‘Chances are pretty good’: Can a LIV Golf player win the Masters?

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2019 3M Open, End of Round 1. Course scoring averages: Overall: -0.74 strokes per round Morning wave: -0.83 Afternoon wave: -0.64 Current cutline: 70 players at -2 or better (T49th position) Top 3 most likely projected cutlines: 2 under par: 25.8% 3 under par: 24.8% 1 under par: 18.3% Top 10 win probabilities: Hideki Matsuyama (T2, -7, 17.7%) Scott Piercy (1, -9, 16.5%) Brooks Koepka (T18, -4, 6.8%) Adam Hadwin (T2, -7, 6.5%) Bryson DeChambeau (T9, -5, 6.2%) Tony Finau (T9, -5, 4.2%) Sungjae Im (T4, -6, 4.1%) Jason Day (T49, -2, 2.1%) Lucas Glover (T18, -4, 1.9%) Brian Harman (T4, -6, 1.8%) NOTE: These reports are based off 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 3M Open, 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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Justin Thomas has been tearing up the PGA TOUR. Now one of his college teammates will have the opportunity to make his PGA TOUR debut. Scott Strohmeyer was one of four players to Monday qualify for this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. Strohmeyer was teammates with Thomas on the 2013 Alabama team that won the NCAA Championship. Three of the five players from that team have earned PGA TOUR cards: Thomas, Trey Mullinax and Bobby Wyatt.  Strohmeyer, on the other hand, has not played in a PGA TOUR or Web.com Tour event. He won his lone individual title at the 2013 NCAA Baton Rouge Regional, the second-to-last event of his career; he finished two shots ahead of Wyatt and six shots ahead of Thomas. Strohmeyer closed his career by beating Illinois’ Brian Campbell in the championship match of the 2013 NCAA Championship, helping Alabama to a 4-1 victory over the Illini. Campbell played on the PGA TOUR last season. Strohmeyer recently failed to advance out of the first stage of Web.com Tour Q-School after shooting a first-round 81; he played the next three rounds in 2 under. Strohmeyer shot 68 in Monday’s qualifier at Deerfield Golf Club in Canton, Mississippi, then won a four-man playoff for the final spot in the Sanderson Farms Championship. Rhein Gibson, Chris Baker and Mississippi State alum Matt Fast also were in the playoff. Grady Brame Jr. shot 65 on Monday to earn medalist honors. Brame, 24, will be making his PGA TOUR debut. He finished 144th on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada money list this year, making two cuts in nine events. Brame played college golf at Southeastern Louisiana and won the Louisiana Amateur in 2014 and 2015. Nyasha Mauchaza finished one shot behind Brame on Monday. Mauchaza, 29, is from Zimbabwe and graduated from Towson University in 2011. His lone PGA TOUR start came at the 2011 Wyndham Championship; he missed the cut with rounds of 75-72. He last played a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event in August 2016, when he competed in his fourth PGA TOUR Canada event of the year. David Skinns is the most experienced member of this week’s qualifiers. Skinns, a 2006 graduate of Tennessee, finished 58th on this year’s Web.com Tour money list. It was his first time playing more than 11 Web.com Tour events in a season. His runner-up finish at the final event of the Regular Season, the WinCo Foods Portland Open, was his lone top-10 in 23 starts in 2017. He jumped from 115th to 58th on the money list to keep his card for the 2018 season. Skinns, 35, has played in three PGA TOUR events: the 2013 Valspar Championship (MC), 2014 Puerto Rico Open (T29) and 2016 Waste Management Phoenix Open (MC).

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