Leaderboard: New frontrunner in Round 3

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Patrick Cantlay won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on Sunday in a playoff for the first victory in a PGA TOUR career mostly derailed by a severe back injury. The 25-year-old former UCLA star hit from behind a tree and got up-and-down for par from off the back of the 18th green to beat Alex Cejka and Whee Kim on the second extra hole. Cantlay bogeyed the final two holes of regulation for a 5-under 67 to get in at 9-under 275 at windy TPC Summerlin. Cejka birdied the 18th with an 18-footer for 63 more than two hours before Cantlay and Whee — who bogeyed 18 for a 66 — finished the round. The three played the 456-yard, par-4 closing hole twice in the playoff, matching bogeys the first time. Cantlay broke through to win after a remarkable return last season from the back problems. Out of golf since 2013, he didn’t miss a cut and made it to the TOUR Championship while playing only 12 events. Part of that was due to an ankle injury that slowed him for two months. Cantlay earned $1,224,000, a two-year PGA TOUR exemption and a spot in the Sentry Tournament of Champions and Masters. Patton Kizzire (64), J.T. Poston (66) and Chesson Hadley (68) finished a stroke out of the playoff. Hadley bogeyed the 18th in the second-to-last group. Beau Hossler, tied for the third-round lead with J.J. Spaun, had a 73 to drop into a tie for seventh at 7 under with Bryson DeChambeau (67) and Tom Hoge (69). Spaun played the final four holes in 5 over for a 74. He bogeyed the 15th and closed with two double bogeys to drop into a tie for 10th at 6 under.

Click here to read the full article…

ATLANTA – Corey Conners graduated from Kent State five years ago with a degree in actuarial mathematics. That education will be useful at this week’s TOUR Championship. Conners, who’s 23rd in the FedExCup standings, has four rounds to make up nine strokes on leader Justin Thomas. Players are accustomed to starting tournaments on equal footing, but an unprecedented staggered start is being used this week to reward players for their season-long performance. RELATED: How new FedExCup format works | Power Rankings | Breaking down the top 30 Actuaries analyze the financial consequences of risk. A lot of money is on the line at East Lake – the winner will receive a record $15 million — and the players, like Conners, at the back of the pack must calculate the proper way to overcome a big deficit on a demanding layout. There’s nothing to lose, and everything to gain. The only question is how to make up those strokes. Don’t expect drastically different gameplans, especially in the early rounds, though. East Lake isn’t a course that offers a lot of risk-reward opportunities. Instead, it’s a straightforward layout that rewards repetitive execution.  Plodding along with pars and taking advantage of the occasional birdie opportunity is the best way to succeed here. Professional golfers are a conservative bunch by nature, and they aren’t convinced that slamming on the gas pedal for 72 holes is the best strategy at the season finale. “I don’t think I’m really going to change my game plan too much,â€� Conners said. “I’m going to try to make a lot of birdies. Starting in this position, there’s really nothing to lose. You can’t be silly, but if I can put four really good rounds of golf together, I have a chance. I think everyone feels like they have a chance.â€� Since 1983, there have been 19 victories by players who trailed by 10 or more strokes after any round. Nine players won when trailing by 10 or more strokes with 54 holes remaining, while seven players did so with two rounds left to play.  Steve Jones (1987) and Corey Pavin (1989) won the Desert Classic after trailing by 11 shots with four rounds remaining (the tournament was 90 holes back then). Lucas Glover, who’s making his first TOUR Championship appearance in a decade, also said he won’t treat Thursday’s first round any differently. “If I can hit it at the hole, I do. If I can’t, I won’t,â€� he said. “Come Saturday, Sunday, it might change things, but I don’t think Thursday is going to be that much different.â€� Glover is one of five players who will start the TOUR Championship at even par, 10 shots behind Thomas. Jason Kokrak, Charles Howell III, Louis Oosthuizen and Bryson DeChambeau will join him in a tie for 26th place, at the bottom of the leaderboard. Glover is accustomed to spotting players strokes back home at The Bear’s Club in Jupiter, Florida. He gives his most frequent playing partner four shots a side. But now he’s giving shots to some of the best players in the world. He’s eight shots behind Patrick Cantlay, seven shots back of Brooks Koepka, trails Patrick Reed by six shots and is five behind Rory McIlroy. Howell is one of the game’s most analytical players. He knows the odds aren’t in his favor. “Frankly speaking, I haven’t beaten Brooks Koepka much starting level with him,â€� Howell said. Reaching the top spot on the leaderboard may seem like an impossible climb, but this week’s top-heavy purse incentivizes players to try to make a move. For the players at the bottom of the leaderboard, the benefits of moving up a spot far outweigh the consequences of a dropped shot. That’s why Golf Channel’s Roger Maltbie sees only one option for the pursuing pack. “I would think those guys 10 back, yeah, they’ve got to come out and play aggressively. They have to,â€� he said. “That’s the job they have to get done. What the heck, if it doesn’t work, they’re not walking out of here busted.