After a dominant run, Ko had failed to finish in the top 10 in four of her previous five starts before Sunday.
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Coming off a dominant performance in 2017, the United States is heavily favored in this Presidents Cup. Eleven U.S. players, including all four captain’s picks, are ahead of the Internationals’ top player, Adam Scott, in the world ranking. The challenge for International Team Captain Ernie Els, who announced his four captain’s picks Wednesday, was constructing a roster that is greater than the sum of its parts. Analytics aided his decision-making process, and it looks like putting may have been a determining factor in selections. Related: Els makes his captain’s picks | International youth movement at Presidents Cup His four picks – Jason Day, Sungjae Im, Adam Hadwin and Joaquin Niemann – all are superior in that area to the two players who narrowly missed making the team, Byeong Hun An and Corey Conners. “I wanted good driving, good ball-striking obviously, but putting is very important,â€� Els said Wednesday. “In my experience in these Cups, it comes down to pressure putting in a lot of instances. “Putting is a pivotal attribute that you need, especially in what we play. Putting was very important to me.â€� Looking at the Strokes Gained statistics, there were two areas where the four captain’s picks outranked the eight players who automatically qualified for the International Team: off the tee and on the green. The average Strokes Gained: Putting rank for the four captain’s picks is a bit misleading and may not accurately represent the putting prowess of those players. Day, Im and Hadwin all rank in the top 50 of that category. Niemann inflated that number by finishing 141st in Strokes Gained: Putting last season, but he’s improved drastically since May. Niemann ranked 203rd (out of 208 players) in Strokes Gained: Putting through the Charles Schwab Challenge, losing -0.67 strokes per round on the greens. Since then, his average Strokes Gained: Putting per round has improved by more than a stroke per round. Niemann led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting when he won A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. An and Conners assembled strong Presidents Cup candidacies, but putting was the glaring weakness for both players. Conners was one of just two players to rank in the top 10 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Approach-the Green last season (Paul Casey was the other). An led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green while posting solid performances in the two ball-striking stats. Both players had shown good form before Els made his picks. Conners, who won this year’s Valero Texas Open, posted four consecutive top-20 finishes, including a T6 at the ZOZO Championship. An had two third-place finishes since August and finished T6-T8-T14 in the three TOUR events in Asia. Conners and An ranked 181st and 182 in Strokes Gained: Putting, respectively, in 2019. Assembling teams with complementary skills is especially important in Foursomes (or alternate-shot), the format that has hexed the International Team. The U.S. and International teams have been basically even in Four-ball competition, but the Internationals own a winning percentage of approximately 37% in Foursomes. It’s likely why Els chose to begin this year’s Presidents Cup with Four-Ball. It’s just the third time (1994, 2013) that the Presidents Cup has started with Four-Balls.
If you’ve ever read me write about or heard me talk about not overthinking and wondered what it meant in the context of fantasy, this week presents the perfect exercise for you. THE CJ CUP in South Carolina is a 78-man invitational with no cut. Quite simply, unless you’re victimized by a mid-round withdrawal or disqualification, and notwithstanding the early WD of one of your Starters after the roster deadline (for which we always hold our breath), you’re likely going to score numbers greater than zero for every golfer in every round of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Congaree Golf Club will challenge, but positive integers are projected for all because pars are worth one point apiece. RELATED: Horses for Courses, Statistically Speaking When we entered this fortnight of no-cut competitions, I stated that my goal was to push. All that means is that I wanted to hold serve and get back after it in earnest at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship that launches the last four events of Segment 1, all of which with a 36-hole cut. Given that we select only six golfers and that we are not losing sleep over rationing three starts for every household name in Segment 1, there’s no motivation to deviate from the chalk. It’s why I’ve described Segment 1 as a soft open. This week, with so many household names committed, just pick your favorite six. This truly should be the pushiest of the pushes because ownership percentages will be tilted so massively into their direction. No matter your current position, if you don’t play six fantasy