Winner’s Bag: Vijay and Qass Singh, PNC Championship

Joost Luiten … The 32-year-old Dutchman easily is the most recognizable name on this page. However, like many continentals before and since, his game hasn’t translated as strongly against the PGA TOUR’s best as he’s without a top 10 in 35 career TOUR starts. Perhaps his return trip to Club de Golf Chapultepec (T25, 2017) cracks the goose egg in that column. He’s fresh off his latest of six European Tour victories having captured the NBO Oman Open by two strokes two weeks ago. That was foreshadowed by a surging T11 in Malaysia in his previous start. Shubhankar Sharma … Beware the fearless. Just 21 years young, the native of India has been a professional since the age of 16. He’s won twice already on the European Tour this season and sits atop the Race to Dubai standings. He got there in part with a second-round 61 at the Joburg Open in December and with a closing 62 at the Maybank Championship four weeks ago, sites of his titles. Rapidly 75th in the Official World Golf Ranking, he’s making his first appearance on the PGA TOUR. Dean Burmester … There has to be some bittersweetness to his appearance this week. See, if he didn’t qualify, his other option would be to defend his title at the Tshwane Open in his native South Africa. The win was among the litany of top 10s on last season’s Sunshine Tour from which his placement at No. 2 in the Order of Merit granted his exemption in Mexico. It also counted as a co-sanctioned, breakthrough victory on the European Tour. The 28-year-old can really move it off the tee and he’s more than capable with the putter. He’s also arriving on the muscle of a T4 at the Dimension Data Pro-Am where he recorded progressively lower scores in every round. Jorge Campillo … The former standout at Indiana University – he was a freshman the year after Jeff Overton graduated – has only one PGA TOUR start under his belt. It was also in Mexico, and it was way back in 2010 when he missed the cut at Mayakoba. Now 31 years of age, the Spaniard charges in at fifth in the Race to Dubai standings with a runner-up finish in Malaysia followed by a T4 in Oman. That gives him four top 15s already in 2018. Balanced throughout his bag, the veteran of 197 European Tour starts is still winless on his home circuit. Chris Paisley … Timing is everything as he makes his PGA TOUR debut. If the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship would have been contested in early January, not only wouldn’t he have qualified, but his odds to crack this field would have been staggering. Of the top 138 in the Official World Golf Ranking, no one started 2018 worse than the 31-year-old at 289th. He soars into Mexico City at 83rd with a contrail of successes. After launching the year with a maiden victory at the BMW SA Open, he added confidence-cementing fifth-place finishes in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. All of that yielded this week’s exemption via the Race to Dubai standings in which he’s slotted sixth. The terrific putter played collegiately at the University of Tennessee.

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For the stand-alone One & Done for the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, click here. And… exhale… Whew! You may recall in this space last week where I acknowledged that I’d be holding my breath for Martin Laird to commit to the Barracuda Championship. After Friday’s commitment deadline, there he was in the published field. And as of Wednesday morning, he was still in play. Just like One & Doners will usually save Zach Johnson or Steve Stricker for the John Deere Classic, we’re keen on doing the same for Laird, Brendan Steele and Gary Woodland on Montrêux Golf and Country Club. Their collective record in the tournament is ridiculous. However, when Steele qualified for the concurrent World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational when he won the Safeway Open last fall, and when Woodland (the 2013 Barracuda champ) emerged from a playoff at the Waste Management Phoenix Open six months ago to join Steele in Ohio, Laird was our only piece of chalk on the board. I don’t care that he didn’t descend in Reno, Nevada, with much to show for in results. The absence of it is all the more reason for him to reconnect with it where he has every time he’s appeared. In four appearances, he’s finished no worse than T7 in his last visit two years ago. Among the veterans, Robert Garrigus has been a staple in these hills. He loves to mash it at altitude, but his bugaboo is the putter. That slots him perfectly as the tandem in two-man formats. Kevin Streelman and Ryan Palmer are reliable pieces for league leaders, but gamers on the chase shouldn’t hesitate in circling Joel Dahmen. You just never know who it’s going to be or when, but when an unlikely talent on the kind of roll that he’s sustained for months and elevated in recent weeks, you’re struck with a similar hope that I had with Laird. As long as Dahmen fulfills this commitment, your decision is easy. Naturally, the Laird-Dahmen ticket is the way to go in two-man games, but also work in Kevin Tway, Richy Werenski or Andrew Putnam, if necessary. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Martin Laird … Barracuda (1)

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