Cantlay up 1 as Rahm closes gap at East Lake

MELBOURNE, Australia — Teams from Belgium and South Korea emerged from the rain, gusty winds and generally miserable conditions after a demanding round of foursomes to share the 36-hole lead at the World Cup of Golf on Friday. Belgium’s Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry shot 1-under 71 and South Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Si Woo Kim had a 72 for two-round totals of 10-under 134. Teams from Italy, India, Malaysia and England were tied for third, two strokes behind. Rain showers fell all day on Metropolitan, heavy at times, and tested the players’ patience levels in the alternate-shot format. On the 10th hole, when England’s Tyrrell Hatton’s tee shot went into the woods, he angrily smashed a tee marker with his driver. His partner, Ian Poulter, had to take a penalty drop out of the woods and the English bogeyed the hole. On the 13th, Hatton maintained his patience when he had to take a drop out of casual water in a bunker. The drop took about 10 minutes while officials determined whether the drop was legal. Hatton then hit the lip of the bunker and the ball ended up in casual water — again. Poulter played it out of the water and England bogeyed that hole but finished with a 74. Anirban Lahiri combined with Gaganjeet Bhullar to keep India near the top of the leaderboard after a 72. “I think it’s one of the toughest rounds of golf I’ve played in my career,” Lahiri said. “I think we both did really well out there and it wasn’t easy.” Australia’s Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith shot 76 and went from a tie for first to a tie for eighth. Americans Matt Kuchar and Kyle Stanley shot 79, including bogeys on their last five holes, playing like they were in a hurry to get out of the rain. That was a 13-shot turnaround from their opening 66, moving them to a tie for 21st in the 28-country field, a drop of eight places. There were only four rounds under par, but five in the 80s. The format reverts to fourballs (best ball) on Saturday before a return to foursomes for the final round on Sunday. The Mexico team of Abraham Ancer, who won last week’s Australian Open, and Roberto Diaz, had the low round of the day — 70, including a bogey on the last, their only dropped shot of the day. They finished about an hour before the later groups, when the rain became heavier. Ancer was impressed with Metropolitan’s ability to stay in decent shape despite all the rain. “I thought it was just absolutely (going to be) probably unplayable, but it was good,” Ancer said. “There were a little bit of puddles here and there, but the fairways are phenomenal. The golf course can take a lot of rain.” Temperatures were just 13 Celsius (56 Fahrenheit) when play began and only went a degree higher the rest of the day. And with winds gusting to 35 kilometers an hour (20 mph) it appeared much cooler.

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Three months, give or take a day or two. That’s how long this week’s Palmetto Championship at Congaree had taken to go from idea to reality. The open date on the PGA TOUR became available on March 9 when the RBC Canadian Open announced that it would not be played for the second straight year due to COVID-19 restrictions. RELATED: Congaree Global Golf Initiative helps pave way from high school to next level The disclosure set off a burst of activity that essentially began with a meeting in South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster’s office. Among those attending was Ty Votaw, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the PGA TOUR; Duane Parrish, director of the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism; and Bruce Davidson, co-director of golf at Congaree Golf Club. As excited as he was about the prospect of partnering with the TOUR to get more exposure for travel and tourism in his state, Parrish admits to some trepidation. “One of my questions in the meeting was can we pull off a golf tournament 90 days?” Parrish recalls. “And the answer was, yes. They said they’d done it a couple of times in 2020 when they had the move tournaments because of COVID. “And so, they gave me a lot of faith and confidence they could.” Within weeks, and with the support of the state legislature, South Carolina, which boasts more than 350 golf courses, had committed $6 million in sports marketing funds to the tournament. The Palmetto Championship at Congaree is the third TOUR event to be held in the state in the past three months, joining the RBC Heritage in April and the PGA Championship in May. Congaree owner Dan Friedkin was also on board. He had a unique golf course to showcase – a Tom Fazio design, which just opened in the fall of 2017 and has quickly climbed Golf Digest’s rankings, clocking in at No. 39 among the 2021-22 list of America’s 100 Greatest. And Congaree is second only to the Ocean Course at Kiawah in the best-in-the-state list. More importantly, perhaps, is the story of philanthropy the club has to tell with its Congaree Global Golf Initiative. The club’s roughly 200 members, who are referred to as ambassadors, are committed to identifying and mentoring deserving, underserved teenagers who want to play college golf in a three-year program that takes the rising juniors from high school to university. With