cornerstones, you’ll be overthinking it. Of course, this is fantasy, so if you happen to, gulp, experiment and experience a leaderboard-rattling performance with golfers who aren’t household names, you’ll have been lucky, not good. The points count the same, but it’s not a sustainable philosophy in a season-long format for which we’re selecting only six golfers per tournament. POWER RANKINGS WILD CARD Collin Morikawa (+110 for a Top 20) … That you’d be getting back more than what you invested for this finish says it all. Scuffling is a relative term, but when it wouldn’t be wrong to define a guy as the gold standard of consistency, scuffling is just straight scuffling. He’s competing at Congaree for the first time, so he’ll likely smile when he realizes the possibilities of his powerful ball-striking with largely unfamiliar greens, but he’s still going to have to use the putter. So, because of his cachet and the fact that there isn’t a cut, he’s ideal as a contrarian in DFS in which you should limit your considerations to an aggressive approach, albeit fractionally. DRAWS Billy Horschel (+130 for a Top 20) … If I wrote a Power Rankings detailing who has wrung the most out of his game in 2022, the 35-year-old in his prime would be prominently positioned. Of course, he’s yielded his share of frustrations since the win at Muirfield Village, too, but there’s renewed buoyancy to his form of late. Sandwiching his debut at the Presidents Cup, where he contributed a 1-2-0 record, he finished T9 in his title defense of the BMW PGA Championship and added a T10 at the Dunhill Links. Notorious for loving difficult tracks, he’ll have arrived at Congaree licking his chops and feeling like the course was built for him. If Morikawa wasn’t the Wild Card, Horschel would be up there as an extension of the PR proper. Hideki Matsuyama (-160 for a Top 30) … Although he’s forgiven for the absence of a run to defend his title at home last week, he’s not making it easy for us. Of course, all that matters is what we do with it, so I dig the fact that he committed to the long trip for what will be his third start already this season. However, he’s surrounded by too much equivalent talent in better form at Congaree to warrant an endorsement in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, so a prop bet is the smartest move if you wanted to dedicate a unit (or less). Rickie Fowler (+175 for a Top 20) … I could only laugh. After leaning into him across the board at the Shriners, he missed the cut. It had all the makings but, as you know, we don’t get to control the outcome. Lo and behold, he threatened for victory at Narashino the very next week. So it goes. Viva la Rickie! Tyrrell Hatton (-160 for a Top 30) … I’m limping into this endorsement because of who he is, not because I’m excited about it. The Brit should crash the top 30 of every limited-field event, no matter where it’s held and its field construct, so that he generated but a T45 with only one red number at Narashino was disappointing. The upside is that he’s speculative in this snapshot of time, so there’s a little more value than had he contended, but he’ll probably need overall scoring at Congaree to be as challenging as it was in 2021 when he shared runner-up honors. It would grant his grit the resistance that rewards it. Andrew Putnam (+100 for a Top 30) … It stands to reason that only gamers and bettors were not surprised of his run at the title at Narashino. Since the 3M Open three months ago, he’s 8-for-8 with a pair of top fives among four top 15s. While he’s among the shortest off the tee among his peers, he’s making up for it throughout the rest of his bag. Sprinkle the units around, gang. Tommy Fleetwood Brian Harman Tom Hoge Maverick McNealy Taylor Montgomery Taylor Moore J.T. Poston Scott Stallings Sepp Straka Aaron Wise Cameron Young Odds sourced on Tuesday, October 18th at 6 p.m. ET. For live odds visit betmgm. FADES Russell Henley … It doesn’t take long in this game for us to lose the faith, but then again, there’s been more of the alternative than the preferred. In the last seven months, he’s connected for only two top 25s – both were top 10s – so the advice here is simple. Wait. Lucas Glover … Local knowledge is one thing, execution is the other. As a Professional Ambassador at Congaree, you’d think that he’d have the inside edge, but this isn’t the same thing as learning how to pitch at Wrigley Field when the wind is blowing out. His recent T3 at TPC Southwind is the anomaly across months of making little or no noise. And when we first bellied up to the same parameters here in 2021, he missed the cut. Webb Simpson … This is just the monthly check-in that he’s yet to regain form since sitting out two months early this year with a herniated disc in his neck. All I’ll add to that echo is that this can’t last forever, but Congaree isn’t the kind of track where anyone misfiring over an extended stretch is expected to excel. Danny Willett … First TOUR appearance since he was sniped by Max Homa at Silverado. The Englishman repaired to the DP World Tour and promptly