Equipment Gallery: 2019 Genesis Open

HOW THEY QUALIFIED Winner — PGA/U.S. Open Championship Jimmy Walker Winner — THE PLAYERS Championship Webb Simpson Winner — The Masters Tournament Bubba Watson Winner — the Open Championship Phil Mickelson Winner — TOUR Championship Xander Schauffele Winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial Matt Every David Lingmerth William McGirt Tournament Winner in last two seasons Ryan Armour Jonas Blixt Wesley Bryan Kevin Chappell Austin Cook Tony Finau Brice Garnett Fabian Gomez Cody Gribble James Hahn Brian Harman Russell Henley Mackenzie Hughes Billy Hurley III Smylie Kaufman Kevin Kisner Patton Kizzire Peter Malnati Ryan Moore Scott Piercy Ted Potter Jr. Brandt Snedeker Chris Stroud Hudson Swafford Vaughn Taylor Aaron Wise Sponsors Exemptions — Web.com Tour Finals Tommy Gainey Sponsors Exemptions — Members not otherwise exempt John Daly Ken Duke Sponsors Exemptions — Unrestricted Davey Jude Sam O’Dell Norman Xiong PGA Club Professional Champion — 6 Events Omar Uresti PGA Section Champion/Player of the Year Devin Gee Past Champions Angel Cabrera Danny Lee Life Member Vijay Singh Top 125 on Prior Season’s FedEx Cup Points List Bill Haas Charles Howell III Kevin Na Keegan Bradley Anirban Lahiri Scott Brown Jamie Lovemark Sung Kang Ollie Schniederjans Sean O’Hair Robert Streb Kelly Kraft Jason Kokrak Patrick Rodgers Chad Campbell Kevin Streelman Cheng Tsung Pan Whee Kim Harold Varner III Nick Taylor J.B. Holmes J.J. Spaun Michael Kim Scott Stallings Martin Flores Richy Werenski Ryan Blaum Geoff Ogilvy  Robert Garrigus Brian Gay  Brandon Hagy Derek Fathauer Tyrone Van Aswegen Harris English Dominic Bozzelli Nick Watney John Huh Blayne Barber Rory Sabbatini J.J. Henry Major Medical Exemption Michael Thompson Jon Curran Bob Estes Chris Cough Steve Marino John Peterson Top 10 and Ties from Previous Event Chase Seiffert Top Finishers from Web.com Tour Prior Season Andrew Putnam Tom Hoge Keith Mitchell Brandon Harkins Alex Cejka Martin Piller Abraham Ancer Corey Conners Tyler Duncan Seamus Power Talor Gooch Nicholas Lindheim Sam Saunders Joel Dahmen Ben Silverman Denny McCarthy Tom Lovelady Adam Schenk Shawn Stefani Xinjun Zhang  Sam Ryder Bronson Burgoon Jonathan Randolph Matt Jones Rob Oppenheim  Stephan Jaeger Ethan Tracy Roberto Diaz Jonathan Byrd Lanto Griffin  Cameron Tringale  Brett Stegmaier Conrad Shindler Matt Atkins Steve Wheatcroft Zecheng Dou Andrew Yun Kyle Thompson Kris Blanks Will Claxton Will MacKenzie David Berganio Jr. 126-150 Prior Season’s FedEx Cup Points List Trey Mullinax J.T. Poston Ben Crane Johnson Wagner David Hearn Zac Blair  Cameron Percy Ricky Barnes Daniel Summerhays Reorder Category — Cat. 34-38 Joaquin Niemann Jim Furyk Hunter Mahan Tim Herron Stuart Appleby Brendon de Jonge Parker McLachlin

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The game has changed. Monday’s announcement may be the most important acknowledgement yet. For the first time, players can earn status on PGA TOUR-sanctioned circuits based on their performance in amateur events. They can do so through PGA TOUR University, which will reward the top college seniors with status on the Korn Ferry Tour and the TOUR’s other international circuits (Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, PGA TOUR China Series). RELATED: PGA TOUR U: How it works Before Monday, a player’s amateur resume was rendered moot the moment he turned pro. Sure, winning a U.S. Amateur or NCAA Championship may garner a few extra sponsor exemptions or allow a player to bypass one of Q-School’s many stages, but that was about it. Professionals were always slow to recognize amateur accomplishments because playing for money is a whole new ballgame. Some players shine when the stakes are highest. Others wilt when they need to make a putt to pay their mortgage. Pros used to be dismissive of schoolboy golf, where chemistry midterms are a player’s biggest concern and the difference between one stroke is often of little consequence. No one remembers if you finished sixth or seventh in the Southwestern Intercollegiate five years ago. College players can return to the comfort of campus after a poor showing. Contrast that to pro golf, where a missed 6-footer may be the margin by which you lose your card. A missed cut stings more when you have mouths to feed. That’s why even Tiger Woods was met with skepticism when he turned pro. Grizzled veterans, hardened by years of lip-outs and tough losses, questioned whether he could live up to the hype that followed his U.S. Amateur three-peat. He did, of course, and the game would never be the same. Technology has only quickened players’ transition to the pro game. Now, no one can deny that today’s college players are more prepared than ever to thrive in the pro game. “There’s hardly any need for an apprenticeship anymore. They hit the ground like veterans,� Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee said earlier this year. “I think having (a smartphone) is like having Butch Harmon or Harvey Penick in your pocket. You have access to the best teaching and a library of video.