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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – If you had to guess where Rickie Fowler would pick up his fifth PGA TOUR victory, the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale would be as good a guess as any. He was runner-up to Hideki Matsuyama in 2016, and T4 in 2017. Fowler was at it again in the first round Thursday, making four birdies, one bogey and a kick-in eagle at the 548-yard, par-5 15th hole. He was tied with Bryson DeChambeau and Billy Horschel after the morning wave of players had completed their opening rounds. “Yeah, after the first couple years here, I just figured it was a matter of time before I was the last one standing on Sunday,â€� Fowler said. “We have given ourselves some pretty good chances. Losing to Hideki two years ago in the playoff. It’s just a matter of time; I know I can win here, and sometimes you just got to be in the right place at the right time, or not got a bad kick on 17, but we’re going to get one.â€� It was two years ago here that Fowler endured one of the toughest losses of his career. Trying to win for the first time in the presence of his father, Rod, and grandfather, Taka, Fowler hit his tee shot to within nine feet for birdie at the rowdy, par-3 16th hole. With a make, he would have taken a three-shot lead over Matsuyama and Harris English with two holes to play. Then it all went bad. It wasn’t so much that Fowler missed the putt. It was that he then hit his tee shot into the water at the short, par-4 17th hole. Fowler initially opted to hit 3-wood off the tee but went with a driver and hit what he thought was a perfect shot. “I hit it right on line,â€� Fowler said later, his voice breaking. “Hit it exactly where I was looking.â€� Alas, the ball bounced off a downslope in front of the green and kept going, rolling into the water. Fowler bogeyed, Matsuyama birdied, and later won on the fourth hole of a playoff, 17 again, after Fowler found the water again, this time with a hooked 3-wood. One of the ways Fowler has dealt with that memory this week is by focusing on a different memory, the boy whom he calls his biggest fan, Griffin Connell. The 7-year-old was born with a respiratory disorder but became a fixture at the WMPO, cheering Fowler on until he died last month. Fowler’s Puma cap on Thursday featured a pin with a photo of Griffin. “He was just a huge fan of the game,â€� Fowler said. “I was lucky to have him as, I claim him as being my number one fan. … It just makes you appreciate the position that a lot of us are in. Even if I hit a bad shot out there in past years, you would look over and see him and he was pumped and excited to be out there watching us.â€� OBSERVATIONS Prior to his breakthrough at the John Deere Classic last season, Bryson DeChambeau missed 14 cuts, including eight in a row at one point. One player who helped him get through that tough stretch: fellow Puma golfer Rickie Fowler. “He’s so good at understanding,” DeChambeau said of his fellow co-leader. “Told me that it’s a long game, it’s not easy, and you got to make sure that everything is focused in on the day and you can’t be tired for it.” The absence of humidity in the Valley of the Sun allows for temperature swings of 30-35 degrees in a 24-hour period. Early starter Billy Horschel was one of those who adjusted his strategy accordingly, and it was enough to take a share of the early lead. “Obviously the ball doesn’t travel very far, the greens are still frozen a little bit from the night, but once the temperature rises, the greens soften up,â€� Horschel said. “You can be a little aggressive.â€� That he was, missing only three greens in regulation and pouring in five birdies. NOTABLES • Jon Rahm, second in the FedExCup and second in the Official World Golf Ranking, shot a 4-under 67. The ASU product would not ascend to No. 1 in the world with a victory this week. • Phil Mickelson, playing with fellow ASU alumnus Jon Rahm, shot a 1-under-par 71. • Xander Schauffele, playing with Rahm and Mickelson and making his first WMPO start, double-bogeyed the par-4 fifth hole but still shot 3-under 68. • Steve Stricker, 50, was in good position after an opening-round 68. QUOTABLES “Yeah, my head. We tried chopping it off, but we realized if that happened, it wasn’t going to be a good scenario.” — Horschel on the scrapped solution for his first-round scoring woes. He carded a dozen over-par scores in opening rounds last season and ranked 164th in R1 scoring average. “I was a little more nervous than I was at the Masters when I was an amateur.” — DeChambeau on his first experience at the 16th hole, where he hit his tee ball to inside seven feet but made par. “With a breakfast ball, I’m two better.â€� – Brian Gay, after hitting his opening tee shot out of bounds but still carding a 4-under 67. “I was a little disappointed in some of the stuff that was said.â€� — Fowler on fans at the 16th hole, where he made his only bogey of the day. “If I were to lose a tournament to somebody, I would probably choose that person to be Phil.â€� — Rahm on his fellow ASU alumnus and friend Mickelson. BEST OF SOCIAL

