Cole Hammer leads by one at The RSM Classic

Chesson Hadley … If there’s a table on the PGA TOUR on which the 32-year-old is going to push all of his chips into its center, it’s in Vegas. Of course it is. Although he won the Puerto Rico Open in 2014, he’s earned more at the Shriners than at any other stop on the schedule. It’s the only tournament at which he’s recorded as many as three top 10s. That includes in each of the last two editions. He also has a streak of seven straight sub-70s on TPC Summerlin. And now he’s fresh off a T23 at Silverado where he scored par or better in every round and ranked highly in all ball-striking metrics. Nick Taylor … While not as impressive as Hadley’s résumé at TPC Summerlin, of all of the courses where the Canadian has made at least three appearances, this is the only site where he hasn’t missed a cut. And this is his sixth trip. His best finish is but a T25 in 2015, but his scoring average is a sporty 69.40. That kind of expectation defined his 2018-19 season during which he went 21-for-28 with four top 25s. He arrives having just polished off a front-loaded T10 at Silverado, his best individual performance in over 13 months. Denny McCarthy … Back already for another appearance on this page. He opened the season as a Sleeper for A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier and responded with a T31. He answered that with a T18 at the Sanderson Farms Championship before taking last week off. The 26-year-old paced the PGA TOUR last season in Strokes Gained: Putting. He’s seventh in the early going in 2019-20, but his ball-striking is measurably improved. It’s a small sample size to be certain, but no matter the data set, it’s always better than the alternative. Placed T15 at TPC Summerlin last year. Bronson Burgoon … Wait a sec. He arrived at the Safeway Open with a trio of top-six finishes and a pair of T19s in his previous six starts combined on two tours, and just now he’s appearing as a Sleeper? You betcha! He missed the cut at Silverado by two strokes, and he’s 0-for-2 at TPC Summerlin (2015, 2018), but if there’s one thing we’ve come to expect from him during his brief career, it’s that he possesses a propensity to pop with less notice than most of his peers. So, now that he’s been on a heater and fully exempt after meeting the terms of his medical extension at Greenbrier, he’s freer than ever before to get after it. Mark Hubbard … Others fresh off the Korn Ferry Tour Finals have made more noise early on, but he’s nipping on their heels. Currently 19th in the FedExCup standings with a T10 at Greenbrier and a T13 at Silverado. He’s connected for six top 25s in his last eight starts across two tours. His most important weapon has proven to be his putter, but he’s also well above average in splitting fairways. While his putting bails out poor approaches, when he hits greens in regulation, he goes for a high percentage of par breakers. Meanwhile, despite a seemingly deficient iron game, he led the KFT in par-3 scoring average in 2019. TPC Summerlin’s quartet of one-shotters is among the easiest set on the schedule, so the 30-year-old has all kinds of reasons to feels jolts of confidence in his fourth appearance in the tournament. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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While making his bed one day earlier this year, Brooks Koepka started crying in pain. Although he looks like the toughest guy in the room, the physical agony from his injured left wrist – which, after stem-cell treatment and platelet-rich plasma injections, had sidelined him for nearly four months – had reduced him to tears. Soon, he found a local chiropractor near his home in South Florida. The diagnosis? Koepka, with his soft cast removed, had dislocated his wrist while moving too quickly to pull up his bedsheets. “So he popped it back in,â€� Koepka said, “then we’re off and running.â€� And he never stopped. He returned to the PGA TOUR eight days later, spent the summer winning two majors, then finished inside the top 10 after the FedExCup Playoffs before slowing down long enough on Tuesday to claim the PGA TOUR Player of the Year award. “The lowest of lows and the highest of highs,â€� the 28-year-old Koepka said about the most unusual season. “It was pretty dramatic. Look, at the beginning of the season, I was just hoping to be back out playing again. To sit here after winning two majors and Player of the Year, I don’t think I even thought this was going to happen. “This is incredible. It’s an honor. It’s mind-boggling.â€� But it’s certainly no surprise. He has the game (one of the TOUR’s biggest bombers), he has the adaptability (his back-to-back U.S. Open wins were on different setups) and he has the mental mistake (hey, he’s chill) to emerge as one of the TOUR’s 20-something stars, right up there with JT, Jordan, Rory and the rest. “Calm. Collected. Confident,â€� was how Jack Nicklaus described Koepka. Perhaps the only thing he’s lacking is recognition — although being Player of the Year may finally eliminate that issue. Koepka once told Golf Digest that he’s “really good at blending inâ€� and by his own admission, he hangs out in the background as much as possible. “Most people don’t know the real me, my life off the golf course,â€� he said Tuesday. “I can go to plenty of restaurants and not have anybody come up and say anything, where a lot of guys can’t. Look at Dustin (Johnson) or Jordan or guys like that. They can’t do that. I’m still blending in.