Chase Koepka added to field for Workday Charity Open

Friday’s second round at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES saw Scott Piercy ascend to the top of the leaderboard, while Brooks Koepka took a commanding share of the win probability. Here are the top 10 win probabilities through 36 holes according to our model: Koepka, who our model rates as the second-best player in this field, now has a better than 1 in 3 chance of winning come Sunday. Koepka finished Friday’s round on a high note, making eagle on the par-5 18th hole which added about 10 percentage points to his win probability. The leader, Scott Piercy, is estimated by our model to be approximately equal in ability to the average PGA TOUR professional. Koepka, on the other hand, is estimated to be about 1.5 strokes better per round. Therefore, we could instead think of their current win probabilities as describing a scenario in which two equally skilled players are separated by two strokes (with Koepka getting the two-stroke advantage). Friday’s low round belonged to Brian Harman, who shot an 8-under-par 64. Here is how he got it done: After an opening-round 76, Harman looked to be out of this event. The model gave him just a 7 percent chance at finishing in the top 20. However, his superb second round has revived his chances of having a good week: Harman is now 58 percent to finish in the top 20, and has an outside shot (1.4 percent) at claiming a victory this weekend.  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 five 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 10,000 simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of THE CJ Cup @ NINE BRIDGES, 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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Jon Rahm shot a 4-under 66 on Saturday to get into contention at the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields, but all anyone wanted to talk about was the one hole he bogeyed. He forgot to mark his ball before picking it up at the par-4 fifth hole. Penalty: one stroke. "I just hope I don’t lose by one," Rahm said. "I’m just going to say that. I just hope. And if I do, well, very well my fault. It’s as simple as that." How exactly did he forget to mark his ball before picking it up? Well, even Rahm isn't entirely sure. He had hit his approach to just inside 44 feet when, as he describes it, his mind simply went on walkabout. "I was holding my marker in my pocket," he said of the Arizona State poker chip he uses from far away. "Just went at it, and for some reason I just picked up the ball thinking I marked it already. I was thinking of somebody else and something else or somebody - and yeah, I just picked up the ball without marking it, simple as that." He froze upon realizing his mistake, and fessed up to his violation. "Once I replaced it," he said, "took the penalty and moved on." It was Rahm's only bogey of the day on a course that has confounded the best players in the world, and he was especially proud to have shot 66 after such a lapse. "I’m proud of being able to maintain my composure afterwards," he said. "I think the most important shot of the round was that second putt, the six-footer for bogey. Technically, it helped out a lot. I was able to tell myself I was 1 under par through five holes. It’s not easy; the first few holes aren’t playing that easy today. Just more so proud that I was able to pull it off afterwards. "I really can’t give you an explanation," he added. "It’s one of those things that happen in golf. Never thought it would happen in my professional career, but here we are."

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AVONDALE, La. — Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel birdied six of their final eight holes Saturday to shoot a 9-under 63 and take a one-shot lead at 19-under 197 into the final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. RELATED: Leaderboard | Doug Ghim, Justin Suh bounce back to get in contention at the Zurich Classic The South African tandem birdied the par-3 17th with Oosthuizen’s 33-foot putt and Oosthuizen missed an eagle on the par-5 18th by 4 inches before tapping in for the lead while wearing a somewhat disgusted look because of his narrowly missed previous putt from nearly 17 feet. Oosthuizen then allowed for a smile while fist-bumping Schwartzel in acknowledgment of a successful round in a best-ball format that included nine birdies — five by Schwartzel and four by Oosthuizen in the PGA TOUR’s lone regular-season team event. Schwartzel got the pair going when he birdied No. 4 with a nearly 58-foot putt. The tournament will close with an alternate-shot round. “It’s going to be tough tomorrow,” Oosthuizen said. “Anyone within four shots of the lead has got a chance with the format that it is tomorrow. … The way the wind is the whole week, I think the golf course plays very tough, especially in alternate-shot.” In all, 17 teams were no more than four strokes back. Australians Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith also shot a 63 to move into a tie for second at 18 under with Cameron Champ and Tony Finau, who shot a 67 after Finau’s tap-in birdie. “Cam is playing great, putting great. I’m feeling a lot better over the ball today than I did the first two rounds,” Leishman said. “If I can play good, Cam keeps doing what he’s doing, I think we’ve got a good chance.” Tied for fourth at 17 under were the teams of Bubba Watson and Scottie Scheffler, and Norwegians Viktor Hovland and Kris Ventura, who’d shared the lead after the first and second rounds. Ryan Palmer and Spaniard Jon Rahm, the defending champs from 2019, shot a third-round 65 to remain in contention at 15 under and tied for ninth with nine other teams. Saturday’s action included some exceptional shots by players further back in the field, including Sam Ryder’s double-eagle from 206 yards on the par-5 second hole and Wyndham Clark’s 106-yard approach from the muddy edge of a water hazard on 16. Clark stood in the water in bare feet with his pants rolled up and splattered virtually all of himself with mud as he sent his ball to the edge of the green, about 15 feet from the hole, from where he made par. Clark and teammate Erik van Rooyen were among the teams at 15 under. Ryder and Doc Redman, who shot a third-round 66, were tied for 19th at 13 under.

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