How to watch WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Saturday: Live scores, TV times, tee times

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — In what already was the toughest pre-cut round at THE PLAYERS Championship in 15 years, Justin Thomas and Bubba Watson managed to play bogey-free Saturday in ferocious wind on a day of far more spills than thrills. RELATED: Full leaderboard | High winds wreak havoc at THE PLAYERS The rain finally cleared out and the TPC Sawgrass got even more terrifying with gusts that approached 40 mph on a Stadium Course that can be punishing even in calm conditions. Where that leaves Thomas (69) and Watson (68) won’t be determined until Sunday when the second round is completed. The rain-plagued tournament is so far behind that 27 players have yet to start the second round. Thomas and Watson shared the clubhouse lead at 3-under 141. They left in a tie for 15th, and six of the players ahead of them had not finished a single hole. Kevin Kisner reached 6 under in his second round until missing a short par putt on No. 4 and going from rough to water for a double bogey on the next hole. He shot 74 and was at 2-under 142. Dustin Johnson birdied his final hole for a 73 and was at 142, with two double bogeys on the par 5s over 36 holes. The course was so saturated by rain that it took 54 hours, 16 minutes from Adam Schenk hitting the opening tee shot Thursday morning to Brendan Steele holing out early Saturday afternoon to complete the first round. Tom Hoge goes into Sunday with his name atop the leaderboard. He still has played only 18 holes. He opened with a 6-under 66 on Thursday and was tied with Tommy Fleetwood, who was even par through three holes when play was suspended. Those who spent more than six hours on the course Saturday held on for dear life, especially when they came to the notorious island green on the par-3 17th. Over two days, only four players hit into the water. On Saturday when play resumed, the first four players couldn’t find the green. Scottie Scheffler had the wind die and went long into the water. Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka caught a gust and came up short, as did Collin Morikawa in the group behind them. By the end of the day, 29 balls had gone into the water. The average score for the second round when play was suspended was 75.37, and it was certain to go higher Sunday morning. The average was 75.41 for the opening round in 2007, the first year THE PLAYERS was in May. The highest ever for the opening two rounds was 76.19 in 2000 when it was in March. Scoring tends to get lower after the cut. The highest average score for any round was 76.51 in the third round of 2005. “Insane,” Thomas said to describe the challenge. Keegan Bradley (71) spoke of hitting a 9-iron from 96 yards on the 12th hole dead into the wind, and the same club from 206 yards with the wind at his back on the par-5 16th. The forecast was for temperatures in the upper 30s when play was to resume Sunday morning and wind not quite as fierce but still challenging. Thomas thought he was going to end up on the good end of the draw when they started out Friday in soft, still conditions in the rain. Returning to 30 mph wind on Saturday morning to finish the round and then facing 18 holes of that in the afternoon? Not so much. “There’s always one person who play good on the bad side of the draw,” Thomas said. “I kept saying, ‘Be that guy.’ I’m very proud of myself today.” So many others went the wrong direction. Schauffele was 4 under for his opening round, two shots out of the lead, when he hit into the water on the 17th and did well to salvage a bogey. But on the 18th hole — playing so long into the wind that some players needed fairway metal to reach the par 4 in two shots — Schauffele drew such a bad lie in the rough that he advanced it only about 15 yards. From there, he hit into the water. After a drop, his pitch had so much spin into the wind that it rolled back some 75 feet back into the fairway. He finished bogey-quadruple bogey for a 73, and then shot 78 in the second round. Koepka was 3 under when he returned and was just left of the par-5 16th in two. It took him four shots to get down, he put his tee shot in the water on the 17th for double bogey and shot 72. He followed that with an 81, matching his highest score on the PGA TOUR. Asked to describe the 17th, Koepka said, “It’s luck.” He hit 8-iron from 205 yards on the 16th hole in the morning. He estimates his 8-iron on the 17th going the other direction went 105 yards in the air, and then some 20 feet to the bottom of the pond. Tour officials tried to prepare with easier pins for the second round, slightly raising the cut of the greens the last two days by not rolling them since Friday. The second round was to resume at 8:15 a.m. That will be followed by the third round, which would not end until Monday morning. The tournament still was likely to finish Monday evening.

