K.H. Lee stays patient on way to win at AT&T Byron Nelson

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The 18th of 24 contributing events for PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO is this week’s DICK’S Sporting Goods Open. It begins on Friday. Scroll for tournament notes, 17 notables and five wild cards from the field of 78 in Endicott, New York. Unlike the RBC Heritage, the Travelers Championship and the RBC Canadian Open – the first three stops following majors this season – this week’s Wyndham Championship isn’t as much of a soft landing as it’s a potential launching pad into the FedExCup Playoffs. As some of my fellow little leaguers note, it’s easy to get caught up in the motivation to succeed right now. Certainly, some guys perform best under pressure, but Sergio Garcia, to name one, is chasing both a berth in the Playoffs (he’s 131st in points) and a spot on Europe’s Ryder Cup team. Both are enormous achievements given the absence of current form and positions in both races. It’s not the kind of situation that front-running One & Doners covet despite his cachet because the Wyndham also happens to be his 15th start of the 2017-18 season. It eliminates both the concern over losing voting rights as a member and the need for the Ryder Cup to count as his 15th to retain those rights and, therefore, membership. Put it all together and it’s not the conversation we expected to have just 16 months after he broke through at the Masters. Instead, as Sedgefield Country Club hosts the final stop before the Playoffs, the smartest angle is to invest in a golfer who wants to be here but doesn’t have to be. Course history establishes reasoning for tiebreakers in a field with only a handful of strong alternatives. For most intents and purposes, Webb Simpson should have been holstered for this tournament. He’s a former winner (2011) and sits second in all-time earnings. At 12th in the FedExCup standings, he’s the only representative of the top 25 in the field. Ryan Moore (59th in the FedExCup) and Brandt Snedeker (80th) also have solid history at Sedgefield. Moore prevailed in 2009 while Sneds has four top 10s. (His victory in the Wyndham occurred at Forest Oaks Country Club in 2007.) They are the easy 1a’s to Simpson. Defending champion Henrik Stenson was in my Power Rankings, but barely at No. 15. That was a nod to the doubt of the severity of the discomfort in his elbow, but it’s fair to wonder if he’d even appear if he wasn’t defending. He’s 50th in the FedExCup in 13 starts, so there’s no concern about him falling short of the membership minimum. Still, he’s advisable only if you’re trailing by a wide margin. The doubt is your friend when you have nothing to lose. Hideki Matsuyama’s middling season slots him just 88th in the FedExCup standings (in 16 starts). The encouraging news is that he was a late entry into the Wyndham, meaning he didn’t commit until after the original deadline on Friday and before the secondary deadline 30 minutes after the conclusion of play that same day. He also has good feels at Sedgefield, most recently with a T3 in 2016. Given that he hasn’t exactly lit up in the Playoffs, consider the stars aligned to plug him in now if available. Elsewhere, both Rafa Cabrera Bello and Shane Lowry present as saviors with the finish line in view. The concern of Lowry at 139th in the FedExCup is secondary since his home circuit is the European Tour and the Playoffs could be construed as a bonus in one context. Two-man gamers who have options should align either as the tail of your tandem. From the macro point of view, if you play PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO, the Wyndham Championship is the last tournament before FedExCup points are quadrupled. If that introduces pause, fuhgeddaboudit. There isn’t anyone in the field who you are going to miss during the final four events. With total prize money of $6 million, the Wyndham also is the least lucrative of the last five. Each of the Playoffs events will distribute $9 million. So, the approach for earnings-based gamers is the same. In a recent preview, I tossed out the possibility that Patrick Reed could line up well at Sedgefield, but he didn’t commit. It’s not surprising given that the PGA Championship marked his fifth consecutive road trip. So, looking ahead, he’s now on my short list for THE NORTHERN TRUST. I have Jason Day penciled in for the Dell Technologies Championship where I suspect Ben also will burn his fellow Aussie. I’m the only Expert who hasn’t played Justin Rose, so he’s locked in for the TOUR Championship. Similarly, only I can play Tommy Fleetwood, so he might be my choice at THE NORTHERN TRUST. That would shift Reed to the BMW Championship where he’d compete with Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and others. Of course, nothing is set in stone until the week of, but it’s always important to remain fluid while constructing the grand plan. 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 2017-18. 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 tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Jason Dufner … Wyndham (6); TOUR Championship (7) Sergio Garcia … TOUR Championship (4) Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Billy Horschel … TOUR Championship (4) Ryan Moore … TOUR Championship (6) Webb Simpson … Wyndham (1) Brandt Snedeker … Wyndham (4) Henrik Stenson … Wyndham (8; defending); Dell Technologies (9); TOUR Championship (2) CHAMPIONS ONE & DONE DICK’S Sporting Goods Open This is the 12th edition of the tournament. All have been contested at En-Joie Golf Club in Endicott, New York. The course hosted the B.C. Open on the PGA TOUR from 1971-2005, although the official inaugural was in 1973. En-Joie tips at a tournament-record 6,994 yards. It’s a stock par 72, but three of the par 5s are on the front side, so the respective pars are 37 and 35. There have been 11 different champions. Amazingly, Scott McCarron is attempting to become the first to record a top 10 in his title defense. Each of the last seven winners is committed to play, as are eight of the winners of the B.C. Open. None of the winners of the DICK’S also won the B.C. Bernhard Langer, the 2014 champ, is the all-time earnings leader of the DICK’S with $485K, but Joey Sindelar is only $4K behind without a victory. He’s finished T3 twice and fourth twice. Total prize money is up $50K this year to $2.05 million. The winner will receive $307,500. 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. 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 tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Stephen Ames … Boeing (2); Shaw (7) Joe Durant … DICK’S (12); Boeing (10); Shaw (11); PURE (3); SAS (13) David Frost … Boeing (5); Shaw (8); PURE (1) Fred Funk … Boeing (6); PURE (5) Doug Garwood … SAS (1) Paul Goydos … 3M (1; defending); DICK’S (3); SAS (5) Miguel Angel Jiménez … Shaw (7); SAS (12) Bernhard Langer … Usable everywhere. Defending five titles. Jeff Maggert … Shaw (5) Billy Mayfair … Boeing (2); PURE (1) Scott McCarron … DICK’S (4; defending); Shaw (5; defending); PURE (8) Colin Montgomerie … Shaw (4); PURE (7); SAS (3; defending) Kenny Perry … DICK’S (11); SAS (2) Gene Sauers … Boeing (1) Kevin Sutherland … Usable everywhere. David Toms … Boeing (2); SAS (4) Duffy Waldorf … Shaw (5) WILD CARDS (short list of golfers not included above but on the rise or still building portfolios after recently turning 50): Paul Broadhurst; Bob Estes; Steve Flesch; Scott Parel; Wes Short, Jr.

