Tiger, Phil, Brady, Peyton to tee it up for charity

Altogether now, “Thank you.” That’s a message of appreciation from season-long fantasy commissioners and gamers to the powerbrokers of the PGA TOUR for eliminating the wraparound component following the 2022-23 season. Bemoan no more! The tight squeeze of the official offseason will be no more.. FULL-MEMBERSHIP RANKINGS: Intro | 1-50 | 51-100 | 101-150 | 151-200 | 201-214 | Cheat sheet No, easing our lives wasn’t among the influences, but who cares. We still can and will capitalize on the return to the calendar-year season in 2024. It was among a cavalcade of changes announced in June. Those that affect our business are included in this opening page to my annual full-membership fantasy ranking. With the biggest news in 10 years out of the way, welcome! To many, welcome back! It’s states “ranking” throughout these pages, but it’s also a guide, so bookmark or save it. It’s designed to be evergreen – I will not be updating it – and as your resource for things big and small. Read through this page before diving into the golfers. The through line is the context, and it’s all connected. When you get to the golfers, be advised that those included are eligible for PGA TOUR competition and are positioned somewhere in the Priority Ranking through the Non-exempt Medical Extension category. Overall ranking is based on projected value for the entirety of the 2022-23 season. As always, adjust accordingly for your format, opposition and everything else contributing to how your league measures your performance over time. For draft leaguers who prefer to see everything on one page, the Cheat Sheet lists all golfers by ranking, name and age. It’s also printable, so you can glance at a physical copy while scrolling or swiping on your PC, tablet or mobile device. The 2022-23 PGA TOUR season essentially is identical to the season that just concluded. There are 47 tournaments, the last three of which comprising the FedExCup Playoffs. Also familiarly, the top 125 at the conclusion of the Wyndham Championship will be fully exempt for the 2024 season, but for the first time in the 17-year history of the Playoffs, only the top 70 will qualify. The top 50 after the first leg will advance to the second. Then, per tradition, the top 30 after that will qualify for the season-ending TOUR Championship. Most impactful on us, and particularly salary gamers, is the introduction of Elevated Events. As of the publish date of this ranking, eight of the 12 are determined. Of them, purses currently range from $15 million at the Sentry Tournament of Champions through $25 million at THE PLAYERS Championship. Top players are committed to competing against each other in all Elevated Events, and they also will total at least 20 starts for the season. A minimum schedule of the other eight would consist of THE PLAYERS, all four majors and three events of the players’ choosing. All of the golfers ranked include ages, 2021-22 earnings (i.e. salary) and levels of status on the PGA TOUR. An asterisk beside a salary value indicates that a golfer is a bargain. With prize money escalating, there are more than usual this season. Regardless of status, if a golfer earned $0 last season, he’s annotated with “–“ and no asterisk. Salaries for golfers who were non-members in 2021-22 are determined by the total of official money and earnings at the WGC-Match Play. For all golfers not included in this ranking, refer to the “TOTAL MONEY” column in “NON-MEMBER OFF+WGC EARNINGS” as your reference to determine salary. (They are separated on the page in the event that a non-member wins a WGC, so that provisional disclaimer is irrelevant for your objective.) Because of the introduction of the Elevated Events, qualification into those tournaments may be modified, but for our purposes, use the following traditional breakdown to project entry. STATUS … BERTHS • Top 125 in 2021-22 FedExCup Eligibility Points = Entry into every open and the following invitationals: The American Express, The Genesis Invitational, THE PLAYERS, RBC Heritage. • Top 80 = Top 125 exemptions plus entry into the Charles Schwab Challenge. • Top 70 = Top 80 exemptions plus entry into the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. • Top 60 = Top 70 exemptions plus entry into the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP and THE CJ CUP in South Carolina (both of which have made room for the top 60 available). • Top 30 = Exemptions into every tournament before the Playoffs except the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and the PGA Championship. (These golfers now are exempt into the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Their membership exemptions also are extended through the 2024 season if they aren’t already.) Other levels of status are as follows: • Multi-year = Winners prior to 2021-22 who didn’t qualify for the 2022 Playoffs but still have fully exempt status. • Medical Extensions = Terms to fulfill are noted. (Golfers on Major Medicals would retain status in the Priority Ranking for the remainder of the season. Golfers with other