Carlos Ortiz nabs first PGA win in Houston

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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THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Phil Mickelson has often said he owes a lot to Tiger Woods. The 50-year-old knows Woods helped golf’s popularity soar, and with it, so did the purses and exposure for sponsorship opportunities. This allowed someone as successful as Mickelson to have a very fruitful career. But as Mickelson returns to the PGA TOUR at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD this week, fresh off claiming his second PGA TOUR Champions win in as many starts, he was praising Woods for another aspect of his own career. His longevity. Mickelson has been competitive on TOUR since winning as an amateur in 1991. "Looking back, I wish I had been a little bit more committed fitness‑wise in the height of my career… (but) Tiger pushed me to start training a little bit more, which has helped me elongate my career," Mickelson said Wednesday at Sherwood Country Club. During the last few years, Mickelson has significantly added length to his game despite his age, but while he wished he'd been even fitter, he says he doesn't regret not chasing "bombs" earlier in his career. As Bryson DeChambeau sets new marks for ball speed and distance, Mickelson says it just wouldn't have been feasible in his time. "During the prime of my career we really didn’t have launch monitors, so we weren’t able to dial a lot of this stuff in. A lot of this was by feel and seeing the ball and using vision to see, oh, it’s spinning too much, it’s floating. We didn’t have the precision to dial things in the way we do now," Mickelson said. "Now guys that are hitting it in the 180‑mile‑an‑hour ball speeds are getting pushed to go to the 190s because of Bryson and a lot of guys have to do that to keep up." While Mickelson will continue to work on the speed that is comfortable for him and his play, the 44-time TOUR winner is mindful of accuracy with driver. It has been a problem for him throughout his career. "I actually feel there’s a point of diminishing return about 182‑ to 185‑mile‑an‑hour ball speed. I think once you get over that, I don’t know if you’re really getting out of it what you put in, meaning a lot of courses won’t allow for that advantage to be taken if you get in the 190s," Mickelson explained. "Holes dogleg, you have tighter landing areas, there’s only a couple holes a golf course where it can really help you and I feel like most guys are already at that optimum distance of 182‑ to 185‑mile‑an‑hour ball speed." The veteran is full of confidence again after another victory against his former foes. He became just the third player to win in his first two starts on the PGA TOUR Champions with a win in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic last weekend. But he knows he needs to step it up to compete on the PGA TOUR. "I’m excited to compete and come off of last week’s event on (PGA TOUR Champions) and try to play, compete against the young guys. This is a fun opportunity for me," he said. "It’s been really fun for me to play and compete on (PGA TOUR Champions), a lot more so than I thought it would be. I’m surprised how much fun I’m having, how much fun it is to see some of the same guys that I’ve seen for so many years and haven’t had a chance to be with them for a number of years now. I seem to get a little bit of confidence and I’m hoping to bring that over into this event. "But the penalty for a miss is much more severe on the regular TOUR, the pin placements are a little bit more difficult. The length isn’t as different as I thought. We play the back tees on the Champions Tour and it can play every bit as long, but the courses out here are a lot more penalizing. I have to be a little bit more precise."

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Jon Rahm probably should have won. But he didn’t. Instead, Patrick Cantlay walked away with the victory as the U.S. Open looms with plenty of questions.

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