How Collin Morikawa can become World No. 1 at Sentry Tournament of Champions

As the PGA TOUR schedule nears a return to Southern California for its first U.S. mainland tournament of the new year, the player field for this month’s CareerBuilder Challenge is bolstered by the latest additions of 2012 and 2014 Masters champion Bubba Watson, World No. 24 and 2014 CareerBuilder Challenge winner Patrick Reed and Idyllwild, Calif. native and UC Riverside golf product Brendan Steele. This trio joins CareerBuilder Challenge ambassador and World Golf Hall of Famer Phil Mickelson – the tournament’s 2002 and 2004 winner and a three-time Masters champion, among his 42 PGA TOUR wins – and a blend of major champions, past event winners and rising stars competing for a $5.9 million purse and 500 FedExCup points at the Stadium and Nicklaus Tournament Courses at PGA WEST and La Quinta Country Club from Jan. 18-21. “Bubba is a fan favorite wherever he goes and we are thrilled to welcome him back to the CareerBuilder Challenge,â€� said Jeff Sanders, CareerBuilder Challenge Executive Director. “He is well known for his big drives, colorful personality and entertaining style. He’s a great addition to our strong player field.”  The long-hitting Watson brings his powerful, patented pink driver back to the CareerBuilder Challenge for the first time since 2011. A nine-time PGA TOUR winner, Watson previously played the CareerBuilder Challenge from 2007-11, and he was runner-up in 2010 after carding a five-round score of 29-under-par 331. Another pair of golfers who earlier committed to play in the 2018 CareerBuilder Challenge is the colorful John Daly (sponsor exemption) and World No. 4 Jon Rahm. Daly, the 1991 PGA Champion and 1995 Open Champion, will make his first event appearance since 2015. Rahm, from Spain and in his second full year on the PGA TOUR, is set to make his second start in the tournament as the highest-ranking golfer in the field. Reed currently stands as the second-highest ranked golfer in the CareerBuilder Challenge 2018 field. In 2014, the perennial U.S. Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup ace blitzed the CareerBuilder Challenge field with three consecutive rounds of 9-under-par 63 and a seven-shot lead after three rounds on the way to a winning score of 28-under 260. Other notable golfers who have stated their intent to play in the 2018 CareerBuilder Challenge include eight-time PGA TOUR winner and 2012 TOUR Championship winner Brandt Snedeker, 2010 and 2015 CareerBuilder Challenge winner and 2011 PGA TOUR FedExCup champion Bill Haas, 2016 CareerBuilder Challenge winner Jason Dufner and defending champion Hudson Swafford. 2003 CareerBuilder Challenge and Masters champion Mike Weir and 2017 CareerBuilder Challenge runner-up Adam Hadwin, creator of last year’s 59 during the tournament’s third round at La Quinta Country Club, lead the Canadian contingent at this month’s CareerBuilder Challenge. Hadwin became the ninth player to shoot a sub-60 round in PGA TOUR competition and is coming off of a career year on TOUR in which he won his only PGA TOUR event at the Valspar Championship in March. Steele already has a win under his belt in the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season as he repeated in Napa, Calif. as champion of the Safeway Open. At No. 45 in the Official World Golf Ranking, Steele is only two spots off of his career-best mark as he prepares for his homecoming at the CareerBuilder Challenge. World No. 26 and 2017 U.S. Presidents Cup golfer Kevin Kisner, World No. 27 and 2017 U.S. Open runner-up Brian Harman (T3 in the 2017 CareerBuilder Challenge) and World No. 34 Kevin Chappell round out one of the deeper fields in recent times at the CareerBuilder Challenge, annually the PGA TOUR’s first stop on its West Coast swing. Daily tickets to the CareerBuilder Challenge are only $30 and include admission to the golf tournament, Concert Series presented by H. N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation, and three on course greenside hospitality venues including the all-new 8,000 square foot Vons Fan Pavilion located on the 18th green. The CareerBuilder Challenge Concert Series presented by the H. N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation features two nights of rock and roll music with the popular Huey Lewis and the News on Friday, Jan. 19, followed by Goo Goo Dolls on Saturday, Jan. 20. The concerts will be held on the driving range at PGA WEST’s Stadium Course and are expected to start at 4:30 p.m. each day, following the conclusion of play. For more information on the CareerBuilder Challenge and CareerBuilder Challenge Concert Series presented by H. N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation and to purchase tickets, please visit www.CBChallenge.com.

