Masters rankings: From potential winners to just happy to be here

The whispers were getting louder last week in Austin. Jordan Spieth is in trouble. He’s lost his putting mojo. Now Spieth has certainly struggled with his putting so far this PGA TOUR season compared to other times where it appeared he would never miss. But to suggest the 11-time PGA TOUR winner and three-time major champion can’t turn it around at a moment’s notice is beyond foolish. This is Jordan Spieth we are talking about. Yes, this is the guy who famously fell away at the 2016 Masters. But it is also the guy who turned a shocking round into a Claret Jug winning one at the 2017 Open Championship. By making clutch putts. He’s a former FedExCup champion. And he’s still only 24. Let’s look at both sides of the story as Spieth gets ready to attack the Houston Open this week. It’s not all good reading. We don’t deny that. He’s 172nd on the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting. In the previous five seasons he finished 42nd, 2nd, 9th, 20th and 60th in this stat. He’s 201st in Total Putting, 112th in One-Putt Percentage and T68 in 3-Putt avoidance. Brace yourself Spieth fans… it gets worse. Spieth is 196th in putting from three feet, 191st from four feet, 103rd from five feet. He ranks 189th in all putts inside 10 feet. But he’s been tinkering. He’s been working on things. “I’m human and I’m realistic that based on kind of the way the year’s gone. It’s been a pretty trying time for me, especially on and around the greens,â€� he said last week in Austin. “Stuff I took for granted in setup and pace control and all that kind of stuff, subconscious short game, stuff I’ve taken for granted in the past has been a little bit more difficult and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back to that level and I’ve been trying different things.â€� Perhaps it is trying so many things that has been the problem. And perhaps even thinking it is a problem is part of the problem. “I’ve got so many check points in my head right now that I’m trying to get to before I get line and speed,â€� he continued. “And in the past it’s, okay, I’m set up, everything is good, line and speed. So, there’s like an extra like half a second or whatever but that’s an eternity when you’re over a putt of trying to just get yourself, okay, that’s good, now get that.â€� So now let’s look at the good. A year ago Spieth missed a three-foot putt at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. It dropped him to T128 in the rankings from three feet. He never missed another three-footer all season, finishing the year ranked T8. After this week he heads to the Masters. He has been T2, 1, T2, T11 there. The greens at Augusta National are some of the slickest and toughest on TOUR. And all of this work is set to pay off at some time. He’s hopeful it will begin this week in Houston. “I’ve put in a lot of work and I’ll get results out of it,â€� he says defiantly. “It will just take a little time. I don’t know when it will come. I don’t know if it will come next week. I don’t know if it will come next year. But all I can do is embrace the challenge. I mean it’s better than backing away from it, that’s for sure. “Everything is fine. Once again, like the British Open it looked like whatever, and then I make one putt and it comes back. I just need a couple of putts to go in at some point, it’s just taking longer than normal. A couple of putts go in and all of a sudden it starts raining.â€� I for one forecast rain in the near future.

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So much for respecting the elders. One of this season’s notable changes was the shift of Firestone Country Club’s South Course from the PGA TOUR to the PGA TOUR Champions. It hosted the Bridgestone SENIOR PLAYERS Championship two weeks ago. At 7,400 yards, it was the longest course on the 50-and-older circuit in nine years and the field averaged 72.820 on the par 70. Retief Goosen prevailed at 6-under 274. Only six golfers finished under par in the 72-hole event. With that challenging track dispatched, the firm, fair and scorable TPC Southwind has taken over as the host of the newly named World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Scroll past the projected contenders for a profile of the stroll in Memphis, the field’s experience on it and more. Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau and Phil Mickelson will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. From 1989-2018, TPC Southwind hosted the FedEx St. Jude Classic. It’s been a par 70 since 2006 and it will set up for a potential stretch of 7,237 yards this week. That reflects a one-yard decrease at the par-3 eighth hole that now tips at 171 yards. Traditionally slotted in the week before the U.S. Open and open to the maximum field of 156, the course has been reassigned to serve as the backdrop for a limited field of the sport’s elite. There is no cut and there are no alternates. As of midday Monday, 64 of the 69 qualifiers are committed to competing. (Rickie Fowler, Francesco Molinari, Lee Westwood, Bernd Wiesberger and Tiger Woods declined.) Forty pegged it at TPC Southwind at least once before; 25 made at least two appearances. Overall, this field went a collective 82-for-117 with 28 top 10s in the old iteration of the tournament. Two-time champion Dustin Johnson (2012, 2018) is the only winner of the FedEx St. Jude Classic who qualified for and committed to this week’s WGC. After sharing the 54-hole lead here in 2018, DJ ran away to win by six strokes, the largest margin at TPC Southwind in 14 years (David Toms, 2004). Johnson’s 19-under 261 was the second-lowest winning aggregate to John Cook’s 258 in 1996. Indeed, those who attempted to tame Firestone in the past won’t miss it. This isn’t to say that TPC Southwind is a pushover, however. It averaged 70.520 as a 156-man contest last year, and that hit the bull’s-eye for expectations. With a smaller and exponentially stronger field that has course experience, overall scoring should drop. The fairways are narrow, but TPC Southwind essentially is a second-shot test because the bermudagrass rough is trimmed to two-and-a-half inches. It’ll be juicy because it’s been a rainy 2019, but there’s not enough overall length to intensify the challenge. The dozen par 4s are sturdy as a group, but finding the small greens in regulation is the priority. TPC Southwind surrendered only 10.67 GIR on average last season, good for the fifth-lowest clip among all courses. However, it’s one of the easier layouts on which to salvage par (58.72 percent), so it’ll benefit both course management and aggressive types who can get up and down. The Champion bermuda greens will touch 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. Among other perks, the champion will receive 550 FedExCup points and a three-year PGA TOUR membership exemption. Warm and pleasant conditions will facilitate scoring. Daytime highs in the mid- to upper 80s will complement the omnipresent sunshine every day. Winds will be light.   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 (WGC) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (Barracuda), Sleepers (WGC), Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done (WGC), One & Done (Barracuda), Champions One & Done * – 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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2019 RBC Canadian Open, End of Round 1. Course scoring averages: Overall: -0.59 strokes per round Morning wave: -0.82 Afternoon wave: -0.36 Current cutline: 83 players at -1 or better (T59th position) Top 3 most likely projected cutlines: 2 under par: 26.7% 1 under par: 22.8% 3 under par: 20.8% Top 10 win probabilities: Keegan Bradley (1, -7, 12.1%) Matt Kuchar (T7, -5, 8.6%) Rory McIlroy (T25, -3, 8.4%) Webb Simpson (T15, -4, 6.1%) Shane Lowry (T2, -6, 5.2%) Sungjae Im (T2, -6, 3.9%) Henrik Stenson (T15, -4, 3.9%) Erik van Rooyen (T2, -6, 3.5%) Adam Hadwin (T7, -5, 3.3%) Jimmy Walker (T7, -5, 2.5%) NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut�, “Top 20�, “Top 5�, and “Win� probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the RBC Canadian Open, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.  

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