The First Look: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open

NORTON, Mass. – Stewart Cink has learned his lesson. He promises to look at his projected FedExCup position down the stretch in Monday’s final round of the Dell Technologies Championship. Two years ago, he didn’t look at the projections. Playing the final round of THE NORTHERN TRUST, Cink arrived at the par-4 18th hole at Plainfield Country Club in great shape to take the next step in the FedExCup Playoffs. Cink, who had started the week ranked 116th, was projected inside the top 100. His caddie asked if he wanted to know where he stood. Cink was emphatic. “No!� The 18th was playing at 307 yards that day. Cink figured an aggressive approach on a drivable par-4 offered favorable odds. He took out driver … and hit a poor shot left into “the weeds,� Cink recalled. His second shot found the other side of the green. He pitched to 14 feet and missed the par putt. The bogey dropped him nine spots on the leaderboard – and dropped out of the top 100. He finished at 102nd in the FedExCup standings, two points behind Jason Kokrak, the No. 100 player who had missed the cut that week. Had Cink made par, he would’ve finished in the mid-90s in points and moved on to TPC Boston. When Cink told his wife Lisa about not wanting to know where he stood, she was just as emphatic in her reaction – only with a different spin. “You always want to know!� she said. Cink entered this week ranked 81st in points, leaving him outside the bubble for the top 70 advancing to the BMW Championship. After rallying from a poor start in Friday’s first round – he was 4 over through his first eight holes before getting back on track with an eagle – Cink is now in position after his second consecutive 68. He’s tied for 14th at 6 under – and projected to 61st in FedExCup points. Cink has not reached the third leg of the FedExCup Playoffs since 2010, the year after his win at The Open Championship. He hasn’t played in the TOUR Championship since 2009. It would be a tremendous story if he gets that far. After all, not only is he a member at East Lake, but he’ll be honored that week as the Payne Stewart Award winner. Is it difficult to keep East Lake out of his mind? No, Stewart said. “I’m having a lot more difficult time not thinking about Chicago,� he added. “East Lake’s not even in my mind to put out. That’s not a problem.� Cink was planning to huddle with his caddie prior to Monday’s final round to discuss their game plan. If the scenario boils down to the final few holes and Cink remains in contention to advance, there will be no question. He will want to know where he stands. “I’ve seen the other side,� Cink said, “and it cost me.� BUBBLE WATCH Here are the players who are projected to move inside and outside the top 70 that will advance to the third leg of the FedExCup Playoffs, the BMW Championship. QUOTE OF THE DAY I would look at winning the FedExCup like winning a major. I think it’s become that big. I think a lot of players, because it’s a season-long race, I feel like it’s got a lot of meaning. TOP 5 WATCH The Top 5 players entering the TOUR Championship will control their own destiny at East Lake. Here’s a look at how the current top 5 fared Saturday at the Dell Technologies Championship. 1. Dustin Johnson (66). Bogey-free round ended with a flourish – four birdies in his final five holes. Tied for seventh at 9 under. Projected to second. 2. Jordan Spieth (66). Suffered his first bogey on TPC Boston’s front side this week; otherwise a productive day. Tied for fourth at 10 under. Projected to third. 3. Justin Thomas (63). Posted his second consecutive bogey-free round; in fact, he has played 40 holes since his last bogey. Co-leader at 12 under. Projected to first. 4. Hideki Matsuyama (70). Produced his lowest score of the week but still giving up ground to the leaders. Tied for 36th at even par. Projected to fifth. 5. Jon Rahm (67). Entered the third round with the lead but three bogeys on the back nine dropped him off the pace. Tied for seventh at 9 under. Projected to sixth. Projected into the top 5 – Co-leader Marc Leishman, who started the week 20th in points, is projected to fourth. FEDEXCUP NOTES Paul Casey is again in position to win at TPC Boston, just like he was last year. In fact, he has finished inside the top five in four consecutive FedExCup Playoffs events, and has seven top-10s in 15 starts. Asked why the Playoffs seem to bring out the best of him, Casey said: “The end of the season is near. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know. I like the fact there’s a conclusion, I really do. I do like the volatility. I like the fact you can move up and there’s genuinely something to play for.� … The three players currently projected to move from inside to outside the cutline have few strokes to make up. Anirban Lahiri only needs to make up one stroke; Russell Knox two strokes, and Kevin Tway three strokes to keep their positions inside the top 70. … Five rookies are currently projected inside the top 70 in points – Wesley Bryan, Xander Schauffele, Mackenzie Hughes, Ollie Schniederjans, Grayson Murray and Patrick Cantlay. Schauffele and Schniederjans missed the cut on Saturday, but the other four will pick up points. Murray (T4) and Cantlay (T9) will begin the final round inside the top 10 on the leaderboard. “I’m going to have to go out there and play my ‘A’ game,� said Murray, noting the big names packed at the top of the leaderboard.

