Confidence Factor: Fantasy golf advice for the U.S. Open

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Travelers Championship in this week’s edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. RELATED: Play Pick ‘Em Live THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create a team, click the “LEAGUES” tab. Then click on “FEATURED,” and then on the PGA TOUR Experts league that populates. SEASON SEGMENT

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To appreciate the view of Hunter Mahan these days, it is best to first refer to snapshots from years gone by. Of that day in 2003, for instance, when he officially signed an equipment deal to signal his move to the professional ranks. “He showed up wearing an OSU (Oklahoma State University) T-shirt and gym shorts,â€� laughed Chance Cozby, the longtime director of tournament player relations for PING. “No pretenses.â€� Of that Monday in 2010 when another U.S. Ryder Cup loss on European soil was decided in the final game of the competition – Graeme McDowell edging Mahan, 3 and 1 – and teammates had finally tired of the media’s excessive interrogation of the man in that anchor match who ended with a poor chip. So, Stewart Cink spoke from the heart. “If you go up-and-down the line of TOUR players in Europe and the U.S. and ask them, ‘Would you like to be the last guy to decide the Ryder Cup?’, probably less than half would say they would and probably less than 10 percent would mean it. Hunter Mahan put himself in that position today; he was a man to put himself in that position.â€� Of that warm October afternoon at Oklahoma State’s Karsten Creek Golf Club, when Mahan – just five days after that crushing defeat to McDowell in Wales – hung around and mingled with 72 players and their parents for more than 3-1/2 hours as host of the PING Invitational. For sure, he was peppered with more Ryder Cup questions. Yes, he provided all the answers. Of that April Sunday in 2012, when Mahan’s victory at the Houston Open lifted him to a career-best No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Of that August in 2014 when a triumph at The Barclays assured Mahan of another trip to the TOUR Championship, meaning he had scripted a seven-year run of impeccable consistency: Appearances in all 32 FedExCup Playoffs events; two World Golf Championship wins; and berths on three Ryder Cup and four Presidents Cup teams. Of that Sunday in July of this year, when Mahan, having shared the 54-hole lead at the Barbasol Championship, bogeyed a pair of par-5s down the stretch and squandered his chance to win for the first time in four years. Put them together in one of those childhood flip books and you would see that Mahan has ridden the highs and lows that are as much a part of golf as doglegs and greenside bunkers – all the while maintaining an impeccable dignity. “Hunter,â€� said Cozby, “is just a stand-up guy.â€� Good perspective to consider for those who might wonder if there is a story developing along the lines of “the rise and fall and rise againâ€� of Hunter Myles Mahan, who parlayed a share of second at the DAP Championship presented by NewBrick on Labor Day weekend into a 11th-place finish on the money list and 18th on the priority ranking. It assures him full status for 2018-19 after having played out of lower-tier categories for a few seasons. He will be making his fourth start of the season at this week’s The RSM Classic, the final event of the fall portion of the schedule. Mahan, whose eight-year run of elite golf – from 2007-2014, he ranked top 20 in ball-striking seven times, won six tournaments, and placed top 10 in 45 of 202 starts – is as impressive as his 2015-18 stretch is perplexing, has not let the slide define who he is. He and his wife, Kandi, welcomed a third child in the summer of ’16 and while it’s convenient to suggest that Mahan’s golf took a back seat to quality time at home, it remains tough to explain, he said. “There are just so many layers,â€� said Mahan, who has finished 49th, 183rd, 182nd, and 159th in the FedExCup standings each of the past four seasons after having been a fixture at the TOUR Championship for the previous eight. He acknowledged that it started to slip away in 2015 when he had just one top 10 over his last 13 tournaments and exited the Playoffs at the BMW Championship. “For the first time in my life, I really wasn’t sure what was going on,â€� he continued. “My ball-striking, usually so consistent, just didn’t feel the same.â€� From there, he added, “it was a slow bleed and a lack of confidence comes with that.â€� To be here right now, with all that has happened, you know you just don’t have that much control of life and what might happen. But you realize life is so precious. But for all the struggles on the golf course in ’15, ’16 and ’17, Mahan never lost his passion for competitive golf. He hooked on with Dallas-based swing coach Chris O’Connell, who had won praise for his work with Matt Kuchar – winner of last week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic — and the foundation at home buoyed him. “When you’re surrounded by people you love and who love you, you don’t want to waste a day,â€� Mahan said. Little did he know how that faith was going to be tested early in 2018 when news was received “that took my breath away,â€� Mahan said. His wife’s sister, Katie Enloe — whose husband, Jason Enloe, the head golf coach at SMU, is one of Hunter Mahan’s best friends — had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. For years, Mahan concedes he didn’t really “go deep into my techniqueâ€� to study why he was so proficient a ball-striker. “I figure it was in my DNA and I knew that I was consistently good at it,â€� he said. Cozby remembers Mahan telling him there isn’t “a golf hole in the world that I don’t think I could stand up there and hit it in the fairway,â€� so clearly it was stunning when he dropped to 99th in ball-striking, then 144th in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Yet that mystery didn’t shake Mahan. Katie Enloe’s death in July did, however. The mother of two daughters was just 35. “To be here right now, with all that has happened, you know you just don’t have that much control of life and what might happen,â€� Mahan said. “But you realize life is so precious.â€� Understandably, Mahan had trouble focusing on golf, but he knew it was important “how you reactâ€� to heartache like this. Admirably, he and Kandi embraced golf, not so much Mahan’s own tournament golf, but instead, they poured their hearts and souls into the Mahan Family Foundation Match Play at Trinity Forest outside of Dallas and a sense of wonder consumed them on this day to support “KatieStrongTx.â€� Said Mahan: “It was clear to us that we wanted to do this, that we needed to do it.â€� To offer Mahan praise for putting so much time into a charitable foundation at a time when he was still trying to get his game back together does not register with him. It’s golf. It’s everywhere. He remembers in the aftermath of Celtic Manor and the gut-wrenching loss to McDowell in the 2010 Ryder Cup, how Steve Stricker “made a point of telling me he’d always be there for me.â€� And how Kuchar and Cink and Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk and Davis Love III had Mahan’s back in front of a media that might not have been kicking a man when he was down, but they weren’t exactly letting him up without more questions about that deciding game. Of course, Mahan recovered from that bitter defeat. A starring role in the 2011 Presidents Cup win, two more triumphs in 2012, and a 2013 and ’14 seasons that saw him win over $3 million — it was all proof that Mahan wasn’t down for the count. Nor is he now, said Cozby. “His priorities changed for a while,â€� Cozby noted. “He got to the point where he didn’t want to be at the golf course. But we think Hunter has got a lot of game left.â€� At 36, Mahan agrees, and he relishes the opportunity in front of him. He improved to 69th in ball-striking in 2017 and 30th this past year, so he feels as if he’s trending positively. “On or off the golf course, it’s always an interesting challenge to pick yourself back up,â€� he said. “I’m motivated for this opportunity.â€�

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Tyrrell Hatton lost his swing on his back nine without losing his head, a small victory. He battled through a tough test at Bay Hill on Friday and was only surprised by what he saw when he finished. His tidy short game was strong enough to carry him into a share of the lead with Sung Kang going into the weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Related: Leaderboard | Morikawa takes over top spot for consecutive cuts “I just didn’t have a clue where it was going,” Hatton said after a 3-under 69 in a wind that came out of the opposite direction. “Just happy to get in the clubhouse with no damage done, really.” Kang birdied four of his last seven holes for a 68. Rory McIlroy made a mess of No. 8 and felt he made Bay Hill harder than it was — and it was plenty difficult — for a 73 that still left him within two shots of the lead. Matt Every thought it was awesome that his 65 in the opening round was 20 shots better than his previous round on the PGA TOUR. Not so awesome was being 18 shots higher the next day, an 83 that allowed him to join the wrong list in PGA TOUR annals by going from the 18-hole lead to the weekend off. He missed the cut by one shot. “I really didn’t see this coming, to be honest,” said Every, who is rarely anything but honest. “But it happens. It kind of happens to me quite a bit.” His last three rounds on the PGA TOUR dating to a week ago at the Honda Classic: 85-65-83. He was he first player since Camilo Villegas in the 2013 Honda Classic to go from the first-round lead to a missed cut. Talor Gooch fared a little better. He followed a 67 with an 80 and made the cut on the number. Phil Mickelson, who opened with a 77, drilled a 5-iron from 239 yards away over the water to 7 feet for an eagle on the par-5 sixth to get on the cut number with three holes to play. He finished with a double bogey and missed the cut for the fourth time this year. It’s the first time in 25 years Mickelson has missed four cuts before The Masters. “I thought it was a really hard golf course, and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to play on these type of conditions,” Mickelson said. “And I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t gotten off to the start his year I would like. I’m not discouraged. I don’t feel like I’m that far off.” Henrik Stenson also opened with a 77. He also battled back to give himself a chance to make the cut. And he also took double bogey on his final hole to miss the cut for only the second time in 12 appearances at Bay Hill. The average score was 74.08, the highest at Bay Hill since the opening round of 2011. And it left a 69-man field for the weekend that is up for grabs. Hatton and Kang were at 7-under 137, the highest score to lead at Bay Hill in 10 years. Danny Lee had the low round of the day, a 67, that left him one shot behind. McIlroy, The Honda Classic winner Sungjae Im (69) and Harris English (70) were two strokes behind at 5 under. Another shot back was a group that included Patrick Reed, who had another 70 in his bid to win his second straight tournament. Hatton is making up for lost time from an accident in the oddest of places. He was walking in from the Par 3 Tournament at The Masters three years ago when it was halted by storms and slipped on pine straw, injuring his right wrist as he braced for the fall. He tried cortisone shots to buy time, and he finally felt the only option was surgery last November. The Englishman was out longer than he expected, but he returned in Mexico City by tying for sixth in the World Golf Championships event, and now he has a share of the 36-hole lead at Bay Hill. McIlroy was happy to still be in range. His round looked as though it might come undone when he got caught up in the trees to the right of the eighth fairway and made double bogey, this after a three-putt bogey from long range on the par-3 seventh. He birdied his next hole, limited the mistakes to only one bogey on the back nine and wound up in good shape. “It was a grind. I think I made it more of a grind than I needed to,” McIlroy said. “Conditions were tricky, greens are getting firm, wind was out of a different direction today, so that made things a little interesting, too. … I’m still right there in the golf tournament.”

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