Power Rankings: Fortinet Championship

The Asian Swing kicks off a three-event “mini-season” on Jeju Island South Korea for the third edition of the CJ CUP. The Club at Nine Bridges hosts for the third consecutive year of this relatively new event with a select field of 78 players. RELATED: Expert picks | Daily fantasy advice | Sleeper picks For the first time in three events the CJ CUP AT NINE BRIDGES will be the first stop in the Far East. The old warm-up act, the CIMB Classic, is no longer on the schedule so it will be a week of body-clock adjustment for most. Jeju Island has taken on over 50 inches in the last five weeks as three different typhoons have battered the area. The bentgrass layout, which drains well, should be lush and somewhat soft after the pounding it has taken. The major defense for this layout is the wind. Generous landing areas and massive green complexes (7,800 square feet on average) give plenty of targets to aim at but this par-72 doesn’t even stretch to 7,300 yards. While the recent rains should keep the roll off the tee to a minimum, the altitude of 3,500 feet should shrink this track even more. The two winners have been the reigning PGA TOUR player of the year and winners of the PGA Championship but that streak ends this week as Rory McIlroy isn’t entered! Need more Course Info? Check Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings, The First Look and Course Preview. Recent Winners  2018: Brooks Koepka (-21, 267) Fresh off two majors and a Player of the Year, Koepka rolled into town, set the 54-hole and 72-hole scoring record and kicked off the new season with a four-shot win over Gary Woodland. Won in his first appearance. … Played the last 54 holes 20 under. … Closed with 29 on the inward 18 on Sunday. … T2 birdies (23). … Led Par-4 scoring. Notables: Woodland led the field with 27 birdies and was 18 under his final 54 holes. … Ryan Palmer circled 10 birdies, including the final seven holes, in the final round to set the course record of 62. … The top four on the leaderboard posted 64, 63, 65 and 62 in the final round. … Rafa Cabrera Bello (T3) posted 65-65 on the weekend. … Scott Piercy (T5) led after 36 holes. … Si Woo Kim (T23) was the best Korean finisher. … Defending champion Justin Thomas was T36. 2017: Justin Thomas (-9, 279) Sizzling hot after winning the PGA in August and a FedExCup event in September, Thomas continued his heat-check by winning the inaugural event in a windy playoff over Marc Leishman. … Neither Thomas nor Koepka finished in the top 20 of fairways or greens hit for the week. … Both finished in the top five of Birdie-or-Better Conversion Percentage, Putting Average, Par-4 and Par-5 scoring. … Scoring average was 73.187 versus 70.944 last year. #Windy. Notables: The only bogey-free round on Sunday was 68 by CIMB champion Pat Perez (T5). … Cameron Smith (3rd) missed a birdie putt at the last to join the playoff. … 36-hole leader Luke List (T5) opened 68-67 before closing 76-72. … Byeong-Hun An (T11) posted the lowest round of the weekend, 67, in Round 3. … There were a TOTAL of eight rounds in the 60s on the weekend. … Whee Kim (4th) was the best Korean finisher. Key stat leaders Top golfers in each statistic on the 2018-19 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week.  * – previous top 10 finish here Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green  2  *Justin Thomas  3  Hideki Matsuyama (T18, 2018)  7  Byeong-Hun An  9  Corey Conners 12 *Brooks Koepka 13 Tommy Fleetwood (first appearance) 15 Emiliano Grillo 16 *Gary Woodland 19 Kevin Streelman (first appearance) 23 Joaquin Niemann 24 Sergio Garcia (first appearance) 25 Lucas Glover Birdie-or-Better Percentage  2  Jordan Spieth (first appearance)  3  *Justin Thomas  5  *Gary Woodland  8  Wyndham Clark (first appearance) 11 Si Woo Kim 13 Andrew Putnam 16 *Rafa Cabrera Bello 17 *Brooks Koepka 18 Hideki Matsuyama 20 Troy Merritt (first appearance) 22 *Ryan Palmer 23 Vaughn Taylor 30 Phil Mickelson (first appearance) Par-5 Scoring  1  *Justin Thomas  2  Wyndham Clark  4  *Gary Woodland  6  Sungjae Im 10 *Brooks Koepka 12 Matt Jones 12 *Ian Poulter 12 Troy Merritt 17 Jhonattan Vegas 17 Sergio Garcia 23 Hideki Matsuyama 23 *Luke List 23 Kevin Tway 31 Si Woo Kim 31 Rory Sabbatini 31*Marc Leishman Frequent Fliers Cameron Smith: One of only two players to cash in the top 10 in the first two appearances. He’s 19 under over eight rounds with six of those in the red for T7 and 3rd. Pat Perez: While both winners are in their 20s, Perez, 41 at the time, backed up his 2017 CIMB win with T5 and last year added T7. Decided to WD the morning before the Houston Open to fill out this year’s field. That tells me all I need to know about what he thinks of the course/event. Two-for-Two-Top 18 Edition Rafa Cabrera Bello: Didn’t break 71 in his first visit (T11) or in his first two rounds last year (73-70) before unlocking the mystery (65-65) to cash T3. Jason Day: The Aussie has found solace in a wide-open, target-rich environment to show off his short game and putter. Backed up T11 with T5 (65-67) last season as six of eight rounds are under par. Chez Reavie: Rattled off four rounds of 70 or better last year (T7) after T15 in the first go-around. Hardly a big hitter, Reavie is hyper-accurate off the tee and an above-average putter. Ian Poulter: Seven of his eight rounds are in the red as the Englishman cashed T10 last year after T15 the year prior. Marc Leishman: I had to go back and change the title to this section when I realized he was T18 last year. It shouldn’t be lost in the shuffle that he closed 68-66 last year after struggling in the first two rounds.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Resilience has ensured Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm will head to the weekend at TPC Sawgrass with plenty of opportunity to collect a maiden title at THE PLAYERS Championship. DeChambeau rebounded from a terrible opening-hole double bogey by carding five birdies for a second consecutive 3-under 69. It left him 6 under through 36 holes, good enough to be sitting just a shot off the clubhouse lead set by Chris Kirk after the morning wave. Rahm continued to recover from his inauspicious start on Thursday. The Spaniard has now played his last 26 holes in 7-under par and sits 4 under for the championship after a Friday 68. DeChambeau evoked memories of Rory McIlroy's opening hole on Day One when he butchered the par-4 10th in the early hours of Friday's second round. But unlike the 2019 PLAYERS champion, DeChambeau shook it off and set about rectifying things. "You don’t expect to do that the first hole out. Especially I was hitting it pretty good this morning, and then you go out there, you hit one and you squeeze one right, and it goes pretty far right," DeChambeau said. "(Then) you don’t hit your second shot where you need it to be and mess up. So you just aren’t feeling comfortable. I wasn’t feeling as comfortable as I should have been feeling, and unfortunately, that’s the way my day started. But I was able to make a nice up-and-down on the next hole to settle it down." Birdies on Nos. 11, 16 and 17 came before the turn before he added two more on the front side leaving last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard champion extremely well poised for the weekend. True to character, the FedExCup leader said he would be heading to the range to work on his game after feeling like he was far from his best. He hit just six of 14 fairways in both opening rounds. "I’m happy with the fact that I’ve still been able to keep myself in it and score well." he said. "I’ve been pretty lucky, for the most part. I don’t think that’ll happen this weekend. I’ve got to make sure that my game is good off the tee, so I don’t have those issues occurring and I don’t have to rely on luck for the most part. I have to get it in the fairway." The end of the day was a welcome relief for Rahm who knocked in a final hole birdie on the par-5 ninth to shoot 4-under 32 on that side of the course. He managed to hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation despite missing half his fairways. "It was a pretty stressful round. I was barely in the fairway, fought all day," said Rahm, who held the 54-hole lead here in 2019 before fading. "It’s hard to be defensive with a wedge in your hand but you have to be a lot of times. Pars aren’t bad on any hole, so you’ve just got to manage that and take advantage of the times you can. You have to be pretty smart with where you’re putting the golf ball pretty much all day."