â€� Then with a laugh, he adds, “I mean, I get confused for Tony Finau most every week.â€� Koepka has turned this lack of attention into motivation. It allows him to play with a chip on his shoulder – much like Michael Jordan would take perceived slights and raise the level of his play against his NBA opponents. “I think you always have to play with a little chip on your shoulder if you want to get the best out of you,â€� Koepka said. “I love competition. I find a way, whatever it is, to try to play my best and get myself up for every event. “I think a lot of the chips that everyone’s been talking about is because I was left off notables as the defending champion of the U.S. Open, just things like that. To be at the PGA, I shoot a decent first-round score and the guy who never won a major shot two higher than I did, and he’s being interviewed. I’m like man, we’re in 10th, 12th place after the first day and I’m like, all right, I won a major this year, two-time major winner – you know what I mean? It seems kind of odd. But whatever…â€� On Tuesday, at least, there was no one slighting Koepka after his peers, his fellow competitors, voted him as Player of the Year. No golfer, from their perspective, had a better season. As a result, Koepka will receive the Jack Nicklaus Trophy. It’s not the first award in Koepka’s home that showcases an image of the Golden Bear. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, and growing up in nearby Lake Worth, Koepka would occasionally see Nicklaus, a longtime resident of the area. Twice, Koepka won junior events at the Bear’s Club. The trophy was a plaque that included Nicklaus trading cards from the high points of his legendary career. “I still have those trophies,â€� Koepka said. “… It’s a very big plaque, as you can imagine, with all his major victories and everything. It’s pretty cool. “Mr. Nicklaus was always exactly what you’d expect he would be, very gracious and very kind. It’s nice to add something else of his to my trophy collection.â€� Provided that chip remains on Koepka’s shoulder, you get the feeling there will be more to come. In His Own Words A chronological list of quotes from Brooks Koepka that reflect the ebb and flow of his 2017-18 season: “Game feels good and excited to start the season.â€� (Oct. 26) “I have some wrist issues. I want to figure that out. I can’t grip anything strong with my left hand.â€� (Dec. 6, via AP) “It felt like someone was jabbing a knife in my hand. The problem is we don’t have any answers.â€� (Jan. 7, via Golf Channel) “I am frustrated that I will now not be able to play my intended schedule. But I am confident in my doctors and in the treatment they have prescribed, and I look forward to teeing it up at the Masters.â€� (Jan. 19 statement) “They said I would be about 80 percent but I can’t play 80 percent. I either have to go full bore or not at all.”(March 20 on decision to not play Masters, via USA Today) “It feels like I’ve been out for six months. … It was torn a lot worse than they originally thought.â€� (April 20, via AP) “There’s nobody more excited to be here than me, I can tell you that. To get back out, it felt like it took forever.â€� (May 13 at THE PLAYERS Championship) “I feel like my game is coming around. … I am finally finding a rhythm and feel like I’m getting really close.â€� (May 26) “I feel like it healed nicely. I like where my game’s trending right now.â€� (June 7) “To have my name on there twice is pretty incredible, and to go back-to-back is even more extraordinary. It feels so special.â€� (June 17 after winning second straight U.S. Open) “I’ll be honest. I’m dead right now.â€� (June 21 at Travelers) “Right now I’m focused on just winning. That’s the only thing I’ve got in my mind. Second place just isn’t good enough. I finished second a lot and just tired of it.â€� (July 17 on eve of Open Championship) “Didn’t play very good. Didn’t strike it good. Never really felt comfortable.â€� (July 22 after finishing T-39 at the Open) “Missing four months, the schedule got completely flipped around for me. I’m having to play a lot right now to play some events because I missed so much time.â€� (July 25 on eve of RBC Canadian Open) “It was as good as I’ve hit it in my pro career. I don’t think I’ve ever driven it as well as I did. .. I feel confident going into next week.â€� (Aug. 5 after WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) “When you take four months off, you really appreciate it and you’re eager to get back out there. Anytime you can tee it up, especially only doing three majors, it makes every one a little bit more important. I kind of fell back in love with the game a little bit.â€� (Aug. 7 on eve of PGA Championship) “When I look at what I’ve done in the past two months, it’s incredible. Looking where I was, sitting on my couch watch the Masters, and to think I would do this, I would have laughed at you and told you there was no way, no chance.