Live leaderboard: PGA Tour returns at Colonial

Click here to read the full article…

One of the most interesting facets of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans is seeing how different two-man teams form for this unique event. Some are easy to piece together. Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose? European Ryder Cup teammates who have enjoyed a generation of success. Greyson Sigg and Sepp Straka? Teammates at the University of Georgia. Fellow countrymen match up easily on the pairings sheet, too, from Scotland (Martin Laird and Robert MacIntyre) to South Korea (Sungjae Im and Byeong Hun An) and many points in-between. Not all teams imply a clear origin story, though. And one of this week’s marquee teams – Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland – could have been forged together in some sort of stripe-show, analytical golf fantasy. Two of the best young players in the game will come together this week as one of the more formidable teams to play together since this tournament went to a team format in 2017. Lethal Combination Strokes Gained: Ball Striking combines a player’s performance off the tee and on approach shots. Basically, it’s the Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green metric, but with shots around the green eliminated from the equation. In this statistic, as one might expect, the Morikawa-Hovland team is a monster. There are 226 players with 30 or more ShotLink-measured rounds on the PGA TOUR since the beginning of 2021. Of that group, Morikawa and Hovland rank second and third in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking per round, trailing only Jon Rahm. The sum of their two rankings – 5 – is enormously smaller than any other team in this week’s field. The only other duo to have both players rank in the top-20 in ball striking during that stretch is the all-Chilean team of Mito Pereira (11th) and Joaquin Niemann (18th). Essentially, the two best ball-strikers in the field are on the same team. Going back another year, to the beginning of 2020, Morikawa ranks second in SG: Ball Striking per round among qualified players (+1.37 strokes), while Hovland ranks fourth (+1.27). The other two players in the top-four – Rahm and Justin Thomas – are not in this week’s field. When isolating their Strokes Gained: Approach numbers, the pair is equally as impressive. This season, Hovland ranks third on the PGA TOUR in that metric (+1.02 per round), while Morikawa is ranked seventh (+0.82). Looking at the larger sample size – back to January 2021 – Morikawa leads the TOUR, while Hovland is ranked fifth. The duo are forecasted to give themselves bushels of birdie opportunities all week long. Short Game Questions? In the Four-ball (best ball) format, played in Rounds 1 and 3, pressure on players’ short games is typically alleviated. That’s a nice break for the immensely-talented Hovland, who himself has bemoaned the deficiencies in that part of his bag. This season, Hovland is ranked last on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Around the Green (No. 205 of 205), losing 0.84 strokes per round. Since the beginning of 2021, he is ranked 216th of 226 players with 30 or more rounds played. Morikawa has lost strokes to the field around the greens, too. Since January of last year, his average of -0.10 Strokes Gained: Around the Green is just 168th on TOUR. Both are perfectly capable of turning those figures around, but it will be an interesting subplot, especially if they are in contention on Sunday. Statistically, Hovland has been the better putter of the two since turning pro. Hovland has been right around neutral in regard to Strokes Gained: Putting per round since January 2020, while Morikawa has lost about two-tenths of a stroke per round. Morikawa, however, has enjoyed one of the biggest improvements in Strokes Gained: Putting on TOUR this season, leaping up 119 spots from the 2020-21 season. A Morikawa that is consistently gaining strokes on the greens should be a terrifying prospect to his peers. Fast Success Those figures haven’t stopped both players from becoming prolific champions around the world in their young professional careers. With his win at last summer’s Open Championship, Morikawa became the first player since Bobby Jones to win two majors in eight or fewer career starts. His fifth-place finish at the Masters earlier this month made him the fourth-youngest player all-time to record a top-five finish in each of the four major championships. Last fall, he became the first American player to win the Race to Dubai, the DP World Tour’s season-long points competition. Hovland has won in each of the last three PGA TOUR seasons, in addition to two DP World Tour wins. Hovland’s third PGA TOUR title came just after he turned 24 – over the last 40 seasons, only Rory McIlroy won more times at an earlier age among players from outside the United States. Last December, Hovland capped off his year by coming from six back in the final round to win the Hero World Challenge. The man he chased down? Collin Morikawa. The duo appear poised to go toe-to-toe for the biggest titles in the game for years to come. This week, golf fans get the treat of seeing them compete together for a victory in Louisiana.

