Inside the Field: CIMB Classic

Tiger Woods hit only 10 fairways during the second round of the Memorial Tournament, shooting a 4-over 76 that put him in danger of missing the cut.

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J.T. Poston returns to the Barbasol Championship to try to avenge a six-hole playoff loss to Seamus Power a season ago. In order to do it he’ll have to top an field with international flare, as 2022 marks the first season the Barbasol Championship will be co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour. FIELD NOTES: Past winners including Jim Herman, Grayson Murray, and Aaron Baddeley are teeing it up… J.T. Poston, who held the 36-hole lead at the John Deere Classic, will be back in Kentucky looking to take the Barbasol Championship across the finish line after last season’s late Sunday stumble. Poston is the highest-ranked golfer in the field… Local legend Josh Teater, a Kentucky native who is from about 40 minutes away from Keene Trace, is in the field on a Sponsor Exemption… Teater is one of six golfers who have Kentucky ties – whether it be high school or otherwise – who are teeing it up… There will be 50 places available for DP World Tour members to kick it over to Kentucky. Those places go to the top 50 available players from the DP World Tour category ranking to a floor of Category 17… Chase Hanna, an All-American in 2016 at Kansas, will make his PGA TOUR debut. He’s currently ranked 35th on the DP World Tour… If Taylor Pendrith didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. After notching a solid T13 at THE PLAYERS Championship it was discovered he had broken his rib. Pendrith was ramping up to return at the John Deere Classic last week but tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw. He’s set to (finally) make his return at Keene Trace. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points. COURSE: Keene Trace Golf Club (Champions), 7,328 yards, par 72. The 1987 Arthur Hills layout will host the PGA TOUR for the fourth time. Located just south of Lexington, Kentucky, Keene Trace is one of the top-ranked courses in the state. Laid out through the rolling hills of Central Kentucky, the drama of Keene Trace hits its apex on the par-4 finisher, a dramatic closer that’s built around the edge of a lake. Seventy-six bunkers will challenge some of the TOUR’s best, while big greens will place less of an emphasis on ball-striking and more on putting. STORYLINES: The winner of the Barbasol Championship, if he is not already qualified, will earn the final spot in The Open Championship… For the first time, the Barbasol Championship will be played as a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour. While plenty of TOUR winners – including two past FedExCup champions in Brandt Snedeker and Bill Haas – will be teeing it up, keep an eye out for the international star power that has come across the pond to play the PGA TOUR this week… With only four events left in the PGA TOUR’s 2021-22 season after the Barbasol Championship, this is a key time for guys on the FedExCup bubble earn some valuable FedExCup points. Max McGreevy is one of those golfers – he sits 126th on the FedExCup standings, just one point behind No. 125. 72-HOLE RECORD: 262, Jim Herman (2019) 18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Kelly Kraft (3rd round, 2019) LAST TIME: Seamus Power captured his first PGA TOUR title in a six-hole playoff. Poston was in the driver’s seat through most of Sunday’s finale in Kentucky until he made a double bogey on the par-5 15th and followed that up with a three-putt bogey on the very next hole. Power shot a 5-under 67 in the final round to Poston’s 2-under 70. The pair played No. 18 four times and No. 9 twice in the playoff, but Poston launched his drive on the sixth extra hole into the water and couldn’t scramble to match Power’s par. Anirban Lahiri and Sam Ryder shot the rounds of the day Sunday, 7-under 65, and fell just one shot short of the playoff. They finished tied for third. Six golfers finished tied for fifth including Mito Pereira in just his third TOUR start since earning PGA TOUR status via a Three-Win Promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Saturday, 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Sunday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (Golf Channel).

