Five things to know: Waialae Country Club

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Justin Rose did his part on another day of low scoring Saturday in the BMW Championship, running off four straight birdies early for a 6-under 64 and a one-shot lead over Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. At stake for Rose is solidifying his spot in the top five of the FedExCup standings, currently projected to No. 2, and moving to No. 1 in the world for the first time in his career. Still ahead is a final round at soggy Aronimink Golf Club that could take more than one day to complete because of rain in the forecast, along with a 13 player within five shots of the lead. The list includes Tiger Woods, who shot 66 and made up no ground on the lead. “If you shoot 65, you were losing ground,” McIlroy said with only slight exaggeration. Rose made four straight birdies early on the front nine to quickly erase a two-shot deficit to Schauffele, and he finished the front nine birdie-birdie for a 29. Schauffele, hopeful that a victory will give U.S. captain Jim Furyk reason to pick him for the Ryder Cup, stayed with Rose the whole way until he three-putted from the tight collar on the 18th hole for a bogey and a 67. McIlroy picked himself up quickly from a double bogey on the par-3 eighth hole with a 3-wood onto a green so soft on the par-5 ninth that it barely bounced forward and caught a slope down toward the pin, leaving him a short eagle putt. Three birdies over the last six holes gave him a 63 and a spot in the final group. The top 30 in the FedExCup after the final round advance to East Lake in Atlanta for the TOUR Championship. Bryson DeChambeau already has clinched the No. 1 seed with victories in the opening two Playoff events. The more interesting race is at the bottom. Jordan Spieth salvaged his round late again for a 66, but he still was just outside the top 30. He has never missed the TOUR Championship, and he likely would face some form of penalty from not having added a new tournament to his schedule without competing in at least 25 events. He needs to be at East Lake to reach 25. Keegan Bradley made two tough pars for a 66 and narrowly edged past Spieth for the 30th spot. For someone like Bradley, getting to the TOUR Championship would get him into all four majors next year. Scoring was the lowest it has been all week at 67.17. Only six players from the 69-man field were over par, and there was a 62 for the third straight round. Tommy Fleetwood has two of them, Friday and Saturday. After opening with a 71, Fleetwood goes into the final round just two shots behind. So does Rickie Fowler, despite a bogey on the final hole for a 65. Fowler played in the final group at Aronimink in 2011 when it held the AT&T National, though he faded to a tie for 13th. He is trying to win for the first time this year. For Woods, it was another lost opportunity, even though he remains in the mix. He opened with two straight birdies and the crowd was on his side, loud as ever. He followed with 11 straight pars, even though he had chances from 15 feet and closer. How low is the scoring? It was the 17th time Woods had a 54-hole score of 198 or lower. The previous 16 times he was either leading or tied for second. At Aronimink, he was tied for 11th. “I hit the ball well enough to shoot a low score and I got off to a quick start,” Woods said. “I was looking up on the board and everyone seemed like they were 3 under through 8, 5 under through 9. I was only 2-under par. I wasn’t doing much.” A victory should be enough for Rose to reach No. 1 in the world, especially with Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka nine shots out of the lead. Much depends on Justin Thomas, who was only four shots behind. The question is whether — or when — the fourth round would end. Tee times were pushed back three hours on Saturday because of overnight rain that kept falling into the morning. Starting times have been moved up to 7 a.m. Monday with hopes of having enough time to weather any storm. The PGA TOUR is off next week. The only activity of any relevance is Furyk making his final selection, which at this stage would appear to be down to Tony Finau or Schauffele. Finau shot a 67 and was tied for 15th, six shots behind.

