Expert Picks: THE NORTHERN TRUST

BLAINE, Minn. (AP) — Scott Piercy shot a 6-under 65 to share the 3M Open lead with Sungjae Im after the first round Thursday. Tony Finau was two strokes back, with three near misses of birdie putts over his last four holes, along with Brice Garnett, Doug Ghim, Emiliano Grillo and Tom Hoge. On a dry, windy, 86-degree day at the TPC Twin Cities in suburban Minneapolis, the course’s penchant for producing low scores held up once again. Playing in the second group of the day off the first tee, Piercy made 151 feet worth of putts. He birdied four of the first five holes on his back nine. The 43-year-old Piercy, who led the 3M Open in 2019 by two strokes after the first round, is one of several on-the-fringe players in the field this year seeking a late-season lift in the FedEx Cup race. Piercy arrived in Minnesota in 138th place, with the cut for the playoffs at 125 and two events left after this to qualify. In four of his last six starts, Piercy has failed to advance to the weekend. On TOUR since 2009, Piercy has four career wins. Just last week, he switched his caddie, his swing coach, his driver and his putter — an uncharacteristically drastic series of decisions for him. “Every shot counts, and it’s time to buckle down,” Piercy said. “Not that we don’t try to buckle down all the time, but there’s extra buckling down, I guess. To start off this way is really nice.” Im, who’s 19th in the FedEx Cup standings and 24th in the world, birdied four of his last six holes. The 24-year-old from South Korea tied for eighth at the Masters this year but tied for 81st last week at the British Open. Finau, the lone member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team and the 17th-ranked player in the world, has two top-five finishes this summer. The Utah player missed a 3-foot birdie putt on 15 and left a 4-footer for birdie just short on 16. Then on the 18th, his tee and approach shots were spot on, but an 8-foot birdie putt lipped out and settled 4 inches from the cup. Making two of those three would’ve put him in the lead. The highest-ranked player in the field, Hideki Matsuyama, withdrew. He cited a sore wrist after shooting a 77 to match his worst round of the season, his Saturday at the Masters on April 9. Entering the week in eighth place in the FedEx Cup race and the world’s No. 14 player, Matsuyama hit into the water three times on the unforgiving and lakeside 18th hole and took a quadruple-bogey 9. Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters winner and a fourth-place finisher at the U.S. Open this summer, tied for seventh at the first edition of the 3M Open in 2019. Mardy Fish, the former tennis star who’s playing on a sponsor exemption, was tied for last at 81.