� That’s right. That oversized iPhone is for more than posting TikToks. Today’s players have grown up with immediate access to the best swing theories out there. Throw in the use of TrackMan to make sure players’ clubs are optimized and their distances are dialed in, and it’s no surprise that young players are having so much early success. ShotLink and Strokes Gained allow players to better understand their games and how to approach courses they’ve never seen before. “What you had to figure out on your own took so much longer,� said 34-year-old Webb Simpson, once a top-ranked amateur and member of the vaunted 2007 Walker Cup team. “Now we have so much at our fingertips on our phone or on TrackMan. That’s one of the main reasons guys are improving a lot faster and they come out here and they’re ready to win. They understand their games more than I did even out of college.� Nothing illustrates college players’ increasing readiness to compete than the fact that PGA TOUR University was approved by the very men these new pros will be playing against. Pros would rather leave home without their putter than give up spots in tournament fields. And they wouldn’t make the path to a PGA TOUR card easier than the one they had to trod unless they knew that this new generation was deserving. The numbers speak for themselves, especially after last year’s unprecedented performance by the triumvirate of Matthew Wolff, Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland. No one can recall a trio of players in the modern era who won so quickly after turning pro. Add in Sungjae Im and Joaquin Niemann and we’ve had five players under the age of 23 win on TOUR since July. That’s one more than we had from 1985 to 2000. Only Morikawa would have been eligible for PGA TOUR University, and none of them would have needed the assistance that it offers. But they prove that today’s young players are up to the challenge. Here’s more proof: Of the nine members of the 2017 U.S. Walker Cup team who turned pro, six had a PGA TOUR card within two years of their dominant victory at Los Angeles Country Club. And two members of that team, Cameron Champ and Morikawa, are already TOUR winners. PGA TOUR University creates a pipeline to the pro game. Starting in 2021, the top five players on the PGA TOUR University rankings after the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship will earn Korn Ferry Tour status for the remainder of the regular season. This will give them starts into all open events. From there, they’ll try to play their way into the Korn Ferry Tour Finals and play for one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards up for grabs. Now a good summer means a college star can be on the PGA TOUR in a matter of months. And if he can’t make it to the big TOUR, his high standing on the PGA TOUR University Rankings will earn him an exemption straight into the final stage of Q-School, guaranteeing him Korn Ferry Tour status for the following season. Nos. 6-15 on the PGA TOUR University rankings can choose to take status on either the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica or PGA TOUR China. Players must spend four years at a Division I university to be eligible for the benefits. This will encourage them to get an education, and help them develop the physical, emotional and mental skills necessary for the pro game. In today’s data-driven society, the words “sample size� are bandied about too often, but that’s the biggest benefit of PGA TOUR University. It gives the best college players more opportunities to prove themselves. Before PGA TOUR University, new pros cobbled together a schedule with sponsor exemptions and Monday qualifiers. Invitations into PGA TOUR events are always on short supply and often come at the last minute. The 18-hole Monday qualifiers offer little chance of success. So, unless a player caught lightning in a bottle, he was destined for Q-School, where one bad week would leave him empty-handed for an entire year. Take the case of Vanderbilt’s Will Gordon, the 2019 SEC Player of the Year. You can be forgiven if you don’t recognize the name. It’s a fairly standard one, the type that would return its fair share of listings in the phone book. It doesn’t quite leap off the page like the howl-inducing surname of Wolff or have the punchy pronunciation of Morikawa or even the Nordic mystique of Hovland. But Gordon has plenty of game. Top-25s in half his starts during this interrupted PGA TOUR season prove that. He turned pro last year, too, but there are only so many sponsor exemptions to go around. With 2019’s Big Three taking