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The final regular season event of the 2021-2022 PGA TOUR schedule lands at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, for the Wyndham Championship. RELATED: Expert Picks | Power Rankings The final 125 places on the FedExCup Playoffs Eligibility Points List will be determined after 72 holes this weekend. Those qualifying will head to TPC Southwind next week to kick off the FedExCup Playoffs in Memphis. Since this is regular season GRAND FINALE, time to debut the new look of this column. The focus moving forward will be on the players who play the best on this track. Need more details about the course? Read Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings. Need more details about the field and history of the event? Read Adam Stanley’s The First Look. The important statistics you have become accustomed to have not been forgotten. I’ll have another column this week focused on the key stats at Sedgefield. I’ll take a look at the crucial components of going low here and who on TOUR matches up well given their form this season. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out with suggestions/thoughts/ideas as this idea is always evolving! Sedgefield is a perfect course and Wyndham is a perfect event to debut this idea. Since 2008 Greensboro has turned to Donald Ross’ Sedgefield Country Club to host the final event of the PGA TOUR season. Kris Spence spruced the place up in 2007 before the TOUR arrived and the only other major change to the property was removing Bentgrass greens and replacing them with Champion Bermudagrass in 2012. The Par-70 layout features just two par fives and the famous back to front tilt of Donald Ross green complexes. Kevin Kisner won a six-man playoff last season and returns to defend his title. Let’s see if he gets a run in the top five horses for this course. Horses for Courses High Five Webb Simpson (BetMGM odds. Win: +2200, Top 5: +400, Top 10: +190, Top 20: -125, Top 40: -250) The Wake Forest Arnold Palmer Scholarship recipient picked up his first TOUR victory in Greensboro in 2011 and hasn’t looked back. His annually annuity has produced 12 paydays from 13 starts and nine have produced top 10 returns. The streak is currently at five and seven of his last eight visits. Outside of T72 in 2016 and T22 in defense in 2012 every other payday is T11 or better. In 50 rounds his scoring average is a scalding 66.66. Yes, his daughter is named Wyndham for a reason! Si Woo Kim (BetMGM odds. Win: +2500, Top 5: +450, Top 10: +200, Top 20: -125, Top 40: -250) The youngest winner (21) ran away to victory in 2016 on the back of setting the then course record of 60 in the second round. His five-stroke victory announced his arrival on TOUR as did his equaling of the tournament record at the time (-21). I’ll argue he set the course record after the change to Champion Bermuda and he did so by three shots, adding to his impressive totals. Kim was unable to defend his title after some niggling injuries and upon return in 2018 he missed the cut but that’s not surprising for a player ‘defending’ for the first time. He’s now rattled off 50-under par the last three seasons and picked up checks for solo fifth, T3 and P2. In 20 rounds he’s posted 65 or better eight times. Kevin Kisner (BetMGM odds. Win: +4000, Top 5: +750, Top 10: +350, Top 20: +170, Top 40: -150) The defending champion has never missed out on the weekend on his preferred surface of Bermuda at Sedgefield. His lucky number seven last season backed up his T3 from 2020 as he sits 33-under in the last two seasons. Big picture shows us he posted four top five finishes in his last five visits. I’ll point out this streak stretches back to 2014 so he’s not an annual arrival. Muscle memory is on point as 26 of 28 are rounds of par or better and 23 of 28 are in the red, including the last 15. Russell Henley (BetMGM odds. Win: +2200, Top 5: +450, Top 10: +200, Top 20: -125, Top 40: -225) Opened last year with 62 to throw down his marker after closing 63-65 in 2020 for T9. His lead ballooned to four shots at the halfway point and was three after 54 holes. Missing a four-footer at the last and signing for 71 cost him a spot in the six man playoff and resigned him to T7. There’s too many good things over the last two years to let one putt or one round cause any concern. Heck, he posted 12-under in 2019 (T31) to run his three-year total here to 42-under. Billy Horschel (BetMGM odds. Win: +2000, Top 5: +350, Top 10: +165, Top 20: -135, Top 40: -275) The veteran and former FedExCup champ hasn’t played since 2020 when he was runner up with an impressive 20-under 260. He’s now racked up four T11 or better in his last five visits to Sedgefield. Big Billy is also eight of nine in his career when it comes to cashing at the event with a career scoring average of 67.38 from 34 rounds. His last 23 rounds are par or better at Sedgefield at 66.83 and the last 12 of those… well that’s a tasty 65.83! Odds sourced on Tuesday, August 2nd at 2 p.m. ET. For live odds visit betmgm. Pipped at the Post Sungjae Im has a pair of top 10s and a T24 from three visits and yields a 66.42 scoring average. Denny McCarthy has never MC in four tries and his worst payday is T26. Posts a scoring average of 66.81. Rory Sabbatini returned after T8 in 2013 with T4 in 2017 and hasn’t left again. His last three years here are T10-MC-T6 and has posted a 63 and 64 in those top 10s. Adam Scott returned for the first time since 2015 and posted 64-65 to join the playoff where he finished P2. Harris English hasn’t missed in seven tries and carries a 67.50 on 28 rounds. Veteran Scott Piercy has cashed in his last seven visits. Richy Werenski and CT Pan have never gone home empty handed from four tries. Russell Knox has carried his cut streak to four straight while Tyler Duncan and Mark Hubbard are on three in a row. Other past champions in the field this week include 2020 winner Jim Herman who also has a T11 and T18 to his credit over six starts. The 2019 champion JT Poston, who became the first player since 1971 to WIN a tournament while being bogey free, has MC in three other trips after T50 on debut. Davis Love III became one of the oldest winners on TOUR with his 2015 victory here, his third at the event since his debut in 1986! Camilo Villegas, the 2014 title holder, returned for the first time since 2017 and posted T46 last year. Any winners before the change to Bermuda are NOT included.

