Predicting the Wyndham Rewards Top 10

A drivable par-4 and several of the game’s biggest stars. There’s a lot to love about this week’s PGA TOUR LIVE coverage. Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Justin Thomas and Patrick Reed are among the names that can be seen this week on PGA TOUR LIVE’s broadcast from the Travelers Championship. There will also be plenty of coverage of TPC River Highlands’ most famous hole, the drivable par-4 15th. PGA TOUR LIVE will broadcast between 7 a.m. Eastern and 6:30 p.m. on both Thursday and Friday. The coverage will switch to Featured Holes at 3 p.m. The drivable, par-4 15th and the par-3 16th are this week’s holes. PGA TOUR LIVE also will be available on Twitter for approximately 90 minutes, beginning at 7 a.m. Here’s a look at this week’s Featured Groups. Click here to subscribe to PGA TOUR LIVE. (Note: FedExCup rankings in parentheses) THURSDAY Brian Harman (10), Jim Furyk (137), Rory McIlroy (69): Furyk will play alongside a fellow FedExCup champ and one of this season’s breakout stars as he returns to the site of last year’s historic 58. McIlroy, the reigning FedExCup champ, is making his debut at this event after missing the cut in the U.S. Open. Harman, who finished T2 at Erin Hills, ranks in both the top 10 of the FedExCup (10) and the U.S. Presidents Cup standings (9). He’s finished in the top 10 in four of his past six starts, including a win over FedExCup leader Dustin Johnson at the Wells Fargo Championship and his U.S. Open runner-up. Tee time: 7:50 a.m. Eastern off 10th tee. Justin Thomas (3), Patrick Reed (75), Jason Day (45): Thomas and Reed are fresh off top-15 finishes at the U.S. Open, while Day is trying to rebound from his missed cut at Erin Hills. Thomas (T9) played in the final group last week after an electric 63 in the third round, while Reed (T13) posted his best career finish in a U.S. Open. Day’s top finish this season has been a runner-up finish at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Thomas and Day will see each other at this year’s Presidents Cup, as well, as both players rank second on their respective team’s point list. Reed, who’s nicknamed “Captain America� for his stellar play in international team events, is 11th in the U.S. standings; the top 10 on Sept. 4 will automatically qualify for the team. Tee time: 8 a.m. Eastern off 10th tee. FRIDAY Bubba Watson (109), Marc Leishman (15), Russell Knox (57): Three past winners of the Travelers Championship are in this group. Knox won last year with a dramatic 12-foot par putt on the last hole. Leishman, the 2009 Rookie of the Year, earned his first PGA TOUR win here in 2012. He earned his second victory earlier this year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Watson is a two-time winner at TPC River Highlands (2010, ’15) and has finished in the top 10 in half of his 10 starts there. Tee time: 7:50 a.m. Eastern off 10th tee. Jordan Spieth (6), Brandt Snedeker (44), Wesley Bryan (22): Two former PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year, Spieth and Snedeker, are paired with a favorite for this season’s award. Wesley Bryan won the RBC Heritage and has four other top-10s. Spieth, the 2015 FedExCup champ, is making his debut at this event, while Snedeker has finished 11th and 10th in the past two Travelers. Snedeker won the FedExCup in 2012. Tee time: 8 a.m. Eastern off 10th tee.

