Adam Long looks for second TOUR win, motivated to get to East Lake

2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, Round 2 Top 10 win probabilities: 1. Cameron Smith (T5, -8, 11.6%) 2. J.J. Spaun (1, -11, 11.6%) 3. Troy Merritt (T2, -10, 9.6%) 4. Tony Finau (T5, -8, 7.9%) 5. Denny McCarthy (4, -9, 6.2%) 6. Matthew Fitzpatrick (T17, -6, 4.7%) 7. Sepp Straka (T2, -10, 4.3%) 8. Justin Thomas (T17, -6, 4.2%) 9. Brian Harman (T5, -8, 4.0%) 10. Will Zalatoris (T17, -6, 2.8%) Top Strokes-Gained Performers from Round 2: Putting: Tyler Duncan +3.7 Around the Green: Seamus Power +2.9 Approach the Green: Joaquin Niemann +2.9 Off-the-tee: Hayden Buckley +2.0 Total: Will Zalatoris +6.4 NOTE: These reports are based off of the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut”, “Top 20”, “Top 5”, and “Win” probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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When Mike Stiller was a teenager, he used to go to the AT&T Byron Nelson and follow Justin Leonard or one of the other PGA TOUR pros who played out of the Vaquero Club where he worked as a caddie. After he graduated from James Madison and scored a job with the Northern Texas PGA Section, Stiller could sometimes be found working as the calligrapher at the scoreboard outside the pavilion at TPC Four Seasons, which was hosting the tournament at the time. This week, Stiller is back at the AT&T Byron Nelson for the first time since joining the TOUR rules staff in 2015. He’s the advance man, which means Stiller arrives the previous week and interfaces with the on-site tournament staff as well as the course superintendent, assuring everything is ready for the event. “This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time,” says Stiller, who is sharing duties with the retiring Brad Fabel this week. “… This is a pretty special event for me, no doubt.” Working with Stiller this week are two other former employees of the Northern Texas PGA Section – Jordan Harris and Mike Peterson. Harris will set up the front nine at the new host venue, TPC Craig Ranch, while Peterson handles the final nine holes. Like Stiller, both are working the Byron Nelson for the first time since leaving the NTPGA and joining the TOUR – Peterson in 2005 and Harris in 2017. “It’s kind of neat to see us come through the ranks like that and get to this level,” Peterson admits. And there are actually two other TOUR rules officials who have NTPGA ties: Drew Miller is a former intern while Harold Geyer, a tournament director on the Korn Ferry Tour, worked there for 12 years. Peterson started the pipeline, so to speak. He went to New Mexico State and earned a degree in business administration in a program that specialized in golf management. Internships with the Southern California and Colorado PGA sections, as well as the PGA of America, stoked Peterson’s interest in running golf tournaments. “It’s always different,” he says. “You’re always going to different places, new golf courses, new cities or states. … And I was never a good enough player to compete at any sort of high level like that. But it was a way for me to be involved at the highest level, tournament-wise.” There was another pull for Peterson, who took a job at the NTPGA as director of tournament operations right out of college. “I fell in love with the Rules of Golf,” Peterson says. “It was kind of like a puzzle to me. You had questions that people would ask you — the juniors would ask you questions, the parents, that sort of stuff and it just was neat to try and figure out what the answer was. “It could be complicated at times, but it just was a big puzzle to me and I kind of liked the way it worked. So that just got me really interested in it.” Stiller and Harris have similar backgrounds. Stiller’s first job was picking range balls so he could practice at the club where his swing coach worked. When his family moved from New Jersey to the Dallas area, he became a fixture at Vaquero, caddying and working odd jobs there. Stiller interned at the NTPGA and did so well he was offered a job before the second semester of his senior year at James Madison. He started two weeks after he graduated in 2008. “Working for the Northern Texas section really was an honor because it’s … known for being one of the very prestigious sections not just because of the quality of the tournaments and the programs that they’ve put on and conducted and run, but because of the people and, and the history of the people that have worked there,” Stiller says. Peterson had already left to work for the TOUR by the time Stiller went to work at the NTPGA. But he remembers when Peterson would stop by the office to say hello and talk golf with his former co-workers. “I always kind of looked up to him like, oh, this is really cool,” Stiller says. “It’s a PGA TOUR referee coming to just to say hello — like, how cool is that? And so, him just kind of being around kind of got me thinking maybe someday down the road, this could happen.” Harris studied professional golf management at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He learned after his first internship at a small private club in Indiana that he didn’t want to sell shirts and give lessons for the rest of his life. He was drawn to the operational side of the competition, though. “My director asked me what I liked about the internship, and I said, hey, it was a great golf professional that I worked for,” Harris recalls. “He got me involved in tournaments. I did scoreboards and picking hole locations and all that stuff. I really enjoyed that. “And he said, well, you need to go and try a section of the PGA of America and see what you think about that. At the time I had no idea what a section was. … And I just flat out asked him, I said, well, if I’m going to try this, I’d like to go to the best one. So, what’s that? Where’s the best section?” Harris’ advisor suggested the NTPGA, which is known for a junior golf tour that helped nurture the likes of Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris – Thursday’s Featured Group at TPC Craig Ranch – as well as an extensive roster of other events, including stages of the TOUR’s qualifying school and various Monday qualifiers. Harris was hired as an intern in 2008 to work with Stiller and Geyer, who would leave to work for the TOUR in ’10. “We worked together that summer and I fell in love with it,” says Harris, who was later invited back to do a seven-month internship and hired full-time. “I loved, loved everything about tournaments and got really involved with the rules and wanting to learn more.” “It was us traveling and working together an entire summer, whether it was going out to Midland to run a section championship or all the tournaments we ran here in Dallas,” Stiller recalls. “It was basically the three of us. …. “But that was a cool summer. I mean, looking back on it, it was really neat just to have all of us doing the same thing together and sure enough, just years later, we’re all out here doing it again.” Peterson, Stiller and Harris give the NTPGA’s executive director, Mark Harrison, a lot of credit for helping them grow as referees and tournament officials. “Mark’s got a wonderful golf mind and … he did a really good job of just pushing us and always thinking about how we can do things better,” Harris says. “And he really mirrored our set-up philosophy around the PGA TOUR’s set-up philosophy.” Stiller also appreciated the way Harrison put his employees in a position to succeed. “What Mark has really done, I think personally, at that section is really given the staff there that works for him the platform to really take off and do whatever they want to do,” Stiller says. “I respect Mark completely and wholly, but one particular reason that I really, really appreciate about him is that if somebody expressed him what they wanted, if they wanted to leave the organization one day and move on to something different or something bigger, he had their back 100%. “So, when I told him that this is something that I wanted to do he did everything in his power to make that happen and support me 110 percent. And that’s something I would never forget.”