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Welcome to the Monday Finish where Marc Leishman became the second straight Australian to go wire-to-wire at Conway Farms, taking out the BMW Championship in record fashion in the penultimate event of a sensational FedExCup Playoffs. While Leishman took control from day one, the tournament still produced plenty of great side stories as the top 70 players in the FedExCup battled it out to be part of the 30 headed to East Lake and the TOUR Championship. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The real abilities of Marc Leishman are finally being fully appreciated. Despite being a clear talent and more importantly one of the greatest humans on the planet, the man affectionately known simply as “Leishâ€� has not been in the mainstream consciousness of the majority of golf fans nearly enough. This despite being PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year in 2009. Despite winning the Travelers Championship in 2012. Despite almost winning the Masters in 2013. Despite being inside the top 6 of three of the last four Open Championships including a playoff loss at St Andrews in 2015. Despite winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard earlier this season. Despite all of this, the affable Aussie just doesn’t command the appreciation of the masses and throughout the tournament was referred to as underrated with commentators spending time explaining his resume. To be fair, Leishman is in the midst of his best season and previously may not have shown enough consistency in his game to get the real plaudits. This season, however, he has 15 top-25 results from 24 starts, his previous best was just nine in 2014. But his wire-to-wire win at Conway Farms showed everyone plenty. It came off the back of losing a two-shot lead on the back nine at the Dell Technologies Championship. The sort of loss that breaks some players. But not Leishman. He didn’t back down after an opening 62. He didn’t back down when countryman and former World No. 1 Jason Day joined him in Saturday’s final pairing. He didn’t back down when American favorite Rickie Fowler joined him in Sunday’s last pairing or when former U.S. Open winner Justin Rose pulled within two shots on the back nine Sunday. Instead, he pulled away and won by five. That’s some next level stuff. 2. Some of you may have raised an eyebrow at the comment above singing the praises of Leishman away from the course. You may think it is a little over the top. Perhaps I am biased. But let me try to enlighten you. Most know Leishman’s wife Audrey almost lost her life to toxic shock syndrome and sepsis in early 2015. She was given just a 5 percent chance of survival and Marc faced the real possibility of becoming a single dad to toddler sons Harvey and Ollie. He was a pillar of strength during this time and thankfully she pulled through and now they also share a newborn daughter Eva. But it’s not just this narrative that make him a “good blokeâ€� as those in his homeland would say. Leishman has always been one to consider others ahead of himself. And he’s never once changed from being a knockabout guy, no matter how much money or fame has come his way. It’s often been said Leishman could become the world’s best player and not change a single bit. He would still share a drink with the locals in both his adopted Virginia Beach home and his cherished Warrnambool back in Australia. Childhood friend Matty Kelly has been his caddie forever and the pair often hang out, with their young families, away from the course. Leishman treats everyone he meets like they’re the most important person is his space at the time. He flies coach to save money, so the rest can go into his Begin Again Foundation. He sent beer and pizza to the NBC cameraman who expertly dodged his last hole shank a few weeks ago because “If that ball hits him, it goes back in the hazard. He saved me a lot of money.â€� He’s a throwback, saying after his win that he’s not a “gym ratâ€� and “hasn’t been for a run on 10 years.â€� Instead he mows the putting green at his house everyday so he can go to his “nothing boxâ€� in his head. He can remain the same guy he’s always been. A legend. 