Fantasy Insider: Sony Open in Hawaii

Opportunity is a by-product of properly managing adversity. The Workday Charity Open is evidence. When the PGA TOUR season was rescheduled due to the hiatus, the John Deere Classic remained positioned in this slot. However, when it became clear in late May that the state of Illinois would not be ready to host the annual stop near the Quad Cities, an opening that demanded short-range planning emerged. Some two weeks later, it was announced that Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, would host a fortnight of official PGA TOUR action. It begins with the Workday Charity Open and concludes with the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. The John Deere Classic plans to return in 2021. Scroll beneath the projected contenders of the opener at Jack Nicklaus’ home course, how it sets up for a full field of 156 and more. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: WORKDAY CHARITY OPEN Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Patrick Reed, Collin Morikawa and Phil Mickelson will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. Neither tournament at Muirfield Village will host fans, but those who compete in both will be tackling different tests. How the club and tournament officials pull it off will be fascinating. Logically, it’s easier to transition from easy to hard in such a short period of time. In fact, it’s probably the only sequence that can allow it at this level of the sport. Muirfield Village’s primary rough will begin at three-and-a-half inches for the Workday. It could exceed four inches when the 120-man field for the traditional invitational convenes for the Memorial. The bentgrass greens, which normally are prepped to run at a PGA TOUR-long 13 feet-plus on the Stimpmeter for the Memorial are expected to range in the vicinity of just 11 feet for the Workday. While the average square footage (5,000) cannot change in one week, nor can the undulations on them, for golfers who will be pegging it in both, slicker surfaces could present at least one day of adjustment in the nightcap of the doubleheader. A read on a putt this week likely will be different on the same putt next week. Slower greens also introduce fresh hole locations not possible during the Memorial. Tee to green, the challenge essentially is the same. Muirfield Village allows long hitters room to move it. With slower greens this week, guys should be paid off to play aggressively, so the bunters among them will be keen to find fairways. That’s never is a problem on this track, but they still probably don’t mind that Rocket Mortgage Classic champion Bryson DeChambeau is taking his first week off of the restart. (DeChambeau won the Memorial in 2018.) Returnees will see newly positioned fairway bunkers on six holes and three new tees. For the Workday, the par-3 eighth, par-5 11th and par-5 15th holes will tip at an aggregate 64 yards longer than what once was familiar. The stock par 72 can stretch to 7,456 yards, but it’s unlikely to reach that maximum during any round, instead leaving some of the length for the Memorial. After a toasty opener with a daytime high in the mid-90s, a slight but gradual cooling will extend into the weekend. The tradeoff is an elevated threat for rain and storms every day. Wind also could freshen with the energy. If weather becomes an issue, the good news for those with plans to play Memorial is that they already will have traveled to the next tournament. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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Even before winning 25 times on the PGA TOUR, including his signature victory at the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Johnny Miller was training for a TV career.  He just didn’t know it. “He grew up with colorful guys,â€� said Todd Miller, one of Johnny’s six kids and now the Director of Golf at Brigham Young University. “He had two guys he was really good friends with in San Francisco where he grew up, Steve Gregoire and Ron O’Connor, and they were always needling each other. They never stopped talking. For my dad, when he got to the (broadcast) booth, it came pretty natural just to come up with something really quick.