Sleeper Picks: the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday

In a memo sent to its membership Wednesday, the PGA TOUR announced four additional events that will have elevated purses and guaranteed appearances by the TOUR’s top players in 2023. These four events join the 13 announced by Commissioner Jay Monahan at this year’s TOUR Championship. RELATED: How players qualify for 2023’s events with elevated purses The four events announced Wednesday, which will each have a $20 million purse, are the WM Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and Travelers Championship. The previously announced events that will offer increased purses and have commitments from the TOUR’s top players are: • The four majors and THE PLAYERS • Three FedExCup Playoffs events (FedEx St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship, TOUR Championship) • Three player-hosted invitationals (Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, Memorial Tournament presented by Workday) • Sentry Tournament of Champions • WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Players who finished in the top 20 in the 2022 Player Impact Program are required to participate in all elevated events for which they are eligible, as well as at least three additional events. The commitment to compete in a pre-determined schedule, and play at least 20 times per year, is the result of unprecedented collaboration among the TOUR’s top players. “Our top players are firmly behind the TOUR,” Commissioner Monahan said at the TOUR Championship, where Rory McIlroy won his third FedExCup title. “Helping us deliver an unmatched product to our fans, who will be all but guaranteed to see the best players competing against each other in 20 events or more throughout the season. This is an extraordinary and unprecedented commitment, a testament to who these guys are and what they believe in.” Bringing the top players in the game together more often is a huge win for fans and partners, as well. “When I tune into a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, I expect to see Tom Brady throw a football,” McIlroy said at the TOUR Championship. “When I tune into a Formula 1 race, I expect to see Lewis Hamilton in a car.” The four events announced Wednesday represent some of the TOUR’s longest-standing events and are played at some of its most recognizable venues. The WM Phoenix Open dates back to 1932, while the RBC Heritage (1969) and Travelers Championship (1952) each debuted more than a half-century ago. TPC Scottsdale hosts the TOUR’s highest-attended event and is home to the famed par-3 16th. Harbour Town Golf Links, which has hosted the RBC Heritage every year since its inception, was a collaboration between World Golf Hall of Famers Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus and the first course designed by each man to be used on TOUR. The Travelers’ host venue, TPC River Highlands, has hosted the TOUR for nearly 40 years and is home to one of the most exciting finishing stretches on TOUR. The Wells Fargo Championship debuted 20 years ago; its host venue, Quail Hollow Club, first hosted a TOUR event in the 1960s and has also served as the site for the PGA Championship and this year’s Presidents Cup. The four events announced Wednesday will continue to award 500 FedExCup points to the winner, as opposed to 550 to the winner of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, The Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, and Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, as previously announced. The robust slate of events with elevated purses and commitments from top players is the result of an ongoing process of collaboration between the TOUR and its top players that included a players-only meeting at this year’s BMW Championship in Wilmington, Delaware. While the commitment from the game’s stars to compete in these events is groundbreaking, players throughout the TOUR’s membership stand to benefit from these elevated purses. The events with elevated purses will retain their traditional eligibility criteria in 2023, allowing for 120-plus players to compete for these increased purses most weeks. Players will continue to have the chance to make history each week they compete on the PGA TOUR, as well, just as Tom Kim did in winning the Wyndham Championship, where he became the second-youngest winner on TOUR since World War II. Only Jordan Spieth, who won the 2013 John Deere Classic at age 19, was younger. The changes for 2023 are in concert with other enhancements announced by Commissioner Monahan at the TOUR Championship, including an expansion of the Player Impact Program and a league minimum of $500,000 in earnings for anyone with a TOUR card, as well as other sweeping changes. The four newly-announced elevated events are for 2023 only; four entirely different tournaments could reach that designation in 2024. As always, the PGA TOUR will continue to evaluate and evolve to ensure the heritage and success of every tournament on its schedule.

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ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – PLAYERS champion Cameron Smith set an unofficial PGA TOUR putting record on the way to taking the halfway lead at the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. Smith made an incredible 253-feet of putts during the second round at the Old Course headlined by a 64-foot, four-inch eagle putt on the par-5 14th hole – a mark higher than ever seen before in one round on the PGA TOUR. The Australian shot an 8-under 64 on Friday that moved him to 13 under – two clear of Cameron Young and three ahead of Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland with 36 holes to play. The official TOUR record belongs to Brent Geiberger who made 240-feet, four-inches worth of putts in the first round of the 2005 Booz Allen Classic. At The Open Championship the TOUR’s ShotLink equipment is not used – instead statistics are the domain of the tournament hosting R&A. As such they are not seen as official TOUR stats. “Once it started breaking pretty good, about 10, 15 foot out, I thought it would have a chance,” Smith said of the eagle putt that sent his quest for a Claret Jug into overdrive. “It’s not really one that you’re trying to hole, you’re just trying to get a nice easy birdie, but nice of it to pop in the side there.” Smith is one of the better putters on the TOUR, coming into The Open Championship sitting 12th in Strokes Gained: Putting, first in putting average, fifth in one-putt percentage, fourth in putts per round and 11th in 3-Putt avoidance. At THE PLAYERS Championship in March, Smith one-putted eight of his last nine holes on the way to the biggest victory of his career to date. The now five-time TOUR winner set a Strokes Gained: Putting tournament record at +11.521 at TPC Sawgrass where he made 401-feet, 10-inches worth of putts for the week, slightly behind his personal best of 415-feet. This week at St. Andrews he’s needed just 28 putts in each of the first two rounds and although he also made putts from 47, 28 and 21-feet on the front nine on Friday, Smith said it was his lag-putting that was truly the key. “I had lots of good lag putting again, lots of good two-putts,” he said despite holing from outside six-feet on 10 of 18 holes. “I’m just basically looking at the hole and trying to see the ball just dropping in the front there. That’s always been the last thought of mine, is take a long, hard look at the hole and really feel the putt. I don’t take a practice stroke. I just get up there and really feel it.”

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