3. We say it a lot but once again we have definitive proof that EVERY SHOT MATTERS on the PGA TOUR. One solitary FedExCup point. Well actually it was technically .72 of a point. That’s all that stood between Louis Oosthuizen and the TOUR Championship. Yep, the 2010 Open Champion winner was left to rue flu like symptoms in the opening rounds at the BMW Championship that had him near the back of the pack. Despite a wonderful 66-67 weekend as his health improved the South African ultimately finished just behind Jason Dufner in the season-long points race. Last year it was Rickie Fowler missing out by fractions. It is just further proof that you can never take a shot for granted on the PGA TOUR. 4. Still on the FedExCup scenarios we finally know the all-important top 5 in the standings heading to East Lake. The gentlemen who have their destiny in their own hands are Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Marc Leishman and Jon Rahm. If any of them win the TOUR Championship, they also win the FedExCup. You certainly cannot argue the validity of the top 3 getting this luxury. Spieth has won three times this season and been 2-2-T7 in the opening three Playoff events. Thomas has five wins on the season, including a Playoff event. Johnson has four wins on the season including a Playoff event. They clearly deserve a good shot at the FedExCup. Leishman is this season’s hot hand man. An earlier win in the year set things up. A third and a win in the Playoffs earned his shot. And then there is Rahm, in his first full season (not a rookie) he’s been awesome. A winner early in the campaign and then T3-T4-T5 during the Playoffs… that’s impressive. The “unluckyâ€� guy is Hideki Matsuyama. After entering the Playoffs as No. 1 thanks to three wins and three runner up results in a stellar season the Japanese star went CUT-T23-T47 in the Playoffs. He will be the 7th seed at East Lake. 5. If you’re picking an early favorite to win it all next week, it has to be top-seeded Jordan Spieth. Already a FedExCup and TOUR Championship winner in 2015 Spieth is looking to join Tiger Woods as a two-time FedExCup champion in just the 11th season of the competition’s existence. After going so close to winning in the opening two weeks Spieth once again finished inside the top-10 at the BMW Championship but you have the feeling he cleverly went into energy conserve mode once Leishman pulled out of reach. This is not to suggest he didn’t give his all, just to say he was mindful of expending more mental energy than necessary. Spieth is one of those ultimate competitors and while he is great mates with the likes of Thomas and co – come Thursday in Atlanta you can expect the game face. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Marc Leishman’s winning score of 261 topped the previous BMW Championship record of 262 set by Tiger Woods (2007) and Jason Day (2015). His five-shot winning margin was the third biggest of the season behind seven-stroke victories by Hideki Matsuyama (World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions) and Justin Thomas (Sony Open in Hawaii). He is the 13th player to go wire-to-wire in the BMW Championship, and the second consecutive Australian to do it at Conway Farms (Jason Day 2015). 2. Leishman’s 15-under performance on the par 4s (best in field) was 11 strokes better than the field average (-4). Leishman tied Jason Day (THE NORTHERN TRUST 2015) with the best par 4 performance by a winner in FedExCup Playoffs history. He made a career-high 29 birdies and his opening 62 equaled his career low on the PGA TOUR. 3. Leishman’s short game was his strength. He ranked 2nd in strokes gained: around-the-green, outperforming the BMW field by 1.505 strokes per round. He was 4th in strokes gained: putting gaining 1.120 per round. 4. Justin Rose collected his 12th career runner-up finish on the PGA TOUR and third this season (Sony Open in Hawaii, Masters Tournament). He played 53 holes without a bogey until slipping up on the par-3 17th Sunday, just his third bogey this week (No. 4 and 17 during Round 1). Rose is one of 13 players to have qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs every season since their 2007 introduction. 5. Tony Finau, Sergio Garcia, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay all played their way into the FedExCup top 30 at Conway Farms, matching the record for the Playoffs’ penultimate event. Louis Oosthuizen, Brendan Steele and two former FedExCup champions in Henrik Stenson and Bill Haas were the players to fall out. TOP THREE VIDEOS 1. Jason Day might not have replicated his 2015 victorious trip around Conway Farms but he certainly enjoyed the 17th hole with this ace. The Aussie won a new BMW but donated it back to the Evans Scholars. 2. There’s more than one way to hit it close. Just ask Brooks Koepka. Bank! 3. What do you bring Jordan Spieth for a gift?

