Eyes on the $15 million mega-prize: Tour Championship field, standings, faves, odds

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BROOKLINE, Mass. – Jon Rahm is the defending champion, Rory McIlroy is coming in hot, and FedExCup frontrunner Scottie Scheffler is having the best season, with four wins. RELATED: Tee times | Nine Things to Know: The Country Club | How to watch first round Not that he doesn’t have anyone behind him. Good friend Sam Burns has three. The 122nd U.S. Open is rife with storylines. Here are five: 1. EIGHT IS GREAT Eight different players have won the last eight majors, which speaks to how hard it is to stay on top. McIlroy, 33, who just won the RBC Canadian Open but hasn’t captured a major since the 2014 PGA Championship, would make it nine straight with a win this week. “I liked what I saw,” said McIlroy, who played The Country Club’s front nine Monday. Cameron Smith, who won THE PLAYERS Championship in March, would also extend the streak to nine. So would Sam Burns and Max Homa. All three players have won more than once on TOUR this season, and each is in pursuit of his first major championship. On the other hand, the most likely recent major winners to do it again (and break the streak) are: – Scottie Scheffler, who won for the first time on the PGA TOUR at the WM Phoenix Open in February and picked off his first major title at the Masters Tournament two months later. He also won the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Oh, and he boasts two runner-up finishes. He’s atop the FedExCup and world ranking, with sizeable leads in both. – Justin Thomas, who captured the PGA Championship at Southern Hills last month for his second major title, and made a run at last week’s RBC Canadian Open before finishing third. The winner of 15 PGA TOUR events, he already has nine top-10 finishes this season, and recently committed to playing the weeks before the majors. (It worked nicely at the PGA.) – Jon Rahm, the defending U.S. Open champion, won the Mexico Open at Vidanta last month and is coming off a T10 at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “I played the front nine (Monday),” Rahm said. “I think it’s a wonderful course.” 2. IT’S A FAMILIAR COURSE Matt Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Amateur nine years ago at The Country Club and has since won seven times on the DP World Tour. He is one of 22 players in the U.S. Open field who played here in ’13. Scottie Scheffler (quarterfinalist), Patrick Rodgers (quarterfinalist), Corey Conners (semifinalist, lost to Fitzpatrick), and several who missed the cut – including Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Will Zalatoris, Aaron Wise, and Cameron Young – also have experience at The Country Club. Most others in the field do not. “Yeah, I remember everything,” said Fitzpatrick, who has seven top-10 finishes this season, including a T10 at the RBC Canadian Open. “I’ve been back a few times since, and love coming back here … back in 2013 it was – you had to hit fairways and greens.” Scheffler had just won the U.S. Junior when he got to the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club, where Justin Leonard had made the putt to put the Americans over the top at the 1999 Ryder Cup. Randy Smith, who coached Leonard, was also coaching Scheffler and was with him at the 2013 U.S. Amateur, where Scheffler put together a few classic comebacks of his own. “I remember being down in pretty much all my matches (that I won),” Scheffler said. 3. IT’S A COMPOSITE The course is made up of a blend of holes from The Country Club’s three 9s, so none of the players have seen every hole. Nor have they seen the holes in this sequence. Also, architect Gil Hanse has been hard at work restoring the course. There’s the drivable par 4 fifth hole at 310 yards, uphill. And there’s a 619-yard par 5, the 14th. But the newest hole, which hasn’t been used since the 1913 U.S. Open, is the 131-yard, downhill, par-3 11th, the shortest hole on the course. That’s only a gap wedge for the best players in the world, but there’s trouble lurking: four bunkers around the green to collect short and left misses, plus sharp drop-offs for misses right and long. And a lot of gnarly rough. Justin Thomas, who didn’t make the match play portion of the 2013 U.S. Amateur, said he loves the addition of the new hole. “I think every golf course should have a short little hole like that,” he said. “And it’s got a diabolical green to where it’s – they can put some tough pins. You can make 2 and 4 in a heartbeat.” 4. LOCAL FLAVOR Francis Ouimet, who won the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club, grew up in a house just across the street from the 17th hole and learned the game as a caddie at the course that would make him famous. A handful of players in the field have local ties this time around. Stanford golfer Michael Thorbjornsen grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, about 50 minutes away. “I got to see the course one time,” said Thorbjornsen, who will hit the opening tee shot off the first tee. “I’ve had a couple of dinners here.” Shortly before finishing T4 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scott Stallings, who was born in Worcester, about an hour west of here, got through Final Qualifying in Texas. “That was a huge goal,” said Stallings, 37. “Probably the biggest goal I had of the year.” Four-time TOUR winner Keegan Bradley is a graduate of nearby Hopkinton High School. “It’s big,” he said in a story on PGATOUR.COM. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of; when you’re from New England, it becomes who you are.” Finally, there’s Fran Quinn, 57, who plays out of Worcester Country Club. He’s a Massachusetts legend who plays on PGA TOUR Champions. Quinn will hit the first tee shot off No. 10 on Thursday. 5. PLAYOFF TIME Little-known amateur Francis Ouimet beat British heavyweights Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the most accomplished players of the day, in an 18-hole playoff at the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline. Julius Boros, 43, took down the legend Arnold Palmer and Jacky Cupit in another three-man playoff in 1963. The last time the U.S. Open was at The Country Club in 1988, Curtis Strange beat Nick Faldo, then the reigning champion of The Open, in an 18-hole playoff. Three U.S. Opens, three playoffs. Widen the view, and playoffs have been necessary to decide the winners of the last six U.S. Opens played in the state of Massachusetts. Not since Tiger Woods outlasted Rocco Mediate over 19 holes on Monday at Torrey Pines in 2008 has the U.S. Open gone beyond regulation – the 13-year gap is a tournament record. The 18-hole playoff format has been removed with a two-hole aggregate (holes 17 and 18 at The Country Club) now in its place. Sudden death on those holes will follow if players remain tied.

