Weir sees good signs at Wyndham Championship

With the Power Rankings for the TOUR Championship slotting all 30 qualifiers in pursuit of the 14th FedExCup title, this weekly Fantasy Insider column is predictably abridged. But that's not to say that it's without valuable and timely information. After all, the 2020-21 season begins in nine sleeps with the Safeway Open on Thursday, Sept. 9. First, the bad news. I will not be writing a full-membership fantasy ranking. Given that membership isn't turning over and with only two days in between seasons, the energy and focus is devoted elsewhere. Ever since the wraparound season was introduced in 2013, I've joked that it's stressed fantasy planning due to tight scheduling, but this year's squeeze is unprecedented. In place of the ranking will be a season primer that will read a lot like the customary introduction to the annual ranking. It'll be an evergreen guide. More on its timing below. RELATED: Power Rankings | Expert Picks | Eight things to know about East Lake While membership isn't changing, there is movement in the ranks. The next update to the Korn Ferry Tour graduate reshuffle page will list the opening order of the golfers who didn't qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs and who don't have status via a victory. Because there are no KFT grads in 2020-21, the title of the page will change. That'll be your cue for what's new if you don't already look at the date at the top. Medical Extensions will be updated at the same time as the Reshuffle. Plan on both being ready by Monday. Qualifiers will remain as fluid as it's ever been as the governing bodies around the world continue to adapt to the pandemic and how it influences their schedules. If you draft with an emphasis on who is exempt into the events included on that page, plan on no worse than the baseline constructs of how those fields have been assembled in recent memory. Anything unusual will be considered a bonus. The Rookie Ranking will be taking on a different form in 2020-21. Because there won't be any rookies to start the season, there won't be anything to rank. However, in due time, non-members will begin totaling the equivalent of FedExCup points in pursuit of Special Temporary Membership. (The target remains 288.035 points. That's a holdover from the 2018-19 season because 2019-20 was compressed.) Non-members will include the top 10 in Korn Ferry Tour points at the conclusion of the KFT Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance as they will have exemptions into all additional events in 2020-21. All three-time winners on the combined 2020-21 KFT season also will earn an automatic promotion to the PGA TOUR and could qualify as a rookie. With so many moving parts, Rookie Ranking will demand attention, just in a different way. With the Monday finish of the TOUR Championship, my preview material for the Safeway Open will slide back a day. So, the Power Rankings will publish on Tuesday, as will the season primer referenced above. Sleepers, Expert Picks and the Fantasy Insider will publish on Wednesday. We'll return to the regular schedule in advance of the U.S. Open the following week. Speaking of primers, this is a great time to reacquaint yourself with the fantasy primer for the restart of this season. It published in early June, but it can serve as a bridge into next week's primer and should help with some direction for draft leaguers. Before all of that, of course, there's the little matter of settling fantasy league championships at East Lake. Round scoring in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf isn't influenced by the staggered start of the TOUR Championship, but the bonus points earned will be based on actual finish in the tournament, not by actual score over 72 holes. As I reminded gamers in this space two weeks ago and as the old One & Done determined values for the 2019 TOUR Championship, because no FedExCup points are up for grabs in the finale, bonus points in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf will follow the same breakdown used at THE NORTHERN TRUST and the BMW Championship. So, the winner will yield 150 bonus points as a starter for his owners in the final round. PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf My roster for the TOUR Championship (in alphabetical order): Bryson DeChambeau Dustin Johnson Jon Rahm Xander Schauffele Webb Simpson Justin Thomas You'll find my starters in Expert Picks. Others to consider for each category (in alphabetical order): Scoring: Daniel Berger; Tony Finau; Tyrrell Hatton; Scottie Scheffler Driving: Daniel Berger; Tyrrell Hatton; Hideki Matsuyama; Collin Morikawa; Scottie Scheffler RETURNING TO COMPETITION Martin Laird ... Scheduled to tee it up at the Korn Ferry Tour's Lincoln Land Championship presented by LRS. He was among the internationals who didn't return to the PGA TOUR this summer. Finished 182nd in the FedExCup, but he'll keep his fully exempt status due to the eligibility adjustments announced during the hiatus. Kelly Kraft ... Also committed to the KFT event in Springfield, Illinois. This constitutes his first sanctioned start since he underwent surgery on his left hip (labrum, impingement) on Sept. 26, 2019. When he returns to the PGA TOUR, he'll have a Major Medical Extension with a full season's slate of 23 starts. NOTABLE WDs None. POWER RANKINGS RECAP - BMW CHAMPIONSHIP Power Ranking Golfer Result 1 Dustin Johnson P2 2 Webb Simpson DNP 3 Justin Thomas T25 4 Jon Rahm Win 5 Bryson DeChambeau 50th 6 Daniel Berger T25 7 Collin Morikawa T20 8 Kevin Kisner T25 9 Harris English T40 10 Scottie Scheffler T20 11 Alex Noren T40 12 Xander Schauffele T25 13 Tony Finau 5th 14 Louis Oosthuizen T25 15 Jason Day 64th 16 Viktor Hovland T40 17 Hideki Matsuyama T3 18 Matt Kuchar T59 19 Russell Henley T25 20 Ryan Palmer T40 Wild Card Rory McIlroy T12 SLEEPERS RECAP - BMW CHAMPIONSHIP Golfer Result Corey Conners T33 Matthew Fitzpatrick T6 Mackenzie Hughes T10 Mark Hubbard T51 Matthew Wolff T16 BIRTHDAYS AMONG ACTIVE GOLFERS ON THE PGA TOUR September 1 ... Matthew Fitzpatrick (26) September 2 ... none September 3 ... none September 4 ... none September 5 ... none September 6 ... Brice Garnett (37) September 7 ... none September 8 ... none

