What’s next for Morgan Hoffmann after his medical extension expires?

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Despite two majors, a World Golf Championship and a pair of beefed-up FedExCup Playoffs events scattered among the first 12 tournaments in Segment 4, the board illustrating the highest ownership percentages for the BMW Championship is covered in chalk. Only Patrick Cantlay at No. 9 starts the week outside the top 17 in the FedExCup standings. He’s 41st in points. (The top 21 in every edition of the Playoffs has advanced. The format since 2015 is the third iteration.) The dispersion qualifies as empirical data to characterize the depth on the PGA TOUR. While gamers are influenced by factors such as momentum, course history and course fit, there’s so much value to go around in a six-man format like PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO that we’ve been able to sustain strength during the most challenging segment of the season. PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO NOTE: Rob’s Rating refers to where our Fantasy Insider slotted a golfer in his Power Rankings (“PR”) and other preview material. Owned Rank  Player  Percentage  Rob’s Rating 1st  Justin Thomas  59.0%  PR1 2nd  Jon Rahm  49.5%  PR7 3rd  Paul Casey  42.6%  PR5 4th  Dustin Johnson (defending champion)  38.9%  PR3 5th  Jordan Spieth  34.9%  PR2 6th  Hideki Matsuyama  28.9%  PR4 7th  Justin Rose  25.8%  PR9 8th  Rickie Fowler  24.0%  PR6 9th  Patrick Cantlay  23.5%  PR14 10th  Brooks Koepka  22.9%  PR17 Golfers in the Power Rankings and outside the top 10 in most owned Power Ranking  Player  Owned Rank  Percentage 8  Patrick Reed  18th  12.8% 10  Henrik Stenson  16th  14.7% 11  Marc Leishman  11th  22.4% 12  Jason Day  13th  22.0% 13  Rory McIlroy  12th  22.3% 15  Matt Kuchar  14th  18.3% 16  Daniel Berger  21st  8.3% 18  Zach Johnson  26th  4.1% 19  Kevin Na  31st  2.0% 20  Bill Haas  47th  0.9% Wild Card  Louis Oosthuizen  19th  11.1% Other notables Owned Rank  Player  Percentage 15th  Sergio Garcia  17.2% 17th  Phil Mickelson  12.9% 22nd  Charley Hoffman  8.2% 24th  Jason Dufner  7.0% 25th  Keegan Bradley  4.4% 37th  Charl Schwartzel  1.2% PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO We gamers can be as disloyal as golf is fickle. In the results-based business of fantasy sports, the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately component varies more than any other, so our reaction to it is almost always directly proportional. This explains the support for Marc Leishman at No. 2 among One & Doners at the BMW Championship, he placed solo third at the Dell Technologies Championship. If you’ve submitted a pick for all of the first 38 events, latching onto a proven talent like that this late is akin to capturing a nugget when panning for gold. If you’re not convinced that his performance at TPC Boston persuaded probably all of his investors in its afterglow, consider that he missed the cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST and finished T39 in his only appearance at Conway Farms four years ago. Because the TOUR Championship concludes the season, next week’s final installment of ownership percentages will be the most compelling, but of the notables outside this week’s top 10 and projected to advance, only Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler spring off the screen as horses at East Lake. This is to say that, on average, gamers are playing aggressively for the now. Since the majority are in pursuit, that approach is spot on. Owned Rank  Player  Percentage 1st  Dustin Johnson (defending champion)  7.9% 2nd  Marc Leishman  7.7% 3rd  Justin Thomas  7.3% 4th  Jason Day  6.6% 5th  Paul Casey  5.8% 6th  Jordan Spieth  5.0% 7th  Jon Rahm  4.6% 8th  Patrick Cantlay  4.4% 9th  Henrik Stenson  4.3% 10th  Hideki Matsuyama  3.9% Other notables Owned Rank  Player  Percentage 13th  Justin Rose  2.6% 15th  Rickie Fowler  2.3% 16th  Brooks Koepka  2.2% 17th  Patrick Reed  2.1% 18th  Rory McIlroy  1.8% 19th  Charley Hoffman  1.6% 20th  Matt Kuchar  1.6% T21  Zach Johnson  1.3% 26th  Phil Mickelson  1.1%

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AVONDALE, La. — Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman outlasted Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in a playoff that capped a tight and tense final round Sunday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Marc Leishman/Cameron Smith, Zurich Classic of New Orleans Smith and Leishman won with a par on their second trip up the par-5 18th after Oosthuizen pushed his tee shot into the water and narrowly missed an 11-foot putt for bogey. The Australians forced the playoff by shooting a 2-under 70 in alternate-shot play at the PGA TOUR’s lone regular-season team event. Oosthuizen and Schwartzel began the round with a one-stroke lead, but shot a 71 with three pars and two bogeys. It’s Smith’s third career victory — second at the Zurich team event — and best result since tying for second at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Masters last November. It also was his sixth top 10 since the current TOUR season started last October. Smith’s last victory came at the 2020 Sony Open in Hawaii. It was Leishman’s sixth career victory, his best result since tying for fifth at the Masters this month and his first win since the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open. The climactic finish capped off a compelling duel between two teams that teed off together in the final grouping and took turns holding leads that never grew to more than two strokes. After Smith made birdie putts of 9 feet on the par-5 seventh and 7 feet on the par-3 ninth to pull his team even atop the leaderboard, the Aussies went in front on 10, when Schwartzel’s approach found the bunker and his team two-putted for bogey. Smith and Leishman took a two-shot lead with a birdie on the par-5 11th, where Leishman drove 307 yards into the fairway and Smith sent the team’s second shot 265 yards to the green, setting up a birdie. But they gave a stroke back on 13 when Leishman’s drive went into the TPC Louisiana’s trademark, towering and old-growth cypress three that stands alone like a monolith in the fairway. That forced the team to take a drop that led to a bogey. The South Africans moved back into the lead on 15, where Schwartzel followed up Oosthuizen’s 205-yard approach shot with a nearly 15-foot putt for birdie, while Smith, whose approach had fallen short of the green, narrowly missed a 13-foot putt for par. Smith then bounced his booming, 294-yard tee shot on 16 into the water, but it went out of bounds close enough to the green that Leishman was able to hit a chip on his team’s third shot and rolled it in from more than 23 feet for birdie to tie Ooshuizen and Schwartzel at 21 under. Both teams bogeyed the par-3 17th to head to the par-5 18th tied at 20 under. Peter Uihlein and Richy Werenski shot a 67, with six birdies and one bogey, to shoot up the leaderboard from 18th to third. Billy Horschel and former LSU player Sam Burns shot a 69 to tie for fourth with Brandt Snedeker-Keith Mitchell and Brendan Steele-Kegan Bradley. Ryan Palmer and Jon Rahm, the defending champions from 2019, closed with a 70 to finish seventh at 17 under.

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