Expert Picks: ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP

Good thing you have an appetite because we’re treated to a luau at the Sony Open in Hawaii. For starters, 23 of the 33 who competed at last week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions made the short trip west to Oahu, including Gary Woodland (2nd), Justin Thomas (3rd), Marc Leishman (T4) and Bryson DeChambeau (7th). You’re going about this game incorrectly if any doesn’t get your call at some point this season. Given the historical trend supporting golfers who opened the calendar year on Maui, I wouldn’t talk you out of any at Waialae Country Club. Seriously. While we need to slow-play the season for positioning entering the FedExCup Playoffs when points are quadrupled, two considerations must be made. First, there are only three tournaments in this season’s Playoffs, so you can shift one of your monsters usually saved to a spot sooner on the schedule. Second, the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club is the only event of the series that doesn’t rotate host sites. Liberty National Golf Club last hosted THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2009 and 2013, while Medinah Country Club hasn’t served as the backdrop for an individual competition since the 2006 PGA Championship. This is why I’m advocating JT this week. For loyal readers, that will come across as a stark departure from my general approach, but he firmly checks both of the boxes guiding all gamers this week. Among his multiple strong showings here, the 2017 Sony champ established the PGA TOUR record for 72 holes at 27-under 253. He also closed strong at Kapalua on Sunday. Furthermore, as strange as it sounds but explained above, we won’t miss him during the Playoffs. And with the majors awarding only 100 more points for a victory than what’s up for grabs at Waialae, his value in this field is even greater. No doubt that part of my decision is reliant on the depth of PGA TOUR membership and worldwide talent to plug a gap later, but I’m vowing to be aggressive to defend my league title. Aside from the other three aforementioned studs, others who opened 2019 at Kapalua and deserve a peek at Waialae include Charles Howell III (T14). He never lets anyone down here, so he’s ideal for front-runners and contenders entering the 10th of 46 tournaments. Matt Kuchar (T19) was a cornerstone here for years and demands a long look. And Scott Piercy (T19) is a terrific play if you want to swing for the fence. Like Piercy, Kevin Kisner is a relative just-off-the-radar option at Waialae who shouldn’t be. That’s what makes him dangerous for gamers who have started slow. Otherwise, you’ll be settling for the stymie at Harbour Town or Colonial. A year ago in this space, the advice was to sit on Jordan Spieth for what would be one opportunity after another, but he didn’t qualify for the Sentry TOC. Now married and making his 2019 debut, you don’t see him going another calendar year without a title, but the advice remains the same. Give him a start or two for him to show us what he has. I know that the Sony Open in Hawaii slots third in Future Possibilities for Zach Johnson, but it’s a distant show from his set-and-forget appearance at the John Deere Classic. But you do you. Two-man gamers naturally get to belly up to the feast for a second helping for which the likes of Adam Hadwin, Danny Lee, Jerry Kelly and Shugo Imahira present intrigue. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018-19. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Keegan Bradley … Farmers (2); Memorial (5); Travelers (4) Paul Casey … WGC-Mexico (6); Honda (10); Valspar (7; defending); WGC-Match Play (8); Masters (2); Wells Fargo (9); Travelers (1); TOUR Championship (3) Bryson DeChambeau … Waste Management (5); Arnold Palmer (3); Heritage (1);  Memorial (2; defending); Travelers (4); John Deere (7) Jason Dufner … Desert Classic (9); Honda (3); PLAYERS (7); Valspar (4); New Orleans (1); Charles Schwab (6); Memorial (5); U.S. Open (2); Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (10) Emiliano Grillo … Arnold Palmer (2); Charles Schwab (3) Adam Hadwin … Desert Classic (1); Waste Management (4); Genesis (3); Valspar (2); John Deere (5) Brian Harman … Sony (2); Desert Classic (3); Arnold Palmer (7); Charles Schwab (1); Travelers (5); John Deere (4) Russell Henley … Sony (2); Honda (4); Masters (3) Charles Howell III … Sony (3); Desert Classic (4); Farmers (1) Zach Johnson … Sony (3); Waste Management (6); Arnold Palmer (7); Valero (4); Charles Schwab (5); John Deere (1); Open Championship (2); TOUR Championship (8) Si Woo Kim … PLAYERS (3); Heritage (1) Chris Kirk … Sony (4); Valero (3); PLAYERS (5); Charles Schwab (2) Kevin Kisner … Sony (4); Heritage (3); New Orleans (5); Charles Schwab (2); Memorial (6) Russell Knox … Sony (3); Heritage (2) Matt Kuchar … Sony (3); Waste Management (4); PLAYERS (5); Valspar (9); Masters (6); Heritage (2); Charles Schwab (7); Memorial (1); Open Championship (8) Marc Leishman … Farmers (2); Arnold Palmer (1); Byron Nelson (6); Memorial (4); Travelers (3); Open Championship (8) Hideki Matsuyama … Waste Management (1); Genesis (10); Arnold Palmer (11); PLAYERS (9); Masters (4); PGA Championship (13); Memorial (8); U.S. Open (14); Wyndham (7); TOUR Championship (5) Kevin Na … Genesis (2); Valspar (6); Charles Schwab (3); Wyndham (5) Scott Piercy … Sony (3); New Orleans (1; co-defending); Canadian (7; last winner at Hamilton in 2012) Patrick Reed … Pebble Beach (6); Valspar (1); Masters (5; defending); PGA Championship (4); U.S. Open (3); Travelers (7) Adam Scott … Genesis (4); Honda (1); Arnold Palmer (10); PLAYERS (2); Masters (6); Byron Nelson (11); PGA Championship (8); U.S. Open (9); Open Championship (7); TOUR Championship (3) Cameron Smith … Wyndham (3) Jordan Spieth … Sony (12); Pebble Beach (3); Genesis (10); WGC-Mexico (11); Valspar (14); Masters (1); PGA Championship (7); Charles Schwab (5); Memorial (13); U.S. Open (4); Travelers (9); Open Championship (6); TOUR Championship (8) Brandt Snedeker … Farmers (3); Waste Management (8); Pebble Beach (2); Masters (10); Heritage (6); Charles Schwab (7); U.S. Open (5); Travelers (9); Wyndham (1; defending) Justin Thomas … Sony (4); WGC-Mexico (2); Honda (7; defending); PLAYERS (11); PGA Championship (9); Memorial (8); TOUR Championship (3) Jimmy Walker … Sony (5); Farmers (4); Pebble Beach (1); Valero (2); Byron Nelson (6) Bubba Watson … Waste Management (4); Genesis (1; defending); WGC-Match Play (6; defending); Masters (5); Memorial (7); Travelers (2; defending); TOUR Championship (8) Gary Woodland … Sony (1); Farmers (2); Waste Management (3; defending); Memorial (4)

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We thought we knew how it would go. We had no idea. If there was a theme to the 2021-22 season, it was surprise. Scottie Scheffler hadn’t won, but then he captured the WM Phoenix Open in a playoff, opening the floodgates. Scheffler was the first player to win twice on the season, the first to win three times, and the first (and only) to win four. It all happened in a torrid six-week stretch in the spring. Will Zalatoris also got in the win column, capturing the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He was suddenly FedExCup No. 1 and the favorite to win it all when the dust settled at the TOUR Championship, but he hurt his back and didn’t play again. Defending FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay captured the BMW Championship and could’ve taken the top seed to the TOUR Championship had Xander Schauffele not missed a putt on 18. Scheffler slid back into FedExCup No. 1; Cantlay suddenly started fighting his putter at East Lake; and neither ended up winning. That honor, of course, went to Rory McIlroy, who came into the TOUR Championship with a six-shot Starting Strokes deficit, opened triple-bogey, bogey in the first round, and came all the way back to win it all. Of course he did. Here are the superlatives from a very surprising season: Shot of the Year Matt Fitzpatrick, bunker shot on 18 at The Country Club, U.S. Open With a one-shot lead at the U.S. Open, Matt Fitzpatrick watched his tee shot drift left and find the fairway bunker on 18. Going for the green was risky, as it meant clearing a grassy knob; Jon Rahm had tried it the day before and made double bogey. But Fitzpatrick, who all year had struggled from fairway bunkers, knew he needed to make par to force playing partner Will Zalatoris to make birdie. He chose a 9-iron and, without deliberation, caught the ball perfectly flush. It cleared the lip of the bunker and soared into the cool, darkening sky, and when it landed on the green, he had hit what Zalatoris called one of the best shots in U.S. Open history. “It’s one of the best shots I’ve ever hit, there’s no doubt about it,” Fitzpatrick said. Best approximation of the Cal-Stanford Big Game Cal product Max Homa edged Stanford’s Maverick McNealy at the Fortinet Championship in nearby Napa, California. Best title defense Viktor Hovland at the World Wide Technology Championship; Rory McIlroy at the RBC Canadian Open (picking up where he left off in 2019); Patrick Cantlay at the BMW Championship Best (sort of) title defense Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Open at The Country Club, where he’d also won the 2013 U.S. Amateur with his little brother Alex as his caddie. Bravest shot Jordan Spieth from cliff’s edge, 8th hole, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Spieth’s tee shot nearly tumbled over the 65-foot cliff that juts into the par-4 8th hole at iconic Pebble Beach. Then Spieth nearly did. Michael Greller, his caddie, voted to take a drop, but after some deliberation Spieth addressed the ball and took a lash before scurrying backward, away from danger. The