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KAPALUA, Hawaii – After giving the world a sneak peek at the Sentry Tournament of Champions through four of its star players, TaylorMade has officially released their new line of SIM drivers, fairway woods and rescue clubs. Looking to build on their driver innovation over the years the company invested heavily in aerodynamic research, including a state of the art wind tunnel, and have come up with a new shape and unconventional geometry to unlock more swing speed. The SIM line – short for Shape In Motion – promises to improve forgiveness while also increasing aerodynamics and clubhead speed at the most critical stage of the swing – the last three feet of the swing prior to impact. TaylorMade says this “speed generation zone� is where the most meaningful increase of clubhead speed occurs. At the PGA TOUR level, players commonly accelerate from 90mph to 120mph in that moment. Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Matthew Wolfe and Collin Morikawa all added the new equipment in the bag in Maui with others, including FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy, expected to follow suit. In each of the three driver models – the SIM, SIM Max and SIM Max D – a raised crown and sole is featured to reduce drag and improve airflow throughout the swing. While raising the crown and sole improves aerodynamics, it typically comes with a tradeoff in the form of higher center of gravity (CG) projection. TaylorMade says the SIM family of drivers counteract that with the “Inertia Generator� positioned low and back with a heavy steel weight at the rear of the club. This design element moves the CG projection very low, optimizing launch conditions and increasing the Moment of Inertia (MOI). This in turn provides additional forgiveness for the golfer. During aerodynamic testing, TaylorMade discovered the need to rotate the Inertia Generator to match the direction of airflow within the speed generation zone. The result is air that moves smoothly across the sole on the downswing and enhanced clubhead speeds in company tests. “The history of driver design has been about prioritizing tradeoffs,� Tomo Bystedt , TaylorMade’s Senior Director of Product Creation, says. “You could have great launch conditions, but poor forgiveness. You could have great forgiveness, but at the sacrifice of distance. You could have an aerodynamic shape, but with less than optimal launch conditions. “But through the use of multi-material technology, we’ve developed a new shape that optimizes performance in all three areas. It’s forgiving, fast and promotes the ideal launch conditions.� Plenty of familiar technology remains and in fact TaylorMade says the carbon composite material developed over the M series helped unlock the new geometry for SIM. By using carbon materials to construct the crown and sole paneling designers saved a considerable amount of weight, which was then redeployed into the new design. New for 2020 is an ultra-light weight chromium carbon crown with a chalk white topline that creates contrast with the black clubface to help frame the ball at address and improve alignment. The method of making “hot� drivers with “Speed Injected Twist Face� remains. Drivers are made above the legal limit and then injected with resin to bring it back to the legal limits. And the face curvature is designed to straighten ball flight. The SIM driver features a sliding weight that allows for up to 20 yards of draw or fade bias. It features a slightly smaller face than SIM Max and Sim Max D for players who place a premium on adjustability and control. The SIM Max driver is designed to deliver maximum forgiveness. The all-new Inertia Generator positions additional weight at the extreme rear of the club to further increase MOI, providing more forgiveness and slightly higher launch conditions than the SIM driver. The SIM Max D is engineered to help golfers avoid the right side of the course via a strategically placed heel-bias internal weight and divergent topline masking, which makes the driver look more open at address helping golfers close the face at impact. The draw-biased design promotes the highest launch and offers the largest, most forgiving face in the SIM lineup. All three models allow for two degrees adjustment of the loft, lie angle and face angle of the driver. SIM, SIM Max and SIM Max D will be available for pre-order on January 10 and at retail on February 7, 2020. SIM has an MSRP of $549.99 and will be offered in 8, 9 and 10.5 degree lofts. Stock shaft offerings include Mitsubishi Diamana S Limited 60 and Project X’s HZRDUS Smoke Green 70, with numerous custom shaft options available at no additional cost. They come stock with a new Golf Pride Z-Grip (47g). SIM Max and Max D have an MSRP of $499.99 and will be offered in 9, 10.5 and 12 degree lofts. SIM Max stock shaft offerings include Fujikura Ventus Blue 6 and Ventus Red 5, with numerous additional shaft options available at no additional cost. SIM Max D stock shaft offering is the UST Mamiya Helium, with numerous additional shaft options available at no additional cost. Both models also come stock with the new Golf Pride Z-Grip (47g).The women’s offering for both SIM Max and SIM Max D include the Aldila