Tiger Woods will now miss the PGA Tour’s first two events since it restarted the season following a nearly three-month coronavirus hiatus.
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A new year for the PGA TOUR begins in style Thursday on the island of Maui, with 17 of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking teeing it up in the limited-field Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Resort’s rollicking Plantation Course. It will be a strong first act to set the tone for what promises to be a robust opening month of golf. Eight of the top 10 players in the world, including last year’s Sentry runner-up, Jon Rahm, will be on hand at Kapalua as the tournament celebrates its 25th anniversary on the island. The elite field is limited to tournament winners from the 2021-22 season and those finishing among the top 30 in the last season’s FedExCup. There are 39 players at Kapalua vying for a purse of $15 million, with the winner taking home $2.7 million. The Sentry Tournament of Champions will mark the first of 13 designated events (excluding majors) that will offer a minimum purse of $15 million in 2023 as the TOUR embarks on a new era. Most of the designated events feature purses of $20 million, with the purse at THE PLAYERS Championship in March standing at $25 million. But there is great strength amid other tournament weeks, too. After Sentry, the TOUR will move over to Oahu, a puddle-jump flight, to Honolulu for the Sony Open in Hawaii (Jan. 12-15), where defending champion Hideki Matsuyama headlines a field that includes Billy Horschel and Jordan Spieth. Last January, Matsuyama provided one of the shots of the year at Waialae Country Club, hitting a 3-wood into a bright setting sun to 3 feet to set up a winning eagle against Russell Henley on the first hole of a playoff. Horschel is coming off a season in which he won the Memorial presented by Workday and twice was a runner-up. At 36, he made his long-awaited first U.S. team as a professional, competing on the winning side at the Presidents Cup. Spieth, a winner at the 2022 Valero Texas Open, will be playing Sony for the first time since 2019; in 2017, he tied for third. Waialae is one of the TOUR’s true old-school gems, short by today’s standards (7,044 yards, but a par 70), but always offering a stern test, especially when the island winds stir. The TOUR reaches California and the mainland to open the ‘West Coast Swing’ with the 64th edition of The American Express (Jan. 19-22) at PGA WEST’s Stadium Course and La Quinta Country Club. On the 50th anniversary of Arnold Palmer earning the 62nd and final victory of his legendary career at this event, the field will boast some stout star power of its own, as evidenced by an accomplished quartet of early tournament commitments: Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, the reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year, as well as Tony Finau, a three-time winner last year, and the close-knit pair of Californians, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. All four not only were tournament winners in 2022 but also part of the U.S. Team’s winning Presidents Cup squad at Quail Hollow Club in September. Schauffele made his professional debut at The American Express in 2016, and a year later would win the TOUR Championship; Scheffler, ranked second in the world, tied for third in the desert in 2020; Cantlay finished ninth in 2020 and 2022, opening with 62 last year; and Finau, twice a winner in 2022 (3M Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic), has a top finish of 14th at the AmEx in four starts. January on the PGA TOUR finishes strong with the Farmers Insurance Open (Jan. 25-28) at Torrey Pines Golf Course’s North and South tracks. The South, which hosts weekend play, is the site of two U.S. Open Championships as well as San Diego’s longstanding PGA TOUR stop, which turns 70 this year. One U.S. Open winner at Torrey was Tiger Woods (2008); the other was Rahm, who not only broke through to win his first major at Torrey in 2021 but also captured his first PGA TOUR title there, as well. The place is so special to Rahm that he even proposed to his wife at Torrey. Needless to say, Rahm will be part of the Farmers field. Only once in his six Farmers starts has Rahm finished worse than seventh. Among those joining Rahm are two Americans coming off big seasons in 2021-22: Max Homa, already a winner this season (Fortinet Championship), and Cameron Young, who did everything but win last year. Young, 25, was a five-time runner-up last season, contending in two majors (runner-up at the Open Championship), but didn’t finish the year empty-handed. He made the U.S. team that won the Presidents Cup and in late October, was voted the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year, taking home the Arnold Palmer Trophy. At the TOUR Championship in August, PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that 13 events beyond the four major championships would be “elevated” with larger purses on the 2022-23 TOUR schedule – these include the four majors, three FedExCup Playoff events, THE PLAYERS, WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Sentry Tournament of Champions, and three invitationals (Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, the Memorial presented by Workday). Four more designated events were later added: WM Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers Championship. The new schedule means that top players will have 17 designated events where the best in the world will gather and compete, as well as a minimum of three other tournaments of their choosing. If January is any sign of things to come, the 2022-23 season will consist of great fields and exciting tournaments week in and week out.
