Draws and Fades: Butterfield Bermuda Championship

SAN FRANCISCO — Dustin Johnson lost his yardage book and still found his way through an enormous crowd of contenders Saturday, making eight birdies at Harding Park for a 5-under 65 and a one-shot lead in the PGA Championship. Nothing ever comes easily for Johnson in the majors. In this case, his brother had a spare yardage book. Even that might not have stopped Johnson from making his most birdies in any round of a major. RELATED: Full leaderboard And he needed them all. Johnson was among eight players who had at least a share of the lead at some point Saturday, a wild third round of low scores, long putts and endless possibilities. One possibility is Brooks Koepka hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy for the third straight year, which hasn’t happened since Walter Hagen won four in a row in the 1920s when it was match play. Koepka was one shot behind when he made a few careless mistakes, ran off three straight bogeys and had to birdie the 18th for a 69 to stay within two shots. Scottie Scheffler, the PGA TOUR rookie from Texas, bogeyed his last hole for a 65 and was one shot behind with Cameron Champ (67), who grew up in Sacramento and has the most powerful swing on TOUR. Johnson was at 9-under 201 as he goes for his second major title. For all the chances he has had, this is only the second time he has led going into the final round. “I’m going to have to play good golf if I want to win. It’s simple,” Johnson said. “I’ve got to hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. If I can do that tomorrow, I’m going to have a good chance coming down the stretch. … I’m just going to have to do what I did today. Just get it done.” Among the cast of contenders are major champions like Koepka, Jason Day and Justin Rose, and fresh faces like Scheffler, Champ and Collin Morikawa. Also right there was Bryson DeChambeau, thanks to a 95-foot putt for birdie on his last hole. Turns out he can hit long putts, too. Missing from all this action is Tiger Woods, who didn’t make a birdie until the 16th hole and is out of the mix for the fourth straight major since his emotional Masters victory last year. A dozen players were separated by three shots. Haotong Li, the first player from China to lead after any round at a major, was leading through 12 holes until his tee shot didn’t come down from a tree. He made double bogey, dropped two more shots and finished four shots out of the lead. Johnson didn’t have smooth sailing, either, especially when he couldn’t find his yardage book. He thinks it slipped into the bottom of the golf bag, and he didn’t feel like dumping his 14 clubs all over the ground to find it. Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie, had a spare. Johnson shot 65 even with a double bogey on the ninth hole. Mistakes like that might be more costly on Sunday, the first major without any spectators. There was some concern that so many people in contention and no noise on the golf course might make it difficult for contenders to keep track of what’s going on. Then again, Johnson won the U.S. Open in 2016 at Oakmont without knowing the score as the USGA tried to decide whether he should be penalized.

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OPELIKA, Ala. — Chad Collins missed a chance for the 10th sub-60 round in PGA TOUR history and third of the season, parring the final two holes for an 11-under 60 on Friday in the second round of the Barbasol Championship. Collins hit his approach to the back fringe on the par-4 18th, leaving a 70-foot downhill birdie try that he hit 5 feet past. “I just got myself out of position off the tee, which you can’t do,” Collins said. “Probably one of the easiest hole locations on the green, so it was kind of unfortunate to not hit the fairway and I probably would have had a better look at birdie there. I gave it a run. I’m not too disappointed at all by 60, so I’ll take it.” After six straight birdies on Grand National’s rain-softened Lake Course, the 38-year-old player from Indiana player missed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th. “Hit a good shot, but I hit it a little heavy,” Collins said. “I didn’t think it was going to get back there and it must have had a lot of overspin, hit the downslope, chased back there. I wasn’t sure how close it came to going in, but had to come pretty close. And then the putt was a little tricky. We couldn’t quite figure out if it was kind of right center, right edge or left center, left edge. Just kind of lost a little bit of speed and broke off the left edge. ” Jim Furyk shot a record 58 last year in the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and is one of eight players to shoot 59. Justin Thomas and Adam Hadwin shot 59s in January — Thomas in his victory in the Sony Open in Hawaii, and Hadwin in the CareerBuilder Challenge in California. Collins had five birdies in a front-nine 30, parred the 10th and ran off the six straight birdies to get to 11 under for the round. “It kind of crossed my mind probably on the par-5 16th,” Collins said about breaking 60. “Didn’t hit a very good tee shot there, but it was probably going to be a three-shot hole anyway. Then hit a good approach shot in there to 10 feet or so. When I made that, obviously with two holes to go, just needed to make one.” Collins topped the leaderboard at 15-under 127 halfway through the round. He made the 36-hole cut for only the fifth time in 23 events this year. The two-time Web.com Tour winner had missed five straight cuts and 11 of 12. “This year’s been kind of a struggle for me,” Collins said. “I haven’t been playing that well and it’s super nice to see putts fall in, good ball-striking and being in position on the weekend.” Collins had his lowest round on the PGA TOUR and tied the course record set last year by Jhonattan Vegas. “Owe it all to the putter,” Collins said. “I did strike it well, but I made a lot of putts. Made a few that I probably shouldn’t have made, had a stretch going there on my back nine of five or six in a row. Hit some clutch shots, but just made a lot of putts.” He also shot 60 in a 2013 Web.com Tour event in Utah, playing his first nine holes in 9-under 27 with an eagle and seven birdies. “Obviously, the course in Utah, in my opinion, was a little bit more gettable,” Collins said.

