Rory McIlroy’s prediction coming true at THE CJ CUP

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Doc Redman ... He ignited a phenomenal fall for Sleepers as a whole with a T3 at the Safeway Open. It occurred a month after the same finish at the Wyndham Championship. He'd follow with a T4 at the Bermuda Championship. Needless to say, the Clemson product is unafraid of the top of the leaderboard. The American Express is his first start since turning 23 during the holiday break, and it wouldn't be surprising if he contended yet again for his breakthrough victory on the PGA TOUR. Flashing experience-laden confidence beyond his years off the tee and with his irons, PGA WEST is the kind of stage where his skill set can really shine. He carded a trio of 68s and a 70 en route to a T28 in his tournament debut last year. Sepp Straka ... With a T33 (Corales) and a T5 (Houston) as a Sleeper for each of those tournaments, the 27-year-old also did his part in delivering on elevated expectations in the fall. He's poised to do it again in the Coachella Valley where he finished T4 last year while ranking T2 in greens hit and third in scrambling. Fresh off a T25 at Waialae for his fourth top 25 of the season, he's already just one short of his total in each of first two seasons on the PGA TOUR. Wyndham Clark ... Although he's logged six starts this season, he's evidence as to why statistics are golfer-specific and skewed. Five his 20 rounds haven't been lasered by ShotLink, so his Strokes Gained analytics are misleading. Not that he cares. He put four of them together at the Bermuda Championship where he lost in the playoff to Brian Gay. With a smaller sample size contributing to his stats, the terrific putter slots an uncharacteristically low 174th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting. Assuming he improves on that, which is all but guaranteed, what's intriguing is that he's T78 in hitting greens in regulation and a reflection of all rounds played. If he can sustain even an average rank among his peers, he'd headed to a breakout season. Bermuda's close call is one of three top 25s already. A T18 in his debut at PGA WEST in 2019 is further reason why another is imminent. Harry Hall ... The first time that the Englishman appeared on the PGA TOUR, he was a Sleeper for the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open for which he was the medalist in open qualifying. He missed the cut in the tournament proper. The American Express is his second TOUR appearance. Lo and behold, here he is on this page again and he's even more deserving of the attention this time. He had connected top-15 finishes in South African immediately prior to the Farmers a year ago. Since, he's gone on to record a T2 and another pair of top 10s on the Korn Ferry Tour where he's positioned 68th in points in the combined season of 2020-21. The 23-year-old product out of UNLV is like a magnet for the hole on the greens. He's currently second on the KFT in putts per GIR, first in putting: birdies-or-better and third in scoring average. John Augenstein ... The American Express marks his debut as a professional. He concluded his decorated amateur career with a T55 at the November Masters for which he was eligible as the runner-up of the 2019 U.S. Amateur. Formerly teammates at Vanderbilt with the likes of Will Gordon and Matthias Schwab, Augenstein blazed his own trail that generated Freshman of the Year honors in 2016-17 and recognition as the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 2020. He also scaled as high as No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Because of the timing of his decision to join the play-for-pay contingent, his sponsor exemption to compete at PGA WEST projects to be the first of a handful this season. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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Rory McIlroy produced his best finish in the three tournaments since the PGA TOUR’s restart, but a tie for 12th on Sunday was hardly the confidence-booster the reigning FedExCup champ and world No. 1 was looking for at the Travelers Championship. In fact, he left TPC River Highlands frustrated and needing a break. As a result, he will definitely take next week off in Detroit at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, and may not return to action until the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, the second of two consecutive TOUR events at Muirfield Village. “The way I’m feeling right now,” McIlroy said, “I feel like a couple weeks off … just reset and start again.” McIlroy, you may recall, did not finish outside the top five in his first six starts prior to the suspension of play in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That included a win at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. But since the restart, he finished T-32 at the Charles Schwab Challenge in his first appearance at Colonial, then T-41 at the RBC Heritage in just his second career start at Harbour Town (and his first in 11 years). McIlroy was playing the Travelers for the third time in the last four years, having finished inside the top 20 in his previous two times. He has another top-20 this week, but the lasting feeling for McIlroy is frustration. “Decision-making was terrible the last few days,” McIlroy said. “Just some stupid shots and trying to take too much on at times. I think probably playing a little bit and just being a little more thoughtful on the course. Yeah, it’s just sort of dumb mistakes in there that I don’t usually make.” McIlroy’s final-round 67 on Sunday was a rollercoaster ride that consisted of three birdies on the front nine sandwiched around two bogeys, while his back nine included an eagle at the par-5 13th and a double-bogey at the par-4 17th. It was the kind of up-and-down inconsistency he had avoided prior to the break. “There’s been some really good stuff in there, but then just some really stupid mistakes,” McIlroy said. “Even today, like I got off to a good start and then bogeyed some easy holes. It’s a little too up and down, a little bit roller coaster-ish, where it didn’t really feel like that before we stopped. It was sort of quite consistent and sort of building sort of rounds very nicely, a lot of pars, a few birdies, not many mistakes. “Just over the last few weeks I’ve made too many mistakes, too many bogeys, too many loose shots, and that was sort of what it was this week as well.” McIlroy was in good shape going into the weekend, tied for fourth after rounds of 63 and 63. But he dropped out of contention after a rollercoaster – that word again – 69 on Saturday that included bogeys on two of his last four holes. He said he’s physically fine but mentally he’s trying to get back into form. “Just getting back into that tournament routine, tournament mode, and that’s why I sort of wanted a couple weeks off more than anything else. It’s just the mental aspect of it, and especially when you are frustrated,” he said. “I’ve been frustrated on the course the last three weeks, not being sort of in contention, and sort of sucks going off in the middle of the pack on a Sunday, knowing that you don’t really have a chance.”

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