missed his second consecutive cut on that circuit. Despite three top 10s worldwide in the last three months, failure to cash has been the more familiar refrain for a while. He remains most valuable slotted deeper in full-season rosters. Brendan Steele … Almost fooled us as the rabbit at Narashino but the first-round leader backpedaled to T40 at the checkered flag. It extended his drought to seven tournaments without a top 25. It’s the wrong direction for a guy who’s streaky both ways. Wyndham Clark Harris English John Huh Kevin Kisner Sebastián Muñoz Ryan Palmer Chez Reavie Justin Suh Brendon Todd RETURNING TO COMPETITION Matt Kuchar … Withdrew prior to his opening round at the Shriners due to an injured back. That he’s, ahem, back this quickly is a good sign, naturally, so set aside whatever doubt you have about its impact in a no-cut invitational. His usual weapon of finding fairways is dulled at Congaree, but it still will give him more looks off the shortest grass than most, and he tends to play up on tougher tracks. Opened this season with a T12 at Silverado to extend the form that defined most of 2022. Gary Woodland … He walked off TPC Summerlin during his second round with a sore back. We never can judge the severity of any malady, of course, but it’s fair to wonder if it’s at all related to adjusted motion as a result of the torn labrum in his hip two years ago. In fact, it was that very issue last forced him out during a tournament, when the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP was contested at Sherwood Country Club in California in October of 2020. However, just like with Kuchar, we’ll give Woodland the benefit of the doubt this week. If you’re still skeptical, that’s also fair, because it can be hard for any member to sit out a guaranteed haul of FedExCup points. NOTABLE WDs n/a RECAP – ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP POWER RANKINGS Power Ranking Golfer Result 1 Sungjae Im T29 2 Tom Kim T25 3 Hideki Matsuyama T40 4 Xander Schauffele T9 5 Keegan Bradley Win 6 Tyrrell Hatton T45 7 Mackenzie Hughes T23 8 Collin Morikawa T45 9 Sepp Straka T45 10 Mito Pereira T45 11 Tom Hoge T9 12 Tommy Fleetwood T53 13 Maverick McNealy T12 14 Cameron Young T53 15 Viktor Hovland T5 Wild Card Corey Conners T25 SLEEPERS Golfer (Bet, if applicable) Result Lucas Herbert (+130 for a Top 20) T59 Adam Schenk (+250 for a Top 20) T16 Matt Wallace (+275 for a Top 20) T64 Stephan Jaeger T40 Riki Kawamoto T72 GOLFBET Bet: Tom Kim (Top 5), Corey Conners (Top 10) and Tommy Fleetwood (Top 20) – +3200 Result: Kim (T25), Conners (T25), Fleetwood (T53) BIRTHDAYS AMONG ACTIVE MEMBERS OF THE PGA TOUR October 18 … none October 19 … Ryuji Imada (46) October 20 … none October 21 … Alex Smalley (26) October 22 … Erik Barnes (35) October 23 … none October 24 … none Responsible sports betting starts with a game plan. 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A stout field is at RBC Heritage this week as Round 2 gets under Thursday. THE PLAYERS Championship winner Cameron Smith is here, and is part of five of the top 10 players in the world to tee it up at Harbour Town Golf Links. Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth are among the stars who will also compete. Stewart Cink returns to defend his 2021 triumph, which marked his second TOUR victory of the season. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action, including Featured Groups for PGA TOUR LIVE and newly expanded and extended coverage on ESPN+. Click here for more details. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 1 p.m.-3:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. (NBC). Sunday, 1 p.m.-2 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2 p.m.-6 p.m. (NBC). Radio: Thursday-Friday, 1 p.m.–7 p.m. ET. Saturday, 3 p.m.–6 p.m. Sunday, 1 p.m.–6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR PGA TOUR LIVE PGA TOUR Live is available exclusively on ESPN+ • Main Feed: primary tournament-coverage featuring the best action from across the course • Marquee Group: new “marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the group • Featured Groups: traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups • Featured Holes: a combination of par-3s and iconic or pivotal holes FEATURED GROUPS THURSDAY Marquee Group Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry Featured Groups Daniel Berger, Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes Patrick Cantlay, Kevin Kisner, Billy Horschel Featured Holes: No. 4 (par 3), No. 7 (par 3), No. 14 (par 3), No. 17 (par 3) FRIDAY Marquee Group Collin Morikawa, Stewart Cink, Webb Simpson Featured Groups Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Sungjae Im Sepp Straka, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar Featured Holes: No. 4 (par 3), No. 7 (par 3), No. 14 (par 3), No. 17 (par 3) MUST READS Cameron Young shoots 8-under 63 in RBC Heritage debut Mission accomplished for Morgan Hoffmann at RBC Heritage History, mystique distinguish RBC Heritage Cut prediction: RBC Heritage TOUR Insider: A closer look at the Straka brothers
