Hideki Matsuyama leads strong Japanese contingent in ‘home’ event

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in this week’s edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Rookie Watch, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. Want to represent the fans against our experts? SEASON SEGMENT

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TULSA, Okla. – Tiger Woods produced the worst PGA Championship round of his storied career, battling away to a 9-over 79 on Saturday morning at Southern Hills. In cold, wet, and blustery conditions, Woods and his surgically repaired body could not muster the charge up the leaderboard he had hoped for, instead freefalling to near the back of the pack with just one round to play. It is yet to be seen if Woods will indeed return for Sunday’s final round, such is the vigorous recovery process he endures just to tee it up. He will juggle the pride of seeing a contest through to its conclusion over the wear and tear of a body that still hopes to take part in the U.S. Open in June and the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews in July. “Well, I’m sore. I know that for a fact. We’ll do some work and see how it goes,” Woods said of the prospect of a final round appearance. On Saturday the 82-time PGA TOUR winning veteran had seven bogeys, a triple bogey and just a lone birdie marking the worst of his now 79 rounds at the PGA Championship, a major he’s claimed four times including in 2007 at Southern Hills. Woods eclipsed the 77 he shot in the opening round of the 2011 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club as his low point in the tournament but did manage to keep under his worst major round of all-time – an 81 from the 2002 Open Championship. He made a 5-foot putt for par on the final hole to ensure his TOUR rounds in the 80s as a professional remain at just four. “I just didn’t play well. I didn’t hit the ball very well and got off to not the start I needed to get off to. I thought I hit a good tee shot down 2 and ended up in the water, and just never really got any kind of momentum on my side,” Woods lamented after finishing at 12-over for the tournament. “I couldn’t get off the bogey train there… I didn’t do anything right. I didn’t hit many good shots. Consequently, I ended up with a pretty high score.” The PGA Championship is just the second tournament of the year for the 15-time major winner as he continues his comeback from serious leg fractures suffered in a 2021 car accident. While Woods continues to compete to win, just making the cut in April’s Masters (47th place) and at Southern Hills this week is seen as a massive achievement by others, especially given the obvious pain he goes through to play. After an opening 74 Woods had showed great resilience to shoot 69 in round two. “Incredibly resilient and mentally tough,” playing partner from the opening two rounds Rory McIlroy said. “He’s feeling it… he’s feeling it on every swing… (but) he’s the ultimate pro.” “Looking at him yesterday, if that would have been me, I would have been considering pulling out and just going home, but Tiger is different and he’s proved he’s different… it was just a monumental effort.” Woods opened his third round with a nice 13-foot par save but lost his tee shot on the par-4 2nd hole into a creek that resulted in his first bogey. A run of three pars followed before disaster struck on the par-3 6th. After pulling his tee shot into another water hazard Woods missed the green from the drop zone and then failed to find the putting surface with his first chip. Unfortunately, the triple bogey was just a precursor of more to come. A bogey on the par-4 7th was followed by another on the par-4 9th when Woods hit the lip of the fairway bunker he was trying to escape and advanced the ball just four yards into the rough, leaving him with a 6-over 41 at the turn. Four straight bogeys on the back side of the course brought the specter of unwanted records into focus. But just as it appeared Woods would go without a birdie in a major championship round for the first time since the opener of the 2010 U.S. Open, the veteran poured in a 36-footer on the par-4 15th to give the hardy fans following a reason to cheer. Three pars to finish showed the fight hadn’t left the veteran despite the rough outing and he wasn’t alone as tricky winds saw others like Sepp Straka (79), Patton Kizzire (78), Maverick McNealy (78) and fellow former FedExCup champion Billy Horschel (77) also struggle.

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Sam Ryder … Rookies struggle in crashing the field of 132 at TPC Scottsdale because the cutoff for entry usually lands near the top of the Web.com Tour graduate reshuffle category. So, when he got off to a slow start as a rookie in 2017-18, he didn’t come close to snaring a tee time. Now that he’s fully exempt for finishing inside the top 125 of the FedExCup, the hurdle is history. Even better, he aligns with the profile for success better than many who have been here before. He finished last season ranked T10 in total driving, second in greens in regulation and T16 in proximity to the hole. He also finished ninth in good drive percentage, a value reflecting a combination of fairways hit and greens or fringe in regulation on par 4s and par 5s. It’s a skill with which course co-collaborator and updater, Tom Weiskopf, was associated. You’ll also find it peppered throughout this week’s Sleepers. Ryder already is on the board this season with a pair of top fives, including a solo third at TPC Summerlin, another desert layout. Ted Potter Jr. … When the lefty is on his game, he’s splitting every fairway and going bonkers with the putter. Not long off the tee as compared to most of his peers, it helps explain why he’s able to prevail in tournaments like the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. which he’ll be defending next week. His one-two punch can inflict some damage at TPC Scottsdale as well. At 7,261 yards stretched out, it’s about average on the PGA TOUR. He connected four red numbers en route to a T24 in 2013, but hasn’t returned since missing the cut a year later. Currently fourth in good drive percentage, 22nd in driving accuracy and 21st in greens in regulation. Already has a pair of top 15s on suitable course for him this season – The Club at Nine Bridges and Waialae. Vaughn Taylor … No matter the existing design of TPC Scottsdale when he’s appeared and despite the five-year hiatus from the tournament until his return in 2017, he’s acquitted himself nicely over time. Overall, he’s 7-for-9 with a solo seventh and a pair of T11s, one of the latter of which last year. For all of 2017-18, he ranked 12th in good drive percentage. Took last week off after a T7 at the Desert Classic where he placed T8 in good drive percentage and T5 in putts per GIR. Brian Stuard … While his lone PGA TOUR victory occurred in the last edition of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans as an individual competition in 2016, which was shortened to 54 holes due to weather, he’s profiled best throughout his career in the tropics. A T8 at Waialae three weeks ago helped prove that point. However, TPC Scottsdale has been good to the veteran as he’s yet to miss a cut in five tries. His record includes a T10 in 2015 and a T16 in 2017. Finished last season ranked 18th in good drive percentage. Matthew Wolff … Of all the places where he could have splashed onto the PGA TOUR, he landed in a dandy. The 19-year-old sophomore at Oklahoma State University turns heads with his funky action. It’s a move that’s vaulted him to No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He walked off 2018 with two outright wins, a share of another title and a fourth-place finish at an amateur event at renown Royal Melbourne Golf Club. While a direct parallel to Jon Rahm is unfair to both golfers, it was in 2015 when the Spaniard placed T5 as an amateur at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, proving that the test is fair no matter the inexperience at this level. Wolff’s skill set can’t help but remain sharp given that one of his fellow Cowboys is 2018 U.S. Amateur champion Viktor Hovland, who sits No. 3 in the WAGR. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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