India’s highest-ranked golfer on Masters mission at WGC-Mexico

Through 36 holes at The RSM Classic, Charles Howell III leads by 3 strokes at 14 under par. His closest pursuers are Cameron Champ and Jason Gore, both of whom are sitting on 11 under. Here are the top 10 win probabilities according to our live model: We have Champ and Howell III estimated to be of nearly identical ability levels; therefore the 30 percentage point advantage for Howell III is entirely due to his current 3 stroke advantage. A little further back is Webb Simpson at 6 under par. Simpson is by a wide margin the class of this field according to our model and could be a player to watch for over the weekend. Howell III has been a model of consistency throughout his career. Shown below is his performance data for every tournament since the 2014 season. The y-axis here is in units of adjusted (for field strength) strokes-gained. Remarkably, despite having a 10 event moving average (the black line) that fluctuates between 0 and +1 for most of this time span, Howell III had just 1 event in which he averaged more than +3 strokes-gained. This is statistically very unlikely, and indicates that Howell III is a low-variance player (i.e. has fewer great rounds but also fewer poor rounds than the typical player of his ability level). To win on the PGA TOUR, anywhere from a +2.5 to +6 true strokes-gained performance can be required to get it done (depending on field strength and how widely dispersed scores are in a given week). To win this weekend for the first time since 2007, Howell will almost certainly need to average above that +3 strokes-gained barrier for the week. 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 10K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of The RSM Classic, 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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LA QUINTA, Calif. – Even Adam Long wasn’t certain where he stood after hitting his approach into the Desert Classic’s final hole. Winning wasn’t at the top of his mind when he teed off in Sunday’s final group with Phil Mickelson and Adam Hadwin. A top-10 finish, and a spot in next week’s event, would have been nice. Long was an afterthought in a final group that included a World Golf Hall of Famer and a Canadian playing in front of countrymen who flock to the California desert in the winter. Long was just a 31-year-old rookie making his sixth PGA TOUR start. And then he was the champion. He won in a way that most players can only dream of: by making a 15-footer for birdie on the last hole. Long arrived at the final hole tied with Hadwin and Mickelson. After hitting his drive into the right rough, Long hit his 175-yard onto the green. That’s when he asked his caddie to confirm that he shared the lead. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure. I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose,� Long said. The stage was set for him after Hadwin’s bunker shot stopped inches from the hole and Mickelson barely missed a long birdie try. Mickelon’s miss helped Long see the line for his career-changing putt. His 65th stroke of the day found the bottom of the hole. Long, who was 20 over par in his previous five PGA TOUR starts, shot 26-under 262 on the Desert Classic’s three-course rotation. He shot 63 in the first and third rounds, then fired a 65 that was Sunday’s second-lowest score on PGA West’s tricky Stadium Course. Long, who started the final round three shots behind Mickelson, chipped in twice on the back nine. He didn’t make a bogey. “I just kept plugging away and it was kind of the Phil and Adam Hadwin show for most of the way,� Long said. “Everyone was chanting Phil’s name most of the way and there are a lot of Canadians down here. I was just in the background.� Not when it was time for the trophy ceremony. He was the last player left on the 18th green. Before the win, he was an alternate for next week’s Farmers Insurance Open. Now THE PLAYERS Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, Masters and PGA Championship are among the events he can add to his schedule. Long leapt to 12th in the FedExCup standings. He started the week ranked 205th, ahead of just 13 players. The win was worth 500 points. He began this week with just four FedExCup points after missing the cut in four of five starts this season. His best finish was T63 at the Safeway Open. “He hit shot after shot and putted great, had a couple chip-ins and did what you had to do to win,� said Mickelson, who owns as many major titles (5) as TOUR starts Long had made before this week. Hadwin was still three shots ahead after Long’s chip-in on the 12th hole. Hadwin played the final six holes in 1 over, though, while Long birdied half of the remaining holes. He holed a 5-footer for birdie on 14 before holing another chip on the next hole. Then he birdied the last hole, an incredible finish for a player who admitted that just receiving the text with his final-round tee time gave him nerves. Long didn’t look intimidated, though, when he birdied Sunday’s first two holes. “Birdieing those first two really calmed a bit, like, ‘All right, I got this, I can compete, I can play, I belong,� Long said. He’d spent nine years as a professional waiting for this moment. His only TOUR start before this season came at the 2011 U.S. Open. That was the same year that he won his only previous professional title, the Woodcreek Classic on the now-defunct Hooters Tour. He estimates that the winner’s check was $25,000. He played his first Web.com Tour season the following year but finished 127th on the money list. He didn’t get back on that tour until 2015. He never doubted that he could make it, though. “I wasn’t doing great, but I never really doubted it,� he said. �I still wanted to play and I still loved it and I still wanted to see how good I could get.� He became a PGA TOUR winner on Sunday. And it was worth the wait.