shot missed left, but he got up and down. “Michael hated it,” Spieth said. “He tried to talk me out of it three times. I don’t blame him, looking back. I’m just glad I made the par to make it worth it, because I don’t think I would have made par with a drop, but if I made bogey, it would have really not been worth it.” Most dynamic duo Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and are expected to figure prominently in the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club next week. Dynamic duo II Scottie Scheffler and Ted Scott joined forces at The RSM Classic last fall and hit it off in a way few player-caddie combos ever have. Starting with a playoff victory at the WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler won four times, including the Masters Tournament, in a span of six starts to become world and FedExCup No. 1. Best comeback Justin Thomas was seven back but won the PGA Championship. Sam Burns was also seven back but won the Charles Schwab Challenge. Rory McIlroy dug himself a 10-shot hole at the TOUR Championship, what with the Starting Strokes format (he began six behind Scottie Scheffler) and his triple-bogey, bogey start. To win after all that? Impressive. Best comeback, II Tom Kim quadruple-bogeyed the first hole and won the Wyndham Championship by five shots; Xander Schauffele shot the highest opening round by a winner, 72, at the Genesis Scottish Open. His 11-shot comeback over the next 54 holes was unmatched. Best performance in the soup Max Homa won his second Well Fargo Championship in sub-optimal weather (four days of cold rain) at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Best, last stand by a 40-something Chez Reavie became the only player in his 40s to win on TOUR for the entire season at the Barracuda Championship. Most appropriate champion Hideki Matsuyama, ZOZO Championship Matsuyama became the greatest-ever player from Japan when he won the Masters Tournament last year, and thrilled his home country again when he won the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, Japan’s only tournament on the PGA TOUR, by five. It was his seventh TOUR title, second TOUR win in Asia, and first since the 2016 WGC-HSBC Champions. He led the field in Greens in Regulation (81.94%) and co-led in eagles (2) and par-3 scoring average (2.75), and later won the Sony Open in Hawaii on the way to making the TOUR Championship for the 9th straight time, the longest active streak on TOUR. Best of the Midwest Tony Finau went from winless on the season to earning a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team with back-to-back wins at the 3M Open, Rocket Mortgage Classic. Wildest ace Adam Hadwin, No. 16, Rd. 2, Memorial Tournament presented by Workday When the ball dropped for his first hole-in-one on the PGA TOUR, the normally stoic Hadwin threw his club skyward, pumped his arms, and began slapping hands of his playing partners and fans alike. His wife Jessica tweeted that she’d never seen him so excited. “I think I kind of blacked out for a second when it went in,” said Hadwin, who used a 7-iron for the shot, which spanned 194 yards and came in from left to right. Best flirtation with 59 Sebastian Muñoz became the first player to shoot two rounds of 60 in a single season at The RSM Classic and AT&T Byron Nelson, both in the first round. Best use of a captain’s pick Scottie Scheffler went 2-0-1 and beat Jon Rahm in the Ryder Cup. The result also foreshadowed perhaps the biggest story of 2022: The Rise of Scottie.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The PGA TOUR today announced an expanded 2019-20 Season schedule of 49 FedExCup tournaments, featuring a dramatically changed opening segment and several late-season adjustments to accommodate the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. The schedule reflects a net increase of three tournaments over the current season. 11 of the 46 Regular Season events will be conducted in the opening portion of the schedule between September-November. This segment includes two new tournaments in The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan and the Bermuda Championship, plus the return of A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier and the Houston Open following one-year absences due to their transition from 2018 mid-season dates. Later in the season, the TOUR will have an open week during the men’s Olympic competition (week of July 27-August 2) before resuming with the Wyndham Championship and three FedExCup Playoffs events. Several changes also have been made leading up to the Olympics, most notably: the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit moving one month earlier to late May; and the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and Barracuda Championship shifting from late July to the first week of the month, exchanging dates with the 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota. “After a very successful first year with our new schedule, we are thrilled to expand the number of events to 49 while maintaining a great flow from start-to-finish, allowing our fans to better engage and follow the TOUR throughout the season,� said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “For the second year, we’re excited about kicking off the Season of Championships with THE PLAYERS in March, bookended by the FedExCup Playoffs in August, and the return of the Olympics in that window. As for the early-season portion of the schedule, our players grasp the importance of a strong start in the Race for the FedExCup and this has translated into growth and momentum for the events played in the fall.