the golf course and funding secured, it was time to make the Palmetto Championship at Congaree happen. The event was announced April 2, which was about the time Meghan Costello, who works for the TOUR’s Championship Management division, learned she would be the tournament director for an event that would begin on June 7. Not that the condensed timeline worried her. Earlier this year, Costello served in the same capacity for the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at the Concession – another one-time event that moved from Mexico City to Bradenton, Florida, due to logistical challenges presented by COVID in February. “Well, I’ll be honest,” she says when asked about her newest assignment. “We had just come off of running the WGC at Concession and we had about 42 days to plan that event. “So, I thought, wow — we have lots of time at about 85 days to get this one done.” Costello made her first site visit to Congaree the week after the Masters. The property, while somewhat remote — located roughly 35-45 minutes or so from Bluffton and Beaufort in South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia, – is expansive and offered many options for positioning things like the TV compound and parking as well as routing spectators. The biggest challenge, Costello says, was finding enough volunteers to work as marshals and with the ShotLink scoring system. The RBC Heritage team helped by sending out email blasts to their volunteers to see if they’d be interested in working at Congaree. Turns out more than 750 volunteers have committed, many of whom live in the Sun City retirement community in Bluffton. Spectators will be allowed – and world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who grew up in South Carolina, will undoubtedly be among their favorites. Perhaps fittingly for a walking-only course, there are no bleachers, which made set-up easier, but the state and Congaree will have hospitality tents around the 18th green. When the tournament is over, Parrish, who is on the board of the RBC Heritage, expects the economic benefit to the state to be more than $50 million. He says roughly 25% of the SCPRT marketing is centered around golf of some sort – particularly in the Lowcountry and on the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach. That marketing, though, is normally focused east of the Mississippi River. The Palmetto Championship at Congaree provides national exposure with 32 commercial spots over the four days of the event, 16 each on Golf Channel and CBS. Parrish acknowledges that seeing his state host three TOUR events in three months – along with this week’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation on the Korn Ferry Tour – probably won’t happen again in his lifetime. “Some may see South Carolina, what we have, for the first time,” says Parrish, who noted that rounds played in the state are up more than 20% over the last year. “So that’s a really big benefit for us.” Granted, the general public can’t call Congaree and get a tee time at the course that in 2018 was named Golf Digest’s “Best New Private Club.” But the telecast will offer a glimpse behind the scenes at a course that is fast developing a reputation as one of the country’s best. Davidson, who is from Scotland, compares Congaree to a heathland course like Sunningdale or Walton Heath in the United Kingdom. Think a hybrid of a links and parkland layout, with native grasses and pines and 130 acres of sandy waste areas to navigate. “It’s a Sandy subsoil, but not necessarily as undulating as linksland tends to be because it’s beside the sea,” he says. “It plays firm and fast. It’s fiery and Tom did an outstanding job. Every golf hole is different. Every golf hole is memorable. “And other than a couple of forced carries you can play golf on the ground here, which is unusual in this country.” Friedkin wanted Fazio to build a course that would have an opportunity like this to challenge the world’s best. In fact, a bid was made to host the 2026 Presidents Cup and while Medinah actually got the nod, the groundwork with the TOUR had been laid. The philanthropic mission of the club and its ambassadors meshes well with that of the TOUR, which has raised more than $3 billion for charity. Beyond the CGGI, the club, which is located South Carolina’s poorest county, is a big supporter of the local food bank and worked with the Boys & Girls Clubs to set up the Congaree Career Launch Program where high school students can learn about financial literacy and career development to prepare for the future. Congaree also built a driving range and practice area at Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School where more than 250 students now hone their skills. And the Congaree Foundation has purchased and helped refresh Sergeant Jasper Golf Club, nine-hole facility that is open to the public and where three local high school teams can play for free. With an uber-exclusive course to introduce to the world on television and a remarkable charitable story to tell, the partnership with the TOUR and the state of South Carolina was a win-win for Congaree. Now that Johnson, Brooks Koepka, et al, have arrived, the final piece of the puzzle has been played. “When those first fans come through the gate on Thursday, it’s going to be something special,” Davidson says.

