Prestigious Portmarnock and Pine Valley golf clubs to ditch all-male policies

Every once in a while, I’m asked to clarify how Future Possibilities is constructed. It’s the section of this weekly preview parked at the bottom and it’s reserved for notables in every field. Given the objective of PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done and every other One & Done game across the landscape, the notables comprise the short list that should command the highest ownership percentages. Confusion can occur when you consider someone like Dustin Johnson, who sits atop my Power Rankings for the Rocket Mortgage Classic. A player of his caliber is going to attract attention everywhere he plays, and that translates into him qualifying as a future possibility 100 percent of the time. However, Future Possibilities discriminates against cachet and focuses on proven course success. After all, you’re selecting only one golfer per event, and even if you’re a two-man gamer, the demarcation line for value needs to be positioned much closer to actual value of the commodity than speculative value. Only 11 golfers in the field of 156 at Detroit Golf Club appear in Futures Possibilities below, and none are followed by the Rocket Mortgage Classic because it’s an inaugural event on the PGA TOUR. Sure, we can project who might be a good fit way in advance, and I do for a handful for the majors that migrate, but without any prior experience as evidence that any golfer will commit to the tournament, long-range planning is folly for the regular non-majors. This phenomenon yields a tremendous opportunity for One & Doners in pursuit in the Motor City. Even the chalk is iffy because of the unknown. Front-runners will be all over the place despite the presence of DJ, Gary Woodland, Hideki Matsuyama and Rickie Fowler. There’s also the reality that the RMC is the 36th event of the season. Even if your league started late, there’s a decent chance that most if not all of those golfers are no longer available to opponents you are targeting. If you’re way back and still have the means, it’s time to stop talking yourself out of DJ. That patience helped get you to where you are today. And that’s it. He’s the only haymaker who makes sense on the board. This is what happens when we’re presented with mystery. To assist in determining your choice, work the remainder of the season backward. Have you reserved your favorites for the TOUR Championship, Wyndham Championship, World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational (at TPC Southwind) and The Open Championship specifically? Those tournaments will be appearing considerably in Future Possibilities in the coming weeks. (Incidentally, if you’re curious where notables who didn’t commit to the RMC make sense later, simply navigate to the One & Done preview for the U.S. Open. It’s the most recent with the most comprehensive section.) If you already haven’t, pencil in your probables. Then count how many others will need to cover the duration. Now crosscheck that result with the chalk at Detroit GC. If you’re pacing with a surplus, knock off a big name. Now is not the time to get cute. Besides, you’ve earned the right to pig out. If you’re limited, lean on a hot hand like Kevin Streelman or invest in a safe play like Ryan Moore or Kevin Kisner. For chasers, allow yourself to be aggressive because you’re guaranteed to be stalking a moving target who has no better idea than you about what might transpire. If DJ is gone, scorers like Sungjae Im, Rory Sabbatini and Jason Kokrak can take the at-bat. Let this strategy guide you this week. It’s a terrific chance to connect with the game on an organic level. If you’re not already thinking and planning like this, it’s an exercise that will assist you in applying this step consistently over time. In fact, be ready for the same advice for next week’s 3M Open. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018-19. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournaments remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Jason Dufner … Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (10) Brian Harman … John Deere (4) Billy Horschel … Wyndham (6); TOUR Championship (1) Dustin Johnson … WGC-St. Jude (6); TOUR Championship (7) Martin Laird … Barracuda (2) Hideki Matsuyama … Wyndham (7); TOUR Championship (5) Ryan Moore … John Deere (8); Wyndham (2); TOUR Championship (9) Cameron Smith … Wyndham (3) Brandt Snedeker … Wyndham (1; defending) Brendan Steele … Barracuda (3) Bubba Watson … TOUR Championship (8)