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LAS VEGAS - Claiming perhaps the ultimate redemption on a hole that had punked him in the past, Martin Laird grabbed his first win in more than seven years at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, outlasting Matthew Wolff and Austin Cook in a playoff. Here are five stories you might have missed from TPC Summerlin. 1. Laird had luck but also showcased incredible skills. The 37-year-old Scotsman has always loved TPC Summerlin having won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in 2009 and getting desperately close when losing a playoff in dramatic circumstances a year later. It took an ace from Jonathan Byrd that year on the par-3 17th during sudden death to dispel the challenge of Laird and Cameron Percy so when Laird was able to make a clutch up-and-down on the hole in regulation and then win the tournament there soon after it seemed redemptive. "That hole owed me one," Laird said after getting career TOUR win No. 4 and moving to fourth in the FedExCup with a clutch 23-foot birdie. "To make that putt on 17 honestly was huge in regulation, and then to roll that putt in there to close it out, I mean, obviously it’s pretty special." He also took care of another hole ... the par-5 ninth. Laird birdied it on Day One and then made eagle for three straight rounds. Sunday's came from a buried bunker lie in dramatic fashion. Las Vegas just suits some. Laird was in the tournament via a sponsor's exemption having only recently returned from left knee surgery to fix a meniscus issue. 2. Wolff howls but goes hungry again. Matthew Wolff showed he's not scorned by his recent runner-up finish at the U.S. Open, jumping straight back on the horse to contend in Las Vegas. Wolff had chances to win but ultimately had to settle for a second straight runner-up finish when Laird prevailed in the playoff. While there is no doubt some disappointment, the 21-year-old should take heart from his efforts. He appeared to be out of the mix until an incredible third round 10-under 61. At one stage he went 9 under in as many holes with three eagles in a five-hole stretch. It was a great show of power and finesse and proves it won't be long before he adds to his win from the 2019 3M Open. "I’m feeling like I can go out there and win any week now," he said. "Maybe a win is due sometime soon. But if I just keep on doing this, I’m sure it’ll come." 3. Bryson DeChambeau continues to bash the ball and fire up the world of golf. It was quite a week for the FedExCup leader. He led after an opening-round 62 and sat just one back at the halfway mark when he was confronted with comments from fellow U.S. Amateur winner Matthew Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick had claimed DeChambeau's body transformation and subsequent long ball game is devoid of skill but DeChambeau defended his game plan. "A year ago I wasn’t hitting in anywhere near as far as I am today. It took a lot of work, a lot of hours to work through the night to figure out a lot of this stuff... from my perspective, I think it takes a little bit more skill to do what I’m doing, and that’s why there are only a few people doing it out here," DeChambeau countered. "I feel like I’ve started to go down a path that’s allowed me to have an advantage over everyone, and I think that is a skillset when you look at it. For me out there today, I was still able to hit a lot of fairways at 360 yards. That’s tough to do with drivers." Unfortunately DeChambeau's third round started with a 5-over stretch before he battled back to a 71. On Sunday he did his best to make a run but some miscues late left him with a 66 and a tie for eighth. 4. It was a big week for Austin Cook and Peter Malnati as they look for career resurgences. Cook had been without a top-10 finish on TOUR since being T4 at the Barbasol Championship in July of 2019. The winner of the 2017-18 season-opening The RSM Classic showed on his day he has all of the skills. "This is the best finish in three years since the win. Game is on the right track," Cook said. "It’s kind of an emotional day. It’s been such a grind to get back here. Just being back in the moment, I loved it, and I can’t wait to do it again." Malnati showed his runner-up finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship last week was no flash in the pan as he pushed his way to a T5 in Las Vegas. Last year he was 137th in the FedExCup without a top-10 finish. He scraped into the 2019 Playoffs in 118th with just one top-10, and that came as a T9 as part of a team at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Now he is seventh in the FedExCup with 411 points, more than he earned last season (238) and almost as many as the year before (423). "I’m starting my seventh year on TOUR, which is really a dream come true. I played a lot of bad golf in those years and it’s really fun to play well, so this is great," he said. 5. Will Zalatoris is just fractions from Special Temporary Membership and James Hahn is also close to securing his major medical. Both men finished T5 in Vegas and put a huge dent in their goals. Hahn earned 100 of the 140 FedExCup points he needed to remain in the Major Medical category for the remainder of the season. He has 11 starts remaining to earn 40 points, the equivalent of a solo 22nd finish. Playing on a sponsor exemption, Zalatoris needed a two-way T5 to earn Special Temporary Membership for the remainder of the season. He instead finished in a three way tie for fifth leaving him just three points shy of the mark. His top-10 finish however earns a spot in the upcoming Bermuda Championship where anything better than a 70th-place finish will get the job done for the Korn Ferry Tour points leader. TOUR TOP 10 The PGA TOUR Regular Season top 10 will receive bonuses for their efforts.

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