Koepka struggles; holds off Johnson for PGA win

Masters tee times have been released, yet another sign that the year’s first major is fast approaching. The anticipation has been high for this year’s Masters and several star-studded threesomes should only increase the excitement. Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus will begin the tournament with their honorary tee shots at 8:15 a.m. ET Thursday morning. Play will begin 15 minutes later. Here’s a look at some of the groups that will garner a fair share of the patrons’ interest. (All times ET) Austin Cook (19), Ted Potter Jr. (25), Wesley Bryan (150): The first threesome to follow the honorary starters features two players making their Masters debut, including an Augusta resident. Both Cook and Potter won this season, while Bryan picked up his first PGA TOUR win the week after last year’s Masters, at the RBC Heritage. Potter will be making his second Masters start. Tee times: 8:30 a.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 11:15 a.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Hideki Matsuyama (80), Patton Kizzire (2), Paul Casey (10): Matsuyama has finished no worse than 11th in the past three Masters. He’s playing with two of this season’s top performers. Kizzire, who’s making his Masters debut, has won twice this season. Casey won the Valspar Championship for his first PGA TOUR victory since 2009. Tee times: 10:09 a.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 1:05 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Tiger Woods (44), Marc Leishman (24), Tommy Fleetwood (66): Woods will be playing his first competitive round at Augusta National since the final round in 2015, when he played with Rory McIlroy in Sunday’s third-to-last group. Leishman finished fourth in the 2013 Masters, while Fleetwood will be making just his second Masters appearance. The English star shot 78-74 last year at Augusta National. Tee times: 10:42 a.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 1:27 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Sergio Garcia (76), Justin Thomas (1), Doc Redman (NR): The U.S. Amateur champion traditionally plays with the defending champion and the reigning U.S. Open champion. This group was changed slightly because of Brooks Koepka’s injury. Justin Thomas, winner of last year’s FedExCup and PGA Championship, will round out this traditional threesome. Thomas also leads this season’s standings thanks to his two victories. Tee times: 10:53 a.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 1:38 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Bubba Watson (4), Henrik Stenson (45), Jason Day (11): Watson, a two-time Masters champion, also has two wins this season, at the Genesis Open and World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. Day also won in 2018, at the Farmers Insurance Open. Day’s caddie will wear No. 2, signifying that Day was the first player to register for this year’s tournament (the defending champion always receives No. 1). Stenson, the 2013 FedExCup champ, was the final player to register. His caddie will wear No. 87. Tee times: 11:04 a.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 1:49 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Phil Mickelson (3), Rickie Fowler (31), Matt Kuchar (63): A three-time Masters champion is paired with two players seeking their first majors. Fowler started the final round of last year’s Masters just one stroke off the lead but fired a final-round 76. He’s finished in the top 12 of three of the past four Masters. Kuchar, who suffered a heartbreaking loss to Jordan Spieth at last year’s Open Championship, has four top-10 finishes in the past six Masters, including a T4 last year. Tee times: 1:27 p.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 10:31 a.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Adam Scott (122), Rory McIlroy (29), Jon Rahm (6): McIlroy’s quest for the Career Grand Slam will take center stage in this group. Scott is the 2013 Masters champion, while Rahm is seeking his first major after a strong start to the season, including his second PGA TOUR victory (at the CareerBuilder Challenge). Tee times: 1:38 p.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 10:42 a.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Jordan Spieth (36), Alex Noren (14), Louis Oosthuizen (113): In four Masters starts, Spieth has a win and two runners-up. Despite struggling with his putting this season, Spieth is coming off a third-place finish at last week’s Houston Open. Noren has experienced success in his first season as a PGA TOUR member, posting three top-3 finishes in his last seven starts. He’s finished outside the top 25 just once in that span. Oosthuizen was runner-up here in 2012, losing a playoff to Watson’s legendary wedge shot. In addition to his victory at the 2010 Open Championship, Oosthuizen has been runner-up in all four majors and THE PLAYERS Championship. Tee times: 1:49 p.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 10:53 a.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Justin Rose (7), Dustin Johnson (5), Rafael Cabrera-Bello (34): Thursday’s final tee time includes last year’s runner-up and the World No. 1 who missed the 2017 Masters after a freak injury. Rose has five top-10s in 12 Masters, and has been runner-up in two of the past three years. Johnson finished fourth and sixth in the 2015 and 2016 Masters before withdrawing from last year’s tournament after falling in his Augusta rental home. Cabrera-Bello recently finished third at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. Tee times: 2:00 p.m. off No. 1 on Thursday; 11:04 a.m. off No. 1 on Friday.