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Voting has now been completed for the Round of 16 matches … and thanks to our fans (who broke three ties), we have the eight survivors for the quarterfinals of our Mythical Match Play Championship. With our 10 voters deadlocked at 5-5 for matches involving Xander Schauffele vs. Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa vs. Sungjae Im and No. 2 overall seed Jon Rahm vs. Marc Leishman, we enlisted the help of fans via the Twitter account of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. The results of those tiebreakers, along with all the Round of 16 results, are below. Voting among the 10 experts is now taking place for the quarterfinals. Our Mythical event is the just-for-fun exercise we’re conducting this week in lieu of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, which was among the canceled events by the PGA TOUR in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The TOUR conducted a draw to produce a bracket, and now our 10 experts are voting for the winner of each match. We released the Round 1 results on Wednesday (click here), the Round 2 results on Thursday (click here) and the Round 3 results on Friday (click here) that determined the 16 survivors advancing to the single-elimination phase. We’ll crown the Mythical Match Play champion on Sunday. The voting rules are simple: Each expert was asked to pick a match winner, and the golfer with the majority of votes is the match winner. Our 10 expert voters include: GolfBet’s Jason Sobel from The Action Network; GolfTV’s Jamie Kennedy; Tom Alter and Jim McCabe from PGA TOUR Communications; Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton; PGATOUR.COM writers Ben Everill, Sean Martin, Mike McAllister and Cameron Morfit; and a combined vote from the TOUR’s ShotLink team. Here are the experts’ picks for the Round of 16 (each player’s seed is in parentheses). The quarterfinal results are scheduled to be released later on Saturday, so check back then. Rory McIlroy (1) vs. Louis Oosthuizen (19): 9 votes for McIlroy, 1 vote for Oosthuizen. McILROY wins. Why I picked McIlroy: “Oosthuizen is terrific at match play, but he can’t match the No. 1 player in the world. Rory rolls into the quarterfinals.â€� – Tom Alter Patrick Cantlay (8) vs. Webb Simpson (9): 7 votes for Simpson, 3 votes for Cantlay. SIMPSON wins. Why I picked Simpson: “Simpson simply looks like he knows every putt is going in.â€� – Jim McCabe Justin Thomas (4) vs. Ian Poulter (58): 8 votes for Thomas, 2 votes for Poulter. THOMAS wins. Why I picked Thomas: “Even though Poulter is the guy with the long-term reputation for stepping it up in match play events, Thomas is a sneaky 10-3-2 over the last three years of Ryder/Presidents Cup competitions, proving his skills translate well to this format.â€� – Jason Sobel Xander Schauffele (12) vs. Hideki Matsuyama (22): 5 votes for Schauffele, 5 votes for Matsuyama. Fan voting: 61% for Schauffele, 39% for Matsuyama. SCHAUFFELE wins. Why I picked Schauffele: “Xander is a pit-bull who waits for the slightest scrap and attacks. The first missed putt from Hideki would provide Schauffele a lead he would never relinquish.â€� – Ben Everill Jon Rahm (2) vs. Marc Leishman (15): 5 votes for Rahm, 5 votes for Leishman. Fan voting: 75% for Rahm, 25% for Leishman. RAHM wins. Why I picked Rahm: “Leishman is a tough match play guy with two trips to the round of 16 in the last three years, but 2017 runner-up Rahm is so comfy in Austin, he looks destined to win this tournament someday.â€� – Cameron Morfit Patrick Reed (7) vs. Tommy Fleetwood (10): 6 votes for Reed, 4 votes for Fleetwood. REED wins. Why we picked Reed: “Both players are really similar in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green ranking T-38 (Reed) and 34th (Fleetwood). However, Reed has a huge edge on and around the greens, ranking 38thin SG: Around-the-Green & 3rd in SG: Putting to Fleetwood’s 176th SG: Around-the-Green & 96th in SG: Putting. Reed has Fleetwood by over a stroke on and around the greens per round this season on TOUR.â€� – ShotLink team Sungjae Im (23) vs. Collin Morikawa (44): 5 votes for Im, 5 votes for Morikawa. Fan voting: 56% for Im, 44% for Morikawa. IM wins. Why I picked Im: “Quite the battle among two of the PGA TOUR’s biggest and brightest young stars. This one comes down to putting – Im ranks 36th in Strokes Gained: Putting this season while Morikawa ranks 174th.â€� – Mike McAllister Adam Scott (6) vs. Tiger Woods (11): 9 votes for Scott, 1 vote for Woods. SCOTT wins. Why I picked Scott: “Having not played a lot in recent weeks, a fourth straight match for Tiger could catch up with him. Scott’s putting has improved drastically in the last 18 months and that helps him knock off the Masters champ.â€� – Jamie Kennedy QUARTEFFINALS Rory McIlroy (1) vs. Webb Simpson (9) Justin Thomas (4) vs. Xander Schauffele (12) Jon Rahm (2) vs. Patrick Reed (7) Sungjae Im (23) vs. Adam Scott (6)

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