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CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – Although our PGATOUR.COM staff of experts is split across two continents, it doesn’t prevent us from making a few observations going into The Open Championship this week at Carnoustie. 1. Let’s get straight down to brass tax. Who’s your winner? BEN EVERILL (Staff Writer): Marc Leishman. Was 5th in 2014 on the clear wrong side of the draw. Lost in a playoff in 2015 after finding an unlucky fairway divot. Was T6 last year. Leishman is as relaxed as they come which will serve him well on this tough examination. Plays the wind expertly. This is his time.  SEAN MARTIN (Senior Editor): Brooks Koepka. I’ve been really impressed with his comments about playing on tough golf courses. He is disciplined in the gym and disciplined on the course. That will serve him well on a course where you have to execute a strong strategy. Also, Koepka has finished no worse than T21 in his past 11 majors. He plays his best when conditions are toughest. And they don’t get much tougher than Carnoustie. MIKE McALLISTER (Managing Editor): Rickie Fowler. He has experience winning in Scotland, and it just seems like his time. Admittedly, that last part is an absurd way to make a prediction, but there’s been so many first-time major winners in recent years, Fowler is simply next in line. CAMERON MORFIT (Staff Writer): Francesco Molinari. The guy is 40 under in his last two starts, with a win and a T2. And at 35, he’s got the seasoning I like to see when the stakes are high and the conditions are difficult. Plus, his putting has come around under the tutelage of Phil Kenyon. JONATHAN WALL (Equipment Insider): Rickie Fowler. At some point, Fowler is going to add a major championship to his resume. This feels like a pretty good spot to make it happen. He was just one back going into the final round at last week’s Scottish Open — a tournament he won in 2015 — and seems to thrive on firm, fast courses. Carnoustie should be right in his wheelhouse. Whether Fowler decides to take a more aggressive approach off the tee or lay back with long irons, he has the iron game to handle quite possibly the toughest track in the Open rota. It’ll all come down to a putter that’s been lukewarm of late. This is the week the flat stick gets going and he hits paydirt.  2. And who’s your outside-the-box selection? Everill: Adam Scott. He’s been in terrible form for some time now and should rightfully be overlooked by most, but Scott has spent nearly a month in the UK preparing for this tournament, he has experience on his bag with Fanny Sunesson and he quite legitimately should have or could have won four straight Opens from 2012-15. With Peter Thompson’s recent passing, it would be a nice story for Scott to regain his links love this week.  Martin: Russell Knox. He’s on a good run after finishing second in the French Open, winning in Ireland and contending in Scotland. He came to Carnoustie, the closest venue in The Open rota to his Scottish birthplace, as a kid. And few players hit it as straight as he does, which will come in very handy. The firm conditions will help stretch out the length on his tee shots, as well. McAllister: Danny Willett (yes, I went there). Don’t look now, but Willett has two top-10s and a top-20 in his last five starts. Yes, it’s a small sample size in a two-year stretch in which he seemed to recede after his 2016 Masters win, but you wanted an outside-the-box pick. Hey, he’s moved from 462nd in the world to 320th in the last two months. Morfit: Michael Kim. OK, he’s never played The Open before, and he’s played in only one major, the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion (T17). I don’t care about any of that. Kim was nerveless at the John Deere, where he made 30 birdies and had the second-best performance on the par 4s of any player on TOUR since 1983. I could go on, but the point is the guy has found something.   Wall: Tyrrell Hatton. Has the links chops as a two-time winner of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and finished T5 two years ago at The Open. Did I mention he also qualified for golf’s oldest major in 2010 when he was still an amateur? This isn’t a complete dart throw, but I think Hatton still qualifies as an outside-the-box selection who has a legitimate chance to hoist the Claret Jug.  3. Carnoustie is the longest course in The Open rota. Will this be a week for the bombers or will a straight hitter who can avoid Carnoustie’s penal pot bunkers prevail? Everill: Surely the bomb and gouge crowd can’t survive this place. Long will help in some places but it’s about plotting your way around, making a solid plan, and being cool, calm and collected when that plan inevitably comes awry at times. Watch out for the veteran strikers, such as Scott, Stenson, Zach, Molinari, Rose and Tiger. Martin: At the end of the day, you can’t play Carnoustie with reckless abandon. Carnoustie is so well-bunkered – and there’s that pesky Barry Burn – that you have to be cautious. It will require sound strategy to get around the course. Almost all of the bunkers require nothing more than a pitch out, so the driver will, for the most part, stay in the bag. McAllister: Accuracy will be the key this week. Got to stay out of those bunkers. The dry conditions will allow for ridiculous run-out for those able to hit low liners, so not sure the big boys will have a huge advantage anyway. Morfit: I think with how dry the course is, and the forecast calling for only a light bit of rain, Carnoustie is going to play into the hands of the medium-length hitters who specialize in precision and game management. That’s guys like Molinari, Kim, Zach Johnson, Kevin Kisner, and, uh, Tiger Woods. Wall: Carnoustie won’t be brought to its knees this week by modern golf equipment. Even with some hinting, they’ll take a bomb and gouge mentality with a healthy dose of drivers, the course has to be respected. There’s nothing wrong with picking your spots and trying to cut the corner, but firm conditions open the door for some of the shorter hitters in the field to plod their way around. Heck, Brandt Snedeker recorded a 425-yard drive during a practice round. I don’t think distance will separate the field. It’ll come down to putting.  