Tony Finau, Taylor Pendrith share 54-hole lead at Rocket Mortgage Classic

During the practice round on Tuesday at the Travelers Championship, PGA TOUR players were given a chance to hit at The Umbrella at 15½, a floating green in the pond between the 15th, 16th, and 17th holes in the shape of Travelers’ iconic red umbrella logo. Sticking his shot just seven inches from the pin, this year’s winner was TOUR pro Michael Kim. The hole is 85 yards long and the target is a 40-foot umbrella. Travelers donates $10,000 to the charities of the winner’s choosing. Kim earned a $5,000 donation to both the Zach Johnson Foundation and Windy Hill Foundation.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Rory McIlroy was on the rocks late in his third round at the DP World Tour Championship. Some cliff-edge improvisation, followed by a final-hole birdie, put him back in control. Seeking a second straight victory to end his season, McIlroy delivered another wild finish at Jumeirah Golf Estates in shooting a 5-under 67 that left the four-time major champion with a one-stroke lead on Saturday. Sam Horsfield bogeyed the 18th hole to shoot 69 and drop out of a share of the lead with McIlroy, who was 14 under overall in the season-closing event on the European Tour. Collin Morikawa, still on course to become the first American to finish a season as the tour’s No. 1 player, was three shots back in a four-way share of fifth place after his round of 69. Standing on the tee at the par-3 17th hole holding a one-stroke lead, McIlroy missed the green left and saw the ball bounce through the rough and dance along the edge of the cliffs. It eventually settled on a narrow ledge, to gasps among spectators. McIlroy opted against taking a drop, which was the preferred choice of his caddie, Harry Diamond, and managed to clip a shot off the stone and through the green. He missed the return chip by inches, but a par was a good result given what could have happened. “Harry was pleading with me not to hit it,” McIroy said. “He was like, `We can just go back and make 4 at the last.'” McIlroy then pitched to 9 feet with his third shot — from just on the green — at the par-5 18th and holed the birdie putt which would regain the lead after Horsfield’s bogey a few minutes later. McIlroy, who won THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT in Las Vegas last month, closed his second round on Friday with a double-bogey 7 after hitting into water at the 18th. He made a dreadful start to his third round, too, snap-hooking a 3-wood off the first tee and making a bogey. McIlroy responded with birdies at Nos. 2 and 3 — two of the seven he had in total. Morikawa, playing alongside McIlroy, birdied three of his first six holes to move into a tie for the lead with his playing partner and four others. The American made par on each of his final 12 holes to slip off the pace. “It was all over the place,” Morikawa said. “Front nine played pretty good but overall just didn’t take advantage of the par 5s. “All three days have kind of been a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and got one more day to kind of put everything together and hopefully put a low one out there.” Morikawa is the highest-placed of the six players who can still win the Race to Dubai and is unlikely now to need a victory to clinch the title. Billy Horschel is second behind Morikawa in the points race but is 37th in the 52-man field, eight shots adrift of his compatriot.

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Max Homa has said that the final event of the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season carries some of golf’s most suffocating pressure, particularly for those on the top-75 bubble. Play well and you’ll have a chance to earn a PGA TOUR card via the three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Falter, and your fate could be Q-School, with an uncertain career path. “You start spiraling on the negatives,” once explained Homa of the prospects of losing full Korn Ferry Tour status. Entering the final event of the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season, Philip Knowles stood No. 87 on the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Eligibility Points List. He knew a good finish was required to keep a guaranteed job for 2023. He booked two flights. One was to Idaho for the Finals-opening Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. The other was to his adopted hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, to begin preparations for Q-School. Knowles’ wife Olivia flew to Omaha on Sunday morning, unannounced, and was on the 18th green at the Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Aetna to provide congratulations as Knowles cemented his first career top-10 finish (T10) to move to No. 67 on the Regular Season Eligibility Points List and cement a Finals berth. Not only was he exempt for 2023, no Q-School needed, but he would have a chance at a TOUR card via The Finals 25. “The fact that I’m going to Boise is incredible,” Knowles said shortly after signing his scorecard last Sunday in Omaha. “Still some processing to do there. First time having locked up full status out here, and having a chance at a TOUR card the next few weeks … it’s awesome.” Knowles accelerated his timetable, to say the least. The University of North Florida alum finished runner-up at the Albertsons Boise Open, carding a four-round total of 21 under at Hillcrest CC to match Will Gordon and MJ Daffue for the week’s low score. Gordon won with a par on the first playoff hole, but all three players have earned the Korn Ferry Tour’s ultimate prize. Gordon earns 1,000 Korn Ferry Tour points for his win; Knowles earns 490 points for a two-way T2. The fail-safe threshold for a player to secure a TOUR card via The Finals 25 is 220 points; both players comfortably surpassed that mark in Boise. (Daffue was already #TOURBound via a top-25 spot on the Regular Season Eligibility Points List.) Six players finished in a six-way T4, which allots 200 Korn Ferry Tour points. In addition to Erik Barnes and Taylor Montgomery, whose TOUR cards are secure via The 25, this group included Scott Harrington, Austin Cook, Thomas Detry and Dean Burmester; these four are seeking a TOUR card via The Finals 25. Although these players are not mathematically safe per the Korn Ferry Tour’s fail-safe threshold, they’ll head to next week’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in Columbus feeling confident about their chances. For reference, in a three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals series, the threshold for a TOUR card has been 186 points (2019) and 157.773 points (2021). Knowles arrived at the 72nd hole Sunday in Boise with a one-stroke lead, hit his second shot over the green and was unable to get up and down for par, vexed by Hillcrest CC’s severe back-to-front sloping 18th green. He then burned the edge on a 6-foot par try in the playoff; Gordon tapped in for a winning par shortly thereafter. In the annals of closing bogeys to fall short of winning a title, though, Knowles’ may go down as one of the least consequential. Less than two weeks ago, the native of Bradenton, Florida, was reasonably justified in planning for Q-School. He needed to deliver one of his career-best finishes to keep his season alive. He started the year with conditional status and took advantage of a sponsor exemption into his hometown LECOM Suncoast Classic, chipping in on the final hole and finishing T22, which allowed him to play a mostly full schedule for the remainder of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour calendar. He had spent most of his career in the proverbial week-to-week grind. Conditional status, Monday qualifiers, mini-tours and the inevitable, instinctual questions of how long to keep going. The nomadic unknown. Now the 25-year-old, who met his wife Olivia when she competed on their high school’s men’s golf team, is headed to the PGA TOUR. “It’s really hard to put into words,” reflected Knowles on a tranquil Sunday evening in Boise. “Conditional life on the Korn Ferry Tour is miserable. It is nothing short of miserable. If you’re Monday qualifying, you’re fighting every week just to have a chance to play. If you’re playing in the events and you’re conditional, you are hoping you’re continuing to play well enough to continue to get starts. “I’m married, I’ve got a kid on the way, and that dynamic of trying to plan things … family vacations, vacations with friends … for a couple of years now, I haven’t been able to plan. Everything’s been spur of the moment, because I couldn’t ‘t tell you where I was going to be next week, or a month from now. “To have experienced that, to play well last week when I had to was incredible. It’s what I felt like was coming. Then to come out here this week … to stand here now and think that I’ve got a PGA TOUR card is crazy.” Crazy, perhaps, but reality.

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