DraftKings preview: Who to consider for The Open

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Kramer Hickok looked at the leaderboards around Riviera Country Club and was very surprised. Surprised to see his own name near the top that is – not to see his close friend and former roommate Jordan Spieth two shots ahead of him at the Genesis Open. Spieth has been in somewhat of a slump of late so his 7-under 64 to lead the first wave of players in the opening round was a surprise to some. The former FedExCup champion hasn’t had a top-10 on the PGA TOUR since last season’s Open Championship in July and currently sits 178th on the season long points list. But Hickok – who is in the midst of his rookie PGA TOUR season and shot a 5-under 66 to be T2 in the same wave – knows Spieth better than most. They were at the University of Texas together as freshman in 2012 when the Longhorns won the national title… at Riviera no less. “Of course I’m not surprised to see him up there. Jordan’s a stud,â€� Hickok said. “Everyone gives him such a hard time because his standards are so high, and they’re just as high for himself, but he’s one of the best in the world and he can go shoot 7, 8 under at any moment.” “If the putter heats up, his driver heats up, he’ll be just fine.â€� The 11-time PGA TOUR winner had an impressive time with the putter and his short game in general, going eight of eight in scrambling and chipping in twice. But he knows his striking off the tee still remains a work in progress. “With the conditions we had, that was a great scoring round, and looking forward to the rest of the week, trying to improve on kind of the way I’m striking it,â€� Spieth said. “From San Diego to Pebble was significant progress, from Pebble to here has been significant progress just in the way I feel hitting the ball.” “Whether the scores reflect it or not, I know how I feel striking it so I know when it’s close. I’m looking to try and make progress each day in the way that feeling sustains this week because it didn’t sustain through the weekend at Pebble.” “But I know what went off and I know what to fix. It’s just kind of a little bit of trial and error right now.â€� The fixes come with the help of coach Cameron McCormick, who incidentally also works with Hickok. And it is the Australian coach who gets plenty of credit for Hickok’s opening round, the second best of his season thus far. Prior to this week Hickok’s best result was a T23 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. He’s made just three of nine cuts in his rookie season. “It’s kind of been a struggle. We hit balls for about four hours just working on some lower body movement, something I’ve been struggling with,â€� Hickok said of a pre-tournament coaching session. “We seemed to grind it out and basically I’ve played really well with this feel before, I’ve won with it in Canada, I’ve won with that feel on the Web last year in the Finals, so it’s a feel that I know I can go out and trust under pressure and play good golf.â€� Unlike Spieth, Hickok wasn’t part of the Texas playing squad in 2012. So his memories of that famous week where Spieth took down Justin Thomas and Alabama in the final at Riviera are limited. “I remember Dylan Frittelli making a 30‑footer to win the national championship and running to jump on him. That’s about it,â€� Hickok smiles. “That’s really my experience with Riviera. I’ve only played 54 holes now around this golf course. So I got to watch a little bit of golf back then, kind of pick up on a few things, but I’m trying to learn as much as possible every day.â€� Part of that learning was a practice round with Spieth earlier this week and some advice already played dividends. Hickok was looking at the drivable par-4 10th hole with lay up in mind until Spieth talked him into driver. But Spieth wasn’t advocating over aggression. In fact he was trying to disassociate the notion of needing to get at the infamous hole. “Everyone thinks of 10 as a birdie hole because you can hit 3‑wood at the front edge, and he’s like it’s not, it plays 4.5,â€� Hickok explained. “So it plays just as hard as some par fives do this year and it’s having that sort of mentality going into the hole, it makes it a lot easier.” “I was actually planning on laying up this week, but talking to him, he kind of convinced me into hitting driver. Made par today, so I guess it worked out.â€� While it is certainly early days, this could just be the week both friends bust out of their so called “slumpsâ€�.