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Jordan Spieth will make his first start of 2019, and first start as a married man, at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week.  The 2015 FedExCup winner and former world No. 1, who is trying to rebound from his worst season as a pro, wed longtime girlfriend Annie Verret last November and admitted Wednesday he expects to see some rust in his game at Waialae Country Club this week.  “This tournament was up in in the air, given I wasn’t in Maui this year,â€� said Spieth, who finished 31st in the FedExCup last season and missed the TOUR Championship for the first time in his six-year career. “I decided that I really wanted to come down here. I like the golf course a lot, the hospitality is fantastic, and the weather is perfect. “Really could come down and try out the very little work I was able to put in, but at least knock some rust off and gather some information about where I am at and hopefully make some adjustments going forward into the season.â€� Spieth slipped to 123rd in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2018, from 39th the year before and 2nd in 2016. He also struggled with his swing and said he wasted time working on the wrong thing. The result: His five top-10s in 23 starts were the fewest of his career. “I was certainly frustrated with last season results-wise compared to previous seasons,â€� he said. “It was also something I kind of embraced as an inevitable at some point in the career. “I almost took ignorance as bliss in a lot of parts of my game,â€� he added, alluding to the torrid start of his career, when he won 11 times, including three majors, all before turning 25. “I did things well, but I didn’t know why. I just did them. Then they got off, and so I had to figure out why I did them well and how to train it back.â€� Spieth said he’s now working on the right thing, but finding the time to get it grooved has been another matter. The off-season saw him spend less time on his game than on his wedding in Dallas and honeymoon in the Caribbean. As a result, he said, he’s not sure what to expect at the Sony. He was 3rd in 2017 and T18 a year ago, but returns to Waialae after “limited work.â€� “I think that was good for me,â€� he said. “I needed some time away from the game after being off and having to play through it at the end the season, and then in the fall kind of the same thing.â€� In a departure from his usual scheduling, Spieth finished T55 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, and missed the cut at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in the fall. He comes into this week at 191st in the FedExCup and 17th in the Official World Golf Ranking. “I’m a little bit behind,â€� he said, “which I can play catch up, I think, pretty easily.â€� One adjustment: What to do about that new wedding ring when gripping the club? “I’m fine with playing with it,â€� Spieth said. “It’s just my putting; when I’m cross-handed kind of jams into my grip.â€�  As a result, he said, he probably will take it off when he’s inside the ropes. “Unfortunately,â€� he said, “that means I’ll probably lose some rings, but I don’t think — as of now I don’t think I’m going to start playing with it on. Just it was putting that was the reason. Kind of odd.â€�

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