medicals would be promoted to the Major Medical category for the remainder.). • Conditional = Nos. 126-150 in 2021-22 FedExCup Eligibility Points. • KFT = Korn Ferry Tour graduates – regular season (25 golfers). • KFT Finals = KFT Finals graduates (25 golfers). • OWGR Top 50 = Thomas Pieters and Ryan Fox (only two non-members inside the top 50 of the most recent Official World Golf Ranking who are eligible for PGA TOUR competition). There are 28 rookies to open the season. They are noted accordingly. Justin Suh and MJ Daffue also are first-time PGA TOUR members (via the KFT regular season), but each exhausted his rookie eligibility in a prior season. Life Members over the age of 50 are not included. Also excluded is 2022 PGA Professional Championship winner Jesse Mueller, who is allowed six somewhat restricted starts. For non-members eligible for PGA TOUR competition in 2022-23, the target to achieve Special Temporary Membership is 175.228 FedExCup points. That equals what Dylan Wu totaled as the 150th-ranked golfer via FedExCup Eligibility Points in 2021-22. It’s the lowest threshold in memory, so it stands to reason that it will be threatened if not crossed multiple times. Once it is, gaining access to the PGA TOUR in 2024 eases. (For a detailed explanation of STM, click here.) In addition, the top 10, not otherwise fully exempt on the PGA TOUR in 2024, at the season-ending DP World Tour ranking in 2023 will be extended PGA TOUR membership in 2024. Altogether, leagues that allow drop-adds and/or keepers will have a stockpile of additional talent lined up for the future. Now, changes are not limited only to the PGA TOUR, membership and everything else broken down above. There are two significant enhancements to PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf as well. First, pars now will reward one point instead of zero. Therefore, cuts made returns as an influencer in building rosters and managing starts across Segments. Second, the dedicated fantasy app has been discontinued. Access to PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf via your mobile device has been simplified to the PGA TOUR app and via mobile browsing. The desktop version, FantasyGolf.PGATOUR.com, also remains unchanged. PGA TOUR Pick ‘Em Live will continue as well. Mike Glasscott and I will continue to collaborate for Pick ‘Em Preview every Wednesday. If you ever have any questions and comments, please connect with me on Twitter. My handle is beside my byline at the top. Glass also makes himself available on the platform. Have fun, listen and learn, and remain fluid. In fantasy, in reality.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Cameron Smith started the year by setting a PGA TOUR scoring record (and beating the top player in the world in the process). Two months later, he won the largest prize in the TOUR’s history, taking $3.6 million from THE PLAYERS’ record $20 million purse. How’s your 2022 going? The latter achievement, which he accomplished Monday at TPC Sawgrass, moved him to No. 2 in the FedExCup and sixth in the Official World Golf Ranking, the fruits of a newfound dedication to his fitness and improvements to his iron play. Add those to a short game that’s long been considered among the best in the world and Smith is now firmly ensconced among the top echelon in the game. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Smith’s bag? He’s done so with an old-school skillset that stands out in a space-age era of golf. Smith is surrounded by players whose swings have been optimized for maximum distance and who use analytics to determine the most efficient path to the hole. He isn’t all that long, is occasionally crooked and still putts for dough, even after the data disproved the old adage that discounted the importance of driving distance. Smith plays an entertaining style of golf, and one that also is proving to be incredibly successful. TPC Sawgrass isn’t known as a place where players can scrape it around, but Smith won THE PLAYERS despite hitting less than half his fairways (24 of 56) and finishing last in driving accuracy among the 70 players who completed all four weather-delayed rounds. He’s the first PLAYERS champion to hit the fairway less than 50% of the time. Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee called it “one of the greatest examples of great nerve from start to finish that I’ve seen.” His 24 birdies were the most in the field, but he also made 11 bogeys. “I felt really confident with my iron shots,” Smith said. “I just needed to hit the fairway. That was the big thing.” His iron play is vastly improved this season, allowing him to capitalize on the best club in his bag, the putter. He ranks sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green this season after never finishing in the top 50 of that metric in his six previous seasons. “I feel as though I’ve put the work and I feel as though I’ve done a lot of work on my body and I’ve put in the time,” he said. “It’s nice to see all that stuff paying off.” The first sign of Smith’s ascendence came in the opening week of the year, when he held off