Fowler, Rahm ready for Sunday chase

SAN ANTONIO – In a Hall of Fame career that took him all over the world, Greg Norman spent very little time at historic Riviera. He played a couple of PGA Championships there but was never in contention. He made one start at the regular PGA TOUR stop, missing the cut. Ten total rounds. Still, his limited visits left an impression. Riviera was on his mind less than a decade ago when he was designing the AT&T Oaks course at TPC San Antonio. Specifically, Riviera’s sixth hole, memorable because it has a pot bunker in the middle of the green, dividing the putting surface essentially into four quadrants. “I always liked that hole,� Norman said. “I liked the concept. Can’t do it everywhere. Just has to be the right topo (topography), the right distance.� Norman thought he found the right spot as he sketched out the holes for TPC San Antonio. But he wanted to make sure. Luckily, the player-consultant on his design was Sergio Garcia, who at that point in his career had played Riviera in 22 competitive rounds, more than double Norman’s total. Garcia loves Riviera. When Norman brought up the idea, Garcia was quickly on board. They discussed it, tinkered with it, then finally went through with the idea. The end result is the 183-yard 16th hole. Inspired by George Thomas’ masterpiece, but distinctly Norman, on display again this week at the Valero Texas Open. “He obviously liked the sixth hole there, so he wanted to do something kind of similar but with his touch and a different flair to it,� said Garcia, playing at TPC San Antonio for the first time since 2010. “I think this one, the nice thing about it is you have more pin positions than you do at Riviera. “For example, the green is a little bit bigger, the bunker is also a little bit bigger. It just brings a different element to it. It’s a different look and it’s just kind of like a par 3 with two greens if you look at it that way.� More than that, according to Norman. “Once we drew it out and you could actually see that there were like three or four different greens in one, depending on where the PGA TOUR puts the tee markers,� he said. “It’s a challenging hole because it’s not just a regular par 3. It’s like three or four different par 3s in one.� A year ago, the first round pin placement was front right, the second was back right, the third was back left, and the final round was front left. Different looks each day, and with the wind that often whips through the course, different conditions. Brendan Steele, the 2011 Valero Texas Open champ, recalled having a 185-yard tee shot last year with a helping wind. He took out a wedge and finished pin-high. “It gets so windy here that it can play really different,� Steele said. “… It’s basically four different greens – and they’re all very small.� Adam Scott, who won at TPC San Antonio the first time it hosted the event in 2010, said he played a 6-iron into a front pin placement with the wind into his face during Wednesday’s practice round. “It’s interesting for sure, but it’s got us talking about it, which is a good thing,� said Scott, making his first start here since 2011. Most players are adept at avoiding the bunker in the middle of the green. In fact, in last year’s final round, just three players found that bunker with their tee shots; in the second round, it was just two, with the majority of misses being far right of the green. Overall, less than 25 tee shots in the four rounds landed in the middle bunker (there are four other bunkers guarding the green). A look at where Kevin Chappell hit his tee shot at the 16th in each round during his 2017 win at TPC San Antonio. “The bunker’s actually OK to the back pins and not very good to the front pins,� Steele said. “You have to kind of know where your miss is and then stand in there and hit a great shot in order to get it close to the hole. There’s not a lot of room for error.� Of course, finding the bunker is not the quirkiest result about the 16th tee shot. Instead, it’s finding the green – but on the wrong side of the bunker, forcing players to chip over the bunker to the pin. That’s what happened to Kevin Chappell in the first round in 2013. With the pin set in the back right, his tee shot landed 20 yards away on the front left of the green, forcing him to use a wedge. “I think I did all right,� Chappell said, recalling the shot. Indeed, he did. Finished 4 feet from the pin for par. That’s the only time in 25 career rounds at TPC San Antonio that Chappell has landed on the wrong side of the bunker. A year ago when he broke through for his first PGA TOUR win, he played the hole in 1 under, saving par from the middle bunker in the first round, and rolling in a 11-1/2 foot birdie putt to the back left pin in the third round. Chappell doesn’t worry about the middle bunker. Depending on the set-up, he has bigger concerns. “I was talking to my pro-am group today about it,� Chappell said Wednesday on the eve of his title defense. “That back right pin or middle right pin’s one of the scarier pins we play all year. Not because of penalty shots and that side of it, but the pin is 9 feet from the people, so you can hit a good shot and hit someone. “That’s never a comfortable feeling.� And it’s never comfortable having to take out a wedge when you’re on the putting surface. Steele hasn’t had to during his seven starts at TPC San Antonio. But he has been on greens that required him to chip over an obstacle to reach the pin. It happened once on the 18th green at Bay Hill when his approach landed front right, with the pin tucked to the back right on the green that wraps around the back portion of the pond. At the time, Arnold Palmer was waiting to greet players as they finished – making an uncomfortable shot even more nervy in front of the legend. “I’ve heard a lot of guys say, well, they shouldn’t put the pin over here and put the green over there if they don’t want us to hit a chip,� Steele said. “I mean, how else are we supposed to get it there? “I didn’t want Arnie to see me take a big chunk out of Bay Hill – but that’s the shot. I needed to play it that way.� And at various times this week, players will play a similar shot at the 16th. Sticking a bunker in the middle of the green may challenge the traditional approach of golf course design, but if it was good enough for George Thomas, then it’s good enough for Greg Norman. Plus, it just makes livens up things. “It’s just a bigger version of Riviera,� said Martin Piller, who tied for fourth at Valero last year and made his first TOUR start at Riviera this season. “I think it’s fun. It’s cool. It gives a lot of different looks at it. It’s like every day is a new hole, with the bunker in the middle of it. Everytime you play it, based on where the pin is, it’s got a new set of challenges.�

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TULSA, Okla. – After opening the PGA Championship with rounds of 68 and 64, Mito Pereira has taken the lead early in the third round at the PGA Championship. The 27-year-old from Chile is playing his first full season as a TOUR member and looking to make a major his first PGA TOUR victory. Here’s Five Things to Know about the leader at the PGA Championship: 1. THREE’S COMPANY Pereira earned his first PGA TOUR card by winning three times on the Korn Ferry Tour during the extended 2020-21 season, becoming the 12th player to earn a three-win promotion from that circuit and the first since 2016. His first win came at the Country Club de Bogota in February 2020. Sixteen months later, he won back-to-back starts to graduate to the PGA TOUR. In those last two events, he was 48 under par and had a 65.1 scoring average. His highest score in that span was 67. “This is crazy, man,” Pereira said after the win. “This is by far the best thing that I’ve done in my life. … It’s been a long ride. There’s been tough moments, good moments, but it’s all worth it.” It didn’t take him long to have success on the PGA TOUR. He had back-to-back top-6 finishes in July before finishing fourth at the Olympics, falling in the seven-man playoff for the bronze medal. 2. STANDING ROOM Pereira entered this week ranked 46th in the FedExCup and 100th in the world ranking. A third-place finish in the season-opening Fortinet Championship is his lone top-10 of the season. He entered the week with four consecutive top-30 finishes in individual tournaments, though, including a T17 at last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson. The stats show that ballstriking is Pereira’s strength, which is paying off this week. He’s fourth this season in greens in regulation (71.4%), 13th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+0.67) and 30th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+0.45). He ranks outside the top 100 in both Strokes Gained metrics that measure short-game performance (Putting and Around-the-Green), however. He’s also 16th in the standings for this year’s International Presidents Cup team. 3. PHENOM-ENAL Pereira was something of a junior phenom in his native Chile. He was runner-up in the boys 10-11 division of the 2006 Optimist International Junior Golf Championship and won the 12-13 division two years later (Beau Hossler finished third, one stroke back). Pereira enrolled at the prestigious IMG Academy in Florida when he was 14 but was burnt out after six months and quit the game for two years. When he decided to start playing again, he quickly picked up where he left off, however. “I took the two years off but when I came back I knew I could do it, I knew I could get to here,” he said Friday, “and I just kept the confidence, and obviously there were some up and downs but (I’m) really happy to be here.” He won on the Chilean Professional Tour when he was 17 and embarked for Lubbock, Texas, to play one season at Texas Tech, reaching as high as No. 5 in the world amateur world ranking before turning pro in 2015 after his freshman season. The Big 12 Championship was played at Southern Hills for Pereira’s lone season with the Red Raiders. He finished eighth, nine shots back of winner Scottie Scheffler. Pereira finished third on the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica Order of Merit in 2016, racking up a win and three-other top-3 finishes, to earn Korn Ferry Tour status. He finished a solid 76th on the Korn Ferry Tour money list the next year before losing his card in 2018. He returned to Latinoamerica for one season before making it back to the KFT. 4. RISING STARS Pereira is the third Chilean to earn a PGA TOUR card, after Benjamin Alvarado and Joaquin Niemann. Pereira and Niemann, 23, have been friends since they were kids. They used to practice together daily and shared a coach, Eduardo Miguel, who still coaches both of them. Pereira also resided in Niemann’s South Florida home after the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel impossible, and had his Korn Ferry Tour trophies sent to Niemann’s home. Niemann was known in their younger days for wearing a lot of yellow. “He looked like a bee,” said Pereira. Niemann also looked up to the older Pereira. “We all grew up together,” said Carlos Bustos, another Chilean who played college golf at Florida. “Mito was always better because he was older than us. He was on another level at that age, when we were like 13, 14, I mean he was an unbelievable golfer.” Niemann went on to become the No. 1 amateur in the world before winning twice on the PGA TOUR. He and Pereira were teammates at last year’s Olympics and now look to team together again at this year’s Presidents Cup. 5. ADRENALINE JUNKY Pereira is known as a bit of an adrenaline junkie, which could help him cope with the stress of a major championship. He’s a fan of motocross and MotoGP (Grand Prix motorcycle racing). After enduring a difficult season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2018 and failing to regain his status at Q-School, Pereira broke his collarbone when he fell off his bike. The injury may have been a blessing in disguise. “Obviously in that moment it was terrible,” he said. “But if I look back, it probably helped me a little bit. It was a month that I didn’t play. I cooled down and took all the bad things out.” He also discovered a mental coach, Eugenio Lisama, who works with Formula 1 racers and soccer players. Pereira says working with sensors on his brain and analyzing the data was “like going to the gym for your brain.” “He showed me some data of those guys and it’s unbelievable,” Pereira said about the athletes who engage their brain much quicker than he does playing golf. “But we all need our minds to be blank. That’s what he teaches and trains with me on.”

