Leaderboard: BMW Championship first round

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. - Corey Conners started the final round of The RSM Classic eight shots off the lead, but he knew victory was within reach. Winning the tournament might have been a tall task, but there was another important accomplishment that he had an eye on: winning the RSM Birdies Fore Love competition. By making the most birdies or better since the start of the 2020-21 season, Conners earned a $300,000 donation to the charity of his choice from RSM. Conners and his wife, Malory, recently started a foundation to help provide children with educational and athletic opportunities they couldn't otherwise afford. "It’s pretty amazing," said Conners, who shot 64 on Sunday. "I saw my name on the (RSM Birdies Fore Love) leaderboard at the start of the week and I was trying to make as many birdies as I could and trying to get myself up to the top. Pretty humbled to have gotten it done. "The generosity of RSM for sponsoring this event and sponsoring a donation, is pretty remarkable. This has been a really tough year for a lot of people and for them to step up like this, I’m going to be able to impact a lot of lives with the $300,000, so it's pretty amazing." Conners finished T10 in The RSM Classic, his third top-10 in eight starts this season. He also finished 10th in last week's Masters Tournament. His 147 birdies or better during the RSM Birdies Fore Love competition were six more than Sepp Straka and eight more than Sungjae Im. "Last year, my wife and I were able to create a family fund back in our home province of Ontario, our hometown of Listowel, to help kids get into sports and education and provide opportunities for kids who wouldn’t have a chance to do those things otherwise," Conners said. "We're looking forward to building that and hopefully starting some new programs. We’ll be thinking of some ways we can give back. It’s a lot of money and it’s going to be able to positively impact a ton of lives, so pretty awesome, but definitely think we’ll focus back in Canada and near our hometown. Really excited about that."

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SAN DIEGO — Will Zalatoris and Jason Day charged past Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas on Friday at Torrey Pines to share the third-round lead at the Farmers Insurance Open. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Inside the Field: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Zalatoris posted the day’s best round with a 7-under 65, and two-time Farmers champion Day shot a 67. They were at 14 under heading to the final round of the tournament, which will finish Saturday. Rahm and Aaron Rai were 13 under, and Thomas, Sungjae Im and Cameron Tringale were another shot back. There were 24 players within five shots of the co-leaders after an eventful moving day. Zalatoris surged from six shots back after two rounds and moved into contention for his first career PGA TOUR victory, yet his round could have been several strokes better if his putter had kept up with the rest of his formidable play. The 25-year-old missed several birdie putts, including a pair inside 5 feet, but stayed in the lead alongside several more accomplished pros. “Obviously, a lot of great vibes here,” said Zalatoris, who made his first career PGA TOUR start as a pro at Torrey Pines in 2018. “This is, I think, by far one of the best golf courses that suits my game. Just keep enjoying it and whatever happens, happens.” Day, who won a playoff in 2018 to claim the Farmers title, finished his third round superbly with four birdies on the final six holes. The Australian former top-ranked pro buried a 27-foot birdie putt on the 16th and got firmly into contention on the course where he also won in 2015. “It’s nice to be able to know that I’ve done it on the golf course twice, not only in regulation but also in playoffs,” said Day, who hasn’t won on TOUR since that playoff victory in 2018. “But tomorrow is a new day, and you don’t know what’s going to come. I’ve just got to get a good rest tonight, get into it tomorrow and just be patient.” Rahm rebounded from a double bogey on the 10th and another bogey on the 12th to stay firmly in contention with a 72 on the course where he got his first PGA TOUR win in 2017 and his first major victory at the U.S. Open last year. “I played great, I think,” Rahm said. “I feel like I played a lot better than the score shows. There was only two holes where I struggled and probably gave a couple too many back. Today is one of those days that happen at Torrey Pines South. Played great golf, but I just couldn’t take the opportunities, and it’s going to be hard to shoot low.” Thomas and Rahm both finished the front nine with dramatic birdie putts. Thomas holed out from 41 feet, and Rahm hit his from nearly 38 feet to the thrilled roars of the gallery. But Thomas missed an 8-foot par putt on the 15th and then took a penalty stroke on the 17th when his drive went in a hazard before finishing his 73. Rahm, Thomas and Adam Schenk shared the lead after two rounds, but Schenk faltered even more with a third-round 75. Rai jumped into contention for his first career PGA TOUR victory by finishing his 68 with back-to-back birdies. The Englishman and former Scottish Open champion is a six-time winner internationally. “It’s always nice to have the validation through results to know that you can compete and your game is good enough,” Rai said. Zalatoris began the third round six shots off the lead, and hold out from 39 yards for eagle on the second hole Friday. He made a 9-foot birdie putt on the fourth, but missed from inside 15 feet on the fifth and from inside 8 feet on the seventh. “Today was the best I’ve ever driven a golf ball by far,” Zalatoris said. After saving par on the 11th with an exceptional 40-foot shot from the rough to within 4 inches, Zalatoris barely missed a birdie putt from inside 17 feet on the 12th before missing a 3-footer on the 13th, a 12-footer on the 15th and a 14-footer on the 16th. Zalatoris then followed up an exceptional second shot on the 17th by badly missing a birdie from inside 4 feet, but finished his round by saving par from a bunker. “I think really the two that I left out there today, I just didn’t commit to playing outside the hole,” Zalatoris said. “So I think that’s something that definitely tomorrow, just commit to it, and hey, if it bounces in, it bounces in. If it bounces out, it bounces out.”

