Augusta National Golf Club to host ESPN College GameDay during Masters

At the same time that the PGA TOUR matches the record for shortest road trip between consecutive tournaments, it presents what has been a familiar event since the Bicentennial. Just like last week’s Workday Charity Open, the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide has been contested on only one course throughout its history. And while it was fun to fill the recent hiatus with an all-time Power Rankings at Muirfield Village Golf Club, nothing beats real-time competition, especially given the fact that the No. 1 is back in action. As of midday Monday, 89 who teed it up at the Workday hung around for the nightcap of this “Dublin-header” in central Ohio. For a review of how Muirfield Village played last week in comparison to last year’s Memorial, what this week’s field should expect and more, scroll past the projected contenders. RELATED: Featured Groups | The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: THE MEMORIAL Notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include 2010 champion Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth. Despite the spillover of talent from the Workday to the Memorial, the construction of each field is different. The Workday was a 157-man open, while the grouping for the 132-deep Memorial is an invitational, albeit 12 stronger than originally scheduled (to accommodate for playing time lost due to the pandemic). So, it probably doesn’t surprise keen-eyed golf fans that the field for the Workday hit fewer than 10 percent of the welcoming fairways on average than last year’s Memorial field (of 120), even with rain limiting rollout on landing areas. As it concerned saving par, last week’s scrambling percentage of 52.32 was the lowest of any course this season. That’s not a full three points lower than the 2019 Memorial field (that ranked seventh-lowest in all of 2018-19), but it’s an indication of overall comfort and familiarity, or lack thereof, on the 5,000-square foot targets. Still, the Workday field checked in with a scoring average of 71.853 for the week. Last year’s Memorial field landed at 72.081. Muirfield Village is a stock par 72 on which par is a decent score when the wind blows, which it did for a good portion of the 2019 Memorial. However, whoever claims this week’s title, the three-year PGA TOUR membership exemption and the three-year exemption into THE PLAYERS Championship, will have begun the tournament eyeing double digits under par. Each of the last seven champions have completed 72 holes no worse than 12-under 276. Inclement weather cannot be ruled out during any round, which means that rain will fall, and wind won’t be an issue, so scoring will remain low. It’s probably a stretch to consider 19-under 269 repeating itself. That was the aggregate posted by Workday champion Collin Morikawa and playoff victim Justin Thomas. They played the 7,456-yard track with modifications made for the substitute event. Traditional tees and hole locations will bookend the experience on what should play as a longer test overall for the Memorial, at least in degrees. The bentgrass greens for the Workday were prepped to run 11-11.5 feet on the Stimpmeter, but the undulations seemed to contribute to what normally would be a slow pace by TOUR standards. Weather-dependent, as always, this week’s speed could eclipse 13 feet, longest of any event that releases the measurement. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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Fresh off his Presidents Cup debut, Sam Burns returns this week to the Country Club of Jackson (Miss.) to defend his title at the Sanderson Farms Championship. His win at last year’s Sanderson Farms was the second title of his career. He added Nos. 3 and 4 later that season with a successful title defense at the Valspar Championship and a playoff victory over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler at the Charles Schwab Challenge. It was a season to remember for Burns, whose eight top-10s included the three wins and a runner-up. He finished in the top 25 in more than half his starts, as well. Equipment-wise, Burns is starting right where he left off last season. That comes as no surprise, since Burns rarely changes or even tweaks his equipment. In fact, he has made just three changes to his setup since his win in Mississippi last year. At the beginning of 2022, he added: 1) A new driver 2) A unique utility wood 3) A wild prototype “attack,” or “approach” wedge Below, GolfWRX.com takes you through those changes and the rest of his equipment setup as he looks to defend his Sanderson Farms title: Driver: Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond (10.5 