Leaderboard: DEAN & DELUCA Invitational

The PGA TOUR has left the west coast and begins its eastward trek by crossing the southern border for the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. This is the first World Golf Championship of the calendar year and second of the season. This is the fourth year that the Golf Club de Chapultepec will host the world’s best players. The 7,345 yard course plays much shorter than advertised because of its high altitude, but long-hitting Dustin Johnson is still the man to beat in Mexico City. Johnson has won two of the three tournaments at Chapultepec, where the thin air allows players to unleash long, straight drives. The course’s main defense is thick trees, which gives pros the chance to display their crazy recovery skills, and small, sloping greens that allow players to take circuitous routes on their short-game shots. Hole-outs seem to be plentiful on these firm putting surfaces. In other words, players from around the globe have gathered to face one of the year’s most unique tests. RELATED: Featured Groups, tee times | Power Rankings | How pros fight through slumps THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER THE FLYOVER The finishing hole is played uphill and has a slight curve to the left. The trees around the tee make the first shot very narrow, and a bunker on the right must be avoided. The fairway is relatively wide, leaving an uphill shot with a mid- or short-iron to an elevated green protected by two deep bunkers. The green has a constant and pronounced slope toward the front and a hill on the right. It’s best known for the wedge that Justin Thomas holed here to eagle the 72nd hole and force a playoff with Phil Mickelson in 2018. Mickelson went on to win. LANDING ZONE The altitude makes the 316-yard, par-4 opening hole easily drivable. The hole turns sharply right at the end, so players must carry a line of trees to reach the green. Players averaged 3.7 strokes on the hole, including 10 eagles. The hole actually has two greens, but the right green is used for the tournament. WEATHER CHECK From meteorologist Wade Stettner: Sunny skies and warm afternoon temperatures are forecast on Wednesday and Thursday. A cold front will reach Mexico City on Friday morning with cooler temperatures and a chance of showers. Temperatures will warm over the weekend with partly cloudy skies. For the latest weather news from Mexico City, check out the PGA TOUR Weather Hub. SOUND CHECK It’s always nice to come to a country where they speak Spanish. The culture, it’s a lot more similar to what it is in Spain. Good food, good hospitality, good golf course. It doesn’t really get much better than this. BY THE NUMBERS 2: Number of Mexican players in the field, the most in the tournament’s history. Because Abraham Ancer was already eligible for this event, Carlos Ortiz earned a spot in the field as the next Mexican in the Official World Golf Ranking. Ortiz is 24th in the FedExCup thanks to a runner-up at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and two T4 finishes. 19: Number of countries represented, with the United States leading the way with 23 players in the field, followed by England and South Africa with seven each. 21: Players making their WGC-Mexico Championship debut this week, with eight making their first start in a World Golf Championships event (Carlos Ortiz, Lucas Herbert, Marcus Kinhult, Lanto Griffin, Collin Morikawa, Sebastian Muñoz, Zach Murray, Scottie Scheffler) SCATTERSHOTS Twelve of the 13 winners of the WGC-Mexico Championship in the FedExCup era have advanced to the season-ending TOUR Championship. That includes a streak of 11 in a row, tied for the most of any tournament on the PGA TOUR. … When Johnson won last year’s WGC-Mexico Championship, he became the 38th player to win 20 or more PGA TOUR titles. Johnson’s six World Golf Championship titles are second only to Tiger Woods’ 18. … Justin Thomas has finished in the top 10 in all three starts at the Golf Club de Chapultepec. He also has shot the course record twice, setting it with a third-round 62 in 2018 and matching it in last year’s final round. No one else has shot 62 at Chapultepec in the WGC-Mexico. … Seven players have made a World Golf Championships event their first PGA TOUR win: Darren Clarke (2000 Dell Technologies Match Play), Craig Parry (2002 FedEx St. Jude Invitational), Kevin Sutherland (2002 Dell Technologies Match Play), Henrik Stenson (2007 Dell Technologies Match Play), Ian Poulter (2010 Dell Technologies Match Play), Shane Lowry (2015 FedEx St. Jude Invitational), Russell Knox (2015 HSBC Champions). … Lee Westwood is making his 58th World Golf Championship start. He’s seeking his first WGC win. Lucas Glover, who qualified for last year’s TOUR Championship, is making his first WGC-Mexico appearance since 2010.

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CROMWELL, Conn. — Rory McIlroy doesn’t consider his performance in Thursday’s opening round of the Travelers Championship much different than the one on display a week ago. The contrast in results, though, were fairly extreme. “A 16-shot difference,â€� McIlroy noted. Indeed, his opening 6-under 64 at TPC River Highlands was a welcomed sight after his 10-over 80 in the opening round of the U.S. Open. World No. 7 McIlroy wasn’t the only top-10 player who wiped away a nightmare result at Shinnecock Hills with a much more fruitful score a week later. No. 5 Jordan Spieth opened the defense of his Travelers title with a 7-under 63 in the afternoon that vaulted him into a share of the lead with morning finisher Zach Johnson. A week ago, Spieth opened with a 78 and, like McIlroy, ultimately missed the cut. Meanwhile, No. 9 Jason Day bounced back from his opening 79 at Shinnecock Hills with a solid 66 that left him in a 14-way tie for ninth. The 63 for Spieth is nothing new for him at TPC River Highlands — it’s the same score he shot in last year’s opening round en route to winning in his first Travelers start. It’s also his lowest score since a year ago, and a much-needed boost in a season of sputtering starts. Spieth’s first-round scoring average this season is 71.79, which ranks him tied for 155th on the PGA TOUR. “The first rounds have been kind of detrimental to me,â€� Spieth said, “so it’s nice to be in the thick of things.â€� Like he did in the playoff against Daniel Berger last year, Spieth holed out from a greenside bunker. This time, it was at the par-5 sixth for eagle, to go along with his six birdies. But more than the fireworks, Thursday’s round saw Spieth play as solid as he’s done all year. He called it his “third-bestâ€� round of the year after his first (66) and fourth (64) rounds at the Masters. Even more to the point, he was pleased with his management of the round. He didn’t try to force the issue on a course than can be very tempting to attack. “This golf course, I played it really smart today. It was probably the smartest round I’ve played this year, really the last couple years,â€� Spieth said. “I just didn’t feel great coming off the range. I’ve been working on some things on the swing, just decided to play toward the center of the greens and let the putter do the work because it’s starting to come around.â€� Indeed, he feels good about his entire game, talking about the need to simply trust the process of getting back to the kind of performances golf fans are used to seeing from Spieth. “My game’s in a good place, scores aren’t reflecting it,â€� Spieth said. “As long as I don’t beat myself up over that and just stick to the process, then — it’s certainly a testing year for me, and it’s a building year. It’s one where I can actually come out stronger. I’ve kind of looked at it that way the last couple months.â€� As for McIlroy, he said missing the cut at Shinnecock Hills allowed him to put in some very productive weekend week, and he carried that over to his practice sessions this week at the Travelers. The result was a bogey-free round for the first 17 holes. The only reason he doesn’t have a share of the lead is a closing bogey in which he failed to find the green with his approach. “I feel like the work that I did over the weekend sort of started to pay off already,â€� said McIlroy, who has a win, two other top-10s and three missed cuts in a rollercoaster last few months. “It was nice to see the shots I was playing right there. Being able to work the ball both ways was something I wasn’t quite as comfortable doing last week. “Obviously, you never want to miss a cut in a major, but it might have been a blessing in disguise for the rest of the year.â€� The blessing in disguise, perhaps, would be simply coming to a course that allows players to flex their scoring muscles.

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