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IRVINE, Scotland — It started with a shout of “FORE LEFT!” and ended with a putt from about 7 feet that didn’t come close to finding the cup. Rory McIlroy is making an earlier-than-planned journey south to Royal Birkdale for next week’s Open Championship after missing the cut by two strokes at the Scottish Open following a 1-under 71 in his second round Friday. He was 10 shots off the lead after two days that exposed the current frailties in his wedge play and putting. It was the world No. 4’s third missed cut in his last four events — he also failed to make the weekend at the U.S. Open and last week’s Irish Open — and the latest low point in an injury-affected 2017 for the four-time major winner. “I’m just waiting for something,” McIlroy said. “Waiting for something, some sort of spark. Just something to go right, and the last couple of weeks haven’t been like that. Just got to keep plugging away and hopefully it turns around next week. “I would have loved to have played more rounds going into not just the Open but the rest of the year. But I’m sort of trying to learn as I go along.” With little wind protecting Dundonald Links, McIlroy encountered benign conditions in his bid to make up for an opening-round 74 in the Open Championship warmup but still came up short. The Northern Irishman pulled his tee shot on No. 1 into a gorse bush, only to get a free drop — because the ball was ruled to have been embedded — and get up and down from a greenside bunker. He tapped in for birdie on Nos. 3 and 5, both par 5s, and got into red figures for the first time this week with a close-range birdie at No. 7. However, he needed two shots to get out of a greenside bunker on No. 13, eventually making double-bogey there for the second straight day, and went down the par-5 18th knowing he needed at least a birdie. McIlroy pulled his approach from 220 yards into the light rough, chipped to 7 feet, but his birdie putt back didn’t break and missed by some distance. “It was a terrible putt,” said McIlroy, who has been working hard on his putting. Of his seven birdies this week, five of them came on par fives. McIlroy said he would be heading to Birkdale early to get in some practice rounds on one of the hardest courses on the Open rotation. “I’d be much more worried if I went out there and shot a couple of 76s and I’m nowhere near trying to make the cut or whatever,” McIlroy said. “The difference between shooting 1-under par and 4- or 5-under par isn’t that much of a difference. “I feel like I’m more than capable of going down there and shooting a couple of even pars or shooting something in the 60s and getting myself into contention.” Padraig Harrington (68), Callum Shinkwin (68) and Alexander Knappe (65) shared the lead, with Ian Poulter and Andrew Dodt a shot back after 69s. Rickie Fowler, playing in McIlroy’s group, shot 70 and was two strokes off the lead. Other players to miss the cut, which was at 1 under, were defending champion Alex Noren, Americans Patrick Reed and Jason Dufner, and former No. 1 Martin Kaymer.

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JEJU ISLAND, South Korea (AP) — Justin Thomas was looking at a three-stroke lead at THE CJ CUP with one hole to play Saturday, which would have set him up nicely for his second win in three years at South Korea’s only PGA TOUR event. But the 18th hole saw a big swing in the scoring at the NINE BRIDGES course. South Korean-born New Zealander Danny Lee holed a long eagle putt to finish with a 68. Thomas, who won the inaugural CJ CUP in 2017, bogeyed the 18th for a 70 and he and Lee were tied with a three-round total of 15-under 201. Australian Cameron Smith was in third place, three strokes behind, after a 68. Jordan Spieth shot 70 and was in a three-way tie for fourth, four behind. Related: Leaderboard The biggest movers Saturday were last year’s runner-up Gary Woodland and first-year professional Collin Morikawa. Their 65s moved them into a tie for seventh place which included Ian Poulter (66) and Graeme McDowell (68). Defending CJ CUP champion Brooks Koepka withdrew from the tournament before the third round after aggravating a left knee injury a day earlier when he slipped on wet concrete. J.B. Holmes also withdrew after the first nine holes of his third round with an unknown ailment. Koepka, playing his second event since stem cell treatment on the knee Aug. 25, shot a 3-over 75 on Friday at NINE BRIDGES after opening with a 69. He was 13 strokes behind Thomas in the limited-field event with no cut. “After consulting with my doctor, I have decided to withdraw from the CJ CUP and head home for further tests,” Koepka said in a statement. “I appreciate everyone’s concerns and support. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.” Koepka returned to Florida to meet with his doctors, leaving his status for the HSBC Champions in two weeks in China uncertain. He missed the cut two weeks ago in his season debut at Las Vegas. The CJ CUP is the first of three PGA TOUR events in Asia, continuing next week at The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan — which will feature Tiger Woods — and ending with the World Golf Championships event in Shanghai.

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