degrees; Fujikura Ventus Blue 7TX shaft) Last year, Burns used a Callaway Epic Speed driver with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7TX shaft. At the start of 2022, however, he upgraded into Callaway’s new Rogue ST Triple Diamond driver, which he equipped with the same Fujikura Ventus Blue shaft he was previously using. Callaway representative Johnny Wunder said Burns switched because the new driver caused the ball to hold its integrity a lot longer on the way down. That mitigated a “float-y right miss that would creep up,” Wunder said. The Ventus Blue 7TX shaft offered him a softer feel with the added benefit of a very stable tip section. “As a rotational swinger of the golf club,” Wunder said. “Sam likes shafts that have a little play in the midsection with reduced torque at impact.” 4-Wood: Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero (17 degrees; Fujikura Ventus Black 8X shaft) While Burns’ Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero fairway wood is listed as 17 degrees on the club, it’s actually adjusted to 15.5 degrees. By lowering the loft, the club face now sits slightly open at address, but Burns can still achieve the launch and spin windows he wants at 15.5 degrees. According to Callaway, Burns hits his 4-wood 265-270 yards off the tee with 3,500-3,700 rpm of spin. He hits it 260-265 yards with around 4,000 rpm from off the turf. This club is built to fill the yardage gap between Burns’ driver and his utility wood. Utility: Callaway Apex UW (21 degrees; Fujikura Ventus Blue 8X shaft) Back at last year’s Sanderson Farms Championship, Burns was still using a Callaway Apex Pro 4 hybrid from 2015. Although Burns is reluctant to switch clubs, he replaced the longtime hybrid at the end of 2021 with Callaway’s all-new Apex UW utility wood that goes a bit farther and higher than his former hybrid. The enhanced performance allows Burns to work the ball both ways, and land softer on the greens to make the ball stop quicker. Irons: Callaway Apex TCB (4-PW, AW; Project X 6.5 shafts) Burns worked with Callaway during the winter of 2020 to help tighten his dispersion from his previous Apex Pro Double-Dot irons. He ended up transitioning into the Apex TCB irons, which improved his consistency in terms of launch and spin. He’s been using the irons ever since, and the stats have showed that they have paid off. After ranking outside the top 125 in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green in both 2019 and 2020, Burns has been in the top 30 of that stat in each of the previous two seasons. He ranked a career-best 18th in that stat last season (+0.55 per round) after ranking 138th in 2020 (-0.18). Uniquely, as we highlighted in a previous Equipment Report, Burns added an A wedge (the A stands for “attack,” or “approach”) at the end of 2021. Working with his coach Brad Pullin, the duo wanted to improve his approach game, and they replaced his former Callaway Jaws MD5 50-degree wedge with an A-wedge version of his Apex TCB irons that has a wider sole, more bounce, and offers more overall forgiveness than the traditional wedge design. As it turns out, the A-wedge addition may have paid off, since Burns finished 12th on the PGA TOUR in Approaches from 125-150 yards in 2021-22. Wedges: Callaway Jaws MD5 Raw (56-10S, 60-12X; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft) For his other two wedges, Burns opts to use the Callaway Jaws MD5 Raw models. Most notably, Burns uses an X grind on his 60-degree lob wedge that has 20 degrees of bounce on the sole. While that’s relatively a lot of bounce when the face sits square, he has relief on the toe and heel sections of the sole for added versatility when playing shots with different face orientations or lie angles. Putter: Odyssey O-Works #7S Black Lastly, Burns rounds out his bag with his longtime Odyssey O-Works #7S Black putter, which he’s had in the bag throughout his PGA TOUR career. “Bermuda Burns,” as they call him, has three PGA TOUR wins on Bermuda greens so far, and he returns to the Country Club of Jackson’s Bermuda greens again this week. Can he add another Bermuda win to further validate his nickname? Burns is one of the best putters on TOUR on any surface, however. Over the previous five seasons (2018-22), Burns has the third highest Strokes Gained: Putting (+0.51) of anyone on TOUR with a minimum of 250 measured rounds. He has ranked in the top 10 of Strokes Gained: Putting in each of the previous two seasons.

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His Saturday at the PGA Championship was anything but boring. Still, through it all, he leads by 1 shot. Thirty years after his first win, can he get perhaps his most stunning?

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