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Unscheduled Monday finishes present a handful of challenges to everyone they touch, but if there’s a positive to the loss of one day between THE NORTHERN TRUST and this week’s scheduled Thursday start of the BMW Championship, it’s that the next host is as close to a neutral site as the field of 69 will tackle. (Patrick Reed, who is seeded 26th, withdrew due to a bout with pneumonia. For an introduction to Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, the format and more, keep reading beyond the expanded ranking of projected contenders. POWER RANKINGS: BMW CHAMPIONSHIP Louis Oosthuizen, Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth, Alex Noren and Rory McIlroy will be among the notables reviewed in the Fantasy Insider. Situated in Baltimore County, Caves Valley GC is about a dozen miles to the northwest of downtown Baltimore as the oriole flies. It’s significant not only as the host of the top 70 in the updated FedExCup standings for the penultimate tournament of the 2020-21 season, but neither the City of Baltimore nor Baltimore Country has hosted the PGA TOUR since, well, before the PGA TOUR was the PGA TOUR. This marks the first visit to the region since 1962 when the final edition of the Eastern Open Invitational was contested at Mount Pleasant Golf Club in Baltimore proper. Doug Ford prevailed by one over Bob Goalby. Caves Valley has hosted a handful of competitions since it opened in 1991. For men only, in addition to a pair of events of note for seniors, the 2005 NCAA Division I Men’s Championship and the 2007 Palmer Cup were staged on site. Of those who participated in the more recent, Dustin Johnson (22nd seed), Billy Horschel (27th), Brian Harman (39th), Webb Simpson (52nd) and Chris Kirk (60th) are back this week. But again, it’s been 14 years since they were here and when they were amateurs. Suffice it to say that the statute of limitations for relevant course history has elapsed. At 7,542 yards, the stock par 72 designed by Tom Fazio is a bigger ballpark than most. The full complement of four par 5s serves as default scoring opportunities on unfamiliar greens that, in turn, will reward ball-strikers until the field finds the pulse for the bentgrass greens. Furthermore, because the targets average just 5,200 square feet, the approach game likely will determine the final leaderboard. The combination fescue-bluegrass rough has been allowed to grow to four inches on the perimeter, so with putting surfaces stretching to 12½ feet on the Stimpmeter, Caves Valley sets up as a first- and second-shot track. That, of course, brings us back to the ball-striker model. There’s so much more at stake at the BMW Championship than the official victory, the membership extension through at least 2022-23 for the winner and official earnings. Golfers inside the top 30 of the FedExCup standings at the conclusion of the tournament not only will advance to the TOUR Championship but each will receive an exemption into the 2022 editions of the Masters, the U.S. Open and The Open Championship. Consider that even winners of some tournaments rewarding the full allocation of FedExCup points don’t qualify automatically for the last two. With no cut at Caves Valley, it’ll be a 72-hole race for all the spoils. There will be physical sweating in addition to the mental variety. Daytime temperatures will eclipse 90 degrees on Thursday and Friday before a gradual cooling occurs, albeit with highs still ranging into the mid- to upper-80s on the weekend. Juicy air will promote the development of clouds, rain and possibly storms every day. Wind will not be a factor, which means that every bit of the elevated heating will be felt, but unlike the course, that’s something that all have experienced. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. TUESDAY*: Power Rankings; Sleepers; Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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