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Prairie View A&M University has announced a $40,000 donation from the Cameron Champ Foundation and Chevron Corporation to establish two scholarship funds for student-athletes on its men's and women's golf teams. The donation follows Augusta National's announcement that it is honoring Lee Elder, the first African American to compete in the tournament, with a scholarship in his name and by making him an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters. "When Lee Elder walked on the Augusta grounds," said Champ, a two-time PGA TOUR winner, "it sent a message: ‘We belong.'" Inspired by Elder and Augusta National's actions, the scholarship fund, established by the Cameron Champ Foundation and Chevron, will be named in memory of Cameron Champ's grandfather, Mack "Pops" Champ. Mack Champ, an African American, taught Cameron Champ how to play golf and, like Elder, inspired his grandson and other minority golfers to pursue competitive golf. "My grandfather had such an incredible influence on my life and always inspired me in many ways," Cameron Champ said. "I'm so grateful for Pops introducing me to the game of golf, but also for teaching me that there's so much more to life than golf. He always stressed the importance of giving back and paying it forward. Last week, Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley addressed how access and opportunities are still barriers to the game, and he hit the nail on the head when he said that the time to do more is now. That really sparked this idea, and I thought, what better way to honor PaPa Champ than to take up the challenge to do more, right now." The Cameron Champ Foundation's investment in PVAMU is a part of the foundation's work to improve education and access to golf in underserved and underrepresented communities. "Mack Champ was born in Columbus, Texas, in a segregated neighborhood with limited resources. His determination to fight against systemic racism and discrimination fuels our work," said Cameron Champ Foundation Board Chair, Glenn Weckerlin. "We recognize that the pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color and has placed a heavy burden on the university and its already stretched funding. We are thankful that we can collaborate with such a historic institution to provide deserving student-athletes from diverse backgrounds opportunities that they might not otherwise have. We are delighted to contribute to student dreams and hope our actions will inspire others to follow suit—the time is now."

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