NV Ladies 45 shaft and the Lamkin Ladies Sonar grip (38g). FAIRWAY WOODS The V Steel design has been reinvented as advanced shaping combines with a V Steel sole to improve turf interaction and playability from various lies. A more rounded leading edge improves the club’s initial contact with the turf, while the V Steel sole further raises heel and toe sections of the sole away from the ground and improves versatility. TaylorMade says these design features combine to significantly reduce turf contact area reducing ground friction which can positively influence both clubhead speed and ball speed. Matching the aesthetics of the SIM driver family, the chromium carbon crown and contrasting chalk white color help frame the ball at address and improve alignment. The fairway metals all have Twist Face technology and the Speed Pocket technology. The SIM fairway is a 180cc titanium head that combines a lightweight carbon construction with a new ZATECH titanium face and a heavy 80g steel sole weight. The strategically positioned weight creates an extremely low CG that allows for increased ball speed, higher launch and improved forgiveness on low-face hits. According to the company the ZATECH titanium face enables engineers to push the limits of speed in a titanium fairway wood. It’s the first time TaylorMade has used this rare and ultra-strong material in the construction of a metal wood. It is made in small batches using a unique process that allows engineers to improve the strength of the face while maintaining a high level of ductility. TaylorMade says this results in extreme distance with adjustability via the loft sleeve. The 185cc SIM Max steel fairway woods are constructed using strong and durable C300 face material. Also featuring the reinvented V Steel, the SIM Max is designed for higher launch and peak trajectories, with extremely long distance and improved playability. The oversized 190cc SIM Max D has been optimized for forgiveness and golfers seeking a draw-bias design. Like SIM drivers, the fairway woods feature progressive head sizes to provide greater forgiveness to the players who need it the most. “For many golfers V Steel will trigger memories of an iconic product we released more than a decade ago,� Bystedt says. “As we reviewed the research used to develop the original technology, we discovered a massive benefit to having a fairway metal with significantly less turf drag through impact. By pairing V Steel with our technologically advanced materials, we’ve created fairways that are extremely playable, forgiving and provide explosive distance.� SIM, SIM Max and SIM Max D fairways will be available for preorder on January 10 and at retail on February 7, 2020. SIM has an MSRP of $399.99 and will be offered in Rocket 3/14, 3/15 and 5/19 degree lofts. It will be offered in the Mitsubishi Diamana FW Limited 75 stock shaft, with numerous additional shaft options available at no additional cost. It comes stock with the new Golf Pride Z-Grip (47g). SIM Max and Max D have an MSRP of $299.99. SIM Max will be offered in lofts of Rocket 3/14, 3/15, 5/18 ,7/21 and 9/24 degrees. Shaft offerings include Fujikura Ventus Blue FW 5 (R and A flexes) and Ventus Blue FW 6 (S and X flexes), with additional custom shaft options available at no additional cost. SIM Max D will be offered in lofts of 3/16, 5/19 and 7/22 degrees. UST Mamiya’s Helium FW is the stock shaft offering with numerous custom options available at no additional cost. Both models also come stock with the new Golf Pride Z-Grip (47g). Women’s offerings for SIM Max and SIM Max D fairways include the Aldila NV Ladies 45 shaft and the Lamkin Ladies Sonar grip (38g). RESCUE CLUBS The new SIM Max Rescue club has proven itself versatile enough that Dustin Johnson introduced it in his bag – the first time he says he has used a rescue club since early in his PGA TOUR career. Johnson was particularly pleased to eliminate a left miss he says has always been an issue with rescue clubs. TaylorMade has incorporated V Steel technology into a hybrid for the first time in the company’s history. The clubhead is engineered to deliver improved turf interaction and reduced friction when playing from various lies. A reshaped leading edge works in conjunction with V Steel to further improve playability and strike conditions. Designers rounded the toe and adjusted the face angle to give SIM Max Rescue a more confidence-inspiring shape at address for all levels of golfers. It utilizes the same C300 Steel face used in the SIM MAX fairway woods to help improve ball speed, durability and overall performance. The corrective technologies of Twist Face and Speed Pocket offer improved performance and forgiveness on mis-hits on the toe, heel and low on the face. The SIM Max Rescue will be available for preorder on January 10 and at retail on February 7, 2020. It has an MSRP of $249.99 and will be offered in lofts of 3/19, 4/22, 5/25, 6/28 and 7/31 degrees. It has the Fujikura Ventus Blue stock shaft, with numerous custom shaft options available at no additional cost. It comes stock with the Lamkin’s Crossline 360 grip (47g). Women’s offerings include the Aldila NV Ladies 45 shaft and the Lamkin Ladies Sonar grip (38g).

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