Leaderboard: What’s happening at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

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THE PLAYERS Championship winner Webb Simpson and fast-rising Cameron Champ headline the roster as Georgia’s Golden Isles once again serve as the backdrop to hand out one more trophy – and Sentry Tournament of Champions invitation – before the season enters its holiday break. Tournament host Davis Love III, elder statesman among pros who call St. Simon’s Island home, again leads a local lineup at least a dozen strong. Residents have yet to cheer a “true� home winner, though two of the Classic’s eight previous champions had significant ties to the island. FIELD NOTES: Patton Kizzire, the only St. Simon’s Island pro to reach the FedExCup finale at East Lake, and Zach Johnson also will fly the island’s banner along with former PGA TOUR winners Brian Harman, Harris English, Hudson Swafford and Jonathan Byrd. … Retief Goosen, set for entry into the World Golf Hall of Fame next year, makes his second start since receiving the news. That makes it a trio with Hall of Fame credentials, along with Love and Ernie Els. … U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk makes his third consecutive start since bringing his clubs out of hibernation. … Invitations were given to LSU freshman standout Garrett Barber, who won last February’s Jones Cup at Sea Island, along with Love’s son Dru. It’ll be Dru’s third chance to tee it up on home soil. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points. STORYLINES: The race remains on to become the first man to keep the RSM Classic trophy on the island. Though Chris Kirk lived there 6 ½ years, he relocated to Atlanta months before his 2013 victory. Two years later, Kisner won while in temporary housing as his South Carolina home underwent remodeling. The closest a fulltimer has come is a pair of fourths – Love in 2012 and Harman last year. … It’s the final chance for someone to punch his ticket to Kapalua in January, a timely perk for each of the Classic’s first eight winners. … Champ, winner of the Sanderson Farms Championship, makes his first visit to Sea Island as a PGA TOUR pro. The Texas A&M alum is plenty familiar with the place, though, with the SEC Championship making an annual stop. … Champ and Sam Ryder, with a pair of top-4 finishes in the new season, are among a handful with a chance to displace Xander Schauffele atop the FedExCup standings before the holiday break. Schauffele is taking the week off. … When Austin Cook won by four last year, it was just the second time in eight editions that the winner finished more than one shot clear. Kisner holds the record with a six-shot romp in 2015. COURSE: Sea Island GC (Seaside), 7,005 yards, par 70. Framed against tidal creeks, dunes and salt marshes, the layout at the southern tip of St. Simons Island got its start as a nine-hole track built in 1929 by English architects Harry Colt and Charles Alison. Bobby Jones once described Seaside as among the best nine holes he’d ever seen. Joe Lee created the “Marshside Nine� in 1973, and Tom Fazio was commissioned to bring the two together in 1999. Seaside places a premium on shot selection and sound course management. Entrants also play one of their first two rounds at the par-72 Plantation course, which joined the format three years ago after Rees Jones fused two other nine-hole layouts into an 18-hole test. • 72-HOLE RECORD: 260, Kevin Kisner (2015). • 18-HOLE RECORD: 60, Tommy Gainey (4th round, 2012). • LAST YEAR: Cook fired a second-day 62 and held off any late threats with three birdies in his last four holes, pulling away on a windy afternoon to a four-shot romp for his first PGA TOUR victory. The Arkansas pro took a three-shot lead into the final day, but saw it reduced to one over J.J. Spaun as winds made things increasingly difficult on the Seaside layout. A bogey by Spaun at No.16 allowed Cook to enjoy a little more cushion, and Cook drained a 4-foot birdie at No.15 to start his closing flourish. Cook, who finished with a 67, broke into the winner’s column in just his 14th TOUR start and fourth of his official rookie season, becoming the fifth player to win the Classic in his first pro visit to Sea Island. Brian Gay was another stroke back in third. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Thursday-Sunday, 1:30-4:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). PGA TOUR LIVE: None. RADIO: Thursday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com).  