� With the PGA TOUR season now ending in August at the TOUR Championship, the 2019-20 season will open the week of September 9-15 with A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier. The Sanderson Farms Championship follows with its first-ever standalone date (September 16-22), before the TOUR moves on to the Safeway Open, Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and Houston Open. The TOUR then embarks on a three-tournament Asian swing, beginning October 14-20 with THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES at Jeju Island, Korea. The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP debuts at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Chiba Prefecture October 21-27, followed by the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China, the week of October 28-November 3, which also marks the debut of the Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton. Following a week off, the TOUR continues the 2019 segment at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (November 11-17) before concluding with The RSM Classic. While that marks the end of FedExCup competition until the first week of January 2020, the 13th Presidents Cup returns to The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia the week of December 9-15. It was there that the International Team claimed its lone victory over the U.S. Team in 1998. Once the TOUR resumes in January in Hawaii, the scheduling sequence remains unchanged from the current season until the Rocket Mortgage Classic’s move from the last week of June to May 25-31. The next four weeks remain the same before the move of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and Barracuda Championship to June-29-July 5 and the 3M Open to July 20-26, the week before the Olympic competition. Following the Olympic Games, the Regular Season wraps up at the Wyndham Championship (August 3-9), where not only the FedExCup Playoffs field will be finalized, but the added drama of the season-long Wyndham Rewards Top 10 will be determined. Introduced this season, the $10 million competition caps the Regular Season by rewarding the 10 leaders in FedExCup points, with $2 million going to the winner.  Due to the off week for the Olympics, the FedExCup Playoffs will begin one week later and conclude the final week of August: THE NORTHERN TRUST August 10-16; BMW Championship August 17-23; and the TOUR Championship August 24-30. The FedExCup Playoffs wrap up the Season of Championships, which begins with THE PLAYERS Championship (March 9-15) and continues through the Masters Tournament (April 6-12); PGA Championship (May 11-17); U.S. Open (June 15-21); and The Open Championship (July 13-19). Several new or familiar venues are included during this stretch, beginning with the PGA Championship visiting TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, the U.S. Open returning to Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York, and The Open Championship going to Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England. Additionally, THE NORTHERN TRUST will be held for the first time in the Boston market at TPC Boston in Norton, Massachusetts, while the BMW Championship will visit Olympia Fields Country Club in suburban Chicago. About PGA TOUR By showcasing golf’s greatest players, the PGA TOUR engages, inspires and positively impacts our fans, partners and communities worldwide. The PGA TOUR co-sanctions more than 130 tournaments on the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions, Korn Ferry Tour, PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada and PGA TOUR Series-China. Members on the PGA TOUR represent the world’s best players, hailing from 27 countries (90 members are from outside the United States). Worldwide, PGA TOUR tournaments are broadcast to 226 countries and territories in 23 languages. Virtually all tournaments are organized as non-profit organizations to maximize charitable giving. In 2018, tournaments across all Tours generated a record $190 million for local and national charitable organizations, bringing the all-time total to $2.84 billion.

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