Has Billionaire Bob Parsons Created Golf’s Wildest Member-Guest Tournament?

Newly-crowned U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland returns to action for the first time since his triumph at Pebble Beach, highlighting the PGA TOUR’s first visit to Michigan after a decade of absence. Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler also headline the roster coming to Detroit Golf Club, along with former Masters winners Bubba Watson and Patrick Reed. It’ll also be a showcase for fresh talent, as U.S. Amateur titleholder Viktor Hovland and NCAA champion Matthew Wolff tee it up. FIELD NOTES: Xander Schauffele, who tied for third behind Woodland at Pebble Beach, helps give the lineup no fewer than 11 of the top 30 in the current FedExCup standings. … Woodland, Schauffele and Fowler help give the event 12 of this season’s PGA TOUR winners. … Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama also is among those giving the new event a test run. Detroit isn’t all that far from Akron, where Matsuyama recorded his last win at the 2017 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. … Smylie Kaufman is set for just his third PGA TOUR start of 2019, playing on a medical extension for elbow issues that ended last season prematurely. … In addition to Hovland and Wolff, former USC standout Justin Suh has accepted a sponsor invitation. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points. STORYLINES: The PGA TOUR is back in Michigan for the first time since 2009, when the former Buick Open ended a 33-year run at Warwick Hills G&CC outside Flint. Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh each were three-time winners of that event. … Woodland will step on the tee for the first time as a major champion, two weeks after his gritty performance at Pebble Beach brought him the U.S. Open trophy. He has four other top-10 finishes since the turn of the calendar in January. … A victory could vault Schauffele to the top of the FedExCup standings with a third win of the season. He tied for third at Pebble Beach. … Two British Open berths are available for players among the top eight not already booked for Royal Portrush. After Sunday, just one slot remains for the John Deere Classic’s top non-qualified finisher among the top 5. COURSE: Detroit Golf Club (North), 7,334 yards, par 72. One of two Donald Ross designs on the property, the North course opened in 1916 and recently underwent an upgrade to get ready for the TOUR’s arrival. The club itself dates back to 1899, when William Ferrand and a handful of close friends acquired property on the city’s north side. Originally, the club was limited to just 100 memberships. Horton Smith, winner of the inaugural Masters among 32 PGA TOUR wins, served nearly two decades as DGC’s head professional until his death in 1963. The Horton Smith Invitational was established a year later in his honor. The U.S. Mid-Amateur came to DGC in 1992, as Danny Yates claimed a 1-up victory in the final over David Lind. 72-HOLE RECORD: Debut event. 18-HOLE RECORD: Debut event. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Thursday-Friday, 3-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:45 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. (featured groups). Saturday-Sunday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. (featured groups), 3-6 p.m. (featured holes). International subscribers (via GOLF.tv): Thursday-Friday, 11:030 to 22:00 GMT. Saturday-Sunday, 13:00 to 22:00. RADIO: Thursday-Friday, noon-6 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com).  

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For the stand-alone One & Done for the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, click here. And… exhale… Whew! You may recall in this space last week where I acknowledged that I’d be holding my breath for Martin Laird to commit to the Barracuda Championship. After Friday’s commitment deadline, there he was in the published field. And as of Wednesday morning, he was still in play. Just like One & Doners will usually save Zach Johnson or Steve Stricker for the John Deere Classic, we’re keen on doing the same for Laird, Brendan Steele and Gary Woodland on Montrêux Golf and Country Club. Their collective record in the tournament is ridiculous. However, when Steele qualified for the concurrent World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational when he won the Safeway Open last fall, and when Woodland (the 2013 Barracuda champ) emerged from a playoff at the Waste Management Phoenix Open six months ago to join Steele in Ohio, Laird was our only piece of chalk on the board. I don’t care that he didn’t descend in Reno, Nevada, with much to show for in results. The absence of it is all the more reason for him to reconnect with it where he has every time he’s appeared. In four appearances, he’s finished no worse than T7 in his last visit two years ago. Among the veterans, Robert Garrigus has been a staple in these hills. He loves to mash it at altitude, but his bugaboo is the putter. That slots him perfectly as the tandem in two-man formats. Kevin Streelman and Ryan Palmer are reliable pieces for league leaders, but gamers on the chase shouldn’t hesitate in circling Joel Dahmen. You just never know who it’s going to be or when, but when an unlikely talent on the kind of roll that he’s sustained for months and elevated in recent weeks, you’re struck with a similar hope that I had with Laird. As long as Dahmen fulfills this commitment, your decision is easy. Naturally, the Laird-Dahmen ticket is the way to go in two-man games, but also work in Kevin Tway, Richy Werenski or Andrew Putnam, if necessary. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Martin Laird … Barracuda (1)

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Henrik Stenson shot a 4-under 66 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead in the Wyndham Championship. The 2013 FedExCup champion and The Open winner in 2016 was at 16-under 194 at Sedgefield with a round left in the PGA TOUR’s last regular-season event of the season. Webb Simpson, Kevin Na and Ollie Schniederjans were tied for second. Na shot a 65, Schniederjans had a 66 and Simpson — a North Carolina native who won at Sedgefield in 2011 — had a 68. Johnson Wagner was 14 under after a 65. Simpson had sole possession of the lead late in the round, before Stenson caught him during his birdie binge on the back nine. The Swede pulled even with Simpson with birdies on four of five holes, a run he capped by sticking his second shot on the par-4 17th some 10 feet from the hole and converting that putt. He could have ended his round with another one, but pulled his 15-foot birdie putt wide right and settled for par. Still, his 72-hole score is second-best in tournament play at Sedgefield, surpassed only by Carl Pettersson’s 191 in 2008. Simpson — a local favorite who grew up in Raleigh, played in college at nearby Wake Forest and named his third child Wyndham after that victory here — shared the 54-hole lead with Ryan Armour at 13 under. Simpson birdied his first hole, then reeled off 11 consecutive pars before briefly taking sole possession of the lead with birdies on the 13th and 15th holes. He sank a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 13 and two holes later, he settled for birdie after missing a 35-foot eagle putt on No. 15. Simpson could have caught Stenson on the 18th, but he pulled a 15-foot birdie putt left. Schniederjans — a 24-year-old, third-year pro from Georgia Tech — is chasing his first victory on tour and his fifth top-10 finish of the year. After shooting a 63 on Friday and starting his round two strokes off the lead, he became the first to 16 under with his birdie on the par-5 15th, hitting his second shot into the primary rough but recovering by chipping to 10 feet and converting the putt. Then came trouble on the next hole. His tee shot on the par-3 16th landed in a low greenside bunker, and he stuck his chip into the rough just above the sand on his way to a bogey that dropped him back a stroke. Na — who hasn’t won on tour since 2011 — joined Stenson in making a big move on the back nine. He had birdies on Nos. 14, 15 and 17, landing his second shot inside of 10 feet.

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