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Brandt Snedeker’s daughter Lily came running down the stairs, full of excitement, on Tuesday morning of last week. It was her ninth birthday. A special day. Cake and ice cream was on the horizon along with ribbons and bows and presents. But as soon as she looked at her parents, Lily could tell something was wrong. Snedeker had been awake since about 4 a.m. when his phone started blowing up with text messages from friends and family. Were they OK? Had the brutal storms and tornadoes that roared through Tennessee in the wee hours spared them? “My wife and I were both just in shock,â€� he recalled Wednesday before heading out to play a practice round for THE PLAYERS Championship. “My little girl came downstairs. She was so excited because it’s her birthday. She turned nine and she’s like, ‘What’s wrong? Why aren’t you guys excited?’ We started showing her pictures, turned the news on and she realized oh gosh, this is really serious. “We started getting reports of how many people … I think 24 is the final total of people that had passed away from that. And that’s when it hits you. The stuff people lost; our city will recover. It’s the people who can’t recover, right? The people that lost their lives, it really hits you. … It was a tough day.â€� Surreal was another word Snedeker used, more than once, during the interview outside the massive clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass. The Snedekers live south of Nashville and were spared any damage. But they had friends who were hard hit, and the city where he was born and still resides will be in recovery mode for a long, long time.   “It was so sudden, so quick,â€� said Snedeker, whose G/FORE golf shoes will display the words: Nashville Strong this week. “It was not a big storm. Didn’t feel like it was one of the ones you really had to worry about. Then you wake up to the devastation we saw, and you realize that in a blink of an eye, everything changed for a lot of people.â€� Schools were reduced to rubble but thankfully, no lives were lost in those classrooms because the EF-3 tornado hit at night. Too many businesses and homes to count were destroyed, particularly in the East Nashville area, an up-and-coming neighborhood filled with trendy restaurants and the kind of cool stone houses people love to renovate. “What was crazy about it is you’d have one side of the street that was leveled, one side the street, not,â€� Snedeker said. “The randomness of the tornadoes is really hard for people to kind of take and grasp. From there, it just stayed on the ground forever. “And probably the worst images you’ll see are from Cookeville, Tennessee, which is about an hour east of town, where it just literally looked like a bomb went off. I mean it was severe damage and these are all brick homes, beautiful homes that just got leveled and so it’s going to be a long recovery effort.â€� In the short term, Snedeker is trying to help his friends get back on their feet. The roof to one’s apartment was blown off, the family’s belongings a total loss. So was their car in the garage under the apartment building. “They luckily made it out, but they lost everything inside,â€� Snedeker said. “Single mom that we’ve known forever. You hear those stories and you’re like, okay, I want to help her. I know her personally. We’re going to get her back and going. “But then you think about all the people I don’t know that have had something similar happen. What can we do for them?â€� Snedeker is trying to figure that out right now. He knows there’s an influx of people who have been doing the grunt work, clearing roads and property with chain saws, replacing roofs and drywall. Hotels have opened their doors to the displaced. People have donated water and clothes and food. “I was really kind of buoyed by that, knowing that Nashville is a community, we do care about people involved in it,â€� Snedeker said. “So, for me it’s been hard kind of figuring out where I fall in with this, how can I help? What can I do? It’s easy to write a check and just say, ‘Here you go, here’s a bunch of money.’ And go to the people you want. “I think we want to do more than that. I want to do more than that. The thing with these kinds of disasters is everybody gets really excited about them or wants to help out, over enthusiastic probably the week after. Then three months down the road, that’s when people really need you. So, we’re trying to figure out the best way to say, okay, how can we service people three months down the road who still don’t have a home, still don’t have a car, that need a job because their business place got lost, whatever it may be?â€� The Brandt and Mandy Snedeker Foundation that he and his wife started after he won the 2012 FedExCup is sure to be involved. Maybe they hold a charity golf tournament. Maybe they partner with some of Nashville’s many entertainers to raise funds for the relief. No matter what, they’ll find a way to make an impact. Snedeker said the celebration for his daughter’s birthday went on that night as scheduled. But it was muted after a day filled with a such a sense of sadness, mourning even. “You had a sickness in your stomach all day,â€� he said. “You couldn’t believe. You kept thinking it wasn’t real, and then you’d see the pictures coming online and you see people just lost everything. Everybody’s faces when you walked around town that day … it just looked like everybody was drained. “It’s still that way a little bit. There was a sense of pride afterwards, seeing everybody come together and get downtown and do some good work and try to help people get back. But it’s a long process. It’s such a long process. You see pictures of all these volunteers working all day long. “There’s no finality to it. Still a lot more to do, still a lot more rebuilding so it’s going to take that sustained effort over months and months and months to get back to here we need to be.â€�

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