Within the cadence of the 2018-19 PGA TOUR season, a new rhythm exists. The downbeat occurred in earnest with the return of THE PLAYERS Championship to March, and it’s maintained a toe-tapping groove that has included unique events like the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. There’s no better place than the birthplace of jazz to keep the jam going. This is the third edition of the team format in which there are 80 duets, if you will. It’s a phenomenal opportunity for fans to learn more about the relationships and harmony between players. POWER RANKINGS: ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANS OTHERS CONSIDERED Brooks Koepka & Chase Koepka Bubba Watson & J.B. Holmes Jason Kokrak & Chris Stroud Branden Grace & Justin Harding Russell Knox & Brian Stuard PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf omits the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, so Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will be presented in an abridged format. As it was for 11 editions of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans as an individual event, TPC Louisiana is the backdrop for the PGA TOUR’s only team competition. All 160 in the field are professionals. The first and third rounds are scored as best ball (also known as four-ball), while the second and fourth rounds are scored using alternate shot (also known as foursomes). Teams inside the top 35 and ties at the conclusion of 36 holes will make the cut. The secondary-cut provision (i.e. MDF) does not apply. TPC Louisiana is a scorable par 72 with the full complement of four par 5s. It can stretch to 7,425 yards. Only the bermuda greens are overseeded, and they’re prepped to run upwards of 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. While that speed is standard for TOUR tracks, severe undulations contribute to the challenge and the targets average just 5,225 square feet. Together they elevate the value of proximity to the hole on approach. Because fairways are welcoming and in part because of the format, long hitters are encouraged to show us what they got, at least in best ball. The field’s average of distance of all drives for the first two spins as a team competition slotted TPC Louisiana inside the top-half shortest. By comparison, last year’s clip of 278.7 yards was one-tenth of one yard shorter than Sea Island’s Seaside Course, host of The RSM Classic and not considered a bomber’s paradise. Still, encouraging the thought of stepping on it is semi-dormant bermuda rough cut to just one-and-three-quarters inches this year. That’s down one-quarter of an inch from 2018. Spring in the bayou always include the threat of inclement conditions, but this week’s complications are isolated pre-cut. After a mild risk might gurgle on Thursday afternoon, the more probable concern is forecast for Friday afternoon. Otherwise, it’ll be quite nice with daytime highs flirting with 80 degrees and light-to-moderate winds throughout. When the winners are crowned on Sunday, each will receive 400 FedExCup points. That’s the average between first and second place in regular individual competitions. Similarly split, each co-champion will pocket $1,051,200.00. Both will earn two-year membership exemptions or an additional season to the maximum of five from the current if already exempt through 2020-21. They’ll also secure exemptions into next month’s PGA Championship, the 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions, the 2020 PLAYERS and other invitationals if not currently eligible. Official World Golf Ranking points are not distributed for this tournament, but the top-five teams are eligible for the top-10 provision that grants entry into next week’s Wells Fargo Championship. Assuming you like what you experience, you’ll love the reminder that at the conclusion of last year’s edition, Zurich Insurance extended its partnership with the tournament through 2026. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton covers numerous angles in between tournaments. Look for his following contributions this week. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done THURSDAY: Champions One & Done * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO, which also publishes on Tuesdays.