â€� Second place this week pays $5 million. Third place earns $4 million, while fourth place earns $3 million and the No. 5 finisher takes home $2.5 million. Eight players will earn more than $1 million this week. Last place is worth $395,000. The fact that this is the last event of the season – with nothing to play for beyond this week – and the worst-case scenario is a paycheck of nearly $400,000 should give the pursuers an increased sense of freedom. Mark Broadie, the inventor of the TOUR’s Strokes Gained statistics, summed it up succinctly: “There’s nothing to lose, so players should be slightly more aggressive.â€� The people like Broadie who dig through the ShotLink data to help players formulate their strategies do recommend players take a different approach this week. There’s only so much a player can do, especially at East Lake, to try to force a lower score, though. At the end of the day, it’s about getting as many birdie putts as possible and hoping the putter gets hot. East Lake is a rather straightforward design where players have traditionally hit a lot of drivers. There aren’t a lot of holes where a player must decide between playing safe with a fairway wood off the tee or taking a risk with a driver to gain an exponential advantage. Most of the holes are fairly straight and there are very few penalty areas in play off the tee. Jake Nichols of the golf analytics firm 15th Club recommended that the pursuers should make the driver their default pick off the tee. The exception would be a hole where a bunker or penalty area severely narrows the landing area. “There’s not a ton of downside for Jason Kokrak to pump it out there,â€� he said. “Top five on the leaderboard is what guys should be targeting. That’s where the big money is. “This week, if you can send it or play aggressively, that’s the smart numbers play. Can you say to yourself, and believe it, that this is a totally different week?â€� Nichols also recommends that pursuers give a little extra pace to their putts to ensure they don’t leave them short. Golf statistician Richie Hunt, who works for multiple TOUR players, has found that players who trail by a large margin have a tendency to hit their putts with more speed and play more aggressively off the tee. It has to do with the economic phenomenon of loss aversion, which refers to humans’ preference of avoiding loss over acquiring equivalent gains. In other words, the pain felt from losing $5 outweighs the joy of finding the same amount of money. Hunt found that players who squeaked inside a cut line played more aggressively than those who started the weekend with the lead, especially a large one. The players who barely make a cut have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The opposite is true of players who are nervous about the embarrassment of blowing a big lead. He thinks that phenomenon will continue this week. The leaders could be anxious about losing to their peers after spotting them strokes. He recommends that players aim their approach shots closer to the flag, but not by much. He has a ratio that determines a TOUR player’s average proximity from the hole for any distance between 80 and 220 yards. Just multiply the yardage by 0.18 (for example, 150 yards x 0.18 = 27 feet). Multiplying the distance by 0.15 gives a good estimate for how many feet offline a player hits his shots from any distance (150 yards x 0.15 = 22.5 feet). “For a player in this situation (at the bottom of the TOUR Championship leaderboard), I would play closer to the average off-line versus the average proximity,â€� Hunt said. “If you have a pin that’s 23 feet from the edge of the green, I would probably fire at that flag. If I was playing it more toward the proximity to the hole, I wouldn’t aim at a flag unless it was 27 feet from the edge of the green. I would aim it a little more toward the center of the green.â€� Players who from 150 yards start aiming at flags that are five paces off the edge of the green have crossed the line to recklessness. “With the way dispersion and probabilities work, reckless to me is any time luck plays a larger role than skill,â€� Hunt said. “A lot of it comes down to execution still.â€� At the end of the day, the best strategy is the same two words that offer the solution to any problem faced by a professional golfer: play better. Better results during the rest of the season would have more benefit than any strategy employed at the season finale. “You can’t intentionally make 10 extra birdies without getting bit in the ass some,â€� said Scott Fawcett, whose DECADE system helps players plot a course-management strategy. “You’re not going to make enough birdies to offset the increased amount of bogeys. “I always tell people who are 3 down with three holes left that they should have played better on the first 15 holes. There’s nothing you’re going to do to offset that. You should have played better the rest of the year. All you can hope for now is a hot putter and a little positive variance with your approach-shot dispersion.â€�

Click here to read the full article…

It’s mid-November, this is the last Fantasy Insider of the calendar year and The RSM Classic is the final stop before we welcome the holiday break, so there’s a lot to review. • While ShotLink will be utilized to measure every stroke on the Seaside Course at Sea Island Resort, because the technology isn’t being used on the Plantation Course, shot values on Seaside will not be contributing to PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. The same twist will apply at the Desert Classic, Farmers Insurance Open and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, all events contested over multiple courses with ShotLink used only on the host course. • Segment 1 of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO concludes this week. Fore What Its Worth leads all gamers with 4,512 points. Hackerbrats sits alone in second with 4,491. GUNGA GALUNGA14 and Wally-ShirleyTeam share third at 4,487 points apiece. Every Segment champion receives a driver valued at $499, while every Segment runner-up will win a putter that retails at $349. • Because the Plantation Course is a par 72 with four par 5s and Seaside is a par 70 with the standard pair of par 5s, consider balancing your lineup to include three golfers in each draw, and then max out on six starts on Plantation during the first two rounds. Given the fine lines between first, second and so on, both overall and in league play, every opportunity on which to capitalize is critical. • Once The RSM is in the books, the Web.com Tour graduate reshuffle category will reorder for the first time this season. For full-season gamers who have the power to make drop-adds, this is one of the busiest times because playing time for those in the bottom half or so will be reduced through late April. Every season is unique, but consider that just two years ago, Joel Dahmen started near the bottom of the category and went 0-for-2 in the fall. He then cracked the fields at only the Desert Classic, Pebble Beach and Puerto Rico until field expanded to 156 two weeks after the Masters. This season’s schedule is different, and the earlier and more regular schedule of the Web.com Tour will attract guys who aren’t getting into concurrent PGA TOUR events, so your leashes on investments that won’t have panned out this fall should be shorter than ever. • The European Tour’s season concludes at this week’s DP World Tour Championship. When it does, the top 20 in the Race to Dubai standings will earn an exemption into the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. The top 30 will be exempt into The Open Championship. This is fertile ground for salary gamers with eyes on the horizon who also can make in-season moves. • The Open Qualifying Series for The Open Championship begins with this week’s Emirates Australian Open. The top three inside the top 10 who aren’t already exempt into the season’s final major will gain entry. All 13 events contributing to the Series have been slotted in REMAINING QUALIFYING CRITIERIA on the page dedicated to Qualifiers. • Because this is the last FI of 2018, all of the birthdays between now and the FI for the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Jan. 1 are listed chronologically at the bottom of this column. • As for me in the interim, I’ll have full-field Power Rankings for next week’s World Cup of Golf and the Hero World Challenge the week after. You’ll also see me contributing to the annual Top 30 series throughout December. It’ll include fresh analysis, insight and opinion. Of course, you can always connect with me via Twitter (public or private) and in the discussion threads beneath pages with my byline. (I hope to have email up and running again in 2019.) As always, and with the most sincerity that I can convey, thank you for your loyalty as a reader, gamer and fan of the PGA TOUR. Wishing you and yours an outstanding holiday season! PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO My roster for The RSM Classic (in alphabetical order): Stewart Cink Lucas Glover Charles Howell III C.T. Pan Webb Simpson J.J. Spaun You’ll find my starters in Expert Picks. Others to consider for each category (in alphabetical order): Scoring: Bud Cauley; Cameron Champ; Austin Cook; Chesson Hadley; Keith Mitchell; Seth Reeves; Sam Ryder Driving: n/a Power Rankings Wild Card Michael Thompson … Could’ve been in the Power Rankings, but this is fine. He’s fully exempt as a Web.com Tour graduate, but if he finishes no worse than solo 16th at The RSM Classic, he’ll be promoted to the Major Medical category for the remainder of the 2018-19 season. This is his second and final start