Golden moment: Mickelson in hunt at PGA

Corey Conners initially switched into a Ping G400 LST driver at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills. The club has served him well. He’s ranked in the top 20 of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in each of the past five seasons, qualifying for three TOUR Championships, winning on the PGA TOUR and playing in the Presidents Cup in that span. Now, for the first time in five years, Conners is making a driver switch. He’s using Ping’s new G430 LST driver at this week’s Hero World Challenge. Five years is certainly a long time to use a particular driver model, especially since new technologies hit the market every year. Conners, however, hasn’t had much reason to upgrade. He’s one of the TOUR’s top drivers, after all. The Ping G400 LST driver – which was first released to the public in July 2017 – was also in the bag for his 2019 Valero Texas Open victory. Conners told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday that he’s been through roughly 10 different G400 LST driver heads throughout his five years playing the model, but he finally found something better. Although he said that his former G400 LST gamer is “maybe even a touch faster” than the new Ping G430 LST driver, he found that the new G430 technology significantly increased consistency on off-center strikes. Conners already was known as a straight driver. He ranked 20th in Driving Accuracy last season, but he could further increase that advantage thanks to the new driver. At this year’s Presidents Cup, Conners revealed his secrets to success off the tee. “I think just having good rhythm has always been sort of a hallmark of my game and something that I focus on every week. … That allows me to hit the ball solidly, and usually it results in it going where I am looking,” he said. “I … just take some practice swings, try and feel the body moving in sync, (take) a few practice swings … with my right foot kind of behind me a little bit, feeling the body moving, club staying in front of the body, and that helps with my rhythm, as well.” Now he’ll be applying those principles with a new club in the bag.

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2020 Safeway Open, End of Round 1. Scoring Conditions: Overall average: -0.47 strokes per round Morning wave: -0.72 Afternoon wave: -0.22 Current cutline (top 65 and ties) 72 players at -1 or better (T51st position) Top 3 projected cutline probabilities: 2 under par: 26.1% 1 under par: 25.5% 3 under par: 16.7% Top 10 win probabilities: Adam Scott (T1, -7, 25%) Francesco Molinari (T3, -6, 8.1%) Patrick Cantlay (T15, -3, 7.7%) Andrew Landry (T1, -7, 5.8%) Bryson DeChambeau (T8, -4, 4.7%) Justin Thomas (T51, -1, 4.4%) Adam Hadwin (T8, -4, 2.7%) Chez Reavie (T15, -3, 2.7%) Corey Conners (T8, -4, 2.6%) Adam Long (T5, -5, 2.2%) NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut�, “Top 20�, “Top 5�, and “Win� probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the Safeway Open, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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ERIN, Wis. — Remember last year, when Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson played a round for the ages, trading birdies and spectacular shots until Stenson finally came away with the Open Championship title? The U.S. Open won’t be like that. First off, barring a long rain delay on Thursday, Mickelson will be absent, attending his daughter’s high school graduation in California. And though Erin Hills, at first glance, may look like the sort of British links course that Mickelson and Stenson tore up last summer, Stenson will be the first to tell you it most certainly isn’t. “Golf at the U.S. Open has always been a bit harder than at the Open or any of the other ones,” Stenson said. So true. In the closing round at Royal Troon, Mickelson and Stenson combined for 14 birdies, an eagle and 19 pars, and Stenson won by three shots with a closing score of 20-under par. A few weeks later, at the PGA Championship, Jimmy Walker made a key birdie on No. 17 to outlast Jason Day, who, playing one hole ahead, kept pressure on Walker by making eagle on 18. Walker shot 14 under to win by one. And at this year’s first major, the Masters, Sergio Garcia beat Justin Rose in a playoff to close out a riveting day of golf. Garcia and Rose tied at 9 under in regulation. The last two U.S. Opens, meanwhile, have been most notable for Dustin Johnson’s three-putt on the 18th green at a baked-out Chambers Bay, then Johnson’s three-shot win last year at Oakmont despite a scoring/rules dust-up that left him playing the final seven holes without knowing the exact size of his lead. Over the last five years, the average winning score of the other three majors has been 12.2 shots below par. At the U.S. Open over the same period: 3.1 under. “The U.S. Open, you normally play on golf courses that are tricked up just to the limits, sometimes over the limits and sometimes just underneath,” Stenson said. Much has been made about the creation of Erin Hills, built on a 650-acre tract of Wisconsin farmland that was, according to USGA executive director Mike Davis, simply screaming to have a golf course built on it. It was developed specifically with the idea of hosting a U.S. Open. It’s huge, the longest U.S. Open course ever, at more than 7,741 yards (with room to make it even longer). Some fairways are almost wide enough to land a Boeing 767 airliner. “You could fit 2 fairways at Winged Foot into the No. 10 fairway here,” Davis said. But when the USGA gives, it almost always finds other places to take away. Already this week, some players were complaining about the depth and stickiness of the rough . That tall, hay-like grass lingering just outside those massive fairways? It’s fescue, but not all of it is the typically wispy stuff you see on the edges of Open Championship courses. The mist floating into the vegetation from the irrigation systems at Erin Hills has made some of it healthier than expected. Meanwhile, author Ron Whitten, who helped design the course, said among his proudest achievements are the bunkers, most of which don’t have flat lies and aren’t nearly as well-manicured or maintained as what these players face on a weekly basis. There are 138 of them covering what will be the first par-72 test at a U.S. Open since Pebble Beach in 1992. “I’m surprised more players aren’t complaining about the bunkers,” Whitten said. The USGA will look at the forecast and try to set up holes to dampen, not exacerbate, the effect of wind that can blow as hard as 30 mph. Davis said it blew that hard last Saturday, and conditions were so extreme that play likely would’ve been suspended had the tournament been going on because balls on the greens wouldn’t stay still. “We try to make the course exacting,” Davis said. “If it’s too exacting, we’ll be back here in the media center” to explain why. It wouldn’t be the U.S. Open without some chance of that happening. It’s why Stenson is easing into a week at this monster of a major course, where it’s expected to be humid with temperatures in the 80s most of the week. His hay fever is bugging him, too. He played 18 on Monday and will go only nine holes Tuesday and Wednesday. The key to the week for him, and anyone in the 156-player field: “Patience and pars.” “It’s certainly a tiring week,” Stenson said. “But it’s all worth it if you stand there with the trophy on Sunday.”

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