Click here to read the full article…

RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico – On a day with unpredictable, swirling winds it was the steady play of Andres Romero that leads the way after the first round of the Puerto Rico Open. Romero, a one-time PGA TOUR winner, fired a 6-under-par 66 at the Coco Beach Golf Club Thursday. The Puerto Rico Open is Romero’s third PGA TOUR start of the 2018-19 season. He finished T-26 at the Sanderson Farms Championship and missed the cut at The RSM Classic. Through a translator, he said he has been playing well for a while and was happy to see everything click Thursday. “Mainly it was my putting that was letting me down lately and today was very good,â€� he said. â€�It gives me a lot of confidence for the whole game.â€� With winds gusting up to 30 mph and intermittent rain falling through Thursday, Romero said he embraced the difficult conditions. “It was very tough for everyone, not only for (me),â€� said Romero. “Had to think a lot more than a regular round. For example (I) hit a 6-iron from 150 yards on No. 15. But was playing well and feeling confident, so that helped a lot.â€� Romero leads by one over Sepp Straka, a rookie on the PGA TOUR this season. Straka earned his TOUR card via Web.com Tour Finals in 2018 and his best result so far came at last month’s Farmers Insurance Open, where he finished T-13. Straka is the first-ever golfer from Austria to hold PGA TOUR status and he said he’s been feeling a lot more comfortable as the weeks have gone on. He was steady Thursday in Puerto Rico, making six birdies and one bogey. He said Thursday’s 67 was a continuation of some good play of late. “I feel like my game has been pretty good for a couple weeks,â€� he said. I had a terrible week of scoring at Pebble, but I felt like my game was pretty good, ever since Torrey, really. I played well out there. And ever since then, I have hit the ball pretty nice.â€� Behind Romero and Straka is a group of nine golfers at 4-under that includes Ben Crane, Ollie Schniederjans, Roberto Castro, Martin Piller, Roberto Diaz, Joey Garber, Nate Lashley, Alex Kang, and David Hearn. Hearn has never finished outside the top-25 in the four times he’s played this event and said given his position in last year’s FedExCup standings he’s hopeful for a good week to give him some confidence. “Good starts are always a good way to go about it,â€� said Hearn. “I feel like my game’s been really close.  I’m really close to putting together some consistent golf, so hopefully next three days, just more of what I just saw today.â€�

Click here to read the full article…

SHANGHAI — Already the FedExCup champion and PGA TOUR Player of the Year, Rory McIlroy has found plenty of motivation toward the back end of the year. Most of it is geared toward reaping rewards next year. McIlroy is coming off a tie for third last week at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, a tournament he was never going to win after a bad start. He still managed his 17th top-10 of the year out of 23 starts worldwide, inching a little closer to Brooks Koepka at No. 1 in the world. He is the leading figure at this week’s World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, as Koepka and Dustin Johnson, two regulars at Sheshan International, are home in Florida recovering from knee issues. Koepka will not play another official event the rest of the year. He withdrew from the THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in South Korea when his foot slipped on a piece of wet cement leaving a tee box and he planted hard with his left knee, which had received stem cell treatment during his offseason. He chose not to play the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, and still to be determined is whether he plays the Presidents Cup. McIlroy has won three times in 2019, including THE PLAYERS Championship and TOUR Championship, along with runner-up finishes in two World Golf Championships. He joins Tiger Woods as the only two-time winners of the FedExCup, and could become the first player to win the Cup three times and back-to-back. “I’ve achieved most things that I’ve wanted to this year,” McIlroy said. “Just want to finish the year off strongly because I feel the year that I’ve had deserves a finish like that.” McIlroy has gone four years since capturing a World Golf Championship, though he has performed well in them this year. He was runner-up to Johnson in Mexico and Koepka in Memphis and suffered a bitter loss in the fourth round to Tiger Woods at the Dell Technologies Match Play. Xander Schauffele is the defending champion at the HSBC Champions, and he’ll try to win again without much of a voice. Schauffele got sick during the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP and withdrew from the pro-am Wednesday to try to be in fighting shape. The field also features resurgent Hideki Matsuyama, who tied for third in South Korea and was runner-up to Woods last week before a frenzied gallery in his native Japan; and Justin Rose, who also wants to finish the year strong for other reasons. They won won the HSBC in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Rose, who was No. 1 in the world for the opening two months of the year, has gone the opposite direction of McIlroy. Rose hopes to get back on track at the tournament where he rallied from eight shots behind to kick off his FedExCup-winning campaign. The HSBC Champions also is the last chance for players to audition as wild-card picks for the Presidents Cup, and most everyone on the bubble is here — Tony Finau, Patrick Reed, Kevin Kisner and Chez Reavie for the Americans, a longer list of International players from Sungjae Im and Byeong Hun An of South Korea, Adam Hadwin and Corey Conners of Canada and Justin Harding and Erik van Rooyen of South Africa. Reavie is among 18 players who have gone to all three PGA Tour events on the Asia swing.

Click here to read the full article…