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Stephen Hamblin has been the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Executive Director for 35-plus years, so you expect him to have plenty of stories about some of the greatest players the game has ever seen. He does, and we’ll get to those momentarily. Tiger and Phil. Jordan and Justin. Rickie. Patrick. All of them cut their teeth on the country’s premier junior golf circuit. But first, to underline just how long Hamblin has been at it, consider that he can tell you about the junior golf careers of players who are now, ahem, seniors. “Steve (Stricker, the 12-time PGA TOUR winner turned PGA TOUR Champions pro) was not someone who you would have immediately picked out as a future star,â€� says Hamblin, who recently sat down for a wide-ranging interviewat AJGA headquarters in Braselton, Georgia. “He just got a little bit better at every level. Matt Kuchar was the same way. That’s a good way to go.â€� Hamblin’s fingerprints will be all over this week’s Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club. Brandt Snedeker (2018), Davis Love III (’92, ’06, ’15), Webb Simpson (2011), Sergio Garcia (2012) and Patrick Reed (2013) are some of the past champions who played the AJGA before they played the TOUR. That’s not unusual when it comes to players; you can find similar echoes of the AJGA up and down the FedExCup standings. Now add the fact that Wyndham Tournament Director Mark Brazil used to work for Hamblin at the AJGA, and you truly begin to understand the man’s influence and reach. Hamblin was 29 when he started in 1984. “I had no idea what I was doing,â€� he says. The AJGA had just 13 events. Now there are 120 in the United States and Canada, many hosted by AJGA standouts who have gone on to successful TOUR careers, from Jordan Spieth (in his hometown of Dallas) and Reed (Houston) to Stewart Cink, Scott Stallings, Brendan Steele and beyond. The AJGA aims to give players a platform to be noticed for college scholarships, but many keep going all the way to the top. Hamblin sees them early in the journey, before life starts to get complicated. No FedExCup points, money, agents, endorsements, autographs. Just – them. Tiger vs. Long Drive champ Ask Hamblin for his favorite Tiger story, and he prefaces it with one of his worst career bogeys – his refusal to allow Woods to compete in the 15-17 age division when he was just 14. Woods and his father, Earl, who sat on the AJGA’s board, accepted it, but Hamblin rues the decision. “It was a bad rule that’s since been changed,â€� he says. He smiles, though, when he recalls playing with Woods at an AJGA event at Legacy Golf Club in Las Vegas. Art Sellinger, a two-time world long-drive champion (and AJGA alumnus), was set to tee off with each group, and Woods — then 17 — was intrigued. “He wanted to know what hole Art was going to be on,â€� Hamblin says. “So I told him the 15th, a par 5. The whole front nine, he was relaxed, having fun, trying some different shots. But when we made the turn his demeanor changed, and by 12, 13, 14, he started to get very serious.â€� Woods and Sellinger had met the year before at a Houston Astros baseball game, and as they stood on the 15th tee, Woods tried to get Sellinger to hit first. “This is my show, Tiger,â€� replied Sellinger. Like every other junior, Woods would go first, and get just one ball. “I remember in Houston the year before,â€� Sellinger recalls. “It was Hamblin, myself, Tiger and Earl, we went to an Astros game, and it was a blast. We went into the radio booth and called a couple innings. But that day in Vegas, I’m telling you he looked right through me, and he spoke to me without words, with his eyes. He said, ‘I’m going to hit it right by you.’â€� Weighing just about 140 pounds and wielding a TaylorMade metal wood with metal shaft, Woods closed his stance and hit a percussive sling-draw that started out right, by design. The ball took a huge, helping kick off of the bouncy, dormant grass, shot forward and left into the fairway, and stopped some 360 yards away. (It was later measured.) “When I looked back at Art,â€� Hamblin says, laughing, “I could tell he was concerned.