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LA QUINTA, Calif. — Patrick Cantlay shot a 10-under 62 in perfect weather and turf conditions Thursday at La Quinta Country Club for a share of the first-round lead with rookie Lee Hodges in The American Express. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Get to know Sahith Theegala in 10 stories Cantlay played the first seven holes in 7 under, making an eagle on the par-5 sixth and five birdies. The FedExCup champion added birdies on Nos. 11-13, two of them par 5s, and closed with five straight pars. “I got off to a roll at the start and kind of made a bunch of putts and then I kind of lagged on the way coming in,” Cantlay said. “But I was happy with everything. I thought I did everything well and it’s a golf course I really like. It’s in perfect shape and so, if you get the ball rolling on line, it should go in.” Cantlay won the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship in his final two starts last year and opened this year with a fourth-place finish two weeks ago in Hawaii at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Last year in the desert, the 29-year-old former UCLA player closed with a Stadium Course-record 61 to finish a shot behind winner Si Woo Kim. “I grew up a couple hours away, so there are a bunch of friendly faces in the crowd and so it’s really fun,” Cantlay said. “It’s the best part of what I do is when you get on a roll like that and you’re making a bunch of birdies.” Hodges made a memorable debut in the event. The former Alabama star played the back nine at La Quinta in 7-under 29, eagling the par-5 fifth and making five birdies. “It’s one of my favorite golf courses I’ve ever played, to be honest,” Hodges said. “I played it I guess three times now and it’s spectacular. It’s like hitting off of mats half the time. It’s just in perfect shape. You get rewarded for good shots out here, which I like that. Good golf gets rewarded.” Cameron Young and K.H. Lee were tied for third at 64. Young played at La Quinta, and Lee on the Stadium Course. Brandt Snedeker was at 65 with Joseph Bramlett, Greyson Sigg, Sam Ryder, Danny Lee, Tom Hoge, Wyndham Clark and Seamus Power. Snedeker and Clark played at La Quinta, Bramlett and Ryder at the Stadium Course, and Lee, Hoge, Power and Sigg at the Nicklaus Tournament Course. The players who opened at La Quinta will play the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Friday and the adjacent Stadium Course on the weekend, with strong wind expected Saturday. Top-ranked Jon Rahm and Graeme McDowell were in the group at 66, both playing at La Quinta. “I liked the score and the weather,” Rahm said. “It’s always a very enjoyable walk out here. La Quinta Country Club it’s a great golf course. It’s always in pristine shape, one of the best we play all year shape-wise.” McDowell played the event only once before, missing the cut in 2003. “I think my caddie and I are both looking at each other wondering why it’s taken us so long to get here,” McDowell said. “Obviously, the weather is perfect and these golf courses are so well presented.” Harry Higgs had a hole-in-one on the par-3 15th at La Quinta in a 66. He used a 5-iron on the 199-yard hole. Tournament host Phil Mickelson was tied for last in the 156-player field after a 78 at La Quinta. He made a quintuple-bogey 9 on the par-4 eighth after hitting two drives out of bounds right.

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KAPALUA, Hawaii – Cameron Smith led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting en route to his win at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Clearly 2022’s new rule surrounding yardage books – and the banning of the old, in-depth greens books – didn’t impact the Australian. The winners-only event at Kapalua’s Plantation Course was the first TOUR event since the implementation of a local rule on TOUR that limits the information in players’ yardage books. From this week forward, only committee-approved yardage books can be used and players can only add handwritten notes from information they’ve seen with their naked eye or on a broadcast. Measuring instruments cannot be used to gather information for notes added to the book. That eliminates the old greens books that used technology to measure the slightest slopes on a putting surface. “I’ve never really been a big fan of the greens books,” Smith said. “I do AimPoint Express and I like to feel a lot of stuff. I like to see stuff and I like to feel stuff, so the greens books, for me, took away a lot of that. I gave them a crack a couple of times but I was never really a fan.” That seemed to be the overwhelming sentiment from the 38 players who teed it up last week. “I haven’t really consulted the green book too much in the past,” said FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay. “Every once in a while, I used to ask my caddie to consult it. I don’t think it will make too much of a difference for me.” Last year’s Sony Open in Hawaii champion, Kevin Na, said he might’ve entered the history books if not for a reliance on the books a year ago. “I remember last year at the Sony Open I looked at it one time on 17 when I had a chance to shoot 59 and it didn’t work out too well, so that was the last time I saw it,” Na said. “My caddie used to carry one, and he would look at it here and there. But I don’t feel like it’s a huge change for me because we’ve never really looked at it a lot. So, I actually like that it’s gone. I feel like I am a pretty good green reader out there so it’s an advantage for us.” The changes were player-driven through the TOUR’s Player Advisory Council (PAC). A former chairman of that committee, Jordan Spieth, believes he also will find an edge with the new rule despite the fact he’s used the books extensively in the past. “It will be an adjustment, certainly as we get to the West Coast, and places like Riviera, but there’s three things to putting. There’s reading the putt, there’s stroking it on line and there is hitting it at the right speed,” Spieth said. “I think that two of those were skills that you don’t technically need to have with (arm-lock) putting and the greens books. At least one of them right now is back to where it will become a skill to have to read them.” While Spieth’s caddie, Michael Greller, studied AimPoint in the off-season to broaden his knowledge base, Spieth wasn’t planning to do the same anytime soon. He will rely on his natural feels. “We’ve never had the greens books at Augusta,” Spieth added, “and I seem to find myself in a really good space on the greens there, really feeling putts. My Strokes Gained at Augusta has always been really solid so I like looking at that as a reference point. “I think if anything this could potentially help me in the Strokes Gained area. I’m not saying I’m going to make as many putts as I would with them, … but relative to other people, I would say green reading would be a strength of mine and therefore I feel good about the differences.” Other players who used the books heavily in the past were hopeful it would free up their mind and allow some instinct to come in. “I’m excited for it,” said FedExCup leader Talor Gooch. “I use the green reading books, but I think it was to a detriment at times and I play my best when I think less, I calculate less, I kind of try to be reactive and so having no greens books is great for that.” Joel Dahmen added that it could be good for him to get his head out of the book. “I probably bury my head in them too much as it is,” Dahmen said. “I don’t use them at home and I putt OK, so there’s no real reason to have them out here for me. But it’s a little more work for the caddie on Tuesday and Wednesday for them to get the slopes and the grain out there.”

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