Featured Groups: Valero Texas Open

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FORT WORTH, Texas – Few could find fault with Jordan Spieth’s putting stroke, but the former FedExCup champion said a “somewhat significant” change was needed before this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge. It worked. Spieth was impeccable with the putter en route to a bogey-free 63 that gave him a three-shot lead after Thursday’s morning wave at Colonial Country Club. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Tee times | Spieth reacts to Mickelson’s historic win “I just needed to do a bit of adjustment in my stroke feel on some bad tendencies I got into,” Spieth said. “Cameron (McCormick, Spieth’s instructor) … was able to really pinpoint a way to get a stroke feel that left me just a little more comfortable over it.” A lack of confidence was causing Spieth to leave putts about a foot short of his target. Spieth finished 30th in last week’s PGA Championship despite ranking 69th in Strokes Gained: Putting (-0.55) among the 81 players who made the cut. He’s 48th in that statistic this season. He gained more than 4 strokes on the greens Thursday, missing just one of the 18 putts he faced from inside 20 feet. He was 3 for 3 from 5-10 feet, missed just one of the four putts he faced from 10-15 feet and made a 19-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole. He started the day with a 12-foot birdie putt on his opening hole, the par-4 10th. He added birdies at 12 and 17 to shoot 32 on the front nine. Another birdied at No. 2 got him to 4 under before he birdied his final three holes, including a chip-in on the par-3 eighth hole. Spieth, who recently ended a winless drought of nearly four years, is now seeking his second win in his home state in less than two months. His victory in last month’s Valero Texas Open was his first PGA TOUR win since the 2017 Open Championship. He’s ninth in this season’s FedExCup standings thanks to seven top-10s in his last 10 starts. And now he brings his good form into Colonial, one of the courses where he feels most comfortable. He won here in 2016, one of six top-10s in eight starts. “Colonial, it’s Hogan’s Alley,” he said. “Fit it into tight windows, trying to hit fairways, and control the ball on the green. I’ve putted these greens historically very well, that’s No. 1. I’ve had a knack for reading and dialing in the speed out here.” The familiar bentgrass putting surfaces of Colonial Country Club can seemingly fix anything that may ail Spieth’s putting stroke. He showed it Thursday.

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There are 21 rookies on the PGA TOUR in 2018-19. This page provides a subjective ranking updated weekly. The Rookie of the Year is voted by PGA TOUR members who make at least 15 starts. There he is again: Cameron Champ doing work. Of the 20 rookies in the field at The RSM Classic, only eight survived the cut and Champ set the pace once again, this time with a sixth-place finish, his third top 10 of the young season. He’s reminding us of Tony Finau, but only because they share the bonus of being able to send the ball out of sight. Instead, and in fact, Champ is excelling everywhere, just as his veteran comparison has illustrated with an exponentially greater sample size of sites and over time. After Champ broke through at the Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson, a course where attacking on approach is Priority A, the 23-year-old placed T10 at Mayakoba where ball-striking and men of a certain age have thrived. Last week at Sea Island, he finished just T31 in distance of all drives (measured during three rounds on Seaside only) and T22 in greens hit, but he led the field in putts per GIR and finished fourth in converting GIR into par breakers. Finau, who went 22-for-31 with five top 10s (but zero top fives) as a rookie in 2014-15, presents similarly as a home-run hitter, but he’s the complete package. His game travels arguably better than any other one-time winner on the PGA TOUR, but you already can put Champ on that short list. The only rookie who sat out the 156-man contest in the Golden Isles was Cameron Davis. Opting to defend his title at the Emirates Australian Open in his homeland, he finished T40. Since the first edition of the wraparound season in 2013-14, seven rookies have won a tournament in the fall, six of whom entered the holidays inside the top 10 of the FedExCup standings. After winning last year’s RSM Classic, Austin Cook ranked third, best of the bunch. Champ sits sixth right now. Mackenzie Hughes (fourth in 2015-16) and Smylie Kaufman (fifth in 2014-15) also have slotted higher at this point. While Champ didn’t set a new mark compared to rookies early in previous seasons, to further accentuate his success against the current class, Sungjae Im is the only other rookie with at least one low-rookie performance, and he has three. Yet, the 20-year-old has only two top-35 finishes. NOTE: Since the Sentry Tournament of Champions is up next on the schedule, this page likely won’t be updated again until its field is released on Friday, Dec. 28. LOW ROOKIE: Cameron Champ, 6th. Third time. (Previous: Win=Sanderson Farms; T10=Mayakoba.)     CAREER-BEST FINISHES (AND TIES): Chase Wright (T7), Kyle Jones (T23), Hank Lebioda (T32).              * – Qualified for the Sentry Tournament of Champions (Jan. 3-6). Through The RSM Classic NOTE: A player’s rookie season (“Rookie Year”) is defined as the season in which he becomes a PGA TOUR member (including Special Temporary Members) and plays in 10 or more events as a member or finishes in the Top 125 on the Official FedExCup Points List or qualifies as a Top 125 – Nonmember, whichever occurs first. Further, for purposes of this definition, a new member (including Special Temporary Members) shall not be eligible to be a rookie if he has previously played in more than seven (7) Official PGA TOUR Money events as a professional in any prior season.                          

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