A year ago, Bubba Watson was languishing at 115th in the FedExCup standings when he teed it up at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier at The Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Mired in a two-year win drought and fighting an undisclosed illness that saw him lose more than 20 pounds, he was at the lowest point in his career. Today, Bubba Golf is back. Watson is third in the FedExCup, the only three-time winner on the PGA TOUR this season, and one of the most dramatic turnaround stories of this season. “It’s been good,â€� Watson said in his press conference from the Greenbrier on Tuesday. “Looking back, I’m a golfer, so there’s always things I wish was better. It was a slow start to the year, missed a couple cuts. But I knew I was headed in the right direction.â€� Players are almost always trending in one direction or the other, up or down, with the exception of FedExCup No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who was also No. 1 a year ago at this time. With the start of the Playoffs seven weeks out, a snapshot of the current Top 30, who would get into the season-ending TOUR Championship if it started today, shows several dramatic upward trajectories. “If you make it to Atlanta, no matter how you play throughout the year, you’ve done something right,â€� said big mover Webb Simpson, who is 10th in the FedExCup (up from 33rd a year ago) after his big win at THE PLAYERS Championship, and is looking good for East Lake. Chesson Hadley, 19th in the FedExCup, has made the biggest leap; he was 224th a year ago. Ryan Armour, who is in the Greenbrier field and 30th in the FedExCup, has made the second biggest jump, from 185th. “I’m a different player over the last year,â€� Armour, 42, said recently, and as if to offer further proof, he finished second to runaway winner Francesco Molinari at the Quicken Loans National last week. Bryson DeChambeau, who will defend a TOUR title for the first time at next week’s John Deere Classic, is the third biggest mover over the last 12 months, having shot up from 128th position a year ago to 6th today. Whether you measure it with a calculator or a compass, that’s a huge improvement. Their transformations have been stark, as have those of TOUR winners Aaron Wise (FedExCup No. 23) and Austin Cook (No. 28), both of whom are playing the Greenbrier. They’re battling for Rookie of the Year honors, which begs the question: When you talk meteoric rises, do Cook and Wise get the nod over even Hadley? How do you measure the upward trajectory of a guy who wasn’t even on TOUR last year? Phil Mickelson, who is making his first start since a disappointing U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, has gone from 40th in the FedExCup a year ago to eighth today. Patton Kizzire, who also is playing the Greenbrier this week, has gone from 89th to ninth. No player, though, is enjoying as thrilling a run as Tony Finau. At No. 11 in the FedExCup, the soft-spoken, long-hitting Utahan is up 20 spots from a year ago. He has six top-10 finishes, including two at the season’s first two majors, and has proven just as adept at figuring out less brawny courses, like The Old White TPC (7,286 yards, par 70), as he is taming longer ones. “It’s been a great season for me,â€� said Finau, who is coming off a fifth-place U.S. Open finish in which he had a chance to win late Sunday. “Really solid season, and my best season thus far. I’ve played some really nice golf and I’ve learned a lot about myself both mentally and physically. I’ve been working really hard on my game, and I think it’s starting to show this year.â€� Finau is used to making big moves. After switching back to a conventional putting grip before the 2017 BMW Championship, he shot a final-round 64 at Conway Farms to tie for seventh and play his way into the TOUR Championship at East Lake, where he also finished T7 to finish 19th in the season-long race for the FedExCup. He’s kept that good run going in 2018. “I like the position I’m in,â€� Finau said. Being well inside the Top 30, he added, beats being on the outside looking in, as he was last year. But he’s loathe to take his eye off the ball at the Greenbrier and beyond. The same goes for Watson, Mickelson, Kizzire and Simpson. Late-bloomer Armour, in the 30th position, can’t afford much of a letdown if he wants to get to Atlanta for the first time. The biggest movers of 2018 have worked hard to get where they are, but plenty of work remains.