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Sources told ESPN that Tiger Woods has crush injuries of both lower legs, including a compound fracture and a shattered ankle. He was undergoing surgery at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif — Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current NFL commentator Tony Romo, fresh out of the broadcasting booth at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, is set to play in the 2019 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this week. In a field full of celebrity golfers, he’s arguably the most competition-tested. Romo made his PGA TOUR debut in 2018 at the Corales Resort and Club Championship in the Dominican Republic, although he missed the cut following a second-round 82. Being a high-level player without an equipment contract, the clubs Romo chooses to use are particularly noteworthy. Below, I take you through the clubs and shafts in his bag this week, along with insight from two different equipment TOUR reps. Driver, fairway wood and hybrid After calling the Super Bowl game on Sunday, Romo was out on the Pebble Beach range on Monday afternoon, braving the rainy and windy 40-degree weather for a practice session. He hit buckets and buckets of wedges and irons, and he eventually broke into a driver testing session. He showed up to the range with a TaylorMade M3 driver and a Fujikura Atmos Blue shaft, but he tested a TaylorMade M5 with a Fujikura Ventus 7X shaft in it, under the supervision of Fujikura TOUR rep Patrick McCoy. I caught up with McCoy for his insight on how the testing session went: “The driver that we made him was standard, 45.75 inches end of grip, (swing weight) D3, which was his gamer specs with the Atmos Blue,â€� McCoy told me. “We had him try a Ventus 7X in a 10.5 (degrees) M5… as we went thru the fitting we slowly opened up the face a little bit and then moved the weights a little bit forward, which lowered his launch and then also eliminated some spin. His misses were either low on the face or high on the face, but at the same time he was kind of working on his golf swing… I have not worked with him on a launch monitor in a while, but he’s gotta be over 170 ball speed… we know Ventus was a little bit weaker in the handle for him, and you could see that in transition, he’s got a very fast move from top to bottom.â€� As McCoy explains, Romo is currently making changes to his golf swing with teacher Chris O’Connell. “His body has a tendency to outrace his hands at times, which changes his low point of impact, or the bottom of his arc,â€� McCoy said. “He wants to feel like he’s more level and he’s still driving. That’s his miss, the handle gets up, shaft droops, and the face gets open. So (his miss is) high on the face where there’s more loft, or low on the face … he knows how to fix it and that’s awesome that he can make the changes. He likes to see it fall a little bit right. His misses are probably a little on the spinny side, but at his speed, that’s OK because it keeps him in the fairway. Or when he’s off, he’s just a little off … Once he got where he liked the face angle, he said the shafts — both Atmos and Ventus — felt good. They felt stable… it looked like he tended to bend the Ventus a little bit more from the top, yet it didn’t sacrifice anything at the bottom with his impact location and his face direction.â€�  It will be interesting to see which driver – the TaylorMade M3 with a Fujikura Atmos Blue shaft, or the TaylorMade M5 with a Fujikura Ventus shaft — Romo ends up using come competition time on Thursday. It should be noted that the Ventus comes stock in a Dallas Cowboys’ colorway. To fill out the top end of his bag, Romo is using a Callaway Rogue 3+ fairway wood with a Mitsubishi Diamana W-series 70X shaft, and a Titleist 818H2 hybrid with a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90HY shaft. Mizuno irons, per usual Jeff Cook, a Mizuno TOUR rep, told me that he and Romo go way back to when Romo was just a second-string quarterback for the Cowboys, and he had a “hodge podge set of clubs.â€� Romo and Cook met through Cook’s college roommate, who was a General Manager of Trophy Club, a country club in Dallas, at the time. “We actually had a cookout at my buddy’s backyard (in Dallas) and Tony came over,â€� Cook told me. “I didn’t even know who he was, because he was the second string quarterback. He came over, we had a cookout, and we ended up throwing the football in the backyard, talking golf. And then we ended up playing golf while I was down there. He was good. I mean, he’s always been basically a scratch golfer, and obviously a gifted athlete. And that’s how it all started. He didn’t really have any clubs, he had kind of a hodge podge set of clubs. And I took care of him on Mizuno clubs. He’s been in our clubs ever since he came to Dallas.â€� Flash forward to 2019, and Romo is using a combo set of Mizuno MMC MP-18 irons (4-6 iron) and MP-18 blades (7-PW), each equipped with Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 120 shafts. Jordan Spieth’s wedge You may recognize Romo’s Titleist Vokey SM7 wedge; it’s a hand-me-down from Jordan Spieth. “He’s best friends with Jordan,â€� Cook said. “He plays a lot with Jordan at the same club, they play all the time at home. When Jordan gets done with his and gets new ones, he gives them to him, or whoever else he gives them to.â€� In addition to the 60-degree, University of Texas-stamped “JSâ€� wedge, Romo also has a 50-degree SM6 F-Grind and a 56-degree V-grind Vokey prototype. The 60-degree wedge has a Project X 6.0 shaft, while the 50- and 56-degree wedges have a True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft in them. Tiger Woods’ putter Romo is also the recipient of another hand-me-down golf club from a champion golfer. Inside Romo’s bag is one of Tiger Woods’ old Method 001 putters, stamped with Tiger Woods on the hosel, Woods’ classic dot alignment aid on the topline, and a blacked-out Ping putter grip. It’s the same style putter that Woods used to win THE PLAYERS Championship in 2013.

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