Expert Picks: THE PLAYERS Championship

JR Smith is the first male golfer to sign a brand ambassador deal with Lululemon.

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LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — Rickie Fowler, playing in The American Express for the first time in six years, carded a 7-under 65 Thursday to sit one stroke off the lead shared by Zac Blair and Grayson Murray. “It’s a good start,” Fowler said. “Obviously you look at scores it’s usually pretty low out here, especially when you look at weather like this and the conditions of the courses. Conditions are perfect here at La Quinta. Greens are about the best that we see all year.” Fowler, Scottie Scheffler and Hank Lebioda shot 65. Fowler and Scheffler opened at La Quinta, while Lebioda played PGA West’s Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course. Murray and Blair shot 64 in sunny and mostly calm conditions. Grayson closed with a bogey on the par-4 ninth on PGA West’s Stadium Course, also the site of the final round in the pro-am event. “I’ve been here since Dec. 30 working on the game and I feel like I probably am the most prepared of the field for all three courses,” said Murray, the 2017 Barbasol Championship winner. “Coming off of a long offseason you never expect to come out the gates like I did firing, but I’m comfortable around all three of these courses. … I love it out here in the desert.” Blair had a bogey-free round at La Quinta Country Club. “It was perfect today, course was in really good shape,” Blair said. “Drove it really well, made some good putts. But it’s a little easier out here this week right now than it was in Hawaii last week, so it’s nice.” Phil Mickelson struggled off the tee in his first round of the year, shooting a 2-under 70 to fall six strokes behind Blair and Murray. “I didn’t score as I probably could have or wanted to, but I really had a good day,” said Mickelson, the 49-year-old Hall of Famer competing for the first time since early November. “It wasn’t quite as sharp as I wanted it to be, maybe a little bit rusty, but it was a good first day.” Related: Leaderboard | How Phil became a social media star | Q&A: Zac Blair Mickelson, also the tournament host, birdied the par-5 fifth and sixth holes to get to 3 under, then gave away two strokes on the par-4 eighth when he drove left into the water and hit his third left of the green. “I’ve been working on kind of a little low shot to get it in play and I hit it a few times today and I didn’t hit it as efficiently as I wanted to, but the miss wasn’t as bad as some of my other drives,” said Mickelson, the tournament winner in 2002 and 2004. Mickelson hit so far left on the par-4 ninth that he was in the rough on the far side of the adjacent first fairway. It wasn’t that bad of a shot, though, because he was trying to hit into the first fairway to give himself a better angle at the back right pin. “Takes the water out of play and I just have a much better angle,” Mickelson said. “I actually pushed it a little bit across and got a little bit unlucky to be behind the tree, but I ended up just chipping a little wedge underneath it and getting it on.” The Hall of Famer made a tap-in par there, and birdied the par-5 11th and 13th, holing out from the rough on 13 after failing to reach the green from a left bunker. He made bogey on the par-4 17th, missing a 7-footer after hitting left into a bunker. “I feel like I’m ready to go on a tear, like I’m excited to play,” Mickelson said. “Felt like 70 was the worst I could have shot, I’m going to come out tomorrow and get it going.” Playing partner Tony Finau shot 69. Mickelson and Finau will play the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Friday, then the adjacacent Stadium Course on Saturday. Defending champion Adam Long opened with a 69 at La Quinta.

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DETROIT – He’d packed on 40 pounds of muscle, and now Bryson DeChambeau kept saying he wanted to be the house, as in the casino, because the house always wins. Or often wins. Or something like that. Still, there was a sliver of doubt. Would outdriving everyone by 30-50 yards a hole inevitably yield trophies? Well, not inevitably, but, you know, would it work? Could it work? It could, and it has. RELATED: Final leaderboard “It’s a little emotional for me,” DeChambeau said after firing a 7-under 65 to beat Matthew Wolff (71) by three at the Rocket Mortgage Classic at sun-splashed Detroit Golf Club. “Because I did do something a little different, I changed my body, I changed my mindset in the game, and was able to accomplish a win while playing a completely different style of golf.” For the fourth week in a row the tournament was played in front of no fans due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but that’s not to say there wasn’t a crowd. A large group of Black Lives Matters demonstrators could be heard marching outside the club gates as the golfers played on. “I love that everybody is voicing their opinion,” DeChambeau said. “And they deserve to do so.” The soundtrack was a stark contrast to the telltale twinkle of the Mr. Softee ice cream truck, which Wolff had credited for his stellar play Saturday. He will try to quickly forget his ghastly front nine in the final round, and almost rendered it moot with an array of fine shots on the back. Wolff birdied 12, 13 and 15 to cut the lead to one, but DeChambeau birdied his last three holes to leave no doubt. “I’ve shown people that there’s another way to do it,” he said. It was his sixth career win and seventh straight top-10 finish. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, and not only led in driving distance, too, but his 350.6-yard average for two measured holes was the highest number by a winner in the ShotLink era. DeChambeau is playing such a different game he had the honor at the 399-yard 13th hole but had to wait for the green to clear – he let playing partner Troy Merritt hit first, instead. “He’s changed the entire way the game is played,” said Kevin Kisner (66, solo third, five back). Wolff is another disrupter with his unorthodox swing, and he was all smiles for the first three rounds, when his 25 birdies and eagles were the most of any player at any tournament this season. But it took him too long to find his game in the final round, by which time DeChambeau could sense the finish line. “Yeah, it was definitely a grind out there,” Wolff said after birdies on four of his last seven holes. “Didn’t start off really well at all, wasn’t hitting it how I was the beginning of the week, and feel like I was really getting some bad breaks as well, which was pretty unfortunate.” Still, it was his first top-10 finish since his maiden TOUR win at the 3M Open a year ago. “Bryson played great,” he said. “Seven under, you know – it’s not like I gave it to him. He definitely earned it. Kudos to him.” Said DeChambeau, “I was kind of in my own world today.” Danny Willett (66), Adam Hadwin (67), Tyrrell Hatton (67) and Ryan Armour (72) tied for fourth, seven back. Wolff’s back-nine surge got more interesting when DeChambeau got in trouble off the tee and pitched out into the hazard at the par-5 14th, leading to bogey. But in the end, there was too much front-nine damage to undue even for the explosive Wolff, and in the winner’s press conference DeChambeau, cradling the round, red Rocket Mortgage trophy, said he planned to work out in the morning. (Of course.) Still, questions remain. With DeChambeau, they always do. How will his new style translate in the majors? Will scarfing down steaks and potatoes and protein shakes, and pumping iron feverishly, hold up over the long haul? Is he still getting better? What happens if and when he dials in his short irons? Will anyone stand a chance? And what about imitators? Will others on TOUR try to mimic the DeChambeau way? “I hope it’s an inspiration to a lot of people that if they set their mind to it, you can accomplish it,” DeChambeau said. “It just takes a lot of hard work, a lot of figuring out things that you may not know and understand yet. But if you keep … working on it, figuring stuff out, eventually you’ll get a little bit better each and every day, and hopefully that leads to something great in the end.”

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