â€� Miller’s second act calling golf for NBC, a career marked by insights, candor and sometimes controversy, is coming to an end after 29 years. Miller, 71, and NBC announced this week that when he calls the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Jan. 31-Feb. 3, it will mark the end of a three-decade run as one of the most iconic soundtracks on TOUR. “Soon, it will officially be Miller time,â€� Miller quipped in a press release. He was more emotional in aconference call with reporters Tuesday that also included NBC Golf Lead Producer Tommy Roy and NBC Golf President Mike McCarley. Miller seemed to choke back tears as he spoke of the highlight of his playing career, his final-round 63 at the 1973 U.S. Open—a tournament, he said, his dad groomed him to win. He said the highlight of his TV career was the relationships with his NBC Golf family like Dan Hicks and Roger Maltbie. “A lot of things going on not only in my mind but my heart, stomach,â€� Miller said.  One thing he didn’t have was a filter, and his microphone was always on. Monday-morning water-cooler talk came to include some version of: Did you hear what Johnny said? Miller once said of a fat pro that his back problems were “perhaps a result of his front problems.â€� He talked especially about choking, or gagging, under pressure on the back nine on Sunday, taking a blowtorch to the heretofore chummy, banal pleasantries of televised golf. “We all choke,â€� Miller said. “For me, I would choke at putting and I would admit that I did.â€� Of Phil Mickelson, Miller said: “If he couldn’t chip, he’d be selling cars in San Diego.â€� Of the stocky Australian Craig Parry, Miller said his swing was so unorthodox as to make Ben Hogan “puke.â€� (This, as Parry was winning the 2004 Ford Championship at Doral.)  He said Tiger Woods “gagged just a little bit because he wanted it so badâ€� at the 2012 Masters. Perhaps most famously, Miller said Justin Leonard should’ve stayed home instead of play in the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline—before Leonard made the clinching putt for the U.S. “He’s just an honest guy,â€� Todd Miller said of his father. “Even with his kids, my brothers and our families, he’s not going to dance around the truth. He’s going to be honest with you. And he’s insightful. He’ll pick things up that other people just don’t see.â€� And Johnny Miller was not above admitting his mistakes, like his Leonard comment in ’99. “I did say he should be home, but I meant the motel room,â€� Miller said. “Even then I probably shouldn’t have said that. I get so into these matches, these Ryder Cup matches. “I apologized to him literally the next day,â€� Miller added.  That was his policy, he said, when he went over the line. Producer Roy praised 99.5 percent of his work. “And .5 percent of the time it was a little bit of a problem for me and our PR department,â€� Roy said. “But that was fine. The great way outweighed the bad.â€� Miller said it came naturally to call it like he saw it, and laughed when reminded of his boyhood friends Gregoire and O’Connor and their formative give-and-take at The Olympic Club. “I remember one of the first tournaments I played, I was walking up to the practice tee and (Lee) Trevino was there,â€� Miller said. “When I walked in, he started razzing me. He didn’t realize that even though he was pretty quick with words, I sort of gave it back to him. He never bothered me again after that in front of all those people. “… I think the one thing I did have that was sort of God-given,â€� Miller added, “was sort of a quickness of spotting things in the swing and a quickness in response.â€� Nicknamed the Desert Fox as a player, Miller was at times dominant, winning 15 times in a three-year span in the mid-1970s. He captured the 1975 Phoenix Open by 14 shots and the Dean Martin Tucson Open, a week later, by nine. He was 49 under par in those eight rounds. He could be just as devastating as an analyst, starting with his first tournament, the 1990 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. At crunch time, Peter Jacobsen, a friend, was sitting on a thin lead and assessing a tricky shot from a downhill lie over water. Miller came in hot. “I said, ‘He’s got this downhill lie. Easiest shot in golf to choke on,’â€� Miller said Tuesday. “I didn’t say he was going to choke. I was just saying if he did, this is the easiest one. Downhill lie over water and you have a tendency to hit it fat or thin like guys do on 15 at Augusta.â€� Jacobsen did not choke, won the tournament, and didn’t talk to Miller for months. (Ironically, he and Leonard both now work with Miller at Golf Channel on NBC.) In retirement, Miller will antagonize only the trout. He will bounce back and forth between his home at Napa’s Silverado Resort & Spa, where he is part of the ownership group, and Heber City, Utah. His 24 grandkids are ready for fishing and golf lessons, and Miller is anxious to provide. He’ll get on more airplanes, son Todd said, but his destinations will be places like Belize, to go bonefishing. Miller is nostalgic, he said, but also excited. “I just figure 50 years on the road, it’s been a great run,â€� he said. “… I’m feeling good. I’m emotional, but feeling good.â€�

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LAS VEGAS - An incredible stretch that included three eagles in five holes has catapulted Matthew Wolff into contention at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin. Through eight holes of his third round, Wolff was just one under par and getting swallowed up on the leaderboard as multiple players sat deep in red figures on moving day. Then he exploded. Wolff carded three eagles and three birdies to go 9-under on his next nine holes, setting up a chance for a 59. But his last three holes featured putts that hung agonizingly on the edge of the hole, forcing the 21-year-old to be content with a blistering career low 10-under 61. RELATED: Full leaderboard When he signed his card he was the clubhouse leader at 18-under however multiple players, including the lead groups, had plenty of holes left to play. Coming off his runner-up finish at the U.S. Open, Wolff is driven to go one better. "Jobs not done," Wolff said referencing that while it was a fantastic round his vision was firmly set on trying to win the tournament. "This course you have so many birdie opportunities if you hit the ball in the fairway. It’s not long. The pins were in pretty favorable spots. I just told myself to give myself as many looks as I can and the putts would fall. Even though it seems like some of them didn’t, I hit the ball really well." After opening with two pars, Wolff seemingly kick started things by chipping in from off the third green for birdie but he could only manage a string of five pars following. He would then birdie the par-5 9th from inside six feet and the par-4 10th from just inside nine feet. Then things really clicked. A brilliant hole-out eagle from 116 yards on the par-4 11th came next. "It was more the wedge shot on 10 really was the turning point. That really felt like it was a little different swing, but different in a good way. I flagged it on 10 and then 11 I holed out. And from then on I felt like I didn’t hit it outside 15 feet pretty much the rest of the way," Wolff said. "I was really happy with how my game is trending and the things I’ve been working on and put myself in a good spot. The hole-out on 11, you never expect to hole-out, but when it happens, kind of just puts you in a really good mindset. "I was a little frustrated on the front nine. Felt like I hit a lot of good putts and a lot of good shots and only shot 2-under, especially with how low the scores were. I felt like I was falling back." A missed chance from 13-feet on the 12th would prove costly in the chase for 59 a little later on, but sub 60 wasn't on his mind even after dropping in a 17-foot eagle putt on the par-5 13th. He barely missed a birdie from the same length on the par-3 14th before hitting a mint 3-wood onto the drivable par-4 15th to 15-feet. He would nail the putt and head to the par-5 16th having made three eagles in five holes and needing to play the final three holes three under for a 59. A brilliant drive and approach to just 15-feet set up the chance to become the first player since records have been kept to make a fourth eagle in a six-hole stretch but his putt almost inexplicably hung on the lip of the hole. The birdie kept the chase for 59 alive, as did a great approach on the par-3 17th to inside 15-feet. Cruelly his ball defied gravity once again and hung on the edge. He would also miss a 12-foot birdie try on the final hole, curling around the back side to sit just a few revolutions from dropping. "On 16 I thought it I made it about two feet out and it kind of just snapped a little harder than I thought. Every single one of those putts I hit it right where I wanted to and got the speed right. Felt like I hit it on my line; just didn’t go in," Wolff added. "The greens are pretty tricky out here. Still could putt a little better, but I was really happy with where the ball striking is, and I’m sure the putts will drop tomorrow." Wolff is just the fifth player to make three eagles on either the front 9 or back 9 in a round on the PGA TOUR since records have been kept (1983). He is the first to do it since 2006. “After I missed that putt on 17, the one that I thought just kind of broke right and didn’t go in, I kind of realized... dang, if that putt would’ve went in, all I would’ve had to do is birdie 18 to shoot 59," Wolff continued. "It didn’t creep in until then, but I gave myself as many good looks as I could and just wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure I’ll get that opportunity again and my game is feeling really good."

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