Click here to read the full article…

HAMILTON, Ontario – When Mackenzie Hughes was 14, he caddied during a practice round at the 2004 RBC Canadian Open and was fortunate enough to walk with a group that also included Mike Weir. The day was amazing for Hughes … but not so much for the player whose bag he was carrying. “I just remember that day picking (Weir’s) brain the entire time but being the worst caddie of all time,â€� Hughes recalled with a laugh. “I had no idea where my golfer was. I was just like, ‘Mike Weir is over here, I’m going to walk over here.’ “It was the best day ever for me.â€� Weir would go on that week to lose in a playoff to Vijay Singh, coming ever so close to become the first Canadian since Pat Fletcher in 1954) to win his country’s national open. Still, Weir was at the height of his popularity and success in Canada. He had been ranked No. 3 in the world and inspired a generation of Canadian golfers to pick up the sport, thinking that if a small guy from a small town could beat the world’s best, why couldn’t they? RELATED: Power Rankings | Expert Picks | Conners on home turf in Canada | Tee times Fast-forward 15 years, and Hughes is still standing next to Weir asking questions – this time as a peer, a fellow winner on the PGA TOUR. Hughes, who captured The RSM Classic in 2016, is part of a contingent of Canadians who are finding success on the PGA TOUR, and beyond, at an unprecedented clip. Currently, there are 10 Canadians with TOUR membership, the most since 1970 when records were kept. Eight of those players are active most weeks: Hughes, Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor, Roger Sloan, David Hearn, Ben Silverman and Adam Svensson. The other two are Graham DeLaet, who is on a Major Medical exemption following microdiscectomy surgery and hopes to return later this year; and Weir, who has played mostly on the Web.com Tour this season (next May he turns 50 and will eligible for PGA TOUR Champions). Of the active Canadians, five are inside the top 125 of the FedExCup standings; only Australia (six) has more among the non-U.S. members. Conners and Hadwin are in the top 20 of the International Team standings for this year’s Presidents Cup and hope to make a big push down the stretch this season. And this week, 25 Canadians are scheduled to play at Hamilton Golf and Country Club, a healthy showing that includes established TOUR pros, up-and-comers and the country’s only major winner, as Weir makes his fourth TOUR start of the season. He’ll play the first two rounds at Hamilton with countrymen Taylor and Hearn. All in all … “Canadian golf is probably in the best place it’s been, ever, on the female and male side,â€� Hughes said. “It’s really cool to be a part of it, to be one of those guys who has a chance to compete and to win on the PGA TOUR.â€� There’s been a robust group of Canadians who have won TOUR-sanctioned events in the last five years, and that doesn’t include everything Brooke Henderson has done on the LPGA Tour. Just 21, she’s already won eight times. Her win total is tied for the most ever (with Weir, for one) LPGA or PGA TOUR titles by a Canadian. A sampling of the recent success: Hughes, Conners (2019), Hadwin (2017), and Taylor (2014) have all won on the PGA TOUR. Sloan (2014), Silverman (2017), Svensson (2018), and Michael Gligic (2019) have all won on the Web.com Tour – along with Hadwin in 2014 (twice) and Hughes in 2016 – and all will be in the field this week at the RBC Canadian Open. Not bad for a nation whose golf season is only about six months long – and that’s being generous. Some of the biggest names on the PGA TOUR, including 2017 FedExCup champion Justin Thomas, has recognized the success of the Canadians. Thomas, playing the Canadian Open for the first time (in fact, he had never been to Canada before this week) knows Conners from living near each other in Jupiter, Florida. He said Tuesday he was impressed at Conners’ mettle as he came down the stretch to win his first TOUR event. Conners “flushes it,â€� according to Thomas. Canadians are everywhere on TOUR, said Thomas. “There’s a lot of great past and a lot of great history,â€� Thomas said. “It seems like it’s only getting better and better each year.â€� Much of the recent Canadian success can be pined on Golf Canada and its national and developmental team program. It’s unique; even the United States doesn’t have something like it. The provincial organizations help identify star players – Canada has produced Drive, Chip, and Putt National Champions in two different age groups the last two years, for example – and they get recruited into a program that helps with on-course coaching and off-course development. Jeff Thompson, the Chief Sport Officer for Golf Canada – akin to the United States Golf Association – said with a laugh that “unfortunatelyâ€� other countries are starting to pick up on the developmental program idea that started 15 years ago. “We can see it at international events. Those players from countries like Scotland, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark are getting better,â€� he said. But not everyone was part of the team. Silverman was never part of the program. Hearn attended a few camps at the beginning of his career but wasn’t as involved as some others. Raw talent will always be the thing that separates the “pretty goodâ€� from the “really special.â€� And right now, Canada is going through a special time in professional golf – with more in the pipeline. Jared du Toit, for example, played in the final group of the 2016 RBC Canadian Open as an amateur. There are a handful of Canadian amateurs this week, including three who are part of Golf Canada’s national squad – Joey Savoie of Quebec, Josh Whalen of Ontario, and Chris Crisologo of B.C. (last year’s Low Amateur at the Canadian Open). “Those amateurs can really play,â€� said Gligic, on track to earn his PGA TOUR card for next season. “You’ve seen Mackenzie Hughes and Corey Conners climb those (amateur) ranks and now they’re PGA TOUR winners. I’m pretty confident those amateurs will do well. They’ve played well in the past and they’re all good players and you can expect them to do good things.â€� Last year, Gligic was the Canada Life Canadian Player of the Year on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada – another example of how development has been impacted on Canadian soil. The Tour, brought under the PGA TOUR umbrella in 2013, has produced such notable alums as both Conners and Hughes (the 2013 Player of the Year) along with helping to groom non-Canadian stars such as TOUR Rookie of the Year Aaron Wise, Tony Finau, and others. Most weeks on the Mackenzie Tour, you’ll see Canadian amateurs and professionals mixing it up with some of the biggest names in golf who are just getting their careers off the ground. This week will showcase the impact of Canadian golf at the highest level. “We used to feel that it would be nice to see a Canadian on the leaderboard,â€� Thompson said, “but it’s changed now, where we expect it.â€�

Click here to read the full article…