4. Carnoustie is playing firm and fast. The forecast is favorable. Will we see unprecedented scoring or will Carnoustie win once again? Everill: If Car-nasty ever loses, maybe the game has evolved too far. I’m cheering for the course.  Martin: Dustin Johnson said that even though Carnouste is playing short, it’s hardly easy. The soft greens and favorable forecast will help, but no one has ever finished double-digits under par here, and I think that trend will continue. This course is just too tough. “When the wind is blowing, it is the toughest golf course in Britain,â€� said World Golf Hall of Fame member Sir Michael Bonallack. “And when it’s not blowing, it’s probably still the toughest.â€� McAllister: Trying to determine a target score with so many variables is difficult. The winds aren’t expected to be ridiculous, and the rough isn’t penal, so I’m thinking single digits under par, probably bettering Harrington’s 7 under. But not double digits. That’s too much to ask on this tough of a course. Morfit: No, Carnoustie will win. It always does. Maybe not to the extent that it did with Van de Velde, but it will win. Wall: I don’t think so. Carnoustie has ample defenses to keep the best players in the world honest. I’m not saying we won’t see a low round or two, but to assume we’ll see a double-digit under-par winner is a bit of a stretch. I believe the firm conditions will make things interesting for the entire field.  5. Tiger. Discuss. Everill: With a little bit of luck we could see something really special from Tiger this week. Driver potentially out of the bag for a lot of the week and slow greens for all mean his striking could push him right into the mix. I would not be in the least bit surprised if he’s in the top 10 heading into Sunday … Martin: I think he has a good chance, but we had high hopes for the Masters (T32) and U.S. Open (MC), as well. He didn’t contend in either. I think he will have his best major finish of the year. He lit up when recalling playing Carnoustie as an amateur. The fact that he can hit iron off so many tees, and the slower, flatter putting surfaces, should help him this week. McAllister: I’m expecting a good week from him, possibly a top-10. As he said this week, The Open will ultimately be his best opportunity in a major for the rest of this career, although I think he might have a better chance three years from now than he does this week – provided, of course, he stays healthy. Morfit: I like Tiger here because of the conditions. He was so good in winning The Open at Hoylake, when the venue was similarly sun-scorched. He is probably the best iron player who ever lived, one of the best at managing his way around and scoring, and when you take the big liability of the driver out of his bag, look out.   Wall: The firm conditions take driver out of his hands, so he’s already in a great position. Woods has thrived from the short grass this season and seems to putt well on slower greens. I’d imagine we’ll see a repeat of The Open in 2006, where he won employing a driver-less strategy. He’s only logged one tournament with the mallet putter, but I saw enough over four days to believe it’s something he can win with. I think Tiger gets close this week and logs a respectable top-5 finish. 

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH – The youth explosion in golf has hit new heights with the top five ranked players in the world all under 30 for the first time in the history of the game. RELATED: WiretoWire: Inside Scheffler’s hot run at Bay Hill Scottie Scheffler’s win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, not far removed from his maiden PGA TOUR win at the WM Phoenix Open, pushed the 25-year-old to fifth in the official world golf rankings. The American now joins fellow youngsters Jon Rahm (27), Collin Morikawa (25), Viktor Hovland (24) and Patrick Cantlay (29) at the pointy end of the standings in the lead up to a highly anticipated PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass this week. Over the last eight years or so there has been a significant shift in the depth of young stars on the PGA TOUR and across the globe. In both 2015 and 2017 the TOUR saw a run of seven consecutive tournament wins by players in their 20s as the likes of Jordan Spieth (12 TOUR wins), Jason Day (12 TOUR wins), Bryson DeChambeau (eight TOUR wins) and Justin Thomas (14 TOUR wins) came of age. They were just the start. Current world No. 1 Rahm has six TOUR victories to his name, including the 2021 U.S. Open. Then came Morikawa and Hovland leading a new wave that included Scheffler plus others like South Korean Sungjae Im, Chile’s Joaquin Niemann and fellow American Sam Burns who all have two TOUR wins apiece. Already this PGA TOUR season, 11 of 19 wins have been by 20-somethings (although Hideki Matsuyama has celebrated his 30th birthday since his two wins). Morikawa has five PGA TOUR wins including two majors and another DP World Tour title. Hovland has three TOUR wins, two DP World Tour wins and an unofficial TOUR win at the Hero World Challenge late last year. Scheffler grabbed his first two TOUR wins in a 21-day stretch. Cantlay is the elder statesmen of the record setting youth set. But if he is to add to his six TOUR wins and a FedExCup title in his 20s, he’ll need to salute at TPC Sawgrass this week. Cantlay turns 30 on March 17. World No. 6 Rory McIlroy and No. 9 Dustin Johnson are the only 30-somethings in the current world top 10 at 32 and 37 years old respectively with Xander Schauffele (28, four TOUR wins), defending PLAYERS champion Thomas (28) and Australian Cameron Smith (28, four TOUR wins) all also in the top 10. In fact, 15 of the current top 25 players in the world are in their 20s.

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