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Scottie Scheffler has been re-writing golf’s record books for the last four months. At the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Scheffler went from arguably the best player without a TOUR win to an unquestionable force. Then he officially became the best player (period) on the planet after his win at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, which vaulted him atop the Official World Golf Ranking. His gap of just 42 days between his first PGA TOUR or DP World Tour victory and ascending to No. 1 was by far the shortest in the 36-year history of the OWGR. And only Tiger Woods (21) and Jordan Spieth (77) needed fewer starts as a professional than Scheffler’s 92 to reach No. 1. At the Masters, Scheffler became the first player since Arnold Palmer in 1960 to leave Augusta with four or more wins that PGA TOUR season, including the Green Jacket. His win came in his very first start as the world No. 1, mirroring what Ian Woosnam did at Augusta National in 1991. And at the Charles Schwab Challenge two weeks ago, Scheffler showed he’s not close to done with this incredible heater. If not for Sam Burns’ heroics, Scheffler would have become the first player since Bobby Locke in 1947 to get each of his first five PGA TOUR victories in the same season. Scheffler is positioned to create even more history as the season reaches its apex. He returns to action this week at the RBC Canadian Open, his first career appearance in this storied event. And he does so with sizable leads in both the FedExCup and world ranking. Top of the Standings Scheffler’s enormous FedExCup lead of 1,041 points is easily the largest by any player at this point in the season under the current format, which started in 2009. The second-largest lead any player has had in the season points race as the TOUR left the Memorial Tournament was in 2015, when Jordan Spieth led by 624. With most TOUR events awarding 500 points to the winner, even an additional two wins by Burns – who ranks second in the FedExCup with three wins this season – could not be enough to catch his good friend. It’s a testament to Scheffler’s win in some big events, including a major (the Masters, which awards 600 points), a World Golf Championship (the Dell Technologies Match Play, which awards 550) and an elevated invitational (the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, which also is worth 550 FedExCup points). Scheffler also has two runners-up this season. With 3,142 points this season, Scheffler already has amassed the third-highest Regular Season points total since the current system began 13 years ago. In all but two years, the sum he already has in his pocket would be enough to lead the standings entering the FedExCup Playoffs. The only exceptions are 2009 (Tiger Woods, 3,431 points) and 2015 (Jordan Spieth, 4,169 points). Scheffler has averaged about 203 points per start since the beginning of February. If he maintains that pace and plays four more tournaments (in addition to this week) before the Playoffs begin, it would be entirely possible that Scheffler breaks Spieth’s record for the most Regular Season points accumulated under the current system. Emphatic No. 1 Scheffler also leads the Official World Golf Ranking with an average of 10.15 points per start, about 2.49 points ahead of world No. 2 Jon Rahm. That lead is more than twice the size of what Rahm’s lead was as No. 1 over Collin Morikawa (9.80 to 8.75) in the first ranking of 2022. A year ago today, Dustin Johnson held the top spot, but his margin over Justin Thomas was just 1.79 average points. Scheffler is assured of holding the top spot entering next week’s U.S. Open, regardless of what happens this week in Canada. Any time the topic of large leads atop the OWGR comes up, it’s impossible to not look back at some of the astronomical gaps Tiger Woods put between himself and the rest of the sport in his prime. After winning the 2008 U.S. Open, Woods had an average of 21.54 points per start – more than double world No. 2 Phil Mickelson (who had a very strong number of 10.21 – a higher average than Scheffler holds this week). In November 2000, Woods played in the Johnnie Walker Classic, a tournament in Thailand that was co-sanctioned by the DP World and Asian Tours. Despite winning that week, Woods’ average points number actually went down, from 28.64 to 28.47. His lead that week over world No. 2 Ernie Els was about 17 points. So while Scheffler is enjoying a healthy gap between himself and number two right now, it’s nowhere near the halcyon days of peak Woods. How Scheffler Made His Leap The biggest statistical jump for Scheffler this season over last has come from his approach play. Scheffler has gone from an above-average iron player on the PGA TOUR last season to an elite one in 2022. Last year, Scheffler averaged about 0.15 Strokes Gained: Approach per round, good for a respectable ranking of 83rd among qualified players. This season, that number has more-than-quadrupled to 0.69 per round, good for 13th-best on TOUR. If you are into more traditional statistics, take a look at his rate of hitting greens in regulation. In each of Scheffler’s first two full seasons on TOUR, he ranked 43rd and 45th in greens in regulation. This season, he’s second-best on TOUR at 71.6%, a clip that trails only Rahm (72.3%). Scheffler has also made a similar statistical improvement on the greens. Last season, he was right around average with his putter, with 0.02 Strokes Gained: Putting per round. He’s jumped from 107th in that metric to 26th this season – and ranked a strong 14th in the statistic the week of his victory at Augusta National. One interesting thing one can glean from analyzing Scheffler’s putting this season is that it actually has distinct room for improvement, too: from 4-8 feet away, he’s making significantly less putts (65.2%) than the PGA TOUR average (69.0%). For the competition, that’s quite a frightening thought.

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