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Former FedExCup champions Justin Rose and Jordan Spieth, as well as Brooks Koepka, winner of the inaugural Wyndham Rewards Top 10, highlight the field at the Wyndham Championship. J.T. Poston will be there to defend his title in the final event before the FedExCup Playoffs. FIELD NOTES: Koepka, who held the top spot in the FedExCup entering last year’s Playoffs, will look to build on the progress he showed at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and PGA Championship. He was outside the top 125 in the standings before his runner-up in Memphis… Spieth and Patrick Reed, who had a thrilling playoff duel in 2013, are both back in the field… Former FedExCup champ Brandt Snedeker returns to a tournament he has won twice, including his first TOUR win and a victory two years ago that included a first-round 59…Four golfers in the top-10 of the FedExCup standings will tee it up at Sedgefield CC, including reigning Rookie of the Year Sungjae Im, past Wyndham winner Webb Simpson and his former junior-golf rival from nearby Raleigh, Brendon Todd… Teen-aged pro Akshay Bhatia and past Wyndham champion Arjun Atwal are among the sponsor exemptions… World No. 13 Tommy Fleetwood will make his fourth straight start in the Return to Golf. FEDEXCUP: Winner gets 500 FedExCup points. COURSE: Sedgefield Country Club (Ross), 7,127 yards, par 70. Opened in 1926, Sedgefield is the only Donald Ross original that serves as a regular PGA TOUR venue. The course features Ross’ signature small and undulating greens. STORYLINES: The Wyndham Championship marks the final week of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 competition. No. 1 on the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 is Justin Thomas, who is not in the field in North Carolina, but entered the PGA Championship with a commanding 713-point lead in the standings. Webb Simpson sits at No. 2 as of the PGA Championship and will be playing… Im, Reed, and Todd are the other three inside the top-10 of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 competition that are playing Sedgefield… As of the PGA Championship, Chase Seiffert sits at No. 125 in the FedExCup standings and holds the final spot in the FedExCup Playoffs… Nick Watney is just one FedExCup point back and sits at 126th while Bronson Burgoon is just one FedExCup point ahead at 124th… Two golfers jumped inside the top 125 at the 2019 Wyndham Championship (Andrew Landry and Patton Kizzire)… The last four winners of the Wyndham Championship have all shot 20-under or better. 72-HOLE RECORD: 258, Henrik Stenson (2017), JT Poston (2019) 18-HOLE RECORD: 59, Brandt Snedeker (1st round, 2018). LAST TIME: J.T. Poston, who grew up just 90 minutes from Greensboro, North Carolina, fired a sizzling 8-under-par 62 on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship a year ago to win his first PGA TOUR title. In the process, Poston became the first golfer on TOUR since Lee Trevino in 1974 to capture a 72-hole tournament without making any bogeys or worse. Poston also matched Henrik Stenson’s tournament record 22-under 258. Poston nipped fellow North Carolinian Webb Simpson by one shot. Simpson finished runner-up while Byeong Hun An (who matched Poston’s 8-under 62 as the round of the week in the first round), Viktor Hovland, and Si Woo Kim rounded out the top five. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (CBS). Sunday, 12:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2:30 p.m.-6 p.m. (CBS). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday 7 a.m.-6 p.m. (Featured Groups). Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. (Featured Groups), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (Featured Holes). Sunday, 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (Featured Groups), 2:30 p.m.-6 p.m. (Featured Holes). Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio).

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