â€� (Aug. 12 after winning PGA) “There’s a lot on my mind. I can get to world No. 1, win the FedExCup. It’s a big stretch, these next four weeks.â€� (Aug. 23) “I don’t see why it has to end. If I keep doing what I’m doing, I don’t see why it should stop.â€� (Sept. 27) Brooks By The Numbers Hitting the statistical highlights of Koepka’s season: 68.27 — Koepka’s final-round scoring average. Of the 140-plus primary statistical categories used by ShotLink, it’s the only category this season in which Koepka led the TOUR. It’s also the eighth best final-round average since 1980 when data was first collected. 9th — Koepka’s ranking in Scrambling this season, based on his 64.3 percent success rate. Before this season, Koepka had never ranked better than 108th in Scrambling. 33 — Number of times a player has won multiple majors in the same season. Koepka becomes the most recent player on that list. 411 — Length in yards of Koepka’s longest drive this season, on the 16th hole of the final round of the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. That tied for the 20th longest drive of the season. 62.5 — Percentage of Koepka’s tee shots that were over 300 yards. No player had a higher percentage this season (see chart below). A Mixed Bag Equipment Insider Jonathan Wall reviews the tools that fueled Koepka this season: Coming off his first major championship win during the 2016-17 PGA TOUR season, Brooks Koepka limited the equipment changes to the driver during the 2017-18 campaign. After opening the year with TaylorMade’s M4 driver, Koepka swapped the club for the company’s M3 at THE PLAYERS Championship, due to the flight it produced and how easy it was to turn the ball over on command. A former Nike Golf equipment staffer, Koepka continues to play a Vapor Fly Pro 3-iron. Mizuno’s JPX-900 Tour irons were originally created with Koepka in mind when he became an equipment free agent following Nike’s departure from the hard-goods industry in 2016. Koepka’s 35-inch Scotty Cameron T10 Select Newport 2 putter was refinished prior to his return to the course at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The “T10” represents the 10th anniversary of Scotty Cameron using Teryllium inserts in putters made for TOUR players. Over the years, Koepka has added weight to the putter head, going from a D6 swing weight to closer to D9 with the current version. Driver: TaylorMade M3 (Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 70TX shaft), 9.5 degrees 3-wood: TaylorMade M2 Tour HL (Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 80TX shaft), 16.5 degrees Irons: Nike Vapor Fly Pro (3-iron; Fujikura Pro 95 Tour Spec X shaft), Mizuno JPX-900 Tour (4-PW; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts) Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM7 (52-12F, 56-10S, 60-08M degrees; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts) Putter: Scotty Cameron T10 Select Newport 2 Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

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The kid from Japan with the tall hairdo and pause at the top announced himself as one to watch at the 2011 Masters, earning low amateur honors with his T27 finish. Hideki Matsuyama has been challenging the world’s best since then while becoming a golf icon to fans back in Japan. For those in the U.S. who stayed up late, and others around the world, Sunday was a special day as Matsuyama claimed his seventh PGA TOUR title at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. The Land of the Rising Sun could celebrate with its risen star. Matsuyama comes alive for home fans For most of the four days at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, it felt like destiny was on Matsuyama’s side. He opened the tournament with a 64 to trail countryman Hiroshi Iwata by one but seized a one-shot lead with back-to-back 68s in tough conditions Friday and Saturday. This season has had its highs and lows for Matsuyama, who won his first major at The Masters Tournament in April but missed the podium, losing the bronze-medal playoff, at the Tokyo Olympics in August. He came to the ZOZO playing poorly, he said, but found something. An eagle at the par-5 6th hole extended Matsuyama’s lead to two over Cameron Tringale, but then it got tight. Matsuyama bogeyed No. 8, Tringale birdied No. 9, and they were tied. Then Tringale birdied No. 10 to take the lead. That’s when everything changed, Matsuyama throwing down the hammer. With the home fans giving him a little extra push, he birdied Nos. 11, 13 and 15 to take a two-shot lead. He and Tringale bogeyed 17, but then Matsuyama left no doubt, sending his fans into a frenzy. From 241 yards out on the par-5 18th, Matsuyama hit a fairway wood to 12 feet. While Tringale bogeyed, Matsuyama slammed in his eagle putt for a statement-making five-shot win. The victory is Matsuyama’s seventh on the PGA TOUR, but first in Asia. He pulls within one of K.J. Choi’s record eight PGA TOUR titles by an Asian-born player. “I was the only Japanese player contending and was up on the leaderboard,” he said. “To be honest, there