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Charles Howell III (69, 5 under) said he knew he was in the minority, but, “I’m a May guy.â€� Justin Thomas (70, also 5 under) declared himself a May guy even before the tournament began. They tied for 35th. Rory McIlroy is a March guy. Jim Furyk, too. They were 1-2, respectively, at THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, which returned to March for the first time since 2006. Did they play well because they’re March guys, or are they March guys because they played well? Maybe both. Or maybe, as McIlroy kept saying all week, attitude was everything. “I’m very thankful to the PGA TOUR for putting it back to March,â€� said McIlroy (70, 16 under). To butcher an old saying, whether you thought you were a March guy or not a March guy at this PLAYERS, you were right. Because Furyk (67, 15 under), too, decided the date helped him.      “A long, wide-open golf course is going to be difficult for me to compete on,â€� Furyk said. “Not that I can’t, but my opportunities and my percentage goes way down. But you put a golf course like this where it’s really important to hit fairways — I’m sure I was in the top five in fairways hit this week. It’s about position.â€� (Furyk was indeed T3 in fairways, 44-of-56, for the week.) But it wasn’t just the top two finishers who suggested THE PLAYERS still plays no favorites.   Dustin Johnson (69, T5), who plays like McIlroy, had his first top 10 here. Brian Harman (70, T8), who plays a precision game more of the style of Furyk, matched his career best (2015). “It definitely — 80 degrees on Friday and really cold today, definitely more variables,â€� said 2018 PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson (68, T16). “The golf course played firm, but the rain came in and softened it out a little bit. It’s definitely more of a guessing game in March.â€� For some who had struggled in May, there was no guessing about the move to March. The date change allowed them to clear the cache, as it were. You could clearly hear Johnson’s enthusiasm even after he won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship last month. RELATED: Rory’s winner’s bag | Tiger leaves PLAYERS optimistic | Furyk shines with runner-up finish |  “I can’t wait,â€� he said of the new PLAYERS. His T5 was his best result in 11 starts here.    Why was McIlroy thankful for the new date? It starts with something Justin Rose (68, 12 under, T8) mentioned early in the week: The look of the newly overseeded course, specifically the two distinct greens, darker in the rough, lighter in the fairway. The course fit his eye better. “The fairways and the rough are defined,â€� McIlroy said. “Where back in May, the fairway and the rough were the same color, so you didn’t have definition in terms of where you were hitting your tee shots, and I definitely drove it better this week on this golf course because of that.â€� The other benefit, he added, also came down to grass. “You get into this Bermuda in May, it takes a lot of skill out of it,â€� McIlroy said. “It’s sort of hit-and-hope and you have to be lucky and you’re guessing half the time, where the way the overseed is around the greens now, you can actually showcase some of your skills and you can play shots pretty certain knowing what it’s going to do, how it’s going to react.â€� Case in point: After his 347-yard tee shot wound up in the rough fractionally right of the 16th fairway, McIlroy lofted his second shot 174 yards to the green, his ball settling 19 feet left of the pin to set up an easy two-putt birdie. The winning margin, as it turned out. McIlroy won despite being 60th in Strokes Gained: Putting (-1.506) in the final round, by far his worst performance on the greens all week (32 putts). He was 45th in SG: Putting for the week (+.663), meaning he helped himself only marginally on the greens. He led the field, though, in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and was second in SG: Off-the-Tee. And he tied for fourth in driving distance (295.8 yards per pop). He maximized his strengths. Conversely, Furyk excelled by playing his usual precision game. He usually left himself on the short grass off the tee, and by playing from the fairway he helped further bolster his precision iron play as he finished 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+4.788). And using his relatively new arm-lock grip, he ranked 15th in SG: Putting (+4.201). “I made my fair share of 15-footers this week,â€� he said. THE PLAYERS in March helped long hitters and short hitters, but it also hurt long hitters and short hitters if they weren’t on their games. It simply demanded total commitment to and execution of one’s strengths, just as it always has. And the X-factor, as always, was attitude.

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