Dan Parkinson, Golfweek Super Senior leader, is finding success in his return to competitive golf

Will Brooks Koepka successfully defend his title? Or will somebody else claim the $2 million bonus? The second season of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 race begins with this week’s season-opening event, A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. The top 10 players in the FedExCup standings after the final event of the regular season, the Wyndham Championship, will receive bonuses out of the $10 million total pool. Related: WYNDHAM REWARDS TOP 10: How it works, standings, more Koepka claimed first place last season to enter the FedExCup Playoffs as the top seed. Eventual FedExCup champ Rory McIlroy finished second, followed by Matt Kuchar, Xander Schauffele, Gary Woodland, Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey, Webb Simpson and Jon Rahm in the 10th spot. We asked our PGATOUR.COM writers for their predictions for the 2019-20 season – the winner, the top 10 lock, and a surprise choice. Here are their responses: WHO WILL WIN? MIKE McALLISTER (Managing Editor): Justin Thomas. He finished second in regular-season points in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons before dropping to 17th last season while battling a nagging wrist injury. He showed in the Playoffs that he’s back to full strength. SEAN MARTIN (Senior Editor): Rory McIlroy. He’s coming off the most consistent season of his career, and there’s no reason to think he won’t have a strong follow-up to his FedExCup victory. BEN EVERILL (Staff Writer): Brooks Koepka. The sting of defeat to Rory in the FedExCup finale will fuel another regular-season rise for Brooks, leaving him as the winner of the first two Wyndham Rewards titles.  CAMERON MORFIT (Staff Writer): Rory McIlroy. Upon winning the FedExCup, McIlroy said it was a season in which he easily could have won more. I agree. It was almost a fluke that he didn’t, and I think that little edge, that little swagger that comes from being the only other multiple FedExCup winner besides Tiger, puts him over the top as your year two Wyndham Rewards winner.  TOP 10 LOCK? McALLISTER: Dustin Johnson. Yes, I’m aware he’s having off-season knee surgery. And yes, I’m assuming he’ll make a quick recovery. He’s finished in the regular-season top 10 in the last six seasons. I fully expect him to make it seven straight. MARTIN: Justin Thomas. A wrist injury and some of the worst putting of his career didn’t prevent him from finishing third in this season’s FedExCup Playoffs. He’s won nine times over the past three seasons, and I think he’s primed for another big season. EVERILL: Rory McIlroy. There’s no way McIlroy is going backwards in my eyes after his season. So that means he’ll either be second again or beat out my above choice, Brooks.  MORFIT: Brooks Koepka. It was no accident that Koepka was the inaugural Wyndham Rewards winner. He’s so good from tee to green, thrives on the big stage, and is a great putter, besides. There’s no way he won’t make the top 10.  SURPRISE TOP 10 PICK? McALLISTER: Sungjae Im. Don’t know if it would be a huge surprise, given that he was 23rd in points in his rookie season last year. Once again, he’ll likely play more events than anybody else (and thus, gives himself more opportunities for points). Unlike last season, I expect him to win at least one tournament this time. That should push him inside the top 10. MARTIN: Viktor Hovland. He’s a machine, and as a rookie playing out of the Korn Ferry Tour category, he’ll have inspiration to play a lot early. EVERILL: Cameron Smith. After a few seasons of peaks and valleys, the young Australian will finally figure out a way to play solid all season long. He will springboard into 2020 off the back of a great Presidents Cup performance.  MORFIT: Matthew Wolff. This guy is only going to get more comfortable and more dangerous as he gets used to playing the TOUR. And he’s already plenty dangerous.