up most of them, he headed north of the border last year to play PGA TOUR Canada. He shot a 60 in his second event, started another one with back-to-back 64s and fired a 61 two weeks later. He finished 21st on the Mackenzie Tour’s Order of Merit, good for an exemption into Q-School’s second stage. That’s where, like so many young players, he hit a speed bump. There was no dramatic flame-out, one that would add to that tournament’s long and gory lore. Gordon broke par in all four rounds. He shot 8 under par. His scores just happened to be two strokes too high. Without Korn Ferry Tour status, Gordon has made just a half-dozen PGA TOUR starts via sponsor exemptions, Monday qualifiers and some strong play. He finished 10th at The RSM Classic. He tied Morikawa and Wolff for 21st place in the star-studded field that gathers annually at the Farmers Insurance Open. Then he earned his place in the Puerto Rico Open the hard way, making it through the Monday qualifier before finishing 20th. But now, he’s a man with no tour. And with the professional golf world thrown into flux, he doesn’t know where his next start will be. He would’ve had Korn Ferry Tour status if PGA TOUR University had been in place. It will also be helpful for the Class of 2021, which includes many players who returned to campus for a fifth season after coronavirus canceled the NCAA Championship. PGA TOUR University will help bring some security as a backlog of talented players turn pro next year. It’s about time. The game has been changed forever.

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Everything is bigger in Texas and not many were bigger in the world of golf than Byron Nelson. The event that carries his name returns to the Lone Star state after a COVID-19 absence but will have a new home. TPC Craig Ranch in the Dallas suburb of McKinney replaces Trinity Forest as the new host for the next five years. RELATED: Power Rankings | Expert Picks TPC Craig Ranch has hosted stages of Q-School and has also served as host of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals in 2008 and 2012. The Tom Weiskopf design, opened in 2004, will play as Par-72 and stretch 7,468 yards. There’s plenty of space to swing it off the tee as the wind is always a factor in this part of the world. The Bentgrass greens running at 11.5 feet will provide more than ample targets (see: wind) at almost 6,800 square feet on average. Avoiding the 83 bunkers and keeping the ball out of Rowlett Creek, which will be in play on 13 holes, will pair with just over two inches of Bermuda rough to act as a deterrent this week. Zoysia fairways will be similar to Trinity Forest but that’s where the comparison stops so I won’t spend much time looking at that event. The winning scores of 16-under and 17-under (both Par-71) for the Korn Ferry Tournament Finals suggest an even lower winning total this week because of Par-72. The first TOUR stop at TPC Craig Ranch will feature plenty of connections from the Dallas area. Colleyville resident Ryan Palmer holds the course record of 61. Defending event champion Sung Kang is a member at the club and a Dallas resident. Obviously the notes below are from the past. Tom Weiskopf’s TPC Scottsdale is another point of interest as that track is used annually on TOUR. While it’s a different course, we can still glean information, just like we follow who plays well on Pete Dye tracks. Good luck! Recent Event Winners Stats Recent Winners and Notables 2012: Web.com Tour Championship: Justin Bolli (-16, 268) 11 rounds of 66 or better. … Top seven players were 10-under or lower. … Low round of the week was 64. … Played October 25-28. Tournament Notables Entered This Week: James Hahn (2nd) posted one of the two rounds of 64 for the week, the lowest recorded. … Luke List (T13) posted four eagles for the week and led the field in Par-5 scoring (-11). … Ben Martin (T13) signed for four rounds 70 or better. … Brice Garnett (T19) posted 66 in Round 3, his best of the week. … Cameron Percy (T19) closed 66-68 after sitting 2-over after 36 holes. … Rob Oppenheim (T28) aced No. 14 in Round 4. … Joseph Bramlett (T31), Hudson Swafford (T39), Jim Herman (T42), Brian Stuard (T47) and Tim Wilkinson (T53) all completed the four rounds (no cut). 2008: Web.com Tour Championship: Matt Bettencourt (-17, 267) Round 3 saw the two lowest rounds in tournament history, 63, posted. … There were 23 rounds of 66 or better. … Top 15 players 10-under or better. … Played November 6-9. Tournament Notables Entered This Week: Marc Leishman (T7) made 22 birdies, second best on the week. … Greg Chalmers (T25) made 18 birdies. … Scott Piercy (T31) led the field in Par-5 scoring (-11). Key stat leaders Top golfers in each statistic on the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week. Horses for Courses

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