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – With its new May date, leaving August to the FedExCup Playoffs, the PGA Championship represents the exact mid-way point in golf’s new Season of Championships, five big tournaments over five months. PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh spoke of how the new schedule improves the “cadenceâ€� of the season. PGA of America President Suzy Whaley said the PGA Championship’s new date coincides nicely with the start of the golf season. All of these things, while positives, have required a certain adaptability and good cheer. Then there’s PGA of America Chief Championships Officer Kerry Haigh, whose job has changed most of all. He laughed about waiting for spring, and wondering nervously if it would ever come. “Thankfully for all of our lives,â€� Haigh said, “that’s happened.â€� Bethpage features 25 acres of fairway, 35 acres of primary rough, and 78 bunkers, approximately eight acres of sand. There’s just one water hazard, at the 210-yard, par-3 eighth hole. The tees and fairways are poa annua and ryegrass, the greens a mix of poa annua and bentgrass. Fans who tune into CBS’s coverage will get to see all of that in living color, mostly green. RELATED: Tee times | Power Rankings | Expert Picks | Tiger ‘rested and ready’ | Wednesday notebook What they won’t see is the behind-the-scenes race to make it that way. The MVPs here are mostly Bethpage Director of Agronomy Andrew Wilson, Black Course Superintendent Mike Hadley, and Haigh. Those three and their staffs had a growing season of only about four weeks in which to make this vaunted, A.W. Tillinghast design tournament-ready. That’s not a lot of time, but they seem to have pulled it off. “It’s in beautiful shape,â€� said Jordan Spieth. “The greens are just immaculate.â€� That’s been a common sentiment. But how did that happen? Planning was the key. In preparation for spring 2019, Haigh, Wilson and Hadley began in spring 2018. When would the grass come in? When could they aerate and top-dress? Could they skip any steps? What could be done in order to get the course ready as fast as possible? “We knew sort of what happened, when it happened,â€� Haigh said. “We adjusted our agronomic plans that normally are done in the spring, moved some of those to the fall and didn’t do some of the things you normally do in the spring knowing that it was such a short period.â€� Case in point, agronomist Wilson said he noticed during last year’s “practice runâ€� (his words) that some of the grass on the course was still straw-colored or dormant on May 1. To accelerate the greening process, he brought the soil moisture up, which better retained the heat. “A little trick,â€� he said. Moisture has been plentiful this week, but with its sandy soil, Bethpage has drained well. Haigh and company, with additional manpower from volunteer superintendents from 16 states and six countries, were able to do little more than mow and roll the greens with the heavy rain Sunday and Monday. They planned to “topâ€� or cut the rough on Wednesday. Players have emphasized the importance of hitting fairways while not sacrificing distance on a course that measures 7,459 yards but may in fact play even longer than that in the damp cold. “I think it’s going to be interesting for everyone, definitely the course this week, but maybe going forward, as well,â€� said Italy’s Francesco Molinari. “… If you think about the last few U.S. PGAs, it was seriously warm, and we haven’t got any of that this week.â€� Defending champion Brooks Koepka called Bethpage a sort of PGA/U.S. Open mashup. To take it further, the Black will have not just elements of the U.S. Open (the first major to come here, in 2002), but also The Open Championship (weather) and THE PLAYERS Championship (date). But Haigh, whom Rory McIlroy called the best course set-up man in the business, will give it the PGA imprimatur. That means keeping it fair, and not becoming the story. “Our number one aim is not to get in the way of the best players,â€� he said. “Let them showcase their skills, make it tough, make it fair, make it challenging, hopefully at times make it exciting, and hopefully make the players think because I think if any golfer is given the ability to think, then they enjoy their game more and they enjoy the challenge of that golf course more.â€� Waugh conceded that certain courses in the Northeast may need to be reevaluated, while others in the Southeast might be brought back into the fold. In the end, he anticipated a net gain. “We think we’re great here,â€� he said of Bethpage. The course is ready. Now it’s just a matter of which of the 156 players are.

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