via a medical extension for which he needs 52.977 FedExCup points to fulfill its terms. He picked the perfect spot to burn it since he’s 4-for-5 on Sea Island with four top 20s, including in each of the last two editions. Draws Bill Haas … In the field on merit via conditional status, he carries a modest consecutive cuts made streak of four in with him. It includes a pair of top 15s to open the season. They also were his first two starts after having surgery on his right knee after the Wyndham Championship in August. He’s 4-for-5 at Sea Island with a runner-up finish in the inaugural edition in 2010 and another two top 25s. Bottom line, this is simply another opportunity to contribute to faithful gamers who understand that his potential far exceeds all long-term concern. The last 11 months or so have been as challenging to him physically and emotionally as any throughout his career. Sam Ryder … Every gamer’s shiny new toy at the moment, and rightfully so. With four top 10s sprinkled into his current streak of nine straight paydays, and with virtually zero baggage as he launches his sophomore season, he’s going to be loved. One school of thought is that it’s more sensible to abstain and let your opposition who’s wearing the rose-colored glasses ride the wave. If he doesn’t wipe out, tip your visor, but you’re not going to lead with him, anyway. I like him best as a defensive measure in aggressive DFS. Patrick Rodgers … Since skipping the Playoffs in favor of a wedding in Europe, he’s hung up a pair of top 25s. He’s also one of the most underrated good putters on TOUR, and that matters at Sea Island. A T10 here two years ago is evidence that he can tackle both courses. This week’s appearance is his fourth. Hudson Swafford … Among the throng of locals who are staples of this tournament. Since breaking onto the PGA TOUR in 2013-14, he hasn’t missed an edition, although he’s missed two cuts (2013, 2015). Perfect in his last seven starts dating back to late July, so he’s sneaky complementary material in DFS. Joel Dahmen … This will put to the test his profile as a performer in a shootout. It didn’t materialize in his first two tries at Sea Island, but he’s on another plane today. Could be a game-changer in DFS as a result. Ryan Armour Brice Garnett Chesson Hadley Whee Kim Keith Mitchell Joaquin Niemann Ted Potter, Jr. Richy Werenski Fades Chris Kirk … His record at Sea Island essentially is identical to Kevin Kisner’s. Both are former winners with two T4s. Kisner appeared in Monday’s Power Rankings in part because he’s been known to spike with some regularly, whereas Kirk is a known commodity who surges. This is to say that he’s a better long-term own even as he presents wonderfully on course history alone this week, but he’s fared no better than a T35 (Dell Technologies Championship) in his last seven starts. Zach Johnson … He finished T8 here last year and twice before in the top 20, but he’s not a short-lister in a shootout. His value is directly proportional to par. What’s more, he’s back in a lull without a top 30 in four straight starts. No question he’s comfortable in the Golden Isles – this is a home game – and even though Damon Green returns to the bag this week, use ZJ in defensive schemes only. Brian Harman … This isn’t too hard, but it should be. In 10 starts over the last four months, he’s failed to find a top-35 finish. Only three resulted in a top 50. The Savannah, Georgia, native loves it at Sea Island, and he finished T4 last year, but he was on a heater at the time. He missed the cut in the previous two editions. Trey Mullinax … The St. Simons Island resident is 2-for-3 at The RSM Classic, but he’s 0-for-3 this season and has only one top-50 finish in 11 starts over the last five months. Jon Curran … Exhausting the final start on his Major Medical Extension during which he’s made only one of 17 cuts, and that was but a T75 at the no-cut CIMB Classic a month ago. Even a runner-up finish at The RSM Classic (worth 300 FedExCup points) wouldn’t be enough to meet the terms as he’s 303.115 points shy. Short of that, he’d need no worse than a three-way T2 (worth 208.333 points) to secure conditional status for the remainder of 2018-19. He’s 206.315 short of that secondary objective. If he fails, he’ll lose his PGA TOUR status. Sam Burns Jason Dufner Andrew Landry Ollie Schniederjans Kevin Streelman Nick Watney Returning to Competition Sam Saunders … A sore back forced him to withdraw on just his third hole of the second round in Mexico last week. He had survived five straight cuts dating back to the Barracuda Championship in August. If he starts a new streak on Sea Island, it’ll be an upset given he’s just 1-for-4 with a T57 in 2016. Will MacKenzie … The 44-year-old hasn’t shown in a PGA TOUR event since the 2017 Travelers Championship. News hasn’t surfaced to detail what’s prevented him from appearing, but he’s tried to play five times on the Web.com Tour since. He missed the cut three times and withdrew during the other two. Now in his second season with a medical extension in the reshuffle category to earn 238.357 