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Collin Morikawa doesn’t always use a TaylorMade Hi-Toe wedge, but he does when he plays in a U.S. Open. On a week-to-week basis, the five-time PGA TOUR winner and two-time major champion travels with multiple lob wedges. For example, GolfWRX.com photographed Morikawa with four 60-degree wedges in the bag during a practice session at The Genesis Invitational, including a TaylorMade MG2 with 8 degrees of bounce, a TaylorMade MG3 with 9 degrees of bounce and a TaylorMade Milled Grind Hi-Toe wedge with 9 degrees of bounce. “Bounce” refers to the shaping of the bottom of a wedge, which is called the sole. Generally speaking, higher bounce options are best in soft conditions to keep the wedge from digging too much, and low bounce options are best in firm conditions. Morikawa keeps his options open by carrying lob wedges that have different sole shapes so he can easily adjust to the different courses and conditions he experiences during the season. He figures out what 60-degree wedge he’ll use for the week during practice rounds and practice sessions. When it comes to the U.S. Open, though, Morikawa opts for a TaylorMade Hi-Toe lob wedge, which has a unique shape and face design. This week, he’s using a model that has 7 degrees of bounce. Compared to a traditionally shaped wedge, the Hi-Toe has a raised toe section and grooves that stretch across the entire face, which is appealing to Morikawa when navigating the U.S. Open rough. “When people talk about U.S. Opens, they always talk about the rough and tough conditions,” Morikawa told GolfWRX on Wednesday. “I think every U.S. Open I’ve used a Hi-Toe. …When there’s really long rough and the ball sits down, and you’re going to have a lot of different lies, I think the Hi-Toe obviously gives you a lot more surface area on the face to hit the grooves. It just allows you to get away with the misses. I think it’s a lot easier to chip out of the rough. If you find a grind that works out of the fairways, it’s awesome. To be honest, I don’t know why I don’t use it more. It works.” Like most U.S. Open setups, The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., has long and thick rough surrounding the greens. Even though Morikawa is ranked fifth on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, he’s bound to miss some greens this week due to their small size and the usually firm conditions. He uses the Hi-Toe to increase his chances of saving par, even from thick lies. When he does get the ball onto the putting surface, Morikawa is still rolling with a new TaylorMade Spider GT Rollback that he switched to at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday ( ). The switch to a mallet came as somewhat of a surprise, because Morikawa has traditionally used a blade-style putter. He’s relied on the TaylorMade TP Juno for most of his career, and he used it to win the Open Championship in 2021. While he has experimented in brief stints with mallet styles throughout his career, he putts most often with a blade. So why the recent change? Morikawa told GolfWRX.com that the Spider GT Rollback helps him better match speed with his feels, and it all comes down to TaylorMade’s Pure Roll 2 insert that has wide, downward facing grooves (which are designed to produce a quicker roll, rather than skidding). “It has wider grooves. I don’t really know the science behind it. It just comes off the face how I want, and that’s the biggest thing,” Morikawa told GolfWRX. “At least it’s reacting to how I’m feeling. And from there hopefully we can put a good stroke on it.” As Morikawa explained, the mallet style also helps with the way the putter sits on the surface, and the plumber’s neck on his Spider GT Rollback is similar to his previous Juno blade gamer, so there’s a sense of familiarity. These tools helped Morikawa to a 1-under 69 in the first round as he seeks to win the third leg of the career Grand Slam.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A memorable start that featured the previous three U.S. presidents on the first tee ended with a familiar result in the Presidents Cup. The Americans are out to another big lead in the event they haven’t lost in nearly two decades. PGA champion Justin Thomas made his professional team debut with a short day of work as he and Rickie Fowler lost only two holes in a 6-and-4 victory. Jordan Spieth holed a 35-foot putt that sent him and Patrick Reed to another victory. Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar remained unbeaten. The Americans won the opening session for the sixth straight time in the Presidents Cup and built a 3 1/2-1 1/2 lead Thursday after the opening foursomes matches. Phil Mickelson, playing in his 23rd consecutive team competition, ended the tough, wind-swept afternoon at Liberty National by missing an 8-foot par putt, or the U.S. lead would have been even greater. He and Kevin Kisner were 1 down with two holes remaining to Jason Day and Marc Leishman, so a half-point wasn’t bad. Mickelson’s only complaint was that he botched his selfie with former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, with barely his head showing. For the most part, everything else went the Americans’ way. The lone bright spot for the International team was Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace, who improved to 5-0 as a tandem. The South African duo pulled away for a 3-and-1 victory over U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger. The stars on this day didn’t hit a shot. The leader of every country where the Presidents Cup is held are invited to be honorary chairman, but this was a first — three U.S. presidents together at this event, sitting together in a box on the first tee and then posing with the trophy, the players and their wives. “I was looking forward to this Presidents Cup for a very long time, and I didn’t expect all the presidents to be there,” Charl Schwartzel of South Africa said. “Just to get to meet them was a dream come true for me. Then to hit that first tee shot with the wind pumping off the right was quite intimidating.” The Americans have a 9-1-1 lead in the series, their lone loss in 1998 at Royal Melbourne a few weeks before Christmas. Nick Price, back as International captain for the third time, was not ready to panic. The Americans opened a 4-1 lead after the opening session two years ago in South Korea, and that came down to the final match. “We always get ourselves behind a little bit in alternate shot,” Day said. “It would have been nice to be 3-2, but once again, we’re not that far behind. The American side is very, very talented and stacked. But I think our team and our boys are ready to rally behind everyone, and hopefully we can finish strong later on in the week.” Fowler holed a 70-foot pitch and Thomas followed with a 12-foot birdie, and they were never seriously challenged. Spieth and Reed improved to 6-1-2 as a tandem in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup. They won four straight holes early in the match against International rookies Si Woo Kim and Emiliano Grillo. And when the match looked as if it had a chance to get tight, Spieth rolled in his big putt and they were on their way. Johnson and Kuchar are unbeaten in four matches together, and they had to be at their best. The gusts topped 20 mph and felt even stronger on exposed areas of Liberty National, which sits across New York Harbor from Manhattan. The par-3 10th hole was so difficult to judge the wind that Adam Scott hit a tee shot that sailed over the green into a hazard, while Spieth in the match behind him came up some 60 feet short of the hole in a bunker. Johnson and Kuchar didn’t make a single bogey, remarkable in the format and in the wind, and they still didn’t take the lead until Johnson’s tee shot on the par-3 16th with a strong wind at his back stopped 5 feet away. Scott came up short, and then missed a 6-foot par putt. Scott and Jhonattan Vegas never caught up. “In alternate shot, in these conditions, not to make a bogey and for us to just win 1 up, that’s a heck of a battle that we had with those guys,” Kuchar said. Leishman was playing with his sixth partner in his last six Presidents Cup matches. He and Day were 1 up with two holes to play when Leishman missed the fairway on the 17th hole and they made bogey. On the 18th, Mickelson went over the green in a swale, while Day came up short. Both teams made bogey for the halve. Friday features five matches of fourballs, followed by a full day of foursomes and fourballs Saturday and the decisive Sunday singles. 

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