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CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) — Xander Schauffele shot a 3-under 67 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead over good friend and playing partner Patrick Cantlay into the final round of the Travelers Championship. Schauffele had a 17-under 193 total at TPC River Highlands. Cantlay shot 63. Rookie Sahith Theegala was third at 14 under after a round of 64, and Kevin Kisner had a 66 to get to 13 under. Schauffele began the day at 14 under with a five-stroke lead. The Olympic champion birdied the second hole for the third time this week and had another at No. 6, part of a career-best run of 48 holes without a bogey. But he put his tee shot at 13 in the water and briefly fell into a tie for the lead after a bogey. He broke his minor birdie drought at 16, then hit the pin on his approach at 17 and sank another. “I would love to have that tee ball back on 13,” he said. “For the most part I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to protect a lead, especially when it’s five shots and it’s easy to get comfortable.” Cantlay’s bogey-free round was the best of the day. Schauffele and Cantlay have been close friends since being paired together at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia and they combined to win the Zurich Classic this season. “If only it was a combined score again this week we would be doing well,” Cantlay joked. “It’s always nice to be out with him, if he’s on my team or if he’s not. I’m going to go out there tomorrow and try as hard as I can and let the chips fall where they may.” Schauffele is looking for his sixth individual title and first since the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. He also is shooting for his sixth straight top-20 finish. He and Cantlay finished tied for 14th last week in the U.S. Open. “I’ve been looking forward to playing with Pat in a final round,” Schauffele said. “We don’t get paired together very often in regular tournaments, only in those team ones. So there’s a certain level of comfort we have playing with each other and hopefully that pays off and hopefully we can make a lot of birdies.” Theegala had an eagle on 13 to go with four birdies. The 24-year-old Californian hit his second shot on the par-4 17th over the course’s signature lake to about a foot from the pin, briefly tying Schauffele for the lead. But he bogeyed the final hole. He is looking to become the 18th player to get their first TOUR win in Connecticut. Ken Duke was the last to do it in 2013. “I’m definitely going to be nervous, definitely going to be excited,” he said. “Every single week I’m out here I feel like I’m getting more and more comfortable.” Former U.S. Junior champion Michael Thorbjornsen shot a 66 to put himself in contention. He started the weekend at 7 under, just the third amateur to make a PGA TOUR cut in 2022. The Stanford star is in a group of four tied for seventh place, but said he wasn’t feeling much pressure. “One thing that might help is winning or coming in second or third I’m not getting paid either way, so it’s another tournament for me,” he said. “It’s just another round for me and I’ll just try to go out there and do the same thing I did today.” Harris English, who is trying to become just the second player to successfully defend his title here after Phil Mickelson won in 2002, shot a 69 and was in a group at 10-under. Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler was also in that group after shooting a 65. He began the weekend nine strokes behind Schauffele. “Maybe I’ll go out tomorrow and do something crazy and we’ll see what happens,” Scheffler said. First-round co-leader Rory McIlroy (72) got in trouble early Saturday, hitting his tee shot on No. 2 off a nearby tree and into the tall grass 108 yards across the fairway to the right. After a 39 on the back nine Friday, he shot 36 on the front nine Saturday and finished 2 over for the day, and 6 under for the tournament, 11 strokes off the pace. There was also a buzz at the tournament Saturday around a player who was no longer even in Cromwell. Jason Kokrak was disqualified Friday after launching his final shot on the ninth hole over the green and the fence behind it. Kokrak, who would have missed the cut anyhow, left the course without replaying the shot. William McGirt who was playing in the same group said Kokrak simply didn’t see any point in finishing the hole. “He was like, `I’m not going to hold anybody up,'” McGirt said. “He didn’t storm off the golf course.”

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