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One of the most important reminders of the pandemic has been never to take anything for granted. However, those headed from the Masters to the RBC Heritage once again can count on a 150-mile decompression corridor that ends on U.S. Route 278 in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. If there isn’t a slower heartbeat upon arrival, they’re doing it wrong. Almost half the field of the Masters (42 of 88 as of Monday afternoon) are committed to the annual stop at Harbour Town Golf Links. A similarly strong field seized on the opportunity on what was just the second tournament of the Return to Golf last summer. For a brief recap of the records established, the new wrinkle this week’s field will experience and more, continue reading beneath the projected contenders. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: RBC HERITAGE Recent World Golf Championship winners Billy Horschel (Match Play) and Collin Morikawa (Workday) will be included in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider with Sungjae Im, Kevin Kisner, Paul Casey, Tommy Fleetwood and other notables. If you ever wondered what the strongest field in tournament history could do to Harbour Town, the scheduling adjustments triggered by the pandemic presented the case in 2020. The Official World Golf Ranking determined the 2020 RBC Heritage to have a strength-of-field rating of 647. It was the eighth-highest of all tournaments worldwide last year, but even though there were far fewer events conducted, consider that the last three editions of the RBC Heritage were valued at 280 (2017), 342 (2018) and 430 (2019). The field averaged an all-time low of 69.137 on the par 36-35—71. Since data was first maintained in earnest in 1983, the previous record was 70.490 in 2015. Not surprisingly, Webb Simpson’s winning pace of 22-under 262 also established a tournament record. He offset five bogeys with an eagle and 25 birdies. The 36-hole cut of low 65 and ties landed at 4-under 138. To accommodate playing time for as many as possible, last year’s tournament reserved space for 144 golfers, but it went final at 151 because of the unprecedented commitment of eligible qualifiers for the invitational. This year’s edition has reverted to its customary space of 132, but at the time this went to publish, the field was 135 strong. So, alternates will not be called unless it drops below 132. Whether it was the depth of the field or its first-ever June date that yielded record scoring, that question might be answered in the return to its normal April slot. Unnecessary in June, the TifEagle bermuda greens are overseeded as usual for the April staging. They’re only 3,700 square feet on average and they could run up to 12-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. The only rough, also overseeded bermuda, tops at just three-quarters of an inch. Because of slow growth due to a harsher winter, the bomb-and-gouge crowd could crash the party perennially reserved for shot-makers, but at just 7,121 yards and always averaging among the shortest in distance of all drives, the Davids in the field have as terrific a chance as any to slingshot around the Goliaths. The entirety of the walk represents and increase of 22 yards on the par-3 17th hole. Thanks to a larger tee box, it now can stretch to 196 yards. The elements almost always play a supporting role in the outcome, and this week should be no different. Moderate winds out of the west on Thursday and Sunday will sandwich equally fresh breezes off the coast to the east on Friday and Saturday, but course experience hasn’t mattered as much in recent years as it did in the more distant past, anyway. Controlled low ball flights is preferred and putting takes a backseat to precision on approach. Rain could fall on the weekend, but scoring should be balanced until then. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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