world No. 1 Jon Rahm at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, shooting the lowest 72-hole score in relation to par to beat Rahm by one. On Monday, Smith conquered a strong field on a penal Pete Dye layout. His first 13 holes of the final round featured just a single par. He birdied five of his first six holes before three straight bogeys knocked him back. But then he birdied the first four holes of the back nine to separate himself from the field. Nifty par saves on both 14 and 15, where he holed par putts of 14 and 8 feet, set the stage for the full Cameron Smith experience over TPC Sawgrass’ famous final three holes. It started with a severe hook off the 16th tee that necessitated a punch out from the pine straw. Holding onto a one-shot lead, he had to hit a 3-iron for his third shot into a green protected by a pond. “I think that’s where it could have got away from me a little bit,” Smith said afterward. Instead, he laced his long-iron from 240 yards to the left side of the green to escape with a par. Then, on the island 17th, he squeezed his ball into the narrow strip of land between the flag and the water. He shared a smile with his caddie, Sam Pinfold, as he put his 9-iron back in the bag. Smith’s short game allows him to take aggressive lines with his irons, but not even Jacques Costeau can recover from a missed green on 17. No one intentionally hits his tee shot right of the flag, but by knocking it close and making the birdie putt, he walked to the 18th tee with a two-shot lead. Smith’s drive on 18 unsurprisingly sailed into the right trees. That was the safe play, far away from yet another penalty area. But the crowd was in shock when his punch shot rolled across the fairway and into the water. But that miscue offered just one more opportunity for Smith to display his strongest trait. “He’s a genius inside 60 yards,” Pinfold said. After his penalty drop, Smith’s wedge bounced right of hole before spinning to tap-in range. That up-and-down meant Anirban Lahiri, who’d just birdied 17, needed another birdie at 18 to force a playoff. He missed right of the green and it was all over. The scouting report on Smith says that his short game and his mental strength are his biggest assets. He needed just 24 putts in the final round and 101 for the week. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. “It’s definitely the strength of mine,” he said, “and sometimes I maybe lean on it too much.” But it’s one thing to pour them in on a Wednesday. Doing it on a Sunday (or Monday) is another matter. In THE PLAYERS’ final round, Smith missed just one of the 8 attempts he faced from 7-15 feet. He gained more than 4 strokes on the greens. “They breed them tough in Queensland,” said Smith’s friend, Jack Wilkosz. Smith needed that fortitude to make it to the PGA TOUR and win three times with a long game that didn’t match many of his peers. Before this year, he’d never finished better than 119th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, losing strokes in that area of his game each season. He’s a grinder whose resolve was steeled by all those years recovering from wayward shots. “If you haven’t always been a good ballstriker, … you learn when you hit an awkward or squirrely shot to not get too wound up about it,” said former Masters champion Trevor Immelman, an interested observer Monday as the captain of this year’s International Team for the Presidents Cup. “I always used to think I was a good ballstriker, so it would really get under my skin when I hit a bad shot and maybe even affect future shots. Cam takes everything in stride.” This year, Smith is on pace for the best showing of his career in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and is hitting nearly three-quarters of his greens to rank 10th in that statistic, as well. Immelman, a student of the swing, sees a “cleaner” transition that is rid of the excessive motion. He also appreciates the balance Smith exhibits in his swing. “He always nails his finish,” Immelman said. He did that Monday to bring home the biggest title of his career.

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Round 2 of the Vivint Houston Open begins Friday. Here’s how to follow the action. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Sunday, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. ET (Golf Channel) PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 7:50 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET; Saturday-Sunday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET (Featured Groups) Radio: Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET; Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio). FEATURED GROUPS Dustin Johnson, Tyrrell Hatton, Adam Scott Phil Mickelson, Jason Day, Viktor Hovland, Lanto Griffin, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth Brian Gay, Sergio Garcia, Tony Finau MUST READS Players welcome sight of spectators Memorial Park provides tough test Snedeker leads by two Five things about Memorial Park Inside Memorial Park’s history CALL OF THE DAY

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