Jon Rahm withdraws from the Memorial Tournament after testing positive for COVID-19

Each week during the fall, PGATOUR.COM will highlight one of the rookies playing on the PGA TOUR during the 2019-20 season. This week: Kristoffer Ventura, who’s in this week’s field at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Age: 24 Birthplace: Puebla, Mexico Resides: Norway; Palm Beach Gardens, Florida College: Oklahoma State TOUR card gained by: Finishing 8th in the Korn Ferry Tour regular season standings. TOUR starts/Best finish: 9 (including five this season). Best finish was T18 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open this fall. Has made three of five cuts this season. Pro highlights: Began last season with no status on Korn Ferry Tour but got sponsor exemption and finished T3 at BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation. … Shot a final-round 65 and beat Joshua Creel on third playoff hole at last season’s Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank, his first victory on the Korn Ferry Tour. … After two straight missed cuts, notched second victory at the Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Chevrolet, giving him two wins in just four weeks and his PGA TOUR card for this season. … Followed Pinnacle Bank win with a solo third at WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by KraftHeinz. … His first top-20 of his career was a T18 this fall at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, as he shot four rounds in the 60s to finish at 15 under. Amateur highlights: Along with fellow newly minted TOUR pros Matthew Wolfe and Viktor Hovland, Ventura was a member of the Oklahoma State team that won the 2018 NCAA national championship. … Played for losing European team in the Junior Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in 2010, when Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas played for the U.S. squad. Interesting tidbits: Started playing golf at age 2 when he received a set of plastic clubs for Christmas. … Estimates he won 25 consecutive junior events from age 6-11 in Mexico. … Father is Mexican, mother is Norwegian, and the family moved from Mexico to Norway when he was 12 to help with his golf development. … When he broke through at the Utah Championship, it was only his fifth career start on the Korn Ferry Tour and third of 2019. … Needed appendectomy just days before Q School last fall and wound up missing his Korn Ferry Tour card, necessitating Monday qualifiers. … Speaks three languages fluently (English, Spanish, Norwegian). Ventura says: “Everything we did in Mexico came out of my parents’ own pockets. They really sacrificed a lot. In Norway, those supporting me took me under their wing and I was able to travel the world and develop. Without that, I wouldn’t have played college golf. I wouldn’t be here.� For more on Kristoffer Ventura, click here.

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KAWAGOE, Japan – A last-minute flight and lack of a practice round weren’t enough to keep Patrick Reed from excelling in a red, white and blue uniform. Despite arriving in Japan on the eve of the Olympics’ first round and not hitting a shot before Thursday’s opening tee ball, Reed fired 68 on Thursday. It matched the low score among the four-man U.S. contingent – Xander Schauffele also shot 3 under – and left him in a tie for 12th place, five shots back of Sepp Straka. RELATED: Leaderboard, tee times | How the format works | How to watch Reed has wholeheartedly embraced the Captain America moniker he earned early in his career with his heroics in international team competitions. That’s why he didn’t hesitate when he found out about another opportunity to play for the United States. Reed was informed Saturday about Bryson DeChambeau’s positive COVID-19 test, shortly after finishing his third round at the 3M Open. Reed said it was “a duty of mine to go out and play for our country … whenever I get the call.” Because of the plethora of paperwork needed to enter Japan during a pandemic, Reed only got 35 minutes of sleep before his flight to Tokyo early Tuesday. “I actually almost feel like that helped me because it allowed me to go to sleep on the plane and get on the (Japan) time zone,” he said after Thursday’s round. “I slept through the night last night.” He arrived in Japan on Wednesday but didn’t have time to hit a shot at Kasumigaseki. He toured the course in a golf cart, driving the final four holes in darkness. “I felt good today coming out and … the swing actually held in there all day,” Reed said. “A couple mistakes out there, not really knowing spots to hit it, kind of ended up in bad spots, but besides that it wasn’t too bad.” He shot bogey-free 33 on his front nine before making two birdies and two bogeys on the back nine. His bogey on 17 was an example of where his lack of preparation hurt him. He thought the green was sloping toward him, so he hit a low wedge shot with less spin. “The back part of the green actually slopes away from you, so it skipped over the green, made bogey,” he said. “If the green was running away like that, I would just hit a normal 61-degree and not worry about spinning too much.” Reed is one of four players here representing the United States. They are competing in individual stroke play but the fact that they share a uniform made players more willing to help than most weeks. There was only so much Reed could glean from his teammates, though. “JT hits it way past me. And then you have Xander, he spins his irons more than I do. Then you go to Collin and he hits cuts and I hit draws,” Reed said. Thomas shot even-par 71 with 18 pars today. He is in 41st place. Morikawa, making his first start since winning The Open, shot 69.

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SHANGHAI  — Dustin Johnson was handed a new putter 15 minutes before he teed off and shot a 9-under 63 on Friday for a one-shot lead over Brooks Koepka going into the weekend at the World Golf Championship-HSBC Champions. Johnson birdied his last four holes at Sheshan International using a TaylorMade Spider with a different insert. He was on the range when he got the new putter, rapped a few shots on the practice green and then made just about everything he looked at. Johnson, the No. 1 player in the world and winner of the HSBC Champions four years ago, was at 13-under 131. Koepka birdied his first two holes and two of his last three holes for a 68. Justin Rose shot 68 and was four shots behind.

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