FedExCup points in six starts, he presents as a sleeper in the deepest of full-season salary formats. Expectations are virtually zero right now, of course, but it was only four years ago that he lost in a playoff at Sea Island. Ben Martin … Making his first start since shutting it down in late June due to ongoing discomfort in his back. He finished 150th in the FedExCup standings, and then was given a Minor Medical Extension to begin 2018-19. Because his time away extended beyond four months, his medical was modified to a Major, so he’ll play out of that category in his next seven starts beginning at The RSM Classic. If he earns 111.322 FedExCup points in the first seven, he’ll retain status. If he falls short, he’ll tumble into the conditional status category for the remainder of the season. Despite his break, odds are decent that he’ll take a bite out of his goal as he’s 3-for-5 at Sea Island with a pair of top 25s. Therefore, treat him as a smart flier for fractional DFS purposes. Greg Chalmers … Scheduled to appear in this week’s Emirates Australian Open in his homeland, it’ll mark his first live action in over five months. Like with Martin above, Chalmers started the 2018-19 on a Minor Medical Extension but was promoted to the Major Medical category after four months elapsed. Whenever he returns to the PGA TOUR, the lefty has seven starts to collect 244.707 FedExCup points and retain status. He’s 133.385 points from the minimum for conditional status. Turned 45 in October. Henrik Stenson … Slated to peg it at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. It’ll be his first competition since he has surgery on his left elbow on Oct. 11. K.J. Choi … I overlooked his return at, where else, the Hyundai Insurance KJ Choi Invitational on the Korean PGA in late October. He missed the cut. The 48-year-old has a Major Medical Extension on the PGA TOUR affording nine starts to earn 267.570 FedExCup points. Notable WDs Chez Reavie … Off to a flying start with one top 10 among five paydays in as many events. Sits 30th in the FedExCup standings. Chris Stroud … Withdrew from last week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic before the second round with an injury to his neck. He battled a sore knee earlier this year and has four mid-tournament WDs in his last 17 starts. He’s in the last season of his multi-year exemption for winning the 2017 Barracuda Championship. Grayson Murray … Like Stroud, Murray also has withdrawn during four starts in 2018, but all of his have occurred in his last 10. Last week, he walked off El Camaleón with an issue in his back. Similar to Stroud, Murray is fully exempt this season thanks to his victory at the 2017 Barbasol Championship. Roberto Díaz … This isn’t a surprising decision given that he’s partnering with Abraham Ancer to represent Mexico in next week’s World Cup of Golf in Australia, but Díaz is just 1-for-4 with a T57 at the Shriners this season, so he’s poised to plummet in the Web.com Tour reshuffle category. Currently 24th, he’s going to lose approximately 20 spots. Power Rankings Recap – Mayakoba Golf Classic Power Ranking  Golfer  Result 1  Rickie Fowler  T16 2  Emiliano Grillo  15th 3  Gary Woodland  T41 4  Tony Finau  T16 5  Si Woo Kim  T26 6  Charles Howell III  MC 7  Aaron Wise  T10 8  J.J. Spaun  T3 9  Abraham Ancer  T21 10  Scott Piercy  T6 11  Jordan Spieth  MC 12  Ryan Moore  MC 13  Joaquin Niemann  T60 14  Chez Reavie  T26 15  J.B. Holmes  T48 Wild Card  Zach Johnson  MC Sleepers Recap – Mayakoba Golf Classic Golfer  Result Adri Arnaus  MC Adam Hadwin  T10 Viktor Hovland  MC Denny McCarthy  T41 Nick Taylor  MC Birthdays among active golfers on the PGA TOUR November 13 … none November 14 … Martin Piller (33); Talor Gooch (27) November 15 … Ben Silverman (31) November 16 … none November 17 … none November 18 … none November 19 … Kyle Stanley (31); Max Homa (28) November 20 … none November 21 … none November 22 … none November 23 … Mackenzie Hughes (28) November 24 … none November 25 … none November 26 … none November 27 … none November 28 … none November 29 … none November 30 … Smylie Kaufman (27) December 1 … D.A. Points (42) December 2 … Alex Cejka (48); Shawn Stefani (37) December 3 … none December 4 … Matt Every (35) December 5 … Ryan Moore (36) December 6 … none December 7 … Luke Donald (41); Billy Horschel (32) December 8 … Brandt Snedeker (38) December 9 … Wyndham Clark (25) December 10 … Brian Stuard (36); Wes Roach (30) December 11 … none December 12 … Nate Lashley (36) December 13 … Rickie Fowler (30) December 14 … Brian Gay (47) December 15 … Sam Ryder (29) December 16 … Trevor Immelman (39) December 17 … Tim Clark (43) December 18 … D.J. Trahan (38) December 19 … none December 20 … none December 21 … none December 22 … Richy Werenski (27) December 23 … Daniel Chopra (45) December 24 … none December 25 … none December 26 … none December 27 … Charley Hoffman (42); Lee Williams (37) December 28 … Martin Kaymer (34) December 29 … Martin Laird (36) December 30 … Tiger Woods (43) December 31 … Adam Svensson (25)

Click here to read the full article…