were some pressures to deal with, but I’m glad I was able to convert that to positives.” The last time the ZOZO was held in Japan, in 2019, Matsuyama finished second to Tiger Woods. But this was Matsuyama’s moment. Surprising, given that he said before the tournament, “If my game scored 10 out of 10 at the Masters, now, I would say it scores less than 1.” Afterward, he boosted his grade, but not by much. “I would rate my performance as 2 or 3,” he said. “From the results perspective, it went about to 8, but I think it’s because of all the energy that I was getting from the fans, and I was very surprised how much energy I was feeding off of them.” For sports-crazed Japan, which has been mostly without on-site fans during the pandemic, most notably for its own Olympic Games, it felt like a special moment in the country’s athletic history. Tringale: another close call Last May, Cameron Tringale put his name in the record books, for better or worse. He became the highest-earning PGA TOUR player without a win. After another runner-up finish, his fourth on TOUR, the 34-year-old Tringale retains his title, as much as he wants to get rid of it. For about an hour on Sunday, it looked like Tringale might foil Matsuyama’s victory march. Tringale’s birdie at the 10th gave him sole possession of the lead. He waved to the crowd and was met with pleasant claps, although it was no secret who the gallery was cheering for. Alas, he flatlined from there: pars on Holes 11-16, then a bogey-bogey finish to lose by five (T2). “I needed to kind of take a couple risks and unfortunately it didn’t pan out,” Tringale said, “but I played 16 really good holes and yeah, that was the day.” Of his eight top-3 finishes, four have come since the TOUR’s post-COVID restart in June of 2020. It feels like a victory is inevitable, but then it’s felt like that for a while. “At least I was in it to some degree on the back nine,” he said. “I felt comfortable. I feel like I keep getting more comfortable and I’m more excited about continuing to be in that position.” Still no first-time winners Five weeks into the 2021-22 PGA Tour season, all five winners have added to their trophy case, while none have started their collection. Max Homa won his third title, Sam Burns his second, Sungjae Im his second, Rory McIlroy his 20th and Hideki Matsuyama his seventh. All five champions are between ages 23-32 and all were in the top 50 in the world at the time of their wins. All five are expected to be consistent factors throughout this season, if not years to come. The 2019 fall season produced four new winners, while the 2020 falls season gave us two. Tringale, who tied for second with three-time TOUR winner Brendan Steele, joined Maverick McNealy and Cameron Young as 2021-22 runner-ups who were seeking their first wins. Japan shows depth While it was Japan’s most famous player hoisting the trophy, a handful of others also excelled. Takumi Kanaya, the 2018 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship winner, who subsequently made the cut at the 2019 Masters, went 68-66 on the weekend to climb to T7 at 5 under. The 23-year-old Kanaya, who spent 55 weeks as the top-ranked amateur in the world before turning pro in 2020, has won three times on the Japan Golf Tour over the last three years. Kanaya, who in 2020 won the Mark. H. McCormack Medal as the world’s No. 1 amateur – other winners have included Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann – is a legit future star. Hiroshi Iwata, 40, who played on TOUR from 2016-2017, took the first-round lead with a 9-under 63. Although he cooled off (T18), he proved he can still go toe-to-toe with the best in the world. Shugo Imahira, who has reached world No. 30 and made the cut at the 2020 Masters and U.S. Open, also finished T18. The 29-year-old has five Japan Golf Tour wins and if he can get his world ranking back up – he’s No. 136 – could find his way back to a few majors in the next decade. Keita Nakajima, who followed Kanaya as the McCormack Medal winner in 2021 and remains the No. 1 amateur in the world, put together at an impressive T28. In all, six Japanese players landed in the top 30, while just one – Matsuyama – did so in 2019. Morikawa quietly in form Just over two months ago, Collin Morikawa started the FedExCup Playoffs at No. 1 in the standings. Alas, he missed the cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST, finished T63 at the no-cut BMW Championship and had the 28th-best gross score at the TOUR Championship (of the 29 players who finished). As it turned out, he had hurt his back in the Olympics, but by the time he got to the Ryder Cup a month ago, he said he was fully healthy. His results have backed that up. After going 3-0-1 at Whistling Straits, Morikawa finished second at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT. He finished T7 at the ZOZO, and climbed to No. 2 in the world, his highest-ever ranking. In doing so, he passed Dustin Johnson, his partner in all three of his Ryder Cup wins. The ascendant Morikawa, 24, only has one man ahead of him now: Jon Rahm. Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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