â€� Sellinger guesses that he outweighed Woods by about 100 pounds, but that wasn’t necessarily going to help him now. Nor would he be aided by any special equipment; he says he, too, was hitting a TaylorMade metal wood with a regulation-length shaft. He also didn’t play a big hook but more of a straight ball or a slight cut, which wouldn’t help matters. “I said, all right, I need to step on this one,â€� Sellinger says. “And I did. I hit it. We went up to the amateur tee and the amateurs hit, and Tiger didn’t say a word. I had a cart, and I got in, Tiger was on foot, and he almost beat me to the ball, he was so fired up to see how it had turned out. “I want to say I was 16 yards past him, because we paced it off,â€� Sellinger continues. “We just grinned at each other, and I went over there and shook his hand and said, ‘That was a big shot you just hit.’ I’d never seen someone so serious on the tee. He was like an assassin. I liked it.â€� Adds Hamblin, who still gets a kick out of telling the story, “Art put his arm around me and said, ‘Stephen, that was the best drive I ever hit in my life.’â€� Military upbringing One night, Hamblin found himself seated next to Arnold Palmer at dinner. What was the AJGA going to do, Palmer asked, about all these kids wearing hats indoors? “Oh, we don’t allow it,â€� Hamblin said. Palmer nodded. “Good,â€� he said. Manners, presentation, thank-you notes – these things matter to Hamblin, and have since they were impressed upon him by his father, Allen, a West Point man who flew 30 missions in Vietnam. “Yeah, he was tough,â€� Hamblin says with a smile. “Not in a harsh way, but just in that common punctuality was critically important, and he impressed on me at an early age. Presentation of self. Polish your shoes, iron your clothes, make your bed every day, clean your room.â€� Born in Eglin Air Force Base in Pensacola, Florida, Hamblin had the prototypical itinerant childhood of the military brat, bouncing around from the South to the Rockies to the West Coast. He never joined the military himself; he had a bad kidney that was removed when he was 13. Still, his father imbued him with a strong sense of accountability and attention to detail, which paid off both at Michigan State (landscape architecture) and when he landed his first big job in golf, as the resident pro at Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club under then-Director of Golf Jay Overton. It was there, outside Tampa, Florida, that Hamblin found himself working for a hard-driving, no-nonsense boss who reminded him a little of his father. Among other job duties, carts needed to be set out two-by-two each morning, with military precision. “Jay’s thing was, when you pull that cart up, it better be clean, and the scorecard better not be tilted one way or the other,â€� Hamblin says. “It better be square, with a pencil, and a rake. If any of those things were off … I told my guys, every day we’re perfect, I take you guys to lunch. They had this placed called Chicken King that they liked. Well, we were perfect every day, and it irritated Jay that he couldn’t catch me (making a mistake). “One day, he pulled his car up and took a rent set off our bag drop, threw it in the trunk of his car and drove off,â€� Hamblin continues. “One of my guys was coming up the ramp and saw it, and Jay didn’t think anyone was there. So, at the end of the day, Jay would always call, ‘How many rounds of golf, merchandise numbers, blah, blah, blah.’ And he called and asked about all that, and finally he said, ‘Any problems?’ ‘No, no problems.’ ‘None at all?’ I said, ‘Other than the rental set that’s in the trunk of your car.’ He said, ‘Who told you about that!?’ I said, ‘Jay, if you gotta do that, I’m really winning this little game we’re playing.’ He loved me.â€� (Overton says the man who saw him drive off with the rental set was Peter Ripa, another former employee of Hamblin’s who would go on to run the Farmers Insurance Open.) Crucially, Innisbrook was where Hamblin first encountered the AJGA, in 1980. The junior organization was holding its end-of-the-year Thanksgiving tournament, featuring juniors such as Davis Love III, Billy Andrade, Billy Mayfair, Heather Farr and others. Hamblin was smitten. “I was just absolutely taken with their maturity,â€� he says. “Their passion for the game, their willingness to work hard at it, their respect. They would lose a match and stop by the shop and say, ‘Hey, pro, thank you. Copperhead is great.’ They just lost! I was totally impressed by them.