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Editor’s note: Stewart Cink will receive the Payne Stewart Award presented by Southern Company next week during the TOUR Championship. One of his best friends on the PGA TOUR, Ben Crane, pays tribute to this year’s recipient. I met Stewart in 2002 when I was a rookie on the PGA TOUR. I don’t know exactly how we met, whether we were hitting balls next to each other on the range one day or saw each other at the TOUR Bible study or what. But as I got to know him, I was impressed by how he was guided by his faith and committed to his family. He immediately became the person that I wanted to emulate in the way I played golf, the way I loved on other people and the way I love my family.    He’s always been there for me. I remember at THE PLAYERS Championship the following spring, I shot 79 in the first round. I was basically a mess. I was down on myself. I was wrestling with fear. I wasn’t feeling good about my game at all. So I decided to call Stewart. As we talked, he didn’t make me feel like there was something wrong with me.  He just affirmed that this is very natural and he told me to remember that my identity is not golf, right — it’s in who God says I am. He said that God made me and loves me and when you’re experiencing fear, you’re thinking about yourself. Stewart told me he’d had similar feelings. And it was like wow, you, too?  You’re a legend out here, you’ve had so many wins and such a great career. I’m like, wow, even him. So, his words of encouragement really lifted me up. I went out there in the second round and shot 68, and even though I missed the cut, I felt so much more positive. He walked me through it successfully and honorably, and as luck would have it, we got paired together the next week in the final round of the BellSouth Classic. I actually ended up winning that week, and I attribute a lot of that to Stewart’s words of encouragement. I really do. Another thing about Stewart is that he’s really funny. He’s witty and self-deprecating in a welcome-you-in kind of way. Stewart brings out the silly side in us and he can make the smallest little Curb-Your-Enthusiasm thing, like, so funny. I don’t know anyone on TOUR who doesn’t love Stewart — and trust him, too. That’s why he’s been elected to the TOUR’s Policy Board so many times. He just seems to have time for everybody. And if you ever want to have a good conversation with him, ask Stewart about barbecue. He LOVES that. I just got a Big Green Egg, so when I grilling something, I always text Stewart and his coach Mike Lipnick for pointers. They’re so good, they’ve won real barbecue competitions. I mean, they’re the masters. You know, it’s interesting. Stewart loves the game, but his No. 1 goal in life is not to be a better golfer. That can easily get away from us out here. We can get so focused on it and 9 out of 10 people in our lives refer to us in terms of golf, too.  You can lose yourself in that. But Stewart has done a great job of seeking his identity in the Lord and it shows.  And then there’s his family; his wife Lisa, who is a really spectacular person, and their two sons. The way he talks about them and always makes time for them is something special. The boys are grown now, but he used to go home so he could watch the boys play hockey. My wife Heather and I are always kind of looking to them to see how they’re managing this life — as players, we’re on the road 20 or 30 weeks a year, and our family is probably only out five, six times. It’s a challenge and the two of them have made the best of it. Stewart just loves Lisa so much, too. Obviously, that was shown pretty publicly when she was diagnosed with cancer. He’s like, golf, this means very little to me. Heather and I have had some very tender moments with them as couples post-diagnosis, talking about the meaning of life. It’s just sweet to watch them draw closer to the Lord, draw close to each other and he’ll tell you his marriage is stronger than ever because of it. He was the first person I asked who wasn’t a pastor to teach at our Bible study group. It’s fun to hear players and how they’re walking out their faith on TOUR. He spoke and it was so great. We were immediately like, would you speak again? He just talks about his own struggles and his own fears and it’s just honest. It’s very easy to present a false sense of self but it takes a man to be really honest.  Stewart does a great job of this in my opinion, and it just welcomes people in. He is a really special person and I can’t think of anyone better to receive the Payne Stewart Award.

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2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Round 1 Scoring Conditions: Monterey Peninsula: 0.83 strokes per round Spyglass Hill: -0.08 Pebble Beach: -0.06 Current cutline (top 60 and ties, decided after round 3): 73 players at -1 or better (T58) Top 3 projected cutline probabilities: 3 under par: 17.2% 2 under par: 16.0% 4 under par: 15.4% Top 10 win probabilities: Patrick Cantlay (T2, -6, 22.2%) Dustin Johnson (T24, -3, 9.3%) Nick Taylor (1, -8, 6.9%) Jason Day (T12, -4, 4.2%) Harold Varner III (T4, -5, 3.6%) Lanto Griffin (T4, -5, 3.0%) Max Homa (T4, -5, 2.9%) Phil Mickelson (T12, -4, 2.6%) Charley Hoffman (T4, -5, 2.3%) Harry Higgs (T4, -5, 2.2%) 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 Sony Open in Hawaii, 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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