th. But once you’ve got a good early start, you can really just think about winning and that’s exciting.â€� Of course next season, with more events to come before the turn of the calendar, early success will likely become even more critical. You can’t win the FedExCup in the fall … but you can certainly lose it.

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