â€� Hamblin kept his head down, the carts clean, and the scorecards square on those steering wheels. In November 1983, two AJGA board members, talking with Overton at Innisbrook, copped to being at a loss over who should be the new top man at the junior organization. Overton knew right away. In a way, he’d known ever since Hamblin had worked for him as a teenager at Pinehurst, painting fences and even acting as a night security guard for a week when he slept in a mobile, soft-sided pro shop. Hamblin needed to be running something. “I said the person should be able to turn this organization into what it needs to be, not what it currently is,â€� says Overton, who is now the Host Professional at Corales Golf Club in the Dominican Republic. “They went, ‘Who?’ I said, ‘Turn around and look through the window at that guy standing in the pro shop. That’s your guy.’â€� Indelible memories Phil Mickelson still has the most career wins on the AJGA, with 12, while Woods and Charles Howell III are among those tied for second with eight. Alumni testimonials abound. Spieth cites enduring relationships, but also, “To be able to play against the best players in the world in a junior golf event at an early age is fantastic.â€� Simpson says the AJGA “built my game up and gave me confidence and allowed me to play college golf and now on the PGA TOUR.â€� More fun are Hamblin’s testimonials about the players. Another Woods story: He was sizing up a long second shot to a par 5 when he was forced to back off the shot by a bumbling TV cameraman approaching in a badly overloaded golf cart. Woods leaned on his 3-wood and waited. And waited. And waited some more. “All set?â€� he said when the man had finally got himself together. “All set,â€� the cameraman said. At long last, and with the camera on, Woods blasted a gorgeous shot that hung in the air forever and landed on the green. Even then, Hamblin says, Woods was used to having a camera on him. He received so much media attention that he asked if the AJGA could just tape-record his answers, since the questions he got from city to city were almost always all the same. Hamblin said no. Something in Mickelson’s mental make-up, Hamblin says, set the lefthander apart, the tip-off being when young Phil was asked by a reporter if he was happy to be out there giving it his all. With all due respect, Mickelson said, according to Hamblin, he was aiming a lot higher than that. In fact, he considered himself the man to beat any time he teed it up. “I mean, what 15-year-old says that?â€� Hamblin says with a laugh. Several years later, Hamblin played in a junior-amateur with shy, diminutive Justin Thomas, who hit nearly every fairway and green but couldn’t seem to buy a putt. “It’s OK not to make all those putts today and save them for tomorrow,â€� Hamblin says he told Thomas, “because tomorrow you’ll make them all and shoot 64.â€� The next day, Thomas made them all and shot 64. Mickelson was one of the hardest workers, always inventing new challenges for himself, even if it meant trying to hit driver from a divot. Spieth was one of the most well-spoken players, Chris Riley one of the funniest (and fastest). At one tournament, there was so much electricity in the air that Riley’s hair shot out in all directions at once, like a fright wig. “He walked by me like that,â€� Hamblin says, “and he said, ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’ We blew the horn right after that. He was like my lightning detector.â€� There was the girl with cystic fibrosis whose game was surprisingly good despite having to stop mid-round to empty her lungs of mucus. Another girl who worked at a driving range in Texas didn’t have enough money to actually play anywhere. Until, that is, a local benefactor and an ACE grant (the AJGA’s financial-aid program) got her into a national tournament, where she played so well she landed a scholarship and became the first in her family to go to college. Hamblin and the AJGA have been impactful for others, too, even if they work outside the ropes. Steve Ethun, who handles media for Augusta National Golf Club, worked for Hamblin and the AJGA, as have several PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour tournament directors, plus others still who have left the AJGA only to remain in golf in some other capacity. So many roads in golf lead back to the AJGA, Hamblin calls it “a training organization.â€� That goes for administrators and officials, but especially for players, who continue to dominate the TOUR. Indeed, if a career can be measured by lives touched, Stephen A. Hamblin has few peers. “It’s been a good run,â€� he says, “but I still have a lot to do here.â€�

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