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Here are nine tidbits from the first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu that gamers can use tomorrow, this weekend or down the road. Be looking for the Emergency 9 shortly after the close of play of each round of the tournament. Know Thy Enemy These were the top 10 picked golfers in the PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO. The decisions might have been a bit more difficult this week with a field of 144 instead of 34. Now you know who you’re up against! Lead Dawg Chris Kirk (Georgia Bulldogs) fired a bogey-free 63 in the morning wave to grab the lead. Kirk matched his opening-round 63 at The RSM Classic to wrap up the 2017 season (T4). This is the fifth time in the last six years that he’s posted 65 or lower at Waialae. He posted back-to-back finishes inside the top five in this event in 2013-14 with T5 and solo second. Co-Lead Dawg Zach Johnson (Drake Bulldogs) shares the lead also with a bogey-free 63. This Dawg didn’t have the pain and suffering as his friends from Athens after Georgia lost to Alabama in the College Football Playoff on Monday night. Johnson, similarly to Kirk, was posting low ones at the end of last year with a closing 64 at Mayakoba before a third round 64 at The RSM Classic (T8). The 2009 champ was late arriving because of the flu but he’s hit the ground running and looks to grab his fourth top 10 in the last five years. Hardy Har-Harman The way he’s been playing in recent weeks is no laughing matter. His 64 to open suggests he’s not satisfied collecting top 10s. Harman played in the final group the final three rounds last week and finished third, his fourth straight outing inside the top 10. Hop on that saddle and have both hands on the reigns! The Old Man and the Sea As I wrote about in The Confidence Factor, Waialae is Jerry Kelly’s happy place. Sure, he’s 51 but he’s also the second-highest earner in the history of this event. This is his 21st start and his opening round 66 will put him in a great position to make his 16th weekend. His MC last year broke up a streak of three in a row in the top 10. Think Fred Couples at Augusta if you need a comparison! Tide Rolling Defending champion Justin Thomas (67) posted his worst round in five trips as he didn’t sign for anything over 65 in setting the tournament scoring record last year. With Jim “Bones” McKay on the bag for the first time, Thomas didn’t square a bogey and made three birdies. The wind, as expected, was not a factor on Thursday so he’s in excellent shape for Friday morning to get even lower. With 59 and 61 to his name on this track already, I’m sticking him into the lineup tomorrow. Players who didn’t get in red figures today are going to have to get low on Friday as the top 98 are currently even or better. The cut last year was 3-under-par 137. Moon Rising Two-time winner Sangmoon Bae is back on TOUR after serving required military service in his native Korea. His two year duty has ended and he’s back and looking to recapture the form that made him valuable to gamers from 2012-2015. His final full season, 2015, saw him tee it up 30 times, win once and add four additional top 10s. At 31 he’s hardly past it as his 66 on Thursday suggests. I’ll also point out this is his first round in the 60s in 11 tries this season so I’m not jumping in just yet. Spieth’s ‘Snowman’ Those who stuck him in the starting lineup won’t be happy with his snowman in paradise on the penultimate hole of the day. The good news is that quadruple bogey was surrounded by eight birdies, including one on the final hole of the day that will make dinner for Spieth, and gamers, taste a little bit better. Last week, Spieth got off to a slow start yet rallied in Round 2. The brave (or trailing) will throw him out there tomorrow but those near the top can patiently bide their time. Study Hall Jimmy Walker (74) has a fantastic recent record at this event but he’s also battling Lyme disease and is nowhere near 100 percent physically or mentally, the television coverage reported … Luke Donald was hospitalized with chest pains at The RSM Classic in the first round leading to his withdrawal. He opened with 72 in his first event back … Morgan Hoffmann (69) disclosed in early December that he has been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. … Ryan Palmer (71) returned to action after shoulder surgery knocked him out after the Wyndham Championship. He has six starts on his major medical exemption to keep his status.

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