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While defending champion Viktor Hovland heads to play the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession, the field of the Puerto Rico Open features a solid handful of past PGA TOUR winners, up-and-comers looking for their first TOUR victory, and the top golfers from the 2020 portion of the Korn Ferry Tour season. FIELD NOTES: Ian Poulter is the top-ranked golfer in the world teeing it up in Puerto Rico... Fellow European Ryder Cup team member Thomas Pieters along with 2021 European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington are also in the field... Eight of the top-10 golfers from the 2020 Korn Ferry Tour Points List will be playing in Rio Grande. With the Korn Ferry Tour season spreading out over two calendar years, the top-10 finishers in 2020 earned exemptions into the four alternate field events on the PGA TOUR in 2021. Taylor Pendrith, ranked second on the Points List, is the top draw... TOUR winner Smylie Kaufman is back playing a TOUR event for the first time since the 2020 Puerto Rico Open... College star Justin Suh is in the field on a Sponsor Exemption. Suh finished T14 at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship... Past Puerto Rico Open winners looking to rekindle some magic include Martin Trainer (2019), D.A. Points (2017), Alex Cejka (2015), Scott Brown (2013), and George McNeill (2012)... Other Sponsor Exemptions include college star Bryson Nimmer, Korn Ferry Tour winner Ollie Schniederjans, and 18-year-old Asian Tour star Joohyung Kim. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points. COURSE: Grand Reserve Country Club, par 72, 7,506 yards. The Tom Kite design boasts two par fives over 600 yards on the back nine, including the closer. Located east of San Juan, the course is by the sea and overlooks El Yunque U.S. National Forest. STORYLINES: Eight of the last 12 Puerto Rico Open winners made the tournament their first TOUR victory... No one has defended the Puerto Rico Open title and that streak will continue in 2021... Davis Riley is only one win away from a three-win promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour but is looking to accelerate his promotion in Puerto Rico. Riley is close with past FedExCup winner and fellow Alabama Golf team member Justin Thomas and is also roommates with Will Zalatoris, who tops the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points List but is playing the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession due to his world ranking... Martin Trainer is hoping a return to the site of his first PGA TOUR victory will see a return of good form. Trainer, the 2019 champion, has made only two TOUR cuts in his last 32 events. 72-HOLE RECORD: 267, Chesson Hadley (2014). 18-HOLE RECORD: 63, Derek Lamely (3rd round, 2010), James Driscoll (1st round, 2011), Chris Tidland (2nd round, 2011), Scott Brown (2nd round, 2013), James Driscoll (2nd round, 2014), Trey Mullinax (1st round, 2017), J.J. Henry (4th round, 2017), Martin Laird (3rd round, 2020). LAST TIME: Despite a triple bogey on the par-3 11th on Sunday, Viktor Hovland won for the first time on the PGA TOUR thanks to a chip-in eagle on the par-5 15th and an emphatic 30-foot birdie on the 72nd hole. It was the first TOUR victory for the former college and amateur superstar. He managed to hold off Josh Teater for a one-shot victory and was just one shot away from tying the all-time low score at the Puerto Rico Open despite windy and at times wet conditions. Hovland held the 54-hole lead after a Saturday 64. Kyle Stanley, Sam Ryder, and Emiliano Grillo all finished at 15-under and T3. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 2:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. (Golf Channel). Sunday, 2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. (Golf Channel). TOUR Pulse: Get the PGA TOUR app to utilize TOUR Pulse, which provides users the ability to experience a mix of content, such as video highlights, written hole summaries and stat graphics on every player after every hole they complete.

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